Our Curriculum

I've been on bed rest for the last two days so I've spent waaay too much time on the computer. BUT I figured what a great way to get my blogs up to date and provide you with some good resources.

I wanted to share with you what I'm using for Joseph this year.

Living in Thailand with the school breaks not the same as the US breaks, it's makes it a little tricky for us to decide just when our school year will start and end. But most of the time we just go with the flow and take breaks here and there when we want to without thinking much in terms of a big "summer" break. I've noticed that he really likes to do school more than be on break. It give him something to do and give us a focus for each day.

There is so much amazing curriculum out there. It's so hard to choose! I could spend hours pouring over books and different homeschool websites. It's so much fun. I've had a BLAST decorating our school room!! We try to keep our bulletin board up to date and different. I love the Jan Brett free printable calendar. I love ALL of her stuff!!! She has an amazing website with lots of free coloring pages, and activities.

We start our morning doing our calendar, singing the days of the week song, months of the year song and pray together.

So here's our line up for this year:

• First, we do our God's Wisdom for Little Boys devotional. We love this book because it tells us all the many traits that God's Little boys should have. The pictures in this book are wonderful!
• Then Joseph does some dot to dot which he loooooooves!! 
• If he's up to it we do some cutting an pasting to help him with his fine motor skills, but i leave this up to him. I only insist on two days a week. 
• We both love love love the You Can Read sight word program!! It's FREE!! I bought the paid version which doesn't have all the adds on the page, but if you don't mind wading through the adds then the FREE version is just fine. She has tons of activities for your child to do each week focusing in on four words a week. I can't believe how quickly he's gotten these words!! 
• Math is up next because he doesn't like it too much so we get it out of the way before he starts getting squirmy. ; ) I use a book I got in Bangkok and because I'm in bed I don't have access to it richt now... sorry. I'll try to remember to update it on the carousel.
• Then we do our Sing Spell Read and Write which we both love! He's a great reader and this is such a good curriculum with LOTS of reinforcement activities!! (Just finished the Kindergarden books and have moved onto the 1st grade books even though he's still in Kindergarden.) ; ))
• By this time he needs a break and SO do I! ; )  So I let him go play with Cayden and they have a snack.
• Next up we do Beginning Geography twice a week. I LOOOOVE the Evan Moore workbooks!!!! But I'm a workbook kind of girl. What can I say?!?
• We save our FIAR for when Cayden's down for his nap. I dreaded this step....no more quiet time for mommy, but we must do what we must do. ; )  So while Cayden's sleeping we read our FIAR book of the week and focus on one subject per day.  (this encompasses Math, Language, Social Studies, Art, Science) My ABSOLUTE FAVORITE WEBSITE to help with FIAR is the Delightful Learning sight with Michelle. love love love her!!!
• I completely depend on my FIAR for Science. We use the Evan Moore Giant Science book that correlates really well with the FIAR. At Homeschool Share there are incredible FIAR resources!! There's even a page that tells you what lessons to use in the Evan Moore Science with each of the FIAR books! They also do this for the Draw Write Now series. 

I've added an Amazon link giving you easy access to the books that I've listed above. I hope I haven't overwhelmed you. ; )

So sorry!

For anyone looking at my blog...please be patient with me as I'm trying desperately to figure out how to streamline my blog. I'm wanting to add some pages as well as some drop down menus to make it easier to find things, however, i'm having a heck of a time. If anyone has any websites they can point me to I would soooo grateful!!!

Blessings,
Amber

Cranberry Thanksgiving/FIAR

Monday: Social Studies (nicknames, New England, cranberries)

We talked about nicknames and why people have them. We also talked about all the nickname in our family

We did some study about cranberries. Where they grow, how they're harvested, and what we use them for. He had a snack of cranberries and nuts this day. He's not fond of cranberries. ; ) 

There are several really good videos on YouTube about the harvesting of cranberries. 

We also studied New England. This was my favorite part of the study. I learned so much and even decided I want to move there! 

Tuesday: Language (similes, onomatopoeia, and repetition) 

So neat for the student to learn about these literary devices and see them by example in a book their ready

The Repetition Flap book we also copied from homeschool share.

This picture goes along with our study on Monday but i can't figure out how to move my pictures around in iPhoto, so it's in the wrong place. ; )

But in this photo he's making a book about New England. He learned all the 6 states that make up New England. He still remembers them. We also learned that maple syrup is one of the things that New England is known for. We watched some great videos on youtube about the harvesting of maple! 

Wednesday: Science (Seasons and Leavening agents and maple syrup)

The picture is in the wrong season. Joseph has to help them find their way to the right season.

This picture is supposed to be with Social studies too. All the things New England is known for. We got the free printables from this site

We did a cool experiment on leavening agents and chemical reactions. We mixed, baking soda with buttermilk (just like a cake) and we watched the bubbles form and the two ingredients react to one another by rising up out of the bowl. He loved this experiment. I didn't get any more pictures cause my battery died....as always. Can you see my reflection in the window. ; )) 

 Thursday: Social Studies (Thanksgiving, Pilgrims, Mayflower) 

These are hats from last year. When I got them out it was like a new toy. Joseph just loved wearing this hat. Cayden like his for a few mins.

My two little turkies

 This is from the Draw Write Now series. Vol 2

We also did a precious History Pocket called Life in Plymoth Colony by Evan Moor Publishers which we absolutely love. I waited all week to publish this post thinking I'd get some pictures of our History Pocket but I didn't. So a post without is better than no post at all, right? 

