The Curriculum Choice

Jennifer

I, Jen, am wife to Bryan of almost 18 years and mom to 6 precious children ages 14, 13, 11, 9, 7, and 5. Our family has been homeschooling for 10 years now. We tend to be very eclectic in a relaxed approach to learning with Unit Studies, some CM, and a whole lot of reading thrown into the works. We prefer to read what Charlotte Mason referred to as living books. We collect children's picture books and our current home library contains a little over 5000 of them. In addition to The Curriculum Choice, I write reviews of homeschool products for the TOS Homeschool Crew and Timberdoodle, as well as book reviews for various publishing companies. When not teaching my children, I enjoy cooking/baking, writing poetry, blogging, and reading. You can find our family blog at Adventures in Unsell Land.

The Reading Game

Elementary, Language Arts, Reading No Responses »

Dec 192011

I don’t know about your family but anytime our family can include game playing in our school lessons – we do – and love it! In my opinion, playing games is an awesome way to learn anything. The Reading Game is a fast action memory card game designed to help supplement young children on their path to learning to read. The Reading Game was created by the same author of the “Wordly Wise” series.

Included in The Reading Game is a series of six beautifully illustrated storybooks. The memory game cards are common site words that meet the criteria of the Common Core State Standards for Language Arts, Foundational skills, and Reading skills needed for both kindergarten and first graders. To see a full listing of reading standards and how the game correlates with them, click HERE. Enjoy this game with any struggling readers older than first grade.

Each game is played in six stages, each teaching five words. The idea behind the game is that once your child has completed his or her first round with the memory matching game they will have those words embedded into their brains. The different sets of memory cards are color and picture coordinated to connect with the storybooks included with the game. So after finishing the first set of memory cards your child has been introduced to the sight words used in the first storybook. In fact, the storybook uses only those thirty words. This sets your child up for success in reading. It is the frequent exposure through play that hard-wires these words into long-term memory. To play The Reading Game, two players are required, the student and the teacher.

So many first readers are just plain boring and in my opinion do not engage children in a way that they should. The Reading Game is different. These books are interesting and involve animals in their storyline which my own children have really enjoyed. A skunk, snake, bear, penguins, unicorn, and zebra appear in the books.

After completing the entire series, your child should have a reading vocabulary of 180 words. You can learn more details about how the game works and watch a video of it by clicking, HERE.

The author offers sight word assessment worksheets, as well as test sentence assessment worksheets, HERE, to help monitor the progress of your child as you play The Reading Game.

The cost of The Reading Game is 24.95$ and that includes six beautifully illustrated story books, six decks of matching playing cards, and a Teacher and Parent’s Guide. You can find The Reading Game on Facebook. To purchase click, HERE.

Disclaimer: I was sent this game for FREE in exchange for my honest review. No other compensation was received.

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Eating The Plates: A Pilgrim Book Of Food And Manners

History, Living books No Responses »

Nov 182011

One of my favorite ways to teach is to take a book and put it into action. Last Thanksgiving our family read Eating The Plates: A Pilgrim Book of Food and Manners by Lucille Recht Penner. This book offers so many opportunities for learning.

You could simply read through this book each year at Thanksgiving, discussing the history with your kids. You could also take the information in it and recreate a pilgrim Thanksgiving dinner. That’s what we did last year.

I love the details the book gives about how the pilgrims lived. It goes far beyond your basic book on the pilgrims. For example, during the last few chapters we learned about the eating habits of the pilgrims. The book even concludes with a “Pilgrim Menu” that you can make.

To give you a glimpse into some of what we learned from this book please visit our Thanksgiving dinner last year.

We learned that most pilgrim families did not have silverware, plates, or bowls. The pilgrims used stale bread for plates. They put whatever soup, pudding, meat, etc. on their stale bread. At the end of the meal they would often dip the stale bread in the soup or pudding to soften it and then they would “eat their plates”.

We therefore ate our meal on bread plates and our soup out of bread bowls that I made. Corn soup is pictured in the bread bowl, above. The book includes authentic Pilgrim recipes. We enjoyed another recipe called Bannock Cakes. They are a simple biscuit-like cake made from stone ground cornmeal.

