Tag-Archive for » home schooling «

The Good Toy: Smart Globe
29
April
admin

A few years ago I bought a Smart Globe for Bonny Annie and Dirty Harry for Christmas.  To be honest, they weren’t jumping out of their PJs that morning with excitement.  But since then, it has been a fun (and educational!) addition to our home.  We have used it.  A lot.

Basically, at face value, the Smart Globe is just a globe.  You don’t have to turn it on to use it.

We keep ours near our school area.  This allows us to quickly reference the globe.  We might be reading a story and come across the Canary Islands for instance.  The kids can quickly get a visual for where they are in the world, and thus have a better understanding of our lesson that day.

The fun of the Smart Globe begins, however, when you turn it on.  It comes with an attached electronic pen…

(…and yes, I know my Smart Globe needs to be dusted.  Dont’ judge me.)

Your child uses the pen to point out places of interest on the globe…

…and they can also interact with this little keypad, to learn all sorts of things about a particular country or continent…

One of Dirty Harry’s favorite activities is to listen to the various national anthems.  Unfortunately, China’s cracks him up for some reason.  He will play it over and over laughing hysterically.  I’ve had to ban him from listening to China’s national anthem.  He wasn’t allowed to watch the last summer Olympics because of his weird sense of humor.  Just kidding.

The Smart Globe also has a pull-out tray for US Geography.  The tray also interacts with the pen.

Dirty Harry also likes the games.  His favorite is a hunt-and-find timed game.  The Smart Globe will name a state or country, depending on which mode you have set, and the child finds and touches it with the pen.  They have a certain amount of time to find as many as they can.  Here’s a little thirty second demo of that particular game…

 

Okay, so we need to work on Louisiana a little bit.

I bought our globe at Costco, but here is the official site:  http://www.smarthome.com/19381/Smart-Globe/p.aspx

It looks like you can also find it on Amazon and other sites as well.

The Smart Globe is a good toy and would be a great addition to your home, whether you home school or not!

Category: The GOOD Toy (toy reviews), homeschooling  Tags: , , , ,  4 Comments
Home Schooling with a Baby
15
April
admin

 

This is generally a hot topic among homeschoolers, especially newbies.  A large percentage of the time, people begin home schooling when their oldest child is early elementary age.  They either know they are going to try home schooling from the start and begin formal education in kindergarten, or they went the public or private school route for a year or two and then pulled them out and brought them home.  Sometimes there are other, younger kids at home already and them sometimes they might come a bit later.  Either way, at some point, most home schooling moms (and dads) will wonder how to continue to educate their school-age child(ren) with a dependent baby/toddler/pre-schooler needing their diaper changed or nose wiped or sippy cup refilled every five minutes.

For me, this dilemma came a little later in my home schooling adventure.  When I first began home schooling Bonny Annie, Dirty Harry was two, but I don’t remember ever having many problems.  I did strap him into a spare highchair for an hour everyday to watch Sesame Street.  This allowed me to do some math and language arts activities with my first grader, but he pretty much was right there with us for everything else, and by the time he was three, I was doing a little preschool program with him.

But Cap’n Jack Henry has been a different story.  Continuing our educational pursuits with him around has been interesting to say the least. 

But we are doing it.  And so to that end, I though I’d share whatever wisdom and insight I have on the subject, hoping that it might help a newbie homeschooler to hang in there while their little monkey scribbles on their worksheets and eats their glue sticks.  Or, after reading this, some of you may log off your computers and head straight to your nearest school’s office to enroll your youngsters immediately.  Either way I feel I will have done my part to be informative and honest.

1.  Use the littles’ naptimes wisely.

This is probably the single most important piece of advice I can give.  Sure, you may think you need a little nap yourself or perhaps you have your eye on the five loads of laundry that need to be folded.  STOP!  Step away from those ideas!  Use the baby’s nap for the subjects that are hard to do when he/she is awake.  For us this is usually our history and literature read-alouds, science experiments, spelling tests, and language arts lessons.  I try to cram us much into that hour and half as possible and then usually I can still find a few minutes to work on my blog or, yes, as much as I hate it, fold laundry.

