Things Homeschooling has Given to Me -by my daughter

My daughter Ashley posted this on facebook the other day and I thought it was perfect for our homeschool blog! She is 15.

Things Homeschooling Has Given to ME

1.The best friends anyone could ask for.

2. Testing doesn't determine how intelligent you are, it determines how much you've learned. Missing questions on a test does not mean you are a failure.

3. You can buy a machine to turn your boiled eggs into squares. Square eggs. Win.

4. Chemistry is fun. No, really.

5. Roosters don't have the expected male extremity.

6. My parents may just understand me. Maybe.

7. A closer relationship with God. To be Christian is to love God with reckless abandon.

8. An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind.

9. Think before you speak, but never hold in something that is important to you.

10. Never judge. Never lose friends based on religion,politics,or disagreeing opinions, even if if they like pinapple on their pizza or eat things with high fructose corn syrup. [;

11. Life is too short not to live.

12. Never hold back from telling someone you love that you love them.

13. "No homo" is quite possibly the dumbest phrase in history.

14. Every girl needs a gay best friend.

15. Listen to the music you like, watch the movies you like, read the books you like. Don't pretend not to like something because it isn't cool.... or vice versa.

16. Pokémon is one of the most addictive games ever.

17. Science is amazing. Stay curious.

18. The Discovery Channel is the best channel ever. There's nothing like spending all day watching a Mythbuster's marathon. The world is just fawesome.

19.There are aliens out there, and you know it.

20. Jesus died for your sins, but that doesn't mean you get to keep sinning. Always do what you think is right. That's all anyone can ask of you.

21. Daytime TV is the worst thing ever. Always keep a stack of DVD's around.

22. Don't be a hater. Let others do what they love, and they'll let you do what you love.

23. Be yourself. The ones who mind don't matter, and the ones matter don't mind.

24. Friends are like potatoes. If you eat them, they die.

25. Large world/national maps make for great dinnertime conversation. Hang them in your dining room.

26. All natural blackberry soda is delicious. Thanks, Sami!

27. Manga/anime is fawesome.

28. You don't have to like someone's opinion, but always treat others with respect. Always use respect.

29. Cutting up dead animals is fun.

30. And finally, homeschooling gave me all of ya'll. And that's one of the best :]

Our plan for the new school year!

We have finally finished the 2009-2010 school year. It was a long year with several moves across the country. From NC to Or then to Va we drove and flew and drove some more! Our new school year will not begin till mid-Sept as we need a well deserved break! However, I have been planning out what we will study and am starting to organize all the books!

Ashley will be an 11th grader this year! Wow, how time flies. Although she would be a 10th grader in PS, she has enough credits for 11th grade. So her studies will be as follows:

History: World History- Streams of Civilization 1
Reading: British lit with LLATL
Voc: Wordly Wise 11
Grammar: Diagramming 1 &2, Easy Grammar 11
Writing: Writing Strands
Science: Apologia Physics
Math: Jacob's Geometry (she has finished Algebra 1 and 2, so we thought we would take a break
Spanish: continue with Rosetta Stone
Also, she will be finishing up a bowling PE credit and working on her Art through painting and charcoal.

Sara Beth will be doing 3rd grade. It is unclear what grade level her same-aged peers would be in due to birthday cut-offs...either 1st or 2nd.

Sonlight Core 3 will be our main course. She will be doing Reading, American History, Language Arts and Science with Sonlight.
Math: Singapore 3A and 3B.
Vocabulary: Wordly Wise 3
Spelling: Sequential Spelling
Spanish: some store bought Spanish books

I am getting excited to start Sonlight. I have heard great things about it and it looks awesome!

Our local homeschool group is doing a not-back-to-school picnic the end of August. The following week we are visiting my mother in law for her bday and then we will slowly get back into the swing of things! Hopefully we can fit in some hiking, some lake swimming and other activities before we start back up!

Free PE for US

One of the hardest things I find with homeschooling is finding great activities for free or cheap. Most things we want to do cost money, such as art lessons, dance lessons, PE classes. This summer I learned about a great program that is free to all children! kidsbowlfree.com! You sign up your children and each week you receive coupons for them to bowl 2 free games everyday! The only downside is the cost of bowling shoes, but for $50 total we bought a pair for each of the girls. For an addition $25, you can sign up 4 adults too. So, I get to bowl with them, and of course I already have my own shoes!

Another bonus is Ashley has a website that has links for free high school online courses. Of them them is a bowling course! WE signed up and now she has a pe credit for her transcripts! Score! We have been going once a week mostly, but sometimes we go twice. Even dad joined us one week, although he did not like the bumpers that we use for the kids.

Sara Beth seems to add on the bowling with dancing. She dances and bowls the whole time! She is a riot! And other bowlers will watch her too!

