100th Day of School Art

We had our 100th day of school quite a while ago, back in February. But I am going through my folders and posting things that I have not posted yet and this just happened to be one of the things I need to post.

We did a bunch of super fun activities for the 100th day of school.  One of them was this art project.

Hailey had to draw 100 lines and then color them in.  Very simple.  It kept her busy for quite a while and turned out really nice!

Close up of the drawing

American History and Geography

It’s been a while since I posted about what Hailey has been up to.  And these pictures are actually from quite a while ago.  Anyway, as I always say- it’s time to catch up on my posts!  Maybe this summer I really will get caught up.

 Hailey has been studying US Geography this year.  She started out using Road Trip USA but we have changed curriculum since then.

 Hailey was working on part of the lapbook for Road Trip USA.  We both really enjoyed the curriculum, but we stopped using it because it was a bit more involved than what I wanted to use right now.

We have been studying US History this year and Hailey has completed a lot of fun projects to go along with our lessons.

 She learned about Jamestown and built this model of what it was like.  A group of men, boys, and sailors came from England and founded Jamestown- named after King James I.  They built Fort James in a triangular shape.  There were houses, a church, and a storehouse which were all protected by wooden walls.  In time they learned how to plant crops and hunt game in the woods.  As the settlement grew there were houses built outside the fort walls.  (The model is from Easy Make & Learn Projects Colonial America.)

Hailey also learned what a typical colonial village was like.  She drew a picture of what she thought represented a colonial village.

On the back of her drawing she glued this information about colonial villages.  (Colonial Village activity is from History Pockets Colonial Life)

I have lots more fun history activities coming up to share, so be sure to check back!

Hey Mama! Schoolhouse Planner Review

One of my favorite parts of homeschooling is planning and organizing. I like teaching my kids too, of course (usually, hahaha). But planning is something I have always loved and each year I spend way too long trying to pick the perfect planner.

About this time of year I am usually purchasing curriculum for the next school year and that always makes me want to start my planning! Well, my timing is perfect because the Hey Mama! Print Schoolhouse Planner 2016-2017 from The Old Schoolhouse has just been released!

What more could a homeschool mom ask for?  A planner, a sharp pencil, and a glass of iced tea!!  Maybe some peace and quiet to do her planning, but let’s not push it.

So, what does the Hey Mama! Planner have to offer?

Well, calendars of course.  The first few pages offer a year-at-a-glance on a page for 2016, 2017, and 2018.  I like to use those little calendars to plan out our school calendar of days on and off.

After that there are monthly calendars with a page for notes, as well as a Hey Mama! letter for each month.

The monthly calendars are the perfect size.  The little boxes have just the right amount of room.  I have just started to fill in the month of July here, but you can get the idea of the amount of space you get.

Each month also has a full page for notes.  Since we take the summer off I am using July and August for planning.  So, on this particular page I am planning out some of the books that Hailey and I will be reading during the school year.

This is an example of a Hey Mama! letter.  Each month comes with one of these letters from Gene Suarez, publisher of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.  Her letters are full of encouragement and just the right words to help you get through.

After the monthly calendars, which goes from July 2016-June 2017, there are pages for your weekly plans.

There are so many ways you can use these weekly planning pages.  There are 7 rows down the left hand side of the page, and 5 columns across the top.  The possibilities are endless as to how you might want to use your boxes.

Mixed within the planning page are more Hey Mama! letters of encouragement as well as some interesting tidbits of information.

Next up you’ll find a place for your monthly goals, semester goals, and yearly goals.

There are attendance charts with 180 days to check off.

Then there are pages for keeping track of the books you read during the school year as well as a place to plan out your curriculum.

Since I am in planning mode I filled in some of the curriculum I know we are going to use.

After that there is a page to keep track of your homeschool contacts.  Then there are several pages of interesting information and ideas, such as writing prompts, story starters, US presidents and their wives, branches of government, and so much more!

This page has the 13 colonies listed by date.

After that there are some other checklists as well as a place for academic transcripts.  So, pretty much if it’s something you need to have in a planner, it’s been included!

