New School Year...New Look!

Well, that day has finally crept up on us. The day when summer comes to an end and it's time to break open the school books. As a child and even now it is always hard to do that when the weather outside is so perfect and sunny still!
I thought with the age of a new school year, it would be nice to change things up a bit and give the blog a new look. Give me your opinion...do you like it, hate it? :)
Well, our first official day was wonderful. We only had a few problems...(for those who don't know I had packed up all of our school supplies and books) such as the frantic hunt for pencils first thing this morning! There was the typical delay with handwriting with my son but I think it will get better there. All in all, we got all things completed that I had scheduled and with some of our curriculum still packed away, we made due very well!
The main thing I fudged on was art, I just had it as part of our English which has an enrichment exercise to do an illustration for the Caterpillar poem we're memorizing.
Here is our schedule. I don't adhere to it strictly but I do try to keep close so that we are sure to get all subjects included.

8am- morning prayer and pledge of allegiance

8:05am-meeting book (Comes with our new Saxon math curriculum...includes calendar and weather recording work)

8:20am- daily studies (address/phone/shoes/character)

8:30am-DS math (DD handwriting)--we use saxon math now and a handwriting workbook from walmart but that is packed away so I'm printing things off to work on)

9:00am- DD math (DS handwriting)

9:30am- english/ grammar--First Language lessons for the Well Trained Mind

9:45am- english/spelling--Spelling Workout

10:00am- snack break/choral reading

10:15am-DS reading (DD look@books)

10:30am- DD reading (DS look@books)

10:45am- weekly reader

11:00am- history--previously Story of the World but while packed away I'm using both an elem. history book for 1st or 2nd grade in addition to the weekly reader election series.

11:25 am- science--We're using a elem. science book for 2nd grade and we are going to use it as a basis for doing lapbook work. We also have the supplemental science packet that comes with weekly readers.

11:50am- Bible lesson-- Our Disciple land workbooks are packed away so for now we're going to work on memorizing Bible book names, there are two wonderful youtube videos that have old and new Testaments in seperate videos.

12:00pm- lunch break

12:15pm- m/tu=art w/th=music - this is going to be a mix...monday will be art crafts, tuesday will be an art appreciation. Wed. will be music fun time and thurs. will be music appreciation. (We will have more or less time for this each day depending on the rest of the schedule as well as the weather, etc)
The art appreciation I have no guide for yet, I may just make it up as I go along or go through my own college art book from before and have them look at pics that corelate to what time period we're studying in history and attempt to duplicate the styles. I'm not sure yet!
For Music appreciation I found a wonderful set of DVD's from Netflix called the 'Young People's Concert' and we're borrowing them to watch for it. It's an old black and white series but very in depth.

12:30pm- exercise tape---possible...I'm debating this one. I might include it or not. If I do, we have some cool videos like Dancing with the stars and kids karate type videos. I might use this as a backup for rainy days, but I'm undecided yet.

1:00pm- p.e. outside (if weather perm)

CAT5 Scores....

Here is the break down of this scores... The first I'll list is the general subject scores. I'll list the stanine that he scored in as well as his grade equivalent....
(Stanine is the 'standard nine' which is a listing of 9 groups compared to the average). This was the 1st grade test.

Reading vocabulary- 5th stanine- 2.2 grade equivalent
reading comprehension-5th-2.4 ge
total reading- 5th-2.3
language mechanics- 5th-2.4
language expression- 5th-2.2
total language-5th-2.3
math computation-4th-2.0
math concepts and app.-5th-2.3
total mathematics-5th-2.2
total battery-5th-2.3
word analysis-5th-n/a
science-6th-2.5
social studies-5th-2.2

Let me just say that science shouldn't come as a shock because my husband and I are SCIENCE JUNKIES! We spend a lot of t.v. watching time watching science channels. ;) Also, it's funny that he scored so high in social studies because we don't use the regular history that jumps around...we do classic history that follows history in it's actual time line (that means that we started with the cavemen, then on to ancients...etc...not that then jumping to Washington and U.S. History.)

If I haven't bored you enough already...here is the full break down of the scores and what grade he made on each. I'll put an asterisk next to those it says he has mastered (not mastered is 0-50; partially mastered is 51-75; mastered is 76-100):

Reading Vocabulary:
word meaning- 76 *
words in context-85*

Reading Comprehension:
listening and understanding-50 (the lowest score)
link picture, print-99*
recall information-99*
construct meaning-99*

Language Mechanics:
Sentence, phrase, clause- 83*
writing conventions-74

Language Expressions:
usage-79*
sentence formation-94*

Math Computation:
add whole numbers-92*
subtract whole numbers-62 not all items attempted- (he ran out of time)

Math Concepts and Application:
numeration-81*
data interpretation-81*
measurement-77*
geometry-92*

Word Analysis:
single conson/word-97*
cons. blends, digraphs-99*
sight words-98*
short vowels-74
long vowels-60

Science:
life science-90*
physical science-84*
earth and space science-85*
science process-70

Social Studies:
geographical concepts-90*
economic dimensions-89*
historical perspectives-85*
government, citizenship-97*
sociological patterns-96*

Answer to a question...

