portfolio review- CHECK!

Ahhhh, spring. Grass is growing, flowering trees are in bloom (my willow out front is BEAUTIFUL right now), and there are lots of puddles for splashing in when mommy's not looking. Yes, it is a lovely time of year, and when we usually are at our most productive in homeschool.

Spring also marks the time when most homeschoolers are usually finishing up their stuff and getting their reporting options done. Here in Ohio, we are blessed to have a couple choices for reporting. One option is to do a standardized test and submit the scores. The other is to have a review done by a teacher certified to teach in the state. We chose the review this year, after much discussion and prayer on the matter.

This was my first official portfolio review. I had no clue what to expect, and was pretty sure I'd not get our letters to send the school district. After all, I'd been diagnosed with mono the first day we were out on our own homeschooling, away from OHVA, and then we'd been plagued by various illness and injuries since my recovery from mono in January (because I just won't stay in bed like the doctor says to, nope I take my kids trick or treating all over a small town a half hour from my home a week after diagnosis lol). We'd had a rough time finding curriculum that fits our needs and everyone's style of teaching/learning, just now settling into a bit of a groove this past few weeks with things. I think it is safe to say I was just *slightly* anxious about this review.

Thankfully, we had opted to make the 1 hour drive from my home to Grove City to see Dr. Holinga at The Reading Doctor. She was a homeschooling mom and understands the more non-traditional methods that sometimes happen as life gets in the way of textbook learning. We had a great time with her, and it was just so fun to get out and on the road. I had forgotten how much I love to drive, and the girls seemed to enjoy our road trip as well once we had all gotten bathed, dressed, and in the van. I had all our stuff that I could think of to bring for the review, we had math books (both the ones we started with in October and the current program we do now), journals, and samples of the history stuff we're doing (gotta love the queen of supplementing, I had their History Pockets and the current lapbooks to show her) along with a book for each girl so she could informally assess their reading. Missa rocked it with her Bible, and Liddy giggled her way through Green Eggs And Ham. Goofy child....... and we now have 2 pretty yellow sheets of paper for me to send with my notification that says they have completed a year of schoolwork at their levels and pretty much to back off me for a year. She was the PERFECT choice for us this year for review, and I plan to go back every year for review with her as long as I refuse to use standardized tests.

So now let's get rocking with our homeschool, its kind of funny to say that, since we did a year-end assessment at what would be closer to the start of our school years. We have decided it would be better for our family to take winters off the full courseload and do just a minimum of work, and then hump it through the spring, summer, and fall. I don't do as well mentally in winter, and we have so many illnesses that plague us during that time that it really is more practical for us to do it this way. As long as they make progress though, how cares how we do the school year right?

preschool plans

As you may or may not know, we don't do much normally for preschool here. We are big believers in the better late than early philosophy, and take a completely child-led approach for any child not under our state compulsory education laws. If I don't have to send in notification with that child's name on it, I don't force learning. That said, I do have a preschooler working almost daily in math, reading, and handwriting lessons because she has requested schoolbooks to be like her big sisters.

This upcoming fall, that child will her a K'er still not under compulsory attendance. She will continue her learning as she is doing now with Math-U-See (I have Alpha waiting for her currently), Handwriting Without Tears, and Sonlight readers at her pace and ability. It is her little sister that I am choosing to write about today.

Jojo is a typical 3 year old child. She likes to make messes, and sometimes these messes can take HOURS to clean up. Her beach in my kitchen is one of those messes, she dumped my sugar and flour to make the sand on my wood floor then used the kitchen sprayer to make the ocean. It took her about 3 minutes to do something that took me 4 hours to clean up sufficiently to not leave a sticky residue on the floor (as if anyone would notice my floor being sticky in there, you know what I mean if you've ever been in my kitchen LOL). She flushes entire rolls of toilet paper at one time, has plugged my bathtub with a washcloth, drawn on every wall and door in my home, writes on windows. Yes, she is 3 1/2 and she is VERY good at it.

SO, imagine my surprise when I was putting away the school supplies one day last week and she was helping me sweetly. Very carefully she handed me books to go on the shelf, and when I was marking off the boxes in my Sonlight core guides she fetched me a pencil. She wanted something.......

So I dared to ask her what it was she was wanting. I was not prepared for her answer.

"I want mine own Jojo spelling box and math book mommy, just like mine sisters."

Now, if you know anything at all from reading this, you know that we have been using Math-U-See for the older girls (Liddy, my 1st grader, is switching effective TODAY from Horizons math into Alpha with her older sister) and that Missa, my 2nd grader, does All About Spelling. She wants to do seat work just like the big sisters do.

OK, fine you say. Just hop online to the dozen freebie sites I know and grab worksheets for her, I hear you saying. Well, she's been doing those freebies for over a year now, and is becoming less satisfied with the work. I was anticipating that sometime NEXT school year she would have this request, so I didn't budget in to shop for her when we were at the homeschool convention. Now I'm in a bit of a pickle, aren't I?

