Poem - Untitled

My darling, you have flaws,
You whine when you are sad,
And growl when you are mad,
And your nails are as sharp as claws!


My darling, you're not perfect, 
You posture is poor, 
Your conversations are a bore,
And your smile has the opposite effect. 


But my darling you are sweet,
Ever since we met, 
I will never forget, 
How quickly you swept me off your feet!


Written for poetry by Musickid997 February 3, 2012

World Education Games - Full Registration & Practice is open!!!

Here are the dates -
World Spelling Day - 6 March 2012
World Maths Day - 7 March 2012
World Science Day - 8 March 2012


Be sure to register early so that your kids can get in as much practice time as possible!!!
Practice begins today!

Changing things up ---

We are a few weeks into our fall session, so it is that time to change things up.

KM is having some issues with Biology Demystified - she likes the program but feels she doesn't have a strong enough base to follow the higher level text, so we are stepping back and regrouping. She really likes the Virtual Web Labs and The Biology Coloring Book so I think we will stick with just those for now and see what happens. The Life Science (100+ Series) was also a flop, she didn't like the lack of instruction and the repetitive nature of the diagrams.

We also decided to stop using English Grammar 101 online. She found that she was not retaining the information. When it came to each individual lesson she was doing really well - mostly 20/20 and at the least 16/20 - but when she got to the review she couldn't get better than 28/40. This was more than a bit concerning to me.

All of these issues are leading me to question my negative feelings toward rote memorization. I have always been so against it, but it seems her retention of the information in the manner we have been going is far from adequate - in the more complex areas. I am wondering if I have been expecting too little of her. I have also been reading The Core: Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical Education - and will be reviewing soon - which really focuses on rote memorization skills to give a base of knowledge to draw from. If this book continues to make as much sense throughout as it has in the first few chapters, I will be changing things up even more. Be sure to check back for that full review in a few weeks!

Looking Ahead to High School - Part 5

If you missed any previous parts HERE is a quick link to them.


This is the third year that KM has been participating in an incredible theater group that focuses on Shakespearean plays. She has been in Romeo & Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream and is currently working on Much Ado About Nothing.

The fab director that we are so lucky to be able to work with has reworked the original plays, keeping the original language and pentameter, but making them approachable and suitable for this age group. She has learned so much about the language and of course theater skills, but has now asked to learn about Shakespeare and to read the original scripts, so she will be doing a thematic unit on Shakespeare next year which will include his life, sonnets, Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet and Richard III.

We will be utilizing the following resources a free Shakespeare Kit - Shakespeare in American Communities  and the Shakespeare Thematic Unit from Teacher Created Resources as spines for this study. KM really likes and responds well to these interdisciplinary units. We are also planning on watching several versions of each play, other movies that follow the story lines of these plays, and are hopeful that she will be able to continue working with the theater group!

Finishing up Winter Session and Prepping for Spring!!!

This is our last week of our winter session and KM has continued to do really well and is truly enjoying her topics of study. As always we have tweaked and evolved things throughout the session and will continue to do so as we set forth our plans for next session. I have most of the outline planned and over the next week will be fine tuning things.

First and foremost we have both decided after a long discussion, that we need to slow down a bit. We went FULL THROTTLE through the winter and managed to not get any winter duldrums or cabin fever, however we are EXHAUSTED! I have made a last minute decision to go back to our 3 stay day routine and with all that is coming up I am feeling a NEED to really stick to it.

There are some big jobs around the house that need to be taken care of and we are hoping to address a few this weekend ~ including taking down the snow damaged pool ~ while we are all around. The spring brings different chores and household responsibilities that need to be addressed and with CJ starting a full 6 week course to get his advanced licenses, KM and I are going to have to step up and take on some of the things that we would normally leave for him to do.

As for our lesson plans we will be continuing with a majority of the programs from the fall and winter we have been doing, but have decided to tweak a few areas including -