I had a comment posted on one of my posts and replied but I thought I would post it here on the main page. This is the end of the comment and my reply....

~~~...I want my own children to get a good education and be prepared for life's challenges and college. I've read some of your comments and I'm interested to know about the curriculum you use and how well you think it prepares students for the future.

July 24, 2008 9:03 PM

~~~Hello there,
The local Christian school here was a consideration for a moment but we thought the same as you. I am sure there are those that push the students and challenge them but our local one doesn't. My husband even knows first hand because he attended it once upon a time. And I remember from my high school experience that students who went there said it was 'so much easier' than public school.
Now, last year I admit that I tried to make things easier for my son. I even switched curriculum mid-year because he didn't like it. We were using Abeka for English and it was great. I loved it and it seemed fairly challenging but he didn't like it. So I changed to Switched-on Schoolhouse (SOS) by Alpha Omega publishing. It's a computer program and of course he liked it better but it was 3rd grade (that's what level they start at) so it was a little bit more advanced for him.
I decided to do the Classic curriculum style for my daughter and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I shouldn't just give my son 'the easy way out' because he wants it. So this year they are BOTH going to be doing Classic English. For this I bought the book (you can probably find it at your library) called the well trained mind which gives you a detailed explanation and guidance for the classical program. There is also a book for English called "First Language Lessons for the Well trained Mind". It goes k-2 and we're using that this coming year. I want a challenging program that will give them a good thorough basis for education.
For math I switched too late because Math-U-See wasn't for us. A lot of people love it but I don't like that it only focuses on one thing for a long time. We were working on addition for so long without even getting into subtraction and he had FORGOTTEN how to subtract just from last year. I didn't like that personally so this year we're going to give Saxon math a try, it's one of the best math programs.
I believe that if you challenge your kids, they will often be able to match your challenges. Sometimes it'll be too much but you (as the parent) know your child better than anything and know how to adjust for them.
I am hoping that as the children get older that by high school they will be able to dual enroll in some college courses to get the feel of it and help be more prepared for full time college work.
Plus, a side-note...homeschooling does provide real life experience. You can add a class of teaching your children how to balance a check book, work the family budget, manage a household, etc. This provides a foundation for learning how to deal with real life. I'm saving that for a few years down the road when they're more stable in their math skills.
They also learn how to manage their schedule by getting their household chores done, their school work (which students do become more independent with as they age) their hobbies and extra curricular classes, etc. It teaches them to realize that if they don't get those things done that it leaves less time for play time. Just like in real life 'work before play'.
I hope I answered your questions. If not, or you have more, feel free to post. :)

HE PASSED!

We got the CAT5 results and my son passed! He made in and above the 4th stanine in everything. He made between a 2.0 and a 2.5 grade level equivalent in all of his subjects. His lowest was math and that was what he tested at 2.0 in. I figured that much so I am just so happy!
I may post his exact scores soon, I'm not sure yet. But wanted to let everyone know.
:D

Last day of school pics...

I know it's a bit late, a month and a half so but I found these and wanted to post. For our last day of school we did this cute little cat keychain project. I found them at Walmart for $2 for a kit that makes 4. The kids loved it though we did have some problems getting the parts to stay together at one time so we had to glue one part then wait an hour then glue the next and so on. They loved it though.

Going Green...

Okay, so after seeing Wall-e this past weekend, I get it. I finally get it. I have been interested in recycling for a long time but I have had many road blocks...from not living in a recycling area to the people not picking it up as they were supposed to.
Anyhow, for whatever reason I haven't before, I have finally figured out the WHY of going green. I think I had held onto a misconception that going green was for hippy treehuggers (no offense of course, lol).
Anyway....I am researching it today and will start to put everything into motion to try to do our part for the world and teach the kids. It'll be a fun part of school too, I'm sure. The kids are always into fun new things like this. They loved our new 'swirly' lightbulbs. :)
My only complaint is that I keep hearing about walking or riding a bike to save on gas and emissions. They do not seem to take into account those of us who live too dang far away from town to ride a bike! If I were to ride a bike to the store then I might be back TOMORROW! :) It makes me feel bad. There isn't even a public transit thing way out here so that doesn't help. It makes me feel bad in a way but there's nothing I can do about it. Maybe I should start riding a horse....okay, maybe not. I'm afraid of heights! lol!
But anyway....we're going green. I'll keep you posted on how it's going. Wish us luck!

