BookShark with Reading Level 5

So I had a bit of a false start on my return to my blog. Seizures do that. If you have MS or know someone well with the disease then you know plans are often impossible to make and promises impossible to keep. But I am back and sorry I wasn't able to write for a few days.
And now I'm able to begin updating you on what we have planned for the 2017-2018 school year.

For Bess we have a wonderful year of history ahead, and both she and I are incredibly excited.

BookShark Level 5 History

This year is entirely about the Eastern Hemisphere. As you can see from the picture, I've removed the worksheet pages Bess will be writing on and I've put them in their own binder. The program comes with about 40 books including one on origami with origami paper which will be used after she reads Sadako and The Thousand Paper Cranes.
 This core comes with a beautiful calligraphy kit which includes ink and paper for the student to try their hand at writing Chinese words. Calligraphy Kit Instructions  can be found on BookShark's website.
 As usual, a book of poetry is included. This year it is All the Small Poems by Valerie Worth. I have BookShark to thank for inspiring my children's love of poetry. Ever since the younger levels, Bess has often been choosing our poetry books for her night time reading.
Henry Read Inc. and A Horse and His Boy are also added, probably to give a small break from the Eastern Hemisphere intensive core.
I love BookShark! I wish I'd had this program for my older boys. It would have saved me so much time and effort instead of having to single handedly organize a literature rich program for them. I managed to do it somehow. They read some great books, but I love that I can place the research in the hands of BookShark now.
Of course this isn't all we have planned for the year.  Bess and Max will be sharing BookShark Science Level 4 and some other things which I will include in future posts.
I really hope we can manage to purchase BookShark's Pre-K program for Rose. She is definitely ready for it, but we made a large investment this year for the microscope BookShark sells. And with a move coming up before Christmas, I'm trying to watch how much more we spend.

We will be starting our school year in August and I'll review the books we are reading and post about our science experiments. I'm not going to foolishly say when.  MS is in the driver's seat for now. But I'll give it my best effort to let you know how our year is going.

Thank you for reading. I feel incredibly fortunate to be writing again.

Until Next Time!

Home Sweet Blog

It has been almost two years since I last posted here. Where did the time go? Well most of it ended up in the dumpster called Multiple Sclerosis, but I've missed my little blog and I'm ready to start writing again. Tomorrow will be my official return with pictures and comments about what we have planned for the 2017-2018 school year. My first post will be on BookShark History 5. I'm really excited about this year. This will be Rose's first year of preschool. I'm hoping to purchase BookShark Pre-K for her. We also will be building our new home this fall which we hope to have completed by Christmas. So lots to do, but all of it happy. I hope anyone who used to read my blog will find it again. And I hope the past couple of years have been good for you. I wish all of you a great year of homeschooling!

The New School Year- 3rd and 2nd grade

We started school in late August and Max has already finished the first Math Analogies Book

from The Critical Thinking Co. which means I'll be ordering the second one this week. He's also on page 110 of Mathematical Reasoning Level B

which means we should be ready for Level C by November. Last year I had my doubts that this would be a full math curriculum, but now I realize how wrong I was. After talking to a Critical Thinking Company representative, I decided to start Max on the Grade 1 level and let him work at his own pace. I'm really pleased with the amount he's learning and by how much he loves the curriculum. After breakfast, it's always the first subject he wants to do.

As for Bess, she has already read more than half of the Bookshark books. I could have made her stay on schedule, but that seemed pointless. We're taking science and math at a little slower pace. I've had to rewrite the schedule a little since she sped ahead, but it's pretty easy to tweak Bookshark.  For right now, we've added Editor in Chief from Critical Thinking Company

and Sequential Spelling 1,

and we may order Language Smarts.

So far we've had a really relaxed year. BookShark  is working well for us, and Max and I are having a lot of fun with math. I'm listening more to both Bess and Max about what is working and what isn't.. I feel giving the kids more input has made everything run more smoothly.

