Slideshows

I finally have all my slideshows working! Hurray!!! If you want to see Isaac's lapbooks from 2nd grade, just click on Egypt, Ghana, India, and Italy on the sidebar under "My Blog Topics."

Italy Lapbook is Finished!

We finally finished Isaac's Italy lapbook! Hopefully, I can get this slideshow to work!

Isaac's History Curriculum

This year we're using The Story of the World: Middle Ages by Susan Wise Bauer. Last year we used the first book in the series, The Story of the World: Ancient Times. Instead of getting the book to read to Isaac this coming year, I decided to get him the audio CDs of the book. This way, he can do his own history lesson while I work with Moriah. I also purchased the activity book that goes with it. The activity books are great because they have wonderful coloring sheets and maps, which you can photocopy for your own children. Also they have reading lists and wonderful activity ideas that bring history to life! Isaac does the coloring sheets and map activities and places them in his history notebook. He also does a timeline. Isaac loves to draw, so I let him draw a picture or symbol for each time block. For 3rd grade, I'll be giving Isaac independent reading assignments in books that go along with our history lessons.


We will be reading Door in the Wall as part of our storytime this year, and I plan to have Isaac do a lapbook on it. Along with the books pictured above, Isaac will also be reading Castles, What Were Castles For?, Once a Mouse, Lon Po Po, Baboushka and the Three Kings, Explor-a-Maze, Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters, and William Shakespeare and the Globe.

If you've never watched Animated Hero Classics, they are wonderful! I look for them on Ebay and have several already. This year Isaac will be watching the DVDs on Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Joan of Arc, Marco Polo, and Christopher Columbus.

In Science this year Isaac is studying Earth and Space. Around the time we study the Renaissance, Isaac will read a biography on Galileo as part of his science study.

I'm planning to look in charity shops for books of Renaissance art. I particularly want to study da Vinci as part of Isaac's history.

I also have a few field trips in mind. It REALLY helps that we live in England!!! We normally go somewhere every Saturday and have already visited loads of castles, but I have in mind 2 particular "big" trips for this year. We are planning to visit Warwick Castle (which is supposed to be the best medieval experience at a castle and also costs a lot--we're going to save our money!) and also the Jorvik Viking Centre in York. We visited it when Isaac was 3 1/2, but it would be so much more to him when he studies Vikings!

My Expensive Workbox Stations

I found exactly what I needed for my workbox stations! Thanks, IKEA! However, it wasn't cheap. I spent about 124 pounds on shelves and 24 plastic boxes, which is way more than I would have spent in the US, but it's going to look NICE! As soon as I can get rid of our electric piano, I will set up my workbox system and display pictures on my new blog! Yes, new blog. I set up a new one because I had the other one really messed up. At some point, I'll delete it. I love my new layout and background, though!

Workbox System

So I ordered the Workbox System guide ebook...because I'm in England and don't want to pay horrible shipping costs. I've read the guide now, and I'm very excited about using this system. However, there's a slight problem. I want my workbox stations to look like the ones in the book. You're supposed to be able to get the supplies at Wal-mart, but we don't have Wal-mart here. So I've been searching madly! I've searched Asda, George, Wilkinson's, Argos, and more. I think I may have found what I need on IKEA's website, so we may go there next week to look. It's going to cost me way more than it would at Wal-mart, though! Good thing I still have most of my birthday money left. How many homeschool moms spend their birthday money on homeschool stuff??? Oh well.

I have 8 weeks (counting this one) to 1) finish this past year's portfolios, 2) set up the workbox stations, and 3) get next year's curriculum ready and planned. Also, Isaac and I are STILL trying to finish his Italy lapbook. Oh yeah, and I need to clean up loads of clutter and try to fit in a holiday (vacation)!

I've learned a lot about html codes since starting this blog, but I'm still struggling. Now, I've decided I don't like my background, but if I change it I'll lose everything! Someday! : )

Signature

I'm just trying out my signature today. It's not exactly what I wanted, but it's better than nothing. I did it simply with Paint, but I don't get very many choices of font!

Our Curriculum

Isaac's 3rd Grade Curriculum



Moriah's Kindergarten Curriculum

Something New!

I just bought the ebook for Sue Patrick's Workbox System, and I am sooooooooo excited about using this!!! My only problem is finding the equipment I need to set it up for the lowest price possible--it's not as easy or cheap in the UK! Let the search begin! I need 4-tier shoe racks and 12 clear plastic boxes to fit on racks--double that, so both kids can have his/her own. She recommends using them with children as young as 18 months, but I can't afford to include Gabriela quite yet...maybe sometime within the next year or 2. The link is on my sidebar under "Homeschool Companies I Like." Once I get it all purchased and set up, I'll post pics. On another note, I still can't get my slideshow posted, and now the slideshows on my sidebar aren't even working!!! Somebody help! The Egypt one was working, but when I added a second one on Ghana, neither one would load. One of these days, maybe...

