Just a note ...

... to explain my absence. I have no computer due to a breakin at our home :( as soon as insurance gets their act together and replaces it I will be back on. Meanwhile I have a host of ideas and am looking forward to beginning Sonlight Core 1 in January. See you in the new year!!!

Tt is for Turtle

We are spending one morning a week with another family and doing a “theme” day around the alphabet.  This week was letter T.  We used the turtle theme from Confessions of a homeschooler. 

To make it more Australian we also read Yakkinn the Swamp Tortoise – the most dangerous year.  This follows the first year in the life of an endangered tortoise.  We  really enjoyed the pictures (the illustrations have an aboriginal theme to them) the story was well written and we will be looking for the next book.  I want to add this one to our personal library!

The girls illustrated the book by making pictures depicting the seasons as shown in the book. 

View Full Album

 

We made turtles out of collected gum nuts.

We had turtle bread for lunch – each child making their own turtle out of bread dough.

View Full Album

We had fruit turtles for afternoon tea.

Turtle FUN!!

Font Fun

I found this amazing website with lots and lots of free fonts and they will make a font for you using your handwriting - how cool is that!!

Fonts for Peas



Looking for dot fonts - to make handwriting sheets - this is so hard as they all want you to pay for the font!

Handwriting Worksheet maker lets you make worksheets using dot handwring.



There are hundreds of free fonts at 1001 fonts -

Miss Olsen's ClassroomFonts 1.0 is a dot font (you might have to scroll down the link to find it)

FIAR volume 2 Master List

You can click on the titles below to see what we did when we rowed these books, or resources I have collected ready for when we read the books.

(this page is a work in progress as we continue to row and enjoy FIAR books)

The Giraffe That Walked to Paris by Nancy Milton
Three Names by Patricia MacLachlan
Wee Gillis by Munro Leaf
Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
A New Coat for Anna by Harriet Ziefert
Mrs Katz and Tush by Patricia Polacco
Mirette on the High Wire by Emilly Arnold McCully
They were strong and good by Alice and Robert Lawsoon
Babar, To Duet or Not to Duet by deBrunhoff
The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf
Down Down the Mountain by Ellis Credle
Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
Mr Gumpy's Motor Car by John Burningham
All Those secrets of the World by Jane Yolen
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Grey Bridge by Hildegarde H. Swift
Follow the Drinking Gourd by Jeanette Winter
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
When I was young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant
Gramma's Walk by Anna Grossnickle Hines

Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney

This is one of my favourite books, my mother read it to me and we used to borrow if often from the library and read it over and over again. It is one book I had planned on reading so my kids so I was very pleased to discover it was part of the FIAR program.

If you are unable to find the book you can download it on the web (this links direct to the PDF version of the book).

B4 FIAR Master List

Click on the book titles below to see what we did when we rowed the books. (Another work in progress page)

Jesse Bear, What will you wear by Nancy White Calstrom
Yellow Ball by Molly Bang
My Blue Boat by Chris L Demarest
The Little Rabbit by Judy Dunn
Ask Mr Bear by Marjorie Flack
Rowed February 2011
Blueberries for Sal by Robert McClosky
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
The ABC Bunny by Wanda Gag
Caps for Sale by Esphy Slobokdina
If Jesus came to my house by Joan Gale Thomas
The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss
The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
The Quiet Way Home by Bonny Becker
Play with Me by Marie Hall Ets
I am an Artiset by Pat Lowery Collins
Angus Lost by Marjorie Flack
Katy No-Pocket by Emmy Payne
We're going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen
The Red Carpet by Rex Parkin
Corduroy by Don Freeman
Jenny's Suprise Summer by Eugenie

Changes

I am making some changes here at the blog as I try make it easy for me to find things - the blog tends to be my memory for sites I have found and plan to use as well as my record of what we have done. I also want to create some more pages as main records for Sonlight and FIAR.

What do you think? Is it easier to find things?

Continent Boxes

This is what our Continent Boxes look like, nothing fancy, just two sets of 4 drawer units that sit on top of our bookcase. They are up high so Wombat doesn't get into them again :)

At the moment they are missing half their labels as Wombat got into them when they were down lower! I made labels which have the name of the continent and a world map showing the continent. The colours of the labels match the colours of the continents on our felt world map.

Download the labels to match our felt map OR

Download the labels in Montessori Continent Colours.

As I add to them you will be able to click on the names below and see what we have in our boxes.

Australasia (Australia and New Zealand)

Asia (Japan)

North America

South America

Antarctica

Africa

Europe

For more details about Continent Boxes see here

Japan Swap

There is a yahoo group for Montessori Continent Box Swaps. This is the 3rd swap we have been a part of with this group.

When we studied Japan earlier this year, we contacted one of the ladies on the group who lives in Japan and asked if she would do a swap with us. Kim said yes and her parcel arrived today.

Kim has included so many things!! The girls were thrilled and so was I with all the extra little bits she put in and did.

Here is what we received in our parcel:

Above: 1 - little envelopes for each child with their name written in Japanese, and containing coins and notes - you can imagine how this impressed the kids!

2- fans and chopstick holders

Above: 1 - Japanese toys and kites. 2 - model of Tokyo tower and info.

Above: 1 - Tea towel and coasters (?),
2 - Pack of cards - which Kim has written all the words on for us.

Above: 1- map and the photo is not very clear but Kim has included a handwritten map showing where she lives. 2 - postage stamps.

Above: 1- postcards. 2 - maps

Above: 1- A huge flag. 2- packet of different sorts of paper.

This was fantastic swap - thanks to Kim and we hope she was please with the bits we sent her from Australia. Kim asked us for some specific things and not a true continent box swap for her, which we were happy to do. These things will make our Asia continent box really interesting. What an exciting way to learn about the Continents and how other people live.

The Story about Ping

It has been awhile since we rowed this book. We have rowed it twice so far and it is always a favourite.

