Mandi Ehman's Blog, page 111
June 1, 2013
Giveaway: Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for iPad or iPad Mini
While the modern love triangle – you, your significant other and your tablet – can become a reality in any home, technology can also be used to strengthen relationships, like this adorable remarriage proposal that Logitech helped orchestrate and capture:
Logitech wants to inspire people to use their technology for good, through products that simplify your life and make you more productive, like the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for iPad or iPad Mini.
It’s the sleek and seamless companion for your tablet that not only serves as wireless keyboard but also as a superthin protective cover.
The Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover:
fully protects the touch screen on your iPad
includes a Bluetooth wireless keyboard to help you type with quiet precision
frees up screen space on your iPad
lets you work faster thanks to shortcut keys for commands like copy, paste, undo and more
has up to 6 months of battery life on a full charge
automatically wakes your iPad when you open the cover—and puts it to sleep when you close it
Enter to Win
This week, Logitech is giving one lucky Life Your Way reader an Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for their iPad or iPad Mini!
To enter, fill out the form below:
This giveaway ends at 11:59 p.m. ET on 6/7. The winner will be selected randomly and notified by email, and this post will be updated with their name as well. Open to U.S. residents 18 years old and above. Logitech provided an Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for our team in exchange for this post, but all opinions are 100% mine.
Giveaway: Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for iPad or iPad Mini
© 2010-2013 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved
Weekend Reading: June 1, 2013
source: mandiehman on Instagram
We headed to the park on Thursday for our first summer park day with our CC campus, and of course it was the hottest day of the week, breaking 90 degrees. But our favorite part of this particular park is actually not the playground itself but a large cluster of trees where the girls like to build forts, forage and hang out, and it was much cooler in there, so they were happy!
This weekend, we’re mostly counting down the days until our ultrasound on Tuesday, since we’re all so anxious to find out whether Baby Ehman is a boy or a girl!
Here are some of my favorite posts from this week. As always, check out what I’m reading to see the other posts that make me stop and think. You’ll find new posts all week long!
Family {Summer, Summer, Summertime}
7 Ways Not to Let the Summer Slip By | The Happiest Home
Your Definitive Summer Slow Down Guide | Be More with Less
95 Things to do with Kids Under Five | Finding Joy
Motherhood {Encouragement When You’re Weary}
When Strong Mamas Feel Quite Weak | A Holy Experience
“30 Days to Yelling Less Project” Round 3! | The Orange Rhino Challenge
Work {Sometimes It’s Just About Working Hard}
Your Blog: Uncovering the Secret to a Successful Business | Savvy Blogging
A Hierarchy of Failure (From Brave to Shameful) | Seth’s Blog
My Grandfather Had It Right All Along. When Work Brings Joy. | Finding Joy
This didn’t fit in any of this week’s categories, but in the face of growing controversy around international adoption ethics, Jen Hatmaker wrote a series of posts, and this one — about orphan care outside of adoption — is so, so important!
Have a great weekend!
Mandi Ehman is the founder and publisher behind Life Your Way and the co-author of All in Good Time, as well as a wife and the homeschooling mom to four beautiful girls. She lives with her family on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia and loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.
Weekend Reading: June 1, 2013
© 2010-2013 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved
CommentsMy kids use to love those swings when they were younger. I ... by Victoria Huizinga
May 31, 2013
Join Us for the June Photo Hunt {For the Whole Family!}
The following post is from Krystal of Krystal Griffin Photography:
Ah! Summer is finally here! Here in the mid-Atlantic it seemed like it would never come.
My family and I are starting some fun and creative projects that will last throughout the summer, one of which is the list you see here (available in the image above or in printable form here). Think of this list as a photo scavenger hunt or bucket list. There is one item for each day, though they can be done in any order and you aren’t limited to a “one a day” rule. You have great flexibility in where to find these items. Be creative and just have fun with it.
And each month through the summer (June, July and August) we’ll bring you a new one!
