Mr. Gallon

For those who have a hard time remembering what how many pints are in a quart, or cups in a gallon (even the *adults*, ahem)....

I present you with Mr. Gallon!!!

This an easy craft, that is a simple educational tool. Enjoy!

(source)

The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine

To Test or Not to Test?

Apr. 15, 2009

Greetings!

When I first began homeschooling, I was surprised that in my state, homeschoolers aren't required to do any kind of testing.

I wondered how in the world parents would KNOW that their children were performing at grade level.Oh, how my opinion has changed over the years.
Although I have had my boys take some practice standardized tests just for the experience, I've never had them do any official testing.

Up to this point, it just hasn't seemed like a valuable use of our time.

As a public school teacher, I realized very quickly that standardized tests actually reflected more on the students' test-taking abilities (and how well the teacher had taught to the test) than how much the student had actually learned.

Little things like the tests using different terminology than the classroom curriculum, would cause students to miss questions on skills that I knew that they had mastered. It was very frustrating for both teacher and student.
And as a homeschool mom, I know it would be the same.

I'm thankful that in my state we don't HAVE to spend weeks preparing for and administering standardized tests.

I see my children's work and progress every day. I know how they are performing based on the things I'm teaching.

I don't need a standardized test to tell me that.
I know, however, that some of you live in states where standardized testing is required and that some homeschoolers opt to do standardized testing even if it isn't required.

If your child is going to be taking a standardized test, help to make it as non-threatening as possible.

Practice for the tests together.

Give him some special test-taking pencils to make it a special treat.

Make sure that your child is well-rested and ready for the big day.

Do your best to make it a positive experience.

Your child will appreciate the support, and it's another opportunity to make memories together. Enjoy every minute!

THM Editor

****************************************

I get this newsletter via email once a week.

I LOVE IT!

You can sign up for it on THE OLD SCHOOLHOUSE website.

Have a Blessed Day & Kiss your kids for me!

Workboxing

My sister-in-law just tipped me off to this idea yesterday and I plan on buying the e-book. I think this might be great help with the little ones in our family, especially when we come home with Dorothy and I want to have a stream of ready activities for Lael while I continue homeschooling the older kids and holding and bonding with the newest family member.

Without reading the details outlined in the e-book, I gather it is a system for organizing individual assignments or activities in a way that your child begins to self-initiate their learning, taking responsibility for what needs to be done. Since the parent prepares the boxes the night before, it also eliminates disinterest on the part of the student while they wait for the next activity or task to be ready for their participation (no gathering art supplies, no fumbling for the right worksheet, no decision time over which puzzle... all while the child wanders off to the next room).

A quick Google of "workbox homeschool" turns up a number of homeschoolers who have implemented this system and offered their feedback and photos of how they're using the tips.

If you currently use this system, I'd be interested in hearing your comments!

Scrabble Apple

OKay I heard of the Banana Gram from a friend of mine and she really likes it. I did not find it but I did find the Scrabble Apple ($7 at Wal-Mart). So today it was so beautiful outside we did her spelling list with the scrabble tiles - it was fun! Harder than I thought it would be. But just another fun way to do spelling - which is NOT my strongest subject!! I am so grateful for spell check :-)

It was such a beautiful day in the neighborhood we HAD to be outside!!! I know now you are singing the Mr. Roger's song too - aren't you!!! tee hee hee

One of My FAV.'s

CHECK OUT REE'S
Homeschooling Section
if you haven't already.

I love it.

LOVE IT!!!!


http://thepioneerwoman.com/

I hope everyone has some sunny weather this weekend.

Tomorrow in Mississippi........a high of 80.

We are going to the zoo.

Andrea

Math Memorization

Our oldest is doing multiplication in the 3rd grade. He is a master of understanding the concept of multiplication, but struggles with memorization for having the facts "at the ready". We use Math U See math curriculum, and I find it great, but was looking for additional information/tips/techniques and came across this teaching tutorial. I could see it just as easily used for addition, the other commutative math principle.

LOC!!!

Not homeschool related....but definitely HOME related:


We just got the call that we have our LOC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On day 100!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! julia.

Okay... who's next?!

Not to copy Andrea, but... well....

WE HAVE A REFERRAL, too!!!!

With my pregnancies, this sort of thing came in threes.  So the question is, "who's next?"!  :-)

GUESS WHAT??????

We have accepted a referral!
Hop on over!


PEACE.

Free Phonics Worksheet Generator

http://www.free-phonics-worksheets.com/html/free_phonics_worksheets.html

This looks great for the Kindergarten - First Grade set!

Hey Sistas!

Please remember to keep Rebecca & Family in your prayers over the next 2 weeks.

They leave tomorrow night to bring Owen home.

Also remember Owen. He is a toddler and this may be emotional for him.


