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!

I love school!

So, we’ve completed our second week of our new homeschooling year. It’s been so fun!! I guess it’s a good thing I majored in teaching language arts. Savannah’s favorite part of school is English and the boys love Phonics! (They love math, too, though.) Even on the weekends or family day, the kids often ask if we can do school. The other day we had a trip to the Children’s Museum planned, and Peter and Alex begged to do a phonics lesson before we left. Brad keeps asking when my kids will figure out they’re not supposed to like school. :) (I guess he didn’t like school too much as a kid.)

We plan on heading back to the States in about a year. We’ll take some vacation, see family, and Brad will finish up his degree. Then, we’ll come right back to this side of the world. But, since we know we’ll be heading to the States in a year, we decided it would be best to try to stretch this home school year out and make it last until next March/April. There’s no use in having next year’s curriculum mailed here, just to use it for a couple of months and carry it back to the States.

So, in my opinion, that’s one of the greatest things about this year! I feel free to do projects, watch educational films and do other things that make school extra fun! So, even though we do school five days each week, I we only do four lessons in each subject each week.

So, just in case you’re wondering…. Here’s a glance at our typical week….

Mornings:
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings: Brad and I meet with a tutor while our kids are in local school.

Tuesday is family day.

Thursday: Brad is at work all day and I spend time preparing for an English class I teach in our home on Saturday afternoons.

Homeschooling:
Monday, Wednesday and Thursday look pretty similar. I teach English/phonics, math, and reading to Savannah and the boys separately (Peter and Alex are together.). Each class is about 30 minutes, so that takes from 1pm – 4pm. Then, from 4-5 I teach science (Wed) or history (Mon & Thurs) to all three kids.

(Thankfully Leigh is here to do a lot of my dinner prep!)

On Fridays our homeschooling day is cut short because we get together with other foreigners for worship every Friday late afternoon/evening. So, I teach reading for an hour, then we have Math Fun Day for second hour. For Math Fun Day we may play a game, play with cuisenart rods, base 10 blocks, make a graph, put together a store, etc. Depending on the topic, I may do something with all three kids together, have Savannah teach the boys, or split the time between them. We all look forward to Fridays!

Then, we do school one day on the weekend. Brad works at the English school all day Saturday, then, he tries to do some work at home on Sunday. (That way we don’t have to fight the weekend crowds on family day.) So far I’ve done school once on Saturday and once on Sunday. I think Sunday is better because that keeps us busy and out of Brad’s hair! But at this point, I’m still thinking I’ll take it one weekend at a time…. On the weekend, we do English/phonics, math, and science.

I have to say….. I love homeschooling!! I know it’s not for every family. But, I’m so thankful that it’s the Lord’s plan for our family! Over the next few posts, I’ll share about the curriculum I’m using.