Review--Expedition Australia

We have just about finished our unit study on Australia. We used the E-book, Expedition Australia. You can purchase this E-book from www.thehomeschoolmagazine.com for $7.95. Or you can buy the Welcome Spring Bundle for $24.00 and get Expedition Australia, Pizza Party, Spring Surprises, Kite Capers, and you will get Birthday Bonanza for FREE! This E-book is geared for grades K-4th.

My 2nd and 3rd grader enjoyed this unit though I did skip some things that were too elementary for them. And as the parent and teacher we have a great idea what level our kids are at. Like with this unit they had you cut out mama kangaroos in different colors and they were suppose to match the joeys to the mamas of the same color. At 7 and 8 they have long mastered their colors so I skipped this activity. For a Kindergartner this would be great reinforcement of skills and concepts being taught.

I would rather introduce concepts that might be a little harder for them than to keep introducing concepts that they have mastered. I would rather they be challenged than bored. I do try to keep a balance of things that they will be able to master quickly with those that are really challenging, because I don't want them to end up frustrated.

I wanted to study each of the continents in a little more detail. After we study each continent I want to then pick certain countries to study. And in the case with the USA we will then study each state.

I bought a little passport booklet from our local school supply store, and we will add a sticker or stamp for each place that we "visit." This will be an easy way for me to keep track of what we have studied in just a glance.

This unit is actually a lapbook. For those of you who are not familiar with lapbooks, the basic concept is that at the end of your study of a particular subject your child will have a completed project to show what they have learned. The lapbook is made by each student and it is a representation of their work, so for you perfectionist parents/teachers this is where you will need to step back and let them do this on their own.

To build a lapbook you take a file folder and have your child decorate it with information they have learned. There are many different websites out there about how to build lapbooks, so I won't take the time to describe it in this post. I will save that for a later post.

The E-book is meant to take you a week to complete. The unit is broken up into 5 lessons--one per day. This E-book is meant to at the end have your student end up with both a lapbook and a themed notebook is you desire. I didn't worry about keeping all the papers and putting them into a notebook, but we did do the lapbook. That's one reason homeschooling is so great, you get to decide what to do with your kids work--what to save and what to toss.

Like always I started by reading through the whole thing myself and deciding what we would and would not use. I then printed out the pages that my girls would need and skipped the ones we would not use.

I loved that this E-book is downloadable as soon as you purchase it and I could get the materials right away instead of waiting for it to arrive in the mail. But again there is something to be said about a physical book that you hold in your hands that you turn the pages. I made the decision to go with this E-book because there was not a ton of information to read in the E-book, but it did have a lot of links to many additional resources online.

When we do a lapbook I like to keep all the pieces in a Ziploc bag with each girls name on the front. And then when we have completed all the work we then spend an afternoon putting it together. This allows the girls to see where everything will be placed before it is glued down and they can move pieces around. This also allows us to know if we will need to glue another file folder or two together.

Expedition Australia is full of tons of great information. You will learn about animals native to Australia like koalas, kangaroos, wombats, platypus, and tasmanian devils--my girls love learning about animals so we spent a bit of time looking up more information about these animals.

They also cover places in Australia and the language of Australia. You will also learn about the culture, continents, and study maps of Australia.

This E-book covers History, Geography, Reading, Writing, Science, Spelling, Vocabulary, Art and more.

This is a great start to our journey around the world, I think we will be taking more than 80 days to do it in though!

Review: Wanna Be Series--Firefighter

We just got done using the E-book When I Grow Up, I Want To Be. . .A Firefighter from the Wanna Be Series. You can purchase this E-book, for $8.95 as well as others in the series at http://www.thehomeschoolmagazine.com/eschoolmagazine.com/. Other books in the series include those about being a Veterinarian, Chef, Military, Doctor, Police Officer, Missionary, Artist, Pilot, and Farmer.

This book is for ages 4-10, but I myself learned a lot that I didn't know about firefighters. This 82 page E-book is full of knowledge and activities that will keep you learning for days. Use it as a unit study on its own or to reinforce things that you are already learning about.

