Teachable Tuesdays: Homeschool Curriculum Choices - Part 2: Preschool

Please ignore the mess in the background.
Here is a rare picture of all 3 kids at the table for school-time!

Our third official year of homeschooling begins June 4^th. But, this year will be much different than the previous two years. This year I will not only school our oldest (2^nd grade), but also our two Middles (ages 3 & 2). WOW!!! Can I tell you how nervous I am? Yet I’m also so excited to see them learn and grow!! I didn’t get to school our oldest at this young age, so I’m bursting with excitement, joy, and overwhelming anxiety all at the same time!

Anxiety you ask? Yep! I have it all planned out on paper and even a rough schedule outlined so we can mostly stay on task. This year will really stretch me, because I am an on-time, task oriented, Type A personality and well…that doesn’t compute with my Middles. So, it should be interesting, fun and a wonderful year of learning for everyone!

I wanted to share with you our preschool curriculum choices for our upcoming school year. The links I am providing in no way give me commission or any compensation. It’s merely to give you a reference. I did not necessarily purchase my products from the site I link to. I researched and found the least expensive option and ordered/bought from there. I’ll share more about that at the end of this post, so stay tuned!!! Next week I’ll share how we structure our school days.

Okay, so our choices for Preschool are obviously less than those for our 2^nd grader. But, somehow that makes this task much more daunting! Nevertheless, I have finally decided on the following choices.

BrainyBaby Series: Last year my grandmother bought the entire Brainy Baby system for about a quarter of the original price!! And I plan to use every last bit of it with my Middles! We will use it to introduce our shapes, colors, numbers, letters and music this year. I also have Spanish, Sign Language and Art, but that will have to wait another year or so. I’m not that ambitious!!

ABeka: I will use this curriculum for our Numbers and Letters. We will do one Number per month and one Letter per week for Mister Mouse. Miss Priss will probably just color along and get some of it, but I don’t expect her to get it all. She just turned two, so it could get interesting! But, I do want her to know her numbers for sure, so that’s what we’ll mainly focus on this year with her.

I will also use the A Beka curriculum for most of our Arts and Crafts projects. They have some fun, creative and easy ideas that I’d like to take advantage of.

Bible: I don’t have a particular curriculum to use in this area. I like to read the Bible stories to them and find pictures they can color or activities we can do to reinforce what God’s word says. We will do this Bible reading time with Mister Bull as part of our Family Bible time during our school day.

As most Homeschooling Mom’s will tell you, it is so wonderful to be able to find and print so many FREE and wonderful papers online now!! I use these papers as fillers and supplementals to our other curriculum.

Here are a few of my favorite spots to find them:

SchoolExpress (over 17,000 FREE printables in a variety of subjects)

Kidszone (easy to find, sorted by grade or topic)

BiblePrintables (some great printables on this site. Easy to find too!)
All Kids Network (a fabulous resource for crafts, worksheets & activities!)

Some blogs I subscribe to also have stores where they offer their own curriculum. I’ve been very pleased with the ones I’ve purchased from:

HeavenlyHomemakers

MommySchool @ Oopsey Daisy 

(be sure and check out her Freebies tab too!)

So, that’s our curriculum for Preschool! What’s your favorite Preschool curriculum? I would love to hear what you are using or have used in the past. Or do you just do your own thing?

Now, I promised you I would fill you in on all my curriculum deals. Honestly, it takes quite a bit of effort to find the best deals, but believe me…it pays off!!! Here’s where I search for my deals.

Amazon

Half.com 

(a subsidiary of Ebay)

Christianbook.com

Timberdoodle

Individual Manufacturers (A Beka, RightStart)

Mardel - Yes, the Christian book store!! They have 2 semi-annual Homeschool/Education Sales and I watch for others throughout the year! In fact, I got our Apologia curriculum 30% off this year!!! YAY!!

Bibliomania (a local Homeschool re-sale/consignment shop. I don’t find too much here for what I need, but sometimes my teacher’s manuals and our A Beka readers for cheap!)

So, there ya have it!! I take several weeks usually to search out the above websites and stores and factor in upcoming sales, coupons, discounts, shipping, etc. before making my final orders. Like I said, it can be a lengthy process, but it’s well worth it for the money I save!

Feel free to share in the comments or leave a link back to your own post!! I love reading all your tips and ideas! I am always open to researching for new curriculum to see if it would work for us! We learn by sharing!! Thanks for stopping by!

Blessings,

Annette

Linking up here:

What Joy Is Mine

Far Above Rubies

Teaching What is Good

Raising Mighty Arrows

Holy Spirit Led Homeschooling

Homeschool Happenings: Weekly Review #2

This past Sunday I sat down and outlined the rest of our school year. Now, I basically knew what we were doing and when, but I wanted exact pages written down. Such as, how many pages in Science we read each day or in our Bible curriculum. I usually just guess and stop when it feels right, but I thought…ya know, we’ve only got a few weeks left of school, so I better make sure we’re finished with our current curriculum by then.

