America the Beautiful - A Patriotic Literature Lesson

Today is a beautful day in Arizona.  We worked hard this morning to get all our school work done quickly so we could spend a warm, sunny afternoon at the zoo.

Our Literature lesson today (for my oldest daughter) was on patriotic songs as poetry.  The three patriotic songs we learned about were "America the Beautiful", "The Star-Spangled Banner", and "This Land is Your Land".  We talked about new vocabulary words like rampart and perilous.  We learned a little bit about the men & women who wrote the lyrics to these popular poems.  Imagery is strong in these songs and another great topic that can be covered.  States & other locations talked about in the songs can be found on a map.  And there is so much more that we could have all learned from these lyrics!

To finish off our literature lesson today, we searched youtube.com for the three patriotic songs so that we could see how various artists perform or interpret these songs.

My all-time favorite version of "America the Beautiful" is performed by Ray Charles.  It's nice to be reminded that we really do live in an amazing country & we are all SO blessed.

Blank Sheet Music

My Penguin has been inspired by her choir directors and spends a lot of time each afternoon writing and composing her own, original music.  The poor girl was trying to write her songs out on scratch paper, so after a quick search online, I found this website that I thought I'd pass along because it has some nice options.   I thought this site & some music composition could make for some great homeschooling activities.  Enjoy!!

The Joys of Homeschooling!

This is what happens when you turn your back for a few minutes to help one child with math problems and another child is feeling a little left-out.

{Caught!}

 {not happy mom is chasing him with a camera &

worried about what punishment might follow.}

AZVA Pancake Breakfast

Penguin's cyber school, Arizona Virtual Academy (K-12), had a free all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast this morning.  They had numerous locations all over the state to choose from, but we opted to go for a little drive and attend the breakfast in Casa Grande.  My kids L-O-V-E breakfast food, so they were in heaven when they saw chocolate chip pancakes, chocolate milk, french toast, scrambled eggs, hash browns, fruit, and tons of other fixings and sides to go along with their breakfast.

Time's Up!

Haven't done a home-schooling post in a while.

Thought I'd share another website that we use on a daily basis.

Online Stopwatch

You can use the stopwatch feature or our favorite (cackle-cackle) is the countdown timer ... great for all those timed-tests in math!

If you have a young musician, you can also use their metronome.

It's free.  It's great.

Spelling City

Spelling City is one of our favorite home-schooling websites, but it's a great resource for all students.  You can create your own spelling lists for the week or insert the spelling lists that your child brings home from school.  The website then uses the words in games, quizzes, and other fun activities to help students of all ages learn their spelling words.  My Penguin is never disappointed when it's time to "play" on Spelling City.

Interested in Online Schooling?

Come learn about K-12's online school program and see Toy Story 3 for only $2 per person!

Are you interested? Go here.

This is for AZ residents or people visiting AZ on June 28th, but similar events may be available in other states.

School's Out!

Today is our last offical day of school.  YIPEE!!  Penguin is super excited to celebrate this evening.  She's already dreaming of restaurants where to wants to eat tonight.  Tomorrow we'll take a break ... we all need a break.  The weather is beautiful here, so I think we'll go out & enjoy some sunshine tomorrow.  Friday is our big concert, so we'll be heading over to Gammage for rehearsals, etc that will go on for the majority of our day.  But, much to Penguin's dismay, summer school will be starting Monday morning. :)  Educating & learning never stop around here!   Summer school will be more relaxed & fun, but we will keep plugging away & reviewing.

At the request of one of my readers who'd like to learn more about homeschooling, I thought I'd share something we have been working on in Science this past week.  Penguin loves to learn & read about animals, so I thought we'd take it a step further and learn about their environments & throw in some unusal animals that we don't usually hear or read about.

 

A Walk in the Desert, A Walk in the Tundra, A Walk in the Deciduous Forest, A Walk in the Prairie, A Walk in the Rain Forest & A Walk in the Boreal Forest ... this is what we've been reading this week. Penguin learns about all those animals that she loves in so much more detail than she usually does.  These books also teach her about climate, plants, adaptations, seasons, soil, etc.

Each book begins with a glossary to help with words that might be new to her vocabulary.  The books are PACKED! with photos (at least 2 per page), maps & little side notes that give interesting facts.  The books are also very well written and make learning more interesting & fun.  For example, "All around the town, praire dogs stand guard.  They sit upright, with their paws folded neatly against their stomachs.  They scan the landscape for signs of danger.  Yip-yip-yip! Something has alarmed the praire dogs. A herd of bison is coming toward the town."  And of course that page includes large, colorful photos of praire dogs standing upright and bison walking across the praire.

If you'd like to check-out these books for yourself, they are written by Rebecca L. Johnson & published by Lerner Publications Company. 

Summer Reading Programs

There are so many great summer reading programs available for kids.  I wish I was a kid and could earn all these fun prizes just for reading!!  Click on the links below to go directly to summer reading pages.

#1: Check with your local library.  Most libraries offer some kind of reward or party for kids that read a certain number of books or pages.  Your library may also have lists of age appropriate books if you get stuck on the ol' "what to read next"....

