Homeschool T.V.

My new favorite homeschool resource is the homeschool T.V. channel. If you haven't had a chance to check it out or if you have never heard of it before- you are missing out. It is chock full of great relevant programs that encourage you in your christian walk as well as your homeschool experience. There is a daily schedule of shows that is listed by the week so you can plan ahead what you want to watch. I have become quite addicted to it. It's as good as going to conference.

Wrapping it up

We are finishing up the year here, in fact this Friday we will officially call Kindergarten done!
When we started this journey I wasn't sure what this year would look like for us, I was filled with fear, anticipation, and excitement. I had all these opinions of what our kindergarten year was suppose to be and because of that I placed unneeded expectations and pressures on myself. It wasn't until I got about halfway through the year that I finally relaxed and realized that our homeschooling isn't suppose to be modeled after the public school system, if that is what I wanted to begin with, public school is where I would have put her. When I released myself from those notions I began to really enjoy teaching. Of course we have had our ups and downs but I have a different outlook and purpose for our homeschooling now. I am excited for what the rest of our years will look like.

Keeping her busy

If I let her, this little cutie will monopolize all of my time. She is very strong willed and very persistent. She is in a book phase, which is wonderful as long as you have time to read her 80 books a day! Honestly we sometimes run and hide when we see her walking toward her book basket. This simple activity however has given me a much needed break, I am able to get housework, schoolwork, dinner and anything else done when she is sitting in her highchair with a little bit of rice and some spoons and cups. I try to change it up every now and then with different containers to pour into and out of. The first time I did this, she did try to eat the rice, but she quickly found out it wasn't worth trying.

Unfair stress

Here in the state of Texas we have the TAKS test that our public school children have to take. All year it stays on the minds of students, teachers and parents alike. My BFF is a fifth grade teacher and it is a constant stresser for her throughout the year to make sure she has taught and prepared each of her students to be successful at this test. This week the scores were returned to the students and she was sharing with me what an emotional rollercoaster the day was. She said there was so much crying out of relief and dissapointment. Her fifth grade students were so stressed about this test that several of those that passed cried as hard as those that did not. I hate that our government would place so much undue pressure on these babies to pass a test that may or may not indicate their educational level. It was yet another reminder as to why we do what we do. I believe in the accountability as well as evaluating students work, but there has to be a better way.

I finally completed our circle time board. I have been meaning to do this for months. We have done most of these things on a regular basis, but I wanted to set a side a formal time to sit down right after our bible time to work on these skills. I used various websites to pull some of the sheets from. I will try and locate them all for you. The clock and hundreds chart was something I already had on hand. This is one of those Tri-fold science boards, that we pull out for school and tuck away when we are done.

On our board:

Days of the week
Months of the Year
Number of the Week
Letter of the Week
Sight words
Clock
Money
Books of the New Testament
Bible verse for the week
Weather
Hundreds Chart
Skip Counting
Address and phone number

1+1=1 Calendar time

Homeschool Creations Calendar Time

I have lost where I found the skip counting and address sheet, but when I find it I will add their links as well.

Wizard of Oz lapbook

We just finished reading the book Wizard of Oz. It is a fantastic book, filled with great imagery, and wonderful story telling. I have never read it until now, and It was soooo much better than the movie. In fact as we were watching the movie my daughter kept asking if particular parts of the book were going to happen and I turned to my husband and said- wow, she is going to be very disappointed in this movie. She wasn't but she thought they should have added a few more of the different lands, especially the china land. It was her favorite. It allowed for some great discussion though. We completed the lapbook as we went through the story, placing in different pieces as they happened. It was our first lapbook to complete this year, and I'm excited to be adding more of these into our schooling.

Here's a quick look at the finished Product

We found this lapbook off of Homeschool Share

Stay tuned

I had bigger hopes for this blog in the beginning. I had planned on making it some what of a journal of our homeschooling years, specifically our first, as well as a resource for all my homeschooling friends and I wanted it to be an encouragement to those just starting out like me. I completely underestimated how much homeschooling and life in general would consume any blogging time that I might have. I mostly use my time on the computer to glean great ideas from other wonderful homeschooling bloggers. I'm hoping now that our school year is coming to a close, I will have time to catch up and make this blog what I had originally envisioned. Although we are not actually ending school, I just plan on using the summer to do all those fun activities I didn't get a chance to get to, but certainly I should have more time... right?