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Big news!!

We are having our third child this summer. We are all very excited. I haven't been on the computer hardly at all the last couple of months. Looking at the screen makes me sick to my stomach. I think I am starting to feel better and plan on posting about our adventures as new homeschoolers soon.

Our First Day of School!!!

Yesterday was our very first day of homeschooling. We had a lot of fun.

We read some books. I am currently reading

Pippi Longstocking

to them. They played some Letter of the Week games. We had Gospel Study. We enjoyed our 1st lesson of Math U See. We played with Play dough and studied the weather. The kids watched a Signing Time video and then enjoyed making Beautiful Junk.

Beautiful Junk

One of my kids favorite things to do is to make Beautiful Junk. What is Beautiful Junk? We just save all of our recycling in a box. When it is time to make some we bring out the box with glue, tape, markers (and occasionally glitter or paint). And an hour later we have tons of Beautiful Junk!

A princess…

A drum…

A mermaid bookmark…

Homemade ribbon breath mints…

plus many many more.

2010-2011 Curriculum picks… a work in progress

This will probably be changed and added to a hundred times but this is the plan for now…

Mustard Seed (3 years old):

In addition to the list below, he will be around for most of Cinnamon’s lessons. I am sure he will pick up some things from that too.

Basic Preschool Skills-

Cutting, gluing, coloring, shapes, colors, alphabet sounds, numbers, etc. I will mostly be using the wonderful things that have been created by Confessions of a Homeschooler as well as Home Grown Hearts. I will also be reading a lot of books and we will be playing a lot of games.

Cinnamon (5 almost 6 years old):

Cinnamon will be welcome to participate in all of our Toddler activities as well as…

Math:

We are using Math-U-See for Math, I wrote about this here.

Science:

Our choice for Science is

Exploring Creation With Astronomy (Young Explorers)

I have heard so many wonderful things about Apologia. I know that my kids and I are going to love these books.

Language Arts:

We will use

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

and

Bob Books, Set 1: Beginning Readers

We have already started this and I am so impressed! My daughter begs to do more then one lesson a day! We will begin the Bob books about halfway thru the book.

Art:

We will be using

Artistic Pursuits Book One: The Elements of Art And Composition

and

Drawing with Children

this year. We are starting with the preschool Artistic pursuits called:

The Way They See It: A Book for Every Parent About the Art Children Make

We will then move on to K-3 Book 1. My daughter wants to be an artist when she grows up, so I will be putting a special emphasis on art. We will also be making “Beautiful Junk” a couple of times a week. Basically I will give them “Junk” (paper towel rolls, cereal boxes, old ribbons, etc). With a little tape or glue you have “Beautiful Junk”.

Music:

We will use…

Stories of the Great Composers (Book & CD) (Learning Link)

We do a lot of singing and dancing as well as play with percussion instruments. So that will count as music too.

Geography:

We will be using

Around the World in 180 Days (2-volume set)

as well as Expedition Earth from Confessions of a Homeschooler. My children are going to love filling up their passports!

History:

We will be learning about American History this year. We will read books, do games, activities and make lapbooks for added enjoyment.

Gospel Study:

Aside from our family scripture study and Family Home Evening. We will be studying the New Testament. We will read the beginning reader- New Testament Stories. We will be watching videos from Living Scriptures: New Testament (We love these!!) We will practice songs from the Children’s Songbook and work on Scripture Mastery.

Reading:

I will be reading a lot of picture books as well as chapter books. I will ask them to tell me what I read to them or draw a picture about what I have read.

Other:

We will be watching Signing Time Videos  as well.

Our choice for math…

I had a really hard time choosing a math curriculum. They all seemed to offer great things. I finally narrowed it down to  Math-U-See and RightStart Math. They both have received great reviews. After much thought and prayer I decided to go with Math-U-See. We will be starting the primer on our first day of school and I will let you know how it goes.

It’s almost here…

The long awaited… first day of homeschool. I have spent all summer planning and preparing for the year. We are all very excited. Our school district starts school on September 8th, so we will officially start the same day. I am still waiting for several packages to arrive. Hopefully they will get here in time. I do have enough to keep us busy until they do. We are going to gradually do more and more each day. I don’t want to overwhelm them. I will post about my curriculum choices later. Have a great day!

Easy Lunchboxes Giveaway

I love the easy lunch solution give away that Mama Jenn is hosting. Go check it out.

Giveaway

Hurry and check out the giveaway going on at Latter-Day Homeschooling. It ends at the end of April.

We finished our first lapbook!

Our first lapbook is based on the book “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” We printed most of these from Homeschool Share.

My decision to homeschool…

When I found out that I was pregnant, homeschooling was the farthest thing from my mind. As Cinnamon grew, I thought more and more of Kindergarten. I couldn’t wait. Thoughts of shopping for school clothes and supplies, sending her off on the school bus for her first day of school in her adorable new school clothes. Joining the PTA. I was so excited. I had my son when Cinnamon was two. Still school sounded like so much fun. I sent Cinnamon to preschool when she was three. After all I wanted her to be fully prepared to start school. Around this time I started looking into the schools she would be attending… I was shocked. The ratings were terrible. I found a school nearby with good ratings. Problem solved- we would just get a variance. We then went on about our lives looking forward to school. I was looking forward to a little ME time! As Kindergarten loomed closer I couldn’t shake this uneasy feeling.

I did some more research on getting a variance and saw that it is not a sure bet. We wouldn’t even know if we had been excepted until right before school started! At this point I decided to enroll her in the school down the street. What else could I do? Registration day came… and went. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I had been praying to be led in the right direction. Homeschooling had been mentioned in a few conversations prior to that, but I wasn’t interested. I really can’t explain what happened next. I just woke up and knew with a doubt that homeschooling was the right decision. Since then I have argued prayed several times to make sure I was hearing my answer correctly and each time I have been given an answer that is just to loud and clear to ignore. So here I start my journey. I am terrified of the unknown. I am also filled with joy knowing that I am doing what God wants me to do and he will help me every step of the way. He knows what is right for my children and I am putting my faith in him.

The artist…

Cinnamon is definitely the artist in our family. The other day she asked for a piece of paper, a red marker, a black marker, scissors and glue. A little while later she gifted me with this…

A couple days before this adorable ladybug, she surprised me with a flower bouquet…

I love getting all of these wonderful gifts.

Upcoming…

Although we will not officially start our homeschooling until Fall, we have already started practicing. My kids love it. We start our “school day” with our gospel study. We have also been working on a lapbook based on the book “If you give a mouse a cookie”. My children are enjoying it so much that we already have a huge list of upcoming lapbooks. Horses, Airplanes, Spring, Easter, ABC’s and Stars just to name a few. We have been practicing sounding out words and working a little on Math skills as well. I have been reading a chapter book out loud and Cinnamon loves it. We read a lot of picture books and we are watching a Signing Time video everyday.

Amazing LDS Homeschool Resource

I  found a wonderful resource for LDS Homeschooling Families. Several homeschooling woman share tips and inspiring messages as well as tools that we can use to make our homeschool experience better. I definitely recommend checking out Latter-day Homeschooling.

Just getting started…

I have been reading a lot of homeschooling blogs lately. I have learned so much from them. They have really inspired me. I decided that I would start my own. Hopefully at some point I can help or inspire someone else.