Curricula Favorites

I'm in the mood to talk about some of my favorite curricula.

 

I either have really nerdy kids, or maybe since we home-school they don't know it's not cool to sit around reading your text books, or maybe their textbooks are just that interesting.

 

I also wonder if it is odd that my Justin and Jonathan talk among themselves about the difference between commutative or non-commutative numbers.  Maybe it's odd that Justin tells us when we use a hyperbole.

 

 I might think it is a combination of all three, but I'm more likely to think it's because of the awesome way their curricula are written.   At first, I had a little difficulty pulling away from my traditional thinking about these things.   After hearing rave reviews, I decided to check out some different curricula for Math and Science.  After all, I am the parent and the teacher and yes, I am free to direct the education of my children.  So last year, I took the plunge.  I am not disappointed.    Learning should be fun, shouldn't it?  It should also stick.  I have come to the conclusion that when learning is fun, it naturally sticks.

 

You know books are fun when your children read them:

 #1 Without much coaxing

 #2 over and over....and over

 

Life of Fred Math:

 

My favorite thing about Life of Fred books - besides the fact the kids love them- is that they teach in a holistic way.  In other words, the kids learn about biology, history, and other topics along with the math instead of separating math from life.  As a matter of fact, just to name a couple of the titles: Pre-algebra with Biology and Pre-algebra with Economics. 

 

The coolest math books ever written:

Life of Fred Math 

One of the lower elementary books

*I do supplement by using math problems from other textbooks as well, but the author assures the me that it is not necessary* 

 

 

The coolest science books ever written:

Apologia Science

 

 

Justin, reading Apologia astronomy purely out of interest 

 

I think what I love so much about Apologia is that it is more of a living book, meaning that it reads more like a novel.  There are plenty of fun projects.  Instead of just answering questions, the boys narrate the information back to me.  They take notes in their notebooks.  They are allowed to draw pictures.   They seem to enjoy narration and notebooking. What kid doesn't love talking about the things they are learning?  Especially an auditory learner. They also enjoy going back and looking at the pictures they have drawn and the things they have written. 

Ryan's

 

 

Jonathan's

 



Justin's

 

 It's hard to break free from the thought process that says that learning has to be boring, but we are doing it.  I believe that more is retained when it is enjoyed.

Math manipulatives

Jonathan:

Learning the how and why of division by using dried chick peas.  Silly face is thrown in for free. :-)



Fractions

So glad you can use milk chocolate chips to teach the fractions concept... or any math concept for that matter.  

Routine - Update

Yes, we are back to day shift around here. Yippee! I am happy to have an early morning routine instead of later.


Here is an update on some of the things we are studying:

Have I mentioned how thankful I am to have this blog? It is so nice to be able to document our home education activities with pictures... and with this type of ease! This looks so much nicer than my mundane handwritten journals!

• Science: We are still reading the huge book The Bee People (which I started for our bee unit study). Yesterday, we did an experiment about matter and watched videos that teach the concept.

Everything is made of matter. When you add energy to it, it changes forms. So, of course to begin with, we did the old frying of ice experiment.

Ice - solid

Add energy/ heat

Ice/ solid turns to water/ liquid

Continue the energy/heat and it changes into a gas

• History - we are studying about the early explorers who came to America. Columbus, Hudson, Estevanico, etc...

We are re-creating our time-line:

Last year, we tried posting it on cardstock onto the walls. Sticky tack doesn't always work well on walls, and I discovered a new way of doing it using brown craft paper. The boys love to draw, so I am letting them do the artwork. They drew the explorer's ships :-). The nice thing about the craft paper is that you can roll it up and put it in the corner!

The history book we use has a lot of fun activities. In the last lesson, it explained that the explorers likely used certain types of kn0t-tying techniques for survival (as most sailors do). Justin demonstrates the square knot:

• Language Arts: (Phonics, Writing, Language, Reading, & Spelling) is coming along well. The boys enjoy typing out their spelling words on the computer, and I think by using the computer they are learning 2 things at once (how to type and how to spell!). I have enough Swagbucks to get Justin's new Writing book free! Woo hoo!

The boys are also reading library books about their favorite subjects these days in their leisure time. Justin got a few Garfield comics and a book about vikings. Jonathan is interested in knights and enjoys reading to Ryan.


I am still plodding through Ryan's reading lessons. He is coming along very well. Maybe one of these days I can sneak a video of him reading without him knowing it.

