Fun building craft for younger kids.
Source: 4herreras.blogspot.com via Tawnee on Pinterest
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Giveaway – Global Village School End 5/25
Our Book List – What We Are Reading
Here is what we are reading this:
On Going Reading:
The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter – last week we completed The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling – this week we completed How the Leopard Got His Spots
Aesop’s Fables for Young Readers – this week we completed
Stepping Stones – ABeka Reader
Chapter Books:
The Family Under the Bridge by Natalie Savage Carlson – COMPLETED
**Josefina Learns a Lesson, an American Girl by Valerie Tripp – COMPLETED
The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne
Toddler Books:
Smile by SAMi
One to Ten and Back Again by Betty Ann Swartz
Peter Rabbit Munch by Frederick Warne
I Love You Through and Through by Bernadette Rossetti-Shustak
Spanish:
El Olfato: Los Sentidos y Algo Mas by Dami y Alicia Casado “Damali”
10 minutos y a la cama by Peggy Rathmann
My Reading:
Charlotte Mason Original Homeschooling Series Vol 1
For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer MaCaulay
Laying the Rails by Sonya Shaeffer
Hope you enjoy our list. What are you reading at your house?
Classical Conversation Cycle 3 History Review with Schoolhouse Rock!
As we are closing out our formal year we have been doing some fun review of this year’s Cycle 3 Classical Conversations.
We are viewing Liberty Kids videos through Discovery Education. The entire series is available and we are really enjoying them. You can also get these through your library in some places. There is a list here of the episodes in order if you need them.
Along with these, we are using some Schoolhouse Rocks videos to review some of the basics. This has been a great trip down memory lane for me. Whatever happened to learning time during Saturday morning cartoons? These were great. Wish they would bring them back. Nevertheless, here are some that we have been using. The kids love them!
The 13 Colonies – “No More Kings”
Westward Expansion – “Elbow Room”
The Preamble
Declaration of Independence – “Fireworks”
Immigration – “The Great American Melting Pot”
Revolutionary War (Paul Revere) – “Shot Heard Around the World”
Planning out your Next Year with (or without) Classical Conversations
If you are a Classical Conversations family, or thinking about it, you may be in the process of planning out your next school year. If so, a planner is a great way to help you organize everything. There are many great planners out there that can help you get things in order. Below I would like to share some planners to help you get next year in order.
Planning with Classical Conversations
Classical Conversations has its own planners that make planning your year easy for high school.
Here are some great planning pages to help you plan next year Cycle 1 into your school year from Half-a-Hundred-Acre-Woods.
Here is a Core Book by Tanglewood that would work well with any classical model, such as Classical Conversations.
Homeschool Planners (with or without Classical Conversations)
If you belong to Schoolhouse Teachers, which is a great resource, you can get these School House Planners for free including planners for mom, elementary, intermediate and high school planners as well as special needs planners.
Homeschool Planner Plus is available for free here
EduTrack, which is what we use for tracking grades, attendance, and other miscellaneous homeschool necessities, has a planner inside its software that will let you plan your whole year for each child.
There are several other homeschool printables for tracking and planning such as this free one or this free one.
We are using The School House Planners from Schoolhouse Teachers this year. I am usingthe comprehensive planner for household planning as well as school for both children and my 2nd grader will be using her own primary planner this year to help with managing her time and assignment throughout the week.
What will you be using this next year for your planning and tracking?
Pinterest Find of the Week
Classical Conversations board for memory work
Source: halfahundredacrewood.blogspot.com via Tawnee on Pinterest
CurrClick Mother’s Day Sale – Freebies, Hooray!
CurrClick is having a Mother’s Day sale, and, as usual, giving away some great curriculum. Everyone loves freebies so be sure to stop by CurrClick May 8 through May 15 and see what they have for you.
Be sure take advantage of great sales going on with many publishers as well.
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Classical Conversations and Lapbooking
Classical Conversations has ended for the year for us, though we are continuing our memory work review and working on our US Geography, which is studied in Cycle 3. As we are winding down our year, I have begun my planning for next year and Classical Conversations Cycle 1.
We did quite a few lapbooks this year to coincide with CC Cycle 3. Some of the lapbooks were found at Homeschool Share, one of our favorite sites to find free lapbooks, as well as various CC moms who shared their lapbooking ideas (See our post Latin Lapbook Cycle 3).
How happy we were to learn that Classical Conversations was pairing up with A Journey Through Learning (AJTL) to get some official Cycle 1 lapbooks for next year. We have done quite a few AJTL in past (pre-blogging days) and have really enjoyed them. We are certainly looking forward to next year and what AJTL will have to offer to add some lapbooks to our Classical Conversations Cycle 1 studies.
Check out A Journey Through Learning’s website to see their plans for next year’s Classical Conversations lapbooks.
Do you do lapbooking? Are you planning some for your next year?
Screen Free Week in Review
Screen Free Week was a great success here at our house. Though I, myself, was not totally screen-free, we had a great week spending more family time together and learning that we can do without our screen time.
