Tips For Buying Used Books

As a homeschool family, one easy way to save a good bit of money is buying used books or materials.

There are a couple of downfalls to buying used. The best way I've found to purchase used items is online, so the first downfall is that I don't get to see what kind of shape my purchase is in until it arrives at my door. Usually there are just a few marks and we ignore them. However, the photo above shows a particular book I spent probably 2 hours going through erasing then scribbling over where I had erased. Apparently  the student had done all of their work in the book and the parent felt it was still acceptable to sell the book in that condition.  There was really no way for Nia (or my other children if we reuse this book) not to cheat without me going through and getting ride of the answers. So, below is a picture of what I found to be an acceptable solution. I erased, scribbled in one direction and then the other.

The other downfall I have found also stems from purchasing online. Sometimes you may not catch exactly what is included in what you are buying. For example, we purchased Wilson reading material for dyslexia. It included instructional videos... that were on VHS. We have purchased other curriculum that called for a zillion pieces to implement (workbooks, flash cards, magnet boards, you name it) to find after spending more than our budget would allow that we really still needed more pieces for the curriculum to work. Or, that we purchased part of level 1 blue edition and part of level 1 aqua edition and they are not compatible.

Here are a few tips we have picked up over the years in purchasing used:

1) Avoid curriculum designed for 'regular' school. There are usually several pieces you need, and might now be able to find. I taught in public school for a few years before homeschooling and my first inclination was to grab my favorite  curriculums from my old life and use them at home. Major foul! One they are designed for a classroom not a single student. Two, see the paragraph above. Keeping all this in mind, I still manage to decide to do this for at least one subject a year for the last few years. Maybe one day I'll decide to take my own advice...

2) Grade level bundle sets. I don't recommend them, but several people like the a lot find them good to use. I've yet to find anyone that really loves the 'bundle sets' as I've labeled them. I'm talking about lifepac, Sonlight, and other programs that include everything needed for one year in a box. Most of the people I've known that have used them do so for the first year and then move on to something else. Let's face it, there is no perfect curriculum and getting everything for the year in one purchase would make life a lot easier. However, none of these companies specialize in any certain subject nor will they be tailored for a certain learning style. Many homeschool kids work on different levels in different subjects and buying everything at the same level could prove to be a big pain in the neck for you and your kid.

3) Figure out your budget FIRST. It will do you no good to fall in love with a curriculum that runs 2 grand if your budget is $200 or even tighter like $20 (as mine was one year). If your budget won't allow for buying all you need at once, stager your purchases. Our girls generally like to focus heavily on one subject at a time, so it's been fine for us to purchase a few subjects later in the year at times. If the budget is really, really tight you can check if your state offers online school for free. Most states offer some if not all course work online for grade school age students for free. Ohio, the state I live in, has online charter schools where they provide a computer, school books, and some school supplies all for free. This greatly conflicts with why some people want to homeschool, but for many it's a great option. Googling K12 (one of the big names in online kindergarten through 12th grade schooling) will give you a ton of information on the this option.

3) If you need help figuring out which materials to use there are several homeschoolin' mommas out there that love to write reviews and opinions of what they have used on their blogs.   If you are new to homeschooling a 1st grader, find several blogs that have written reviews of what they used for 1st grade. Look at what they did. Consider your child's/children's learning style and your teaching style. Think of how you want your school year to go and narrow down from there.

4) When you think you have decided, read reviews, read more reviews, and then ask questions. Find the bloggers that have used what you are considering and ask them anything you can think of about the material. Sites like Amazon also have a ton of reviews. Then weigh them out. If you read 5 people that say a book was perfect and 1 that says it was too challenging for the grade level, odds are there is something going on for that one family that makes it too challenging for their child, not most children at the grade level.

5) Once you have figured out what you want, I have found the best place to start when looking for used homeschool books or other materials is Amazon. Our next stop is generally ebay. I always do a google search of whatever it is I'm looking to purchase also. I've seen materials for sale on craigslist and through homeschool groups. Some groups even have curriculum swap/sale days.

6) The best times to purchase are the end of the school year and just before the beginning of the school year. Other families will be trying to unload their used stuff as the finish up with it, but some will wait until the beginning of the next school year in hopes more people will be trying to find it. There are always people randomly putting things up for sale, so don't get too discouraged if you miss that window.

