Finally feeling like we have found our place in the homeschooling community

We have been at this for four years now. In the process two years ago we moved from Dallas Georgia to Newnan Georgia. When we were in Dallas we had met some wonderful like minded homeschoolers that ran a great group. It wasn't a co-op but one for outings, park days and such which was perfect for us at the time. Once we moved it was hard finding such a group again. We are going on two years here in Newnan and all the homeschoolers we had found seemed to have been a part of one co-op. I didn't want to join the co-op here for a number of reasons. One was that you have to sign a statement of faith which I can't do because I do not believe in organized religion. It also was more like grade level classes which was not something we really wanted to do. I am very relaxed and feel my kids should not only have the time the need to learn but the right to follow their own interest. During this time we still joined in with homeschooling families we know that lived hrs away but only once in a while. It was starting to feel like we would never find the right group for us that was close by.

Well I am happy to say I think we finally found our group. Funny thing is I had joined their facebook page over a yr ago but seemed they posted everything on yahoo as far as outings and we missed out on many connections. I met one family that we started to have park days with and she introduced to some other families that were also pretty close and it just took off from there. One of the moms held a " NOt Back To School" event at her house and it was perfect. Perfect for the kids perfect for me. It was so wonderful to see 15 plus kids ages 2-15 all running and playing together and not one single issue. No fights, no picking, just smiles, fun, and laughter. All the parents were great too. We only expected to be there for a few hrs and finally had to pull ourselves out after 5 hrs of extreme fun only because it was getting late. I finally felt like we had found our place once again. A group of families that for the most part have the same philosophy about education and learning as we do. A group that wasn't focused so much on co-op classes as they were on natural real life learning. A group that seems everyone's ideas and opinions flowed naturally to help each other not judge. A group that I didn't have to sign a faith statement feeling like an outcast. There are tons of ways for homeschoolers to get involved and socialize all over the homeschool community now this is true but that doesn't mean finding the ones that truly fit is always easy. It takes you as the parent searching them out. I am glad I finally found one that not only seems a great fit for my kids but for me as well.

I am truly looking forward to this year and to all the adventures we have with our new friends. If you haven't found that right fit yet don't give up. Sometimes it take awhile but when you find them it is a beautiful thing.

New year, New ideas

I haven't wrote since we finished off last school year in May even though we started back up in July. We spent the last few weeks trying out a few new resources just to see what I thought about them. I will post what I wrote about them on our facebook page below.

Over the last week we have tried out two free programs just to see what we thought of them. We used the discoveryk12 online program and the Easy Peasy all in one homeschool. I thought I would post my thoughts on both a kind of pros and cons in my opinion. Ok first let me say not only did we use both programs we also used all parts of the programs and added on other material that we normally use. My kids were able to finish the daily work in both plus the add on is 4-5 hrs. So even though I felt the basics are being covered I just kind of felt like neither program was enough for me and mine. If we continue to use either of them I def. will be adding to them for a bit more hands on learning. I will say both programs allowed the kids to pretty much work independently while I did a whole lot of standing around wondering what to do with myself,lol. Ok so Discovery k12 pros are it keeps records of attendance, work, reading, grades, p.e ect which I really liked and for those who need to keep good records it may be a life saver for you. I liked that non core subjects like P.E., music, art were covered. My cons were that a good bit of the history and science was pretty much just watch this video and take notes which for elementary age is just not going to cut it. It was a bit boring and dry. Another con was that at this time you do not have the ability to change levels in different subjects. Many homeschool children are at different levels in different subjects. I would have also liked to see more engaged questions being given to the subjects of history and science. The spelling is pretty much write, look up, and remember the words. There is no teaching of the rules. Now let me tell you my thoughts on Easy Peasy. First off it is a Christian based curriculum and there will be many links that will be geared toward that world view. However most of the Christian topics can be easily skipped over without losing the mass of the entire curriculum. I love the math but it is using khan academy so if you didn't want to use Easy peasy but wanted to use the math you could just use Khan from their website. I felt a little more could be covered daily in the area of grammar, voc, and spelling as I found it to fall a bit short there for my taste. However you could easily fill that with a few free educational sites or even a grammar workbook. The literature I loved it was def. a pro in my book because it is mainly Classical literature and has direct links to the books. For history and science we were using year 3 which actually covers geography and earth science and astronomy. I found it to be plenty and plan to continue to use it for a spine for this years geography and science. At this point I plan to discontinue using them except for the Easy Peasy geography which I will use for now but mainly just as an outline. 

