Scrapbooking

I've been trying to spend time scrapbooking lately. Just a page every couple of days. It's not much, but I hope it will help me make some progress. I'm working on photos from 2005, people. 2005! When you consider that I was actually caught up back in January of 2005, that is just very, very sad. (In my defense, I have done layouts from other years, but finally decided to concentrate on finishing up chronologically.)

I'm still using my crazy scrapbook organization chart. It really does help me keep a handle on what I have done and what still needs to be done. I'm so visual that it's a scary thing.

These are layouts I've done recently. They use Close to My Heart products for the most part. I'm still meeting with my CTMH group once a month, but these are not layouts I've done with them. (We do a 2-page layout every time we meet, learning new stamping and scrapping techniques.)

This first layout is from when Robert got his first pair of glasses. A friend couldn't believe I did a two-page layout of this one event. However, I really wanted to include pictures of the equipment used for his eye exam. I know that later in his life, everything will look different. I'd love to see how things were done when my parents had eye exams as children. Know what I mean?

I made a mistake on this layout. Originally, the word "bike" curved like the work "shop". However, when I stamped the journalling lines, I messed up, so I needed to cover that mistake. So, I changed the word "bike" to a straight line and voila! No mistake. (My scrapping group is fond of saying "There are no mistakes in scrapbooking.")

I have scrapbooked for almost 13 years now. It's something that gives me a creative outlet, and I often spend time with friends doing it. Do you have a hobby? If so, I'd love to hear about it.

Books, Glorious Books

Katy, TX has the most wonderful used bookstore. While most used bookstores I've been in have mainly used romance books, Katy Budget Books has a huge variety of genres available. We used to live around the corner from the store and it's one of the things I miss most about that area of town.

Twice a year, KBB has a huge sale of their surplus used books. Prices range in price from .25 to $1.00. A sale started today and I drove down there with the kids to be there when the doors opened. I usually concentrate on the children's section of the store since that's mainly what I buy these days. I could have been there all day if I had gone through the whole store.

This is what I bought today.


The grand total for all these books was about $22.00. The most expensive book was the book of Emily Dickinson poems because it was a hardback. It was $1.00. The copy of Homer's The Odyssey is a $35.00 book. I got it for 75 cents. I'm excited about finding Otto of the Silver Hand for 35 cents. There are some books in there that the kids picked out that I would not have necessarily chosen, but for 35 cents each, I figured it was okay.

The cost of all those books new? $305.00 I definitely think it was worth the 45 minute drive.

A Favorite Around Here

We love Stan Freberg. Now, most people of my generation have never heard of him. I certainly hadn't before I met Griff. We have introduced him to our children and they love him as much as we do. We spent several hours in the car yesterday and most of that time was spent laughing at his recordings.

To give you a brief summary, Stan Freberg was a comedian who made satirical recordings starting in the '50s. If you like that kind of thing, you should check him out. Our favorites are:

The United States of America (history of America)
The Very Best of Stan Freberg (Sh-Boom and The Great Pretender are my personal favorites.)

There are a lot of references to pop culture and politics of the era, so it opens up some very interesting conversations. And it is just laugh-out-loud funny.

Enjoy!

Workbox Chart

In a comment to this post, I had a request for a copy of my log form.

This is the chart (log form) I use to record our weekly box activities. As stated previously, I put it in a page protector and use a wet erase marker to fill it in. It can be downloaded in pdf form here.



I thought I'd share what the abbreviations stand for. I hope this gives you a better idea of how I use it.

H: History - all of our history readings for the week
T: Timeline book
W: Writing (the asterisk lets me know that it requires my instruction - in this example, a new IEW unit that needs to be explained - I don't use them for items that need regular instruction, like math)
L: Literature
M: Math
FUN: anything extra that I want to add to break up the school day
FL: Foreign Language
B: Bible
HW: Handwriting
G: Geography
PS: President Slideshow - This was year-long project involving every president of the US, so it got its own abbreviation. More temporary activities would be noted a different way.
HL: Health
A: Art
C: I honestly don't remember. It must have been something we did for awhile, then quit.

Let me know if there are any other questions, or if you have trouble downloading the form.

Hmmm...

I wonder what's been on my mind lately.