Our family is going to be working on these lists together, so feel free to pursue this however it works for you. You might work on it yourself or give it to a child/group of children to work on. It’s accessible for anyone and open to your own interpretation. The printable includes two hunt lists per page, so you can share one with a friend or keep the extra in the car for while you are out.
Click here to download or print the June Photo Hunt list {or right click the image above and select Save As… to save it to your computer!}.
As for what we’re going to do with all the photos we collect, I’m working on some ideas for how we will display them when we’re done. We’ve talked about a small printed album, a Flickr set or a Facebook album, and I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with as well!
Will you be participating in the hunt? By yourself or with your kids?
Krystal is a stay-at-home mom of four children, ages 4-9, whom she homeschools. She is acutely aware of how fast her children are changing and is passionate about keeping family memories alive through photographs. Now and then she gets to help other families’ bottle up their own memories at Krystal Griffin Photography.
Join Us for the June Photo Hunt {For the Whole Family!}
© 2010-2013 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved
Dear Readers… + Desktop Calendar {June 2013}
To download the image above to use as your desktop wallpaper, simply click the image (or this link: June 2013 Desktop Calendar) and choose Save Image As… Then, open the picture, right click and choose Set as desktop background.
Dear Readers…
Despite the heat and humidity it brings in our corner of the country, I really do love summer, and I’m so excited to be heading into the months of ice cream cones, fireflies, late evening walks and park days with friends.
This summer, my personal goal is to connect with local friends weekly despite our busy schedule and the list of projects I have lined up before our newest little one arrives in the fall!
We’re also going to let our older girls choose activities from this year’s 101 Ways to Embrace Summer List each week. I’m not sure we’re up for doing an activity every day all summer long (especially since we’re still homeschooling), but three activities a week feels manageable and like a good way to create an intentional, fun-filled summer without overwhelming mom and dad in the process!
Personally, I’d like to get back to taking photos of the girls with my actual camera this summer. While I love my iPhone and the convenience of being able to capture memories wherever we are (and through Instagram, share them as well!), there’s just something different about capturing a collection of shots on the real camera that I really miss.
As I mentioned last week, Life Your Way is going through a transition this summer as well. You’ll still find great content — including practical tips, projects and ideas for intentional living — but you’ll also find more personal stories and insights from my own life. I’m excited about the change and what the future holds as we get back to our roots!
Finally, now that I’m through the first trimester of my pregnancy (which left me wanting to curl up in a cave somewhere and hibernate until it was over!), we’ll be restarting our weekly newsletter with even more exclusive content. If you’re not subscribed already, you can click here to sign up.
As always, thank you for being part of the site — it wouldn’t be the same without you!
Mandi Ehman is the founder and publisher behind Life Your Way and the co-author of All in Good Time, as well as a wife and the homeschooling mom to four beautiful girls. She lives with her family on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia and loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.
Dear Readers… + Desktop Calendar {June 2013}
© 2010-2013 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved
On Living a Good Life in Spite of Worry & Fear
This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Allstate for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.
source: Mandi Ehman
With today’s global community — made possible by the internet, 24/7 news channels and social media sites — it seems like we’re more aware than ever about the inherent danger of simply living here on planet earth.
Whether by mad men or freak accidents, poor decisions or natural disasters, people are hurt or killed every day. And as a mother, there are days that that terrifies me.
How can I protect these precious girls I’ve been given against all of the unknowns? Do I keep them wrapped in bubble wrap and isolated at home to prevent tragedy? And which is more important, anyway — protecting them or teaching them to really live?
Those are questions I wrestle with often, but at the end of the day I’m a proponent of free range parenting in general — of letting my kids explore and be kids, of teaching them to interact with the world rather than be afraid of it, and of letting them discover their own limits — even though, yes, those things carry risks.
But that doesn’t mean those decisions always come easily!
(In fact, as I’m writing this post, our two middle daughters are playing tag with big, long sticks in their hands, and because I do have my limits, I asked them to please either walk or put the sticks down before they run!)
source: Mandi Ehman
Life involves risk and chance and going outside of your comfort zone, and a life lived in fear isn’t really much of a life at all. Instead, it’s the moments when we take risks and try something new — when our girls conquer the monkey bars or climb high in a tree or learn to swim in the deep end of the pool — that make us feel most alive.
