Ethiopia Lapbook

I came across this link on our AWAA Yahoo board. Thought I would share it with all of you!  Ethiopia Lapbook

At the bottom of the lapbook the author writes: The author of the Globetrotter Lapbook Series is a homeschool mom of four who has been living in Europe and Asia since 2002. Other country lapbooks are available from the Simply Lapbooks Yahoo Group which holds all the files I create and show on my
homeschool blog: http://hebrews110.wordpress.com/.

I believe I'm going to go and join her group! I've done a lapbook with our Little House on the Prairie Class and although it was a LOT of work with twenty-something students it was fun. Enjoy!

Graduations & Promotions

Last week we Sarah graduated from home school high school and Joe promoted from junior high school to high school. James is "officially" a middle schooler entering the seventh grade. We had the ceremonies at College Avenue Baptist Church in San Diego with a full crowd in attendance. During the high school ceremony our family was able to share a half pew which means we were squished to the gills. Ten people in half a pew for HOURS on end. Not good. We managed to make it through intact. By the end of the ceremonies we had been there at least 6 1/2 hours. The children did pretty darn good though all of it. I thanked them afterwards for behaving so well.

Sarah looked lovely as she waited for her name to be called and very happy when it was her turn to accept her diploma. She even made funny faces for me while up on stage. (She does have her father's genes after all.)

Math in the mind of a boy

Problem: The car dealer just received 27 new cars. Each car costs $16,379. How much do they cost altogether?

Answer given on his paper: a lot


I don't think that is the answer I was looking for.

They're moving us into a bigger room!

Our Class Day coordinator called today and said that one of the classes I've offered to lead is such a hit that forty children have already signed up to take it! She wants to move us from a regular classroom to the Fellowship Hall. I'll have at least six of us working and more as others register.

What is the class? Fun with Learning Games! It's for grades 1-6 and we'll play games for almost an hour twice a month.

My boys love games and have learned so much from them. One of their favorites is Risk. I need to sit down with them some day so they can teach me.

What are some of your favorite games?

Pictures from the Spring Formal

Every year our home school ISP holds a Spring Formal for the high schoolers. This year they held it at the San Diego Zoo. Notice Jesse's animal print shirt? He even bought silk plants and fixed up our fifteen passenger van as a "Jungle Mobile." He drove his sister and some of the other high schoolers. Don't they look cute?

Monday at the La Jolla Shores Tidepools

We went on a field trip with our home school group to the tidepools at La Jolla.


Mommy & Joel
This is why we live in Southern California! The weather is beautiful!!
Joe enjoying his solitude
James starting his adventure

Joel finding treasures

Judge Rules That Home Schooling is Not a Legal Option in California

Hopefully HSLDA can turn this around.

http://www.hslda.org/docs/link.asp

http://www.hslda.org/docs/link.asp?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecalcatholic%2Ecom%2Fnews%2FnewsArticle%2Easpx%3Fid%3D769a0115%2D7d2f%2D48fc%2D8d14%2D4918e64d9cd5

Free E-Book download from a mom of 14

Free eBook Download: Getting It All Done by Marilyn Boyer


Have you ever felt overwhelmed with the demands of parenting? Life is certainly a challenge for parents, and especially those who accept the added responsibility of home education. But there are ways to make life easier and more productive, and this workshop discusses some of those.

Marilyn Boyer, mother of 14 children and a veteran home educator of 22 years' experience, shares her techniques for accomplishing a mammoth amount of housework while giving her children a superior education at the same time. A one-hour audio presentation.

Download Free eBook http://www.thelearningparent.com/products.asp?cat=1&product=5
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CD $6 / Companion Booklet $5.50

Schooling

I've been catching up on grades and lesson planning. I have found that I wasn't at all diligent in keeping up with what was expected of the children and whether they did it or not. Now I am getting on top of the game and some of my kids are doing multiple lessons a day in certain subjects.

I have felt overwhelmed lately with the amount of work needing to be done by me; one person. Even though my family helps tremendously there are still things that only mom can do or decisions that mom can make. Did you know in Ethiopia the lady of the house had a maid for the cleaning and a cook? I think I need a cook, laundress, housecleaner, teacher, nanny, chauffer.......................As long as we stay home and don't waste our time we can get usually get everything done.

How does one go from answering Algebra questions to phonics to changing diapers all in the span of fifteen minutes? By being flexible, with God's help, and a little insanity helps.

Family Accused of Having Too Many Kids-Give Me A BREAK!!!

http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/tx/200802120.asp

California History Walk-Through

Today our ISP held a walk-through California for the California history students which range from grades fourth-to-sixth. Each of the children had a term that they were to define and a question that they needed to find the answer to and answer in a complete question. James' term was "erosion." Erosion- Erosion is the wearing away and changing of land by the movement of water and wind. His question was: What is the name of a canyon in California that was created by erosion? His answer: Yosemite Valley is a canyon in California that was created by erosion. Then each of the students took a piece of California and made it into a map of California. Good job, James!!!

Monday Morning

Today is a school day. Yes, it's a holiday, but with our sicknesses lately we are doing schoolwork to catch up.

Monday's are kind of a slow day for my kids because they seem to recuperate from the weekend. Joel is totally out of the academics to the point it's not even worth hitting the books because of the frustration it causes us. On those days we do minimum work and put it away. He'll do better tomorrow and probably complete twice as much.

I'm knitting Sarah's pink scarf so I can finish it. I bought yarn to start the knitted nativity set that Mama Bear posted about on her knitting blog. Reading and knitting, this my friends is the life.