Until Next Time!

Our New House and the Beginning of Book Shark 2

It's been a long while since I posted, but with good reason. We've moved! We're so excited and happy. My mom generously loaned us her house for almost five years while my husband got his degree and we are so grateful, but having a home of our own is such an amazing feeling. We don't own it. It's a rental, but hopefully one day we'll be able to buy it. So that's where I've been. Surrounded by boxes, unpacking, and making this space our home.

Sometime during the chaos, we started our new BookShark year. We bought Bess the whole 2nd grade package with the advanced readers, Horizons 3 Math, Sequential Spelling 1, and Critical Thinking Company's Editor in Chief Beginning 1.
Bess will really be in 3rd grade, but the suggested ages for the Bookshark package are 7-9. I always like to stay to the middle or older range. Bess gets so much more out of it that way and feels less pressure.

I bought Handwriting Without Tears just for practice. Her writing is improving quite a bit and we might move to a cursive book mid-year. Editor In Chief was her choice. Bess enjoyed that part of Language Smarts.

For Max we purchased Critical Thinking Company's Mathematical Reasoning Level B and Math Analogies Beginning. We're also starting Reading Eggs soon as we seem to have hit a wall in his reading. I'm not pushing any other subjects for him right now. He listens in on Bess' science and we read tons out loud from the library. As you can tell, we don't use Bookshark for Max but he does sit in on some of the read-alouds.

I love BookShark even more this year. We've gotten more comfortable with the schedule. I love that my prep time is usually less than 10 minutes, and I'm amazed how much Bess is retaining.

BookShark customer service is amazing. They are courteous and helpful. I mistakenly thought I was missing a book from our package, but it turned out to be one which wasn't supposed to be in Grade 2. However, the company had a few left and sent it to us anyway for free. So now I have another reason to love BookShark, as if I needed one!

I'm excited to have time again to blog a little. I plan to post more frequently.

I hope you had a wonderful, relaxing summer. I wish you a great new school year!

Until Next Time!

Our BookShark Box is Ordered!

No two children could be more excited about curriculum coming in the mail than my two are right now. We had a great BookShark year last year and are looking forward to the next. So as we await our Box Day, this is what we're up to:

The snow has finally melted, but it's still really wet and muddy out. So as we're mostly housebound, we're reading, drawing, and finishing this year's math.

Bess is reading Peppermints in the Parlor and Ms Leaky is Freaky.

Max is building car ramps and continually improving them.

Rose's favorite book used to be Mr. Brown can Moo! Can you?(We all have it memorized now. I once woke to myself reciting it in my sleep!) But now she's been having us read the We Help Daddy book over and over.

I'm reading : Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America by Linda Tirado.

I'm watching the K-dramas Blood and re-watching Pinocchio(so good!)

I haven't been feeling great lately, quite a lot of pain around my middle. It's called the "ms hug". Ethan has been doing literally all of the housework. So to give him a bit of a break from cooking dinner every night, I've been ordering Panera online and having my husband pick it up on his way home from work. Bess, who is soup-crazy, now asks when the soup is getting here and then guiltily adds,"and Daddy!"

That's all for now. Hopefully my next post will be about our Box Day!
Until Next Time!

Horizons Math

I thought today would be a good day to do my review of Horizons Math. Why now? Bess, who has been math resistant ever since our days with Saxon Math, turned to me today and admitted she is beginning to enjoy math. She even voluntarily did two extra pages. I tried not to faint!
So, besides turning Bess into a math-enjoyer, here is why I like Horizons.(As I've stated before, I never get paid for my reviews.)

Everything is clearly laid out for the parent in the teacher's manual with activities to teach the concepts and a list or what manipulatives are helpful for teaching the lesson. I have to admit I rarely use their suggestions for teaching the lesson. Bess is an intuitive learner, and a little explanation from me is usually all she needs. Max needs a little more help, but I find that I know best how to explain concepts to him without overwhelming him. But it's good to know I have a way to explain it if I ever need it.