Plans for 2010-2011

Along February or so, I really get the itch to start planning next year's curriculum. (I don't think I'm alone in this.) And, since I need to spread out purchases, I usually start my shopping sometimes in April. So, with no further ado, here are my choices for next year.

History

I've decided to go back to Sonlight. Several things led to this decision

- I have always loved Sonlight books.

- We've used it in the past with great success.

- I want Robert to have a one-year overview of history before entering high school. We haven't done the ancients since we started homeschooling 5 years ago. Finding this at the 8th grade level has been tricky.

- I want everything scheduled for me.

Robert will be doing Core Alt 7. Ruth will be doing Core 6. I gave her the option of doing either and she chose Core 6. She's my true reader, so she will enjoy having more books for the time period.

Language Arts

I have also purchased Sonlight LA 6. I've never used it before, but I wanted a different type of writing assignment, rather than the informational reports we've been doing most of this year. There seems to be quite a few complaints about the lack of writing instruction in SL's LA. We will be doing them using IEW's methods, so I'm hoping this will not be an issue. I'll be sharing our experiences with it as we combine the two.

For grammar, I've decided to have a year of review. We'll be using Daily Grams and Better Sentence Structure Through Diagramming. This will free up some time for other subjects.

Sonlight recommends Wordly Wise for vocabulary. We haven't done vocabulary work in quite awhile, so we're going to use that as well.

We'll also continue history narrations using notebook pages.

Science

As I said before, I've decided I need to outsource science. Ruth will be taking BJU Science 7 in an outside class. Robert will be using the BJU DVDs for Science 8. I'm hoping this will take care of my deficiencies in teaching this area.

Math

Robert will be using Lial's Basic College Mathematics. It's supposed to be a very good pre-algebra program, and I plan on using Lial's for Algebra, so it seemed like a logical choice. And, as a bonus, I can find an old edition for cheap. Ruth will probably go back to CLE, but I haven't decided for sure.

Other

A Beka Health - very low key. We just read and discuss.

Getting Started with Latin - We quit using this at Christmas, but Ruth has asked to start using it again. Who am I to argue with a child that wants to learn Latin?

Logic - something, but haven't decided yet.

Art - This one is... complicated. We're going to use Meet the Masters again with our friends. However, I feel that we need more than that. Ruth is very talented in art and I need to encourage that more. I've looked for awhile at Harmony Fine Arts curriculum. I decided to go ahead and purchase Ancient and Medieval/Renaissance. They each have things that appeal to me. I have yet to figure out how it's going to work, but I want to use them both in some way.

Extracurricular

The kids will continue playing their instruments. We're looking at options for an orchestra program as well.

We're going to rejoin the world of co-ops. I'm feeling the need to add more fun, social activities. This year has been kind of "blah". I've found a group that has a lot to choose from and we will most likely join them in the fall.

I think that's it. All in all, I'm very excited about next year. Now, on to finishing this year.

Love this.

You may have seen this already, but I was a little late to the game. Love it.

Hits and Misses (Updated)

It's only been 3 posts since I gave a 9-week review of our hits and misses. However, much time has passed, and, as the year is drawing to a close, I have a much bigger picture of what has worked and what hasn't.

Tapestry of Grace - This is a wonderful program. Having said that, over time I've found that it's just not a good fit for us. I don't feel that I, as the parent, am taking full advantage of all the wonderful things in the program. This has led to my decision to use something else next year (more on that later). I think if we were part of a co-op, it would be completely different. There is a co-op in our area, but we tried to get in this year and they turned us down because nobody in the group knew us. Really. A friend compared it to getting into a country club and I had to laugh. She's right!

I dropped TOG's literature and added CLE Reading after Christmas. This is a good, solid program, and the kids like it for the most part. (no complaints, at least, and they are getting good grades)

Math - Ruth completed Life of Fred Fractions, then Decimals and Percents. She's finishing up the year with BJU Math 6, reviewing and filling any gaps. I did find that LOF was not a good fit for Robert. He loved reading the lessons, but had difficulty seeing past the story to the math. I moved him back to CLE Math and that's gone well.

Science - Ugh. Ruth finished Apologia Elementary Zoology I, then has done some of A Beka Science 6 to finish out the year. I switched Robert to A Beka Science 7 after our struggles with Apologia. We've kind of limped through it this year. I've come to the conclusion that teaching science is a weakness of mine, and something that needs to be outsourced.

