TJ is getting ready to turn FIVE! 

How did that happen?

That means he will officially be a kindergartner this year. And we have some great plans for school this year!

For our core curriculum we’ll be using something new…

Simply Classical by Memoria Press!

I am a firm believer that every kid should be able to learn at his own pace, and when I went searching for a “just right” curriculum for this year, Simply Classical kept showing up on my radar. It seems to be the right “next step” for us, perfect for little guys that are learning to sit still for lessons, who need to strengthen skills, and who need to incorporate therapies into their school days. It moves at just the right pace for our boys.

We spent a few weeks in June going through Level A, and made a list of activities we want to continue throughout the year, mostly fine and gross motor skills. I love that they’re built right into the daily lesson plans!

We’re just now starting with Level B, and already TJ is loving the predictable structure to our days and likes to watch me check off our daily assignments. (And Noah is joining in wherever he can… we’ll probably recycle Level A for him next year when Tyler is focusing more heavily on phonics.)

Honestly… Classical education was not a method I had planned on using. My first impressions of it involved heavy academics and tons of rote memory. But the more I see it in action, especially in the younger years, the more I like it. It involves lots of classic picture books and great children’s literature, simple and uncluttered workbooks, slow and steady phonics instruction, and lots of discussion and interaction. Yes, there’s memorization, but it’s important things like the Lord’s Prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, and our address. Simply Classical also has a four-day week, which works great for us since it leaves one day for field trips, therapies, (or just a day off!) and spreads the schoolwork out throughout the year. And the simple daily framework lets me beef things up for TJ or simplify them for Noah… and it also lets me add in fun projects, extra activities, or things I find on Pinterest.

Because Pinterest. 😬

Anyway, I’m hoping to share our adventures with this curriculum… hopefully I can be more diligent about blogging this coming year!

Well… I missed an entire year of doing homeschool blog posts. So… here’s a quick update!

We continued using My Father’s World’s curriculum as our main core this past year. After finishing All Aboard the Animal Train, we moved on to Voyage of Discovery, their program for four year-olds. Voyage is a letter-a-week curriculum that also focuses on going through the Bible from Creation to Jesus. I had high hopes of posting weekly about our year with Voyage, but instead here are some highlights from TJ’s preschool year!

This was such a great Creation craft… we’ll definitely recycle this activity!

Letter A!

Building the Tower of Babel!

Fire station field trip!

Letter tracing!

J is for Jesus!

X marks the spot!

Valentines make for great scissor practice!

Imthink I love playing with these as much as the kids do.

A little brotherly assistance.

Learning about colors!

I think I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re “-ish” homeschoolers.

Unit-Study-ish…

Charlotte-Mason-ish…

Old-School-ish…

Traditional-ish…

Whole-Hearted-ish….

It took us quite a while to “get here.”

When we began homeschooling, I was certain we were going to be “Traditional” homeschoolers. Textbooks, scope & sequences, perfectly-filled-out planners, by-the-book homeschoolers.

And then I started reading about all the many different learning styles.

The learning process in all its stages totally fascinates me. The many different ways of teaching fascinate me. All the awesome blog posts and YouTube videos about homeschool curriculum draw me in. But you can’t do it all and stay sane and have your children still like you. (Emphasis on that last phrase) It helps to learn what style of education… and that can be an eclectic mix… works best for your family and your individual children.

What are we using with our littlest guys so far? We’ve needed to find a lot of sensory activities for our boys, and A Year of Playing Skillfully has been a good fit. It will probably be part of our yearly “rhythm” throughout the early grades. Each month, there is a theme that fits perfectly with the season, and lots of real-life activities, crafts, sensory experiences, play ideas, and more. Between our two boys and a whole bunch of grandkids that visit, we’ll definitely get our money’s worth out of that curriculum!  And since we’ve always homeschooled year-round, I am so excited about A Summer of Playing Skillfully… hot off the presses!

