History

by Amy

Last, but certainly not least.... History. I LOVE history! I think it's so interesting. So, this year, we are using History Odyssey to study the ancients -- Ancient Mesopotamia, China, Rome, Egypt, Greece, etc. So far, it's been really fun! History Odyssey is just a study guide that tells you how to use other books. So, I needed to buy The Story of the World, Vol 1, History Pockets: Ancient Civilizations, A Child's History of the World, and an Internet-linked Encyclopedia, as well as several other activity books. The History Odyssey curriculum tells me when to read what in each book. Each lesson has way more activities than we could possibly do, so each week, I pick what seems the most fun and appropriate for my kids.

So far, we've marked on several maps, made stick puppets of Mesopotamian people, learned about how archeologist dig, made a hanging loom and woven some yarn together, as well as colored lots of pictures, and looked up new words in a dictionary. I think this curriculum offers the a great balance between reading/listening and doing. I've been encouraged at how much information my kids are retaining.

I wasn't too sure about studying the ancients. I don't remember every studying ancient history when I was a kid, but it's been really cool! We learned about Ur, where Abraham was born. We learned how big the wall around Jericho was, and we've learned other fun facts that complement and enhance our understanding of the Bible. This week we started studying Egypt. I think we'll spend a whole week on the plagues!

So, if you're looking for a fun history curriculum, I'd recommend looking into this one. (Thanks, Carrie, for telling me about it!) It provides 36 lessons that are designed to each take a week. It could easily be stretched out over two school years, though if you wanted to do a lot of the "extras." Some of the books she has selected present history from a Biblical perspective, and some do not. (I have not been offended by their presentation, though.)

Well, that's it for my curriculum reviews! (I'm sure my dad's happy about that!) :) Rachel just gave me a CD full of pics, so I'll be sure to post some in the next few days. There are some cute ones!

Bible

by Amy


This year, I am not doing my own Bible class with the kids. Brad wanted to use our "school Bible" (the one I bought for school this year) for family devos instead. We have been reading The Children's Story Bible by Catherine F. Vos. We're about 30 chapters into it and have really enjoyed it. There are not many pictures in it, but my kids are fine with that. I like that it seems to basically tell all the stories, not just Noah, David and Goliath, and the other "famous" ones. It's also unique in the sense that the author does quite a bit of extra explaining and providing background info. So far, we have appreciated her explanations. It's clear to our kids that she is retelling these stories. (They know it's not God's words, but that the content is from Him.)

When Savannah does her own devos, she's been using the ESV Illustrated Family Bible. We like this because it gives her actual ESV verses without adding/changing anything. (We want to carefully monitor what's added - so we wouldn't give the Vos Bible to read on her own until we had read it all ourselves.) The only difference between her ESV and mine is that hers doesn't have all the verses, and it has some pictures. Each "chapter" is a good length for Savannah to read on her own in the morning. We've all been really pleased with it.

3 and Counting!

By Amy

No, I'm not counting children.... I'm counting years! As of today, we've lived in this place for THREE years! That seems hard to believe. I think back to unfamiliar and strange this place was to me, just three years ago. My, a lot of things have changed!

I'll name a few:

-- I know where to go if I need to buy something.

-- I understand most things people say to me.

-- The sights and smells are familiar and even comforting (OK, so not all the smells are comforting, but a lot are!)

-- I have friends here.

-- I know how to cook here.

-- I'm comfortable going places all by myself (actually, I LOVE going anywhere all alone!)

-- I feel at home here (most days, at least.)

-- My kids are at home here.

What a blessing it is to think back.... The Lord has been so gracious to us! Three years ago, I never imagined I'd be able to honestly make any of those statements.

Now, look at this picture of my kids! We were sitting in a relator's office trying to find a place to lease when I snapped this shot! MY how they have changed! My boys look like toddlers there! (I guess they were toddlers....) Where has the time gone?!?

