New School Room Tour.

It's back to school time and it seems like everywhere in the homeschool blogosphere, people are giving tours of their learning spaces.  I love being able to take a peek into other families' homeschool rooms and get new ideas for my own spaces.  I have always had a dedicated school room and I have never regretted the decision and here are my reasons why.


1.    It keeps me organized.  Having a school room, or even a corner in your house dedicated to schooling, helps wrangle all the books and supplies that homeschoolers are infamous for having.  It helps keeps things organized and neat.  I love that my kids always know exactly where to go to get their school supplies and their books.

2.    It helps kids focus.  I know this may not be true for all kids, but after researching and reading endless articles and studies on education, kids who have a dedicated space for studying are able to better focus.  It's like it puts them in the zone.  Children (and adults!) are creatures of habit, and we tend to make associations.  The kitchen is for eating, sitting on the couch makes me sleepy, etc.  There is nothing that focuses my kids' attention to school like sitting in their desks.  Do you have to have a desk?  No.  But make sure that you start making those associations early in your homeschool year.  Whether it's the kitchen table or a desk.  Once kids sit down, they should know that it's time to work!

3.    It helps create good habits.  Keeping their work area clean, putting their books and supplies away, timeliness, and independence are all great habits for kids to have.  We end our school day by cleaning and making sure everything is back in it's place.  Since everything has a place, it's easier for them to be independent in cleaning up.  A plus to ending our day with cleaning is that they are able to come down the next morning and get right to work.  No time is wasted looking for books or pencils.

4.    It gives kids ownership.  My kids love having their own desk and their own space and because it's their own, they work hard at keeping it neat.  Of course, they have their own space in their bedrooms and other parts of the house; but this is their work.  Just like their daddy goes to work every day, they get to go to "work" too.  We love this mentality and we believe it's giving them a positive attitude towards hard work.

Of course, every family is different and every homeschool family has to figure out what will work best for themselves.  We are very blessed that we can dedicate so much space to our schooling without it spilling over into our non-schooling life.

The Tour!

Before I begin the school area tour, I will add by explaining that this area of our house is the "guest quarters."  It is like it's own house with 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living room, a full size kitchen, a den, a recreation room, a laundry room, a media room, a porch, and even it's own garage and driveway.  It is a part of our house that might be considered a basement, but it really isn't because it only has a small area that is under the ground.  Before we even decided to move our schooling here, this area of the house was rarely used....rarely.  Like we never really came down here.  And we rarely had guests, so it was always unused.  Now it has become the perfect place for our studies and gets used every single day.

So let the tour begin!

This part of our homeschool is for the younger kids in the family.  Here, I do kindergarten with my 5 year old, preschool with my 3 year old, and my 7 year old has his own desk by the window.  I keep their current artwork hanging on a small clothesline and they love seeing their work go up.  Manipulatives, preschool activities, busy bags, games, and some supplies all go in the shelves above the table.

On this little table, I also keep my teacher manuals for MFW Kindergarten and First Grade, along with other workbooks that are used daily.  I bought a mud pan from Lowes and keep workbooks there for easy viewing.  The tabletop pocket chart holds our sight words (I put the flashcards away in a small Ikea box at the end of the day or they will be destroyed by my 3 year old).

In this room we also have a futon (which will be replaced by a comfier couch soon!) that sits next to the window where we can birdwatch, as the bird feeders are right by the window.  The hanging magazine rack holds our field guides and sketch books along with some artist pencils.  I also keep our current read alouds here since this is where we gather for afternoon stories.

It was very tempting to decorate the walls with charts and posters, but I've done that in the past and have found that is has NO EFFECT on the kids' learning and actually serves as a distraction.  I wanted to keep it as classy as I could and opted for some natural prints above the wall that reflect my love of nature.    

We get a great variety of birds that come to our feeders and I love that I can sit there and sketch or journal along with the kids.  They also enjoy just looking out the window.

Looking from the desk towards the rest of the room, you see my map area.  My kids love looking at maps, although in this picture they are more interested in video games.  Lots of our studies take us to this area.  

