Is Art Important in Your Child's Life?

Art is very important in my house, partly because both my husband and I are artists to one degree or another. So by default my boys are doing art almost on a daily basis. Whether it is through crafts that go along with our Story of the World lesson or drawing a bug on our new nature study trip. We are adding this to our everyday life as public schools are dropping this important subject due to budget cuts, throughout the US.

I was excited to find an online art program that teaches my son about art, and he gets to practice some of what he learns afterwords. Then I stumbled onto a learning site that features art games that I can use as part of their art learning lesson. These would be a great supplement for all those public school children who are now losing art classes.My oldest is the one taking the online art program right now but showing or working through some of the lessons with my younger son. I love it because he doesn't complain about doing his daily online art program like he does sometimes for his math! Between these two sites I have alot of our art bases covered and it gives me some extra time to plan out our day, which is always a bonus for any homeschooling parent.

This is why we feel art is important, what you do think? Is it a part of your child's everyday life?

Riddle me this, and spell that!

My youngest has always been into riddles and silly sayings, he loves to sit there and watch me try to say the words in Dr Seuss books. Usually laughing the whole time because I get my tongue all twisted up trying to go faster , it makes him smile bigger and bigger. So recently I tried to see if I could get him to for his writing assignment make up funny sayings or riddles. But we has some problems getting started. I was doing some research on ways to make it easier for him to write down a story about his dog, only to make it into a riddle for his brother to guess what he was writing about. He did a pretty good job on his first attempt and for his reward we did some online riddle games.

All of our families writing assignments have exercises to help with our spelling skills, which is always a struggle for my boys. I have found that if we bunch as much of grammar, spelling and sentence into every writing assignment, that we improve every time. I am trying to do this with all our assignments this year to see if we can improve our test scores for next year! Time will tell!

Fall is in the air......

And that can only mean one thing..... back to school time! As any other normal homeschooling parent... I need to spend a few minutes running around screaming because once again... my best laid plans for the Summer to get organized so we have a smooth start.... well, they somehow disappeared....AGAIN! I do this every year! I even count down, have goals, etc. and then the nice weather hits and I am putting those plans in the recycle bin and heading outside!LOL
Needless to say, the first week back to school is mild and very loosely planned because we are just not ready. I have found making lesson plans of some sort seems to keep myself and my boys better organized in the chaos of this! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE online lesson plans because 90% of my downtime is spent at the computer! If the lesson plans are right there in front of me, I have no excuse for not updating them or following them! Of course, I can and will still make an excuse but they are SO easy to use and keep track of what we are doing and when! Plus my husband can look and see what we are doing in our homeschool day, which helps keep him on board!
An organized homeschool is a plus when it comes to juggling homeschool, teenagers and normal everyday life in general!
So, stop running around screaming.... grab a cup of tea or coffee and sit down to make some online lesson plans for your upcoming school year and relax!
Hugs for a Happy Homeschooling Year!

A helping hand thru Middle School!

Let's face it, whether you homeschool or public school your kids.... Middle School sucks! It sucks for kids and it sucks for parents! As the Mom of 2 Middle Schoolers.....each day comes with its own trials and tribulations! Let me tell you.... I never know WHO is going to walk out of that bedroom, Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde!LOL I am sure by the end of it, my forehead will have a flat spot from smacking my head against the wall in frustration!
Don't get me wrong, I love my boys with all my heart.... but there are days that I do not like them!LOL I feel for them though! I totally remember that stage as an awkward teenager with braces, no sense of style, liking boys but not really liking them, pimples.... and the list of Middle School horror goes on and on!
It is a transition stage of puberty, hormones, scheduling and chaos! Kids are no longer "babies" but they are also not the "grown-ups" of high school. They spend a lot of time learning who they are and what they are about. It is the beginning of serious social networking and because of that.... many kids have trouble keeping up with lessons.
Either way, you can supplement their daily lessons with tutoring but who wants to try to find the perfect tutor! You can also look for online after school help! Time 4 Learning is PERFECT for that! They have complete lessons in Math, Language Arts, Social Studies and Science in Middle School grades to give you child that extra push to make it through the school year! And the fact that it is online and animated for most subjects, just makes it that much more fun for your child!
My boys are homeschooled and have been since the start of Middle School. It was a personal choice for us, as our local Middle School was rated very low and we tried it for 5 weeks for my oldest son and it was a disaster! If we had stuck with it, I know we would have used something like T4L to help supplement him! As it is, we signed up for T4L as homeschoolers and it has raised his Math grade from an F to a solid A.
As we approach the start of another school year, if you have a Middle Schooler.....you might want to consider checking into some online after school supplements to give them the best school year they can have!

Love, Love, Love Literature with my boys

Are you like me always looking for the next good book to read to your kids? This year I am continuing to read out loud to the boys, mainly because it makes all of us really get into the same story together. We all really have fun listening to the stories and the boys tell me things that they remember from past stories and how it relates to this one. Plus even though I have a teenager who loves to read by himself, he still enjoys listening to a story read by someone else. (Shhh don't tell his teenage friends)

I just finished another story about homeschoolers with the boys, and they loved it!
We read the Cross-Country Treasure Hunt (and the Mystery that Followed), which took a
homeschooling family on a road adventure across the US. I am totally loving that there are
books about homeschoolers out there for me to read to my boys. And for them to read as well!
Along with a great states study, I also used it to make up my own spelling list for the boys
to use and of course plays games with both the states and the spelling words. You know when you just have a great day with your kids, and there wasn't any tears or "Do I have to do that?" You can sit back and realx that night knowing that you taught your kids something that they will most likely remember for years to come. (not just for a test!) Well I had one of those days yesterday and I am looking forward to doing more lesson activities with them like this again, SOON!

Latin.....the ancient Internet!

The internet is EVERYTHING nowadays! It basically is the root of everything we do. We email, we google, we search, we read our news online, we chat with others and the list goes on and on.

Well, the easiest comparison for me to that would be Latin! Latin is the root system for the majority of our words! If you don't believe me, google it!LOL

When it comes to learning Language Arts, learning where our word roots come from is VERY important. Because once you have the foundation for your words, you can learn ANYTHING! And you can understand the meaning and reasoning behind the word itself and the definition!

Latin root vocabulary skills are a good way to get started! Kids can easily learn through flashcards, Latin matching games or create your own method that works for your kids!

But, once you start.... remember that your word "root" system will grow and grow and pretty soon your kids will have the tree of knowledge!!

Stories about homeschoolers

OK, could there be a better literature lesson then having your kids read about other homeschoolers as the main characters in books? I didn't even know that stories about homeschoolers existed. I did my famous research and BAM there it was a site for homeschoolers to go and find books about characters that they can related to! I never knew that there were so many and new ones are coming out all the time now. Since homeschoolers in general have doubled their numbers over the last ten years. I had my oldest read two of the books from the site Schooled and Surviving the Applewhites and he loved them both. And he even went online to see if they were a series. OK you have to understand that he never reads anything for fun but fantasy and graphic novels but he devoured them in a matter of days. Something I only see with books like Eragon or the Percy Jackson books, etc. It means alot to me to see him expanding his reading list to include books that are not in his normal area of interest.
It gets better along with these books there were lesson activities to go along with the books. So basically I had literature based word lists for each book for him to go over. In my option that makes for a much better well rounded book comprehension reading experience, wouldn't you say?I can't say that there are space alein homeschool books yet but who knows I am bookmarking the site to come back to!