So what did I do? First, I checked out blogs and chat forums that I frequent to read some stuff and get a few ideas on what to do with her. We're already lapbooking our way through Sonlight core P3/4, so she'll just move up to P4/5 with Kimi this fall. That takes care of social studies and read aloud time. Science is covered with our choice to do Real Science 4 Kids pre-level 1 with all the girls, she'll just join in on that one easy as can be. She's quite happy with that stuff in fact, she likes being included. But now, she also wants her own math and such.

Well, I personally think she's too young for Missa's spelling program. She'll be barely 4 when we do the official changing of the grades here in September. So I need to come up with something to substitute for the spelling. No problem, they also have a reading program called- you guessed it!- All About Reading! We'll buy that to give her a program of her own in that area. Math, well I'm just going to get the child a copy of the Primer level in our program, and let her go at it as slowly as she wants. She doesn't need to do a whole lesson daily like her big sisters sometimes do.

Crud LOL And here I was hoping for another year before she started asking me for real school books.

All About Spelling

This is one of those new things we got at the convention for next school year. Well, I spent the weekend cutting up the tiles and applying magnets and prepping the review box for Missa, as well as looking over the material so I know what I'm doing. This morning I got out the big magnetic dry-erase board and sorted out the tiles to get out all the ones we need for this level, putting the ones it said we need to start with on the board and the ones for later into a baggie. I think we will try starting this one today, and see where it takes us. If it proves to be a little too much on top of our current heavy load in history and our current pace in math (Missa's doing 2 lessons a week in Math-U-See at the moment now that we've got her into a routine) then I'll set it aside until around June or so. I try to ease us into new materials, and with as many things as we've changed for next school year we are really trying to start this transition now. It is the only way that I can handle working with the changes, doing it all at once just messes me up too much.

And since we're in the routine with history, math, reading practice, and Missa working on cursive, I thought it would be a good time to try and add in a little more now.

ancient Mesopotamia

I told you that we supplement our Sonlight core curriculum with a couple other programs right? Well, we do. We add History Pockets and lapbooking to our studies. In fact, right now while I type this post, I am pausing every few minutes to flip pages while I copy the activities for our ancient Mesopotamia lapbook from my new HOAC project pack. At convention I bought this as a full package complete with a prefolded folder and a set of the activity pages on color paper. Well, we are taking the folder from our next unit's pack out so they both have a blue folder, and then they are going to alternate who gets a color activity and who gets black and white (Liddy has been assigned to odd-numbered activities in color and even in black and white, while Missa get odd-numbered activities in black and white and the even-numbered ones in color). They have the understanding that if they share well for the next 2 units with the color activities, that I will buy colored file folders and paper and we will do more lapbooks with colored activities. If they don't, then it is back to black and white minit books and plain folders. I don't anticipate there being much of a problem with these two sharing the color printed activity pages.

Now, these aren't my first HOAC lapbooks. I've done a couple in the past that I borrowed from a friend to have a couple components to add to the free stuff. But this IS the first time that I've done a HOAC unit lapbook as the main component of our lapbooking. Usually we use free things from Homeschool Share to make our lapbooks, and then worksheets and coloring pages from various other sites to add in a bit more. I have never paid for all this material that we've added before this school year. This is the first year we've been able to afford to pay for extras after buying our core program for history, and I'm really enjoying it. I really enjoy not having to take the time to find minit book templates that will work, clipart that is relavant, and create a sort of lesson plan to include it with our Sonlight materials. I don't have to spend the time researching the topic to create a read-aloud handout for the girls to take turns reading me (which was something we wanted this year) and there is no need to spend a lot of time looking through library books to find ones that will work for us with the unit. With the addition of the two programs that we chose to add, I have all these things already finished for me. I just need to take the time to print it all up. My printer is getting *quite* the workout in "copy" mode lately as a result........ lol

But our plan for this week is to get into ancient Mesopotamia real good, hopefully completing half of our lapbook AND history pocket for both. I intend to spend 2 or 3 weeks studying this area, pulling worksheets from the k12 history book that we had for Liddy at the start of the year before we pulled out of OHVA. So, this week I need to get to the library and pick up some books for our study if there is anything available. It may not be super fancy or exciting, but the girls should enjoy it before we dig into our big unit with ancient Egypt. That one, I should purchase a couple more HOAC units to do (in eBook format though) but I'll decide on that after I get us started on this unit. Our Handle On The Arts materials came with a lapbook for ancient Egypt that I'm adding in as well, so we may be able to get away with just the one HOAC unit I bought and the various resources available free online. But I am looking at the HOAC Pyramids unit, so I may end up buying that one no matter what we decide.

