Manatee Unit Study

We spent two weeks learning about manatees as part of our science studies of endangered species. They are quite intriguing and the children enjoyed learning about them.

Short Manatee Video
First we watched a National Geographic video about manatees heading south. My children had no idea what a manatee is or what they look like so this was a good introduction.

Free Manatee Activity Book
I printed out a really great activity book called Manatees - Florida's Gentle Giants. In my opinion the book could serve as a complete curriculum. But I like to pull from numerous resources to get some different perspectives and to learn as much as possible.

Free Manatee Printables
So with the activity book as a guide, I supplemented the lesson with manatee printables from About.com. Included in the printables is a: word search, crossword puzzle, coloring page, and printable manatee craft (a door hanger). My children completed most of the pages and 2 of them chose to make the door hanger. I think these printables helped to keep the lesson fun.

Manatee Documentary

We have an Amazon Prime membership which means we can watch their videos offered on Prime for free. I was so happy to find that they currently have a manatee documentary which held the children's interest for most of it's 47 minutes. None of the other material we had covered the fact that sailors of old thought manatees were mermaids (or maybe I missed that part). So the title Endangered Mermaids: The Manatees of Florida  and the explanation of it in the beginning was helpful.

Manatee Games
We didn't play any of these games at SaveTheManatee.org because I didn't find them until after our lessons were complete. But they look extremely educational.

Learning About Adverbs in the Elementary Grades

A free site I had been using to print out grammar books has not been working for weeks now. I really should have downloaded the book onto my computer while I had the chance. Tsk. Tsk. But I did not and now I am finding myself having to put together a grammar curriculum to get us through the end of the year.

I have been rummaging around the internet finding this and that. I found a great grammar game called Grammar Ninja. My son was happily playing it and advanced from beginner ninja to skilled ninja and that is when we discovered that he does not have a strong grasp on adverbs yet. 

So, I have compiled the resources that we are using this week to learn about adverbs.

Here is the the Adverb playlist that I put together on Youtube.

There was a time when I tried my hand at creating my own worksheets. But really, there are so many great, free worksheets out there that I don't feel this is the best use of my time anymore. So I did a quick Google image search for adverb worksheets and found a weeks worth plus one that can be used as a test as well.

Some Free Online Adverb Games
The Adjectives and Adverbs Trail
Adventures with Adjectives and Adverbs
Grab the Adverbs
Practice Using Adverbs
Adverbs Jeopardy - 1 or 2 person game

Adverb Tests/Quizzes
And once the children have had their fill of adverbs they can take an online adverb quiz which can double as a test. The quiz is even scored for you at the end. And here is a shorter 6 question online adverb quiz.

You could throw an Adverb wordsearch into the mix as well.

menu Plan Monday - August 20, 2012

We have lived without buying fast food for about six weeks. A dear friend treated the children and me to Burger King about a week ago, which was very nice.  And a few nights ago we ate dinner made by more precious  friends. But other the that, I have been cooking 3 meals a day, 7 days a week. 

And you  know what ? It hasn't been so terrible. We don't eat out a lot anyway. However, usually my husband treats us to a meal a few Sundays a month to give me a break from cooking. And I am sure that we will get back to that family tradition once we are all reunited in CA. ***I miss my Honey! Anyhoo...*** So, it has been necessary to be as frugal as possible until such time.  Menu planning helps tremendously with that goal.

Menu Plan Monday

last week's homemade cheese pizza

Breakfast 

(served with fruit)

Monday: cold cereal ~ Tuesday: hot cereal ~ Wednesday: eggs, bread (and possibly meat) ~ Thursday: hot cereal ~ Friday: cold cereal ~ Saturday: pancakes/waffles

Lunch 

(served with veggies or fruit)

~ PBJ ~ grilled cheese sandwiches ~ leftovers x2 ~ tuna casserole ~

Dinner 

(served with veggies and grains if needed)

~ cheeseburgers with homemade hamburger buns ~ chicken tacos ~ spinach quiche ~ baked chicken ~ tuna salad sandwiches ~ BBQ ribs ~ breakfast for dinner ~

Homeschooling for Free - Elementary Grades

I would like to share our plan for homeschool this year for my elementary students. It is my hope that you will see that with just a bit of preparation that it is possible to homeschool primarily from free resources from the internet and the library.

