How We’re Using All About Spelling Level 2: syllable marking

 

 

I made the switch from Abeka to All About Spelling this year and have zero regrets! Even though I was tempted to skip forward, I am SO happy that we started with Level 1. She sailed through the first book but it laid a great foundation AND helped us both develop our flow. Flow is important in our home.

 

We aim to do AAS lessons four times a week. She loves AAS because it’s one of our subjects that she knows I’m with her the whole time. She does quite of bit of independent work these days…but is a sappy head like me and still enjoys our together time.

 

While I glance over the lesson & prep anything that needs prepping, I’ll have her busy sorting and organizing all of our letter tiles in ABC order.

 

Typically, once I’m set, we’ll do a little review work. She’s a big fan of me letting her be “the teacher”!

I do have a full set of the tiles. I use and encourage others to purchase them! You really need them. And though there are ways to make your own (I’ve tried) the quality of the product is worth the investment! In fact, I’m planning to buy a second set this year! But now that we’re further along, I find myself utilizing her mini white board more often. The great thing with AAS is that you’re encouraged to be creative!

 

In this lesson you can see I mixed tiles with whiteboard marker.

This is a review of syllable division concepts she’s learned. She loooooves the little cards. They have really helped root the “rules” in her mind…which helps her spelling globally. It’s always so cool when you see your child generalizing (using what they learned in the real world) concepts that you’ve poured yourself into helping them catch!

 

Because I’m such a HUGE fan of All About Spelling I’m also an affiliate! That means if you purchase curriculum via my link – I make a small commission! 

 

…danielle

his easy peasy science notebook

 

 

Recently I shared what her Science notebook looks like while we’re following Easy Peasy’s Zoology.

It’s only fair that I show you the 7th Grader’s notebook too.

 

While there are less lapbooks for the older students…there are still some printables.

My 7th Grader likes the look of layered lined paper. So he writes on loose leaf and then we cut & paste it in.

We also like to find google images to match what we’re studying and print them out to add a little color to our pages.

He is really enjoying this curriculum. Some of the things I’m loving are watching his face light up as he learns new things and watching him develop study habits as he’s encouraged to research independently.

For instance, with the habitats he had to search a lot of the info out on his own.  He was SO into it too! Annoyingly into it! He’d stop and give me the play-by-play with each habitat!  

A great supplement to go along with this course would be any of the Apologia zoology books.

We’re reading Swimming Creatures for our read aloud time and it’s a great addition.

 

The more Easy Peasy we incorporate into our homeschool…the more we love it!

 

…danielle

Play-Doh Geography–a twist on map blobbing

 

 

My daughter has really struggled retaining the names of the 50 states. We’ve tried music and workbooks and iPad games and trivia during dinner.

 

 

But I think it was all just too abstract for her.

Enter map blobbing.  I love love love the idea! We’ve been using the idea to learn the continents. One day the idea popped into my head that we could modify the idea to help her learn her states too. And she doesn’t need to draw it to retain it! Why, she could play-doh blob the states instead! Everything is more fun with play-doh!

 

 

So I searched Pinterest for the cutest FREE USA printable I could find.  Hands down it’s this one. I printed & laminated & added magnets to the back so it can hang on our white board. We just pull it off the board for geography lessons. I have her shape play-doh over 5 (gradually increasing the number) states of her choice. She then has to tell me the names of the states she’s play-doh blobbed.

You can make it as intensive as you’d like. My goal right now is just helping her learn the names of the states and where they are geographically. The natural connections, like places we’ve been or have family help make it more concrete too.

 

 

This is so much fun even the 7th Grader can’t resist helping when he happens to find her state blobbing!

 

…danielle

my favorite curriculum choices this year

 

All About Spelling

If you’ve been homeschooling for any length of time, chances are you’ve heard of All About Spelling.

 

I decided to buy the first two volumes (pre-owned) to use with my daughter this year.  Also, to have on hand for my youngest who has special needs.  I’ve heard so many special needs mommies rave about the program that I thought it would be a good investment.