Thanks!

PEACE.

Just In Case You Are Interested.............

China Sprout has these Bad Boys for $19.95 per(Craftworks).

They also have Dragons, Pandas, a Phoenix, etc.

Our kids are going to put them together with craft glue and

paint them for Chinese New Year.

PEACE.

these are a few of my favorite things...

Do you have any favorite homeschool "things" to share with all?

Here are a few of mine...

1. Flashmaster...a bit pricey ($50.00), but well worth it. My girls struggled for years to learn their math facts (and I won't share all the stories involving tears!). I bought this a few years ago and it was worth every penny. I make my kids use it for 5-20 minutes every day (depending on their age).

2. Apologia's science curriculum for elem/middle school. It's not too "text-bookish", nice and cheap ($35.00), written with a strong Christian perspective and completely do-able for moms like me that end up generally pushing science stuff to the end of the list. Being honest here: My (poor) kids never do most of the experiments. And even without the experiments, it's a good science curriculum. LOVE IT!

3. Reading list...I have my kids write down every book that they read throughout the year. I make a very basic chart for them to fill out (title, author, date completed) during the year. I heard a college professor say that every homeschooled student should keep a log of all the books he/she has read since 8th grade and include it as part of his/her high school transcripts. My kids take guesses at how many books they can read during the year. They love to see their progress. And even though my kids aren't in 8th grade yet, I think it is a good thing to do.

Anything you wish you knew about earlier? Or couldn't survive without? I'd love to hear your things! julia.

Homeschool Laminating

There are times when you want something to last extra long.  A chart.  Flash cards.  The cover of a folder.

Yes, you can drive to the nearest copy shop and have something laminated.  But, I usually save myself the trip and do it myself with shelf paper.  I have a roll of clear adhesive shelf paper that works perfectly fine for most applications and it has lasted me a couple of years.

Sandwich any item you need laminated between two sheets of the clear sticky paper (adhesive sides *in*) and you've got a water-repellant, wipeable, sturdy bit of paper.

history suggestions?

My 4th and 5th grade girls are reading the 4th book of Story of the World this year. I do not want to start the 4 year cycle again, so I am looking for a new history curriculum for next year. I am wanting a history curriculum that has a strong biblical worldview (which SOTW doesn't have) and goes through history chronologically. I have been looking at Tapestry of Grace but it is freaking me out a bit. I like the simplicity of Story of the World and Tapestry of Grace seems overwhelming. I'm not sure I'd actually do any of it. And it is pretty pricey. Also, Tapestry is moving away from printing teacher texts and moving toward more computer based/CD-rom text. I like a book in front of me (and don't really want to have to print out weekly plans). Do any of you use TOG and love it? Have any of you switched from SOTW to something you love? Do any of you know of or use something that teaches chronologically and from a biblical worldview? Please send me your ideas! julia.

A Homeschool Family...

By Tim Hawkins
Hilarious!! I just had to share!

does it count? (!!)

Yesterday, I took took two of my kids (one was at grandma's) with me to vote. My five year old was disappointed that he didn't get to see John McCain or Barack Obama at our polling place. Uhmm, I had apparently neglected to explain to him that there was more than one place in the country to vote! I then proceeded to share with them what our country might look like if McCain were president and what it may look like if Obama were president. I tried to sum up all of the campaign promises and political differences between the two candidates while riding in the van and eating lunch. I'll spare you all my political/moral preaching on this subject...however, my kids couldn't escape it!! I drew a map on a scrap piece of paper and tried to explain the electoral college to them. I bought 5 bottles of laundry detergent at the grocery b/c it was 1/2 off. I was super excited about the deal and went on and on about how long the detergent would last us and how much we had saved AND how I could shuffle our weekly money so that I could go buy five more before the sale ended on Thursday. I sent them all outside for the afternoon b/c it was 75 degrees and will likely be 40 degrees this weekend. So, does it count as a school day? I'm thinking YES! I snuck in government, math, gym, a biblical worldview seminar, and a little bit of fun.

And, come on...doesn't anyone else want to share about a day at your house?! julia.

A Day in the Life of... Tisra

I'm about ready to make dinner, so before I forget, I figured I better post the details of today.  Today is NOT a typical homeschool day, but documenting this is certainly encouraging because it shows that you can take what you've got and USE IT!  Never wait for the "perfect day"... it will never happen.

Yesterday, two neighbors asked if I could watch their children at points in the day.  Both had pressing needs and I wanted to be there for them.  BUT, I also have a few days coming up that I allotted as non-school days when I fly for a girls weekend in NYC and Daddy is home with the kids for 4 days.  (Lest you think I say that casually... I am totally thankful and THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!!!!  EEEEeeek!)  (Okay, resuming...)  Because of my upcoming absence and the fact that we were on Fall Break only a week ago, I have no room to spontaneously take a day off and watch other people's children.  As crazy as it may sound, I insisted that we proceed with school today.