my first homeschool convention

OK so I blogged a couple times about going to the Midwest Homeschool Convention this weekend. Well, last night we loaded up the girls to stay the night with grandma, and then Scott and I drove down and got a hotel room for the night so we could attend today. We slept in, then had breakfast and got to the convention right around 10am. I just wanted to go into the vendor's hall, as I knew what I wanted to get and look at, plus I wanted to explore some new stuff. So, we did for 4 hours before my hip and leg started to give out. In that time, we looked at several different science programs and picked one!!! YAY!!!!! We also managed to get the following other items:

All About Spelling levels 1 and 2 (from the company itself)
Math-U-See Beta with 2 student books, an Alpha student set, a second set of blocks, and the wood storage case (all sold out so they will ship to us)
Real Science 4 Kids Pre-Level 1 Chemestry, Biology, and Physics bundles
Write Foundations books 1.1 and 1.2 times 2 kids (will ship free to us)
Mathematics standards K-12 guideline book (badly needed for my own reference here!)
a book for me to enjoy
Hands of A Child Complete packs for Ancient Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt
a new Sonlight catalog that isn't all torn up so I can read it plus a discount code for my next purchase

Now, I just have to comment on some of this. The Write Foundations books for Missa and Liddy are a spontaneous purchase, and part of my plans for the upcoming school year to try and get them writing more on a daily basis. I walked by their table at the convention, and something made me stop and look. So, being the faithful person I am, I decided to. What the heck, I can learn about something new right? Obviously I liked what I saw and heard, because I got it for 2 kids. I have no clue if it will work well for us, but hopefully it gets them started to thinking about the writing process a bit and starting to write more in general.

My decision to get Real Science 4 Kids came after we looked at several different programs. I've tried so hard to like Sonlight science, I really have, but I just don't like it. Sorry, Sonlight, but it is the truth. It is too random and jumpy for our family, moving from topic to topic and too many books to read from each week. It is a great program overall, but is not the right choice for our family. So, we put science research at the top of our list. I'm familiar with several programs already, so I wanted mainly to get Scott's opinion of the different options. How it worked was...... He looked at Apologia's science books and got this look on his face like he had seen a fat man in a skintight micro-miniskirt with fishnets, heels, and all that nasty stuff. He was horrified by it, and refused to let me even consider it. I have to agree, it wasn't a good fit for our family's needs (and his opinion wasn't based on the religious content either, he read through part of a chapter and was horrified at the way the material was presented and said that it made him want to cry at how terribly it was written with so much misinformation, I didn't bother looking at it myself because I won't use a program without his agreement). A few others we looked at were poorly laid out, or too parent-intensive for finding materials, or too much time in front of a computer screen, so we ended up right back at the Real Science 4 Kids table at the end making a purchase. We are hoping to use all 3 books in the next two years with the girls combined into one big group, and just have fun with it before we move up to level 1.

Now, I'm sure you saw on this post that I bought All About Spelling from the company itself. I was planning to buy from Sonlight, but I wanted Scott to take a look at it before I bought it. So we headed over to the table, and then after he got a look at it and listened to their speil about the program he suggested that maybe we should buy it today. I agreed, and then decided that since I got it today that poor Missa will start it most likely on Monday. My hands are still tingly and sore from cutting up all the letter tiles to put the magnets on them.

Now, I also hear you asking why I would get just a new Sonlight catalog and a coupon code from them. Well, my new catalog was damaged by the USPS in shipping and it arrived on Monday. I decided that it would be better to just grab a new one at the convention instead of asking Sonlight to ship me another one and risk the post office damaging it too. And that coupon code will come in VERY handy here soon, as I am planning to place an order this weekend for the next set of readers that Missa needs and that package is priced high enough for me to use the coupon code. :)

Oh and the lapbook units. Yes, we use Sonlight for history, but we also add in History Pockets, the k12 history 1 student pages that apply, and lapbooking to our Sonlight to give it a much better hands-on appeal for Missa. That gives her another way to absorb the material, and I noticed in the past that when we lapbook she is engaged and interested and actually retains information better. So yeah, I use 3 curricula to teach the same material. No big deal. We are also adding a lot of depth to our core program (the Sonlight) with these added materials, giving Missa the extra that she craves. We chose to repeat ancients this year despite doing it just last year with k12 because she loved it so much and I wanted to dig in deeper to fuel that interest. So we take 2 or 3 weeks sometimes to finish a week of core work, but its ok because other weeks we may bust through a couple weeks of our core work in this subject. So there you have it, we tweak and modify to encourage the maximum potential of each child in their learning and that includes doing lapbooking, history pockets, and the occassional worksheet (for Liddy's sake, she's my worksheet kid).

So, my very first convention was a blast. I'm hoping that next year Scott can get convention week off work so we can go the whole thing, then I'll be able to explore every vendor they have there and go to some of the workshops. I can't wait, I have my list of this year's vendors and I plan to spend the year researching the ones I'm unfamiliar with to see if they are worthy of my investigating further.

countdown to convention!!!!!

