Wrapping Up

We're coming down the home stretch of another successful home school year! I can hardly believe how quickly this school year came and went. 

One of the definite highlights of our year were the wonderful pieces of literature we read in our condensed year of American history put together by Sonlight.  It was my intention upfront of buying this core and reselling it, which I still plan to do, however, I wasn't prepared for us to become attached to many of these books! 

What a great way to learn about our US history through living books, where we laugh and cry along with the characters that seem to come to life, as opposed to reading a dry, boring history textbook!

Some of our top faves were Johnny Tremain, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, By the Great Horn Spoon, Cheaper By the Dozen (minus the language),  Little Britches, and The Wright Brothers. I have promised Jared to keep our favorites and add them to our home library.

Another one of our favorites was In Search of the Source.  If you haven't read this book, I highly recommend it!

This is the story of the Wycliffe Bible Translators (Neil Anderson and Hyatt Moore), who take the Word of God to Papua New Guinea.  What an adventure, as these men not only translate the Word to the Folopa people but they also must become accustomed to their culture in order to properly translate and bring understanding of the Word. 

One of the most touching parts of this story for me was when they worked their way through the gospels, explaining the death and crucifixion of Jesus. As this had never been taught to the people, they really had no understanding of what took place. The concept of being crucified is something they were totally unfamiliar with.

After the translating of the book of Luke they decided to show them a film of the gospel story, to give them more of an understanding.  As they watched the film they came to the part where Jesus was nailed to the cross. The Folopa women "erupted into excruciating wailing".  They never understood that he was still alive while being nailed to the cross and, furthermore, how He could possibly say "Father, forgive them.  For they know not what they do."

Get yourself a copy of this one! :)

Now, it's time to finish planning what curriculum to use for next year.  I'm already looking forward to digging into the stack of reading books I've selected (Sonlight's Core G of World History).

I hope everyone had a great school year...

First Day and An Embarrassing Discovery

I am happy to report we made it through our first day of school unscathed.  It's probably too early to tell for sure, but I'm really happy with all of our selections for our curriculum. 

We moved our schoolroom for this year.  I was torn about whether or not it would look junky to set up in our "formal family room".  But, the kids really wanted to be where there's sunlight and that seemed like the best option.  I have a whole set up on my wishlist from Ikea- but for now this will have to do:

I took this picture during Hurricane Irene, so it looks a little dark. Normally it's much brighter.  This morning we were greeted by the beautiful morning sun.



So, here's how our first day unfolded:

6:15-7:45-- Mommy alone time

7:45-- Child #1 awakens with a terrible sore throat

7:50-- Child #2 awakens, perky and needing to brush his teeth

8:00-- Child #2 gets dressed and eats breakfast while Child # 1 returns to bed

8:45-- Child #2 starts school

10:45-- Just as Child #2 finishes up school for the day we rush out the door to the doctor's office

11:00-- Child #1 begins school work in the car

11:30-- Meet with Dr.  Discover that Child #1 has tonsillitis and the doctor is shocked that the strep test is negative by the looks of her swollen and angry throat.  We end up bringing home an Rx for some antibiotics, but first, I discover something really embarrassing:

     Child #1 had her last well check-up in 2006, which was also the last time she had immunizations.

Sometimes I wonder about myself.



1:30-2:15-- Return home, Child #1 finishes up her schoolwork


Despite the interruption of having to go the the doctor's I think we had a great first day.  Both kids seemed eager to get to work.

Here's what we ended up selecting for our curriculum:

Grammar/Spelling: Easy Grammar, Sequential Spelling

History/Reading: Sonlight Core D+E/One Year Condensed American History

Bible: An Honorable Boy, A Virtuous Girl (Queen Publishing)

Math: Teaching Textbooks, Saxon

Science: God's Design for Heaven and Earth

Foreign Language: Power Glide Spanish

Art: How to Draw by Jon Gnagy

Music:  Meet the Great Composers


I'm really looking forward to having daddy teach them God's Design for Heaven and Earth- and they are too.  Tomorrow we get to try out art and start our bible studies.

Hope everyone is having a great start to the new school year!

Used Book Scavenging: Complete!

Just an update on my previous post Used Book Scavanging for 2011-2012 School Year.  I have completed my checklist of books to buy for the Sonlight Core D + E Condensed American History!  My grand total was $145.  I shopped at Homeschool Classifieds, Thriftbooks.com (which offers free shipping!), Half.com, and Wonder Book & Video. 

