Yea, I have been MIA for almost the whole month! I have been working on our 1st grade curriculum, I have it all planned, now I have to get it all ready! :) But now I can enlist Dan's help so there will be plenty of delegating. :) Here is the quick overview for grades 1-3, it is based on Lindafay's at Higher Up and Further In, she has been heaven sent! And for Jake we are going to do the Before Five in a Row! :)




Math
Abeka 1
Abeka
Abeka

World History
Ancients, creation-400AD.
Medieval, Early Renaissance, 400-1600
Late Renaissance/Early Modern, 1600-1910

American History
Exploring America, Colonies
Explorers - Pilgrims 1629

Revolutionary War
Colonial Times1629-Revolutionary War1776

Focus on Pioneers, Civil War, Indians
Revolution1776 - WWI 1917

Geography
Ancient World & Early America
Early Europe & Early America
World & America

Science
Nature Study/ Read & find out
Nature Study
Nature Study

Beg. Read
Grammar
Spelling
Teach your Child to Read in 100 easy lessons

Narration
Oral
Oral
Oral

Copy Work
From our reading
From our reading
From our reading

Poetry
1 a week
1 a week
1 a week

Shakespeare
Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare
Beautiful Stories From Shakespeare
Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare or Tales from Shakespeare

Literature
Family –chapter books
Family – chapter books
Family & personal reading

Artist Study
1 artist per 6 weeks
1 artist per 6 weeks
1 artist per 6 weeks

Composer Study
1 composer per 6 weeks
1 composer per 6 weeks
1 composer per 6 weeks

Foreign Language
Hearing, vocabulary
Hearing

Hymn Study
Family
Family
Family

Scripture Study
Daily – family – Old Testament
Daily – family – New Testament
Daily – family & personal

Scripture Memory
As a family, until all have memorized
As a family until all have memorized
As a family until all have memorized

Character Development
As a family - A Child's Book of Character Building –Book 1
As a family - A Child's Book of Character Building – 1 or 2
As a family - A Child's Book of Character Building

This is really pretty on my colorful table I whipped up in word, but I can not get it on here, I hope you can decipher it!

Check out the post "WOW Riley!!!" on my other blog!!! Yea!!!! :)

Ahh, summer science!! Look at our fun! We have gotten into the routine of going outside after dinner, it is cool and pleasant, and I water the garden.I have to keep on top of these or they tend to disappear!! So they usually get picked before they are overly red, for the fear that I will not see any and my patch will get tromped! The kids are so amazed at the food we are growing, these are the first fruits this summer.
Dan made the boys bug boxes, and Riley found a bug today to put in it! Although he would not touch it, so I had to pick it up for him and put it in his box. He is so proud, but sad the caterpillar has to live outside! :)
He is a bit fizzy, but not like the big fuzzy black ones we always had growing up. Too bad, those were so cool!

So there is our science for the day! :)

I have been a slacker on both of my blogs this week, oh well! :)

The new LDSHEA newsletter came out today with #4 reason LDS parents should homeschool! So go here to read the entire thing!

Yea so I am here at home on the 25th, not in Virginia. :( Dan's trip got moved and it was getting "too hard" to make it work to go to the homeschool conference. I am bummed, but the weight off my shoulders is good. I made Dan promise to buy me the CD's when they are available!! :) So I will report on it then! :)

I have been furiously working on the Hook Family Curriculum for next year, and now am trying to design a planner of sorts to keep school stuff organized, I am looking at FIAR's planner, and using the free Donna Young site. Along with my trusty word program with tables!! :) I do not have a way to post them on here, but if you really want to see any of it, email me and I will send it! :)

I just read the Leadership Training proceedings in the June Ensign, it is also available to watch on the church website. It was good to read, I got alot out of it for my calling at church, but also about teaching at home. It might be easier to follow watching it, I might go do that, alot of it is dialogue, so unless you are seasoned at reading from scrip style form, you might want to watch it!! :)

Just some cool sites I have been perusing!

FIAR forums -it is amazing what you can learn from other mamas!!