Our other hits of the year (IEW, Rod and Staff Grammar, Meet the Masters art program, workboxes, and History Scribe notebook pages) have continued to work well.

Up next... our plans for next year!

Let Try This Again.

I have been very, very absent from the blog lately, but I think about it frequently. Does that count? Yeah, I didn't think so.

I'm going to attempt to turn over a new leaf and blog every single day for awhile. Maybe that will get me moving again.

Life has been good here lately. Full and good. The school year is winding down (4 weeks to go!). We've already finished grammar. Our last week of history is this week. Math and science are the only two subjects that will go to the very end.

I want to do a post about hits and misses, as well as plans for next year. I also want to talk about books I've read, movies I've seen, and life in general. So, hopefully, I can find plenty to talk about in my daily postings.

Until tomorrow...

Spam

I have been getting some spam comments lately, so I have enabled "word verification" for comments. Hopefully this will cut down on it. I apologize for the inconvenience. Please don't let it keep you from leaving your thoughts.

Week 11 Report

History

We studied the Depression and the Dust Bowl this week. I chose a book from TOG Classic for read-aloud. I already owned this one, so I chose it over the Redesign selection. (I'm such a rebel.) The kids loved the book. Robert, whose mind sometimes wanders during read-aloud time, begged me each day to keep reading.


This subject definitely sparked some great discussions. We talked about what caused the depression and what got us out of it. Also, with today's economic climate, we talked about whether it could happen again.

Literature

We finished Mary Poppins this week. Both kids liked it, but Robert especially loved the book. I shouldn't be surprised by that. He really enjoys quirky books (Roald Dahl is one of his favorite authors) and this fit the bill. He's already talking about reading the other books in the series.

Science

Ruth continues with Apologia Elementary Zoology I (Flying Creatures). She was telling me how the albatross, who soars through the air effortlessly, has a terrible time taking off and landing. So, what's a mom to do, but search youtube for a video. We came across this one. It's very funny, but shows the point well. That poor bird.



Robert's science is a point of great homeschooling angst right now. He's been really struggling with Apologia General Science. He failed the first two tests miserably. I thought it was a study skills problem, so he and I worked together throughout this last chapter. I realized he's not getting the concepts of the material (and, while he did better on the test, still made a 67). After talking to a friend, and also bringing it up on a homeschool message board I visit, I realized something. Robert really struggles with reading comprehension. It is very possible that the "chattiness" of Apologia (which I love) is getting in the way of the technical information. So, I'm going to try a couple of chapters of BJU Science 6 (that I already have) with him to see if that is a better fit. If it is, I'll then have to decide if I'm going to continue with Science 6, or buy their 7th grade science. I hate wasting time like this with a curriculum that doesn't work.

I'm feeling the pressure of making sure the kids are ready for high school and it really weighs me down at times.

Math, writing, art, etc. keep moving forward with nothing very exciting to report. We are meeting with our friends on Tuesday to do our Georgia O'Keefe art project, so I'll have that to share next week.

First Term Hits and Misses

We finished our first 9 weeks of school recently. Woo-hoo! I planned a break week and am so thankful that I did. We definitely needed a break. :) We spent the week mainly relaxing around the house. I also spent quite a bit of time planning the next term.

Looking over the first term of our school year, I wanted to share what's working, and what's not.

Hits

History Scribe notebook pages - I really, really love these. I was struggling with how to make sure the kids are absorbing some of what they are learning and these fit that need perfectly. Having pre-made pages helps me to focus on just a few things each week, which is also beneficial. Love them! (one small criticism - I wish they had pages for more 20th century world history events, rather than focusing so much on American history)

Tapestry of Grace - I love this history program. We've read some great books and the kids have really learned a lot.

Grammar/Writing - Alternating these two subjects is working very well. We finished two chapters of Rod and Staff English 5 and the first two units of IEW. Next term, we'll do units 2 (concentrating on adding dress-ups) and 3 of IEW and one more chapter of R&S. Love it!