2.  Train your school-age children to work independently.

My kids know that when Jack Henry is up and needing some attention that they will need to work by themselves.  For us, this might be silent reading, handwriting, or math.  You might want to have a folder or a plastic tray set up for them to place their completed work, so that when you get a chance, you can check it later.  Establish specific assignments that they are capable of before hand, so that when the baby is fussy or is being fed, that the older ones can just fall into their independent routine without any drama.

3.  Provide the baby/toddler with age appropriate activities in your school area.

Our school area is the kitchen table.  This area opens right up into our living room.  I’ve pretty much made this area baby-safe so that Jack Henry can roam around while I read a history lesson.  You have to just allow the kid to wreck the place during this time though, or you’ll never get anything done.  Jack Henry usually has floor time for about an hour in the later mornings, and this is usually what my living room looks like at the end of that hour…

Nice, huh?

When he’s done pillaging and ransacking, I usually read him a story or two and then put him down for a nap.  The big kids then will pick up the room for me.  They are usually ready to stretch their legs a bit, and it really doesn’t take as long as it looks.  Everything  has a place, so it’s a pretty simple clean-up.  Magazines and books in the basket, blocks in the wagon, Fun-Dips back in the box and put away in the cabinets, etc.  Yes, Fun-dips.  We have a box leftover from Valentine’s Day, and they are one of his favorite toys at the moment.  He just likes to take all of them out and put them back in, over and over again.

Since the weather has been so nice, I’ve opened up the windows, and this has bought us even more precious time as he loves standing there watching the birds in our yard or the cars pass by.

3.  Use your highchair.

Our highchair is right at the table where the kids school, so it’s very convenient to pop Jack Henry in and give him something to do.  But if you do most of your home schooling away from the dining room, I’d suggest investing in another one or a travel booster or something like that.  There’s simply nothing like containment!  I’ve just discovered that Jack Henry enjoys watching old “Blue’s Clues” episodes on our laptop from his highchair.  Or if I just need about ten minutes for a lesson, I might just give him a snack that he can feed to himself.

Okay, strawberry applesauce is probably not the best example.

No, definitely  not the best example.  Give him Cherrios.

You could also make your age 1+ child some of these crayons for highchair time.

4.  Use a pack-and-play.

Begin putting your baby in a playpen when they first start sitting up, so that they will be used to it and not feel like they’re in jail.  Also try to never use the playpen for a punishment.  You may also want to switch the toys that you keep in there regularly so that they don’t get bored.  We’ve followed these principals, and we get about an hour or so of playpen time from him everyday before he starts throwing things at us.  See….he loves it…

Ha, ha.  I just threw that one if for visual interest.  Here’s a short video to show you how content Jack Henry is in his pack-and-play…

 

He’s got some moves, doesn’t he?  And, yes, you will just have to learn to tune out whatever musical toys they may have in there.

5.  Don’t take everything so seriously.

Some days are just going to be bad.  Your baby may scream through your child’s recitation of the first sixteen Presidents.  The toddler might color on your entryway floor while you’re giving  a spelling test.  He might only nap for thirty minutes.  It’s okay.  It really is.  These days do not mean that you can’t be successful at home schooling.  Your baby’s antics will not keep your other children out of college.  As a matter of fact, the baby will only be a baby for a little while, so just allow your family to slow down and enjoy this season.  They may even learn a more valuable lesson from this experience than what is within the pages of their textbooks.

Category: Cap'n Jack Henry, homeschooling  Tags: , , , , ,  15 Comments
How to Build a Volcano
06
April
admin

Or “How to Make a Complete Mess of Your Kitchen Table for about Ten Seconds of Excitement.”

Dirty Harry has been studying the earth for a while now.  For a culminating activity, we built a little volcano in our kitchen.  It was a fun project for a kid who likes to build things, and we did ours on the cheap.  Sure, you can buy a kit for about $20, but I’ll bet you have the materials to make one just behind your kitchen cabinets.

