File Folder Human Body Freebie

If you are interested in incorporating noteboooking and lapbooking into your homeschool this is a great project for those studying the Human Body.

It is free from Oakes Homeschool and posted at CurrClick

I hope you enjoy this project.

The boys meeting with the Teacher.

So today we met with our favorite teacher to go over our school year with the boys. We have always used her and love her so much, she can’t quit until my kids are grown!!!! I’m not sure I’ve told her that yet though

As always she was impressed with how much we did this year. In spite of all the personal chaos going on in our lives for the last 10 months. My personal opinion of our year is both positive and negative. We truly did do a great deal of work, the boys were exposed to a great deal and a few things did stay with them. On the negative side of things, we were very stressed out, didn’t really enjoy our days, forgot much of what we covered and we didn’t have as much to show for everything we did do. After awhile the boys didn’t want to write or color or document anything of what we read for school. We took field trips but didn’t document them at all.

The teacher~ Diane, suggested we go back to writing one or two words on our daily calendar, we talked about how I’m concerned about the boys decoding abilities and she suggested using sequential spelling so we will be switching to this and see if that helps us. A plus is that both boys can do it at the same time. Another suggestion she had was only focusing on a few things this year until we get to some sort of mastery. Giving us a much needed reprieve from trying to do it all and then suffering from major guilt because we didn’t get it all accomplished. So I have some major thinking to do. We are taking off for the month of July to regroup. I’m hoping to take a trip to visit friends in Va and NC in early Aug. providing we have the funds, giving us a much needed break from the stress here. She also suggested covering something only once a month! I’m thinking that poetry might be that once a month thing.  We are supposed to go back to the Ancients in history using MOH this fall but I’m seriously thinking of covering it over a two year period and really taking the time to delve deeper into it. Plus we have so many great fiction books that go with this time period that it would be a shame not to be able to read them.

She told me in front of the boys that the only thing she really requires on a daily basis is reading!!! Yea!!! Diane!!! So with that in mind, the boys won’t be allowed to not read daily and I can use her as my reason. I know evil mom, but we do what we must. Another suggestion was to go back to requiring the boys to write a bit more. She wants the Ark to write at least 1 paragraph with a topic sentence 3 supporting sentences and a closing sentence. At whatever frequency I decide, while Ace is to start learning that process this upcoming year.

So, my tentative plan is focusing on reading, writing, spelling, math on a daily basis, with a much reduced history and science. One thing I’m not sure I’m ready to let go is the boys Latin studies, I really want them to learn it, so that might be on our daily list. Another item I want is daily drawing, I think the boys like to draw and I want to encourage them in it. My only problem is that they don’t want to have any instruction, just draw. I would like to see their drawing improve.ONe thing I did this year was i had a self evaluation and had the boys look at it, the Ark filled his out and it was interesting to see what he felt he did. I think we will do one at the end of each semester to help evaluate us and hopefully keep us on track. Another thing Diane suggested was to make sure I write down our goals so I don’t forget them and freak out mid year. Which I definitely plan to do.

She loved our lapbooks but suggested that we only do a few minibooks and that the boys be able to pick out the minibooks that they want to do, so that they each are invested in what they are learning and giving them each a different look to their work but still learning about the same subject.

So that is the end of the year evaluation. We have some educational videos that we borrowed, I want the boys to watch and then notebook what they feel is important. So in August when we start again I will have a 6th grader, 3rd grader, 1st. grader and a preschooler.  I need to make up certificates for them.

Check back for the schedule….

Contest for the New Apologia Astronomy and Botany Journals

Author Jeannie Fulbright is giving away four Astronomy and Botany Journals!!!! Thanks, Jeannie!!!! I have seen the samples and they look fabulous! So for your chance to win one head on over to Jeannies Journal

Apologia is now producing notebooking journals that accompany each of the elementary science books. Both Botany and Astronomy are now available. You can see samples on the Apologia website here:

These journals are beautiful spiral bound notebooks that will save you time and money. You won’t have to print and keep up with your child’s notebook pages, buy and maintain page protectors, or purchase and compile binders…everything that makes notebooking time-consuming and labor intensive for mom. Also, your child will adore having their own notebooking journal.

Each of the notebooking journals include:

• A daily schedule for those who like to have a plan or would like their children to complete the book on their own
• Templates for written narrations, the notebooking activities and experiments
• Review Questions
• Scripture Copywork, with both print and cursive practice
• Reading lists and additional activities, projects, experiments for each lesson
• An appendix with beautiful, full-color, lapbook-style Miniature Books
• Field Trip Sheets to keep a record field trips
• A Final Review with fifty questions the students can answer either orally or in writing to show off all they remember and know at the end of the course.

See the sample pages here:

Botany: https://apologia.securesites.net/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=128

and

Astronomy: https://apologia.securesites.net/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=127

Jeannie is giving away four Astronomy Notebooking Journals and four Botany Notebooking Journals to bloggers who post about this on their site. Visit her blog to learn more about this contest: www.jeanniesjournal.com

Curriculum Thoughts for 2009/2010

I am taking a much needed break from studying for my classes to talk about some of my thoughts for next year. While I love Sonlight and have used it exclusively since The Ark was in preschool we are taking a bit of a deviance this year and only using part of it. One of the reasons is because I didn’t like Children’s History of the World for younger grades and I switched it to Story of the World by Susan Bauer. Well here we are getting ready to go into our second rotation of history and Sonlight uses SOW but we have done them. So we are going to Mystery of History  with Sonlight Readers and Read Alouds. I had already left Sonlight’s science since I’m not fond of it, we are doing Astronomy, will finish Botany this summer and then go to Zoology 1 this fall. If we get through it on a good pace, we will move onto Zoo 2 next spring.