6 Reasons We Spent More On Curriculum This Year

Having expensive curriculum isn't required to homeschool, but it can make teaching easier. At least when it comes to planning what to do. Earlier this year I posted here about the curriculum we planned to use for the year. The truth is, I've changed it up a lot over the course of the year. This year we felt it necessary to purchase some of the most expensive materials that we have ever bought for teaching. This decision is mainly surrounded by a few facts:

1) Nia started this year as a 7th grader that was working with 1 high school subject. She was so successful with this, we decided to challenge her with another and then another. Now she is working in all high school subjects, and, well good curriculum for this level doesn't come cheep. I want really good curriculum for high school for a few reasons. The next step is college, and we have to put her high school work into a portfolio to help her get into college. I've never taught high school, and I've been a little intimidated about it.

2) Up until now, we really haven't bought much curriculum. With the lower grade levels for Nia, we have focused on manipulates and I felt confident enough with my teaching experience and research skills to cover everything that needed to be covered.

3) Anara's school experience last year (she went to public kindergarten and missed a lot of year because of mono) left her behind her peers and really doubting her abilities. We started the year with Anara convinced she would never learn to read. We tried 4 different reading programs before finding one that she could really shine with.

4) In the past we have mainly focused on paper, hands on, and book work. Anara, however really excels at computer programs, so we have purchased or subscribed to some educational sites for her.

5) After finding their way threw Nia, Anara, and random other children that have been to visit. Much of our preschool material has been lost or used beyond acceptable condition, so we have replaced most of it with new stuff for Cam and our little bun in the oven. Not that preschool materials are generally that expensive  but this has upped the price tag on homeschool this year a little.

6) Purchased curriculum is organized & generally ready to go when you open it up. With our family growing, I've got to make up some time somewhere. Not planning out assignments & search the web for activities is a huge time saver

Fractions

My kids love fractions! Honestly, I think it has a lot to do with how fractions have been presented to them. As with most math concepts, I like to introduce the fun part first, then move on to how we use the concept in everyday life, and finally get to the little less fun part of worksheets or curriculum. With fractions this works really well. The practical every day use of fractions generally means we get to go out for pizza as a family or make a cake. If you have gone over money already, it's easy to explain how money breaks down into fractions. The two sets of fraction manipulatives in the picture above were purchased from amazon and are both from the learning resources brand.

One thing I didn't realize when I ordered these is that the colors of the same size fractions on each set match up. For example the 1/3 size in both the circles and the bricks are red. This really helped Anara connect relevance between different shapes and ways to draw/write fractions. The bars also have the fractions written on one side along with decimals on another.

The fraction tower activity set can be purchased here. I paid $13.29 at the time I ordered it.

The rainbow fraction deluxe circles can be purchased here. I paid $9.35 when I ordered this one.

Fraction manipulates are not something that have to be purchased, they can easily be made. When Nia was this age she had circles, bars, and squares that came as part of workbook. They were card stock weight punch-outs. She had just as much fun, still loves fractions (in fact she played with these new 'toys' a few times herself, even without her little sister), and they worked just as well. I decided this was a worthy purchase for our homeschool for one main reason. Sania has always had a fairly delicate, gentle touch. My other kids, not so much. With the spacing of my other children's ages I would most likely be making fraction manipulates every year for the next 13 years. As long as I can keep up with these little gems, this purchase should save me a at least a few hours of measuring and cutting.

I did decide to make some fraction pizzas out of card stock, they seem durable enough where we may even get more than 1 years use out of them. I made 2. One broken into 1/3 size slices and the other into 1/4 size. The toppings are construction paper. Our whole house was delivered pretend pizza with toppings like blue legos and barbie shoes for about a week. I decided to keep the pizzas where the slices stay intact, but I've made this before where they come apart then used sticky sided hook and loop dots to adhere to a larger piece of cardboard for the whole pizza affect. I've never found a great way to keep toppings on when the pizza is pulled apart that way though. I knew a teacher once that made a simular set up using fabric. The pizzas were flannel and the toppings were felt.

Volcano!