This winter, TJ suddenly was ready for a little bit of “sit down and do school time,” and I went searching for something that would be a good fit. My Father’s World has always caught my eye, so we ordered All Aboard the Animal Train for him. What I love best about My Father’s World are the Bible lessons in the preschool, kindergarten, and early grades… and with all the curriculum researching and googling and sampling that’s been going on around here, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God” keeps coming to the foreground. Developing a love for God’s Word is our family’s #1 priority. My Father’s World also incorporates a Charlotte Mason philosophy of learning with tons of good books, is unit study-based, and has lots of hands-on activities.

And for the not-so-distant future of elementary school? I’m really liking the Train Up a Child Unit Study curriculum! We’re a history-loving family, and I love that Train Up a Child goes through the timeline Every. Single. Year. They use a layering approach that helps kids slowly build an in-depth understanding of each period of history. Chronological study and big-picture thinking is important in learning about history, and I hope to develop a year-round rhythm of studying God’s story of our world… His Story. Train Up a Child also uses tons of living books, is project-based, and the historical units offer lots of room for delight-directed study and bunny trails!

If these curriculums work the way I THINK they will, we’ll be able to cover most of our “-ish’s”… or at least have a good head start with lots of tweaking room!

There are So. Many. Choices.

Choosing homeschool curriculum reminds me of the toothpaste aisle. There was Crest, Colgate, or Pepsodent, and now a shopper has to decide on flavors, sparkles, gel or paste, whitening, brightening, tartar control, sensitivity reduction, gingivitis healing, or some combination thereof. It’s a little mind boggling.

The choices for curriculum grew pretty quickly… when our oldest daughter was four, and we were just beginning to maybe possibly think about homeschooling, I found the number for a major Christian curriculum supplier, and called for a catalog. They only sold to Christian schools at that point, and suggested that I try to order through a school. About three years later, they had booths at homeschool conventions, and did regular “hotel shows” for homeschooling families. There were only a few books about “how to homeschool” out there, and most families we knew used traditional textbooks (published by three companies), worktexts (published by three companies), or they did unit studies. There was only one major unit study publisher back then… or you could plan your own  if you were really brave. Unschooling was an option too, but I never met anyone THAT brave.

And there was no Internet.

As in, “you had to find a phone number or address and request a catalog and wait for it to come to your mailbox at the end of your driveway” no Internet.

(Did I just type that?)

I’m definitely oversimplifying a bit, but choosing curriculum in 1993
and choosing curriculum in 2018 is big time different.

Especially for the preschool years.

Homeschooling the preschool years wasn’t really a thing. Your kids either went to preschool or they didn’t. I think the major Christian school curriculum publishers may have offered preschool programs, but they wouldn’t send me a catalog. And, many homeschool families fell into the Better Late Than Early camp, and felt formal lessons weren’t necessarys during the preschool years. Since we weren’t really sure about homeschooling at that point, and since I had kids that loved doing “school,” I finally found an inexpensive curriculum that used library books. We did it lightly during our oldest daughter’s last year at home (before kindergarten), and then used it with little sister while she was in kindergarten.

When I go curriculum shopping now, I sometimes feel like I’m trying to pick out that perfect tube of toothpaste. But I’m also so excited to see all the possibilities. There is so much good stuff out there, no matter if you lean toward teaching them early or late. Or if visual, auditory, or kinesthestic materials work best for your preschoolers. Or if they like snuggling up on the couch with a good book or playing phonics games on the iPad. Or if you have a kid that loves workbooks or one that would rather spend his days feeling mud squish between his toes.

Or any combination thereof.

 

Does anybody remember that song that Barbara Mandrell sang called  “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool?”

Google tells me that song came out in 1981, which means I am totally dating myself in this blog post. But that’s kind of the point, I guess? We’re a homeschooling family, and when I think of how long we’ve homeschooled, that song comes to mind, because homeschooling was definitely not “cool” yet!

