How we "do" school

Since I have many friends that are homeschooling and we are always curious about how each other are "doing" it... I thought I would fill in the ????? for you.
I have been testing a new school schedule for this first month (or so) of school and I am ready to reveal my processes and why I have chosen them. First, I have not got it all covered I'm sure, but I am trying to do that. Second, This is what works right now for my family and certainly may not for your family, but I arranged my schedule by reading many sources and you probably will too.

Now for the schedule, oopps, sorry I haven't one! Well, I mean we don't start at a certain time. I have a weekly schedule for what I want to accomplish. I have a spreadsheet that my dad help me make (because I am MS Office illiterate) that has the subject, lessons, appoximate time needed, and how many days it should take. After the week is over I go back and place a D for done in the spots. If we didn't get to something (like history) I will know that I need to catch that up at a later time (unit study for us). The big thing with this set up is that tis is not my record keeping, well it suppliments my record keeping, but it is for my dds (darling daughters). I have one for each girl. She knows what she needs to do for the week and she is allowed to do it in the order she chooses. So if she chooses to do 3 days of math at one time, she is credited for the days in math. Ok a better explaination is ... when she gets all the lessons done, no matter the order she does them in, she gets 5 days of school credit. Since there are some guidelines to what is to be done and for how long, this helps me make sure all is well with school! This also gives the girls freedom to do the yucky stuff (handwriting) first or save the hard stuff for last. I think it is along the workboxes vein but a little more freedom. Here is an example...

Now the main reason for my giving so much freedom, is do to learning/personality styles. My oldest, who actually has the freedom, is a mama hen (literally but that is another post), she likes to be in charge. I am so often trying to cull this in her, so that she may see the rewards of obedience, that I thought I would let her have an area in which she really is in control ... or at least thinks she is. I do guide on a daily basis. My youngest dd is very much in need of my attention so we do school together, usually her in my lap, so that we can be close and snuggle. She doesn't use the "do it when you want" thing quite as much, but she thinks she does. :)

Now as for me, this is what I REALLY use. I have to accomplish 180 days with each child for a school year. So I made (again with my dad's help) my idea of a lesson planner. It is a spread sheet with 1-180 and a listing for each subject. I used this only last year. I would simply write in the days we had school, and what we did. Simple, simple and no pressure to get anything done. Now the draw back was no pressure to get things done... Now this year I keep up with the days on this planner. I will fill in 5 days after they are done with the week, but it also leaves me room to add in those field trip days, and co-ops that are not part of the five days of work. That means if they get their week's worth of work done in 4 days and we have co-op that week, they get 6 days worth of school days credit.

This also works greatly for unit study times. I can fill in what we have learned that day and be able to keep up with the days it takes to go through a certain unit. I had thought of just using the girls planners, but it just wasn't working for me so I went back to ole faithful...

So I hope you have learned a little and maybe thought of some fine tuning you could do... Have fun and happy homeschooling!

