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We just finished up our first year with My Father's World and it was remarkable! I seriously cannot say enough good about MFW. Beyond learning more then we have with any other curriculum in a school year, I love how the family cycle brought my older two children closer together. If you would like to see my post about the curriculum you can do so HERE. I will be adjusting some things in the coming year, for example, in addition to Language Lessons for Today I'll either be adding more of either Weaver Wisdom Words or else Abeka Language Arts then we did this last year. The only reason is because I want my kids to be extra solid writers when they leave home. I thought about starting with the next level in MFW in May. I decided it would just be so much easier to begin the new MFW level July 1st when the school year officially and legally begins, just to make record keeping a bit more organized. But that meant that I needed to create our own schedule to fill in the months between now and then. You might be wondering "What about summer break?"! We are basically year round homeschoolers. But that's not as bad as it sounds! We've found this is what works best for our family's unique learning needs, and with our work schedules. It also gives us a little bit of freedom to do "half days" every now and then if we have something else going on or want to take a field trip. I also like doing year round school for math, language arts, and reading because kids loose so much of what they learned through the summer if you don't! If you are a homeschool mom or a teacher, you know what I'm talking about! So for May and June, our calendar is filled with some things I feel like we need some work and polishing up in instead. It's not specified, but Psalms is also a Bible lesson and handwriting practice. In addition to Teaching Textbooks the kids are reading through Life of Fred and Usborne math books. We just choose whichever topic or Usborne book that applies to what the kids are learning in Teaching Textbooks. Here are some of our favorite Usborne books that we are enjoying right now! You can just click the pictures if you are interested in ordering any of them and you'll be redirected to my dear friend and Usborne consultants page. The geography game is everyday because not only is it fun, it has worked so well for teaching the kids the countries around the world!!! Since we are doing a garden this year, it's on the school schedule. In my opinion every kid should get to do gardening as a school project! They LOVE it! So ironic, in my middle son's school he had the assignment to plant a small garden the very week we began planting our three big gardens! I didn't plan it that way, (I'm not that organized), it just happened! We will be replacing a day here and there in with a couple field trips. I laid the summer schedule out similar to MFW schedules (sample below) just because the MFW layout worked so well for me. This year we will do half day's for a couple weeks starting June 13th to July 1st so the kids have plenty of outdoor time. During that time we will also have some cooking lessons and hopefully fill our food with casseroles and goodies for after baby comes. I'm also planning 1 week off after the baby is born, and half days in October-November, as usual. During the off time and half days, the kid's will do nature study, and the older two will probably be diving deeper into area's of interest. My oldest has been on an animatronics kick, so that's probably what he will research with every waking hour with his free time! So far we are a week and a half into this schedule. I had to fine tune a couple places after the first few days, and we probably won't make our goal of 3 pages in Abeka like I had hoped, nor have the kids fit in foreign language, but that is to be expected while we get used to the schedule. If we are unable to fit foreign language in the kids will just work on that during half days too. Best of all, and BIG change, the older two have already learned how to follow it independently! Of course I still flit around the room supervising, but they are like a well running machine (with the exception of Language Arts)! That's huge to us, I've dreamt of this for years, lol! It's a big deal for me because it (hopefully) means they will be able to follow their MFW schedule once July hits. That will be a massive help after the baby is born. It's big for them because once I showed them how it works they seem to enjoy taking the responsibility of following it. They have such a spirit of achievement while they are working and since they can see the end of the list it inspires them to stay on task as opposed to daydreaming or chit chatting, henceforth, they finish sooner! And, since they are working better on their own it enables me to focus on Gabriel, which helps him finish sooner too! Do you homeschool? If so, how is your year finishing up? What plans do you have for summer? Leave a comment below! Never miss a thing! Follow along with us!
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We found out the first of March what we are having, and on the 4th we hosted a little gender reveal party. Although I posted it on FB I didn't post it here or on my Instagram page because I've been so busy with spring cleaning and minimizing! So this is actually the first time we have found out what we are having and it was so much fun! So now the challenge is deciding a name! My husband and I have completely different taste when it comes to names so this will be interesting....stay tuned! Follow Along With Us!
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Updated...4/3/2017 Before we added on to our home this room was the master bedroom. It had red walls, and I had intended to keep them. I thought that maybe the red would stimulate thinking. Although we grown-up's loved the look, I began to wonder after awhile if the deep primary red was doing my kiddo's favors. The room was cozy, but none of us really enjoyed doing school in there for long, it felt very stuffy and we tended to carry our work to other rooms. I also noticed the kids seemed to get rowdier when in there. Sure enough, after reading around half a dozen articles about the best colors to enhance learning (like this, and this) I realized my suspicions were correct. Red may be far too stimulating for the kids, particularly the older ones, and especially for my ADD eldest. So last weekend while my husband perused the aisles at Lowes, I continued researching the best colors to enhance learning. One of the websites I found said that blue enhances thinking for math and science. It went on to say that green enhances concentration for history, study in general, and a bunch of other stuff that I cannot remember any more :-P (obviously I wasn't surrounded in green, lol)! So, after much deliberation and a visit with my Aunt Pam (who happened to be visiting) I finally landed on a compromise of the two colors and chose a lighter blue/green (also known as teal)! :-D Best of all, I was able to create the colors with paints I already had on hand! I believe I made a good choice changing things. As I was painting my daughter walked into the room and her choice of words describing the new color confirmed everything. "Wow! It's so much quieter in here!" Although white isn't recommended by one of the articles I read I did chose to leave the back wall and window wall white. They are mostly covered with maps and the like, and I wanted the white to "bounce" light all around. It worked too, it's so much brighter in there now! Although I loved the red, all the extra light is very much so worth the trade off. One of the issues we have always had in our homeschool is not having the space for enough desks for everyone. This led to one issue after another over the years! We have had the new school room space for several months, and I finally asked John if he could build some custom, built in tables. One thing we have noticed so far is how much more spacious the room seems! Further research revealed that orange is another great color for concentration. So I chose a pale orange for the desk tops. Later I learned a bolder orange would have been better, so I am adding bolder orange color pops throughout the room! I love orange! I used the Color Wheel Calculator to help me hone in on the perfect shades! And of course pinterest, lol! So far we are loving the changes!
Or should I say "Daze"? That would be a little closer to how it's been feeling lately! We are all past ready for spring here. But for now it's nose to the grindstone. I think we all have spring fever though. It makes us laugh a little too hard at things like this in science.... I don't know who has had a harder school year so far. This little guy or mama. He did not like giving up his play time for school time this year. I know the feeling! He loved painting this pot for growing onions as a science experiment one day though. And I am learning how to use rewards as motivation... All year, at the end of each and every page, he asks "Am I done yet?". I was surprised by his attitude toward school this year because last year he had fun. I guess this school year the new wore off. That wasn't the end of the surprises for me this year though. Someone else decided they WERE ready for school. Lot's of school, or as he says after each and every page, "More." This smart little guy can sit for more then one hour straight. And he still wants more school. He's barely 4! And then there's the youngest... Have you ever taught with a toddler in the house? Kuddos if you have. Sometimes I don't know if I'll ever get used to it. But then again I didn't think I was used to all the noise that comes with this many kids until extended family comes to visit. They always comment on all the noise....and the funny thing is that my kids are quieter when we have company, lol! But busy toddlers have a way of "ruling the roost" so to speak. And eating school papers. Yes, I am serious. As dazed as I am, I must admit I am looking forward to April. It's the month that curriculum will be on sale and I will buy the next school years supplies. A lot of people don't know this, but homeschool parents pay for curriculum out of their own pockets. Yikes! Curriculum is normally one of the blessings for our family that I cover thanks to Shayla P. {Camera Artist}. In fact, all March long I am offering mini's at a discounted rate to raise money for next years curriculum, so if you need to update your kids portraits now is a great time! Just contact me here or at my photography page. This is our seventh year homeschooling, and this year has been exhausting for me. But it's been great for the kids academically speaking. We have found the perfect schedule and curriculum's for our family it seems!
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