Georgia Week 2

As I said before, I'm trying to move through the States a bit quicker. This was our second week on Georgia, and I think we're done for now. The girls are in love with the Chattahoochee River, just because it's fun to say.

Our greatest focus this week was on famous Georgians. We went with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Eli Whitney (ok, technically he wasn't a Georgina by birth but he was in Georgia when he invented the cotton gin.)

I never realized that Dr. King was killed 2 days after I was born. My girls simply can not grasp the concept that people would dislike someone because of their skin color. To learn that Mr. King was murdered was very disturbing for my kids, especially to know that it was because of color. Olivia sat and pondered for a long time, and then she said "Mom, that's just wrong...even the song says 'red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight". Yes, dear daughter, we are all precious in His sight; if only everyone could see things from Olivia and God's perspective.

We found a lot of information from our encyclopedia's and the internet, so we only used two books from the library.

Books we used:

A Picture Book of Martin Luther King, Jr. by David A. Adler
Eli Whitney American Inventor by Katie Bagley

Our core subjects are going well. Lindsey is reading much better this week and her issues with number recognition seems to have resolved itself. I've been giving Olivia more creative writing assignments, just to have her think on her own more, so she doesn't always "need" a worksheet for guidance.

Olivia finished her WingRunner book at Awana this week. We'll start over again for review until the end of the year. Last year we completed her book twice, but this year I don't know that I can get her back through it all the way a second time. Her difficulties with getting to recite early in the year put us further behind than I'd realized. Lindsey 's class is doing two verses this week to help get caught up from all the snow cancellation days.

At ballet, Lindsey is starting to practice her routine for the recital already. Olivia will compete in her first performance awards competition in March, so she's focusing on those particular routines until March 27.

It was pizza day at Co-op so my husband came and hand lunch with us. The girls really miss seeing their Dad on Friday's, so it's especially nice for them to get to have lunch with him (and the pizza doesn't hurt either).

I've spent some time this week working on our curriculum choices for the new year. I'm not finished yet, so I'll wait a while before giving you a run down.

I've also spent a lot of time weighing the options of what extra activities to be involved in. Olivia is showing an interest in piano, so I'm looking into both the monetary and time commitment. I'm also trying to find out about local 4-H groups. Olivia has her heart set on being a veterinarian, so I thought that 4-H would help feed the knowledge base on animals...just waiting for folks to call me back.

That's about all I've managed to accomplish this week. Check out this weeks Weekly Wrap Up to see how everyone else has done.

Family Mint (Review)

Family Mint is a free online money management application for kids, where the parents hold the money and act as the banker. You are not putting your money in an on-line bank, you are simply using an on-line tool to keep track of your child's money.

This is a very simple program to use. It took me all of 3 minutes to set up our bank, enter the kids info and get started. When I say entering the kids info, there are safe guards in place on the site. You must enter the child's year of birth, and no child under the age of 13 can enter an email address for contact purposes.

Family Mint is designed for the parent to be the actual banker (read, you hold the money and are responsible for NOT spending it). Children are able to enter transactions (deposits, withdrawals, transfers), but the banker (parent) must approve each transaction prior to it being finalized.

For each child, you can set up goal accounts. For example if your child wants a new computer, you can set up a savings subcategory and enter the goal amount and how much the child is to put into this account each deposit. The website will then give you a projected date of completion for this goal. You also have the option of matching the child's deposits, based on a percentage that you choose.

To be honest, although both girls do have savings accounts, we haven't started giving allowances yet. However, now that we have this handy dandy tool, we may have to dive into the realm of real money on a regular basis...holidays and birthdays aren't adding up too quickly!

I really like this product! It's simple to use, teaches children goal setting and to be good stewards of their money. These are some of the important life skills that need to be instilled early on to avoid financial hardships later in life.

There will be an additional Pro version coming later in 2010 that will have a fee related.

To read reviews of other Crew members, click here.

Disclosure: This product was provided to our family for free as members of the 2009-2010 Old Schoolhouse Magazine Homeschool Crew. Reviews and opinions expressed in this blog are our own.

And then she said…

We spent extra time on our lessons today. Learning new things, reviewing old things and lots of reading. To be honest, I was expecting some complaints because we went almost double our usual amount of time on "book learning".

I finished up everything I had planned, put away my lesson plan book and then Olivia says "Mom, can we learn some more stuff today?" (Insert angel choir singing here.)

We did an impromptu study of penguins and then Olivia worked on her own short story based on the information we discovered.

Item #1 in our homeschool vision is "We want our children to love to learn." By golly, I think we've got it!!

