Math Made Easy - Multiplication {TOS Crew}

We have tried several things to help Computer Girl {my 4th grader} get all of those multiplication facts memorized and until now we had not quite succeeded.

Recently, we were given the Math Made Easy - Multiplication program, created by Glenda Brown James, to review for the TOS Crew.  The goal of Math Made Easy is for students to master math facts in six weeks, with out using their fingers!

This program consists of a workbook that includes the following:

• Lesson Plans
• Pre Test
• 6 Weeks of Daily Activity Sheets
• Post Test
• Games
• Flashcards

We started using the Math Made Easy workbook about 5 weeks ago and she is doing fabulous!  I like the concept with this program.  It is a little different than memorizing your 1 tables, 2 tables, 3 tables and so on.  Instead, the student first learns that 0 times any number is always 0 and the 1 times tables. 

Next, the student learns 6 new multiplication facts per week.  These facts are learned by using fun worksheets as well as flash cards. 

Computer Girl has enjoyed working with this program and has seen how she has progressed.  She does her worksheets independently, I check them and go over any mistakes and then we do her flashcards together. 
There are a few games that were included in the program but we really just stuck the the basics.  She didn't seem very interested in them to be honest and did fine with out them.  I did feel like there was a lack of information on one of the games, I really wasn't quite sure what to do with it.

In my opinion, I feel this is a simple, yet effective supplement to get those multiplication facts memorized. 

The Math Made Easy - Multiplication workbook is available for $24.95.  This seems to be a good purchase especially since the author does allow copying with in your family so they can be used with several children.

Math Made Easy also has an Addition workbook available for younger students.

Please check out what other members of the TOS Crew have to say about Math Made Easy!

 

Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Crew, I received this product, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are mine.

Back to Homeschool Blog Hop - Our School/ Play Room

My little guy was sick yesterday, so I am a day late on my post...

I thought the best way to do this post would be in pictures.  Lots of pictures.  I know that when I am looking for new ideas for our learning spaces, the best way for me to get ideas is by pictures.  I am going to show you our school room, as well as the other learning spaces in our home.  So here we go...

We have been blessed to have a school/play room right off of the kitchen.  Funny thing is that we rarely school in there, at least not together.  The kids do independent studies in here and they also play in there.

This is the school side of the room.  Trust me, it is only this neat and tidy because everyone is in bed {smile}.  I do, for my own sanity, try to have it organized nicely and train the kids to put things in their place when they are finished with them.  Some of them are still in training.

A couple of years ago, we invested in two of the Expedit shelving units from Ikea.  B E S T -  P U R C H A S E - E V E R ! ! !  The unit on on the left house our history, chapter, geography and art books.  The other unit holds our picture books, early readers, Bible based, math and phonics stuff.  I try to organize these together in the different cubies. 

The small shelve to the right, you know the one with the fancy ivy stencil on it {what was I thinking!} is for science books. 

The table was a $10 yardsale find.  I painted the top of it with chalk board paint.  The kids really like it.  One time we even traced Alpha Boy on there and then added organs for health. 

That awesomely ugly and uncomfortable couch was freeeee on Craigslist.  It kinda grows on ya after a while. 

This is the play room side of the room.  Again, I try to keep things sorted, for the most part anyway.

Those small containers, the ones with the pink and green lids were from the dollar store.  They hold magnetos, finger puppets, little people, plastic animals, Laurie Pegs and Numbers, etc.  These are handy to grab for Little Bits to do at the table or on the floor while I am working with an older child. 

There is the piano and our turtle.  Hey, anybody want a turtle?  They are really low maintenance.

I used to have a clothes line going across this back wall, but I took it down.  Little Bits and I just started making these letters from No Time For Flashcards.  I needed a spot to hang them so I just clipped them to the curtain.  I am just going to go all the way across the back wall with them.

We start our day with B&B (Bible & Breakfast) here.  I read the Bible and have my coffee while the kids eat, then we go over our memory verses.  This is where I am usually helping the kids with their independent studies, like math and language arts.  All of our art projects seem to happen here too.

The message board on the left side of the wall is an old window.  I placed scrapbook paper on the backside and write and the window panes with dry erase marker.  It has been nice to day a spot there for emergency numbers, menu plans, memory verses, blog posts, etc. 

While I was at it with that table, I went ahead and painted this little wall in our foyer.  Sometimes I will throw up a tic tac toe board, mark a spot and go on about my day.  Someone usually spots it and joins in the game. 