Example from Grade 2

The back of the teacher's manual has reproducible supplemental worksheets and we use all of them. I find them really helpful for reinforcing concepts. I will, however, buy the worksheet packet next time, because I get tired of copying the pages. All of the answers for the lessons and extra worksheets are in the teacher's manual.

Example from Grade 2

Each year has two consumable workbooks  with 80 lessons in each. Except for grade k every tenth lesson also has a test. This is a spiral curriculum which we find works best for us.
After having used Saxon and Calvert Math, I find this too be a fairly advanced curriculum. However, it doesn't feel that way. It's colorful with many fun puzzles, and paced in a way that new concepts are paired with already mastered skills.
I've been on the fence about whether this was the program for Max, but just recently he's been asking for extra math pages. So I'm going to stick with it. I always go through a grass-is-greener period concerning math, and I really think I need to just chill and trust this program.
For those who care, this is not a secular program. However, other than being published by a Christian  company, one can hardly tell.
You can purchase the program through BookShark. But I'm not crazy about their manipulative package. I recommend buying the one from Rainbow Resource.
If you need a more in-depth review of the program, I recommend Cathy Duffy's review. She lists Horizons as one of her 102 Top Picks.

Until Next Time!

Autumn!

I guess it won't come as a surprise that I love fall since I've never changed my blog header from our tree's autumn foliage. It's 80% love of fall color and 20% laziness.
We're getting really excited about Halloween! Max and Bess have been busy putting up our decorations this week.

I don't know what it is about fall, but as soon as it's here I instantly go into soup-making-mode. I don't know why. It's just beginning to get cool in our part of the country. Nevertheless, we're eating soup. This week I made Midwest Chowder and Cream of Broccoli-Cheese Soup, both of which were really good. Next up, Chicken and Dumplings. While not a soup, it still seems right for this time of year.
And yes, I said Chicken and Dumplings. Our vegan and vegetarian days are at an end. After my last visit to the hospital, I found out, along with my MS symptoms, I'm extremely anemic. I'll be on mega doses of iron for at least 6 months. To be honest, it didn't really come as much of a surprise. I've been so tired and often depressed for a few months. I just didn't feel right. I'm not blaming our diet completely; there are plenty of vegetarian options for iron, but I always had so much energy as an omnivore, and I didn't as a vegan. When I discussed this with the family, my husband and Ethan admitted they had been overly tired as well and craving meat for a while. So our five years as vegans and a few months as vegetarians are over. It was a hard decision. We love animals. Hell, we don't even kill spiders if we don't have to. Charlotte's Web and James and the Giant Peach made all the kids staunch protectors of spiders. But I am convinced now that we are meant to be omnivores. I could give you all the reasons, but if there's one thing vegans hate it's former vegans who claim health reasons for eating meat, dairy, and eggs. I know, because it used to annoy me too. So I won't add to that. It's not an argument I want to have. I'll just say, this is a choice we're making for our family. It's our choice. Actually, that's pretty close to what I say to people who question homeschooling, so I've had practice.

What We're Reading This Week

Bess is reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Max is "reading" The Lego Adventure Book 2 for about the thousandth time. I'm reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Bess and I just read the chapter on the Trojan War in A Child's History of the World from BookShark, so we're following that with Tales from the Odyssey by Mary Pope Osborne.

What We're Crafting

I'm working on Bess' Halloween costume. She's going to be a witch this year. I found a $3 hat at Target along with a $3 broom. She and I are making a no-sew tutu with spiderweb pattern mesh cloth. We're using a fabric pen to draw stripes on a pair of old tights. I think it's going to be pretty neat. I'm surprised. I'm not very crafty. My Halloween projects usually end with me saying, "Who wants to go to the store and just buy one of these?"