• Science - After some dissection of the Spectrum Science Workbook we both felt like the last few chapters were so disconnected in their content that it was too chopped up and KM didn't really want to finish it. On top of this KM has been very Science focused over the last two years, doing multiple programs at a time, so we decided to back off a bit. She will finish up the next few issues of Scholastic's Science World and will be doing the Environmental Study - see below - that she had planned on doing over the summer during the spring instead. I think this will tie in nicely to our gardening and landscaping plans as well.
• Math - She will be completing the Straight Forward Math Series Algebra Book 2 this week and will begin Book 3 after the break. She is moving very smoothly through this series and really seems to be retaining the information well. 
• Social Science - 
• History - KM has completed Volume 3 of Story of the World and has just begun Volume 4. It seems to be just as intriguing to her although the style is a bit different in this volume than in the ones before. She has been a bit stumped on the outlining portion, but I think with continued practice this will improve. As she is moving through this program at a more advanced rate and completing two to three chapters a week, I will not be requiring that she complete all the outlines and we will be  doing far less of the activities as well. I have, however, chosen to incorporate more of the Brain Pop! videos into the the history areas to hopefully bring a bit more life into it. 
• Current Events - This is an area that we have been a bit lacking in lately and CJ feels we should put a bit more energy into. KM does read Youngzine each week, but I stumbled across the CNN Student News and I think this will be a great resource! 
• Art - I went back and forth in this area recently. We tried a Great Course series from the library, but it was more than a bit DRY! KM is always working on different projects and crafts, but she also likes well done documentaries and shows having to do with art. So after some poking around online, I landed on Netflix and found this rather intriguing looking PBS series called Art 21 which we can stream live through the ROKU and/or the Wii onto the big screen! There are also free downloadable educator's guides to give some extra insight and ideas on how to use the program in an educational setting! We are both looking forward to utilizing this resource.
• Environmental Study - We had planned on working through this unit study over the summer, but as I mentioned earlier our plans changed a bit! We will be reading the Cartoon Guide to the Environment and going through the Our Fragile Environment Unit on BrainPop. We will also be watching documentaries that will correlate with each weeks topics. 
• Music - This is another area that we tend to focus a lot on around here. KM is more than halfway through the Annenberg Media course Exploring the World of Music and is thoroughly enjoying it. She will continue with and hopes to complete Piano Adventures Lesson Book, Level 2A by the end of this next session. She has been doing incredibly well considering she is self teaching and neither CJ nor I have any instrumental talent! She also continues to utilize the Wii with Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero, as well as a multitude of Sing It games that she has acquired. There has been talk of wanting to take drum lessons next year, but she is wavering as to whether she wants a traditional drum kit or an electronic one. 
• Literature - KM has picked two pieces to focus on this session Old Yeller and Wright 3. For Old Yeller we will take advantage of this online resource, as well as doing a movie comparison. For Wright 3 we will be using this guide put out by Library Sparks. 
• P.E. - Ice skating was fabulous over the winter and KM really took to it! For the spring the kids will be finishing up their bowling league and we will go back to Basketball and Tennis as the weather permits. When the weather is against us we will be using the Wii Sports Resort and Just Dance to get our sweat on! We have also decided to start incorporating more family fitness activities like hiking, bike riding and roller blading on the weekends when DN is here. These are things that we used to do regularly when KM was little, but have just moved away from over the last few years. 

Will you be changing things up for the spring? What kinds of fun activities does your family have planned?

I will be updating the Current Curriculum & Schedule page soon!

Busy, Busy, Busy, but not too much to report!

Things have been going very smoothly around here lately. KM has been keeping up with her lessons and staying very busy with ice skating, theater, sketching and spending time with her friends. We are enjoying the flow of things lately and the occasional snowstorm to keep us in the house for the day is a wonderful winter bonus!

We have been starting our days off with household responsibilities, yoga and meditation. Then after lunch we work on lessons and this leaves the late afternoon and evenings free for her to spend however she likes. It seems to have worked out that Tuesday and Thursdays are VERY light lesson days, to accommodate for ice skating - and spending the rest of the afternoon with one of her very best friends - and theater. When CJ is home he has been taking her skating at a more local place on Wednesday afternoons. This leaves a lot of the main lesson times to Monday and Friday which seems to be giving a natural flow to our week.

She has chosen to do her research report for this session on owls - BIG SURPRISE to those who have seen her lately! We have decided that she will follow the outline form that the writing mentor used with her in the fall. This method focuses on researching, getting the info down, and then editing and cleaning up the content. As I have written what feels like hundreds of posts on our thoughts about writing and the writing process, I will not go into length about it again. I will say though that I have noticed a huge improvement in her open responses now that she has no writing "guidelines" and just has to present the information clearly.

Other than that, there is not much else to report as it is pretty much status quo around here - Just enjoying our family, home and learning - all together! Hope you can find some time to do the same!

A FINAL realization on writing curriculums

I am once again having a difficult time with our writing curriculum and I feel that I am at the point of no return. KM is not complaining and does seem to be gaining a good deal of confidence, so those are pluses, but I just really feel like every single writing program out there is so unadaptable. They all teach the same sorts of writing, but in different orders and completly disconnected from any actual content areas. None of it truly makes sense to me, so how on earth am I suppose to help her understand it.

I had decided over the summer to pull back on any structured writing books, we would use the essay response questions in STOW and SOS, to do content directed writing work. However by the time the fall session rolled around I had caved in. KM had mentioned that she had taken a look at one of her friend's Spectrum Writing books and thought it might help her improve her skills. I went online, found it and ordered it. This was my first mistake. If I was going to not do a structured program, why on earth did I order another workbook? Well she had asked for it, it was inexpensive and I thought well she is thinking about it, so maybe I should be taking it more seriously. This then led me to the oh, I can supplement with this and maybe that will also help add to it, which in turn takes you down that slippery curriculum overload slope.

As I have been looking at the 6 different middle school program books that I still have in my house for writing ~ I say still because I don't even want to think about the number that I actually had last spring when I cleaned out the homeschooling book cupboard ~ I came to the aforementioned realization of: “They are all the same and NONE of them make sense.” I then really began to think about how I go about writing something, not that I am an expert in this area by any means, but I do feel that I can get my point across when I put my mind to it....I know, I know, there are some ramblings here and there, but let's just ignore those! I managed to achieve a perfect score on my essays for the GED, had two papers published and never got lower than a B+ on a research or term paper in college, despite NEVER having passed a high school English class.

When I have an idea for a blog entry, I just type. I don't systematically plan things out. When I was in college I did the same thing. When I had to answer an essay question or had to write a research paper, I would just start writing. I would get out as much as I possibly could and then I would edit, move things around, change things here and there, and make it better, clearer, and more concise. I didn't do venn diagrams, writing process trees, story webs, or anything of the like. I just researched and typed. As I sit here right now, I am just typing.....no preset direction, other than to get my point across.

