Spelling You See, Review Before the Review

We were very lucky this year to not only be allowed to use ECJ as a guinea pig for a new level of Spelling You See ... but also to be given two free copies of the Jack and Jill level to review for my girls!!

** Although I was given these products for free that in no way turns my head in one direction or the other. My opinion is my own honest opinion. If it works for us I'll let you know. If it doesn't work for us, again I'll let you know. Other than receiving the materials I have been in no way compensated for these reviews. **

We received ECJ's materials during the summer time and it was the first time ever that he's been excited about spelling!! I mean this boy does his spelling with absolutely no issue and first thing in the morning without having to be reminded. I cannot show the actual pages of it since it's just a trial version and they haven't finished it all up yet and I signed some legal documents stating such. But, we can say that he's really enjoying it still, is actually learning, AND has even picked up the dictionary several times on his own to look up new words!!! Having tried this out with him got me even more interested in the other levels.

That's him working on it there. We set it all in a red binder (remember these are not pre packaged books since this is still in the beginning stages) and he knows that only his spelling goes in there.

As for the girls we are using the Jack and Jill level for both girls. I wanted to start YCJ out with something that wouldn't intimidate her with her dyslexia. This level is working perfectly for both of them at the moment. We do it together first thing and yes YCJ finishes before Peanut since she's got more practice writing but I'm noticing a marked improvement in her spelling even though we're only in the third week with the program with the girls. YCJ may even be able to do another level at the end of this school year and through the summer at this rate... But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

This is the page they were working on Tuesday morning...
they do both pages each day.

 And while neither girl shows as much enthusiasm for it as their older brother, they both do it without complaint and have yet to make a mistake on any of the pages (unless you count Peanut's tendencies to sometimes write a letter backwards but since I'm watching and know what word she's writing I know that she's got the right answer). 

Sometimes it's better to do school as a princess...

YCJ is thrilled with the fact that there are no tests with this spelling program. She says that it takes all the worry right out of the work!

So far this program is working for all three campers! I'll update you in a month to let you know how things are going!

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Curriculum Choices '14-'15

Several weeks ago I did a several post series (almost entirely subject by subject) on what curriculum we'll be using come fall. I've decided that as the "official" start of the new school year is just a few weeks away I'd do a more streamlined version of those posts here. This time I'll be going student by student, grade by grade so that you'll be able to see what's going on more clearly. I'm also linking this post up to the Curriculum Week of the Not Back to School Blog Hop .

Peanut is moving on to first grade this fall after having done a combined school year last year with both pre-school and kindergarten (and having done a year of nursery school before that ... and when I say nursery school I mean she had hours of me reading and singing to her and two workbook/textbooks). She even began the first two of her first grade math workbooks (bought at the dollar store) back in April. Taking into account her personal issues with sight, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, and ADD I've come up with what I pray is a good game plan for her...

Bible: This will be Peanut's first official year in catechism at our parish and much of what she'll be doing Bible wise will be learned there. However, here at home we'll also be doing our daily readings (from the following list: Each Day with Jesus (Rudolph F. Norden), Bible Stories (John R. Rice), and The Holy Bible (with daily readings taken from the list provided in our church paper). Along with that we'll be working intently on some of our prayer work in anticipation of her First Communion (2nd grade) and her beginning to do her rosary. We'll also incorporate Holy Heroes Advent and Lenten Adventures again this year.
Language Arts: Language 1 will be the spine of our Language Arts lessons, we'll be doing Phonics Pathways for our phonics and readings lessons (along with several new reader books and hopefully more that we already have on hand), poetry from the book list provided by Mother of Divine Grace ,  copy work from our McGuffey Primer and First Reader, and spelling from Spelling You See (which also provides copy work for those of you unfamiliar with their product).
Mathematics: First Grade Math with it's many bright and colorful pages and manipulative's 
Science: Zoology 1 with the Junior Notebook along with nature walks and nature studies in the Charlotte Mason style. (Apologia to be started in October)
History: A History of US book 1 and possibly 2 (History to be started in November) We'll also be doing our Michigan and Kentucky studies in September and October respectively.
Health: Health Safety and Manners 1 (started in November)
Gym: We're considering ballet or gymnastics for sometime during the year as well as at least one session of swim lessons. Other than that we are outside quite a bit and count that as gym frequently.
Art: We'll be working through some chalk pastel work and studying various artists from America, textile crafts to improve fine motor skills.
Music:  SQUILT Vol. 1 and children's drums (drums being her choice)
Forgein Language: Songschool Latin and Lyric Language French (French first semester and Latin second) ... both of these are song based and fun to do.
Geography: Road Trip USA this also includes history within it and we'll be doing a lot of map tracing. It is very possible that this curriculum will be used two years in a row doing 25 states per year.
Misc.: We'll be using Brain Quest 1st grade workbook for extra practice mainly with our Language Arts and Math throughout the entire year. More life lessons about the housework and cooking, working on being more independent in self care.