Simply…I needed a plan! Now I have one and I am beyond giddy about it. That makes me a nerd, right?! It’s okay…I’m over it!

A few months back, I realized that fighting with my son to do his papers every. single. day. was pointless. He was never going to love them as much as I do. In fact, he was never going to even like them! So, we made a deal…we would switch off doing papers and reading from the texts. That way, he’s not overwhelmed with an hour of reading followed by an hour of pleading with him to do his papers, half an hour crying (me and him) and eventually 20 minutes of paperwork. Now we have this schedule:

Monday, Wednesday & Friday: Reading texts (Science, History, Bible)

Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday: Paperwork (Geography, Math, Writing, Spelling)

Through the end of our year in May, we have school on Saturdays because of how much we missed with the passing of my Daddy. Plus, we take off most of December and many Thursdays we take time off to spend with The Hubster (aka Da-Da) on his day off work. When our year starts over in June (we school year-round), we won’t have school on Saturdays.

This week The Hubster was able to spend some quality time with our oldest on a science experiment/project we’ve wanted to do for a while. And boy, oh boy, did they have fun?!  And they still are!!!!

This year we’ve used Apologia’s Exploring Creation with Astronomy for Science and we’ve loved every minute of it! So, this experiment was in the book for an extra assignment related to Jupiter. I’m going to relay it to you all and give some helpful tips/hints we discovered along the way.

You will need:

2 plastic soda pop or water bottles (we read that 1L are best)

1” washer (we found this not to do well & leak quite a bit. See our solution below)

Water-resistant tape (we used duct tape)

Instructions:

1. Fill one bottle 2/3 full of water. (We added a few drops of green & blue food coloring so we could really see the hurricane at work.)
2. Place the washer on top of the mouth opening. If you use this method, make sure the washer has a large enough hole to allow the water to flow easily.
3. Place the other bottle upside-down on top of the washer.
4. Tape the two bottles together very thoroughly. If it leaks, they suggest adding more tape & wrapping it tighter. We found that ours still leaked, but it was considerably less when we added more tape.
5. Turn the two-bottle setup over so that the bottle with water in it is now the upside-down bottle on top.
6. Move the bottles in a circular motion, swirling the water around in the same direction for a moment.
7. Watch your system form a hurricane-shaped funnel down into the bottle below. You can repeat this as often as you like.

NOTE: Some people like to add glitter or even small toys in the bottles so they can watch them swirl around.

Okay, so we followed these instructions to the “t” the first time. It leaked. We added more tape and wrapped it tighter. It still leaked, only less.

This is the original washer. See how small the vortex is?
Make sure your washer has a large enough opening.

Then, The Hubster…havng the “engineer mind” that he does, started searching the internet for tips/options. And he found this! And at a store right up the street from us – WOO HOO!!!! He was nearly giddy with excitement and practically counting down the minutes until he could go get one! Silly man!

Unfortunately, our store ended up not having that exact brand and the one he found ended up costing about 4x as much. However, as my Dad always said, “You get what you pay for.” And this particular brand had TWO experiments in it! One for the hurricane and one for a fountain.

Isn't that a GREAT vortex?!

So…now we have not one, but TWO Science experiments hidden in the pantry out of sight for the Littles. They have been a GREAT source of learning, entertainment and of course, FUN!!

What did you do this week in your homeschooling journey? Feel free to share you favorite experiment, tip, idea or just a word of encouragement for others!!


(I will put up a video soon. But, the one I had, had some loud background noise...imagine that?!)

Blessings,

Annette

I’m linking up to these other GREAT Homeschool Weekly Reviews!

Click on the links to check them out!

HolySpirit Led Homeschooling, Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers, Home Grown Learners, The Gettys “Favorite Resource This Week”

Teachable Tuesdays: FREE Animal Track Finder

Most of you probably know about Pinterest by now. And if you don’t…BEWARE!!!! It’s highly addictive! It’s one of those vices I’ve had to severely restrict myself from. I used to be on there every spare moment I had at the computer. But, now I get on there maybe once a week or when I need to some inspiration on a project. Otherwise, I stick to my guns.

However, Pinterest has been very helpful in finding and organizing ideas for our homeschool journey. Sooooo many great ideas all in one place. That’s probably why I love it so much – it’s organized!!! Much like I wish my house and life were. If only we all had the time, energy and money to complete all the cutie-patootie projects we find on there! Ahhhh…

One idea I found was so perfect for my oldest. He’s always asking about the weather and what clouds mean what, etc. So when I came across this particular idea I was smitten! Really smitten!! But, I decided I could make it myself with my Creative Memories Storybook Creator Plus 4.0 program (try a FREE 30-day trial here). So that’s exactly what I did!

Isn’t it beautiful? Oh I just love it!

Now, I would love to share this with you, but since the original is one that you must buy I don’t feel its ethical to share my free version. However, you are welcome to make your own!! 

