More on Keeping the Toddler Busy...

Isaac still likes the other homemade toy I posted about recently.  I'm always on the lookout for things that might keep him busy for a few minutes while I work on a school lesson with the girls.  This one is another hit!  Big sister even enjoys playing with it.

I took a peanut can from Costco and covered it with construction paper.  We bought some brightly colored pom poms, and cut holes in the lid to fit.

Isaac had fun pushing the pom poms through the hole, dumping them all out, and then clapping for himself.

Such a cutie!

Pretty Pens!

This is probably one of my favorite Pinterest finds ever.  You know those clear pens that unscrew?  Roll up pretty paper and put it inside!  Mind. blown.  Every homeschool mama needs pretty pens!  My girls are excited to make a few of their own as well.

I will have to remember these for teacher gifts, shower favors, etc.  So easy and pretty.  :)

If you are looking for pens, Amazon has a good price on them.  I paid $4 for 5 at Office Max.  These are about $7 for 12.  Have fun!

Curriculum Fall 2013

I've been busy obsessing about homeschool curriculum for the fall!  I always enjoy seeing what other people use and how it all fits together.  So, after lots of thought and researching and overthinking...  here are my plans:

Lucy will be in third grade, 8 years old in the fall.  Julia will be in first grade, 6 years old.  Esther will be 3 1/2 and Isaac 1 1/2.

Together, Lucy and Julia will do:

History - History Odyssey Ancients Year 1 (This is chock full of resources.  Some books we will get from the library, several I've purchased.  You definitely have to check out the website and view the sample pages to see all that is included here.  I also found these games to go along with it.)

ETA: The Homeschool Buyers Co-op has this Highlights Adventures Kit for Ancient Civilizations.  Looks like a great add on for our studies!

Science - REAL Science Odyssey Earth and Space

Bible - I am going to choose from a variety of things that I've wanted to do: the Put On Chart, this Names of God book, or things pulled from For Instruction in Righteousness and Polished Cornerstones.  I still need to sit down and plan this out.

Handwriting - A Reason for Handwriting C (Lucy) and A (Julia)

Spanish - Little Pim, this workbook, and Teach Me Tapes

English/ Spelling/ Phonics -
     Julia - ABeka Letters and Sounds 1, Language 1
     Lucy - ABeka Spelling and Poetry 3, Language 3
     both girls - Bravewriter (I have The Writers Jungle and Jot it Down for me to read through this summer and will be using ideas and lessons from these.)

Reading -
     Julia - is working through The Reading Lesson and Bob books
     Lucy - Sonlight 4/5 readers and comprehension questions (link)
                one or two Progeny Press study guides

Math - Math Mammoth (1A Julia, 2A Lucy)

Music - We are starting piano lessons this summer!  Lucy and Julia also take ballet during the school year.  I have a classical music CD from My Father's World with some activity ideas to do along with it.

Art - I haven't decided how to do this yet.  I bought Enjoying Art Together, we have Artistic Pursuits, I Can Do All Things, and the art program here looks good.  What to do??

Read Alouds - I have so many choices, just need to make a list and start working through them.  Daddy is reading The Chronicles of Narnia to the girls currently.

For the little ones - I will put this in another post.  I've gathered a few things to hopefully keep Esther learning and Isaac entertained for a bit.  :)

Hm... am I missing anything?  What are your fall plans?

For other curriculum plans, see this linky.

Lizzy

When studying fish for science, what does a homeschooler do?  Get a fish, of course!

Meet Eliza Jane.  (Shh.... we know its a male Betta fish, but we're ignoring that fact.)  The kids wanted to name it after themselves, so we came up with a name including their initials E, I, L, and J.  He She also goes by Lizzy.  The girls were so cute picking it out and carefully carrying it home.

Actually, it wasn't my idea to get a fish.  Our science book suggested it (REAL Science Odyssey) and included a great fish study worksheet.  We all sat down and drew and labeled Lizzy, learning about gills and fins.  We also took her temperature (by taking the water temp).  We compared the water temperature, the room temperature, and the kid's body temperature while discussing cold and warm blooded creatures.  I love that homeschooling allows us to be so hands on in our studies!

