Poking Fun In The Homeschool

With the Homeschooled Young Man going into his junior year of high school in the fall, I've been doing a lot of reflecting and thinking back on our homeschool years.

We have been downsizing our homeschool materials for an upcoming used curriculum sale and it has brought back some fond memories of days gone by.

Just today as I was sitting in my rocking chair, a chair that holds many fond memories (our church nursery was remodeled and they bought brand new rocking chairs and gave away the old ones. They were delivered to my house and what a blessing it was to sit down in one, pick up the phone and call my out of state friend and say "Guess what I am doing? I am sitting in one of the rocking chairs that we both rocked our babies in!" It was a precious moment, remembering back to those days, for her 19 and 16 years ago, for me just 15 years ago.

Ok, rabbit trail here, back to the title of this blog post Poking Fun In The Homeschool...lol.

Finger Pointer Thingy

My son walked up to me this morning and poked me in the side with that finger pointer thingy. I am very ticklish and I was just giggling like a school girl as he kept poking me with it. The more I laughed the more he poked. I was not so much giggling at the tickling as I was at not having seen that finger pointer thingy in a very long time! He came across it as he was digging through his closet the other day.

I remember the day I bought that finger pointy thingy, we were at a Scholastic Book Fair sale and I was buying my teaching supplies, like a real teacher don't ya know? Hahaha, it was one of our first years of homeschooling, ya know the one where you have the Homeschool Momma dress on (actually I wore a cute denim apron that my Mom decorated up with buttons that had pencils, school bell, books and cute stuff like that on them), the student desk, decorated classroom, student with feet flat on the floor, pets banished from the room until school was over, ya, you're gettin' it now! lol. Yes, I was one of those 8:20am-3:00pm homechoolers. We even had school colors and a school mascot, we were Home of the Pugs!

I had big plans for that finger pointer thingy, it was going to keep my boy's eyes on the board, keep him engaged and force him to learn. I was going to fill that bucket (child) up as full as I could with information that he could spit out on a test!! You bet ya, he was going to learn!

Long about October of that same year, the Homeschooled Young Man asked if he could do his history on the couch with the dog, I told him as long as he got his work done. Then next thing you know he was under the kitchen table (his all time favorite place) on the floor with the dog doing science. A short time later he discovered fort making with sheets, blankets and kitchen chairs to study in. These shenanigans nearly ended our homeschool career before it really got off the ground when Homeschool Dad saw what was going on. Because you know, homeschooling dad's think that learning can only be done in a straight backed chair, a desk and feet flat on the floor.

Over time I sold the school desk (yes, it was the kind with seat attached and desktop lid that would lift up), took off my cute denim apron (I still have it), took down the classroom decorations and instead of doing school at home, we started HOME schooling. Better known now in the teenage years as car schooling since we live in the middle of nowhere and I am driving the Homeschooled Young Man back and forth to 4-H, job shadowing at the hospitals, doctor's offices, and his high school pre-medical school program, and to volunteering. We just pack up the school books, pile into the car and off we go! His chemistry book seems to be intriguing to many doctors and starts up some interesting conversations with them. They have shown him apps that they still have on their phones for the Periodic Table and chatted with him about struggles in O Chem.

After attending my first homeschool conference, I also realized that teaching is not simply filling a bucket with information that can be spit out on to a test. That one really rang my bell.

My homeschool decor has also changed, I have cute laminated quotes and pictures all around our homeschool bookshelves. They perk me up on a long day and get me through the tough times. The picture below is from The Old Schoolhouse magazine I've had it for years on my refrigerator and no matter how bad my day is, I can look at it and just laugh, I don't know why it makes me feel happy, but it is just so funny!

You can see how our homeschool has evolved over time, changed and morphed into something wonderful and unique to our family, now do you see why I was giggling so hard when being poked with the finger pointer thingy? It is amazing how a little finger pointy thingy can bring back so many memories.

How to Get Books for FREE or Cheap

Time to get ready for the new school year!!! Unless you school year round like us.

Well I'm all about being frugal when it comes to books and school supplies!

Most of us homeschoolers have enough materials on hand to educate a small army...lol.

This summer go through your bookshelves and make 3 piles:

THROW AWAY

KEEP

SELL/GIVEAWAY

Throw Away Pile: The first pile is just plain old junk, stuff that is used up, scribbled on, discolored,  torn up etc. Get RID OF IT!! Including that workbook you bought on Ebay that smells like nasty musty YUCK!!

Keep Pile: These are books that you can use again for another child, or re-read. Organize these by subject, I like to buy magazine holders from the Dollar Tree or use cereal boxes and cut the top and side out and put some cute wrapping paper on them to cover them. They are very durable if you put clear packing tape on the bottoms. Use these for booklets, workbooks and things like that. Put subjects on them and on free read days or Mom is sick days, I tell our son to go and pick out an activity and spend an hour working on it. It makes learning fun because he can pick what he wants to do. Jot down what you have and later on in the summer when you really start planning out the coming school year you can see what you have to work with. It's frugal to use what you have.

The sell/giveaway/trade pile: is for stuff that is still usable, but you don't need anymore or it did not work for your child. I have gathered up enough stuff to sell that I was able to buy some new goodies at homeschool convention that I might not have otherwise been able to afford. The giveaway items are things that are still in usable condition that you can bless another homeschool family with. Here is a referral link to Paperbackswap.com which is another great way to get rid of books, audiobooks, CD's and DVD's  you no longer need. PaperBackSwap has all kinds of books, homeschooling books, textbooks, readers, novels etc. Always do a search for author and then for title because sometimes books are listed different ways in their system. Check them out to see how easy it is to start trading your items! P.S. you can mark allergies (cats/dogs/smoke) on your profile and then you don't have to accept books from traders that had a dog or cat or that smoke etc.

