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.

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 :)

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.

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.

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. ;)