Monday, February 28, 2011

A Case for Homeschooling: Is There a "Biblical Model" for Education?

This article is so well written and very interesting. It looks at the Greek model for education verses the Hebrew model. It's very interesting to see the connection to today's ways of educating.

A Case for Homeschooling: Is There a "Biblical Model" for Education?

Saturday, February 26, 2011

That Time Of The Year

Yep, it must be that time of the year again.  I'm feeling it.  Really feeling it.  I, shall I say, strongly dislike my curriculum.  It always seems to happen this time of year.  Or maybe I usually am all together tired of schooling at this point.  But no, that's not it this year.  Right now I am just dissatisfied with where Em and Grace are at on certain things, namely writing.  By writing I mean essays, reports, letters, that kind of thing.  But it isn't just that.  We are having a bazillion computer problems lately.  Emily has to work at my desk to get her school to work on her computer.  I am extremely frustrated by many of the lessons in both girls' school.  They read their lesson and I would expect that from there they should be able to do the problems.  That is how the school is set up to work.  But then they ask me for help, I get frustrated because it is supposed to be self explanatory and I am busy doing Sophia's school, so I have to tell them to wait.  When I finally do get a chance to sit down and help them I read through the lesson and I barely understand it.  So I have to read through it with them slowly and work out the problems.  For example, in math they will do a whole lesson and have only one sample problem.  It is ridiculous...and frustrating.  History and Science are no better.  They study and study only to score lower than a C on many of the quizzes and tests, which means I make them redo the lessons and the quiz or test.  It ends up being a lot of work and it takes a lot of time.  Many times when I look at some of the questions, I really wonder how they are supposed to keep track of all of it!  Then there was this science lesson Emily was struggling with.  It had to do with the periodic table.  I helped Em with one lesson earlier and it seemed ok.  Then the next lesson I was busy and Brooke said she would help Emily because she loved doing the periodic table.  So she, a sophomore in high school that gets A's and high B's in science, read through the lesson with Emily and informed me that the whole lesson and problems didn't make any sense!  I knew when she said that that something is obviously not right with this.  So anyway, now the really hard part begins...deciding what in the world to do with them next year.  It is going to be hard to go back to lesson planning and grading everything.  My curriculum we have been doing does most of that for me.  So I'm not looking forward to the extra work.  But I am looking forward to trying some better things that will really help these girls learn what they really need to know.  Both Emily and Grace are tired of the computers and ready for something different, too.  I do have math figured out, I think.  I am pretty sure I am going to be using Teaching Textbooks for math next year for Em and Grace.  They are supposed to be self teaching and were made specifically for homeschoolers.  From what I have read on their website, it should be a good fit for them.  Everything else is pretty much up in the air right now.  It is a lot to think about.  Especially with Emily going into seventh grade next year.  This is when it gets serious.  I can't mess this up, you know?  Atleast things seem much easier with Sophia.  I will probably continue with the Vo-Wac Phonics.  Not so sure about the spelling though.  I'm just not impressed with their spelling program.  Or at least I think there are better spelling programs out there.  For math we will stick with Saxon until third grade when she can start the Teaching Textbooks if we find out we like them.  So anyway, that is where we are at.  Don't worry, it's not all bad on the homeschool front.  We've been keeping busy and trying to do more fun schooling, too.  I took the kid's swimming this week in Williston at the indoor pool.  That was a real treat for them.  I've also pulled out some of Brooke's old writing programs and have been doing some of that with Emily and Grace.  They seem to like it.  Well, they haven't complained too much anyway.  Well, that is it for tonight.  I need to hit the sack.  Hopefully soon I will have time to post again.  I've been wanting to share some books that I've been reading lately!

A Valentine Party


For Valentine's Day I took the girls down to the One Room Schoolhouse for a little party.  They were so excited to go see their friends at the school. We arrived right after lunch and the fun began.  It started with Mrs. Castro setting them up to write a joint story.  It was quite the Valentine's tale!  (If you want to read the story, click on the picture and it should come up larger for you!)


While they were working on the story, they took turns going to the other room and putting their Valentine's into everyone's boxes.  After everyone was done and the story hit the end, they all got to go see what was in their Valentine's boxes.  They had so much stuff, all the boxes were overfilled!

After everyone settled down a little bit from the excitement of looking at all of their goodies, Mrs. Castro had another fun game planned for the kid's.  They played Musical Hearts!  Everyone had a great time with this game.  Even if they got out right away, they all continued to cheer and dance along to the music while the others were still in the game.





After the game was over, the kids had a cookie that the girls had made for Valentine's Day and then we got ready to go home.  We still had Lydia's birthday to celebrate and the school kids needed to get ready for the bus.  It was a great time for my girls and once again we have to thank the kids and teachers at the One Room Schoolhouse for another great get together!

Valentine's Boxes


Grace's hearts.


Sophia's bear.


Allison's bear.


Emily's monkey.

Obsessed With Dot Art

I'm beginning to think we are going a bit overboard with the dot art lately.  But my friend emailed me a link to a website where you can print all these different dot art printable pages.  The kids really liked the Octopus that I printed out for them to do.  We also had extra kids here for school this week.  We were watching Jeff and Macy while their parents were on vacation.  They just joined right in with our school.  Here they are all working hard on their pictures.


Allison and her octopus.


Sophia and her octopus.

Jeff and his octopus.


Macy and her octopus.

Grace's Winter Poem


Grace had a school assignment to write a poem.  She made it even better by copying off a picture of our beautiful winter scenery and then writing her poem beneath it. 

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Letter G Projects


Dot-Art

Lydia just wanted to eat the dotter. I really did try to stop her. But I turned to help her sisters and when I looked at her again, the damage had been done!


Allison has been asking for days to do Dot Art. It's not like it's a big deal to do this, but it seems like she keeps asking at bad times, such as meal time or nap time. So today I finally took the time to set them up at the table to make some pictures. I figured we could turn this art time into a little letter G reinforcement. So I drew a Letter G on their paper and let them put the dots on there, saying G /g/ as they worked. Finished product in the next post!