Here is what we are currently reading for our history studies. We loosely use the Beautiful Feet Guides. I usually add books to the ones already on the booklist. I love how the lessons are short, well, at least when they are written down. Some guides out there scare me with the full page of what to do. Beautiful Feet guides are so easy to navigate. They are separated by day and it can easily be seen what is to be done. The separations are not in calendar form and I think this is what always turned me off to other guides. The chart look I guess. Anyway, I like how it is set up. Each day is no more than a paragraph of what is to be done. And within that paragraph, is what is to be read by pages, map work, writing assignments, and sometimes even questions to be asked.
They are set up that older kids can take the guide and can do the work themselves. I plan on doing this with the Geography guide for MaryEllen. Of course I will check her work and be there to answer any questions, but it can be [...More]

I wanted to share an update on how we are doing with the Robinson Curriculum which we began early summer 2009.
Pros: Self educating Cost effective Minimal parent preparation for lessons Three subjects Self paced Used with multiple students and multiple grades
Cons: Takes time to print books Takes getting use to, especially if you didn’t begin this way when the kids were young.
This all I can come up with. I think the pros out weight the cons. Most of the books can even be purchased if you prefer that route.
So far we have slowly evolved into a routine that is doable. The kids still have a hard time getting started every day, but we are still working on them being more independent in that area.
One challenge was completing a Saxon math lesson a day. For a few weeks we did half lessons. If their error rate was high, [...More]

The kids and I have begun to use English from the Roots Up Vol. 1. Like everything else, I seem to over think things out. Should we copy them to index card? Or maybe just use a notepaper and have them draw a green/red square around the word. Should I just buy the ready-made index cards and have them use those instead of writing them out? Should we do a root a week and a word a day? Ack!!
Well, I decided to have them notebook the roots copying the words and definitions. We might…might add some words of our own. I remember reading in the book that you can look up some additional words in the dictionary. Later on, we might do this also.
I made up notebooking pages for the kids and I to use. One for Greek words, and one for Latin words. We will just color in the border with marker with its respective color. (You can also use crayon or color pencils.) We could have used regular notebook paper, but I didn’t like how it turned out. I thought of gluing on an index card too, but then decided to go with creating the page and printing [...More]

We arrived home late Friday and Don had to be back at work on Saturday morning. The kids and I were lazy through the weekend knowing that on Monday we had to get back into our study routine.
They did great! We actually got everything done! I am still giving us the week to get into the swing of things.
It is funny because since we have moved out in nowhere, Halloween just passes on by us. We don’t do anything special anyway, but if someone knocks we would give out candy. Now that we live out in nowhersville, we don’t get any callers. There are no decorations around the ‘neighborhood.’ I completely forgot that the day had passed. I kinda like it!
I am finishing up the next weeks copywork. I will post it shortly.
During my lazy weekend, I typed up the kids’ booklists for the year. I also typed up a ’schedule’ if you will.

I call it Moving Right Along because it is suppose to help the kids remember what to do next. There are no times to it because I have tried that route, but it doesn’t fit our family. My husbands hours vary, so our [...More]

for the unnecessary email in your in boxes this morning. I don’t believe it had anything to do with me since I haven’t been around, it might have been a Feedburner hiccup. But…needless to say, I was a little embarrassed. *Grin*
So, as a way of saying I am sorry, I made up a cute piece of copywork. It is such an adorable poem that the kids can copy and maybe memorize. I will be giving it to my kids today. Enjoy!
**Note: I found an error in this download, so if you downloaded it before today, Oct. 1st, 4:30pm, please download it again. I had typed in ‘many go’ when it should have been ‘may go’ in the first stanza.
I haven’t been doing much with blogging as you can see. Like you, I have been b-iiiiiiii-zy! Still working on that organization thing!
The kids have been doing their studies fairly well. They get Bible and math done regularly. Writing most days and we are working towards an hour of reading …not including read aloud time. Slow and steady!
I still do have to push them a little in the morning, I am waiting patiently for the day when that [...More]

It is with a lot of soul searching and prayer that we decided to go with the Robinson Curriculum Philosophy of education.
One reason is that my husband likes the structure. I am more of a spur of the moment type. But, I will be the first to admit that we were not getting enough done. The kids were having too much free time that was not being used productively. Our days were so sporadic and the kids were bickering more and more…over silly things. I wanted to be more structured, but I was lost as to how to go about it. Amazing how sometimes we just can’t grasp or get a hold of something we want so badly.
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