So why do I feel the need to have my daughter do all of these ridiculous things that I DON'T GET?

It is another one of those tapes that blares in my head. You know the ones I mean. The ones that say things like - “all kids should be in school”, “Kids should be seen and not heard”, “What do you mean there is no oversight?”, “WHAT ABOUT SOCIALIZATION?” We all have them. They all say different things for various reasons, be it culture, background, religious beliefs, or some other random reason. While I have managed to destroy most of these wretched thought patterns, some still seem to creep back in and get their tape around the spindals causing a cacophony of negative statements and ideas flooding into my ears and causing anxiety to spread through my entire being!

I am done. I will not be doing any more writing curriculums. Though I will keep the few writing resource books that we have around the house, things that cover grammar and research paper guidelines, I will be getting rid of all the curriculum guides and workbooks. I will encourage my child to express herself on paper and assist her in improving answers to open ended and essay questions in a manner that is clear and concise, but that is IT!  

Write Guide Review

I was contacted at the beginning of the summer by Write Guide.com's founder to do a review of their site and was given a one month trial account for my daughter to try it out. As writing is the most stressful subject in our household and the program sounded intriguing, I thought we would give it a whirl ~ I also managed to get KM to agree to try it.

Here is some company info -

WriteGuide.com, also known as Ludwig Education Services, LLC, is a small, family-owned business that serves homeschool families and adult learners, providing them with their own private writing teachers. We also work with many independent-study charter schools in California and Alaska. Founded in 1998, we remain devoted to providing homeschoolers with daily, 100% individualized writing instruction. To learn more about our teaching approach and methodologies, please review our Homepage, and our company's philosophy and mission statement. All schools, businesses, and individuals are welcome to contact our main office via the information on our Contact Us page.

What to Expect During the Course

Every time a student or parent writes to his or her writing consultant, the writing consultant will always respond within 24 hours (unless it's a weekend or holiday), providing whatever lessons or feedback are necessary to help the student move forward with the project. Enough instruction will be provided to give the student about half an hour to 45 minutes of work per day, so that the student can then write back to his or her writing consultant to receive more instruction. Ideally, students should write to their writing consultants every day, Monday through Friday, so that they'll receive five sets of individualized lessons, feedback, and instruction per week. Students can take as much time as they need before responding to their writing consultant, but please be aware that the consultant won't write back until the student has responded to his or her last message! Upon hearing back from his writing consultant, a student should complete the assigned work, and should respond with a message and a draft of his paper. Parents can also send one message per day to their child's writing consultant, in addition to the message or paper that the student sends. We like to view our course as a partnership between two teachers (the parent and the writing consultant), and so frequent parent input is both anticipated and appreciated.

I started out by describing KM and the issues that she has had with various writing programs as well as the situations that had occurred in PS. Then they assign a teacher based on this information. When we first were contacted by the teacher I was unaware that they hadn't passed the information on, but expected me to reiterate it. This made no sense to me because I had put a lot of time and thought into the description of my daughter because I thought the teacher would be seeing it and using it to set up a plan of action for her. Instead once the teacher was chosen she contacts both the child and parent through the mywriteguide portal not knowing anything about the child(ren).

There are a lot of really great options available - see four approaches, about midway down the page - and I choose for the teacher to decide what she thought would be a good place for KM to start, given her reluctance to write and it was decided that she should work on a simple report. The teacher did a great job of getting KM to pick a topic, ready to research and explained how to collect bibliography information thoroughly. She then gave her an extremely well thought out outline to use to organize her information. KM decided to research Neptune and then, after researching and with the help of the teacher, decided to focus specifically on the Voyager 2's missions and info collected on Neptune.

We lost a day of the program because KM and I were unaware that she had to respond to the teacher after her first initial "Hi there" email in order for the teacher to email her back. While I understand the want and need to ensure the anonymity and security of our children on the Internet, as well as keeping a record for the program and teachers' safety, but this portal thing is a bit of overkill in my opinion. The teachers "can't" send a message to the student unless the student replies to the previous message. I really think it would be beneficial if the system emailed you when you had new messages, there were 3 days that she had to keep checking back in throughout the day in order to see if she had gotten a message yet and didn't get responses until very late in the day.

The parents have to log into there own portal in order to see what is going on as well, which while easy enough to do, is just another thing to check on. The other drawback to this is that they can only respond back and forth once in a 24 hour period. KM is very much a seize the moment type of learner and when she has a question she wants the answer fairly quickly. This lapse in time caused a lot of momentum to be lost. I felt like I had to hold back from stepping in in order to see what was going to happen and I have to say it was agonizing for me as she was putting a lot of effort in, but then had to wait for so long to get the responses or feedback that she needed to move on to the next step.

Things get hectic in the summer and in case you haven't been to my blog lately, they were totally kooky here for a bit. So there was a Monday to Thursday stretch that KM didn't log into her account and I was surprised when I logged into mine that the teacher hadn't sent me a note asking anything about whether she was okay or if she was having trouble and afraid to ask or anything. The program runs on a month to month payment basis and if your child is missing a good junk of days, I would kinda expect some sort of acknowledgement to the lack of participation.