Georgia on My Mind

Early in the week we had a visit from my teenage/early 20's nephews and some of their friends. The girls talked them all into playing Twister for a LONG time. I got a lot of FUNNY photos, but most of them have too much tummy or butt crack exposed for posting. However, I think this one is a fair representation of the evening.

We're making progress in our Cantering the Country program. I'm finding that we've been moving much slower than I'd planned. So I'm going to see if we can do a 2 week per state study. Let's face it, the kids are 6 and 4...we'll revisit this info again in a couple of years anyway. So I'm shooting for getting some "basic" info in their heads (and their State Notebooks) this go around.

This week we worked on our state report, map, flag, coin and state bird, flower and animal. I learned some interesting facts about the possum this week. For example, they do have a scent sack (similar to skunks but not as strong) that they'll spray when threatened. We also learned that they have 50 teeth in their wee little heads. The average life span of a possum is only two years...I guess that's the longest they can dodge cars on country roads?

Books we used:

Georgia: Facts and Symbols by Emily McAuliffe
Opossums, by Emilie U. Lepthien

I've added more mandatory reading time into Olivia's workload. Besides the required reading for her curriculum, she has to read at least one chapter a day from her chapter book as well as her Bible reading. She enjoys reading, but it doesn't dawn on her that she can do it without being told to. I find that when I do hand her a book or two, she'll read for 15 or 20 minutes (sometimes longer) .

We finished up reading about George Washington and Olivia wrote a brief story about his life. She created a mini-book to add to her collection. Sadly, we did not make it to Mt. Vernon as I'd hoped to do. (On a side note, 6 year olds shouldn't look this good in photos.)

We had our monthly homeschool activity day today. My class on Native American's is going well. This week we studied the Sioux. I was floored that not a single child in my class (9-12 year olds) had ever heard of Sitting Bull, George Custer, or the Battle of Little Big Horn! Lindsey's class worked on some snow related items. Olivia's class learned about the paper making process; and made some trees from paper as opposed to making paper from trees.

Awana, ballet and co-op all went as scheduled for a change. We did have more snow on Monday, but it was a fast moving storm that left no accumulation. I've officially resigned from co-op. We'll finish out the year (early May), but won't be returning in the fall.

Besides our regular core subjects, we spent time working on baking skills. The girls love working in the kitchen, and they love delivering cookies to random neighbors for no particular reason.

We broke out the paints this week as we prepared to review an art curriculum geared at the preschool crowd. I'll be posting that review at a later date, but here they are being creative.

Lindsey is more into "modern art"...she gave it a title and everything; although the title escapes me at the moment.

To catch up on everyone else's week, head over to the Weekly Wrap Up hosted by Kris at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Math Mammoth (Review)

Math Mammoth was gracious enough to not only allow the TOS Crew to review their products for free, but they also gave us input as to which product(s) we'd like to review. I believe this is when the angelic choir began to sing in my world! Instead of being forced to rework my math program (again) I was able to pick two supplemental products to help strengthen some weak areas.

The first product we chose to use is Math Mammoth Money . It has been a GREAT help to us. Olivia needed extra practice with working with money and this downloadable worktext is just the ticket! The lessons start off with basic 1st grade work such as simple counting of coins. Then the student progresses to 2nd grade work and finally to 3rd grade topics. Your student doesn't have to "get it all" at one time, they can work at their own pace and build up their knowledge base and mastery of the subject. Of course, being downloadable, I can reprint as necessary when we run into problem areas that need more reinforcement. This supplemental work text is for grades 1-3 and offers 42 pages of lesson plans for only $3.25!! For my readers in other countries, you'll be happy to know that you can also get this in a Canadian Money Version as well as European Money.

The second product I chose is Math Mammoth Clock. Olivia is already telling time to the hour, half hour and quarter hour. When we started moving to the 5 minutes, she had more trouble (mostly with telling which hour is correct when its something:30+ if that makes any sense at all to you! Again, this product starts with 1st grade level work, progressing to 2nd and 3rd grade. Your child can move as quickly or as slowly as necessary to master the concepts. There are 44 pages of lesson plans included for the low price of $3.50!

Honestly, I wish I'd been a little more selfish in my request of products! However, with the wonderful pricing I'm certain I can find a little wiggle room in the budget if necessary!

Math Mammoth also offers some freebies, 280 worksheets to be exact! To learn more about this awesome deal, click here.

To read the reviews of other Crew members, click here.

Disclosure: This product was provided to our family for free as members of the 2009-2010 Old Schoolhouse Magazine Homeschool Crew. Reviews and opinions expressed in this blog are our own.

