All About Reading is Available!!

I'm a bit late in announcing this but I did want to let you all know that All About Reading Level Pre-1 from the awesome All About Spelling is now available.

The new All About Reading program is unique because it begins with Level Pre-1 for preschoolers and kindergarteners, and it focuses on what we call the Big Five Skills. These five fundamental pre-reading skills include letter knowledge, phonological awareness, print awareness, listening comprehension, and motivation to read. It is this specific set of skills that helps pre-readers understand the basics of language and how it works, preparing them to learn to read. 

With All About Reading Level Pre-1, your child will play special games, enjoy little crafts, and engage in charming storytime activities--all the while absorbing these all-important Big Five Skills.


Be sure and check out the samples at the links above.  I trust you will be very impressed.  I sure am.


Enjoy!
Paige

MidSouth Homeschool Convention Highlights

I attended the MidSouth Homeschool Convention this past weekend in Memphis and there were some great highlights for me.  The first and foremost was getting to meet Carrie Austin, the author of the Heart of Dakota curriculum.  It was such an honor to meet her and her sister Julie.  They have been an inspiration to me and it was my privilege to spend time with them.

I spent a great deal of time at their booth and to top it off they were next to Rainbow Resource's booth!  What a win win situation for me LOL.  I mentioned in my last post that I was leaning towards Saxon for Joshua's grammar.  After spending so much time at HOD's booth I got to looking at Rod & Staff for grammar.  One thing I've learned about Carrie Austin is that she picks what she recommends within her curriculum for a reason.  I've also learned that it's usually best to trust her and go with her recommendations first. Then if it doesn't work look elsewhere.  So I went with Rod & Staff English for Joshua.  After really looking it over I feel very good about it. It is scheduled within the Preparing manual so I don't have to think very hard about scheduling it either.

I also decided to put Jacob in Little Hands to Heaven right now. I hadn't been doing anything structured with him at all and I knew this would be a great start to "school" for him.  Today was our first day of LHTH and he had so much fun!!

I attended 2 workshops while I was there also.  I heard Ken Ham speak and it was excellent as usual.  I ordered his workshop on CD in fact.  I also went to Art Reed's workshop.  Listening to him confirmed my decision to use Saxon for Joshua. I highly recommend Mr. Reed's book and if you get a chance to hear him speak about Saxon math you should.  I'm still strongly considering using Saxon for Jacob too.  I'm still weighing things. Carrie recommends Singapore math. I'm seriously considering each of these and I'm grateful that I've got some more time.

One other change that is happening is in regards to Joshua's phonics work.  We have been using Saxon's Phonics Intervention. It's strongly focused on learning to read but does include spelling along with a great deal of other skills.  Joshua is reading well and his reading level has jumped several grade levels in the last several months.  He still struggles with his spelling though.  After praying about this I've decided to go back to All About Spelling with him.  The approach of AAS lends itself well to helping Joshua with any phonics holes he may have.  It will better address his spelling struggles also.  We will also be using the dictation in Preparing which also includes some spelling words.

Well those are the highlights and changes I made after attending Convention.  We are set to go now and I am really looking forward to our Journey using HOD as our core curriculum.  Our first week of Saxon math also went well.  Joshua says he doesn't like it but I know that's only because he's truly having to work at it LOL.

Blessings!

Changes and Finalization of This Years Curriculum

I have made some major changes in our homeschool plans for next year. After years of trying to find curriculum that works for me AND my son I have come to the conclusion that textbooks are the way to go for us. I had started out thinking unit studies were the way I wanted to educate my kids. I loved unit studies but needed more structure in the day to day planning or I found that I didn't get school done consistently. So then began my search for a unit study type curriculum with daily lesson plans done for me. I finally ended up on Heart of Dakota. I even had planned to use HOD for this coming year. I still love HOD (I went there to look at some books a couple of weeks ago and decided right then and there to scrap the new plans and do HOD after all LOL) and really wish that it was best for my son. It just isn't no matter how much I love it.

So I'll spare you the details and tell you that we decided on Abeka for all subjects except spelling. For spelling we will continue to use All About Spelling. We have been using AAS over this summer and it's going well. I am really convinced this is one of the best spelling curricula out there.

I forgot to add that we will not be using Abeka for Bible. We will be using the Discover 4 Yourself Inductive Bible Studies for Kids. I plan to start with How to Study Your Bible for Kids (Discover 4 Yourself® Inductive Bible Studies for Kids) first. I will do this study with Joshua in my own Bible also. While we are doing this study I will pray about which one the Lord would have us do next in the series. I have wanted to do these books for a long time so I am really looking forward to delving into these with Joshua.

I do not have a official start date for our school year but I will be working on our school schedule over the next few weeks after I get the curriculum and I will post that when I get it done.

Hope everyone is getting ready for the new school year!

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

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.