Free Reading Time

Curriculum- English

Rod and Staff is my favorite English program ever!  This is Nate's 3rd year using it and Mason's 1st.  It's a very thorough program that teaches traditional grammar, capitalization, punctuation, letter writing, story proof-reading, poetry, story writing, and many other useful skills.  I really love that it is christian based and uses a lot of the Bible as well as historical and scientific facts.  If you are going to diagram a sentence, you might as well diagram something from the Bible :)

The books are fairly inexpensive and include a hardback student's book, a teacher's book, test booklet, and an extra worksheet practice booklet.  It's also easy to find them used.  Ebay is a great resource for used textbooks.

Weekly Review

Week of August 22, 2011

This was a really good week! We are finally into a good routine.Lexii and Kyle started school this week too. It's a little crazy with 2 in college and homeschooling a jr. high aged child and 1 in elementary school. We definitely need another computer, though. Lexii has her own laptop and that helps, but Kyle desperately needs one. His whole math class is online- no text book at all. Nate also started an art class taught by another homeschool mom. He didn't want to do it, but it turns out he loves it! We also had an orchestra meeting this week. Nate will be starting on the violin. They have about 6 kids in the class and are working on a holiday concert. In the spring they are going to do Celtic fiddling. I love that this will be during the day instead of another thing in the evening. Hopefully he can keep up with both the violin and the piano.

We also just got back from an awesome family camping trip. It's so fun when all the cousins can play together and we can just spend time with each other. There was plenty of eating, four wheeling, and fishing too. We are excited for the one next year already. Life is good at the Wennergren house :)

Curriculum- Morning Devotional

This year, we decided to have a theme- Fulfilling All Righteousness. We have never done this before, but I think our family will really benefit from it. I'm planning on implementing it through our morning devotional, Old Testament studies, F.H.E., mini unit studies, and anywhere else I can fit it in! It looks like we will probably hit every significant milestone this year- baptism, Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthood, a mission, and marriage. I really think this theme will help us to stay focused on the significance of these events.

For our morning devotional, we are using a lot of resources from LDS.org. We start the day working on hymns. It's easy to download them from the music section of the site. We sometimes download conference talks and articles from church magazines.

Preach My Gospel is another great resource. We will also be using the Duty To God , For The Strength of Youth, and Faith in God books.

Scheduling Our Day

To have the most productive day, scheduling is a must. We have so many things that we want to learn so putting it down on "paper" helps us to be more accountable and able to budget our time better.

Monday/Wednesday Schedule

Morning Devotional
Pledge
Penmanship
Journaling
Old Testament Studies
Personal and Group Scripture Study
Math
Spelling
English
Reading
LUNCH
Music
Science
Typing
Group Read A loud
FINISH UP ANYTHING NOT ALREADY FINISHED- CORRECT WORK

Tuesday/Friday Schedule

Morning Devotional
Pledge
Penmanship
Journaling
Old Testament Studies
Personal and Group Scripture Study
Math
Spelling
English
Reading
LUNCH
Music
History/Geography
Spanish
Group Read A loud
Art with Mason
FINISH UP ANYTHING NOT ALREADY FINISHED- CORRECT WORK

Thursday Schedule

1st/3rd weeks- Swimming Group
2nd/4th weeks- Science Club
Morning devotional
Penmanship
Journaling
Scripture Study
Math
Music
English
Spelling
Reading
THE AFTERNOON IS USED TO FINISH UP ANYTHING THAT DIDN'T GET FINISHED EARLIER IN THE WEEK

I will also be throwing in a couple of mini unit studies throughout the year. Mason will have baptism and the Word of Wisdom. Nate will have the priesthood and a health one.

What do we do for fun and socialization? Wednesdays there is a park day that we attend, Nate has a monthly youth group, and there are always tons of field trips that we deviate from our schedule to participate in. Nate is also taking an 8 week art class on Tuesday mornings. We will also be participating in an Economics Fair, Science Fair, Spelling Bee, Geography Fair, Field Day, and Talent Show.

Even though we look good on paper, there are always things that keep us from getting a 100% done 100% of the time. That is why we school year round. It alleviates the stress when we take time off for field trips or "teacher prep days".

Our "New and Improved" Workbox System.

Let me start with saying, I love workboxes! If you don't know what workboxes are- google Sue Patrick. She is the inventor of these wonderful little creations! Many people have taken her main idea and come up with variations. I am one of those people. I love so much of what she does, but not all of it so I have come up with what works for us. Some people use shoe boxes (we used to), file folders, cereal boxes, manila envelopes, etc. This is our current version. They help me to stay more organized and on top of things. The kids love them because they can "see" how much work they need to do for the day. I never have to worry about someone loosing a book or something because it's all contained to their carts. This current system was a little pricey, but it was well worth it. Our old system was shoe boxes (scroll down to the bottom of this page) and I hated how the books didn't lie flat. The drawers of the new system allow the books to lie flat and actually hold a lot. The cart has a sturdy shelf to hold extra supplies on top and it can be wheeled around if needed.

How this all works- The boys start with #1 and work through all the work boxes by the end of the day. As they finish 1, they remove the Velcro # and put it on the card attached to the side of their cart. When all 12 are complete, they are done with school. Ideally, they work in order. Every once in a while they might only have 10 minutes until lunch and the next box will take a lot longer so instead, they do a different box out of order that would only take 10 minutes. If it's an activity that won't fit into the box (like practicing the piano or typing on the computer) the drawer will contain a card that tells them what to do. Easy Peasy, right!

The Dreaded School Room

I'm thinking it's time to clean the school room. Some how the piles have just grown and shelves are over-flowing. I'm not really sure how this happened because our 2 week summer vacation turned into 4. You would think that a room not used would stay clean, right? Well, for some reason it has become the dumping ground for clutter.

We are scheduled to start the new school year on August 1st so I better get busy. Sorry, I'm not going to show anymore pictures until it's clean. Way to embarrassing! I think the calendar says it all...