Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Posted by Cindy on July 28, 2009
I’ve written a post at Shining Dawn Books about some animal signs we’ve found on recent nature walks. Go see!
My review about Conquering Cursive is up at The Curriculum Choice, too! The Curriculum Choice is a wonderful resource for homeschool curriculum reviews – and you’re likely to already call several of the writers your blogging buddies. New reviews are posted almost daily!
Posted by Cindy on July 27, 2009
After a nice LONG summer break, we’re starting back for the 2009-10 school year next week! I can’t believe I’ll be teaching 7th and 4th grades this year – and we can’t forget the 2 1/2 year old who will continue to wreak havoc daily! 
Here’s the basic daily plan – which hasn’t changed much from last year:
Curriculum plans are (as always) subject to change, but here’s the projected list. Remember, I never teach from all these materials everyday, or even every week for that matter. These are just resources that we’ll use at some point or another.
7th Grade
Math/Logic
Language Arts
4th Grade
Math/Logic
Language Arts
Bible/Devotions
How to Study Your Bible for Kids
Journeys of Faithfulness: Stories for the Heart for Faithful Girls
The Squire and the Scroll
Princess & the Kiss: A Story of God’s Gift of Purity
Bible Games Packet that reinforces books of the Bible, divisions of the Bible, Bible research skills and more. I bought this at a Bible outlet store that was going out of business a few years ago. The game boards and pieces are all just paper tear-outs. Since I’ve already prepared all the games, I can’t find the title of the product anywhere. It was originally published by Standard Publishing, but I’ve had no luck finding it on their site either. It’s a wonderful resource! If I find out the title and it’s still available anywhere, I’ll be sure to post it.
George Muller: The Guardian of Bristol’s Orphans
Bartholomew’s Passage: A Family Story for Advent
Hero Tales, vol. 1: A Family Treasury of True Stories from the Lives of Christian Heroes
Unit Studies
This is the fourth year in our four-year history/science cycle. We will be working on modern history and physics. I’ll post plans as each unit comes along. For now, here are the tentative unit lists.
History/Geography
Science
Nature Study
We’ll use various ideas from the NaturExplorer units once (or more) a week. I’ll be posting many of those ideas here and at Shining Dawn Books.
Artist and Composer Study
August – Cezanne, Chopin
September – Rousseau, Vivaldi
October – Rodin, Gershwin
November – Gauguin, Ellington
January – Toulouse-Lautrec, Schubert
February – Seurat, Berloiz
March – Russell, Schumann
April – Matisee, Brahms
May – Kandinsky, Stravinsky
I’ll be sure to post lots about our daily lessons and happenings through the school year! Have a super 2009-10!
(You can find our current studies along with the resources I’m using in the sidebars.)
Posted by Cindy on July 23, 2009
Most of you probably remember that my husband is the youth minister at our church. We try to be as family oriented in our activities as possible, making sure there is at least one family event per month. This month’s event was planned by a very neat family that used to homeschool and love the outdoors. We went seining in the creek on our church’s farm!
(Seining for sport is actually not legal in Kentucky, but fear not, we were only seining for educational purposes. All the “catches” were put back into the creek unharmed.)
Our big “kids” – my husband and the gentleman who planned the event – enjoyed the seining tremendously. Everyone else did, too – for a time. Then there were bigger and better things to tackle.
Here are a few nature shots I took while I waited on the creek’s edge with Eli.
And here’s Eli deciding his turn had come to get in the water.
A wonderful time of food and fellowship ended the evening. What better way to worship God than enjoying His creation with brothers and sisters in Christ?
Posted by Cindy on July 21, 2009
Whew! I’m ready to get back to school just so I have an excuse to stop the insanity! LOL! What’s been keeping us busy lately?
I know I’ve been MIA a little lately. Between all these fun activities, the garden, planning for school and writing the next set of NaturExplorer units, I haven’t had much time for blogging. I have several posts in the hopper, though – how we planned our family VBS, a wonderful family event we did at church recently, the coming school year plans and some wonderful nature walk finds. Hang in there. I’ll get to the posts and start updating my sidebars soon. Hope you’re enjoying your summer!
Posted by Cindy on July 20, 2009
Have you met my friend Shanna? She blogs at Learning at His Feet and has just started a new company called Integritas Academy. We were at the CHEK Conference together recently and she handed me a CD of her new file folder games to review. All I can say is OH MY! HOW CUTE! And just perfect for my up and coming preschooler!
Well, that’s not all I can say, of course, because really there’s lots more to say! Since she’s had her share of experience with preschoolers and early elementary kiddos (after having eight children), I’d say she’s pretty qualified to develop great activities to keep them educationally busy.
Her file folder ideas are super! And complete! All you have to do is print them on a color printer, cut out the pieces, laminate if desired and attach them to file folders. Then you have instant, interesting and durable activities for your PK-3rd graders ready to go.
I have to tell you, Shanna is quite the talented artist as she has illustrated in full color each and every one of the file folders she’s created!
So, just which file folders have I had the pleasure of using? Well I can’t possibly list them all because she gave me SEVENTEEN of them, but I’ll tell you about several of my favorites.
Like I said, there are seventeen of them and ALL are excellent! Shanna has provided awesome directions for putting together each file folder, as well as simple directions and fun titles to place on the folder for you children. You can purchase ALL 17 games on CD for only $15.00. I’d say that’s a deal! Go visit her at Integritas Academy and tell her Cindy sent you.