My children are 8, 5, 3 (nearly four).  The first set of kids (Group A) were 5 and 3.  My plan was to bring the 5 year old into the lesson and allow the 3 year old to play with our 3 year old.  The second set of kids (Group B) needed watching after lunch and there was a possibility that Group A would be gone by then but, if not, it was my intent to let them simply play while we finished up school work or skip the last activities of the day and let everyone play... I'd decide later.  Group B consisted of two boys: nearly 8, and 13.

I woke up at 6, got coffee and sat to read my Bible in the still, dark morning.  This was the most peaceful part of my day and a total necessity.  My husband left for work at about 6:45am, and I tinkered on the computer for a bit, then helped my kids get ready for the morning.  At about 8am, the kids were all dressed and ready ("starving") for breakfast.

Group A arrived about 8:20am, and joined us for blueberry pancakes.  I usually read our devotional or Bible during breakfast and did so this morning.  We read Lesson 21 out of "Leading Little Ones to God" and had some good discussion about sin and forgiveness.  We never got around to reading directly from Scripture, but sang "Jesus loves the Little Children" quickly while clearing away plates.  While everyone washed the maple syrup off their hands and brushed their teeth, I finished cleaning up breakfast and putting away last nights clean dishes from the dishwasher.  The children played for a bit as I continued on to a few other tasks: making my bed, starting a load of laundry, and getting out of my robe and pjs into proper clothes.  I quickly dusted on some make-up and brushed my hair, too.  But I haven't showered- I didn't really trust the kids to be alone for 15 minutes; I will tackle that tonight when my husband is home.

By the time that was all taken care of, the phone rang with something semi-urgent.  Grant, my oldest, took advantage of my distracted-phone-talking-self to go ride his scooter outside and chat it up with the lawn guys who came to seed and aerate today.  Off the phone, I went outside and collected my son, telling everyone that it was time to assemble for school.

At this point, it is about 10:00am.  Group A's 5 year old, and my two school-age children sat down to do their more strenuous tasks for the day.  I always get the paper work out of the way before my children say they're "tired".  These tasks include: Handwriting, Math, language Arts written assignments, and Spelling.  While they worked on what they could independently, I cleaned the children's bathroom- it was getting to be "past due" (almost 3 months into school, and I am still battling with how to keep the house clean).  My 3rd grader usually has more to do than the Kindergartner, so I played Letter Sound Bingo with the 5 year olds while Grant did his spelling words.  Then we did some reading in our Language Arts books.  Everything took longer this morning (surprised?), so we broke for lunch around 12:40pm instead of our normal 11:30 or 12:00.  This was fine only because breakfast was served a bit later, too so they weren't "starving" again.  Oh, and I let them have dry snacks upstairs in the school room just to keep my kids focused a bit longer (this is a no-no normally to avoid mess, so they loved that).

Eating lunch is normally the perfect opportunity to read from our Literature Read Aloud (currently Mountain Born) or our history read aloud, but today everyone just ate.  I needed the brief pause, and I think that having 5 kids around the table made it too noisy to have good listeners.

So, then we went outside to play in the neighborhood.  Our house is situated on a cul-de-sac with a grassy island in the middle.  It was at this point that my kids, Group A and Group B all intersected and we had a noisy, fun, messy play session.  I love watching all of the ages figure it out together- perfect opportunity to learn the art of compromise!  The younger kids pulled each other in the wagon.  The older kids dragged out a heap of boxes and objects to make an obstacle course from.  About thirty minutes in, compromise and bliss gave way to tattling and hurt feelings- we are talking about 7 unrelated kids so I suppose it is to be expected!

It was then clean up time (about 2:30pm), and all the outside objects/ride-ons/toys were hauled into the garage while all the children except the oldest from Group B came inside to play.  I surveyed the playroom/school room and considered it "a wreck".  As I helped the  youngest children tidy up, Grant did our science reading out loud.  There was still History and Literature to be done, but this is the point at which we called it a day and went outside to play again (roughly 3:30pm).

Considering the circumstances, I think that wasn't so bad.  And THAT is one of the biggest advantages of homeschool- being able to remain flexible and speed up or slow down depending on LIFE.

A Day in the Life of...Julia

Ok, I thought this would be fun. Let's each take a turn and share about our day...a typical day, if there is one. I just love to hear how other people spend their homeschool days. I'll start. And I'll begin by saying that today wasn't special in any way. No fun things on the calendar today. No homeschool group today. No cute science experiments today. No exciting field trip. Just a day in the life of our homeschool family.

