Solve For Unknown

This week Kendi learned about solving for unknown in Math.  You know how the equations go: ? + 3 = 5.  We did the entire lesson and worksheets one day and did the math adventure on the next day.

We applied this to real life by getting out her piggy bank.  She had just got some birthday money so we spent a little time taking out tithing, adding some to her savings and then some to her spending as well.  After we were done counting and adding out how much money she had in spending we talked about some things she could save her money for.  She had a total of five dollars in spending and wanted to figure out how much more money she needed to earn to be able to buy a $30 item that she had decided on.  I wrote out the equation for her.  5 + ? = 30.

Kendi completely understood the concept and followed where I was going with this.  It became more than just a story problem when we applied Solving for Unknown to her life.  She was so excited she went out and earned another five dollars and then asked if we could figure out how much more she needed to earn now.  I love it when math is this much fun.

Persuasion by Jane Austen

This book is, supposedly, Jane Austen's best book.  I read about three fourths of the the way through it and just couldn't go any further.  I have started four different Jane Austen books and have only been able to finish one of them, Pride and Prejudice.  I think my problem is that I have a hard time relating to the type of culture that Jane Austen writes about.  I think if I had been born into that society, I would have ended up like Catherine from Wuthering Heights, half savage.

I enjoyed Pride and Prejudice because Elizabeth Bennet is the most down-to-earth character in Jane Austen's books.  It will interesting to see what my girls think when they are old enough to read Jane Austen.

Unschooling Rules by Clark Aldrich

It is hard not to get caught up in all you can do with home school.  There are a lot of products out there and even more fun and good ideas.  But, occasionally I read a book that puts everything back into perspective for me again and helps me remember why I'm home schooling in the first place.

I love books like this that lay out not just ideas, but actually what to do about them.  This book does not elaborate, it is very to the point.  I had to read it slowly in order to grasp all the golden nuggets.  I got a lot of ideas of things to actually include in our home school.  Some of those things for young kids are like starting a microcosm like a fish tank, recycling, having a pet, computer networking, and making a real website.  How many kids have made a fake website in school that was really a piece of junk?  I love having projects that have to do with real situations.  This book gives a lot of ideas for high school too.

I have always been a big believer of meditation.  This book talks about the importance of quiet reflection, something I believe is one of the most important things you can do for your life and character.

This book tells a lot about the flaws of the public school systems.  I'm the kind of person that knows when something isn't quite right by the way I feel, but can't always put it into words when I try to explain it to other people.  I'm working on that, but this book explains so many things for me, like why everyone has nightmares about high school for the rest of their lives.

This book is really inexpensive from ibooks and worth every penny.  I now have an exciting "to do" list for our home school.  Some things that I wished it had included though is the importance of religion and serving others.

Shadows

We recently did a science experiment from the Big Book of Play and Find Out.  We talked about the sun and what shadows are and why they move throughout the day.  We did flashlight experiments in the closet and had a shadow puppet show.  We always do these experiments last so that the kids can play for as long as they want to.  This was a hit for sure.  They played for hours afterward making shadow puppets.  Sometimes after I put them to bed at night in the room that they share I can hear them making shadows until they fall asleep.

It's so fun to be a home-schooler.

Dinotopia by James Gurney

I was so excited for this book.  It really is one of the best children's books out there and it has been very successful and it's hard to find a good deal on these books.  When we started this book we had just finished The Wizard of Oz, which the kids absolutely loved.  I thought these were extremely similar books.  They both had great artwork and an adventure to a land unknown.  For some reason my kids were bored with Dinotopia.  They couldn't wait to finish it and groaned every time we read from it.  I would catch Kendi wanting to look at the pictures though.  I'm thinking that I should have waited until the kids could read this book to themselves.  It is written like a journal without dialog so it isn't very fun when read aloud. There are about 20 other Dinotopia books and I think we'll wait until the kids are old enough to read them on their own.

7 Habits of Happy Kids

This has recently become one of our favorite things to do.  It takes 21 days to form a new habit so every 21 days we read a story from this book.  We talk about the story and answer the questions at the end of each story.  Then we talk about the good habit associated with the story and make a sign to hang up somewhere to remind us to work on that habit every day.

I've had this book for a few years and never realized how great it was.  The kids love to read the stories, but there is a section for parents to read and I never actually read until recently.

This book follows the same habits from the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective Marriage that I recently wrote about.  It has been fun to work on these good habits with the kids.  I think we will do this every year until we can move on to the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens.

Longman Young Children's Picture Dictionary

We got these books from a very kind relative along with some other great books soon to come.  I'm not just writing a review because they came from someone we know.  These really are great books.  I really wish I had these when we were doing co-op preschool.  The kids look forward to this the most out of everything we do every time we do it.  We do it about twice a week.  It is something that both the girls are 100% involved in.  It is helping Aydri learn her letters and helping Kendi learn to write them and practice writing the ones she already knows.  They both love the stories, games, songs and activities that each lesson provides.  There are different topics with each lesson that we use to help Aydri with her enunciation and vocabulary.  If only there were more books on every subject laid out like these books.  Homeschooling would be a breeze.  You can find them at this website.