We have used this for math problems, hangman, spelling lists and just for fun.  I would have done this in the school room but that room has a lot of windows and limited wall space.  For those of you that are wondering what the answer to hangman is, it's JESUS SAVES!

This is our family room.  We do the majority of our reading for history, science and fun. 

That large coffee table is older than me, and was given to me by my grandma before she died. I love it and we use it every day! It is big enough for the kids to spread out and color and draw while I read. The two baskets under the table house paper and how to draw books.

I put an old map under the glass in the coffee table there last year, this has been really helpful and well used. Like when we read that Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa, we can quickly locate it.

I got tired of lugging legos back and forth during the day so I took an old plastic drawer to store them in the family room.  Some of the kids will play with these while I am reading.  The clean up is much easier now.

This is where the kids use the computer for Teaching Textbooks and learning games.

This used to be where I would sit and scrapbook and stamp my nights away.  Now it is just a place to store the arts supplies for the kids : ) 

As you can see, even with a dedicated school room, we are pretty spread out. 

Back to Homeschool Blog Hop - Homeschool Planning

I had to laugh when I typed up the title to my post, because I always feel like I am planning.  My little OCD mind is always planning and tweaking things, or so it seems. 

Even though I always feel like I am planning, I do a major planning session in the summer prior to starting school.  It looks something like this...

First, I search and pray. 
I ask myself if the current path we have been on is working.  If not, why or what is the problem?
I think about the children and their different learning styles.
I figure out what kind of budget I have to work with. 
Since a lot of what we do revolves around our history program, I figure out what time period we will be studying.  I use this as a starting point for our main curriculum. 

Once I have it all figured out {as if that is possible} I start going over our curriculum to get a feel for our year.  Using all in one type curriculum, like Trail Guide to Learning and My Father's World, really take a lot of the guess work and planning time out of the equation.  Both of these programs are pretty much have the year laid out for you, unless you plan on tweaking something. 

I have tried planning out our whole year and writing every thing out in my little planner.  Can I just say, for the record, I only did this one time.  Praise the Lord I know better than to use pen in a homeschool planner {smile}.  Since I learned my lesson on that one, I now only plan one week at a time. 

Usually, I take some time on Sunday evening to fill out my planner and go over our material for the week.  I try to make sure I am prepared and have all our papers printed out for the week.  Planning on a weekly basis has been a much better plan for us, it allows for plans to change and life to happen.

Do you plan for the whole year at once or as you go? 

Back to Homeschool Blog Hop - Curriculum Plans for 2012-2013

Today I am talking about Curriculum Plans.  Am I the only one that gets a little bit stressed about this process??  Even though I have been schooling for about 7 years I still get the "am I using the right such and such program for so and so" feeling.  You would think I would just be a little bit more relaxed by now.  I am a work in progress!

I originally started this post out by saying I wasn't quite sure of all of my plans for the year, a not so great week can do that to a homeschool mom.  I have since gotten into a little bit better of a grove and reminded myself that there is usually a learning curve when starting a new curriculum.  I also had to remind myself that there is a grace period at the beginning of a new school year. 

No matter what curriculum we choose, it should not totally stress us out.  We need to not be slaves to our curriculum, but have the freedom to adjust it to our family. 

So after all of that rambling, here's what we plan on using this coming year..... drum roll please

Things we will be doing as a group:

Bible & Character
My Father's World - Exploration to 1850 - I had purchased a used copy of this prior to getting trail Guide to Learning.  i am pretty sure that we are going to us their plan for Boy Have I Got Problems by Kay Arthur, as well as their plan for memorizing the book of James. 

Character Sketches - We try to read through a few of these each week together in the evenings.  We usually read the nature stories and the kids color pictures that go along with the animal.  This is part Bible and part nature study, the pictures end up in their nature notebooks.

Character First - We are reviewing Volume 1 from Character First and so far we really like it.  So far we have been focusing on one character trait for a few weeks at a time.  Character First has songs, nature stories, historical stories, games and crafts.  The kids are really enjoying this! 

We Choose Virtues - We will continue going over these, my kids love them.


History, Science, Geography, Art, Thinking Skills
Trail Guide to Learning, Paths of Exploration - The older 3 children have been all been doing the TGTL program.  My 1st grader mostly just listens, discusses, narrates and draws, although I was informed today that he wants to do the notebook pages too!  So far the literature is fabulous, you know the kind of books that your kids beg you to read more of. 