Here’s what you’ll need…

  • vinegar
  • baking soda
  • a small glass (we used a shot glass, but you could use any size)
  • clay or Play-doh (optional)
  • a cookie sheet or some other flat pan to protect the surface of your table or counter (optional)
  • other objects to create a scene such as Lego figures, grass, rocks, etc. (optional)

First, if you’d like your volcano to look authentic, you will need to cover your glass with the clay, leaving an opening at the top.

Then, if your child wants to be creative, allow them to make a volcanic scene on the cookie sheet.  Dirty Harry used Lego people and grass and rocks from outside.

Oh, and look…Indiana Jones has made an appearance to watch the eruption…

To create the actual eruption, you fill your glass half full with the vinegar.  Then you will spoon the baking soda into the glass until the mixture starts to bubble up and out.  You can continue to add vinegar and baking soda alternately until your child has had their fill of volcanic activity.

Here’s a little video of ours…

 

Then have your child clean up all the mess so that you can put dinner on the table.  They will grumble, complain, cry and gnash their teeth.  Then threaten them with a grounding from their Wii.  At this, they will probably comply, but you can probably still expect a dirty look or two.

Of course, you will probably want to remind your student that this project differs very much from what happens beneath the earth’s surface.  This eruption is caused by a chemical reaction of the vinegar and baking soda and is simply a fun visual of a real, live volcano.

Related links:

A cool site with various kinds of homemade volcanoes and videos  (Please note that while the volcano material is completely fine, that there are links to some questionable videos that may appear randomly in the sidebars.  So, please use caution if you’re viewing with your children nearby.)

Information, stories and photos of real volcanoes

Category: Dirty Harry, crafts, homeschooling  Tags: , , , , ,  5 Comments
An Odd Tale
10
December
admin

Once upon a time, there lived three children who were very odd.

They did odd things, ate odd foods, played odd games and often wore odd clothes.

No one is really quite sure why they were so odd.  Genetics?  Atmosphere?  The fact that they are homeschooled?  Global warming?  It is a mystery…

 

Despite their social dysfuntions, their quirks and their oddness, they were happy, and that’s what really matters.

The end.

Category: Bonny Annie, Cap'n Jack Henry, Dirty Harry, The Pirate Mom Speaks, homeschooling  Tags: , , ,  9 Comments
The Pirate’s Life For Us
26
August
admin

Many a documentary have been produced about pirates and how they live(d).  Blockbuster movies have tried to capture their essence.  Rides at Disney World have attempted to portray the mystery.  And still we wonder about them.  Our curiosity peaks at their mention.  Who are pirates and what do they do all day?

Well, wonder no longer people!  In honor of…

 

NBTSbloghop

…I’m going to share a-day-in-the-life-of-home-schooling-pirates.  Buckle your seatbelts…this is bound to be a bumpy ride!

Here’s what happened on…

5:30 AM

My alarm on my cell phone goes off.  I press snooze four times.  By 5:55, I’m up and stumbling into the kitchen.  I see Big D ironing a shirt for work, and I have a momentary wave of guilt wash over me for not having the foresight to get that done myself.  I assuage this feeling by putting together a lunch for him.  He’s already started the coffee, so I go take a shower while the stimulants continue to brew.

When I’m finished and dressed, Big D is sitting at the table reading…

I make myself a L-A-R-G-E cup of coffee and disappear upstairs to read e-mail, catch up on the news and blog.

7:00AM

Both older kids are up now, and they make themselves cereal and get dressed.  I finish up blogging just in time because Jack Henry is awake now and ready to be fed.

I get him dressed and employ Harrison to entertain him for a few minutes so that I can make my bed and do a couple of other things downstairs.

While I nurse the baby, I use my laptop one-handed to surf facebook and read some blogs.  The kids get started on some independent work downstairs at the kitchen table.

8:15AM

The baby is fed, and we’re ready to start for real.  I strap Jack Henry into his highchair and sprinkle a handful of Gerber puffs on the tray to keep him busy for a while.