Meltdown

Last night I had a meltdown. Every now & then I feel so overwhelmed with schooling that I can't take it anymore, it seems to happen when I have babies in the house. I tell Steve I'm sending the kids to school, blah, blah, blah. He listens patiently. This time I broke down into tears. He tried to comfort me; it worked.

I believe Satan was telling me, "Who says YOU have to be responsible for their schooling? Don't you do everything else? Do you REALLY have to teach them too? You've done this for nineteen years, isn't that long enough?"

I realized where this was coming from and calmed down. My husband as well as I want the children educated at home. I am his help meet and as such need to follow through on what he desires. I may not be the best teacher. I may not teach everything. I certainly don't know everything. In fact, my older kids know more than I do.

I do know that God has equipped me to do what is necessary for the moment. I know that He wants me to rely on Him and not on myself. Only in realizing I can't do this can I allow Him to do it for me.

School, boys, concrete and men

I was trying to finish up school with the two youngest boys who are six and eight. John still had phonics to do and Joel was finishing up his math. The attraction that was outside our front door just was too much for these boys. We are having a patio poured and the concrete men were here!! Numbers and letters don't hold a match to trucks, dirt, men, iron, and concrete! I gave up and let them out to enjoy the moment.

Out with the old & in with the new!

Emptied our shelves of last year's school books!!! They're sitting in a laundry basket ready for Sarah to put away for me in our book cupboards. Our new books are sitting on the shelf and ready to go!

I love the way My Father's World looks. I'm going to go through the Kindergarten reading program with Joel. When acclerated there are twenty-six lessons to coincide with each letter of the alphabet. Then John, Joel & I will dive into the first grade reading. John didn't test so well in his reading. I think the A Beka readers were too hard, too many words & pages at once. MFW seems to be gentler in their approach. I want my guys to LOVE school not dread it like they do now. I want to like it too! I should be homeschooling until the year 2024. YIKES! I'll be ready for Social Security!!!

I also bought Singapore Math for John & Joel, Saxon for James, Joe & Sarah & Chalk Dust Pre-Calculus on DVD.

Spelling Power for spelling.

Grammar lesson books recommended by My Father's World. Reminds me of books from the 50's.

Writing Strands for Joe.

Heritage Christian School & Homeschooling grades

Back in 1993 we joined Heritage Christian School. www.hcssd.org I had two kids in school and one wasn't reading very well. My oldest son was in fifth grade and his younger brother should have been about third grade. My younger son wasn't reading very well and I needed help. Turns out he had a lot of learning disabilities and needed six months of vision therapy.

We go to Class Days twice a month. I have helped in various areas such as playground duty, nursery, clean-up team, Kindergarten teacher, Art 1-3 lead teacher and Science 1-3 lead teacher. They keep our records and act as an umbrella between us and the government. They also offer SAT prep classes and high school courses for my older kids. Jesse took Honors Chemistry this year and received a B+. We have promotion and graduation ceremonies, field trips, clubs, and just all kinds of fun stuff.

Anyways, the not so fun stuff is to keep track and turn in our grades four times a year. This week our fourth quarter grades are due. Ugh! I have six children that homeschool so I need to go through each of their subjects, figure out what they've done, and what grade they've earned. It's the part of homeschooling I hate the most. Okay, phonics is second, but figuring out grades is defintely tops in my book. At least I can now do all of this online, so no more filling out endless amounts of paper. I finished Joel & John last night since they're the easiest.

Joel's subjects were:
Phonics
Penmanship (Manuscript)
Mathematics
Science (Class Day)
Art (Class Day)
PE
Bible

John's subjects were:
Phonics
Reading
Penmanship (Manuscript)
Mathematics
Science (Class Day)
Music (He started piano lessons again)
Art (Class Day)
Bible
PE (Class Day & home)

My Father's World & Home schooling

I ordered the 2nd-8th grade curriculum for next year. We're going to use My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures. You can find it here: http://www.mfwbooks.com/1_ecc.htm I need to add a little for Joe our 7th grader. I'm excited to teach the boys all together.

Usually I don't teach anything but math and language arts until they're reading really well. All of them are bored with the A Beka readers and I need an alternative. This year they'll focus on missionaries, the world and exploring diverse countries while learning geography. I think we'll use A Beka & Saxon math and continue with A Beka or Easy Grammar for Language.

I do need to figure out what my senior and junior will be doing. I know they're taking American Govt. and Economics at Class Day. Jesse should probably take Physics too.

Board Games

Do you play board games with your children? I do. My six year old son LOVES board games. His favorite right now is Scrabble, Jr. He also loves Connect Four, Trouble, and Guess Who? I just bought some Quizmo games. They're educational bingo games. The ones that came are the Sight Word Sets 1 & 2. I found they have a web site so I went to it and ordered the phonics game and some math games. I figure it will be a way that we can "do school" in the summer while having fun at it. I also bought him Boggle, Jr. to help him with his letter recognition.

My seventeen year old son loves Risk. I don't know how to play Risk, but I've heard once you play you're addicted; especially if you're competitive. I'm not, but my husband is. Last night our youth pastor and our pastor's son (late 20's-early 30's) were over until 11pm playing Risk with Jesse. They have Risk parties.

When we go camping or on a Friday night Steve and I will play Dominoes. On July 4th last year we played dominoes for about five hours. Sarah played with us and we had a blast.

What games does your family enjoy?