V is for Vintage, a field trip

We took a field trip to a local antique mall but before we stopped at our local Walmart for a Subway lunch. Nathan loves going to Subway because he can make his sub exactly the way he wants it.

We arrived at Lafayette Schoolhouse Antique mall as a history lesson. Thankfully there were not a lot of cars or a lot of people at the mall today.

Nathan was captivated by the vintage cars, he was thinking he might like to add a few to his collection of Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars.

Mommy on the other hand was dreaming of a new to me couch for the living room, hey a girl can dream can't see.

Nathan found a gate leg table like we have in our hallway, he thought this one was better because it had a drawer in the middle to hide treasures in.

He also found an old Playskool brand wooden take a part truck he thought would be lots of fun, even if he is a little old for that.

Overall he learned about toys and treasures from by gone days and we talked about when the various toys were made and what kinds of things were happening during those eras. 

F is for Free Fun #educational

Local Free Fun ideas!!! Especially with summer coming, I thought I would share a Free Fun activity we enjoy locally.

The local Aviation and Space Museum has an awesome outdoor play structure for the kids to play on.  It is convenient to most other activities we enjoy. The cell signal is strong so Mommy can get some work done while the boys climb, slide, explore, and generally have a fun time playing on the various structures.

Cameron enjoys the short slide

and climbing up and down the ladder pieces

Nathan enjoys the tubes 

and climbing the chain ladder

Now if you are interested in the educational museums on the same grounds, there is a fee but it is worth the money to take the kids to the air museum or the space museum. There is also an awesome IMAX theater as well as a great water park which have separate fees.

E is for Eclectic

I've always liked the word  'eclectic'. I've used it ti describe our music collection, my book collection, and now our homeschool.
According to  Merriam-Webster.com 

Definition of ECLECTIC

1

: selecting what appears to be best in various doctrines, methods, or styles

2

: composed of elements drawn from various sources; also :

 adverb

Fitting for our homeschool style mostly because of the variety in sources, but can also cover the methods we use. 

I use a little of everything for 2 reasons.. First as a member of the TOS Crew, we get to try a variety of products , and second since I homeschool on a shoe string budget I get creative with products and uses. 
Is this the ideal, no, but it works and it allows us a little freedom to explore different styles and techniques to find the perfect fit for the boys. 
Looking ahead to next year (school year is August -June... we only take July off and then we usually do learning activities and VBS), I am still coming up with a very Eclectic style as I add things to my wish list and decide between the wants and needs.


What kind of Homeschooler are you? Feel free to leave a comment below.

D is for decisions

Ok so it isn't necessarily homeschool focused in the title but I'm at a cross roads as far as the coming year and we have a bunch of decisions to make.  So D is for Decisions and I'll let you guys help make them (or at least listen to your thoughts if you are willing to share.)

Cameron will be in 4th grade in August and I want to had a more serious tone to his school work. I want to challenge him but not over whelm him. Since my budget is very small, I have to look at resale value or future use of a product before I consider it.  We are going to start our History Cycle over again , so we will be returning to Creation and working toward the fall of Rome. While I'm not sure we will get through Rome I want the set up in place in case we do. So the decision part of my dilemma, I have fall in love with Creek Edge Press and the card format , so do I purchase the entire History pack at $90.00 or just the Ancient History Set for $20.00?  Also trying to decide if I want to purchase TruthQuest History (Beginnings) and possibly the Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome books at approximately $24.00 a piece or do I just use the NotePacks I already own and search online for books?  Finally do I purchase a History Spine such as Mystery of History or Story of the World or do I just wing it and rely on my old college text books for readings?

Next is Science.... Mike and I decided that next year we are going to do Anatomy with Cameron for a couple of reason. So I am looking at science programs again taking into consideration the cost as well as resale value and re-usability of the product. I have narrowed my choices to two; Apologia Exploring Creation through Anatomy  and the accompanying notebook  which would costs be approximately $50 not including lab kits or Creation Anatomy by Felice Gerwitz and it's accompanying activity kits which would run me about  $45 

I have decided that I am going to purchase the Grammar Symbols and box for Nathan and possible the Sentence diagramming set for his Language Arts boxes for next year. 

