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You are here: Home / Archives for home education

home education

Summer Fun School

May 20, 2013 By Valerie Mcclintick Leave a Comment

We no longer technically homeschool over the Summer.
Ever since joining a local charter school we’ve decided to try and stick to the Monday-Friday, September through June schedule, but that doesn’t mean we don’t learn over the Summer.

If you’re looking for some simple ways to encourage learning over the Summer break here is a list of some Summer Fun School activities:

Lately I’ve noticed that my children have been enjoying skits and plays. Sometimes in their Language Arts curriculum or with certain books they are encouraged to act out a story and they are so very happy to do so. I recently looked up some fun 2-3 person skits on Puppet Resources and thought I might keep a few on hand for those “boring” Summer days.


Summer of Photography!
Why not take your kids and your camera out on a daily hike with a goal. ABC’s in photos. Only pink things. Or have children arrange vacation photos with their own captions. There are some great ideas at Montessori-Now for using photography over the Summer.

penpals

Want to keep kids writing over the Summer?
Enlist a willing friend or family member to become Silly Story Penpals!
Initiate the conversation with your children writing a silly story then asking the penpal to return the
favor. This is a great way to sneak in some creative writing, penmanship, and basic language arts skills, all while having fun.

Space Crafts and Activities
Summer is a great time to learn astronomy! From Summer nights spent looking at the stars, to the Persides meteror showers in August, you’ll find some great Summer opportunities to learn all about our universe. We actually use this Meteror Shower Ap to keep track and be reminded of them.
If you really want to get into Space over the Summer, consider investing in a telescope, or participating in a local stargazer event.

museum

Don’t forget about your local and semi-local museums!
Here is a list of US Museums by State.
There are so many wonderful exhibits to see, and it’s a great way for children to get excited about learning.

Chalk Pastels
This Summer we’ve ordered A Simple Start in Chalk Pastels, which includes 45 step by step tutorials. I plan on pulling it out whenever we hear “I’m bored,” or “It’s too hot,” ect…
Maybe by the end of Summer we’ll have a nice collection of artwork to start the year off.

doodle art bible

If you’re not looking for a full on set of art lessons,
why not print out a few of these adorable Color-in-Quotes!
A set of pretty markers and a stack of these will go a long way on a HOT Summer afternoon!

summer reading chart

Summer Reading!
Here is a handy printable your children can use to keep track of their Summer Reading. We laminated ours and used a dry erase marker. A special follow up worksheet is included as well. At the start of Summer make a goal, and when it is reached have an ice cream night with the family!

Summer Science Activities
Our ES brought some fun Soda bottle science activities last week, and the kids were loving every minute. They made tornados, dancing raisins, and even a shooting rocket bottle.

These science books include so many different science experiments you can do with your kiddos over the Summer, and they won’t even realize they are learning!

I’m sure there are TONS of other ideas out there,
I love how relaxed learning can be during the Summer!

Siggy

Filed Under: Homeschool Curriculum, homeschool printables, Reading Printables, Summer School Tagged With: activities, crafts, home education, homeschool, ideas, learning, printables, resources, summer, summer learning

Envision Math: TOS Review

June 13, 2012 By Valerie Mcclintick 6 Comments

Math.

It must be taught.

It is certainly NOT my favorite subject.

In fact, once I hit High School,
it became an every night struggle for me
just to get my assignments turned in.

You remember public High School Math don’t you?
Late nights, dimly lit desk lamps,
and sometimes a peek at the odd answers in the back of the book.

You are laughing cause you know you did this too.
My teacher never assigned the odd numbers anyway

(there’s some classic rationalization for ya)

Anyway.

Fast Forward 15 some-odd years and here I am:

Homeschooling

And trying to make sure my children receive a good foundation in Math,
without all the dimly lit late night cram sessions.

Math Curriculum has been a hard one for me.
I’ve used a different publisher for each year that I’ve taught.

This will be my second year using Envision Math.

pearson homeschool

Envision Math is published by a company called Pearson.
You may have heard of them. :)
Well, Pearson is now branching out into the Homeschool community with products tailored toward home educators, and a new website to help get the word out.

PearsonHomeschool.com

Tip: Sign up for their newsletter to be entered to win free curriculum!

From what I hear, the homeschool website is pretty new,
and there aren’t really any “sample” pages of the different curriculum
packages. So today I thought I’d share with you lots of photos
from our new Envision Math Grade 4 Math book.

