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Old 03-01-2015, 06:10 PM
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Default H'o'm'e's'c'h'o'o'l'e'r's chit chat - week of 03/02

Ya like my apostrophe use, Adrienne?

I'm sitting down right now to work out lessons for the week and thought I'd start our thread. I was kinda quiet last week for some reason. Going to try to be asleep on the earlier side tonight so I can start our day a little sooner than we have been.
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Old 03-01-2015, 06:52 PM
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I spent most of the weekend planning out March schoolwork. It's a shorter month because we'll squeeze in a few days off to coincide with the public school spring break, but I'm planning our spring break after Easter, when hopefully it will actually be spring-like here in Minnesota and we can be outside. ;-)

My 5 yo who just missed the cutoff for kindy this year is so gung ho on school right now! I'm not pushing anything, just working with her when she wants and she is making huge progress. She's finally figured out blending words and is having fun with lots of cutting and pasting projects. It's so fun to see!

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Old 03-01-2015, 07:13 PM
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The apostrophe's literally made me LOL... I knew why you did it instantly. hahahaha

Kara, that was how my oldest (Ben) was as well. He didn't miss the cut off, but he is a June birthday so we decided to give him a growth year and that year he learned so much I just decided to homeschool him. I love it when they are motivated & interested in learning!!!

We are cruising ahead at a good pace... we have actually completed a few of our books for the year already. This is the first time this has ever happened. It feels so WRONG to be so ahead. LOL. I'm actually ordering a few new books this week to keep the kids busy until summer. I'm also trying to sort out my list for what to buy for our curriculum next year.

We will have a shorter month, too. I have a week off planned for Spring Break. Looking forward to it!!!
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Old 03-01-2015, 08:16 PM
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I kinda have to schedule Spring break along with our public schools because my boys go to the high school. I'll probably spend that week hunting around for next year's resources.

Eh, we all know I'm not going to actually do that.
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Old 03-01-2015, 11:20 PM
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We didn't start until late becuase of having baby so no spring break in March. It's going to be a rough month though. More dental work for one of the boys. Surgery and things. BOO! I am hoping the weather can get nice so we can do some outside schoolwork type things. They love that so it makes the work easier and less like "work" than when we are stuck inside during the Winter.

I have a birthday boy this week so he will get that day off. It's a tradition my mom did with us when we were in school. She would call in for us and take us out to lunch and give us the day off. I loved it so I do that too!

I am going to start working on next years plan though and starting a pinterest board for some of the LA resources I have been finding!
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Old 03-01-2015, 11:25 PM
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I made a paper dominos game tonight for our 4 multiplication facts. Just have to print it out! Hoping that goes over well tomorrow!!
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Old 03-01-2015, 11:41 PM
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Any of you done any reading on the NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards)? I've also been volunteering teaching science and I've been trying to make heads or tails of the NGSS.

When I first looked at it months ago it was just gibberish...then I found some more explanatory material and it's starting to look like something useful. In a way they are turning everything upside down. Focusing more on 'experience' that then produces understanding rather than the memorization of facts. Plus drawing common threads between all scientific disciplines.

Gonna take me awhile to figure it all out!

On a more practical note: We've been working with the water cycle. This week we are going to play the water cycle game! I found the printables for the game we are going to play here: NOAA Water Cycle Game
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Old 03-01-2015, 11:43 PM
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I had a great friend (who has since passed away). She was one of those crazy old ladies with an attitude and she wore a shirt around that said:

"It's NOT possessive!"

That is the only reason I remember that rule. Because of her shirt!
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Old 03-02-2015, 12:45 AM
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OMG I'M DYING over this!!! bhahahahahahhaa
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Old 03-02-2015, 12:46 AM
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I'm getting antsy for spring break here, I'm sure the kids are too. We are doing ours later than usual because we have a trip planned to a waterpark. We try to keep our breaks super short though because we like to start summer break end of May and not start back up till Sept.

As for this week, it's probably going to be pretty normal...I really need to get my new SL IG because winging it for history is just not working well for me. I'm better as a box checker with that.
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Old 03-02-2015, 12:46 AM
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Especially since "Homeschooler's Chit chat" would have been perfectly fine!! bhahahahahaha!
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Old 03-02-2015, 03:50 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by adi&co. View Post
Especially since "Homeschooler's Chit chat" would have been perfectly fine!! bhahahahahaha!
Hey, I wanted to go ALL OUT, lol!