KM worked very hard on this report and she really seemed to be understanding what the teacher was saying. I helped her stay on task as I was hopeful that she would complete the entire paper before the month was up. Even with some of the previous hurdles, she did manage to keep progressing. On the day that the program was to expire, the teacher sent a message asking her to send her final draft and any last questions in her final email. KM was excited to have it completed, get final feedback and wanted to know how to complete the bibliography, however the program email interface did not allow us to do so. If I had know that this was how the program worked I would have had her email the full draft the day before with her question about the bibliography, instead of just the tweaks she had made to her conclusion paragraph. I emailed the office in regards to this and they gave a very timely response of "Thanks for writing! Your course was scheduled to end today, but we're going to extend it by a day so that Mrs. xxx can review the final draft. " which I was happy with. I do not however know if this is something that would have been done for everyone or just something that was done for me because they knew I was reviewing the site ~ I try to not be cynical, but the person that responded was the person that initially contacted me to do the review.

The teacher was very encouraging and really gave some great feedback, formats and suggestions in a very positive way. I think that in theory this program is a good idea and although it was a great learning experience for KM, she picked up some good tips, and the final paper that she produced was far better than she or I expected, it just isn't for us. I am super picky about where I spend my money and with my homeschooling dollars even more so. It might be a good fit for more advanced and/or independent writers, but from the stand point of the parent of a reluctant writer it just doesn't seem to be what we need. It must have some sort of staying power that I am missing as they have been around since 1998. I think that the biggest issue is that I feel if I am going to be paying $75 a month for a writing tutor I don't want to have to teach writing at all. With this method and the lack of instant information, guidance and direction I think I would have to step in far more than I would be willing to.

Thanks to Write Guide for allowing us the opportunity to review your product!

8th Grade Fall Curriculum Picks

Here is what KM and I have decided to work with this fall -

Math -

She did a great job over the summer on the Straight Forward Algebra Book 1 and we decided to take a break from it before she starts book 2. So she will be finishing up the book Word Problems (Practice Practice)
and she completed the rest of Ko's Journey.

English Language Arts -

We love the Straight Forward Series so much that we decided to try the English Series as well, so she will be using the All-In-One English Series Master Book (Straight Forward) . For vocabulary she will be working on Painless Vocabulary. For Spelling she will be utilizing a variation of the Free Spelling program found HERE. For writing we are going to incorporate some of the review questions from Story of the World's Activity Guide as well as the questions from The Story of Science Student Quest Guide so that we are working on her strengthening her answers to open ended response questions - which in my opinion is the practical writing skill that she needs to work on write now.

Science -

We will be continuing on our journey through the Story of Science on to Newton at the Center. As I mentioned we will be utilizing all aspects of the Student's Quest Guide, but will especially be focusing on the open response questions. We also will still be using the Thames & Kosmos Milestones in Science kit as well as working on K'nex and other projects.

History and Geography -

We will also be moving on to The Story of the World Volume 3: Early Modern Times and again utilizing the review questions for writing. In case you missed how we adapt this for the middle school crowd you can check the post on that HERE.

EXTRAS -

We will also be doing -

• Music - Music Alive Classical Connections to U.S. History
• Piano -Accelerated Piano Adventures, Level 2- Lesson Set (1 Book and 1 CD Set, Lesson Book 2 and Lesson Book 2 CD)
  
• Spanish - Tell Me More and The 100+ Series Spanish, Middle School / High School (English and Spanish Edition)
  
• Health - Human Body & Health: Science Skills : Grades 6-8+ (Basic, Not Boring 6 to 8)
• Global Studies - Global Studies: Social Studies Skills : Grades 6-8+ (Basic, Not Boring 6 to 8)
  
• Computer Technology - I haven't finalized all of the resources for this one yet, but will post as soon as I have them. I do know that we will be basing the main context of the program on the Brain Pop Cool Tech spotlight. We also have a printer, laptop, mouse, digital camera, MP3 player, DVD player and camcorder that we will be dissecting throughout the session.

Writing BREAKTHROUGH!!!

I can't even tell you how EXCITED I am right NOW! KM's writing issues have been the bane of my existence for the past 6 years! If you search this blog you will find nearly every frustration I have had with homeschooling has stemmed from writing. However I have had a breakthrough! I decided to take a look at the Official SAT Study Guide, that I got off of Paperback Swap so that I could use it as a guide for our studies over the next few years, and I came across this AMAZING little paragraph...

"There is no formula for writing an effective essay. You are free to choose your own writing style. For example, you can write an essay that is narrative, expository, persuasive, or argumentative. Furthermore the SAT will not reward or penalize you if you write, for example, a five-paragraph essay. Good writing is marked by the strong development of ideas, the ability to connect to an audience, precise use of language, effective organization, and appropriate choices of evidence." p. 103

Why on earth have I been trying every method under the sun to teach her to write a five -paragraph essay if it is not even REQUIRED on the SAT? Why is this nearly the ONLY method of writing that is being taught to children in Public, Private and Homeschools, yet the national be all to end all of tests doesn't even require it?

I am baffled, dumbfounded and completely elated all at the same time. I read on to some of the example essays that were given perfect scores and was ecstatic to see that the content was the main derivative for the scores. They want the student to be able to express their point of view clearly and thoroughly!

I am DONE trying to teach KM how to write. She knows how to write and has always known how to write, she just has had a very difficult time getting her information to come across intelligently in the 5-paragraph essay format. Instead I will be helping her to develop her point of view clearly and effectively, organize and focus her ideas so that they are coherent, enhance her use of language by using varied vocabulary, and to continue to improve on her grammar and mechanics.