Easter Quiz

by Amy

This year for Easter, the kids and I read the greatest story of all times and came up with 10 items to help us remember it. After reading and preparing, we had to put the items in the correct order. We also played this game with some friends that came over. We prepared several sets of "props." Then, after reading the story together, they were divided into teams and had a race to see who could get them in the correct order first! Can you do it? What about your kids?

A

B

C

D

E

F

G (bread and wine)

H

I

J

Answers:

1. F (donkey)

2. B (30 silver coins)

3. G (last supper - bread and wine)

4. E (praying hands)

5. C (Judas' kiss)

6. J (Crown of thorns)

7. A (nail)

8. I (the cloth His body was wrapped in)

9. D (the stone that was rolled away)

10. H (the angle declairng HE IS RISEN!)

The Rest of the Story

by Amy

So, Brad just read my blog and said I should tell everyone why my eggs didn't turn purple when I mixed red and blue dye.....

The most common eggs here are brown. You can buy them in any grocery store, at any market, and often even at the gate of my apartment complex. But, white eggs....now those are a different story. I've never personally ever seen anyone selling white eggs, but I know they exist. Last year Leigh (my house helper) tracked them down! Last year's Easter eggs turned out really well.

This year, we asked another friend to help me buy white eggs. She agreed to buy 300 white eggs, boil them and bring them to me. (We gave each kid a plain egg and markers so they could decorate it in class. Therefore I only needed to dye 200 eggs.) But, my friend, like many locals, decided she knew what I wanted better than I did! Since she could save me 3cents a pound by buying light brown eggs instead of white eggs, that's what she bought. She knew I'd rather save a little money and have brown eggs instead of white. --- Right??? Wrong!!!

So, I took the brown eggs and soaked them in blue dye. They turned blueish brown. Then, I soaked some other eggs in red dye. They turned pinkish-brown. So, I hoped that when I mixed the red and blue waters together and poured them over the brown eggs, they'd turn purple. They didn't. The actually turned deeper brown. Bummer....

When we dyed eggs the second time around, Leigh found white eggs at a market (very near to where the brown eggs were purchased) for 30 cents a pound CHEAPER than the brown eggs. It's a good think the kids at the school didn't know how bright and vibrant Easter eggs are supposed to be!

And that's "the rest of the story!" (I love Paul Harvey!)

Red and Blue Make....

** Curriculum posts are on hold. I have a couple more fun things to share, but my dad is tired of reading about school and wants to see pics of the grandkids! :) **

by Amy

Kindergarten 101: Red and Blue make ....

YUCK!! What happened to my purple!?!? These were the ugliest Easter Eggs I've ever seen! I tried to redeem them by putting those little plastic shrink wrappers on them. It didn't work!

Every Saturday Brad (and some other teachers) teach about 75 kids at our little English training center. We thought it would be fun to teach the kids about Easter. And, since Brad's in charge of the school this semester, the party planning fell to me. So, I had the privilege of dying 200 hard boiled eggs! Thankfully, I three eager helpers!

Since we were dying so many eggs, we decided to put 20-30 eggs in a bowl, pour the colored water over the eggs, and let them soak for about 10 minutes. Thankfully, these eggs turned out much better than the first batch.

Our lessons at the school went well. All the kids (and parents) were ooooh-ing and ahhhh-ing over the eggs! That made my kids feel pretty happy!

Here are some more pics for you, Dad....

The week after Easter we had another round of dying eggs. Since we didn't have 200 eggs that needed to be dyed, I filled paper cups with the different colored water and let the kids dye one egg at a time. They made some fun rainbow/tie-dyed eggs. Rachel brought her girls over to join in the fun. She took lots of fun pics, but I don't have them yet. Maybe I'll post them when I get them.