You will learn about the history of firefighters, here the story of being a firefighter from a real life firefighter, fire dogs, and what types of emergencies firefighter respond to. You will also learn about the pay scale of firefighters, building codes, and how robots help firefighters do their job better and more efficiently.

There are math worksheets, comprehension worksheets, writing prompts, and copy work in both manuscript as well as cursive. You get to build your own robotic arm, read bible verses, coloring pages, and there are even crosswords and word searches included. Also included are physical fitness games based on being a firefighter, making a firetruck out of a shoebox, and even helps for having a firefighter themed party complete with a fire truck cake.

As you can see there is enough to keep you busy for days if you do every single activity in the book. There are also additional resources listed. They have books and websites that can help you gather more information as you teach your kids, use as many or as little as you want.

When I first saw the E-book I though that it was going to be a simple book aimed at younger kids and that it wouldn't have much for my girls who are 7 and 8. Boy was I surprised there was so much in-depth information included.

I was originally planning on using this as a supplement to a unit about people in your neighborhood. I wanted more in-depth information than we have covered in recent years. Well, I certainly got what I asked for, and I didn't have to do any extra work collecting and finding information and activities. I love that everything I needed or could want was already there in one resource. It saved me a tons of time and in the end saving me money as well.

I did not even use all the activities and worksheets included in the E-book. But I feel that I got my moneys worth. I am changing my lesson plans and I am planning on spending more time on different occupations. I can't wait to try some of the other E-books in the series.

I went through and read through the whole E-book when I first got it. This is what I do when I am planning. That way I know what will be covered and I can decide what to use from each resource. I printed out a head of time the worksheets that we were going to use so everything was ready to go. I did not print out the whole E-book as this would have taken a lot of paper and ink. Instead we read from the computer.

I like that the E-book is available to you as soon as you buy it. But I love to have an actual book to hold in my hands. My husband, Erik on the other hand, loves to read off the computer. So you will need to decide what is more important to you, the convenience of having it right away or the luxury of having a book to hold in your hand. You could of course print out the whole book, but I am too cheap to do that.

This is the first real E-book that we have used and I found that it wasn't as big of deal to me. It also made me realize that my girls don't have a lot of experience reading from a computer and it was a bit harder for them to follow along. I think that we will add more E-books into our lesson plans so they can become as fast at reading from the computer as they are from books.

I then went through and read with my girls taking turns reading. This helps my girls practice their reading and listening skills. I then had them fill out the reading comprehension worksheets.

You could either have them fill them out like I did or just talk about it. I try to have a blend of filling out worksheets so they can practice their writing and organizing their thoughts and getting it down on paper as well as practice organizing their thoughts and relaying information orally.

We then talked about the pay scale for firefighters and I had them complete the math worksheets. We did this in addition to Math U See and I had them complete the math worksheets on a day that was a review of a concept from Math U See. I also let them work together on the "firefighter math" as we called it. I have them do Math U See by them selves but if we have extra or fun math worksheets or activities I will usually let them work together on those.

I printed out one manuscript page and one cursive copy work page for each of them. They don't like to practice writing but I feel it is important so we do some. I try not to go overboard and therefore don't give them a lot of pages, especially if they are doing a lot of writing like filling in comprehension worksheets.

We then talked about robotics and firefighters and the science behind it. They also built their own robotic arm following the directions in the book, they had a blast doing that, Science is one of their favorite subjects.

We also did some firefighter arts and crafts which included making the fire truck from a shoe box as well as a diorama of a fire station. They also drew pictures and did a few other crafts that I came up with.

The girls want to have a firefighter party but we are in the process of moving so I'm not sure if we will be able to do this or not.

We did talk about how you need to be physically fit to be a firefighter. We did a few of the physical fitness games, the ones where you didn't need big groups, and if we could we modified the games to work with two kids. Like instead of having teams they worked either together or apart, racing against their own time.

I printed out a few coloring pages and the crosswords and word searches that I kept in the car and on hand for when we were going places or if they were waiting for the other sister to finish work they had something to work on while waiting. I also have a trip to a local fire station scheduled for this week to wrap up our firefighter week.

