Happy New Year. I am going to try to post more now that I'm done with nursing school. I will start by posting a new contest
Good luck! What is your new year's resolution?

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.

Classifying game

Our orchard visit sparked the interest of spiders and insects. What is the difference? They are both arthropods, meaning they have an exoskeleton and a segmented body. But a spider has eight legs, while an insect has six legs.

This fits into our animal unit nicely. We started off the unit by watching this free movie from brainpopjr.
http://www.brainpopjr.com/science/animals/classifyinganimals/



Mimi is a kinesthetic learner. So lots of manipulations, movement and actions helps her retain what she has learned.



The object of the game was to pretend to be an animal and hop to the group.



Are you a vertebrate or invertebrate? Warm blooded or cold blooded? Bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian, or arthropod? If it was an arthropod, are you a spider or an insect?

Field trips

We had the opportunity to visit an orchard. We were lucky to catch them before the closed.

The people who run the orchard were great. The people who run it are great. The kids got to see the steps of making a blanket from cottonbud to weaving.







They learned about bees.



Did you know that bees have a straw-like tongue?



After the demonstrations, they took the tour of the orchard. They learned about worm composting. They also learned which insects were good and which insects were bad for the garden.

Look a huge spider!


They visited several areas of the gardens and learned about "raincoats" or pods.

Yummy, black eyed pea


At the end of the tour, the kids got to pick an apple. They were very careful to twist until the apple fell off, so it won't break.


Look at huge apple washer!

Kindness Co-op

One of the most common arguments against homeschooling is that the kids won't get enough socialization. On the contrary, most homeschooled children have more opportunities to interact with their peers along with other age groups older and younger. They learn to be gentle with the little ones and sometimes it can lead to them mentoring. They get to speak to adults on the same level, while still being respectful.

There are so many opportunities to "socialize". Besides going to the park or museum, we joined a couple of co-ops. You should check to see what co-ops are in your area.

One co-op we joined is called The Kindness Co-op. We meet every other Thursday. Every week there is an activity geared towards nurturing the kindness.

This last week, we made bird feeders with pipe cleaners and cheerios. This is also good for helping with fine motor skills.




They also played the "Pass the Mouse" game. They get in a circle and take turns handing the "mouse" (beanbag) to the next person.

The kids get very excited about waiting the turn. It has taken a new creative twist, where they will pretend the mouse is telling them how she wants to be passed (slowly, fast, up in the air!).

The age range for this particular group is infant to seven. They all play very well together. My kids come home with new creative ideas for playtime.

Muzzy giveaway

I believe that teaching the kids to be multilingual is very important. Because we live in Texas, I would love to teach the kids Spanish. I would also like to them Vietnamese. Fortunately, my parents speak Vietnamese so they will have the exposure.

For Vietnamese I would like to use Rosetta Stone. It will freshen up my Vietnamese and my children and husband can understand when my parents talk about them. ;)

For Spanish, I plan on using Muzzy. And guess what? A homeschool blogger (she's vegan too!) is doing a giveaway! So go and check her out and enter to win! The drawing will be on her son's birthday, October 26th, so you have a couple weeks left!

How it all began

History is one of my weaker subjects. After reading many reviews, we decided to get A Child's History of the World . It presents history in a more secular point of view compared to the other history curriculum for homeschoolers. According to the reviewes, God is mentioned, and it is assumed that the reader believes in God, but it is not totally biased. You can also purchase a workbook to go along with it. I don't know if I will get the workbook or not.

The first chapter of the book is, "How it All Began." It talks about the theory of the beginning of the world coming from stars (it does have one sentence saying thaat God created the stars, and because of our beliefs, I omitted that while reading). From the stars came the sun, the sun emitted sparks and one became a rock, which became our Earth. It goes on until humans are created. The kids enjoyed this lesson. There is a little timeline:

Stars,
Sun,
Spark,
World,
Steam,
Rain,
Oceans,
Plants,


Animals,
Jellyfish
Insects
Fish,
Amphibians,
Reptiles,
Birds,
Mammals,


People

For our activity, I cut and pasted images from the internet onto one page. The kids cut and pasted the images in the order according to the timeline.



I think it was a wonderful way to introduce history. Tomorrow we will probably read about the Big Bang Theory.

Teaching the Three R's

I am still trying to find our groove. I have found it hard to implement the Three R's (reading, writing, and arithmetic) with our units. We work on these separately and start off the day with it when the children are most alert and willing to learn.

Every morning we journal. MiMi will draw a picture about something she did the night before or even something she would like to do. She will write a couple of sentences. Bobo will just draw something that he enjoys doing. We also subscribe to Hilights magazine. They have several pictures that they can cut out and make into a story.

Currently, we are learning about the parts of speech.

I just wrote the words on note cards and stuck magnetic tape to the back. Eventually, MiMi will have fun with Adlibs. Anyone remember those?

For Math, I'm simply following Right Start curriculum. I do veer of sometimes. I try to make Friday game time. Last week, we played Bingo.


We did our numbers from 1 to 10 using tally marks, sums, and colored dots. Tomorrow we will play again.

MiMi is into cooking. She loves following a recipe. Before she helps, we do fractions.


I draw out shapes and write the ingredients. She has to divide the shape and fill in the squares to match the amount. She really enjoys doing it and even tries to teach BoBo.

We are slowly, but surely setting our own schedule. Some days we are done with the basics by 11. Other days (like today) we don't even start until 11. That's the beauty of learning at home!

We're off to see the wizard

We are currently reading The Wizard of Oz. We are trying to read at least one chapter a day. Listening to MiMi read, I realize that we need to work on sentence syntax. She will put pauses or emphasis where there shouldn't be or just read a flow of words when she should have stopped.

The kids painted tornadoes yesterday. They learned how lines can make show movement.



Here's my tip of the day:
If you don't have paper plates or an art palette wrap a regular plate with saran wrap. Clean up is easy.


After the paint dried the kids drew a swirling pattern with gray marker over the lines.
MiMi's:

Bobo's:


Yesterday we read the tornado books and today we reviewed the important aspects from the book. We divided a manila piece of paper into three columns: Warning signs of a tornado (For Bobo I drew eyes since he can't read), Safety Dos (checkmark) Safety dont's). I wrote out phrases from the book (drew pictures for BoBo) and they kids categorized them.




We all know that Dorthy kills the Wicked Witch of the East. We used that as a stepping stone to learn compass points. This is something that we will continue to work on as we slowly learn about the US states. So far the kids only know Kansas, Texas and New Hampshire. I was only able to ask a few questions such as, "Kansas is _______ of Texas."


I think the kids enjoyed making the scarecrows the most.

We just used paper sacks and filled it up with paper to be recycled. We then tied the top with a terry band. The kids added the features.
Here is a good book to introduce brain functions:


Over all a productive two days with still a lot to cover. The kids aren't bored yet! I just feel like I'm lacking on the brain still. I don't want to be too elaborate, but I still feel like I can still do more.