Younger Cracker Jack (YCJ) will begin her fourth grade work this fall. You'll notice that many subjects she'll be doing will be combined with Peanut this year. This is because we'll be able to work two separate levels of the same subject together, making this easier on all of us. Please keep in mind when noting some of the choices that YCJ has improved in her reading over the past year or so (and really taken off this summer) but she does have dyslexia and certain subjects are far harder for her to do than they'd be otherwise.

Bible: Catechism classes at our parish, readings (see Peanut's list), daily rosary, and Nicene Creed copywork.
Language Arts: Language A and Spelling You See ... spelling we'll be doing the same level as Peanut but instead of working through the student workbooks she'll be writing everything out in a separate binder for more practice. Poetry will follow along with what's provided on the book list from Mother of Divine Grace .
Mathematics: Saxon Math 5/4 we're hoping this will provide more challenge than our previous math curriculum.
Science: Zoology 1 making use of the student notebook. You'll notice this is also a combined subject for the girls. (to begin in October) Nature walks and nature studies to continue throughout the year.
History: A History of US book 1 and possibly book 2 (to begin in November) this is another combined subject for the girls. As with Peanut we'll be doing out Michigan and Kentucky studies in September and October respectively.
Health: Developing Good Health (begins in November)
Gym: YCJ is vastly interested in ballet and so we may begin her on lessons this year (as we were not able to last year) and at least one session of swim lessons.
Art: Chalk pastels and various artists from America, crochet, and begin learning cross stitch.
Music: SQUILT Vol. 1 and continued recorder work.
Forgein Language: Songschool Latin and Lyric Language French (French First Semester and Latin second semester) ... another combined subject for the girls.
Geography: Road Trip USA the final combined subject for the girls.
Misc. We'll be using Brain Quest grade 4 workbook throughout the year for extra practice in math and language arts. We'll also be working on life lessons such as cooking and housework.

Elder Cracker Jack (ECJ) will be beginning his seventh grade lessons this fall. Though we could have accelerated his learning and taken him to higher grade levels for both language arts and math we decided that for now we'll keep him in the same grade level across the board. He'll also be working about 95% of the time independently from all of us. I'll be making his weekly lesson list for him and allowing him to go from there. If he needs help I'm here for him.

Bible: Catechism classes at our local parish along with all the same reading the rest of us are doing (though he'll be doing his daily reading from the Bible on his own), daily rosary, and Nicene Creed copy work.
Language Arts: Grammar and Composition , his very own spelling curriculum (sorry, but I am unable to disclose more at this time than it is a new level of Spelling You See), and literature from the Classical Conversations Challenge A list (no we are not members of CC but I do own one of their catalogues and believe the literature choices to be wonderful). Poetry will be covered through the book list at Mother of Divine Grace and the works of Mr. Poe.
Mathematics: Saxon Math 8/7 depending on how quickly he moves through the work we may begin Algebra or pre-Algebra using a mixture of Saxon and Painless Algebra.
Science: Physical Science (begins in October) he'll also be continuing his nature studies as it's one of his favorite subjects.
History: Studies in World History Vol. 1 this covers from 6000 BC through 1500 AD. (to begin in November). Michigan studies in September and Kentucky studies in October.
Health: Sex, Love, and Romance (to begin in November) and although this would be an optional book we've decided to go ahead and include it with supervision.
Gym: At least one session of swim classes and the inclusion of gymnastics (due to his many flips, twists, and acrobatics that he does we decided that he needs at least the basics for safety reasons).
Art: We'll be working through some chalk pastels and studying the work of the artists involved in the time periods he'll be studying in history.
Music: SQUILT Vol. 1 and continuation of personal guitar lessons. We'll also look into some of the music from the periods of history.
Forgein Language: Latin for the whole year Henle First Year Latin 
Geography: Geography is covered in the History text that ECJ will be working through, though we'll be adding map work (from present day) so that eventually he will know the general map of all countries covered in the history book by heart.
Misc.: Current Events: CNN Student News Independent Study Project: yet to be determined

Why we stagger our subjects: I've had several people ask me why we stagger our subjects into different months the way we do. We learned last year that by staggering the subjects we're able to get everything done (usually) by the end of May and not overly stress ourselves. Science comes before "official" lessons on history through text books because it takes more time to complete. Our nature walks get fewer and fewer as the days grow colder and there is less to observe leaving more time for science study through texts and experimentation. We begin the year with our two state studies (the same every year) so that I may check them off the list. Though neither state we report to requires yearly state studies I find it interesting and beneficial to cover some aspect of both states history each year. We begin History in November due to the weather being truly crisp if we're in Michigan and we're spending less and less time out of doors. The health texts we utilize are meant to cover one semester (or less) and so we begin those in November as well so that we'll have more time come spring to be outside. This works for us though it might not for anyone else.

