Week 8-Almost Finished with First Quarter!

We are almost finished with our first quarter! I can't believe how fast time flies. Finding curriculum for MK continues to be a struggle. We've tried so much, and just haven't found the right fit for her. The latest adventure was Switched on Schoolhouse. I paid almost $300 for 3 subjects, and it's just not working for us. Sadly, I can't re-sell it. I vow to never buy curriculum again that you aren't allowed to resell. I am putting M back into Saxon math, which she did the last 2 years at school. H already uses Saxon. I have experience teaching it as well, and the spiral approach works well for my girls. I regret not just going with Saxon from the start, but now I know! Stick with what works!

T finished her first book this week! I am so proud of her. I actually cried for a minute after I took her picture. I am also thankful to Pizza Hut who extends their reading program to homeschoolers. T earned a coupon for a free personal size pizza. We will have to go use it next week.

The girls love their art class, and I'm constantly impressed with their creativity and skill.

H is absolutely loving her Circle C Adventures book Andrea Carter and the Long Ride Home. I'm thoroughly enjoying it as well. H will finish it this next week and then she will write a book report the following week. I'm excited to work on some writing skills with her. After that we will continue on with the next book in the series, Andrea Carter and the Dangerous Decision. The author provides free lesson plans and study guides for all of her books on her website. I am eternally grateful. They are wonderful!

I am really loving Rod and Staff math for T. It is thorough, to the point, and provides tons of practice. T's favorite part of math is when she gets to practice on the board.

I discovered Liberty Kids videos on YouTube thanks to the recommendation of a friend. History in the form of a cartoon couldn't be more perfect! Even the little girls were happy to sit and watch. In fact, K didn't want me to turn it off. I definitely recommend it for a unit study or even a "mom needs a break to make lunch" study. You can find some study guides on teachers pay teachers, but most of them cost.

Week 5-Scratch That!

We took this week pretty easy. We got the basics done, but not much else. This week I spent a lot of time in prayer and research regarding curriculum. I've read many times that the first few years of homeschooling you really figure yourself, your kids, and your curriculum out. I'm definitely no exception. Bottom line is, some things weren't working for us, and so they had to change. I decided to change MK over to Switched on Schoolhouse. I think (hope) I will love it. I really felt like Easy Peasy was not a great fit for MK. It was difficult for me to monitor her work, and ensure that she was really learning. With SOS I can see all her assignments, when they were completed, and the grade she got on them. It is automatically graded 90% of the time with the exception of essay questions. MK really prefers to work indepently on the computer, and it works well for her to do so. I searched and prayed all week for a curriculum that would fit both her needs and mine and THINK I've finally found it. We'll see. I'm hopeful.

I really wanted geography and cultures to work this year with H and T. I started off with My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures, and then switched to Easy Peasy Geography and Cultures. After 5 weeks I finally admitted that this is just not working for us. I needed to do something else. My main focus with H and T this year is actually the Three R's, but I don't want to throw history out completely. However, it needs to meet certain criteria. It needs to require minimal, if any, research from me (so I can use my time for the core subjects). It needs to be able to be used with both girls, in different grade levels, and it needs to have worksheets/activities already planned out. So, after debating all week on what to do, I finally decided to just go with The Story of the World Volume 3. I chose volume 3 because it's recommend for grades 3-6 (perfect, right?) and because to be perfectly honest, I've never really liked Ancient History, so my first year homeschooling I would prefer to avoid it (Volume 3 is early modern history). We'll get to Ancient History later when I've got this whole homeschooling thing down. Since SOTW is read like a book, we can all sit on the couch to enjoy it, and on the busier weeks we can skip activities from the accompanying activity book if needed. What I'm saying is, there's no pressure to do it all. I needed the pressure off for history, because reading, writing, and arithmetic are my focus with these girls this year. Those come first. History is an added bonus right now.

Now, on the bright side, I am super-de-duper loving Pathway Publishers reading for T. Her reading is improving greatly. It's absolutely the perfect program for her/us. Finding this program didn't come easily though. I first bought Abeka, sold that, and bought Rod and Staff. We got the R&S over summer and T absolutely hated it. So, I went down a grade level in R&S thinking that might help. It didn't. We had been reading one of Pathway Publishers books over summer for review/practice, and I thought (lightbulb moment) why not just go with the entire Pathway Publishers program since she seems to be doing so well with it (ding-ding-ding)!

I've also been around the block with reading curriculum for H. I originally bought Bob Jones Reading 6. I scratched that and got Rod and Staff's A Time to Plant. We used that for a few weeks and we were both extremely bored. My friend told me about Circle C Adventures. It's a series about a 12 year old girl who loves horses and is figuring out her place in the world. The author has free lesson plans and worksheets on her website. We both absolutely love the first book in the series, The Long Ride Home. H actually said said this week that she couldn't wait to find out what happens next. That, my friends, shows me that this series is the right choice for her.

So, onto a new week. I'm loving this homeschooling thing. I know with full certainty that this is exactly where my children and I are supposed to be. I thank God every day.

Oh, we need some pictures, don't we? I don't have too many, but we did go on a field trip to the ice skating rink. 

And check out this awesome art!

See ya next week!

Week 2 of Exploring Countries and Cultures

Week 2 of ECC

I have to admit I'm a little bored with ECC right now. Next week we move onto the United States, and I think I will enjoy it much more once we start digging deeper into different countries. This week we learned more general geography which included the 5 oceans. We learned about latitude and longitude. Little K had fun walking all over the map when we weren't looking.

These are Rod and Staff's bee charts that I painfully made. I learned a lesson making these: Only buy Crayola crayons. The off-brand crayons are terrible! Although these posters were a pain to make they are very helpful for addition fact families.

 I don't have many pictures this week. On Wednesday we met a friend for ice cream in the middle of the day, and Thursday we had our homeschool group classes. I think I didn't take many pictures because there just wasn't too much interesting stuff going on in Week 2 of ECC.

 The girls made a cake of the world (which we actually made day 1 of week 3). I didn't help at all. I didn't even turn the oven on! MK and H made the cake and H and T frosted it. MK didn't want to be in the picture because her hair wasn't done (teens!). Everyone enjoyed eating it.

Off to America! Looking ahead, it seems to pick up the pace a bit, so I'm looking forward to that. I think we will all really enjoy it more in 2 weeks when we move on to other countries and get our "passports".