Our Homeschool Focus

When we first started homeschooling, I identified our homeschool with a particular method of homeschooling and by the curriculum we purchased. But now, the focus of our homeschool has become creating a lifestyle of learning and cultivating family togetherness and developing the children's interests. We use academic curriculum as a tool to develop skills, so I don't think of our homeschool in reference to what curriculum we use.

Curriculum is part of what we do for Table Time and I wanted to post about what we're using now because I haven't posted on academics in awhile.

I recently decided to go a different route with our history reading. We've done history chronologically and we've been at ZERO for awhile, studying the life of Jesus. It pained me to think about picking up another H.A. Guerber book. I realized how bored I was with going through "the Greeks". I decided we'd read something else. I'm really enjoying "A Child's History of the World" by V.M. Hillyer, reading just a part of a chapter per day. I started the book and we're working up to ZERO again. A good review. I like that the book has a visual of stairs steps...Dan seems to "get" this kind of timeline.

I also felt the need to work on spelling, so I purchased Sequential Spelling and didn't like it at all. We're now using "The Wise Guide to Spelling", which is part of a larger curriculum set called "Spell to Write and Read", which I've had on my shelf since the beginning. We never used it to teach the kids to read since they learned that in school. But I'm using the spelling book a la carte and using this book to just go through spelling words to identify weaknesses. Dan has improved his spelling and he has noticed several times that he knows how to spell something from the reading he's done. Sarah has some weak spots and using the spelling book has helped me help her. I like that it connects each word to a spelling rule and I've here and there used the grammar portions to discuss grammar. I'm considering purchasing Winston Grammar in the near future. It is a hands-on grammar curriculum and I think we could benefit, though I refuse to waste a whole lot of time diagramming sentences!

Math is going well as we're still using ALEKS. In addition, Sarah also does Math Rider. Dan finished his first pie! When we moved, I realized my kids really needed to log in every single day so they didn't have to do new assessments all the time. It has helped them since I started requiring every single day for math. I need to do this in other areas, too!

The kids work on their spelling, grammar and writing by working on their notebooks and blogs and forum posts in various places.

We enjoy Mythbusters and some science DVDs, though I've put our biology book on the shelf for now. I'd like to come back and finish that soon, but I don't want Table Time going too long for right now.

I've been reading "Where the Sidewalk Ends" to expose them to some fun poetry and we continue doing Your Story Hour's "Adventures in Bible Study".

When we started homeschooling, I thought of our school with regards to what certain curricula we used. I've tried a lot of different things and feel good about our days with regards to academics and play.

If you only think of your homeschool with regards to what curriculum you use, like I used to, you might find this site challenging some of your ideas about education:
http://homeschoolcurriculumoflife.com/

Chores Continue-The Riding Lawn Mower

We got a used riding lawn mower today-whohooo! One Sunday, my husband spent over eight hours mowing with a lawnmower...and hadn't scratched the surface. Thankfully, he got just about everything done (main mowing, detail mowing and weed whacking) done in under four hours with the riding mower!

The kids of course, LOVE IT!  Dan did some mowing, Sarah only driving. But now it is her play thing, she's using it to travel across the pastures and playing games like "visiting Gramma". SO CUTE!

2013 Mount Rainier Hike

We've continued with our family weekend "hikes" (more like "walks) as we are able. We've done a lot of outside projects this summer since we moved in March, and haven't done as many hikes.

What a gorgeous day! We started at Crystal Mountain, riding the gondolas. As we crested the ridge, we were all totally STUNNED by the view of Mount Rainier! Incredible! Then we headed up to Sunrise, I've never been to Crystal nor Sunrise, so it was an adventure driving up there! We visited the gift shop and did a short walk on the downside of the parking lot. We then used the end of our day to visit Lake Tipsoo, a "darling" little lake! We didn't walk all the way around because everyone was done, but Sarah, John and I explored a little, enjoying the cute bridges and paths.

Writing and Dan

As we've been getting back into a daily routine and table time again, I realized that Daniel was doing busywork with his previous notebook (state flowers & birds). He had kinda fizzled out on his plushie notebook.

He asked to work on his blog a couple weeks ago, updating and adding some things. I thought that was fine to do for writing time instead of continuing on with the state flower/bird notebook (which I knew would end up being an interim thing).

So last week, I asked him to sit at the table and do some writing in the state flower/bird notebook. His face scrunched up and he refused. This led to a discussion, I asked him some questions, told him I realized the notebook was boring, but it was necessary to give him a platform to practice writing. Then he told me what he really wanted to do!

He said, "Mom, what I really want to do is perfect my plushie notebook. I want to take all new photos, and I want to have two photos, one main photo and another photo of a goofy or sticky situation that they get into, and I want at least a half page of lines so I can write more or write what is on my blog already onto the notebook pages".

I casually picked my jaw off the table and said, "sure, so today for your writing, I want you to take some new photos and then I can help you format the pages for the new notebook pages".

He went right to work for a few days taking the photos of his plushies. Then yesterday, he spent some time doing some cool photo editing (which he has only dabbled with in the past). He added blood spatters and other effects.

We printed some pages and he is highly motivated to write on his new pages! Here's a photo from this morning! He has the laptop so he can pull info from his blog. He wrote more today than he ever has in the past!