AHH! Can you feel that? It’s summer!! Although it has felt like summer for quite some time here in Florida, I can say that our school year officially ends in two weeks!! For me, it’s always hard to tell exactly when we will end, because that depends on how many “off” days we have during the year, but we will officially end about a week after local schools.

I have to admit, we didn’t quite finish ALL of our curruiculum, which is hard for me. As a former teacher, I KNOW that most students don’t finish their entire textbook by the end of the year, but for some reason, as a homeschooler, I almost feel like I have to. It’s almost like I am pressuring myself to do MORE than the public schools do, and I wonder why?

I got my boys SAT 10 scores back for the year, and they did EXCELLENT! Seriously, there has been so much growth, and I am so thankful for that!! I think I just need to remind myself that finishing the books isn’t the most important thing….

I am really looking forward to summer this year. For some reason, the second half of the school year was really hard for us this time. Maybe it’s because my hubby got injured at work and we were dealing with that, along with other medical problems. Or maybe it was the move that occurred mid-year, at any rate, we are all ready for a break. I plan to give my kids a couple of weeks off, and then just have them do some daily math practice along with 20 minutes of reading and journaling. I think it’s important for my kids to not take a complete break for 2 months, because they will forget things, but at the same time, I don’t like to make the work too hard.

In between, I am looking forward to our family vacation to the mountains of NC and a few days alone with my hubby when the kids to grandma’s for a week! Of course, now I also have to think about next year….I haven’t gotten ANY curriculum yet, and I have to admit, that kind of gives me panic attacks at night. I think maybe I’m dragging my feet because my oldest starts high school next year, and that makes me nervous!! After giving myself a week off, I have determined that I will spend some time on the web researching and ordering stuff…but for now, I just want to wrap up these next two weeks, and enjoy some time off!! Happy Summer!!

Judah Bible Curriculum is a Bible program based on the Principle Approach. The idea is for you to study the Bible daily with your children, using the Bible as your textbook. The Principle Approach desires to “build character in teacher and student, capable of sustaining liberty”.

With this curriculum, you will study portions of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation each year according to 5 “themes”. These are:
1. Creation (Genesis 1-11)
2. The Plan of Redemption Begins (Genesis 12-Ruth)
3. The Kingdom of Israel (I Samuel-Malachi)
4. The Kingdom of God (Matthew-John)
5. The Early Church (Acts-Revelation).

Basically, each theme is broken down weekly, and you work with that. For example, the first week focused on Genesis 1-2 and creation. My children and I began with prayer and reading and discussing the Bible passage. Then, each day, we filled out a Key sheet (which is a printable included in the curriculum) related to what we discussed.

The Key sheets were nice, as I felt they were able to help us focus our thoughts when discussing and analyzing the Bible passage. The “key events” sheet had four columns, with a heading (i.e. Causes/Key individuals/principles of civil gov.), with some leading questions to get us started. Now, I will say that some of the discussion, specifically the government part, and the part about historical significance, was a little much for my youngest son (5th grade) to wrap his head around. For the most part, I just had him fill out the first two columns, and then my older son and I (8th grade) worked together on the other two. I do think these were good concepts for my almost-highschooler to explore…as much as we may want to seperate “church and state” in our society, the two do intersect and influence each other. I like that this curriculum gets my older son thinking critically about that!

Over the next four days of the week, my boys and I worked on the key individuals sheet, the key institutions, and the key documents. We always worked on these together. This is a program that requires a LOT of involvement on the part of the parent. It’s definitely not the kind of Bible Study you could just hand your kids and expect them to do. I didn’t feel like it required a particularly large amount of planning on my part, because once we got the hang of it, we just kind of did the same thing with each weekly theme. However, it does feel like a lot to wrap your head around at first.

I had heard of the Principle Approach prior to using this curriculum, but I was not really familiar with it. The program might be easier to implement if you are already using a similar approach in your schooling to begin with. However, the people at Judah Bible do have resources available to help you. First, there are downloads of lectures you can listen to, in order to help you understand how to use the curriculum. I am not so much an auditory learner, so I found I had to listen to these a few times while also going through the materials to really get a feel for the program. I did really appreciate the examples they had available of the key sheets that had already been filled out. Looking at them, I felt I had a better idea of how to use them myself. There are also clear directions for how to set up the notebook that you would use with the program.

