Curriculum Week Link-Up

It's that time again, can you believe it? Back to school is upon us and here at our home, we began our school year this week. We decided that we wanted more breaks throughout the year to avoid the crazy burn-out we often face, so we're off and running. This year, I have an 8th, 6th and 3rd grader. I can't believe my babies are growing so fast! 

I'm happy to be joining again with the iHomeschool Network's Not Back-To-School Blog Hop. So in honor of Curriculum Week, here's what we're all studying this year:

	3rd Grade	6th Grade	8th Grade
Math	MUS Gamma	MUS Zeta	MUS Pre-Algebra
Science	MFW Exploring Countries and Cultures	MFW Exploring Countries and Cultures	BJU Earth Science
Geography			BJU Cultural Geography
Reading	BJU Reading 3	BJU Reading 6	BJU Literature 8
Writing	All Things Fun & Fascinating	Institute for Excellence in Writing	IEW Elegant Essay
Spelling (Using with How To Teach Spelling)	How To Spell,  Book 2	How To Spell,  Book 3	How To Spell,  Book 4
Vocab	--part of rdg--	--part of rdg--	Marie's Words
Grammar	First Language Lessons, Level 3	Glencoe Grammar and Language 6	Glencoe Grammar and Language 8
Logic	Hands-On Thinking Activities	Hands-On Thinking Activities	The Art of Argument

For math, we are still sticking with Math-U-See. This has served us well all 4 years of our homeschool journey, so we are sticking with it for year 5.

I decided to try something new for Geography/Science this year by choosing something already planned out for me. Wow, what a difference that has been. I'm loving it! I use this for my younger two while my eighth grader has opted to begin her high school credits by using a 9th grade geography course from BJU.

She is also using BJU's Earth Science. She is a visual learner, so she prefers texts that organize information in a clear and colorful fashion. While I don't LOVE anything about these books, they are rigorous, thorough and well-organized.

Grammar has been a challenge for us. I am a bit of a Grammar nerd, so this is an important subject to me. Some of the popular curricula offer review, but no good reference if you need a refresher. Some are so tediously repetative, that we all feel we are wasting our time. The Glencoe choices seem to get to the point without rambling or confusing my students. This is our first time using them, so I'll keep you posted as the year progresses.

And spelling. Aaaaaahhhh, spelling. This has been the bane of my existence year after year. I just can never seem to find the right balance of actually TEACHING HOW to spell without bogging myself down teaching 3 kids at 3 different levels. We have used HTTS in the past, but struggled with how to implement it. 

This year, after learning a lot from using All About Spelling, I am formatting it very much the same way (Rule, Words, Sentence Dictation, Test on all of the above). We are also utilizing the workbooks this year as well. This book even includes a sound sheet and marries phonics with spelling and its rules. 

An exciting find for me this year is a vocabulary tool called Marie's Words. Again, perfect for my lovely visual learner. These cards come pre-punched with a large ring in the box. Each vocabulary word comes with a visual picture that portrays the definition on the front and the definition, part of speech, antonyms and synonyms on the back.

Well, we are off to a great start....here on day 3. Hehehe! I hope now in our 5th year, we have worked some of the bugs out of our curriculum choices and we can have at least somewhat of a smooth year. Hope you enjoy your learning choices as well!

Geography: Mapping Out Our Week

Are you like me and just can't keep yourself from changing, tweaking and adjusting the way you tackle your schooling? I'm convinced it must be some virus that is automatically transmitted when you open your first box of curriculum, because it seems to infect even the strongest of us!

We are working through the states for Geography this year and I am trying to do this as a group activity. You know, 3 kids at once... make it easier on mom.... right! My children range from a completely  "Ooh! A squirrel!" type 2nd grade boy, to an over-achieving 5th grader who needs about 3 seconds to learn ANYTHING, to a "do-I-have-to-be-here-for-this?" 7th grade daughter. So, adjustments as we go have simply become a given.

As always, I started off the year with all these grandiose plans: field trips, food from each state, etc, etc... Then, as if it's still a startling phenomenon, life happens. Sickness or scheduling issues prevent a field trip. That great state recipe sounds yummy, but I forgot a major ingredient at the store! Why do I keep setting myself up for these inevitable failures?

Rather than bore you with the list of trial and error methods that failed us, I'll share what actually IS working for us now. First, I had to decide what exactly I wanted them to come away with. If you're the mom who dreams of your kids being able to name, locate and label every river, mountain and major city in the US, I tip my hat to you! With an upcoming move on the horizon, I however, dream of surviving this year - just being honest!

I wanted them to learn a little about each state's history and resources, it's capital, abbreviation, and major landmarks - to be able to hold an intelligent conversation with others about the country they call home. So, here's the routine we've settled into:

We cover 2 states per week.