Here is a PDF of the whole book (note this link goes direct to the PDF). There is a huge list of books you can download here. Many FIAR titles can be found here (it is a huge list and you have to scroll for a while to find what you want!).

I love the idea of raising a duck as shared by Delightful Learning in Meet Ping. Zebra has raised a duckling before and would love to do it again.


The Story about Ping is a great story to introduce a continent box and begin collecting things about China.


Go-Along Books
#The little duck by Judy Dunn - as with all her books beautifully illustrated with photos and shows the growth of a duck.
#Alexander's Outing by Pamela Allen - An australian book about a little duck who gets lost when his mother takes the family for an outing. Shows pictures of famous Sydney Buildings. A good Aussie Go-along book!


Fun things to do:
#We always find some ducks to feed when we row this book.

#Learn 5 little ducks song. The words can be found here if you don't know them.
Serving Pink Lemonade has some very cute little ducks to use with this song on her magnetic board post.
Monkey loves this YouTube Video of the song


About the Author - Marjorie Flack - She also wrote the Angus books which are used in the B4FIAR stories - Angus and the Ducks would be a good go-along if you are looking for books to tie in for younger children.


About the Illustrator - Kurt Wiese


More Ping Resources - Lapbooks
Ping Lapbook at Homeschool Share.

If you are a visual person you might like to see a video of a ping lapbook here

Another lapbook and what this family did shared here at Barracuda's Corner.

We also did the Hands of a Child Story about Ping Lapbook.

Duck things

Some ideas at Handbook of Nature Study for the Outdoor hour relating to birds and ducks.

D is for duck and other activities at first school

Cute fluffy duck craft at msss crafts

Life cycle of a duck (Link to PDF) Note this is at Sparklebox.

Posters showing duck growth (Link to PDF) Note this is at Sparklebox.

Human Body Box

I am making a Human Body box to sit on our shelf with all our books and resources in for learning about the body. I have found that the girls love hands on things and having all the resources together about a topic means they will explore them in their free time. I will upload photos when I have finished the whole school room re-arrange.

I have been looking for cards for the body for ages and today found the nicest 3 part cards for the body - they came from United Teaching
Here is the download link at 4Shared

I love that they are photos and will be so nice for introducing the names of body parts to Monkey. She knows most of them but this will help her learn the rest and I think the older girls will enjoy using them as 3 part cards and reading the words.

Preschool and Kindy Links

As I re hunt for Preschool and Kindy resources that I threw away when we moved house and state or lost from my favourites when my computer crashed :( I have realised that I have forgotten where I used to go so ....

this list is my favourite links for Preschool and Kindy age. As I re-discover them I will keep adding to the link. If you have any to share please add them in comments. Thanks

Kidzclub.com

Starfall

Childcareland

Confessions of a homeschooler (I love her letter of the week program)

1+1+1=1 (Tot School)

Learning Page (requires membership but is free to join)

World Paper dolls

We discovered friends paper dolls a while ago and noticed that they have some paper dolls from around the world that would make a great addition to lapbooks or continent boxes.

I was please to find even more paper dolls here that are world paper dolls. Each download comes with the doll and one outfit and a bit that includes the flag, the name of the capital city and a favourite food.

Alphabet Cards

Highway Alphabet Cards - so cute now I just need some tiny cars to drive over them.

Little People Magnetic Alphabet

(Photo from Serving Pink Lemonade - used with permision thank you Amy)


Not exactly alphabet cards but such cute little people download here they come in black and white or coloured and if you look at Serving Pink Lemonade you can read how Amy has turned them into magnets and all the magnet fun ideas she has to share. My girls would LOVE to play with these.

File Folder Fun and Games

Here is a growing list of sites that offer free file folder games and fun to download

Teach with Games

File Folder Fun - this requires free membership to access the full range of games - so worth it.

Christian Preschool Printables (sister site to File Folder Fun)

HEG on 4 Shared

Sonflower Schoolhouse offers lots of games (at the moment this link is down)

Preschool Printables (click on the list on the left hand side of the page to access the games)

File Folder Heaven has some free as well as some to purchase

Mormon Chic File Folder Games

In memory of Rosie

This week Duckie's dog Rosie was hit by a car and killed instantly in front of her. Duckie had to make the choice not to follow Rosie and so be hit herself and just stand and watch it happen.


A chain of unfortunate events led up to Rosie getting out and being hit, there was nothing anyone could do. It has been so hard to watch my darling daughter cope with all that happened. She had picked out her puppy and waited 4 years until we were able to get one. Rosie had been a part of our family for just over 12months and we are feeling the gap she has left.

Remembering Rosie Photo Album

Volcano LapN'notes

Most of these mini books are from Homeschool Share
Volcano LapN'note
These photos are from Zebra's (9) LapN'note. Duckie did one too but hers is very similar so only showing one.

Spelling

Yes I know I am still going on about Langage Arts and Sonlight!

I found a great post at Pioneer Woman on how she has altered Sonlights program to fit her son's spelling needs (another post here). I like her ideas.

She also has a good review for Handwriting without Tears in this post.

I love it when I find another Homeschooler who has made curriuculm that I am about to use or using work even better for their family. This is what homeschooling is all about!

Desks

Setting up the workbox system could get pricy, after all you need all those shoeboxes and a desk - but how to get a cheap desk, and how to fit that many in a room, especially when you have 5 kids all needing a desk??

This one (pictured above) uses a book case to divide the table into half. I love how simple it looks when finished.

The plans are avavilable here at do it yourself. You can either buy a bookcase and modify it or build your own.

This one is a bit more expensive as it uses a plexiglass panel as a divider. I think I would just use a piece of wood and paint it, that way the kids couldn't see each other and we might get more work done ;)

Handwriting without tears

After doing my own thing, adding in bits of THRASS, doing my own thing, doing my own thing ... you get the picture :) I finally took the plunge and bought the Handwriting without Tears Program. I bought it all! well my order arrived and frankly I was overwhelmed.

Where do I start them?