The large map on the wall is dry-erasable.  So when we're using the map, I can mark it with a dry erase marker.  The other maps are of the ancient world and were laminated so that I could also use a marker on them.  The inflatable globes hanging from the ceiling have been rigged so that I can easily take them down.  We also have a globe that we use, but my son had it in his room at the time of pictures!

I love the Ikea Trofast system!  I keep educational board games, puzzles, and some art supplies in these bins.  I also have portable maps that the kids can take to their desks.

Yup, our school has it's own kitchen.  We really don't use it except for snack time and this fridge is usually stocked with party food (I entertain a lot!).  Having the kitchen is also super handy for science and art.  I have 2 tables here that we are constantly using when we work in groups.  Our most recent group activity has been geography with the three older kids.  We make salt dough maps, paint them, label them, and show them off in pizza boxes!  

I keep a small table with kid chairs for my 3 year old to use.  Since she is pretty messy, it's nice to have her do her activities on tile floor that's easy to clean up.  On the round table you can see that use a dish rack to hold coloring and activity books.  The utensil caddy holds her crayons.  It's an awesome Pinterest hack!  I also cook a lot with my 7, 5, and 3 year olds...mostly things like applesauce, pies, snacks, and other things related to what they are learning.  All that takes place in this kitchen...all because of the tile floors (our kitchen has hardwood floors which are harder to clean up!).

Some day I will find the perfect thing to hang up on this big empty wall! 

Ready to continue the tour?  

Let's walk through the door next to the globes....

This is Part 2 of the School Room Tour!  This is where the older kids do their school work.  Because they require more focus and quiet for their work, I decided to separate them.  I can just close the door between them and the little kids at any moment.

I decided to keep the center of the room clear of any desks and lined the desks along the walls.  Each child has their own desk that holds their books.  After we moved the school room down, I lost my big, awesome wall of dry erase boards.  I had to find a solution, since we are constantly using our dry erase boards, I had to find a solution.  I had no free walls because one wall has desks, another has bookcases, and then there's the windows.  So I came up with the idea of using garage hooks to hold up the board.  It covers the little door that leads to the HVAC system, which we can still access by removing the board.

These are my awesome, built-in bookcases that I had put it.  I love the amount of space it gives me to put books!

The nice thing is all the storage space I have.  Above the fireplace, we have more shelves where I keep art supplies, board games, and science supplies.  Next to the fireplace is our "media" center with a little boom box.  I have all our CD's on that shelf.

I totally ran out of wall space for my desk, so I moved into our rec room, which is still nice and independent while not being totally detached from everything.  Our rec room actually has another refrigerator (it's right next to my cart, but you can't see it), and it holds a laundry room behind some double doors (also not pictured).

Our rec room holds our exercise equipment and some fun stuff (like the basketball game).  I can also open the shades and keep an eye on the kids while they play outside on the swing set or run around.  Since we use Charlotte Mason approach, I like taking breaks between lessons.  This means that the kids get a 10-15 minute every 45 minutes or so.  Sometimes they kick the punching bag, run outside, or play basketball.  I like that keeping them active actually helps them focus when they need to.  

Finally, I am including a picture of our office.  This is actually my husband's office that he rarely uses.  It's nice and separate from the schooling area, but still just down the hall.  I use the closet (not pictured) to store even more school supplies.  We keep our desktop here and the kids use this room when they have a test or need a really quiet space to complete their work.  Otherwise, we are on our laptops on our desks.

That concludes the end of my School Room Tour.  Hope you get some good ideas for your own learning space!

Gifted Children.

Recently, I've been hearing a lot about gifted children. Through friends who are trying to get their kids into the gifted programs at their local public schools, from homeschool moms who are seeing giftedness in their children and in the local news where they've been highlighting the gifted programs and what they offer. I thought this was a great subject to talk about!

First off, I don't know if my kids are truly "gifted." I think all children possess giftedness in some way or another. Some are great at math, some are great at reading and some are great at art. Most children excel in some subject or other. But true giftedness? That would probably mean across the board, above level performance. Which led to me to thinking....what exactly are all these moms prepping their kids for in public schools?