Here is the review that I did of our science curriculum.  We are definitely still enjoying it and looking forward to the Earth and Space level in the fall.  :)

Indoor Math Game

There is still plenty of snow on the ground here and most days we are snuggled inside, trying to find something fun to do.  Yesterday I taped this game on the floor and snuck in some math practice too.  The girls loved it!

Each person had a turn to throw three bean bags.  The center was worth 5 points, the next area 3 points, and the biggest area 1 point.  They had to stand off of the rug to throw.  The scorekeeper (we took turns) added up the points from all three throws.  Whoever had the most points won!

It was sweet to hear them being very encouraging to each other.  Lucy even purposely threw her bean bags just right so that Esther would have a turn winning.  :)  Fun!

Curriculum Spring 2013

After lots of planning and thinking and tweaking, here is our curriculum schedule for the next semester.  Much of it continues on from the fall, with a few changes:

Lucy (age 7)

My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures - I will be adding in quite a bit from Expedition Earth.  We've been enjoying parts of ECC, but it is mostly over Lucy's head.  Expedition Earth will add in more projects and fun on her level and allow us to continue our journey around the world.

Rod and Staff English 2 - Lucy hates this!  We're continuing through the book, but have switched to doing the majority of it orally.

Rod and Staff Spelling - same as fall.  Lucy does well with spelling.

Lucy finished her Explode the Code (phonics) book.  We will be using a Wordly Wise (vocabulary) workbook next.

Reading - Lucy is eating up books as fast as I can throw them at her.  We do a combination of reading out loud (Josefina American Girl books, CLP Nature Readers), silent reading (anything she can get her hands on), and reading comprehension projects.  I purchased Sonlight's reading comprehension questions for grade 3 for this semester.  We'll borrow those books from the library and work through the questions, just to be sure she is understanding what she is reading.

Math Mammoth - same as fall.  I love Math Mammoth, it continues to be a great program.  I like that it approaches math from all angles and teaches concepts very thoroughly.  Lucy still struggles with concepts from time to time so we are trying to include more math computer game time, Flashmaster practice, and the Mathtacular DVDs from Sonlight.

REAL Science Odyssey - We started this in the spring last year and loved it.  In the fall we dropped it in order to use the science from ECC.  That is definitely not working for us, so I'm excited to pick this back up again.

A Reason for Handwriting T (transition to cursive) - Lucy has been asking to learn cursive.  I had held off in the fall, just giving her various things for handwriting practice.  She will enjoy working through this book.

Rosetta Stone - We are easing into this.  Lucy struggled with getting the computer to recognize her pronunciation of the words when we tried it.  (Julia couldn't do it at all.)  I have various Spanish learning CDs and things that I need to pull out and let the girls listen to.

I Can Do All Things - Lucy has picked this art book up again recently and likes to work in it from time to time.


Julia (age 5)

Julia listens to any reading we do for ECC, and usually joins art projects.

The Reading Lesson, Bob books - We read a few pages from one of these books several times a week. Julia is excited that she can read and enjoys practicing.  She got a beginning readers book for Christmas and wanted to read it with me right away.  :)

A Reason for Handwriting K - same as fall.

DK Math workbook - Julia is excellent at math and almost done with this book.  I ordered The Complete Book of Math for her to use next.

Explode the Code - same as fall.  She is working through Get Ready For the Code, Get Set For the Code, and Go For the Code.

Sonlight Core P4/5 - This is new!  I decided that too much of ECC was over Julia's head, so we are going to begin working through Sonlight's Core P 4/5.   It looks like some of the stories will go along with our world studies nicely.  I think Julia will also really enjoy the science books.

Esther (turning 3!) and Baby Isaac interrupt listen in on many of our lessons as well.  :)

Sneak peek: Where are we headed?
In the fall of 2013 I'm thinking of using Sonlight Core B for history, Bible, and read aloud stories.  We'll move to Abeka for English and Spelling.  I just ordered BraveWriter's The Writer's Jungle and Jot It Down.  I'm excited to learn more about her writing approach and implement it over time.