My stomach growls, and I realize that I forgot to eat breakfast myself.  I fix a quick bowl of Kashi with fresh blueberries and down it.  Jack Henry is totally happy with his puffs, and the older kids seem busy, so I decide to go do my make-up and hair since Annaleigh has a tutorial class today and we’ll be out and about.  While I am in my bathroom, Annaleigh and Harrison have some kind of wild, knock-down-drag-out fight.  I come in to referee, yell my head off at them, threaten them with expulsion from TaeKwonDo if they ever lay a finger on one another again, and then, a little hoarse from this episode, proceed to finish my hair and make-up.

When I come back, I read our Bible passage to much more subdued kids, and we pray together.

9:00AM

I go over a to-do list of assignments with each kid and make sure they have it all written down in their planners.  I begin a language arts lesson with Harrison by copying some sentences to classify on our chalkboard.

He finishes that while I feed Jack Henry some cereal and fruit.  Annaleigh packs up for her tutorial science class, and Harrison gathers some things that he can do in the car, like his math lesson and a reader.  I realize that I have something on the front of my shirt, so I quickly change it.

9:35AM

We’re out the door and on our way to Annaleigh’s science class.

We drop her off at 9:45.  I try to take a picture of her going into the back of the church, but she’s embarrassed because some of her friends are standing around.  Eight graders!  I take it anyway…

Sometimes the boys and I just sit in the parking lot in the van and do school and listen to the radio and read since the class in only an hour and fifteen minutes, but today I go to Target.  They have diapers on sale, and I have a coupon.  I also have to fill up my van.

I also pick up a few more items that are on sale and that I have coupons for, and I marvel that I saved $14….ch-ching!

This Target has a Starbucks inside, so do I reward my frugality with a $2 coffee?

Oh yes, I do!

11:10AM

We pick Annaleigh up from class, and she is thrilled that I am still taking pictures of her.

In the backseat, the boys work on math and a bottle of juice.

We stop off at Kroger.  It’s highly unusual for me to do this during the week (except for milk runs), let alone during the school day, but Harrison had a baseball tournament all weekend long, and this is the first chance I’ve had to get to the store.  If I don’t go now, we will have to eat half a box of crackers, 12 grapes, and chocolate pudding for dinner.

12:15PM

We arrive home.  Jack Henry is passed out cold, so I leave him in his carseat and put groceries away.

Annaleigh makes lunch for herself and Harrison.  They choose HotPockets, which I just bought on-sale and with a coupon. (I saved $23 dollars at Kroger….that’s $37 for the day!!!)

I love that they still use their Princess and Star Wars plates.

While they eat, I get up a groggy Jack Henry, determine he is too tired to sit at the table to eat lunch, so I nurse him and put him down for his Round One nap.  I come back downstairs and warm up some leftovers of meatloaf and mashed potatoes for my lunch.  Jack Henry is in his crib all of about fifteen minutes before he starts howling.  I bring him down and feed him lunch.

He likes it.  I promise.

He then goes down for Round Two nap.  He fusses for about ten minutes and then passes out.

1:30PM

The big kids are back at the table, working on more math, vocabulary, and spelling.

While they finish up, I sit on the sofa and read aloud a chapter from each of these…

…and scratch Clara’s ears because she insists on being in my face the entire time.

After I read, we all kinda go our separate ways.  Harrison plays Lord of the Rings on the computer.  Annaleigh reads over her drama script.  I start some laundry, clean up the kitchen a little and veg on the couch with my laptop.

4:00PM

Jack Henry wakes up.  I nurse him again.  Then I start dinner prep.  I already have some chicken in the crockpot, so I put some rice in the steamer and make a salad.  Annaleigh and Harrison entertain Jack Henry on the back porch with some bubbles.

5:20PM

I realize all of sudden that I forgot to take Harrison to his TaeKwonDo class, which started at 5:10.  Oh well.  He can go on Thursday.  Big D gets home, changes clothes and plays a little catch with Harrison in the backyard for a little while.

