Memorial Day Facebook Freebie Event!

This weekend only , CurrClick is offering 4 wonderful Patriotic Freebies.

Just "like" Currclick on Facebook there is an event with links and a code for the freebies.

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend !

Memorial Day Facebook Freebie Event!

g is for GO!

I have talked with several new homeschool moms or moms that are considering homeschooling, so this week I  decided to write a post for those moms. G is for Go for it... You won't regret it.  3 years ago we decided to take that first step and give it a try. We haven't looked back , only forward.  The early years for me are the harder years, getting through the foundational stuff, but we have had fun and together the boys and I have learned a lot not just school basics, but about each other, about God, and about love.

What to do? Find online or local support through a group or just friends you know that homeschool. Read everything you can get your hands on, and take copious notes.  I am so grateful for the online communities I have found and for the friendships in those communities.

Scripture Adventure: A new Journey

We are beginning a new journey this summer with Scripture Adventure. We will be working through the Old Testament workbook. Scripture Adventure is a fun full Bible curriculum that includes activities, worksheets, Memory verses, and much more. The boys and I are looking forward to this journey and hope you will join us as we share our experiences with the program here.

From the website:
Scripture Adventures in the Old Testament is a full curriculum products that takes you on an engaging journey of the history of God's people from the Creation to Divided Israel. Your children will learn about the faith of David, the righteousness of King Josiah, the patience ofJob in his trials, the covenant God made withIsrael, and much more. Lessons feature readings from the Bible (choose KJV, or NIV version--coming soon), creative writing assignments, hands-on projects, presentations for kids to give to the family, Old Testament maps, memory verses, and directions for a Passover feast. Your Scripture Adventures curriculum comes as an instant PDF download so that you can get started right away!




The ebook is available for $19.99 and contains over 200 pages of lessons, activities, guides, and worksheets. If you head over to their website there are a couple of freebies currently available including a summer reading calendar and coloring pages.

***we received the ebook from the publisher in exchange for our honest opinion. Unless otherwise notes the information provided is our personal opinion and no additional monetary compensation was given.***

Blog Hop: Spearmint Baby Alexa Ranking

Do you know your Alexa ranking?  Join this blog hop and install the tool bar to watch your rankings. It was interesting to me to see the rankings of sites I visit often as well as the rankings changing on my own sites.  Spearmint Baby is hosting the blog this week with Kelly's Lucky You, and Scraps of Life.

Stop by the co-hosts' blogs and follow them. You are also welcome to follow Unionvale Homeschool here, on facebook, or on twitter...
Have a great day and Thanks for stopping by the Blog.

Tuesday night (ok I'm posting it a day later)

Lessons learned from a group of 9 year olds….

I’ve spent the last 8 ½ months working with a group of 3 9 year olds in our Helping Hands group. Every other Tuesday afternoon we meet as part of the our church’s outreach for younger kids. Both my boys also took part in the program; Nathan in the Eager Beavers group for 5 year olds and Cameron in the Builders group for 3^rd graders.  What a blessing this Adventurer group has been for our family and for this sometimes weary homeschool Mom.  Tonight was our last day and looking back I see that these 3 kids I spent time with actually taught me maybe more than I taught them… The first thing that comes to mind is that respect still exists. As we were awarding their honors my guy in the group actually saluted (I held it together and said something silly to him for fear I would actually cry) as I returned the salute I gave him a smile knowing I made a small difference in his live and in the back of my mind remembering the leaders and instructors I had as a young child.  

As a homeschool Mom we don’t always see the differences we make in the life of a child, to teach is a gift of God and a blessing we often don’t give full credence to.  Today I caught a glimpse of that blessing; the sweet smile of a child who feels successful, the cautious acceptance from the child who is successful even in a bilingual world, and the respect of the secure child who wanted a challenge and something outside the usual box.

Looking forward to next year I know that I can challenge these kids to think outside the boundaries of their classwork books and search their hearts for the desire to know and learn about God.  

Watching 9 year olds work on I remember that it is ok to love coloring, craft time is cool and just because you are 9 doesn't mean you can sit still for any great length of time or that your attention span is any longer...

