The TOS crew round up topic for this week is what our favourite homeschool product.   When I saw the topic I knew immediately what our favourite product is.  One that I don't even have to ask my son to do.  :)   Veritas Press.   We reviewed history and bible.

My son loves doing Veritas Press... he particularly loves their history, but he likes the bible programs as well.   Currently he's working through Explorers to 1815.  

I rarely see him working on it as he does it first thing in the morning, but I know he is working on it because it often comes up in our conversation, particularly when we are reading another book.  He'll pipe in with additional comments or say "correct me if I'm wrong mom, but _______________".  I'll ask where he learned that and he'll say "Veritas Press told me". 

I take him at his word unless it seems totally off and then that's what google is for right?   9 times out of 10  he remembers it correctly which I think is just marvellous.   I do find it interesting how he will tell me, I don't remember much from the middle ages, but when the topic comes up in our reading, he remembers far more than he thinks it does...that tune they do is a marvellous aid in recall.

So what do we like about Veritas Press?
It's self-paced, full of history and humour, games and questions, quirky songs to help you remember information, and has optional projects to do.

I have to admit though... that lately the lad is asking if we can do Apologia.  We're studying astronomy (it's an upcoming review) so stay tuned... I wonder which will win out in the end... won't be long till the end of the Crew Run when we have to pick our favourites for the year.. what will it be.. Veritas Press or Apologia???

Others from the crew will be writing on their favourite product as well so why don't you visit us RIGHT HERE.  :)

Did you know that the five day blog hop for The Schoolhouse crew is happening this week?   Amazing eh, and I'm not even home to help celebrate it.  :)   And visit blogs and all that lovely stuff.  I am really really hoping that a friend of mine will link up my posts for me while I am away, but time will tell eh?

Anyways, the set up is this:

• Monday - Curriculum
• Tuesday -  Planning
• Wednesday - Home Management
• Thursday - Traditions
• Friday - Encouragement

and since today is Monday today we'll talk about curriculum.

I have to admit, with the mirade of curriculum options that are out there, it can be mind-boggling and worrisome to pick the right curriculum for your family.    Will you do a free one?  An expensive one?  Patch things together?   Buy a program that is relatively complete and just work your way through it?    Is price indicative of quality?   Is free, in the end of it all worth it?   Should one do Charlotte Mason, classical, unschooling or ????   So many options, it's hard to pin it down.  

What is a home educating family supposed to do as they try to do right by their children?

Some steps that might help you.

1. Know your children.  Study them.  How do they best learn?   If your child LOVES working on the computer, look into computer based programs.  If they devour books consider a program that has lots of reading in it.   Like to do worksheets?  Some children THRIVE on them.  Hands on?  Lapbooks, experiments, building, creating... just work with it.

2. Budget.   Break down what you can afford to spend.   If one program meets all your requirements but is a bit costly can you do something cheaper in another area?   Can you wait for a sale?   Can you, if you are a blogger, contact the company and see if you can get the product in exchange for a fair and honest review?  Can you share the resource with another family and split the cost?

3. Research research research.   Discover the pros and cons.  Read reviews.  Ask questions of the vendors.    Look at samples.   Do the free viewing if you can.  Take the placement tests.  Consider if it fits with the paradigm of how YOU do school.   For instance if it says you must do a program five days a week but you only school four, can you make it fit without a lot of struggle?

4. Weigh out the pros and cons.   Sometimes it is helpful when considering two curricula to list out the pros and cons side by side. To really see how they compare.  

5. Know your schooling philosophy.  Some families will make out a mission statement for schooling, others will have their philosophy internalized, but if you know your philosophy it will help you determine if it fits.   For instance, if you want to do purely secular approach, you won't want to pick a curricula filled with faith tie-ins, if you want a creationist approach you won't pick a curricula that is heavily pro-evolution.   If mastery approach appeals to you for doing math, looking at a spiral approach would be a no-go.     If you know, at the very minimum, in your head what mindsest fits with your family, it helps in making curricula decisions.

6. Mistakes happen.   Be aware.  You'll do your research, sampling, question asking and get your curriculum home and go .... oh shoot... I didn't realize it involved this or that your children hate it or it's method of doing things doesn't work for you.   What do you do?  Toss it?   If bad enough, seriously, just sell it and move on.   Rework it?  Most curricula, especially the non-computer based ones, can be reworked or have something added to it to make it bearable.   Ignore sections.. sometimes that is all you need to do.   Figure out what part of the program REALLY isn't working and leave it out.   And there are times when you just have to bear down and work through it, it's just the way it is.   Life has moments like that.  :)

Anyways, 6 things that might help you as you approach the new year.  :)

IF you would like to read others thoughts on this broad topic of curricula, click on the image below.  :)   Have a great day!