What We're Watching

Fireplace for the Home on Netflix. This is what we poor non-fireplace-owners do when the rest of you lucky people are scenting the neighborhood with the wonderful smell of firewood burning. It's not quite the same but it's not bad.

My next posts will be a review of Horizons Math and of BookShark 1 mid-year. We're at the halfway point, 18 weeks of 36. Since every time I even say the word BookShark my page views increase exponentially, I thought a review might be helpful for those considering the program. Spoiler Alert: We love it. However, I know it wouldn't work for every family, so I'll make sure to give an in-depth look at the curriculum.

I hope you're enjoying the fall weather as much as we are! Until Next Time!

Simplifying Our Schedule

I realize I've been neglecting my little blog recently. I was in the hospital for three days last week following a pretty serious MS flare up. I'm doing better now, and other than being really tired from the infusion treatments, I'm feeling pretty well. The one good thing to come out of that mess was that I had 3 days to stare at the ceiling and think. I couldn't read because my eyesight was blurry, and for someone who hates cable there's not much else to do but think. And being the boring homeschool mom I am, most of my thinking was school related. So here's what the hospital drop ceiling tiles revealed to me.--- I Need to Simplify Our School Day. We Are Doing Too Much.
Bess, at 7, is really smart and is the "perfect" student. Other than occasional grumbling about math, she will sit at a desk as long as I ask her to and do her work, and work hard at it, and then follow up by reading history and science books for fun. But now I think, I've been piling too much on. Just because she can do it, doesn't mean she should. She learns so much on her own from reading and her own projects, there's really no reason to schedule so many "extras".
So here are the rules I've outlined for myself for this year.

Trust in the Program
BookShark is a solid program. There's no reason to supplement so much. Bess as a second grader has learned more history and geography than I learned in any one year of public school. Plus she loves the curriculum, so she retains most of what she's learned. What we read for fun is supplement enough.


Trust in Bess' Choices
Bess is doing enough "extra" on her own already. She is constantly throwing down bits of knowledge she's gained. Recently a discussion by our older two about the Thor movies led to Bess leading a family talk about Norse gods. This is par for the course with Bess and it's almost always from books she's chosen herself. Sometimes it's inspired from initial BookShark readings. She chooses enough good non-fiction to balance her fiction selections. She is a capable selector of books. I need to remember that.

Just Because Bess is Capable of More Doesn't Mean She Needs More
I don't ever want to destroy Bess' love of learning. I think if I keep her on the path I'd initially set for the year, I just might do that. We don't need to formalize art. We enjoy making art and reading art books often. That's enough for now. Learning Korean was probably more a whim than an actual desire on her part. So that's on the chopping block too. Grammar can wait until next year. Latin also. Supplementing geography is completely unnecessary. BookShark has more than enough built in. Piano lessons are gone. She hated them. Learning to code, that's finished(what was I thinking?).
We won't ever be unschoolers. It's not our learning style. But we learn enough from spontaneous projects, outings, and reading that we are educating ourselves enough to have much of our learning feel child-led. I need to trust that.

Keep Extracurricular Activities to a Minimum
It's been a difficult year, and I need a rest. I don't want to be constantly going from one activity to another. We're limiting Bess to 4 extracurricular activities per week (2 are on the same day at the same location). Ballet, Science and Storytime at the library, and Brownies will be it. Max is easy. He doesn't enjoy any organized activities at this point.

Max Will Have Only Two Subjects This Year
Reading and Math and playing are more than enough for Max. He needs down time and I don't want to frustrate him. We recently had him tested and his IQ results led me to believe he was capable of so much more. I suddenly felt compelled to have my startlingly smart boy on the fast track to genius-ville. However, Max needs less, not more. He needs time to be a kid, relax, and work on dealing with the world. So for the time being, I'm buying building games and puzzles, and every Lego we can afford. He's happy. That's enough for now.