And while the risk is always there, always in the back of our minds, always being weighed against the rewards, it’s those moments we anticipate and celebrate, that we hope will provide the foundation for a life of healthy risk-taking, of pushing the boundaries and striving to do more!
This post is brought to you by the Allstate Good Life. Allstate isn’t just an insurance company for the bad things that happen in life; they’re here to help you celebrate and embrace the good life as well!
How do you balance the fear of something bad happening with truly living?
Mandi Ehman is the founder and publisher behind Life Your Way and the co-author of All in Good Time, as well as a wife and the homeschooling mom to four beautiful girls. She lives with her family on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia and loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.
On Living a Good Life in Spite of Worry & Fear
© 2010-2013 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved
May 30, 2013
7 Quick Ways to Add Seasonal Decor to Your Home
The following post is from Lisa of The Pennington Point:
source: Shop 24
As much as I love changing the inside of the house to match the seasons going on outside, it can be hard to find the time. So, I have some quick ways to make small changes that help freshen up the house when I can’t stop and make big changes.
Here are my favorite ways to add seasonal decor to my home:
1. Pillows
Throw pillows are an easy way to make a quick change to a room. I have a large box in storage filled with seasonal pillows that I can just switch around when the weather changes.
2. Flowers
source: My Blessed Life
Fresh or faux, flowers can brighten up a room. I like to pick up cheap flowers at the grocery store and put them on the table for a summery pick-me-up.
3. Wreaths
source: The Mombot
Like the pillows, I have several wreaths in storage that I change with the season. Of course, occasionally I see a cute new wreath idea, and it’s a fun, easy project that breathes new life into the entry to my home.
4. Chalkboards
source: The Pennington Point
One of my favorite thing about the chalkboard craze is that they are quick and easy to change. In half an hour, I can have a new quote or saying on the wall.
5. Books
source: Country Living
I love to use books around in my home. Each season I will grab a few from the shelf, looking for either a certain color cover or a themed topic and set them on the coffee table. Easy breezy.
6. Family Pictures
source: Ideias de Decoração
I just love having family pictures around. I have a few frames that are easy to change out the pictures so that I can slip a new photo in whenever I want.
7. Centerpiece
source: The Pennington Point
Changing out your table’s centerpiece is the fastest way to change the feel of a room. Whisk away the bowl of lemons and replace it with a favorite collection. Bam! Done.
Going from season to season inside the home doesn’t have to take a lot of time and money. With just a few quick switches, you can go from spring to summer in no time.
Do you like to change your décor seasonally?
Lisa winds through her little Texas farm house every night, tucking in her nine homeschooled children and turning off lights. Then she scans the rooms & makes a mental list of what she wants to rearrange, restore or paint. Her husband of 25 years hangs on for the ride while she blogs about it over at The Pennington Point.
7 Quick Ways to Add Seasonal Decor to Your Home
© 2010-2013 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved
Boy or Girl: What’s Your Guess? {Enter to Win a $25 Amazon.com Gift Card!}
source: mandiehman on Instagram
It’s hard to believe we’re almost to the halfway point in my pregnancy already (it seems like just yesterday that I got that surprise positive!), but we are, and next Tuesday I’m scheduled for my “big” ultrasound to determine the gender of this baby.
Just kidding…I really do know that that is not the main purpose of the ultrasound, and I’m doing my best to prepare myself in case baby doesn’t cooperate, but we’re anxious for the sneak peek anyway!
My appointment is at 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning, which is insanely early given our 45-minute drive to town, but we’re planning to wake up at the crack of dawn and head to town together. We’ve done our last two ultrasounds as a family, and since this is likely our last baby, I don’t want the girls to miss the chance to see their newest sibling in utero!
If all goes according to plan, we’re hoping to have the tech keep the gender a secret for just a bit longer and seal the results in an envelope for us so that we can do a big reveal later on, inspired by Hayley’s reveal last year! We’re going to make a full day of it, with breakfast out, a mini photo shoot with Krystal and our first shopping trip for baby, and it should be a special day.