Are you an eclectic homeschooler who touches on a variety of subjects and often does homeschool your own way?   Well have I got a product for you from NotebookingPages.com, called the Lifetime Membership.  Journalling, note-taking, picture drawing... so many options to supplement your learning.

So what is notebooking you ask?
According to the Homeschool Mom: Notebooking is related to lapbooking, but notebooking is a bit simpler, with the information inserted into simple 3-ring binders ..... Notebooks are put together using maps, lab reports, scrapbook pages, worksheet pages, drawings, essays, timelines, and any other relevant work that your child creates.  (source)

There is SO much information on this site.  It's totally surprising.   So once you have your membership, you will have this for a dashboard:

As you can see, there are numerous categories you can choose from.   Within each category you will find a number of sub-categories.

Each of these categories opens into additional files.    One of the things that is rather cool is you can choose how you download the files to your computer.   In the mammals folder below you will see a "mammals zip file".   This holds the entire contents of this file.   But let's say you just want to look more in-depth at say...just the African buffalo, then you scroll down the page until you come to that file and it will open into a PDF so you can print it off.

As I scrolled through this list, reading off random ones to my son I came across Mouse.  My lad's ears perked up and he said "Can I write about them mom?"

If you look closely you will see this file comes with regular lined notebook pages as well as print line style.

You can choose to print off individual pages, or the entire unit.   I choose to print off the entire unit and let my lad look it over and choose what he wanted to do.  He can do this better with the pages in hand.  I honestly expected him to pick the print-lined sheets with a spot to draw a picture, but he surprised me.

You know, it's good to be surprised by a boy child.   It really is.  :)  

AND THAT my friends is why I can recommend NotebookingPages.com to you, the lifetime membership is worth it. 

With so many different options (over 600 pages) available to intrigue your child(ren), you might end up being surprised as well. We also worked on music, snakes, biographies and more, so much information it was hard to pick.  It will fill a gap, allow for creative expression, fill a need in a child to tell why he likes something, or just peek a child's interest to look into something more deeply.  

And that's a good thing, is it not?

You can learn more about NotebookingPages.com  and the Notebooking Pages Lifetime Membership by clicking on the image below.

In case you wonder if we covered other areas, check out these pages the lad did as well.  :)  Music, snakes, biographies and more.  Good stuff from a boy child who really isn't into copywork,but sometimes CHOOSES to be, and NotebookingPages.com has encouraged that in my lad and I am happy.

Recently my husband and I were browsing through curriculum at a homeschool conference. We talked abit about what to do with our son next year.. I want to add some solid spine materials to his year, most of which he should be able to work through on his own with minimal input from me beyond, how's it going, how can I help and are you managing to stay on track.

I find that the more power I give him over his schooling, the better he does at simply working through it and it goes MUCH quicker. :)

We'll continue with Veritas Press for world history.   The lad likes it.   We've added Veritas Press Bible as well.. which he is enjoying too.  These lessons don't seem to take him too long to do.   He is often mostly done before I get into the house from chores.

We are going in a new direction for Math.   Going to do Teaching Textbooks.  Why?   Because it's on the computer.  Has a book.  They do the teaching AND if he has questions he simply needs to call them up and ask away!  :)   So it gives him independence, a simple workbook that is done in a systematic way.   From what I understand he can do the lessons one after the other OR he can skip around a bit.  However he works it will be fine with me.  :)

I've been talking with hubby about how I like Logic of English but haven't been up to the battle with my lad over how they do lessons, but I like how they approach spelling and grammar and such like.   He said "so why don't you do it the way they teach it starting next year.  Just make it a thing you do".   If the lad complains, we'll talk. 

For science we'll continue to work our way through the God's Design materials by Answers in Genesis.   How they do things works well for us.   Projects, experiments, in-depth work if desired and more.     Easy worksheets that we can talk our way through, or that I can print off and have him work through.    LOVE this series.

o all are the basics.   I don't really have a writing program, but not sure if I'm really worried about that.   I'm going to be adding more poetry and what not but need to sort through.   We do lots of talking and making sure he's comprehending what he is reading stuff.. but an actually writing program I haven't been doing that.   I may go back to the IEW course we got last year that we started with (never finished) but I just need get back to.  It's a good program, just need to work it through more completely.

As I was sitting down tonight I got to thinking about how it's good to have the academic covered, but what about the stuff beyond the academics, the moral, spiritual materials... what do I do with that?

As people of faith, one of our goals is to raise a child who loves the Lord, but not only loves the Lord but has the where withal to defend that a choice, stand for the truthh and the boldness to live it out.   I firmly believe that he will NEED to be able to do as a man in the future.