In TGTL- POE we will be studying the following units:
Unit 1 - Columbus (Carry On Mr. Bowditch)

Unit 2 - Jamestown (Pocahontas)

Unit 3 - Pilgrim (Almost Home)

Unit 4 - Daniel Boone (Sign of the Beaver)

Unit 5 - Lewis and Clark (The Captain's Dog)

Unit 6 - Trails West (Bound for Oregon)

The books that I have posted here are the middle school supplement books that my 7th grader is supposed to be reading independently but we decided to read them aloud together.  It is extra reading for me (by choice) but I am so glad to be reading Carry On Mr. Bowditch.  It is a really good book and the little guys are really enjoying it too!

For science the kids will be doing nature studies as guided from TGTL.

I really would love to get a little co op going for hands on stuff to go along with our TGTL studies.  I am praying about this and we'll see what the Lord does : )

Music
Hymn Study - we are going through different hymns this year using the book, Then Sings My Soul.
Singing - my girls love to sing.  It has been on my heart for several years now to take my kids to nursing homes to visit with the elderly patients.  Our thoughts are that the girls {and possibly one friend} are going to visit and singing to some of the patients, maybe one a month.

Life Skills
Lessons in Responsibility for Girls 1 & 2- I know it is for girls but Alpha Boys can do some of this stuff too.
Chores - Yep, my kids have them. Every day in fact.  I am continuing to teach them to cook, do laundry, vacuum, clean bathrooms, clean their room, dust and sort socks {can I get an amen to the sock sorting!}

Independent Studies -

Just to clarify, by independent I mean separate from our group studies.  Most of these things are done one on one with Mom, like math, phonics and grammar.  

There are certain things that my 4th and 7th graders do independent, meaning alone, be they will come to me with questions and for corrections.  Like with Teaching Textbooks, I am not really involved unless there is a question, technical problem or to show me a good grade.  Same thing with copy work, I am not really doing this with them, I just go over it  once they are finished.  : )


The Lil' Chef - 7th Grade

• Abeka Spelling 7 - I asked her if this year she wanted to try something different and she said no.  She loves to spell and likes the challenging words that she gets from this program.
• Teaching Textbooks 7 - This is the 2nd year we will be using TT7.  It is a great fit for her.
• Time 4 Writing
• Easy Grammar Plus
• IEW
• Apologia General Science - she is doing the experiments mostly on her own, but she gathers her siblings to watch all the cool stuff their big sis' is doing.

Computer Girl - 4th Grade

• Abeka Spelling
• Daily Grams 4
• Math Made Easy - to get those multiplication facts down.  So far so good!
• Teaching Textbooks 4 or Math U See - not 100% sure on her math yet.
• IEW - this is a maybe

Alpha Boy - 1st Grade

• Abeka Letters and Sounds K & 1- we jumped ships last April so we are finishing up the K book before we move on
• Abeka Arithmetic 1
• Handwriting - manuscript
• FIAR - mostly just using the list of books but I may grad an activity here and there

Little Bits - Pre K

• Letters - I am going through the letters with him at a very slow pace.  We are making little letter books for each letter from Hands-On Alphabet Activities for Young Children, as well as the letter crafts from No Time For Flash Cards.
• Playing
• More Playing

Here is what I am not doing this year:
I will NOT be looking at other families and all the activities that they are doing and think that our family should also be doing them too{excuse the run on sentence, just had to get that all out}.  That was a life lesson I learned last year. 

There are lots of families that thrive on the go, and enjoy doing all kinds of different activities.  We are not one of them.  We do better when we are home.  If we commit to doing something this year it will only be one thing.  This is just not the season for us to be running.

Back to Homeschool Blog Hop - Homeschool Methods

We are heading into our 8th year of homeschooling. {Thank you Lord!} Over the years I have read about many different methods of homeschooling. In case you aren't familiar with the different methods of homeschooling let me share them with you. Well, at least the most popular ones that I am familiar with. These are my definitions as I have learned about them through the years.

Charlotte Mason - Charlotte Mason taught that children learn best when they have a love for learning. Children learn from living books rather than textbooks. They learn early grammar and writing skills from copywork and then progress to dictation. Mrs. Mason also felt that a good amount of attention should be focused on good habits and nature study.

Classical- This method focuses on the trivium. The trivium teaches in 3 stages:

1. The Grammar Stage - students focus on memorizing facts. {elementary}
2. The Dialectic Stage - this is the reasoning stage. Students begin to have a better understanding of the facts that they have previously learned. {middle school}
3. The Rhetoric Stage - this stage, from what I understand, is more about expression. This is the stage that students take everything else and make it more personal in their writing and speech.{high school}

The Classical method usually studies history in a chronological manner using a 4 year cycle. Repeating the cycle at each stage in the trivium and learning more each time.