And I know many of you are thinking, "Why do they report to two states?" The answer is pretty simple actually... We try to spend from around Jan. 1st through May in Kentucky. Some years (like this one) we weren't able to do so, but we inform both states at the beginning of the year all the same of our intent to homeschool. We follow both states laws and are very careful record keepers. Neither Kentucky nor Michigan are "bad" states to homeschool in. Michigan requires very little of it's homeschoolers and Kentucky not much more at all.

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More Changes?

Well, if you're a regular reader of mine you'll know that not that long ago I finished a small series of what we'll be doing curriculum wise next year. At the end of this post will be a series of links to each of those posts. For now though I thought I'd highlight just the changes in what we'll be doing, the things written in red are what's changed since the original posts on what we'll be doing.

Math - We're switching from A Beka Mathematics to Saxon Math for the Cracker Jacks and McRuffy Math for Peanut. The Cracker Jacks both needed a bit more of a challenge and Peanut needed something a lot more visually stimulating. Beginning this summer, and working with it throughout the school year, ECJ will also be working on a new book from a garage sale entitled Painless Algebra, which honestly looks rather fun.

Science - All three campers will be doing Apologia Science next year. The girls will be doing Zoology 1 together while ECJ will be working through Physical Science ... We chose this course simply because we enjoyed ECJ's work through their General Science course and wanted a more meaty science curriculum.

History - ECJ will be doing Studies in World History Vol. 1 while the girls will be working through the first few books of the History of US by Joy Hakim.

Language Arts - There are a few changes here. Spelling for ECJ will come from his vocabulary and reading, any words he doesn't know will be added to the list. YCJ will continue to do her spelling out of our "Big Books" and Peanut will begin with that as well as work with the McGuffey Speller. She'll also be working through the readers in that series, as will YCJ. All three will continue to have reading assigned by me that correlates to all topics that we're learning. We also picked up some wonderful early spellers through 5th grade from a garage sale that was used in one of the semi-local school districts back in the 1930's. We'll be using them for both girls as well. A children's dictionary was also discovered at that same garage sale and we're absolutely going to be working on definitions this year.

Music - We'll definitely be using SQUILT this year along with our continued efforts to learn our instruments. 

At the moment that pretty much covers our curriculum changes this upcoming school year. Below are several links to the specific posts where I talk about most of these things in depth.

Math
Language Arts
Science
History
Health, Physical Education, Art, and Music
Latin and Religion
Affording our chosen curriculum

Linked to:  Our Busy Homeschool

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"Big Books" are Awesome!

OK, I've been known to recommend these books. I like them, they work, they're not complicated to work through, and they don't take very long each day even doing a page or two from each section. I do not use these as our main curriculum BUT we do use them throughout the entire calendar year! I know several people who use them over the summer to keep their children fresh on their math and language arts skills.

What books am I talking about?

Flash Kids Complete Curriculum series by Harcourt Family Learning. We use these for our spelling (though we may try something different next year) and usually purchase these at our local Barnes and Noble's or off of Amazon. Yes, you will find some Common Core related items inside of these books. No, they are not completely filled with Common Core concepts and work. 

These books work really well to give your children extra practice at a lot of concepts and are age/grade level appropriate. I have yet to find a misprint or objectionable material presented in any of these books.

Another book series we've recently been trying out is...

Brain Quest books (at least the Kindergarten one which is the one I'm most familiar with) aren't set up as neatly as the Flash Kids books. BUT, they're separated by subjects and really engaging for Peanut to work through. I know that we'll continue using these books for a while at the very least. These toss in a bit of science and social studies which the Flash Kids books do not do.