Monday

1. We watch the current state's segment from The States from The History Channel. This has worked out much better than reading the material. My kids tend to be very visual learners, so this has removed some of the bored out of their minds less than attentive attitudes.
2. Quickly practice the capital and abbreviation for the state.
3. Then:

• My 2nd Grader uses uses The United States of America: A State by State Guide and Road Trip USA's coloring pages.   Little disclaimer: I love the Road Trip USA curriculum, I just found it difficult to "amp up" for my older students.

• My older girls use Trail Guide to US Geography to complete each state's mapping assignment. (We found that the questions in this book began jumping around and weren't about the state we were studying, so we omit that part. Maybe because we have an older version of the book?)

Tuesday

• My 2nd Grader and I go through a fabulous book called The Little Man in the Map. If you haven't seen this, you should definitely check it out. It uses a little "man in the map" called MIM for short, to help kids place the states. Here is a video to show you a bit more about it. All my kids have loved this book and learned a tremendous amount from it!

• Using Scholastic's 50 Great States Read & Solve Crossword Puzzles, my girls read a summary of information about each state and then complete a crossword puzzle to really lock in those facts. Right now, this is on sale as an eBook for $1 on the Scholastic site.

Wednesday & Thursday, we repeat this process for State 2.

Friday

This is our review day. We review all the states covered so far in any fun way we'd like to. If it's been a crazy week, we may also use the Stack the States app or Sheppard Software's game to review states & capitals.

There are always so many fabulous resources to choose from, I can make myself crazy trying to use them all! This schedule gets the information into their brains without stressing us all out! I'd call that a win!

Homeschool Tips & Tricks

I am so blessed to be part of a mom's group that is wonderfully supportive and encouraging. Each month, we have a Mom's Night where we share what we have learned on this homeschooling journey. Well, last night's theme was Tips and Tools for Homeschooling so it just wouldn't be right if I didn't share them here with all my readers for my Tuesday Tipster post, right?

Girls, there were so many ideas flying around that I could barely squeeze them in on my whiteboard! So go grab a cup of coffee or leave this page up and come back when you have some time to yourself cause you're going to have a blister on your clicking finger before you get through them all! So exciting! Are you ready?

First we'll start with our favorite homeschool tools:

1. A Laminator  I have the Purple Cows Laminator and it works great for me! Another popular model is the Scotch Laminator
2. Proclick Binding System I got mine 1/2 off on eBay, so shop around! This thing is amazing! It's a "spiral" type binding that can be opened and closed. WHAT????
3. Paper Cutter I highly recommend the rotary style cutter vs. the little blades. You can get these at Michaels or JoAnn's with your 40% off coupon.
4. Colored Pens  My kids came from the classroom environment and in that short time, developed the red-pen-aversion! So I got colored pens and grade their papers in their favorite color - crazy that this little psychology somehow eases the pressure of mistakes :)

Apps

1. IEW
2. Spelling City
3. Spelling Bee  I use this with my son to practice his All About Spelling words.
4. Spellosaur I have used this in the past and love it. We only switched to keep things fresh. We will use this again though.
5. Playful Minds Math  My 2nd grade son absolutely loves this one.
6. TeachMe   Individual apps from Toddler to 3rd Grade
7. Bible Memory Verses  NIV
8. ToonTastic   This is an unbelievably great FREE app for reluctant writers to create picture stories along the story arc in an unusual way and record them instead of handwriting. They can even add mood music and upload them to share. This is a must see!

Homeschool Shopping & Resources

1. Rainbow Resource  Request their catalog. It's like 4" thick and free!
2. Christian Book   Prices are often lower than the publishers.
3. Teachers Pay Teachers  check out your curriculum's table of contents to search for products (many, many for free) to boost your learning.
4. Teachers Notebook   Very similar to TPT above.
5. Currclick   Your one-stop shop for homeschool downloads, ebooks, lapbooks, live online classes for homeschoolers, unit studies, affordable curriculum, novel studies.
6. Pinterest   If you haven't found pinterest yet, be prepared to lose yourself in idea overload! This is the best thing ever!
7. DealOz  Book finder that lists multiple sellers.
8. Book Sale Finder  Includes library book sales
9. Educents.com  A flash sale website for great teaching and homeschooling materials.
10. Free Homeschool Deals
11. Homeschool Classifieds
12. Home Science Tools
13. Homeschool Buyers Co-Op
14. Lakeshore Learning
15. 2nd & Charles  We just got one of these stores in our area!
16. Scholastic's Teacher Express  Throughout the year, they have $1 sales where you can buy many of their 100's of e-books for only one dollar. Be sure to sign up with them!