We officially began homeschooling in 1993. We had met a couple of families by calling people that we heard might know something about homeschooling, but didn’t know anyone personally that actually homeschooled. (Amazingly enough, another family at our church made the decision to begin homeschooling at the same time we did… Neither of us knew the other was considering it!) When we told people we were going to homeschool, the first question was “is that legal?”

It was.

And the second was “Why?”

The reasons that we began this journey?

Early seeds were planted… I believe the Lord had prepared my heart to homeschool our children from the time I was a little girl. I had a love for learning, a passion for great books, a desire to teach, and parents that encouraged my brother and I to try new things and to learn on our own and bought encyclopedias so we could do just that.

Glimpses of alternate forms of education…My brother went to Christian school in his high school years. Self-study and a little bit of tutoring helped me catch up in school after several months of illness when I was in 11th grade. A college Educational Philosophy class I took explored alternative methods of teaching. Hubby and I visited a church that had a parent-taught school. And I saw a book about homeschooling in a bookstore that intrigued me but also made me wonder “Who in the world would actually do that?”

Turns out we would.

Kids that would thrive in a different educational setting… We had one kid who was reading fluently at four and also had severe motion sickness that gained her a special seat and her own personal trash can on the kindergarten bus. And another kid that Could.Not.Sit.Still. and probably would have had a label stamped on her forehead before the first week of school was over. And they both loved to “play school” with their mom who had never outgrown playing school herself.

And most important…

A desire for a Christian education for our children… Hubby and I were serious about raising our girls to know and love the Lord and His Word, and we believed Deuteronomy Chapter 6 gave a clear picture of how we should do that. Christian school was one possibility, but the closest one was about 45 minutes away. (Remember how I mentioned the kid that threw up in cars early in the morning? Yeah.) And there was no way we could afford two kids in private school.

So… after a trial year in public school kindergarten, we took the plunge, ordered a box full of curriculum, made sure we were “legal,” and told our friends and family about our decision. Somehow they didn’t think we were totally crazy. Or if they did, they didn’t say so. And we committed to the long haul… our plans from the beginning was to see it through to the end.

These girls graduated from homeschool in 2005 and 2007,
and now have sweet families of their own!

We’ve been blessed with the incredible chance to do this whole thing over! Twenty-five years after we officially began, we’re beginning again, this time with boys! I’m over-the-moon excited to try new curriculum, re-do some of our absolute favorite homeschool curricula, and experience the difference between homeschooling then and homeschooling now!

I can’t wait to share this experience here with these two fellas!

(And I also can’t wait to be able to show the
sweet face hiding behind that red heart!!)

Our August preschool theme has been the Seashore.

And that’s a good place to start our school year, considering that we only live about four miles from the Atlantic Ocean! We have lots of shoreline environments to explore… the ocean and the bay, Indian River and its inlet, creeks and “landings” and salt marshes…

We’re really only beginning to explore our local environment with our theme. It’s definitely going to be a lifelong nature study topic for our family.

We’ve had a lot of fun activities planned for this month, but first
take a look at some of the great resource books we’ve enjoyed!

Two of our favorite reference books are the First Encyclopedia of Seas and Oceans and the Usborne Young Beginners Seashore book by Usborne Books & More. The encyclopedia is geared for ages 8 and up, but I have a 3 year-old that calls it “MY book” and thumbs through its pages on a regular basis.

However, the content of the Seashore book is a
little more on the preschool level, and
is “just my size” for little hands to carry!

I love the way Usborne books give a “storybook” feel
to informational picture books…
…On the Seashore is a sweetly illustrated book that
creates curiosity in young ocean visitors!

Another favorite is Secrets of the Seashore… a Shine-A-Light book by Kane Miller. If you shine a flashlight through the back of each page, you can see a secret “inside story!”

Anyway, that’s a first peek into our August preschool learning!

Our July theme was “Red Light, Green Light”… We needed to work a little on listening and following directions, so we went with a traffic rules theme. Since TJ is totally obsessed with anything involving wheels, this was a hit! We only got to see Z-Man and Sweet T a few times due to sickness, so TJ did a lot of the activities by himself. And, quite a few of the things we did were simply put out for him to play with whenever he was in the mood, so they were more than a “one time lesson.”