Bible

The children and I will take turns reading a story a day from the Bible using this reading list. We will discuss the scriptures and then the children can draw a picture or do a craft related to the reading. The quickest way to find a craft is to type the name of the story followed by the word "craft" in Google. For example, you can search for a "Noah's ark craft" or a "Daniel in the lions den craft".

English/Language Arts 

We will use McGuffey's Readers for about 15 min a day. You will find more information on how I plan to use them on my post about returning to McGuffey Readers. For grammar I have three living books that we will be reading, one of which is Grammar-Land. This is a humorous book where each of the nine parts of speech must stand trial and prove why he is justified in "owning" the words that he does. And I will supplement the book with grammar songs found on YouTube. 

For my five year old, I will continue checking out alphabet books and beginner reader books from the library and work out of the McGuffey Primer a bit.

I will hand write copywork for my two children in a notebook that has the dotted middle lines and solid top and bottom lines. I'll print some sheets on both sides from Donna Young and make our own homemade notebooks. I will either have the children copy Bible verses or sentences from their readers. 

Arithmetic

Originally I was going to use Ray's for math this year. But after carefully considering what Don Potter had to say I have decided to use First Lessons in Numbers instead. Mr. Potter actually strongly recommended teaching with First Lessons in Arithmetic -which he has links to on his site; but, he said that the two books are very similar. (Mr. Potter is an educator that I respect very much. He incorporates old fashioned public domain texts into his classroom to successfully teach his students arithmetic, reading through phonics, cursive, and grammar.) After comparing the two along with Ray's, I feel that FLIN will work best for our homeschool. I like the abundance of illustrations and I like that the lessons are short.

Also, we will read living math books from the library, use our math fun box, and play plenty of math games.

Science

We will do nature studies using Ana Botsford Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study. And we will read several living books from the public domain pertaining to animals, insects,  birds, plants, and gardening. (Here is our reading list for this year.) Also, we will watch Beakman's World on Netflix and attempt some of the experiments from the show.

It took me a few weeks to put all of the resources together.  But I feel that it was time well spent. 

Here is how we are homeschooling high school free this year.

Menu Plan Monday - 7/30/12

Menu Plan Monday

We are starting school back on August 1st. There is always an adjustment period at the beginning of the school year that can last for over a week. So most of our meals will easy to prepare. That way I won't have to spend as much time in the kitchen as I usually do.

Breakfast

cold cereal~hot cereal~eggs and potatoes~homemade muffins~pancakes

served with fruit

Lunch

grilled bacon and cheese sandwiches~homemade granola~PBJ~leftovers~canned soup

served with fruit or veggies

Dinner

french bread pizza~hot dogs~spaghetti~chicken fried steak~homemade Hamburger Helper~bbq chicken~tuna tacos

served with grains/bread (if needed) and veggies

Snacks

cheese and crackers~popcorn~trail mix

2012 - 2013 Homeschool Reading List

Last year I attempted to follow Ambleside Online's reading list. I printed out quite a few books and stapled them together with my handy dandy, heavy duty stapler. And then I made myself weekly schedules based on AO's suggestions. This is no slight against AO but I just did not manage to keep up with the reading like I thought I would be able to. 

After some self-reflection I have come to the conclusion that our schooling experience turns out the best when I put the curriculum together myself. For years I have started out that way but at some point I would doubt my efforts and switch to something that some "experts" had put together. My husband has been telling me this for years but I finally believe for myself that I am a great teacher to my children. 

There can be a lot of self doubt when you homeschool. I have definitely had my fair share of it. But I am done with that. I know that God has uniquely gifted me to make sure that my children get a quality education. I am the expert for my children. I refuse to doubt myself any longer. And that's the end of it.

