Our family is your "typical" homeschool family. We use a boxed curriculum and work our way through our assignments as directed by a teacher's manual. I tailored our choice and chose a hands on and laid back curriculum....... but we still have one to follow.
Until now!
Our month was going to be a bit wonky with the holidays and traveling to visit family. Luckily we only needed to complete one last week of work for the fall semester. We could have made our curriculum work for us, that was the initial plan. I however was seeing quite a bit of interest in topics we were not covering. We were so busy learning things we were told to learn that we did not have time to cover the things that our children were passionate about. We decided to change things up and try something new. We decided to try out unschooling!
I am a bit of a wimp and wasn't brave enough to go 100% unschooled. We decided to keep our Bible, Spelling, and Math curriculum as normal. We put the rest of our curriculum on hold and instead went with an child led program for the last week of the semester. I added the twist of needing to complete this month's exploration for free. That has resulted in some unique thinking along the way.
We are excited to really dig into all the topics the kids have been asking about weeks!
So what does that look like? This week we are studying:
American Government
Lions Unit Study
Business Plan for a rabbit business
We spent the first day at the library finding books that covered our topics and peaked the kids interest.
Join us as we give unschooling a try. Let's see if we can pull this off!
Monday, November 30, 2015
Friday, November 27, 2015
MFW Kindergarten Unit 24
We are now working on My Father's World Kindergarten Unit 24 "V is for Vegetable".
I know this post is publishing in November....but we actually completed this unit during the middle of our summer living on the farm in Kentucky. We were very lucky that my Aunt runs a vegetable farm and was more than happy to have us invading her farm on a regular basis. Which is great since we turned out to be very bad at growing our own vegetables.
We spent the summer working in the greenhouse planting our seeds.....
working in the garden......
and doing lots of harvesting!
The best of all would have to be eating all of those yummy vegetables!
I would love to hear any hands on activities your family completed for My Father's World Kindergarten Unit 24 "V is for Vegetable"!
I know this post is publishing in November....but we actually completed this unit during the middle of our summer living on the farm in Kentucky. We were very lucky that my Aunt runs a vegetable farm and was more than happy to have us invading her farm on a regular basis. Which is great since we turned out to be very bad at growing our own vegetables.
We spent the summer working in the greenhouse planting our seeds.....
working in the garden......
and doing lots of harvesting!
The best of all would have to be eating all of those yummy vegetables!
I would love to hear any hands on activities your family completed for My Father's World Kindergarten Unit 24 "V is for Vegetable"!
Friday, November 20, 2015
MFW Kindergarten Unit 23
We are getting so close to the end of My Father's World Kindergarten curriculum! This week we completed Unit 23: X is for Fox.
This was a hard week for me to get excited about. We are just days away from our big move back to New Jersey, and we are planning the girls kindergarten graduation party. I am very much "seeing the light at the end of the tunnel". That of course makes our current units a bit harder for me to get excited about completing. I got my act together and found a fox craft for this week.
We made paper fox faces! I had already packed the craft paper at this point. I really don't know what I was thinking. After digging everything back out of boxes this was a very simple craft to complete.
All four of our youngest children got in on the crafting action.
I saw some really cute fox crafts on pinterest for this week. I really wish we had more time to complete a few more fox themed crafts. I do have two younger children who still have to work their way through kindergarten so I am holding out hope for the future!
I would love to hear how your family completed this unit!
This was a hard week for me to get excited about. We are just days away from our big move back to New Jersey, and we are planning the girls kindergarten graduation party. I am very much "seeing the light at the end of the tunnel". That of course makes our current units a bit harder for me to get excited about completing. I got my act together and found a fox craft for this week.
We made paper fox faces! I had already packed the craft paper at this point. I really don't know what I was thinking. After digging everything back out of boxes this was a very simple craft to complete.
All four of our youngest children got in on the crafting action.
I saw some really cute fox crafts on pinterest for this week. I really wish we had more time to complete a few more fox themed crafts. I do have two younger children who still have to work their way through kindergarten so I am holding out hope for the future!
I would love to hear how your family completed this unit!
Friday, November 13, 2015
MFW Kindergarten Unit 22
It feels like we have been working on this unit all summer. My Father's World Kindergarten Unit 22 is "F is for Frog"!
We started the summer by finding frog eggs and raising tadpoles.
Then we were on to catching full grown frogs while playing in the creek.
We were beyond thrilled when my aunt brought us baby frogs!
We even studied frogs at the living museum!
It seems like we have a had a very frog centered summer!
We would love to hear how your family completed My Father's World Kindergarten Unit 22 "F is for Frog"!
We started the summer by finding frog eggs and raising tadpoles.
Then we were on to catching full grown frogs while playing in the creek.
We were beyond thrilled when my aunt brought us baby frogs!
We even studied frogs at the living museum!
It seems like we have a had a very frog centered summer!
We would love to hear how your family completed My Father's World Kindergarten Unit 22 "F is for Frog"!
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Our Review of Brinkman Adventures Season 3!!
I am always excited to review audio adventures. They are always so lively and engage our imagination in a way books and television can never quite reach. This month we were chosen to review The Brinkman Adventures: Season 3.
The Brinkman Adventures follow a large Christian family as they travel around the world acting as modern day missionaries. They experience adventures and hair raising moments as they work to spread the word of God throughout the world. When I found out that the stories were based on a real life family I was intrigued. The adventures within these episodes are based on factual events with some dramatizations made throughout. There are stories from real missionaries woven throughout the episodes which interested our family a great deal. We have read quite a bit about missionaries from the past but have not covered that missionaries are still working and making sacrifices even to this very moment.