My hubby ran across this volcano kit when looking around a little chain store called 5 Below. Not sure how big this chain is, I've only seen them around Columbus. Everything they sell is $5 or less. The kit came with a tiny volcano, baking soda, a dye pack, a pair of safety goggles, a tiny funnel, a set of plastic gloves, and a little back drop.

The girls opened it up the other day and had a lot of fun putting it together. It was still on the table when John got home from work. Thats when the real fun began. John and the kids proceeded to turn many items in the house into 'volcanos' and used up a cleaning size box of baking soda and  a gallon or so of vinegar. Oh, a little fyi here: if you run out of white vinegar while making a volcano, apple cider vinegar works just as well. Here are some pictures...

The volcano with the backdrop. The backdrop not to be confused with out table top which looks like a Capitan America comic book

Anara really liked the goggles. This was when she was fairly sick. I swear I have never met anyone that can stay as upbeat as this kid when they are sick.

Team work

Dad gets home and after a few runs with the volcano, a small vase is substituted in. The kit volcano was really small and kind of a challenge to work with. And there was a comment that went something like, "I wonder how big of a container I could make this work in? Babe, do we have any 2 litters?"

A larger container is found to house the volcano. Notice the 2 large bottles of vinegar on the table. Cameron joined in at this point and was really taken aback when what was inside started bubbling out.

Can you make out the huge grin on my little guy's face? After an initial freeze, he let out a squeal,  and went nuts over the little explosion that happened. I usually save things like this for his nap time, but I think I may have to change my attitude on that.

If you want to make your own volcano all you need is baking soda, vinegar, and a container shaped like an up side down funnel. Place it in a dish or something to catch all the liquid as it comes out of your 'volcano.' You can mix a little red food dye into the vinegar for the lava look. We found it easiest to place the baking soda into the volcano and then pour in the vinegar.

Moon Phases With Cookies

Science is my favorite subject, but it generally requires a mommy that is not on bed rest to execute properly. So, our science projects these days have been few and far between and have all been very simple and easy to do. My plan is to put science on a back burner until summer. Then, after the new baby comes and I can get out of bed, we will being tackling this year's science. However, this is a project that  can be handled from my easy chair and done mostly without my help.

It's a given that if bribed with sweets, you can get kids to do just about anything. So, this is a science lesson that has been done many, many times by many, many teachers both at home and in traditional school settings. My kids are gluten free, so they only see these kind of cookies maybe once every year or two.

We started our lesson by going over the phases of the moon. There are several sites online you can do this with. We used this one by gwit.org. I couldn't get the intro video to work, but the site has several other interesting facts and little demos about the moon. It even has a spot to type in your weight to see what you weigh on the moon.

I started by drawing 8 circles in a circular pattern then labeled the small circles with the 8 phases of the moon shown on the site. I used the lid to a gatorade bottle to draw the circles. Gluten free sandwich cookies are generally a little smaller than their original counterparts, but the gatorade bottle lid was the perfect size for us. The girls used a case knife to pry open the cookies and then scrape and spred the cream in the desired positions. They looked at the chart on the above site to see the order and how much of the moon was showing in each phase. Then, they put the cookies in order. After they were done, they got to eat the cookies. Finally, they used their papers to draw in the moon phases.

Bed Rest Changes Things

Surprisingly, I am actually finding stuff to keep me busy while on bed rest. However, I have deep routed desires to get out of the house. I'm not on total bed rest. I am allowed to sit up with my feet up, and probably do so more than I should. I do get out every once in while, mostly to church and occasionally a dinner. I have made 2 very short trips to the craft store, hence the reason I have a few things to keep me busy. There have been many changes in our house hold to accommodate the rest of the family and myself while I spend so much time laying down. We are normally a very green, cloth diapering, healthy food eating type of family. Since a lot of the cooking, cleaning and laundry have fallen onto John and Nia, we have more throw away items and more fast food. We have paper towels for the first time in years and Cameron is in disposables. I have to continuously remind myself that I can't expect my family to do things the way I would do them, Especially with items such as cleaning and cooking.