The pilgrims had many cranberries in their area they used to make a jelly. They called the jelly bearberries or bearbelly jelly because the bears liked the cranberries too. This jelly recipe is also included and oh my goodness it was so good!

This is a great resource for your pilgrim studies!
We had a wonderful time re-creating our Pilgrim dinner.
There were so many other interesting things that we learned from this book.
Authentic recipes.
A pilgrim menu to make!
The book is 128 pages in length.
To purchase Eating The Plates click, HERE.

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving. ~H.U. Westermayer

Jennifer is mom to 6 children, 2 boys and 4 girls, ages 14 down to 5. The Unsell family is in their 10th year of homeschooling and are a bit eclectic in their approach to schooling with a focus on unit studies and living books. You can find their family blog at Adventures in Unsell Land.

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Lewis and Clark for Kids Unit Study

Hands On, History, Unit study resources 2 Responses »

Oct 212011

We use a lot of Unit Studies in our home school. A couple of years ago I stumbled upon the For Kids Unit Studies. Each study contains a book written about the subject and 21 activities that tie into what you are reading. One of our first to use was Lewis and Clark for Kids: Their Journey of Discovery with 21 Activities (For Kids series) by Janis Herbert.

We really had fun with this study. My favorite part of these unit studies are the activities that are included in the books.

In one of the many activities, we learned that Lewis knew red face paint (called vermillion) would be a welcome gift among the Indians they would meet on their expedition. His dye was made from grinding minerals into pigment. We used a recipe included in the book to make up our own homemade face paint much like Lewis did. The kids then had fun painting themselves up like indians as we wondered what it was like as the expedition met their first tribes of Indians along the way.

Our very favorite activity was to make some homemade fruit leather. We learned in our readings a bit about the foods that Lewis and Clark ate on their expedition across the country. It was interesting to learn how they stored food and what they ate. They traded a lot with the Indians as they met different tribes.

This Lewis and Clark study is 131 pages in length and is broken down into 9 chapters which cover the following….

Chapter 1 – Covers 1770- 1804. Activities include learning about Latitude and Longitude and making Vermillion (homemade face paint).

Chapter 2 – Covers 1804 May through August of that year. Activities include lessons on preserving plants and identifying them as well as making homemade fruit leather and learning about the lunar cycle.

Chapter 3 – Covers August 1804- October 1804. Activities include: Telling a story of your year on pretend buffalo hide, constructing a muslin tipi, constructing a dance rattle, and a recipe to make a great plains stew.

Chapter 4 – October 1804- February 1805. Activities include: Tracking animals and learning to play hoop and pole.

Chapter 5 – April 1805- June 1805. Activities include learning some specific Indian dances, making a buffalo mask, sewing your own pair of moccasins.

Chapter 6 – July 1805- August 1805. Activities include learning to speak Indian signs and making a basket.

Chapter 7 – September 1805- December 1805. Activities include making a drum, doing an archaeological dig, and making beeswax candles.

Chapter 8 – March 1806- August 1806. Activity is recognizing and making trail signs.

Chapter 9 – August 1806- September 1806. Activity is a celebration for the 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

__________________________________

Most of the supplies needed for the above activities are easy to find items that you typically have around the house, but some of the supplies are things that would need to be purchased. With 21 activities and most chapters having multiple activities you certainly do not have to do each and every activity to make the study complete. In fact our family only completed a handful of them. A few of the activities were a bit more time consuming than I desired such as making our own moccasins.

Included at the front of the book are 2 timelines, one being from the birth to death of both Lewis and Clark and one being about the expedition. Also included is a preface about the Louisiana Purchase and a map of the expedition. The back of the book has a glossary of terms used in the study and a listing of Lewis and Clark sites around the United States that you can visit as well as organizations and events that revolve around Lewis and Clark. The back of the book also has a listing of web sites to explore for further information/reading.

Other For Kids unit study titles include: Thomas Edison, Monet, World War 2, Civil Rights Movement, Civil War, The American Revolution, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, Isaac Newton, The Underground Railroad, and more. Titles are written by various authors.

