8th Grade  (My oldest daughter’s current year)

Math- Teaching Text Books- We have loved this since we started!

Language Arts- Switched on Schoolhouse (SOS) purchased through Alpha Omega Publications

Science- Apologia

History- The Good and the Beautiful (family style)

Shown below is my daughter’s Apologia 8th grade science.  Through 7th grade she still did science  through SOS.  She was just not liking it so we tried out something new this year.  Science is not her favorite so the verdict is still out on what she thinks!  This curriculum does have lots of experiments and I did purchase the experiment kit through Rainbow Resources.

7th Grade (what my oldest did last year)

Math- Teaching Text Books

Language Arts- Switched on Schoolhouse (SOS)

Science- SOS

History- The Good and the Beautiful

Shown below is our History Year 2 that we are working on this year.  Last year was the first year we tried this out, did Year 1,  and we loved it so continued it again this year.  It is kind of the dream history curriculum!  This is family style and perfect as more of my kids join in so I am not having to sit with multiple little ones.  My daughter still did SOS for history through grade 6.  It was becoming very hard and dry and we felt like we needed a change.  

6th Grade (what my oldest did)

Math- Teaching Text Books

Language Arts- SOS

Science- SOS

History- SOS

5th Grade (what my second daughter is currently doing)

Math- Teaching Text Books

Language Arts- SOS

Science- Apologia  (Astronomy)

History- The Good and the Beautiful

To see what we originally did for 5th grade you can see my original post.  When we switched History and Science for my oldest everyone got switched.  So far I have really like the Apologia science for the elementary level.  It is designed for grades K-6 and you pick a different course to study each year.  They chose Astronomy this year. My 5th and 1st grader do this together. I am able to go over with them what they are to do each day to get them started, and then that frees up time for me to work on Preschool with my youngest.  I also purchased the audio recording, along with the text book so they can follow along.  I figured that would help them focus better when I am not in the room, and it has worked out great. I purchased the experiment kit for them too.  My 1st grader has the Jr. Notebook Journal (not pictured).  

2nd, 3rd, and 4th Grade

See my original post except science has been changed to Apologia, and History changed to The Good and the Beautiful.

1st Grade ( what my oldest son is currently doing)

Math- Lifepacs purchased through Alpha Omega Publications

Language Arts- Lifepacs

Science- Apologia

History- The Good and the Beautiful

I mentioned in my original post that I would probably no longer use Singapore Math in 1st grade.  I was right and actually chose to use Lifepacs math for Kindergarten as well with my son knowing I would not be using it for first grade.

Kindergarten

See my original post for all the details except I changed math last year with my son to Lifepacs Math.

3’s and 4’s Preschool

See my original post for all the details as that is still the same!

If you are wondering how I fit it all in and schedule my day, see my post on how I schedule.  Below is a copy of our updated schedule if you are interested!

I hope this helped to give you some ideas!

OUR HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM…

updated!

Today we had fun making Mayflower Boats for the craft so I thought I would share what we did.  One of my girls even wanted to get in on the action!  The craft is super simple and something fun to do with younger kids even if you are not doing this unit study. 

SUPPLIES:

Applesauce or mandarin orange plastic cups

popsicle sticks

washable paint

Play-Doh

white paper

scissors

glue stick

DIRECTIONS:

Paint the applesauce cups with your desired paint color.  Here is the paint I used because….WASHABLE!  

I suggested brown to look like a boat, but my preschooler insisted on red.  Ya know..red is closer to the color of a fire truck so there was no talking him out of it!  I just put down some paper to protect the table and let them have at it.  If you are actually going to be putting your boats in water only paint the inside.  

While our boats were drying we prepared the sails.  I just cut out trapezoids and rectangles from white paper to make the sails.  

Then take your glue stick and put some glue on the top and middle of your popsicle stick.  

Add your sails. 

Once everything is dry you will be ready to finish assembling.  

We just took some Play-Doh and put it in the bottom of the boats to hold the sail.  

Then they stuck the sail in.  

And there you go!  A cute little Mayflower craft to go along with learning all about the Mayflower and what it was like when the Pilgrims made their journey.  

