Preschool Activity Bags!

I live in a house which seems to be crawling with small children. It's not that we have that many - we're closer to the Cosbys than the Duggars - but they all came so close together that just about the time someone moves out of one phase, someone else is there to jump into it! It can leave me feeling exhausted, frustrated, and at my wits-end at times. The older two are now at a stage where they can play constructively for the most part (except for that bed-as-a-slide incident that some of you heard about. Don't get me started...) They also are at a point where they need me to walk them through most of their school work. It's a fun time for all of us...except for Grace and Cullen - who don't handle it well when mommy needs to spend two hours doing school with Sawyer and Campbell. I frequently feel like I don't know what to do with them. In fact, I have pictures from the first day of school last year when Cullen decided to crawl into Sawyer's desk and sit there till we were done. They won't just "go play." They need direction, which is hard to do when I'm in the middle of a lesson on "how the French Revolution affected John Adams role as President." But fear not! Enter Preschool Activity Bags!

A friend called and asked me if I'd want to join her in making some activity bags to keep preschoolers busy during school, when you're trying to cook dinner, or any other time you need to have them occupied for a little while. She had purchased the Preschool Activity Bags Ebook from Activity Bags. com. This ebook plans all the bags out for you, and gives you directions for a swap. So we've rounded up about 12 moms of littles, and will be swapping bags on Thursday night! I'm so excited to have these on hand for the times when I need to give Gracie an activity she will enjoy, but that I don't have to hold her hand through. The ebook gives you over 30 ideas for bags, so we assigned two per mom. If you click on the link above, you can download a sample at their website. Each bag costs approximately $1 to make, and a lot of the supplies are things you will already have around the house.  These would be great to have on hand whether you homeschool or not. What mom doesn't need to have a few tricks she can pull out while waiting at the doctor's office, making dinner, doing laundry, laying on the couch with a bad case of morning sickness, etc? I know Gracie and Cullen are going to love them, and it only took a couple hours to get everything assembled!

Back to school!

Tomorrow morning we will be hitting the books! We are all excited to continue our adventure in homeschooling. This year we are changing things up a little, adding quite a few new things, and adding in another student!

Gracie will be joining us now! She has been begging me for a while to "do school." So this year she will be doing a series of books by Rod and Staff that focus on fine motor development, identifying shapes, colors, opposites, letters, numbers etc. We are also using a wonderful book by Marilyn Boyer called Crossroads of Character that focuses on character training through stories. I really love the Boyer's products. Their website is www.thelearningparent.com. I heard Marilyn speak several times at the ICHE conference this year.I would highly recommend any of her downloads. Her words were a true blessing to me! Grace will also be joining us in our Biblestudy Guide For All Ages time.

Sawyer and Campbell will continue with Math-U-See, moving into the Alpha level. They really enjoy the videos, as well as working with the blocks! We'll also move on with our phonics/spelling program - Spell to Write and Read. I can't say enough good things about this program, so I won't even get started! The kids are both continuing to grow in their reading skills, as well as their spelling awareness. We are also using their Cursive First handwriting program, and it's been fun to watch the kids writing blossom!

The new things we added are:

First Language Lessons - this is a great introduction to grammar, proper language usage, poetry, etc. It's very gentle, and very simple - which I appreciate!
Exploring Creation with Astronomy - we are so excited to start doing science, and one of the things I think is so neat about Jeannie Fulbright's books is that each one focuses on what was created on each off the days of creation. So we will be starting with astronomy, then move on to botany, etc. The books are written in a Charlotte Mason style, so the lessons are short, and there's a lot of opportunity for discussion and narration.We will also be doing a lapbook to go with this book - which is always fun, and really helps the kids retain what they've learned!
Tapestry of Grace - this is a biggie! This is the curriculum we will be using for our history, fine arts, literature, geography, and church history studies. It's a four year cycle that the child goes through three times over the course of their education. It's like a giant humanities buffet - which can be overwhelming when first looking at it. You just have to tell yourself to save some activities for the next time you go through the cycle. It also helps to have a friend who has used it and will let you steal her lesson plans! We settled on this curriculum after lots of research and even more prayer. Ryan loved that they have a component for Dads that keeps him up to date on what we're learning. We also loved that throughout the entire story of history, the author points out how God's hand was working in that time period. That history is HIS story! The bonus is that it is also written by authors who are reformed, which means no awkward discussions about "yes, I know that's what the writer said, but we believe..." We are really excited to get started on this! We will begin in year 3of the four year cycle, (since we have friends that are on that year, and our kids are the same ages. We are going to be meeting about once a month for some fun group activities!) which covers the 1800's. We will be learning about the reign of Napoleon, the Presidency of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe, and  the forming of the Supreme Court. We'll also read about William Carey - Father of the modern missionary movement, as well as Adonirum Judson, Hudson Taylor, Lottie Moon, and Mary Slessor. We'll explore with Lewis and Clark,  pan for gold during the Goldrush in California, and watch as South America struggles for freedom from their European oppressors. We are in for an exciting year!