-Jennifer is mom to 6 children, 2 boys and 4 girls, ages 14 down to 5. The Unsell family is in their 10th year of homeschooling and are a bit eclectic in their approach to schooling with a focus on unit studies and living books. You can find their family blog at Adventures in Unsell Land.

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A Young Scholar’s Guide to Composers

Music, Uncategorized No Responses »

Sep 162011

This past year our family was introduced to a study from Bright Ideas Press called A Young Scholar’s Guide to Composers. You might already be familiar with Bright Ideas Press if you use their history curriculum, The Mystery of History.

A Young Scholars Guide to Composers is a One-Year Curriculum for Grades 4-8. It is Christian based and Chronological. It is broken down into 32 weekly lessons that cover 26 famous composers and 6 eras of music.

The study begins with an introduction into Ancient Music and Music in the Middle Ages. You then cover music in the Renaissance and then move into the Baroque Period. At that point you begin covering individual composers and their lives. The rest of the book is broken down into periods of history covering The Baroque period, The Classical Period, The Romantic Period, and The Contemporary Period. You learn about famous composers within each of the above periods of history.

The study offers a suggested schedule for your studies which they have broken down into three days a week, but the study is very flexible and can be used easily in any manner that you desire to use it. In fact, we have on a couple of occasions done the study two days in one week and then picked it back up the following week.

If you follow the suggested study in the book it is recommended that on Day 1 you listen to the recommended selections, read the lesson from the book (each lesson runs approximately 1200 words and takes about 15 minutes to read aloud), and fill in the note- taking pages or answer the Student Review Questions. On Day 2 it suggests that you listen to the selections again, fill in the Composer Info Cards (which are included in the back of the book as reproducibles), and color in the timeline. Day 3 suggests that you listen to the selection(s) again and match the composer to his place of birth on a world map. Again, reproducibles are available in the back of the book.

Above is a sample of the reproducible Composer Info Cards that the book offers.

This is the back of the Info Card which your student/child fills out.

This is a sample of the composers faces that you cut out and glue to the front of the Info Cards. These faces are also used on the included timeline in the book. We have used the faces on our own timeline that we already had set up for our schooling.

Our family has very much enjoyed using this study. One of the things that I love about it is that it can easily be geared towards various ages. While it is written for grades 4-8th, even my younger children have been able to get a lot out of just listening to the various composers. The back of the book includes coloring pages and my younger children have really enjoyed coloring them as they listen to various pieces of music by each composer. One of our very first composers to study was George Frideric Handel.

This is the coloring page that my daughter Ally (7), and Camden (5) worked on while we listened to his works of music and my older kids filled out their composer cards.

As far as the music itself is concerned, towards the back of the book are suggested web addresses where you can listen to selections from the various artists that you will be studying. Most of the addresses are You Tube videos. While some of the website addresses may change over time and some may therefore not be in use anymore, it has been our experience that most have still been active. When I have come across an address that is no longer active it has been easy to simply type in the name of the piece that is suggested in the book and find selections on You Tube to listen too. I have appreciated having recommended selections to pull up and listen to as we have gone through our studies rather than having to do my own search on what to listen too.

Also included in this book are note-taking pages, quizzes, and answer keys.

Just to give you a sample of how our study began, we started out reading about Ancient Music and Music during the Middle Ages on our first week. Our listening suggestions during this week was, the Gregorian Chant, The Salve Regina, and Dies Irae. As we listened to the suggestions we replayed them several times discussing things such as whether we heard harmony or only melody in the music? Is the tune catchy? What type of feelings does it convey? We tried turning the music off and singing the melody back to see if we could. We also tried tapping our feet to the music. On our second week we learned about music during the Renaissance time period. Our suggestions of music for this week were Piffaro and “Summer Is Icumen In”. We discussed the same questions regarding this music that we did on week one. On week three we read about the Baroque Period and began our study of composers with Antonio Vivaldi. From that point on, each week contained a new composer to study.