Zebra is left handed and learnt to write using the Sonlight LA program. I just showed her how to form each letter. Her writing is not too bad concidering that she is left handed. She has used the THRASS letter formation songs and her writing is formed fairly well.

Duckie on the other had has part THRASS and while she can write, her letters are all over the lines and formed all over the place. I am hesitant to take her back through print and wondering if we can go straight to cursive as she is keen to learn this. We will alter it though I do not like the G or the Q in HWT.

Bunny is just learning so will start her with the first book, But not sure if I teach her in the order of the HWT book or to match the Sonlight letters as she learns them???

Monkey I am going to start with playing with Mat man and learning to form the letters before she writes them using some of the ideas from Preschool Playbook . I found this blog to day and I like the fun way of playing with the the wooden bits. I love the polishing idea, this is so Montessori.

I would love to find a font that matches the HWT program so I can make up some copywork sheets but so far no luck.

Oh well ... Off to learn how to write again. (I can write in my handwriting, THRASS handwriting and now to learn HWT!!)

Homestead Blessings

If you have daughters you will love these DVD's, we borrowed them from a friend and the girls watched them over and over again. We have made some of the bread recipes and it really is as easy as they make it look.

Raising Homemakers is a new site and they are giving away a set of Homestead Blessings DVD's. Hop over there and leave a comment and you might win it, personally I am hoping I do :)

My Sonlight order has arrived!!

It arrived!! I ordered on Friday last week and it arrived today Wednesday (6 days) is impressive in my book for a curriculum to come all the way from America to Australia. Sometimes it takes up to 2 weeks for post to come from the other side of Australia to us!! I was disappointed when it first came as only one box arrived, only half my Sonlight how can I wait for another day for the rest :( Luckily the other box arrived 3 hours later with a different courier, somehow they had got separated, so we were able to unpack and admire all these new books and resources, for me to do the usual panic why did I buy this, how am I going to use that, how soon can I start it?

My only complaint is that I got caught with customs GST and taxes this time which I have never had to pay before. Importing anything over $1000 attracts a tax (I discovered) my order was translated from approx $900 American into $1000 Australian $$ and so attracted a tax. Next time I will split the order and watch this as it cost me another $190 for my order!!!!

If you are ordering from Australia BEWARE of this import tax. Also if you split your order and process it at the same time and all the packages arrive they will add them together, if total cost is over $1000 you will still be charged the tax. So next time I order it will be in 2 bits, with a few days between them. I already have my next order sitting in my shopping cart waiting to go!!

Consequently instead of finishing our volcano study today the girls spent the morning reading all the new books. I wish I had stopped to get a photo of them. One was curled up on the beanbag with the dog reading, the others were scattered around the room reading.

The MathTacular DVD is great - I only ordered 1 thinking I would see what it was like before I got the rest but, after seeing part of it we will be getting the rest, the girls were prepared to sit through the whole thing in one sitting if I had let them!! We are doing Math-U-See but will be using this to reinforce the concepts when they struggle with something.

So I now have P 3/4 to do with Monkey and Science K and 1, then some bits that I had to replace in 1 (we lost the IG in our move) and somehow lost The Usborne Time Traveller since we have been here. Zebra was so please to see this replaced she loves it and reads it for fun. I also got the Handwriting without tears program, and some LA workbooks.

I have decided that there is not point hoping for a perfect curriculum to fit my children's particular learning needs and so we will make the LA work by altering and modifying it and adding in my own bits as needed. In the words of Sue Patrick "I believe that any good, Christian-based curriculum will work with your children, regardless of their learning style. It may not be the best, but you bought it for a reason" (pg 66 Workbox System).

My reason for buying Sonlight I like the books more and more each year. It comes with the IG which I can use or alter to fit our life. At the moment I only have 3 days for school as the other days are taken with Physio and other activities so we do Sonlight 3 days a week and it still works!! and (big plus) I only have to order from one place.

Volcano's

This study was a rabbit trail from our Japan Study that went along with "A pair of Red Clogs".

Did you know that Japan has over 100 volcano's?? So of course you have to study volcano's.

We (of course) made a volcano. We did this as a homeschool group activity. One lovely mum made a play dough volcano at home that we exploded and then the kids made a paper mache one that we exploded on our Japan day. I must admit that the explosions were a bit disappointing. It looks good but if you were expecting a big explosion that did not happen with ours (we used bicarb soda, dish washing liquid, red food colouring and vinegar)

After reading This blog . I want to try again but the opposite way to what we did - we added the vinegar last maybe adding it first and adding the bicarb last without the dish washing liquid might make it better - will have to try it.

Making our volcano

StormTheCastle.com has fantastic tutorials giving a few different versions of volcano's to make, and it contains pictures for those of us who really need a visual guide :)

Our Playdough volcano exploding (it did look good, even it it didn't blow huge)

Lapbooks, mini books and LapN'notes

Mini book at crayola

Volcano Lapbook at Homeschool Share

More fun hands on things to make:

3D paper model of Mt. Fuji

Extra books we read and resources used

The magic school bus blows its top DVD

We have a number of National Geographic and Discovery Channel DVD's and we watched all that had involved volcano's.

The magic school bus chapter book #15 Voyage to the Volcano

The hill of fire (Sonlight Reader 2)

Pompeii: buried alive (Sonlight Reader 2)

We used this volcano web quest, which was lots of fun and saved me from hunting all over the web for the information.

Our Volcano LapN'notes are here.

Royal Flying Doctor

The Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia (RFDS), known as 'The Flying Doctors' is an air ambulance service for those living in remote areas of Australia. It is a not-for-profit service and if you use their services you will never be presented with a bill. A big relief when you consider the extreme distances in outback Australia.

So we were please to support their open day and fundraiser last week and get the chance to see their new long distance plane. As the airport is Federal land you had to wear a tag to go out on the tarmac. It was a fantastic opportunity to see inside a plane and for the girls to sit in the cockpit of a plane.

Bunny in the cocpit of the plane.

