Bible

Since we are a Christian homeschool, we do teach Bible in our school day.  I love having the freedom to teach my children about our faith.  When choosing curriculum though, I don't necessarily choose it for Biblical content, but for academic content.  Now I do use Christian curriculum, but don't get tied up in which translation of the Bible is used or how many Bible lessons in each subject.  I don't think my kiddos are going to be hermits who sit under a rock for the rest of their lives quoting the King James Bible.

I do love that their Apologia science makes them look at information on the internet about teachings on evolution and compare them to the Bible and make their own conclusion.  I love that sometimes in Life of Fred, Fred mentions something from the Bible and in Learning Language Arts through Literature, they have a hymn and Psalm in each year's poetry unit.  I also enjoy that Life of Fred talks about Socrates and Learning Language Arts Through Literature has them reading Shakespeare.  

Until 9th grade, I have not purchased an individual Bible curriculum.  And actually we are using Notgrass history which has Bible curriculum built in and parallels it with history.  We instead have read Bible storybooks and then started reading the Bible out loud.  I had this chart in a Sunday School curriculum extras book published by Gospel Light.  There have been several goodies that I've taken to use for homeschool.  We started a reading plan and are on our 4th year.  At the end of this school year we will have read the entire Bible out loud by reading about 2 chapters every school day.  I've colored in the books we have completed.

I really enjoy this method of Bible teaching for my kiddos.  They read out of their own Bibles and sometimes off an electronic Bible.  My son prefers NASB and daughter NLT.  It can be hard to follow along, but I think that is good practice as well.  Sometimes if something doesn't make sense, we switch translations and read the confusing part out of the other translation.  If my kids have a question or comment, we discuss it right then.  Sometimes I know an answer, sometimes I look it up and sometimes I just tell them that I don't know.  I didn't want some curriculum telling my kids what the Bible means by this or that.  It is exciting to hear them discover these things on their own and in that, I'm learning more about the Bible that I love so much!

There are stories I heard as a child from the Bible and had a certain impression about them because of the way I was taught and now that I've read on my own I see sometimes, that is not what was really meant in those passages.  Here is an example.  As a child, I always thought that the fish swallowed Jonah to punish him for running away.  Now as I read it on my own and read the prayer that Jonah prayed, I see it differently.  The storm was a punishment and Jonah was thrown out of the boat as a punishment.  Jonah was drowning and was getting tangled in seaweed and the great fish was sent by God to RESCUE Jonah, not punish him!  Wow!  That is an incredible difference!

Now I don't claim that I have complete understanding of the Bible because I've read it through 10 or so times, but each time I read it I learn more.  Sometimes I need to read a commentary to get it.  Sometimes I just have to trust God about it and not attain complete knowledge.  I guess I just want my kids to learn to read it for themselves.

This is just my way of doing things and I know that there are other parents who love their curriculum and how it gives the children groundwork for their Christian heritage.  We have done read-alouds that help with that as well.  They also learn some of that in Sunday School.  We are not neglectingit completely.  I just find more value in knowing the Word for what it says, period.

One last thing.  I think that reading out loud is a good practice for the kids.  I read aloud to them a lot when they were younger and wish we had time for me to keep doing that.  With the kids in different grade levels and using different curricula at this point, I believe the Bible is a great way for them to read out loud every school day.  I've stepped up the expectation this year as well.  I want them to read to me with expression and keep me from falling asleep or getting so bored that I want to check my phone or email while they're reading.  In the past I had only done that with poetry or individual assignments.  Not every passage of the Bible is easy to be expressive in while reading, but I think it is good to push them further each year.

I'm not sure where we are starting next year with more Bible reading, but I think it would be great if my kids read through the Bible out loud 2 complete times before they graduate high school!

Spelling ..... Noooooooo!

