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.

Monday, February 28

When Someone Is Sick

What happens to homeschooling when someone gets sick? Well, it depends on whether it is the student or the teacher who is sick. If the student is sick and you are using textbooks and workbooks, you'll need to set them aside and let your student get well. If your curriculum involves a lot of read-aloud, you can continue with that. This last week I got really sick. That is when the old radio shows and videos, such as Anne of Green Gables, Heidi, Pollyanna, Sarah, Plain and Tall, Kidnapped, Treasure Island, etc. come in handy.

But then what do you do? Do you have to "catch-up"? With my older girls I used textbooks and workbooks and planned the whole year out, so we did play the 'catch-up' game. But having been freed from textbooks, I don't recommend that. The way this year is planned, we have 7 sets of 6 weeks. Five weeks of regular subjects, then 1 week for review, a book study, and detail planning for the next 5 weeks. This allows the schedule to easily be adjusted because of sickness or other unexpected circumstances.

Saturday, February 19

Kindergarten, Bible, Week 4

This week we:
  • Memorized Psalm 139:4
  • On Tuesday I introduced Catechism #3 "What did God make you and all things?" "God made me and all things for His own glory." We looked up and read 1 Chronicles 16:28, Romans 11:36, 1 Corinthians 6:20 and 10:31.
  • From My Picture Story Bible we read stories 11 - 14 (destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah)
  • We read a missionary story from Missionary Adventures.
  • We read Mrs. Rosey-Posey and the Chocolate Cherry Treat and discussed that is was her soul that was to be kept clean, not talking about not getting body dirty by playing in the sand, etc. Our soul get dirty when we see/hear things we shouldn't.
  • We read Who Holds the Brush again. K. likes this story.
  • We sang, continuing to learn Tell Me the Stories of Jesus.
  • We continued with our prayer list, marking some requests as answered.

Kindergarten, Writing, Week 4

We finished our capital letters this week with A and X.

For Small Muscle Development:
  • Tuesday we played with playdoh while listening to a recording of the music from Swan Lake
  • Friday I hid 30 small googly eyes in some playdoh and K. had to find them. She really enjoyed this, in fact when there were only 2 missing I was starting to help her and she said, "No, I want to do it!"
For Writing Development:
  • Wednesday did the Three Color Road Race. See Games for Writing.
    • Draw a "road" on two pieces of paper (the roads should be identical). It can be curvy or angular.
    • You and your child pick 3 colors of crayons or colored pencils -- not markers because it takes time to take the cap off and on.
    • Say "Go" and see who can "go down the road" with each of their 3 colors first -- staying in the middle of the road and not touching the lines that make the borders of the road.
    • We usually do this twice.

Kindergarten, Reading, Week 4

Monday we read the last story in our textbook for this section. Questions involved:
  • Reading silently for information
  • picture reading
  • literal, interpretive, critical, and appreciative thinking
  • Is this reality or fantasy?
Tuesday we worked on Sequence.
  • I had 3 books of The Little Red Hen, so I cut the pictures out of the one I liked least.
  • K. read the story from the one we like most.
  • Then she took the pictures and put them in order (1st - 8th: Ordinals integrating Math)
  • I had glued 3 sheets of construction paper together and stapled one end to a paper towel roll (scroll: integrating History), K. glued the pictures into the scroll.
  • When the glue was dry we rolled up the scroll and glued a piece of yarn on the outside.

Wednesday through Friday we read (and finished) Blaze and the Forest Fire.
  • We discussed the story and words she might not know usually deciding the definitions from the context.
  • One day 'to', 'too', and 'two' were all on one page, so we stopped and discussed their meanings because I had been noticing that K. had been writing "Too Mom and Papa".

