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!

Summer Swap for kids!

Hadley, over at Life of a Dairy Queen, is doing a Super Summer Swap for kids! Check it out here. My kids love getting mail, so I think they are really going to love this! It will be a fun way to learn about other parts of the country, as they get packages from kids from other states!

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!

2009 ICHE Convention

WOW...What an amazing two days I had! I attended the Illinois Christian Home Educators Homeschool convention this past Thursday and Friday. My sweet (and brave!) husband watched the kids while I was gone - and that's a whole other post I need to write. Let's just say I came home to a spotless, dirty dishes and laundry-free house! He's the best!

I was a little nervous about going. I was excited about it, but afraid that once there, I would get bogged down with feelings of doubt about curriculum choices and guilt over what I WASN'T doing. There is so much out there to use that is GOOD - it's sometimes hard to weed through that and find what's BEST. And the best for our family will be totally different from other families. I spent time praying about it, and was amazed that instead of feeling overwhelmed and confused, the Lord confirmed the choices Ryan and I had made regarding curriculum. I now have a great sense of peace, even after attending informational sessions for other curriculum programs.

I attended a convention with my parents when I was in middle school. The only thing I remember is a long hallway filled with book tables!(In fact, I still have the book my parents let me select!) Well, my memories of that conference in no way prepared me for the enormous amount of information that was about to be stuffed into every bit of free space in my brain. By Thursday night I was feeling a little foggy, and I still had another day to sit through!

Thursday began with Tedd Tripp, author of Shepherding a Child's Heart. He spoke on getting to the heart of your child's sinful behavior. It was a good reminder that the purpose of discipline is to reach the heart and point the child to God, not correct "annoying or undesired" behavior. I've loved his books, and really enjoyed the opportunity to hear him speak live. He spoke again on Friday afternoon - "Giving Children a Vision of God's Glory." This subject stressed the need to remove the idols from our children's lives, instead of polishing them for them. Also that kids view of God is directly linked to our view of Him. I'm working on a post on that talk that will be up eventually. Not a light subject, and very convicting. I am still processing it all!

We attended 4 workshops on Thursday, and four on Friday. I'm just going to list a little blurb about each of them:

Jeannie Fulbright - Jeannie is the author of Apologia's K-6 Science Books. I attended three of her sessions. The 7 E's of choosing Curricula, Notebooking:Creativity with purpose, and Charlotte Mason:Excellence without Sacrifice. They were all good, but I especially enjoyed the notebooking class. I had previously avoided the Apologia books, because they just screamed TEXTBOOK, and that's not what I want for my kiddos, so I had decided we would look at other science options. Well, after listening to and participating in the notebooking class, I went and bought the Apologia Astronomy book! I was very impressed that this was NOT a dry, boring textbook, but very definitely a living book with ideas for projects and experiments, as well as narration instead of tests. My kids are going to love it!

Vicki Bentley - Vicki is the mom of 17 kids! (okay, she didn't give birth to all of them, but she did homeschool all of them - some were foster kids) I loved her session on Getting Kids to Help at Home. She had some great ideas on what to do about kids who decide they don't want to do their chores, and fostering responsibility in children. The idea I found most enlightening was the concept of training them when they are little in HOW to do the chore. I don't know why it didn't occur to me before, but she has the child do the chore right along with her until they are experienced enough to handle it on their own. Her motto is "As a mom, you need to work yourself out of a job." So this summer, we are going to work on some chore training.

Dianne Craft - Can you say BRAIN OVERLOAD? Dianne is an amazing woman. She is a certified Natural Health Professional (think lab coat, not peasant skirt and bag of granola), as well as the learning specialist for HSLDA. I went to two of her sessions, and had planned on going to another two, but just couldn't handle any more of the info, so I'll be downloading those sessions to listen to later. Dianne spoke on Identifying and Correcting Blocked Learning Gates, which was excellent. I went with a couple friends, and we all sat there saying wow - that's MY kid she's talking about! I was overwhelmed by the amount of information she gave us, and will be implementing a lot of it with some of my kids soon. The second session was Teaching the Right Brained Child. This was a great session as well, and actually taught me a lot about my own (overly-dominant right) brain!

Steve Demme- This was another great session, simply because Steve is a very Godly man who is very committed to the family. He is the creator of Math-U-See, and pastor of a church on the east coast. His session was Why We Do What We Do, and How to Keep At It. We spent the hour discussing why we homeschool, and ways to keep from getting discouraged or distracted. It was a great reminder of why we chose this path in the first place.

I had promised the kids I'd bring them each a surprise, so the vendor hall was a lot of fun for me! I got some great deals, was able to order our curriculum for next year (I'll be posting on this seperately), and got some fun things for the kids. Sawyer got one of Ken Ham's Dinosaur books - this is huge since we don't have any creation based (or evolutionary, for that matter) dinosaur books. Campbell got James Herriott's Treasury for Children. I knew she'd love this, since the whole book is filled with stories of animals he took care of while working as a vet in the English countryside. Grace got some Doug and Melissa animal lacing cards. I wanted to find something she'd be able to do independently while we were busy with school in the fall. They should be perfect! All poor Cullen got was a big smoochy from mommy! And I can't forget the big kid! I found a book at Rainbow Resources called Backyard Ballistics. It has directions for making potato cannons, rockets, etc. If it explodes, it's probably in this book. He was really excited, and I found him and Sawyer on our bed yesterday going through it and writing out a list of the things they needed to go get this weekend to try making a few things!

Overall, it was a wonderful time of renewal for me. I came away feeling convicted about some things I need to work on as a mom, as well as energized for the next step in this journey.

We have a READER!

Just had to share this small success! We have been doing Spell to Write and Read since January, and both kids are doing well with it. They are making great progress through the BOB books, but haven't shown a lot of interest in reading other things unless I ask them to sound out a word.

