Recently I went to a book sale with my friend Kim and sister Michelle. The online bookstore Christian books have a warehouse near Boston and twice a year they have a big warehouse sale. I got so many good deals. I really didn't know what to think when Kim invited me to this sale with her. We got up at the ungodly hour of 6:30 am to drive there. The line to get in was long. My sister said it reminder her of black Friday. Once in there the 3 of us all headed to the homeschool section. So..... here are my finds for next school year.......


Math- Horizon's first grade Math book one and two... I couldn't find the teachers book I got those 2 for a whopping $7 total! They are new but slightly damaged... the covers look old.
Spelling Workout Books A & B both student books and teachers books. Each book was only $3.
Phonics-Horizon's book 1
This fun book All About Time Discovering How the Calendar Affects You. It looks like so much fun.You learn about time in many ways... the beginning of time, years, months and seasons, Calendars, clocks, times zones, why we grow old and sooo much more!

I also got many non school stuff. I can't wait for their fall Sale. I will be telling my other homeschooling friends all about this sale.

We have a good start for the fall. I am still on the lookout for a history and science curriculum. I have an idea on what I want to do. But we will see.
For grammar I am using a free curriculum off the internet along with worksheets.

At the sale I did get some stuff to finish out this school year with. I picked up Horizon's kindergarten phonics workbooks to go along with what we are doing now, Horizon's Health both the teachers guide and children's workbook. Some extra math worksheets from life packs... these say first grade but they are what we are doing for math right now. So we are using them now.

Fun with learning....

I have been wanting to plant some plants... last year we did sunflowers and I thought I held onto those seeds but didn't. We did pick up some seeds on one of our trips to Walmart. Samantha had fun watching the little disks grow and then plant the seeds in them. We have spearmint, basil, and 2 flowers. She also was so excited that if our plants take she is planting some at Abigail's grave in the late spring. We also planted daisy's a couple of weeks back but I forgot to take pictures. They are growing they are about 1/2 inch tall. :)



In Math she was learning how to count by 5's and 10's she got the tens very quickly and fives did only take one lesson... Today we applied what she learned she had to count out coins by 10's and tell me how much was there at first she was a little confused but soon got it. I love seeing the light bulb go off. I also had cards with the 10's on and 5's and she had to put them in order it didn't take her long to get it right. What fun learning can be when its hands on.


We do a devotional at least once a week that has a short lesson then an activity or craft. Ours this week was to make homemade ice cream. Half way through I had to take over shaking Sam's so mine came out more like a milk shake and hers was just like soft ice cream... so yummy!!!




Science today was using sun beads to see how fast they turned color in the sun. It was a kit we got a while back from the science class she went to. So first we had to count how fast they turned in the sun, then covered with a shirt, a shopping bag, sunglasses and then sunscreen. Interesting results... the shopping bag was just like having nothing covering it. The shirt after a minute the beads were only slightly colored the purple ones got color the fasted when covered. The sunglasses had a slight color to them after a minute also. Well with sunscreen on them the purple turned after a minute to a light purple and the others stayed white to a light light pink. So interesting since I paid good money for that sunscreen! This was a real fun experiment.

I find others opinion on homeschooling so funny

Everyone will have an opinion about homeschooling even other homeschoolers.
Today while shopping I was told how brave I was to homeschool. I find that hilarious. I find the parents who choose to put their child in our cities public school the brave ones.

I have been asked by a friends husband if it was even legal to do it. Too funny. No its illegal and I do just because I want to go to jail. HA HA HA

A friend of my husbands told me I was going to ruin Samantha... recently he was over for dinner and started quizzing Samantha on her reading.... we had a paper up that she wrote out sentences so he wanted to make sure I didn't give her the answer and she could actually read it. So funny. When he was done I asked him if she passed his test. He did admit that she did real really well for her age. If Samantha didn't want to answer his questions I would have stopped it. But she seemed to love the attention showing off her reading skills. Another friend asked if the reason Sam has no interest in playing baseball and hockey because we homeschool! I guess he feels if she was exposed to it she would love it.... Not every child wants to play a sport...she does she wants to play soccer so I will look into it for the fall.