George Washington Editions (Week 1)

Last week we focused on Abraham Lincoln and this week we're reading about George Washington. Again, I'm glad I had a few books on our shelves for this study, because the library has been a no go again this week because of the crazy weather.

Books we used:

Meet George Washinton, by Joan Heilbroner
George Washington - a Picture Book Biography, by James Cross Giblin

We found it interesting, that Washington's teeth weren't made of wood, but of hippopotamus teeth (eeew). I also learned from another source that Mt. Vernon is FREE on Monday February 15 for anyone wiithin driving distance! I've GOT to see if my new boss will let me have the day off and make it up on Wednesday!

In math, Olivia mastered two digit subtraction. I was worried to be honest. New concepts can get her in a tailspin on math,but this was grasped in the first few minutes. Thank God! She's actually starting to enjoy working math problems and asks for more problems to do when working with adding and subtracting. Shocking I know!

Lindsey is moving right along with all of her studies. Number 7 is no longer an issue, although 12 can throw her off for a bit. She's counting to 60 and still answers some of Olivia's math work for her. Writing her name in cursive is going SO much better! She's able to do it neatly, on a consistent basis these days.

Here the girls are working on their collages to wrap up our study of New Jersey.

We spent a lot of time at home this week . All of our extra curricular activities were cancelled again because of more snow and ice. To compensate, we baked cake mix cookies, made homemade hot cocoa and played lots of board games too. (And yes, we did a lot of this, including school in our pajamas!)

We did venture outside and make a totally cool (no pun intended) snow cave too. You can read about it and see more photos by clicking here.

Head over to the Weekly Wrap Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers to check out everyone else's week of school.

Building a Snow Cave

Like I've said...LOTS of snow around these parts. We just finished reading some of Laura Ingalls Wilders books about how the winters used to be. Blizzards, day after day for months...lets try not to have that here, ok? Although, we have had snow after snow for well, months!

We decided to build a snow cave and see how well it did at protecting us from the wind and excessive cold. I can't say I'd like to spend an extended period of time in one, but it was a fun project and in a pinch, it's not so bad! I think we need to add a longer entry way or a bigger 2nd room.

It was blustery all day, sometimes with white out conditions! These next two photos are greatness! Lindsey say a big wind driven wall of snow coming at her....

...and then it hit her!

Then back inside for some hot cocoa!!

A funny!

At Least Nobody Was Looking

I believe I've mentioned the snow and ice that has pounded us this winter, have I not? You may even be getting tired of hearing about it, so here is a bit of comic relief for you.
Our driveway is very steep, but its old and rough and I put enough rock salt down to keep it from being slick. Our neighbor is a widow in her mid to late 70's. Her driveway is steep, and was refinished this past summer and is slick as snot.
I typically try to keep our neighbors driveway shoveled, salted etc. for her to keep her from falling and getting hurt. Yeah, I'm nice like that. This morning, the latest round of snow began to fall, and I went out to start the van up to thaw out. I noticed the paperboy (ok, middle aged dude who can't throw worth a hoot) landed the paper right in the middle of her driveway. I went and retrieved it and laid it on her front door step so she'd be safe.
Yeah....so picture if you will, me, the good neighbor stepping off the porch onto the driveway. My feet when up over my head, I landed on my greatly padded backside and SLID ALL THE WAY TO THE BOTTOM OF HER DRIVEWAY ON MY BUTT!! (STOP LAUGHING)
It was pure poetry in motion. My feet hit dryer ground and I stood up in one fluid motion...and quickly looked around to see if anyone saw me. (I SAID STOP LAUGHING!!) Then I zipped up my driveway and slammed my front door.
It was at about this time the husband, still in bleary eyed, half awake stupor asked "why is your butt wet?"

"DON'T ASK! But call Ms. Kay at 8:30 and tell her you'll bring her the mail when it comes."
So to one of my readers, who recently asked "Do fat people bounce when they fall?" The answer would be NO!

2010 –2011 Homeschool Crew

Since I've been on the Crew, I've had several folks ask me about becoming a member of the review team for the Old Schoolhouse Magazine. If you think you'd be interested in being a part of the review team you can simply click here to get more information.

If you find that you are interested in trying out for the Crew, be sure to fill out the TOS Demographics form to get you started.

Beehive Reader (Review)

The folks at All About Spelling sent me a free copy or the Beehive Reader 1 to review. Let me just say that Olivia LOVES this book. There are 156 pages, with engaging graphics. Each short story is a little more difficult than the previous story. Olivia picked up on that fact as well, but instead of being a bad thing, she got rather excited about it, almost like it was some suspenseful mystery novel.