This is what I'm cutting from my plans---Evan Moore 6-trait Writing, Critical Thinking Company's Editor-in-Chief, Evan Moore Daily Geography Practice, Zaner-Bloser Spelling, Typing Instructor for Kids, Khan Academy, piano lessons, all formal art instruction, all foreign language instruction, handwriting for Max, formal science instruction for Max. 
It feels freeing just to list everything we're not doing this year.

As a reminder to myself for the future.....I've made out a five year plan for Bess. I fully expect the plan to change over the years, but this will remind me to keep things simple. Max has a one year plan at this point, as he's kind of the wild card. Time will only reveal how we'll educate Max to fit his style of learning. I'd need a crystal ball and flux capacitor to figure out Max's future educational arc.

Why five years? Because that's how many boxes I had on my graph. Seriously. I'm too lazy to make another graph. I've been shoving my plans onto this same graph outline for years!

So that's my epiphany. If you also need an awakening, whether spiritual or educational(and in graph form!), may I recommend hospital ceiling tiles. Their wisdom is endless. At least that's what they told me when I was hopped up on pain killers.

Until Next Time!

Our Busy Week and a Few Links to Fun Stuff

We are experiencing some busy and stressful days, lately. I've been hoping to have time to review a couple of things here, but I can't seem to gather enough coherent thought to actually write any reviews. Hopefully by next week.  Of course, the world is trembling in anticipation to read my tedious thoughts on math curriculum.


Our biggest concern, this week, is Max. He is scheduled for a procedure at the hospital in two days. To say it will be epic and terrible is not me being a drama queen. When neurotypical children are afraid of the hospital, one can reason and comfort them through their fears. With Max, reason is impossible. The question is How many health professionals will he kick and hit before the day is through? We are trying to prepare him as well as we can, but I doubt it will have any bearing on his behavior. He's a kid who screams during baths, and can't even have his hair combed without yelling. The sensation of baths and combs feels like real pain to him. This procedure will involve actual pain combined with a place he is unfamiliar with and strangers with needles. I would do anything to spare him this trip to the hospital. I hate for my sweet, little guy to go through this, but it's necessary. To make up for everything, we are throwing our frugality in the toilet to buy him a huge, ridiculously expensive Lego set he's been coveting. Mom Guilt: Making children's dreams come true since the beginning of time...

But enough worry and complaining. Here are a few links to cool stuff I found this week.

Bess is nuts about anything to do with ancient Egypt and archaeology, so I thought it would be fun to try out this Mummification of Barbie. That's the plan for next week.

Since the kids have been begging me for a big, crafty project, I thought we'd also try this Geometric Art project. Both of them love painting, and the weather has been cool enough so we might be able to do this outdoors.

We're about to read The Great Wall of China which came with our BookShark curriculum.

We've chosen to make our own Styrofoam Great Wall. Max and Bess are super excited. If Max has anything to do with it, many brave Lego men will die in battle on top of that wall.








And here's one last link: One family's BookShark Box Day on youtube. I love box day even when it is someone else's. I'm looking forward to more BookSharkers posting videos. Yes, BookSharkers is a word, despite what spell check says. As Bess is fond of telling me, when she makes up words, "I wrote it, so it's a word." Hard to argue with that logic.

Until Next Time!

BookShark: First Impressions

BookShark Gr.1 History and Read-Alouds

I'll probably be writing a more detailed post later about our new BookShark materials, but I thought I would give my first impressions now.
The reason we ordered BookShark in the first place is because we've used Sonlight for the past few years, and have really loved it. BookShark is Sonlight, but secular. Book-based learning is definitely our family's favorite way to learn, and Sonlight does an excellent job of combining literature, history, and geography. I'm still convinced it can easily be used by a secular family. I wrote a post about that before.
So why bother to order a secular version at all?

1. I didn't particularly like paying for the few books I didn't use. If I bought a full core I was always left with a few titles I didn't want. With BookShark, we'll use every title.

