Homeschooling for His Glory

My brother has been staying with us for a couple of weeks now, as he came to help me because of my husband recent surgery. The boys have been enjoying his presence tremendously. Have a great day, Joelle

As I mentioned earlier I have been working on our classroom props. Here are some pics of our math lapbook. This is still a work in progress, it is still missing a section on measuring. This is the section my son makes use of the most. Have a great day, Joelle

Wednesday we got our first snow fall of the season and of course my boys were happy about that. Here are some pics of them enjoying the arrival of the big white. Have a great day, Joelle

3 days ago we learn that the christian bookstore in our city was closing down and offering 40-60% off their shelvess. Guess what we did as a family? We all took a trip there. Dangerous proposition giving our family love for books. That bookstore was not one of our favorites given their rather liberal selection (good, deep, and theologically sound books are overrated these days and rare!), and on top of that, their rather high prices (I prefer to shop at CBD even if it means paying shipping fees, it still comes cheaper for us). Nonetheless, who passes out on such a sales, you never know what you can stumble upon. We did manage to find some, especially for the kids. Here is what we got: For me: Creating an Intimate Marriage by Jim Burns (started already and loving it!) Communication Key to your Marriage by Norman Wright How to talk so kids can learn by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish The culture-wise family by Ted baehr and Pat Boone The Virtuous woman by Vicki Courtney The Ultimate

As homeschoolers, we are all concerned about making sure our kids cover all the material they need to acheive academic success. This is especially true for those who do not buy curriculum in a box. As a new homeschooler, I am certainly in that category. So, I have researched and found a few sites that give lists of standards for each grade level. Please, these are guidelines, therefore, let us not fall into the trap of being uptight about achieving these standards and forget the joy and freedom of homeschooling, i.e spontaneity and a dose of child-led direction. Here they are   http://www.mnsd.net/curriculum/elementaryguide   http://www.sbac.edu/~talbot/gradecurr.html   http://staff.edmonds.wednet.edu/cwe/curriculum http://schools.nlsd.org/sesnlsd/grade1.htm Have a great day!    

Just thought I would share these beautiful photos:

I like to think of our homeschooling style as a cross between unschooling and classical education. We keep a schedule, we know the goals (by grade and age) but we allow for our curriculum emphasis to be led by the child's developmental stage and interest. That is, right now, both my sons are big in reading and advanced in this area so I move along in that partical subject. At age 5 (next month), we are doing a grade 1 reading and comprehension programm. For math, he is in the middle of his kindergarden program. He is not much into science and social studies, so we do very little on these subject. We cover these kind of material in books that we read, and as they fit if their interest. For example, when he is into trucks, we try to talk about transportation, how food get to the grocery for us to buy and eat. When he happens to read a bout about a certain animal, we try to talk about classification of animals and some related stuff, same with weather, water etc.... He is not big on w