Homestead Acres » Homeschooling

Our School Days

Kim — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 05:46:12 +0000

While each day is unique in itself it helps to have a pattern or routine to follow. Over time I’ve found that fixed schedule just does not work well for our family. What I do like is a routine, then no mater what time you get started your day still has a flow to it. When something happens to interrupt your day, just start back with the next to do on the list. And interruptions DO happen don’t they. It can be anything from someone dropping buy to visit, an unexpected appointment, illness or a fussy toddler. I find these things so much easier to work around if I’m not worrying about the “schedule”.

Our routine might get some tweaking this year. But this is basically how it’s been working for us.

Get up, dressed and have breakfast. After breakfast we do morning chores. This is washing the breakfast dishes, starting some laundry and getting the table reading for lessons.

Dh does Bible study with the kids. Then we do map time. This is something dh started doing with them last year. We have different maps on our living room walls. He started teaching 1 country at a time last year, adding a new 1 each day. The children now know a large number of countries, all the continents, oceans and provinces/territories of Canada. These get reviewed every day, they love seeing who can get the answer first.

After that we head out to the table and start math. This is followed by our LA activities, copy work, spelling, grammar. Then we will take a snack break while I read our FIAR (Five in a Row) title. After that we’ll do the FIAR activity for the day. Then read about what ever country we are currently studying and do an activity with that. I have been using Galloping The Globe along side FIAR and it’s a wonderful complement to each other.

We take a break for lunch and after that read our science or history section. Then do any activity or copy work relating to that.

That is about the end of our formal lessons. Most of the time we are finished by noon or just after. The afternoon is saved for crafts and nature studies. We also have family reading times in the evening. We are currently working our way through the Little House On The Prairie set.

Early Spring Nature Walk

Kim — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:00:48 +0000

Last week the nice weather came early. Temperature climbed up to the low teens! The day was just to nice to be inside so we headed to the park for a nature walk.

While we were there we found trees that a porcupine had been chewing. Some deer tracks and one I think is a raccoon track?

Raccoon Track?

Deer Track

Porcupine Damage

Damage to a tree. Another Porcupine perhaps?

Tree Damage

St. Patrick’s Day Freebies

Kim — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:25:14 +0000

St. Patrick Day is approaching, what fun activities do you have planned? CurrClick has some great freebies up right now.

Notebooking is a big part of our lessons. It really brings facts alive for children. Little ones just love putting together a journal of what they’ve learned. Check out these free notebooking pages! St. Patrick’s Day Notebooking Pages

Shamrocks and Shillelaghs is a free ebook by Teachers Book Bag. It gives the history of many Irish and St. Patrick’s day symbols. Also included are some poems, calendar cards and activities.

St. Patrick: The World’s Greatest Missionary is a great little book. It’s full of stories about St. Patrick, picture studies, map and copywork. And a recipe for Irish Soda bread to!

If these aren’t quite what your looking for CurrClick also has these books on sale at a great price.

St. Patrick’s Day Lapbook with Study Guide

Celebrating St Patrick & St Patrick’s Day [BUNDLE]

Connect The Thoughts – Saint Patrick’s Day Creative Writing/History Unit

Recorded Class! – St. Patrick’s Day

March Book Bag, 2009

NotebookingPages 2010 Winter Sale Event!

Kim — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:47:37 +0000

Tired of Busywork? Seize the Most from Your Day . . . with Notebooking!

Notebooking is a powerful tool that captures what your children have learned, turning it into a concise, artful piece of work. Visit NotebookingPages.com for free and affordable templates to help you get started today! Simply print out a selection of free notebooking templates or choose pages from one of their themed sets.

Now is a great time to try some of NotebookingPages.com’s products during their HUGE Winter Sale Event! Savings of 30-50% depending on which day you purchase!

Check it out here:

NotebookingPages.com Winter Sale Event

Save even more with these special coupons!

Use coupon code: winter15p to save an additional 15%.

Use coupon code: winter5 to save $5 off any purchase of $10 or more.

(Coupons good for one use and expire January 19th at 11:59pm (EST).)

Time For A Winter Nature Walk!

Kim — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:12:39 +0000

Now that we have a break in the cold weather hubby decided to take the older kids for a nature walk! The -25C windchill’s we’ve had the last few weeks are just to cold for little ones. Well it’s to cold for ME to! They had a wonderful time looking at the deer and finding different tracks. Afterward it was time for hot chocolate!

It’s a big change from our fall nature walk you can also see one of our winter walks from last winter.

This is a sulfur spring, it’s a really interesting nature study area. In the summer because of the sulfur water bugs don’t lay their eggs there. It also runs year round with out freezing.

Kid’s found some mouse tracks!

Economic Collapse? What Do The Kids Think?

Kim — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 01:35:52 +0000

A little while ago our dd7 brought hubby a graph she made. She explained to him it was “the economic collapse”. This short video clip shares some of the kids thoughts on the current economy. We’ve been studying the depression on and off for a while and it’s interesting how they see similarity’s.

Huge homeschooling sale!

Kim — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:38:40 +0000

CurrClick is having a huge Christmas sale! I’ve found many great deals to stock our shelves with and wanted to share this with you. Click here to visit CurrClick and check out hundreds of titles up to 50% off!

Free Advent Helps

Kim — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:27:04 +0000

For the last few years I’ve really wanted to do and Advent count down with the kids. Some how I always seem to forget…often I’ve just had a new wee one. lol

So this year things are a “little” quieter, I was looking for free Advent helps. I found this one. It has nice ornaments you can print out and color for your advent tree or calendar. It also has daily readings already set up. I’m going to make up some copy work to go with each day as well.

September Nature Walk Photos

Kim — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 03:29:13 +0000

We’ve been doing a lot of nature walks lately. Thought I would share a few pics.

Geography Resources and Play Passports

Kim — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 03:32:10 +0000

This year we are using Five in a Row and Galloping the Globe to travel around the world. Right now I’m working on our travel plans errr lesson plans. I’m making a passport for each of our little travelers, and they love the idea!

I found some beautiful free passport stamps to print and use from the Lutheran church website. They are absolutely wonderful!

They also have a downloadable newsletter called Mission Friends. Each one is about a different country and has stories, recipes and games as well as good country stats and information. These would be a great addition to any study.

If you would like to make some play passports you can find templates at the Galloping the Globe yahoo group. I also found this website you can buy the file for only 5.00 and make your own. Or for a little more she will make you one.

I’ve been finding a lot of great geography sites. This one Geographic guide has wonderful maps and country information.

Here is another good site for continent and ocean flashcards.
Your Child Learns has lots of helpful things, online atlas, maps and puzzles. If your looking for free clip art Clipart ETC has lots for countries and time periods.