June 30, 2015

Home Art Studio ~ Impressionistic Painting

We have been using Home Art Studio for a long time now. You can see all of the projects I have blogged about here! Home Art Studio sent us curriculum to review years ago and has been a blog sponsor ever since. We love working with them and sharing Home Art Studio with you!

Did you know Home Art Studio is on Homeschool Buyers Co-op right now?

Get a great deal on the DVDs here!

I truly love the program, I just have a very difficult time fitting art into our daily routine. This past year has been especially hard with all of our life changes.

Recently I got our DVDs back out and let Ladybug choose a project from the 1st grade DVD. She chose Impressionistic Painting.

First, we watched the DVD lesson together, which she loved.

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She drew about 5 scenes in pencil before choosing the one she liked and wanted to paint. I stayed out of it completely and let her interpret the lesson as she wanted.

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She LOVED the end result and honestly the entire process was a joy with her. I stressed myself out in the past by doing a project with all three of my kids at once. This was so much more fun. It seems my personality is better doing art one kid at a time!

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Home Art Studio Information

Home Art Studio is an award winning DVD/ROM based art education program, taught by Lindsey Volin, designed for homeschooling families. Every fun art project teaches students experience, but who want to ensure that their children receive a well-rounded arts education.

Here are some helpful direct links:

FAQ
Free Lesson Videos ~ gives you an idea of how the lessons are formatted
Info about each grade level

Be sure to check out Home Art Studio on Homeschool Buyers Co-op!

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June 29, 2015

3rd Grade Homeschool Curriculum Choices Year-End Review

The homeschool curriculum choices blog posts are great, but what I really want to know is what families thought AFTER they used the curriculum they chose! I will be sharing a series of posts with you; evaluating our choices in each grade level and our group subjects.

Next, 3rd grade! Here’s a reminder of the original 3rd Grade Curriculum Choices post.

3rd grade is the year when school gets a little more intense, and it was also the year K’s gymnastics training schedule got more intense. Thankfully we were able to find a new groove after we moved and he did most of his individual schoolwork on 2 days each week! He did some subjects every day {math was an everyday subject} but the intense individual schooling happened on Tuesday and Thursday when he was home most of the day from the gym.

Below I will give a small review of each subject, if you have more specific questions about anything, just leave me a comment and I will do my best to answer!

Spelling ~ All About Spelling

This curriculum works well for him. We finished level 2 {left over from the previous year} and 3 this year. One big change we made this year was doing his lessons with the board on the table like this, instead of upright. For some reason, this really helped him and he was much easier to work with after this change. We will be continuing on with All About Spelling Level 4 next year.

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Grammar ~ Growing with Grammar 2 and First Language Lessons 1

Both were great fits for him, I am really pleased with the choices I made. We will be continuing on with both programs for 4th grade. I chose to use FLL level 1 with him because he has some auditory processing delays and I wanted a solid oral program. I was really slack with grammar in the early grades with him, so I needed to back up a bit.

He completed Growing with Grammar level 2 which was a good level for him. This is more of a workbook format, which he greatly prefers. I loved both.

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Vocabulary ~ Vocabulary Connections C

The animals made it bearable. This wasn’t his favorite subject, but he didn’t dislike it as much as his brother did. He worked with Daddy on this one after we moved, and it was a good fit for him. He needs some extra work with comprehension and thinking skills, which this provides along with vocabulary development. I haven’t decided if I will order the next level for him yet, I am researching other options right now {looking at Wordly Wise 3000 Online, & Spectrum Vocabulary 4 so far}.

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Writing ~ Write Shop D

Again, I was a slacker with writing. We did 4 lessons, and he enjoyed all but the actual writing part – ha ha! I like the curriculum and we plan to complete it this coming school year.

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Science ~ Apologia Exploring Creation with Botany

My best friend taught him with her son for the first half of the year before we moved. He loved it! I have no interest in teaching science at all and although I love Apologia, the elementary series looks overwhelming to me. Thankfully my friend loved teaching it to our boys!

Once we moved, I wanted him to continue with basic science reading, so we got out Pac’s old 3rd grade science book and Daddy read to him a few times per week. This worked well.

Math ~ Teaching Textbooks 4 & Life of Fred

Both of these were great fits for Krash. Teaching Textbooks was a great fit BUT we realized mid-year that he really benefitted from Daddy teaching him the lesson from the manual prior to going to the computer. So, that’s what we do. He needs the interaction prior to the computer teaching.