Overall, I think I have a good plan in place and like how things are working together.  It has taken some time to feel settled in various curriculums that we enjoy, but I think we're getting there.  Every now and then I panic and research curriculum like crazy, trying to be sure we are on the right track.  Tell me I'm not the only one?! 

Truth in the Tinsel

Are you Black Friday shopping?  I've been keeping an eye on the sales online, but haven't purchased much today.  Traditionally we go cut down our Christmas tree every year right after Thanksgiving and today was the perfect do for that.  I'm excited for Christmas with all my little ones, its always so much fun to see it through their eyes.  We are working hard at making things meaningful and conveying the truth behind all that we do during this season.  This year I am going to be using a super fun e-book full of ornament crafts:

Truth in the Tinsel is an advent experience for little ones.  You read a section of the Christmas story and then craft an ornament to go along with it.  Crafts are totally up my girl's alley, and this looks like it was written for their age level!  (I sometimes struggle with finding things that aren't too preschool, but not over their heads either.)  I'm so excited about this!!  There is a Facebook page where you can follow along with others.  Their blog also has some fun ideas on how to set everything up and get it ready to go.  So excited!

If you purchase today, the Black Friday special is that you get the printable ornaments for free.  (Yes, for those days that you don't have extra time to create an ornament, there are printable ones to color.  Awesome!)  :)  Can you tell I'm excited about this?

(I became an affiliate for this because I loved it so much!  If you purchase through my link I will receive a percentage.  Thanks!)

Thankful

In years past, we've created a thankful tree.  This time we decided to go with a turkey.  I laminated the body and glued on wiggly eyes just for fun.

On the days leading up to Thanksgiving, each family member writes what they are thankful for on a feather.  Its fun to see the turkey fill out and remind ourselves of how much we have to be grateful for.  Its such a simple tradition, but one we look forward to each year.

Nature Walk Bracelets

We went for a fun nature walk today!  I took a piece of tape and wrapped it around each child's arm.  As we walked, we found things to add to our bracelets and make them beautiful.  :)

Julia's was mostly dandelions. 

Lucy chose a variety of things and even got a rock to stay on. 

I love our big beautiful tree! 

sick baby snuggling mom

Esther kept putting things on and taking them back off again. 

one of the bracelets after we cut it off

This was a fun activity that we will probably do again sometime.  Do you have any creative ideas for making nature walks interesting?  Please share!  :)

Shopping and Record Keeping

Saturday morning I left the big girls at home with Ross and took Isaac to Target.  He napped in the Ergo and I wandered around finding fun school supplies.

The $1 bins had flashcards: flags of the world, animals, landmarks (these will all go in our continent boxes), US states, presidents, and US facts.  I couldn't resist picking up stick-on wiggly eyes, pipe cleaners, and pocket charts.  There was also a little book of Australian animals that will be great for our continent boxes.

At Office Max I picked out my pretty purple planner, and got some free pencils.  I use the planner, not really to plan, but more for record keeping.  I write in it what we do each day.  The entries look something like this:

math - 2 pages
spelling test - all correct!
art project - painting fall trees
etc.

I try to scribble down things like field trips, library days, and other educational type things we might do as a family.  Thankfully we live in a state that doesn't require extensive records, so this works for us.

Math Mammoth Review

I like math.  Really, I do.  I want my kids to like math and understand it.

We've been using Singapore math so far (first Earlybird then 1A and 1B).  I liked the idea of it, but feel like we need more practice and explanation.  Lucy was able to complete the math pages with lots of prompting from me, but wasn't understanding the concepts fully.  Heart of Dakota has some hands on ideas we enjoyed that correlate with 1A and 1B.  Even so, part way through 1B we just couldn't go any farther.

I'm not sure how I came across Math Mammoth.  At first I was just looking for some additional practice or help, knowing that we couldn't move on to 2A yet.  I also didn't want to stop math for the summer and have Lucy forget these concepts she was barely hanging on to.  Cathy Duffy gives Math Mammoth a great review.  She compares it to Singapore Math in some ways, and really praises it.  After looking into it, I purchased their level 1 and began right away.

