Some FREE Homeschool resources/reviews

If you're a blogger - Time 4 Learning - is allowing a FREE 30 day account for your blog review of their online curriculum.

I'm sure you already know about the Homeschool Buyers Co-Op but just in case you don't...you should join, it's FREE and allows curriculum buying power like public schools.

I happened upon this great FREE homeschool currciulum site Lesson Pathways - it has ALL subjects for grades K-5...it looks pretty interesting.

And I found ALL of the above great resources thanks to The Homeschool Mom site - what a great resource. GO and check out the reviews from other homeschool mom's concerning the curricular they have listed...Thanks "The Homeschool Mom"!!!

Looking forward to the new school year

We started school on Sept 10 and we've been having fun. This year we are doing a modified version of the Student of the Word curriculum. We're liking it so far and I am SO thankful to have followed the leading of the Holy Spirit and made the change. Our science this year consists exclusively of Anatomy...YIKES - I guess that will include "ALL" of our anatomy...that part I'm not looking so forward to! LOL Right now we are doing the Missouri Daillies work book for our history - our main part of history will begin around Christmas when we will begin the life of Christ.

She's taking some additional classes for science, art & sticks. She was going to take violin until I picked up the case and the violin dropped out onto the garage floor and cracked up the center. :( SO sad!!!

Here's to another great homeschooling year!!!

An update to the Figure 8 layout

The Sharpie kept coming off with my dry erase markers so I purchased some clear contact paper and placed it over the top. The dry erase marker wouldn't come off of that without the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser so we gave washable markers a try and they worked coming off with a wet wipe!

Blessings...

During lunch today my daughter sat down with her food while I was cutting up mine with my back to her at the counter. She said "thank you", I said "for what?", she said "for staying home with me each day and homeschooling me"...WOW - that was awesome!!! I almost cried! I didn't think she'd EVER like/appreciate being homeschooled...Thank you God!!!

We "unofficially" started school today...

I thought we'd "ease" into this new school year so we just did some things on the computer and such today. I was going to install her Teaching Textbooks and have her do math but lo-n-behold the cd's weren't in the package...yikes. I purchased this at the St. Louis Homeschool Expo in April and never even opened it until today. Thankfully, I still had my receipt (I keep them ALL :) and gave them a call...a sweet girl on the other line took a look at my account and is going to send them to me...Thank you Lord!!!

Here's a recent pic from her losing her tooth the other night:

Getting things ready...

Have you started school yet this year? We haven't - I mean, we've been counting things that are "school" type things to our school year calendar as Missouri allows us but we haven't "officially" started school yet. My goal is to get some things finished up around the house (pack up unneeded items for Goodwill, etc) and start after Labor Day...I figured it was good enough for me when I was a kid...it's good enough now too! :)

I have been working on getting this next school year organized, ordering books and making the "Figure Eight" that we will be starting. Thanks to Dianne Craft and her "Smart Kids who Hate to Write" and her knowledge of "Dygraphia" which is what my daughter has been struggling with. She's a VERY smart girl but she is right handed and left eye dominant which means she has a bit of difficulty processing when writing.

Dianne Craft sold a figure 8 "paper" layout at the homeschool conference here in St. Louis. She said I would need to duplicate it and have my daughter do the figure 8 daily with crayons and use 1 layout per week...say what!?! I'm all for duplication of a product but each week making this thing just got the wheels in my head spinning on HOW I could do this WITHOUT making a new one each week.

Thankfully, at the CHEF conference in June I went by the Rainbow Resource table and saw they had these wipe off Centimeter Grid Boards that were blank on the other side. I thought 4 of them put together would make a nice size layout to work on. I laid them grid side up and duck taped (isn't that used for everything!?! LOL) them together at the seems and flipped them over and used clear tape on the front. I traced everything but the letters on there with a permanent Sharpie (LOVE THOSE!) - I then cut the letters out and taped them across the bottom and top.After practicing with it I realize that I'll need to put a clear coat of laminate type stuff over it. When the dry erase markers are used over the sharpie and you erase it takes away the sharpie (permanent) lines also. I'll go to KMart later today and get the clear shelf liner/contact paper and see if that will allow me to write with the dry erase and also wipe it away. We shall see.

I think it turned out GREAT!!!

A week of fun...

We just spent a week volunteering our time out at the Strong Tower Ranch in Wright City ministering the gospel to children in the area. Our camp week had 98 kids that attended and there were several that gave their lives to Christ. I oversaw the crafts and it was alot of fun. Here are some pictures from the week:

This is the activity of "choice" for ALL the kids that attend...swimming in the pond!


A little boating...