Neither of these programs just felt like us. So I am yet again just winging it in many areas but that is ok as I lean toward a very relaxed form of education anyway. So you might be wondering what are we using then. First let me say all that we use as far as curriculum is used very loosely and really used as more of a guide for me to pull from. That being said I will post this years line up for both my 5th grader and my kinder.

Alyssa-5th grade
Math- we will be sticking with A+Tutorsoft for our 4th yr now and pulling from other resources like khan academy and our large amount of Montessori manipulative.
Grammar- We will still be using Growing with Grammar it is short , easy to use, and has worked great the last few yrs.
Spelling- we are using a mixture of All About Spelling( to recover some rules) and Spelling Power( the orange book not the public school curriculum)
Lit- will be covering a few classics( we have already started reading Treasure Island) and allowing her to pick her own books.
Geography- Using Easy Peasy Geography as a guide but adding in country studies that may fit with topics in other subject areas. We also plan to do a huge Christmas aaaaround the world study in Nov/Dec
Science- we are loosely going to cover Earth science and Astronomy not using any one curriculum but pulling from Science Odyssey and Waldorf material along with many books, movies,websites, and projects
History- Mainly we plan to cover Prehistorical Life along with a bit of evolution and the Middle Ages again not using any actual curriculum but pulling from a few that I have collected and adding in books, movies,websites, projects( we have alread made swords and shields this yr- see picture below)

Maverick- Grade K
Math- Hands on games and Montessori Manipultives 
Phonics/reading- This is one of the main areas I plan to focus with him one on one with this yr and so we are using many different things- we do daily sight words( he is up to 240 as of today), Explode the code, Sound City Reading( which is a free program you can find online and goes up to I believe the 2nd grade), and Click and Read Phonics which is an animated program
Spelling- All About Spelling level 1- I am really not concerned if he gets through level one this yr or if we continue to use it again but so far he has not missed a beat and is doing well with only 15-20 mins a day using it
Geography, Science, and History all will be covered by him working with his older sister but only doing his level of work. We also plan to start next week a month long study of Dinosaurs and Archeology/ Paleontology just because he has shown such a huge interest in these areas. We will use books, movies, websites, and yes a real archeological dig in the back yard. 
Maverick also is doing a morning wall which covers months , days of the week, seasons, weather/temp, holidays, maps, shapes. It is an easy , fun way to cover all these topics without it feeling to much to him. 

Some of the new things we are doing this yr are taking a monthly class at the local nature center, joined a homeschool group for weekly park days, Doing monthly class at the history center, taking an art class for 8 weeks, taking swimming class in the spring, Joined a group of unschoolers for weekly unschooling day, joining the monthly class at the zoo,plus we will attend at least 3 other field trips a month through out the state depending on events happening at different times of the yr. My goal is 3 days a week doing what most would see as book/ school work, one day a week for classes, and one day a week for just socializing and natural real world learning. I really am attempting to grow as much as my children in this year. Moving ever closer to letting go of that school mind that they have to know something at a certain age. Hopefully I will also grow in the area of seeing learning as part of life and not something that has to come from being pushed on them so demanding and rigorously. The first six weeks of this school year have been a great success and I feel it can only get better as I learn to see what they need and want to learn and learn to think more outside the box on how to give that to them. I wish all of you a great school year and I look forward to seeing what you are changing up this year and how you and your children will grow.

 

Everyday you are learning something new

Last week was our yearly family trip to Jekyll Island Georgia. It is the one week a year that my entire family looks forward to some fun in the sun. I am a full believer that everyday you are learning and that life will always give you a new adventure to learn from. On our trip we had many new adventures and some first not just for my kids but for me and my husband as well. 

While on our trip we learned how to go crabbing. Like most people now days when you don't know how to do something you google it or watch a youtube video. We watched many and learned most people tie chicken into the crab basket. You lower the basket down into the shallow of the water and attach it to the dock. Then you wait about ten minutes and pull it up really fast usually you will have a crab or two in the basket. The crabs are kept on ice because they must be cleaned while alive. Let me tell you from our learning experience catching them is way more fun than cleaning them. It is not for those with a weak stomach. My kids really enjoyed crabbing because it is easy and some what of a faster pace than fishing.

We also learned you must throw the pregnant female crabs back. below is a picture of a pregnant female crab. The orange sack are the eggs.