The Kids–The kid did ask for the television throughout the week but did not put up much fuss when reminded we were screen free for the week. Avarie, who is 7, asked several times if the week was over yet but she did quite well. We even stayed away from our computer learning games every day except one. We did have one day of computer screen time using our Reflex Math and Reading Eggs. Our 2 year old asked for his reading videos a few times but we stayed away from it for him for the week. He did have one session of his computer games with mom, but that is about 10-15 minutes so it wasn’t too intrusive into our schedule.
The Family – The family had some good family time this week during screen free week. Board games, more reading and playing outside, after dinner walks, and more story times were the highlights. We found that we went to bed on time a little better and did not depend on the television for down-time. It was good for my husband and I to spend some time getting some work done and talking. It was nice to sit outside in the peace (and watch that fantastic Super Moon) and unwind together without media in the way. Though my husband and I both had computer screen time due to work and school commitments, we did limit other screen time, even after the kids were in bed, which was good for us.
Me- What I found was that the work was much less stressful and full of distractions. We got places more on time including bedtime, which is a real issue for us. I was much more productive without the distraction of the television, which is rarely on for me but for others and I now realize how distracting that was for me when working. I was thankful to have better behavior, calmer evenings and mornings, and better quality family time spent talking and sharing. I feel that I watch very little television and would love to be able to budget my computer work screen time better to have less of it as well. I hope that we can use this experiment to help us do better over the summer
One Note – I will say that, having a 2 year old that does not like to not have my full attention, there were times when I realized that I would normally be using a learning video to keep his attention while I did something when Avarie for school or some work. I need to find better ways to keep his attention on something else but still allow me to work on my work or with Avarie. But I do think the learning videos are helpful and, if used sparingly, are an ok screen time for the kids.
We plan to have a family discussion about how screen free week went for us and how we would like to set limits on our screen time for the future. This was a excellent way to see where we have come to rely on the television and ways that we can improve in our lives. I found it very interesting to see how much more productive I am without the distraction of the television.
Did you got screen free? What did you learn?
Preparing for Classical Conversations Cycle 1
As we wind down our first year of Classical Conversations, I find we are already planning for next year. This week I will have quite a few Classical Conversations preparation articles as I work through next year’s CC plans.
Next year is Cycle 1 and we are really looking forward to some great fun leaning about the world and physical science. World geography, physical science, and the Ten Commandments are some of what we will be studying.
If you want a great breakdown of a LOT of Cycle 1 resources, check out this post at Half a Hundred Acre Woods. She has done a great job at breaking down some resources.
I am putting together our plans for next year and will share that when it’s done; however, if you want to get a jump start, this is a great list.
Here are some additional resources I found not included on the list. Happy planning! (And don’t forget to consider this year’s Classical Conversations practicum. A great resource and place to discuss education with other homeschooling families. Registration is here and going on now.)
Animal Classifications printable
Animal Classifications lapbook
A Curriculum Guide by Global Village School – It’s a Giveaway!!!
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We are pairing up with DenSchool again to host a giveaway of a curriculum guide from Global Village School.
Haven’t hear of Global Village School? Neither had I. Here’s a excerpt from DenSchool’s review of the curriculum guide.
“The Global Village School offers an accredited homeschool diploma program that can be customized. They offer several options for classes, teacher support, etc. One option is to simply purchase the Curriculum Guide, which is what I am reviewing.
This little spiral bound notebook is a wealth of information. It is not a curriculum “kit” that includes everything. The curriculum can be followed exactly as laid out in the book, by acquiring all the material, or it can be used as a resource guide to augment your own plan.
The resources listed are divided into three categories; Core, Recommended and Optional. Many of the books and movies can be borrowed from the library or bought used. This certainly helps the budget conscious family, and who isn’t budget conscious these days?
The list of core, recommended and optional materials for this grade level allows each family to tailor it to their likes and budgets. In fact, the overall tone of the guide encourages and empowers the homeschooler to make the learning program specific and relevant to their educational goals.
What immediately impressed were the many alternatives to the standard textbook. The lively and entertaining alternatives will work much better for our family, I know my children will be more motivated to read!
The resources are listed under these academic areas: Social Studies/Literature; Music; Language Arts; Science/Eco-Integrity; Math; Citizenship/Service Learning; Values/Character; Art/Nature/Science; and Health. Each area has a variety of books, songs, films and websites that are recommended.
There are instructions, learning models and forms for using four week unit studies. There are also three different sample record keeping formats which can be used or adapted to fit your own needs.
There are chapters on enhancing your skills, assessment and documentation, education myths, scheduling issues and setting up your learning environment. I especially enjoyed chapter six which begins with a special note to the new homeschooling parent.
As a resource, it was very informative and empowering, debunking some of the widely held beliefs of traditional education that is critical of homeschooling. I also appreciate the overall “tone” of this curriculum which acknowledges, at every turn, that there is no one method that is best for every family out there.”
Here’s a link to the entire review.
Want to win a Curriculum Guide and give it a try?
Here’s how to enter:
