OLD HOMESCHOOLERS NEVER DIE . . . THEY JUST WRITE CURRICULUM


"Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass,
like abundant rain on tender plants."

Deuteronomy 32:2

Courses of Study

To view the Course of Study for each grade level, you can click on the "Course of Study" label
or "Search This Blog" for the specific grade level you wish to see.
To date, I have courses of study completed for kindergarten through fourth grades.

Newsletter Articles

In 2013 the Lord started me producing a newsletter for the homeschool group we are a part of. Every other month I write an article on a topic the Lord has put on my heart. I've decided to add these articles to this blog. I hope you will find encouragement through some of my ramblings. You can click on the label "Newsletter" to find the articles.

Thursday, December 30

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

This book, by Barbara Robinson, is another that I'd seen the movie but never read the book. We read it for Christmas this year. The movie (with Loretta Swit) is pretty faithful to the book. It was a fun, quick read and I think we'll have to make it a family tradition.

Sarah, Plain and Tall

We read Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan this last week, and since there was no church last night I grabbed the video off my mom's shelf and we watched the video. I had never read the book before and didn't realize how different the Hallmark movie is from the book. I like the book better. It is such a quick read that I think we'll read it again this week.

Expanding Memory

K. is still at the age when she likes to play Memory. We have a very old game that my mother picked up at the second hand store years ago. It has 108 cards. When we first started playing it I divided it up into 6 groups, so it was easier for a 3 year old to handle. Now we have combined sets so we have 3 groups. Yesterday, after we played, K. said I'm going to tell you a story about one of my cards. When she finished, she said, "Now it's your turn." I said, "I'm going to tell you a story using all my cards." It was a very silly story about a king who lived on a boat. When I finished my story. She told me another story, then said, "Tell my the story again." Anyway, I had to tell the story about the king 3 or 4 times. However, when we were through I got to thinking that this was really a good way to help her learn to tell stories. Because the pictures of what goes in the story are already set, it gives the story direction instead of her just going off in any direction and on many different tangents.

Tuesday, December 14

Purity

K. pulled the book Mrs. Rosey-Posey and the Chocolate Cherry Treat by Robin Jones Gunn off the shelf. It had fallen apart from use, so I sewed it back together. This is a great book about being set apart and keeping your life clean based on 2 Timothy 2:21. K. really likes it and, by request, I've been reading it to her at least once a day for about 2 weeks now.

The only thing that bothers me about the book is that it leaves you with the idea that once your "plate" is dirty the King can't use you, but God forgives and washes us whiter than snow.

The Secret Garden

We finished reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. K. enjoyed it and now we have the DVD (Hallmark Hall of Fame version), borrowed from the library. We watched it as a family on Saturday, but K. is re-watching parts of it each day.

Community

I made a great discovery of a series of DVDs about "My Community". The series is produced by Stone House Publications/Schlessinger Media. It is a series of ten DVDs for pre-kindergarten through second grade. The titles are:
  • What is a Community?
  • Transportation
  • School
  • Post Office
  • Police Station
  • Local Government
  • Local Businesses
  • Library
  • Hospital
  • Fire Station
We have watched Community, Post Office, Police Station, and Library and are really enjoying them. From the Community DVD I picked out the explanation of Urban, Suburban, and Rural to expand upon. We found pictures and wrote the appropriate title on them.



From the Library DVD I picked the two kinds of books in the library: Fiction and Nonfiction to expand upon. K. wrote the word and I wrote the definition. I had her go find three books that went in each group and I wrote the book's titles on the page.



Wednesday, December 1

Heritage History

I just found out about this website, and I'm so excited I just have to share it. This website has historical books to read -- comprehensive history, military history, biographies, legends, adapted literature, historical fiction, mythology -- that are in the public domain. This will be a great addition to our history courses!

Heritage History -- "Putting the Story back into History, with traditional tales from long-ago."