This Composer Study is 298 pages long and is available in paperback book form for $34.95 or as a CD-Rom book for $29.95. You can download sample pages of the study from the Bright Ideas Website. To do so or to purchase the book visit, HERE.

Jennifer is mom to 6 children, 2 boys and 4 girls, ages 14 down to 5. The Unsell family is in their 10th year of homeschooling and are a bit eclectic in their approach to schooling. You can find their family blog at Adventures in Unsell Land.

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Apologia Elementary Science~ Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy Study

Elementary, Science 5 Responses »

Aug 032011

For several years now our family has been using the Apologia Elementary Science studies by Jeannie Fulbright. Their are currently six studies that have been published. Exploring creation through Human Anatomy, Astronomy, Botany, Zoology 1 (flying creatures), Zoology 2 (swimming creatures of the 5th day- ocean study), and Zoology 3 (land animals).

The studies are written at a 4th grade level but can be used with a wide range of ages from around 2nd grade up to 6th. If you have an older student that needs to study a particular topic these books can be used with older students as well. The books do not need to be done in any certain order. Jeannie recommends you begin with whichever book you and your children believe to be the most interesting right now. Follow your interests.

If you choose to do Zoology II before Zoology I, your child will not get a detailed look into animal classification or endangered species. These two topics are discussed in the first lesson of Zoology I. However, this first lesson of Zoology I is the sample lesson available for download from Apologia’s website and Ms. Fulbright’s website. Jeannie has placed that lesson on the website so that you can print it up and discuss these topics with your children if you desire for them to learn about them before you begin Zoology II.

Our very first book to go through was the Exploring Creation with Zoology 2 which is the study of the ocean. My children loved it and learned so much! I have pictures of some of the activities that we did with the ocean unit HERE, and HERE.

This year our family has been working our way through the Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology study. This course covers bones & skeletons, muscles, DNA, cells, and the respiratory, digestive, circulatory, and nervous systems, as well the history of medicine, nutrition and health, embryology, major organs, the immune system, and what makes us each a unique creation.

Each of the topics are broken down into chapters. While these courses are written as textbooks they have a different feel to them than the average textbook. I am not a big fan of textbooks but I love these studies. Jeannie has written the study in a way that is easy to understand. Included are hands-on science projects that reinforce the lessons taught in each chapter, assignments incorporating other subjects, and comprehension questions.

Jeannie uses a Charlotte Mason approach in having your student do a lot of narrating as you go through the study. At the end of each chapter the kids are given a project to complete that relates to what they have learned. Their is a high creation focus, too. Throughout the book Jeannie has “creation confirmation sections” which discuss what the Bible has to say in reference to what you are learning.

For the first time we purchased the journal notebooks to go along with our lessons.

While we certainly didn’t need to purchase the notebooks to make the study complete, I have to share that the notebooks have really enhanced our study time with this course. The notebooks are a bit pricey, ranging from $18-20 depending on where you get them from. If you have more than one child like us, that can add up pretty fast. For me it has been worth the cost to have all of the papers on hand and ready to go (less work on my part) and we have loved the additional activities in the journals. Jeannie does offer free notebooking pages on her website but the difference in these journaling notebooks and her free pages are very different. The free pages are pretty plain in comparison. Here are a few examples from our Human Anatomy notebooks.

While learning about cells the above picture was a page in the kids journal that they needed to complete.

This was a section in their notebooks that they needed to fill out while learning about the history of medicine.

For each chapter the notebooks contain bible verses for copywork that relate to what you have learned about. The notebooks include manuscript and cursive options.

The notebooks also include some lapbooking type activities that go along with the lessons. These are cell wheels that the kids made.

While learning the 6 main systems that make up our bodies, the kids had 2 pages in their notebooks where they needed to glue the correct name of each system next to the right picture.

While learning about the skeletal system this was a page in the kids notebooks that they needed to complete.

My 9 year olds favorite part of her notebook is this page in the very back. At the end of each lesson she gets to add on the various body systems and organs that she has learned about.

The following are a couple of notebook pages from our chapter on the Digestive System.