OMG, Eden made me laugh so hard I could hardly get through the rest of her spelling lesson today. I go through the list and ask her to briefly define each one before we start the unit, that way she can look up what she doesn't know and add them to her dictionary list. The word was 'cockpit' and she looked at me totally serious and said, "A pit for roosters."



It took me a couple seconds before I figured out where she came up with that and then busted out laughing. She was like, "What? What's so funny?!" So I told her the definition and then neither of us could stop laughing every time the word was used. Now she keeps picturing a rooster operating a machine gun in the cockpit.
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Old 03-02-2015, 05:55 PM
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Hey, I wanted to go ALL OUT, lol!

OMG, Eden made me laugh so hard I could hardly get through the rest of her spelling lesson today. I go through the list and ask her to briefly define each one before we start the unit, that way she can look up what she doesn't know and add them to her dictionary list. The word was 'cockpit' and she looked at me totally serious and said, "A pit for roosters."



It took me a couple seconds before I figured out where she came up with that and then busted out laughing. She was like, "What? What's so funny?!" So I told her the definition and then neither of us could stop laughing every time the word was used. Now she keeps picturing a rooster operating a machine gun in the cockpit.
This is so great! Because in a school setting she would've probably been teased. But now it's a fun goofy memory between the two of you!
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Old 03-03-2015, 07:58 PM
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Well, today was pretty much a bust. I woke up waaaaay too early, at 5am. Saw dh off to work and made breakfast for the boys because they took their ACT's today (eek!) and by the time Eden was up at 8:00 I was walking around in a fog. I don't do well when my sleep is messed up, lol! Thankfully, she was tired and grouchy too, so we did the bare basics, watched The Book Thief and called it a day.

What have you guys been doing for history?
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Old 03-03-2015, 09:14 PM
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LOL about the spelling!! That is good though - now she has a visual reminder of the meaning of the word!

For history I'm using Sonlight cores D and F, BUT I don't have the IGs, so we are winging it. We just have been reading the books at our own pace. Problem is, I don't do well with that. I need to check those boxes, it just works better. We've tried other things for history, but have not found anything that we all liked better than Sonlight.
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Old 03-03-2015, 10:53 PM
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It's all literature based, right?
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Old 03-03-2015, 11:13 PM
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uhhh yeah we don't really do history other than family history. We talk about our ancestors and events they went through, but that's about it. I'm an awful homeschooler.
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Old 03-03-2015, 11:20 PM
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I use Abeka history.
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Old 03-04-2015, 12:03 AM
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uhhh yeah we don't really do history other than family history. We talk about our ancestors and events they went through, but that's about it. I'm an awful homeschooler.
At their ages, they don't really need an official 'history' lesson so don't feel bad! The curriculum I use (My Father's World) starts with Bible as a history element in k and 1st and then eases in with early American history in 2nd.
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Old 03-04-2015, 12:46 AM
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A few years ago my 13 year old said that she only likes history from two sources. First, her dad, who can tell long, details history stories in an engaging way, and secondly, Jim Weiss, who narrated the audiobook version of Story of the World, and is also a very engaging storyteller. We listened to the Story of the World series in the car on long drives, repeatedly, off and on, for a few years.

Since then I think she might say she enjoys history from some other sources as well. Our whole family loves John Green's Crash Course history videos on YouTube. A few nights ago my 11 year old daughter said she was determined to stay up all night to watch the entire U.S. History series. We didn't quite make it; I think we couldn't stay awake any longer around Post-Civil War Reconstruction.
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Old 03-04-2015, 12:49 AM
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I have heard Story of the World is amazing!
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Old 03-04-2015, 02:07 AM
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At their ages, they don't really need an official 'history' lesson so don't feel bad! The curriculum I use (My Father's World) starts with Bible as a history element in k and 1st and then eases in with early American history in 2nd.
Oh that makes me feel better. Thanks! I do not do well with history unless is engaging and in a storytelling way, so I have a hard time with finding a history curriculum that won't bore me to death while teaching them, haha
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Old 03-04-2015, 10:49 AM
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I started out using vol one of SOTW last year... I only have the CD's for one of the volumes... but the activities are neat and I supplement with a lot of history books. This year we are doing us history because of matching up with CC... so For american history, we are starting Notgrass's American the Beautiful... but I've been lax on it.... just pretty much reading history picture books and watching videos.
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Old 03-04-2015, 12:27 PM
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We are doing world geography this year but are planning to use SOTW starting with Rome next year (we did ancient civilizations through Greece last year.) My kids love history, though, so I work it into a lot of our reading. We are also doing a very light overview of American history because we may be traveling to D.C. this summer/fall -- we're mainly watching documentaries and doing some reading that correlates with American history. (And watching Liberty's Kids, which all my kids enjoy!)
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Old 03-04-2015, 05:14 PM
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Adrienne, quit saying you're a terrible homeschooler. Not acceptable. You are doing a wonderful job and your kids will benefit from all your attention tremendously.