I had KM read through this section of the SAT guide herself as well, so that she could get a grasp at what she should be aspiring toward. She was also SHOCKED to find out that the writing style wasn't all that important. We spent quite a while discussing strategies and wondering why in the world the school had spent so much time and beat her down so hard over something that apparently means very little in the grand scheme of academia.

Of course we never came to a real conclusion, yet we did develop another truly solidifying moment for homeschooling!

Product Review - Mission Paragraph from Hands of A Child

I took Hands of a Child up on an offer that they had made a few months back to review a project pack for them. Having used their products before I was very excited to try something that would boast KM's interest in this area. Here is my review -

I was very hopeful that my reluctant writer would really be engaged by this method of presentation. However she quickly found many issues with the product including, spelling and grammar errors, poorly written examples and while some activities were extremely simplified others were far more advanced at an earlier stage than it seemed they should be. The format has you writing full paragraphs before the process has been completely explained. My daughter became very frustrated with the pack before she was even halfway through it.

I was greatly disappointed with this product. I submitted my review to Currclick as per my agreement with the Hands of A Child representative that had contacted me. I also attempted to submit the review to the Hands of A Child site, but it is not allowing me to for some reason. I have used many other project packs from this company and have liked them all, so please don't let this one review deter you from the publisher completely!

Winter Session 7th Grade Curriculum Picks

As we are drawing our fall session to a close over the next week, I figured it was time to look ahead and finalize the choices we have made for the upcoming Winter Session! Since we are always changing things around here, this is of course a rough guess of what we will be doing. Most of our picks for the fall session worked out rather well, but there are some areas that we needed to tweak a bit. Here is our "intended" outline -

ELA -
We have swapped out our ELA system SEVERAL times in the past two years, but I do think that we have finally made a bit of progress in this area. KM worked through Levels 3 & 4 of Writing Strands rather quickly and decided to work through a few workbooks for latter half of this past session and the next.

• She has been working through 5-Minute Daily Practice Grammar, she tends to do all 5 lessons for the week at once on Monday, but she is getting them all correct, so I guess I can't really complain can I.
• Quick Practice Writing Skills is a bit more of a challenge for her - well it varies day to day. There are some things that she just needs a slight reminder on and others that have never been covered, so when we come to an area that needs to be covered completely we stop and cover it. It seems to be working and she is far less weary of asking for help.
• For writing itself we have gone back to the 3 minute non-stop writing and are using 350 Fabulous Writing Prompts. Some of the prompts are not so fabulous in my opinion, but we just skip those ones and take those days to go back over and review or edit her previous days writings.
• We will also begin working through the Grammar and then Writing on BrainPop.
• For literature we will be using Teacher Created Resources for Tuck Everlasting and The Island of the Blue Dolphin. As well as a Scholastic Book Guide for Around the World in Eighty Days which will coincide with our Geography. KM of course will also be continuing her free time reading - not that I have to worry about that.

Math -

• We will be finishing up The Complete Book of Algebra and Geometry this next session so that she can feel confident when she goes back to the Teaching Textbook for Algebra in the Spring.
• I also thought that it would be fun and interesting to take a look at Women Mathematicians during this session. This book features 15 women and we will spread them out covering one or two a week for the 10 week session.
  

Science -

• We have decided to put off Story of Science again as KM wanted to slow down a bit on her Physics so that she could really investigate each area more closely. So for the next session she will continue with her Physics Workshop Kit from Thames & Kosmos. She will also continue to supplement with Brain Pop.
• We are also going to revisit Chemistry. She had done a bit of it last year at our co-op, but I think we will try to dive a bit deeper this time around. I have gotten a light textbook - Chemistry of Matter - from Paperback Swap and she has agreed to try it. I have the Periodic Table from Basher Science Books - WHICH SHE LOVES! - as a stand by in case the text flops. I have a lot of projects and kitchen chemistry things to add in as well as BrainPop - AGAIN!
  

Social Sciences -

• For history we will be working on Ancient Rome and finishing up volume one of Story of the World. This will also conclude our Giant Lapbook! I will be sure to post all the info on that when it is complete! This will be our final history pocket as well. KM is very happy that we will also be continuing with the Horrible Histories series, which despite mixed reviews from others, has been going over very well with her! We started out with the books, then I purchased the animated series on Ebay and now have been using the resources for the CBBC series.
• We will be finishing up Rand McNally's Intermediate Geography as well as doing a cultural study of each area as it is covered in the book. I am using several other resources for this including Global Trek, Hands-On Heritage series and Art Projects from Around the World.
  

Health -
KM really likes the Learn to Be Healthy site - though some of the content is a bit below her level, most of it seems to be sinking in and she is moving right along through it. They do have a high school level, but I don't think she is ready for that set just yet. She is also working through the Health topics on Brain Pop.


Electives -

• Staying with our strong Science focus - per KM's request - she will be studying weather and meteorology this session. I will be listing our resources for this in a separate post.
• For her foreign language she is going to be doing Spanish. We were lucky enough to get a FANTASTIC deal on Tell Me More by Auralog through the Homeschool Buyers Co-op last summer and she is REALLY enjoying the program. The voice recognition software is great and the homeschool edition has worksheets that you can print off to supplement with. I will be supplementing with two workbooks - Let's Learn Spanish Grades 7 & 8. I also picked up to sticker books that I thought KM & SC could do together. This would help reinforce the basics for KM and would introduce SC to a bit of Spanish as well.
• Music Alive! is still a big hit and we will continue with this through the next session. We also will be taking a look at some opera pieces from Opera for Everyone and will be going to the Boston Lyric Opera's presentation of Barber of Seville.
  