So I'm considering having the lad do some actual memory work.  Memorizing poems, and scripture.  Memorizing doctrines and key truths.   Not sure what i will do or use or create from him in this regard.

We'll continue to go through our books of Christian Heroes (I picked up three trailblazer books from the conference tables).  We'll use hymns and missionary stories etc that I'll research and we'll talk about.

I picked up a book called "comforting hearts, teaching minds" by Starr Meade.

   It's a book of Family Devotions based on the Heidelberg Catechism.  I plan to print off each Lord's Day and over supper each week we'll read through the Lord's Day and then each day there is a different devotion to read and talk about.    Good way to learn the doctrines of the church as well as think about what we believe and why.  

I picked up a history of Canada that I really not sure how I will fit in (probably be our Friday study) called From Sea to Sea.. written by Susanna Homan.   It's geared to grades 5-6 so it'll be a good fit I think, and it's Canadian so WOOT WOOT.  :)

Through it all we'll continue our moving through Europe, cooking meals and inviting folks over.   This doesn't take us a lot of time through the week so it'll be easy to continue.    

We'll continue reading a copious amount of books... history, geography, science, poetry, readers and what not.   It's great to read together.  it's WONDERFUL to learn together.

Grade Six will be interesting, that I know for sure.  :)

Oh I should mention, we will be taking breaks from things to do items for the review crew.   Life will, I am  very sure, interfere at times.

Have you made any decisions on what YOU will be teaching next year?   Do the homeschool conferences get your mind and blood moving with thoughts of next year?  Let me know eh?  :)

The theme for this weeks Virtual Curriculum Fair is: Discovering Patterns: Mathematics, Logic, and Science---includes anything to do with mathematics, mathematical thinking, numbers, arithmetic, symbolic logic, critical thinking, and math-y sciences (physics, chemistry, etc.).

I find math easy to do as an adult, loved it in school, but teaching it to my lad is not what I would call easy.  

It's either too easy, or too hard, or they explain it wrong, or they.. whatever... Its just been a touch of a battle for far too long.   I've bought curriculum, reviewed curriculum pieced things together.. Done the gambit.  He's learned a few things along the way, but it's a battle I don't wish to fight any longer.

About a month ago I won a curriculum fromEducents called Matholia.   Now the battle is gone.   See those yellow stars?   My requirement is that you simply get yellow stars on everything.  Doesn't have to be perfect (three stars) but you need to at least attempt the material.   NOW sometimes they don't explain the math concept well so we then turn to Khan academy, but all the basics for grade five math are here.

The advantage of doing it this way is that he can choose to easier or harder topics.  He can jump around if he wants, it does not matter to me.  I am still there as a support system and to offer advice but that's all I am.  He can argue with the computer all he wants but it's a computer.. it doesn't answer back or get frustrated.  :)  It's taken the pressure off both of us. 

For practicing his different math operations we have these neat pages of minecraft characters that he colours in.  He has the fun of making minecraft pictures while practicing his math...though apparently we MUST FIND a dark grey pencil crayon.

To make math different on Fridays we do one of two things.. work on his interactive math journal or play math games.    Click images below to learn more.

Science on the other hand is a win-win in this household.  Exploring, trying new things, playing with life and watching what happens.

From a lad learning about wind currents using a fan, string, paper and popsicle sticks to a more formal program of learning about machines in motion with God's Design curriculum.  It all works here.   It's fun, it's hands on and is just a great subject and SO easy to incorporate throughout our day.

So that's some of how we do math and science in our classroom, How do you do it in  yours?

Read what others have to say as well.  :)

For the next four weeks I'll be trying to participate in the Virtual Curriculum Fair.   I learned about it late so couldn't get a post up in time to be part of the main linky, but they have an "add on" linky portion that I hope to get in on for this week. 

This week the topic is Language Arts.. or the use of words.    I thought I would touch on some of the things we do.

Vocabulary
To start off, one of the fun things we do is called "word of the day".   What we do is pick a word in the dictionary.  Learn what it means, and then come up with a sentence for it to show our understanding.  :)   I then post that sentence to facebook.   It's a lot of fun.  We picked up the idea from a Tiffany Aching book where a young lady reads through the entire dictionary and exponentially expands for knowledge base.  Sometimes people join in with us.  :)

Reading
We do a lot of reading in this household, I read to my lad, my lad reads to me, we also listen to audio books.  It's a great way to combine history, science, vocabulary, with the love of the printed word.   We have three reading times scattered throughout the day. 
 
At breakfast we read through a chapter book...usually history in a story form, but sometimes just an interesting book that we want to have a regular time to read. 