I can’t believe it is almost time for the new school year.  I know so many have already started but we won’t be starting until the second week of September as we schooled so far into the summer.  My oldest daughter and son finished mid July and then my other daughter went into August.  Once the first two were done we pretty much ditched our schedule and I just worked with her when I could.  Now I totally needed a break from the schedule, but it is amazing how much I have not been accomplishing without it and how much more stressed throughout the day I get.  I feel like I spend all my time reacting to everything and constantly trying to keep up with the day instead of being productive.  And of course there is much more chaos right now because being on break everyone just kind of has free time all day.    I think the only things that I have really kept up with lately is our laundry routine and nap/quiet time.  I am actually looking forward to getting back to my schedule as I accomplish so much more with it!  

Why Do I Schedule

Now I know we are all wired differently and some people may do just fine without a schedule.  Or maybe all your kids are older and having no schedule works just fine.  For me when I fist started homeschooling three years ago I knew I needed something to help me get through the day.  I knew I was called to homeschool but I was very intimidated at the thought of being able to keep up with school for both my girls, get all that accomplished with an almost two-year old, still get the chores done, make meals, laundry, and pay bills etc.  I was also just pregnant with my 4th baby and very tired.  I touched on this a little bit in my post about our homeschool curriculum and how I wanted to know how other families accomplished all this and still stayed sane!  I learned that it helps to have a curriculum that doesn’t require a lot of prep from mom, and also schedule your day.  By scheduling our day I can think about ahead of time, when I can focus, all the things that each child needs to accomplish everyday, and what I need to accomplish including teaching school, chores, meal prep, laundry etc. This eliminates me having to make all those decisions on the fly throughout the day of when to accomplish everything and how to get it all done.  If I didn’t follow a schedule I would most likely end each day feeling like not all the school work was done, chores were skipped, laundry might still be in baskets at the end of the bed, and then stressed because so much was left undone.  That was not how I wanted our homeschool days to be!  The kids also thrive because everyone, even the little ones know what is coming next.  With a balanced schedule we would all have enough time for work, play/free time, and rest.

How I Schedule Our Day

I actually schedule our day modeled how Teri Maxwell teaches it in her book Managers of Their Homes.  You can also purchase the book from their family website at Titus 2.  If you don’t purchase the book I recommend still registering for her monthly emails.  She is full of good ideas and suggestions for making your homeschool day work.  This book was a huge help in guiding me how to set up a schedule that will actually work and you can stick with!  The book is full of great examples of how to schedule everything from school, to toddlers, baby feedings, meals, and all the cleaning.  If scheduling you day is something you are interested in I highly recommend you read the book because it will help all that I am saying make more sense.  The book also comes with a kit to help you set up your schedule all color coded.  I used the kit to get everyone’s activities all put on paper but then I actually created my schedule on Numbers (Mac), same as Excel for PC.    After creating my first original schedule three years ago I like that with each new semester I am able to have a template to start with for creating my next semesters schedule, and being done on the computer makes it so easy to make any changes.  I do actually re-do my schedule every fall and spring.  This is especially very important when you have babies and little ones because their routine with naps and feedings etc. change so much.  Also as kids grow older they can take on more chores or have different activities that we need to schedule in.  Most of my kid’s school subjects can fit into 30-45 time blocks so that makes it easy for plugging in the schedule.  Same with our cleaning and laundry, I break up those tasks so they can be done in 30 minute time blocks.  Here are a few examples of our past schedules.  

This one is from when I was keeping up with a nursing schedule. 

So as I mentioned above the best way to do this is to read the book.  I will try to go over some of the main points as well here.  First for both you and your kids,( I don’t schedule my husband), it helps to make a list of what you want each person to accomplish in a day and in a week, and also another list of all the chores that need to be done.  Once you have your chore list you can assign it to the person that is going to complete that chore.  Once I have my lists of who is doing what I will open up my past semesters schedule and copy it.  On the new copy I will change all my information at the top to have the correct semester and year and then I will update the kids ages.  Feel free to use one of my above schedules as an example when setting up your first schedule.  Then I will figure out what times of the day that I want the meals.  You can see above that I grayed those out across the board because those times will be used for all of us.  The next step for me was to do the baby’s schedule including naps and nursing times.  This way when you have a nursing baby you are not scheduling teaching math etc during a nursing time.  Now I don’t have a baby any more but that was very important during that stage to make sure the baby was taken care of and happy!  We still have a nap time for my youngest and quiet time/reading time for the other kids so I will plug that in.  If there are any other things in your schedule that have to be done at a certain time you can fill that in.  The more I do this I usually find that certain things stay the same like wake times and getting ready, nap and chore times etc. Then it is free rein to fill in what everyone needs to get accomplished in the rest of your time blocks.  I do put in bold the areas of the schedule that are for school, and I also used to bold the nursing times.  The beauty of this is that since you are doing the schedule you can decide when you do chores or school etc.  When having your schedule all on paper in front of you, you can look at your day ahead of time to make sure you have everything on it that needs to be accomplished.  As needs change or if you realize something is not working you can change it!  When we first start a new schedule it can take a week or two to really get in the groove.  During that time you can tweak it to make any necessary changes.  I love this because my little ones even get used to what is next and I have found they really like the predictability.

