Amy's Wandering

Wandering through life one season at a time

Archives for August 4, 2014

$50 Amazon GC {Weekly Homeschool Giveaways}

By: amyswandering16 Comments

This post contains affiliate links.

Back to School Money - $50 Amazon card

This Weeks Featured Giveaway

Homeschool Survival

$50 Gift Card from Amazon
You’ll be able to purchase supplies your family needs and take advantage of the wonderful “Back to School” sales going on daily! The team here at Homeschool Survival came up with our own favorite product ideas for homeschool. These are things we use regularly and recommend to others to enhance the homeschool year!
art calendar
One of my favorite products is the Art Gallery Day-to-Day Calendar from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The pages come in a clear display stand and my kids love taking turns switching them each day to see the new artwork. It is a casual way to sneak Art into our shool day, it adds beauty to our home, and my daughters enjoy crafting with the pages once we are done. It might seem strange to have a 2015 calendar on my back to school list, but they sell out so quickly that I have to order this early to get one!
Take a look at some of my team members’ favorites:
 do a dot

With so many little guys in my house during the homeschooling day busy boxes are a must for me! I love how easy they are for little hands to use and the activities are endless. We use them to create pictures and other art projects. They are great for beginner writers and readers. Print off letters for them to “trace” with dots, have them match dots to numbers, or play find the letter by printing off a sheet of mixed up letters and only dotting certain ones. ~ Emmalee Hoggatt, The Hoggatt Homeschool

 

laminator

 

I absolutely love this laminator. It’s very reasonably priced. We love to laminate play-dough mats and homemade games. Its a great access to our homeschool. ~ Jill Craft, Blessed Beyond a Doubt

My first choice of favorite homeschool product is Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Comstock. It is really all I need for early elementary level science, and I continue to use it all the way through high school. It is a timeless nature study guide, science text, collection of unit studies, and field guide all in one. By far my best homeschooling investment. ~ Anne Campbell, Learning Table

I DO SO love a good globe and this one is very affordable! I’ve used everything from wall maps, to blow up globes in our family homeschool. This year we will be enjoying the real deal as we regularly study exciting people, places, and things from around the world! ~ Kelli Becton, Adventures in Child Rearing

Educating the WholeHearted Child

Any time I need encouragement, as a homeschool mom, this is the book I pull out. There are so many practical tips and tricks throughout the book that give me the perfect pep talk that I need. It has everything from home organization ideas to curriculum ideas. Really, everything a homeschooling mom would need! — Sarah Robinson, Sidetracked Sarah & Owner of Homeschool Survival.

Words are Categorical Series
We love learning grammar with the books in the Words Are Categorical series. These charming books teach students grades 2-4 with fun titles such as A Mink, a Fink, a Skating Rink (nouns) and Hairy, Scary, Ordinary (adjectives). There are also books for verbs, adverbs, pronouns, compound words, conjunctions, prepositions, synonyms, and more! ~ Marcy Crabtree, Ben and Me
Smead Envelope with String-Tie Closure

Smead Envelope with String-Tie Closure, Side Loading, Letter Size, Green Poly, 5 per Pack (89523)

These are my favorite right now because I use them for several things in our homeschool organization. I use them to hold unit studies, all the printable packs I print out and I also use them for workboxes. I have tried multiple things as workboxes and these are my best find. They are durable and the boys can see the contents inside. They are strong enough to hold large high school size books, a folder and spiral notebook. I Velcro the workbox tags to the outside and tape their lesson to the outside. They close up tight and nothing falls out or gets lost! Works great! ~ Janeen Herlugson, Sprouting Tadpoles

 

Giveaway – Enter with 1 link or Enter with ALL!

One family will receive a $50 Amazon card to shop for their homeschool (or other family needs)

->->> CLICK HERE TO ENTER THE RAFFLECOPTER GIVEAWAY <<-<-

Be sure to head over to HomeschoolSurvival.com to see what other Homeschooling Giveaways you can enter to win or Freebies you can get! The giveaways & freebies link up is every Monday! Are you a homeschooling company who would like to sponsor the weekly Giveaways for Homeschoolers? Email Sarah of Homeschool Survival at sidetrackedsarah (at) gmail.com

Are you all finished with your homeschool shopping? What is on your supply list?

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Our 2014-2015 Curriculum Plan

By: amyswandering3 Comments

This post contains affiliate links.

2014-2015 curriculum

I am SO looking forward to this upcoming school year! Y’all, this past year was just plain hard. We moved 1200 miles away from our entire extended family. We battled illness for months (and we rarely get sick). You can sum up our homeschool experience in one word: trudging.  But you know what? That’s okay. Life happens. God is in our midst whether good or bad. It makes us appreciate the year that awaits us, with new friends and book clubs and a beach to explore.

With 5 kids to teach, I like to do as much work together as possible. This looks a little different each year, depending on the books we use and what our yearly focus is going to be.  I choose a couple of subjects each year that need a little extra attention. Last year it was math & science; this year it is history and writing. Our focus subjects are the ones that we do no matter what! Our group work lineup for grades K, 4th, 6th, 10th, & 12th includes: Bible, History, Geography, Writing, & Nature Study. 

I took our hard year into account when planning this year because we all need a break from the trudging. Writing is one of those areas that can just be a beating for everyone involved, so I was determined to add it to our group playlist and have a bit of fun. Pinterest (once again) came to the rescue and I had a lightbulb moment when I found the Ultimate Guide to Creative Writing for Students. Creative Writing with the whole family for a full year? Well why not!?!

I’ve been organizing our morning times for the past few years using my Theme of the Day chart. (That post has tons of free resources!) In a nutshell, it takes all of the subjects that sometimes get pushed to the side – art, poetry, geography –  and assigns them to a day of the week. We would do morning time right after finishing breakfast and our Good Morning Guide, break up for individual subjects, and then come back together for group work in the afternoon. This year I am flipping our day. We will be spending the entire morning together and then splitting up in the afternoon. I am replacing our Theme of the Day with a new routine that I am calling Mornings with Mom. We will spend about 30 minutes each morning learning new words, watching interesting short videos, practicing math drills, memorizing scripture, and exploring whatever cool websites Mommy discovers that week. **I am almost done with a Mornings with Mom post that contains a big list of free & fun educational links. I’ll link it up here when I get it done.**

I still have a few details left to iron out, but here is what we’re running with for now:

~* Bible *~

~* History *~

~* Geography *~

~* Creative Writing *~

~* Nature Study *~

~ Science ~

~ Handwriting ~

~ Reading ~

~ Literature ~

  • (undecided)

~ Spelling ~

 ~ Grammar ~

~Math ~

~ Government/Economics ~

~ High School Electives ~

If this is your first visit to Are We There Yet?, my name is Amy and I share free educational resources. We are entering our thirteenth year of homeschooling. You might be interested in some of these posts:

Do you love FREEBIES?
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Head on over to iHomeschool Network’s Curriculum Week to browse curriculum lists and link up your own. There will be several hundred by the end of the week!

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