What camp week would be complete without holding a snake???


Getting ready for the pig catch...is this Ham or Bacon??? LOL




My beautiful girl...



Us...



Wish we would have gotten a full group shot of our new friends from Marysville, Kansas. They all did an AWESOME job being counselors and helpers. These are the Roper girl leaders Ms. Kassie, Ms. Robin, Ms. Elainey.

Smart girl!!!

SO proud of my girl...she scored above average on her SAT scores...she was in 4th grade this year and her lowest score is 5th grade 4th month, there was one other 5th grade 5th month but everything else was 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th grade...yep - she got 9th grade 6th month in science...WOW - she's smart!!!

A Visual Learner

Well - we're trudging right along looking forward to being done with our last 3 weeks of school. Heather is beginning to take on bigger chore jobs around the house and one of those has been helping with laundry. She has sorted laundry for the past year so we're stepping it up for her to start "doing" laundry. This has been a HUGE help but with her being a "visual" learner...she always has to ask where the knobs are suppose to be, etc. I saw someone else's blog where they took pictures of their washer and dryer and put the information on 3x5 cards...well - I'm too impatient for all of that. I can't WAIT to hear what my hubby will have to say when he sees all the pretty arrows on the washer and dryer. Here's what I did for my visual learner today {lol},
My wash machine:




And how much detergent does she use?


I also decided since she's helping with the laundry she can just throw it all in the dryer when the wash is done...

St. Louis Homeschool Expo

I attended the St. Louis Homeschool Expo this past week and it was such a great event. The speakers that I had the privileged of sitting in on were all great!!! I only attended on Friday but some of the points of their messages that stood out to me were:

David Hazell from the "My Father's World" curriculum spoke on 'Homeschooling in the "Real World"'.
1) Transforming Our Family - Are we focusing on the Kingdom or on the fact that society says that our kids have to graduate?
2) What Does the Culture Expect / What are our Distractions - Distractions can be things such as sports, music, social activities, horse lessons, coops, entertainment, toys, technology, travel, career, academic paganism (many kids by age 20 leave Christianity in public school and youth groups)
3) What Does God Expect - Bible reading # 1, direct our children in Godly ways. God gave you the plan to homeschool so you should NOT try to decide WHEN you can get out of it, we should homeschool our children and our children's children. (Deuteronomy 4:8-10)
4) Operating in the Real World (Large and small families, rich and poor, learning styles, busy household, church activities, etc) - Make sure ALL the things you are doing REALLY are God focused and you are NOT just doing them to be doing them.
5) Educate using God's "Real World" For Your Family - God expects US to train or disciple our children spiritually and academically. (Test are given to people to fail, don't give a test if you know your child can pass it) Prepare your children with REAL WORLD skills = Homemaking, communication, budgeting, cleaning, etc.
STOP TRYING TO BE LIKE YOUR FRIENDS - Ask God HOW He wants you to teach your kids His Plan.

The next speaker was an organizing professional named Jean (sorry, I forgot her last name :) Let's Get Organized! But How?
Begin with an organizing prayer: Lord, help me pick only one thing to change for now.
Your home equals CHAOS or PEACE; CHAOS = Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome; PEACE = Please Enter A Calm Environment
1) Minimize STUFF to maximize space - Acknowledge that God made us "Keepers of the Home" (Titus 2:5) Do at least the Flylady's 27 Fling Boogie by picking a room, drawer or cabinet, putting some "boogie" music on, grabbing a trash bag and placing 27 items in it for either the trash or a yard sale. Here are the things to KEEP - 1) if you need it, 2) if it brings you joy, 3) if it has sentimental value.
2) There is a place for everything and everything should be in it's place. Think like a professional and the way the grocery stores line up like items together. Invest in CLEAR plastic storage boxes.
3) Organize your FAMILY with chore & menu charts, plan your errands so you're not running out so much all over.
4) Organize YOURSELF - a. with personal goals (SMART = Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely)an example of this would be:
a.1)I want to loose weight because my jeans aren't fitting right, this is a good goal but there is no time attached to it.
a.2) I want to lose 50 pounds - there is no time attached to this
a.3) I want to lose 50 pounds in 3 months - now there is time attached to this but this doesn't really SOUND achievable
a.4) I want to exercise, change my eating habits and lose 10 pounds in the next 3 months - this is a Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely goal
b. Get a support network - does your church support homeschooling?, join a coop, website/email loops, or local support groups
c. Be honest about HOW you need to recharge your batteries and then DO IT!!! b.1) Alone time, b.2) Pampering, b.3) Social Time - One of these 3 ways should work for you.
5) Organize your HOMESCHOOL - a. goals for each child (academically, physically, spiritually. b. curriculum - it's your helper, NOT your master! c. all books in one place d. keep 3x5 memory jogger cards of what you already have or of what you need