Both of these sets of books work really well for us. Another set of books we are currently looking into for simply over the summer is the Summer Bridge Activities Books these are Common Core aligned, so if you're dead set against using Common Core completely aligned materials these may not be for you. These are broken down into monthly goals and activities for math, reading, science, and social studies. They're meant to be fun to work through and give you something new to check out. I've heard that some schools throughout the country actually recommend their use over the summer. These books are normally around $15 dollars but can be bought for less if they're having a sale, bought directly from the website I linked to, or if you catch a sale at your local book store concerning educational books. (Also, please be aware that if you have an ID stating that you are a homeschool educator or a teacher in a different type of school most book stores will give you a discount for classroom materials.) These books also have physical fitness and more! Right now at their online book shop you can purchase these summer books for just shy of $10 each! (I am NOT affiliated with this product, or any other listed on this page.) Transitions from Pre-K through 7/8 are available and they only sell the most recent editions.

So, these are a few of the workbook series that work for us now and probably will in the future, along with a series that "may" work for us but I've yet to check out.

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Affording Our Chosen Curriculum

This is a topic that is in the foremost of many homeschool parents. Just how in the world are we going to afford all this great curriculum we've finally narrowed down and chosen for the upcoming year? I hear it all the time from non-homeschoolers and new homeschoolers, not to mention those that have been homeschooling for a long time.

Some people set a budget and know that they can fit everything within it. Be their budget $100 or $1,000,000 (don't we all wish huh?) they know that x, y, and z will be covered simply because they have faithfully put aside the desired amount of money.

Then there's me. Yup, I have a budget. It's $400 total for the year for three campers. Yeah, I made it within that budget (barely) but not without some help. Do I already have that $400 sitting here ready for me to spend? Nope. Not. At. All.

So, how are we going to get our curriculum in time without having the money at the moment to purchase it? Some of you might say, "Oh, well, you can easily cover that amount in a few weeks/months before the start of the next school year in the fall." And you're really not all that far off. But, it's not an easy amount to cover for us. It's actually about one quarter of our monthly income! When you look at it in that light you can see that it might be a bit troublesome for us.

Here's the thing. We do break it down into smaller chunks. We don't buy everything all at once. And we don't begin all of our subjects at the same time during the year.

There are a few items that Noni (my mother) chooses each year to purchase instead of buying new school clothing for the campers, as she used to do when they were in public school. She finds this far cheaper than buying the clothing and much more full filling as well. For the fall she's purchasing Peanut's math and all of the campers English texts as well as their big books (we use these throughout the entire year, including summer). That's a grand total of $190.82 (before any shipping costs there may be) that we don't have to spend out of our pocket. $60.82 of which was still written into our budget which I now get to take back out.

That means our new grand total is $323.39.

There are three subjects that we will start right away in Sept. Those are: math, English, and science . Those materials will be purchased over the summer a bit at a time until we have them all. This is actually a good portion of our budget. A total of $196.71 will have to be spent over the summer months to have these texts on hand at the beginning of September. So, around $66 a month starting in June has to come out of our monthly income. This isn't horrible. It's entirely do-able as a matter of fact. It just means that some of the small extras that we are able to purchase cannot be done for the next three months (and we've had far worse cuts to our income in recent months than that). 

But, that still leaves the other subjects and roughly $126 dollars worth of materials left to buy. The good news for us is that most of this will be covered by my crochet sales in September and October at our local craft shows! I only need to make a profit of $65 dollars to cover our history (that we start in October) in September. Leaving about the same amount to be covered in my October sales for the subjects that will begin in November (Latin , Health, and Music ). Again, this is far more than a do-able thing considering the profit from these two months is usually above $200 (combined) just from the shows and not any orders I get while I'm there. 

I haven't attended any shows for a couple of years now. Simply selling my items on a as ordered by word of mouth basis. Partly because we'd moved a lot and partly due to our year in the camper while Daddy was so ill. I'm ready and raring to get back to them. It's something I very much enjoy. It's also something that the children get to help me with as two of the campers want to possibly begin selling some of their own creations in the fall and they'll all learn great lessons about the business of small business. They're also able to attend most of the shows with me which is a wonderful thing, and as we're not into our "full force" school year schedule until November their lessons can take place around the shows without any issues.

What that means for all of you who read my blog is that over the summer I'll be posting a whole lot less right here. I have a lot of work to do to get ready for those shows and there's only so many hours in the day! I'll continue to post our weekly wrap up posts and a lot on our Facebook page , but there won't be a whole lot of other types of posts. Between our summer vacations and field trips, my needing to get some craft work done, getting my small business site up (more to come the closer that becomes), and the children doing their summer lessons (read about that next Wednesday!) I'm going to be pretty busy! I'm praying that by September I'll not only have a good stockpile of things to sell but I'll be in a good rhythm where I can once again post frequently here. No, worries for now though, until May 30th posting will go on as it has for most of the year. 