Ghana and India Lapbooks

Our 2nd lapbook was on Ghana. We got many of our templates from homeschoolshare.com and from guesthollow.com (used to be ourlosbanos). Some booklets we made ourselves.

Our 3rd lapbook was on India. This one was a challenge in a way, because India is such an interesting place! I don't know how to describe it. It's diverse, yet its culture is so unique. There are so many things that come to the mind when you mention India--Taj Mahal, elephants, tigers, curry, saris... We kept making more and more booklets to get all the information we were finding. When I went to put the lapbook together, I didn't have enough space, so I had to add more flaps. Then I had TOO much space left, so I had to find more stuff to put in it! One very good website for India was kidsofcourage.com (Voice of the Martyrs site for kids). They have several coloring sheets you can download and copy for free. The India lapbook took quite awhile to complete, but it's finished, and Isaac is very proud of it--it's the biggest one we've done!

Our Lapbooks

I had read about lapbooks a few years ago, but I wasn't interested at the time. They seemed like they would be too much work. When this past school year began I had in mind to do notebooking for Geography. Halfway through the year, we were way behind, and Isaac was bored with it. So I looked up lapbooking again and decided to try it. Isaac loves it! Like a lot of kids, he doesn't like the writing parts, but he enjoys putting together all the little books, and he loves showing his lapbooks to people. He's very proud of them, and guess what? He's learned loads, and he remembers it all! Lapbooks are awesome! I will say, however, that they have taken longer to put together than what I had thought. I had expected to spend 2-3 weeks on each country, but there are so many things you can do! I have problems picking and choosing a small amount of information to include, and there are lots of online lapbook templates for countries. So...since January, we've only completed 4 (well nearly finished with #4). I've found some fresh new ideas for geography notebooking, so I may give that another try next year. I think I'll focus on learning activities and minimize the number of pages. I still love lapbooks, though, so we're going to try lapbooking other topics next year! We may make a few smaller lapbooks for geography (specific topics), science, and for the stories we read together. Well, enough of all that. Our lapbooks this year were on Egypt, Ghana, India, and Italy. They coincided with our ancient history studies. I had planned to do Greece, Israel, and China as well, but we ran out of time! As you'll see from my photos, our first (Egypt) isn't quite as good as the others, and with each successive lapbook, we had to expand, so they got bigger in size. I'll try to post some pictures in the following blog. It would nice if I could insert a slideshow in the blog section...if I can figure out how...

Last Week of School

Since this IS our last week of school, I'll probably start sharing some things we did this past year, but I'll probably list our curriculum for NEXT year. Maybe I didn't mention that we live in England? Therefore, we chose to keep to the school year schedule they have here--just makes things easier. What this means is that we don't get out of school until mid-late July, and then we get only 6 weeks off for summer holidays! However, we do have more breaks during the year than American children, so it evens out.

I'm really looking forward to the new school year. Isaac will start 3rd grade, so it will be new for both of us. We have new curriculum to use--always exciting! Moriah will be starting kindergarten. We'll using the same curriculum (Heart of Dakota) that I used with Isaac nearly 3 years ago. It will be nice to get those books out again--and exciting for her too!

As for Gabriela. Well, she's showing an interest in both books and art. I have my hands full trying to keep her off the dining room table where we do our work! If she gets hold of a pencil, pen, or crayon, she uses it on whatever paper (or book) she can find. Hopefully I can keep her busy enough to let the rest of us do school. She'll be 2 in October. Maybe I can get a box of toddler books, preschool toys and puzzles, math manipulatives, and some paper and crayons. I don't even know if anyone in the world is reading this blog since I've just created it, but if any homeschool mother of a 2-year-old has any ideas, please let me know! She's a treasure and joy, and I'd like to find something fun and creative for her to do while the older ones are doing their work--something also that will keep her off the table!

New to This

First it was myspace, then facebook, then twitter. I've used ebay and youtube. Now it's one more thing for me to get used to! So now I'm going to figure out how to use this blogging site! Hope it doesn't take me too long. I'd like mine to look at nice as some of the others I've seen.

My blog site is going to focus on our homeschooling adventure. We love to homeschool, and I love to share ideas. I find myself changing ideas and goals every year. This year, for instance, we decided (halfway through the year) to try lapbooking for geography. We're working on our 4th lapbook (Egypt, Ghana, India, and now Italy), and I'm discovering that they take a LOT of time, but we do love them! So next year, I'm going to spend 2 weeks maximum on a country we want to study, and we'll do notebooking pages and activities instead. We plan to use lapbooks for the stories we're reading together--4 weeks per book. That should give us plenty of time, I hope!