Open House

I like to win prizes and here's a chance to do that while posting pictures of our homeschool spaces...www.thehomeschoollounge.com is running the giveaway.

These are C's and M's school boxes. They have all of their books that they need in them. As you can see, C's (on the left) is pretty full this year. We do our schooling at our dining room table.
We use our maps a lot this year for school (and not for school; my kids LOVE maps and their favorite website in googleearth.com). Above the maps is the timeline we used last year and will reuse for Matthew later this year.

These are the built in shelves that our house came with that I have taken over for our homeschooling things... extra supplies, relevant books, our printer/copier, maniplatives, preschool toys, etc.

When we move at the end of next year, we really would like to have a "homeschool room" instead of taking over the dining room table and then having to go into the living room for our maps and school shelves. I'd rather not have our house be taken over with homeschool stuff, but this is what we have been provided with and are blessed even if it's not my ideal.

Week 2

Our second week of school this year included some more fun activities. We are continuing an overview of the world in Exploring Countries and Cultures. Here, C made a paper doll chain and then drew each paper doll to be characteristic to a child from different countries.

Matthew has finished his handwriting review and is now reviewing reading short vowel words and learning the long vowel sounds. He memorizes a new Proverb each week. This is the first time he has had to write it down though. We are working ahead at his pace but now that we are into the third week in the teacher's manual, we are slowing back down to one lesson per day.

We usually do school when Leah is sleeping, but sometimes she joins us if we aren't finished yet or if her loud brothers wake her up. She loves to color like her brothers do.

I think it is so cute how she lies on her tummy to color on the floor...just like her brothers.

One of C's assignments was to make a "world cake". I let him make the whole cake on his own except for the oven part. He did a great job with measuring and following the instructions.

He also frosted the cakes himself. The cake on the top has the Eastern Hemisphere. The bottom one includes North and South America and Antarctica.















C is studying distance in math and has been coverting distance into meters, kilometers and centimeters, as well as yards, feet, and inches. He likes measuring things but doesn't care for the amount of calculations he has to do. As long as he gets it done, I guess he doesn't have to like it. He does get frustrated sometimes with how loud his brothers can be and that has been a challenge. He'd much rather do the map and art portions of his school work.
He's also going over a brief summary about different religions. This week we read about animism, budhism, islam, and judaism and how they differ from Christianity.

Week One

We've finished our first week of homeschooling and have had a great week. C, doing Exploring Countries and Cultures (ECC), is learning how to read maps and is learning an overview of Earth's geography. We read a book about a missionary family living in Papau New Guini (near Australia) for thirty years so that they could translate the Bible into the language there since the people didn't have a Bible in their language. There are many languages in the world that do not have a Bible written in their language. My Father's World uses part of their profits for Bible translation. We will be learning about a lot of missionaries this year.

Christopher loves all things map related so is enjoying learning more about them and coloring in his world maps and labeling continents and oceans. We drew the continents on an tangerine and then peeled it to see how hard it is to make a flat map out of a round world.

Christopher's doing great with cursive and I think it's his favorite thing to do. When he went to public school in K and 1st grade, he always said his favorite subject was handwriting also.

His memory verse this week was John 3:16.

For a science activity, he had to rope off a square yard of the backyard and record what was in his habitat.

Matthew is loving first grade and asks to work ahead in his handwriting workbook everyday. I let him today and I might let him work ahead a bit since his work is pretty light right now. Plus, we'd get more done before the baby comes.

M is learning about the history of the Bible and he is making handwriting pages to turn into a scroll just like the Bible was first handwritten onto scrolls. All of the boys helped to make clay to make jars out of which is what people would store their scrolls in.

M also learned that the Jewish calendar is different than ours and he made one.

G did a lot of the things that the older boys did. C had to fill out a (pretend) application for a passport so I let the other boys also do one. When I told G that he'd get the actual passport in a few weeks, he broke down crying and I ended up giving his application back to him so he wouldn't be empty handed.

New School Year

We've started our second year of homeschooling and we're all excited about what we will be learning this year.


Christopher is my eight year old third grader and is a do-it-himself quick learner. This year he is using: Exploring Countries and Cultures, Singapore Math 3B/4A, Primary Language Lessons, and Spelling Power. He is also learning cursive this year.

Matthew is my six year old kindergartener who is using the MFW First Grade curriculum. He has a July birthday and being held back because of that and not because of his learning abilities which is why he is mismatched in that way. He completed MFW Kindergarten last year and did great with it. He is also using The Complete Book of Math Grades 1-2 this year.

Gabriel is my three year old who wants to do everything his brothers do. He writes "words" all of the time, insists on sitting at the table for all of our school day writing those so-called words, but will still cry at the drop of a hat if something doesn't go his way.

Leah is my sweet little 14 month old daughter, our only girl (so far). We have to do school while she is napping which pretty much is all that is needed to describe her. She insists on being the center of attention and her favorite word at the moment is "up", as in "hold me all the time".

Here is pretty much what our schedule is turning out to be this year:
7:30-8:00 AM First Grade with Matthew, Christopher does independant school work
8:00-10:30 AM Leah wakes up, breakfast, play
10:30-12:30 PM Leah takes nap, school with Christopher
12:30 PM Lunch, play, etc

We have to finish school during Leah's nap, it's not an option. She pretty much rules our family with her screeching. Yes, we'll be working on taking away her power this year :o)

I am also due to have another baby in January 2010. The two youngest will be 19 or 20 months apart so I try not to imagine what school life will be like then :o)