2. I didn't enjoy sifting through the Christian content in the Instructor's Guide. After receiving my BookShark IG, which isn't cluttered with religious subject matter, I realized how much it really bothered me. It's refreshing not to have to begin our school day filtering the unnecessary content(and rolling my eyes).

3. Sonlight's timeline figures were overwhelmingly about missionaries and Christian figures. Bookshark's are full of history, actual history. I'm not saying there aren't important Christian dates and historical figures. Of course, there are. But it gives kids a false sense of the importance of those dates and people if the majority of the timeline is filled with them.

4. I want to send a message that catering to secular homeschoolers is a good thing. Too often, we resort to using Christian materials because they are the best available for a subject. Sonlight, in my opinion, is the best book-based curriculum on the market. However, now I can get those materials without voting with my dollars for evangelical curriculum.

A peek at our new timeline figures

So here are are a few of my first impressions of BookShark Grade 1 History, and 2nd Grade Intermediate Readers.

1. More relevant timeline figures.

2. Easier to use IG(if you don't want the Christian content).

3. They've shifted a few of the readers around to different ages, and placed them in more accurate levels, and eliminated the Christian readers.

4.The IG is still "open and go", just as easy to implement, and it still includes helpful extras such as the additional schedule pages.

5.Brighter, less old-fashioned covers to the IGs. Okay, it's a small thing. But I always found the Sonlight covers kind of ugly.

BookShark Gr.2 Intermediate Readers

Most of the books we already owned(purchased from Sonlight). I've replaced our IG mid-year. I only had to add Marco Polo, Encyclopedia Brown, and Lumber Camp Library to our Readers.
We are using this core for second grade even though it says first grade. If you are a Sonlight veteran, you know the cores cover at least three ages. I always find the middle age range to be the correct one for us. First grade is intended for ages 6-8, and since Bess is 7, we're using it for half a year of second grade. For now, it doesn't really matter where she's placed, but the later grades have heavier material and I don't want to rush into them until she's mature enough to handle it.

That's about all I have to say about BookShark until we've used it for a while, but so far I'm really pleased. I'm planning out our other subjects for the fall, and I'm pretty sure BookShark's Science will be part of those plans.

For more details than I have here about BookShark, I recommend this blog post from Our Enchanted Place.

I'll give a BookShark update as we get further into the year.

Until Next Time!
 

BookShark Ordered!

So, I've placed my order with BookShark(the new, secular version of Sonlight). Yay! I can't wait for it to get here! You wouldn't think someone could be as excited as I am about instructor's guides, but then you don't know me that well. I'm boring that way. Curriculum is my drug of choice.

We're taking a week off to wait for the first grade IG to get here. I sold my Sonlight Core B IG(the equivalent of BookShark's 1st grade). I thought about just slogging through the religious stuff for the rest of the year, and then buying BookShark for second grade, but since we started the core in March, we still have a ways to go. I've loved Sonlight, but I get seriously tired of having to skim over,what I believe to be, foolish ideas.

Here's what I bought: History 1 Instructor's Guide, Timeline Figures 1, 2nd Grade Intermediate Reader Schedule and Notes, Marco Polo, Encyclopedia Brown, and Lumber Camp Library. The last three were titles we didn't get with the Sonlight 2nd grade readers. The cores and readers are mostly the same(minus the religious stuff), but they have a few different titles, and some shifting of which cores some of the books are in.

FYI: If you sign up for an account right now,  BookShark will email you a $10 off of $100 purchase code.

BookShark's website isn't as user friendly as Sonlight's, especially if you're purchasing individual items, but I'm sure that will change soon. I also hope they eventually create a forum for BookShark. And I know my kids would love it if the cores came in a box they can make into a castle(one of their favorite things about getting a shipment from Sonlight).

I'll post my first impressions about BookShark when the package comes, just in case you're as boring as I am, and want to hear about it. Or you can just snicker derisively at my mundane life. My children do!
  
Until next time!