Workboxes - I won't write more about these, but wanted to include them in the "hits"

Schoolroom - I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I turned our dining room in a school room this year and it is wonderful. It's great to have a room that is just for school, but is still close enough to everything that I can get small housework projects done while keeping an eye on the kids. I also set it up so that I can easily turn it back into a dining room.

Activity Points - I debated on where to put this, under hits or misses. I think the idea is still a "hit". However, our implementation was sort of a "miss". Ruth did well. She hit the goal of 30 points easily. Robert, however, did not. I think the open-ended nature of this was too much. I need to either make it part of his schedule, or do a lot more hand-holding until he gets the hang of it.

Meet the Masters - I love this art program. It combines art appreciation with art instruction, so we're covering both. We covered Frederic Remington in September. I won't say he's my favorite artist, but the kids enjoyed it. We also had a good time with friends working on the final art project. I am very glad we chose this program to use this year.

Misses

Math - BJU math is a very good program, but just doesn't seem to be a good fit for my kids. They were hating math, and as a math lover, this was just killing me. I made the decision to really shake things up and switch to Life of Fred. It is going tremendously well. The kids love the stories and are doing well on the assignments. We are currently using the Fractions book. We'll do Decimals after that (assuming it's still going well). We'll finish out the year using the BJU math to fill any holes I feel were left. The biggest bonus is the kids are loving math now. Amazing!

BJU Science - Ruth was really not liking BJU Science 6, so I decided to switch back to Apologia Elementary. A friend let me borrow her copy of Zoology 1 (flying creatures), so we're doing that.

I have not done well with Robert's science program (Apologia General Science). He is doing very poorly on the tests and we're not following through with science experiments very well. I need to figure out a better way to handle this subject. Any tips would be appreciated.

Overall, I'm very pleased with how the year is going. We have more positives than negatives, and that's a good sign.

Workboxes and Homeschool Tracker

We started using workboxes at the end of last year. It made the end of the year easier, but I was still working out the exact logistics of filling the boxes each day. I've spent some time working on the process this year and feel that I have finally figured out a streamlined method that combines the workbox concept with my use of Homeschool Tracker Plus.

I began using HST+ last year and really love it. It does have a steep learning curve, but it is a wonderful product. As a bonus, I have found it to be a great help when setting up the workboxes.

First, I thought I would show our workboxes. These are Robert's, filled for today (and for the week, but more about that in a minute). You can click on any of these pictures for a larger image.

This is a copy of the assignments for box 7. It is the "assignment calendar" report from HST. I print off a week's worth of assignments at a time. I have to run a separate report for each box in order to get the dates across the top. This is the most time-consuming part of this process, but I feel it really pays off in the end because I'm not filling boxes or writing up assignments daily.


You have probably noticed that it is only half of a sheet of paper. Once I am halfway through the printing, I turn the paper over and reuse it in the printer. This conserves paper. I also color code the kids' assignment sheets (Robert - orange, Ruth - blue) and write the number of the box on them. This makes it easy to put them back in the correct box if they get separated (not that my kids would ever be so careless as to lose something... ahem).

This is a picture of the first box. This is the box with his TOG history readings. There are several books and they would not fit in the box, so I have them stacked elsewhere in the room. This is also helpful because Robert and Ruth share the books. I also put all of the papers needed for the week in the box. So, this box contains all of the History Scribe notebook pages we are using for the week. The math box contains all of the math worksheets for the week. I do this for as many subjects as possible.


I prefer to staple the pages together (that losing papers thing again), but I have them turn in work as finished, so I will only staple pages together if I'm not worried about the condition of the pages. I don't keep math worksheets long-term, so I don't mind if the corner is a little torn. I do keep notebook pages, so those are not stapled together.

I recently created a chart for my purposes. I wanted to see at a glance which boxes are being used on which day. Also, some boxes rotate subjects during the week. It's helpful for me to know, for example, that art is assigned on Tuesday, so I will remember to put the time aside to do that together. (This is not a typical week since Monday was a holiday. That's changed up our schedule for the week, which is another advantage of using this chart).


I put the chart in a page protector and use a wet-erase marker to mark the week's box assignments. I keep the page in my planning notebook and re-use it each week. I use abbreviations for the subjects, so if you have any specific questions about which subjects are in which boxes, let me know in the comment section. If there is interest, I'll do a separate post on that. UPDATE: See here to download a pdf of this chart (blank).

