Our Homeschool Fun is on Facebook!

Just a quick post to let you all know that I am finally on Facebook as Our Homeschool Fun.  I gain support, encouragement and learn so much from my “bloggy” friends.  I thought this would be a great way to share ideas and ask and answer questions faster than here on my blog.  So, head over to my Facebook page when you have a minute.  Not much there yet, but I’m figuring it out with the help of wonderful friends:-)!

Do you have a facebook page for your blog or site?  I’d love to check it out.  Feel free to leave a link in the comments below

Homeschool Week 34

Well, I am not in the habit of wishing days away because that means my little ones are growing too fast on me, but I am ready for next week—next month—why?  Because we have April off:-).  In the meantime, we worked away last week and continue to this week.  This school year has definitely presented challenges in the way of learning how to manage school while taking care of two very, very active toddlers. Some days have been wonderful, while others have not, but isn’t that life in general?  All in all, I would not change a thing.  The simple truth is I love my kids, my family with my whole heart, and our decision to homeschool is still the best thing ever on all fronts.  On to the week…

I continued to pull out more of Jack’s birthday goodies.  He enjoyed all of them, and last week they really kept him occupied. (The jury is still out on this week…)  After we read Jesse Bear What Will You Wear, he enjoyed his Family Bear Dress-Up Puzzle and even tried his hand at Pattern Blocks—he did very well too, kept him entertained much longer than I thought it would.  I was proud of him.

He and Jesse both love the Design and Drill Activity Center.  They have played with it alone and together, we have two drills.  Joe likes it too.  He uses the pattern cards when he plays with it.  This is a super fun learning toy! 

Joe helped Jack put together a new dinosaur floor puzzle he got.  Now, it looks like they were having awesome fun together, right?  You know really loving one another, working together and all that good brotherly stuff, right?  HA!  They were in this picture, and actually up until the puzzle was completed…

…as soon as it was finished, Jack had other plans for it.  I was switching laundry out and heard Joe shrieking, so of course I came running.  I walked in to find Jack naked and many of the puzzle pieces in the gas fireplace.  That’s right—he tore it apart, threw several pieces into the fireplace (no, it was not on), and took his clothes off.  Nuff’ said.  Sigh…

Joe is making progress reading and writing.  Here’s what has been on his bedside table lately.  He read the dragon book on his own, and says, “it’s the best book ever.”  He and I are reading Little House aloud together at night before bed.  I am SO happy to get to read these again with one of my kids.  They are my favorites!

This is my favorite journal entry from the past week. This is my favorite picture he drew from his journal entries. 

And, his assignment from Writing Traits.  The assignment was to draw (on Thursday) 3 pictures (beginning, middle and end) from his favorite book.  Then, on Friday, he was to write a sentence about each picture he drew the day before.

 

Hanna making lapbook pieces for Science.

A cool Science experiment about the ampullae of Lorenzini (on sharks).   And, my favorite school picture of the week:

Have you started curriculum planning for your upcoming school year?  It’ll be here before we know it!

Happy Homeschooling!

Timberdoodle Review-Evan Moor Books

We’ve been reviewing and thoroughly enjoying three Evan Moor books this past month thanks to Timberdoodle!  Before this past month I had never used any Evan Moor products in our homeschool, but now I am planning to add several more to next year’s daily curriculum for sure.  I absolutely love the three books we’ve been using and so do my kids.  On to the review…

First up is Evan Moor’s Daily Math Word Problems 1st Grade for Joe. 

You can check out the first 24 pages, *here*.  There are 36 weekly sections with each week’s problems being centered around the same theme.

In this book you will find:

• addition and subtraction facts
• column addition
• 2- and 3-digit addition and subtraction
• counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s
• reading and interpreting graphs and charts
• reading and writing numbers and number words
• fractions
• time
• money
• measurement

This is an excellent supplemental math book.  Joe loves it!  He has learned how to reason, think deeper using real life problems and create loads of number sentences (something we’d been working on just days before this book came in the mail) and read numerous charts and graphs.  This is a great book for days where you can’t get in your regular math curriculum for whatever the reason may be.  We use it for both busy days and as a daily lesson—because Joe begs for it—really.  I highly recommend this book, and honestly any of the books in this Daily series by Evan Moor.

Next up is Daily Trait Writing 1st Grade, also by Evan Moor.

Trait writing is based on six main characteristics that define quality writing.  These six traits are content, organization, word choice, sentence fluency, voice, and conventions such as grammar, spelling and mechanics.  There are 125 writing lessons broken down by weeks, each consisting of 4 days with the 5th day left open for a lengthier writing assignment based on that week’s daily lessons. (Don’t you just love the “real” spelling of cereal from a 5 year old in the picture below?  I do!)

Joe has learned so much already from this book.  I am glad I was able to have the opportunity to review it and discover it.  It has become an integral part of his daily curriculum.  I can see us using this series for years to come.  Thus far he has learned about topics—what a topic is, how to choose one and how to make up and add details that are topic specific.  This is a lot for a 5 year old, and he is doing super and enjoying it. 

As suggested in Day Five’s assignment I gave Joe two starter sentences, and he wrote the rest himself.  The paper was to be about himself.  I scanned this in and my scanner cut off just a bit of the left side, but it is still able to be read.  It says, “My name is Joe.  I am five years old.  I have blue eyes.  I can run fast!  I can do tricks!  I am good at school.  I have lots of knights.  I am good at sneeking arond.”

