Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills Grade 6

I love these books. I usually buy one each year, up to say 8th grade, then I move away from them. These are not meant to be stand alone curriculum, but a fun way to refresh or fill busy work in a day. They are fun and educational. This year I had one given to me, by a homeschooler who put her kids in public school. Even though it is a grade ahead of where my daughter will be this year, I want her to be challenged. So, I will use it.

DJ's curriculum is all planned out. That just leaves me to finish up Caitlin's and get our calendar together. My FIL is coming to visit the second week of Sept, so our new school year will be delayed slightly by a week. That broke the kid's hearts.

We continue with our Geography State Capital game, and the kids are starting to remember a lot of them. Plus the Math money game, I posted in the previous post, is working wonders for Caitlin. I did have to add some regular coins to the jar, just to be sure she actually knew the coins not just the decimal amounts written on the bottle tops. I could not be more pleased with the results.

She is also playing a Math card game, made by myself, that I will share as soon as I remember to take some pictures. She is doing addition, subtraction, multiplication and place value to millions with the cards. One more game, the noun, verb, adjective and adverb game. This is easy to do. I ask her to tell me the definition for each thing. After that I tell her to write three nouns on her paper, three verbs, three adjectives that would describe her nouns, and three adverbs to describe her verbs. Then she has to write a sentence with a noun, adjective, verb and adverb from her choices using proper spelling, grammar, and sentence structure. So far it is working amazingly well. I hope to add conjunctions and homophones before the end of Summer.

We are currently only doing school two days a week, over the Summer.

Make Your Own Money Learning Game with Household Items

This can also be a recycling or upcycling project for your school lessons. My daughter loves to learn through play. Online games or nice, or apps on the tablet, but hands on games are even better. Money, adding coins and making change, is one of the areas she needs great improvement in. I saw on Pinterest where someone had made an alphabet game using these same type items, and it made me think why not make it a money game. I used caps from water bottles, a jar I had already painted, a Pringles top which fit the jar perfectly, and some buttons for extra coins.

First decorate your jar if you want. Cut a hole in the Pringles top. Right various denominations of coins on the water bottle tops with markers. The buttons are extra money. The small buttons can be either 1 cent or 10 cent, and the larger either 5 cent or 25 cents. Then make a menu of items your child frequently eats throughout the day. You can print one too, but my printer is currently not behaving itself.

Then for each meal, with your help especially at first, the child picks what they want to eat and adds up enough coins to make the correct amount. After they get the hang of it you can make change too. You may need more buttons or tops. I have not tried it yet, so can not judge. Of course you could use real coins, but ours get thrown in a large container for savings and they are a pain to get out. Besides this was more fun to make. Plus with the decimals written out on the tops, they can learn their decimals as well. She will be adding them up on paper as well. Add in equivalent fractions and percents too, to make it more challenging as you go along. I will be starting this with her tomorrow. I am hoping by the time we go back to regular lessons, she will be a whiz at this.

Now if I could find a parts of speech and punctuation hands on game I will be happy.

Free or Frugal Homeschool Friday: Art Lessons

Today, I am focusing on Art for Free or Frugal Friday.  I believe I only saved free ones, but some may have the option to purchase more lessons or supplies.  I already downloaded a free Drawing Curriculum, but I can no longer share it, because the giveaway has expired.  I may use that one, but there are several others I found that I like more, or just as much as the one I downloaded.  So, I am still undecided.  Kinderart, and Math Art Projects look to be two that I am definitely leaning towards.  But, I also want them to learn the Masters as well.  Maybe we will do the Masters another year.  You can always make your own Art Curriculum, but that does take a quite a bit of time.  There are quite a few links, so be sure and look through them carefully.  The book at the bottom, Draw and Write Through History, I am considering getting for my youngest child.  There are six books in the series.  She enjoys these kinds of books.