We also use the schedule strips, so this makes it easy for me to quickly see which boxes are and are not being used each day. (These are Ruth's schedule strips.)


We all love the workboxes, but I've heard many moms say that the time it takes to fill the boxes each day is burdensome. I hope that I've shown you a method that can make the process easier and allow you to get the full benefit of the workboxes with minimal work on your part.

(Disclaimer: I (and my kids!) love workboxes. However, they are not for everyone. If you have a system that works, for goodness sake, don't feel you need to change it!)

Weekly Reports - Weeks 3 and 4

I guess I should call this the semi-weekly report. I can't seem to get around to doing an actual weekly report.

History - We are two weeks into our study of World War I. We have studied the causes for the war, trench warfare, the use of poisonous gas, the use of airplanes, and several other parts of the war. We've also studied the first term of Woodrow Wilson and continue to read about Fanny Crosby.

For a project, Robert did a diorama of trench warfare. He actually asked this summer if he could do a diorama, so he was very excited to work on this.

See the smoke in the background? Once Robert started working on the trenches, he noticed that the box was upside down. He didn't care enough to turn it over, though. Since it's his project, I let him handle it how he wished.



Do you notice the soldier in the trenches who has been mortally wounded? Actually, it's not looking too good for the British soldiers. They are are not even out of the trenches yet! The Germans are definitely winning at this point.

Literature - For Week 3, we read a collection of O. Henry short stories. One of them was The Gift of the Magi. I remember reading that story and knew Ruth would love it, and I was right. It was her favorite. They both enjoyed the stories.

Now we're reading Anne of Green Gables. Ruth actually read this on her own this summer, but she loves the book, so doesn't mind reading it again. In her words, "I feel sorry for anybody who hasn't read Anne of Green Gables." I agree with this sentiment. :) I worried that Robert would think of it as a "girl" book, but it has enough funny parts that he's enjoying it, too.

Science - Robert started Apologia General Science and is doing pretty well with it so far. I've increased my expectations for him and was worried that he would balk at the extra work. However, he's adjusting well. He's not quite up to the level I would want, but I figure he will be by the end of the year, and that's my goal.

He did two experiments - on density and atomic motion. I hope you appreciate how I cleaned off my kitchen countertops before taking the pictures (ha!). Keepin' it real, people.

Ruth finished her chapter on earthquakes and volcanoes and has moved on to weathering and erosion.


Grammar/Writing - We finished our first grammar chapter and have moved on to our writing unit. This week was Unit 1 of IEW, which is just writing out a key word outline and telling it back. I almost skipped this unit since we've done it before, but finally decided it wouldn't be bad to have an easy week. Next week we'll start Unit II and do some actual writing. I am really liking alternating grammar and writing.

We're up to a full schedule now and we've been getting done by about 2:00 each day, so that's good. We have been getting a late start, not beginning school until after 9:00, when I'd prefer 8:30. Still, since we're getting the work done in a timely fashion, I'm happy.

Notebooking - As much as I love doing the scrapbooking notebook pages, I've found that they just don't get done as often as I would like. We started out this year with some free TOG pages I found, but they really did not fit our notebooking style. I started looking for pre-made notebook pages, but was having a hard time finding ones for a study of 20th century history. I finally found them at History Scribe. A bonus is that I was able to buy the whole History Scribe set (including History Scholar - their high school level notebook pages) for $8!! This is the download version, but that is what I prefer, so I don't mind. (they are still on sale at the time I'm posting this)


One thing I like about using these pages is that is very quick and easy. I just print out the pages that go with our history topics of the week and assign them to the appropriate reading. This way, they are using them for their written narrations. If there is not a page for a certain topic, I don't worry about it. It's a way of controlling the amount of narrating I'm requiring of them. It's working very, very well.

Activity Points

I have always wanted to do projects with the kids, but never seem to get around to them. They don't ask for them, either, so I've never been too concerned with it. However, I do believe they have some value. I want the kids to think more about what we're studying, and I think these would help. I also think having them do some long-term (3-4 weeks) projects will help them learn how to schedule and some time-management skills. While thinking this through, though, I came to realize that I don't want to just assign them different projects. I want them to have some choices and some personal investment in what they choose. With that in mind, I came up with what I call "activity points".