Kindergarten, Math, Week 4

Monday I introduced the Thermometer. Concept: Thermometers tell us the temperature. If the red line goes up, it means warmer; if it goes down, it means colder.
  • First we went outside and read the thermometer: 60 degrees F
  • Then we read the food thermometer from the kitchen shelf: 70 degrees F
  • Next, I got a science thermometer out. This is glass and about 18 inches long, but has a mark for each number, so we didn't have to count by 2's (which we haven't learned to do yet), but it was in Celsius, so I had to explain that there are 2 different measuring systems. With this thermometer we:
    • saw the room temperature
    • then I had K. wrap her had around it (line went up)
    • then we put it in cold tap water (line went down)
    • then we added an ice cube to the water (line went down)
    • then we stuck the thermometer in ice cream (line went down to -10 C)
Tuesday we measured with a Cup and talked about less than, equal to, and more than.
  • I put out a mostly empty bag of M & Ms and K. put them in the measuring cup. There weren't enough to fill the cup, so it was less than a cup.
  • Then I got out some dry noodles. K. filled the cup to overflowing, so there was more than a cup.
  • Then she measured dry oatmeal and it filled the cup exactly, so it was equal to a cup.
  • I poured cheese crackers into a bowl until K. thought it was equal to a cup, then she filled the cup and discovered there was more than a cup in the bowl.
  • Last, I poured water into a liquid measuring cup and had her tell me when it got to the 1 cup mark.
Wednesday we did Solid Shapes again.
  • I set the timer for 1 minute and we went around the house finding as many rectangle solids as we could before the timer went off. We repeated this for each shape except the cube, because we haven't been able to find cubes in our house.
  • I made a bingo game, putting items that are each shape on the playing cards (25 squares). Then printed out cards, some have the word and some have pictures. Shuffle these, place them upside down, take turns turning one over and put a marker on the shape on the playing card. First one with 5 in a row wins.
Thursday we played a different version of the Identifying Numbers Game.
  • We covered all the numbers with pennies
  • Then took turns, taking 1 penny at a time off the sheet and reading the number.
  • We played until we both had 3 rows of 10 pennies.
Friday we worked with Time.
  • I made a clock that included the minute marks.
  • We had worked with time before, so we reviewed:
    • Hour hand
    • Minute hand
    • I set the clock to an hour (7:00) and she told me the time. We did this about 8 times, then we reversed and she set the hands and I told her the time.
  • Then we counted the minute marks on the clock and I wrote the numbers (0 - 60) as we counted them. Learning that there are 60 minutes in an hour.

Kindergarten, History, Week 4

Monday we read pages 25 and 26 (minus the last paragraph) from Child's History, talking about these points:
  • Egypt was one of the first places where people began to write
  • Their writing was with signs that looked like little pictures
  • It is called hieroglyphics
  • They pressed stalks of papyrus (I referenced celery so she would understand what a stalk was) until they were thin and flat and pasted them together to make a scroll -- this was their paper
Tuesday we finished page 26 through page 28 in Child's History.
  • To help K. understand the Rosetta Stone I took a piece of paper and wrote, "The dog walked down the street." Then I drew a symbol above the words dog, walked, down, and street. We talked about how those symbols meant the words.
  • Nile overflowed every year leaving good soil that made the plants grow well.
  • Egyptians did not worship one God, but many gods.
Wednesday we looked at pages 10 - 13 in Ancient World.
  • It has good pictures of farming and talks about the Nile overflowing.
  • It describes how mummies were made. K. was very interested in this.
  • It has a page about pyramids.
Thursday we re-read and discussed the chapter from Child's History and looked at some library books.
  • The Inside Story: Pyramid by Dana Meachen Rau. This is an 'EB' book and we read it.
  • Over 3,000 Years Ago In Ancient Egypt by Philip Sauvain. We just looked at and discussed the pictures relating to what we had already learned.
Friday we talked about the mummy making process again.

We also read Genesis 15 - 18 during Bible time.