Computer Based Learning - this is pretty self explanatory, it is what it sounds like - computer based programs and online classrooms. Teaching Textbooks would fit into this category.

Delight Directed - This type of learning rolls with what the child is interested in. If little Johnny all of a sudden has new found fascination with airplanes then mom takes the ball and runs with it. She may go to the library and get several books on planes along with some on science and air, the Wright Brothers and Amelia Earhart. She would probably also check out some videos on planes or visit youtube to see what kind of videos they have on planes. Mom may even head over to Homeschool Share to see if there is a unit study or lapbook available.

Eclectic - this is kind of taking a little from each of the other methods to fit your family, individual child and season of life.

Montessori - focuses on hands on activities as well as the child's natural ability to explore and play.

Traditional - This method tends to use textbooks , workbooks and tests for all or most of their subjects. Traditional curriculum would be like Abeka or Bob Jones.

Unit Study - similar to delight directed in my opinion, except this might not be something that little Johnny was interested in prior to starting their study.

Unschooling - I have read about varying degrees or what unschooling really is. Some unschoolers allow their children to take charge of their whole day and whether they want to learn or not. Others are more structures with math and language arts and allow the children to pick and choose how to spend the rest of their time. Some unschoolers are a little more structured and require learning to happen during certain hours.



Where do I fit in all that, you may be thinking. Well for me, it has taken me a long time to figure out our homeschooling style. I have finally concluded that we are a Charlotte Mason, Classically minded, Computer Based, Delight Directed, Traditional, Unit Study using homeschooling family. Say that 5 times really fast.


Honestly, I think that I take and apply a little bit from most of those methods that I listed. My methods and ideas on homeschooling have changed through the years. At first I started my homeschool journey like most new homeschoolers with the Parent and Child Kit from Abeka. I am sure at least a few of you will get a chuckle out of that! {SMILE}

The Lil' Chef had every K4 and K5 workbook, flashcard and reader that they offered. AND we did them all! I can remember making her color every single page like the manual told us to. I thought that is what I was supposed to do. That poor child hated to color and I hated flashcards! 4 kids later, if a child wants to color great if not I am not all bent out of shape about it. For the record, I didn't completely ruin her, she loves to draw and color now.
I do still use traditional textbooks for subjects like math and language arts. I have learned that I still love Abeka for phonics, I do not follow it to a "t" instead I tweak it to work for us. I still like Abeka for the early math. We also really love their spelling books. My girls both have had the opportunity to change to a different spelling program and neither of them wanted to.

As far as history and science goes I have moved from textbooks to living books. We do use some Apologia but even that textbook is Charlotte Mason-y and hands on, they are not stuffy and boring. We love reading biographies and history fiction books and we actually learn a lot from them.

For the most part I like to teach history is a chronological matter, this just seems to make sense to me. We have strayed from this at times though.

My kids love to play online games. They have loved and learned from playing Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego {geography, thinking skills}, Starfall {phonics and reading}, Times Tales {multiplication tables} Spelling City {spelling, vocab} and our favorite Teaching Textbooks {math}. The Lil' Chef was struggling math but has been doing great since we switched to Teaching Textbooks. She even is getting ready to start Time 4 Writing next week, which is an online writing course. I think incorporating computer lessons is a great way for kids to learn.

I like to study things in depth with the kids and unit studies are a great organized way to do that. In Trail Guides to Learning - POE we are studying Christopher Columbus for 6 weeks. In that time we will learn about Columbus' live and travels, the country of Spain, the King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella and ships. We will cook recipes from Spain, build boats and so on. Everything we are learning right now is some way relates to Columbus. We are very much unit study oriented.

If my children have an interest I definitely try to take advantage of the opportunity. I will encourage them to take that interest and learn from it but I don't always fly the "Hey you are learning" flag. Like our American Girl Book Club, not quite sure that they know they are really learning stuff and that I am jotting it all down in my school planner. Shhh, don't tell them! The love reading these books and in the mist of that they are learning about the different time periods and cultures. They are also learning crafts and making recipes from these time periods too. Lots of learning going on and they don't even realize it, to them it is all fun, fun, fun! This my friend, is delight directed.

As you can see I glean from each method and apply them as they best fit with each subject and child. I do what works and stop what doesn't. To sum it all up, we are Eclectic.

If I could give you one piece of advice about homeschooling methods it would be this, don't put your homeschool in a box. Allow yourself the freedom to do what works best for your family.

What methods of homeschooling have worked best for you?