The girls learned a lot and had a great time doing it.

Butterfly Newsletter

The girls and I put together a fun little newsletter about butterflies. Check it out!

Curriculum We Are Using

I know that I have not done a good job in updating this blog. Things have been crazy at our house.

One of my goals for this coming year is to update each of my blogs once a week, I figure that would be consistent enough for the reader and not so much pressure for me.

On the right hand side of the blog you can see a list of curriculum that we are using this year, when you click on them it will take you to the web page. Please note that a few are available on Amazon and I made note of that so please click on the amazon link under the curriculum links so we get credit for the clicks. Thanks!

I thought that I would say something about each of the curriculum that we have used so you can have an idea why we use it and why we like it. That being said, here goes:

American Girl Kirsten, I love the American Girls series and read them all when I was younger. I love to read them with my girls! The reason we started with Kirsten is because we had all her books--that's all the logic behind the choice! Anyway, if you click on the next link it will take you to a page where they have most of the American Girls series lapbooks. We are making the lapbook as we go. We have read book one and are almost done with book two. There are six books in the series with a couple mini books that they have come out with later. After we read that day we fill out a part of the lapbook.

A quick side note about lapbooks for those who are not familiar. Lapbooks are a great tool that I am trying to utilize more in my homeschool. A lapbook is a fun way for the child to organize the ideas they have learned--it's also a great thing to show grandparents, my husband, and other friends and family members to give them a quick overview of what we have been doing. They can then ask questions about the things on the lapbook and the child can "teach" them what they have learned. You use file folders for the base. To learn more about lapbooking check out homeschoolshare.

We used Exploration Education's Elementary Physical Science this year, and the girls loved it. We actually finished it the first semester because the girls were so excited, so we are now supplementing this second semester with other science activities. I really liked this curriculum as it was easy enough for the girls to do on their own. They start on the computer where they are introduced to the next science concept, they learn the definition and what it means. They then do a simple experiment to illustrate the concept, they computer program guides them step by step through this process. And then they do a worksheet to reinforce the concept. And one of the best things about this curriculum is that it comes with everything you need for each experiment, with the exception of scissors, pencils, crayons, etc--we kept a set of these in the box with the curriculum so it was easy to find.

We are using the Handwriting Without Tears for our manuscript practice as well as learning cursive. This program is good for those just starting and I wish I would have used this way back when my girls were first learning to write, the beginning is a bit simplistic for the girls and they got bored easily. This was easily fixed by not doing all the repetition. I got the manuscript as a way for them to practice and make their printing neater, so we only do a page or so. And I wanted something that would streamline into cursive which this seems to do nicely.

Magic School Bus A Journey Into The human Body, is our first supplemental science curriculum that we are using. I had bought these a year or so ago and they got lost on our shelves and they were rediscovered as I was packing for our move. We have just barely started this but the girls love it so far and are excited about continuing to use this set. This comes with a lot of the things you need but there is quite a list of more items that you will need to find to complete all the tasks.

Math U See, what can I say about Math U See I think that just saying "I LOVE IT" does not fully cover how much I love this curriculum. I always have struggled with Math and thus it was my hated subject growing up. But with this curriculum it has become so clear to me and I often tell Erik, my husband "Why didn't anyone teach it to me that way? It make perfect sense, now!" It is easy to learn and there are enough practice sheets that you can practice until you truly do get the concept or skip past all the practice if you get the concept. The girls sped through the second year curriculum and finished Beta the first semester. We are now moving onto Gamma the second semester. The whole concept of Math U See is to build it, say it and write it. Thus covering all the ways people learn, making sure that the technique you learn best is there and reinforcing it with the others. I would so recommend this curriculum to anyone who is having trouble with math.

Since we live in Southern California and part of our extended family speaks Spanish we decided to learn Spanish. And let me tell you Rosetta Stone is the best curriculum for learning a new language. I was really sceptical about how it would work especially since it costs so much but we are so pl;eased with it. The girls are learning Spanish at their speed and Erik and I are learning Spanish as well! I took four years of French in high school and I remember next to nothing but I am retaining the Spanish! Definitely try Rosetta Stone if you want to learn another language!

