Blog Archives

Homeschooling Essentials: Day Five: Scheduling

1/23/2014

Do you like schedules? Filling out Day Planners and weekly minders and such like?

I hate it.
I try all the time as everyone it seems says you must be ever so organized to homeschool well... and so I think I'm a certified failure since I just can't do it.
I can't. I try, it just doesn't work.
So I'm rather defunct.

The closest I've come to that sorta works is this... but even this doesn't really work for me. It adds stress to our lives rather than taking it away.

Now that said there is a schedule I more or less maintain and that is the reading of books with my boy.

Seriously....that's something I can regularly and easily.
Read the paper and one chapter book over breakfast. :)
Read books in-between doing workbooks and while completing hands-on tasks. :)
Reading for 30-45 minutes before bed.. all kinds of different books.

This I can do.
and in doing so I know I'm also schooling my boy. He knows lots of information and he can pull it out months later which surprises me quite regularly.

So perhaps I'm not quite as defunct as I think I am... But I don't really believe that. Reading comes easy to me and I love the look on my lad's face when he learns something new, or when I read something that causes him to ask questions. I LOVE IT. So the reading I do, I just don't call it scheduled....

So tell me something... Am I the ONLY person out there that can't keep a schedule if her life depended on it? Am I really the only defunct one out there?

Come read what some of the other 89 readers are doing. :) Here's 10 of them, you can find the rest over here. :)

Shalynne @ Wonderfully Chaotic
Jody @ Because I’m Me
Melanie @ A Year of Jubilee Reviews
Emilee @ Pea of Sweetness
Nikki @ Angels of Heart
Sara @ Embracing Destiny
Heather @ Only Passionate Curiosity
Jennifer @ Simblissity Cottage
Kathy @ Kathys Cluttered Mind
Annette @ A Net in Time

The rest in the series
Day One Language Arts.
Day Two Questions.
Day Three Faith.
Day four: Affording the Homeschool Life.

Homeschooling Essentials Day three: Faith

1/22/2014

5 The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" 6 And the Lord said, "If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you. Luke 17:5-6

It's a struggle I think many a homeschooling parent has. Will their efforts in schooling their children be successful?

In particular for the Christian homeschooling parent the fear is often there that someone they will mess up their children. I know that fear is there for me.

And when I read this verse me IMMEDIATE initial reaction is... My faith isn't like that. My faith isn't that strong.   How could my faith possibly move anything?

But the point is that my faith does NOT have to be great. My faith merely needs to be.   This point was taught to me here.
I firmly believe that God has called me to teach my boy at home.
I believe it's the path that God has set out for me.
And as such.. even though my faith so often seems as small as a mustard seed, what God has ordained will turn out in the manner he has so ordained. It's not on me. It's on God. I merely need to live in accordance with what he has called of me.
And on that FACT I have to put my trust. I have to. There's really no other way to live as a Christian homeschooling parent.

If I do as God wills for me, then he will work on the details out.

Doesn't mean it will always be easy.
Doesn't mean I can just slouch around depending on God to just infuse my lad with knowledge.
There is work involved in teaching a lad, in raising him up in the fear and knowledge of the Lord.
But it does mean I don't have to worry on it.   I can put my worry elsewhere (NOT!) -- but that's a whole other post isn't it?   :)

Come read what some of the other 89 readers are doing. :) Here's 10 of them, you can find the rest over here. :)

Shalynne @ Wonderfully Chaotic
Jody @ Because I’m Me
Melanie @ A Year of Jubilee Reviews
Emilee @ Pea of Sweetness
Nikki @ Angels of Heart
Sara @ Embracing Destiny
Heather @ Only Passionate Curiosity
Jennifer @ Simblissity Cottage
Kathy @ Kathys Cluttered Mind
Annette @ A Net in Time

Our Day In Review

1/21/2014

Our days around here don't start early by any means. :)

Let me run through our day today to give you a bit of an idea.