For more information about The flying Doctors check out

Royal Flying Doctor Service

Wikipedia

Sonlight and FIAR which do I chose?

I have been asked which one - Sonlight or FIAR? This is a very tough question because so far I have not limited myself to one but we are using both so here goes ...

We first started looking for a homeschooling curriculum in 2005 and bought both Sonlight and FIAR at the same time. One came in a box with everything I needed to teach every subject (except Maths as we choose to use Maths-U-See and had to buy that elsewhere), the other came from everywhere I had to hunt and buy the books as I found them, even now I do not have all the books as some are out of print.

Both contain beautiful stories to read and share with your children. Many have become old favourites. I cannot read the PK or B4 FIAR books to just my littlies without the older children stopping what they are doing and wanting to join in listening.

We chose Sonlight because it contained everything I don't have to hunt for the books, or skip the ones that are out of print. The IG (Instructors Guide) schedules all the books for me and gives extra activities and things to talk about as we go. CONVENIENCE. When I first started homeschooling I wanted a guide so I could just tick the boxes and not have to worry if I was covering everything. But I wanted something that involved lots of reading and a very gentle way of learning in order to reflect a Charlotte Mason style of homeschooling. Sonlight has been this.

We choose FIAR because I love the FIAR stories and how you get to spent time slowly reading the books. A lot of the same books are used in Sonlight and FIAR. The difference I have noticed is that Sonlight introduces the books earlier for example The Boxcar children is read in K (5-7yrs) but in FIAR it is read in Beyond FIAR (8-12yrs).

We tend to go slower through Sonlight and add in the FIAR stories to fill in the gaps. Currently a Sonlight core takes us about 1 1/2 years to complete because we lapbook and notebook and add in extras as we go, plus babies and lots of moving house in the past 2 years has slowed us down. We are starting to speed up as the kids grow and life changes so I don't expect the stretched out cores to continue. Although we will still continue to add in extra things as we go.

I like how all the girls (ages 4-9) can be reading the History and Geography Read alouds together but be working on Language Arts at their own level.

Sonlight is focused on reading books and so you read them faster than you do in FIAR. For example you read the story about Ping once but following FIAR you read it everyday for a week while you focus on a different aspect of the book daily. Some kids will love this, others will hate it.

FIAR is not a complete curriculum. You still need to plan out the lessons although the activities are in the manual, you also need to add in a language arts program and a maths program from somewhere else. If you like planning things for yourself then FIAR is an option. Homeschool Share has lots of extra things including lapbooks to go along with the FIAR manuals.

It really depends what you want, personally I think Sonlight provides a better coverage as you can start at age 3 and go right through high school and is planned into time periods of history. FIAR has no real linking between the books chosen in each level other than that they are all good books. They are currently introducing Above and Beyond FIAR which goes past 12 years of age (at this stage there is only one book planned but I am sure there will be others). I personally feel that Sonlight will be a better choice for our family as our children get older and I can see FIAR slowly being put aside and Sonlight becoming our main curriculum.

My only complaint with Sonlight so far is the Language Arts program. I am still struggling to get this to work for Zebra BUT she has had learning difficulties and struggled from the start. But this is the only area of the program where I feel like I am having to "rewrite" it to fit my child's style of learning.

I hope this answers your questions. If not leave a comment and I will try to answer it.

Continent Boxes

What is a continent box?
It is a Montessori tool that is used to aid children in their learning about the world continents. There is a good explanation and photos at Montessori for Everyone. At the bottom of the post there are links to more continent boxes.

My favourite link is from Serendipity Blog here. If you scroll down she includes a very good general notion of what to put into each box.

Our Continent Boxes
We are slowly putting together our continent boxes and I found this site that has travel guides for most cities in the world. We will be adding some of these into our boxes as they fit with our learning.

There is a yahoo group continentswap for those who would like to participate in swaps and collect things for their continent boxes. We are currently engaged in 2 swaps one with a family in France and one with a teacher in Japan.

Wombats operation

I have not been posting much the last few weeks because I have been occupied with Wombat. He was born with Infantile Esotropia. 4 weeks ago we had to travel to Perth (a 7 1/2 hour + drive) so he could undergo an operation on both eyes in the hope of straightening them. So far we have had a fairly good result, although in the past week we have noticed that when he is tired or unwell the eyes automatically turn in.

The first photo is in hospital before surgery. The second is at home a week after surgery

Already Wombat is walking more and his gross motor development is improving, we are so thankful to our Heavenly Father for his overshadowing hand, and kindness is granting our little man a fairly successful operation so far and also thankful to Dr Tandon and the Staff at Princess Margaret Hospital.

Consequently my posts have been far and few between BUT I am working on a lot of new projects. I hope to have more THRASS linked resources up soon and also some continent resources to share.

FIAR volume 1 book list

Here is the book list for FIAR Volume 1 - I will add links as we row these stories.

The Story about Ping by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wiese
Lentil by Robert McCloskey
Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
A Pair of Red Clogs by Masako Matsuno
The Rag Coat by Lauren Mills
Who Owns the Sun? by Stacy Chbosky
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton
The Glorious Flight by Alice and Martin Provensen
How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman
Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say
Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin
Another Celebrated Dancing Bear by Gladys Scheffrin-Falk
Papa Piccolo by Carol Talley
Very Last First Time by Jan Andrews
Clown of God by Tomie dePaola
Storm in the Night by Mary Stolz
Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton
Night of the Moonjellies by Mark Shasha
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost (Susan Jeffers' Illustration)

Beautiful Living Books about Australia

Beautiful Living Books about Australia

This is my list of Children's books about Australia that we are using as we study our beautiful Land Down Under. I will be adding to this list as we go so keep checking back :)

My Country by Dorothea Mackellar

I Love this poem. From the first time I heard it in school I have loved it (but then I love Australia!). This book beautifully illustrates the poem. The illustrations are paintings that show the beauty of the Australian landscape. This book is the perfect way to introduce your child to this poem and begin to learn it.