Other homeschoolers (NOT ALL) think their way is the only way. Some worry if you don't do things just so the government will say you can't do it... One said if I don't use all the same company for all subject my request to homeschool will be rejected. One person is so concerned with us homeschooling and only child that she even looked into scholarships for Samantha to go to a private school.

Some parents who send their children to public school will often get offended about our decision to homeschool. I often wonder does it make them question their decision to public school. Question their parenting decissions? Some parents who send their children to private schools can't understand why we wont sacrifice more to send her to private school also. Like I don't sacrifice to homeschool her! I heard this one from a parent from Sam's dance class who sends her 2 kids to private school.

There are days when I am praised by strangers for my sacrifices to homeschool Sam. How great they think it is that I am doing this for her. In our short time of homeschooling I have heard it all. Most of the time it makes me shake my head and giggle to myself. Some people are genuine curious about it how it works what we do and so on. Some people try to pick it apart and find where you have gone wrong.

And since everyone does have an opinion this all is my opinion! If you do what is best for your child and family you are doing your best and your child should thrive be it private school, public school or homeschool!

pictures.....

Its funny I was just reading some of my posts. They crack me up. I keep stressing about curriculum. So I have decided that I will stop stressing about it. Things will work out. She has learned so much this year without an official curriculum. So why worry. :)

Our homeschool year so far in pictures



Swim class. Samantha really enjoys this. She does it during the school year.



We went on a field trip with our Mops homeschoolers.. It was fun but very cold.



Samantha hard at work.


In science learning about how our bodies work, making a drawing of "ME" and drawing what makes me work



Samantha learned about polar bears and how they stay warm in the cold climate. We first put our hands in ice cold water and tried to see how long we could keep it there... seconds!


So we then put our hand in a bag covered in lard to imitate the fat that the polar bear has we put our hands in the water and noticed a big difference in how it felt. Our hands didn't really feel cold.



Samantha showing the completed workbook I made her about the story we read The Mitten. It had a page for each subject... snowflake math, a word search using words from the book, short vowel words in the book to go along with phonics, art, reading comprehension... she had to answer questions about the story then draw a picture about the answer. Following directions and reading common sight words. It was fun doing but a lot of work to create. Following directions and reading common sight words.



Some of the art work... using water color pencils Samantha coloring in and use water to create this picture I drew for her






These last two are from a science class Samantha participated in. It was fun she learned about weather.

Where do I begin???

I haven't posted in forever! SORRY. We just learned the sign for sorry today and if you could see me I would be doing that.

We had an awesome day of homeschooling today. I love days like this. After story hour at the library we came home to play for a while. Then we got down to work. Oh and it doesn't matter if its a day that I am not working or a day that I do we don't seem to get down to work until at least 1:30 or later. Thankfully it doesn't take to long to school a kindergartner.

Sam has been working on addition. I have tried to get her to realize if you using the counting blocks that if its 6 + 5 you don't need to count out the 6 then the 5 then count them all. You just have to count starting at 6 then continue counting the next 5 blocks. Today I didn't even bother and there she goes she starts to count the first set of blocks stops herself and says WAIT I can just start at 6 then count the next 5. LOL She was sooo thrilled with herself. We are working on addition being memorized but some of it is and the rest will come in time.

So we are half way through the school year. She has learned a lot. We breezed through the Kindergarten work I got for her so we moved onto first grade work. But now that leads me to a problem... what do I buy for next year? First grade or Second? Well I guess I do have time to figure that one out.

Today we did our phonics and she loves to read to me. She is trying harder and harder words. I am so proud of her. She loves doing word searches which reinforces spelling. She has to keep repeating the spelling of the word to search for it.
Then we moved onto Math Like I posted above she did awesome and went right through it. We were on a roll.

next we moved onto learning some sign language. As a baby and toddler we did sign language and would use it to communicate but she had such a large vocabulary she would sign and say the word it was cute. She remembers some of them so we are trying to learn more.