Simply Charlotte Mason - neat curriculum (free) ideas, and the planner looks interesting.

Donna Young - she has amazing forms, they are all free and even if I do not use hers it gives me a jumping off point to making my own! :)


And some books I am "hankering" for! (Sorry we watched the new Veggie Tales Movie last night "Moe and the Big Exit" and instead of "coveting" they use "hankering" and I thought it was great! :)

Crinkleroot Books

Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare

Lets Read and Find-out Science Books

I will probably have at least the second one and a couple of the third one for school next fall, the Crinkleroot books I can find at the library occasionally! :)

I have been looking into what we need and what we have and what we are doing for the fall, and having fun outside! It just is so hard to do sit down work when it is finally so pretty outside!! :) But Riley and I buckled down today do do a little, Fern and Jake are asleep, which helps A TON!!!!!

I have loved Shakespeare for a long time, it all started my freshman year in high school in Drama 1 with Mr. Scott. Most of the year was devoted to Shakespeare, we had to memorize a monologue to preform in class, and then translate it into modern day jargon and preform that. What this did for my understanding of the scriptures is in measurable! Well I always thought I would have to wait until high school to enjoy the Barb with my children, tis not so I learned today! Even with the FIAR I am planning to do next year with Riley, this WILL be one of the other great things we will work on! I hope my library has these books so that I can read them before I decide if they should be apart of our library. We are going to have to add on to the house just to house all these book I want and have!!

So here is the plan on the blog, Higher Up and Further In. I thoroughly enjoy reading this mama's blog! Enjoy!!

You have to LOVE environmental science! Hands on makes it 10X better!! Here is one of the bird feeders we put out today, not only are we learning about birds, but we are recycling too! This morning we saw an American Robin (there are alot of them around it is CT.'s state bird), and we saw a female Hairy Woodpecker!
This picture does no justice to this earthworm!! This thing was ENORMOUS!!!! Think James and the Giant Peach big! It was close to 5 inch. long and as big around as my little finger!! Dan dubbed it the Granddaddy of earth worms and then when Jake and Fern turned away welcomed it into the "Earthworm Relocation Program". Jake LOVES earthworms, but unfortunately does not quite understand about holding too tightly! So Granddaddy now has a new home in our garden plot.
Here are our veggie beds, we planted everything today except the tomato plants, we will see what comes up! That pile of rocks in the middle are SOME of the rocks that came from the 4 new areas. We completely understand now about pioneers moving west with the promise of fewer rocks to dig out of fields!! It is crazy!
Now along with my daffodils the previous owners tulips have popped up! They are a beautiful red, and they look great next to the bright yellow! Just since last night there are actual leaves on our trees! It is great to have the green coming back! :)

We went on a great outing today, it went along well with our book, The Ox-Cart Man. It was perfect to see a colonial era house after reading about it, Riley recognized alot! So I guess this is one good thing about not living in Calif. there are no colonial houses there to go see. But don't tell anyone I said that! :) Dan commented that our tour guide gave us mostly fluff info, and that he was hoping to learn more, then commented on how Riley will soon be able to out tour the tour guides! :) Oh well, it was a great outing to go along with this fun book. Doing this unit study has made me more excited about doing FIAR next year, I am waiting to continue my research and also to look and see at the curriculum fair at the HSing conference next month, plus continuing to pray over the mater. So we will see! :)

Well the new LDSHEA newsletter came out with #3 of "Why Latter-day Saints should homeschool"!! And better yet they now have all 3 on there site! Here is a little sneak peek, and the link to read the rest!