School in this season of our lives looks a bit different also. I'm focusing on language arts and math (that really hasn't changed). Our multiple times a week field trips are totally gone for a while though, along with play dates, my coffee Mondays with other moms, extra curricular activities and the two homeschool groups we joined this year. I have decided to put science on hold until our new little bundle arrives. History is done mostly through videos right now and we haven't been doing to many projects to go along with them, just worksheets. Instead of using the table to work with manipulatives, Anara uses  a tray on my bed. She actually seems to think this last one is kind of cool. The kids are in charge of what they do for art and P.E. Previously we have always tried to be done with school work by around 4 or 4:30. Now we do it at any time I feel up for it, even if that means we are making fraction pizzas on my bed at 10 p.m.

We have also had to move things around a bit. It was to challenging keeping Cameron out of all the homeschool stuff while it was in our one large main room. It is now all in the master bedroom so little fingers will leave it alone. We also invested in a few more organizational items so I can tell the kids exactly where to get things. Our furniture in the main room has been moved around so I can keep a better eye on Mr. Mischievous when I'm in the living room.

Lately we have started hosting a few more things than usual at our house. The thought is that if I can't get out, then we will just have to have people in. It's been fun. We have one set of friends that is at our house at least once a week and often more. This has been a huge blessing to me. They haven't told me, but I know this is a conscious choice on their part. Since meeting them a couple of years ago, they have always been very busy people.

My children are learning things through this that I would have never even thought threw exactly how to teach them.

They are learning compassion and how to truly be helpful. I need so much help right now and they are the ones providing most of that help. Sania is the main cook for the house right now. Through the week she makes sure everyone has breakfast, lunch, dinner and even snacks. Anara is usually my go get'er. She fetches nearly everything I could possibly need from books to bottles of water. This is on top of keeping up with school work and chasing after Cameron all day.

They are learning the importance of seizing the moment. More and more often lately, I feel like the walking dead. However, sometimes I feel almost normal. At those times we try to do something a little more fun. Within the confines of my bed rest rules that is. Today, John took me out for breakfast then this afternoon he drove us all to the park and I watched the kids play as I sat in car. This may not seem like much, but when doctors orders keep you confined to the only the ground floor of a small townhouse, any excursion, even ones where you don't leave the car, are exciting.

They are learning how to work together. It takes real team work for the girls to keep an eye on Cameron and get a gluten free lunch or dinner ready. It also takes a tremendous amount of effort and teamwork to keep little Cameron entertained while school work gets done.

Invisible Ink

For social studies this year we are studying U.S. History. John was a double major in college and one of those majors was history, so this is a subject we don't have a curriculum we follow. Part of what we are doing this year is watching Liberty's Kids (Click here to find out more about Liberty's Kids). We rented these videos a few years ago from the public library and this year we found them on Netflix. Today's episode was entitled 'Postmaster General Franklin' and we did a little project to go along with it. Invisible Ink!

With simply baking soda and water it is easy to make invisible ink. We used about 2 spoonfuls of each, but then poured off a little of the water. The girls used cotton swabs to draw with the solution on printer paper.

Next let the paper dry.

There are a few different ways to make the invisible ink become visible, a heat source such as a light bulb or candle, grape juice, or lemon juice. The show used a candle as a heat source. I wanted to  stick with using a heat source, but a light bulb instead of a candle. I just imagined our whole house going up in flames at the thought of the kids holding paper over a candle. Using a light bulb, you still have to be careful. The paper can still catch on fire. This was the plan, however, all of our light bulbs are the low heat, energy efficient variety. They just don't emit enough heat for this project, so we went with lemon juice. Anara used her fingers to spread the juice on the papers. By the time Nia got back to the table, Cameron had already finished her paper for her.

Here are the results, which were only a little easier to make out in person than by this picture. They must have used a better medium or tools in Franklin's day or the messages would have had to of been really short. These didn't turn out great, but the kids got an idea what it would have been like to use invisible ink. It's a challenge writing something when you can't see what you are writing.

Hearing Impaired Homeschooling Mishap

Recently Cam got a hold of Nia's hearing aid, ripped it into 2 pieces and lost part of it (luckily it was the cheaper part). The kids were upstairs and I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but it happened. Not having her hearing aid makes life and school a pinch harder for Nia. Without it she must be looking exactly at your lips to really understand what you are saying. Her speech is also difficult to understand when her hearing aid is out. I really didn't realize how difficult her speech was to understand until she began wearing the hearing aid and has now had to do without it. It has made a huge change in how she pronounces words and her spelling ability has improved leaps and bounds. It makes perfect sense; being able to hear how a word is formed is a key part in pronouncing and spelling it properly.