Our first week of school was really good!  We started into all of our subjects except spelling.  We use the curriculum Spelling Power for spelling.  My kids are using Learning Language Arts through Literature (LLATL) which has a good spelling approach, but I like Spelling Power even better than that.
When my kids started school at an excellent Christian school, they used a certain curriculum and it was decent enough that I continued using it for a while in our homeschool.  The more we worked with it, I discovered what I liked and what I definitely did NOT like.  I would say that by far, spelling was the worst portion of it (OK I disliked the math almost equally).  It reminded me of the spelling that I did in grade school and while it has been in effect for years and years, it doesn't help you understand spelling.  It makes you memorize a list of words and how to spell them.  If you are good at that, you're good at spelling, if not you have to rely on spell check.  Judging by Facebook and Twitter and other online resources, spell check doesn't even work for some people. 
The approach through LLATL is having the child write a sentence or paragraph that you read and whatever misspelled words are on their papers becomes the beginning of the spelling list.  I am not going into the details of their method, but it is a good plan.  We even tried it for a little while and I felt like it was more beneficial than a random list.  Then I came across Spelling Power through www.paperbackswap.com.
Here is this HUGE book that covers spelling from early grades through high school.  I opened the cover and after the table of contents and introduction there is 100 pages of teacher instructions!  They recommend that you read it before beginning the program and it is very important.  Part of the reason I didn't start it right away is because of that 100-page non-entertaining reading that I needed to do.  I think they have a video now to explain everything. 
I started my kids out on the placement test provided.  It was very accurate in placing the kids where they needed to be.  The next year I did the pre-test and it placed the kids nearly where they left off the year before.  This is our third year, so I opted to just start out with the lists that we left off on last year.  It is working out well and though my kids complained on Monday when we began spelling again, they really didn't have any complaints in doing it.  They are quick to go through the proper steps and it is like this is just part of their expectations now.
Spelling Power takes 15 minutes a day for the kids and just over 5 minutes of my time per child per day.  They are placed in a level by letter and not by grade.  They get groups of words that all follow the same rule.  Every few groups they get a review test without hearing the rules.  There is a midlevel test and end of level tests.  During the daily portions, I set the timer on my phone for 5 minutes.  I read a word, give a sentence and they write it down.  Once they've written it, we grade it right then.  If they missed the word, they cross it out and write the correct spelling in the space provided.  If they get it right or they've finished writing the correctly spelled word, we repeat the process with the next word on the list.  This continues until the timer goes off.  I mark in my book where we left off and they move on.  There is a 10-step method for the child to learn his or her missed words and then he or she has to make up a sentence using the missed word(s).  This takes about 5 minutes and then they do an activity to help them remember the rule which takes another 5 minutes.  I purchased the activity task cards that are optional.
When we're doing other writing projects, I can use the rules to help them with a difficult word because I know the rules now.  It has been quite beneficial.  I've always been a fairly good speller, so I desire to pass that down to my children as well.  I know that the curriculum gives strict instructions, but I do modify them as I do with most of what I teach.  I feel that if I use my own words that I can explain things better. 
Cost seems an issue, but really is not.  The initial might seem a little steep, especially if you want to buy the deluxe pack for $175 from their website.  The book alone is $65 and activity cards are $30 and student books are $8 each.  The deluxe pack includes a lot of cool things that I don't have and can't speak for.  The thing is, once you've made the initial investment, all you have left yearly is the Student Record Book to purchase for each child.  We generally have been using 2 per child per year and I get them from Amazon.com with my Amazon Prime subscription so that I can get free shipping.
I'm not compensated in any way for writing what I did.  This is just a product I believe in and will use until I'm done homeschooling.

Changes

This school year began with changes in our curriculum.  We decided certainly that we wanted to continue with Story of the World, Spelling Power, and Apologia Science.  We struggled with liking the other subjects, and I had been exploring Easy Peasy All-In-One Homeschool since last school year and decided to go with it.  It is a great program and it is free!  We used it for every subject except the 3 I first mentioned.  It was the perfect choice for us to begin with.  The kids learned about self-motivation and I got a break from planning.

