Homeschooling in the Desert...

Welcome to our homeschool! We've been homeschooling since April 2007 - over 3 years now! We have 5 children and we homeschool the 3 youngest. At this time, they are 13, 11, and 10. We're finishing up 8th, 5th, and 4th grades. The purpose of our homeschool blog is to illustrate to our family and friends our chosen lifestyle... what we learn, how we learn, when we learn, etc.
Please feel free to follow along, to ask questions, to comment on our progress!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Sewing Day in the desert

 

 

We had only one Mom/Daughter team show up for Sewing Class this last week. We truly missed our other girls, but had a LOT OF FUN anyway!

The girls made a set of pillowcases for their beds.  They did a great job, I am so proud of them!  I even made one for my body pillow!  You know, the one that supports my poor hips, destroyed by stretching chicklet ‘ in utero’.  But I digress…………….

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Great Old Book

McGuyver was going through his boxes of books the other day, trying to organize his new bookshelves.  He came across this gem, called  The First Mortgage.  It was published over 100 yrs ago.  It is basically one very long poem, ranging from Creation to Revelation!

And it’s really cool!

I started reading it to the kids and they were hooked!  I read about 7 pages yesterday and 5 today.  We’ll read a little everyday for school.

 

 
 

Friday, October 8, 2010

Where oh where am I????

Wow - looks like I have been AWOL on this blog!
We're in week six of AmblesideOnline.com
and really enjoying it. 

I was so indecisive about which curriculum to use, always second-guessing myself.  I love Lorraine Curry's book - Easy Homeschool Techniques, and had decided to do that for school. But it wasn't laid out clear enough for me (silly I know) and then found http://www.amblesideonline.com/.  I really liked what I saw. 

Then, I  found Accelerated Achievement, or A Squared, and really liked that too!  All 3 of these are somewhat similar, basing themselves on the Charlotte Mason method of schooling.  Some based themselves on her method more than others. 

I really hated going back & forth with my decisions.  I didn't want to do just workbooks, I wanted the kids to enjoy school.  I kept praying about what to do, which curriculum to do, etc.

God answered my prayers.  He told me to put away all my different 'how to homeschool' books! So I did, and decided on Amblesideonline.com!  I felt the weight of the world go off my shoulders!

We do approximately 70% of what they have listed each week - some of the books I choose not to use. And that's ok!
We do our Saxon Math, Apples Daily Phonics/Spelling (depends on the kid), A Beka Language (they are suffering in grammar so I threw these workbooks back in our program), and Latina Christiana.  Somedays, when we get everything done, we have schooled for 4+ hours!  Solid straight hours!

I don't know if I posted that Hunk #3 started attending Calvary Chapel Green Valley Christian Academy for 9th grade.  Hunk #2 started there this year for his junior year.  I can't imagine trying to do AmblesideOnline.com with Hunk #3 as well, along w/ Hunk #4 & Chicklet.  It's even more intensive.  I find myself spending more time with these 2, for school, than I have in the past 3 + years that we've been homeschooling.  And that's a good thing.  I enjoy it more, so do they.

One of the books we read from, from the AO website, is called Triumph & Trial: Stories from Church History by Richard Hannula.  This is online and you can access it for free!  That's one of the really cool things about AmbleSideonline.com - they have links to most of the reading books online, so you don't have to buy all of them.  I have chosen to buy a few, and have been pleased with my purchases.  I will try to blog on some of those in the next week or 2!