Not too long ago I met a mom who was getting her son tested in order to for him to qualify for the gifted/talented program at a school. She had been prepping him for the test for a couple of months with lots of workbooks and practice tests. At first, I thought she was crazy. I kept thinking, "Hey. If you're kid is really gifted...it won't matter if you prep him for the test or not. And if you have to prep him, then he probably isn't truly gifted."

But them she went into why she wanted him to test into it so badly. The gifted classes were smaller. They offered things like Latin, chess club and more hands-on "real world" learning. When she got to talking about all the perks, I realized that I would probably want the same for my kids, if they were in school.

Of course, homeschoolers don't have that problem. We can teach our kids Latin (and we do!) even if they aren't "gifted." We play chess, our class size is small and there is plenty of real world learning going on all the time. I get to speed things up in any subject I see my kids excelling in and I can slow things down if I have to. There is no need for me to test them!

All my children are covering more than one grade level, which makes it soooo hard to label them. Are your kids in 4th, 2nd, and kindergarten? Well, yes. BUT...not one of them does all their work at grade level. And that is one of the greatest perks of homeschooling. You tailor what you teach to the student...not the class.

So if you happen to be reading this and you happen to send your kids to school. Give homeschooling a second thought. It's really not so bad being around your kids all day. And you'll be happy to know that you won't ever have to fight with a school in order to place your kids in a "gifted" classroom.

Keeping Things Simple.

I still haven't posted my daily schedule and have been working on tweaking it a lot this week. We switched phonics and math, we added a new activity to Fridays and I'm trying to squeeze more time in with Christian's preschool work. Things look chaotic on paper! But it really is coming along and our MOTH (Managers of Their Homes) method is what still continues to work for us. Click here to see some of my previous advice on creating a schedule.

Of course, we know that with a large family it's important to keep things simple if you want to stay sane. It's all about prioritizing. Not too long ago I experience my first burnout. We were doing school, co-op, swimming, dance, piano, soccer and who knows what else. I wanted my kids to be exposed to different activities and to have fun. What I got was a not so happy family. I was chauffeuring kids around 4-5 days out of the week. We were rarely eating dinner together as a family and we were always in a rush. I was cranky so that meant that everyone was cranky. So what happened? I got burnt out. I grew so tired that I dropped every activity besides school and co-op.

It took me almost a year to recover, but I vowed to never do that to myself or my family again. Now I'm learning to keep a healthy balance. My kids are allowed to do 2 activities each. One that benefits them physically and one that benefits them mentally. I combine wherever I can, take shortcuts and NEVER sacrifice family time. The results are working out well so far.

Our extra curricular activities this year? Here's how I have it set up so that I'm able to get all the kids' activities squeezed into our week without sacrificing our family priorities.

• Karate fulfills our physical requirement. This is done together so that I don't have to go back and forth with different sports. They get to help each other and they love it!
• Piano is also done at home. Our piano teacher comes over once a week and takes turns doing the lessons with the kids. That means I don't have to take time off from teaching; so while one child is doing their lesson, the rest are working on their school.
• Art is our new activity this year. It's once a week and the kids also do it together. While they are in class, I walk down the street to the library and load up on books for the week. It works out great!

But what about the littles? I can't take credit for toting around 6 kids with me all the time. I have a nanny who comes in 3 times a week. She mainly takes care of little Jimmy and Christian, unless I have to go somewhere and I leave the whole crew with her. I am hesitant to admit to having this help, but I don't want to seem like super woman. One thing I will add is that to have her over means that we sacrifice in lots of other areas. Again...priorities.

So how do you keep things simple for your own life? Here are some tips.

1. Make a list. Grab a piece of paper and make a column for each child. Under each name, list all the extra curricular activities you would like for each of them to have. Don't be afraid to include yourself and your spouse! It's important to keep in mind all the things you want to accomplish as well when making a schedule.


2. Prioritize and Rank. Rank your activities. Take into consideration all the things that are important to your family when ranking. Are weekends together as family important? Then perhaps soccer might not rank high because of all the Saturday games. Is having dinner together a top priority? That might weed out all evening activities.