While I make final dinner preparations, the kids unload the dishwasher, and Jack Henry spends some time in his playpen.

6:00PM

We finally sit down for dinner.

After we eat, Big D feeds Jack Henry his favorite food:  a Yo-Baby banana yogurt.  I clean up the kitchen, and then help Annaleigh with a nagging math problem, while Harrison finishes labeling his map of Alabama for geopraphy.

7:15PM

Big D and Harrison go to the garage so that Harrison can work on his pitching with the backstop a little bit.  I take Jack Henry upstairs and get him cleaned up and in his jammies.  Annaleigh checks her e-mail and facebook.  Jack Henry and I watch a Praise Baby DVD and read (and chew on) some books.

 

8:15PM

I nurse Jack Henry for the final time and put him to bed.  Meanwhile, the kids take turns getting showers.  They brush their teeth, read for a while, and both are settled by 9:30.  Big D and I also get ready for bed.

10:00PM

Big D is at the kitchen table working on his laptop.  I join him and read a chapter of Crazy Love.  I read aloud a Psalm.  We decide to log into Annaleigh’s facebook account just to make sure she doesn’t have a secret boyfriend or something.  She doesn’t.  Big D changes her profile picture to a goofy shot he had taken over the weekend.  I tell him that Annaleigh will die a thousand deaths when she sees it.  He leaves it on there and logs out.

I go upstairs to begin loading the 2, 542 pictures that I took today.

11:15PM

I look at the time and gasp.  I had meant to be in bed by 10:45.  Big D is in bed but is still awake.  We talk for a while and he rubs a knot I’ve developed throughout the day in my neck.  I check to make sure the baby monitor is on, set my alarm for 5:30AM and finally, I go to sleep.

So now you know what pirates really do all day.  Go and tell all your friends.

That was fun, wasn’t it?  I think I’ll do this once a week.

Or not.

Category: My Crew, homeschooling  Tags: , ,  19 Comments
School Pictures
19
August
admin

I am not a photographer.  I have a point-and-shoot camera.

Big D is a photographer.  He has not one, but two, top of the line SLR cameras.

But Big D has a life, and I do not, so when I saw that this week for the….

 

NBTSbloghop

…was school portrait week, I knew I would have to try to photograph my kids, because there is no way in our busy week that I could ask Big D to drag out his backdrops and tripods and such.

Here are my results…

Bonny Annie, my oldest, is smart, creative and fun.  Her academic strength lies in the language arts areas, yet she wants to be a missionary doctor someday, and is aptly fascinated by science.  She loves to read and be crafty.  She likes to watch good movies, Meet Me in St. Louisbeing an all-time favorite.  She loves drama…on stage and off.  She is a blackbelt in Tae Kwon Do and wins medals at every tournament she attends.  She takes great care of her baby brother and nitpicks the middle one.  She is turning 13 in just a couple of weeks.  That scares me.  It scares me badly.

Dirty Harry, my middle child, is athletic, sensitive and hilarious.  His favorite subjects include reading, history, science and spelling.  He doesn’t like math, but he’s a grade ahead of where he’s supposed to be.  He loves Legos and the Wii.  When he grows up he wants to be a professional baseball player, but if that doesn’t work out then he wants to be a Navy chaplain.  He is also a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and is currently playing on a nine year-old travel baseball team for our town.  He thrives in dirt, sweat and grime. 

Cap’n Jack Henry, my baby, is in pre-pre-pre-pre K.  He is happy, hungry and loud.  He likes books, teething rings and stuffed animals.  He will be a year-old in November, but how can that be???  He was only a little over five pounds at birth, but he’s more than tripled his weight since then and all of the problems that the doctors anticipated when he was in the NICU for a week have dissipated as he’s turned out to be a healthy, thriving young un’.  He is a joy and fills our days with laughter….and diapers.

And that’s it.  Those are the students who grace the corridors and desks of Hilltop Academy, drinking our milk and breaking our chalk. 