Eden was watching those John Green videos at the middle school and really liked them, but I didn't realize how extensive they were. I thought it was just a few videos. I'll have to go check those out. She'd love to watch them again.
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Old 03-04-2015, 05:17 PM
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We are going to Illinois for spring break to visit family in Springfield. This is, of course, the perfect place to study Lincoln since you can visit his house, the museum, living history area etc... I have some books and a few videos to watch as 'prep', but mostly it's going to be visiting the actual area that will be most important!
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Old 03-04-2015, 05:37 PM
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Hey girls, I got permission to share a couple files with you. I used Traci and Yari's kit to make a homeschool planner for myself, had it made into a Blurb magazine and ordered it yesterday. I made one for Eden with some planner printables I bought through Etsy and got it last week. It turned out SO awesome and super useful. Anyway, I created a few pages of my planner that don't have any of the kit images on them, just the colors. I thought I'd share them, just if you want to try them. Of course, I only have one child so I'm not sure how you'd make it work for more than one. I like to just schedule everything out and follow it loosely. Rarely does it work out the way I planned, but it gives me some direction.

This one I write the subject on the left and decide what I want accomplish by the end of the week.



I sit down on Monday morning and pencil in what I need to do during the week so I know what days to keep work light and which days I can squeeze extra stuff in. I put our dr. appts, art class, piano, stuff like that. Put the date in the little circle.



I've used different variations of these daily sheets for years. Keeps me from doing too little or trying to do too much in a day.



Here's a link to download
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ug3dlo0gv3...share.zip?dl=0

I'll share how the planner looks when it arrives. Sometime within the next week.
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Old 03-04-2015, 05:46 PM
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Oh my goodness Val, I love that! I would have to figure out how to make it work for all the kids, but I absolutely LOVE the idea of a magazine!!
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Old 03-04-2015, 05:54 PM
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It's all literature based, right?
Yep. This year I thought I could do without the guide (it is over $100), but turns out I really kind of need it. Otherwise I read too little or too much or whatever each day. Plus, I just do better when I see us making visual progress through the curriculum rather than just reading.
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Old 03-04-2015, 06:07 PM
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Oh my goodness Val, I love that! I would have to figure out how to make it work for all the kids, but I absolutely LOVE the idea of a magazine!!
Yeah, when I first thought of sharing them I realized that most of you have more than one child and I didn't know how it would work. When I had two at home I made a little bullet point list for each one with MS Word every week and crossed things off as they went.
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Old 03-04-2015, 06:27 PM
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Oh, I almost forgot. The 'remember this' part at the bottom of the daily schedule I jot down different things that happened that I want to remember to scrapbook. Like when Eden thought cockpit was for roosters, that kind of thing.
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Old 03-04-2015, 08:16 PM
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Adrienne, quit saying you're a terrible homeschooler. Not acceptable. You are doing a wonderful job and your kids will benefit from all your attention tremendously.
Sorry, that comment comes from me feeling extremely inadequate and that I have no idea what I'm doing. I feel shoved into homeschooling, it's not a choice I normally would have made for my family and I really don't know what I'm doing... haaaa
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Old 03-04-2015, 11:29 PM
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Sorry, that comment comes from me feeling extremely inadequate and that I have no idea what I'm doing. I feel shoved into homeschooling, it's not a choice I normally would have made for my family and I really don't know what I'm doing... haaaa
Just remember that when your kids are young, they are learning in everything they do! I have homeschooled since my 13-year-old was like 3 (aside from 1 year we did public) - I was overly excited and wanted to start. I literally had my 3-year-old doing workbooks and flashcards and everything. She is a smart girl, but no smarter from all that extra stuff I did than my other kids who didn't do much structured until 2nd or 3rd. One thing I have learned is that at least for the first 3 or 4 years of school, you truly don't need curriculum or to have all the subjects covered. I mean, if I could go back with my older ones and do it over, for K and 1st at least, I would probably just have them practice reading for a short time each day, a short handwriting practice sheet, and maybe a math game, no more than 45 min to an hour a day. I always wanted to have a super impressive curriculum all planned out for my kids, and I did most of the time, but that does not mean that they learned any more (and probably had way less fun) than an unschooling family who didn't have structured learning planned out.