Yes, our tax refund arrived and cleared the bank (minus a hold on almost half of it because of silly bank policies) so I can officially say that we are going to be going to the Midwest convention on Saturday. I am so happy, Scott has arranged for the girls to spend the night on Friday with his mom and then tonight he's going to reserve a rental car for us to take down to the convention (we don't want to put that many miles on any of our vehicles with the way he commutes in his car and our need to leave my van with his mom in case she has to go somewhere with the girls so she can do it legally). I am debating between a full pass for us and just a pass to the vendor's hall (which is what I REALLY want to be exploring and need Scott for help with). But, it is such an exciting moment for me, as it has been a full year since he and I got an overnight without the children (we're considering leaving Friday night and getting a hotel room somewhere closer to the convention since it is a few hours away from here) and we do enjoy getting away for a bit alone whenever possible.

Now I just have to figure out what to wear for the convention and if I need to take something for us to use as a carrying device for any goods we get there (but then, I am married to a man who can pick up a speedboat). I won't be carrying anything so it will be all on him to do that.

I've never been to a homeschool convention before, despite the fact we've been doing this a few years now. So I'm really looking forward to it, and to the CHEO convention in Akron this June when I can go without any kids at all if I want to go to it. I'm reading online for convention tips on how to best navigate it and what I need to have (like uhhh do they take credit cards or should I plan on us having a large amount of cash on hand, I'm making a lot of purchases this weekend based on some special deals that I know will be there at the convention, like the almost $300 I'll be dropping at Math-U-See, if they take cards then I don't have to plan ahead so that we can hit the bank and make a LARGE withdrawal and keep it somewhere on Scott that it can't be picked off him) but if you have anything for me to offer up, please feel free to share with me. I'm really looking forward to this!

dear 7 year old......

No, I did not ride on a dinosaur's back to go to school when I was a little girl. Thanks for calling me old kiddo, I can't wait until your own kids do the same to you one day.

teaching writing

I'm not talking about penmanship here, but the actual process of writing and all the technical stuff in grammar, usage, and mechanics (or GUM to make it easier on me). Missa is in 2nd grade, going to 3rd this fall at home, and Liddy is in 1st, going on 2nd at home, so it is time I start thinking about how to teach some of that stuff.

I have NO knowledge of the technical stuff. I was out of high school before I understood what a verb was, and I have no use for that stuff really. Even in my college classes so far, I've not had to do a great deal of stuff involving the technical aspects of writing (and I've taken English classes already, I have my last one starting up here on Tuesday in fact).. I am an intuitive writer; meaning, I know what I want to write and instinctively how to say it so that I can do well. I attribute that to my early start with reading (I believe my mom said she had me reading before I was 3 years old, but then I was an only child with a stay-at-home mom who had nothing but time to teach me that stuff so young) because I have had the opportunity to read a wide variety of literature in many genres and time periods, so I've had the natural exposure to how to write well. But if you ask me to diagram a sentence, I will laugh in your face because I cannot do it. Period.

I do not wish for my girls to suffer the same fate I have with writing. I want them to be beautiful writers, but I also want them to know WHY something is correctly written. I don't want them to depend on instincts to write, and grammar check in Microsoft Word. I want them to be able to write anything at any time without fear of having fragments and run-ons, without fear of being laughed at for their poor style of writing. I want them to have the foundation I never got. So, the search is on for materials I can use to start them with this process. And until I find that one program I'm looking for to teach it, I will teach them what little I know about the subject myself.

If you have a suggestion for me on this, I'm totally open to it, post away and know that I do read all comments and look into anything that is recommended to me.

new math, good response so far

One of my goals for this month was to switch Missa's math from Miquon to Math-U-See. Well, Friday I ordered Alpha for her and it arrived this morning while I was still rubbing my eyes and trying to wake up (UPS in this area likes to deliver EARLY for some reason, they were here around 9am). Missa appeared totally disinterested in it, and then tried to argue with me this afternoon when I went to sit her down for her first lesson in the book. But after we got going and she was more willing to give it a shot (with reminders that she can either do her math or she can go to bed for the night at 2pm becuase I wasn't going to deal with a defiant attitude today) she decided that it isn't so bad. She watched the DVD lesson with me and then took a brief break while I set up the dining table for 3 kids to do their math at once. I had Kimi and Missa doing their levels of Math-U-See (lesson 1 in Alpha for Missa, lesson 3 in Primer for Kimi) and Lydia doing her Horizons math 1 workbook. Kimi did 3 pages of math, Missa did 2 pages, and Liddy did 1 1/2 pages. Halfway through her first page of math, Missa said she loves her new math book and wanted to do more than just that page so I let her move faster.

what perfect timing

So, we are approaching convention season here. I have *plans* tentatively to attend the Midwest convention in Cincinatti on April 1 and 2 if I can sweet-talk Scott into letting me go down alone on Friday and then he meet me there that night while a friend of mine babysits for us for those 2 days. She already said she would watch them, so now I just have to convince Scott that I won't get mugged there and it will be OK for part of a day. If I can't convince him, then I'll go just Saturday with him. Or maybe I'll go to the convention in Indianapolis.