I will treasure the things they taught me this year and hopefully take some of the lessons into next year with the incoming group.

f is for fractions

Since I have younger kids most people would think I stay far away from fractions for school time, but in all honesty with 2 boys there is really plenty of opportunity to work on fractions during and outside of school time.
The first lessons in fractions really started even before we began our homeschool sharing... Simple tasks like sharing became "you get half and your brother gets half" or  "since there is 4 of us we would each get 1/4 of ......." those lead into money is fractions, etc...  Bringing basic fractions into our school day and week even has been fairly easy too. We homeschool 4 days a week so Cameron learned that he could divide his Math unit into 4 parts and do 1/4 of it each day and to make it a little more exciting I only have him would on his phonics 3 days a week so we quickly learned 1/3 of the unit...
We won't get to fractions in our actual daily math for another year but we are learning to incorporate fractions into living math.
Nathan loves working in the shop with his Daddy where tools are either metric or standard measure. He soon learned that 5/8 is larger than 1/2 and 9/16 is larger than 5/8... He may not fully understand what they stand for (5/8 of an inch, etc...) but he understands that fractions can seem like one thing but really be something different.
We try to bring life learning into all subjects but Math always seems to make its way into the boys lives and for that I am grateful.

E is for Energy

Even when I don't have it energy is the key to our homeschool. The boys usually have tons of energy and Mommy usually doesn't have enough.
There is also the energy that comes from time with God before I tackle the school day. I know that lately I have tried to do it on my own and need to return to God and ask him to take me through our day.
Everyday Energy and Everlasting Energy are both needed to make our school day go smoothly.

Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum

Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum is an awesome place to check out. With soon to be 3 museums on site along with an outside play park there is something for everyone.

We have visited the Aviation Museum as a family and Cameron and Daddy attended a Homeschool Day at the Space

Museum, both had tons of kid and family friendly activities.

In less than a month the Water Park will open where kids can play and learn. The Water Park has been a journey to watch. We attended the raising of the 747 last year and have been watching the progress every week as we drive past.

Our homeschool group will be participating in an educational trip to the Water Park during opening week and the boys could not be more excited.

I am also hoping to work with the museum for our youth group to earn a couple of their honor patches.

Generally speaking this local museum though expensive is well worth the investment and if you can afford it a membership is an awesome way to save a few dollars and take advantage of the Museum and Member discounts.

For Kids and Families - Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum

Week in Review and Good News

Just wanted to share with our readers that we made the TOS Homeschool Crew for next year. We are so excited to join the crew and share our review of homeschool products with everyone.
I know Unionvale Homeschool has been pretty quiet on the blog this week but trust me we have been insanely busy... This is our last week of co-op so lots of final events and activities. Next week will be the last week for youth group and then it will be just school work until the end of June.

Nathan has advanced 4 chapters in his Math-U-See book and is working through his 1st grade phonics book like a trooper.

Cameron is working on his Math and Phonics and picking things up quicker...

We are coming to the end of our Civil War unit study as well...
Strange this week is full of endings but also budding with new beginnings.
Hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day. Here's looking toward Father's Day and celebrating all the wonderful Fathers in this world including our Heavenly Father.

Consistent things

I realized the other day that nothing is really consistant in our homeschool. We are always tweaking things to hopefully improve them. I decided to find some of the consistant things and focus on those this week.

1. A plan, I always start the week with some kind of plan. We don't always stick to it, but we start somewhere. Currently I am using Scholaric for lesson planning.I can plan for each of the boys separately and I can print their weekly plan by subject or by days.

2. Unit Studies, I try to have a unit study going for our main lesson combining history, science, Bible, geography, and reading. Right now we are focusing on the Civil War.

3. Math, we working on Math 3 -4 days a week. This week we are back into our Math-U-See books. The boys each have their own blocks. Nathan is using our mixed set of Math-U-See blocks in a Green box while Cameron has a set of Morteson blocks we were given. The colors match across both sets which is a blessing.

Cameron's blocks inside a Playmobile carrying case. The Ziploc bag has a set of color matched crayons and a pencil.

Nathan's block box inside a Steralite container with his 

tactile numbers cards and a Ziploc bag of color matched crayons.

The cards I made were inspired by Montessori sandpaper letters and numbers.

I used green, blue, and red glitter glue to make a set of numbers to match the place values on Decimal Street. They serve as a reminder when he forgets how to write a number, he can find the number, trace it with his finger and then write it. 

4. Computer time is a reward. I let the boys play Webkinz, Webkinz jr, or Lego.com games as a reward for finishing their school work. Cameron's new favorite game is Star Wars on Lego.com.

Have a great weekend and Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there.

I Survived!

Well if you want to call it that... I partcipated in the A-Z Blogging Challenge 2011 and Elizabeth Mueller created this fun little award for those of us that partcipated.
It was a ton of fun and gave me an opportunity to highlight some different things within our homeschool blog. While I didn't post all my alphabet posts I hope to post a couple of the drafts I have stashedtarted later in the week.