A little about Sania's hearing aid

Nia's hearing aid consists of of 2 main parts the electrical part and a molded part that fits inside her ear. The one shown has an older molding that is now a little to small and has a crack in it. These two pieces each have a tube that extends from them and the two tubes join together (This is where Cam tore it apart). The electrical part can last 3 to 5 years. For the molded part we have a to get a new mold made every few months as she grows as this is the part that goes inside the ear. It's nice that she gets to pick a new color scheme every few months for the ear piece. She gets to pick the colors, but we won't know exactly how it's maker will put those colors together until it arrives in the mail a few weeks later. Her last color choices were black and white. When it arrived, she wasn't as happy with it as she has been previously (which I believe is part of the reason Cameron was able to get his little fingers on it). The colors are usually fairly crisp, but the black and white were mudded together making a lot of gray. It kind of looked like, well, mold.

How we try to prevent this sort of thing

Several places in the house we have tiny bowls perched in high places, well high enough Cameron can't reach them. I think most of the bowls, like the one pictured, would be considered salt bowls. Nia generally takes her hearing aid out if it starts to get a bit itchy, when she is home alone or for an assortment of other reasons. I started grabbing up these bowls because without a designated spot close by for Nia to put her hearing aid, it was being placed anywhere and everywhere. This led to it constantly being lost. We would find it in pockets, amongst dirty dishes, under clothes in the bathroom, in a shoe, I'm sure you get the picture. Although usually very cheap, this bowls can be a little hard to find. Most households just don't use salt bowls anymore. We currently have 4, but my goal is to collect enough to put close by to all of the spots she has a tendency to take off the hearing aid. I think another 4 would cover it.

High School Credit Planning For Homeschoolers

Whew, this last week I've been looking more into planing for Sania's high school years. Basically what I'm finding is that it's a real headache just planning for it. As a homeschooler, her possibilities for earning credits are endless. However, I've found different colleges actually require different numbers of credits and may have slight differences in the basic classes they may or may not require. One site suggested checking with possible colleges your child plans on attending before planning out high school course work.

When I start a conversation with Nia about high school, her eyes kind of glaze over. She is clearly uninterested. Who can blame her, if she were in public school, Sania would be a 7th grader this year. Being homeschooled, she is working on 3 high school level classes right now. She is interested in her future, but like any 13 year old, right now she is more interested in right now. If I were to try and get her to figure out her top college choices, I think she would have me taken straight to the looney bin. 

So how do we plan for the future. Obviously, I'm not going to ask my 13 year old to make any concrete plans on the mater. I was 30-ish before I actually knew what I wanted to do with my life. There are several basic credits you can plan on your son or daughter needing. Then electives should be based on things they are interested in or if they do have a planned college major or a few they are thinking about, plan electives around these. Nia recently picked out a few possible career choices (you can read about that in a post here), and we are looking at electives that will help her decide if she is really interested in these choices. Here is a bit of break down on what high school credits are generally needed.

Math - 3 to 4 credits, Most colleges require Algebra 1 and Geometry.

English - 4 credits

Science - 3 credits - Some colleges ask that all 3 have labs, others require only 1 lab.

Social Studies - 2 to 4 - US and World history are generally required, some colleges also require a credit in government.

Foreign Language - 2 to 4 -  Most colleges require 2, some require 4, and there are a few colleges that do not require any foreign language credits.

Physical Education - 1 to 2, some colleges may require this to be broken into health and p.e. components.

Fine Arts - 1 - This may or may not be required.

Electives - Enough electives should be included so that the student has a total of 21 to 25 credits.

Ok, now that I've gone over all the things your kid needs to qualify as a high school education, I'll go over what exactly it is that qualifies work as a high school credit. High school credit can be counted in 1/2 credit or 1 credit increments. If your child is working out of a High School level book, then, obviously in earns a high school credit. If your teen is working through book that would equal 1 credit in public school or one designed similarly for homeschoolers, then finishing that book earns them 1 high school credit. If you are not using a traditional curriculum then you can count up hours. This can be done either by literally counting up the hours or looking at hours per week.