My daughter Alyssa even caught one stone crab but we gave him away because his claws were a bit frightening to me,lol

If you every take a trip down to Jekyll Island don't miss out on the dolphin tours. It is a 90 min boat ride that takes you out right into the middle of a pod of dolphins. Not only was this the first time any of us has ever saw dolphins in person but it was the first boat ride for both of my youngest two children. It was also a great treat from the heat.

While on the boat ride we learned that dolphins can hold their breath for about 18-20 mins and that they will beach them selves for prey once beached the other dolphins will help get them back into the water by causing a big wave of water to reach the beached dolphin. Also that manatee live in the channel off Jekyll Island because they actually need fresh water to survive and they will swim many miles up stream out of the ocean. We were not lucky enough to get a shot of the manatee though.

Another adventure we had on vacation was an hr trip south down to Florida were we visited Amelia Island. If you are wanting to go shell collecting Amelia Island is def. your place to go. There are millions of shells not just one here or there but piles and piles of shells. Also on Amelia is Fort Clinch it is an amazing place to visit and the brick work is just jaw dropping. Fort clinch has been used in 3 wars and was last used during WWII.

So even while on a relaxing vacation you are learning and having new experiences. The more you see that life is always teaching and you are always learning the more you will relax and just enjoy the experiences.




 

Just breathe and get re-centered.

Sometimes we as homeschooling parents get lost in the mix of teaching lessons, searching out more interesting material and helping our fellow homeschooling families. We take on a very heavy load of responsibility and it can and does from time to time throw you off balance in life. We get so focused on the needs of our children and our passion for homeschooling that we forget to address our own needs in the areas of physical, emotional, and spiritual. Before I started homeschooling I had been on a 7 yr spiritual journey , a undeniable thirst for spiritual knowledge and understanding. I 100% believe that spiritual journey lead me to the convictions I feel today so strongly about homeschooling my children. Yet somewhere along the way I let my own spiritual quest fall to the back ground so that I could give homeschooling most of my attention. I took on the running of countless homeschool groups to help others. I somehow stopped having time to search for my own spiritual truths because I was so busy between helping my children and helping my fellow homeschooling families. I stopped meditating ( which was something I knew kept me spiritually and mentally healthy). I realized that I had taken on such a huge amount of work in my drive to help others that I was living one very important person out( myself).

For about a year now that voice that calling has been saying you are doing to much. You need to take a step back and re-center yourself. Remember the bigger picture and the things that are important to you. I had noticed more and more I physically felt drained. I had restless sleeping pattern, and my connection to my inner guidance was not as open as it had been in the past. Not because it had some how disappeared but I had not slowed down long enough to listen to the message in the silence. There wasn't any silence even when I would try to sleep I would be thinking of new lesson ideas, materials I wanted to get, or websites I wanted to share for the benefit of others. I was losing my ability to turn off the switch per say and to just be. Just be with the stillness that has for so many years been my source of true knowing, my guide, my God. I knew deep down that something had to give. I had to take a breath, a break, and re-center myself and my focus on my vision of the co-creating life I truly wanted. I need to get back into my spiritual practices of prayer, intention, and meditation. I needed to reconnect within so that I could truly feel I was living the divine purpose God had planned for me.

Today it hit me that I needed this as much as I need air or water. I needed to regroup and re-center. I decide the first thing was to take a leave from facebook groups for a month. We had just met our yearly attendance and a vacation was a little over a week away. The second thing I needed to do was start back up my daily morning and evening meditations and lastly to reconnect and focus my intentions on the life I wanted to co-create.

To be a good mother, a good wife, and a good teacher we also have to be good at address our own personal needs. We can't just forget to love ourselves as well and loving yourself means taking some much needed me time. It means saying I need a break to just breathe. It means taking time for your spiritual practices be it a walk or meditation. It means an hour long soak in the tub if that is what you need to rejuvenate your soul. Take the time you need to just breathe and be full of life and love and then everything else will fall into it's rightful place in your life.  

This post is a reminder not just to me put to all those out there who need to slow it down a bit and re-center yourselves. JUST BREATHE!!!!!