The last 2 workshops I attended were so great and I am SO thankful for the St. Louis Homeschool Expo for having Dianne Craft there. I won't go into all of her stuff since I blogged about it a few posts before this but one thing that I will point out that she mentioned is our kids aren't getting enough fish oil - if you remember in Jesus' time they ate fish, fruits, vegetables and bread - Dianne recommends that your child be taking 500mg DHA of Fish Oil everyday and she said Lethecin oil is helpful for the visual right brain child. I am going to also add acidophilus to my daughters diet. We will begin the figure 8 writing stuff in September.

A struggling student...

I always thought something was a bit off with my daughters writing and things but had no idea it was actually something that was diagnosable. If you would have asked me I would have told you she has some dyslexic tendencies. I have recently discovered that she has "dysgraphia" - I've never even heard of this but in my recent search for new curriculum this next year, I discovered Dianne Craft and an article on her site about "Smart Kids Who Hate to Write". This was eyeopening to me...everything I read about concerning this were things that I have seen in my daughter in the past. I set out to do a simple test to see how she lined up to the dysgraphia overall testing.

Here are Symptoms of Stress in the Writing System

1. Reversals in written letters or numbers (younger children).
2. Poor spacing of words in a sentence.
3. Laborious writing - takes a long time to complete an assignment.
4. Prints instead of using cursive (older children).
5. Copies poorly from books.
6. Knows capitalization rules, but ignores them in writing.
7. Makes letters bottom-to-top.
8. Good orally but written work is poor.

My daughter struggles with 7 of these 8 symptoms.

Here are some other things to investigate taken from Dianne Crafts website:

Check your child's eye/hand dominance. There are several ways to do this but one easy way is to tear a small hole in a piece of paper and have the child hold it at arm's length while peering through the hole at an object on the wall. Instruct the child not to move his or her arms while you go behind and cover one eye and ask if he or she can still see the object without moving the paper. Do the same with the other eye. We sight with our dominant eye, so when you cover that eye the object on the wall will seem to disappear.

If your child is left eyed and right handed or right eyed and left handed, he or she is mixed dominant. This invites a great deal of confusion in the writing process and requires considerably more energy to write than for a child who is uniform dominant—right eyed and right handed or left eyed and left handed. It is as if they are starting the writing process with only "half a battery" so to speak. Therefore, we recognize mixed dominance as being a possible factor in the child's ability to easily think and write at the same time. The writing process does not become automatic so the child continues to have to think about letter formation rather than the subject matter he or she is writing about.

Another good investigative procedure is to see how the child makes his or her letters. To do this, have your child print the alphabet using lower case letters only. Watch your child carefully as he or she does this. Look to see how he or she makes the letter "o." A child who is naturally hardwired for right handedness will make the letter “o" counterclockwise. A child who is naturally hardwired for left handedness will make "o" clockwise. If your child does something opposite from this, that is a sign of major stress in the writing system. Watch to see if he or she reverses any letters or hesitates before directional letters like "b,” “d,” “p," and “z." See if your child makes letters like "f," ”i,” and “l" from bottom-to-top: this is called a vertical reversal and also indicates stress in the writing system. See if the beginning of the alphabet is made with larger letters than at the end. All of these characteristics are indicators to us that there is a real reason why this child is resisting writing assignments and not just an argumentative child or a character problem.

She struggles with all of these things also. I am thankful to finally know that she has a slight processing problem and she's not just lazy with writing.

According to Dianne Crafts Brain Integration Therapy Manual, I will do a figure 8 therapy with her for 15 minutes a day for about 8 weeks and this should take care of realigning her brain.



For now, I think we will finish out our school year and enjoy our summer and I will begin this new figure 8 therapy at the first of the school year in the fall.

Do you have a child that struggles with dysgraphia? If so, what have you done to correct this? I know my daughter will be thrilled to know that she is now on limited writing for the remainder of the year as that is what Dianne Craft has recommended to me via email. :)

The Tabernacle

We were suppose to build a tabernacle...we were lucky to find a 3 D one...Heather had a great time doing it.

It's that time of year again...

must be something about this time of the year - the time of the year that I question homeschooling. Do you go through this? Ugh, I know the Lord wants ut to homeschool our daughter but this time of year is SO trying for me. PLEASE Lord help me stick to this to complete what you've called me to do!!! If you read this and wouldn't mind...send a prayer up for me and I'll send one up for you too...THANK YOU!