My Place by Nadia Wheatley

This book follows the history of one piece of land in Sydney through the eyes of the children who have lived there. You can tell that the author loves history and the illustrator really did their homework. Together they have produced a beautiful book.

Note: the book has been around for 20 years and has just been republished and updated. If you are looking for a copy you might want to look for the new one.

Extra Resources to use with this book:
Teacher Notes PDF (direct link) written by the author

Looking for more on the history of sydney? Check out this link.

My Grandfather Marches on Anzac Day by Catriona Hoy

Story is told of one Anzac Day through the eyes of a little girl watching her Grandfather march on Anzac Day. (My guess is this is based on a true experience)

Extra Resources to use with this book:

About the author: Here is her site. She is an Australian Author who has published a few books. Her latest one Puggle about a baby echidna looks beautiful too.

Resources to use with the book from the author.

Want to learn more about Anzac Day? There are lots of resources here

Milestones

Isn't it so exciting when your children move onto the next stage? Zebra came to me at the beginning of the month and said "Mum, I think I'm ready to read Chapter books" She picked out Naughty Amelia Jane by Enid Blyton and started reading. Since the beginning of the month she has read 14 books! I gave her a new notebook and said she has to write the date she finished the book, the title and author of the book in it. She is reading an Enid Blyton book in 2 days!!!!

Reading was such a struggle for her and now she had done it :) I am so excited for her!

Wombat has taken his first step! Which again was so exciting. Godwilling he will have an opperation on his eyes in 3 weeks so as that gets closer I will be blogging less as we plan and prepare for the 8 hour drive to our nearest specialist. It was so exciting that he has progressed so far as we did not expect him to walk before the op.

Magic School Bus Lapbooks

We love the magic school bus DVD's and books and now with Zebra reading chapter books I bought her the set of magic school bus chapter books. I also found this website which has a lapbook for each magic school bus book.

Button Snake

The Activity Mom has a very interesting activity here - a button snake.

This would make a good workbox activity for preschooler or for a boy who need to learn to button but is not interested in playing dress up or dolls. Great fine motor activity.

Apple and the Arrow Unit Study

We have almost finished our reading of the Apple and the Arrow.

I used the Unit Study at Homeschool Share for the oldest two and we made a Lap n-Note for this book using the Homeschool Share resources.

Rabbit Trails we went on

1. Medieval Times including castles and knights.
We briefly looked at the Medieval Times using the following books and resources:
Living in a Castle by Rupert Matthews - a very simple castle book we borrowed from the library.
Castles, Pyramids and Palaces (an Usborne book) This was another library book. There was really only one page on Castles in this book but the whole book was interesting if you wanted to see different buildings.
Pendragon Castle (a Panorama Pop-up book). This was a fun one as it popped up and showed a real castle in Britain.

Medieval worksheets here including parts of armour.
Notebook pages from Robin Hood Unit Study at Homeschool Share which can be used with this topic.

This page will take you to all the Homeschool Share Connections for the Middle Ages. If you are looking for books to read that cover that time period this is a good starting place.

Costumes:
Zebra wants to make a dress-up. I think she was really after making a knight costume! But here are some of the sites I found while looking for ideas.
Medieval Lady Costume (scroll down)
Lots of ideas here for authentic dress-ups including how to braid a crown (I am not showing Zebra this link or guess what I will be doing EVERY morning for the next few weeks!)

Setting up a Dress-up Box

Games for the Workbox
Medieval Tic Tac Toe
There are games and so much more at this site

Other People's Lapbooks
Medieval History Lapbook from Dawn @ My home sweet home. Here is the Medieval History Unit Study Dawn taught.

2. Apples
We used the cards from Montessori for Everyone to show and learn the life cycle of an apple. This is a free download (On this page - under Botany Life Cycle of an Apple). Zebra used these cards to make a circle wheel book to go in her Lap n-Note showing the life cycle.

Here are all the Apple Connections at Homeschool Share - this is a good starting point if you are looking for apple books to read.

Other People's Apple Lapbooks/Lap n-Notes:
Apple Lapbook @ Albright-News
A is for apple from Ami @ walking by the way. This has perfect ideas for a preschooler.
Work Box Activities:
For Bunny I had a apple alphabet match puzzle (From Child Care Land Scroll down to Apple Alphabet Puzzles). We used only the letters she had learnt so far and had to match the capital to the lower case.

Apple Tree Maths Mat from Homeschool Share (under Preschool Workboxables or Math Workboxes) There is also a apple file folder game here too

More Resources:
I did not use these but want to save them as I think we will use them the next time we study the Middle ages in more detail.
This homeschooling Mum has collected HUNDREDS of links on the middle ages all on one page. How great is that
Build a castle activity (older children).
A good read on toys in the middle ages.
Games played in the middle ages.

Live and Learn has a apple lapbook - I am not really impressed with their lapbooks as most of the pictures are colour and we don't have colour printer at home and if you print them black and white they come in shades of grey and are hard for the kids to colour. It is free though so it might be of interest to someone else.

Sonlight P 4/5 The Starting Point

I have the old Sonlight PK Core but have listed below are the books for the new P 4/5 Core, some of these are new books. This page is a work in progress as I slowly upload the things we have done and are doing as we work our way through this core again and again and again. (There are still 2 more at this stage to enjoy these books!)

Bible
Family-Time Bible in Pictures

World Cultures
The Gods Must be Angry
New Toes for Tia
People from Africa
Then and Now
Things People do

Read-Alouds
American Tall Tales
Children's Book of Virtues
A Child's Book of Art
Classic Tales of Brer Rabbit
The Complete Adventures of Peter Rabbit
See here for all my links for Peter Rabbit Unit Study
Eric Carle's Animal Animals
The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book
Milly-Molly-Mandy Story book
Stories from around the world
A Treasury of Mother Goose Rhymes
Uncle Wiggly's Story Book

Peter Rabbit Unit Study

I have just posted about our Peter Rabbit Study but the dates went wrong and so it saved as an old post! If you are interested in reading it please see here

Language and Thinking for Young Children

by Ruth Beechick and Jeannie Nelson

As this book is used in both Sonlight K and 1 I am going to put all the links here rather than post them double. Again this page is a work in progress.