A few other pieces of information about the Hey Mama! Schoolhouse Planner:

• The planner is 9×11
• It contains 192 pages
• The pages are wire bound- the book can lay flat or be folded back without any problems.
• It can be used for up to 5 children.

Since we are finishing up our school year and not starting back up until September I am not using the actual planning pages yet.  But, I set up a page with how I plan to use it in the fall.

Across the top I put the days of the week.  Down the left side I wrote in the subjects we are covering.  Then, I picked a pen color for each child.  In the subject boxes I put a little dot with each child’s color.  Next to that dot I will write in the plans for that child.  I have to write my plans in pencil because I like to be able to make changes, so the little dots will be how I keep track of who is doing what.

I love, love, love this Hey Mama! Schoolhouse Planner!  I think it is almost perfect.  The only thing I don’t like is that it only has 36 weekly planning pages.  Now, I know most people do school for 36 weeks, but if you have more than 36 weeks of school you will run out of pages.  It is okay to copy the planning pages if you need more, but I still wish there were more planning pages included.

If you are in planning mode like me, or will be soon, then I have a great coupon code for you!

 This is a great coupon, so hurry on over and order your planner soon!

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Essential Skills Advantage Review

It’s that time of year again!  Well, at least for me it is.  At this time of year I always start thinking about what curriculum I want to use next year.  I think about whether or not I want to change what we’re using.  Or, if things are working well then I will probably decide to keep it the same.  We were recently given the chance to try out the Complete Home Learning Suite from Essential Skills Advantage and I thought it would be fun to try it out and see if it something that would work for us. Essential Skills Advantage is an online program for children in grades kindergarten through 6th grade.  ESA offers the following programs:

• Reading for children in grades K-6
• Spelling for children in grades K-6
• Language and Grammar for children in grades 3-6
• Math for children in grades K-6
• Science for children in grades K-3
• Geography for children in grades 3-5

Within all of those programs there are over 14,000 interactive learning activities that were created to be fun and engaging.  When skills are mastered your child can move on to the next set of activities.  As a parent you are able to look at your child’s progress and see how well he or she is performing on the activities that a he or she has completed.  Under your parent account you can also have more than one student, so it is easy to manage all of your children in one place.

Once you set up your account and sign in you will see your classroom page.  I only signed Hailey up for ESA, so she is the only student in my class.  On this page, you click on the name of the student to see the subjects available to your child.

The next page you come to will have the subjects you can pick from.  Just for fun, to show how this all works, I picked “Language Arts and Grammar.”

From there you pick the grade level you want to use.  You can choose any grade level, so if your child needs extra help you can pick a lower grade level.  Or if it’s a subject your child is advanced in, you can pick a higher grade level.  Hailey is in 4th grade, so I picked 4th grade.

Within “Language and Grammar” you will find these subtopics to pick from.  I clicked on “Grammar.”

Once on this screen there are several different choices- they did not all fit on the screen, but this is what a portion of the choices looks like.  So, here you pick what you want your child to work on.  This is where the actual activity will start.

Depending on what subject your child is working on, the activities will look like the above examples.

So, how did we use ESA?  My original plan was to use ESA with Hailey (4th grade).  We have been studying US Geography this year, so she tried out the geography lessons.

In this activity she had to match the state names with the correct states.

A closer look at the screen she was using- the state was highlighted and she had to find the correct name of the state.  She loved doing this!  She tried out several other areas of ESA, but the geography portion was definitely her favorite!

Once we had the program and I had a chance to look through everything there was to offer I knew Hunter (age 4) would love it!

We started out working together on some of the kindergarten activities.  Soon he was ready to do the work all by himself.  And of course, Harper had to think she was doing school work too 🙂

He really liked the picture vocabulary!

He also really enjoyed math.  I think he was pretty proud of himself that he was doing work on my laptop while Hailey was at the other end of the table doing work on her laptop.

Essential Skills Advantage is full of great activities to supplement what your child is learning.  I would not use it as a full curriculum, but in addition to other curriculum ESA offers great activities to reinforce what your child is learning and ensure success in their classes.

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