Pennywise Learning Giveaway

This weeks giveaway for the week of May 7th. I copied this from the blog as I have never used the product but it looks oober cool.

This week at PennywiseLearning.com, we’re giving away an Ein-O Science Nature Explorer kit.

Explore 10 Gritty Activities

- Nature Lab (plants)
– Growing Plants
- Plant Survivors
- Bug Eye
- Nature Lab (bugs)
- Light Shelter
- Antzville
- Germiniator Lab
- Plant Preservations
- Bug Viewer

Click here to Enter

Finding the right math program

I'll admit, after all of these years homeschooling you would think I would have it all down pat as to what curriculum works best for us. Sadly after eight years I still have much to learn as what curriculum really works best. We've had our fair share of duds as well as that great curriculum.

I've found that I really like Christian Light Curriculum. I think for the price and how the curriculum is put together its well worth it and children really learn quite a bit from it. I really liked the Christian Light Math when I used it with Marilyn. Thought it wasn't her favorite her math skills really improved quite a bit that last half of the year.

I have found that curriculums like Calvert and K12 , though very good in their own right are to time consuming for families that have more than two children. Sometimes it can be to time consuming for even those with more than two. I think it would work well if I just had one child. But since I live in the real world I don't I have four and the more independent the curriculum and the less lesson planning I have to make the better.

With all of this said the girls are going to go to private school this fall and the school uses Saxon math. I used Saxon once before with my 2nd daughter Katie and it worked REALLY, REALLY well for her. I had used the K and 1st grade and she just thrived with it. What made me stop using it you ask? Well for one we were with a cyberschool for 1st grade. So I was juggling both Calvert math and Saxon so it lined up with her tests that we had to send back to the school. It worked just fine for 1st for us but by the time we got to 2nd grade we had Maggie and well,,, I then only had time for one math program and Calvert won out since I had to turn in tests to the school. So for the past 3 years its been nothing but tears for math for Katie. Her believeing that she is stupid when it comes to math and in all honesty that's not the case at all. Saxon works for Katie and it also works well for Hannah. I used the K12 math with Hannah last year and it worked just fine with her but not this year. Hannah needs more review just like Katie.
So if you've read this far you will no doubtly guess that I caved in and bought Saxon for the girls. The point is two folds as it will help them to just dive right in with math when they go to St. Thomas this fall and it will help catch them up on the things they just weren't understanding.

So for now Katie is loving math once again. That lightbulb has finally turned back on once again for her. Hannah is understanding math much better finally, and Maggie loves her K math.
I also bought the 6/5 for Marilyn in hopes it helps her. I feel she is lacking in something somewhere and after taking the diagnostic test this is where she placed. Not sure if it was lack of taking the time to do the test or if this is really where she is but we'll go with it and move on from there. I'm not sure if Saxon will fit Marilyn well or not. She is such a picky kid when it comes to school books in general. I think in the end Marilyn is just going to have to get over it and do the math.

Pennywise Learning Giveaway

The homeschooling company Pennywise Learning is giving away one Complete Zoo Adventure Guide. I don't know much about it other then from what I've read about it on their blog. So I have copied and pasted the review of this really neat curriculum from their blog.

Sometimes The Best Learning Happens Outside The Schoolroom!

With the Complete Zoo Adventure, a family field trip to the zoo becomes an unforgettable learning adventure with this unique, evolution-free guide to the incredible world of animals!

Did you know:

•That the flamingo’s pink color comes from the food that it eats?
•That the hummingbird’s heart beats 1,000 times per minute?
•That the polar bear has a third eyelid that acts as “sunglasses” to protect it from snow blindness?
The Complete Zoo Adventure sets the stage for learning with “Before the Zoo” preparations, gives you the tools you need for an awesome “At the Zoo” experience, and then continues to deepen the understanding of God’s Creation with fabulous “After the Zoo” activities. Truly a complete guide like no other!

Includes:

•7 Devotionals
•27 Encounters with God’s Creatures
•“Looking Ahead” – 7 Creation Foundation Lessons
•Detailed Professional Educator Guide
•27 Scripture Memory Aids
•12 Name Badges
•Over 35 Reproducible Activity Sheets
•27 Field Fact Cards
•3 Field Journals
Spiral Casebound • 9 x 9 • 150 pages • 4 Color • Authors: Gary and Mary Parker

You will need to visit the Pennywise blog to enter.

Maggie's first Lapbook!

Horray! Maggie made her very first lapbook with her mommy. Though coloring it was quite a chore for her. I can't blame her though as she may not have the muscle strength in her hands due to her hypoplastic left thumb. But she did it and I am so very , very proud of her. By the pictures you can tell she was proud of herself too! The lapbook we chose to do was The Carrot Seed which we got off of the website Homeschoolshare.com




The sides:



The inside of the lapbook: We talked about different kinds of vegetables, what seeds need to grow, we talked about different sizes, large, medium and small, the vegetables that start with the letter C, and there is a cute little pull up carrot in the lapbook too.



On the bottom flap we talked about the colors of brown and orange.