http://www.whatdowedoallday.com/2014/05/math-art-projects-kids.html
http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/education/school-educator-programs/teacher-resources/arts-curriculum-online
http://artinspired.pbworks.com/w/page/13819585/FrontPage
https://cdaltonkhs.pbworks.com/w/page/57753036/Mr%20Dalton%20Knightdale%20HS
http://panthers.k12.ar.us/high_school/departments/art/art_web_pages/lessons/syllabus/Art_1_Syllabus.htm
http://www.donnayoung.org/art/index.htm
http://kinderart.com/artlessonsbygrade/highschool.shtml
http://www.metmuseum.org/learn/for-educators/lesson-plans
http://www.teachartathome.com/lessons.html
http://www.incredibleart.org/lessons/high/highlessons.html
http://homeschoolarts.com/main.htm

Florida Homeschool Evaluations Done

Today, was our homeschool evaluations. Our evaluations are due by the anniversary date of our Letter of Intent. We are early this year, since not due until the end of August. However, I always make them early just in case any emergencies occur and the date need to be changed. For Florida there are only three things needed to complete your evaluation. This is for a portfolio evaluation by a certified teacher. You could also choose to see a Psychologist to have your child evaluated, in Florida. You need a portfolio with a sampling of school work completed through the year, a reading list of books read through the school year, and a log of daily activities. This year I decided to make a calendar for each month, for each child, and what they did each day. This was just neater, and more organized to me. I will be doing one for DJ for each subject, and each month, since he starts high school in September. This will assure that I have proper documentation of hours spent on each subject, to earn credits needed for 9th grade. I will be going to his blog next, and writing out the schedule he and I have agreed on for 9th grade, with websites to be used where needed. You can view his blog by clicking here.

Caitlin will also have a writing blog next year, but that is still in the works. 

Mystic Jungle Education Facility at the Fizz Boom Read Library Program in Trenton

Today, was the first day of the Summer program at the Trenton Public Library, which is part of the Three Rivers Regional Library System. The educational facility, Mystic Jungle was the first of four weeks of fun. I did not see this last year, but some of the people I went with did. I thought they did an amazing job, and yes that is a snake on his hat. They had a Bobcat, lots of snakes, tarantula, lemur, and a lot of other really cool animals to share. They have a website, and their facility is located in Live Oak, FL. I was told they offer tours for free, for homeschoolers, so I might just have to check that out. DJ did not go, he thought he was too old, but he wishes he did now, lol. The library program runs for four weeks, on Thursday, and like I said today was week one. I intended to go next week, but forgot we have a prior commitment on that day, so we will have to miss that one.

Teaching Your Homeschooler How to Take Notes

One of the things I have tried to get my son to do, was to take notes.  He was very resistant, and didn't think it was necessary.  So, to prove my point, I placed him in a free college level class to see how he did.  He said, Mom this is too much to remember.  I can't remember it all.  So, now he sees my point.  With him going into High School I really think note taking is very important, and studying too.  Below, are two lessons on taking notes.  If I find more, I will share them as well. 

http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/03/lp322-01.shtml

http://www.greatschools.org/students/homework-help/323-take-great-notes.gs

Free or Frugal Homeschool Friday

I know last week I missed it.  I had family here visiting, and just did not get to it.  This week, I got half of one homeschool portfolio done, lol and forgot to buy a binder for the second.  I will have to go pick one up today.  The hardest part is sorting through everything we have done, and deciding what I want to put in the portfolio.  This takes a while.  Plus I got distracted by watching Hurricane Arthur, the ding dong Daddy of the year in Georgia, and drawing/painting.  My son turns 14 today, and will be home from camp later today.  He had so much fun, and I can tell you Camp Anderson in Old Town, FL was a huge hit.  Because today is Independence Day, I thought I would share some links for how we got our independence.


http://havefunwithhistory.com/HistorySubjects/AmericanRevolution.html

http://oklahomahomeschool.com/RevolutionwarUnit.html

http://www.123homeschool4me.com/2012/08/revolutionary-war-4freedom-at-last.html

http://www.apples4theteacher.com/coloring-pages/american-history/revolutionary-war/

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html