For a 9-week term, I am requiring 30 activity points. These are divided into two different categories - hands-on projects and books. Since my children are not crazy about projects, I wanted to give them the opportunity to earn some of them by reading extra books. They have to do one long-term project that is worth 7 points. They also have to earn 5 points in books. Other than those requirements, they can earn the 30 points in any combination they choose.

BOOKS I went through TOG's alternate book selections and Sonlight's booklist. I had quite a few of these on the shelf already. The rest will come from the library. I made sure I had several biographies on the list, because Robert really enjoys those. My list of books for term 1 are the following:

Bully for You, Teddy Roosevelt (4 points)
Wilbur and Orville Wright: Young Fliers (3 points)
All-of-a-Kind Family (5 points)
Dragonwings (10 points)
Five Children and It (8 points)
Freckles (13 points)
A Girl of the Limberlost (18 points)
The Good Master (5 points)
Angel on the Square (8 points)
Hero Over Here (1 point)
After the Dancing Days (8 points)
Letters from Rifka (4 points)
Rilla of Ingleside (16 points)
Homesick (6 points)
Li Lun, Lad of Courage (3 points)
Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze (10 points)

I chose point values based on Renaissance Learning's Accelerated Reader program. We are not using their program, but I did find it a handy way to assign points to the books.

PROJECTS I went through TOG's guide and made a list of all the activities they suggested, broken down by week. From there, I assigned them anywhere from 1 to 7 points, depending on the difficulty of the project. Unfortunately, I can't share that list here because it is part of TOG's curriculum. For example, though, the drawing that Ruthie did our first week of the Model T was 3 points. I do plan on adding things that are not associated with our history study at some point. I know that I want the kids to do a science fair type project in the spring, and that will be a high number project.

After compiling all this information, I made a chart and printed it off for them. They are in charge of choosing their activities and making sure they have the correct number of points by the end of the first term. Of course, since this is new for them, I'm doing a lot of hand holding at this point. My hope is that by the end of the year, they will be working on this completely on their own.

Weekly Report - Weeks 1 & 2

I can't believe we are through our first 2 weeks of school. Goodness, it's already going by so fast.

Here are the weeks in review:

History - We covered the first two weeks of TOG Year 4. Subjects covered included:

Albert Einstein
Pres. Theodore Roosevelt
Henry Ford
Wright Brothers
Titanic
Pres. William Howard Taft
Jane Addams

Science - Robert hasn't started science yet, but Ruth has almost finished the first chapter of her book. She has covered earthquakes and volcanoes. We've always been lax on science, so I'm determined to dive in this year. So far, Ruthie has already made an earthquake study structure (based on fettucinni noodles and marshmallows - which amused me) and a paper mache volcano. She found the paper mache very messy, but really enjoyed painting it.

Literature - We read Call of the Wild by Jack London. (Robert did not like this book at all. He does not like books that have any type of cruelty in them.)

Activity Point projects (I will blog more about this at a later date) - Ruth drew a picture of a Model T Ford based on directions I found here.


We also did math and grammar. All in all, it was a good beginning to the school year. I look forward to sharing more of our homeschooling adventures in the future.

Final Curriculum Plans

A few posts back (but several months ago), I talked about our curriculum plans for this year. Things have changed a bit, so I wanted to share what we decided on.

History - This is the biggest change. After deciding on Sonlight Core 6, a friend offered to lend me Tapestry of Grace Year 4 (Classic) for free. After thinking about it, I decided to take her up on that generous offer. I spent some time with it, but found that going from Redesign to Classic was not that easy for me. I love all the updates in the Redesign version! However, after looking over Year 4, I also found that I did not want to go back to my original plan of Sonlight. So, I discussed it with Griff and he agreed that I could get TOG Year 4 Redesign DE if it fits in my school budget. After checking out the list of books needed for Term 1 (first 9 weeks), I saw that I would only need to buy 2 books. I either own them or the library carries them. That makes TOG much more affordable than I would have originally thought, and I made the purchase.

I am keeping my friend's Year 4 Classic through the end of the year. That way, if I find that I cannot continue to purchase the DE edition, I can go back to that.