So you might be looking at this and think wow, this is too much!  Isn’t this exhausting to keep up with??  I have found that not to be the case.  When I first started using a schedule I actually felt like I jumped into my first year of homeschooling like I knew what I was doing!  I find that I am less stressed at the end of the day when I follow the schedule and everything gets accomplished.  Also by scheduling kids to help out with chores/laundry etc. it takes some of the pressure off of you having to accomplish everything yourself.  If you feel like your schedule is too much you can try to re-work things to either cut something out or give yourself some extra time with an activity.  For example when I was pregnant with my fourth child I scheduled a nap time for me during my son’s nap time and my girl’s quiet time.  Or if you have a new baby for that season maybe you can’t fit in an extra hobby into your schedule.  Just know it is only a season and you can bring it back in a year or so.  The beauty of it is that you can make it whatever you need to fit your needs and to get done everything you need to accomplish.

Now of course some days things don’t go as planned, or you might have an appointment or someone gets sick.   The important thing is to not give up and just jump back in your schedule whenever you can.  Or some school days you might have a different activity that you don’t do any other day.  For example on Wednesdays we do a homeschool PE class and have church that night.  I knew I needed to create a separate Wednesday schedule to still fit in some school and all those activities.  On that day we have a different lunch and dinner time and the amount of time we spend in each school subject is shortened.  This way when we get to Wednesday I don’t feel like nothing was accomplished just because we have different activities.  So it is okay to be flexible!  Also in the evening after dinner and bible time we are not so strict on that part of the day especially now that I don’t have a baby to keep on schedule.  I like to have it down on paper but if other family stuff comes up we are just fine getting off the schedule.  I think the schedule is most important during the core school and chore part of your day and up until dinner time.

So if you are feeling overwhelmed by your days I hope this can help give you some ideas.  If my schedules above are too hard to read let me know and I can email them to you.  Definitely check out the book and I would also be happy to answer any more questions you might have about scheduling.  

We are well into summer now and it’s the time of year for us homeschooling moms to start thinking about next school year, if you have not started doing so already.  Time to reflect on the past year and think about what worked, or what didn’t work with your curriculum, to see if you need to make any changes.  If you have never homeschooled before and maybe thinking about it, or have been doing it for years, I hope I can be an encouragement to you by sharing how we homeschool.

I know homeschool curriculum is a very personal choice and it will look different for every family.  I am by no means saying this is how YOU should homeschool, I just wanted to share how WE homeschool.  I remember when I was first starting out I would scour the internet looking for homeschool blogs and any info I could find on what other people did.  It can seem kind of intimidating up front so I loved getting recommendations from others!  My oldest is going to be in 6th grade next year so I only have experience up to this point, but I will be happy to share what we have done so far.

What Style of Curriculum Did I Choose?

It might sound silly but I remember thinking that if people with 8, 9, or 10+ kids can homeschool, me with my 3 kids back then, only 2 of which were going to be in school at the time, would totally be able to do this!  So I wanted to know their secret.  How did they do this??  Now of course this won’t be for every large family but some tips I found out were 1). Schedule your day, which I will talk more about in another post, and 2.) find a curriculum that doesn’t require a lot of prep time from mom and one that can train your child to work more independently as they get older.  FEW!!!  That was exactly what I needed.  To be honest at first, and before I had found this out, I was intimidated at the thought of having to daily come up with lesson plans, teach two separate grades, keep my almost 2 year old occupied, all while being newly pregnant with baby #4.  I would have definitely become stressed, exhausted, frustrated, and probably would have quit from burnout.