Since the anticipation is enough to make me crazy, I thought it would be fun to hear your gender guesses as well, and two lucky guessers will each win a $25 Amazon.com gift card.
Before you guess, a few things you should know:
We have four girls. {Does that mean girls are the only gender we make?}
This pregnancy has been much different than all of my others. That could mean it’s a boy or just that I’m a lot older this time than I was with my last pregnancy! For example:
My morning sickness started out slow and then increased rapidly (scarily so!) before dropping off just as quickly as it began, much earlier than I expected.
I’ve had a bitter taste in my mouth off and on for the last couple of months, which is apparently a common pregnancy symptom known as dysgeusia, even though I’ve never experienced it before.
Similarly, this is the first pregnancy where I’ve had melasma (also known as the mask of pregnancy) with darkening skin on my cheekbones and upper lip.
Rather than having beautifully clear skin as with my other pregnancies, I’m breaking out regularly.
And finally, we didn’t try for a boy, don’t feel like we need a boy and won’t be the least bit disappointed if it’s not a boy!
Let the guessing begin:
This giveaway ends at 11:59 p.m. ET on Monday, 6/3. The winners will be selected randomly and notified by email, and this post will be updated with their names as well. Open to U.S. residents 18 years old and above.
I’d also love to know if your pregnancies have been similar or different according to gender!
Mandi Ehman is the founder and publisher behind Life Your Way and the co-author of All in Good Time, as well as a wife and the homeschooling mom to four beautiful girls. She lives with her family on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia and loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.
Boy or Girl: What’s Your Guess? {Enter to Win a $25 Amazon.com Gift Card!}
© 2010-2013 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved
May 29, 2013
Homemade Tick & Mosquito Spray
source: Mandi Ehman
The tick population has been out of control at our house this year. The season started early and with a vengeance, and by the time we headed to Florida for our vacation, we were ready for a break from them.
Unfortunately, two-and-a-half weeks without mowing meant that our yard was quite jungle-like when we returned, and that meant that the ticks were even worse than they had been when we left. To the point that we flushed more than 30 ticks in a single day. {shudder}
I had randomly come across a homemade tick spray post on Facebook while we were gone, and a little more Googling identified three essential oils that have bug repellent properties: lemongrass, eucalyptus and peppermint. (Cloves is also high on the list, but I didn’t have any of that on hand, so I decided to stick with what I had.)
I then filled a 2-ounce spray bottle (from the travel toiletries section at Walmart) with water and added 10 drops of each oil. I wasn’t sure how the combo would smell, but thankfully, it smells amazing.
We sprayed the girls down from head to toe and sent them out to play, and for the first time since we’d gotten back we didn’t spend the day pulling off ticks. I did still find two ticks in our 7-year-old’s hair at bedtime, but she has long, thick hair, and I’m really not sure it’s fair to count that as a failure! (We’ve started making sure it’s in a ponytail whenever she goes out, and that helps as well.)
The spray also helps keep the mosquitoes away, which is good since our jungle-like yard also seemed to breed a scary size mosquito while we were gone.
We have found that we need to reapply it every few hours for it to stay effective, and I end up using about 0.5 ounce per application (for all four girls), but that still breaks down to a cost of about $0.60/day (assuming a cost of $6-7/bottle of oil), which is well worth it to us!
source: Mandi Ehman
Ingredients:
2 ounces of water
10 drops eucalyptus oil
10 drops lemongrass oil
10 drops peppermint oil
Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a spray bottle.
Spray each person generously. Be sure to have kids close their eyes before spraying their head and face.
Do you have ticks or mosquitoes at your house?
Mandi Ehman is the founder and publisher behind Life Your Way and the co-author of All in Good Time, as well as a wife and the homeschooling mom to four beautiful girls. She lives with her family on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia and loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.