To order the Judah Bible Curriculum online, which includes the manual (in ebook format), the elementary notebook ideas booklet, and the teacher training seminars, it will cost you $44.00. A hard copy of the program, which includes the same materials but in print or on CD, will cost you $74.00. These prices are not bad at all, considering you are getting a pretty in-depth curriculum that you can use year after year. My only consideration for this would be the ages of my children. I think the ideas in Judah Bible are very appropriate for my older son, but they are still a little too advanced for my younger one. I probably would not use this curriculum with a student younger than 7th grade, unless the Principle Approach is something you and they are already comfortable with. To find out more about Judah Bible Curriculum, click here:

http://www.judahbible.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1

To see what other members of the Crew had to say about Judah Bible, click here:

http://homeschoolcrew.com/785154/

*Disclaimer: I was given free access to this curriculum for the purpose of writing this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Our blog cruise topic for this week is “What’s the one thing you hope your children remember from their childhood?” Hmmmm….well, turns out that’s a much more complicated topic than I originally thought.

To begin with, I started reflecting on my own childhood. What were the things that really stood out to me? I grew up on a 5-acre farm in the middle of nowhere. There were two other kids in my neighborhood to play with, one boy, and one girl. Nevertheless, we had fun. I remember riding 4-wheelers in the back pasture, while trying to avoid the cows!! I remember nights sitting outside looking at the stars. Where we lived was far from the city, so without night pollution, it was really dark, and you could see SO many stars with the naked eye. I remember sleepovers at other friends houses, and chasing the ice cream truck for blocks!!

Out of all these memories though, what really stands out to me are the things I would DO with my nana and pop-pop (they raised me). Since they were  retired, we took a road trip every single summer. As a girl, I drove across country to California, all the way up the East Coast to see Niagara Falls, and into the midwest. I remember the first time I saw the big oil rigs in Texas, and the time we took a detour off the highway to stop at a little local Indian Museum I wanted to see. I remember being in awe of the size of the Grand Canyon, and the shock I felt when I first set foot in the very cold Pacific Ocean!

I know my grandparents scrimped and saved to give me “things”. I had Barbies, and toys and all that stuff. But my nana also read to me every night, and that is where I get my love of books. I may have outgrown Barbie, but give me a good book and a rainy night and I am a happy camper. You see, to me, the things I had are not what I remember most, my most treasured memories are of the times we spent together doing things. The EXPERIENCES I had are what stands out to me now. And I think that is the kind of childhood I want my kids to have too.

When they look back on their lives here in our home, I want my boys to remember love and laughter and time spent together. I want them to remember that even though they may not have had a lot of the latest “stuff”, they did have a mom and dad who made it a point to go camping with them, and take them to the beach and just spend time with them. To us, this is one BIG reason why we homeschool. As an adult, you realize just how quickly childhood passes by. My husband and I want to be able to enjoy all of it WITH our kids. We want them to have experiences, not things. And we want them to know that being with them was the most important thing to us.

So I guess that’s the answer. When my kids get older I want them to remember that raising them was our top priority. And that spending time with them was what we chose to do, even if it meant a LOT of sacrifice on our part. You know why? Because children are an incredible blessing from the Lord, and they deserve that.

What are some of your favorite childhood memories? Leave a comment to let me know. To see what other TOS Crew members had to say about this topic, click here:

http://homeschoolcrew.com/

Our blog cruise topic for this week is record-keeping tips. Ugh!! Let me be the first to admit, I am a VERY disorganized person when it comes to paper. I usually have a plan in my head for how our homeschool week is going to go, but, clutter is my biggest enemy. My “homeschool corner” is always covered with papers (much to my ultra-organized, super-neat hubby’s chagrin ). Now of course, if you ask me for something, I pretty much have a general idea of where it is, but none of my friends would consider me a neat person!

The first thing I would suggest when it comes to record keeping is to make sure you are familiar with your local laws as far as homeschool record keeping goes. In Florida, we have several options for recording our homeschool information, including test scores and portfolios (which are the most popular). While I do test my children, those scores are just for me, for my homeschool reporting, I use a portfolio for my kids.

What does this look like? Well, first of all I get myself one of those handy expanding file-folders from Staples for each of my children every year. We also keep history and science notebooks, and do various lapbooks. In the file, I keep work samples from my boys reading, math, writing, Bible studies etc. My first year of homeschooling, I was a little paranoid (what if they audit me???), so I tried to keep EVERYTHING! That didn’t work. I was overwhelmed with papers, and I ran out of storage space!! Now, I try to file two work samples for each child in each subject every week. This is also the system I used for keeping portfolios for my students when I was teaching, and it works well!