Math

By Amy

For math we're using Horizons curriculum. Personally, I'm a big fan of the "spiral approach." [That means that there's continual practice of previously taught concepts.] I like the pace of Horizons. They don't spend so much time on a concept that my kids are bored, but they review often enough that they don't forget how to do things, either. Since one lesson (front and back of one page) usually will cover 5 different concepts, there's not enough space to have 87 addition problems! Although if there's a concept that my kids have definitely mastered, I have no problem skipping that section, or only having them do the odds or evens. The curriculum also comes with worksheets that I can use to supplement the workbook if I feel like my kid needs extra practice.

When I prepare for school each week, I look at each math lesson to see what new concepts will be introduced and to take away any problems I don't think are necessary. (I don't like busy work!) Each day, I usually walk my boys through their lessons together, but Savannah can often do her lesson completely on her own. I'd say I usually end up teaching her math once or twice a week. Even though I really like math, I'm thankful that it's not something that takes me half an hour to teach each day.

But, the best part of math is our Math Fun Day on Fridays. Sometimes I have all the kids together, and sometimes I do things with them to specifically apply what was in their lesson that week. For example, the boys were just introduced to tally marks. So, I gave Alex a pile of tiles in two colors. He randomly put them in a straight line. Peter stood at the white board and and made tally marks as Alex called out the color of tiles. ("Red, Blue, Blue, Red, Blue....") Next, Alex counted how many of each color tiles he had in front of him, and Peter counted his tally marks to make sure they matched. Then, they switched places. After that, I gave them Popsicle sticks and had them sit back-to-back on the floor with their trays. I called out a number and they had to make that many tally marks with their Popsicle sticks.

While the boys were playing with Popsicle sticks, Savannah was making a graph. We have a map of the US on the wall. Each state is one of five different colors. Savannah made a bar graph of the colors represented on the map. Then, she had to count how many she had in each color and add them together to make sure she had accounted for all 50 states. She did a great job! And, the following week, when my boys were introduced to graphs, I pulled out the graph Savannah had made to teach them how to read a bar graph.

I'm not creative enough to come up with fun math activities each week. So, I have some help. Two of my favorite resources are Scholastic's Shoe Box Math book and Primary (K-2) Idea Book for Cuisenaire Rods.

The Shoe Box book has fun little math games that my kids can play together or with me. And, it uses a lot of common items (buttons, dominoes, etc.). It also provides game boards or score sheets to photocopy. The ideas in there are simple, but fun! With my boys I can use dominoes to work on adding. With Savannah I can use a 10-sided-dice and 100 board. We have a race: Starting at 100 we take turns rolling the dice and subtracting what we roll to see who can get down to 0 first. Or, we can start at 0 and race up to 100! This book offers 40 different ideas. I definitely haven't used all of them (or even read all of them yet), but I haven't found one that I wouldn't or couldn't do.

I love Cuisenaire Rods. I think they can be used to help kids really understand and see math concepts. (Base 10 blocks are great too!) All three of my kids love playing with c-rods. For example, I can make a "train" of 3 rods (white (1), blue (9), and yellow (5)) Then I can ask my kids to come up with another train that is just as long, but doesn't use a white, blue or yellow rod. The Idea Book has lots of great ways to use c-rods to reinforce concepts like: addition, subtraction, number awareness, symmetry, graphs, greater than/less than, fractions, and much more!

There are lots of really great math curriculums out there! I've heard good things about Right Start and Math-U-See. Both are manipulative based and more teacher driven, and from what I understand, they're really great. Also, Singapore math has come highly recommend to me as well. So, I'm definitely not convinced that Horizons is the best thing available, but it has been great for my family. In my opinion, if it's not broken, don't fix it!

Science

By Amy

This is my first year to teach science. I decided to go with Apologia: Exploring Creation Through Astronomy. It’s FANTASTIC! We all love it! It seems as if the goal of this curriculum is worship! The heavens declare the glory of the Lord, so let’s study the heavens and see His glory – and worship Him for it! As we study the different planets, again and again the author points us to the wisdom of the Creator. We all have so appreciated this curriculum! (Granted, I’m only 3 weeks into it!)