I am blessed.

Category: My Crew, homeschooling  Tags: , , ,  18 Comments
Where it ALL Happens…
12
August
admin

(A quick side note before I jump right in here…..Sheesh!  I’ve been trying to blog since Sunday night.  We started back-to-school on Monday…more on that later…and I have not had a spare minute since it seems.  Sorry.  I think I am going to have to start getting up at 4:30am to blog.  Or maybe hire a nanny.  I’m not sure, but I’m going to find a way to be on here more regularly!  Promise!)

Okay, now on to business…

 

NBTSbloghop

This week the theme for the Not-Back-to-School-Blog-Hop is school rooms.  I have had a lot of fun perusing the pictures that everyone has posted of their rooms and such.

We are trying something new this year…the dining room table.

I have never liked the idea of doing school at the table.  Mainly because before Cap’n Jack Henry came along and took up a lot of our space, we had a whole bull-honkin’ school room.  I also didn’t want my dining room/kitchen space to look like this all day long….

But this is the way it has to be for right now.  As you can see, our living room (in the background) is home to much of Jack Henry’s “stuff”, so it just makes sense for us to be down here where he can be entertained.  The kids and I all have totes that we keep the books and manuals that we will need for the day, so it makes clean-up in the afternoons easy.

The above was a picture from our first day back to school.  It went fairly smoothly.  We only had two major meltdowns.  Jack Henry did great.  He spent part of his day at the table with us eating reading a book.

I found a little basket that we already had and filled it with small plastic cups.  It made a great table organizer for all the odds and ends that we need throughout the day.

Chalk?  Chalk?!  Why would we need chalk?  Well, because this messy area is going to be a wall chalkboard by next week…

Yep!  The whole wall…I can’t wait.  That area has been a dead zone in our house for a while, a total catch-all for clutter and junk.  Now, at least it will be functional.

Of course even with all the new bells and whistles of the dining room, the kids still find other places to hang out and do their work.

There’s our loft, complete with overflowing bookshelves and the comfy denim furniture…

Both of them have their own desks in their rooms where some work gets done…

Above is Bonny Annie’s desk, obviously.  I’m not the only pirate fan around here, you can see.  It’s in our blood. 

I’m sorry I can’t show you Dirty Harry’s desk.  It is…well…umm…dirty.

They also like to read in their beds.

Bonny Annie again.  I could show you Dirty Harry’s bed, but then I’d have to shoot you.

And then, finally, one of my students occasionally does his lessons on the sofa….

Sorta.

Good gravy.  I can NEVER send that one off to school, can I?

 

Category: homeschooling  Tags: , , ,  11 Comments
Books, Books, Books!
05
August
admin

Somehow in my sick, twisted, raised-in-the-80s-and-cut-my-musical-teeth-on-hair-bands mind, I imagine the above title to be sung to the tune of “Girls, Girls, Girls” by Motley Crue.  But you don’t have to do that to read this entry.  As a matter of fact, you’re probably better off NOT doing that at all.

NBTSbloghop

The above blog is hosting a back-to-school blog carnival of sorts, with this week being curriculum choices for this school year.  So, in the spirit of homeschool camraderie, I’m sharin’!

Bible:

Annaleigh is using the following…

It is a part of Sonlight’s Core 100, which I’ll talk more about in a minute.  Good grief….I think I need to probably do this Bible curriculum too.

Harrison will be using this…

His also came with Sonlight’s stuff, Core 3.  We’re studying American History this year, so the Indian prayer guide is a good tie-in, and I think I will read it aloud to both of them.

Math:

Annaleigh is taking math at her tutorial this year (Hallelujah!), and this is what they are using in this class…

Harrison, who is taking math with me ($#@&*@#!!!), will be using this…

He will be using the DIVE cd that goes with this edition, however, for the actual lessons.  So Lucky Me only has to grade his work.  And Lucky Him too.