3. Minimize. Look over your list and trim wherever you see an activity that is not in line with your family priorities.


4. Pencil it In. Look at your calendar with your new activities penciled in. If your calendar still looks too full, perhaps it's time to go back and minimize some more.


5. Pray. Prayer is a powerful tool when deciding what activities will benefit your family.

In the end, don't be afraid to say "No!" There is absolutely nothing wrong with keeping our kids at home and enjoying our families. It's important not to fall prey to the materialistic culture that plagues our society. More is not necessarily good and our children will not benefit from having a full schedule that keeps them away from family. We have to remember that in teaching our children, we want to prepare them for heaven above all else!

Family Time, Happy Kids or Over-scheduled, Cranky Kids

Early Winners.

We are coming upon mid-September already and school is in session for mostly everyone. For families that started early, like ours, we are already figuring out what the winners and losers are for the year. Here is a snippet of what's working so far, what's not, and what we're on the fence about.

Winners...So Far.

1. 
   Saxon Phonics. We are using this phonics program for Anthony, Isabella and even Marco! I love that it's scripted and the kids haven't complained yet! It combines phonics with spelling, which I find helpful in getting the kids to understand their phonics rules. For Anthony, this is his core program. Isabella and Marco are both using the Saxon Phonics 2 program and it is completely review. It's working fantastic, although sometimes I wonder if coding all those words is helping them read proficiently. But if they are showing success with it, I can't argue!
   
   
2. Famous Men of Greece (Memoria Press). We are using this for history and following Angelicum Academy's lesson plans. So far the kids love it. It's colorful and interesting to them and I like that it covers vocabulary and reading comprehension, among other things (the suggested activities are great).


3. Poetry Memorization from IEW. This is super easy to do and the kids LOVE it so far! The kids recite their poetry in the morning, during lunch and then for their dad over the dinner table. It's great fun for them!


4. A Nature Walk With Aunt Bessie from Queen Homeschool. This is the science I'm doing with all the kids together. It's completely from a Charlotte Mason Approach and completely fun for the kids! We do this everyday and it is something the kids look forward to. I love that it's compatible for all the kids, from Christian in preschool to Marco in 4th grade.

Runner Up. Still sitting on the fence.

1. Latina Christiana. Perhaps it's my own insecurities with teaching Latin that make this program so difficult for me. Marco and Isabella do this together and they are doing well, although I'm always unsure about how well they have grasped the vocabulary. I'm hoping that as the year progresses, I'll be more confident in teaching it and the kids will continue to do well with it. For them, this is not a favorite subject...but it gets done! We are taking it super slow!


2. Map Essentials. This is another Angelicum course that I have loved over the years. But now that Marco is doing his 4th grade book, it's getting more rigorous (which is great!) but less fun. And I'm all about the kids having fun when it comes to geography. Why shouldn't it be fun? It's a solid program...it's National Geographic! But I think I was hoping for something that would make learning cartography and geography more hands on. Perhaps I'll supplement if we have the time; after all, this is done only once a week.

Losers.

1. Vocabu-Lit. We followed Angelicum's suggestion of using Vocabu-Lit for 4th grade. The workbook is great and it uses literature to teach new vocabulary. But as we were progressing through the book, Marco began to get more and more frustrated with the work. "It's too hard! I hate it!" So I did further reading to see what the problem could be. Well, it turns out that the book that Angelicum is recommending for 4th graders is actually a 6th grade book!! That might be fine and dandy for kids who are great readers, but for the average kid...this might be a little too much. So I abandoned Vocabu-Lit and am going back to using something more grade appropriate. So I guess in the end, it really isn't the program that's a loser...it's just a loser because we were using something that wasn't suited to our grade level.

That's it! Looks like we don't really have lots of losers this year. All other materials are straight from Angelicum and we are enjoying them all. I hope that all you homeschoolers out there are having luck with your curricula. It's always a mystery as to what will work, but thank goodness that we have the luxury of tailoring our teaching to what our kids need!