The longer we did Easy Peasy, the more disconnected I began to feel as a parent-teacher.  My passion for homeschool is partly a passion to teach my kids.  It was turning into the computer teaching my kids.  Let me clarify.  I think Easy Peasy is awesome and the work that Lee put into it is incredible.  I do believe that if you are not called to be a teacher, but called to homeschool, this might be a great option of curriculum for you.
The literature choices that my kids were reading are great pieces, but I did not grow up with literature because our small town didn't have a library.  If you have a local library, you are blessed!  I had never read Gulliver's Travels or Swiss Family Robinson and the further my kids got into the books, the more disconnected I felt from their work.  We were headed into Penrod and The Peterkin Papers which not only had I not read, but I had never heard of these books.  At the conclusion of one child's book and in the middle of another, I made the decision to drop Easy Peasy from our curriculum.  I still use it as a guide for our daily Bible reading and it helped me organize my education planning.  I just purchased a grammar program and a writing program that I can use with both of my children at the same time and I have chosen 4 books at each of their levels to read for the rest of the school year.  I'm going to have us read the books and have discussion with them, but we are going to enjoy reading for school.
Well that's just language arts, what about other important subjects?  Because this is my children's 3rd math program, they quickly got overwhelmed by math.  They started in Everyday Mathematics and as I went to homeschooling from Private school, I chose not to continue it because the teacher's manuals were too expensive.  I didn't care for the fact that they don't teach long division at all and really lack in math facts.  I just about went into a rant about Common Core, but I will stop with that.  I took my kids to Horizons Math with a false presumption that they were advanced in math because of the previous curriculum and didn't want to dumb it down.  Horizons may have been perfect if we had started with it, but it assumes that you've had a foundation in that style of math so there were areas that my children felt lost in.  Easy Peasy math came with many games which they liked, but there were concepts that frustrated or confused them.  BUT she, the author of Easy Peasy, recommends Xtramath to those struggling with math facts.  WE DO THIS every day.  I've seen so much growth and we haven't even gotten past addition facts yet.  For middle school, she recommends a few programs including Khan Academy.  I had heard of this before, and played with it a bit last school year as well.  I completely put my 6th grader on Khan academy about a month ago and assigned 6th grade math to him.  He works on it for 30 minutes a day and at the end of the year, he should have complete mastery of 6th grade concepts.  Currently he's mastered about 40%.  Last week I did the same for my 4th grader and she is already flying through mastering 4th grade concepts.  This is at their pace and if they cannot understand something, there are a series of videos to help.  When they are really stuck, I go through things with them.  Another fun thing with Khan is that I am doing it too so that I can know what they are working with.  I have currently mastered 100% of Early Math and about 80% of 3rd grade math.  I have chosen to start at the beginning so that there will be nothing that I can't help my kids with when they're stuck.  Yes, I love to learn as much as I love to teach.
Computer skills.  I know that these are imperative to teach and I know enough about computers to be dangerous.  I have computer common sense, and a little more, but I want my kids to know more.  It just so happens that Khan Academy has a computer programing tract as well, so I have them do a lesson and practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Easy Peasy also recommended a free typing program called Good Typing that we began to use early on.  They have to practice typing every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  How are they going to be good at computers if they can't type?
Finally, because of the author of Easy Peasy's fantastic organization, I have decided to do music on Mondays, PE/Health on Wednesdays and Art on Fridays.  We get a little of those things mixed in with other curricula, but I wanted to have a specific pattern of these things with intentional time dedicated to these subjects.  I am teaching my daughter to play the piano with some books I got on Amazon.com and my son is learning guitar through tutorials and I am learning it with him because I was hoping to do so anyhow. 
It was recommended to me not to keep changing things, but I am seeing my children thrive with each step of change that we do.  I appreciate the perspective of other seasoned homeschool moms, too, so I'm praying about each step.  This week as I wait for my new language curriculum to arrive, I've cut out Language arts except that I'm doing a read-aloud every day for them and we read the Bible together every day now.  Our classroom schooling has been done in record time this week.  My kids are happier and I'm happier.  They are excited as they are going to start A Wrinkle In Time and Meet Addy this weekend to prepare for next week's lessons.  And I'm excited because I have a great excuse to use Pinterest now!