I also bought a Knowledge Box lapbook CD-Rom to help my kids record what we’re learning as we read. If you use this curriculum, I really recommend creating the lapbooks as well. They’re colorful and fun, and they can be adapted for kids of all ages. I have Savannah do more writing than the boys, and it’s not a problem at all. It’s a great way to “break up” the text book reading, as well. Since we only do science 2 days a week, I read several sections in a chapter each class.

The textbook is written to kids. Actually, I'm sure Savannah could read it on her own if I wanted her to. But, since I'm doing this class with all three kids, I do the reading. The author does a great job at capturing my kid's attention. The examples she uses and the ways she presents information is great. -- Way better than the science books I remember using as a kid -- I always thought science was boring. This is NOT boring!

At the end of the first chapter, after an introduction to our solar system and the eight (nine) planets in it, we made came up with a mnemonic phrase to help us remember the planets in the correct order. We came up with "Mary’s very excited monkey just spit under Nana’s pants." Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. It worked, too! Then, we created a visual representation of our solar system that is proportionately accurate (sorda!). We used balloons, beads, toys, and yarn to come up with this.

While the boys and I sponge painted the sun, Savannah wrote the names of the planets for us.

So far, my favorite section is entitled “God’s Light Shines Brighter.” After teaching us just how hot and how bright the sun is, the author reminds us that in Heaven we won’t even need the sun. "... You will have the LORD as an everlasting Light, and your God for your glory!" (Is 60:19) AMEN!!

The author, Jeannie Fulbright, has also written four other elementary science curriculums for Apologia that I look forward to trying over the next several years:
Exploring Creation with Botany
Exploring Creation with Zoo 1: Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day
Exploring Creation with Zoo 2: Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day
Exploring Creation with Zoo 3: Land Animals of the Sixth Day

English and Phonics

To teach all of the language arts-type classes (phonics, English, writing, handwriting, spelling, and reading,) I’ve decided to use Bob Jones University Press curriculum. I love it. If you know me, you know I tend to be a pretty structured person, so this curriculum fits me great. They provide clear lesson plans for each day and many activities. Their workbook pages and books are colorful and engaging. They teach phonics using word families. Personally, I like that approach, although I’m sure other approaches are also effective. And, since I’ve used Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, my kids can read okay, but they have a hard time decoding new words. That curriculum doesn’t teach phonics rules very well. BJUP curriculum fills in the holes left by 100 Easy Lesson beautifully.

I also really appreciate the stories in the BJUP Readers. They do a great job at providing a variety of types of literature. They have fiction and non-fiction, historical and modern stories, as well as poetry and Biblical stories. The questions they provide for the teacher really help guide the reader see good and godly character traits in the story characters. They also use a variety of mediums to illustrate each story. For example, one story may have clay animation; others may have cartoon characters, while others still have photographs or sketches. Savannah loves art, so she loves seeing different ways to illustrate stories.

When it comes to independent reading and read-alouds, I lean heavily on SonLight. With Savannah inhaling books right now, I haven’t been able to read everything before she does. But, I trust that if came from a SonLight reading list, it’s probably a “wholesome” book. One time, she brought me a book, and said, “Mommy, I don’t think this is a very good book for me to read. The first grader in this story is selfish and mean to other kids.” It was a book I had purchased (on sale) because it was about a first grader. I had read another book by the same author in my Children’s Lit class in college (almost 15 years ago!) so I figured this one would be OK. After I read it, I realized Savannah was right! It was not a very uplifting book. I definitely would not want my daughter speaking the way the main character did!

We also have fallen in love with BJUP’s Journey Books. They have wholesome stories that are entertaining and uplifting. If you have any good booklists, will you pass them my way? What authors do you let your kids read?

Well, that’s about it for the language arts recap. Obviously, we do handwriting and spelling too. I use BJUP stuff because it goes along with the phonics/English lessons. I haven’t been disappointed with them either!

Check back in a few days to hear what we’re doing for science!! It’s out of this world!