I made mine an 8x8 square. Then, I just situated the pictures around so they fit. Then, you just cut out the blue square in the middle so you can "find" what you're looking for. They are also categorized by upper, middle and lower clouds too! I haven't printed it yet, but I plan to print it as a picture and then laminate it for more durability. Put the whole thing on a large tongue depressor and you're ready to travel!

I would like to use our cloud finder to “hunt down” clouds and take pictures, so that he could even make his own cloud finder!

Now, with that being said, the cloud finder spurred me on to make another “finder” that I will gladly share with you!

My mind began swimming with all the possibilities, but so far I've only created one for animal tracks common in our region of Oklahoma. My son is always “finding” tracks in our yard or on our walks and I thought this would be perfect for him to identify them. What fun he’ll have!! Download the free .pdf here.

I see so many more possibilities for these finders. You could do leaves or common trees for your area. You could do letters for preschooler. Or pictures of places you frequently drive by so they can spot them.

Make one for a trip you’re taking so your kids can spot things while you’re driving in the car! Really the possibilities are endless!! Get creative and make your own!!!

What’s your favorite Pinterest find that you’ve already used? What other “finders” would you make? One day soon I plan to make more and don’t worry…I’ll be sure to share!

Blessings,

Annette

Linking up with these wonderful parties today. Be sure to click over and see what others have shared. I always find some great encouragement and hidden treasures!

What Joy Is Mine, Teaching What is Good, Far Above Rubies, Time-Warp Wife, Raising Homemakers, Women Living Well, Raising Mighty Arrows, Holy Spirit Led Homeschooling

Teachable Tuesday: Car, train track, block, lego wheel, truck

Mister mouse showing me his "pirate" hat

I can remember when I had our second child and I thought I would never be able to handle two children at the same time by myself (and now we have three under age 3!). At this point in our life, we had not yet settled on homeschooling our children, so our oldest was enrolled in our church preschool. He absolutely LOVED it there and thrived!! In fact, I often tell my best friend (she was one of his 4yo teachers) that they are the reason he learned to read so early, quickly and easily. In fact, I’m absolutely terrified that I’m not going to be able to teach my others! Seriously, it keeps me up some nights and mister mouse is not even 3 years old yet! I digress...He was at school ½ days for three days a week and I really only had the two of them together on Mondays and Fridays (and yes…in the afternoons, but our oldest would come home and go straight down for his nap...boy that was nice!).

Then, it hit me one day how much teachable time I was missing out on! I mean, sure I could sit him down at the table to color, draw, write his letters, do flash cards, etc., but what about when I was nursing mister mouse? What could I do then? Often times, my sweet 4yo (at the time) would climb up next to me on the couch and just want to be near me. But, there were plenty of times I could hear him rustling in the kitchen, playing with the pans, pulling things out of the pantry, dumping an entire bucket of toys all over his floor and the list goes on. So, before I sat down to feed mister mouse, I grabbed a plastic sack (you know one of those ba-zillion you have stuffed in your pantry closet?) and asked my son to come over to me. I told him we were going to play a game while mommy fed the baby. I was going to give him 5 things to find, put in his sack and bring back to me. You should have seen his face light up! First of all, you have to understand how much my oldest loves playing games. And second, he loves anything that allows him to run around the house! It was a win-win in his book!!

So, I gave him a list of 5 things (keeping in mind some of the toys he had in his room) to bring back to me. They could be 5 colors, 5 shapes or a combination of the two. It would go something like this:

“Bring me something red, something brown, something square, something round and something green. Ready? Set? GO!” (Often times I would repeat what I asked for 2-3 times so he could really get it in his head.)

And off he’d run! As I was peacefully feeding mister mouse, I could hear the giggling and the clanging of his toys as he shuffled through them. Pretty soon he’d come running back to the living room his eyes lit up with excitement and joy. Then, he’d dump out his findings and repeat to me what he’d found: “A red car, a brown train track, a square block, a lego wheel and a green truck. Did I get it right, Mommy? Did I?” “Yes you did! YAY!!!! Way to go! You have such a good memory!” “Can I play again, Mommy?” “Of course you can!”

And we’d go on like that for 30 – 40 minutes!! He absolutely loved this game, and frankly, so did I. I had so much joy watching him run after things and really think hard about what would work for the list I gave him. There were times when he surprised me by what he found and how it fit what I’d asked for. I was blown away by his intelligence, even at the tender age of 4!!

This simple, easy and FUN activity taught:

*        memory

*        comprehension

*        color recognition

*        shape recognition

*        counting (he would often count to make sure he had 5 items in the bag before he would say he was finished)

This simple activity kept him occupied while I was feeding a baby and taught him at the same time. And who says you can’t multi-task while feeding a baby?!

I’m sure there are many more variations you could do with this little came to increase the difficulty as they grew older. I just haven’t thought them through yet. If you do (or have done) something similar to this, comment here and tell me about it! I’d love to hear your ideas!!!

Blessings,

Annette