In the world of craft shows things slow down in November only to pick back up for December and slow way down after the first of the year until fall around here. So, I'm praying that I get enough word out that the specialized orders and regular orders continue to pour in on a semi-regular basis year round. What profits that don't get put into our homeschool budget (for the school year 2014-2015) and in new materials will be set aside for the following year's text books and so on and so forth until the end of time (or when all the children are finished schooling whichever comes first ;-) ).

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How I Choose Our Latin and Religion Curriculum

Alright, so for a long time I used a lot of free things on the net (and I still do) to cover both of these subjects. And I probably could continue to do so. But, with ECJ in the middle school years and our church requiring that the children attend catechism classes there to make their sacraments (one full year for First Communion and two years just prior to Confirmation) things have changed a bit.

Next fall we're going to "officially" begin our forgein language studies. This was a bit of a puzzler for me at first. You see, there are several languages that we'd all like to learn. However, for this year Latin won out. The following year we'll be adding another language on top of Latin, most likely Polish as that's where my husband's family's origins come from. But, I digress and get ahead of myself there.

For Latin we're going with something that those of you who have children in Classical Conversations are probably familiar with. Song School Latin Book 1 for the girls ($24.95) which will provide us with 31 weeks of lessons and combine singing and drawing along with other things to help teach them both the basics of Latin. For ECJ, who if he were to attend CC would be in the Challenge B group, we'll be purchasing Henle First Year Latin text and key ($21.45) along with Henle Grammar, which is used through Latin IV, ($9.50). The prices given above would be our cost for brand new through the CC catalogue. If I buy them all used from one of my favorite online shopping sites they'll cost me $30.16. Which, not taking into account shipping costs, will save us around $25.74... Which will actually more than cover the shipping in this case!!

As for our religion curriculum, it's a whole other story. We'll be doing our daily readings from our church circular, learning several prayers through copy work, and saying our daily rosaries. However, there's the added cost of catechism classes at our parish. That cost is $155.00 for the academic year, total for all three campers. It's not a cost that we add into our curriculum budget because for us these are pretty much non negotiable classes. We also can make payments throughout the entire class period (almost the whole school year) which makes it much more "do-able". The books for the classes are included in that price (at $25 a pop, though I know they'd cost around $18 if I were to purchase them myself from the actual site) and whatever the campers do not finish during the regular catechism classes we do over the summer. The campers also attend a Vacation Bible School for a week out of the summer, this costs us $35 for the girls to attend and ECJ goes free since he volunteers to help out. The cost for the camp is added into our curriculum budget since it's not something we find non negotiable, although mornings with one's husband with the children off learning religion and having fun has it's perks that I wouldn't miss.

So, if you've been following this series you'll have realized that I've covered all the curriculum we're planning on using next school year at this point. I've covered math , language arts , science , history , health, physical education, art, and music . I've given a running list of our cost and how we're doing budget wise... Now, let's see if we're still within the budget of $400 for next year, shall we?

Total cost for Latin and religion curriculum: $65.16 (buying used)
Total cost for next year's curriculum (3 kids): $384.21!!

Within budget! But, how am I going to offset this cost? I mean, we're not the family who has $384.21 just sitting here ready for me to use. I can't spend that much all at once either, it's not within our living budget every month. So... What are we going to do? Well, you'll have to check back with me next Wednesday to find out!!! (*smile*)

And if you want to know what we'll be working on over the summer, I'll be posting about that the Wednesday after next (May 28th).

Thanks for sticking with me this far, one more post in this series and we're wrapping it up. I know it's been difficult for some to have to wait a week to see what's been chosen next and I really appreciate you hanging in there with me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

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How I Choose Some Other Curriculum

I've been doing this series for a few weeks now. We've covered how I choose math , language arts , science , and history curriculum for our homeschool. I addressed each subject individually because we spend a lot of our time on these subjects, and the materials were enough that I didn't want all of you to have to read for an hour just to finish one of my posts.

This week I'll be covering several different subjects in this one post (next week will combine 2 subjects and the final week will be a tell all on how we're planning on supplementing our curriculum budget so we stay in budget). So, here's how I choose our health, physical education, art, and music curriculum. I figure these are relatively easy enough for me to combine together into one post.

For health we'll be sticking with A Beka Health texts. They're meant to only be used for half of the year, we use them only during the winter months when we're hibernating in the house. They combine health, safety, and manners and include Biblical quotes and talk about your spiritual health. This year that means we'll be spending $14.43 (plus shipping and handling) on these books, we'll be buying two of them used and one new. They make sense to us and they don't cost an arm and a leg to purchase either, plus the children learn well from them.