Learning about the Telephone
Download the printables from DLTK here I like how Home Grown Hearts as made it into a magnetic Fridge game. This would make a good centre or poster workbox activity.

Core B - Introduction to World History part 1

Core B prior to April 2011 called Core 1

I am cheating as I want all the girls together on the same level - easier for me, so this page adds some more in for the older kids. This page will be a work in progress as I slowly add to it - collecting for later and reviewing as we go. Please check back later as we add to it. (Note: we started Core B in January 2011) History & Geography: Eat your way around the world. This article has some interesting ideas on eating the meals from the countries you are studying.

EGYPT Tut's Mummy Lost & Found, The Usborne Time Traveller Fantastic Egypt Lapbook to download and make - I love that you make a 3D pyramid - how cool is that. It also included hands on ideas and a notebooking page for Tutencarmen. (You will need 'Living Long Ago' which is a K book to re-read when doing this study) Make a mummy. This post from Jamin explains what how to do it. There is an ancient Egypt Lapbook and unit study at Homeschool Share here ANCIENT CHINA The Great wall of China, Little Pear (RA)

Check out Jimmie's Squidoo Lense on Ancient China then use the lapbook at Homeschool Share to go with it. Free lapbook and unit study from Homeschool Share

GREECE

The Greek News, Detectives in Togas (RA) and

Greek Myths for Children (RA)

Archeologist Dig for Clues

From Akebu to Zapotec

George Muller

Missionary Stories with the Millers

The World Series

Read-Alouds

Charlotte's Web - look on my download page for lots of downloads we made to go with this book

Favourite Poems of Childhood

Follow my Leader

Henry Huggins

Homer Price

Mountain Born

Mr Popper's Penguins

Homeschool Share has a unit study and notebooking pages for this book.

For younger children who want to do penguins HSS has a penguin filefolder

Hands of a Child has a Penguin Project Pack

Understood Betsy

The Year of Miss Agnes

Gooney Bird Green

Mrs Piggle-Wiggle My girls LOVED this story there are 2 more books in this series that we bought and read.

The Wheel on the School

Sonlight World History

I discovered today a fantastic blog with lots and lots of downloads (especially for Sonlight) Here is her page for Sonlight World History - I am not sure whether these are for Core 6 or earlier, but they look great anyway.

Australian History Study

I Love Sonlight and FIAR but neither has a huge lot on Australian History so here is the beginning of my Australian History Study. I am using the book Our Sunburnt Country by Arthur Baillie as the spine for the study and supplementing as we go through it. I expect to do this a few times over the years going into more detail each time as the kids get older, so once again this page will be a work in progress.

Downunder Literature sells a resource called Australian Book Traveller which is similar to FIAR except these books will help you travel around Australia. I really would love to get this as I think it will fit perfectly into what we are already doing. They also have a free timeline of Australian history to download.

Australian Maps to download

Very basic one here to fill in and label

Map and Quiz

Map Puzzle here (this is a computer game)

Australian Flag

Here and here or at Homeschool Share

Downunder Literature has a Flag Lapbook

Australian Resources at Homeschool Share

Looking for Tot School ideas to explore Australia while the bigger kids study it?

This post @ Creativity Abounds has some fantastic ideas.

Our Sunburnt Country Unit Study

Chapter One

Lots of links here about the dream time

Stories of the Dreaming listen to stories from the different states of Australia.

More online audio stories here and here. Bunyip stories here


More about the dreaming here this site also leads to more links such as tools and technology which is another topic covered in Ch 1


Rabbit Trails - Look at other stories about Creation from around the world. More links here and here

Looking for pictures for your chore charts or for workbox schedules?

This site is perfect http://www.visualaidsforlearning.com/products/index.htm

We will also be using this for Wombat as we start using sign language and pictures to help him communicate.

Sonlight ???'s

Ok - I love the Sonlight program but I am not sure about the LA. We are at week 4 with Reading with Easy Readers(LA2). For spelling this week the words are under, problem, number, basket, winter, escape, magnet, bandit, sister, picnic!! Anyone spot a link between these words? My daughter took one look and the "I can't do this..." started. I haven't been learning the rules as they don't fit with THRASS but we have been doing the spelling so far.

Looking at the Sonlight program as of Core 3 there is no spelling anyway, so should I just get a spelling program now and start it? I don't want to end up with too many things to think about so was hesitant to add in anything else but the spelling is just not working for her. Any thoughts on what to do?

i-pod Listening to the Bible

I love our ipod - We really need more than one for use in our school. Everything that can goes on the ipod for the girls to listen to (and yes it goes in our workboxes!). I have found it helpful for listening to times tables, handwriting sequence and many other things and now we have added listening to the bible. I have used this site to download the bible. It is the KJV which I personally really like. It then gets copied to the ipod and listened to. We are going to start listening to it during breakfast time again as we have let the daily reading slip and it really is time to pull this habit back into our routine.

In the past I have set it up on the computer and the girls have listened to the sunday school story of the week from the bible chapter.

Any other uses for ipods or bible audios in daily life would be appreciated. How do you use it?

Currclick has a mini unit study on Gladys Aylward free this week only. Perfect to go with your Reading Aloud 'Hero Tales' (In reading through my lastest sonlight catalogue I can't find this book in the book list so it must be only in the old K Core)

Earth Activities

3 part cards for layers of the earth here
Ideas for teaching about the layers of the earth . This would make a fantastic centre activity

Keeping it all organized

I found this fantastic blog post today full of ideas of how to keep it all organized. I love the forms she has made for record keeping.

Mini Alphabet Magnetic Letters

I made a set of mini alphabet cards, laminated them and stuck a magnet on the back, and we have been using them for doing the worksheets I made to go with Sonlight Language Arts 1. We also use them for spelling and other activities.