Here it the back. I did manage to google a few carrot worksheets from Kidzone.ws
Plus the Itsy Bitsy Book as well. The seed minibook is from a template from Homeschool Share's lapbook templates and may beans, apples,and tangerines gave their life to sit in this minibook.



So there you go. Maggie's very first lapbook. Our next lapbook we are going to do is called Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb Book. I think it will be pretty fitting to talk about her hand differences with her going to preschool. I know there will be some inquisitive kid that will notice that she has what we like to call a cartoon hand. LOL.

Lapbook Giveaway

To celebrate Mother's Day. Lapbook Lessons.com and the Hearts at Home website is holding a giveaway for one of the Homeschool in the Woods Lapbooking CD's.

If your not familiar with Homeschool In the Woods they sell a hands on curriculum for History, Sciene, and Art, and Bible.
We actually own about three of the History Cd's that they sell and let's just say they are really fun to use.
My oldest really enjoyed the Explorers CD's. The history is included along with notebooking pages and lapbooking templates. Also included are some hands on activities that we really enjoyed doing. Last year Marilyn made an adobe hut, which we entered into the fair which recieved first place. We also made glow in the dark constellations with glow in the dark puffy paint.

So check out the giveaway and enter today! Click here : Lapbook Lesson Giveaway

Where the Red Fern Grows

Phew! We are finally finished with our Where the Red Fern Grows Lapbook.
It was a labor of love for sure as I didn't have many ideas to spawn off of since there aren't many lapbooks on the literature for the upper grade levels. I had only found one lapbook that had been made by a school teacher online. So it helped a little bit in getting the ideas that I needed. Though I still feel like there could of been more to our lapbook it did turn out nice and I hope it spawns ideas for others.
Though we are done with it its still a work in progress because a friend of mine just so happened to have a literature guide that went with the story. So I am printing some things out of that for the girls to do and save in their lapbooks. I wished I had it from the get go because it really would of helped with what to put in their lapbooks. Still I can't help but to be impressed with what we did do with it.

Bascially all we did was read the book as a read aloud. I'm sure at some point the girls will want to read the book again. Marilyn pretended as if she didn't like the story but I know better. Katie and Hannah enjoyed listening to the story. After we were finished with the story we began work on the lapbook and in the meantime we managed to find the DVD movie of it at Walmart. It was just sitting there all by its lonesome self on a shelf. As if it were meant to be there for me at that very moment. Talk about luck, huh?

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

TOS- Homeschooling in the Summer

Hello everyone. So its Monday and the question of the week for the The Old Schoolhouse is: Do you homeschool through the summer? Why or why not? What do you do?


Usually in the Reed family household we enjoy taking the summers off. There has been a few years (those after Maggie was born) where we had to school through the summer and we maybe were fortunate to have three weeks off before starting the next round of schooling. The last few years we've been able to dodge the bullet and enjoy our summers.

This year will again be the acception to the rule as our summer will pretty much start off with going back to Cincinnati with Maggie for bowel managment. We are going to attempt to get her in big girl undies so she can go to preschool school this year at St. Thomas. Of course if all else fails she is going to have to stay home and I'll have to homeschool preschool. With that said honestly out of my four children Maggie is my one that REALLY needs to be attending school. Since birth the poor child has been poked and prodded by strangers and so now she is four years old and now is forming the opinions that those who are different from mommy and daddy must be out there to hurt her. Who can blame her? She's only has been poked, literally prodded and has had countless tests and surgeries. I think I would feel the same way.

The older girls are going to need to continue to work on their math. Hannah is working well with her Saxon 1 and Katie is doing VERY well with Saxon 5/4 math. I do have Algebra 1/2 for Marilyn but I think I may need to back up a little and put her in maybe 8/7. I'll have to have her take the placement test and we'll have to see. This way the girls will go into school and not feeling clueless when it comes to the math. In the same breath it will only benefit them if they continue practicing math since most kids lose math skills if they don't practice them through out the summer.

We will also have to work on writing skills. I will say out of everything we do here at home this part of our homeschooling has been the weakest. My girls are NOT natural writers and they just resist this at every possible turn they can get. Boy are they going to be in for it when they go to school this year. But in the same breath I really want to help them get past this hurdle before they start school because it will be a true struggle if they don't.
I haven't decided on what to try and use yet because I can't seem to find anything that really fits what I am looking for. I'm looking for something spiral, to break down how to write sentences the right way all the way to being able to write something on their own that makes sense.
I'm possibly looking into maybe something like Writing Strands but I haven't made up my mind yet.
I'm still looking for any and all suggestions from others on the subject of writing.

The next thing we will work on during the summer is on lapbooking. I love to do this with the girls. My younger three enjoy it more then their older sister. But I make her do it just for my amusement. Plus whether she wants to believe it or not its good for her and she'll appreciate them someday when she sits with her own children someday and can remanice about the fun times and when they did this with me.

So as this year begins go to close we will be preparing for a new journey. In the meantime I'm not going to give up my reigns when it comes to homeschooling all to easily. There is always the summer time!