We have also decided we are covered on Math for next year. 

So there you have it, D is for decisions to be made.  

C is Candy...math that is

Thanks to Marcy for hosting this weekly link up.
C is for Candy, math that is...
I purchased 2 small bags of pretzel M &M s and print activities sheets and set the boys up for some fun math.

Cameron had a challenge in keeping the M & Ms on his paper

Nathan had fun counting the colors and graphing the numbers.

When we were done graphing the colors, the boys got to eat the M & Ms while we talked about the graphs and the fractions involved. 

What fraction of the M & Ms were blue?

What fraction of the M & Ms were not brown?

The each had 15 M &Ms so we were working with a fraction they had not worked with before, but that added some adventure to the activity.

Blogging through the Alphabet A is for alone?

I started out to write something totally different and was thinking about this week in our homeschool and changed my mind. A is for alone. At least this week, the boys have been doing their work alone. Cameron actually got up today (Tuesday) and did his Math before I got up. (keep in mind I am not a morning person and neither is he...)  Dad heard the boys arguing about something and went to see what the issue was, turns out Cameron wanted Nathan to leave him alone so he could finish his school work before Mom got up. Not sure if that is a good thing or not, but he got his Math , Reading, and practice words done, everything on his schedule for the day, leaving him more time to play and experiment with his new USA magnet puzzle. He is timing himself to see how fast he can get the states put back in place.
Do you work better alone? I know I do and I shouldn't be surprised that my boys are the same way, Cameron more so than Nathan.  I'm so blessed to be able to homeschool him and let him work alone when he can.
He knows there are times when Mom and Dad will help him and explain new ideas to him, but at this stage of the game I am thankful for his desire to work on it alone. Monday he pretty much did the same thing. Since the alone work is a newer concept , Daddy sat with him while he got started while Mommy worked with Nathan on the snake game (a fun Montessori math activity). Cameron was inspired and wanted to do the whole week's worth on Math in one day, when he gets a little older I might let him do that but for now I really want him to work daily on practicing Math concepts and reading.
Some days life with boys can be rewarding and other days we will just save that for another day.

Keyboard Town Pals Typing in our #Homeschool #hsreviews

Keyboard Town Pals is an interactive online program to teach basic QWERTY keyboard skills to students ages 6 and up. The program uses puppet style characters and a community keyboard to teach students where the various keys are.  The program is a very relaxes comfortable environment to learn in.

I set up the program for my 6 year old who is our local computer geek in training, he has been using the keyboard for a while and actually we used an old unplugged keyboard to help him learn letter recognition when he was younger.

Nathan and I used the program a couple times to see how he liked it, I had hoped he would work through the whole program but that didn't happen. As a mom of 2 boys I pick my battles and if something is a battle in the classroom I will usually step back and look at what is the battle and decide if it is worth a fight before I require the boys to do something. When it comes to typing and learning to type I decided if the program wasn't working for him but the desire to learn was still there it wasn't worth the fight.  We talked about what he didn't like about the program and came up with some things.
First, he isn't a big puppet fan so having the program based on puppets really didn't fit well with him.
Second, the program while thorough didn't move fast enough for him. (I am actually going to try him on my typing program from when I was a kid)
Finally, and this isn't a negative toward the program but more of a personal thing, he is so use to another subject using street terminology that he kept getting confused and then frustrated.  Keyboard Town Pals uses directionals for key rows: Homekey Street,  Down Town, and Up Town.

I can see this being a wonderful program for kids that interact well with puppet style characters and need the repetitive style learning. While it wasn't a good fit for us, I think some students will benefit from this program. Isn't that the beauty of homeschooling, finding the perfect fit for our children.  There are several resources of interest available on their website as well as articles. The program in a download single user license retails for $30 which is very reasonable. If you look through their shop they carry a variety of add-ons to the program as well.

Check Keyboard Town Pals out on Facebook  and twitter  for more interactions.
 You can also check out what other Crew Members thought of the program HERE





We received a online trial of Keyboard Town Pals as a member of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew in exchange for our review of the program. All opinions are honest and personal, no other monetary compensation was received. 

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.

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.