A Dinosaur Named Sue!

Before the end of our school year, we got to do the coolest thing! We got to go to a museum and see the complete dinosaur skeleton of the t-rex named Sue. It was so awesome! That was the first time I think I had ever seen a dinosaur skeleton, let alone a massive t-rex. You see them in movies (computer generated of course) but you have no idea how large those things actually were until you are standing right beside of it, looking up at the thing. It was so amazing. Here are some pics that I took of her.
Homeschooling means getting to take the coolest field trips! Learn things hands on! Become part of the learning! :)

Hands on Science...

It has been a while since I posted on here. I have been trying to get caught up on things with the kids in summer break. On top of that I have been working on getting my writing career up and started.
I thought I would post a few pics I had taken towards the end of this school year.
We discovered a turtle and decided to check it out. What better way to learn about something (at least the things that don't bite or sting) than hands on. The kids loved it of course and my son wanted to keep it but I had to explain that he wasn't a pet, he was wild and wouldn't survive inside. After a little while of talking to him and examining him we released him back into the wild. Hands on science is so cool!

Official last day of School!

Well our school year has finally ended. This year seemed like it flew by.
We finished up our day with rapping up our kindergarten and 1st grade memory books. I got these from homeschooling.about.com, just search for memory books. They're really cute and you just print them off and I put them in a little folder. They fill out info about their favorites and things they did this school year. It's great because years from now we'll always have it to look back at. :)
We are also finishing up with a fuzzy craft thing where you make cats out of pompoms. They are getting frustrated because they are falling apart as they're trying to construct them. I decided it would be best if we do them in sections until the glue dries and holds them together better. I think I spent $1 at Walmart on these and they make 4 so the kids were tickled to be able to do them.
For the summer I'm only going to focus on reading. We will be reading books daily and the magazines that they have gotten recently (Highlights, Zootles, and Boys life). I'm hoping to really sharpen their reading skills. We might also work on a few things like easy lapbooks on rainy days. We won't do anything difficult like our regular science lapbooking. These will be mostly laid back like character traits, maybe Bible themes, I was thinking of doing one on address and phone number. We will see. I want them to have time off but would like to throw a little something simple in there occasionally.
My son wrapped up his CAT test and we sent it off last week. We get the results back in 8 weeks so I'm still going to be a little nervous until I get it back. I think he did pretty good but where it's a percentile thing instead of just how much he missed, I won't know for sure until we receive the grades.
For now we're ready to relax. We had a difficult year and now it's time to enjoy the weather, maybe even fit some gardening in too. They are begging me to start the garden this year (we usually do a large veggie garden) so we might get to it tomorrow. :)
I love summer, but my own school is starting back next week. Hopefully one class will be much easier on me. ;D

Classical Education...

Recently I have been giving a lot of thought to the classical education curriculum. For those who aren't really familiar with it here is a quick rundown. The classical system uses ancient Latin techniques in three stages, the first is the memorization stage where the kids retain as much fact and knowledge as possible. The second stage sets them into the motion of critical thinking. Learning how to put all of the knowledge they have retained together into logical form and the third is the rhetoric phase. This phase is where the kids are able to argue and discuss things logically and with confidence.
I love the notion of this learning style but with a sigh last year decided it wouldn't work for my son. It's a lot of work and right now he just hates work. I recently picked up the book "The Well Trained Mind" and I am considering doing this with my daughter. She loves learning and begs for work on a daily basis. On weekends she often says "Aww Man...I hate two days off!" I'm reading the book to get familiar with it this summer and hope to begin her in the fall with it.
I'm going to keep with out 'Story of the World' for history which has a classical base anyway and the lapbooking for science. I also got them both Saxon math for the fall. The main thing I want to go classical on is her literature/english/grammer.
I may incorporate small parts of this into the other subjects as well. For example I am thinking that fact memorization for math. Maybe following the outline for the science we learn. I definitely want them to learn Latin soon and more languages beyond that (studies have shown that kids languages easier in their early years).
With all of this said, however, I keep getting this nagging sensation that I am doing a disservice to my son. Doesn't he deserve to learn this in depth and strong education like she does? I mean the curriculum I chose for him is good, but if I'm doing it for her shouldn't I do it for him as well.
I know he would hate it and would complain every step of the way. So that is my conundrum. Should I teach him the classical way or not? I will still have to think about this during the summer.