This years school materials

Math Materials Above

Geography Material Below

Grammar Material Below

Science Materials Below

Simple Lesson planning and schedules That fit

When I first started homeschooling not only did I think I had to use the same material as public schools I also thought I had to plan out our school year lesson by lesson subject by subject. I would spend weeks with all my curriculum books around me flipping through to divide the lessons by the number of days we do school. As I grew more comfortable homeschooling and realized how every little I actually used this type of lesson plan I devised my own system. It is simple not time consuming at all. For the most part curriculum wise I follow loosely Montessori/ Waldorf . Both have a good bit of flexibility and can be blended with many ages/levels. This allows me to have my kids working on the same topics at the same time in many areas. It also allows me to use my intuition when it comes to their own individual needs.  First off a make a list of topics I hope to cover in each subject. I also make a list of concepts or areas I feel each need more work in. Then I get 12 pieces of paper labeling each one with a month of the year. I add any special days like holidays or vacations that fall in that month. Then I start with the month we start our school year. This year that will be June. I list the topics to cover for each subject that month. I do not go into great detail. For ex. under science it may just say insects. Now we will dig deep into that topic but I do not write every single activity on my lesson plan. I then keep a daily log of what each child did in each area and amount of time spent.

This is an example of my weekly log

1st block(1Hr) Circle time Spiritual Reading Spelling/writing	Tuesday animal stories affirmation independent week 1	Wednesday  insect folk meditation independent week1	Thursday  insect folk white light or protection independent week1	Friday  insect folk meditation independent week 1
2nd  block lesson  (1.5 Hrs) Math Grammar	Multiplication review	A+ tutor soft  Triangles Workbook 1pg	Multiplication review	A+ Tutor soft  Triangles Workbook 1pg
3rd  block lesson  (2.5Hrs) History Science Geography Botany/ Geology	Story of the Universe    Insects/ants Gardening growth chart	Story of the Universe Insects/ants Gardening growth chart	Big Bang Movie Build an ant farm Parts of a flower cards	Research Big Band write paper on  label the  parts of an ant gardening growth chart
4th  block lesson  (1 Hr) Practical Life Art Music	Art food prep Big Bang art	Life cooking Finish Big Bang Art	Art/Life hand washing dishes Recorder lesson 1	Music laundry recorder lesson 1 review

Date:_6/17-14-6/214____Time 24_hrs  _Name__Alyssa Cater__

By writing a more general schedule and lesson plan it gives me room for all those things that come up in life that through off your week without having to rewrite my entire lesson book for the yr. BTW I do not recommending writing out more than 6-9 weeks at a time because you want to make sure your curriculum and your schedule really do work for your families needs and life. For us we only school 4 days a week and in the summer that is 3 days a week. I personally do not live in a state that requires more detailed records but if you do there are many different free homeschool record programs out there. I like A simple plan from My Mardel Homeschool  http://homeschool.mardel.com/Intro  There is also ones like Homeschooling records.com that you can input grades and attendance  http://www.homeschoolingrecords.com/  and http://www.homeschoolskedtrack.com/HomeSchool/displayLogin.do  I have found that extreme detailed lesson plans not only do not work for me and my personal needs but they need up being a complete waste of my time and effort. Blogs themselves are another easy yet fun way to record what your child/ren cover each day. You can even add in pictures of them doing it.  For those who follow more of a relaxed or unschooling style of learning blogs are great way to show the state what your children are learning.

 

The Great Story my plan for the Year.

Through my reading more on Montessori Method I learned about the Great lessons and how elementary Montessori schools cover these lessons in the first few weeks to month of the school year. They set the tone of learning and discovery for the rest of the year. Each have subject areas to dig deeper into for the children. "Montessori uses its Five Great Lessons as an introduction to all topics, providing a "Big Picture" to demonstrate how the sciences, art, history, language, geography are interrelated. Through the Five Great Lessons, children become aware that the universe evolved over billions of years, and that it is based on the law and order through which all the plants, animals, and the rest of creation is maintained."You can find the great lessons here with resources as well.  http://www.moteaco.com/albums.html

I also came across The Great Story site which is a evolution curriculum used in Montessori schools. You can find that and all the resources for it including videos, links, and pdf forms here. http://www.thegreatstory.org/kids.html  A suggested added on reading are the 3 part book series from
Jennifer Morgan called Born with a Bang. Luckily I already own this series and had not used them yet.

Between the two curriculum the Evolution Great Story and the original Montessori Great Lessons I figured you can cover just about everything you need to cover in a yr and some.

The first great lesson is called" God without Hands" It is pretty much the story of the Big Bang and the creation of the Earth and the Universe. The second Lesson is called " The Coming of Life" it is pretty much what we call prehistory. The third Lesson is called"  The Coming of Human" is is early history of man, up to the first civilizations.The Fourth Lesson is called " The Story of Writing" its all about the first written history, languages, .The fifth and last lesson is called" The Story of Numbers" it is the origins of numbers and mathematics.