We love Signing Time! We were first introduced to it on PBS and we started recording the episodes on DVD but there was always a few we missed and it was such work to try and get them all and forget about getting them in order! So we jumped at the chance to buy the DVD set with the CDs that have all the songs on them. It is such a well done program that Erik and I are learning from it along with our girls, and we don't feel like it has been dumbed down for their benefit. We all now know a bunch of sign language and have gone on to but a sign language textbook to help with the signs that are not covered on the DVDs.

Spell to Write and Read, i did a post about this curriculum last year. I love this curriculum because after the initial investment you are ready to go for years to come! This has really helped the girls in spelling new words as well as sounding out new words they come across when reading.

This year I wanted to get History curriculum instead of trying to make my own. I just don't have enough hours in the day to do everything I want. So, I asked around and Story Of The World was one of the curriculum that came highly recommended. And now I see why. The text is written in a fun and easy to understand way, making this a great resource for my girls. It keeps their attention and they are not bored while reading the text. I remember to well the boring history texts that I had to read as a kid in school and how little I paid attention because my daydreams were much more exciting and because of that I can't tell you much about History. But this curriculum keeps my attention too and I find myself going "That really happened? I never knew that!" There are also great activities that go along with each section that the girls get to do as well as the worksheets and tests.

I think that I got most everything we are using. What curriculum are you using?

Reading Incentives

My youngest Emma use to be a reluctant reader, until I discovered some tricks that have made reading more enjoyable to her.

As many of you know, we are avid readers. My husband and I love to read and s did our oldest, Miriam. So, we were concerned when our youngest was more of a reluctant reader. We read to them all the time and they were always surrounded by books. We have so many books in our home, that we do not have enough room for all of them!

One trick I discovered completely by accident. I had picked up some books at a library sale, can't pass up a great deal on books. I usually pick out books with one or the other of the girls in mind but I tend to give them to them all together. Well, that day I happened to show my husband the books first and had told him why I chose each book and who I was thinking would enjoy it. So, he told our girls that mommy had picked out some books special for each of them, so when I got home Emma met me at the door bouncing up and down and asked what books I had gotten special for her. I gave her the books I had picked out thinking of her and she sat down and read them! So, giving them a special book especially for them might help.

Half the time during school I pick out what we will be reading/studying and the other half of them time I will let the girls choose. Well, what I pick isn't always what they are most excited about but when I would let them choose Emma would take forever and she would start whining about not knowing what to pick. Which would lead to me getting frustrated, just pick a book we have a ton! Then one day I chose a few books for her to choose from and asked her to choose from those, which she happily did and sat down to read no whining and no tears. Lesson learned, sometimes too many choices can be way too overwhelming for a beginning reader.

And the I came up wit the idea to chart the books we were reading and give them a reward when they reached a certain level. Sometimes it's a toy from the dollar store, a candy bar at the grocery store, picking a craft to do together, picking the movie for movie night, picking dessert, or anything else I come up with. As you can see it's usually inexpensive as well.


Here are the girls' reading charts. They can fill in the squares by coloring them or with a sticker. Because Mia is a more advanced reader she has to read a few more books than Emma to reach each level.

To solve the problem of having them reading the easiest books to fill up the most spaces faster I came up with a point system. Each book is given a certain number of points determined by me based on difficulty as well as their individual reading levels. Also they are allowed to read the same book again but it loses one point each time it is read, so if a book is worth 3 points the next time it is read it is only worth 2. We do have some books that are so ridiculously easy that they are worth 0 points! They love to see their charts filling up as well as getting their rewards.

Do you have any tips to helping a reluctant reader become an avid reader?

Workboxes!

We have jumped on the new homeschool bandwagon of Sue Patrick's Workboxes.

We have tweaked her system so it fits myself and the girls better. I know that in her book she says that it is best to follow her program and how she sets it up exactly. But what can I say I'm a rebel!

