I can't believe it's time for Nutcracker again. This will be our 4th season being involved in a production of this wonderful holiday story. We are in a different city, but we found our way back to the world of Sugar Plum Fairies, Clara and dolls. T will be in this production but my little Poogie will not. The new dance company has older dancers in it, so Poogie will have to wait a year or two. But she is totally fine with that. After doing this for 3 years and dealing with the stress and craziness of it she was ready for a break.
T will be dancing in Act I as a boy child and a mouse. He has had a blast, stress free. This studio has been a blessing. The schedules are up by Wednesday. They start and end on time. Everything runs like a well oiled machine. It has been wonderful. I will post pictures of the production. Sadly, we are not allowed to post video like I have in the past due to copyright concerns. But I understand this as our director has worked hard to make this production her own.
Since we had more free time this season we were able to go to see a professional performance of the Nutcracker by the Moscow Ballet. Such a wonderful treat for my kids and me. It has been 3 long years since I got to set in the seats and watch a production with them. It was a magical night at the beautiful Peabody Opera House.
Now we are off to the Land of Sweets.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Trash and Keep Pile
As I have done every school year since I began this journey I find myself making changes. By now I have discovered what works for us as far as homeschool curriculum goes and what doesn't. I am disappointed to find that some of the things we loved last year did not make the cut this year. It may be we are just burned out with the daily repetition of some of these books. It pains me to say that two of these are classical education curriculum's, Writing with Ease and Writing with Skill. Both of these are great writing curricula, and we haven't ditched them for good. It's just the day to day repetition of the curriculum has become tedious. I do not feel that either one of my kids age getting any thing new out of these right now so on the shelf they go.
Another casualty from the first quarter is the Novel Units literature guides. Ug, I have to say I did not like them. There are so many reasons I won't take up time writing about it. Let's just say that they were not user friendly. I still had to do alot of prep on my own and some of the questions in the books did not line up with the novels. I won't use them again.
For Poogie history was a big flat failure. I tried using The Story of the US and The Complete Book of US History. They just didn't offer enough comprehsion and geography work. So we are using something I already had, Abeka US history and geography. I will be adding historical reading to go along with the time peroids.
So things we are keeping but using as a supplement, such as First Language Lessons. Great curriculum, but not our daily cup of tea. We are returning to Easy Grammar for Poogie with FLL added for diagramming and extra practice. Poogie will be using EG 6 since I had the teacher's edition.
Poogie is also keeping Rod & Staff Arithmetic 5 but we are supplementing with Math Mammoth on subjects that she doesn't master in the text. Right now we are doing a MM unit on fractions because she just didn't get it in R&S.
For Poogie's writing we are going to give Writing Strands a whirl. I have it already so why not. For T I have ordered Jensen Format Writing to replace WWS. We will use WWS but not on a weekly basis.
I have decided to let T read the novels we have chosen and give him writing assignments and projects to complete for them from free sources on the internet. The Novel Units just killed his love for the book, and mine.
Finally, on The Well Trained Mind Forum I found a link to a free PDF of a curriuclum I have been wanting to try for reading for Poogie. The Reading Detective from The Thinking Co. offers this. I am going to try a few lesson with Poogie and then I may order the software version. T has liked the Editor in Chief software so it would be fun for Poogie to have her time at the computer too.
I guess we just need to see how the next 9 weeks go...
ps please forgive the typo's spell check wasn't working and I've run out of time.
Another casualty from the first quarter is the Novel Units literature guides. Ug, I have to say I did not like them. There are so many reasons I won't take up time writing about it. Let's just say that they were not user friendly. I still had to do alot of prep on my own and some of the questions in the books did not line up with the novels. I won't use them again.
For Poogie history was a big flat failure. I tried using The Story of the US and The Complete Book of US History. They just didn't offer enough comprehsion and geography work. So we are using something I already had, Abeka US history and geography. I will be adding historical reading to go along with the time peroids.
So things we are keeping but using as a supplement, such as First Language Lessons. Great curriculum, but not our daily cup of tea. We are returning to Easy Grammar for Poogie with FLL added for diagramming and extra practice. Poogie will be using EG 6 since I had the teacher's edition.
Poogie is also keeping Rod & Staff Arithmetic 5 but we are supplementing with Math Mammoth on subjects that she doesn't master in the text. Right now we are doing a MM unit on fractions because she just didn't get it in R&S.
For Poogie's writing we are going to give Writing Strands a whirl. I have it already so why not. For T I have ordered Jensen Format Writing to replace WWS. We will use WWS but not on a weekly basis.
I have decided to let T read the novels we have chosen and give him writing assignments and projects to complete for them from free sources on the internet. The Novel Units just killed his love for the book, and mine.