On the back of the pieces of food the kids had to write facts about various parts of the Digestive tract.

Each of the kids had to create their own comic strip that told the story of the digestive tract.

Also included in each section of the notebooks are vocabulary crossword puzzles, a what do you remember page with questions to answer, additional ideas for further experiments, scientific speculation sheets, and notebooking pages.

One of the things we LOVE about this human anatomy study is the hands on activities that are included throughout and at the end of each chapter. Here are a few pictures of some of our favorite activities/experiments that we did.

We created cells using jello and various pieces of candy.

While learning about our digestive tracts the kids project at the end of the chapter was to create a digestive system theme park. My daughters Natalie and Annie worked together to create this one.

This is my daughter Emmys digestive theme park.

While learning about Chyme we took a ziplock bag, a piece of bread, and some water to simulate our stomach in action. After placing the bread in the bag we added water until it covered the bread. We then sealed the bag and put it into another for protection. The kids squeezed and squished the bag as our stomach does to our food and they say what happened to the bread which is the same thing that happens to our food when our stomach churns it.

I love the information that my children have retained from these studies. I have also really appreciated that the course is written to a wide range in ages since I am teaching multiple ages at the same time.

Their are also kits available for purchase to go along with each title that contain most of the items you would need to complete the experiments in each book. The kits are rather pricey, but again, can be beneficial if the cost is not an issue. It has been our experience that most, though not all, of the items needed for the experiments in the books are things we have had on hand around the house so it seems to me that the benefit of purchasing one of the kits would be to have everything you need right at your fingertips and ready to go.

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Sequential Spelling

Language Arts, Spelling 5 Responses »

Jul 252011

Our family has used several things through the years to help our kids in the area of spelling. Some have worked well. Others have not. My oldest son (14) was really struggling this past year with his spelling and programs that we had previously tried just didn’t seem to be doing the trick with him. He was a late reader. He has always struggled a bit with the concept of phonics. He tends to be very logical in his thinking. It has never made sense to him that a letter would be silent or one particular letter might have several sounds. He really thrives as a sight reader and that tends to roll on over into his spelling. He wants to spell things as they sound.

After trying several other programs and not feeling as though they were a good fit for him, I read about Sequential Spelling and decided that it sounded like something that might work well for him.

With Sequential Spelling the basic concept is to teach spelling by word families. This was the way that my son learned to read and so it made sense that it would also benefit him to practice his spelling in this same manner. It has been a wonderful fit for him.

To give an example of how Sequential Spelling uses word families, your child will be introduced to a word such as “at” and then they go on to learn how to spell cat, bat, sat, scat, and more. Another example is the word out and then your child learning to spell all of the words that contain the word out in them.

The lessons are really short with Sequential Spelling. For us it takes about 15 minutes a day. The lessons build on each other as you go along and they repeat words over and over again which helps your child to memorize the spelling. Each lesson may contain up to 25 words. You as the teacher simply go down the list and dictate the words on the list each day. One by one your child writes them in his/her student book or on a piece of paper. He or she immediately corrects any mistakes that they make. I really think this is another key to this program being successful. The program treats mistakes as learning opportunities. Instead of memorizing words to take a spelling test, each day is treated as a test where mistakes are immediately addressed and changed by your student.

Sequential Spelling offers 7 levels in their program. Each of the 7 levels include 180 daily tests of 25 words for a total of over 25,000 words! With Sequential Spelling you need to purchase the main book as well as a Student Response book. The student response book is not completely necessary as you could just use a binder of paper in place of it but we have found it nice to have the student book on hand. The average individual price for each volume runs anywhere from 17-20$ and some places throw in the student books for free.

You can find the scope and sequence for the program, HERE.

In a world where most people these days are dependent upon spell check it sometimes seems that good spelling is quickly becoming a lost art. I long for my children to be good spellers and I am thrilled to have found a program that is working well for my spelling challenged child.

Jennifer is mom to 6 children, 2 boys and 4 girls, ages 14 down to 5. The Unsell family is in their 10th year of homeschooling. You can find their family blog at Adventures in Unsell Land.

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