We started out with construction play with homemade play-doh. We made this stuff back in the winter when we did a Gingerbread Man unit, and it’s still hanging in there! There were quite a few germs floating around back then too, so we added some of Young Living’s Thieves oil to ward them off, as well as to make it smell yummy!

Counting to 3 (and recognizing the numbers) was one of our main goals for this month. TJ’s Melissa & Doug garage that he got for his birthday was perfect for practicing!

Our sensory bin was filled with black beans to look like asphalt. It made a fun plinking sound in this old agate casserole pan!

More counting practice with cars and foam shapes.

Hang onto those Melissa & Doug storage trays! They can be used for so many things!

Painting with trucks!

Drying our finished paintings.

And cleaning up is always fun if a hose is involved!

It’s even more fun with friends.

This here is serious work.

We found a fun stop light activity on Pinterest…

… Great for small motor skill coordination!

I’m playing with the idea of lap booking our themes so the little folks have something to look back on and remember…

… and maybe practice some of the things they learned!

We’ll probably add a bit more to our lapbook before we put it on the shelf, but this is what the inside looks like right now. “Red Light, Green Light” was a fun gross motor skills game we played that involved listening carefully and running about like crazy people. Our Bible verse for July was a shortened version of Ephesians 6:1, and we sang the Donut Man’s  O-B-E-Y quite a bit. It was a favorite of our girls. (Or maybe of Mom and Dad’s?)

😀

 Below are some favorite books that we read this month…

Anastasia Sumi’s Red Light, Green Lightis a cute rhyming picture book that showcases a little boy who used all sorts of “around the house” materials to build his roads. Discussing the pictures was fun!

Yumi Heo’s Red Light, Green Lightwas a sweet Lift-the-Flap book about road signs.

Toot Toot, Beep Beepby Emma Garciahas been a favorite since TJ was a little tyke… There are several books in this series and we love them all!

P.D. Eastman’s Go, Dog, Go!is an old favorite!

And the “sleeper” favorite was by far Red Light, Green Lightby Margaret Wise Brown. (She’s the author of Goodnight Moon!) I wasn’t sure if the quietly quirky story line and vintage illustrations would catch TJ’s attention, but he asked to read this one over and over again… sometimes right after we finished reading it!

I’ve been meaning to post about our Tot School Adventures this year, but sometimes with little people, you just have time to prepare the fun, snap the pictures, clean up the crumbs, and prepare the next fun… And I forget to organize it all in a photo album or blog post! So here’s a quick pictorial overview of our school days so far this year!

The Students…

Our son, TJ

Our Grandboy, Z-Man

Ou Grandgirl, Sweet T

A is for Ark…

Going on a Bear Hunt…

Caterpillars and Creation…

D is for Dirt…

Green Eggs & Ham…Green Eggs & Ham…

One Fish, Two Fish…

G is for Giant… 

…and Magic Beans, of course.

So far, we’ve done a crazy mix of Before Five in a Row, The Peaceful Preschool, The Homegrown Preschooler, and Pinterest activities, with an underlying theme of a “Letter a Week.” I’m not so sure they’re understanding the overall Alphabet theme at this point, so we took a slight detour this summer, mixing activities suggested by The Homegrown Preschooler. Our current plan is to go full steam ahead with A Year of Playing Skillfully(incredibly fun curriculum based on The Homegrown Preschooler) and mixing in Before Five in a Rowbooks where they fit in. We’re going to hold off on The Peaceful Preschooluntil next year, when everyone is ready for more in-depth letter learning. (Although Z-Man is going to get some Alphabet practice on his own this year!)

What’s on the books for this upcoming year is monthly themes, lots of good books, oodles of sensory activities and motor skill development, messy art experiences and silly songs, Bible stories, and good times playing with “cousins” and friends! My next post will be about our July theme, transitioning us toward saying “Yes!” to playing skillfully!