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Life of Fred was a nice solid oral review, which he needs. He completed books A-D with us reading to him. We will continue if we decide to purchase more, it’s a cost issue.

Reading

At the beginning of the year I had him read aloud to me daily to practice fluency. We used PacMan’s old Calvert readers from 3rd grade. He also read chapter books on his own, and I let him choose them.

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We enjoyed reading Smiling Hill Farm together.

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Want to see more of 3rd grade in action? Browse through our wrap-up posts, they are listed in order here and there’s a section for each of my kids in each post.

Stay tuned, I will be sharing our year-end review for Kindergarten and our All Together subjects. I will also be sharing our curriculum choices for 8th grade, 4th grade, 1st grade and All Together subjects.

We already shared our 7th Grade Year-End Review here.

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June 28, 2015

Playful Learning with Spielgaben June 2015

Playful Learning with Spielgaben is our monthly post sharing Spielgaben in action! If you missed the introduction to this series, you can see it here and also see links to our past posts. We were given the Spielgaben set to review and are honored to have them as a blog sponsor. I will be sharing once a month a detailed post featuring Spielgaben. You can also see my Learning with Ladybug posts to see what my daughter has done with this learning set!

$Math with Spielgaben$

Lessons We Enjoyed

This month we reviewed number combinations. Below you can see screenshots from the pdf file we used from the Math Guide, Play 8.

$Spielgaben Math Guide Play 8$

This was such a great lesson for Ladybug. She knows basic addition and has memorized many facts. Breaking numbers apart in a hands on way is so important for deeper understanding. The Spielgaben math guide give me so many ideas to use with her.

First, she sorted the sticks I had pre-selected for her from our set. We compared them and put them in order.

Then, she made a set of blocks with 1-6 on them {tape and a Sharpie}. We used those blocks to make number combinations up to 6.

We then added more blocks, up to 10 and continued the process.

It was just challenging enough for her, the sweet spot of developmentally appropriate. She wasn’t frustrated, but it wasn’t too easy either.

I took a small video for you to show us in action.

Free Play

Free play happens quite a bit, I just don’t always get photos! Here’s a few I captured of her creating more block puzzles! She got out her old puzzles and asked to make more! These are so fun and simple to make, she loves them.

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See the brand new version 4.0 here!

I can’t say enough about the new storage system, it is AWESOME!

Version 4 retails at US $449.50. The price is higher than version 3.0 because there are a lot more materials. My readers can own this new version at 11% off! As a 1+1+1=1 reader, you can get the discounted price of US $399.50 including shipping to Continental USA.

Special: US $399.50 | AU $499 | £268

Prices are approximate depending on conversion rates. All you need to do to claim your discount is send an email to[email protected] mentioning 1+1+1=1 and you will be provided with a discount coupon!

Please check directly with Spielgaben for current discount available, prices change with version updates and conversion rates.

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June 27, 2015

Tot School Gathering Place ~ Week 129

Welcome to Tot School™ Gathering Place! Gather together here, gather ideas from other blogs, share your own ideas on your own blog. Browse around at the other posts linked up, leave a few comments if you have time, and be sure to check back to see if your blog was featured!

Each week we will feature photo{s} and ideas from blogs who link up. Remember, provide a link back to Tot School Gathering Place within your post that you link up, so you can be considered for the feature!

Summer is in full swing around here! Swimming, playing, hiking, FUN! How is summer with your Tot going? Don’t forget to post all the fun in the sun that you are having and share your ideas with us at the Gathering Place!

Is your Tot interested in science? Check out the activities that Grandmama Deb from Living Montessori Now put together for her GrandTot Zoey to explore the life-cycle of frogs. It just may interest your Tot!

Do you need an outside activity to keep the kids busy during these hot summer days? Take a look at the idea Mama Stephanie from Casa Watkins put together to help her Tot enjoy the outside weather!

Are you looking for some ideas to entertain your Tot while you accomplish other tasks either around the house or with your older children? Head on over to Make This the Day to see several ideas that Mama Andrea put together to keep her two-year old son engaged. Some may work for you and your Tot!

Were you featured? You are welcome to a button but you certainly don’t have to use it! Totally optional!

Do you have your FREE

Where to Begin with Tot School eBook?

See the Tot School webpage here!