Homemade Tick & Mosquito Spray is a post from Life Your Way
© 2010-2013 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved - This feed is provided for the convenience of Green Your Way subscribers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited. If you are reading this content elsewhere, please send an email to contact@yourway.net to let us know. Thanks.
7 Ways to Strengthen Your Child’s Math Skills This Summer
The following post is from Jennifer, a lifelong educator:
See all of the Homework Helps posts here.
Because American students lag behind much of the world on standardized tests, most schools are increasing the emphasis on math. Summer is a great time to help your child solidify the skills that they learned this past school year. In doing so, they’ll be more prepared for what’s to come. Parents can play a big part in giving their child an advantage in the classroom.
source: USDA.gov
Math instruction today focuses on understanding and application.
Memorizing basic facts is a starting place, not an end. Knowing that 5 + 5 = 10 is important, but it’s also critical that a child comprehends that you can “move one from the five on the left” and “give it to the one on the right”, resulting in 4 + 6 = 10. Talking about all the combinations that equal one number will help them understand numbers as more than something to simply be memorized.
Study numbers in everyday life.
When children work with numbers in everyday life, they better see how numbers and groups fit together.
Here are some ways to give your child those opportunities.
1. Have your child help you in the kitchen. As they measure, talk about fractions and equivalent measurements. For example, ¼ + ¼ = ½.
2. When you go to the grocery store, discuss the capacities of containers: ounces, pounds, cups, quarts, gallons, liters, etc.
3. Let your kids bag the produce, estimate the weight, then verify on the scale. Take it one step further and have them estimate the cost.
4. Use the items on the shelves to reinforce the arrays of multiplication. For example, three boxes of cereal across the shelf times five boxes deep is the perfect picture of 3 x 5.
5. Have your child explain how they arrived at the answer. Then, stretch their thinking by asking, “How else could you do it?”
6. Give your child every opportunity to work with real money in real situations. Comparison shop the best value, which reinforces addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. When it’s time to pay, use cash and let them make sure you received the correct change.
7. When your child is learning division, teach them to check their work by making a poster with these quick checks:
The number is divisible by:
2 if the last digit is even.
3 if the sum of the digits is divisible by three.
4 if the last two digits form a number that is divisible by four.
5 if the last digit is 5 or 0.
6 if the number is divisible by both two and three.
7 if you can double the last digit and subtract the sum from the rest of the numbers, and get a number that is divisible by seven.
8 if the last three digits form a number that is divisible by eight.
9 if the sum of all the digits is divisible by nine.
10 if the number ends in a zero.
What best helps your child understand how numbers fit together?
Jennifer is passionate about children and education. She homeschooled her two sons for five years, established and directed a Christian school in Maryland for 20 years, and currently teaches in a public school in a Chicago suburb. She loves investing in relationships and delights in every moment that she spends with her family.
7 Ways to Strengthen Your Child’s Math Skills This Summer is a post from Life Your Way
© 2010-2013 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved - This feed is provided for the convenience of Family Your Way subscribers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited. If you are reading this content elsewhere, please send an email to contact@yourway.net to let us know. Thanks.
May 28, 2013
2013-2014 Homeschool Curriculum Plans
source: Mandi Ehman
We school year-round because of the flexibility it gives us to take time off as needed throughout the official school year, both for planned breaks (like Christmas and our recent trip to Florida) and for the unexpected — a benefit I always point out when the girls complain about doing school in the summer.
However, last week the girls’ piano teacher asked our oldest if we were almost done school for the year, and Peyton replied, “Well, we do most of our school in the summer since we don’t do as much the rest of the year.” Aye yay yay! Not quite what I meant when I explained it, and I’m really hoping the piano teacher isn’t friends with the homeschool liaison at the school board, LOL!
Homeschool Philosophy
I’ve described our educational philosophy as a mix of classical and unschooling, which is still the label that fits for us. For us, this basically means we believe that:
subjects should be taught as part of a whole rather than individual entities
it’s more important to master the basics than to cover as much as possible
memory work provides the pegs that future learning is built around
teaching our kids how to learn is more important than what we actually teach
free play, boredom and exploration are as important as academics
children are capable than so much more than we give them credit for
As part of this eclectic approach, we blend resources from Classical Conversations, Sonlight and Peace Hill Press, as you’ll see below.