• Piano Adventures is working incredibly! She will be starting on Level 2 and I am amazed and awestruck by how well she is playing with no outside instruction. There was talk of an interest in Flute, but I am not too sure how serious that was...
• She will be continuing with Drama at our co-op and they will be working on another Shakespearean play with music and dancing, but the title has not been disclosed yet!
• We will be continuing to work through the Meet The Masters for our art practical and theory section. She will also continue on her cross stitch work and may start some sewing as she interested in working on her costume for the play this spring.
  

Again I can't stress enough how much of a guideline this is and it is in NO WAY set in stone. I am very open to changing things that are not working and try to make sure that KM feels that she can be honest with me about how she feels something is going.

Percy Jackson And The Olympians ~ The Lightning Thief

On our way back from the MOS on Wed, the girls in the back seat of my car saw a billboard for -

Percy Jackson And The Olympians The Lightning Thief

I can't even TELL you how excited they were! The entire way back from Boston - a good 50 minutes with the traffic - they talked non-stop about who should be in each part, who they hoped would be in it, what parts they can't wait to see!

It was the most interesting tween conversation I have heard in a long time!!!

More than Half Way There!

KM is a total book worm, so any sort of reading challenge is right up her alley!

As a scholastic "classroom" she has the opportunity to help books get donated to some great charities and she is already more than half to her 100 book mark!



To find out more about Scholastic Classrooms Care Program please check out their site!

Curriculum Picks for Fall Session - 7th Grade - English Language Arts

I am continuing to hammer down our curriculum choices and here are our ELA choices!

English Language Arts - Traditionally, the primary divisions in the language arts are Literature and Language, where language in this case refers to both linguistics, and specific languages. The subjects, including reading, spelling, and composition, aimed at developing reading and writing skills, usually taught in elementary and secondary school.



You may have seen my many different postings about KM's lack of interest in writing and my realization a few months ago which has lead me to the following choices -

• Word Smart Junior I & II
  
• Writing Strands Level 3
• 5-Minute Daily Practice - Grammar
  

Literature & Reading Comprehension -
KM is an avid reader - she has already read 31 books this summer. So we are going to try a different approach to literature this year by alternating with an actual literature curriculum and literature unit studies. I am hoping that with this mix it will keep things moving and build her writing skills a bit as well...

• Island of the Blue Dolphin - Teacher Created Resource
  
• Cricket in Time Square - Teacher Created Resource - we will be using many of these products throughout the next two years
• Language of Literature - we will be alternating doing one literature unit mentioned above and one unit from this book.

We also will be trying to increase and encourage more free writing and may work out some sort of writing prompts as we did toward the end of the spring with our Proverbs Project.

And the winner is....

Out of the 12 entries -




there could be only one winner-

CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Thanks to all who have entered!

FIRST GIVEAWAY - EVER!!! SpellQuizzer license

I was contacted to review this product ~SpellQuizzer~ and they have also offered a license to giveaway to a very lucky lurker!

SO COME ON OUT!!!

We have slowly but surely shied away from spelling programs as KM has gotten older, but this is far better than any other off-line spelling program that I have seen! This program allows you to create your own spelling lists, record the word so that they can hear and then spell it, and enter definitions of the words to increase vocabulary. While there are pre-made spelling lists available to use, I think one of the biggest benefits for an older child would be for them to be able to set the lists up themselves, adding the typing element to it. For younger kids it would be a great way for them to practice their spelling as well as getting more familiar with the keyboard! Though I have not tried this yet, another feature that truly intrigues me is the ability to import and export lists so that homeschool families or co-op groups could share their lists instead of having to create them independently! So whether you are homeschooling, creating your own lists, using a curriculum list, going to school and using their lists this program would surely be a safe and convenient way to encourage more spelling and vocabulary practice!


Now as for the giveaway - I am new to all this so I am going to do it the old-fashioned way - leave a comment on this message by Sunday July 26th 10pm EST and you will be entered to win a license for this incredible spelling software. Then Monday 7/27 KM will draw a name out of a bowl of some sort to pick the winner! Simple enough -

GOOD LUCK!

ADDED AFTER POST--- OH YEAH! I said I was new to this, I need away to contact you as well, so either a link to your blog, email address or something of that sort would be fantastic!!
I will of course post the winner here on the 27th as well!
Thanks!

Lesson Completed -

Our proverbs lesson "April Showers Bring May Flowers" was completed this morning and I think the lesson that I needed to learn was completed as well. The title alone could not have been more perfect to me. We started this a while ago and at the time had no idea where it was going to lead us, so I thought I would share the incredible results that have come from this very simple art project.

I have expressed how much KM disliked the process of writing many times here on my blog and in real life to nearly anyone I can think of, so when I was looking into curriculum choices for next year I decided to speak to my all-time favorite homeschool guru, who also happens to be a published writer and has a daughter who received a perfect score on the written part of the SAT, so I felt she surely would have some incredibly wise words of wisdom for me and sure enough she did.