#2: Chuck E Cheese.  HERE is a calendar that you fill-out.  Chuck E Cheese has other educational promotions as well.  Check our their website for more details.

#3: Half-Price Books

#4: Borders

#5: Barnes & Noble

Did I miss any?

Finds on iTunes

On iTunes you can get a free "From Pole to Pole" episode of Planet Earth produced by BBC. It's a 48-minute HD TV download from Series 1 of Planet Earth. Other episodes of this length cost $1.99 to $2.99.

Also available on iTunes is "That Easter Morn".  Just search "That Easter Morn" & it should pop right up.  You can buy the whole CD or individual songs. The music is absolutely beautiful!!  We have a copy of this CD in both our cars & it's what the kids always want to listen to while we're on the road.

Tickets go on sale this week for EVMCO's next concert, "O' America".  We will be performing on Friday, May 21 7:30pm  @ Gammage!  Tickets are $15 & $25.  Our previous concert was sold-out, so don't delay in buying your tickets!!

Brain Quest

My favorite workbooks are by Brain Quest.  Their workbooks contain more than the usual math & language arts.  They have science, social studies, creative writing, etc all in one book.   Another product I've used with my kids are the Brain Quest cards which are available for ages 2-13 years old as well a variety of topics like Black History, For the Car, America, etc.  I usually buy Brain Quest supplies at Costco ...  Look in the book section for their workbooks & cards ... I saw some cards there today.  :o)

HERE is another mom's review of the Brain Quest cards.

Not only do these cards have great educational value, but they also help with bonding and one-on-one time.  I love to take my little ones, sit them right in my lap, and work on the cards with them while they are cuddled up close.

Our Homeschool

People often ask me which curriculum I use for homeschooling. My answer is usually none. I don't follow one set philosophy or only buy books from a certain curriculum. I have tried a wide variety of books, schools, etc.  Here are some of my findings ... so far ...

If you are looking for inexpensive workbook pages (which are great for language art skills & math), I suggest Sam's Club. I've bought workbooks in there on a wide variety of topics ... Spanish, cursive, math, language arts, reading, maps, history, etc. I have also found great helps for science experiments & art projects in Sam's Club. Sometimes I can find something interesting in Costco, but Sam's Club definitely has a better variety.

When Penguin started Kindergarten, we tried Connections Academy (a cyber school that is available in many states). There were aspects that we really enjoyed and liked while we were with Connections Academy and other things that absolutely drove me nuts. I liked that twice a week, all the kids in Penguin's class put on the earphones & microphones for an online, interactive class. Penguin made friends through these classes that she emailed and talked to on the phone on numerous occasions. Connections Academy also had some great fieldtrips and families were always invited to attend. Compared to some other cyber schools, the amount of work we had to actually submit to a teacher was not a lot and we submitted everything once a month ... so it wasn't really a daily task that I had to worry about.

About 14 months ago, we felt we needed a change and less stress in our home. We decided to try a more traditional home school approach. I loved all the freedom that we had to pick our own topics, pick which days we wanted for vacation days, and the other countless perks that come along with homeschooling your kids. We've been doing our own version of home school until about a month ago when we decided to try another cyber school....

At the beginning of March, Penguin started attending K12. K12 is another cyber school (available in most or all states). K12 has a lot of different philosophies which seem to be working better for our family. K12 is mastery based which means Penguin doesn't receive letter grades. She has to master each lesson before she can move on or she can skip lessons that she has proven that she can master without doing the lessons. K12 also offers fieldtrips (but we haven't attended any yet) and a well-rounded school week ... all the basic courses plus Spanish, art, PE, music, etc. One aspect of K12 that I'm really loving is their curriculum. It is far superior to Connections Academy or any other school that I've researched up to this point.

Am I settled at this point with Penguin's schooling? Not really, but I may never like I'm 100% happy with her schooling. I think there will always be pros & cons. Will I try something different in the future? Quite possibly. I already have other homeschooling philosophies that I was to research ... maybe this summer.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

If you're looking for some food ideas, crafts, & fun things for your kids to do today, go HERE or HERE.

I'm not into turning my food green, so we had Irish Oatmeal for breakfast.

More St. Paddy's Fun to come later....

Free Book & More

If you're an educator (aka Mom!), click HERE to get a free idea book.

**Update:  HERE's another freebie ... ziploc bags & cleaning supplies!

LDS Homeschooling

Yesterday was the Grand Opening of a new website: http://www.latter-dayhomeschooling.com/. This website is full of resources of all varieties.  Even if you do not homeschool or not are LDS, this could be a great resource for you & your family.

Homeschooling Help

Are you a homeschooling mom or a parent who wants to supplement their child's education?  If so, check out this website!  It's free and has oodles of helps & fun stuff.  Your Pre-K through 2nd grader can work on everything from math to spelling to Spanish to art using Head of the Class.  Create a free profile & you're ready to go.  Thanks to my friend Tara for sharing this website with me!

While playing around on the Head of the Class website, I came across a link for http://www.ixl.com/ where I found even more games & lessons for grades Pre-K through 6th.