730 I'm up sitting at my computer wrote blog post for the homeschooling essentials.
815 the lad is up Lad: "mom, have you done the bunnies?" Me: "No" Lad "good I don't want to go out yet".
900 me: "Lad I'm doing the bunny water now". Lad: Okay, I'm coming mom!"   First I get the computer ready so the lad can doing reading kingdom and science4Us as he'll be done before I am. Boy oh boy is it cold out there.
930 in from chores, wait for the lad to be done his science. talk about breakfast, get distracted by the stuff dad's laughing on facebook.   have a chuckle together.
1000 breakfast - we read from the Warriors Series by Erin Hunter during breakfast, talk about the news abit.
1030 upstairs to do some work. Today we worked on Names of Christ (this will take us about 40 days to do if we do it daily).    We started off our time working on the Illuminations pages.   I worked hard to get through mine quickly so I could do some reading while the lad worked.

here's the lad working on his. He chose to do the crowpaw poem.

I worked on a page for the Brambleclaw poem. The lad tells me I'm a better artist than I think I am. "GOOD JOB mom."

140: We had lunch and read another chapter of the Warriors book, and then the lad worked a bit more on his lego rendition of the clan camps. Then we moved back upstairs as I wanted to start our names of Christ study. Today we learned about the name ELOHIM which means God as a unit of three. Elohim is plural for mighty one. When we are done we hope to put it up on the wall so we have a quick recall of the one we love to serve. :) oh we're using a book I'm reviewing called "Knowing God by Name".

215 I promised the lad free time to do whatever so he set to playing Skyrim. :) After a while dad needed the computer and the lad kept bugging him so I set him to reading over the times tables. I did some bunny related business and chores....Oh.. someone came over with a sick guinea pig they couldn't care for and they ended up buying two healthy youngsters. I also got the lad to help me fold some laundry and put away his clothes. Got the lad's mice cleaned out, it's very cold out there so cleaning them out takes alot of care so I did it for him today.

Elsa and Ana in their new home.

6 pm. we had supper and free time before bed. the lad used to go to bed for 9 p.m. But we moved that bed time up though since he was starting not to get up until 930/1000 a.m and that was just way too late and making him get up resulted up grumpy lad. Since he goes to bed now for 830 at the latest he's now getting up between 8/830 now which works much better.

Hubby has a meeting tonight so I'll be on my own for a bit.. woot woot quiet house!

I'll most likely do up my blog post for tomorrow, have a time for my devotions, and then just chill (oh after the dishes get done that is!). :) Bed will be probably.. 1130 ish as spending time with hubby sans the lad is a good thing to do as well. :)

Homeschooling Essentials Day Two: Questions

1/21/2014

One of the biggest things I do in teaching my son is I answer questions. It doesn't much matter the question asked, I do my very best to answer it. If I don't know the answer then I'll do my best to find it.

Whether it be "mom, what is this word?" when we are reading something to the questions that just pop up as we are engaged in other activities. how do water striders live in the water? That question came up on a recent walk, so I pulled out my android phone and pushed that into the search bar.

We try to go through the paper everyday, and that often brings up questions as well. From the soul searching.. mom why do people have to hurt each other, to mom.. that's funny, I didn't know that. It's a good way to help teach a boy to think.

Answering questions sometimes leads to the building of frog habitats and toad habitats and having critters in the house that one might prefer NOT to have in the house. Over the winter my son is caring for three toads, one jumping spider, four crayfish, mealworms, an orb weaver and some creek fish. He learns and that is what is important to me. He has had a failure or two: rebuilding the crayfish aquarium, losing crickets in the house, having horn worms die and such like. But for the most part he is doing an excellent job.

Answering questions is sometimes fun, like when we had a fruit fly explosion and the lad wondered how we could get rid of them.

We've answered hard questions about refugees, easy questions about rabbits, normal questions about growing up, growing things, telling time by looking at the sun and so much more. Questions are a big part of our life and a huge part of our homeschooling journey.

What kind of questions have your children asked of you lately?
Do you make them part of your homeschooling journey as well?

Come read what some of the other 89 readers are doing. :) Here's 10 of them, you can find the rest over here. :)

P is for Pride: blogging through the alphabet

1/20/2014

I have to admit that my boy is a somewhat slower reader than what I had hoped for. I can't call him reluctant (unless I ask him to read something and that's primarily a confidence issue), but he's not quite where I had hoped he would be.   You see I LOVE reading.   I'd have a book in my hand most of the day if I could, but that leads to burnt food, half swept floors, and a totally sedentary life. Well perhaps not.. I used to take a book with me on walks too. :)   So if I had to wait for a car before crossing a road I could read for a bit. :) YES.. I do love books.