Back to School 2011!

Is it August already??!!! Of course it's August. I've known that for the past 17 days!!! But really...here I go again. Life gets in the way of blogging...blah, blah, blah. Let's get down to the nitty-gritty.

We actually started school on August 1st! Yes we had our first day of school celebrations and all. It was a fantastic day and the kids had the best time, like always. I won't say that it was easy, as I wasn't ready to start school at all! But I sucked it up, planned as much as I could, gathered whatever materials I had and got to it. The first two weeks were a MESS!! I couldn't find all my materials, our old books were still on the shelves while our new books sat in piles all over our school room. Not only that but our daily schedules weren't set up, my lesson plans weren't organized, the kids' planners were nowhere to be found, and our school room was a disaster.

Sounds like a nice start to the school year, huh? Well, I finally got my act together. Every night last week I stayed up late organizing and planning. It was painful, but now I can say that I'm mostly done! The only thing left for me to do is get our daily schedules done. I have a tentative schedule, but I'm still experimenting on how our days are going to flow best with 4 kids doing school, a toddler, and a baby.

This week we are well into our 3rd week of school and it's going GREAT! Our lessons are getting done, the kids are happy (for the most part), and I can finally find all our books. I'm sure that this year's beginning isn't going to scar the kids. They have been having a wonderful time since our new school year started. Our first day of school traditions helped, of course.

As you may know, every year we celebrate the first day of school with schultutes or school cones that I usually spend a couple of weeks working on. It's like Christmas around here! The cones are full of school supplies, candy, and toys. The kids get to spend half of the morning playing with their treats before officially starting their school work. Check out the celebration!

Language Arts Decisions and Reviews.

It seems that if you are a homeschooler, this time of year is mainly focused on curriculum decisions, planning, organizing, and hunting for reviews for new products. It's my favorite time of the school year!!Of course, we are using mainly Angelicum Academy for our homeschool. But after having tried out their language arts curriculum for the past 3 years...I just don't like it!!

(Photo from Habits of a Happy Home blog)

Shurley English was not only torture for me to teach, but Marco totally hated it. So we ditched it and switched to Rod and Staff English. It's rigorous and boring, but I actually like that it's straightforward to teach. Marco doesn't like it, but he doesn't hate it either. I like that there's tons of review, which is important for him. Isabella used it this past year and she flew through their 2nd grade book. She loved it! But she's just that kind of student. I plan on using First Language Lessons for Anthony's 1st grade and then jumping into Rod and Staff for him too.

Well, that's grammar. But how did our year go with using Angelicum's recommendation of Hooked on Phonics for phonics instruction? I totally dislike the program, but the kids loved it. In the end, we're ditching this too. The program might get your kids reading, but it completely lacks phonics instructions. There is no explanation of phonics rules and I felt it was more like teaching word families. So in the future, when your child comes across a more difficult word, he won't be able to apply any phonics rules to learn to read it because none were ever taught!! Come on!! Even I remember learning things like "When 2 vowels go a walkin', the first one does the talkin'." HOP consists of watching a video, repeating the words they say, and then reading the same words in the workbook. Not my idea of a solid phonics foundation.

Anyways...we're switching to Saxon Phonics this year (click for a Cathy Duffy review). After reading review after review, I made up my mind and have received Saxon Phonics 1 for Anthony. It looks fabulous!!! It's completely scripted like their Saxon math program, and I love that! It has lots of review, explains all the rules, teaches coding, and comes with manipulatives. We are starting this next week!! I'm even tempted to do Saxon Phonics 2 with Isabella. She completed HOP 2, but I feel that she needs a better grasp of phonics rules.

And although Saxon Phonics covers spelling, we are still continuing with All About Spelling. It really is a great program and Anthony is doing well with it. Marco and Isabella are also moving along and enjoy the program. By the time the kids are done with Saxon and AAS, they are going to have such a great grasp of phonics and spelling!