Grammar - We will finish Rod and Staff English 5 as I mentioned before. However, we will not continue into English 6 as I had originally planned. Instead, I am going to take the opportunity to lighten our load a bit and alternate grammar with writing. Which leads me to...

Writing - We're going to continue with IEW. I'll be alternating a chapter of grammar with a unit of IEW. I want to get through Unit VII this year, and this will work out very nicely.

Literature - This is part of TOG, so we will use that part of their program. I may still buy some Total Language Plus guides if they fit into the budget, just because I like them so much. We'll see...

Math - We did switch to Bob Jones. I put both of them in Grade 6 math and I teach them together.

Science - Robert is doing Apologia General Science. Ruth is doing BJU Science 6.

Bible/Devotional - We will be using the following books, alternating them through the week.

Bible study - How to Study Your Bible, for Kids - I took the adult version of this class years ago and really like this Bible study method. It will not take us the full year to get through this guide, so we will hopefully use the methods learned to study at least one book of the Bible.

Devotional - Boyhood and Beyond (for Robert) and A Girl of Beauty (for Ruthie)

Composer and Artist study - I want to study 20th century composers and artists, but I haven't quite worked out the specifics.

Art - A friend and I are going to do Meet the Masters together. We'll get together once a month or so and do art projects. (Actually, this may impact our artist study, too. I'll have to take a closer look at it before deciding about that.)

Music - The kids will continue with private lesson instruction. We are not doing homeschool orchestra this year, so I will be looking for other opportunities for them to perform. I am thinking of nursing homes and our church's preschool program.

Health - We've never done this formally before, but I think we need some guidance in this subject. I want to keep it simple, though, so I just got the grade-appropriate A Beka Health textbooks. The kids will read from them, and we'll discuss what they read. That's it. Easy-peasy (and not too time consuming).

We have finished our first week of school and I hope to post a weekly report soon, so stay tuned!

One More Thing... (end of year portfolios)

I had thought my next post would be about our first week of school, but I was thinking about our portfolios yesterday and decided I would share how we do them. So, I'm backtracking to the end of May when our school year ended. (See what happens when you don't blog for awhile?)

Living in Texas, we are not required to keep any sort of paperwork. However, I think most homeschooling parents want to keep a record of the year. The problem is deciding what to keep, what to toss, and how to put it together in a way that will stay together.

I originally wanted to make a really nice bound book, but knew that if I waited for the "perfect" method, it wouldn't get done. I also found a couple of 3-ring binders that were the right size and, since I already had them, free!

So, what's in our portfolios? It's really simple, people. Done is better than perfect, right? Right.

• - Final grades as figured in Homeschool Tracker. I only take grades in a few subjects, so it's a pretty short list.
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• - Scope and Sequence Report, also from HST. This is one thing I love about HST. I use the "topic" field when I make assignments. S&S uses that field to make a list of everything we've studied that year. One bonus is I easily get a list of all the books we've read during the year. Love that!
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• - Quizzes and tests from CLE Reading, Math, and R&S Grammar. I threw out all the daily worksheets because I just want a snapshot of what they learned
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• - Science worksheets. We didn't do test in science last year, so I included the worksheets. If we had, I would probably have just included the tests and experiments.
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• - History notebook pages. We kind of fell of the notebook pages wagon once we started TOG (my fault, not TOG's), but I included the ones we did.
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• - Maps. Any mapping assignments we did during the year
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• - Other various writing assignments. Our writing usually centers around history and is made into notebook pages. We did have a few assignments that are not, though, so I included them as well. (not shown in slideshow)
  

We did not do many projects this past year. The kids weren't that interested and I didn't push it. If we did, though, I would have either included photos of the projects, or scanned and reduced copies. You can have the latter done at places like Kinko's if they are over-sized.

Like I said, it's simple. But, I'm happy to have it done. If you make portfolios at the end of the year, please leave a comment so I can see how you do yours.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Summer is winding down for us. I've decided to start school early this year, much to my children's dismay. :) I know that it's because we will be taking more time off during the year, but all they see is that their days of lazing and doing nothing are coming to an end. So, in honor of the end of summer (for us, anyway), I wanted to tell what we've been doing.

Surviving the Heat We've had a record-breaking heat wave this summer. Day after day of 100+ degree weather, with no rain in sight. We were breaking records that have held since 1980. I typically don't mind the heat, but this has been ridiculous. Blech. God bless Willis Carrier.