What does any of this have to do with our reading list for this year? Well, this list has been compiled by me based on the tastes, needs, and beliefs of my family. We don't do fairies, witches, or magic in our house. So there are no books with any of that content (to my knowledge) on this list. And we love the Lord; so, many of the books mention God.

Most of these books can be found for free by doing a quick search on Google Books. Otherwise, I have provided a link.

Drawing

Willie's First Lessons in Drawing

English/Literature

Aesop's Fables

The Child's Own English Book

Grammar-Land

The Play Grammar or The Elements of Grammar Explained in Easy Games 

History

The Boy Lincoln

Broad Stripes and Bright Stars

Fifty Famous Stories Retold

Hans Brinker

Letters from Colonial Children

Mary of Plymouth

Ten Boys Who Lived on the Road from Long Ago to Now

Math

Everyday Number Stories

Living math books from the library

Number Stories of Long Ago

Science

The Burgess Animal Book for Children

The Burgess Bird Book for Children 

The Insect Folk

Seed Babies

The Storybook of Science

When Mother Let Us Garden

Additional Reading

Toby Tyler or Ten Weeks at the Circus

Resources that I used to compile my list:

Accelerated Achievement book list

Ambleside Online

Graded List of Books for Children - 1922

Homeschool Freebie of the Day

Old Fashioned Education

Robinson curriculum

Homeschooling High School for Free - 11th Grade

This year my soon to be 14 year old will be in the 11th grade. I am grateful to God for the years that I have been able to homeschool him. And I am a little sad that he is almost done. These years teaching him have been both challenging and extremely rewarding. But my intention with this post isn't to reminisce. I want to share the free resources that we will use this school year for my son's core classes. 

An Invaluable Website

Once my son started middle school I began purchasing textbooks for him because I had a hard time finding free resources for the classes he was taking. But in recent years, I have seen a plethora of great material become available online. My favorite place to use for finding upper grade courses is Free-Ed.net. It is not the prettiest looking site but don't let that stop you from finding some wonderful resources there.

Here are the classes and materials that my son will use for 11th grade this year. 

Math

I can't believe my son will be learning Calculus this year. It seems like only yesterday that I taught him how to skip count and made homemade flashcards for him so that he could memorize his addition and subtraction tables. But I digress... Last year we used MIT's open courseware for the first time for Calculus; so, we will continue on with a Calculus II  course taught by the same professor. The used book we bought last year for just a few dollars covers both courses, so no need to be buy another one.

Geography

In our homeschool, history and geography have always gone hand in hand. I taught my son to learn the geography of the locations that he is studying in history by using maps and atlases. But my husband feels that it is best that my son takes a separate, in depth geography course. Originally, I was going to use the Geography for the 21st Century video course along with the textbook which I was going to purchase from Amazon for under $10, including shipping.

But for the time being we are only able to access the Internet from my iPad. Apple doesn't support flash so we are unable to access any of Learner.org's videos. So we will use the course outline and reading lists from one of MIT's geography classes. If we can't get the titles from the library then we'll make appropriate substitutions. 

Science

Physics! Need I say more? Well actually, I probably should. The number one question I get when I share some of the high school classes that my son is taking or has taken is, how do you teach that subject? My answer is that thanks to the internet  I don't have to teach it. And I couldn't even if I wanted to because I never went above Earth Science or Algebra II/Trigonometry in high school. So once again, I am turning to a more-than-qualified MIT professor to teach physics in our homeschool. And I'll buy the least expensive used textbook from Amazon.

English/Language Arts

There is a McGuffey reader to cover every year of school. So, no worries there. And our Englsih classes are always heavily based on classic literature. So, my son will read several, quality works of fiction from the library, of his choosing. And he will be required to write a few book reports. Also, we will focus on quite a bit of essay writing.

Foreign Language

This year D is taking Spanish III. he will have a lot of conversations with fluent Spanish speakers and we will utilize the college text Poco a Poco.