Did I cover writing?? Well, after much consideration and back-and-forth, I took the plunge and bought the Institute for Excellence in Writing program. The IEW program always looked pretty awesome, but the price always seemed a little steep. But after hearing Andrew Pudewa speak at the homeschool conference, I was completely convinced! I bought the Teaching Writing: Structure and Style set, as well as two of their themed-based writing books: All Things Fun and Fascinating and Fables, Myths and Fairy Tales. To top it off, I'm also starting poetry memorization using IEW's Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization.

Is that all for language arts? I think so. The wonderful thing about homeschooling is finding what works for you and your children. I am completely thankful, however, that there are programs out there that lay out a plan. Most of the thinking is done for you and you know that you won't be missing on any core subjects.

Preparing, Purchasing, Planning.

So it's the time of year where most homeschool families start making lists and checking them twice. I'm not talking about Christmas (although for some of us, it almost seems like it)!! It's the time of year when homeschoolers get geared up for purchasing new materials for their upcoming school year. I know it. I've made the lists. I'm starting to get that planning itch. This year I'll be teaching a 4th grader, 2nd grader, K/1st grader, and a preschooler. On top of that I'll have a toddler and a newborn. No pressure. Nothing to worry about. I'm just keeping it cool.

6 KIDS!!! Really, people. I'm starting to get worried. Am I losing my mind? How can all of this possibly get done?? Ok....I'm keeping my cool again.

So for the past couple of weeks, I've worked on creating book lists for each of the kids. We are using Angelicum Academy, so it's nice to not have to make too many decisions on what curriculum to use. For the most part, we are using their recommendations and switching a few things with what's been working for us (mainly language arts and science). It's nice to be able to reuse so much of our curriculum and only have to purchase the worksheets or tests.

But I am starting a new wish list that doesn't include books or curricula. It's a schoolroom/supply wish list. And having it has meant keeping my eyes open for great deals and snatching them up when I can. As homeschoolers, I'm sure that you all realize how much it can take to get stocked up for school and how nice it is to have a fully functional and well supplied school room. Here are some of my wish list items.

PrismaColor Pencils Set of 120

My kids (mainly Isabella) are drawing and coloring fanatics. They go through crayons like there is no tomorrow. And colored pencils? Well, that's their favorite. I'm a big fan of PrismaColor and have used them since we began on this homeschool journey. I've been through quite a few sets and my kids have become quite snobbish because of them. "But these aren't the good pencils, Mami." Drives me nuts. But then I saw this set...so pretty! I figure we need them since they tend to last us a while. Just don't look at the price tag!!!! Lucky for me, I bought them for 50% off the retail price. Still a little steep, but well worth it!

Binding Machine

The amount I've spent at Kinko's getting books bound would have already paid for 2 of these machines. This year, I decided that my binding needs aren't going to decrease any time soon so purchasing a binding machine would probably be a smart choice! I'm actually super-excited about getting it (should arrive tomorrow!)!! I already have a bunch of stuff ready and lined up to be bound! The particular one I ordered will actually bind up to 500 pages!! Awesome!

Ikea Trofast System

Ok...so this one is a big more difficult to convince my hubby of letting me get. The system is actually not that expensive, but I think that sometimes I tend to go a little overboard in buying furniture to "outfit" our schoolroom. Regardless....it's on my wish list and I foresee me making a trip to Ikea by the end of the summer! Why do I need this awesome little organizing system? Because I've been inspired to use it for the kids' school and possibly start implementing a workbox system. I've been loosely doing it for a little bit and it's awesome! Here is a picture on how I would like to use them. I would love to tell you from whose blog this is, but I can't find it! If you know, please post a comment so I can credit them.

Apple MacPro Computer

Ok...so this one is really pushing the limits. But you must understand that I have computer envy due to my hubby's awesome MacBook Pro. I don't need a laptop, but I do need a new desktop. My computer is older than most of my kids!!! It still works, although pretty slow, so I can't complain completely. But eventually I will need to get it replaced. I'm just holding out until my computer blows up...which it is on the verge of doing. I'm surprised I can even post all these pictures. I have a caveman computer (although I got the screen replaced, so at first glance it looks newer).