Personal Retreat For the second summer in a row, I went on a scrapbook retreat with some friends. 3 days of nothing but scrapbooking and way-too-much food. I am very blessed to be able to do this. Not only do I get a lot of pages done, but I am refreshed and rejuvenated when I return.

Home Renovations We have been remodeling our bathroom for about a year and a half now (yes, we are very slow workers). We've made significant process this summer and I can see the end in sight. We also spent a weekend tearing out the tile in the kitchen. Removing the floor was hard, dusty labor, but it will be so worth it when the new floor is in. We will not be installing the new tile ourselves. I would like it done in a few days, rather than a few months. :)


School Planning I had a goal to do no planning for the month of June. However, I figured out we were going to have a pretty busy July, so that really did not make much sense. I didn't obsess over it, though, so I'm pleased. I've gotten the first 9 weeks of school all planned out. I'll have a separate post about school curriculum and plans soon.

Time With Friends The kids had various sleepovers with friends, but the friend highlight was when my best friend Linda and her girls came for a few days in July. We alternate houses each summer and this was their year to come here. We went to the beach in Galveston (ouch, sunburn!) and our favorite haunt, Katy Budget Books. It was a short trip (only 3 days), but it was a great visit.

Short Vacation We had originally planned on going to Colorado this summer. However, the budget being what it is, we decided it was not the smartest thing to do. We did go to San Antonio for a few days, though. Griff attended a music convention and we tagged along.


Music conventions not being the most exciting thing for two kids, we headed up to Austin for the day and saw old friends. I finally got to meet this little guy. Isn't he adorable?? He's the baby of my friend, Sprittibee. Be sure to check out her blog. It's great!


Various Summer Activities VBS, swimming, friends, library visits, summer camp (for Ruthie), movies... It was a good summer.

Organizing My Scrapbook To-Do List

Once upon a time, my scrapbooks were all caught up. Really. It was January of 2005 and I was working on December 2004 pictures. I don't think you can get much more caught up than that. However, I obviously rested on my laurels, because as of now, I am still working on 2005 pictures. A few things contributed to that.

- We began homeschooling in January of 2006 and my free time was no more. :)

- My Creative Memories consultant stopped doing monthly crops. I got most of my work done at those crops, so that really hurt.

- When I did start scrapbooking again, I was in a group with a Close to My Heart consultant. We did a kit with a specific theme each month. So, I would need to find something like Christmas pictures and would often choose the most recent Christmas, skipping many, many months in between. I was officially working out of order. (ack!)

As the pictures piled up (figuratively, as they were on my computer), I was getting more and more overwhelmed trying to figure out what I had and had not scrapped. When I get overwhelmed, I mentally shut down, so I knew I had to get a handle on this. I knew the only way I could was by a lot of (compulsive) organizing and list-making.

The following is what I came up with. It is working marvelously. I know exactly what needs to be done and am getting so much more accomplished.

First, I organized my photos in iPhoto. I had them sorted by year, but I took it a couple of steps further and organized them by month and event.

I did screen captures of this and printed it out. I needed to be able to sit down with my scrapbooks and mark off what had been done. I pulled out my scrapbooks (one for each kid and the family album) and started the somewhat laborious process of figuring out what I had done and what I was missing. The only thing that kept it from being extremely tedious what the trip down memory lane I took as I went through the finished pages.

Since I needed to know what pictures I still needed to print, I had to go through all my pictures. I put the photos in envelopes, sorted by date and category.

From there, I made the following spreadsheet. The categories (events) are the same ones that are in iPhoto.


Then, I started working on my chart. Items highlighted in blue are finished for each album they belong in. A box with an "X" means it is done for that album. Boxes highlighted with gray still need to be done. If it is highlighted in gray in the photos column, that means I need to have those pictures printed out. I also have a column for journalling that needs to be done (a lot still does!) and a place to put any ideas I might have for those layouts.

I've done this up through 2008. It was a lot of work and may seem like too much to some (most?) people. However, I no longer have that feeling of being overwhelmed by the confusion, and that makes it all worth it to me. And, hopefully somebody out there will think I'm not so crazy and this might actually help them. :)