1 Credit = between 120 and 180 hours = 3 to 5 hours per week for an average school year

1/2 Credit = between 75 to 90 hours = 1 to 3 hours per week for an average school year

The above information was gathered from eHow, The Princeton Review, and from a webinar  done by Lee Binz. You can find Lee Binz's blog here.

When I Grow Up: Carrer Choices

This week Sania has been looking into possible future careers. You may be asking why we decided to make this a priority right now. Well, I'm trying to get somewhat of a plan ready for high school. High school will need to be a bit more organized than how we currently do things. It takes high school worthy credits to get into college and to excel through college. Allowing Nia to randomly pick subjects and study topics as she does with about half her work in the past just won't cut it.

First we made out a list of a bunch of possibilities that looked interesting to her. I have to say that many things I thought she would be naturally drawn to, she crinkled her nose at suggestion of, and a few things that made her list I was surprised by. Next we looked at the Occupational Outlook Handbook on the Department of Labor site and put a page in her journal for each occupation she was considering, there were about a dozen at this point. From here she was able to learn a little about each job. Some jobs she decided immediately that they wouldn't be for her. One of these being baker because of early mornings and low pay. Did you know the average baker only brings in about $23,000 a year? She actually narrowed down her possibly list to 4 main types of careers with this step. I'm not wanting her to make this list any smaller. She is only 12, and still has plenty of time to change her mind a zillion times before she actually needs to make any real decisions on this.

Right now her top choices are the fields of interior design, writing, theater, and archeology. The next step is to spend about a week on each field and look at the types of schooling needed for them and different careers to be had within those fields and do a project or two related to the different types of work.

Curriculum for 2012

Just before we were about to order materials this year, our family took a big financial hit. So, the loathing I normally feel for picking out curriculum was doubled. I hate picking out curriculum. No, I HATE, HATE picking out curriculum. I get very intimidated by the price tag. If it’s low, I’m afraid it won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on. If it’s expensive, what if it sucks? We have to pinch a lot of pennies around this household to get materials. I’ve actually had nightmares about picking out expensive, horrible curriculum. All that being said, we mainly focus on math and language arts/reading and let the rest fall into place. At any rate, this is what we are currently using.

Anara our 1st grader uses:

Math

ixl.com

Instead of buying an actual curriculum, I decided to sign up for an account through IXL. I’ve taught and tutored more math lessons than I can count. So I don’t really need a book to tell me how to teach her this at the 1st grade level. I just need a list of topics to keep me on track and having a set of problems for Anara to work out saves me a lot of time. So, we are using a ton of manipulatives along with IXL for 1st grade. So far this formula = math love for this little girl. She even request to do extra math a lot of days.

Spelling

Sequential Spelling 1.

I cannot rave enough about this spelling book by Don McCabe. I used it with my oldest when we started to homeschool her. Spelling test are set up a little differently. First off, there is NO studying. Second, you take a test everyday. Third, your child, no matter how bad they have proven to be at spelling, will do well. Ok, your thinking sounds ridiculous. It goes a little something like this. At this level your first word will be something like ‘at’ the next word may be ‘bat’ then ‘mat.’ Here is the special part. As your testing your child, you are writing on a white board or chalk board (we use the outer part of a 3-ring binder and a dry erase marker). We have just started using it with Anara, but Nia has had success with it, I can’t see us ever using anything else. Great for children with dyslexia. It has helped Nia (and myself) become much better spellers.

Language Arts

Daily Warm-Ups: Language Skills 1st grade

We haven’t totally gotten into this yet. Anara is still at the early stages of reading so we are focusing more on handwriting and plan to start this with-in the next month or 3 depending on how she progresses with handwriting. This includes a daily worksheet and a daily written assignment.

Handwriting

Handwriting Without Tears

We don’t actually have this curriculum. I was able to find enough materials and videos free online to piece together enough to get by with. If I were buying, this is what I would get though.
Update: We actually did wind up buying the book for this. This is one of those things that there are a zillion extra little options you can purchase. I decided to only purchase the student work book. Glad I stuck with just that, instructions are in the workbook and I don't feel the other stuff is necessary.