This week we were doing some work in one of our books, and it was like "read this lad and answer the questions".
And he did. There were like three words he didn't know, so I told him what they were and off he went.
It was SO very cool. :)
My son is starting to read decently.
EVEN THOUGH we didn't succeed in doing phonics.. man that was a struggle and if I had cottoned on sooner he probably be reading better by now.   He just struggles with differentiating some sounds and it's a constant source of frustration for him.
But the program we're using, plus the constant.. the word is this. LOOK at it son, does it have an "L" in it?   No, then don't say the "L" say the letters that you know.    And so he learns to read.

And it makes me proud of him.   He's persevering and it's coming together and I couldn't be happier for him. :)    I'll make a reader of him yet! :)

Oh! I almost forgot to add.... Join us at BenandMe as we blog through the alphabet. :)

Spiders, Bees and Ladybugs

1/20/2014

One of the things we do in our homeschooling is to read books of interest.
My son loves all things buggy and creepy crawlie (oh...how I wish more of his focus was on furry critters...but it isn't, so I live with it). :)

Anyways, so one of our friends blessed us with a whole whack of books on this subject so I thought I'd take a moment to review our most recent reads.

Questions and Answers about Bees. This is a scholastic book written by Betty Polisar Reigot. Good book. My son thoroughly enjoyed listening to me read this book and would occasionally go, MOM... can I see the picture? He was surprised by the sheer number of different bees there are in the world and the different habits they have. Mom, I think I've caught solitary bees before. I don't those killer bees up here mom they don't sound nice at all. Why do they call them killers? Are they really trying to kill us? Mom... I didn't know a queen bee was called a gyne.

It's good to have a lad learn things. :)

I could totally see some children really enjoying this book, but my lad was hohum about it. The book is Usborne Lift the Flap Bugs by Judy Tatchell. It just wasn't the book for him and we didn't even finish it. Possibly because it's written for a lower level and didn't really tell him a whole lot of new information. He's eight now and I see this book primarily interesting to the 4 and 5 year olds.

Ladybugs by Melvin and Gilda Berger. My son enjoyed this book even though I had him help me read it. :) It's a fairly simple book but it has enough details to teach an emerging reader. His familiarity with the subject matter was a boon to his reading as well. :)

This Spider book my Michael Chinery was well done. My lad was quite interested and said MOM! I know that spider. We have them in the rabbitry in the summer. They live over the winter?!?!?! I am GOING to have to look for those mom. The indepth photos brought the spider eggs to life, and the fascinating facts at the end of the book intrigued the lad. Good book. :)

Becoming Olivia

1/19/2014

Have you ever read a book, because it was a follow up to another book and found that it touched your heart more than the first book did? Becoming Olivia follows up a book I reviewed a couple weeks ago called After Anne. That book I enjoyed but I had to make myself read it, this book hooked me in almost from the get go.

This book is so well-written. It draws you into the mind of Libby as she struggles with depression. Sidelines about her daughter draw you in as well, wondering what is wrong with her and how things will turn out for her. But Olivia....wow... her thoughts, her questions, her struggles... I felt like I was right there with her struggling along to find the answers to her questions.

I know people who struggle with depression and it's a hard road they bear. This book just points out how hard a road it is.    There is a strong spiritual component that just adds to the struggles and the answers. :)

It's a very well written book.
I don't think that the under 15 year old crowd should read it, it is much more an adult type book.
Well written, good book.

Homeschooling Essential: Day One: Language Arts

1/19/2014

There are SO many ways of doing language arts. You can buy curriculum (which I have and a wee bit of it I use). You can hob nob stuff together (which I've done). You can read alot of books which may or may not interest your children. :) And you can avoid it to the best of your ability. Each person has their own style and reason for how they approach it.

My approach is
1. I use reading kingdom to teach well.. reading. My son loves this program, and it is one that I will buy after our review period with it finishes. We started it last year. You can find the review I wrote here. The amount of confidence my son has gained using reading kingdom speaks for itself. He's happy, I'm happy. He's a lad that using phonics doesn't work.. he can't hear the differences in many of the sounds... so the reading kingdom method works for him. :)

2. I do grammar as a page a day. We use the Complete book of Grammar and Punctuation. One page every day, the lad practices his writing, his spelling and he's figuring out some of this grammar stuff in a more formal way.