But anyway, I saw over at the Sonlight forums this morning a teaser about the new catalog. The new catalog is always a big to-do over there, and last year I got sucked in when I found out that they had chosen one of the pictures I submitted to them to print in the current catalog, along with taking 2 quotes from the forums about how Sonlight works in our family. I was quite honored by that little gesture, and felt it was just amazing to be recognized in such a way. I didn't submit any pictures for the upcoming catalog, so I haven't been too excited about the upcoming release. Until I saw that teaser.

Sonlight is going to be carrying All About Spelling when the new catalog goes live on April 1st. I planned to purchase this program for the upcoming school year, to help the girls with spelling. I have a dyslexic child in this house, so it is especially important to me that we build a solid foundation in spelling and phonics with her when it is coming so naturally for her sisters. I've tried a few other methods for spelling, including k12 phonics as written, giving spelling lists each week and testing on Fridays (like in public school), and using the k12 phonic tiles and creating my own hands-on method for teaching the subject. Nothing has worked too well for her, so we had decided to bite the bullet and just buy a program that is supposed to work really well with dyslexic kids along with "typical" learners. Since Sonlight will be carrying this program come April, I'll be able to buy the first 2 levels and the stuff to go with it (including a second set of the cards just so that the two kids in each group don't feel like they are competing, and at this point I think only the 2 oldest will be doing this program when we get started anyway unless Kimi shows a real interest in it since she's just beginning to learn to read now).

But this really excites me, because I was hoping that I'd be able to get it with free shipping and I was seriously considering buying some stuff at Rainbow Resource that we don't really *need* but would like (Five In A Row to supplement P4/5 for the youngest kids) so that I could get the price needed for free shipping. But now, Sonlight carries it so I can buy it without any worries about not having the minimum for free shipping thanks to my club membership perks. Now I just wonder if All About Spelling will be eligible for their 10% discount that I also get on most products......... I'm already planning to purchase Rosetta Stone Spanish from them for me to learn the language (hey if I'm going to spend that much money I may as well get free shipping, you know what I mean?) and several other things that do actually qualify for my discount (the Rosetta Stone isn't eligible) so it won't add much to my order even if it doesn't get the discount, but man I can't wait for this particular order to be placed and then shipped next month.

I'm almost as excited about being able to make this order as I am at the fact that we've almost gotten rotavirus out of this house after picking it up at Classical Conversations last week when we went to check it out as a possibility for fall. The fact that we brought home *that* particular bug didn't help me sell it to Scott, so I need to do some serious overtime work on convincing him before we drop $1600-ish on a once weekly co-op to supplement our Sonlight, and praying if its the right choice for us. A big part of why we homeschool is because of Kimi's immune system being so weak, any bug that comes through here she gets worse than anyone else and takes longer to get over it. Her sisters and I are all over this virus already but she is still running regularly to the bathroom and has an upset tummy so she isn't eating so much. And Kimi was one of the first ones to get it, she came down with it just a couple hours after Jojo did on Saturday night and then the other 2 came down with it on Sunday night, then me on Monday morning and Scott yesterday. I'm thinking I may see if I can give her something to help with the bathroom trips.

March- new month, new goals

So, I've discovered that by not setting clear goals and plans for the month, lessons don't happen too easily in this house. Now granted, I never actually accomplish all our academic goals that I set at the start of a month, but they do help motivate me to be more consistent in our daily work. So, I'm going to set some goals for this month in hopes that I will actually accomplish some of it.

finish 3 weeks of core 1 with the older girls
finish that first History Pocket with the older girls
do 4 weeks of P4/5 with the little girls
do 2 lapbooks with the little girls
do 10 days of math with Kimi
order and start Missa in Math-U-See Alpha
math daily with Missa and Liddy
have Liddy master place value
start cursive with Missa
Liddy finish her handwriting book
all kids read aloud to me 15 times each (not counting Jojo in this one)
finish our dinosaurs unit

OK those are actually fairly realistic goals, and I am pretty confident that we can do it now that the weather is becoming more appropriate for us to get outside so I can get more sun and fresh air. I also have a math final that's due on March 7th, so I am working hard to finish up that class and get on with life already.

I am wearing a skirt today

Shocking, isn't it? If you know me, I love my jeans and t-shirts. Skirts and dresses just aren't something that I enjoy. However, when Jojo was just a couple months old I did start a year and a half journey of only wearing skirts and dresses, complete with headcovering. I felt pretty, feminine, and noticed a major difference in how I carried myself. I wasn't as quick to lose my temper with my daughters when I dressed this way, and I spoke quieter, was more productive, and overall was happier in general. Then life happened, along with a move to a new home, and I transitioned back into my former jeans and t-shirts.