Learning Websites

1. Click-N-Read & Click-N-Spell Award-Winning Phonics and Spelling program
2. BrainPop Jr
   Animated Science, Health, Technology, Math, Social Studies, Arts & Music and English movies, quizzes, activity pages and school homework help  Grades K-4
3. BrainPop  Animated Science, Health, Technology, Math, Social Studies, Arts & Music and English movies, quizzes, activity pages and school homework help Grades 5+
4. Khan Academy
   Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more.
5. Shepperd Software 
   Hundreds of fun educational games and activities for kids to play online. Topics include math, geography, animals, and more.
6. Math Magician Games  Practice math facts online
7. Quizlet Vocabulary lists, science terms, history dates, etc. created by people like you. It also has games and activities to practice those terms. You can also print tests! Search for the book you're using (like Apologia Biology, Module 1) and get started right away!
8. Stossel in the Classroom  offers a new, free DVD per school year for educators to use in their classroom. Great for critical thinking!
9. Make your own handwriting sheets from Zaner-Bloser or Handwriting Without Tears or the ESL Writing Wizard. This is a great way to practice handwriting and spelling words at the same time.

Helpful Tips

1. Make daily lists or checklists so the kids know exactly what is expected of them. Here is one example.
2. Workboxes are a great way to keep kids moving along. Find out more about Workboxes HERE. There are many variations on this so dig around and find one that fits your family.
3. Develop a reward system! One brilliant mom listed the behaviors she expected of her children and uses these scripture coins and another uses "Big Bucks" from the dollar store to reward their children's good behaviors. Then your children can purchase treats, later bed times, screen time, etc. by cashing in their coins or bills! I'm so doing this!!! Get the Attitude Checklist free from my friend, Dee!
4. Check out Landry Academy. On of our moms went to their Mom's Retreat and was absolutely raving about it!
5. Our resident expert who has homeschooled from kindergarten and her oldest is now in 9th grade uses Homeschool Skedtrack for planning and record keeping. It even makes report cards and transcripts; and best of all, it's FREE!
6. Check out yahoo groups for your favorite curricula and you're local area homeschoolers. Here is an example of a search for apologia.
7. One mom works a little over the weekend and has dad help out with his favorite subject. It becomes a special family time and helps dad relate to mom's homeschool experiences.
8. One mom recommended these Edge CD's that focus on leadership.
9. Be sure to check out Book It Program from Pizza Hut.

Thanks to all my gals for their great ideas! I hope you found some great tips here and if you have one you'd like to share, please leave me a comment below!

Our Curriculum Choices This Year

 I'm so excited to get back to work this year. I know it sounds weird, but after such deliberation over our curriculum choices, I just want to dive in and try it all out! Anyone else out there ready to roll as well?

Our Curriculum: 2013-2014

Seventh Grade 

Bible

• God's Great Covenant OT 2

Math

• Math U See Zeta

Geography

• Trail Guide to US Geography

Science

• Apologia General Science  (1st Edition with Tests $8.99 @ ChristianBook.com)

Language Arts

• Fix-It Grammar
• Excellence in Writing
• Apples Spelling Drills
• English From the Roots Up

Electives

•  See The Light Art Class
•  Music Ace Deluxe
•  Typing Instructor 
•  Mind Benders Book 5

Fifth Grade

Bible

• God's Great Covenant OT 2

Math

• Math U See Epsilon

Geography

• Trail Guide to US Geography

Science

• Apologia Human Anatomy and Physiology

Language Arts

• Fix-It Grammar
• Excellence in Writing
• Phonetic Zoo
• English From the Roots Up

Electives

•  See The Light Art Class
•  Music Ace Deluxe
•  Typing Instructor 
•  Mind Benders Book 4

Second Grade 

Bible

• God's Great Covenant OT 2

Math

• Math U See Beta

Geography

• Trail Guide to US Geography

Science

• Magic School Bus with my own added plans for books and experiments (I will be posting these plans as a freebie soon!!!)

Language Arts

• Primary Arts of Language - Writing
• All About Spelling Levels 2 and 3
• Destination Reading

Electives

• Music Ace Deluxe
• Mind Benders - Thinking Skills
  
  
  I hope you all are getting your choices nailed down and feeling confident about a great new year! Best wishes to all of you!
  

  

  
  

Gettin' that itch!

Well, I don't know about you, but all this sunshine and that snap of uber-summer weather in March has me feeling like it should absolutely be summer break by now! If memory serves, it seems that this time last year, (without the excuse of warm weather) I felt the same way. My brain starts shutting down and my planning priorities move from our weekly lessons on to next year's curriculum. I just can't seem to help it! Am I alone here? Anyone else already mentally moving on?

As we've worked out some of the bugs this year, we've really enjoyed many of our choices and been maybe a little less enthusiastic about others. I'm really digging for some fresh options, so I'll keep you posted as we firm up our final choices. In the meantime, we'll keep plugging away until summer ACTUALLY does get here.