Homeschooling for His Glory

Welcome back to the Back to Homeschool Blog Hop. Today we will talk curriculum, homeschoolers' favorite topic. Around this time of the year  most homeschoolers are lining up their curriculum for the upcoming year, if they have not started their year yet. Even when he is already set, a true homeschooler is always on the look out for curriculum and homeschool programs. Lots of us call ourselves "homeschool curriculum junkies". Before I start I want to share with you an article I came across last week which is very appropriate for our topic today: Before you Choose Curriculum, 3 Things to consider . Indeed, as I  choose curriculum for each year my primary considerations are: What do I want to accomplish this year? Remembering the kind of learners I have: one that hates writing, and one that is very active but does well with worksheets. My own teaching style: I love teaching but the more they can do on their own, the better. To go back to the first point (what do I...

One of our latest review item this summer has been Zane Education , an online, visual learning videos with subtitles, complete with quizzes, study tools and lesson plans. From the company: " Zane Education provides an effective, subscription-based, online visual learning education solution using subtitled educational video , quizzes, interactive video study tools and free lesson plans. They provide online learning for 11 different subjects and 260+ K-12 curriculum topics, with more material being added all the time.   For many Homeschoolers it provides a complete one-stop-shop Visual Learning-based education solution that provides the curriculum material needed for children from Elementary school to College age, or from Kindergarten to Year 12.  The features include: The online subtitled videos deliver the curriculum content for each topic. The online interactive quizzes provide online testing for each topic. The interactive study tools on each ...

It's been a while since I have participated in a blog Hop. I like blog hops but blogging time is scarce nowadays. I figured "Back to School" is a good time and a good topic to be blogging about, so I decided to join in the schoolhouse blog Hop on 5 topics related to homeschooling. So let's start with Homeschool methods. Homeschooling is a very broad term. Some like to call it home educating. Homeschooling is becoming a common choice of education. But how does one home educate at home? The styles and methods of homeschooling are as wide as there are different kind of parenting styles. When I first started homechooling, back in 2008, I thought there were 7 main styles of homeschooling, which were: C lassical: Trivium, 3 stages (Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric), Good Books. The Well-Trained Mind is a popular resource on classical education. Chalotte Mason : Living books, narration, art and nature studies, and good habit training: Ambleside Online Montessori...

Still looking for a Math curriculum, or still exploring Math curriculum options? Here is one worth looking into! The Schoolhouse crew had a chance recently to review a Math curriculum called  Math Essentials . With so many Math curriculum around, it has become hard to pick one. I am glad to have come across this one. What is Math Essentials? Math Essentials is a company that puts out Math books to help prepare kids for higher Mathematics. They offer Math Essential skills books that cover all the basics of Math education necessary for Algebra. They also offer algebra books to help student master algebra. From the website: " These are not just books, but an exciting, tested teaching strategy that will produce dramatic results for students. This easy to follow, step-by step program requires only 20 minutes per day. Rick designed these books for elementary, middle grades and even high school students who were not prepared for algebra, to help bring them to algebra-re...

Ok, another month has passed by and no blogging, except for my review items. I know I am neglecting this blog, but again, family and church life are taking over. What's been happening: Vacation Bible School was last week,and praise God for a smooth and enjoyable week, especially for all the volunteers who gave themselves to serving the kids, under my leardership: Thanks everyone! Lots of family playtime, especially with our new found loved game:  Settlers of Catan . Church Sunday School picnic: lots of fun! School has still been going on, as you can see from the reviews: Math, handwriting and some language Arts. Music lessons still ongoing. Drive in movies:  The Avengers was a huge hit with kids. With  The Amazing Spiderman , Joho who so wanted to see it got scared, Zach, who said he would be scared enjoyed the part he stayed awake long enough for. Playdates Spashpad time My favorite What I love!          Monopo...

I have a history buff in our home and he loves maps and dates, Go figure! So I was happy to be able to review a company that focuses on history and has maps as one of their main products. Knowledge Quest is a company that specializes in history and geography ressources. You will find there maps, timelines, geography curriculum and historical biographies. I had the opportunity to review their Map Trek resource. "Map Trek is an atlas plus historical outline maps that allow you to teach geography alongside history. This is a resource that any homeschool parent can use with brilliant success, even if you don't remember a thing from your history or geography classes in public school." The beauty of these maps is that they can be used with a number of History curriculum such as Tapestry of Grace, Story of the World, A Child's History of the World, TruthQuest History, Ambleside Online, Sonlight, and the list goes on. You can find an integration guide here ...

  Given our technological era, the need for keyboarding skills is evident. Though I believe that proper handwriting should still be taught to our kids, teaching our kids to properly use a keyboard is very important if we want them to be able to survive in this age of computers and the likes. This being so, lots of companies try to develop keyboarding skills programs for our children. I received such a program a few weeks ago for us to try and review. Keyboarding for the Christian School is a keyboarding curriculum design to teach kids to learn to type efficiently. The program is in the form of an e-book as opposed to being an online typing program. You can either print the e-book or put it on a mobile device such as an Ipod, Ipad, Kindle or Blackberry, and read of of it as you do the typing, by propping it up next to your working computer (you could use a laptop too). The author of the program explains her choice this way: "W hy choose a printable e-book versus a web-b...

  One of our latest products I have been reviewing as a part of the TOS Homeshool crew has been Professor B . "What is professor B?", you may ask. Professor B is a math curriculum that aims at teaching Math contextually. They believe that "Mathematics is best retained by reconstruction rather than memorization". To this end Professor B teaches Math in a way that makes sense, and makes connection, not in a rote, mechanical way. They focus on teaching number sense and strategies. Professor B teaches: LEVEL I Pre-k though 2nd graders and remediation of older learners. Introduction to Addition/Subtraction Facts - Counting to One Hundred - Lower Addition and Subtraction - Higher Addition and Subtraction - Place Value Fractional Parts & Order - Time - Money LEVEL II 3rd grade through 5th grade and remediation of older learners.   Multiplication/Division Facts and Problem Solving - Introduction to Fractions - Fractional Equivalence - Addition and ...

We live in a world where the word worldview has become a word on the street, and everyone has a definition and a content for it. We also live in a world where deep and rigourous thinking is not necessarily upheld by christians. That said, I believe that as a christian I have the responsibility to make sure I teach my boys the right and proper worldview, the christian worldview, which demands rightly thinking about matters of reality, purpose, knowledge and truth. Here is a non-exhautive list of the top ten concepts I want and need to have my kids understand and adhere to: 1. The chief end of man is not happiness, but to know God and bring Him glory. 2. True happiness is to be found in a true knowledge of God. 3. God is transcendent - above, beyond, other than ourselves and the created order. 4. Our outlook and view of life should be beyond the here and now. We need to be "eternity - minded". 5. Humanity is in rebellion against God and under His wrath, that means e...