In her book Sue mentiones "Paying close attention to the number of skills that will be necessary to complete the work" (pg 82). I have a child who hates to write so for her using the magnetics is focusing on the words and not on the extra skill of writing. It makes this activity achievable for her.

So far I only have the lowercase alphabet done. I need to get another box to put the uppercase letters in.

You can download the mini alphabet here if you want some too.

Science Centres

These two links were shared by another Mum on a yahoo group.

Science Centres here and here. These ideas would be perfect for a science centre or workbox activity.

The Homeschool Den has lots of science experiments here I wish I was at their house :) science is not my thing!

Never Ending Learning with Sonlight

I love the Sonlight books - of all the curriculum we have looked at or tried there are only 2 that I want to collect the whole set of - Sonlight and FIAR and don't ask me if you can buy them when I have finished because they are NEVER for sale. I intend to read these books to my Grandchildren one day Godwilling :)

I read the K Core with Zebra 2 years ago but we were new to homeschooling and we never did anything extra with the books we just read and discussed. Then we discovered FIAR and Homeschoolshare and realized that you could do more than just read a book and discuss it. You can lapbook it, you can go on rabbit trails, you can go where ever the book and child leads you, so we started to do the same with some of the Sonlight books. That is where this blog came from a place to compile the ideas we have used or seen that go with FIAR and Sonlight and now we are adapting them to the workbox.

Today in Australia is Australia Day. We went to the local park and spent a few hours participating in the local celebrations and then came home - forget school for the day, its a public holiday. But looking around Duckie has decided to redo her appalling copywork from yesterday (yes I said she had to redo it but today?), Zebra has pulled off the shelf 'Living Long Ago' and is busy hunting through the recycling box so she can make something from the book, Duckie read the book after her and then went off to make herself a tent for her dolls ... the list goes on.

The Usborne book of Living Long Ago would have to be one of the girls favourite books along with the Bernstein Bears Science Book (that one is falling apart). I do wonder how many of these books will actually survive until I am blessed with Grandchildren some are pulled off the shelf so often to re-read! Is there a law against hiding books from your children just so the books survive!

Sewing Finger Puppets

I have all these things in our sewing workbox but I just love the way Montessori teachers present things see here I wonder if I presented it like this on our sewing day if it would appeal.

In case you haven't guessed it yet I am not a fan of worksheets but ...
these 2 sites are worth a look at.

Worksheet Works.com is a make your own worksheet so you are able to make the sheet exactly for your child.

Amazing Handwriting Worksheets - a free handwriting worksheet maker - It prints up well (the ones I have tried)

Fun and Workboxes

I have been thinking about this for a while and come to the conclusion that activities for the workbox should not be fun for the sake of fun.

Let me try to explain. I have just re-read Sue's book and found no mention of fun boxes just for the sake of having fun. She does mention fun teaching, fun work, fun and interesting materials.

Here is my conclusion we need to be thinking very carefully what we are putting in the workboxes and why. Are we just filling the work with worksheets or activities to fill in time? If so why?

"The philosophy of the Workbox System is to provide:
1 Structure
2 A firm foundation in discipline
3 A clear and visual presentation of their curriculum
4 A way to present expectations for their curriculum in a clear and logical way
5 Fun and interesting materials
6 Important educational repetition
7 An expectation of greater independence"

(From pg 23 Sue Patrick's Workbox System User's Guide)

Through out the book the emphasis is on SCHOOL and learning in the best possible way for our children. Does this involve fun? YES but fun with a purpose. I have been reading some discussions on a few different yahoo groups and this subject of fun in workboxes is causing burnout to both parents and children.

If you are having trouble filling your boxes and resorting to fun or worksheets to just fill them. Or are you struggling to get through all the work in the boxes? We were for us 12 boxes was just too much. That is why we planned the boxes based on time and what we needed to accomplish each day.

(I have a post here that explains in more detail how we planned the boxes)

Sue allows 4 hours for school work 8:30-12:30. (my oldest is only 9 and so far this time has been ample) So break up your subjects to fit this time and then in the afternoon (other than chores) it is fun time or extra activity time - we go swimming most afternoons in summer, sport with other families, extra art activities, sewing, cooking, the list is endless. For those who are more inclined to natural learning I suggest you find another name for this "school time". Learning never ends but for us this 4 hours is the time we focus on the book work side of school, the formal lessons of maths, writing and reading.

I would like to share another quote from Sue

"Homeschooling is not what we do when we don't have anything else to do. It's not what we do when we're not doing laundry and cooking and cleaning. Homeschooling is what we do first. In order to raise a generation of homeschooled children that are good representatives of what it means to homeschool, we must be committed. It is mission work and it is a full time job. Having it take any less position in your life will be to short change your children and yourself. You have been called to homeschool for a reason, and to do it well and to the best of your ability."

(from pg 51 Sue Patrick's Workbox System User's Guide)

Because of this I have removed all posts on my blog labeled as fun and relabeled them with the real work category they should be :)

Cutting with Scissors

There are printable pages here at DLTK kids to practice cutting with scissors.
More printables here at kinderprintables
Create your own cutting worksheets here
Otherwise just draw lines with a ruler and cut along them.

WorksheetWorks.com allows you to make your own worksheets for practising cutting with scissors - you can make them as complicated or as easy as you like.

More ideas:

• cut playdough
• cut up straws to then thread and make necklaces
• use the cut paper to make paper chains
• cut up a magazine picture and then use it as a puzzle
• cut up magazines

For those who want a more challenging project - fold the paper and make cuts to make a paper snowflake.

This is a Developmental Activity Idea from Sonlight K

Button Sorting

I have a small jar full of buttons, most came from my Grandma who had the most amazing button collection.

I gave them to Bunny and asked her to sort them - however she wanted. She sorted them by colour. We then talked about all the different ways she could have sorted them.

Of course Monkey wanted to play with them as soon as she saw them.