A lot of rambling there, but I just don't want you to feel you are not doing a good job - that is the feeling I was working against for so many years, and most of that stress and over-working of the kids was just plain unnecessary.
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Old 03-05-2015, 02:28 AM
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Thanks that makes me feel better. I do seem to fall under the "unschooling" category more than traditional homeschooling. We do two one hour chunks during the day, one with reading/writing/workbooks (this changes every day) and the other chunk is online stuff since they both really respond well to doing school on the computer. One does the computer while the other does the workbook stuff and then they switch. We usually do art on Fridays and I just let them draw, cut and paste, paint or whatever they want to do that day. It makes me feel better that all of you think I'm doing ok because my husband puts a lot of pressure on me to make it more like public school. The point of us homeschooling was to get away from the public school mold though, so I'm torn between doing it my way and at least trying a little bit to make it look like I"m doing it his way, haha
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Old 03-05-2015, 09:39 AM
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Oh gosh, I used to think I had to model my days after public school too, which is counter-productive if you think about it. It is hard to break from it, though. I get it. I still struggle with it a little, but make sure to read and educate myself on the subject so that I have a constant reminder that compulsory school is NOT the holy grail of learning. KWIM?

I think these books could really encourage you.

http://www.amazon.com/Free-Learn-Unl...=free+to+learn

http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Your-Own...teach+your+own

http://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-C...umbing+us+down

I'm quite certain that Michele (Michelepixels) would have some read words of wisdom for you as well.
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Old 03-05-2015, 12:05 PM
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Ok, so I was looking at the John Green videos to see what might match up with what we've been learning about in history and HOLY FREAKING CRAP he talks way too fast! I realize that makes me sound a little lame, but it's too fast for me. I was getting stressed out just trying to keep up with him.
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Old 03-05-2015, 01:54 PM
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Ah, I feel you there. My sister also homeschools, and her husband is like that. He feels it should be a public school at home situation. That's hard when you have 2 different/opposite viewpoints!

Have your kids tried Time4Learning by chance? Just wondering because you said they like online stuff, and my kids have really enjoyed that. Other ones they have enjoyed are Reading Eggs, Xtramath, Khan Academy.
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Old 03-05-2015, 02:00 PM
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My hubby was homeschooled and his mom did it just like public school from like 8-3 everyday. Very structured and organized. I can't do that. I love the flexibility of home schooling!
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Old 03-05-2015, 02:45 PM
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Have your kids tried Time4Learning by chance?
haha yeah that's actually what we use and reading eggs/math seeds. We also use a little bit of turtlediary.com, but that is mostly just games that have some educational value to them, so it's usually a friday only thing.
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Old 03-05-2015, 02:58 PM
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My hubby was homeschooled and his mom did it just like public school from like 8-3 everyday. Very structured and organized. I can't do that. I love the flexibility of home schooling!
This makes me shiver down my spine. What. Is. The. Point!? Ugh... I have no idea why some homeschoolers do this.

Adi, I would say go with your gut. I do school for Grace in about 1 1/2 hours a day... and I do have official 'curriculum' but that's only because I do better with a schedule and guideline for what to do when. It keeps me accountable to giving her a variety of schoolwork, not just the stuff that's easy for me. I am way too easily disctracted to do my own planning and stuff. I can tell when she is grasping something and I have no problem skipping stuff... because like Kelley said, before grade 2 they are sponges and they learn A LOT through play & exploration. I try not to sweat it.