And I have NOT been disappointed when it comes to my daughter.  We used Abeka for her first two years at home and while she did okay…it wasn’t easy.  Especially with the spelling piece.  If had been keeping grades she would have flunked every spelling test.

 

This year has been SO much better!

 

I love that AAS doesn’t have weekly memorized lists and focuses instead on learning spelling rules.  Each lesson is fully scripted and organized.  Each lesson includes review…review…review…and lots of practice!  And the best news is…she’s successful!  In today’s lesson she wrote two sentences with a total of 15 words (we counted) and made ZERO mistakes!  She rolled her eyes at my excitement.  But I’m pretty sure she was feeling proud of herself too.  We’ll definitely be sticking with this curriculum next year!

 

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Math U See

My 3rd Grader was actually doing wonderful with Abeka’s math program but I decided to switch her over to Math U See this year anyway.  A friend was giving away a couple teacher’s manuals and dvds.  All I had to buy was the student workbook and manipulatives.  I couldn’t resist!  This was another program I’ve been eyeing with Trevy in mind.

 

My daughter is thriving with the program.  We both love the dvds and manipulatives.  We’re in Gamma this year and she’s getting the hang of multiplication. 

I’ve loved it SO much for her that I bought a used Primer set to use with him too!  I consider my youngest blended schooled.  He attends a wonderful public school program in the mornings.  And we do a lot of work at home evenings and weekends and snow days.  We’ve had a lot of them this winter!

 

Below is a sample of the Math lesson I did with him for today’s snow day!  I love how he added the 10 to the number line. 

We will definitely be sticking with Math U See!

 

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Homespun-School.net

I stumbled on Homespun-School in a FaceBook forum.  There was an ad sharing a free 6 week digital learning class.  Psssst…the next one starts on February 10th!

 

I was sold on the idea of a FREE computer class taught by someone other than me.

 

I wasn’t super sure what to expect.  And to be honest, in the beginning both my 7th Grader and I were quite overwhelmed.  But we stuck with it and went from overwhelmed to in love.  My son is learning SO much.  More than that…he’s LOVING what he’s learning!  It’s one subject he doesn’t complain about how much time it takes to complete.  He’s created his own website and is now learning how to create animations like the cartoon below.

He’s totally proud of himself.  I couldn’t be more happy we stumbled on HSS.  In fact, we’re enrolling in a Spring course!

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Draw Write Now

 

I love Draw Write Now because it combines art with penmanship/copywork!  Genius!  I’ve been borrowing the books from our library and perpetually renewing.  I should probably think about buying these!

 

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The Care & Keeping of You

A girlfriend mentioned how much her daughter was loving this book.  I thought it looked like a good choice for “Health”.  I had NO idea how addicted she was going to be!  She really doesn’t put it down except to hide it from the boys’.  We’ve had a lot of interesting conversations.  The topics range from hygiene to puberty to relationships.  Gotta hand it to American Girl on this one.  A great book for a tween-y health choice!

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Easy Peasy Homeschool

We’re using Easy Peasy for a number of things this year!

 

Science.  Reading.  Grammar.  Writing.  Spanish.  Thinking.

Easy Peasy is so great because it’s FREE!  But not just that…it’s quality.  Lee Giles, the developer, has spent a LOT of time & energy making these lesson plans available to moms like me for FREE.  It’s such a beautiful gift and I appreciate it to my toes.

A little sample of some poetry (above) and Spanish (below) that they’ve been working on with Easy Peasy this year.

We will definitely continue using Easy Peasy next year!

 

 

…danielle

a scenic tour of our dive into All About Spelling Level 1

 

My choice to use All About Spelling this year really flowed from two places.

 

I felt like, while she learned SO much with Abeka, she just wasn’t connecting.  Actually, she hated…loathed…dreaded…the video program.  While I’m not a total buy-in to the whole delight driven movement.  Because let’s face it…sometimes, you just gotta do what you gotta do.  Even if it’s the opposite of delightful.  At the same time…I don’t want her to HATE learning.  We need a little balance here!  And there are way too many raving reviews out there to ignore AAS! 