Finally, on The Well Trained Mind Forum I found a link to a free PDF of a curriuclum I have been wanting to try for reading for Poogie. The Reading Detective from The Thinking Co. offers this. I am going to try a few lesson with Poogie and then I may order the software version. T has liked the Editor in Chief software so it would be fun for Poogie to have her time at the computer too.
I guess we just need to see how the next 9 weeks go...
ps please forgive the typo's spell check wasn't working and I've run out of time.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Apologia Zoology Resources
Poogie is doing Apologia Zoology 2 Swimming Creatures this year. We are enjoying the curriculum even though it does include more religion than we would like. When I purchased the curriculum I bought the text, notebook journal and lapbook cd-rom. I like the Charlotte Mason approach to the curriculum however I still need to test and quiz Poogie on the material. So during my search for free materials I found two great sites. The first one is a Yahoo Group for the Apologia Elementary Science curriculum. Just search for it on Yahoo Groups. Great resources. The second one I love, love, love it is a blog Homeschooling is Fun. Excellent resource!! These great finds make my school years so much easier.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Wouldn't you want to know??
I find it shocking how many parents I talk to that don't want to hear unpleasant things about their kid's friends or kids they know. Yes it is hard sometimes to realize that people are not always as they appear, but come on by the time your 21 you should be jaded enough to know most people are not. I want to know about my kid's friends, everything, even the unpleasant stuff. That's the only way I feel I can protect my children from being in situations that are not safe or may not be in their best interest.
If you only want to know the good stuff about the world how do you function. How do you make decisions on what is good or bad? I admit all that you hear about someone is probably not true. However, if you hear the same information or stories over and over that disturb you it should throw up a red flag. The problem is that many fall into the idea that if a kid or person lives in the right neighborhood, attends the correct schools, dresses the way lemmings I'm sorry, the way that is deeded acceptable and has good parents they are automatically a great influence for your child to be around. BONG! WRONG! I just don't understand how such intelligent adults are so blind. Based on our experience with my son as a teen many times just those "perfect" children are the ones you have to be a little more attentive. They put on the best act in front of the adults but watch out when they are not under parental supervision, BAM!
The kids with the best backgrounds usually have more drugs, faster cars to crash, and have the money to get into more trouble. I found this out as a teen and not much has changed, except my parents told me to watch out for those kids not to put them on a pedestal. I want to know the good, the bad and the ugly about my kids and their friends. Yes it is exhausting, Yes, it would be easier if I just blocked out all the bad and went through life thinking every thing is clover. But, to me that wouldn't be living. It would be a lie. And I detest liars.
Finally, I find it upsetting and frankly I'm just plain sick of how kids like my son and others who do not follow the "norm", or can think for themselves are always thrown under the bus. Some kid that is thought to be all perfect and socially acceptable (according to certain people) can do something horrible. Say you find they've been driving drunk, doing drugs or beat another kid up just because they can. It is kept quiet, swept under the rug. But low and behold a socially unacceptable kid that happens to be from the wrong part of town, or just doesn't follow the other lemmings does the same thing they are then labeled a bad kid, a troublemaker. Parent's whisper to keep you child away from that kid. You don't even need to hear the whole story about their situation, just look at them that should tell you everything.
Grr. I could go on and on, but I will get down off my soap box and fight another day. Sorry if I stepped on a few toes but I just had to have my say.
If you only want to know the good stuff about the world how do you function. How do you make decisions on what is good or bad? I admit all that you hear about someone is probably not true. However, if you hear the same information or stories over and over that disturb you it should throw up a red flag. The problem is that many fall into the idea that if a kid or person lives in the right neighborhood, attends the correct schools, dresses the way lemmings I'm sorry, the way that is deeded acceptable and has good parents they are automatically a great influence for your child to be around. BONG! WRONG! I just don't understand how such intelligent adults are so blind. Based on our experience with my son as a teen many times just those "perfect" children are the ones you have to be a little more attentive. They put on the best act in front of the adults but watch out when they are not under parental supervision, BAM!
The kids with the best backgrounds usually have more drugs, faster cars to crash, and have the money to get into more trouble. I found this out as a teen and not much has changed, except my parents told me to watch out for those kids not to put them on a pedestal. I want to know the good, the bad and the ugly about my kids and their friends. Yes it is exhausting, Yes, it would be easier if I just blocked out all the bad and went through life thinking every thing is clover. But, to me that wouldn't be living. It would be a lie. And I detest liars.