History:

Like I stated earlier, we use Sonlightfor history, and this year we’re starting a two-year study of American History.  Annaleigh will be using the first half of Core 100…

Sonlight uses mainly good literature instead of textbooks to teach various subjects, with a strong emphasis on chronological history.  We’ve used it since Annaleigh was in 2nd grade, and it is fantastic!  Core 100 is actually meant to be a year curriculum, but we’re dividing it into to two, simply because Harrison’s studies (core 3 and 4) take two years, and I like to keep them together for history as much as possible.  I’m just adding in extra stuff as I come across it for Annaleigh, which is easy with American history.

I’m very exctied to be able to use these with both kids for the next two years…

I found some cool study guides for these at Rainbow Resource that I’m going to use for Annaleigh as well.

Harrison is going to be using Core 3…

We read most of these several years ago when Annaleigh went through this core, and I can’t wait to read them again….very good selections!

And then here are some extras that I’ve picked up here and there…

Science:

Annaleigh also takes science at her  tutorial.  Here is what she’s using…

She took the General Science course from Apologialast year as well, and these courses are highly recommended.  Annaleigh loved the course and claims she learned so much.  But perhaps that’s because I’m no longer teaching her for this subject….hmmmm.

Harrison and I are going to use this…

Normally, I use Sonlight for science as well, but I decided to take a break this year.  This curriculum goes through the seven days of creation, teaching scientific facts as you go along.  It also encourages notebooking, which I really love to do with the kids.

Language Arts:

Here’s a look at Annaleigh’s material….

She will do two lessons a day from the Easy Grammar, completing it in the first semester, and then we will spend the second half of the year going through the research paper book.  In addition, she gets a healthy dose of literature from her history curriculum that I’ve already covered.

Harrison will use these…

This will be the second year I’ve usedShurley English with him, and I like that it is all-inclusive.  It covers grammar, writing and vocabulary.  And….bonus….he really likes the program!

I use this for spelling for both of them…

Every year I always get them a new record book, which I think makes the program so much easier.  You don’t have to photocopy all of the forms from the book.  I also have the activity box, where your students can choose practice activities like writing their words in sidewalk chalk on the drive or singing them into a microphone.

Art:

Annaleigh will be using the one on the right and Harrison the other.  I have used various Barry Stebbing books before, andI have found them very user-friendly and thorough.

And I think that about does it!  Harrison will be using a transition handwriting book, which reinforces good printing skills the first half of the year, andthen covers beginning cursive in the second half.  Annaleigh also has a home ec program that she’s working through.  Both will continue foreign language studies:  Annaleigh in French using Rosetta Stone and Harrison in Spanish using Power-Glide.  PE will include TaeKwonDo and baseball.  Annaleigh also takes a drama class at tutorial.

I don’t have a music curriculum yet, and as you can tell by how I started this entry, I sorely need one.  Any suggestions?

Here is the calendar for this back-to-school carnival, in case you want to join in….

 

Category: homeschooling  Tags: , ,  10 Comments
Summer School
22
June
admin

I never gave much thought to summer school when I was growing up. 

When I was younger, it was the place where the bad kids had to go.  When I was older, it was the place where the bad boys that looked like members of the band RATT had to go.  You know…the ones who sat at the back of your English class, wearing sunglasses and ripped jeans with a pack of cigarettes in the pocket…the ones with hair longer than yours…the ones you would have dated if you could have figured out how to pull it off without your mom knowing.

Did I just say that out loud?  I should never blog using stream-of-consciousness.  It gets me in trouble.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that summer school was a foreign place to me.  The summers of my youth were spent playing softball and laying out on big sheets of tin foil in my backyard.

When I grew up and became a teacher, summers were spent working at a day care and crying to Big D every morning, telling him I had a stomach ache and couldn’t go into work.  He’d tell me to suck it up, get dressed and go to work.  Big D is not easily fooled.

I realize that many homeschoolers do school year-round, so summer school is commonplace, just a way of life.  Not so for us.  Oh, we’ve done a little bit through the years….some math sheets to stay sharp or a book or two that we didn’t get to, but for the most part our summers were free.