Well, today I dug out a skirt and nice shirt and put them on. I then dug out one of my old coverings, just to see how I looked. As soon as I put it on, I felt this calm sweep over me. I haven't felt this in a long time, and I like it.

I think I may need to do some serious sewing this weekend for me, on top of making those skirts I have planned for my children. And no, I will *not* post a picture of me in a skirt, if you want to see it then give me a call and then stop by.

frustrations in college

Yes, I'm dedicating a post just to my college complaining right now. But let me start by saying that I am truly loving the journey of getting my degree, it has really helped me to see things in a different light as far as how to effectively teach my girls. That is *always* a good thing right?

So what could be so frustrating about college for me? I mean, I just said that I'm loving it. Well, it happens to be one small thing really, and related to an upcoming class.

Next week on Tuesday, I start a new class. This class puts me into the new semester and back into my original group, but I'll have a 3 week juggle with starting a new semester and finishing the old one at the same time. It isn't a big deal, as the class I'm in now is just a basic math class and I currently am a week ahead in the material AND carrying a 100% grade. But the issue lies within the material for the upcoming class.

Now, if you've read my one and only post where I spoke in detail about my college classes, you know that I am attending a Christian college and studying ministry. WOW big stuff there right? Anyway, the problem is with the textbook I have for my next class that is coming up for this 2 course juggle that I'll have for 3 weeks. Are you ready for this?

The class is Earth Science. The textbook is evolution-based.

I'll leave it to you to figure out what it is that I have a problem with for that class. LOL As if it isn't *quite* obvious enough..........

One, I do not believe that evolution happened on the large-scale that theorists speak of. I don't care if they say the planet is around 4.5 billion years old, if you look at skeletons from ancient Egypt and ones from today you will see that 6,000 years produced very little evolution of our structure. Yes, people look different now from then, but structurally we are pretty much unchanged. Evolutionary theorists want us to believe that over the course of about 4 billion years, life evolved from an amoeba to a fish to early reptiles to dinosaurs and everything else, to eventually the animals we have here today (yes, people are animals too, I don't care if you are civilized and socialized and all that jazz, some of the people I know are more animal than person when it comes to certain desires). Obviously, I believe what we are told in Genesis, that God made everything on a 6 day plan and then rested the 7th day. However, I don't know if I lean more to the thinkings of young-earth or old-earth creationism. I am still sorting that one out on my own terms, and I don't need any help with it (I'm starting to have my lean, and when I decide officially I will let you know).

I had told myself that I was going to keep my college textbooks for my own personal reasons, but honestly I think that this earth science book will be hitting the used curriculum sale that our homeschool group does every year, if I can find a friend willing to put it on her table marked FREE TO A GOOD HOME because I find it that wrong to me. And I just got the book on Friday.......... It certainly won't be lasting long around here, that's for sure.

Math-U-See Primer

I decided to go ahead and start Kimi today with Primer. I spent a good amount of time yesterday once the program arrived looking it over and playing with the manipulatives and doing the lessons myself to get familiar with it, so I had a rough idea what I'm doing. Well, we did lesson 1 today. Kimi and I sat together and watched the DVD lesson on my laptop, then we pulled that worksheet out of her book and got some of the green blocks to do it. We're just having fun with it right now, she did 2 pages of the lesson today and I anticipate that tomorrow and Friday she'll finish the lesson.

Now, this child is one that I sat and seriously debated on what level to buy her. At first, I thought I should get her Alpha until I discussed it with a couple people over at the Sonlight forums. Their input led me to get Primer instead, and once it arrived and I got a good look at the materials I started doubting that it was the right choice for her. But, we're going to do it anyway with her, and I'm having her actually use the workbook instead of my original plan to have her do the work in a notebook. She will likely finish it before Missa's birthday in April, but that's all right. I'm actually planning to purchase Alpha here I think next month for Missa to do, so I'll be ready when Kimi is ready for Alpha. I just hope that starting in Alpha we can treat the student workbook like a non-consumable textbook, and have the girls do the work in notebooks instead.

If you've done Math-U-See Alpha, do you think it will be possible to do the program the way I want to? The cheapskate in me just doesn't like the idea of spending that much on math workbooks if I can reuse them and have them write in notebooks instead. Notebooks I can get 10/$1 during the back-to-school sales so it is a much more economical choice for us to do this instead.

wow they are fast!