Our Dining Room Learning Room

After 2 moves, we are finally getting our learning room together. It is in no way complete, but a work in progress. We find that the girls seem to do all their work at the dining room table, so might as well put everything in there! First, we have our shelves that contain all the books for what the girls are studying. Right now we actually have this years and some of next years curriculum on the shelves. We also have the pens, pencils, crayons, etc on these shelves, but I would like to find a small set of cheap shelves to put those items on. As you can tell, it is a little messy as we have new stuff and old stuff that needs to be gone through!


I recently purchased this dry erase board for $5! It was a great deal and the girls love it. Ashley likes to write out her chemistry problems and Sara Beth likes to do math on it and draw pictures on it. The file cabinet I scored off a swap board! And we really needed one to house years past records and other household records.

A couple of weeks ago I scored these 2 large laminated maps for $12 at Growing Scholars in Indian Trail, NC. We love looking at them at all times. Even at dinner you can catch someone just staring at them looking for a place. Brian likes to walk over and just check them out. The other day Sara Beth had read a vocabulary passage about Thailand and went over to the map to try and find it!

We also have a poster of all the presidents and the periodic table. Ashley needed the table for Chemistry and I though it would be good for all of us to know the presidents! It has some great trivia on the back that I plan on photocopying and hanging under the poster.

Hopefully we will finish up this school year soon and get a break so I can straighten up the shelves and get everything organized for next year. We plan to take 4-6 weeks off to just relax!

Reasons Why I Homeschool

Lately, I have been thinking about all the wonderful reasons for why I home school and wanted to put it in writing. This is not a complete list, as I hope to keep adding to it!

1. I love being with my children. I love having them near!
2. No parent teacher conferences!
3. No homework...we already do all our work at home!
4. No buying trendy new clothes for school...we usually do schoolwork in our pjs!
5. PE is bowling. or badminton. or hiking.
6. Field trips in which my children actually learn something. We can go when we want, to where we went and actually take our time there and learn!
7. I was there when my child learned to read. I was the one to hear her read her first word, her first sentence, her first book!
8. No teaching to the test! The only time we think about yearly testing is during the test. They always test well without me having to teach what I think will be on the test.
9. I love it when we are reading something and a topic comes up that interests my children. At that very moment we are able to abandon what we are doing and go research more about that topic! No waiting until later when we have forgotten about it or lost interest!
10. Child directed learning! The other day while doing multi digit subtraction with one column regrouping, Sara Beth wanted to know what would happen if 2 digits on the top had to be regrouped. Instead of telling her that one day we will learn that, I was able to go with it and teach her 2 digit regrouping! And she was so excited!
11. When my child takes a test she discovers within minutes how she did.
12. Watching my children's love of learning grow! After reading a chapter in Ramona Quimby to Sara Beth, she decided to read 2 more chapters on her own! And so went the rest of the book! Her first chapter book at age 6!
13. My children are able to socialize (YES! The big S word!) with people of all ages! They can carry on a conversation with adults as well as with children. They play with kids of all ages during "recess".
14. My children help me pick out their curriculum. I give them options and they choose what they believe is the best way to learn it. They are the ones who have to do it, after all!
15. Vacations at any time of the year. We can school during the hot, sticky summer months and vacation in September when the weather has cooled off just enough to do all the fun summer things!
16. My children have a pretty good relationship. They are with each other much more than most other siblings and they seem to do better at getting along. ( I should know...I had 3 brothers and we were always trying to kill each other!)

I know there are many more reasons! Leave a comment and share your reasons on why you home school! I would love to here them.

Summer School still

We are still doing summer school, although we are going at a slow pace. Sara Beth is 1 1/2 lessons from being done in reading. She is working through a math workbook that is end of 1st grade so she is prepared for her new math curriculum which is more advanced than her 1st grade math program.

Ashley is working hard finishing up math and S.S. Her marine biology is going, but she started that midyear and I don't expect it done immediately. She finally finished a book she needed to read and get moving in her American History.

Both girls are excited about their news books for next year. But, they are also looking forward to some time off. We plan to take off Sept, and whatever they will have left in August once they are done.

Summer School

We got a little behind these past 2 months, so we will be working into the summer. Ashley still has quite a bit of work in Marine Biology, algebra and American History. Sara Beth only has 5 lessons left in reading, but much more in math.

We are debating on changing her math for next year. Saxon moves to slow for her, so we are debating on switching to Horizons math. So, we will work on Horizons 1, book 2 for the next 2 months and then in the fall go into Horizons 2.

Ashley wants to stay with Saxon math for Algebra 2. She will continue with Apologia in Chemistry next year. Both girls may go to LLATL for next year. Still not 100% sure yet! Too much to think about!