Until this year.  It was probably mid-April when I looked at my plan books, realized how much we still had to accomplish in order to be finished with 7th and 3rd grades….and I cried.  I cried hard.  The kids cried too.  We all said that we had stomach aches and couldn’t get out of bed.  Big D told us to quit our whining and get our school finished.

So that’s what we’re doing.  *sigh*  We’re almost finished with math, but we’ll have to work on history through the summer, and Harrison will have some science to catch up on.

Why are we so far behind this year, you may wonder.  It’s all his fault…

The little saboteur.

Category: homeschooling  Tags: ,  7 Comments
Welcome to My Site.
03
June
admin

Hello.

My name is Kellie, and I’m the Pirate Mom around here.

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 I’m ecstatically married to my Admiral on this big ship of life, Big D. 

He is a wonderful husband and dad, and he’s not really that red.   He works for a large physical therapy company doing administration/management stuff.  In a nutshell, stuff I don’t entirely comprehend.  On the side, he dabbles in photography, but he dabbles exceptionally well.  His photography site is in my list of links on my sidebar.  He loves God and challenges me on a regular basis to love Him more and better.  I’m a blessed chick.

Our scurvy crew consists of our three children:  Bonny Annie, Dirty Harry, and Cap’n Jack Henry.  And our dog, Clara-Beard.

Annaleigh is our oldest child and only daughter. 

She’s a delight in every sense of the word.  She is smart, funny and talented.  She is sometimes sassy.  Currently, she is twelve going on about thirty.  She enjoys all kinds of involvement in the arts, including dance, singing, and drama.  She loves the stage and tries to find one to get on wherever we roam.  She is also a black belt in TaeKwonDo and loves pets and small children.  In her limited free time she enjoys reading and making beaded jewelry.  Bonny Annie is a keeper.

Harrison is our oldest son. 

I believe the expression “all boy” was probably coined just for the likes of him.  He thrives on dirt, sweat, and crude bodily noises.  I fully admit…to him and to the world… that some of his behavior is a bit of  a mystery to me.  Dirty Harry loves sports of every kind.  He is also a Tae Kwon Do black belt and plays a mean first base on his Little League team.  He is chronically obsessed with Legos.  Seriously…he needs a three-step program for his addiction.  He also enjoys reading adventure stories and playing with his dog, Clara.  I love me some Harry….dirty or no.

Cap’n Jack Henry is our surprise third child. 

He is the cutest, sweetest baby on the planet.  He also may be the smartest.  I say these things as a completely unbiased third-party observer stating the facts.  Jack Henry spends his days latched on to his mother like an extra appendage, playing with toys, being cute, drooling and refusing to eat anything that remotely looks like, smells like or acts like a vegetable.  The Cap’n may have been a surprise, but he was definitely the great kind.

Clara is our Boston Terrier. 

She is about three weeks older than Jack Henry, which officially makes us lunatics.  She is basically a good dog, who nearly worships the ground we walk on.  She is only slightly confused about where she is supposed to relieve herself.  She enjoys sleeping on our furniture, licking our feet, eating anything (including Annaleigh’s beads, Harrison’s Legos and Jack Henry’s vegetables) and running at 75 mph through our home.

We are a home schooling family, so we are together…. A LOT!  Annaleigh is a rising 8th grader, Harrison is a rising 4th grader, and Jack Henry is working on his English studies.  I am the teacher, lunch lady, bus driver, librarian, secretary and nurse.  Big D is the principal. 

This site is going to be a little of this and a little of that.  It will be my on-line journal.  It will hopefully be a place of encouragement.  I often blog about home schooling, both my adventures and misadventures.  I will converse a lot about motherhood and child-rearing.  I will post a lot of pictures.  I will post a lot of links. I may whine a little sometimes.  Consider yourselves warned.   I hope this site will make you smile.  I hope this site will make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  I hope you will come back.  I hope you will come back often.

‘Till then,

The Pirate Mom

 

Category: My Crew, Uncategorized  Tags: ,  7 Comments

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