Homeschool Resources

I've decided to occasionally share some of my favorite homeschool resources with you. Over the last year I have sifted through tons of books, websites, and blogs and now I'm going to share my favorites with you. I first thought it could be a weekly scheduled post or something like that, but I just don't have the discipline to post with that kind of regularity. So, it'll be a sporadic thing when I think of something good to share.

My first resource to share is a website, Homeschool Freebie of the Day. Each day a new freebie is posted for download. The freebies include
e-books, audio books, dramatic radio shows, lesson plans, unit studies, and audio seminars for parents. I have downloaded books on drawing, bees, history, craft ideas... tons of different stuff!

Right now many of their resources are holiday related, stories about the first Thanksgiving or the life of the Pilgrims. Each resource is only available for a day, so the hardest part is remembering to check in daily! If you become a subscriber to their weekly "heads up" email, you receive a bonus download each week. The resources are also great for parents who want to supplement their child's public/private school education, or encourage a child's (or your own!) interest in a subject.

I hope you enjoy this resource as much as we have!

Holiday projects

Holiday knitting/sewing/crocheting is in full swing. I put everything on a list in order of priority so if there is not enough time, I don't have to panic. The list includes another apron for Ethan, an afghan for Emma and her new bed, knit/crocheted ornaments for all the kids, sewn potholders to go in gift baskets of home-canned goodies, a pair of felted clogs, a pair of socks, and a sweater for me!

I've started on the afghan, slippers, and sweater. I had other deadline knitting to contend with, so got a later start than I would've liked. One of the items I crocheted was this little guy:

He is a gift for Emma's birthday coming up. He is also #33 in the 52 craft challenge.

#34 is this little reindeer I was experimenting with as one of the ornaments to give away.


I also did a bit of work on Halloween costumes this year. Ethan decided to be a blue Lego. This was so easy, but fun to make and only cost me a can of spray paint. (#35) Basically it is a cardboard box with head and arm holes cut in it with cottage cheese containers glued on the front. There was one more cottage cheese container with elastic for him to wear as a hat. He LOVED it!


We went to a Halloween party this year and it finally pushed me to finish a costume that has been probably more than 5 years in the making. I had planned to make something for Cliff too, but ran out of time. Maybe next year.


The bodice was made a few years ago and the skirt was finished about this time last year. This year I finally finished the under dress (#36). Our friend and party hostess, Shaunna took the photo of us. Thanks Shaunna!


What are your holiday project plans? Have you already started?

Finished projects

I've managed to complete a couple more projects this week.

#31 is "Boo" a crocheted ghost by LionBrand.


#32 is my Spring Forward socks. I've been working on these for over a year now. I'm SO glad their done.

Harvest

I've been busy freezing, canning, and otherwise preserving the bounty of our garden. I've frozen blueberries, raspberries, corn, grated zucchini, and the baked goods that resulted of grated zucchini such as chocolate zucchini muffins and zucchini bread. I've pickled jalapenos and green beans. Now, its tomato time! I started with raw-pack tomatoes because there isn't a recipe involved and I could work with the small quantities as they were ripening. Since then, I have also made a batch of salsa. This is what I brought home today:



I plan to make tomato sauce out of these this weekend. I actually had to go buy a case of new canning jars because I ran out. Normally I stock up at the thrift stores when it isn't canning time, because i get them for about 10 cents each. It has been years since I had to buy new jars.

There are still a LOT of tomatoes on the vine, so I need to decide what to make with them next.

A tomato

I pulled this tomato out of my garden today...
I can't stop giggling every time I see it. Am I really that immature?

Our Homeschool

Last year I made the decision to try homeschooling my son, Ethan. Though he was only 4, I decided to start introducing kindergarten age concepts and consider it a "trial run." I didn't use a formal curriculum, just worked from various books to introduce developmentally-appropriate material to him. If our "trial" failed miserably, he was still young enough to start kindergarten in public school next fall. If it was successful, I wanted to be ready to jump in with both feet and be prepared to educate my son. He soaked up EVERYTHING I introduced to him and loved doing workbook pages and playing with math manipulatives.

I started doing research on various homeschool methods and my local homeschooling laws. I found myself drawn to The Well-Trained Mind by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer and after checking out from our local library a third time, I realized I had to buy it. The classical style of education (or trivium) made a lot of sense to me as it is history centered and more or less chronological, on a four-year cycle. I have a bachelor's degree in history and found it very disconcerting when I realized that Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were not only contemporaries, but born on the exact same DAY. I was taught history in a disjointed, disconnected, very US-centric way, that I had no idea what else was going on in the world during the US Civil War.

Ethan was catching on to kindergarten concepts so well, I decided we'd jump right into a first-grade curriculum this fall. For our first "formal" year, I chose to closely follow the suggestions outlined in The Well-Trained Mind. It is sort of my safety net or the foundation of our homeschool.

For "core" subjects, I've stuck with the suggestions in the book and/or using books the authors created such as First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind for grammar, Writing With Ease Workbook for writing, Spelling Workout, and Story of the World. For math, we chose Saxon. I had to research a variety of math programs before choosing this one. We like it, though whether or not we'll use it in future years, I haven't decided yet.

I used the book suggestions for a science curriculum, combining animal study, human body, and plants, but to add in some hands on we're working our way through The Usborne Big Book of Experiments. Ethan LOVES the experiments because he thinks they're fun and I like that they take very little prep work and use mostly common household items (which also makes them a bit safer).

I've taken some of their suggestions a step further, using Harmony Fine Arts for our art and part of our music. I'm supplementing that with G Major Music Theory to teach music theory and piano basics.

We do a lot of reading. Ethan has quiet reading time and we read together a lot. Trips to our library are a weekly event. I choose nonfiction books that correspond with our studies for the week and he chooses fiction stories for his quiet reading time. We're working our way through the "Little House" series together and enjoying them a lot too. I love to see him enjoying reading and picking up books without prompting.

That pretty much covers our homeschool for this year. We started "full time" on the 8th and are getting into the groove. We ran out of time for his math lesson on Friday, and he reminded me on Saturday that we needed to do it!

Depot Arts Center

For the month of September, I've been asked to be a guest artist for the Dewey Beach Artists Fall Collection. at the Depot Arts Center in Anacortes.

I chose five pieces, two of which I made specifically for this show, to represent my work. At the opening last night, I got to see the very talented company I was in and felt honored to be included in this group of artists.

Here are two of the pieces I knit for the show:

Beaded silk bag with Japanese seed beads.

Crocheted Scarf


Here are some examples of the work produced by other artists in the collection(I got a little artsy with the photos):
Woven scarves by Laure Brooks

Raku pottery by Pat Ball:

Turned vase by Jerry Holmes:

Steel salmon by John Sayre:


The bag and scarf are #29 & #30 for the 52-craft challenge. Once I finished knitting for the show, I lost the desire to knit for a little while. I am back at it now and hopefully will be catching up. The weather has definitely turned fall-like, which means less gardening and more knitting, sewing, and scrapbooking(I hope!)