I also wanted to find curriculum that I could hopefully stick with and not feel like I needed to change every year.  For me the answer was in a self-paced work-text curriculum, and starting in 3rd grade bringing in some online choices if the child chooses.  My older daughter did choose this and now by 5th grade does all 4 of her core subjects online.  Whether using the work-text curriculum, or the online, both of those require minimal to no before prep time from me.  Win win!!  That was the perfect answer for this busy mom so I wouldn’t experience burnout.  And the beauty of this is that when making your daily schedule each subject can be scheduled into 30-45 minute time blocks.  (Like I said above I will go over how I schedule our day in another post.)

So I will start with 5th and 6th grade and work my way down to preschool with what we use or have used.  We have not homeschooled 6th grade yet but next year we will be doing the same thing with my daughter that we have done in 5th grade.

5th and 6th Grade

Math– Teaching Text Books.  This is available starting in 3rd grade and can be used all the way through 12th grade.  We did start this in 3rd grade with my oldest daughter and it has been wonderful!  This is a computer based program , great for independent learners, and it is like a teacher and a text book all in one!  My daughter has done very well with this and always feels like the lessons are easy to follow.  When they miss a problem the computer will go over with them why they missed it instead of just telling them that they are wrong.

Language Arts, History and Geography, and Science.  For all three of these we use Switched on Schoolhouse (SOS) through Alpha Omega Publications.  SOS is done on the computer with no lesson planning required by me!  It even does most the grading.  For any fill in the blank answers or reports my daughter does I will have to go in and grade them.  Because my daughter does her school independently throughout the morning I have a scheduled half hour tutor time with her in the afternoon to go over everything, finish grading assignments, and make sure she is staying on track.  When we started homeschooling it was important for us to use a Christian based curriculum.   I love how all of AOP’s curriculums are Christian based.

4th Grade

Math-  Teaching Text Books

Science- Switched on Schoolhouse (SOS).  A good perk using SOS for science is that if for some reason you can’t get your hands on everything you need for an experiment they always have a video of the experiment that your child can at least watch.  We really try to do the experiments as much as possible….but let’s be real here…sometimes life happens and you just can’t easily get everything your child needs.  Big relief!!

Language Arts, and History and Geography- For both of these subjects in 4th grade we use Lifepacs.  Lifepacs are also sold through Alpha Omega Publications.  They are a self-paced, all-inclusive, bible based worktext curriculum.  Each subject comes in a box with a set of 10 worktexts for the year.  These also don’t require any prep work from me!  The Lifepacs promote independent learning and by 4th grade my daughter was doing these by herself and I just went over everything with her during her afternoon tutor time with me.  The Lifepacs and SOS are very similar just one is online and one is a worktext.

3rd Grade

Math-  Teaching Text Books

Science-  Switched on Schoolhouse (SOS)

Language Arts, and History and Geography- Lifepacs.  Just FYI (SOS) is available for all subjects starting in 3rd grade.  I just wanted to give my daughter more time to practice writing in 3rd and 4th grade before everything went on the computer.  I would have let her continue with the Lifepacs if she wanted but she chose to do all her subjects online by 5th grade.

2nd Grade

Math, Science, Language Arts, History and Geography- Lifepacs.  Using Lifepacs for all 4 core subjects this year has worked well for my daughter.  Like I mentioned above Teaching Text Books for math and SOS don’t start until 3rd grade.

1st Grade

Math- Singapore Math.  This was the last year I chose to use this math curriculum and I am still not sure if I will use it for 1st grade with my boys?  Parts of it were really good but when they really started getting into addition and subtraction with 2 digit numbers it was very confusing because they wanted them to learn to solve every problem horizontal.  It was very confusing for my daughter how they wanted them to group everything out, even my husband and I didn’t like it, when it is just so easy to solve problems with the numbers stacked on top of each other.  So we made it through the year but we probably won’t be using this again.  Next time I will probably use 1st grade Lifepac math.

Science, Language Arts, History and Geography- Lifepacs

Kindergarten

How I taught Kindergarten was a little different.  After researching what to use before I started I was advised not to get a full Kindergarten curriculum.  Best decision ever!  I was told that some of those all-inclusive curriculums can be very long, tons of work, and overwhelming for a little kindergartner.  The main goal is to just focus on reading and math.  That is what we did and it was a great year and not overwhelming at all!  I did not feel like my daughter was behind going in to first grade.  I actually felt like she was ahead starting first grade knowing how to read.  So here is what we did.

Reading- Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  I thought this was an excellent curriculum for teaching reading.  As the stories got longer towards the end of the book, and if we couldn’t finish the lesson in our 30 minute time block, we just picked up where we were at the next day.  I didn’t stress about it if we didn’t finish the lesson in the 20 minute time frame the book said it should be done.  The importance was the consistent reading practice every school day.  I also love how at the end of each reading lesson they have writing practice.

