Back in the Theatre

Our family has been very busy with the usual school work and farm chores, but we are also back at the Theatre. So, four times a week we are traveling over to the theatre for practice. Both girls and our little man are all in this play, with a number of our homeschool friends. This time we are in the Henderson County Performing Arts Center (HCPAC) which is in Athens, about 30 miles from us.

The play is called "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever". The performance will be in Dec. from the 3rd to the 12th. Lots of practice and lots of shows. The best part is spending this kind of time with all our friends.

Knowledge Box Central

I found another website with lapbooks. I have really enjoyed looking for all these lapbook sites. This one is called Knowledge Box Central. They have many downloadable items such as books, planners, notebooking, lapbooks, copywork and even audio stuff.

More pre made lapbooks

I have found many sites that offer project packets to create lapbooks.

A Journey Through Learning is another site I really like. We have not started the project pack that we have but have printed it out and are looking it over. This pack is full of information to create the lapbook, so I won't have too much to put together. That helps me. Go to A journey Through Learning and check out all they have to offer.

Hands of a Child Project Packs

We just finished a project pack from Hands of a Child. The one we did was the Chronicles of Narnia The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
I am thrilled to write a review about this project pack. The girls and I have worked on this pack for 2 weeks. It is filled with great information. Starts off with the bio of CS Lewis and gets the kids really involved in research. I printed all of it out (86 pages by the way) on white plain paper. We are decorating and coloring as we go to make it look nice. The booklets that the kids create are, as my girls would say "really cool" and we have made an awesome lapbook. We will certainly be getting the rest of the Narnia series of project packs that Hands of a Child have already created. You will not be disappointed in this pack.

Homeschool Library Builder

I recently got a gift certificate to Homeschool Library Builder. I have never used this site before, but since I had the gift certificate I went and ordered some books. My experience made me want to post about it.

I ordered fifty dollars worth of books. Since it was a Texas based company, I also paid tax, then of course I paid shipping. My gift certificate paid for most of it and I only had a small amount to pay.

I placed the order and began to wait. It didn't take long (5 days) for the box of books to arrive. I was shocked because the charge to my card had not even shown up yet. I also got the email notice that my order was complete on the same day I got my books. They were very fast in getting that order together. So I would like to recommend Homeschool Library Builder for used & new books for your home use.

Baking is school too... Right?

HOMEMADE BREAD
Here is a bread recipe that I just love. I don't have a bread machine, so I have to do the mix it, time it to let it rise and then use bread pans and time it baking in the oven. This recipe is simple which makes the rest of the work not seem so bad. Anyway this is the recipe and directions......
1/2 cup milk, 3 TBSP Sugar, 2 tsp salt, 3 TBSP butter. Heat first 4 ingredients in pan to dissolve sugar. 1-1/2 cups warm water, 4-1/2 tsp yeast. Dissolve yeast in water. Mix water/yeast with the milk mix and add 4 cups flour. Start mixing with your mixer using dough hooks. Add 1/2 cup flour at a time (up to 2 cups) until dough starts to ball and look a little elastic. Put dough in greased bowl and let rise to double in size (about 1 hour) punch down and divid dough into two greased bread pans and let rise until dough reaches top of pan (30m to 1 hour) Bake @ 400 degrees for 30 mins. remove from pans and cool on wire rack. Time from start to finish 2-1/2 to 3 hours.

I have not messed this up yet. Sometimes the dough looks sticky, but bakes fine. Sometimes it looks dry, but still bakes fine. So to me, its a no fail recipe. LOL!

Mini Office

Yesterday and today the kids and I have been working on what is called a "Mini Office". Its simple. Just a piece of cardboard folded in 3rds with some helpful information attached to it. They will have these mini offices with them at the table while they are working on school work. Things like a school year calendar, maps, hard to spell words and math helps. Jesse has one too. I thought they would be handy, to help reduce the number of times they get up from the table to "find" stuff. Also, it will give them private space while they work. Kinda like a cubicle. Ha, Ha! Jesse has one too (He has to be just like his sisters) but his Mini Office has things on it for a kindergartner. Check out the pictures below.

Our Curriculum

Here we are in September. School will start next week for us. I don't think we are ready, but then again, can you ever really be ready? I said I would post what we are using this year for curriculum, so here it is.

The girls will continue with Saxon Math. We like Saxon because the books give a very good foundation in math. Linda is using Saxon 6/5 and Timber is using Saxon 7/6

For spelling, Sequential Spelling book 2. We like this system for spelling. It does work and there is not really any prep work for me to do.

BJU Heritage Studies 4. I like Heritage Studies because the books start out in chronological order from the time of finding America. We are on book 4, even though it is below grade level, I wanted to stick to it for chronological order of American History. We are also using lapbooks, from Hands of a Child, for in depth study on any part of history. The black notebook in the picture is our homemade history time line. We add to it all year long..... every year.

For other Language Art: we are continuing with copy work in a spril notebook.

Science/Nature Study: Again we will be using Lapbooks from Hands of a child for our science and nature studies. Because they are fun. We will use other resources off the internet too.

Reading: They can read anything for bed time reading (as long as they read) For family reading I plan to use a couple classics, coupled with movies based on the books we read.

Jesse turns 5 this month, so we will officially start school for him. He will continue to use the Jump Start computer programs. He also has other ones like Study Dog and Timez Attack.

Most of the curriculum I have on hand for Jesse is to teach reading. I use a number of resources all of which I have from teaching the girls to read. We have Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. We also have word family books, sight words list, BoB Books, McGuffey Reader and Starfall curriculum. All of these work well together. His math will come from the internet for free and everything else will come from his Brighter Vision learning kits that we have on hand.

New Nationwide Study

New Nationwide Study Confirms Homeschool Academic Achievement

Ian Slatter
Director of Media Relations

August 10, 2009

Full story here: http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/200908100.asp

The Results

Overall the study showed significant advances in homeschool academic achievement as well as revealing that issues such as student gender, parents’ education level, and family income had little bearing on the results of homeschooled students.

National Average Percentile Scores
Subtest	Homeschool	Public School
Reading	89	50
Language	84	50
Math	84	50
Science	86	50
Social Studies	84	50
Corea	88	50
Compositeb	86	50
a. Core is a combination of Reading, Language, and Math. b. Composite is a combination of all subtests that the student took on the test.

There was little difference between the results of homeschooled boys and girls on core scores.

Boys—87th percentile
Girls—88th percentile

Household income had little impact on the results of homeschooled students.

$34,999 or less—85th percentile
$35,000–$49,999—86th percentile
$50,000–$69,999—86th percentile
$70,000 or more—89th percentile

The education level of the parents made a noticeable difference, but the homeschooled children of non-college educated parents still scored in the 83rd percentile, which is well above the national average.

Neither parent has a college degree—83rd percentile
One parent has a college degree—86th percentile
Both parents have a college degree—90th percentile

Whether either parent was a certified teacher did not matter.

Certified (i.e., either parent ever certified)—87th percentile
Not certified (i.e., neither parent ever certified)—88th percentile

Parental spending on home education made little difference.

Spent $600 or more on the student—89th percentile
Spent under $600 on the student—86th percentile

The extent of government regulation on homeschoolers did not affect the results.

Low state regulation—87th percentile
Medium state regulation—88th percentile
High state regulation—87th percentile