Folks, there are some incredibly awesome
homeschool curriculums out there.

This will probably “date me,” but many of the now-popular time-tested homeschool curricula was not even created when we began homeschooling our older girls! New programs written just for the homeschooling lifestyle were just beginning to come out, but having grown up in what “school is supposed to look like,” I was definitely wary of trying them out during our first few years. If I did get brave enough, those new methods were tacked on as extras on top of our “real school” workbooks and lesson plans that were completed in our little school desks or at the chalkboard. (I even had a bell to ring to let the girls know our day was ready to begin. I am not kidding.)

One of those new, innovative curriculums was called “Five in a Row.”

Actually, by the time I heard of it, I was fine with trying something new and focusing our school days around the wonderful books we were reading. But… We were always “a little ahead” of the Five in a Rowseries as they were being released. Our girls seemed to be just beyond the recommended ages.

But…

…There’s a new toddler (actually four new toddlers!) in our lives, and I can’t wait to use the fun stuff this time around! Thankfully Jane Claire Lambert also came out with Before Five in a Row… a fun volume created just for preschoolers! So we tried our first “Rowing” experience last week!

It’s blueberry harvesting time on our little homestead, so we thought Blueberries for Salwould be a good book to start with. Our daughter Kateand her two littles came over, as well as my sweet friend Beth who is homeschooling her second batch of kiddos. She’s a Five in a Rowveteran, so we sure appreciated her expertise! All in all, we had five little people ages 4 and under. Four boys and a tiny girl. (GrandNana came and stole the girl!)

Since we had a variety of ages, we took it easy with the activities.
Beth read aloud Blueberries for Sal. The older boys knew the story well, and listened from afar until the bears showed up in the story. One toddler boy had his nose right up against the book as it was being read, and the other toddler boy repeated the word “Mama” every time it was read. The tiny girl seemed more interested in eating the book than listening to the story.

We figured action was going to be the best plan, so the next thing we did was head outside to pick blueberries. Picking was definitely the highlight of the day! Beth had brought the perfect little buckets, and the blueberries went “kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk” as they dropped in the pails, just like in the story! And, just like in the story, many berries were eaten before they made it into a bucket. The boys also thought it was grand fun to pour their berries into each other’s buckets. There were leaves and sticks involved.

After the picking, we headed inside for some homemade blueberry muffins and milk. (Recipe below!) Four hungry boys, three Mama’s, and a big sister (actually two big sisters?) gobbled them up! While the kids were finishing their muffins, cut-out “blueberries” were hidden around the family room and the boys had a fun time searching for them! Next, we sorted pompoms by color, making sure we put the “blueberries” in a pot so we could can them and “have food for the winter.”

We had a couple other activities planned, including “Follow Your Mama” and an art project, but we decided with the extremely hot weather and quickly approaching naptimes, we’d better quit while we were ahead! All in all, we had a really fun time “Rowing” our first Five in a Rowbook with this little group of friends! Can’t wait to try it again!

Nana’s Sweet (Blueberry) Muffins!

Sift together 2 cups Flour, 1/2 cup Sugar, 2 teaspoons Baking Powder, and 1/2 teaspoon Salt. Add in 1 cup Milk, 1 beaten Egg, and 1/4 cup Oil or Melted Butter. (I tend to go for the butter, but I add it to the cold milk to cool it down a bit so it doesn’t cook the egg!) Stir until just mixed and fold in about 1/2 cup of fresh or frozen blueberries. Spoon into a greased muffin pan (12-cup) and sprinkle a little sugar on top… Raw sugar looks really pretty! Bake about 15-20 minutes at 400°. Take them out when they smell awesome, are firm on top, and are just beginning to brown. Serve with butter if you like!

This is adapted from my Nana’s Sweet Muffin recipe,
and they are every bit as good without the blueberries!
Nana Anne always made these with Jiffy Mix, but I fiddled
with the recipe until I got it as close as possible to hers!

Special thanks to Kylie for her picture-taking abilities!!!