As usual, I had trouble sleeping tonight. So, I grabbed my laptop off the kids' school desks and am curled up in bed with it while Scott and Kimi sleep (now when did she come join us? oh well it didn't wake me when she did) and decided to check out where our Math-U-See is at in its shipment. According to UPS, it will arrive on Tuesday, January 25th during their normal delivery hours. It is right now currently January 25th, 4:47am Eastern. So, that means that supposedly sometime in the next 3-15 hours or so it should arrive. And THIS is why we like UPS over FedEx, besides the obvious history we have with them delivering damaged packages, the packages being late, and/or them delivering our package at the other end of town requiring me to start making phone calls and yelling at them until they find my package. Maybe it is just me having issues with FedEx, but whenever possible I go with UPS. My college sends my textbooks UPS every time (thankfully that is their default so I don't need to contact the bookstore and get that changed), and since Sonlight started offering the option of requesting UPS for delivery I take the extra day or two of my order being processed to get it (my requesting the different delivery option means that my orders go from the automatic processing to being manually processed, which is a bit slower at the warehouse I guess since a person has to put it in the system for packing and create the shipping order and notify UPS and all that instead of the computers there doing it all). I avoid FedEx for shipping whenever possible after having my Sonlight core P3/4 arrive late, across town, and when it DID show up the box was damaged and some of the corners on my brand new hardback books were dinged up and bent. Back in the spring I ordered a new guide for my core P4/5 and paid the extra for ground shipping instead of Media Mail since I needed it by a certain date, and they managed to lose my order at the local FedEx building where it was supposed to go on the truck for delivery. They claimed they attempted to deliver it Friday but that my business was closed so they couldn't. Last I checked, this was a residence, not a business. That one, Sonlight personally got involved in finding out where the heck my delivery was while I also was making calls, and then when we finally tracked down my package I threw a FIT on the phone (which if you've ever heard/seen one of my little hissy fits you know it is not something small and it can get loud and very nasty, I've had customer service people in tears before when I throw a fit). Needless to say, by the time Sonlight and I got it tracked down and then I threw that fit, they had a guy who wasn't a delivery person personally bring me my package (he was taking personal time mid-day for a few hours to drive in to Columbus to pick his son up at the airport for a visit and since I live on the way and right off the freeway they had him personally deliver it to me). FedEx and I have a looooong history of not getting along. I much prefer to work with UPS or even the USPS for getting my materials.

And the girls always get super excited when I tell them that UPS is coming that day. They know that even if it is one of my college books, a UPS delivery means that there is something new to look at and it puts a little change in our daily flow and it gives me a little boost to have that small change. This delivery today though, that one should be a BIG deal for Kimi since it is supposedly her first official schoolbooks and they all know that we're switching programs so they are all anticipating this delivery so they can check out the manipulatives and see what this new math looks like before they get their own levels to do.

Math-U-See

I've mentioned it before in past blog posts. I've considered switching to Math-U-See for a long time now, close to 2 years in fact. However, the cost of it has kept us from doing just that.

And then Scott got his paycheck this past Friday. Now, if you know my family we have a VERY tight budget, and every penny counts. On his most recent paycheck, however, we were pleased to find that we had been reimbursed a bit of insurance money. His employer switched health insurance companies for the 2011 calendar year. The old insurance company, they required pre-payment by the employer for the insurance premiums. This means that the money they took out in January was for February's coverage. Well, the new company takes the money the month it is due, meaning that January's withholdings is for January's coverage. So, we got the money that was deducted from his paycheck back in December back. That means that we had a little extra money that we didn't anticipate.

So, we decided to take the plunge. Kimi is 5 now, and bugging us for math lessons of her own. So, on Saturday morning we ordered Math-U-See Primer for her. I've always been spoiled by my experiences with Sonlight for quick shipping, but I don't know anything about how Math-U-See ships. All I knew was from when I ordered and had to pay shipping and that they only offer UPS shipping (cool beans, I don't like FedEx). No clue how long it would take them to ship my order.

Well, I got a tracking number in my e-mail inbox less than an hour ago........ I'm anticipating that we'll have it here by Thursday at the latest. Kimi is really looking forward to it, and Missa is also looking forward to it after I explained that I wanted her to try Kimi's level and see if she wanted to do this math instead of Miquon (since it is rather expensive, I'd like her to get into it and work on some of the material that she struggles with that is in Kimi's level so that she has a real feel for the program before I take the leap and buy her Alpha and Beta both to work at her pace). I have a feeling that by fall all my girls will be doing this math program at their levels and pace.

So, if I changed math to this program, does this mean that next I'll be changing up all my other subjects too? The only one left that I want to change is spelling. I've already changed handwrinting this month, and now math is starting to transition of a new program as well.

eating habits

Yep, we all have issues with this one don't we? Well, since it is the start of a new year, I'm re-evaluating some things. My goal to exercise at least a bit 3 days a week is great, but it isn't terribly effective if I don't have the energy to do it because of inadequate nutrition. So, I sit here contemplating a drastic change.

While I was pregnant with Jojo, I was pretty good with a vegan diet that was at least 50% raw produce. I had energy, I felt great, and just overall I was doing better than I'd ever done. I'm thinking it may be about time to start incorporating more of this into my life. I love veggies, I could live on a veggie and nut diet I think with a daily fruit tossed in for that morning burst of energy (I'm particularly fond of apples with peanut butter)

Now here comes the interesting thing. I'm married to a man who will hang me by my toes if I try to make him give up his "meat and potatoes for every meal" style diet. I need to incorporate this slowly for his benefit. I would love to see him eating the stuff I want to, but he is so picky when it comes to food that I'm going to end up cooking one meal for him and the kids and then preparing something else entirely for me each meal. Oh well, I can handle that I think.