Unfortunately, our digital camera has died, so it may be a while before I can post pictures, but hopefully we can post some of our adventure this year!

What we'll be doing next year...

I thought I'd do a post about what we will be using next year for school. I put in an order for the last of it at convention, and am eagerly awaiting a package from Rainbow Resource this week! Since Sawyer and Campbell are so close in age, we'll be doing everything together. This makes it a lot easier for me, and the kids are best buddies, so they think it's fun to be working on the same things. We will be doing workboxes this year, which is new to us. Here's a link to the book which started this craze in homeschool circles not too long ago. The idea is to foster independent learning by helping kids move through their studies with minimal need for mom's help. There will be activities we do all together, but there will also be things they work on alone, which will free me up to work with the little ones as well. I'm really excited to see how this goes!

Bible- We are using Bible Study Guide For All Ages. This is a great program, because you can teach it to multiple ages, and it's interactive. The kids have activity pages they will work on during our story time that will help with their comprehension. BSGFAA does a complete survey of the Bible. It's a great way to help them see the big picture of the Bible. We will also be using their Non-reader timeline, and the CD which has songs helping them learn the books of the Bible, twelve tribes, apostles, etc. This will give them a good overview of the Bible, and then in the evenings we will continue going through Leading Little Ones to God, and The Children's Story Bible.

Math- We will be continuing with Math-U-See. The kids really like it, and I love that it's concept based, instead of the spiral approach used by so many other math programs. They get lots of practice on one principal before moving to the next thing. We will hopefully finish up Primer by January, and will start Alpha then. We will also be playing with our Evan Moor Take It To Your Seat learning centers. I got the K-1st set, and the kids have had lots of fun with them. These are math games that they do alone. I'll be able to use them in their workboxes to help reinforce math principles.

Phonics- We will be continuing with Spell to Write and Read. I can't begin to tell you how much I LOVE this program! It is so simple, and my kids are doing so well with it! It is a pure phonics program, and was developed to help children who struggled with dyslexia. Right now, we play with the phonogram cards, making words and so on. Once they are able to write well we will start the spelling dictation. (Proud mommy story: We've had a real reading breakthrough with Sawyer this week. He had been refusing to try reading out loud to me. Last night I told them after family devotions that they could stay up a little later if they were reading to me. They did each book together, alternating pages. We breezed through 5 BOB books! They did great! Then this morning Sawyer came up the stair carrying the books so he could read them to daddy!)

Handwriting- We have been using Cursive First. I had been getting a little frustrated because it felt like we were moving very slowly in this area. Campbell especially didn't seem to be getting it. Then another wiser mommy kindly reminded me she JUST TURNED FOUR! It's hard to not have the same expectations for her and Sawyer, since she acts so much older than she is. So, I ordered her a program called Ready Writer. It is a series of worksheets that helps with writing readiness. I think she'll really enjoy it. Sawyer will continue with the Cursive first. I will try to remember that they are only 4 and 5! We'll just be moving at our own pace.

LA, Science, Reading, History, Social Studies- I'm so happy to say we'll be doing ALL of this through Five In A Row! I love this curriculum! It is based on the Charlotte Mason style of gentle learning. We will "row" one book for a week, reading it each day for five days. Each day we will focus on a particular subject, and relate it to the book. We were very blessed to receive most of the books for Christmas and Birthdays, so we have quite a collection of them! Most of the books are classics. You can see a complete list of them here. We really liked this last year, and it will be nice to have Grace do it with us this year also.

We will also be doing some fun unit studies sprinkled in throughout the year. I purchased a Pirate unit from In the Hands of a Child at convention, and the kids each requested a few they'd like to try. We will get those from Homeschool Share.

Art- We started using Artistic Pursuits this summer with two other families. We are meeting at a park twice a month, and taking the older children through the lessons. So far I am extremely pleased with it! The kids are learning wonderful techniques as well as art history, and it is so simple to teach! We will be doing it all summer, then continuing throughout the school year.

We are excited about the new things we are adding this year, and I'm praying that we will be able to find a good routine, even with all the chaos of moving. I feel so blessed to be able to be at home with my little charges, and can't wait to watch them continue in their learning!