To be frank, even when there are a few sample pages,
choosing a math curriculum can be tough so I added in some thoughts along the way.
So grab a cup of joe and “virtually” flip through the pages with me!

And just a little back drop here;
Envison Math comes in a Homeschool bundle for $99.99
The bundle includes the following:
Student Edition, MindPoint® Quiz Show CD-ROM, and Teacher Edition CD-ROM

Table of Contents

Topic 1: Numeration
Topic 2: Adding and Subtracting Whole Numbers
Topic 3: Multiplication Meanings and Facts
Topic 4: Division Meanings and Facts
Topic 5: Multiplying by 1-Digit Numbers
Topic 6: Patterns and Expressions
Topic 7: Multiplying by 2-Digit Numbers
Topic 8: Dividing by 1-Digit Divisors
Topic 9: Lines, Angles, and Shapes
Topic 10: Understanding Fractions
Topic 11: Adding and Subtracting Fractions
Topic 12: Understanding Decimals
Topic 13: Operations with Decimals
Topic 14: Area and Perimeter
Topic 15: Solids
Topic 16: Measurement, Time, and Temperature
Topic 17: Data and Graphs
Topic 18: Equations
Topic 19: Transformations, Congruence, and Symmetry
Topic 20: Probability

You can see that everything is VERY clearly laid out.
You could easily hit just the topics you are wanting to teach for the day.

Problem Solving Handbook
(Love this….I can hear myself now….”Check your Handbook!”)

Lessons:

Start with Review:

New Lesson across the Top:
I believe this is standard with Envision Math.

Practice:

Connections:
Every so often there is an additional page to lay some algebraic ground work.
I hear this is very important!

E-learning:
I appreciate that the INSTRUCTIONS are geared toward the child.
Children can easily count some of this time as technology learning as well.

Testing:
There are tests at the end of each unit.

Reteaching:
Now this is something to be excited about! Detailed reteaching points for trouble spots on the test. What a great way to encourage mastery.

So that was the Student Text.
The Teachers Guide and all other printables and resources
come on a CD Rom.

Here are some screen shots:

There are learning center activities, games, vocabulary cards and much much more.
Everything is organized by the exact lesson the child is on.

This is very handy for finding a specific help.
But not so handy if you just want to PRINT ALL.

This is disappointing because I would really like
to QUICKLY print up the Answer Key for the daily assignments but alas,
There is no PRINT ALL button.
Darn.

Also included in the Homeschool Bundle is the MindPoint GameShow Software.

This is basically a game for children to be tested on each specific lesson.
When children get a wrong answer, there is no explanation as to WHY the answer was wrong, but it does show the correct answer.

So it’s more like a pretest then a learning tool. As a teacher you can pull reports to see what scores they got in each category (not specific questions) to help reteach before moving on to the next topic.

So there you have it!
What are my thoughts?


Pros:

Non-consumable…..meaning you have your child write their answers on a separate sheet of paper Also meaning that you get to use it again and again for all of your children.

Reteaching opportunities are very easy to implement.

Problem Solving Handbook & E-Learning encourage child to initiate finding their own answers.

Lots of additional teaching resources & printables.

Cons:

No Physical Teacher Guide. Yes there is an e-guide, but unfortunately it’s not a simple “print” either. You must put in the CDrom, and access each file individually and choose which you want to print. (i.e. you print one page at a time) That is simply too much work when you’re paying for a product. The Teacher Guide should come as one continuous file for easy access and grading purposes.

Software game was a bit obnoxious when children get a wrong answer. It was like those game shows with a sarcastic host, and might be off-putting and discouraging to children who are struggling with a certain topic. There is no “Explanation” button to reteach, they simply move to the next question.

Cost. Based on what I have budgeted for Math in the past, I would say that Envision Math is on the higher end of a math curriculum.

Hope you enjoyed our virtual journey!
We’ll be using this text over the years to come….
I’m actually pretty tempted to have my children write in their name and year on the inside cover.

Oh how that brings back memories!

You can read more about other grade levels of Envision Math
and other Pearson published curriculums here.

Photobucket

Disclaimer: As part of the TOS review crew I was sent free product for review purposes. All opinions stated are my own.

Filed Under: Math Tools, Reviews Tagged With: envision math, grade 4, home education, home educator, pearson homeschool, public school, text books

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Kindergarten Math Worksheets

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I am a Christian mother of four, with over 13-years experience homeschooling in Southern Oregon. The resources and products I create are designed to keep the prep to a minimum while also bringing a little educational fun to your classroom

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