As for physical education I tend to believe that the amount of time we spend outside (and exercising inside during the winter months) is pretty much all we need in this department. However, we do take regular swim classes in the fall and usually in the spring as well. The best part (for Mommy) is the cost of those classes has a family cap of $100 and that Noni pays for their swim classes because she believes (as we do) that all children need to know how to swim and water safety. The children are talking about some organized sports or dance classes, we'll be looking into those later on this summer...

Another subject we don't spend a lot of money on happens to be art. Not because we don't think it's important, but because we're constantly working with different mediums in this house and creating. We do so together, we do so separately, and we do so in pairs. Some of us crochet, some knit or sew, some work with clay and play dough, almost all of us draw to some extent, sometimes we've even been known to paint. This doesn't mean that I won't be spending some money in this area. I'm looking into the chalk pastel materials and how to's. We're constantly purchasing supplies. As for art history and the great artists, we study that while we're doing history. So, we've made a lot of folk art recently. We've also looked into some of our famous folk artists from the past and currently. American Indian art, colonial art, English art, and so forth. Though none of my children could look at a painting and tell you immediately who made it, there is a good chance that they can tell who what type of art it is. We'll get a little more into the historical great artists in middle school, but not much unless they're interested in learning about them.

Last, but not least, for this post is music. I've been talking all this school year about purchasing SQUILT because we've used some of the program's freebies throughout the year and really enjoyed them. We'll be starting with volume 1 in the fall! At the low cost of $9.99 I just can't beat the price and it's a good quality curriculum! I can use this over all the grade levels and the children will learn about some great musical artists. We'll continue with our recorder for YCJ and the guitar for ECJ and may end up purchasing them a few more lesson books on those, they have to get through the first ones first though.

That brings the total cost of these four subjects to only ... $24.42
Total cost so far for next year (new and used): $408.47.. 

but wait!!!

Noni has decided to purchase Peanut's math curriculum for us so that drops our total cost so far* to $318.47!!! Still within budget and two subjects to go!

Check back next week for how I choose our Latin and Religious curriculum!

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Dollar Store Math

I'm calling this "Dollar Store Math" because two of the main things we're using right now came from the Dollar Tree (OK a LOT more than two, but I meant in Peanut's math lessons).

Earlier in the year I bought several packs of soft cubes from Dollar Tree that had several different colors to be used for various manipulative's, including math. You can read how we were using them originally here . Fine motor skills for stacking, creativity in building 3D objects, counting, sorting colors, and YCJ even used them for multiplication (which is why I had to buy about 3 sets I think it was so I have around 150 of them, it could be I bought 4 sets and have 200 of them. Either way they fit in a coffee can LOL).

Well, now Peanut has a lot of addition and subtraction beginning with her Kindergarten workbooks. Plus, we bought her a "penguin" math workbook from Dollar Tree. So we've brought these out again to help her understand addition and eventually subtraction.

We choose two colors to show how many of each we're adding, we use the lid of the container to represent zero (sometimes this is a hard concept to grasp and having something totally different to represent it often makes the concept concrete). We'll then ask her the question of what is 5+5 (or other addition problem) and she'll either already know or use the cubes to count to the total. Sometimes she moves them around to where they make more sense to her, but either way she's learning and grasping the concept!! 





Since we began working with these again her math pages (which average ten questions each) take less than five minutes for her to do and she hasn't gotten any wrong! Eventually we'll rely on the manipulative's less and less but considering that the workbook she's mainly practicing with, though she uses these for her Kindergarten math as well, is first grade level I would say she's doing fabulously!

On a side note, YCJ will be practicing with these again in some "play" time for her multiplication facts as well. Another thing we've done for YCJ is to temporarily move her back to level one readers, we'll work through all that the library has, then move to level 2's, and then up to level 3's so that she regains her confidence to read chapter books. It only took one with too many hard words for her to not want to read, I wanted to spark the reading bug back to life so I grabbed a handful of level 1 Fancy Nancy books and a level 2 Frozen book as a reward for when she finishes the level 1's we borrowed. So far so good!!

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How I Choose Our History Curriculum

This one was actually super easy for me to decide. Last year ECJ and I worked through about 3 books of a series of history that we'd borrowed from the library that we both really enjoyed. So, for next year's history curriculum we'll be purchasing History of US by Joy Hakim.