• Math is mostly workbook style. We use supplemental workbooks and we try to do the supplemental lessons that they have in the back of their books.

Jonathan is working through Twin Sisters Addition at this point and Justin is also going through some supplemental exercises in the back of his math.

Math is a good subject for both of them. They do not seem to have any trouble understanding concepts.

• As far as social activities, we still meet with friend/s on Mondays. We either meet in our home, our friend's home or the library (and the park on warm days). One week there were nine kids running through my house. Lots of fun!

Update

With the move to our new house, the holidays (and all the craziness involved), it has been a little more difficult to update my blogs.

But I thought I'd take just a minute to update.

First of all I want to say how much I treasure the opportunity to home educate my children. To me, it is worth every minute of the time it takes. I treasure the time I have with my boys.

Even on the most trying days, I feel that those are opportunities for character development and relationship building.

Michael is doing a daily Character study with the family at lunch-time every day. It has been such a joy to sit back and watch him teach and lead our family!

The boys are still learning Scripture memory from the book of Proverbs.

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Justin is working with double digit divisors and long division, fractions, simple algebra, and converting English measures. In Language Arts, he just moved from learning about comma placement to possesive nouns.

Jonathan is focusing on improving his addition skills by going through Twin Sisters Addition workbook & CD. He is doing well; I just felt that it would help him move through his ABeka math more quickly if he can master addition. There is a CD with the workbook that is great for reviewing at bedtime.
In Language Arts, he is separating syllables and recognizing special phonics sounds.

Ryan is learning to read. We take it slowly and patiently. The patience is paying off because he is really starting to blend the sounds together. I don't want to rush through this. I want him to get it without regretting speeding through it.
He is not "there" yet, but he is getting there. I am so thankful that I have the opportunity to teach Ryan to read. I would not trade these memories we are making together!
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For Science, we are learning everything from insects to Creation Science (Debunking Darwinism).

The boys read history separately to themselves and then we also do unit studies. In our unit study, we just talked about the Indian mounds (burial grounds). One interesting mound that we talked about today was the "Serpent Mound". The picture in the book we are using is much better than this one:
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/northamerica/serpent.html


I had forgotten, but studying that reminded me of the place in Alabama called Moundville (near Tuscaloosa) that we visited on field trips when I was in school. We may just have to go there for a field trip sometime ourselves. There are surely a lot of Indian themed historical places around here as well. I am looking forward to finding them!

We haven't done many messy Science projects lately because of the holiday stuff. We are still meeting with Stacie and Anna weekly.
Sometimes we play board games. Other times we do easy crafts. Another week I had several children over. They ran around in the fields, got muddy, and then came inside and baked cookies. I plan on having more children over soon to do some Christmas cookies. I am also hoping to get back into regularly visiting the nursing homes. We have several from our church in the same nursing home (as well as Nana), so I am hoping that we can make that a more regular activity again.

Well that's it for now. I hope I can do better updating from now on.

Supplementary Math Exercises

Jonathan will be using Twin Sisters Addition CD and workbook to supplement his ABeka Math. A Beka Math is awesome, but I thought a music CD & workbook would be an additional benefit (no pun intended).
The CD can be popped in at bedtime and all three boys can enjoy and learn.

I love the fact that we have the freedom to take the time to master this concept. It looks fun!

I only paid $1 plus shipping for this ...thanks to Swagbucks!

Audio School!

I love the idea of learning through audio. Here are a couple of things I am currently using as supplements:

~Audio math CDs (for example, I am using the one pictured above right now to help with multiplication tables).

~Audio books (the boys just finished listening to the Chronicles of Narnia's:The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe). They can learn in the bed at night too!

~Audio internet mp3 files. My favorite sites for those are the following:

www.yourstoryhour.org

http://www.homeschoolradioshows.com/

Math concepts

After seeing how expensive ABeka's charts & flashcards cost, I decided to make my own!
It's easy to do with Microsoft word, some printer ink, and some card stock. I typed out measurement, addition, subtraction, and time concepts. As the concepts are introduced, I will make more flashcards.

Also,I saw a set of flashcards in a catalog awhile back that I thought would be nice. They are triangular-shaped, and the triangular effect helps the child learn both concepts simultaneously. For example, he would not only learn that "9 + 9 = 18", but also "18 - 9 = 9". I really wanted to order those, but decided to see if I could find any free online to print. Much to my joy, I was able to find them! Click the box below to see a sample: