One Of My Favorite Blogs

A Holy Experience

Words can not do it justice. Get a cup of coffee or tea and read, read, read.

I never fail to be speechless as I am now having just come from reading there.

All About Spelling Beehive Reader 1 is Now Available

Well I am so happy to report that the first Beehive Reader that corresponds with Level 1 of All About Spelling is now available. It looks really great. If you have a young child that is learning to read All About Spelling can really help a child advance with their reading. Now Marie Ripple has added a reader to help them along. I will be ordering this in the very near future for Joshua and I know Jacob will use it in the future too. Just click on any All About Spelling link on my web page here and then click Products and you will find the new Beehive Reader there. There are several samples to look at and best of all it's on sale until March 31 for only $14.95. It's a hardbound book and was designed to be a keepsake book so the price is awesome on it.

While you are there be sure and check out All About Spelling's book All About Homophones. It's a great way to teach kids about words that sound the same but are spelled differently.

Also hop on over to The ChatterBee for straight talk about Language Arts. It's a great board to talk about any language arts issues and even other subjects. It's free to sign up too!

Hope everyone is having a great day!
Paige

This weeks Preschool plans

I have received all my books for Heart of Dakota's Little Hands to Heaven except for the Singing Bible. I should receive it tomorrow. I absolutely adore Playtime Devotions. I am so glad I decided to spend a few extra dollars and get this book before I couldn't get it in the future. It's the perfect devotion book for Jacob. That is what I love the most about Carrie Austin. She is so discriminating in her book choices for each of her manuals. I have come to trust her and that is why I really looked at the out of print books that were originally used in Little Hands to Heaven. I knew they would be top notch and I am not disappointed at all. I am really looking forward to snuggling up with Jacob to read our Bible stories and do our letter activities. Jacob loves to read together and he loves saying his ABC's and many of their sounds. I have no doubt Jacob will love the fun learning activities in Little Hands to Heaven. I will try to take some pics of him on his first day or preschool. I didn't do things like that with Joshua and I regret that I didn't now. We will be doing more memory type things with both boys in the future.

Fun stuff in store for us this week. How about you? What are your plans for this week?

Next Year's School Plans

Well I think I am pretty set on most of next year's curriculum choices for my oldest son. We will continue with Heart of Dakota's Bigger Hearts for His Glory until we finish it. We will also continue with All About Spelling. We are currently in Level 1 but I expect to finish that by the end of summer and move into Level 2. We will also continue using BJU English & Writing. I am really liking this because of the alternating focus that BJU takes with this course. It's one chapter of grammar and then one chapter of writing starting in 2nd grade.

Right now we are using Singapore math and using the lesson plans that Heart of Dakota has written in their manuals to coincide with the Singapore workbooks. I really like Singapore for it's mental math component and Joshua is doing fine with it. I keep thinking don't change something that's working but I really am considering putting him back in BJU math. We did BJU before Singapore and he did fine with that too. I am waiting to see what BJU does with their online classes because I want to use the distance learning classes for English, Math and Handwriting from BJU but right now you can only buy full grade kits at $1000 a pop to get those classes. So no classes for us right now. I am teaching the English class myself and it only take about 15 to 20 minutes for us to do. If they offer an acceptable plan for the online classes then I will use those classes for English and also move him back into BJU for math. At least with the distance learning classes I know that the basics will get done if for some reason I am unable to teach one day.

With Bible I am thinking of going with the Summit's Building on the Rock World View/Bible Survey curriculum. We currently use Grapevine Bible in addition to HOD's Bible and we really like Grapevine but I am drawn to the age appropriate study that Building on the Rock offers. I just might have to try it out to see how it goes. BotR is somewhat expensive to get started so I haven't made up my mind for sure yet but I am strongly leaning that way.

I am also looking into adding Evan Moor's A Word a Day books for vocabulary. Thanks to Dana for that idea.

Soooo I am fairly set except for concrete decisions on Math and Bible yet. We will be working through summer since we didn't get very far at all into Bigger Hearts. I know it will be a great summer with HOD though so I am really looking forward to watching Joshua grow in his reading ability while doing Bigger Hearts. We will be going through HOD's emerging reader set over summer and into next year to help give Joshua some practice and confidence in his reading.

How about you? What are your plans for your homeschool next year? Any new things? Keepers? Tossing? My top keepers are for sure Heart of Dakota and All About Spelling.

Our Preschool Curriculum

Well I ordered my books for our preschool curriculum for Jacob. We will be using Heart of Dakota's Little Hands to Heaven.


When Mrs. Austin wrote the Little Hands to Heaven manual she used a devotional book called Playtime Devotions . It's now out of print but Mrs. Austin has substituted it with another great book called Big Thoughts for Little People. I decided to buy Playtime Devotions because of Jacob's age. He will just turn 3 on April 12. I wanted a very easy intro to school things and Playtime Devotions looked like it was just what I was looking for. I want to instill a love for learning in him and make some wonderful memories with him. I looked at Big Thoughts extensively and I think that when he's just a bit older I will get that book and use it at night before bed. Big Thoughts is a very good book and I was torn because I didn't want to miss out on it either. Little Hands to Heaven also uses A Child's First Bible. In Little Hands to Heaven each unit has a theme centered around Bible characters. These stories provide the focus for the day's plans. The daily activities are linked to the Bible stories. There are musical selections from The Singing Bible that correspond with each unit. I have no doubt this will be a favorite of Jacob's.

My plans at this time are to do Little Hands to Heaven a couple of times a week because of his age. I plan on taking 2 years to complete it. Jacob has shown signs of being gifted so I might end up doing LHTH every day and have to change my long term plans for him but in the beginning this is the schedule until I see how he does. On the other days I plan to use some Kumon First Step workbooks called Let's Cut Paper!, Let's Fold!, Let's Color!, and Let's Sticker & Paste!.

I am also strongly considering using Mathematical Reasoning: Beginning Prek with Jacob. It's for 3 & 4 year olds and I think this book and maybe even the ones that follow it would dovetail very nicely into Singapore math which we will use when Jacob is older. Singapore is known for it's mental math component so I think these books will be an age appropriate precursor.

When I start will depend on when my books arrive. I will be posting about some of our days and weeks in review also.

I'm also working on a new daily schedule now since I will need to make sure I allow enough time for working with Jacob. I will post my new schedule when I'm done with it.

A Serious Abuse of Power

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=91397

Judge orders homeschoolers into public district classrooms despite the children testing above grade levels.


I'm beyond words Ladies and Gentlemen. Beyond words. Anyone remember the California fiasco not that long ago?

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine - Almost 200 Products Up To 80% Off

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine store has gone mad. They have almost 200 products up to 80% off! Check it out HERE

While checking it out for myself I also found that they have the book Boys of Grit Who Became Men of Honor in MP3 format for FREE download. It is read by Jim Hodges. Download it from HERE.

Remember that TOS always has FREE shipping on anything you buy from them too!

Enjoy!

Building on the Rock World View / Bible Curriculum

I stumbled onto a Biblical World View and Bible Survey curriculum that I like the looks of. It's from Summit Ministries. They have elementary through adult curriculum. They have extensive samples of the curricula to look at so you can get a very good idea of the curriculum. Level 1 was over 90 pages of sample. I've only looked over level 1 so I'm still in the checking it out phase but this looks very good so far. Thanks to Deb for giving an overview of it. Be sure to check out what she has to say about her first week of using it too.

In looking at the sample pages I am very encouraged at the hands on application of the lessons. My very hands on son would enjoy it I am sure. My initial response to this is that I very much want this one for our homeschool. If I do get it I'll let you know how it goes when I start using it.

For now though I just wanted to make people aware that it is out there. I hope you enjoy looking at it as much as I have so far.

What to look forward to...............

Well I'm home and we won't talk about my trip but praise God I did make it without any injury!

I wanted to let the few people that check out my blog know what is coming over the next few days. While gone from home I stumbled onto a few things for homeschooling that I will be reviewing in the next few days.

I also had 2 epiphanies while gone that are going to make a difference in my life from here on out.

AND I read a whole book while gone. That's the first book that I read word for word and didn't skim and jump around in for a very long time - maybe years (I'm serious about that). It's a book that is gaining in popularity and I will review it. I borrowed my copy so I need to pick up my own copy to butcher while I read it again and review it. When I'm able to do that I'll get around to reviewing it. The other 2 things come first though LOL.

Alrighty then! Like anyone cares but I thought I would post now that I am home and dangle some chocolate in front of a few of you! I know you are on pins and needles waiting for me to post - NOT lol.

Blessed to be home with my wonderful husband,
Paige

Coming Home Tomorrow!

Well I am finally coming home tomorrow. I can't wait to get home to my sweet husband! If you think of me please pray for a safe trip. I am traveling with a very packed car, 2.5 year old, and the family boxer. This should be interesting!

Thanks,
Paige