Math- Singapore Math Essential Math A & B.  I thought Singapore math worked very well for Kindergarten.  We just did a few pages each day.

*** Update- I switched with my son to use Kindergarten Lifepac math and will be used again with my youngest coming up.  Can be purchased through Alpha Omega Publications.  I switched because we did not care for Singapore math for first grade when we tried it with my daughter.  So I have been using Lifepac math for my kids until they get to 3rd grade and can start Teaching Text Books.

I also used the Scholastic Success Kindergarten Workbook.  You can see what it looks like clicking on the link but they also have them at Costco every summer before the school year starts.  This was recommended to us and my daughter loved it!  She was so excited to use this every day.  After reading and math I let her do a few pages in this each day.  It was great because it gave more practice in phonics, alphabet, handwriting, and math.  I usually let her pick what section of the book to work in that day, but I always had her go in order of the section she was in.  For example the math pages kind of build on each other so best to go in order.

We also had some phonics cards that we would work on some days but honestly with the reading program we were doing I didn’t feel like we needed to do this very often.  Then about mid way through the year we added in a few Explode the Code books.  These are great for additional phonics practice.  So our whole Kindergarten day was about 1 1/2 hours!  Perfect and low stress but my daughter still learned a lot!

4’s Preschool

This is the one year I have not taught yet but I am going to be using the Horizons Preschool Curriculum Set next year with my son.  This can be purchased through Alpha Omega Publications.

3’s Preschool

For 3’s preschool I use the Horizons Preschool for Three’s Curriculum set.   This can also be purchased through Alpha Omega Publications.  This curriculum is broken down into 40 lessons.  Each lesson has a bible story we read everyday, a memory verse, worksheets to introduce letters and counting, and one to reinforce the bible lesson.  They also give additional suggestions with each lesson for craft projects, songs, and activities.  Each lesson can be spread out as far as the whole week or you can finish it in 3-4 days.  That just depends on how many worksheets you want to accomplish each day.

So that takes care of what we use for each grade level.  Every afternoon my girls have a quiet/reading time where I can assign books I would like them to read and they can have time to choose books they want to read.  I also do character training with the kids using Character First Curriculum.  You can read more about that in this post here.  I don’t do a separate bible curriculum with my older kids.  All of their curriculum is Christian based so they get some of that in their regular lessons and also during family bible times, Wednesday night church during the school year, and Sunday at church.

I hope that helps give you some ideas.  If you are thinking about a new curriculum it really helps to go online and read as many positive and negative reviews on it as you can find.  What one person says is a negative might be a positive for you and vise versa!  If you have a curriculum you love using I would love to hear about it in the comments below.  That is also a good way for others to get additional ideas if they are seeking something new or how to get started.

Three years ago, and being brand new to homeschooling, I really had no clue where to start.  After doing some research and asking around I came across Character First Education!  Character First was exactly what I was looking for, and the best part is that you can print, or watch, most things for FREE online!

****Update: Character First has now been changed to The Character Libraries.  Just grab your free account and go to Character Quality Lists at the top and scroll down to Character First Education Qualities.  Then go over to Elementary Curriculum and click on that.  The same character qualities will pop up.

So what exactly is “Character” anyway?

Good character is the inward values that determine outward actions; the mental model used for making decisions; the moral compass that guides your choices; who we are when no one else is watching. (characterfirsteducation.com)

Here is a list of the 49 character qualities from Character First that we need to be able to teach and model to our children:  Alertness, Attentiveness, Availability, Benevolence, Boldness, Cautiousness, Compassion, Contentment, Creativity, Decisiveness, Deference, Dependability, Determination, Diligence, Discernment, Discretion, Endurance, Enthusiasm, Faith, Flexibility, Forgiveness, Generosity, Gentleness, Gratefulness, Honor, Hospitality, Humility, Initiative, Joyfulness, Justice, Loyalty, Meekness, Obedience, Orderliness, Patience, Persuasiveness, Punctuality, Resourcefulness, Responsibility, Security, Self-Control, Sensitivity, Sincerity, Thoroughness, Thriftiness, Tolerance, Truthfulness, Virtue, and Wisdom. (Images used with permission)

I use the Elementary Curriculum with my kids.  They currently have 21 character qualities available with more being added to the “line-up” soon!  The current Elementary Curriculum character qualities available are: Attentiveness, Availability, Compassion, Conservation, Courage, Determination, Diligence, Enthusiasm, Flexibility, Forgiveness, Generosity, Gratefulness, Honesty, Loyalty, Obedience, Orderliness, Patience, Respect, Responsibility, Self-Control, and Wisdom.