Lastly, I also reviewed Daily Trait Writing 6th Grade for Hanna. 

This book is set up identical to Daily Trait Writing 1st Grade, but of course more difficult and tailored to 6th grade state standards for educators.  Let me just say, Hanna writes freely with ease and enjoys it immensely.  But, give her a writing assignment and she often freezes up and struggles, not enjoying it.  This book has been s-u-p-e-r!  This is the first writing book Hanna does with a smile since we began homeschool.  She is doing it daily and loving it!  She even asked me this morning “if she was going to get to work in Writing Traits today?” 

Above is a daily assignment for a past paper.  Below is a rough draft of another writing assignment.

So far I have seen improved details, paragraph structure and organization, focus and sticking to the topic in Hanna’s writing assignments.  I wish I’d known about these books sooner.

I would definitely recommend checking out any or all of these three titles from Evan Moor and Timberdoodle.  I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.  They have greatly added to our homeschool. 

Did you know Timberdoodle offers complete curriculum kits?  Very tempting.  I’ve been looking at quite a few products in their 1st grade curriculum kit and considering adding them to our 2011-2012 school year. 

I also suggest requesting a free Timberdoodle catalog to come straight to your mailbox.  You’ll find yourself pulling it out over and over again.  I have lots of pages turned down in mine!

Legal Disclosure:  As a member of Timberdoodle's Blogger Review Team I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a frank and unbiased review.

Homeschool Weeks 32 and 33

We’ve been plugging away the last couple weeks with everything in our homeschool.  Things are going well in all areas, but the teacher is in serious need of a break from planning, schooling and checking work on a daily basis.  I am very happy to report that after going over everything last night, I see that we are fine to take off the entire month of April (this is in keeping with our 3 months on/1 month off) like originally planned—YAY!  If you were here, you would have seen me jumping up and down (and Hanna too if she was awake) as I typed that:-).  Seriously though, Hanna and I are very much looking forward to some time off.  We’ve got a lot of fun day trips planned for the month of April and are praying for health and nice weather to enjoy them together.

Here’s what we have gotten done the last couple weeks in school.

Jack got lots of new toys for school time for his birthday!  Much thanks to family members for being so generous and helping to get him these much needed things!  School for him has been a blast this week.  I haven’t pulled out even a third of what he got yet.  He was satisfied to play with his Animal Train Sort and Match, Melissa and Doug Farm Cube Puzzle and Magnetic Dress-Up Set this week.  I was just so happy that he was having fun, learning and feeling loved and included. 

Hanna worked on all her daily stuff like Grammar, Wordly Wise, Teaching Textbooks Math and Life of Fred Math.  Doing one lesson per day from each of these maths seems to be working just fine.

With Hanna I am reviewing Writing Traits Grade 6+ in this same series.  It is awesome!  Writing freely is something Hanna is very good at, but when given specific instructions she sometimes struggles.  This book so far has been great in explaining the how’s and why’s of writing.  It is a keeper!  She has been working in it for about a month now and actually enjoying the daily assignments.

Above is a daily assignment for a past paper.  Below is a rough draft of another writing assignment.

Joe has also been working in Daily Writing Traits for 1st grade.  I am just as pleased with it for him.  With his I have to do much more instruction time, but it is still nothing too demanding on either my part or his.  So far he has learned about what a topic is, how to develop one, what details are, how to come up with details and make them interesting.  This week he was to write a paper about himself using details he wrote using a web earlier in the week.  As suggested I gave him two starter sentences, and he did the rest.

It says, “My name is Joe.  I am five years old.  I have blue eyes.  I can run fast!  I can do tricks!  I am good at school.  I have lots of knights.  I am good at sneeking arond.”  I scanned in his paper below, and it cut off some of the letters, but it is still able to be read.

He has learned when to use a period vs. a question mark or exclamation point from his Abeka Letters and Sounds books.  I am taking any words he spells wrong in his daily writing and compiling a list of no more than ten per week.  The following week he will write them once each day and on Fridays I will call them out for a spelling test.  This was my first week of having him write and spell on his own in assignments or daily journal, so we haven’t actually had a spelling test yet.  We will in two weeks.

 

Here is my favorite entry of the week from Joe’s journal.  He got his favorite dragon from his room and drew it.  He is doing so good with reading and writing.  I am so proud of him, and thankful that he enjoys doing his work each day.  I am so blessed that my kids truly seem to look forward to our school time.  (I scanned this in so it is a bit blurry.)

Joe is still reading like crazy.  In fact, here he is after dinner tonight eating his dessert.

~You can find Pot of Gold craft, *here* ,and Handprint Leprechaun, *here*.

That’s what we’ve been up to the last couple weeks on our school days.  We’ll have logged 180 days here in just a few weeks, but our school year won’t officially end till the last week of July.  In the meantime, we are counting down to our month off in April and lots of Spring flings!

Homeschool Weeks 30 and 31

Hanna has been working away on her ocean box for Science.  She added several new ocean animals as we’ve studied about more fish, sea turtles and seals.

An awesome art project Joe completed that I found at Deep Sparkle Art.  He loved making it and did a super job!

  

These are the highlights from our last couple weeks.  I have got to get a video of Joe reading.  He is doing so good and I want to remember it!  After a very difficult month of homeschool, this last week was a breath of fresh air.