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!

Here's the Scoop

I want to share with everyone this Awesome  "FREE" website that I just love called, Spelling City.  In my oppion you can never do enough spelling practice with your children, as it really is helpful in the reading/writing process. So anyways with the school year back in full swing, I got on my favorite spelling site today and printed out the kids spelling list by grade <~ such a neat feature IMO ;)  I like that you can either get lists in perfect alphabetical order ( you could do "A" words then "B" etc ), themed or you can create  your own to meet your needs. So  like I was saying anyone who is home-schooling or just wants to have their kids practice their spelling more and likes freebies!!! ~> go check them out ;-)

Yep! another co-op post

So we had another homeschool co-op meeting this past  Thursday, this was our 2nd get together, but 1st time incorporating the learning games. The Woman who runs the co-op had the children do a " Syllables Challenge".  What she had the kids do was break  up into groups up two. It was really fun to watch,  each team had a their own bell and  after she would call out a word like Rab-bit, the first team to ring the bell and be able to tell you how many syllables the word had would get a point. The kids really got into this! So far this new added feature to our group is working out pretty good :)

Just another day at our co-op

Yesterday, I took my children to one of our local home-school co-op's. The group had taken a break during the summer and this was the first get together of the new school year. I always love getting back together with my home-school friends, My kids do too!  The kids of course spent most of their time playing with each other, I on the other hand enjoyed quite a bit of chit chat with all the other mamma's. I learned that  aapparently they are going to start incorporating some learning games at each meeting. We had not done this prior. At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to have more homeschooling lessons added at these visits since this was mainly for play and socialisation in my mind. The gals eventually sold me on the idea after they told me about a few of the games: Compound words game- You have to take a list of different words and see how many "compound words" you can create, Skeleton puzzle- You take paper cut out of bones and tape them together in the right spots, etc. I think the kids are really going to enjoy this type of fun  learning, so I am super excited about changing the idea of our lil group. So I guess we will find out next week if the kids are excited too ;)

Secular home school curriculum vs. Christian home school curriculum

Secular home school curriculum VS. Christian home school curriculum? This a question that many home school mom's face. Do you go with a program just because it is faith based, or do you go with one that isn't ?

In the beginning, I struggled with this in my own curriculum decision. I soon learned that even thou in a perfect world, if you were Christian, that the school curriculum you provided for your children would incorporate one's faith in the learning. This is my advice as one Christian home school mom to another. If you find a curriculum that is secular, do not dismiss it, because you can provide the Christian influence in yourself. You can also buy just  the Bible curriculum itself from quite a few top brand Christian based curriculum's fairly cheap to add to any secular curriculum's out there. With the new home school year fast approaching I wish you all Good luck in finding that perfect Home school Curriculum for your children!

I was Blown away

So, I recently met a home school family with  6 children. I am so blown away by this family, Thier oldest 4 children are already in college with the youngest 16 yrs. The whole family is Super smart! I my self am currently struggling to re-learn algebra, Kinda embarrassing seeing as their 16 year old is already doing College Calculus!!

I want that for my children thou. I want them to go past average and be those Super Smart kids, So I know I need to step my game up. I have been thinking about adding a extra day of learning every now and then,signing up them up for some SAT writing courses eventually & maybe even hiring a tutor from time to time to help in my weak areas. I want to give them the Brightest future I can. I chose homeschooling, for my children so that I could offer them that.

I am not worried thou, I know that with a little effort and encouragement , My kids are going to be blowing other family's minds one day too ! ;O)

Almost that time again! Can you believe it?

Wow! It is so hard to believe that summer is already almost over. Yesterday, I was in wal-mart and I noticed that they already had the back to school supplies out. I always get so excited at this time of year when I was a kid being able to go shopping for new school clothes, book bags, folders, pencils etc. The funny thing is even thou I am all grown up and I home school I still get excited lol ((blush))

I have not yet purchased anything for this next school year ( I am waiting for those wonderful Tax free days!!! ) but I have so far this past week began to do some reviewing of last year work to prepare for starting a brand new year in September. What I like to do is buy those cheap lil work books from walmart, To me there isn't enough content to learn, but their great at being a BIG end of year test ;) I also go thru and just click on previous lessons that my kids have already completed via their online program and just see if they remember. Just yesterday my daughter was reviewing Analogies and my son was learning about his ABC's again. I really think it is important to run a mini refresh course before going back to school. At least I think so, and even thou I do get some moans and groans it makes it easier for them to transition to a new grade level when they got the previous year down packed!



So that's been my week, next week not sure yet? In this family life changes day by day ~> But that's why I love it ;)