Yesterday we were getting groceries. I was trying to pay and wrestle the baby back into the cart, so I sent the big three over to a bench across from the checkout, in front of a salon. I was watching them, and saw Campbell looking up at a sign in the salon window. She started sounding out the letters, and said "Sawyer! That sign says 'Nails'! " And she was RIGHT!!! It has been so much fun to watch them discover things, and to see how they grow in their comprehension and application of concepts! I'm so glad I'm the one who gets to see it happen!

Homeschool Share is BLASTing off!!

The annual Homeschool Share BLAST is underway! Click here to get info on how to submit your original unit studies, file folder games, workbox activities, etc. They are giving away some fabulous prizes, and we all win, since it means even more terriffic units to use with our kiddos! Join in the fun!

Giveaways at The Architect and the Artist!

Here's a link to Debbie's blog. She's a homeschooling mom to two boys. GREAT blog!

Someone posted this over on Homeschool Share's forum, and I thought it was hilarious! We haven't run into any rude or questioning people (yet!), but we've only just started, so maybe it's coming!

The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish Listby Deborah Markus, from Secular Homeschooling, Issue #1, Fall 2007

1 Please stop asking us if it's legal. If it is — and it is — it's insulting to imply that we're criminals. And if we were criminals, would we admit it?

2 Learn what the words "socialize" and "socialization" mean, and use the one you really mean instead of mixing them up the way you do now. Socializing means hanging out with other people for fun. Socialization means having acquired the skills necessary to do so successfully and pleasantly. If you're talking to me and my kids, that means that we do in fact go outside now and then to visit the other human beings on the planet, and you can safely assume that we've got a decent grasp of both concepts.

3 Quit interrupting my kid at her dance lesson, scout meeting, choir practice, baseball game, art class, field trip, park day, music class, 4H club, or soccer lesson to ask her if as a homeschooler she ever gets to socialize.

4 Don't assume that every homeschooler you meet is homeschooling for the same reasons and in the same way as that one homeschooler you know.

5 If that homeschooler you know is actually someone you saw on TV, either on the news or on a "reality" show, the above goes double.

6 Please stop telling us horror stories about the homeschoolers you know, know of, or think you might know who ruined their lives by homeschooling. You're probably the same little bluebird of happiness whose hobby is running up to pregnant women and inducing premature labor by telling them every ghastly birth story you've ever heard. We all dislike you, so please go away.

7 We don't look horrified and start quizzing your kids when we hear they're in public school. Please stop drilling our children like potential oil fields to see if we're doing what you consider an adequate job of homeschooling.

8 Stop assuming all homeschoolers are religious.

9 Stop assuming that if we're religious, we must be homeschooling for religious reasons.

10 We didn't go through all the reading, learning, thinking, weighing of options, experimenting, and worrying that goes into homeschooling just to annoy you. Really. This was a deeply personal decision, tailored to the specifics of our family. Stop taking the bare fact of our being homeschoolers as either an affront or a judgment about your own educational decisions.

11 Please stop questioning my competency and demanding to see my credentials. I didn't have to complete a course in catering to successfully cook dinner for my family; I don't need a degree in teaching to educate my children. If spending at least twelve years in the kind of chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out educational facility we call public school left me with so little information in my memory banks that I can't teach the basics of an elementary education to my nearest and dearest, maybe there's a reason I'm so reluctant to send my child to school.

12 If my kid's only six and you ask me with a straight face how I can possibly teach him what he'd learn in school, please understand that you're calling me an idiot. Don't act shocked if I decide to respond in kind.

13 Stop assuming that because the word "home" is right there in "homeschool," we never leave the house. We're the ones who go to the amusement parks, museums, and zoos in the middle of the week and in the off-season and laugh at you because you have to go on weekends and holidays when it's crowded and icky.

14 Stop assuming that because the word "school" is right there in homeschool, we must sit around at a desk for six or eight hours every day, just like your kid does. Even if we're into the "school" side of education — and many of us prefer a more organic approach — we can burn through a lot of material a lot more efficiently, because we don't have to gear our lessons to the lowest common denominator.

15 Stop asking, "But what about the Prom?" Even if the idea that my kid might not be able to indulge in a night of over-hyped, over-priced revelry was enough to break my heart, plenty of kids who do go to school don't get to go to the Prom. For all you know, I'm one of them. I might still be bitter about it. So go be shallow somewhere else.

16 Don't ask my kid if she wouldn't rather go to school unless you don't mind if I ask your kid if he wouldn't rather stay home and get some sleep now and then.

17 Stop saying, "Oh, I could never homeschool!" Even if you think it's some kind of compliment, it sounds more like you're horrified. One of these days, I won't bother disagreeing with you any more.

18 If you can remember anything from chemistry or calculus class, you're allowed to ask how we'll teach these subjects to our kids. If you can't, thank you for the reassurance that we couldn't possibly do a worse job than your teachers did, and might even do a better one.

19 Stop asking about how hard it must be to be my child's teacher as well as her parent. I don't see much difference between bossing my kid around academically and bossing him around the way I do about everything else.

20 Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet, boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because he's homeschooled. It's not fair that all the kids who go to school can be as annoying as they want to without being branded as representative of anything but childhood.

21 Quit assuming that my kid must be some kind of prodigy because she's homeschooled.

22 Quit assuming that I must be some kind of prodigy because I homeschool my kids.

23 Quit assuming that I must be some kind of saint because I homeschool my kids.

24 Stop talking about all the great childhood memories my kids won't get because they don't go to school, unless you want me to start asking about all the not-so-great childhood memories you have because you went to school.

25 Here's a thought: If you can't say something nice about homeschooling, stop talking!