Throughout our schooling time we'll put down our learning materials and lay on the bed for a bit.  The lad will play and I will read.  As the lad plays he will often interject comments when he doesn't understand something, or if he wants to add some knowledge to what we are reading about it.     I find it particularly fun when I am reading something and suddenly whatever it is appears in his playing.... like when the octopus came out and pulled one of the characters under water scaring everyone around with his puff of ink.   (made me laugh).   :)    It's a good break to our day, it continues our learning and gives the lad a mental break which he needs. 

We also read about five books at night before bed, history, science, geography and a chapter book and the lad has a "read it to me" book that he does one page a night.

Phonics and Grammar
We take a low key approach to grammar and phonics around here, as these subjects are difficult for my lad.  We've also added spelling this year as he's ready for it.    We use a program called Logic of English for this.   This program comes with a large number of flash cards.  We pick three a week and those are what we work on for one week.    This past week it was proper nouns, I and Y, and the sound aa.   We actually had to look up what that sound made as their cue word wasn't working for us.  :)    It's easy to interject three cards into everything you are doing over the course of a week, to find spelling words that go with them, other sound words and such like.

Cursive and Writing
Last year it was our delight to pick up a program called CursiveLogic.   My son now knows how to write in cursive.  He still struggles reading different forms of cursive and my style drives him crazy unless I take my time to write neatly.  :)    But it's a great way now to add history, science and geography to his day in the form of copywork.    He's still gaining confidence, particularly with capital letters, but the CursiveLogic flipstyle book makes it easy to find the needed page. :)

My lad is always in the process of doing some type of writing so I don't have a formal writing program for him.   He'll frequently ask me style questions ... should I start a new sentence, would this be a new paragraph, how do I write this thought mom?

Every other week we do a poetry lesson  where he needs to write a poem following a particular style.    For instance An Animal Prayer Poem.

It's that time of year when homeschooling bloggers are making lists of what they plan to do for the school year.  I've not done this before and I'm feeling uncertain about doing so as it seems like a commitment to do so right?   And we change things around here speedily if there is need to do so.  

BUT life is nothing but flexible right?

HISTORY:
1. Story of the world (reading chapters)   We are currently 3/4's of the way through the second book.
2. Chronicles of church history (reading chapters)   Have finished the first in this five book series.
3. Canada diaries (reading chapters).     We've read several of these and thoroughly enjoy them.  Also do the Princess diaries...wondering if there is a Prince diary as well... 
4. Veritas Press.  On-line history course.    We are finishing off our middle ages course and are soon to start our explorers course.

Why so many different books?   Because we like to read and it means we can skip one and not feel like we are missing anything.  :)   Could we read through the books faster if we just read them one at a time?   For sure...but what if we get bored then?

Geography:
I have to admit, I"m really hit and miss with geography and I'm really not sure what I'm going to do with this.   It does it covered, but we really don't do anything in depth.  I'm considering doing a couple of different things.   A child's geography  started this for a review and didn't finish it as it's an ebook which means it's really easy for me to forget that it exists.   Lisa has done an explore Canada ebook that we might take a month to go throw as well.

Math:
GPA worked well for us last year, but the further we got into the course the more I heard "Mom, can I skip this?  I know this."   So I"m looking into alternatives.  I've ordered Jump Math books for the lad.  Not sure when they will arrive so until then we'll be working through Stinky Kid Math.   Stay tuned for an upcoming review.  So far the words I'm hearing are "MOM!   I don't get this!!!"   This means he's being challenged and that's not a bad thing.  :)

Language Arts:
IEW-  institute for excellence in writing.   Did this as a review this year, we have a fair bit to finish yet, so will finish working through the course.   We'll also do some work with Logic of English.   A current review we are working through is SuperTeachers.  Love this website and will continue to make use of it.

Science:
Science is very boy based and nature oriented.   That will continue as well as adding in studies of gears, chemistry kits, videos, books and all sorts of things.   Nothing specifically planned for this subject area.

Other stuff:
Music: going to work through Gena's new ebook on20th century composers.
Art: working on water colours this year.   Hoping to find good books in the library
Archaelogy: found areally neat curriculum for my co-op class.  My lad is intrigued... so.. we'll be doing a unit on archaelogy.
Tinkers Time: I'll use schoolhouseteachers.com as well as finding stuff on Pinterest.. Doing some of the things on this board.
Cursive: continuing to work through Cursive Logic.
Bible: Will continue to do much the same as last year.... doing devotions together.   Might also do some stick figure bible work.

Interspersed in the midst of all this will be various "social study" type information, unit studies, page a day books, and TONS of reading.   Reading is good for the soul and good for learning.   So continue it we shall.

We'll see how it all goes.   We'll be doing a four week on, one week off rotation with time off for vacation, holidays and what not.     Hopefully it will all work.  :)