Helpful Links:

Homeschool Share

Love

Amber

Here are a few more pictures from last week. As you can see our bulletin board is coming along quite nicely. 

Our sight word caterpillar is GROWING!! We're using the YOU CAN READ sight words from Carrissa's blog. Which I also love! I purchased the whole bundle and got the extras. Definitely worth it! 

Because we don't live in America and don't have the convenience of Michael's or Hobby Lobby, I find a lot of my stuff online. I found this cute Autumn banner at Sparkle Box which has hundreds of fun printables. 

This is my Desktop Table Chart  which I looove! 

Some of you may be wondering what I do with Cayden. This is the million dollar question. Homeschool with a toddler is definitely exciting and challenging, and faith building, and character building. Today we let him play with playdoh. 

And he proceeded to eat it. 

And put it in his nose! 

What are your experiences with your toddler while you're homeschooling??

HOW TO MAKE APPLE PIE AND SEE THE WORLD here

This past week, Joseph and I rowed How to Make Apple Pie and See the World from the FIAR series. This book was so much fun to row. I had some help with ideas from the workbook but also from my new mentor, via blog, Michelle. 

Monday: Language 

Here's Joseph doing a Pantomime of milking cows

In this picture he's looking at all the different modes of transportation used in the book and trying to put them in order.

Joeseph's trying to put the ingredients in order how they appeared in the book

We did a fun picture from the Draw Write Now book 2. It's a great book full of fall pictures to draw.

Tuesday: Socical Studies (flags, country wheel, match ingredients to country)

Here's Joseph coloring pictures of all the flags from the countries she went to to get her ingredients. 

More look at the flags/countries

Matching ingredients with the correct country. Yay!! He did it!!

Wednesday: Science (life cycle of an apple, discuss fresh ingredients, watch video about salt, salt experiment, discuss evaporation)

Here we are looking at the life cycle of an apple. 

this is just a random picture i put in because it was so cute. The boys are having snack time. Gingerbread cookies. Yum!

Joseph's not too sure he like Cayden dipping his cookie into his milk...look at that face!! 

 Two days past our salt experiment. We made salt!! 

Thursday: Art (street scene from book with Daddy)

For any of you who don't know, my husband has just recently discovered his talents as an artist. His talents range from cake decorating, painting, drawing, and doing amazing crafts with the kids! Here's the street scene he made with Joseph, out of the book. So cute!!

Friday: Math(make an apple pie with Mommy)

We had so much fun making this apple pie from the back of the book. It tasted delicious. However we didn't use the crust in the book. I'm a Pioneer Woman fan and I used THIS crust. It's a sure winner every time!! 

I hope you enjoyed looking through our fun week of How to Make Apple Pie and See the World. If you're interested in doing this row with your child/children. You can check out some of the links that I used. 

Helpful Links:

Homeschool Share has a wealth of goodies for the FIAR.

Flags

Street Scene

All about salt

Life Cycle of an Apple

Michelle at Delightful Learning has tons of great pictures of her rowing this book. You can also look at the bottom of the post to see some of her links. I used some of these as well. 

Hope you enjoyed our row. If you see anything from your website and I didn't mention it, please contact me. garfire1@yahoo.com

Love,

Amber~

I'm so excited about homeschool this year, I decided I needed an outlet to share all of my ideas, pictures, and thoughts.

I don't have any friends close by to share with...... so my only outlet is to blog.

 I'm going to use it as a picture journal and to help me keep track of what we're doing. It will be neat for Joseph and Cayden to go back through the pictures and remember what we did.

Today, I spent about 6 hours preparing for this next week. We're going to be rowing How to Make Apple Pie and See the World. I'm so excited about this row because it falls in such good timing with the season. It's also a good introductory book for Joseph to see the "bigger" picture as far as the world goes.

He has some what of a grasp on it because he knows "one day we'll go to America" and he knows "we have to take a big plan and go over the ocean" but this will help broaden his mind even more.

I'l be taking lots of pictures and posting the best I can. I might be more faithful to this blog than I have been to the Day In a Life blog.... we'll see.

See you tomorrow,
Amber

Homeschooling Blog

13 years of homeschooling, I NEVER thought I'd be doing ALL over again!!!!! I was seriously considering putting Joseph in school. The thought of homeschooling him a source of major stress in my life! I couldn't even wrap my brain around the thought.

Then one day while browsing around on Pintrest, found all these wonderful homeschooling websites that stirred a passion and excitement to homeschool! I was SO SO excited. I spent the next days browsing, reading and making notes as I scoured websites. Then I took all my thoughts to Clinton and he strongly encouraged me to go for it. So here we are. Below are some of my reasons for starting Homeschooling Again blog.

1. I don't want to consume my Day in the Life blog with all my homeschool stuff, which I would probably do since homeschooling is such a huge part of my life AND because I'm so excited about it.

2. I want to be a blessing to others who like me was on the verge of throwing in the towel to homeschool.    (I was recently inspired by fellow homeschool bloggers and now feel a real excitement to homeschool again.)

3. I want to have a "journal" of our homeschool time.

I think it's so wonderful the opportunities you have when you have a blog. It can be used to store memories for you and your children, it can be used as photo album, and also as a source of comfort and encouragement to others.

So, to all you fellow homeschooler and homeschool bloggers here's to you! I'm joining in.

Love,
Amber