We then moved onto some fun craft time. we use these packing peanut type things I bought at Benny's. They are called enviroblox. We have been reading the little house on the prairie books and she loves them... so we built a log cabin together and she made 2 people to go with it...The cool thing about these blocks is the clean up... we do a lot of crafts and school paper work that all end up in the recycle bin or the trash. I can't save it all right??? Well when we get sick of looking at this or it falls apart we just run it under water and it dissolves! So of course we had to try that out. LOL it really does.

and finally we did some bible learning. I have these cards that teach little facts about the bible.... so we learned today that kids in the bible times didn't learn at school. You guessed it they learned at home by their parents and if you were a boy you then would go on when your older and be taught by a teacher in a public setting but not a school like we have today. That the children learned things like... manors, about God, about God's laws, and music. Then we learned about making bread of that time... So I got out the flour, yeast and some water and we tried making some pita bread. They tasted good BUT well they didn't look like and their texture wasn't anything like it should have been. But it was fun kneading the dough and shaping the breads. Samantha loved them. Maybe next time I will make sure I buy new yeast the expiration date was 6/2010 I didn't know this until I went to through out the package.

Ok pictures to follow this post. I will try my hardest to update this at least weekly. Its a fun record of all we do if I keep it up.

curriculum...

We have been doing school work through out the summer. Trying to finish up the alphabet. She knows all her letters but I wanted to complete the work sheets on them. She loves doing school work but tires quickly doing the work sheets. Good thing I and opting for a more hands on learning. Well more of a mixture of hands on and book work.

And that brings me to curriculum.... I think I finally got it.....

Math we will be going with Singapore Math. I really like the reviews I read on this one and the samples of it. But until the math curriculum comes in we will be using the math work book called... Everything your kindergarten should know. Just to keep her working on Math. She has been so curious about math even asking me about negative numbers.

Reading I am using a program on the internet called Starfall. With Starfall your able to print out worksheets and little books to go along with the computer work. She has already read one phonics minibook after a few lessons on the computer. She seems to do really good with the online phonics then going to the worksheet.

Science I will be using a Singapore science book. And supplementing with some books we have on our body, our heart, the weather and plants and the 5 senses.

History I will be using the book History for little Pilgrims.

Bible we will be using God and Me a devotional for girls. We have really enjoyed the work we have done in it already. Very practical for little girls.

I hope to be able to do many field trips to places like an art museum, the butterfly zoo, the science museum and so much more. I would like to make her learning as enjoyable as I can. She seems to have a love for learning and I want to keep her loving it.

Summer time fun.....

Wow is the summer really flying by. We have fun this summer along with finishing up the alphabet. It was more a review since she knows all her letters how to write them and their sounds. But I wanted to finish up the worksheets we had before moving on.

This summer has been filled with lots of fun. We had a few play dates with our Mops group. We also went to the beach a few times. Then off to New Hampshire to go camping and see the sites. We went to Loon Mountain, Storyland, Mini golf and Water country. Samantha loved it all. I was amazed at her going in the caves at Loon Mountain. She had so much fun exploring them.

We went to the Ocean Explorium in New Bedford. She touched and held a starfish. Then fed the sea horses. I can't wait to go back when we are working more on the ocean and its creatures

We also have been doing a book reading contest at the mall. So for that we have been going to the library to get books to read. She is loving all the reading we have been doing.

Oh she actually read a book. One of her phonics readers. She needed a little assistance to read some sight words but was able to sound out the rest of the words herself.

We went to a roller skating party. Samantha has never roller skated before. She loved it. Said it was easier then ice skating once she got use to it.

We also went to the replacement for Fall River Celebrates America. The city ran out of funds to put it on. This was much better. It was a family fun fair. Not sure what they called it. But it was all kind of free things for kids to do. She made some paintings and went in the bouncy house. Watched the dance show. Played in the sandbox looking for the treasures they had buried there. Went into the fire departments trailer home to teach about fire safety.... made me realize how relaxed I have been on teacher her that.. Yes we talk about fire safety but since moving in here we never made and escape plan. That is something we will be doing this week.