We just started, but so far I love Math Mammoth!  It seems to explain concepts thoroughly and from different angles.  Each page has plenty of problems on it, but remains uncluttered looking.  The beginning of each section contains helpful notes to the teacher, games to play with your child, and links to internet sites with online games relating to the topic.  The teacher/ child games are occasionally scheduled in the textbook also, which is great.

Math Mammoth is available as a download, or as purchased books.  I bought the physical books: worktext 1A, 1B, tests and reviews, and the answer key.  I like that the instruction is contained in the worktext.  (They call it a worktext because its both the textbook and the workbook together.)  We have found it very easy to use.  Even after getting through Singapore 1A and most of 1B, Math Mammoth's level one is a good place for Lucy to be.  She is able to complete the math pages, but it takes some thought.  I'm glad we did not keep going with Singapore Math.  I feel like with Math Mammoth she is going to thoroughly learn the concepts.  If she struggles, I appreciate the additional resources - games, websites, and even an online worksheet maker for additional practice.  Maria, the author, was also quick to respond to an email from me with a question that I had.

If you are interested, definitely take some time to browse the Math Mammoth website.  I found some good information, including how to use an abacus as a teaching aid, and great kindergarten math ideas.  The emails they send out are informative and fun as well.  Homeschoolmath.net is also run by the author of Math Mammoth and is an amazing resource worth checking out too!  I am very impressed with Math Mammoth and all that it has to offer.

I purchased Math Mammoth on my own and did not receive anything in exchange for this review.

See The Homeschool Curriculum Review Roundup for more reviews.

Butterfly Scripture Canvas

My mom is here visiting from Texas this week.  Aside from getting in lots of baby snuggle time, she helped me paint this beautiful canvas for the girls' bedroom.  We used this scripture art and this butterfly canvas for inspiration.  Psalm 4:8 was one of our memory verses earlier this year.  Lucy and Julia both know it by heart and say it at bedtime when they are afraid.  I've had a little paper posted in their bedroom with the verse written on it, but wanted a better way to display it.  I absolutely love how this turned out!

We used a 22"x28" canvas, acrylic paint, watercolors, watercolor paper, a black paint marker, and a butterfly punch.

Everyone helped paint the canvas.  It took a couple of coats (2 bottles of the paint).

We used watercolors to make bright pictures with splotches of color.

My mom wrote the words on the canvas with a pencil first, and then the paint marker.  We punched butterflies out of the watercolor paintings and used hot glue to stick them on.

I love, love, love it!

(For more ideas on how to creatively display scripture in your home check out the Write Them on the Doorposts contest.)

Homeschool Tools

Aside from the books and pencils, there are a few tools that come in handy for homeschooling:

I love laminating things!  We use this quite a bit for making preschool games, laminating chore charts, potty charts, and anything else I can think of.  The laminating pouches are sold in bulk at Sam's club for a decent price.  You can usually find this laminator for around $25.

This year I purchased an electric pencil sharpener at Costco.  It saves so much time to just zip a pencil in!  This one doesn't seem to work well with some of our cheap Dora and Tinkerbell pencils, sharpening them off center leaving a bit of the wood.  It does fine with the better quality ones though.  Any homeschooler should have an electric pencil sharpener!  With all of my busy little artists constantly going through pencils, I am sure this is saving me countless hours.

This is another tool I picked up recently.  I had been trying to make a book for a school project of Lucy's.  After experimenting with several different methods and then breaking a needle while trying to sew the spine, I ran out that night to buy this.  I can now simply fold paper in half, open it, and staple on the spine!  Genius.  Lucy really enjoys making books (see an adorable one here), and I'm sure we will be using this often for school projects too.

I don't think I can tell you how many times I've tried to get three holes in the right spot by just using a single punch.  Inevitably the holes are off just a little and the paper doesn't fit the binder correctly.  Needless to say, it is quite handy to have a three hole punch!

As you can see, I've tried to get by without some of these items, but find them very handy to have.  They are all stored in a big cabinet in the basement along with countless other craft and office supplies.


Do you have favorite school tools that you can't live without?