Follow {1plus1plus1} Carisa’s board Tot School Ideas on Pinterest.

Are you NEW or have never been featured? Read this! Basics: write a specific post about what you did with your tot, link up the permalink from your post, link back to Tot School within that post, put your tot’s age in months in ( ) like this: (43 months).

Special note to bloggers who link up with us…

Have you noticed that the same people are being featured week after week? If you are not being featured it is most likely because you don’t link back to Tot School Gathering Place in your post. Only 3 blogs linked back to us last week. I would love to feature more of you and kindly ask that you link back to us, it’s simple blogger kindness. Please don’t link up with us if you have no plans of linking back to us. I hate to be a linky-meanie but I’ve been running the Tot School linky for over 7 years, and it has never been this bad {regarding bloggers linking back as a courtesy to the host}. If you need any help with linking back, read here.

Please read above paragraph before linking up with us!

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June 26, 2015

7th Grade Homeschool Curriculum Year-End Review

7th Grade Homeschool Curriculum Choices Year-End Review

First up, 7th grade! Here’s a reminder of the original 7th Grade Curriculum Choices post.

Overall it was a very successful year for my son, despite many interruptions to our homeschool schedule. Everything went crazy a few months into the school last year when my husband fell off of a ladder and broke both legs 6 weeks before we were moving. Needless to say, that affected our homeschooling greatly. Even with the crazy, he did really well and made it through all of these subjects.

Below I will give a small review of each subject, if you have more specific questions about anything, just leave me a comment and I will do my best to answer!

Science ~ Apologia General Science

He did this subject mostly on his own, with guidance and leadership from his Dad. Daddy manages science and math in our house now for the boys. They both felt this was a solid science program and have chose to complete the 2nd portion {Physical Science} for 8th grade.

The experiments were his favorite part…

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Math ~ Teaching Textbooks Pre Algebra

This was a big success for our son. I can’t say he loves it, because it is a lot of work, but he likes it better than other math curriculums he has used. We will be continuing on with Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1 for 8th grade.

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Math ~ Life of Fred Fractions

He loved this book, but this is the only one he completed {meaning I didn’t buy anymore beyond this}. Originally I planned to use the whole Pre Algebra series, but after the first we decided not to buy the rest. If someone gave us these books we might continue to use them, I just decided not to pay for more at this time.

Reading

We were SO slack with reading this year! He read The Bronze Bow, Hittite Warrior, I Am David and The Hiding Place. I let him choose books and read at his own pace. These were the books I had borrowed from a friend for him to choose from. Sadly I had to return them when we moved, so he didn’t get through all of them as I had planned.

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I wanted to see what his pace would be without a strict curriculum guiding us. His pace was a little slower than I would like. I decided we both need more of a guided reading program so I bought Sonlight’s American Historical Literature 130 for 8th grade {bought the manuals, will be getting books at the library}. He already read the first two books {Peace Child, and Stink Alley}.

Grammar ~ Growing with Grammar 7

This is a good fit for both of us. He doesn’t love grammar, but said he prefers this program if he HAS to do grammar. We will be continuing on with this program with level 8.

Writing ~ Write Shop 1

Slacker. That’s me. We got through 3 lessons done, yup 3. I got very overwhelmed with real life {my husband’s accident and our move} and writing was pushing me over the edge. So, we quit. I do love this curriculum and we will be picking up right where we left off and hopefully NOT giving up this year.

Vocabulary & Comprehension ~ Vocabulary Connections G

I like this workbook, he does not. He completed it and was very thankful to be done. I am not requiring him to do a vocabulary workbook for 8th grade, he will be focusing on vocabulary through his reading with Sonlight.

Spelling ~ Spelling Workout G

He did not like this spelling book and honestly neither did I. Many of the words were words I have never heard of and didn’t know how to pronounce {maybe that shows my intelligence level?}, but even when my husband took this subject over in the spring, he said it was an obscure word list. We will not be using this again and will instead use the spelling list in Sonlight.

Bible/Worldview ~ Who is God?

We basically just read this book together. We both enjoy it, but have no plans to purchase the rest at this point. If they were given to us we would definitely use them, it’s a budget thing right now.

Stay tuned, I will be sharing our year-end review for 3rd grade, Kindergarten and our All Together subjects. I will also be sharing our curriculum choices for 8th grade, 4th grade, 1st grade and All Together subjects.

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