Homeschool 2012-2013 Reading and History

We use Sonlight for our reading and history spine this year.  I found a previously owned curriculum on Craigslist and ordered.  It actually came with the whole curriclum: All the books, plus language arts, science and religious studies in addition to the lesson plans.  We use only the literature and history books because we are doing other things for those other subjects.  It does have a suggested bible reading seperate from the religious studies and we follow along with that as well.

We chose Sonlight because Isabelle and Joseph really love to read and the lesson plans allowed them to begin each day without me while Samuel was in the newborn phase and I was groggy from sleep deprivation!  I simply took a highlighter to the lesson plans and showed them how to follow along with each days assignments.  It has worked out really great!  Now that Samuel is past the newborn sleep deprived stage I am able to get us all started on our day at the same time.

We chose Core F because we thought it would be interesting to study countries/continents that don't often get much time in "western" education.  This part of our curriculum was added fairly quickly to our original base of math and handwriting.

I have not been diligent about some of the research they should do online to learn about the countries.  I hope to get more disciplined in that area.  They really have some in depth questions about the different countries (geography, culture, population, history etc..) and it's a great way to learn some researching skills.

 

Isabelle reading

 

Joseph reading the same book later on with Samuel

 

Homeschool 2012-2013

Homeschool began slowly this year at the beginning of August while we were waiting on Samuel to be born.  We started slowly with only two subjects math and handwriting.

 

Main Math Curriculum

Isabelle moved on to a new to us math curriculum this year.  Her main math curriculum is Saxon 8/7.

We were so fortunate that when we asked around about Saxon one of my fantastic homechooling cousins offered us one of her copies and loaned me the teachers guide!  It has been a great way to try it out, and I have to say it seems to be a great fit for Isabelle.  Very straightforward and she can mostly figure it out on her own with a little guidance now and then.  She seems to have inherited a little emotion when it comes to getting stuck with a math problem!  I don't blame her one bit! 

 

 

Joseph is sticking with our tried and true Horizons math curriculum.  The only drawback with Horizons for us is that they have so many lessons and tests that it is simply impossible for us to finish in the 180 days of a typical school year, and therefor we have to do math for many more weeks.

 

 

Handwriting

Isabelle is finishing up her very last handwriting book.  She's using A Reason for Handwriting and she loves it.  She especially loves the last day of the week because of the coloring page! These are verses of Proverbs.  It's laid out to be done as a 4 (maybe 5 if you stretch it) day week.  Easy to do and a fun way to start your day.  It's not hard and makes you feel like you accomplished something right away.

 

 

Joseph is doing his last year of Handwriting Without Tears before moving on the A Reason for Handwriting.  This book is really fun.  They also include some grammar incorporated with the handwriting.

 

We started with these two subjects and then Samuel was born on August 8th, so it was easy to continue these for a few weeks and then we slowly added a few more subjects and started taking some classes which I'll post about later and hopefully that will not be like say months from now!

 

 

 

 

Track 2011

Our homeschool group has a track team and it seems like it has quite an enthusiastic following!  We had our first practice this past Friday.  One thing I like about track is that it is very easy to practice at home.  I'm really looking forward to this experience.

Isabelle

Joseph

Father Daughter Dance

Isabelle and Brendon had a date night!

It was a spectacular Father Daughter dance hosted by our homeschool group.

This year I decided to join the biggest homeschool group closest to our area and it has been really fabulous!

Brendon raved about the dinner they had catered!

I also hear the girls had an absolutly delightful evening full of fun and dancing! In fact I heard that it's such a hit that it's a yearly must do!

It was listed as dressy to semi-formal. We had a dressy dress in the closet and that's what we went with this year!

Isn't she such a honey!?!?