Finally, I find it upsetting and frankly I'm just plain sick of how kids like my son and others who do not follow the "norm", or can think for themselves are always thrown under the bus. Some kid that is thought to be all perfect and socially acceptable (according to certain people) can do something horrible. Say you find they've been driving drunk, doing drugs or beat another kid up just because they can. It is kept quiet, swept under the rug. But low and behold a socially unacceptable kid that happens to be from the wrong part of town, or just doesn't follow the other lemmings does the same thing they are then labeled a bad kid, a troublemaker. Parent's whisper to keep you child away from that kid. You don't even need to hear the whole story about their situation, just look at them that should tell you everything.
Grr. I could go on and on, but I will get down off my soap box and fight another day. Sorry if I stepped on a few toes but I just had to have my say.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Took a small vaca...
I decided to take a small vacation from it all and enjoy what I could of my 40th birthday. I have to say it was very uneventful. In fact we did nothing. I had always thought I would finally have a big celebration for the big four O. But, due to a major lack in funds it was not meant to be. I thought 40 would be a bit better than this. I wouldn't have ever thought I would be practically starting over at 40. Struggling to make ends meet. It's been a long, hard year and I hope that it will soon be turning around. But enough of my brooding and depression. I will post again another day hopefully in a much better mood.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Writing resources...
Writing, ug, that subject that many dread to teach, me included. Since the beginning of our homeschool journey back in 2006 I have tried many writing curriculum without much success.
First, we tried Wordsmith. Interesting program, fun and pretty easy to use, but not a good fit for my T who was then in 4th grade. Then, we attempted Rod and Staff writing that is part of their excellent English curriculum, again not for us.
I dabbled in a few small things here and there finally settling on Writeshop which worked better than anything we had tried. It's well laid out, has excellent student and teacher instructions, but the exercises were not exciting. How many times can you describe something, really. What it did teach was the writing process in a very simple but methodical way.
Writeshop was not the answer to my writing curriculum prayers. I was still looking, and looking. One day while looking for Poogie a good writing program, because I wanted to get her started much earlier than T, I found Writing with Ease. Since we used this type of narration and summarizing in SOTW I thought, perfect. And so far it has been a challenging but great writing program for Poogie. But I digress, while looking at WWE I found a link to 7 chapters of a new program by Susan Wise Bauer, Writing With Skill for older students. I quickly downloaded it and implemented into our schedule the next week.
I would love to say it was easy and T loved it from the start but that would be a little white lie, lol. It took some time to get used to how the program is presented and the methods, but when you do the rewards are worth it.
T has always been a good writer, but summarizing and generalizing information is not his strongest skill. These are skills he must master to write well written research papers, a must in high school.
We have been slowly changing over to the classical method of homeschooling and the effective use of these programs by Susan Wise Bauer means we are right on track.
First, we tried Wordsmith. Interesting program, fun and pretty easy to use, but not a good fit for my T who was then in 4th grade. Then, we attempted Rod and Staff writing that is part of their excellent English curriculum, again not for us.
I dabbled in a few small things here and there finally settling on Writeshop which worked better than anything we had tried. It's well laid out, has excellent student and teacher instructions, but the exercises were not exciting. How many times can you describe something, really. What it did teach was the writing process in a very simple but methodical way.
Writeshop was not the answer to my writing curriculum prayers. I was still looking, and looking. One day while looking for Poogie a good writing program, because I wanted to get her started much earlier than T, I found Writing with Ease. Since we used this type of narration and summarizing in SOTW I thought, perfect. And so far it has been a challenging but great writing program for Poogie. But I digress, while looking at WWE I found a link to 7 chapters of a new program by Susan Wise Bauer, Writing With Skill for older students. I quickly downloaded it and implemented into our schedule the next week.
T has always been a good writer, but summarizing and generalizing information is not his strongest skill. These are skills he must master to write well written research papers, a must in high school.
We have been slowly changing over to the classical method of homeschooling and the effective use of these programs by Susan Wise Bauer means we are right on track.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Homeschool Record Keeping
As you may have read on my facebook page my computer got a virus last week and I lost the last 8 months of lesson plans on my Homeschool Tracker. I love the program, and it was my fault for not backing up my data base. I will use it again, but I' like to upgrade from the free Basic to the Plus. But thankfully, I saved all their tests and graded material. Plus, copies of all lesson plans printed out from HST. I also planned this year using subject planners for each quarter.it was nice to see how the year would play out. I love Donna Young's planners. She has great sources for all homeschoolers. She has plans for Apologia Science, handwriting and more. Check it out! Short but sweet :)
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Awesome Math Supplement
We are using Lial's Introduction to Algebra for T and loving it. However, we hit a wall in Ch. 3 on slopes so in our house that means going back to work on what we had trouble with. While researching for helps on the Well Trained Mind Forum, which I love, I found a suggestion by the same wonderful lady that suggested Lials. It's called InterActMath.com, and it's free. All you do is go to the site enter it and choose your math text, there are lots of them listed. Then you can work through examples with help if needed. I loved it. Check it out. I have been happy using the free Khan Academy videos but I think this is more of what T needs. We shall see.