Kindergarten, Science, Week 4

This week we started our unit on light. "God said, "Let there be light." I got these ideas from the Science Experiences... book.
  • Monday we discovered that we need light to see.
    • I took a small box that didn't have gaps at the corners or seams and taped a picture of a smiley face inside. On the side facing the smiley face I made a small hole, just big enough for one eye to peek in. Then I cut a flap on the top that could be left closed or opened to let light in.
    • First, I had K. look in with the flap closed. "What can you see?" Nothing it is just dark.
    • Then I opened the flap and had her look. "What can you see?" The smiley face.
    • We did this a few times and discussed how light was needed to see the smiley face and without light, we can't see anything.
  • Tuesday we learned that light travels in a straight line.
    • I folded 3 sheets of paper in 4ths so they would stand. Then I used a large star shaped punch to punch a star in each paper. You can just cut a circle in the papers. The punch is something I already had and thought it would be easy and fun to use. I used a blanket to block the light on 2 sides of our bed (a dark place) and set up the folded papers under the bed. Next I took a flashlight and set it on some books so it would be the right height to shine through the stars without my having to hold it. Then I lined up the stars so the light would shine through all 3 and show a star on the wall.
    • K. and I laid down and talked about the light shining through the stars. Then I had her put her hand between two of the papers, blocking the light, and we discussed how her hand stopped the light -- no star showed up on the wall. The light did not travel around her hand to the next paper.
  • Wednesday we learned that light has color.
    • You will need a prism, or something that will bend the light, a flashlight, and magazine or book with a soft cover.
    • First, I left the magazine flat and we talked about how the edge looked like one line. Then I curved the magazine so she could see all the different pages.
    • We talked about how light coming through the window is just clear, but it has a surprise when we bend it.
    • I darkened a room (you can drape a blanket over a table and get under the table) and set our prism on the table and shined the flashlight through the prism. Rainbow on the wall! We talked about the colors (ROY G. BIV) and that those colors are in light. We also talked about Noah and the rainbow.
  • Thursday we didn't have science scheduled.
  • Friday we found pictures of light (sunny sky without showing the sun) and dark (K. wanted to use black construction paper) and glued them on our number 1. Now the 1 is finished.

Saturday, February 12

Kindergarten, Bible, Week 3

This week in Bible we:
  • Memorized Psalm 139:3
  • From My Picture Story Bible we read stories 8 - 10
  • We read a missionary story from Missionary Adventures
  • We read The Princess and the Kiss and I read part of lesson one from the accompanying Life Lessons book.
  • We read Just In Case You Ever Wonder and Because I Love You by Max Lucado
  • We continued with praying and our prayer list
  • We started using a kids music video to sing a song at the beginning of the day, and we are learning the hymn Tell Me The Stories of Jesus
  • Monday we watched the video Blister the Lamb by Ethel Barrett

Kindergarten, Writing, Week 3

The letters we practiced this week are: N, M, and Y.

For Small Muscle Development:
  • We made Valentines (we start school the end of January). You could made cards to send to family and friends.
  • Friday we went out to the sandbox. I smoothed the sand and divided the box in half and we drew pictures in the sand with our fingers. Afte we drew a picture we'd smooth is out again and draw another. We did this until K. said, "I'm done."

Kindergarten, Reading, Week 3

Monday through Thursday we read from our textbook and continued with questions that involved:
  • picture reading
  • literal, interpretive, critical, and appreciative thinking
  • I continued with "Could this really happen?" and we talked about fiction vs non-fiction and I introduced the word 'fantasy'.
Friday we continued reading Blaze and the Forest Fire. K. read through page 16. We stopped not knowing if they made the jump across the brook safely.

Kindergarten, Math, Week 3

Monday and Tuesday I introduced the concept of solid shapes.
  • I started with a UNO card. "What shape is this?" Rectangle. But what about this book? It isn't flat like the card. If we look at each side we see a rectangle. Things that aren't flat have special names. We call this a rectangle solid.
  • Using similar examples I introduced sphere, cylinder, cube, and cone.
  • Monday I piled a bunch of items on the table and we categorized them as rectangle solid, sphere, cylinder, cube, or cone. Cubes are hard to find around our house, so I made one with paper. Cones that actually come to a point can also be hard to find. I took a sand bucket and put it up against the bathroom mirror and used a bar of soap to draw it's outline. Then I took the bucket away and showed K. that if the slanted lines of the sides were to continue they would meet in a point.
  • Tuesday I wrote each shape on 3 post-it notes and had K. go around the house and put them on correct objects. Then she took me around the house and showed them to me.
Wednesday we practiced Ordinals. This time we went up to Tenth.
  • First I gave her all the words to put in order.
  • Then I got out 10 cans of food. "Put the corn sixth." etc.
  • Then I took the words away and asked her, "What is second?" etc.
  • Then I rearranged the cans and asked her, "What place is the soup in?"
  • Then I stacked the cans vertically and asked her what place the spaghetti was "Tenth". Then I took the top can off and asked her what place the spaghetti was. I continued until it was "First".
Thursday we played the Hot/Cold Game again.