Some mothers weep in the fall. Others rejoice, feeling liberated when the children go back to school. Marjorie Hinckley was one who wept: "[Marjorie] loved the sound of the screen door slamming shut as children ran in from the backyard. . . . [she] savored the days she had her five to herself, and she went to great lengths to keep summers unstructured so her young ones would have time to lie in the gully and listen to the birds sing if they wanted to. She wept each fall when it was time to send her brood back to school; even when school was in session she looked forward to the moment each day when her children burst through the door and started scrounging for an afternoon snack. One day when Dick had to stay after school for some grade-school discipline, Marjorie marched over to his classroom and announced to his startled teacher, 'You can do anything you want with this boy all day long, but after 3 p.m. he's mine.'" (Glimpses into The Life and Heart of Marjorie Pay Hinckley, Virginia Pearce, p. 53)

This is one of my favorite quotes, in one of my favorite books, about one of my favorite people!!
Have fun reading, here is the link to #1 and #2!

Last week and this week we are having a great time with a free unit study from Homeschool Share, we are using the book, The Ox-cart Man. We have been studding about Connecticut, and working on our garden plot has fit in nicely! I said to Dan this morning, that it has been nice that he is doing hands-on science and math with the boys all week! :) This is similar to FIAR, using a book as a jumping off point to learn about many things! As a side note, the illustrations in this book are beautiful, I could look at them for a long time!!!

Well I finished my book and then decided to reread the original "Thomas Jefferson Education" book, and I am listening to the lecture "7 Keys to Great Teaching" also by DeMille. I realized that it had been too long since I had read it, and I had only read it once or twice I can't remember. Anyway, it is good to read again, I was feeling overwhelmed by it, even though I thought it was right for us, plus I have had a hard time implementing it as obviously my kids and I are not discussing Plato at great depths! (Not yet!) But I just need to get into it and read what I can and discuss it with whom I can. In other words, Dan better get reading too! Who else would I discuss it with! :) So it is good and much better this time around, what ever number that is, and I am feeling that although I am still not quite sure how to go about it with 6, 3, & 1 year olds that is will come, I just have to be patient and pray. It reminds me of a lesson I recently taught in Relief Society from Elder Robert C. Oaks of the Seventy on Patience; he quoted Elder Maxwell when he said,
"Patience is tied very closely to faith in our Heavenly Father. Actually, when we are unduly impatient, we are suggesting that we know what is best—better than does God. Or, at least, we are asserting that our timetable is better than His".
So lots of prayer and patience!!

Well I got my book (The Thomas Jefferson Education Home Companion) on Saturday and I am over half way through!!! I am enjoying it, there were a couple chapters I had to wade through, as they talked alot about TJed in respect to much older kids, but I am learning alot! I highly recommend it, but you should read A Thomas Jefferson Education First. At the LDSEHE conference next month, there is going to be a TJed seminar the day before, but it cost extra, and I am not sure we can be there a day early, with Dan's schedule. :( We'll see!

Yesterday the video "Letter Factory" came and we watched it, the kids enjoyed it, and they picked up some. Then today Riley sunk downstairs and put it in and started watching it. He is not suppose to do that with out asking, but how do you get upset at him wanting to learn! :) So I would say this was a good buy. :)

WOW!!! HOORAY!! EXCITING!!! That was yesterday!! Riley read a sentence, with out help!!!!! We got turned on to this website, and it is awesome, and FREE!!! I do not approve of lots of computer time for littles, but we will be doing these!!! The sentence was, "Zac sat on a can". HOORAY!! Maybe we will make it through the letter sounds!!!! We have had a hard time with letter sounds with Riley, some moms suggested a video, I am not a big fan of "educational" videos ether, I like the one on one, but we are really struggling and the moms who suggested it are very like minded on theses things, so I splurged and ordered it yesterday! Oh and I finally got to order "Thomas Jefferson Education Home Companion" I am so excited to read it, I can not wait!! Just thought I would share our GREAT milestone!!

On our adventure today we found this bird nest! I was really cool how it was hanging!
I was up on Dan's shoulder to take this one! Good thing he has been working out on the road!! I wonder if there is any way to find out what kind of bird made it.