Wonder Book was having (and still is through the end of July) a buy one, get one free sale on all children's, young adults & religious books.  We have at least 3 stores in our immediate area and I shopped at each one to try to get the most I could.  While I was there I found a nice homeschool section and I was able to add a few Abeka readers to our study on American History. 

Homeschool Classifieds is my other favorite place to shop for used curriculum. I was able to find a used Instructor's Guide for $25 when I was ready to pay full price ($63) for it.

Considering our county has the highest number of homeschooler's in the state of MD I didn't want to rely on the library to have the books I needed when I needed them.  Even though we are regular weekly to bi-weekly library visitors, I just didn't want to have to go through the stress of tracking down the books and worrying about what to do if I couldn't find them, having to return them in time, etc.  I already pay exorbitant late fees as it is *slapping forehead*! It's such a relief to have all my books ready to go, and plus, I can resell the entire set when I'm finished. 

Now I just need to get all my other subjects! Ha.

One more month til school!

Used Book Scavenging for 2011-2012 School Year

For Reading and History this coming school year I'd planned to use Sonlight's One Year Condensed American History.  The first time I laid eyes on their curriculum I think I drooled.  Dancing in my head were visions of the UPS man arriving at my door with overflowing boxes of fresh, beautiful, good smelling new books. Seeing as how we are on a budget, however,  that just wasn't a practical way for us to go.  The price tag on the Core D + E brand new is $443.77---and that's just for reading and history. 

Thanks to the idea of my friend at Much Ado About Nothing I decided that I will buy the Instructor's Guide,  print a list of Sonlight's books from Core D + E, and let the scavenging begin.  I love hunting for bargains. 

In between trips to Goodwill (where I did find a few good deals) I have been waiting for our used bookstore's Buy One Get One Free sale----and this month it finally happened! Yahoo!!! I am happy to say that I am about halfway through my list now and I have only spent about $20.00.  I am super exctied.

Today, I plan to go back and finish up my shopping.  Wish me luck!

2011-2012 Planning...In Progress

After going to our Homeschool Curriculum Fair yesterday I changed my mind on some of my plans for the 2011-2012 school year.  I was able to get my hands on a few things that I was interested in to reconfirm some of my choices and find some new things as well.

I am debating on whether or not to do Sonlight's Core D+E Condensed for history and reading.  Probably the main thing holding me back is the cost.  It would be between $433-$443 new, from Sonlight.  I crunched some numbers and went to half.com to see if I could save some money.  I put all of the books that we would need into my shopping cart (then added the cost for the Instructor's Guide).  My total came to $276, and that included shipping.  Much better, but still high. That's one option.  I'm torn because right now we are utilizing the library for our reading- for free.  If I relied on the library next year it would be a bit of a hassle and a little stressful trying to track down the books as we needed them since it would be our history curriculum as well.  So, that's the one thing I'm trying to figure out.  Even $276 is a lot (to me) to spend on history & reading.

Aside from that, here are my plans thus far:

                     Jared (5th Grade)                                               Jenna (7th Grade)

Math        Teaching Textbooks 5                                    Teaching Textbooks 7

L.A.          Excellence in Writing-All Things Fun               Excellence in Writing-                                                                                       Explorer's to Gold Rush

                 English from the Roots Up                              English from the Roots Up

Science    Answers in Genesis-Our Planet                       Answers in Genesis-Our Planet

                Christian Kids Explore-Chemistry                    Christian Kids Explore-Chemistry

Bible       An Honorable Boy-Queen Publishing               A Virtuous Girl- Queen Publishing

Art          Artistic Pursuits                                                Artistic Pursuits

History   US History-(Sonlight Core D+E)                     US History (Sonlight Core D+E,      

                                                                                      plus supplements from Core 100)

Reading    "  "                                                                                        "  "

Music     Meet the Great Composers Kit 1                     Meet the Great Composers Kit 1

                Clarinet                                                           Saxophone

Language                                                                      Spanish 1

Geography-

Since we are doing US History it is my goal to do as much traveling as I can to different places in the US! I'm dreaming, I know. If we can't travel like I want to, and even if we can, I want to do a study on all of US National Parks and do our traveling that way.

Things are coming together, I'm starting to get excited.  I can't believe our first year is already coming to a close in the next month!  To sum up our year so far- WOW! I have seen my kids change and blossom in ways I never knew I would. It is so rewarding to see a transformation taking place from the inside out.  We have had some great discussions and experiences.  I feel SO BLESSED to be able to do this, and I'm so thankful I made the decision!!!