Friday I introduced using a Ruler and Scale.
  • In reading Blaze it talked about going across country was faster than staying on the roads. So K. could understand this I made a simple map and marked where Billy was and where the farm was. Then we used a string to how far it would be on the roads and how far across the fields. I had K. mark the string for each measurement. Then I got out the ruler and we talked about inches and 12 inches is a foot. Then we measured the string. The string that showed the distance to stay on the roads was 15 inches and the cross country one was 11 inches.
  • Next I asked K. to go around the house and pick up 5 items she would like to measure. We did that.
  • Then we went into the kitchen to look at the scale. We looked at the large numbers -- those show the pounds. We looked at the small numbers and the line marks. These are the ounces. We counted the line marks and found that 16 ounces make up 1 pound.
  • Next I asked K. to find 5 things to weigh, and we did that.

Kindergarten, History, Week 3

This week we:
  • Read Genesis 12 - 14
  • Read A Child's History of the World, pages 20 - 24. We started there because from reading the earlier portions I gather that the author believes in Theistic evolution. When we do Ancient History again when K. is in 9th or 10th grade, I will have her read the first portion of the book, I don't believe it is appropriate to give her other views in kindergarten.
    • Here are the points I went over with K. to make sure she understood them:
      • ancestors are the people that lived before you did
      • history is the story of what happen in these ancestors lifetimes
      • B.C. means Before Christ
      • A.D. means since the time of Christ
      • People settled down and farmed, then built towns, then traded with each other, and then built nations.
    • We also found Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and China on the map.
    • I read pages 20 and 21 on Monday, then 22 - 24 on Tuesday, and then I read the whole chapter again on Friday. I discovered that she pays better attention if I let her draw or color while I read.
  • Wednesday we looked at and discussed pages 8 and 9 in Ancient World. Then we got out the Sculpty Clay and made pots or bowls and decorated them. Then K. decided we needed something in our pots. I made 3 apples for mine and she made cheese, grapes, and a pear for hers. Now I just need to bake them.
  • Friday we worked on our timeline. I think I forgot to mention this before. I have a roll of paper that is about 8 inches tall. K. tells me the stories, "What was the first story?" Creation "What story came next?" God made Eve. Then we have The Sad Day (the fall), Noah and the Flood, Tower of Babel, and God Calls Abram. I draw vertical lines to separate the stories and she draws a picture for each story.

Kindergarten, Science, Week 3

We continued learning about rocks this week.
  • Monday we made sugar crystals. Hopefully you will have better success than we did. I found instructions on-line. I didn't measure out the 3 cups of sugar first, so when it seemed that the sugar was no longer dissolving, we quit, but we didn't get any crystals. On Friday I re-heated the solution so I could add more sugar. We did get some crystals then, but mostly I have a jar that is a solid chunk of sugar! If I were to do it again, I would start with 1/2 a cup of water, because adding the sugar does increase the volume.
  • Tuesday we took some of our rocks outside, covered (one at a time) with an old towel that didn't matter if it got ruined, and used a big hammer to split them open. Then we talked about how the inside of the rock is more rough than the outside because of weathering -- rain, rolling down a mountain, etc. It is a good idea to wear safety goggles when doing this.
  • Wednesday we were supposed to pound a rock into powder. You do this by taking a pair of old jeans and putting one leg inside the other, then put the rock inside both legs and take turns pounding on it with a hammer. Safety goggles are still a good idea.
  • Thursday we were supposed to examine a scoopful of dirt with a magnifying glass and compare it to the rock powder made on Wednesday. Sift some soil. Put in in a cup and put some powdered rock in another cup. Stir in some water. Compare them. The concept for Wednesday and Thursday is that crumbled rocks and dead plants make soil.
  • Life got in the way, so we did a shortened version of Wednesday and Thursday on Friday.
  • Friday we found pictures of rocks to add to our #1 display.

Saturday, February 5

Kindergarten, Bible, Week 2

This week in Bible we:
  • Memorized Psalm 139:2, using the same strategy as in week 1
  • On Friday I introduced Catechism #2 "What else did God make? God made all things" We looked up the verses: Deuteronomy 10:14, Nehemiah 9:6, and John 1:3
  • From My Picture Story Bible we read stories 4, 5, 6, 7
  • We read a missionary story from Missionary Adventures
  • We read Mrs. Rosey-Posey and the Chocolate Cherry Treat by Robin Jones Gunn
  • We read Who Hold the Brush again because when I opened that book K. said, "Let's read this one."
  • We started a prayer list and prayed together

Kindergarten, Writing, Week 2

The letters we practiced this week were capital V, W, and Z.

