A Few Thought Provoking Blog Posts

www.art.com

I occasionally read a blog written by a pastor's wife who home educated her own children - who are now all grown. She writes encouraging posts about the home, and family life and I found two today regarding the The Importance of Homeschooling and Personal Reasons to Homeschool. Both of these posts were reinforcements to me to remember why I have chosen to home educate my children.

A Book List

Some of you have asked for more
specifics on the books we have
used in our Homeschool...

I reviewed some of my notes from
years past and have a partial list
for you....

History:
The Thieves of Ostia
The Secrets of Vesuvius
The Assassins of Rome

The Broken Song
Fire in the Hills

The Earth Dragon Awakes

Anastasia
The Journal of Douglas Allen Deeds
Isabel, Jewel of Castilla

Mary Slessor

The Hittite Warrior

Cooper Kids – Just for Fun...
Secret of the Desert Stone
Trapped at the Bottom of the Sea
Door in the Dragon’s Throat
Escape from the Island of Aquarius
The Tombs of Anak


Sutter’s Cross

Many of the books on this list were from a school
year where we worked more in Unit Study.
I had the kids make a geography map book
about each place we studied. They enjoyed
documenting the many places and I loved making
the history, english, science and literature
connections.
I would place many of these at the 5th - 9th
grade level. Of course, you should always
preview the books and judge for yourselves.

Enjoy!

Where are You in Your School Year?

We are hard at work completing our
goals. I just thought I would share
what those are for the time being.

Literature:
The Time Machine - Reading and discussion in coordination with a Class all three are taking at our Co-op.

Mikey is finishing a sci-fi trilogy for his independent reading and has
subscribed to a couple of Horticulture Magazines.
He constantly reads online about dirtbike interests.

Chelsea is an avid reader and writes a bunch too.
She has a pen pal this year to whom she emails long,
long epistles at the same time they play geography
games online. Choosing a location and letting the
other try to figure it out by asking questions.

Jonathan reads online very frequently about music.
He loves contemporary Christian Music and is very
well versed in the various groups and their new
releases.
I do want to find one more novel or non-fiction for
him to read before the end of the school year...
not necessary but I would just like to have that
one last thing completed.

US History - Using mostly BJU's The American Republic.
The kids are also taking a Political Science Class at Co-op.

Vocabulary - Vocabulous!, an online resource, and is also covered in the Time Machine Book Study.

Body By Design - An awesome, if somewhat complex, look at the human body.
The boys took a Health and Body class at Co-op last semester.

Math - sigh...our weakness. However, we are attempting to do a real life look at math in our daily world. They are paying bills, budgeting and managing both real and pretend money.

Jonathan- Writing a novel. He is currently painting his cover illustration with watercolors.

Mikey - Making a Terrarium. He is designing, purchasing supplies and will make at least one of these as his Spring Horticulture project.

Chelsea - Continuing her love of baking. Cakes, cookies, pastries. Since we are more than saturated with sweets at the moment her project for today is to make Red Lobster's Cheddar Biscuits to go with dinner tonight.

Other classes and interests...drama class for Chelsea at Co-op, Jonathan and Mikey are in a Leadership Class. We bowl weekly, Chelsea and Mikey rollerblade weekly, I count the Bible from Church as well as what we do here. Pastor Mike is very good with World and Bible History. He teaches this intensely during our Sunday School Times. There is rocketry, Risk, Chess, Ultimate Frisbee...we have a very busy world as a classroom. And that is just the way we like it.

I am out of time for this post...but this is a snapshot of where we sit at the beginning of March 2010. Much to do....Much has been completed.

Have a very happy Homeschool Day!

Becky K.

A Vocabulary Web Site

This morning Chelsea could
not locate her vocabulary book.

I moved it when I was working
on the living room for my posts
on the decor makeover.

Before I located the existing
book I hopped online to see
what I might find for Chelsea
to go ahead and do some vocab
today.

This is fun.
She liked it.
I let her use an online dictionary
and it went quickly but the words were
mostly new to her.

Vocabulous!

Online Dictionary

Have a great day!

Why the photo of the shoes?
I don't know.
It was there....
~Smile~

Becky K.

A Book Recommendation

This is for your High School age Students.

Think Big by Dr. Ben Carson.

This book is one that is great to do as a
read-a-loud and discussion. Dr. Carson's
style is very repetitive and at points
you wonder if he forgot he told you that
already, however, I have come to think that
it is more about driving his point home.

I will caution you that there is a part in
an early chapter that is about his mother
and involves her being taken to a
hotel room for wrong purposes.
I skipped over this part when reading out loud.

Call me crazy, but I just didn't want to go there
with both the boys and Chelsea in the room.

You should know that nothing happens to her there
but the intent is clear.

Other than that caution...I highly recommend this
book. Dr. Carson finds the best in the people
around him and uses them as examples of points
he is making.

I have found myself thinking how much I would
enjoy finding a way to sponsor him to speak
to the Homeschoolers of our area. This is not
as crazy as it sounds since he lives and works
just over an hour away from us at Johns Hopkins.

At least I think he is still there.

Let me know if you do read this.
I would love to know your impressions.

We have a personal indirect connection
with Dr. Carson as it was one of his
students who operated on my Father-in-law.

As he talks about the Pediatric Neurosurgery
areas at Johns Hopkins I can see it clear as
a bell. We visited there several times.

Happy Homeschooling!

Becky K.

Using Technology in Your Homeschool

I love to talk to my children.

I do not love to give them their
school assignments verbally even
though this has been our primary
way of communication
all of these years.

When we were at Longwood Gardens
this week we talked a while with
one of Mikey's Supervisors from
the time he spent there this past
Summer. Harold was intimidating
to Mikey at first but it wasn't
long before a real respect grew
and this was the one person that Mikey
wished to seek out on this visit.

We went to the gate near
Harold's office and stood there
awkwardly trying to get his attention.

Finally we succeeded and we had
opportunity to chat.

Harold was very open with us about
things that will be important in
Mikey's application and interview
for the Professional Gardener's Program.

All of the things he shared made
perfect sense...nothing earth shattering.
Keep your grades up,
have a Plan A and a Plan B.

Study, research horticulture,
work in a related job.

He let us know that the coursework
is rigorous and that Mikey needs
to be ready for that.

This, of course, got me thinking.

Today it hit me...at 5:30 am!
That is when most things get my
attention....

I can use Mikey's love of email
to get links and class assignments
to him.

So, I got up.

Found some awesome resources.

And have several lessons in the
pipeline already.

I cannot wait to see how this works
out. Our kids are so tech savvy and
I don't see why we can't use this to
our benefit as homeschool parents.

Would you be interested in these classes
if I did them in separate posts on the
sidebar?

Becky K.

Yet Another Plug for Living Books

They groaned as I pulled out the
U.S. History Textbook that I have
been reading from over the past
weeks. While I have no intention
of reading it cover to cover there
are pages and even chapters that we
are going to cover...from this book.

One sad voice said, "Why don't you
read one of those interesting books
like you did last year?"

Aha!

"Interesting"!

Got them!

So, its back to the Library for me.
I've got to find the next interesting
Living History Book. One set in the late
1800's should do it.

Love it!
I can't wait!
The Library is one of
my favorite places!

Becky K.