I rolled out of bed at 9:00 am today. Yes, it's true. I stayed up late with my husband last night having a date-night of sorts watching a few shows we DVR-ed on our tv. It's cheaper than going to the movies and way more comfortable since I can lounge on the couch with my pj's on! My oldest daughter spent the night at my parents' house last night so I had only two kids for 1/2 the day today. Ahh, do you know how much less conflict there is when you take just one kid out of the mix? A lot less in this house. Anyway, Anna and Nathan made themselves breakfast as usual (cereal), I sat with them and checked my email quickly. Then Nathan and I sat on the couch and went over several pages of his reading book (Phonics Pathways) together. Anna did what Anna always does, she read. She got up early this morning (like 7:00 or something like that). She generally gets up early and sits in her bed reading until I get up. Then she eats b/c I make her. Then she reads again. On to our day... I went upstairs to take a shower and get ready for the day. Nathan went to his room with instructions to review his Phonics Pathways words and either listen to books on CD's or music. Anna started her laundry (yes, I teach my kids early to be independent!), cleaned her room, got dressed and started on her morning work. Morning work consists of things that she can do independently while I am getting ready in the morning. Her list includes: assigned reading book, spelling, personal enjoyment reading, devotion/bible study, Flashmaster (a super-great electronic math fact machine), Mavis Beacon typing CD-rom, Chinese language Nintendo DS game (b/c we couldn't afford the $200.00 Rosetta Stone program I really wanted) and reviewing her memory verses. Then I helped Nathan finish a craft project (those beads you put on plastic shapes and iron together). He picked out some Christmas wrapping paper, wrapped it , and then found a good hiding place for it. It's his gift to Daddy for Christmas. Check. One gift done (!!). It was lunch time by then. The kids made their own lunch and I made mine. When I grocery shop on Mondays, I generally splurge (like $4-5.00...ooh, I know...such a treat!) on one special treat for myself for lunches for the week. It usually is a gallon of sweet tea from Chik-fil-A. However, this week I bought a loaf of sundried tomato bread from Panera for my sandwhiches. OH MY GOODNESS! It is so yummy! Yes, little things like that get me excited and make my day a bit more enjoyable. On to lunch...we ate together and laughed a lot. Then it was off to the basement. The serious work gets done down there. I put Nathan's math DVD in (Math U See) while Anna worked on her Latin. I graded some of Anna's work from last week. I usually do that on Monday morning but didn't get to it yesterday. My mom came home with Kara around that time. She stayed and visited with us for about an hour. The kids showed off some of their school work to her along with their "still a work in progress"-Christmas list that they are really in to right now. She left, Nathan continued on with his math, Kara got started on her work for the day, and Anna finished up her Latin. Then we took a break and went to the library to get new books. We returned home around 3:30. (See sweet picture of all three kids reading. Ahhh, if only my whole day looked like that!) I started making dinner while the kids all read their new books. And that's it. That's our day so far. I'll have them start setting the kitchen table and cleaning up the family room shortly.

So, how about you all? What's your day look like? No cheating...you can't wait until a really good/unusual/totally make the rest of us feel like slacker moms kind of day. So, start sharing! Can't wait to hear your "day in the life" post!

PS: As I re-read this post, I thought I'd add one thing. I do teach my girls. It didn't sound like I did from this post! Although I do it a bit differently than most, I think. They are in 4th and 5th grade. So, they are fairly independent workers. The way I structure our week is that I give the girls their lessons for the week on Monday. I teach them, for instance, the grammar lesson and then give them 5 assignments for the week. Then they are on their own for Tues-Fri. If they work really hard, they can get all of their work done early (sometimes as early as Wed). If they don't, then they are stuck with a really awful Friday. It didn't take them long to learn a valuable lesson. Work hard, enjoy some time off. Procrastinate, pay the price on Friday. And doing it like this allows me to spend more time with my 5 year old who requires one on one teaching time. As for this week, Kara took some of her work with her to my parents' house and did it this morning while there. And of course, I am usually answering questions here and there about the work they are doing. But I'm not supermom and can't always answer questions immediately (like when I'm making dinner, in the bathroom, on the phone, etc, etc). And let's face it, questions generally come at those times! Anyway, the funny thing is that as I was grading Anna's math work today, she had this written for three of her word problem answers: "unknown- you wouldn't answer my question". Supermom I am NOT! Although I do consider it a good day if I have dinner prepared by 5:00. It is. I'm good for the day!! julia.

Will The Boats Float?

Tuesday it rained and rained and rained.

When it stopped - the big girls asked if they could make boats
out of pine bark ,sticks,mud,and leaves.

The wanted to see if they would float down the creek
and in the puddles

Here they are......
and yes they did!

They were so proud!

Fun Little Monkeys.

This is what happens when you won't let them turn on the T.V.