We have jumped back on the wagon this week, it was a bit of a rocky week last week. Oh well you win some you lose some! :)
Anyway I read this which I thought was lovely, and inspiring last week and wanted to share it will all of you, (aka: no one!) :) (Just ignore the political talk at the beginning!)
And I have turned my head to find something good for next year, and as it happens some times it is not "new". Last year for Riley we did Before Five in a Row (BFIAR) and I loved it, I have been so excited about doing it with Jake this coming year. SO, why not try the next level, Five in a Row (FIAR). Isn't it amazing when the answer is right under your nose and you can not see it until the Lord (after sincere pleadings) points it out!!! They have added a few new "things" since I last looked at them and I have been enjoying reading the forums, with all the great ideas from fellow "rowing" mothers! I still plan to use the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons too. And of course plenty of gospel teachings!
Have a great day!!

Well school has been all over the place, literally, but we are home and going to try to get into the swing of things. LDSHEA has a news letter they send out that I enjoy, they have a new series going about why Latter-Day Saints should homeschool, I seam to have deleted the #1 reason, so I thought I would share the #2 reason. I could h=not get it on their site to just link to so I will just post the article here, it is by Joyce Kinmont. :)

Why Latter-day Saints Should Homeschool . . . and how to do it!
Reason #2: Homeschooling Will Help You Grow
I know, I've heard it many, many times: I can't homeschool; I haven't got the patience!
Did you leave the pre-existence without patience? Do you want to leave this earth without it? Of course not, and here is your opportunity. Sign up for Patience 101. After that you can enroll in Parental Leadership, Service in the Family, Organization Skills, Teaching by the Spirit, Learning by the Spirit, and every other Celestial skill you ever wanted to develop. Your major is Godhood.
Sound overwhelming? It's not, unless you picture yourself moving a school classroom into your home and see yourself standing before a small classroom delivering lessons you stayed up late to prepare to an uninterested, uncooperative child. It can be done that way and lots of homeschoolers try it, but the Lord's way of teaching is much different. Elder Dallin Oaks tells us, "The most basic example of differences between the Lord's way and man's way concerns how we learn" (The Lord's Way, p. 16).
Man's ways are usually burdensome, usually involve force, and seldom bring satisfying results. Man's yoke is heavy and stressful. The Lord's way is certainly less popular, and it may seem more difficult, but in the end it is the "easier" and more satisfying way."Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:29-30) The "easy" yoke is one that fits well, that makes the burden not just bearable, but joyful.
We live in an historic moment of time in the preparation of a Zion people. The Church is trying now to move us to a new way of learning, by the spirit. We are encouraged to ask questions and find answers by study and by revelation, and to teach each other the gospel through a higher level of discussion. President Packer, Elder Holland, Elder Bednar, Elder Bateman, and Elder Roger Merrill seem to be leading the way. Since the gospel encoumpasses all knowledge, homeschooling fits right into this; in fact home is the perfect place to learn how to learn by following inspired questions and being led to truth by both study and revelation. We are told that we live below our privileges. As children of god, shouldn't it be our privilege to learn from on high?
When we Saints sing "I am a child of God" we really mean it. We recognize that we are created in His image, and we are most fortunate to know something of what God looks like. In the ConferenceCenter in Salt Lake there is a small statue of the Father and the Son appearing to Joseph in the sacred grove. Which is the father, and which is the Son? You can only tell because the Father is gesturing with His left hand. Then, when you look at the back of the statue you see the Father's right arm placed tenderly around the back of his son. A real father and a real son. This is no small matter. Most of our Christian friends think they are created in the image of a God who has no image and loved by a God who has no passions.
We understand the meaning of a "divine nature and destiny." We are gods in embryo. We know something of what we will be like when we grow up. Our destiny is to rejoin our heavenly family as adult children, having matured in our earth-school experience, and then to keep on growing until we too are "gods."
What is a god? A perfected being. What do gods do? As I've pondered the Divine Nature, everything seems to fall into two categories: they Create and they Bless. Sometimes they cry (Moses 7), but they certainly must also feel great joy.