The idea is after exposing the children to the Big Picture or The Great Lessons at the beginning of the year they would then go back and study areas of interest that fall within the contexts of the lessons using Key lessons.

Lesson One Key Lessons: God With No Hands"
This lesson leads to the study of:
• Astronomy: solar system, stars, galaxies, comets, constellations
• Meteorology: wind, currents, weather, fronts, erosion, water cycle, clouds, glaciers
• Chemistry: states of matter, changes, mixtures, reactions, elements, atoms, periodic
table, compounds, molecules, chemical formulas, equations, lab work, experimentation
• Physics: magnetism, electricity, gravity, energy, light, sound, heat, friction, motion,
experimentation
• Geology: types of rocks, minerals, land forms, volcanoes, earthquakes, plate
tectonics, ice ages, eras of the earth
• Geography: maps, globes, latitude/longitude, climates, land/water form names,
continent and country research

Lesson Two Key Lessons: Coming of Life
This lesson leads to the study of:
• Biology: cells, organized groups, five kingdoms, specimens, dissection, observation,
use of microscope, Dinosaurs, Prehistorical animals, Amphibians , Reptiles, Insects
• Botany: study of plants, classification, functions, parts of plants (seed, fruit, leaf,
stem, root, flower), types of plants
• Habitats: location, characteristics, food chains/webs, symbiosis, adaptation,
ecosystems, conservation
• Ancient Life: eras of the earth, evolution, extinction, fossil records, excavation
• Animals: classification, needs, similarities/differences, human systems, nutrition,
hygiene
• Monera, Protista, and Fungi Kingdoms: what they are, classification, observation

Lesson Three Key Lessons :Coming Of Humans
This lesson leads to the study of:
• History: timelines, prehistory, ancient civilizations, world history, history of specific
countries and continents, stone age life, shelters, weapons
• Culture: art, artists, music, composers, dance, drama, architecture, design,philosophy, religion, grace and courtesy
• Social Studies: current events, government, economics, commerce, volunteering &
charity
• Discovery & Invention: scientists, inventors, scientific method, inventions, simple machines
math: geometric shapes used in building, 

Lesson Four Key Lessons: Story of Writing
This lesson leads to the study of:
• Reading: literature, poetry, non-fiction, myths and folk tales, authors, reading
comprehension, reading analysis, literary terms
• Writing: elements of style, function, voice, composition, letter writing, research,
study skills
• Language: origins of spoken language, foreign languages, history of languages,
speech, drama
• Structure: alphabets, bookmaking, grammar, punctuation, sentence analysis, word
study, figures of speech
History: Cave Paintings, Cuneiform, Hieroglyphs, paper making, myths/legends

Lesson Five Key Lessons: Story of Numbers
 
This lesson leads to the study of:
• Mathematics: operations, fractions, decimals, multiples, squares, cubes,
percentages, ratio, probability, intro to algebra
• Numbers: origins of numbers and systems, bases, types of numbers, scientific
notation
• Geometry: congruency, similarity, nomenclature of lines, angles, shapes, solids,measurements, sacred geometry, geometric art
• Application: story problems, measurement, estimation, graphs, patterning,
rounding, money concepts
History: famous Mathematicians , Roman Numerals, architecture, History of mathematics,  Pythagoras, vedic math,


So as you can see you could very easily spend the entire year and more covering a number of interesting topics that fall under just about every subject area there is to cover. It seems to me a great way to plan my next year out in an over all picture of topics so that I know what resources I will need to have on hand or be collecting to help my kids dig deeper into these topics but without spending days/weeks making out a very detailed lesson plan. Clearly, these five stories encompass an enormous amount of information about the origins of the world around us


Resources sites:
http://www.thegreatstory.org/kids.html

http://www.montessorimom.com/great-lessons-cosmic-education-links-and-more/

http://www.moteaco.com/albums.html

http://missbarbara.net/greatlessons.html 

a print out timeline http://discoverymoments.com/homeschooling/montessori-monday-great-lesson-2-the-coming-of-life/

http://expeditionmontessori.blogspot.ca/2013/09/diy-great-lessons-charts.html




youtube video playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLDHKQUBNhrkVo0avFHm-j05P4-xO-oYw


Link to the Jennifer Morgan Book series
http://www.amazon.com/Born-With-Bang-Universe-Children/dp/1584690321/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_z