Slave vs Servant

This week we are learning the difference between indentured servitude and slavery.  Story of the World has many suggestions for extra activities following the chapters and we've chosen to do a day of servitude and a day of slavery.  The kids thought it was funny until we made contracts.  I added that they would clean the living room and dining room as well as the sink toilet of their bathroom.  They felt empowered by the right to refuse terms of a contract until I told them that I refuse to give a reward for something that already occurs on a daily basis in this home.  So only doing chores and school and behaving at church tonight was just not enough.  They became reluctant to participate until the reward was announced.  A medium milkshake at Sonic after church tipped the scale in my favor and we have signed contracts!

TOMORROW

Tomorrow, the kids get to be my slaves and I'm working on a few things that may make them squirm!  They will have no choice!  I may have a foot massage and my nails painted by my little slaves.  I might even have them make me lunch.  As punishment for disobedience, they may have to watch me eat before eating any of their own snacks!  Hahaha!  The devious plans of a homeschool mom!

I'm liking this idea so much, I may have to start doing it weekly!

Getting into the swing of things

I suppose most families that home school have gotten into a great routine by now.  Our school has an expected pattern, but most days we fall short!  Today is our 50th day of school and we still are a bit off course much of the time.  Now to clarify, we have not done book school all 50 days.  We've gone on several educational field trips and have included sports in our physical education program starting in July.
I don't have a structured schedule as in we do math at this time and language at this time, but I do have a schedule where we start school at 8:30 AM and take scheduled breaks.  I let the kids decide which subject to start with.  Today, I started with history because we do it together on activity days and read aloud days and I like to get that over with.  Last week, we had 3 days of field trips or living education and 2 days of school.  Needless to say, yesterday was miserable getting back to the swing of things.  Its not like they have just started school and don't know what the expectations are.
We started the school year off with yet another new curriculum choice.  We are still using Story of the World and Apologia and Spelling Power, but for the rest of our subjects, we've made the switch to Easy Peasy All-In-One Homeschool .  We really do enjoy this and it requires a lot less planning for me!
I have made the mistake of letting a few days go and just trusting the kids to do their work while I do other things.  I then go to my gradebook to log assignments to find that they have only played the games on the site and not followed instructions to do the paper work required.  I quickly learned to have their assignment pages pulled up on my computer and ask them, "Where is that poem in ABCB format?" or "Did you write out definitions for these words?"  Usually my questions are met with a sigh of exasperation or a dumfounded look as if they didn't think they were really going to have to do that particular portion of the assignment.  Recently, I've not met as much unfinished work.  The part I don't understand is the fact that if the kids really focus on school, they could be done with book work in 3 hours or less each day and have time for documentaries or art studio or what I call living education.
One thing I've had to let go of is the idea that each subject needs a numerical and letter grade.  I see the point in high school for transcripts, but right now, I would rather see them learn and they are.  My gradebook app has 2 options.  One is grading scale and another is basically pass/fail.  How do you put a letter grade on someone working through a grammar game until they get 100% correct?  I really appreciate that my kids want to "win the game."  If I were to give a worksheet to them with the types of verbs and they got 50% correct on it and then we touched it again and then took a test where they got 70% correct and then move on, I don't think they would retain as much.  This personalization is something I love about home education!  I still give a numerical grade in language on some assignments, science on the vocabulary and review questions, history on the review questions if applicable and math on worksheets and online quizzes.  Typing, Bible, Spelling, Life Skills, Computer, Music, Art, and Physical Education are all given pass/fail in this school.  I was always graded with a letter grade in PE.  So subjective!  Most of our assignments are graded on a, you did it, or you didn't basis.  How can one grade a child with no artistic or athletic ability beside one who excels and not be swayed?  Life is not going to down grade an accountant who can only draw stick men.
Living Education to me is the time where you skip math class and go to the kitchen and make a recipe.  You ask the child to double the recipe and cook.  If the cake doesn't turn out on a recipe that you know is good, then math must not have been good or reading as they may have put baking powder in instead of baking soda.  Or we are studying Rosh Hashanah and make Challah, blow a shofar, read a story about it, go to the pond to cast our bread crumbs out on it.  Return to eat your bread and apples and honey.  Those things are great and some homeschools are solely living education.  I'm impressed with those who are able to do that, but for us I like the mixture. 
I'm not going to end with a promise to blog more often because every time I do, it takes me months to get another one typed out.  School is still happening and we are doing more than sleeping in and watching movies.