What we need to do to develop our divine nature is to practice creating and blessing until we get very good at it. We are allowed to cry along the way, and we are expected to experience joy. Our laboratory is our home. Our texts are written by apostles and prophets who are also the professors. We read the texts and listen to our Professors to find out how children should be raised and what they should be taught in the Kingdom of God. We are coached by our personal tutor and mentor, the Holy Ghost, who whispers to our seeking hearts. We try out what we learn in our family laboratory. Our "lab experiments" are our children. They are like precious, tender plants, and we learn to serve and bless them as we become experienced gardeners in our own little family garden plot.
I don't know how we got to be the children of Heavenly Parents in the first place. I don't know what we were when they found us, or chose us, or harvested us. Intelligences? Points of light, perhaps? Whatever we were then, we are theirs now. They gave us spiritual bodies and loved us and taught us. They prepared a "school" for us, individualized to provide just the circumstances we would need for our personal growth. Then at the right time, when they knew we were ready, they sent us off. There was no compulsion, no force, no threat, no competition; we wanted to go. We all committed to help each other get back. Surely there was a final good-bye, a long embrace, and we were on our way.
Now we are complaining and fighting the experience, looking for ways to avoid the hard work and the growth opportunities, looking for short cuts and easy outs. Why would we skip the core part of our earth school? How can we say, "Naw, I'll pass on this one. I'm not smart enough. I need my free time. I have other things to do. The mall is calling me. Let the state do it. I pay taxes. And I haven't got the patience."
Here we are with this great opportunity to work right in our homes to develop our own godhood, to learn to bless and create, and we turn down the opportunity because we haven't got the patience?
We are blessed to have the gift of a teaching nature to help us fulfill our teaching duty. We are further blessed when we have a child or two or six or twelve to give us hands-on opportunities to develop patience -- and obedience, and self-reliance, and creativity, and the use of agency, and many other traits of our Divine Nature. If our "homeschool" must be just a 15 minute mini-discussion over dinner to start with, and if it requires a soul-stretching, patience building effort on our part to make it happen, so be it; but we can'topt out.
The second reason for homeschooling is to take advantage of a great opportunity for our own personal growth and happiness -- to learn patience.
Our first estate featured learning of a cognitive type, and it was surely a much longer span than that of our second estate, and the tutoring so much better and more direct. The second estate, however, is one that emphasizes experiential learning through applying, proving, and testing. We learn cognitively here too, just as a good university examination also teaches even as it tests us. . . We have moved, as it were, from first-estate theory to second-estate laboratory. - The Neal A. Maxwell Quote Book, p. 198
Reading aloud is my favorite part of homeschooling. How many others have had this experience: I am sitting on the couch (a chair would never do) reading a good book, such as Men of Iron by Howard Pyle. One child sits on my right, and one child sits on my left, and one child sits on the back of the couch behind my neck, and one child sits on my lap. The fifth child has to make do. Everyone must be situated, just so, in order to see all of the pictures - which must be examined minutely before the page is turned. This is one of the ways God taught me patience. . . . If I could have just an hour of that time again, right now, I would gladly read Corduroy fifteen times in a row and not complain. - Lauri Bluedorn, "Ten Things to Do with Your Child Before Age Ten, Teaching the Trivium," 1998 www.triviumpursuit.com

Funny, I gave that link just recently! :) Have a great day!! :) I am not sure anyone reads this, if you do let me know! :)

Well "RE" week went pretty well, the bought curriculum got thrown out the window (soon to be eBay), I think Dan is a little scared about the money we spent on it. I was also hesitant to stop using it for that reason too, but it is just too important of a job to do it with mediocre curriculum. That may sound harsh, it just did not work for our family, and the important job of educating these little ones! So I think we will fall back on what we felt right about first; A Thomas Jefferson Education. It is not a curriculum, more of a ... philosophy? I am not sure that is the correct word. Anyway the reason I went looking for a curriculum was I was afraid of the responsibility of doing it my self. But I believe this is what the Lord wants for our kids, so basically; God, Family, Country, and good literature. There are so many other words I could use, but we will suffice with these. There is a new book out about TJed, so another thing for me to save for. :) Maybe after I sell the other curriculum I can buy a couple of these books I have been wanting for our homeschool. :) So I highly recommend reading the book A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver DeMille, good stuff!