This year we’ll have a kindergartner (we do two years of kindergarten for our fall babies, so our 5.5-year-old will start her second year), a 2nd grader and a 3rd grader. For last year’s post, read our 2012-2013 curriculum plans and my mid-year update.
Classical Conversations
Classical Conversations is both a model and method that focuses on the three stages of the trivium. At the Foundations level (elementary age), we focus on memory work in 7 subjects (timeline, history, math, science, English grammar, Latin and geography) as well as fine arts.
What I love most about this program is that our family will continue to study the same information in a three-year cycle. This means that our kids will be studying the same topics as each other at an age-appropriate level, which makes the idea of homeschooling all four of them in just a few short years a lot less stressful.
While CC works best within the campus model, where memory work is introduced weekly by a tutor and then drilled at home, we’re actually taking a break from our campus this year for two main reasons: 1) We’ll be welcoming a new baby in the fall, and I know that my desire will be to hunker down and enjoy those first months without the pressure of attending CC each week, so it seems silly to invest the money if we’re not going to attend faithfully.
2) Because of the distance our campus is from our home, it’s a big commitment each week, and we’ve had to step down from some other activities in order to fit it into our schedule. Taking a break from CC will give us the opportunity to participate in a homeschool gymnastics class as well as a field trip group with our church, which we’re excited about!
We will, however, still be doing CC at home each week. My plan is to introduce the new memory work each Monday (I’ve been a tutor at our campus before, so I’ll probably follow the official CC methodology for that) and do the science and fine arts activities at home whenever we can as well. I’m also hoping to get the big girls’ involved in setting up our tri-fold board each week and helping their sisters practice each day as part of our move toward more independent learning.
Resources:
Classical Conversations Foundation Guide*
Classical Acts & Facts Timeline Cards
Cycle 2 Geography Trivium Table
Cycle 2 Resources CD*
*We’ll be using the old version of the memory work since we already have those resources and will be working on our own at home.
source: Mandi Ehman
Reading
Last year was a breakthrough year for us in reading, and both our 7- and 8-year-old are now reading chapter books, which is exciting to see, especially given where we were at the beginning of last year.
We’ll be finishing the Explode the Code program with the older girls (either over the summer or in early fall, depending on how fast we get through it), while our kindergartener is just getting started with the series (and loving it).
The older girls read for 20 minutes twice a day, and while they sometimes read out loud to me or their sisters, they mostly read to themselves these days. We’ll be adding the I Can Read It books from Sonlight and BOB Books to our kindergartner’s daily work, which she’ll read out loud to one of us for practice.
Resources:
Explode the Code
I Can Read It Series
BOB Books
Math
We abandoned Singapore 2 in the fall last year and switched to Teaching Textbooks for our two oldest instead. They’re working at the same level (3rd grade), and they should finish that over the summer and move into 4th grade in the fall.
Our kindergartner flew through the Singapore Earlybird program this past year, and she’s now working through Singapore 1. We’ve found that the transition from Singapore 1 to Teaching Textbooks 3 (the lowest level) went pretty smoothly, so that’s our plan with her as well. (We’re not rushing her at all, but I have a feeling she’ll be our math whiz because so far it’s all coming very easily to her!)
I really like the Life of Fred books for reinforcing math concepts, but it’s yet another thing that I haven’t been very consistent about, so we haven’t made it very far in the series yet. We’re going to keep plugging away anyway, though!
Resources:
Teaching Textbooks
Singapore 1
Life of Fred
source: Mandi Ehman
Language Arts
We’re currently working through First Language Lessons by Jessie Wise, but as I mentioned last week, we haven’t been as consistent with that as I would have liked (we only got through the first level last year), so consistency with that program will be a priority for us moving forward. I’d like to work through Levels 2 & 3 with the older girls in this coming year, and our kindergartener will start Level 1 in the fall.
