Time for the monthly giveaway

If you haven't checked out the Secular home-school community you should! It's a great support group. Because of them I have found great resources such as Growing with Grammar. Every month the Secular homeschool has a giveaway. This month you can win win any of the books from the JacKris series. I am hoping to win the Soaring with Vocabulary. You can win as well by visiting the Secular homeschool giveaway page and commenting. Good luck!!!

Where should I begin teaching history?

It is hard to teach history to a five and seven year old. I have so many history books. One of my favorites thus far is A Child's History of the World.. I also have a few DK, Time, and various history books geared towards children. For now I have decided to just introduce the concept of history using Connect the Thoughts curriculum. I am also trying to present history with engaging stories. A Child's History of the World is perfect for this. We kicked off our history lesson with a family time line.



We began with their grandparents. We will continue to build upon our timeline so they can see that history is always in the making. As we begin with US and world history they can relate current historical events to their family story.

We continue our measurement unit and learned about temperature. Ice water and ice both measure 40 degrees Fahrenheit. I would have thought that ice would be 32. Our freezer was about 27. We even took the temperature outside, but this particular food thermometer only goes up to 80 degrees. Being in Texas, the gauge was far to the right. I plan on getting a cooking thermometer that has Celsius and Fahrenheit so we can play with temperature more.

Trip to the museum

Today's math lesson was measuring volume. We counted how many cups equal a quart and a pint. We also used this worksheet. I poured the given amount in a pot and then the kids used a measuring cup to see how many cups of water was inside the pot. I was hoping they would be able to determine how many cups just by looking at the worksheet, but they didn't seem to grasp the concept until we executed it.



Once a month, our local museum offers a free admission. They have activities, a tour, and story time. We didn't make it in time for the tour, so we walked around ourselves. The kids had a scavenger hunt. They had to find their favorites. BoBo said his favorite animal was an armadillo. I didn't think that he would find one, but lo and behold we found one!



Today's activity was making bubble print. They really enjoyed it. I think we will try it again sometime soon.



I found a new favorite piece. It is called Nature or Abundance. I love all the colors. MiMi's favorite food is fruit so she enjoyed it as well. My favorite part is the picture of a mother nursing her child.

How tall am I?

One of the many advantages of homeschooling is that we can be as flexible as we need with our schedule. The kids took a bit of a break while I prepared for finals. Now that I have much more time on my hands during my summer break, I can focus more on homeschooling. Today we began our "semester." Today they learned about living vs nonliving. They categorized animals into different groups. I will make a game out of it this week. I'm trying to make math more fun. We were unsuccessful with Right Start Math. So this year I'm ditching the curriculum and trying to just play with math. Today we learned about measuring. We traced their outlines and measured them in inches, Jenga Blocks, square tiles, Mimi's feet, Bobo's feet, and my feet. Then we graphed the data. With this lesson, they took away the smaller the measure of the unit, the bigger the measurement. We will continue to explore measurement this week.

Science Giveaway

Secular Homeschool is having their monthly giveaway. This time it's Science Fusion! I think the kids will love this! You can enter here.

Here is another giveaway by The Secular Homeschool!

I am trying to find a good writing curriculum for MiMi. She loves to write, but her foundations are weak. The Secular Homeschool is doing another giveaway! This time it's an online course! I have heard nothing but great things about this curriculum. There are five ways to win! Good luck to everyone who enters!

Another giveaway

Look who is having a giveaway target=blank!

Mimi is always writing stories. I would love to hone this skill. I find this challenging. How do you teach someone to write? I hope with this curriculum, we can encourage Mimi to continue to write her stories without squelching her love for it.

Volcanoes

I'm not going to lie, it's been a challenge to find the motivation and time to teach the kids while studying. Last couple of weeks have been a challenge with multiple tests. Time management has been a big challenge. I do find that when I lesson plan a few weeks ahead of time, it helps. I know what resources I need.

I am also still trying to find my groove. It seems as though I keephttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1054651735358591781 modifying. After six months of home schooling, you would think that I would have some idea. I am giving lapbooks a try. It seems so organized and gives you a general idea of what targets need to be hit.

This week we are learning about volcanoes. I haven't been able to find any lapbooks, but I have a general idea what I'm going to do. Our vocabulary words will be magma, lava, ash, crater, vent, volcanologist, and of course volcano. We will also label the parts of a volcano. We may identify different types of volcanoes, just so they know they are more than one. Our geography for this week will be Pacific Ocean, Washington and perhaps Hawaii.

We kicked off this lesson by designing a volcano from a soda bottle and modeling clay.



The kids made the volcano erupt using baking soda and vinegar (very simple chemistry).

Week 1 of homeschooling and nursing school was successful. I just had to force myself to stay on top of everything.

Before school began last week, I went out and bought this folder at Staples:

It's a dual sided divided folder. Inside the folders are seven pockets with tabs you can label:


I love it! I planned ahead two weeks. I love how I can find print out worksheets and stick them under the correct subject. This helps communicate with Head Zombie on what to do. I will get Post it notes to stick on the worksheets to help him begin the lessons.

Last week we focused on Martin Luther King Junior and Rosa Parks. We learned about Georgia and Alabama. This week we are going to learn about the phases of the moon, China, and Vietnam to coincide with Lunar New Year.

We do homeschool on the weekends because my day is full Mondays to Wednesdays. Head Zombie will help on Wednesdays with the homeschooling. I get home by two on Thursdays and I start school as soon as I get home. I'm off on Fridays so we homeschool in the morning before I head off to book club. Saturdays and Sundays we break up homeschooling morning and afternoon depending on the day. Evenings are reserved for me to study for nursing school. Busy, busy! But it can be done. I just want to have a set schedule before nursing school becomes more demanding.

Handwriting without Tears

I love it! The kids love it!

Not going to lie, at first I was skeptical. But HWT Bobo actually said, "I can't wait to do the next page!"
Mimi took the time to work with her letters, instead of speeding through her transcriptions.


We bought it through this site. It has been the cheapest we found.

Eventually, they will get to choose what they want to transcribe. But for now, we are just working on one letter at a time, or one word at a time.

New Year, fresh start, and new beginnings

It seems like Christmas and Thanksgiving slowed us down a bit. Trying to get back into the swing of things and find a schedule that will work for us. We have been blessed to start a new year with new opportunities.

I have been accepted into the nursing program at TWU. I have classes Monday through Thursdays during the day. Fortunately, we were able to find a nanny to come to the house while I am in classes.

My husband decided to open a vegan food truck. He will still continue his full time job and run the truck on the weekends.

Yes, we are going to be very busy. We are going to continue to homeschool. My husband, I'll call him "Head Zombie", will help throughout the week while I study for classes and I will teach them on the weekends while Head Zombie sells his sandwiches.

I'm excited to share how a family can work or go to school full time while homeschooling. Let's hope this works! I'll take all the prayers, thoughts and luck you can send.