The Brinkman Adventures are available in two formats: 4 CDs or a MP3 download. Our family was chosen to receive the MP3 download. I preferred the Mp3 download as we tend to destroy CD's very quickly. Each season of the Brinkman Adventures consists of 12 exciting adventures for a total of 5 hours of faith based adventures.
The episodes include:
1. God's Mule
2. Mountain Mover
3. Silent Ambassador
4. Translating Trouble
5. Man-Up
6. Acorns & Oaks
7. A Saint's Story, Part 1
8. A Saint's Story, Part 2
9. Untouched
10. Busy Bees and a Bullhorn
11. Missionary Tourist, Part 1
12. Missionary Tourist, Part 2
Our children are pretty young: 11, 9, 5, 5, 4, and 2. Although the entire season was appropriate for all age ranges the stories were only really applicable to our oldest two children. The younger children quickly lost interest and went off to play. The older two girls were old enough to follow along with the story lines but tended to fidget and get distracted. Our oldest is autistic and our second oldest deals with ADHD. Sitting still and listening for long times, each episode is about 30min long, was a bit much to ask. To battle the fidgeting and restlessness I brought out our "art class" supplies. These are art supplies that are only allowed to be used while doing a specific art assignment. They were able to use the chalk pastels and paints to create fun projects while listing to the stories at the same time.
As a busy homeschooling mama I have to admit I love any time I can check off two school boxes with one activity! Art and Bible time completed at once!
Would you like to try out The Brinkman Adventures for yourself? You are in luck! The company is offering a download of 3 FREE episodes from The Brinkman Adventures Season 2 through the month of November! While you are there be sure to enter to win an entire season for free!
Would you like to hear what the other Schoolhouse Review Crew members thought of The Brinkman Adventures Season 3? You can click here or on the banner below to see read all about it!
Our Free Classic Literature Units
As new homeschoolers we purchased several different literature curriculums. After working our way through the curriculums I found myself less than thrilled with their content. If I am spending $800 a year on a curriculum I want it to be more than just a list of books to buy and questions to ask. Every day as I read through the assignment I thought to myself "Why do I need a curriculum for this?". After two years I finally had enough confidence in myself to ditch the purchased curriculum and strike out on my own.
Our oldest daughter is 11 years old and completing a mixture of 6th and 7th grade work. Her reading comprehension and fluency is top notch and on grade level. She is the only one of our children currently completing a literature curriculum. Our younger 3 school aged children are working their way through a computer based phonics program to increase their reading fluency.
After doing a bit of research into this age range I found The Classic Starts Series. Each book in the series is adapted from a classic children's story. These include Black Beauty, Little Women, Around the World in 80 Days, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, etc. In total the series has 46 classic books available for children reading at a second to fourth grade level.
I purposely chose literature books at a slightly reduced grade level. My goal is to raise children who have a love of knowledge. Children who as adults continue to pursue knowledge and education not because they HAVE to but because they WANT to. I want our daughter to love reading these classics and come back in future years to read the actual works. That is easiest to accomplish with books that are easy for her to read and understand.
So what makes these books a curriculum? Easy! They have discussion questions at the end of each book! I assign our daughter 2 chapters each day until she has completed the book. We then spend the next 10 school days completing the discussion questions at the end of the book. I assign one question per day and expect a half a page essay answering each question.
After she has completed the essay questions I allow her to choose a project to complete based on the theme of the book. Some examples include a themed dinner, a diorama, a play, craft projects, service projects, etc. The sky is the limit! She however has to come up with an appropriate project, create a written plan, and then gather all of the supplies.
So how do we pull off these literature units for free? The library! Our library has an entire shelf of these books! There are also several books available for FREE on kindle! You do not need a kindle to access these books however. You can download the kindle app for your PC and read the books on your computer. If you prefer actual books (I am a bit biased) you can find them for $0.01 on amazon as well.
We complete one book per month. With 46 books in the series we have our pick of books to read this year. I will be doing quite a bit of research on how to continue our classic literature units for free as her reading level increases.
I would love to hear how you complete classic literature units!
Our oldest daughter is 11 years old and completing a mixture of 6th and 7th grade work. Her reading comprehension and fluency is top notch and on grade level. She is the only one of our children currently completing a literature curriculum. Our younger 3 school aged children are working their way through a computer based phonics program to increase their reading fluency.
After doing a bit of research into this age range I found The Classic Starts Series. Each book in the series is adapted from a classic children's story. These include Black Beauty, Little Women, Around the World in 80 Days, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, etc. In total the series has 46 classic books available for children reading at a second to fourth grade level.
I purposely chose literature books at a slightly reduced grade level. My goal is to raise children who have a love of knowledge. Children who as adults continue to pursue knowledge and education not because they HAVE to but because they WANT to. I want our daughter to love reading these classics and come back in future years to read the actual works. That is easiest to accomplish with books that are easy for her to read and understand.
So what makes these books a curriculum? Easy! They have discussion questions at the end of each book! I assign our daughter 2 chapters each day until she has completed the book. We then spend the next 10 school days completing the discussion questions at the end of the book. I assign one question per day and expect a half a page essay answering each question.
After she has completed the essay questions I allow her to choose a project to complete based on the theme of the book. Some examples include a themed dinner, a diorama, a play, craft projects, service projects, etc. The sky is the limit! She however has to come up with an appropriate project, create a written plan, and then gather all of the supplies.
So how do we pull off these literature units for free? The library! Our library has an entire shelf of these books! There are also several books available for FREE on kindle! You do not need a kindle to access these books however. You can download the kindle app for your PC and read the books on your computer. If you prefer actual books (I am a bit biased) you can find them for $0.01 on amazon as well.
We complete one book per month. With 46 books in the series we have our pick of books to read this year. I will be doing quite a bit of research on how to continue our classic literature units for free as her reading level increases.
I would love to hear how you complete classic literature units!
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