We also do daily copywork, where the girls copy 2-3 sentences from a book their reading into their language arts notebook, and they’ll be color-coding the punctuation and capitalization in that copywork this summer and moving on to the parts of speech next year.
In addition, I discovered and fell in love with the Logic of English Essentials program midyear, and we’re making slow-and-steady progress through that work, which we’ll continue into the fall.
Finally, we added the Rhythm of Handwriting Cursive Handwriting workbook to our daily work last year, and the girls are enjoying that as well. They still do most of their schoolwork in manuscript, but I’ve been amazed to see their handwriting improve overall since we started!
Resources:
First Language Lessons
Logic of English Essentials
Rhythm of Handwriting Cursive Handwriting
Bible
Ah, Bible work. This is an area where we’ve really struggled to find something that clicks, honestly!
However, a few months ago, Angie Smith posted this picture on Instagram, and it was really an aha moment for me. Since then, I’ve been choosing a verse or passage for the girls and writing out daily prompts to help them understand, apply and memorize the verses, and it’s working really well. My goal is to get some of these prompts on the computer ahead of time (rather than handwriting them in their journals) so that they’re not waiting for me to write them out each day, but so far we’ve done a few individual verses as well as the Lord’s Prayer, and both big girls are working on Psalm 23 now.
History/Geography/Science
Sadly, history, geography and science have also been areas where we’ve struggled, despite those subjects being a priority for our family! I tried to build my own curriculum based around our CC memory work for the first couple of years, which I honestly wasn’t very good at. Last year, I switched to Story of the World and Apologia instead, but that left me feeling scattered and like we weren’t really staying true to the idea of “all subjects being related”, since we were teaching them each independently.
Inspired by our success in Bible and with independent work in general, I’ve decided to move back to using CC memory work as the basis for these subjects. My plan is to create daily prompts to help the girls really interact with the memory work — copying the sentences, drawing pictures to go with them, reading related books and narrating what they’ve learned. I’ll be testing some prompts over the next couple of months so that can figure out what works best, and I hope to share those with you once I figure it out!
Resources:
I’m currently putting together my book lists and prompts, but I’ll share more with you soon!
source: Mandi Ehman
Read-Alouds
Last year, I set aside reading to the girls in favor of audiobooks simply because I was having trouble fitting everything in each day, but I realized this spring that I really, really missed what is probably one of the best parts of homeschooling, especially with my littler girls! We’ve been slowly moving the big girls toward working more independently on their schoolwork, and the changes to history and science this year will free up some additional time as well so that we can add reading together back in as part of our regular schoolwork.
My main goal with read-alouds this year (like last year!) is to reread some of our favorite stories from years past to the little girls. It’s a hard balance for me because we have so much new material just waiting for us, but I want to be sure that they hear the classics from Robert McCloskey and Virginia Burton in mama’s voice as well!
Most of our read-alouds come from the Sonlight lists, but my goal has never been to read all of the books that come with a single core as much as it is to fill our home with great books and choose our read-alouds from that collection. I’ll share more about the books we hope to read in the coming year in another post next week.
Book List:
Sonlight Read-Alouds (Core P3/4, Core P4/5, Core A, Core B and Core C)
Other
I’m currently trying to decide between Latin and Spanish from Classical Academic Press as well. While I believe that Latin provides an important foundation as part of a classical education, we are already doing some basic Latin through Classical Conversations, and I think that will become a bigger focus as they get older, so I’m leaning toward a few years of Spanish now.
I tend to think through my options until one clicks and feels right for our family, and I’m not to that point yet, though, so I’m still considering both. (And I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!)
The girls also take biweekly piano lessons, and we do a few other odds and ends (like the daily Q&A Journal for Kids), but for the most part, that sums up our curriculum for the year!
Have you posted about your curriculum choices for the coming year? Feel free to leave the link in the comments!
Mandi Ehman is the founder and publisher behind Life Your Way and the co-author of All in Good Time, as well as a wife and the homeschooling mom to four beautiful girls. She lives with her family on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia and loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.
2013-2014 Homeschool Curriculum Plans is a post from Life Your Way
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