After a long discussion of what the situation was and how KM behaved when given any sort of writing assignment, we came to the conclusion that she was self-editing in her head as she was writing and this was causing her to be blocked right from the get-go. She was so worried that it wasn't going to come out perfectly the first time that she wrote something down on paper that she just wasn't able to cohesively express herself through the written word. So my guru gave me some tips and exercises to try.

The first suggestion that really made sense to me was to have her write for two minutes - either giving her a prompt, word or whatever - she was to just write for the full two minutes whatever came into her head. She shouldn't stop, erase, correct anything, worry about punctuation, spelling or anything else. She just had to have pen to paper for a full two minutes. Well this made so much sense to me, if she was not worried about it being corrected it should alleviate the blocks. So we started doing this every few days using the proverbs that we had written out for our April Showers Bring May Flowers project. It worked like a charm. KM would pick a proverb from the bag, think about it for a minute and then I would set the timer for 2 minutes. She would just write and write and write, what she thought the proverbs meant. There were times when the timer went off and she wanted to continue writing. It was as if I had another child sitting there with a pencil in hand.

The results have baffled me. Although of course they are not perfect grammatically or content wise, she has written down at least 3 to 4 sentences each time. There have been no complaints, arguments, or begrudging stares. The more we have done it, the more she grabs a new proverb out of the bag in the morning and wants to do it.

She is growing so much and truly becoming an independent learner. She is very happy to take the books and go. She wants to be able to learn these things on her own without someone hovering over her. When she has a set assignment she is completing it with no problem. Who is this child? How can this be the same individual that I had to stand over and watch her complete every word she wrote down to make sure it was done - just a year and a half ago? She is not the same child. She is a homeschooler, even better a home learner now. She truly enjoys learning and wants to find out more about EVERYTHING!

So this morning when she grabbed the last proverb out of the bag, it literally brought tears to my eyes...

One today is worth two tomorrows.

This is one of my favorite proverbs, the truest to my heart. You must cherish today because tomorrow may not come. You must love life for it can be taken away in an instant. You must enjoy the time that you have with your family because they could be gone at any moment. Though I do not want to live in constant fear of losing everyone or of tomorrow never coming, it is good to remember those that I have lost in order to remind myself that I need to cherish the people that I have in my life while they are hear.

I cannot tell you how proud I am of her accomplishments. I can tell you the joy that I feel in my heart when I see her completing a project and suddenly the light goes off in her brain. She got it! Something made the concept click and now she truly understands it. She does not remember long enough to complete the test and then proceed to dump it to learn the next information, she truly and completely is becoming educated! Every day that I spend with her I learn more about her and myself. I am truly grateful this path that we have chosen has brought us to such an incredible place.

7th Grade Curriculum - Preliminary Decisions

As most of you have probably figured out - as I know I have stated it SEVERAL times - I am a HUGE planner, I need to feel like I have a game plan and though I am open to flexibility and wiggle room, I NEED to know that I have something set and ready to go! So before the warm weather gets here for real, I want to make sure that I have everything planned out for next year.

For the most part I have known for a while what we would be doing, but there were some final choices that I think I have committed to. So here is what KM's 7th Grade Curriculum will look like -

Summer Session - Yes we do continue our lessons during the summer, but it is on a much lighter scale. KM and I sat down and tried to figure out what she thought would be manageable and what I would agree to as enough. Here is what we came up with:

Daily:
Summer Bridge Activities - This is a review type book that has different activities each day, but helps you kinda stay on track. Most of the things are fun activities and she has been doing them for YEARS now so she figured why change something that has worked for such a long time.

Egyptian Study - if we keep at the pace we are right now with our History timeline study we should be right at Egypt when we start the Summer session. I have TONS of projects, resources, sites, kits and books for this which I think I will list separately. This will be an ongoing thing throughout the summer that I didn't really want to schedule in so we will be working on this bit by bit throughout the session.

Mondays:
Cooking - We will be using the Usbourne Internet Linked Children's World Cookbook - to travel the globe through food. We will also be going to our local farmer's markets to get local produce of the season to cook with as well as using the bounty from our own garden!

Tuesdays:
Geography - along with our world food travels, we will be using Brighter Child Geography Grade 6 which we did not have a chance to get to during this last year's studies.

Wednesday:
ELA - we have been using Scholastics Scope Magazine since last fall, but we could never manage to get to all of it, so we decided to save the reader's plays and the extra worksheets for the summer.

Thursday:
Science - I don't know how long ago it was, but at some point I picked up a copy of Homework Survival Guide: Science and I came across it when we were cleaning out our books over the winter. We decided to use it as a review and do one chapter a week for the summer. We will also be incorporating lots and LOTS of projects to go with each one so be sure to swing by for Science Thursdays starting in July. I think that this will really bring KM up to speed with the basic knowledge that she was SOOOOO lacking from her time at PS.

Fridays:
Math - another book that we just didn't get to as much as we would have liked was Fast Finishers Math so we thought this would be a good time to finish it up!


Starting in the Fall she will be doing -

Math - Teaching Textbooks was such a HUGE hit this year that I will stray from it! She will be starting Algebra 1 in the fall.


ELA - She will be doing 5-minute Daily Grammar - which should help to straighten out some of those things that really just need some repetition to get down. Also upon recommendation by a very good friend, countless internet searches and a LONG discussion with KM we have decided to give Writing Strands a try. We will be starting her off at Level 3 and she is very excited about the way that it is truly written to the student. It also has VERY little prep work for me! I also have on the back burner, Writing Survival Skills for the Middle Grades - which the same friend recommended and I lucked out and found on Paperback Swap! Also a great Paperback Swap find was World Smart Junior which will be in place of a formal vocabulary program.