I don't know if you do this, but one of the most simple school activities we do is singing. We have a few videos that we watched on YouTube when Ben was in Kindergarten that taught us songs for months of the year, days of the week, short vowel sounds, etc. YouTube is packed with educational songs! And our curriculum comes with a set of alphabet cards that we sing through every day... it's the A-A-Apple song. SO incredibly helpful for learning to read by phonics. Here's a video of Grace doing it:

Grace Sings A-A-Apple Song
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Old 03-05-2015, 03:21 PM
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Oooh Brook that is a good point about the youtube music! We did the Animaniacs 50 states song, and now we are working on Yakko's Countries of the World. It is so fun!
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Old 03-05-2015, 03:22 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by adi&co. View Post
haha yeah that's actually what we use and reading eggs/math seeds. We also use a little bit of turtlediary.com, but that is mostly just games that have some educational value to them, so it's usually a friday only thing.
I haven't heard of Turtle Diary! Off to check that out...
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Old 03-05-2015, 07:09 PM
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You guys are so awesome. Giving me so many new links and ideas! I LOVE IT!!! Thank you! <3 <3
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Old 03-05-2015, 07:33 PM
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We totally do the singing stuff! I bought all the leapfrog vids when Marcus was little and add the new ones when they come out. When he was 2, he had maybe 5 words he'd ever said but was singing the entire alphabet and able to name all the letters and their sounds just from watching that leapfrog letter factory vid a few times. Music is a HUGE key to Marcus learning because it's a separate area in your brain than speech and the music area isn't affected by his communication disorder. We're always looking up songs for things, haha! I'll have to try that animaniacs one. we have a 50 states and a presidents of the US one that I learned while in kindy and it's stuck with me! Music really works!
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Old 03-05-2015, 07:38 PM
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So true about music and learning - Jake LOVES learning by song, which is good since CC is full of little songs... and when there isn't a song, he will make one up - like today, he made up a song to learn his church bible version "Love is patient"... learning by song is not my learning style and it can really get on my nerves...
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Old 03-05-2015, 09:29 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by YepBrook View Post
This makes me shiver down my spine. What. Is. The. Point!? Ugh... I have no idea why some homeschoolers do this.

Adi, I would say go with your gut. I do school for Grace in about 1 1/2 hours a day... and I do have official 'curriculum' but that's only because I do better with a schedule and guideline for what to do when. It keeps me accountable to giving her a variety of schoolwork, not just the stuff that's easy for me. I am way too easily disctracted to do my own planning and stuff. I can tell when she is grasping something and I have no problem skipping stuff... because like Kelley said, before grade 2 they are sponges and they learn A LOT through play & exploration. I try not to sweat it.

I don't know if you do this, but one of the most simple school activities we do is singing. We have a few videos that we watched on YouTube when Ben was in Kindergarten that taught us songs for months of the year, days of the week, short vowel sounds, etc. YouTube is packed with educational songs! And our curriculum comes with a set of alphabet cards that we sing through every day... it's the A-A-Apple song. SO incredibly helpful for learning to read by phonics. Here's a video of Grace doing it:

Grace Sings A-A-Apple Song
She shushed you! LOL!!!
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Old 03-05-2015, 09:31 PM
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Adrienne, if you think it would make your dh a little more at ease, you could always just print off the TFL reports and leave them out for him to view. I used TFL for my dd our last year of homeschooling before I put her back in public school and I still have printouts of her reports. Made it feel like I had something official to produce should anyone ask me for something while I was registering her.
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Old 03-05-2015, 10:11 PM
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thanks, good idea!
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Old 03-07-2015, 10:14 AM
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I"m really super proud of Eden this week. She was having a rough day and decided to take the day off, but still did her math and grammar lessons, because she knows those are important to stay on top of. So that was wise decision #1. She worked well the rest of the week and only had a spelling test to take on Fri. Well, I was tired and took a nap and while I was sleeping she went on Spelling City, plugged in her words and took her own test, lol! Wise decision #2

I praised her for being proactive, not waiting for someone to tell her what to do, in hopes that she will continue to make these kinds of choices.

I would say that was my 'high' of the week. My 'low' would probably be... gosh. At the moment I can't think of one.

Anyone want to share their highs and lows?
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Old 03-08-2015, 02:27 AM
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Our highs this week were starting piano lessons with a lady at our church and both boys doing phenomenally better than I expected them to! Jamesen gets stressed easy and rather than crying and refusing to even try (like I expected), he listened and actually did pretty well for his first time! And Marcus has a really hard time sitting and focusing usually, but he was doing awesome too. They even did great the next day (friday) when we practiced at home. I hope it continues! Jamesen (who is in Kindy) also picked up a book and said, "Mom, can I read to you?" and then read me a whole book (Danny and the Dinosaur go to camp) without even being asked to. I was amazing he could read that well! I've never really pushed him to read because he's only in Kindy. It's all because of the pokemon cards I tell you!!
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