For Small Muscle Deveopment:
  • Tuesday I drew some straight, wavy, squiggly, and jagged lines, each on its own piece of construction paper and had K. cut on the lines.
  • Friday I gave her a piece of constuction paper and a bunch of shapes I had cut out (triangles, squares, rectangles, circles, etc.). K. chose shapes and glued them on the paper to make a picture.
For Writing Development:
  • Wednesday K. picked her favorite rock and dictated a description of the rock to me. Then she drew a picture of the rock. I took a large piece of construction paper, folded it in half, stapled the story on one side and the picture on the other, and wrote the title, author, and date on the front of the "book". Here is what she wrote:
It looks like a heart, but hearts in your body aren't really that shape. It's gray. It feels hard, cold, and smooth. It looks nice to me. It's heavy, but not very heavy. It's shiny.

Kindergarten, Reading, Week 2

Monday through Thursday we read from our textbook. Here are some sample questions:
  • Why is this called a parade?
  • What does "pest" mean?
  • What does "huff and puff" mean?
  • Why do you think Paul fell?
  • Read silently and find out why Paul fell.
  • Why is the ground cold and bare?
For a couple of stories we talked about "Could this really happen?" I introduced the term 'realistic fiction'.

Friday we started reading the book Blaze and the Forest Fire by C. W. Anderson. K. read through page 6.

Kindergarten, Math, Week 2

Monday we played our Identifying Numbers Game.
  • I have a chart, numbering 1 through 100 (in order)
  • We count out 30 markers (you can use pennies, buttons, whatever)
  • I say a number and K. puts a marker on that number
  • We go until the 30 markers are used up
Tuesday we played our Hot/Cold Game.
  • I got this game from Free Folder Games
  • There are a stack of pictures and K. puts the "hot" things in a pocket that reads "HOT" and the "cold" things in a pocket that reads "COLD"
  • You could also do this on your computer. Just put 20 or so pictures from clip art on a page, put the word "HOT" to one side and the word "COLD" to the other and let your child drag the pictures to the correct word.
Wednesday we played Shape Lotto.

Thursday we worked some more with Symmetry. I was at a loss of what to do, so I Googled "Symmetry Lessons for Kindergarten" and found KindergartenLessons.com.
  • I took a large piece of black construction paper and taped a dowel rod down the middle.
    • Using Tinker Toys and blocks I made a design on one side of the dowel rod.
    • K. copied the design on the other side. Then we switched and she made a design for me to copy. We went back and forth this way a few times.
  • Next, I took a small white piece of construction paper, folded it in half and we put some small globs of different colored paint at the fold. We folded the paper back up and smoothed it out to spread the paint around. Then we opened the paper back up and let it dry. We talked about both sides being the same.
  • Last, we stood in front of the mirror and I held a long stick down the center of her body vertically and asked if it showed symmetry. Then I put the stick horizontally at her waist and asked if that middle line showed symmetry.
Friday we played the Identifying Numbers Game again, only I had her count out the markers and put them in groups of 10. I introduced the idea that 3 groups of 10 is 30 and we counted by 10s (10, 20, 30).

Kindergarten, History, Week 2

This week we:
  • Read Genesis 6, 7, 8, 9, 11
  • Looked at and discussed pages 6 and 7 in Ancient World

Kindergarten, Science, Week 2

This week we are learning about rocks. I am basing these lessons on the chapter in Science Experiences for the Early Childhood Years.
  • Monday we looked through a book I had that had pictures of rocks -- well, that was the plan, actually we had to run an errand, so K. looked through it and put post-it tabs by the rocks she thought were pretty and then when we got home we looked at those and she told me why she liked them.
  • Tuesday we went out to the front garden (where there is a pile of rocks -- thankfully my mother liked to collect interesting rocks) and I picked out about 10 that each looked different. Then K. used soapy water and a brush to wash the rocks while we talked about how they looked different when they were wet.
  • Wednesday. If you get a bucketful of #67 gravel, like the books suggests, you can classify the rocks by shape, size, color, etc.
  • Thursday we talked about some rocks being harder than others. We used a Phillips screwdriver to try to scratch the rocks. There we 2 rocks that we could scratch.
  • Friday we talked about how rocks change. I put 2 rocks in a coffee can with the lid on and we shook the can and examined the pieces that broke off.