The Ark has been flying through Saxon math for the last two years but I want him to have a solid foundation in fractions since they are so important in Algebra and I want to wait for his brain to hit the logical thinking stage before we hit algebra, meaning not earlier than 8th grade. While Ace and the Princess have been doing Horizons Math. Ace has the hardest time getting through that work, I guess it is not hands on enough for him so we are switching all three of them to Math U See. I like their newer program, so we will see how it goes. The Ark was complaining a bit until I explained how Algebra is mostly fractions and then he realized that he really needed to get fractions down pat.

The next change is grammar, the kids hate it. So we are going to take a year to do more hands on things with it as well. Starting with reading GrammarLand

We will also do Hands of a Child ‘s  Operation: Grammar and  Mission:Paragraph Island Rescue for lapbooking. For writing we will use Writing Strands for all 3 of them.

I had panned Latin for The Ark since he was still struggling with his dsylexia. We are adding in Ace and will start it back up in the fall.

For Art and Music we are doing Harmony Fine Arts, with Artistic Pursuits and Meet the Great Composers.

Of course we will be doing swim lessons, swim team for the boys,bike riding and hiking this summer, as well as lots of playground time while we are waiting for swim team and swim lessons to be over.

My Daisy girl (Kendra’s nick name from a friend) and The Ark are going to camp in June. I’m helping out with VBS  again in June.

I have some books at my amazon wish list that I want to add into our homeschooling. I will post them as i buy them. I found some really great math stories and will probably get the ones that fit into our ancient history theme.

Ok, enough of an update for now.

Oh my goodness

We are part way through our school year and working steadily if a bit behind still. This week we spent time working on the Louisiana Purchase, Harriet Tubman, French Revolution as well as Simon Bolivar and the revolution of South America. I think before we move on we will do a few projects on the above subjects. Probably coloring pages, lapbooking, some mapwork etc. I did get movies from the library on many of the subjects even a cartoon of Harriet Tubman.
The boys watched the inauguration, even though I dislike Obama, I’m glad that we have finally elected a black president. Although I’m not naive enough to believe that racism is dead in our society. They will do some lapbooking on that as well. Noah even wrote a paragraph for me of things he saw on tv.

Since tax time is close, I need to research our curriculum for next year. I feel like Ace and the Princess need more hands on with their math, so we will be switching to MUS until they are older. The Ark will also be taking a year off from Saxon to do MUS until he really understands the concepts of fractions. We are only going to be using the readers and the read alouds from Sonlight next year. For science we will study Zoology 1. History is going to be a bit rough, as The Ark has already done SOW 1 and we are back to ancient history. So he will be using Mystery of History and the others will be using SOW1. We have lots of great books to supplement, so that will be fun. We love our history. Ace will be staying on with First Lang. Lessons, but for 3rd grade and the Princess will be starting with FLL gr. 1. The Ark is probably going to be using Shurley Grammar but I’m not sure what grade as of yet, it only goes to 7th grade and he is weak there so I might use 5th grade next year to give him an extra year with it. We will still be using Artistic Pursuits for art as well as adding in Harmony Fine Arts. I’m looking into Bagpipe lessons for the Ark. hmmm gotta find those numbers again. if we can afford them he will take them, he really wants to learn how to play. I’m kind of looking forward to a bit of a change with our schooling, it has been a bit dry lately. I think we need a few more projects or hands on thing to liven us up.

Ace received his bible today, in our lutheran church when the children hit 2nd grade they receive a bible in front of the congregation. Yesterday he went to a brief fun day and learned more about the bible he would be getting and spent time with the other 2nd graders. The Ark has played 4 basketball games and his team has won 3 lost 1. So we are quite proud of all of them and the coach for all their hardwork.

Well that is all for now. I will keep you posted on any events.

Coming Soon

Thanksgiving Lapbooks will be being made not this week but the two weeks after. I will also be posting what they are thankful for.

Monday June 04,th

So today we did some work. Adrien did some phonics and struggled through math (he hates math he said) Noah did some math and struggled through phonics(remember Noah is dyslexic) It is funny watching the boys work at the table together as they are total opposites when it comes to schoolwork. We took the kids to the zoo for a bit, we visited the Touch exhibit, the butterfly exhibit and saw the wolves, seals, bears, tigers. We want to go back on weds. to take a few pictures of the bridge they have torn down to replace, we might hit the australian outback while we are there. Noah loves it there. I promised Adrien we would research seals for him to do a paper on for his portfolio for next year. I think Noah wants to do one on tigers.

Lapbooking

I have made a couple of lapbooks in the past with Noah and decided this year that we needed to add in a few to keep out the boredom of so much reading. (he loves being read to but everyone needs some change.) So I joined a yahoo group~ LiveAndLearnPress. Not only do they have a free lapbooks to try out but they sell some that are perfect for us this year. One of the free ones was Father’s Day. So I’m hoping that I have enough ink to print out a nice copy for the kids to make for their father. *edit* ran out of black ink but my new printer is so smart that it combined all the colors to make it look close to black to finish. We will have to pick up a different color file folder for this though. I also need to take a picture of the kids together for him. Gotta go.