My review of Magic Mike movie....

Well this post isn't about homeschooling in the least bit... well unless you count my take on this "chick" flick and whether or not to make it a homeschool mama's night out event!  I thought maybe it would be a "fun" movie, with let's face it sexy men shaking their money makers, I thought it can't be as bad as they say it is.


Now maybe it was the before movie drinks OR lack of enough drinks but they reports are true. NO plot and terrible acting, sure the dancing was nice but honestly...well you are here so you know I am going to just fill in the blank of what I think right??(sorry needed to add in something for my need to let you walk away with some homeschooling info!) I think if I am going to take the time and money to go and see a movie nowadays I need some sort of story to follow. This one had me wanting to sneak into the Batman movie right down the hall, to see a fully clothed Mr Bale. 


I should tell you that I did go with 3 other awesome homeschooling mamas who said they liked it. SO I will leave it up to you.. maybe you should wait until it is at a more appropriate $1 showing of it!

Math... Don't make the same mistake I DID!

Word to the newbies who might be starting their homeschool journey with a visual learner... too many worksheets/workbooks will make you both GO CRAZY! When I first started our journey, I thought like school should be the way I teach the boys( cuz it worked so well up until then...NOT but I didn't know how else to teach them) with lessons then a butt load of worksheets. It didn't help that most of my new homeschooling friends had kiddos that COULD do worksheets all day long and learn from them. My experience was the youngest who can do as many worksheets as I give him had no problem. The oldest well he made me think he was doing them all, I was giving him a ton of them that it was hard me to remember which ones I gave him! I am happily grading worksheets and returning them to him to go over the ones he got wrong. What is the point in moving on if he doesn't get it right? That is when I realized that we were missing some worksheets, ABOUT HALF of the ones I had assigned or handed back to him in the past 6 months was missing.  OK so yes my ADD tends to have me all organized and on top of things at first, until I get the routine down then I think hey I don't need no stinking check list anymore...... WRONG!


FAST FORWARD TO PRESENT TIME..

In our house, it is a mix of online math and workbook type math learning. This holds especially true with our high school math lessons.... this past year for the 9th grade math. My 9th grader did a mix of subjects for math last year, he started with personal finance, then to accounting through a couple of free resources online, and finished by starting pre-algebra (which he doesn't care for). We found an online site that is pretty close to the way Time4learning teaches lessons, they cost more but since Time4learning only goes up to 8th grade it was something I felt like we needed. Since he learned so much from that style of funny yet engaging lessons.  He does still do some worksheets but they are only to make sure that he gets the new math concept days after the initial lesson. 


So are are a online, worksheet lesson or BOTH kind of family?

How SpellingCity has helped us!

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Did I ever tell you that I am a terrible speller?? Yes, I am!! As a child and even as an adult, spelling is hard for me (guess who was doing a happy dance when SPELL CHECK was invented!). Thanks to my boys I am getting better, since I have to teach them spelling it is only natural that I would get better at it too. But my secret (well not so secret) weapon in SpellingCity! We have been homeschooling for 5 years now and we still use many of the "tools" that they provide! (mostly free even though we did upgrade last year to a premium membership or was it the year before?!)

For those of you who don't know about SpellingCity...I want to give you a list of some of their FREE resources!

They just updated their teacher spelling resources page with some great new items. I have used it A LOT over our homeschooling adventure. If you have been on their then you already know about their online spelling games, which my boys love...their all time favorite is probably LetterFall or HangMouse. (if you want to know.. my favorite is their word search maker...I loved doing these as a child STILL DO) BUT did you know that they also have other useful resources like printable handwriting sheets, popular spelling lists, vocabulary , parts of speech helpers, crossword puzzles  (I think these last three are premium membership activities)and more!


I hope this helps those of you who want to add some spice into your spelling assignments. We use it all the time!

When its too damn hot!!

Well... its been HOT as hell here lately. So what's a homeschooling mama to do? Of course, plan for next year!!!  I have been in research mode for the past 4 weeks, and our break is almost up. I have found some great spelling printables, cool free science e-classes, found some great new lesson thru these curriculm reviews, and even been reading some fellow bloggers posts.  I am taking some time to try cool off with some  yummy treats like from above:) What things are you doing to keep cool and stay ahead of the game plan for next year?

Ways to learn that worked for us....

HAHA ok so this could be consider trial and error:)

This year we did a lot of trail and error.... I had some successes and some failures. They were things I had heard worked for others but it just didn't click for us. Some of the successes were using familiar sites like Time4learning, Spelling City,  I Tunes U, Khan Academy, and for our animal loving family National Geographic.  The things that we also tried this year was educational songs, apps for the ipod, coop classes for Alex and some secular unit studies by other homeschoolers. Areas that we required more than my abilities this last year were Spanish, music and writing, these subjects I left to professionals both near by for Spanish and music. I used an online writing 8 week course for the boys with an actual teacher on the other end. The boys learned a lot from getting some outside the home resources. That is one thing that I can pass on to anyone who is new to homeschooling or maybe just homeschoolers who have less time to teach certain subjects... OUTSOURCE. You are still an awesome homeschooling parent!! And you can't do everything even though we all try!! Now I want to know what worked or didn't work for you this year... come on spill the beans!

Needing help...

I am starting to plan out our writing program for both boys next school year that starts in a couple of weeks after all our day camps are over. I have found a couple of great sites like these for grammar help, match sentence games, helpful writing tips ideas, online English usage rules... just to name a few. After what 4 or 5 years now.. sorry the time just melts into each other,doesn't it? I am trying a new approach, I really want to make a big improvement in our writing this year. Nailing everything down from spelling to grammar to putting in great vocabulary. The problem is we have done a lot of what's out there and then comes the scheduling of exactly how much time a day we need to studying and work on these things. I almost feel like it needs to be our main subject  for a while... but not sure exactly how to put that into a high school credit. So that's the question I am asking you all... HOW would YOU do it? I realize that there isn't a big following on my blog but the peeps I have that check in are AWESOME. Thanks in advance for reading my post and for any helpful hints you can give;)

Taking some time off....but not really!

Well we are "on break" for a month, I have been busy with helping hubby out, catching up on household projects(which I create ALL the time!), swim team practices, working, and planning for the next year.  Why is it so hard to relax? Am I the only one who finds things to do instead of chilling out? I can't be!!! I find myself doubting some decisions and wondering what stays and what goes for next school year. (BTW I now have a 10th and 5th grader in the house! YIKES) Anytime that I take a break from "teaching" the boys feelings like this creep up, and I guess that is why I can't relax. Do any of you feel the same way? When I am doubting or in need of some motivation I turn to my personal favorite site, and start reading the posts by the amazing homeschool secular bloggers. OMG those bloggers are so amazing and just wishing that I had half the creative juices!! I have gleamed several great ideas from going to their blogs! So if you have a minute or hundred maybe you can tell me what you think of these amazing secular bloggers!!!!