Art Projects

A few fun art projects we've been working on lately:

heart garlands 

Charlotte's Web activities: 

spinning a web with yarn and popsicle sticks, handprint spiders 

stained glass watercolor paintings

Julia's Math Book

Lucy decided to make this for Julia one day.  The ideas were all her own!

trace the dotted lines, count the items 

dot to dot, goes up to 25 

trace the dotted lines, finish the pattern, what number comes next? 

draw petals on the flower, trace the dotted lines 

a picture to color

Julia loves it and will only do one page each day, in order to save it for a while.  :)

R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey Review

I am loving our new science curriculum!  We are only on Unit 4, but it is going really well.  Over the past couple of years I have looked at numerous science options and hadn't found anything that we really liked.  REAL Science Odyssey is a great fit for us.

looking at an egg and labeling a diagram

Heart of Dakota (our main curriculum) contains some very light science.  I found it to be rather unorganized and random.  While we love Heart of Dakota for the most part, we're enjoying adding in this science program.  I tried to enrich HOD's science and add in more, but with it being so scattered, I found that to be challenging.

Other science programs that I have considered were either too textbookish (just reading about science doesn't seem to click with Lucy), or too open ended.  Instructions like "write about what you learned" do not work well with Lucy.  NOEO science, one that I considered, is like this.  The idea of it is great, Charlotte Mason style learning from a variety of living books, but it seemed to lack the teaching aspect that Lucy needs.  Apologia science looks good, but is too advanced for us at this point.

REAL Science Odyssey is one that I had looked at, but wasn't sure about.  I ended up finding the book used from someone and am very happy that I did!  We are using Life Science level one.  The curriculum is set up so that each week we read a page of information and complete related activities.  The information page is written to the child and explains things very well, including new vocabulary words and simple explanations.  Our routine has been to read the information page one day and do a lab, then another day we read over the information again and do the second lab activity.  It seems to be just the right amount each week and not overwhelming.  The activities have all been interesting and fun.

jello model of a plant cell and an animal cell

The teacher's manual includes a list of a few recommended books and websites for each unit.  I've checked these out from the library and enjoy having other sources to reinforce what we are learning.  Daddy reads these books to the kids before bed or Lucy looks through them at rest time.  The books are not necessary, but are fun to have on hand.  We purchased a couple of board games and a coloring book that are mentioned in the teacher's manual as well.

REAL Science Odyssey Life level one is for grades 1-4.  I like that it can be used over a range of ages, but I do not feel like I'm having to adapt things too much for Lucy.  I am not one who enjoys sifting through information and activities trying to decide which ones my child should be doing.  So far we have been fine just using the book as is.  (Lucy is six years old, doing 1st-2nd grade work.)  In the front of the manual is a list of main ideas for each unit, so I am able to tell whether or not she is catching the main point.  

The Life Science Curriculum can be purchased as a book or an e-book.  We have the physical book, and then also purchased the student pages.  The student pages are included in the book, but buying them saved me from having to make copies out of the main book for Lucy to use.  Home Science Tools carries the REAL Science books, student pages, and also a supply kit.  We did not need everything in the science kit, so I purchased the items a la carte, finding everything I needed on their website.  It helped that I had the teacher's manual in hand because I could refer to the supply list and see what we needed.  

You can preview the entire front section of the teacher's manual and the first nine units on their website!  (This gives you the supply list too.)  Definitely worth taking a look at.

The program does say it mentions evolution in the level two books, but not in level one.  We have not come across anything objectionable.  At the level two point we will probably go with Apologia or something else.  For now REAL Science Odyssey is an excellent program, right on Lucy's level, informative, and fun.  She asks every day to do science.  On one of the first days that we were using REAL Science Odyssey, Lucy said: "Mom, are you teaching me science or are you teaching me to be a scientist?"  Bingo, kid!  Both.

see more reviews at The Homeschool Curriculum Review Roundup

Craft Idea: Paint with Q-tips

My girls received this fun set of paints for Christmas:

The first time we used them, I spent all of my time washing paintbrushes.  These are not watercolors, so I had to go to the sink and thoroughly wash each brush and dry it when the girls wanted to change paint colors.  Today, I had a wonderful idea: paint with q-tips!

We used the paints and q-tips for our lesson on seasons (green dots for spring leaves, green and pink dots for summer leaves and flowers, red orange and yellow dots for fall leaves, and white dots for winter snow).  The girls then decided to make their own pictures:

I am much happier about letting the girls paint with these, knowing I won't have to clean out 100 brushes!