Reading

Explode the Code

We have just ordered Explode the Code. We also use a handful of manipulatives and several trips to the library. We started with a Teach Your Child To Read IN 100 Lessons and have decided to change. I really think if you force your child to suffer threw it, the 100 Lessons text would work. But it is incredibly, well, boring. It’s black and white text with no pictures. Anara needs pictures, momma needs pictures.  I’ll have to let you know how Explode the Code works and what we decide on to replace the 100 lessons book.

Update:

Wilson Reading

This is designed to teach those with dyslexia in grades 3 through adult. I only pulled this out and used it with Anara for a few weeks because we already had it. I think we could have made this one work, but Anara was really board with it also. It was designed mostly with older kids and adults in mind so, no cute pictures, games, or anything else that  makes curriculum fun for a 6 year old.

Reading Eggs

This is an online game sort of curriculum. Anara loves IXL for math, so I searched out something simular to do for reading. It offered a free trial, so we signed up. She really loved it and it helped a lot. However, she had made her way through about 1/2 the material in our free trial and you purchase a year at a time. I couldn't justify purchasing a year of a program that she would finish within another 2 or 3 weeks. If they took this up to a 3rd or 5th grade level, I would have been pleased as a peach to make a purchase here. With IXL you can purchase a month at a time, I would have been thrilled with this option for Reading Eggs. Those options just are not available.

Now that it is towards the end of the year, I'll fill you in on what we ended up doing. Anara has continued to work with Explode the code. She has also worked with a few manipulates for language arts. I read to her from a chapter book each day (we also read other small books). She also reads to me for about 30 minutes each day from books of her choice.

Update: We wound up being offered another free trial of Reading Eggs, which we took and Anara completed that program.

Sania our 7th grader uses:

Teaching Text Books Algebra I

I think most save Algebra for high school, but Nia gets really board with math if it isn’t challenging. So far we are really liking this. There is a short lecture for her to listen to and watch each day via cd rom, although she generally skips it. Explanations are also in her text book if she needs to refresh on them. Each problem in the book can also be explained on the computer screen if she needs it to be. It’s the start of our school year, so Nia isn’t very far into this material, but she seems to be liking it. She says the way it’s presented it makes Algebra seem easy.

Language Arts

Daily Spark: Critical Writing.

Nia has the parts of speech down so this year I wanted to focus more on writing with her. This little book has daily assignments of interesting stuff to write about. It is geared more for the high school age bracket though.

Reading

Even though Nia is child with dyslexia she has become a great, no amazing reader. She has trained herself to read blocks of words at a time instead of reading a single word at a time. Not exactly sure how she does it, but it works for her. At any rate, we just let her read what ever she wants. One month she might jump into a box of her dad’s old comic books and the next breeze through a couple of novels from one of Rick Warren’s series. More on Nia's journey with dyslexia can be found here.

Spelling

Sequential Spelling 7

See above under Anara’s spelling curriculum to find out how I feel about Sequential Spelling.

How We Roll, Err... Our Homeschool Style

My very first year of homeschooling I was given a small tidbit of advice from a veteran homeschooling momma,

“Focus on math and reading and the rest will fall into place.”

Ok, at the time, I thought she was a nut job and didn't take the advice at all. I was new to this experience and wanted stone solid answers on curriculum, schedules, and running the home like a school. I had spent nearly a decade working in public schools or pre-schools and gosh darn it, I was good at it. At some point I realized that if I thought the way regular school is done was the right choice for my kids, shouldn’t I just send them there. So, what we do now is focus on math and reading and let the rest fall into place. If someone would have just told me... oh wait, they did.

We like to get in as many trips as possible. Days that we are out and about (generally one to three times a week) we also try to get in math, reading, and spelling. I try to be a stickler about getting these 3 in everyday, no matter what. If it’s a long trip to our destination the kids watch a documentary on the way. My theory on this is not to let book work get in the way of an educational opportunity. How much can you remember about your 2nd grade social studies book? What about the trips you took?

The day after a field trip we throw in a  journal about the outing. We get in most of the remaining subjects with projects. My kids always have something they want to know more about or an idea they want to execute.  If someone is under the weather, it's documentary day.