What do I keep? Any tests or quizzes first of all. I also try to keep at least two writing samples (essays, written narratives etc.). Some of my kids writing is done in notebooks, so I usually just keep the notebooks at the end of each year. In their history and science notebooks,  I keep worksheets, quizzes, book summaries, maps and other work we have done throughout the year. I use binders for these. Honestly, my kids love looking through them and showing them to family members when they come to visit!

Filing all this stuff was a big problem for me at first!! I had a folder where I would put all of our work samples for the week, but it seemed like they never made it past that folder, and then I was overwhelmed with a huge amount of papers to file all at once!! Now, I have a set “filing” day two weekends a month, where I put everything away. Often, I get my boys (now that they are older) to help me with this. They both like organizing their papers and their notebooks, and looking back at what they have done. This makes the whole job a LOT easier!

At the end of the year, I make sure everything is marked with my boys names, and the school year (i.e. 2011-2012) and I get one of those plastic storage tubs from Walmart and put the file folders, binders and any lapbooks we have done in them. Then I write the school year on the top and put it in a closet or the attic. I keep these tubs for three years, after which, I pull them out and ask the boys if there is anything they want to keep (usually they choose their notebooks or lapbooks). These things are put away and I purge everything else. Sometimes I have a hard time throwing things away, but there just isn’t enough room in my house to keep everything!! If I have something that really stands out to me as something I want to keep, I do, but I have learned to allow myself to get rid of things, even when I don’t want to. I like to keep my record-keeping as simple as possible, so it doesn’t become a burden with all the other stuff I need to do. How do you keep records in your homeschool? Leave me a comment if you have other ideas that might make this easier! To see what other TOS Crew members have to say on this topic, click here:

http://homeschoolcrew.com/

I was already somewhat familiar with the Critical Thinking Company, having used the Mind Benders Logic Puzzles with both of my boys. Prior to this review, I had looked at some of their other products for math and reading, but never used any of them. For this review, we got to check out Balance Math Teaches Algebra.

The mission of the Critical Thinking Company is to “empower the mind” of students without using drill and memorization. Balance Math does this by teaching Algebraic concepts using “puzzles” that students solve. In order to use this book, students will need to understand how a balance scale works, but don’t worry if you don’t have one handy!! The book actually begins with problems that illustrate this concept, and there is another reference page in the back students can refer to if needed.

Lessons start of with simple equations (i.e. if X=50, then what does XX=?). The problems each have an illustration and a “proof” that students fill out as they complete the problem. The proof simply explains the illustration using words, and walks students through solving the problem. This is very useful for getting the hang of things as you begin working through this book. As you move through the book, problems get more complex, and students begin to solve multi-step equations (some even involving fractions ).

The age guidelines for this book are 4th-12th+. I think that if you had an advanced 4th or 5th grader, they would do well with this, but other students this age would likely need a lot of parental support, at least at first. I was always good at algebra, but I had to read through the first six proofs a few times to wrap my head around how balance math works.

I used this program with my 8th grade son, who is struggling his way through pre-algebra at the moment. He is simply not a “mathy” kid. He doesn’t do really poorly at math, but it does take him more time to get concepts, and for some reason, algebra is just not “clicking” with him (geometry, well that’s another story!). When I showed him this book, at first, he was really confused. But, after I went through the first few pages with him, he did really start to “get” it. It was like visualizing the idea of the balance scale just helped the concepts to make sense!

He still did need my support as he got into the multi-step problems, but even then, after I helped with a couple, he was fine. Now, the first time I had him do algebra from his textbook after this, he did use scratch paper to draw a “balance” scale of his own to work out the problem, but he got the right answer, so I am definitely not going to complain!

Balance Math Teaches Algebra costs $14.99, and contains about 50 pages of activities. I don’t think it could be used as a stand-alone math program, but it would definitely work as a supplement, especially if you have a “visual” learner who is struggling with algebra. You could also use it as summer program, if you wanted to just give your kids some “light” work to practice with. There are also other levels of Balance Math you can use as well. I think $14.99 is a great price for something that helps your child to understand a concept they have been struggling with! It is great to see the relief in their eyes when they “get” it!!

You can learn more about Balance Math Teaches Algebra and other Critical Thinking Company products here:

http://www.criticalthinking.com/index.jsp?code=c

To see what other members of the TOS Crew had to say about this, and other CTC products, click here:

http://homeschoolcrew.com/

*Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this product for the purpose of writing this review. All opinions expressed are my own.