*Please note that these texts are secular and that they use the now common C.E. and B.C.E. acronyms. They mean Common Era and Before Common Era. I simply teach my children B.C. and A.D. and then explain why the new acronyms are used so that when they go to college they aren't thrust at with new terminology.*

We'll be purchasing them through Amazon (not affiliated, but LOVE the site) here . As you can see this is a several volume set that you can either buy all at once or a book at a time. There is also study guides (for all levels of learning), teacher guides (for all levels of learning), and assessment tests for each book. This means you can go through these books with your elementary students through your high school students.

For elementary level we'll be splitting the books up to cover over the course of 2-3 years. ECJ will cover all books in one year as he is capable of dealing with that amount of material. 

I will be purchasing each book separately and used to save on cost (even adding in shipping this is still less expensive than buying the whole set at once for us because it is spread out.) ECJ will not be using these texts next year however, he'll be using them for 10th grade.

So, what will he be using for 7th grade? He'll be using Studies in World History Vol. 1 . This is a three book course designed for middle school students and uses the regular A.D. and B.C. terminology. He'll work through Vol. 1 for 7th grade, Vol. 2 in 8th, and Vol. 3 in 9th ... Though we'll be throwing in some extra history work for him in 9th grade. These sets just became available and for the whole Vol. 1 set (including student text and teacher's guide) the total is 43.98. In Vol. 1 he'll learn all about the time from 6000 B.C. through to 1500 A.D. 

That brings our History curriculum for next year (purchased used and new) to: $64.90 which includes two teacher's guides, a student guide, and three text books

And our total cost for curriculum so far for next year to: $384.05. Not bad, still under the $400 mark and we're hoping to make it even a bit lower. 

Don't forget there's a few more of these posts in this series with the last one being how I'm going to supplement our income to help offset the costs of this curriculum!!

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7 Things I Will Never Again Do

Oh the mistakes that can be made by homeschoolers, no matter if they're in their first year or far beyond that. I've made several. Yes, I will admit to it and I'm willing to bet that many of you secretly know that you have too. I'm not talking major failure that we all fear at one point or another, just simple mistakes that we've learned from.

So, here are seven things I will never again do in our homeschool.

1. I will never stick with a curriculum even though we all hate it. When we first started homeschooling I thought that doing an online program that had everything in the world mapped out for us would be the best thing ever. WRONG! For us it just didn't work. We were bored, the kids weren't learning, I often had no clue what exactly they were supposed to be being taught, and they whined all the time that it was too repetitive.

2. I will never again assume what works for one child will for another. Horrible admission here but I had seriously thought that no matter the issues any child had they could learn in the exact same way that previous children had. WRONG! My middle daughter, YCJ, has dyslexia and there is no way that she could learn to read the same way my son, ECJ, did because he doesn't have that learning difference. Peanut will be a whole new challenge because she is legally blind and though she can currently see with her glasses eventually that will not be the case (we've known this for two years now) so this will require page magnifiers and eventually braille (which I too will have to learn). There truly is nothing out there that is one size fits all when it comes to learning.

3. I will never do a lapbook with my Cracker Jack's again. While lapbooking works for many many people out there it did not work for either ECJ or YCJ. They really disliked them, didn't learn much from them, and fought nearly the whole time they made them. Presented the same material in a different fashion they learned far more than I intended for them to learn. I may try lapbooking with Peanut next fall, but that will depend on how I feel she'll receive it.

4. I will never assume that just because x number of other homeschoolers prefer a program that I should use that program as well. I think that one pretty much explains itself. You should never try to mold yourself into someone else's methods or ways of teaching by using the same curriculum only because they say it's the best. You may find for your family it is a horrible fit.

5. I will never pay full price for a curriculum we've never used before. I've done this (*hanging my head in shame*) only to discover that it was a curriculum that just wouldn't work for us no matter how hard I tweaked it. Tossing hundreds of dollars down the drain basically when I had to purchase new curriculum. By the by, I try to purchase most of my curriculum used for money purposes anyway.

6. I will never again simply walk away from a frustrated child when they're trying to learn something new. This never fixes anything. The child gets more frustrated. They don't learn the new concept. They feel abandoned. And I feel guilty. Case closed.

7. I will never, ever, ever again trust that anything online, streamed, or on DVD is teaching my children correctly. There is nothing wrong with most of the material that we as homeschoolers use online, or through streaming, or on DVD. However, I have found numerous mistakes when reviewing the information taught. Or, worse yet for us, found teaching against our religious views that I then need to explain in some fashion that could have simply been avoided.

Not such a horrible list. But, I'll never do any of them again!