 

 

Also…Trevy.

 

 

Even though I don’t homeschool him yet…I’m always thinking about when I do.  And trying to be prepared with the best curriculum choices out there to help him achieve his fullest potential.  All About Spelling is what all the cool special needs mommies go gah-gah over. 

 

 

 

 

So it seemed like a win for her-win for him.

 

 

 

 

She has a good grasp of phonics and did wonderfully with the initial assessment. 

 

But…

 

when it came time to put the letter tiles in alphabetical order the first time…we realized that she’d forgotten how!

 

 

 

For the first couple lessons we used the Wee Sing & Learn ABC on the iPad.  I just had the song playing while she worked on organized the tiles. 

 

It only took a couple days for her to remember and request that we turn off the song already!

 

 

Originally I thought I would use the little magnetic board for the letter tiles.  Hmmmm.  Not so much.  It just works better to have the tiles in a long row for the lessons that have her use them to segment words.

 

Even on days when she’s not going to use the tiles I have her go ahead and put them in alphabetical order.  I’m all about having a “grounding” routine.  Also, I use that time to read over the lesson plan and prep for our work of the day.

 

 

 

Some of the phonograms with multiple sounds are tricky.  We’ve started making up little movements to help it stick in our brains.  She thought it would be a great idea to make little videos to help “other kids”.

 

 

We’ve been rolling through the Level 1 lessons.  It’s mostly been review for her up until now.

 

 

Once we had a nice routine established I started spicing things up.  Like letting her choose if she wants to write on paper or the white board.  Um.  Like that was even a choice, right?!

 

 

We’re on Step 14 in Level 1 and she’s doing wonderfully.  We’re doing wonderfully!  She’s enjoying learning together.  I’m enjoying actually teaching her this year rather than delegating her teaching to a video.  Video teaching is a wonderful tool but it was just time for us to move on.  She’s building confidence not just with spelling but also with reading.  When she stumbles on a word now I can either prompt her to segment it or even better, watch her segment on her own!  And even though it took me a minute to gather my “teacher wits” about me…I’m feeling more confident every day too!

 

Anyway…I know this sounds like a sponsored post.  It totally isn’t!  Although I am an All About Spelling affiliate. 

a day in the life (homeschool picture marathon style)

 

 

I thought it would be fun to take pictures randomly through one of our days this week.  These pictures don’t reflect everything that happened during our day.  Just the stuff that made me smile.

 

Bristel with her “Abeka Academy” class for Math and Language Arts.

Toby sweatin’ to Saxon 7/6.

Bristel is such a SLOB with her desk during our school day!  This is how she left it during her break time.

 

My grading bin is there because I sit beside her and look over their turned in work.  She pays better attention to the videos if I’m sitting with her.

Oh the irony that his space is neater!

Toby is looooooving Easy Peasy All in One Homeschool for his English.  In fact, next year we’ll be using EP a lot more. 

I had these set out to laminate.  Um.  Yeah…they’re still sitting on the table where I left them a few days ago.

Bristel was kind enough to warn everyone that there was a hornet in the mudroom.

I was astonished to find her bike neatly propped up!  She loooooves riding her bike during her break times but usually just drops it any ol’ place in the yard.

I didn’t catch a picture but Toby is often found working on his pitching finesse or shooting hoops during his break times.

She also decided to start a garden.  I’m guessing she must have been inspired by peeking at some of my recent pinning?

 

Notice the browning de-seeded apple below.  I couldn’t help but notice where she found the seeds.  She thinks she’s growing me some apple trees in the backyard. 

We discovered that Trevy got into her school work.

I guess he’s not a fan of Math. 

She had a sweet spirit about it though and laughed while she erased his scribbles.

Probably because she knew I was going to find her hidden message on our chore chalkboard. 

 

…danielle