We Give Books and A Free Renaissance Lapbook

If your kids like lapbooks, mine are not crazy about them, then head over to get your free Renaissance Lapbook.  I cam on early today to be sure I shared this with you.  DJ will be going into the Renaissance after he finishes with the Middle Ages.  History is so interesting.  I really disliked it in school, but had the teachers taught using something other than just a textbook, maybe I would have enjoyed it more.  I love it now, and can't get enough of it.  Do your kids like History?

We Give Books, is a free online reading website with a twist.  Every book your child reads, the same book gets donated to a school or group in need of books for expanding literacy.  It is free, and my daughter loves to read books online.  We used it a lot over the Summer, and have sort of gotten away from it so far this school year.  I am going to try to remember to visit this site regularly.  Not many reading programs are free, so check it out, and if you look there are teaching resources for each book as well.  A wonderful resource for sure.  Oh and today is Jump Start Read for the Record.  Help them meet the digital online reading goal for today, October 3.

We had such a good week of school, that today and tomorrow will be very light.  Tomorrow my work hours change, so no school probably at all tomorrow.  Today, we have Run Club, then Spelling, Vocabulary and Language Arts tests in the afternoon.  We might get to squeeze in a National Geographic video on pyramids.  That will round out Caitlin's lessons on pyramids for the week.  I love Netflix, and Nat Geo both awesome resources and History Channel too.

I am stunned at how well DJ is moving along with Math.  He completed so many assignments this week, and with ease and good grades.  He is using CK12 Arithmetic this year, and the format is working wonderful for him.  It is all free too.  He is also using CK12 for Earth Science this year.  Check it out, it too is completely free to use.

First Day of Homeschool 2013/2014

Today was our first day of the 2013/2014 Homeschool year. DJ is in the 8th grade and Caitlin is in the 4th grade. After much thought, soul searching, and searching for curriculum I finally decided on the lessons we would use. Because, last year I kind of was lazy, and used FLVS a lot for DJ, which he really did not enjoy at all, I wanted to make a change. I want my kids to enjoy learning and the way that they learn. That is one of the reasons I decided to homeschool. So, after an awesome day, with no complaints on lessons, I think I have found the right set of curriculum. We also made a schedule, for Mon-Thurs lessons. Now, this will change here and there, due to Run Club and Earth Kids, but hopefully we will be able to keep it on track. All chores will now be done on the weekend, as opposed to every Monday morning. I made each class 60 min in length, to make enough time for each lesson to be completed. Each lesson plan subject is meant to be covered in a week. For Caitlin some of these are only a day. She will be able to make up a lot of time in History and Language Arts this way. Because Caitlin's lesson in History, was on timelines, we made a homeschool day timeline, shown below. For Language Arts, Caitlin read a poem about dreams, then she drew a dream picture, also shown below.

DJ:

Science: CK 12 Earth Science 60 minutes
History: Lesson Pathways Medieval Times 60 minutes
Language Arts: Open High School of Utah Grade 9 reading The Outsiders 60 minutes
Math: CK 12 Arithmetic 60 minutes
Spelling/Vocab: AAA Spell 30 minutes
Spanish: 123 Teach Me 30 minutes

Caitlin:

Science: Lesson Pathways Beavers 60 Minutes
History: Lesson Pathways Timelines 60 minutes
Language Arts: Lesson Pathways 4th grade 60 minutes
Math: Saxon 3 and Daily Math Warm Up 60 minutes
Spelling/Vocab: AAA Spell 30 minutes
Spanish: 123 Teach Me 30 minutes