I plan on sharing even more free and fun supplements and homeschool material I find. Let me know if you like it.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Curriculum wishes
You know that curriculum that you just love but cannot break down and buy. I found several of those at the Memphis Curriculum Convention last weekend. One of them was Visual World Geography. I love geography, but we haven't spent as much time on it as I would like. This program is fun with great mnemonic devices, and visual mapping guides to remember the placement and name of every country in the world. I wish this was more affordable, but it will stay on my wish list.
You know geography is one of those subjects not high on the standards list in our school systems. I just can't understand why they think that learning about our physical world isn't as important as say a gerund. To be able to have an intelligent discussion about world events one must know where in the world they are in relation to other places. You might be surprised how many people don't even know the continents and oceans much less where say Liechtenstein is.
You know geography is one of those subjects not high on the standards list in our school systems. I just can't understand why they think that learning about our physical world isn't as important as say a gerund. To be able to have an intelligent discussion about world events one must know where in the world they are in relation to other places. You might be surprised how many people don't even know the continents and oceans much less where say Liechtenstein is.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Wow, Lots of Changes..
I look at my last post lots of things have changed around here. So I will summarize since I want to get back to blogging about homeschooling. I was inspired after attending a homeschool convention last weekend. I need to share all this great info that I have accumulated after 6+ years of homeschooling. You take for granted when you find a great source that everyone else must know about this but I'm surprised to find out just how many don't. Many like me, most of the time, just don't have the free time to set down and go through all this stuff.
So what's been going on?? Well my hubby just started a new job today. He hasn't worked for over 5 and a half months. He wanted to but his new boss just wouldn't work him. Long, terrible story. But it amounted to a person having it in for a group of hard working men since they make more than him and come from a certain area. He decided to just starve them out. Well he succeeded with almost all of them. It cost us everything. We are starting over like it was when my son was two years old, he is now 15. By the time the "boss" decided to let the guys know that he wasn't going to work them, the job market is dry. My hubby must have put in 60 job apps and resumes. He's either too qualified or has nothing. It has totally changed how I feel about America and how our society is today. You don't get to turn you application into a human everything is on a computer, so you are just a number. Arrr, I could go on for hours. We didn't get unemployment because his employer wouldn't give him a letter for it. So we scraped by on less than 1/4 of our income for the last 5 months. The job he got is local, but it pays about 1/4 of what he is use to making a month. But it is all that is available and even to get a job somewhere else we would have to move, and that takes money.
Anywho, I am still homeschooling. This lack of funds has led me to have to look for every cheap, free or nearly free resource I could find. What I hope to do in the coming weeks is share some of these finds and others that I love with you. If you keep up with me you may notice that the items on my curriculum side bar have changed quite a bit. We are drifting more and more into the classical style of education for the most part. It has changed my views on everything.
So hold on tight and enjoy the ride, I plan on posting more. ;)
So what's been going on?? Well my hubby just started a new job today. He hasn't worked for over 5 and a half months. He wanted to but his new boss just wouldn't work him. Long, terrible story. But it amounted to a person having it in for a group of hard working men since they make more than him and come from a certain area. He decided to just starve them out. Well he succeeded with almost all of them. It cost us everything. We are starting over like it was when my son was two years old, he is now 15. By the time the "boss" decided to let the guys know that he wasn't going to work them, the job market is dry. My hubby must have put in 60 job apps and resumes. He's either too qualified or has nothing. It has totally changed how I feel about America and how our society is today. You don't get to turn you application into a human everything is on a computer, so you are just a number. Arrr, I could go on for hours. We didn't get unemployment because his employer wouldn't give him a letter for it. So we scraped by on less than 1/4 of our income for the last 5 months. The job he got is local, but it pays about 1/4 of what he is use to making a month. But it is all that is available and even to get a job somewhere else we would have to move, and that takes money.
Anywho, I am still homeschooling. This lack of funds has led me to have to look for every cheap, free or nearly free resource I could find. What I hope to do in the coming weeks is share some of these finds and others that I love with you. If you keep up with me you may notice that the items on my curriculum side bar have changed quite a bit. We are drifting more and more into the classical style of education for the most part. It has changed my views on everything.
So hold on tight and enjoy the ride, I plan on posting more. ;)
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)