Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Homeschooling Isn't Just for the Child

You would think that I would know that Africa was a continent, how to treat titles of certain works in writing and the order of history, since I was on the principal's honor roll and even took honors classes in high school, but I didn't.  I find that homeschooling just isn't for my child(ren), it is also for ME!  My husband finds it humorous that up until I taught the continents in Kindergarten, I didn't know that one of them was Africa because I thought Africa was a country.  Up until today, I didn't know the reason why some titles are italicized, whereas others are underlined and then even others are put in quotation marks.  I learned that today in my daughter's grammar curriculum, which has been a real eye-opener for this "smart" mom.

Learning history in public school is atrocious, as a slew of facts and events are thrown at you in no particular order.  It is no wonder why I didn't 'get' history as a whole until I started teaching history in chronological order.  It is amazing how much better you understand the world and society when you learn history from the beginning to the current.  WHY does the public school system teach history in a way that leaves us clueless and unable to learn from history?  That is another conspiratorial blog post waiting to happen.

This isn't something that I just realized, I actually realized that homeschooling was more for me the first week I started homeschooling.  I have so many gaps in my public and private school education that I think it was needful in my own life!  I can't tell you how incredible it feels to be in my 5th year of this journey and what it has done for my life, even my spiritual life as we have been able to connect history with the bible.

So moms, when you think it is just too hard or you would rather be shopping - realize that this isn't just for your children, it may just be what you need!

Sunday, January 5, 2014

4th Grade History and Literature Read-Aloud List

We are still in Story of the World 3, so our list of read-alouds will be from history and literature during that period, so in a way, this a continuation of our 3rd grade read-alouds list here.

*Not all of these are read-a-louds anymore, as K is now reading some of these independently.

  1. To Swim In Our Pond - Vietnamese proverbs
  2. South Korea - True books
  3. North Korea - True books
  4. Far Beyond the Garden Gate - Brown
  5. Beijing - Platt
  6. All the Way to Lhasa - Berger
  7. A Picture Book of Daniel Boone - Adler
  8. If You Grew Up With George Washington - Gross
  9. Betsy Ross and the Silver Thimble - Greene
  10. Can't You Make Them Behave King George - Fritz
  11. Boston Tea Party - Freedman
  12. And Then What Happened Paul Revere - Fritz
  13. Kids At Work - Freedman (just looked at pictures)
  14. Cotton Mill Town - Hershey
  15. The Story of an English Village - Goodall
  16. The Bobbin Girl - McCully
  17. Redoute: The Man Who Painted Flowers - Croll
  18. Life On a Plantation - Kalman
  19. Cotton Mill Town - Hershey
  20. How We Crossed the West: The Adventures of Lewis & Clark - Schanzer
  21. Swamp Angel - Isaacs
  22. The Lewis and Clark Expedition - A True Book - Perritano
  23. Working Cotton - Williams
  24. A Visit to William Blake's Inn - Willard
  25. Please, Malese!  A Trickster Tale from Haiti - MacDonald
  26. The Miracle of the First Poinsettia: A Mexican Christmas Story - Oppenheim
  27. Ruby's Wish - Bridges
  28. Striking It Rich: The Story of the California Gold Rush - Krensky

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Plans for This New Year

I've posted that we did a January start this year for 4th grade mainly because I took a LOT of time off for my pregnancy and the new baby last year.  Looking over our new schedule of doing school 5-days a week (before we only did 3-4 days a week), it will have us finishing a lot of 4th grade subjects before summer, that is even with breaks!  So what I'm planning on doing this year is going ahead and diving right into the next curriculum in whatever subject it is that we finish.

That means that this year of 2014 will actually be our 4th grade and 5th grade year but 5th grade will continue over into next year as well.  So I'm starting the planning for 5th grade materials and will purchase them probably next month or so to have on hand because some subjects will be complete in April and we will need the next level.

Things like history and science, which are we are not on schedule with, will help us get back on schedule by the end of this year, starting in January the history and science for 5th grade.

However........there could be some very big changes for our family this year and we don't know when they could happen but if they do, that changes everything!  That is one reason why I've decided to redeem the time the next few months and school every weekday to really get a lot done in the case that we may need a month or so off to adjust to some new changes. 

Those are my plans for this uncertain year - forge ahead until the detour comes up!

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