Olivia's reading level is above the level of this particular reader. However, she's still enjoying reading it to her sister. The fact that it's a hardback book makes her feel like she's really flying through a major undertaking. The first time that she picked it up, she read the whole book at one sitting, and it took her about 15 minutes. It would have probably taken a lot less, but she felt the need to stop and do commentary on every.single.picture.

Lindsey is enjoying the book as well. At four she's just now starting to read short sentences. The beginning of the book gives her some challenge, but not discouragement. Here are a few sample pages for you to peep at.

If you'd like to get a bigger peek inside this reader, click here. Beehive Reader 1 is available for purchase for $19.95 at the All About Spelling Website. Starting in April of 2010, this book will be renamed to "Cobweb the Cat". So don't be alarmed if you don't see the "Beehive Reader" listed.

To read the reviews of other Crew members, click here.

Disclosure: This product was provided to our family for free as members of the 2009-2010 Old Schoolhouse Magazine Homeschool Crew. Reviews and opinions expressed in this blog are our own.

Blizzard 2010 Edition

Catchy title, eh???

This has been a real humdinger of a winter for us here in Virginia. We've had snow and or ice, almost every week now since the first week of December. Sometimes more than once in a week. Such is the case this week. This past Saturday we had 8 inches of snow. Tuesday night, another 6 inches. No biggie....but then....drum roll please!

Tonight through Saturday night we are supposed to get a blizzard. For real, BLIZZARD. The weather map for our area shows PARALYZING SNOW on our area, with winds of 35-30 miles per hour. Nice. Supposedly 36 inches or more. Time will tell! I'll post photos if/when it happens. Here is what my backyard looked like BEFORE the snow started today.

Now, on to our school week.. All of our outside activities have been cancelled this week because of the weather. You'd think that would mean I've gotten extra school work done...not so. I'm just not in the mood to press especially hard this week. We did manage to get a full five day week in this week. Our co-op typically doesn't meet on the first Friday of the month...however, even if we HAD been scheduled the snow would have caused a cancellation.

We did finish up our study of New Jersey. We didn't have the state meal this time, it sounded good, but I knew the kids wouldn't eat it, so really why bother? All that is left to do is the collage from the maps and brochures we have. I'm saving that for Saturday as a boredom buster.

We finished reading our selection of books on Abraham Lincoln. To finish up the readings, Olivia wrote her own story and made a lovely little book out of it.

We also revisited the puffy paint creation. We ended up with a green dog, and a pink cat. It is just me, or does the cat look like it has "issues"?

There was nothing overly exciting this week, just typical stuff. I do feel it was productive. Lindsey's reading skills are increasing quickly, and her cursive writing is getting a lot easier to read. Olivia is doing well in all areas. Although, I really need to find a way to make her think outside the box.

For those of you who do not have snow, but would like to make "snow angels" with your kids, here is a photo of a nifty craft to do. I'd love to take credit for it, but Lindsey's Awana teacher sent this home last week. The "body" is Lindsey's footprint , and the "wings" are her handprints.

Go check out the Weekly Wrap Up and see how well, or wild, everyone else's week was.

Homeschool Library Builder (Review)

Homeschool Library Builder is a Christian family-run book business dedicated to providing great literature at affordable prices. This online store stocks both new and used books, both hardback and paperback. Used books are rated by condition and priced accordingly. For information on book condition rating click here.

Membership to the HSLB site is totally free, but it does have it's perks. For each dollar you spend, you earn a Book Point. 15 Book Points equals $1 in your account to go towards future purchases. By becoming a HSLB member you also have the opportunity to earn extra Book Points by telling your friends about the site.

Another thing I love about Homeschool Library Builder is the ability to search their stock by age, curriculum (Ambleside, Beautiful Feet, Five in a Row, Heart of Dakota, Sonlight, Tapestry of Grace and Veritas Press) or country/region. No more need to look through every single book they offer, unless you just really want to!

Spotlight on the Season is another helpful feature that lists ideas and book selections for upcoming holidays, season and special events.

Homeschool Library Builder is having an incredible sale this month, 20% off everything in the store! There is also a special offer to save an additional 15% on Super Bowl Sunday, for a total of 35% off! Simply make a donation of any amount to the Heartline Ministries, serving and Homeschool Library Builder will send an online coupon for an additional 15%, good for Super Bowl Sunday (February 7, 2010) only.

To read reviews of other Crew members, click here.

Disclosure: This product was provided to our family for free as members of the 2009-2010 Old Schoolhouse Magazine Homeschool Crew. Reviews and opinions expressed in this blog are our own.