Oh yeah!  I made a new logo for our school and put it on the bottom of the blog. :)

Story of the World - my take

I have heard, rather read, several negative reviews about Story of The World by Susan Wise Bauer saying that this is not a Christian curriculum and other things.  While I have only used the first year and purchased the second year and skimmed it briefly, I really feel it has been given some unfair press.

I researched the author and she is a Christian.  She claims to be a Christian and her writings outside of this curriculum suggest that she is a believer in the resurrected Son of God.  It is not mine to debate her faith, nor is at for anyone else to debate.  Her publishing company is called Peace Hill Press, feel free to explore it on your own.

The curriculum in question is not out and out Christian as some homeschool curricula.  What I mean by that is that each chapter does not contain a Bible reference, lesson or story.  Instead, each chapter is written about a different civilization or time from the perspective of someone who could have lived in that time period or culture.  The author is a story teller.  The facts are included in these stories to give a timeline and culturally significant details within a folk-tale-like lesson.

The very thing that many are opposed to is that Bible stories are treated in the same manner as other stories.  My argument against that is if we are learning the Chinese emperors and are expected to believe this is, in fact, history, we should also believe that the Bible stories are, in fact, history.  When she she shares about things like the Cyclops or other mythological beings, she clarifies the difference.  Not many world history books include Bible history as fact.  In my opinion, this alone clearly makes this series Christian.

Now, I questioned a few things in her timeline, but even Bauer acknowledges this when you look at the appendix.  "In order to keep the narrative coherent, I have occasionally told the story of one culture or country before going back in time to begin the story of another." (Page 389 SOTW Volume 2:The Middle Ages)  even the Bible itself is not in Chronological order.  There are so many philosophies about how a history book should be written so there are certainly going to be people that disagree with her approach.  She has a definite targeted audience and that audience is reached with this style.

The next argument is that she skips the flood and several key Bible teachings in this book.  Now as Christian home educators, are we really going to solely rely on anyone's history writings to teach our children the Bible?  There is an interspersing of Bible in all we do.  Not a day goes by that we do not talk about the Bible, so even if I only have 2 pieces of curriculum that mention the Bible in daily work, we are still giving them more Word than they would get at a public school.  Peace Hill Press even offers a Bible Curriculum, which I will not entertain as I have no first-hand knowledge of it and have only read reviews.  I personally do not use a Bible curriculum at all because we read our Bibles and pray and discuss things using our Bibles all the time.  My kids' Sunday School teachers tell me that my kids have the answers to most of the questions and can tell the stories along side the teachers, so I am confident that we are in the Word enough.

Now if someone wants to argue that their children don't care for it or they don't care for her style, I get that.  Not every student and not every teacher are the same.  That is why it is such a joy to homeschool and teach what works for our families.  My kids are excited about history and I can hardly keep them from reading ahead.  To me, this makes a good curriculum.  I have researched some of the things mentioned in the book and found the book to agree with other Christian and non-Christian writers.  There have been a few discrepancies, BUT in those cases, there were several theories floating about regarding that piece of history.  For instance, she describes the process of mummification.  The recipe and amount of days for each stage was different in this book than my niece's history book from a Christian school and different in a few different web sites.  Those details are not important for memorization or testing and it is not enough for me to want to throw out the book.  Especially if historians can't agree on them.