Each character quality has the following offered with it:

An 11×17 inch full color poster (printed on heavy duty paper) with a photo of the animal to go with the character trait, the definition, and the 5 “I will” statements which are the 5 aspects to be learned about that character trait.  These are available to be purchased for $2.99 each.  I always purchase these to hang on our white board for the month.

Character cards that are 2.5×3.5 inches (printed on heavy paper) with a photo of the animal to go with the character trait on one side and the character name, definition, and 5 “I will” statements on the other side.  These can be purchased for $.49 each.  I always purchase one for each kid to keep in their room and one for me to keep in my binder as a reference back to what we have done and if we ever need to quickly go over one of the past definitions and “I will” statements.

A poem with hand motions offered for FREE on an online video with Robert Greenlaw.

A Nature Story offered for FREE on an online video where Robert Greenlaw tells a story about how an animal in nature will demonstrate each character trait.

A Song also offered for free on an online video where the children can watch Robert Greenlaw teaching it.

A coloring page of the animal that you can print off for FREE, as many pages as you need, right from your computer!

A history story that you can print off for FREE telling how a famous person has demonstrated that character trait in their life.

Several other crafts and activities that you can print off for FREE to help deepen the understanding and instill the meaning behind each character trait.  Usually all the free activities are plenty for us but if you need more activities you can purchase a curriculum guide for each character trait for $9.99.

Discussion starters that you can print off for FREE on each character trait’s home page.

A family connection quiz that me and the kids do for fun together at the end of the month.  You can print that off for FREE.

So here is what our monthly plan looks like.  We focus on learning one character quality per month.  To prepare for that months character trait in advance I purchase online from the website the character trait’s poster and the character cards.  I will often actually purchase 3-4 posters and cards at a time so I don’t have to place an order every month.  Then I print for FREE from the website:

• The history story, to be read aloud by me
• 3 of the activities or crafts offered online, one page per child
• copies of the coloring pages, one per child
• the discussion starters on the character trait’s home page to keep in my binder
• a copy of the Family Connection character quiz that we complete together for fun at the end of the month

I also make sure I have all the items we need for the crafts and activities for the month.  Then I get all the activity sheets that I printed from the website and organize them in the front of my Character First binder and label everything with a sticky note of what week I am doing what activity.

Each school day after breakfast we have a half hour of Character First time.  We begin at the start of the month by learning the new character definition and going over the 5 “I will’s”.  We continue to recite the definition and “I will’s” each morning for the rest of the month.  That just takes a few minutes each day.  I keep the character trait poster on the white board all month and as the girls start to remember the definition  I will turn the poster around, just for the moment, and they will take turns with who says the definition, and then they take turns reciting the “I will’s”.  My 4 year old will also like to chime in with what he remembers too!  Here is an example of our Forgiveness poster on the white board:

I will often also write the definition of our character quality on the window by the kitchen table so we can see it all the time!

So each weekday morning we quickly recite the definition and the 5 “I will’s” and then 4 times per month, on Mondays, we do one of the free activities or crafts that I printed off from the website.  Here is what our weekly schedule looks like:

First Monday of the month- After going over the definition and I will’s we watch the Nature Story Video (free online), telling how one particular animal demonstrates that character quality.  I stream it from the computer, we have Apple TV, on to the TV in the family room.  You could also just watch it from your computer or lap top.  Then after the nature story we start a craft of that animal (free online) for the rest of our half hour character first block.  Usually we finish the craft in our allotted time but if we don’t we finish it up the next day after reviewing the definition and I will’s.  Here are a few examples from when we did the Forgiveness craft and the Availability craft below: 

Second Monday of the month-  After reciting the definition and I will’s I read aloud the 1 page history story (free online) telling how a famous historical person has demonstrated that character quality in their life.  While I am doing this the kids color the animal coloring page for that trait (free online).

Third Monday of the month- After the definition and I will’s we watch the Nature Story video for the second time (it has now been two weeks since they heard it the first time) and then after the children do another simple craft from the website.

