The Stuff

For our school day

I thought I might write a bit about what curriculum and extras we use and how we use it.

To begin with we use Abeka for reading/writing and math. It is an older version and it teaches the kids cursive handwriting, mind you, I only have the cirriculum/lesson plan books, I use the cirriculum as a guide for daily lessons.

Along with the curriculum books I received a few of the extras. I have several of the "learning to read" books, and flash cards for learning how to blend letters to form words.

I purchased this little book at Staples, it features each letter of the alphabet in uppercase and lower case as well as words. I like to rip apart work books and make copies, for reuse, because I am sure I will be using these again next year for the younger two, who don't start Pre-K until next year.

I picked this up when I picked up the curriculum (at a local used curriculum sale). This is really geared toward much older children, but we still sing the songs, tell the stories and participate in the discussion, this usually blends with our culture education (which is not as fancy as it sounds). I appreciate this book because it really does attempt to create wonderful humans.

Everything is color coded. My son (youngest), loves blue, my middle loves pink and green and my oldest loves purple. This is my son's box, and that little folder is his work for the week, separated by paper protectors, typically I try to put the days work in the front left pocket so as soon as they open their folders their work is right there.

These are the station regulators, if you will.

They're attached by Velcro so I can change things up, on Friday's there are no stations in their folders (Friday's are dedicated to review and crafts).

3 is science station

2 is math

1 is reading/writing

6 is the TV (culture class usually)

4 is their easel

and 5 is the reading station.

Eventually I will share the station set ups (and school room) you can get a small glimpse of the stations from this blog post I made. Station 5 also acts as a calm down corner, it has a lot of windows and there are calm down bottles (water bottles with glitter in them).

Thanks for taking a peak and tell me, how do you home school?

Schedule vs. Routine

Hint: I picked Routine

I started with a schedule. It was a very loose schedule because I know what my job requires of me on the busy days. I set it up so I could direct the schedule but it was already made and the kids had these flower numbers on the stations and then stuck in their folders. It's sort of like the drawer system, but a bit more chaotic. HA!

Our schedule (once upon a time ago) looked like this:

• 7:00 - wake up
• 8:00-9:00 - breakfast, clean up, hygiene
• 9:00-9:30 - circle time (calendar, songs, yoga)
• 9:30-11:00 - stations
• 11:00-11:30 - paperwork and clean up
• 12:00 - lunch
• 12:30 nap

Between phone calls for work and this schedule I would end the morning angry and so frustrated, so I took a week off to pay more attention to our mornings and how they REALLY work, even though I thought I had planned the schedule accordingly I didn't and it didn't work, it made me want to give up. What I realized is we wake up between 7:30 and 8:00. The kids want to watch some TV (we're a strictly PBS family) and I generally need a cup of coffee or two before I can do anything. So, I've done away with the schedule and I work with our natural ebb and flow of the day, to include not always getting dressed before school. HAHA

We start circle time around 9:00 or 10:00, yes, we still do circle time because it gets our brains going, it still only takes about 30 minutes, some days we do yoga, some days we practice yelling and some days we practice meditating. Once we finish the kids go straight into paperwork (usually only 2 pages, handwriting practice and numbers). I have changed that particular time because with our schedule we almost never finished paperwork, I always got too busy and the time always slipped by. While the paperwork is not the mortar to our foundation, I feel better if we knock those things out first and enjoy our educational games later. Remember I have framed our education around the Montessori style, so educational play is just as crucial as paperwork is to a regular school. We do a lot of off the record education through books, the kitchen, the yard, walks around the neighborhood or in the woods, at the beach....etc. During paperwork I set up the stations with activities and once the kids have finished they go to their assigned station I just dictate time (I really need to buy a timer) and occasionally give help. Here are some pictures from this morning (it was a PJ day):

 Above: My almost 4 year old working on reading

 Above: My 3 year old working on sorting, colors and counting

My almost 5 year old working on writing the letters E and I (in cursive)

You can sort of see the numbers behind the stations.

We are learning cursive, counting to 20, and general science and world history things.

 Friday's are (and will always be) dedicated to review and crafts, we start with circle time, we review our numbers and letters for that week, we discuss the week and then I break out the glue and scissors and we make a fun craft. Last week we made paper pumpkins and a birthday card for the man. This week we will be waiting until Saturday to carve our pumpkins, so we will discuss knife safety and print out carving ideas. This weekend will be filled with end-of-harvest fun also; Bonfire, BBQ, nature walk to collect leaves and twigs for our fall wreath.

What are some of your most favorite fall crafts?

The Herbal Journey

I was meant to be a healer...

As far back as my memories go I've had a deep desire to help people feel better heal. Shame on me for not realizing how many options there are in terms of healing. I grew up thinking I would be a doctor, my whole life I had strove to be in the medical field, it just makes sense to me, I understand illnesses and the body. Fast forward to college and I wasn't even a semester in when I knew medicine wasn't for me anymore. I took up advertising HA! I figured out quickly, in college, I was excellent with people. Long story short; dropped out of college, joined the military, had a sales job, and now I have my work at home job, I listened to the powers that be and realized herbalism is my calling.

What the heck are am I talking about, right? I'm talking about using mother nature to heal illness, injury, mental and physical! I want to use everything, roots, bark, flower petals, leaves, stems and nuts. Holistic treatment or alternative medicine treats the "whole" you. Spiritual, physical, and mental...rather than "you have a headache, here's some Tylenol" we get to the root of the problem (which is probably stress of some sort).

Speaking of Tylenol: 

I want everyone to know that Tylenol originates from the willow tree. I also want you to know that Willow [tree] will cause far less damage to your stomach than Tylenol or any of it's sister pills. We all know someone who has stomach ulcers because of a medicine. We all have watched the advertisements on television for drugs and their side effects. How many times have you heard the side effects list for a drug and thought "holy cow, I'm better off with my initial problem"?

I won't even go into the ridiculous amount of money we shovel out for "healthcare" and "medicine".

I am also not encouraging you to give your doctor the finger and start searching the closest patch of growing plants to treat yourself. I am encouraging you to stick around and read about natural treatments, allow me to share my knowledge of herbs and the benefits.

If homesteading and self sufficiency is my dream, then herbal medicine knowledge is a must!