One of my favorite homeschool mom meeting topics is one where we all share random tips like this.  I'm thinking about hosting a Homeschool Help Thursday feature, kind of like Kitchen Tip Tuesday, except this would be any and all tips for homeschool moms.  Is anyone interested?  Would you have tips to share on your blog and link up?  Let me know what you think.

Book Review: The Nature Connection

The Nature Connection by Clare Walker Leslie is absolutely the best nature study book for children that I have ever come across!  I love the idea of nature study, but am always a bit unsure about how to begin.  Winter usually ends up stopping my plans short anyway.

After paging through The Nature Connection, I am extremely impressed.  The book makes nature study completely doable, with easy assignments and even space to do them in.  It also includes a TON of information (in easy to read bites) about nature, things you might see, sketches and good-to-know tidbits.  I'm amazed at all of the information included.  This book could very well serve as a homeschool science textbook for an entire year.  One of the best parts of the book is that it goes monthly through the year.  The assignments and information are relative to the particular month (even winter!).

I haven't decided if I am going to have Lucy write directly in the book, or in a nature journal.  There is actually a link provided in the book that you can go to and print off extra pages to write on.  At $10 on Amazon, this is a book that every homeschool or nature loving household should own!

Can you tell I'm impressed with this book?  :)  We received it for review, but the opinions are all my own.  :)

Homeschool Update - Beyond Little Hearts For His Glory

Lucy, age 6, is enjoying Beyond Little Hearts For His Glory.  We finished up week 11 just before Christmas, and are looking forward to continuing on with this in the New Year.  Over the Christmas break I've been thinking about how I want to tweak things next semester.  Here are some of my thoughts:

History - We are loving history!  I really enjoy reading the history books and Lucy and Julia both listen attentively.  History in Beyond does not consist of dry facts, but rather an interesting story about people who lived during that time period.  Sometimes the history activities are a little strange or don't end up working for us so we skip them.  I'm going to be adding in some history notebooking pages instead.

Poetry and Rhymes - Lucy is enjoying writing out the poem each week and decorating her handwriting.  We have all of her poems saved in a book with page protectors and she enjoys reading them to Grandpa and Grandma.  She doesn't memorize the poems, we focus more on the memory verse for that.

Bible Study - I love that most weeks have a song that goes along with the Bible verse.  We've had some good discussions about the verse and its application.  I've found that asking Lucy questions about the Bible verse as the teacher's manual suggests ("What does this verse say we should do?" "How can we show God that we love Him?" etc.) is not a good way for her to learn.  She balks at answering and it takes some work to get the discussion going.  The Morning Bells devotional is NOT a book we enjoy reading, and is not understood by my kids.  I'm glad that we are going to be starting Little Hands To Heaven as I'm sure Lucy will listen to the Bible and character lessons in that.

Language Arts - Spelling is easy for Lucy, she rarely misses a word.  I've wondered about adding in more grammar lessons for the technical aspect of things.  Looking at next year though, Heart of Dakota does start using Rod and Staff grammar, so I guess we'll just keep going with things as they are.  We are adding Explode The Code workbooks now and then for phonics reinforcement.

Reading - Lucy is doing very well with reading.  She is on week 16 of the emerging readers set.  (We started these before actually starting Beyond.)  I like that the readers are scheduled for us in order of difficulty.  She looks forward to each new one.  The comprehension questions are great as well.  When we finish these books, I have some ABeka readers to use.

Storytime - So far we have read Helen Keller, My Father's Dragon (all three books), and we are working on Little House in the Big Woods.  All have been big hits with the girls and much looked forward to.  Many of the storytime activities are fun and on their level.  Sometimes they try to include a character lesson that just doesn't apply to the story and we skip.  We've enjoyed learning a bit about story setting, plot, and so on, which I think are good things to be discussing.

Math - I really like the combination of hands on activities and workbook pages.  Lucy is challenged, but doing well with math.  The activities are excellent at helping illustrate the concepts being taught in each lesson.  Math is going very well.

