Pinterest for homeschooling ideas!

Loved this month of schooling.  After all the hustle and bustle of the holidays, I was anxious to get back to a routine.  We are there!  Today I am feeling very content about our schedule and the work we've done this month. 

As I have said before, we work through the typical textbooks used in the ISDs, but last week I purchased a Math and English workbook for each of the kids to work through and I'm enjoying those as well.  Now, I am feeling the need to incorporate something fresh and creative into the mix.  I'm not sure what that will be yet, but I'm entertaining a few ideas - several of them obtained by a website that I was recently turned-on to by a close friend.  With lots of homeschooling tips, activities, and resources to be found - I'd like to share the link with you.  After creating an account with Pinterest, do your "homeschool" searches, 'pinning' (or bookmarking) your finds to your Pinterest account.  Follow me on Pinterest and I'll follow you as well!  Happy pinning!

We're still here!

Oh my!! It has been too long since I've posted anything and there is just too much to play catch-up.  In a nutshell, the kids have been completing independent studies each day (M-F).  Our "independent studies" include vocabulary (writing the words over and over, looking up and writing the definitions, word search and/or crossword puzzles using their vocabulary words), spanish (writing the words over and over, and writing the definitions), reading (our books are selected from a book list for their grade level obtained via internet and the children are expected to read at least one chapter and then journalize after each chapter).  Once I get home from work we review and discuss their independent work, and then move on into our Math, English, History, and spiritual studies.  Both Wolfie and Drew are showing great progess in their multiplications.  Both are working somewhat elementary math with Drew working on long addition, subtraction, and short multiplication, and Wolfie working into the long multiplication and division (he will begin some pre-algebra shortly).  Working our way through our English textbook together, both children are focusing on  learning to recognize parts of the sentence, puncuation, types of sentences, etc.  For History, we watch movies based on historical events and/or documentaries, as well reading together in our History textbook, stopping now and then for discussions, questions, and explanations.  Thereafter, we journalize about the movie or chapter information.

We took almost the entire month of December off as our family shared a cold or flu bug and then the holidays hit, but we have survived it all.  So, I for one (at least), am looking forward to the new year and getting a rejuvinated start back at homeschooling.