Homeschool Curriculum 2009-2010

Well, we are off on our home school journey for yet another year. Smiley in 2nd grade, Jmama in K, and Boy in the way! The newness of crisp books and clean paper is enough to make the school year a delightful beacon. Well the start of it anyway.
This is about our choices for this year and how they are working, or maybe not...
Math: I have a 2nd grader that is great at math, like her momma, she just gets it. That is such a blessing. We are using Miquon Math Red book. I love it for her. She looks at the paper and 80% of the time she already knows what to do. Sometimes I have to slow her down and teach her how to use the tools in the book, like number lines. She is great at it with out the new stuff, but it may be helpful later. Miquon math +++ for Smiley.
Language Arts: This same 2nd grader is also going through "First Language Lessons". Again, great for her she gets what I am presenting to her and it is so helpful that FLL is so scripted! Woo Hoo! She is learning nouns, poems, thinking through a picture and the actions on it. Fun stuff. FLL +++ for Smiley. She is also doing some reading comprehension from an old book that I was given. The wording is kinds tricky, so she is not flying through it but with a little thought guidance, she usually figures it out. (if not she is in a ball of tears... perfectionist) I plan on moving to this at Currclick when we are done. She likes the story, that is why I am sticking with this one for now. She has 10 minutes of free reading/listening 3 times a week that we overfill with books on cd and her reading to her little brother before bed. And the 3 shouts and a trumpet go to our spelling program: Sequential Spelling! I love it. You don't study words to forgot them tomorrow, you just repeat them and then they stick! Love it, did I say that? She is spelling words she has never seen, and often right the first time. Sequential Spelling +++ and a horn, woot woot!
Handwriting and Scripture memory: These are together because we use "A Reason for Handwriting". This is Scripture based, you have 3 days of word copy, one day of verse copy and finally you copy the verse inside a "frame" and give it away, or just to have record of handwriting. Since we are already practicing our handwriting with Scripture, I figured this is a great verse to memorize, so that is what we do. I think the fact that she is writing words from the verse helps her to remember it. "A Reason for Handwriting"+++.
Now for my Kindergartner we have a very loose plan, she is in K after all!
Math: We are again using Miquon Math but Orange. I am not sure we will stay here with her yet, I just can't decide if she is struggling with the way it is presented in Miquon, or if she just struggles with Math in general. I will have to get back to you on that one. Miquon for K, +.
Language Arts: We are just focusing on reading right now and using "Ordinary Parents Guide to teaching Reading" This is just her speed so it is going well. We skipped the memory in the beginning because she had already learned her sounds through Abeka last year. She was having a harder time trying to remember the new poem than learn the sound so I just moved on to the reading part. Glad I did, she is doing great and loves that she is learning to read. Bob books will be presented soon.
She is not doing memory verses yet, I just don't want to overwhelm her. That will be later and most likely the same that sister is learning.
Now the girls have a few things they both do:
Typing: Yes I have started both kids typing. They are on the computer and I don't want them to get into bad habits. So Smiley is just using a free program I have found and she likes it. I found lots of cd programs online but most have content I was not comfortable with. I may try an adult program next year but for now, this is great. Jmama is using Talking Fingers and she really likes it. It is reinforcing her reading skills, which I love.
History: we will be using Mystery of History. We started it last year and it was just over all heads, so we will do it this year. It has visual/hands-on stuff that I like.
Science: Stratton House kits. I think it is going to be great. I wanted some fun stuff to add to all the paperwork type things so this is it. right now it is the bird study. This time of year makes it very interesting. Currently, we are trying to identify some birds. We fill out an identification worksheet on them, try to get a picture, then look the bird up and see what it is. This has made our interest in birds even greater. We will be doing "My body" after the birds... can't wait for that one!
Hebrew: We have chosen Hebrew as a second language. There are many reasons, but I will save those. My mom is the one in charge of Hebrew. She has been learning Hebrew for a few years now and I suggested she teach the kids so as to keep it fresh and use it! Rosetta Stone is the way to go for foreign language, especially if you choose an odd language. :)

I am going to post our scheduling of school days soon, so check back!

Letterboxing

We just finished our first "treasure hunt" otherwise known as letterboxing. I found out about it and just started digging deeper into it. I have always wanted to go geocaching so when I heard about this I was instantly curious. It requires nothing much more than a compass and time. We were able to find our first box without a compass, just simple clues.
I am not a "Hey lets take a walk and see what we see" kind of mom. I kinda have to have a goal and destination. Well this is the way for me to get out, hike, walk and school my kids along the way. On this particular hunt we went to a local nature trail. The clues were very simple... follow this trail, look for a fork in the road go east, pass two Braille signs and look toward 300 degrees and in the middle of the tree you will find it! And we did! As we looked we talked about a fork in the road, and about the reasons for Braille signs. We found several tiny frogs and saw turtles and fish. We talked about leaves of 3, let them be. We also saw some cool trees and flowers. All while hunting for a plastic box. When we got to the box we were not really sure what to do as it was our first. We just looked at it funny.
Then I got to explain... We opened the box and found a stamp and a book. The stamp was of a hand and a tree, the clue was in the "palm" of the tree. Perfect sense. We took scrapbook paper for this one so we each stamped our paper and we kept that. Next we looked at the book. This book started in 2006. In it was stamps from a Girl scout troupe and folks from all over, very cool! Now it was our turn to say "we were here". Each girl had a stamp they had gotten out of their crafts, and stamped a page in the book. On it they wrote their names and the date. Just another in a long list but very neat to see where they all came from. We did put that on there also.
One of the unusual things about box we found is that it had been there for 5+ years! How fun is that. I bet I have walked past letterboxes and never knew they were there! They are all over the city and parks, and there are LOTS all over the country.
We had a great time, even the boy enjoyed exploring nature. He told me the places he needed his hammer and when he was working.
Overall, I will put this on our list of things to do on vacation from now on! I had a ball, and the next day we introduce Daddy to the hunt. He had as much fun as we had the evening before. It was a good thing he was there, I didn't understand the clues as well this time but he did. I guess that's the fun of it, sometimes you find it, sometimes you don't!
I hope you get a chance to look up some places close to you and enjoy the game! Here are some sites for ya! http://www.atlasquest.com/ and LbNA