Linking up today with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

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How I Choose Science Curriculum

If you had asked me how I chose curriculum when I first began homeschooling, for any subject, my answer would have been, "We just do what it says to do with this program..." A year or so into homeschooling my answer would have been different. It would have gone something like, "We mainly just do nature study, the children are so young and there's so much natural science to learn all around us. We follow their curiosity." And that was much my viewpoint until sometime early last year when I discovered a free online version of Apologia's General Science course. I signed ECJ up for it and was amazed at what he was learning!

So, being the person that I am, I began looking further into Apologia's science courses. I wanted to find out if they were going to only work for him for a year, or through his junior and high school years, or if we'd also be able to use the courses for the girls through elementary years. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were courses for every "grade" level. You didn't have to start with a specific subject either, you could start pretty much wherever you wished to. 

I kept investigating. Apologia wouldn't be the best fit for everyone, and it certainly wasn't the least expensive product on the market, but I do believe it will work well for our family.

And here's why:

There are 9 books available in their Jr. and Sr. High curriculum levels. Even if you start junior high in 6th grade, as many do, you will most likely not go through nine separate courses for science. This gives you a good amount of choice each year in what you will choose to do at those levels. ECJ having done the Exploring Creation with General Science course (though a free online version I had found) will move on to Exploring Creation with Physical Science in the fall. This time we'll be purchasing books and most likely we'll either do it when they are on sale or we'll purchase used. We'll move along later in his school career with chemistry, biology, and physics and then possibly do one or two of the last three as advanced courses as well. We're not sure if we'll be purchasing him the student notebook to go with this, however I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that most likely we will.

There are 7 books available in their Elementary Science curriculum, which again leaves room to pick and choose a bit. For next fall we'll be going with Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day , which is one of three of their zoology texts. We'll be purchasing only one text book but two separate student notebooks. Apologia has both a "regular" note booking journal and a "junior" note booking journal so that you can begin these lessons with early grade levels as well as higher. This means that for at least the next to years both girls will be able to work from the same text and simply have different journals to work through. I believe we'll stick with the zoology trio for the next three years, though YCJ may move on to the General Science course before she completes all three books. Once Peanut finishes all three zoology texts we'll have a few decisions to make.

Since ECJ is mainly independent in his lessons at this point, enjoys Apologia texts, and "gets it" now that he's learning through this curriculum it's a no brainer for me to continue him along this path. All three campers enjoy science and I wanted to use something for the girls where we could continue to study science together for the next couple of years until YCJ reached that semi-independent stage as well. Apologia supplies me with that ability built into their curriculum. 

We'll be continuing with our nature studies as well, which fits in with the girls zoology studies and (partially) into ECJ's physical science studies. It brings science from an abstract thought to a solid fact when you can hear and see the birds you're learning about, touch and feel the woolly caterpillar crawling on your fingers, and smell the fresh air as a spring breeze blows past you. I doubt we will ever abandon our nature studies. Our nature walks are part of our homeschool, we bond through them, we learn through them, and we enjoy them.

Science in the early years can be as simple or as complicated as you make it. This summer we'll be building a small weather station for the children to work with. Rain gages, wind gages, thermometers, and a few more things. We'll be doing a summer long project on the weather. We'll be taking at least one visit to the zoo so that we can see how they react to the warmer weather, and of course to see the animals. We'll be discussing weather patterns, storms, types of clouds, etc etc etc. The list can go on and on. With ECJ being a bit older than the other two he'll be getting more in depth when it comes to how he needs to present his findings and he'll be helping YCJ come up with a way to present her's (either poster board or lap book "type" of thing). Peanut and I will be keeping a special weather journal that I'll be making up for her. 

I could save money by going with A Beka science, or some other less expensive science curriculum. I could only do regular nature studies and follow interest with the girls while I keep ECJ working along the Apologia path. However, a strong science foundation (with a lot of nature and fun mixed in) is just what the doctor ordered for us.

This brings our science curriculum costs to: $83.71 (at current used prices)
And our total cost for curriculum so far to: $319.15 (at current prices used to calculate these costs).

This takes us almost $20 over budget with History, Health, PE, Art, Music, Latin, and Religion yet to go. I'll be addressing these subjects in the next four weeks. History will be next week. Having a $300 budget for our homeschooling needs can be a little tricky, however we realized early on that this year would be more expensive and we'd need to space some things out (to make it easier to absorb the cost) and that I'd need to bring in some extra money pretty soon. After this series is finished I will have a post the following Wednesday (so 5 weeks from now) on just how I intend to do this!

Linking this up to Squishable Baby, Homeschool Link Up 30

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