Fourth Monday of the month- After the definition and I will’s I read again the history story (it has now been 2 weeks since they heard it the first time) and then the children do another simple craft or activity from the website.

The rest of the week (Tuesday – Friday)- After reviewing the definition and I will’s, we will either finish up our craft or coloring sheets from Monday, or when those are done we take that time to go over the discussion starter questions and talk about how we can apply this character trait to our lives.  ** I must disclose that this is not a biblical based curriculum.  I think it falls in line with biblical principles on how we should live our lives, but it does not give scripture references.  So I like to take it a step further.  I found this sheet of Operational Definitions of Character Qualities online that line up with the Character First character qualities, but these give a scripture reference.  So I also take time in the remainder of our week to go over the scripture verse that goes with our character trait.  We will look up the verse in the bible so we can talk about how God wants us to apply this character trait in our lives.  Last Friday of the month- We take the Family Connection character quiz together.

To stay all organized I made a Character First binder.  For fun I put the logo on the side and printed off a copy of the 49 character qualities to go in front.  

On the left inside pocket of my binder I keep all of our activities for the month labeled in order with sticky notes.  I put 1st on what activity or craft we are doing for the first Monday of the month, then 2nd and so on will follow underneath.  This way I have my curriculum all planned out and ready for the month.  At the right side you see all the character cards that I have purchased from all our past character qualities we have studied.  This makes it so easy to look back and see what we have done and when we need to easily look back and reference the definitions.  I purchased the plastic card holders from the website to keep them all organized. 

When you turn past all the character cards I keep a copy of the printout from the character trait’s homepage that has the discussion starters at the bottom.  When I print out this page I just decrease my printing scale to fit it all on one page.  Following that page I keep a copy of the Operational Definitions of Character Qualities that have the Biblical scripture references.  At the end of the month when we are done with a character trait I keep the printout that has the discussion starters in the back of the binder for future reference.  When we get to the point that we have studied all the character qualities available, I plan to do them again in the same order I did them the first time.  I keep my Character Cards in order so I will know what to do next.  We only do about 8 character traits in a school year, we take December off from Character First, and then take off June, July, and August.  So by the time we get back around to starting over it will be a few years later so we ALL will be ready for the repeat, and then the boys will be getting them for the first time.

I hope this gives you a great idea about how Character Training can be beneficial and a blessing to your family and homeschool day.  Now does this mean that my kids always act perfect now, or always remember how to behave in any given situation, or that mom is always the perfect example….NO, NO, AND DEFINITELY NO!!  I am just usually reminded how much we NEED to keep doing this, and pray that with continued exposure, and as they grow and mature, that some of it will start to stick!

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

]]> https://afiremanswife.com/2017/01/23/teaching-character-training-in-our-homeschool/feed/ 15 630 https://afiremanswife.com/2017/01/17/traffic-light-crackers/ https://afiremanswife.com/2017/01/17/traffic-light-crackers/#comments Tue, 17 Jan 2017 08:06:35 +0000 http://afiremanswife.com/?p=604 This week during my son’s preschool time some of the things we are talking about are road signs, traffic lights, and safety when crossing the street.  So yesterday for a fun preschool snack, that also happened to go very well with the lesson, we made these cute little traffic light crackers.  My son had fun putting the colored candies on our “traffic lights”, and as he did we went over what each color represents.

At first we just made a few of these and then I packed everything up.  My son was so excited with what he made that he went to show his cracker to his sisters.  Of course they were wondering where THEIR “traffic light” crackers were?  So about an hour later I found myself making a bunch more of these for snack.  They were a hit and they gobbled them up.  I think they tasted pretty good too!

These are so simple.  I just used honey graham crackers, peanut butter and M & M’s.

Break up your graham crackers into small rectangles, spread on some peanut butter, and then have your kids put on the traffic light colors!

Traffic Light Crackers

 

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This is a great snack for teaching preschoolers about traffic safety and what each color represents on a traffic light.

Author: A Fireman's Wife

Recipe type: Snack

Ingredients

• Honey Graham Crackers
• Peanut Butter
• Chocolate candies such as M&M's in red, yellow, and green

Instructions

1. Break the desired amount of graham crackers into small rectangles.
2. Spread peanut butter on each rectangle.
3. Sort out your chocolate candies into groups of red, yellow, and green.
4. Have your kids help create the traffic lights with putting one red candy on top, one yellow in the middle, and then one green on the bottom.

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