I love how it helps the girls learn how to work independently and to be self motivated. They also have a visual reminder of what they have done and what they have to do. So they know exactly when school will be done--when they get through the boxes!

Anyway, here are some pictures of how we do it!

There is a link at the bottom of the page for you to click on to buy your own copy of the book so you can get started with this fun new craze.

Here is our box system. We got this cart a few years ago at Costco, I think. She says to use 12 separate boxes per child, but I have found that the having one set of boxes they share works just as well for us, takes up less room, and was cheap because we didn't have to buy anything. I have two sets of numbers on each box, one for each girl.

They are so close in age that they pretty much do the exact same thing. And if I want them to different things for that box I write it on a card. Like if I want Mia to work on her Spanish on the computer with Rosetta Stone and I want Emma to read books I write on the card "Mia-Spanish. Emma-Read" And then the next box will have them switch.

I use the top of the cart to help keep things organized.

For things that are too big to fit in the box there is a large amount of space on top where I can put those needed oversized supplies.

I also have a 3 drawer container that helps keep things organized. The top drawer is where they put any work they have completed so I can look it over and decide what we need to still work on or if we can move on. My husband, Erik, wants to be involved with homeschooling but because of his work schedule he is not able to be home for most of it. So, to help keep him in the loop he grades all tests. So the middle drawer is where the girls put their tests and when Daddy comes home he grades their tests and then goes over it with them, even if they got everything correct. The bottom drawer contain supplies like pencils, erasers, rulers, pencil sharpeners, etc--anything they might need to complete their work that day.



Here is a close up of a few drawers and the numbers on the front. You number each drawer and also have a removable number on the front as well. Because i use the same drawer for both girls I have to sets of numbers in different colors on the front. I use that sticky tack stuff, I use it because that is what I had on hand.

These are their schedule sheets. Sue Patrick tells you to make it a strip but this works just as well for us. You can see how it looks without the numbers and also how it looks with some numbers put on. I used paper that I had on hand already and covered them with contact paper. She suggests that you laminate all the card, numbers, sheets, etc. But I already had contact paper on hand.

On our front door hangs their chore charts and the daily schedule.

Here is our basic schedule. Of course it is always open to slight changes when needed.

Emma's Chores

Mia's Chores. You will notice that they have the exact same chores but they each have their own chart to check off. This helps keep them accountable for what they have done.

So this is how we use the workbox system for us! Hope that helps someone visualize another way to use the system.

Our Adventures As CSIs

Sorry it has been so long. Our computer was down for about a month and then things have been crazy trying to get everything done online!

Anyway, a few months back we went to the California Science Center on a field trip. Even more exciting was the fact that Daddy was able to go with us as well!

The Science Center was having a CSI exhibit as their special program, and for all you who know me I LOVE the show CSI! So, this was great for all of us. We got to view a "crime scence" and figure out what we would need as clues from the scene to solve the murder mystery. And then we went through the "lab" and examined all our clues and data that we had "retrieved." We even got to go to the "autopsy room" and view the body and talk to the doctor. And the whole time were being guided by the dreamy CSI Investigator, Nick Stoles from the TV show. Okay, so maybe the rest of the family wasn't as excited as I was. After completeing all the parts we got to check and see if our conclusion was the right one. And guess what, we were right! I guess all those hours watching CSI paid off!

The girls tried out rock climbing! I am so proud of them for trying it out. Emma didn't want to at first because she thought it looked too high, but then when we told her she didn't have to go all the way to the top she was game to give it a try. Both girls were so excited and wante dto go again!

We also watched the IMAX movie Under The Sea in 3-D. It was really cool but the 3-D started to give me a headche, again. The girls had a great time watching it and it was really fun and educational. We learned about all different kinds of sea life. It talked about most of the sea animals that are in Finding Nemo. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming!

And of course we tried out all the different exhibits.

The whole time we were having fun and learning at the same time! Now that's my idea of school! I love the freedom that homeschooling gives us to take a day and go do something fun!