By looking through what you have, you can make a plan of action for your coming school year and save money too! I am betting that everyone has at least 1 full subject that they can teach this next school year without having to buy a thing. Take some time and get digging around, see what you can find.

Post on here to let us know what you find!

Work Life Balance Hacks for You Homeschool Mom

I am a paper calendar kinda gal. This is so cool! I love this idea, I do not like to program my phone or add events to program my calendar. Can't wait to try this.

Homeschool Mom's need to be constantly watching that calendar because things can get out of control!
What do you think? Anyone know what HACK means? lol...sometimes I'm slow  :O)

What a great suggestion from an M.D.

Apologia Young Explorer Series Science Book Review

Are you looking for an easy science curriculum for your 4th-6th grader?
We had seen Apologia in the vendor hall and heard them speak at our homeschool convention. We sort of drooled over the Apologia curriculum, but in keeping with tradition we continued with our ‘boxed curriculum’ that we always used. “Why change?” Well let me tell you, once the Young Explorer Series Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology showed up in the mail, it was like Christmas at our house, ripping and tearing of the mailing bag, paper flying all over! Our son was just going crazy over the color pictures, upcoming fun experiments and the activity pages in the Anatomy Notebooking Journal.

Young Explorer Series Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology (hardcover) by Jeannie Fulbright and Brooke Ryan, M.D. Grades 4-6.

The student textbook is hardcover and looks as thought it would hold up well for use by more than one student. 

Young Explorer Series Anatomy Notebooking Journal for Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology (spiral bound) by Jeannie Fulbright. Grades 3-6.

The Journal is spiral bound with a soft cover and it has yet to tear by the spiral, most of our spiral bound textbooks/workbooks from other companies seem to fray quickly and eventually tear at the first few spirals. 



Even though our student is in the 7^th grade, I felt that this would be a good fit for him since science has always been a struggle for my normally sharp student. The boxed curriculum that we had been using pretty much focused on memorizing terms and answering questions: BORING! Apologia Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology teaches from a different angle. “This K-6 science curriculum uses the Charlotte Mason methodology to give young students an introduction to the incredible human body.” 

 Things that our student liked about Apologia Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology:

1) The book is hardcover “I can toss it in my book bag to take in the car and it does not get all bent up.”

2) I like the full color photos and crisp pages.

3) “You always get to do something fun in the Try This section. ” 

 4) The course website book extras were GREAT!!! “I had fun going to these websites to read more about what I was learning in each lesson.”

Things that our student did not like about Apologia Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology:

1) "NOTHING, I LOVED IT AND CAN'T WAIT FOR TOMORROW'S LESSON!"

What this Momma did not like about Young Explorer Series Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology:

1) I thought that the MP3 audio would be great, until I found that it would only play in our computer. The MP3 does state that “you must play it in an MP3-compatible CD player or on a computer”. I was thinking that it would have been great to take it on car trips or for our student to be able to listen to it in his room on a CD player.

2) I did not care for some of the printing fonts used in the Anatomy Notebooking Journal, I thought that they were very hard for me to read. And might be especially hard for younger children that are not yet seasoned readers. The fonts used on many of the pages are bubbly or squiggly shaded fonts that are really hard on the eyes, otherwise the rest of the type is fine throughout the journal.  I get that the digestive system is squiggly because it's the intestines, but for a struggling reader, this might be hard to read. They are very cute and fun though. 

Things that this homeschooling Momma liked about Apologia Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology:

1) Penmanship, it always seems like such a chore in the homeschool, read just about any homeschooling blog or website and you will see Mothers chatting about handwriting. The Anatomy Notebooking Journal incorporates copy work right in to their lessons. It’s all blended together in the learning process and as an added blessing the copy work consists of Bible memory verses!!

2) I like the answer key being in the back of the textbook, it’s nice not to have an extra book (answer key) to hunt for when grading work. The lesson planning guide is included in the Anatomy Notebooking Journal, yet again one less thing to have to hunt for :O)

3) Love, Love, Love the different skin tones of the paper dolls to pick from in the Personal Person project.

4) The section of the student textbook called “How To Use This Book: A step-by-step guide and the Items Needed to Complete Each Lesson were WONDERFUL!!! There was no hunting for supplies or starting a lesson only to find out that there is an experiment that day needing XYZ that you don’t have on hand to complete. It’s all right there in the front of the book listed by lesson. How easy is that for a busy homeschooling Momma!!

5) I like how the Apologia website offers sample pages of all the textbooks so you can look through them before buying. Very nice feature.

6) I had to have surgery during this review and ended up with a post-op infection, and was hospitalized for 13 days, many days of laying and doing nothing on pain meds. My son was able to move forward all by himself in the material, that was a huge blessing and he learned a lot. I was very impressed with his drawings of the human cell, normally he hates drawing in science and would whine and carry on if he had to draw anything besides a Star Wars action guy! lol. But he really had a fun time with the Anatomy Notebooking Journal.

Looking back at our years of struggling with science, I wish we had decided to use Apologia Educational Ministries, INC long ago!! Our son would like to go back and do the other Apologia science books: Zoology, Astronomy, Botany, Flying Creation and Swimming Creation. So I think we will be spending our summers under a shade tree or at the beach with some new Apologia science books. 

What do you use for science? Why do you like it?