At this point I don't have any money left in my grocery budget to go shopping for produce, so I will use the canned and frozen food items that I have on hand now until we have money again here in about 2 1/2 weeks. I'm going to be doing a lot of recipe hunting and experimenting this next couple of weeks while we switch to vegetarian breakfasts and lunches then go vegan with 50% or more being raw on my birthday.

Who wants to bet my kids try to throw a fit at me for this at first?

Making Math Easy

At yesterday's library trip I decided to check and see what kind of math resources were available that I could use for Kimi to last until I am ready to make my next curriculum purchase from Sonlight. Well, I found a couple things I can use with her, and Jordan at the same time, as filler but the big thing I discovered is a book series called "Making Math Easy."

This series is a set of six books by Rebecca Wingard-Nelson. The six books each cover one topic in depth from basic skills to more advanced concepts. All the titles in this series are:

Addition Made Easy
Subtraction Made Easy
Multiplication Made Easy
Division Made Easy
Fractions and Decimals Made Easy
Word Problems Made Easy

I got Addition, Subtraction, and Multiplication for us to check out and review/learn with (multiplication is a subject we've not started yet, and the other two need more practice to solidify skills). The publisher's site also offers free worksheets to download and print for use with the books, so I did just that (however, I only printed the even-numbered pages off since the odd-numbered ones are the title page and answer keys for each worksheet, I can use a calculator to check her work if needed). Now, I have these books for four weeks, plus a renewal for another 4 weeks that I intend to utilize, so I am planning to use these in place of Miquon for a bit to see how Missa does with grasping the concepts.

I also plan to purchase the entire six book series as soon as I have the money to do so. A friend of mine has access to purchasing the set from her local public school district for a slightly discounted price. So I am going to take advantage of this and let her know as soon as I have the money for them, and she is going to check to see if the school has any available to buy. If they do, I'm sending her the money for the books and shipping from Kentucky up here in Ohio. If not, then I'll pay a little more to purchase them online.

If you want to check out this series, here's a link to the publisher's page for the series. I think this is a valuable resource for any homeschooling family, especially if they have a child who struggles with math.

ENSLOW PUBLISHERS, INC.

Dinosaurs!!!!!

I'm creating my first unit study ever. I've done unit studies before, but only the pre-created kind that I can get from sites like Homeschool Share. But, this time I don't have ready access to all the books for the unit we want to do at Homeschool Share, so I'm creating my own for the first time.

They want to study dinosaurs. Lord help me, I still haven't decided if I am in the young earth or old earth camp on this, so I don't know how to approach the times and such. I'm thinking that for now, I'll just go with the mainstream opinion of the Earth being billions of years old and sidestep the dates as much as possible, replacing the "billions of years ago" references with "a long time ago" type stuff and PRAY that Missa doesn't decide to ask me how long ago that "a long time ago" is.

So, for the month of February and maybe a little bit of March I will be doing a unit study for science on dinosaurs. I have a dozen or so books that I got yesterday at the library, and this weekend I plan to go back and get more.

If you've ever created a unit study, do you have any advice for me on this? Missa is VERY interested in dinosaurs and right now is reading one of the books I got yesterday as a first wave of books to consider for the unit, and I know she's going to want to really dig in while at the same time I have a 3 year old who just likes dinosaurs. (and one of the books I got will really appeal to Lydia and her strange fascination with gross things, it is called "Jurassic Poop" of all things LOL) I'm a little nervous about this, since I've only done a handful of unit studies before and NEVER created my own pretty much from scratch like this.

buy a blank book or do a couple dozen lapbooks?

So, as I get ready for tomorrow's lessons, and the start of our newest venture in history with being VERY hands-on, I wonder. I have History Pockets to go with our core, as well as the Handle On The Arts Hands-On History year 1 book and numerous resources for free lapbooking pieces to go with our studies in the rest of core 1. So, do I hunt down some blank books that are going to be big enough for us to put all this in through the year, or do I get a couple more 1" binders and more cardstock to hole-punch for a big notebook we can add to all year, or do I just make a couple dozen or more lapbooks? I have an almost full box of file folders (one of the boxes of 100) so I'm not hurting for folders. I'm just trying to figure out the most practical method of putting this all together for the kids. Scott gets paid on Friday, so if I do something that isn't using a couple dozen lapbooks we can't begin assembling for a whole week (well with the binder option we can begin assembling right away pretty much, as I have some cardstock already on hand and we can punch it for them to use in assembly and then carefully store those pages until we get the binders).

If you have insights or input, comment box is open for it.