So the night before last we finished "The Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder, it was a hit with the boys, even when I thought they were not paying attention they were. There were many mornings that they played pretend that sounded alot like what we had read the night before! Last night we started "James and the Giant Peach" by Roald Dahl, I was afraid when we started it that maybe it was a little too scary for the boys, especially Riley. But he loved it, when I was going to stop he asked for a little more! So we will see how this goes. Now I have to think of another book after this, any ideas are welcome! :)

And I am reading this! :) Among other things! :) I know it is the summary not the real book, but the real book is like 200+ pages, that is alot to print out on my sad printer!

It is hard to see but Riley went on a # scavenger hunt. There is 1 car, 2 hammers, 3 shapes, 4 rattles, 5 books, and 6 dishes. He had fun, it seemed a bit overwhelming at first, but he was so proud of himself in the end!
I got this idea off of the preschool ideas link in the last post. I made Jake a "bank" out of a nut can, I covered it with construction paper and put his name on it, then covered it with fun stickers. He was so excited that I was making something for him! Then I gave him a handful of coins and said put them in. He put them in and dumped them out for over a half an hour! He loves his bank and periodically has asked to play it since then. It is ranking right up there with the wooden puzzles!

We have been enjoying "RE" week, the kids have watched a little too much TV, and I have been doing a lot of reading. I don't feel like I am at any conclusions yet, but I have read a lot of great things! It is hard to get things read let alone get to hash it out in my head with my three wild Indians running around. (I can really say that too, they are a little Cherokee)! :)

Well I have dubbed this "Re" week. Re-view, Re-vamp, Re-lax...hmmm, I wonder if there are any others I could insert there. :) Although there was one new thing we worked on, I decided that I should be introducing the lowercase letters with the upper, so since we have gone through A-H we worked on the lowercase A-H. So far Riley did pretty good, he has a hard time forming the letters the correct way, so we worked on that today. I have these cool stamps that are "dot" letters, so I stamped them in his book and then he traced them. I put them together like "Aa". So far so good, plus he was eager to work at it today!
I found this and thought it had some fun ideas for Jake, we have a theme for the month, but it is pretty loose, yesterday Jake worked on the file folder game "Grandpa's Garden" from the Finch Family File Folder Games book. (I have 1, I would love ALL of them!!)
So we will see how "Re" week goes, and we'll see what gets revamped! :)

Well this school year has definitely been a roller coaster, not the best fall to start kindergarten! Being nomads for a month and packing and unpacking on ether end of our wondering, curriculum building got the fuzzy end of the stick. So with the limited amount of research time I chose a packaged curriculum. It is good, but now after diving into it, and banging our heads for a few months, I have come to the conclusion that it is just not for us. So maybe I will be exploring the selling side of eBay! So now I am mostly improvising our curriculum now, loosely following the shell of the one I bought. I wish I could call TIME OUT and gather myself. But I think with my present state that could take a few years, so we press forward. I have been reading other blogs and trying to glean from experienced moms. Now I just need to get myself motivated and into action. Something my severe lazy bone works against. The other impediment unfortunately is money. I hate to admit it, but homeschooling does take some money. I know there are moms who can do it relatively free, but our library and my sanity are not so ready. So we improvise. I think this is a good buy, I have had it recommended by a few moms. I am looking forward to getting it and starting working with Riley on reading. Not hard core, I don't want to turn him off I want him to love it! :)

So for the month of February Jake is learning about weather, so for an art project I had on the list to make windsocks. I guess since I am from San Diego I imagine the round tube with many tales flapping behind, so we were going to do it with a tube of construction paper and crepe paper tales. Dan did this activity with the boys while I ran a couple errands, and can you guess what kind of windsocks the pilot made? Ha Ha, so funny that we thought of two different things that both work well with our discussion on wind. It gave me a good giggle though! So here are my boys and their windsocks!

I have been reading more here . :)