Art - The art activities are fun for the most part, but I feel like they are "craft projects" rather than actually teaching art.  We have Artistic Pursuits books that I am going to schedule in once a week starting in January.

Science - I really dislike the science in Beyond.  In my opinion it is pretty random and shallow.  After doing some searching, I am going to be switching to another science program: REAL Science Odyssey.  It looks like it is going to be a lot of fun!

Spanish - Because it is important to us, we are beginning a Spanish language program.  We have used various resources in the past, but I recently ordered The Easy Spanish Junior Level to begin.  It sounds like something both Lucy and Julia will enjoy.

Overall we are happy with Beyond Little Hearts For His Glory.  Because Lucy is on the younger end of the age range for the guide, I'm okay with the lighter grammar, and skipping some of the history activities that don't work for us.  Its beginning to have an easy feel to it, but I think adding in art, science, and spanish will be plenty.  That, along with starting Julia in Little Hands to Heaven and a new baby due the end of March should keep us busy.  :)

What about you?  How is your homeschool year going?  Anything you are changing for next semester?

Homeschool Update - Preschool

During the Christmas break, I've been spending some time thinking about our homeschool plans and what I need to change next semester.  There are things we started out doing that just weren't working, things we added in along the way, and other things I want to add.  Here are my thoughts on Julia, age 4:
(Next I will post about what Lucy, age 6, is doing including a review of Beyond Little Hearts For His Glory.)

We started out planning to use Learn Your Letters Learn To Serve and The Reading Lesson.

Although I really like the ideas and thoughts behind Learn Your Letters Learn To Serve, (Click here to view more details) I think I just really need things spelled out for me on a daily basis.  I have a hard time looking at a weeks worth of activities and deciding what we are going to do, what to leave out, and when to fit it all in.  *I* am definitely the problem here, the curriculum is great and is chock full of fun ideas.  It will stay on my shelf as fun reference book to use when we need extra activities.  To be brutally honest, we only ever did letter "A" and part of "B".  Plenty of other learning occurred around here, it just wasn't from this book.

The Reading Lesson: Teach Your Child to Read in 20 Easy Lessons
I will post a more complete review of this program eventually.  Julia enjoys doing a couple pages every now and then and is learning to read!  I am planning to use this on a more regular basis next semester.  So far we are only at the beginning of the book, which is fine for her age.  She is asking to do more now though.  I like the simplicity of the book and the fact that we can take it at our own pace.

My First Book Of Cutting (Kumon Workbooks)
I picked this book up several months ago as something fun for Julia.  She enjoys doing a page or two at a time, and it serves as something to keep her occupied while Lucy is busy with math or handwriting.  I've seen her cutting skills improve just over the couple of months we've used this.  I have a pasting book that we will use next semester too.

Shirley's Prepackaged Crafts
Click the link above for my full review.  Julia really likes her box of crafts and asks to do a craft often.  These are right on her level.  We alternate between a craft or her cutting workbook while Lucy is busy.  I have the January box already and am looking forward to letting her get started with it!

Little Hands To Heaven
This is similar to Learn Your Letters Learn To Serve, but I think it will work better for me because of the layout.  I'm planing to start this with Julia in a couple of weeks.  We are not loving the devotional book in Lucy's curriculum, so I think having the exposure to simple Bible stories on a regular basis again will be good for all of the girls.  The basic math introduction, letter learning, and other activities will be a good fit for her now also.

Fat Brain Toys Inchimals

I bought these this fall and haven't pulled them out to use yet.  Julia loves to pretend and these look like she will have a lot of fun with them.  We have plenty of other resources that we can pull out as she shows interest too.  (A fully stocked art cupboard, millions of books to read, preschool idea books and plenty more.)

Julia listens to ALL of our read aloud books: Lucy's learn to read books, storytime books, and history books.  I wouldn't dare read Lucy a lesson without Julia!  She is almost always first to answer the comprehension questions too.  Any art projects or Bible study, she often chooses to do with us.  I am planning to add in Spanish and some science that she will participate in as well.  With the above books I think we will have a good balance of family learning and work that is right on her level.

Okay, what do you think?  Do you have a preschooler?  How is it going?