I'll stop there for my wish list. It seems like every item keeps getting more and more expensive. Next thing I'll post for my wish list is a Porsche....what mom doesn't need an awesome little car from keeping her from feeling like she's turning into one of those homeschoolers. Wait....isn't being in your early 30's too soon for a mid-life crisis?

Elementary Planner.

How has your organization been going this year so far? I know many homeschoolers are coming to the end of their year. In our home, we homeschool year-round with our new school year beginning usually in early August. We've been doing this since the beginning and I love it. It just works for us. Taking weeks off as we need them and having a longer break in July. I find that it keeps the kids sharper and my house less chaotic. Does that make sense?

Anyways. I am a big believer is having a daily schedule. We use Managers of Their Homes to help us manage our day to day activity. It works wonderfully! I tend to be flexible with it, however, as I find that you kind of have to be when you have a lot of little ones running around. But things usually get done in the same order every day, whether we start at 8:30am or 9am. If you want to check out my post on my schedule, click here! It's been tweaked a bit since we have added and taken activities away, but the basics are the same.

Now this year, I had decided to give my kids their own planners to help build responsibility and good habits. I ordered some cute student planners from Pflaum especially for the primary grades. We used them quite a bit, but stopped about half year. Although great planners, they were too busy. A place for notes, spelling words, and all sorts of extra activities were causing havoc in my mind as I would write down their assignments for the day. And since they was little space for all their subjects (the planner is in a weekly format), I was getting frustrated.

So I began using my own lesson/assignment planner and the kids had been checking off everything in that. But it got old with the kids fighting over who my planner and I was ready to let them each have their own planner again. After searching high and low for a daily assignment planner that met our needs and always coming up short, I decided to make our own.

So if you need an elementary planner for your kids, feel free to use mine! Or easily create your own using mine as a template. I don't mind!

Elementary Planner

The subjects on our planners reflect our use of Angelicum Academy. If you want me to email you an editable copy, just leave a comment and I can send a Word document. I had our student planner bound, so the kids each have their own books.

That's my homeschool help for today! Enjoy!!

A Little Occupied.

It's been a while since I've blogged and in my defense, I'm shouting "Life Happens!" But I do have some pictures to share to keep you updated on some of the things that have been keeping us busy.

School Lessons

Of course, our school lessons take precedence over much of our lives. Here we have Marco working on some map skills as he memorizes the continents and oceans of the world. This is part history and part geography and lots of fun! If only history and geography were our only subjects to study...but we still have math, science, reading, Latin, spelling, grammar, and all the rest!!

Family Fun Nights

So you wonder how we spend our weekends around here? Well, movie night is at the top of the list (In this case we were watching "Zoom"). So it's either blog the night away or spend some time with the hubby and kids with lots of popcorn and drinks. I think you know which won! But since we've been without cable for quite some time now, we all look forward to watching a movie together on our giant wall. It's a movie theater experience!

Vacation Time

We have been known to take a few days off here and there. This time we decided to go to Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. Perhaps this wasn't the most perfect family vacation....lots of walking, not many hands-on activities and little children don't mix too well with us. But we still learned a bunch and got to see some really neat things. Do I recommend at trip there? Ask hubby and he would say, "No!" Ask me and I say, "Try it with older kids." Ask the kids and they'll say, "Go to Disney World instead."

Field Trips

There's lots of opportunities to go on field trips around here. This time we settled on taking the kids to the apple orchard. Fun? Oh yes. The kids loved it!! Fun for mom? Not in 95 degree weather with a fussy baby. We'll try again next year and pray for cooler weather. Until then, I'm up to my eyeballs in apples! Any recipes??



American Girl Club
We are still going strong with American Girl Club. Isabella loves it and I love getting to do fun crafts with the girls. This time we hosted. Kaya was the inspiration for our corn husk dolls...a fun craft!



Birthday Fun
With 5 kids in the house, it's only a matter of time before it's birthday time for someone. This time we celebrated Anthony's 5th birthday!!! It was a blast and my little guy had a great time. He is a blessing to our family! And we all loved the cake too! Happy Birthday big guy!