3. Our biggest method is simply to read. We read LOTS of books. To practice his recall and narration he often has to tell his dad about what we read together. I'll stop and ask him.. do you know what this word means? No. Well.. what do you think it means? And you know what.... he can often figure it out simply based on context. And when he can't, I tell him and if I don't know we look it up. So easy to do on my new phone. :)

We read chapter books (right now the Warrior series by Erin Hunter is a huge hit).
We read interest books (right now we're going through a stack of books on insects/bugs/creepy crawlies).
We read a Christian book of some sort .. biographies, missionary stories, short devotionals etc.
We read one book of poetry... right now we're between poetry books as I haven't found one the lad likes...

We just read and read. In that reading I ask.. so...did you notice the capital letters?   Did you see the period there.. oh look... what's wrong with this sentence?   And the lad learns and it is good.

THEN if we can, we take those books and we practice and do stuff with what we're learning.    In history we learned about Illuminations.   I was talking with the lad about how could WE do an illumination.   Should I copy out a passage from the bible?   Print out a black/white copy to colour in? Just what did he think would be good to do?

He said MOM.. can we make a poem from the Warriors book?   And so.. he does Language arts WHILE cementing historical knowledge. Check out the poems the lad has helped created. They are based on three of the characters from Erin Hunters Series.

and two others he helped write.

Crowpaw crowpaw
He loved Feathertail so
She died in a fight
On the Stalactite
So sad is Crowpaw
So much he saw.

Brambleclaw the bold
The story is told
Of a trail so long
The clan belong
The sun drown place
He set the pace
Midnight spoke
The trail home they took

I do hope you'll join us as we present to you our Five Days of Homeschooling Essentials. Here are 10 of the 89 people taking part this week. :)

And So I Wage War....

1/18/2014

Do you see yon dastardly beast? I mentioned him in this post. If he were a dumb white squirrel I'd pay him no never mind except to tell visitors to our fair town that if they want to see one, come to our backyard. BUT no.. we have TWO of these invaders in our backyard but this one is a smart one.

He likes our food he does. (assuming male, could be female).

SEE!!!!!!!!!!!! He climbs the feeder posts!!!!

So now I am encouraged to foil him. I promise I won't get as desperate as our former neighbour who actively waged war on the squirrels as I don't hate them. I just don't like them wrecking my bird feeders! He's damaged one and totally ruined another, so I'm out to protect what's mine.

So for now I think I have foiled him. Will I need something more permanent? Oh, probably... but for now this is working. A simple solution of a cardboard box that doesn't alarm our birds. That still allows him to eat the feed the birds spill, and so satisfies all parties. Might he eventually out smart me? Possibly... but that's a battle still to come. :)

How do you outsmart the squirrels in your life????

shortly after this I moved away from the window and the feeder was mobbed by chickadees, sparrows and finches. :)

My son .. he laughs.
On one hand I put out nuts on the window ledge to attract the squirrels to the house and amuse the cats, and on the other hand I fight to keep them off my feeders.

It's a funny world eh?
All those inconsistencies.
I reread my post and I see myself defending my actions say I MUST PROTECT what is in MINE!!!!!
As if my stuff is so blooming important.
My stuff ISN'T important.
It's just stuff.   And it's something I've taught my son... it's just stuff. If he breaks something accidentally I might sound upset at first but in the end it's just stuff so it's no real biggie. It's just a learning experience to be more careful.    So it surprises me that I'm so irritated with the squirrels for wrecking the bird feeders.
But part of it is.. I don't hate squirrels. They are funny critters with a hint of nastiness in them. And they aren't out to get me.. they are out for FREE FOOD.   They aren't being malicious...just smart and greedy....
So I suppose in some ways I'm like the squirrels you know.   I want my stuff. I don't want to have to replace it and spend my hard earned money to do so.   I don't want to have to work hard to replace things I want it FREE.

Ah Father God... forgive that selfishness in me.   Help me always to see the bigger picture.   This is your world and all YOUR stuff, not mine.   Let me be mindful of it, but not grasping and greedy. Let me not truly be a squirrel! :)

Let's not be squirrels this day eh?

Cat climber

1/17/2014

My sweetheart has been watching a "cat whisperer" type of show where he was introduced to the idea of tree cats and bush cats. We know we have one tree cat and assumed we had a bush cat as well... we may be wrong. Milo is proving to be a tree cat! :)

Doesn't he look content up there?
We have gotten our other cat up there, but he's a much more cautious cat so he doesn't like us SEEING him up there and will quickly scoot away. So .. we may have one tree cat and one bush cat... time will tell. :)