Sunday, September 25, 2011

Our homeschool life so far...

This school year is really been going Great! We have really been getting involved in our local home-school community and I have signed the kids up  for soft/tee-ball which they are loving! They have not had their 1st game yet, they are still practicing, I am so looking forward to their 1st official game! My daughter has played soccer, gymnastics and dance before, but this will be her 1st time playing softball and my son well he is just 4yrs so this is his 1st anything.
The school lessons have also been going well too! My son is learning to write his ABC's and my daughter is doing very well in her homeschool language arts & math. We are doing more unit studies this year for Science and Social studies. With Halloween fast approaching we are going to be learning all about the history of and the anatomy of a pumpkin next month.
Until next week.....

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Teaching Sound-alike words

So as we all know sound-alike words, also known as homophones, can cause confusion. I still remember the "huh" feeling as a child when I would hear people say a word in a different way or see a words spelled completely different with different meanings but, they would sound the same. This really make the job of "home-school" teacher that much harder when it come to teaching children to read and write IMO : /

Thankfully I have this wonderful Free homeschooling site I use for all of my spelling needs called  ~>
                                                       Spelling City!!

They offer word list per grade:


1st - 3rd Grade Sound Alike Words: ad, add, ail, ale, arc, ark, bait, bate, bare, bear, be, bee, blew, blue, but, butt, buy, by, dear, deer, dew, due, fair, fare, feat, feet, hair, hare, I, eye, in, inn, its, it's, leak, leek, meat, meet, nob, knob, nose, knows, oar, hour, or, our, pail, pail, pair, pale, pale, peak, peak, lie, lye, mail, male, pare, pear, read, red, sail, sale, seam, seem, see, sea, soar, sore, son, sun, tail, tale, tea, tee, to, too, two, weak, week, one, won, wrap, rap

4th - 6th Grade Sound Alike Words: accept, except, knot, not, marry, merry, alright, all right, affect, effect, allowed, aloud, away, aweigh, aisle, I'll, fore, four, lean, lien, loan, lone, loot, lute, shear, sheer, sink, synch, air, heir, scene, seen, lair, lyre, sign, sine, flair, flare, flea, flee, stair, stare, flour, flower, sweet, suite, bite, byte, boar, bore, board, bored, nay, neigh, tear, tier, bough, bow, threw, through, throes, throws, throne, thrown, thyme, time, peer, pier, praise, prays, preys, rain, reign, rein, plain, plane, wail, whale, waist, waste, cent, scent, sent, cheap, cheep, ware, wear, where, we're, were, real, reel, which, witch, rays, raise, rote, wrote, who's, whose, ring, wring, whine, wine

High School Sound Alike Words: accent, assent, ascent, excess, access, leak, leek, elude, allude. Aid, aide, mall, maul, muscle, mussel, real, reel, karat, carrot, discreet, discrete, license, license, slay, sleigh, altar, alter, faint, feint, satire, satyr, marshal, martial, baron, barren, beach, beech, medal, meddle, storey, story, berth, birth, moose, mousse, muscle, mussel, braise, brays, pause, paws, pores, pours, palette, pallet, naval, navel, boarder, border, gorilla, guerilla, calendar, calendar, canvas, canvass, he'd, heed, cereal, serial, principal, principle, coarse, course, whether, weather, complement, compliment, retch, wretch, council, counsel, desert, dessert, currant, current, annual, annul, accept, except, knead, need, leased, least, site, sight, addition, edition, accede, exceed, advice, advise, heard, herd





This is just a small taste of what this site has to offer :-)

Happy Homeschooling Everyone!

 




Friday, September 9, 2011

The BIG State of Texas

Since we have decided to introduce unit studies this year with our already awesome homeschool curriculum, we have decided that we would learn about each state. This month we are planning on learning about Texas. My kids love learning while they play games, so the Texas State symbols game are my favorite to have them use. It helps them with learning about the state's symbols, and rremembering the state's flower, state bird, state tree, state motto and even nickname in a fun way. At first I wasn't sure if I would like such unstructured learning, but I am really liking the flexibility unit studies are allowing me, plus there are so many Free online resources out there to help make it easier for me, for instance I got the US state games from a free site called Learning games for kids :)
hmmmmm.....Next month I am think we will move on to maybe Alaska brrr... lol!

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Homeschool Portfolio Evaluations

                       Yep! It's that time of year again, home school portfolio evaluations!!!  We live in a state that allows us to choose whether we want to have our children tested or have a teacher evaluation done every year. The key in making these meetings a breeze is: 1st keep a record of what your child has done for the year, 2nd make sure you  have a evaluator that is either a home-school mom or is home-school friendly. I thankfully found ours 3 years ago at a local co-op home-school get together.
                        Since my son is still only 4 years he stayed home with dad ( in our state it is not mandatory to register children or evaluate/test till 1st grade ) When we got there my daughter age 9yrs was Super excited to see if she made it to 4th grade ;-) ~> LOL! so funny, but she says mom, "The teacher has to review my work to make sure I am ready". First thing she always does is chats with my daughter, asks how her year has went, her favorite thing she learned, then she asks a few questions like favorite books she read, etc. Afterwards she goes over the record book I keep though out the year and views a few samples of my daughters work. The best part is when we can just sit back for a few moments and discuss curriculum. She always gives me tons of tips and tricks. This year she has really gotten me thinking about adding some Fun Unit Studies to our homeschooling curriculum. My daughter has already requested one on Horses :-)
So anyways, every thing went great she passed her ;) and now I officially have a 4th grader! ~> crazy where did all the time go??
                    

              Hope every one's evaluations, testing and school year went well. Happy homeschooling!