(This is a Developmental Activity listed in Sonlight K week 2)

Printable ABC Bible verses for copywork are available here. They match 'Sing the Word from A-Z

Compound Word File Folder game

File Folder Fun has put a Snowman Compound Words Game up.

This was perfect to use with our Sonlight LA 2. I printed up the blank one provided, wrote the Sonlight word list in it, laminated it and away we went. I didn't add Velcro dots to this one as Zebra asked me not to. We were able to mix the tops of the snowman around and see if it was possible to make any new words. I think I will also at a later date make up the one at FFF and add to our LA workboxes as a fun revision activity.

Australia Day Resources

Australia Day is the official national day of Australia. Celebrated on 26th January it commemorates the arrival of the first fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788, the hoisting of the British flag, and the proclamation of British Sovereignty over Australia.

Listen to the Australian National Anthem here

Australian Timeline from Downunder Literature
History of Australia Day in more detail
Maps of Australia here at A to Z Teacher stuff and here

Lots of Aussie things here at Teacher Planet
Australia craft ideas for younger children here at first school

The Tale of Peter Rabbit

We have just spent the last 4 weeks working our way through a Peter Rabbit Unit Study. The girls LOVED it. (A friend has boys and they did not like the book, not sure if this is a boy thing) There was so much more we could have done but unfortunately it is time to move on to the next book.

We started by reading 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit every day for the first week - we used a couple of different books and compared the differences. The story was the original one but some of the pictures were bigger or brighter coloured. We even had a pop-up Peter Rabbit (that was Hubby's when he was little - so maybe some boys do like Peter Rabbit!). At the same time we read a page a day from Beatrix Potter's journal. I LOVED this book. My darling Auntie gave it to me for my birthday and it was perfect. Beautifully written and illustrated with lots of pictures and photos. In the back was included a copy of her original personal printing of Peter Rabbit which we read later in the month. This was a great opportunity for the girls to see how the book was edited and made shorter in order to keep the costs down when printing it.

After the first week we then read a different story each day. There were many that I had not read before and we really had fun with this.

The journal lead into a study on Victorian England and we used the Horrible Histories books from Scholastics for this. I read a small amount out of them and edited it as it was really a bit advanced for the girls. I was really impressed with the amount of information in these books and will be adding them to our library as I find them for a reasonable price. The activity books that go along with the books were also fantastic. For really young children I would probably just get the activity book. (These would also have made a good work box activity). The timing of this was good as we had just talked about convicts and being shipped to Australia in time to celebrate Australia Day. After we finished reading the journal we watched the DVD Miss Potter. I felt from what we had read this was well done.

We finished up by holding a Peter Rabbit Party. I will try to post photos of this later. (At the moment I seem to be having trouble posting photos). Each of the girls invited one friend to join us. So we sent out invitations (made using rabbit stamps). We decorated by putting as sign on the door that said "Welcome to Mr McGregor's Garden - No Rabbits allowed). We also used a Peter Rabbit soft toy in a small watering can as the table centre piece.

When each guest had arrived we made a paper rabbit ears crown then went outside and played a game of trying to sneak up on Mr McGregor without being spotted. If you were spotted moving you had to go back to the start. After this we had lunch.

The menu included - lettuce, radishes, carrots, celery, tomatoes, cucumber, french onion dip (rather than eating onions!), fresh homemade bread and black berry jam, black berries and currants and current buns. (we watched the Homestead Blessings Bread making DVD and added currants to their cinnamon rolls, they were really delicious and so easy to make). After lunch the girls watched the animated DVD's of Beatrix Potter's stories. We had such fun and was a great way to start the year.

Using the FIAR 2 Manual I had planned out activities to do/discuss every day for the 4 weeks - some we did and some we didn't do in the end, it depended on the day. Homeschool share has a number of activities to go along with the activities in the FIAR manual. You will find them here. They also have a rabbit lapbook here.

I was lucky enough to get a Beatrix Potter Lapbook from Hands of a Child when I had a super membership (I highly recommend this membership it is really worth it). This lapbook was great - we used a lot of it in Zebra and Duckie's Lap n-Notes. The other we used was The Tale of Peter Rabbit Project Pack. If you are reading The Complete Adventures of Peter Rabbit as part of Sonlight P4/5 and would like to make a lapbook or notebook I think this was fantastic. It was perfect for Bunny (6) and Monkey (4)

I hope to revisit some of this study in July (28th) which is Beatrix Potter's birthday.

We made Lap n-Notes for this book rather than traditional lapbooks. You can view photos of our Lap n-Notes here

Bunny ear crowns here

Rabbit Trails:

Queen Victoria - Beatrix Potter grew up during the reign of Queen Victoria.

Notebooking pages for Queen Victoria can be found at activity page here (a choice of 4)

A Queen Victoria Notebooking page here at Homeschool Share.

Beatrix Potter -

A Beatrix Potter Paper doll can be found at Stardoll.com

Rabbits

With the younger girls we also rowed 'The Runaway Bunny' at the same time. Homeschool Share has a Rabbit Lapbook which lends itself well to this trail. Bunny began some of this lapbook and we will add to it as we row more books about Rabbits this year. There is also more on rabbits at First-school.

More Peter Rabbit Links:

There are literally hundreds of things on the web for Peter Rabbit. There was so much more we could have done while studying this book. These are just a few of my favourites.

Lots at Making Learning Fun (Peter Rabbit Page - including masks) I found this link after we had finished the unit study but I will still be printing up some of the games and adding to the Peter Rabbit Folder for next time and also to our Rabbit Unit Study folder. This site also included lots of maths games that would be good fun to add to the work boxes.

Pre-writing skill cards

Download an audio version of Peter Rabbit here. This works really well copied to an ipod and put into a work box.

Peter Rabbit @ the Virtual Vine

Carnival of Homeschooling - Peter Rabbit Edition

Added June 2010 - I found a link for a Peter Rabbit Garden at Michigan State University. When we get our own home with garden I am going to try to recreate this. The girls LOVED our Peter Rabbit Rowing and still pull out the books and toys.