Literature/Reading Comprehension - For fiction we will be using literature units from Teacher Created Resources. To start we will be doing The Cricket in Times Square, Island of the Blue Dolphin, Bridge to Terabithia and Tuck Everlasting. For non-fiction we will be using a workbook called As a Matter of Fact which seems like it will be a very good fit.

History - We will be continuing our timeline study using the Complete Book of World History as our time-line spine and we will probably begin with Ancient China in the fall. I will list these resources separately as well.

Geography - Our coop group is thinking of doing a full year Geography program, focusing on a different continent each session. This will be a GREAT way for the kids to learn about this in a group setting! I will be sure to post more about this as it develops as well.

Cultural Studies - In the fall we will be focusing on a Thanksgiving Unit that we got from Plimoth Plantation called Investigating the First Thanksgiving which helps to clarify what really happened at the first Thanksgiving and what it was really like for the Pilgrims and the Native Americans. Then we will use several resources to dive deep into the cultures of Southeast Asia, Japan, and Mexico and Central America.

Science - We have a large mismatch group of things that KM really wants to cover for Science next year. We will be starting out with the Basher Series which looks like they are going to be rather enjoyable reading, then we will be using the MOS designed Engineering is Elementary Program, a variety of free electricity resources that we ordered from National Grid and a unit on Inventions and Inventors. We will also be supplementing with a new site that I found through Homeschool Buyers Co-op called Adaptive Curriculum. Once she has all these things done I think she will have a very good basis to start some of the higher level sciences.

Foreign Language Studies - We will be sticking with Latin next year and will be using Minimus Secundus: Moving on in Latin as well as Learning Latin Through Mythology. I am already seeing a huge improvement with KM's word recognition and decoding roots since we started the Minimus: Starting out in Latin.

Art - we will be using a program that looks really intriguing called Meet the Masters. KM is a bit nervous about having to reproduce masterpieces, but I think once she starts and sees that it is really more about the techniques that she will really enjoy the program!

Music - KM is still loving the keyboard so we will be continuing with Piano Adventures. I also came across this rather interesting classroom magazine called Music Alive and for $9 I got all 8 issues of this past years magazines, which feature a current artistic from a different genre each month. KM is so into music that I couldn't pass up a deal like that! We will also continue to utilize the incredible monthly content at Classics for Kids. I am seriously considering signing her up for private keyboard lessons, but I am worried that this may deter her natural drive that she seems to be following. She reads music incredibly and truly enjoys playing, so I will just wait and see if she starts to peak off or has trouble just using the books on her own.


So that is our 7th grade plan - I hope we will stick to it, but if you are a regular reader I would guess that bets are being placed as to when the first change will occur! It feels good to have it all laid out in front of me though and I think that I have found a really good balance of what KM wants and what CJ and I feel that she really NEEDS.

Tis the Season for...Reading

Each year when we take out all the Holiday decorations, there is one thing that really makes it feel like winter is coming - the book basket. KM and I are rarely without a book, but this basket is special because it has all our holiday books that we read and add to each year. We keep the basket by the fireplace and try to cuddle up there at least once every few days and flip through them.
Some of them have been given to us as gifts, others are favorites from when CJ and I were little, while still others are just fun!

Now that KM is getting older we may need to get a bigger book basket, but for now we have another pile on the hope chest.

Here is the list of our favorites:

1. Snow Family ~ Daniel Kirk
2. A Charlie Brown Christmas ~ Charles M. Schulz
3. Beauty and the Beast: One Magical Christmas ~ Karen Kreider
4. Snowie Rolie ~ William Joyce
5. Care Bears: Catch the Christmas Spirit ~ Katie Tait
6. Hello Kitty: My Little Angel ~ Paul Coco
7. The Penguin Who Wanted to be Different: A Christmas Wish ~ Maria O'Neill
8. There Was A Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow! ~ Lucille Colandro
9. The Christmas Penguin ~ Mary Packard
10. Gingerbread Baby ~ Jan Brett
11. Five Little Christmas Trees ~ Lynn Adams
12. Little Critter's: The Night Before Christmas ~ Mercer Mayer
    
13. Strawberry Shortcake's Berry Merry Christmas ~ Monique Z. Stephens
14. Toot & Puddle: I'll Be Home for Christmas ~ Holly Hobbie
15. Can You See What I See? The Night Before Christmas: Picture Puzzles to Search and Solve ~ Walter Wick
16. Harvey Slumfenburger's Christmas Present ~ John Burningham
17. If you take a Mouse to the Movies ~ Laura Numeroff
18. Snow Magic ~ June Eding
19. Snowmen at Night ~ Caralyn Buehner
    
20. Santa Claus ~ Rod Green
21. Judy Moody & Stink: The Holly Joliday ~ Megan McDonald
22. On Christmas Eve ~ Ann M. Martin

The titles that we will be adding to the basket this year include:
The Christmas Book: How to Have the Best Christmas Ever ~ Juliana Foster
When Santa Fell to Earth ~ Cornelia Funke
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever ~ Barbara Robinson
A Christmas Carol ~ Charles Dickens


What are your families favorite seasonal stories?