While we’re not technically halfway through the school year, it seems that the year is most easily broken up into two segments: Before Christmas and After Christmas. Thus, it seemed like a good time to revisit our original schooling plan that I talked about in September and see what we’re still doing that’s working, what we’ve dropped for one reason or another, and what we’ve added in. [Read more…]
If you follow me on Instagram (my new favorite social media platform!), you got a sneak peak into today’s post over the weekend.
For Christmas, Will got me all 5 levels of Rosetta Stone French. (This gift came with a new laptop two weeks later since RS only works on Windows 7 or higher; our desktop has XP. I’m loving the new computer [which has 8.1] and the language program!) If you’ve read my blog for very long at all, you’ll know that we’re teaching our children French for their foreign language. You’ll also know that I’ve tried numerous things over the past year in my quest to find something that will work for our family. I’ve explored (and done reviews of) French Essentials on SchoolhouseTeachers.com, Mango Languages, and Middlebury Interactive Languages. While all of these programs had their strengths and weaknesses, none of them were quite right for us in the long term. [Read more…]
A fresh month means it’s time for a new reading list! Here’s what our family is reading in January.
Read-Aloud – everyone
I forgot to get us to the library to pick up the book club book with enough time for the boys to read it, so we’re reading it aloud. It is Elijah of Buxton, the story of a black boy whose parents were slaves during the American Civil War. They escape to Canada with a large group of other slaves, where Elijah is the first child born free. [Read more…]
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Hey guys! I just wanted to put up a note to let you all know that SchoolhouseTeachers.com, the homeschool curriculum site of The Old Schoolhouse magazine, is having a fabulous sale right now.
Here’s how it works: You can sign up for an account and choose to pay either monthly or yearly. The normal price for the monthly membership is $12.95. If you sign up by Christmas (at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time), you’ll get a 40% discount, making your monthly membership $7.77.
The normal annual rate is $139, which is 10% off of the normal monthly rate. If you sign up for an annual account by the Christmas night deadline, you’ll get a 50% discount, making your fee $64.26.
Now, here’s the best part: If you sign up during this sale, you will be locked in at this discounted rate until you cancel your membership. That’s right: whether you keep it for three days, three months, three years, or more, you will never pay more than the discounted rate. How cool is that?!
In case you’re still not sure if this is a good site for you to invest in, you can read my review from a year ago. Additionally, there’s a whole new crop of Schoolhouse Crew Reviewers doing reviews of the site this week, so you can get an idea of what other homeschool moms think of this valuable resource.
Just click on the above banner to take you to the sale page if you’re interested in buying, or just want more information.
Blessings,
Here are in a new month. Can you believe that it’s December already?! A new month means time for a new reading list. Here’s what we’re reading in December.
Read-Aloud – everyone
I found a book called A Newberry Christmas at the library. It’s a collection of 14 short stories by beloved authors including Beverly Cleary and Madeline L’Engle. We’re really excited to dive into this one! [Read more…]
As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, I had the pleasure of casting my vote in their annual Blue Ribbon Awards. All members of the Crew are invited to share their favorite vendors of the year in a variety of categories, and then the votes are tallied and awards given to the vendors. Here are the winners of 2014 (links will take you to the Crew blog post for the product unless noted otherwise): [Read more…]
A new month means a new reading list! Well, the month is nearly half over (again), and the reading list has a couple of holdovers from October, but that’s okay.
Read Aloud – everyone
We’re still working on The Egypt Game. Because we read Wayside School first last month, we had a late start on TEG, but we’ll definitely finish it this month. [Read more…]
As much as we struggled with multiplication facts with the boys, I was beginning to think we’d never move on to division. But I’m pleased to say that we have done just that.
After Will saw the way our current math program was teaching the topic (it was insanely crazy and confusing, using “longs and shorts” – is this a Common Core thing, does anyone know?), he made the decision I should have: teaching long division the normal way. He spent about an hour with the boys and they came out the other end of that one lesson able to divide.
And now, on to fractions!
Blessings,
Wendy
Can you sell a torch purse to a princess?
Do you, Miss Princess, have money to burn? Then let me introduce to you the torch purse – it burns your money for you!
How about a bone sandwich to a dog?
Mr. Dog, what you need is to eat a sandwich like your owner does. But peanut butter is too sticky for dogs. Designed especially for you, so the move to sandwiches isn’t too abrupt a change from your preferred food, I give you the bone sandwich!
If so, Snake Oil – Party Potion, from Out of the Box Games, is the game for you! [Read more…]
A colleague of mine through the Schoolhouse Review Crew (Marcy at Ben and Me) has done a “Blogging Through the Alphabet” series several times now, and I’ve never remembered to start when she’s back at “A.” She’s since decided not to do the series, but I think it’s a great idea, so I’m going to give it a go. Alphabet posts will happen once a week in addition to anything else I have to write about that particular week and may or may not relate to each other. Some will be about our homeschooling journey, some will be recipes, and some will simply my thoughts for the week. Enjoy!
So . . . A is for Armadillo. Pretty random, no? Not for our home this week. We just started a unit study on Wild Animals: Small Mammals (from the set of My First Reports by Hewitt Homeschooling) in our homeschool, and the first animal we’re studying is armadillos.
Here’s what’s on tap for this week of our study. [Read more…]