What we love is the stories.  My kids retain the information well and after reading it to themselves, they usually get most of the review questions correct.  Sometimes I do review orally and sometimes written. My son loves the map work and my daughter loves the coloring.  My son was in 4th grade last year and didn't care for the coloring pages.  They both loved the games and extra activities that are optional in the activity guide.  The tests are well formatted and give a great review of each chapter.  My second grader passed them all.

The whole curriculum is not necessary, but we did purchase it.  I opted for the hard cover text this year since we are not nice to paperbacks.  I ordered one activity book which has the activity pages at the end and review questions, additional reading, and projects, games and recipes at the beginning.  I then ordered a set of activity pages for each child.  For the cost of my ink and paper, this was a less expensive option for me.  I also chose to order a test book for each child as well.

I would say that is my 2 cents, but I think I put more in there than that. 

A picture of one of our game days.  The instructions told us to use beans and a penny.  We chose glam.

Why haven't I heard of this before?

First of all, we went to an AMAZING presentation with our local Christian Family Educators group.  The kids learned about Antarctica from a woman who traveled there, and then they (we) learned interesting things about the attack on Pearl Harbor and Hickam Field from another woman whose father was in the Army Air Corps at the time of the attack.  I love it when my kids can learn from others' experiences.  Due to our crazy family issues and schedule, we haven't been able to attend many group meetings and it is such a pity because we learned a lot this time.
It is good to have a community to learn things from and to bounce things off of.  I have done a couple of things on Facebook where I would post thoughts, I've found educational videos and websites by search engines and I've talked with a few homeschool families, but I really like the idea of this group.  I found that the kids are more social than I am.  DUH!  I have a hard time meeting people face to face and don't know who I should talk with or how to strike up a conversation sometimes.  Thankfully there are a few more outgoing types at the places I visit.  I look forward to more meetings with our group.  As the faces become more familiar, I think I will anticipate each meeting more too.
Now for the great resource that I never knew was out there...  (drumroll please!) .......................  can you hear it????  The Old Schoolhouse Magazine  I can get it free on my iPad and phone.  I liked it on facebook.  I can order paper copies (for a cost)!  I'm pretty sure this will be a new favorite for me.  I admit, not all of the articles are appealing to me, but most of them are.  I may get tired of ads at some point, but I really like the fact that curriculum companies advertise here.  I am looking for a new math program for next year and my daughter is finished with her 2nd grade language, so I'm debating on moving on to 3rd grade or supplementing with another curriculum for the rest of the year.  I would not have found it if I were antisocial and stuff.  A member of the homeschool group was kind enough to share the info with us all.  Thank YOU Mrs. C!
A fun thing the ladies are looking at is a mom's night out and they want to call it a teacher's in-service or something like that to make it sound too important to miss.  Isn't that great!  Well that's my fun inspiration for now.... for parent's week out ... coming soon to an ocean near someone.  ... to be continued...

Curriculum woes

I have not been in this long enough to know a good or bad curriculum.  We have started mostly with A Beka books and I think they would be great starters in K-2, but I want to give my older child a more challenging curriculum.  He is in Bob Jones reading and I like that.  They both use Everyday Mathematics and I think it is fabulous, but I don't have a teacher guide and those alone would be about $300 a year per grade level.  It might be okay for large classrooms to spend that on a teacher guide, but for our home school with 2 students it is a bit pricey.  That is all I've really seen of curriculum because it came with them from their Christian school.
Next year we are changing things up a lot and I am excited.  I am mainly excited because whatever I buy will have teacher guides so I don't have to wonder if I'm teaching them correctly.  I have my wish list for next year all lined up, but don't want to share it yet unless I love it!
Kansas Home School Curriculum Guide is where I started.  I love this because it is not biased.  Most sites that I've viewed have a favorite and don't give credit to others.  I found what I believe will complement my children's learning styles and I have high hopes for next year.  My wish list will cost us less than $1000 total for both kids for the school year (that is less than $500 per child).  I've chosen to mix and match which might be a detriment because many companies use themes to bind all of their subjects together.  We'll see.