Monday, December 31, 2018

Our Homeschool Goals for 2019 Plus a FREE Printable Goal Setting Worksheet for You!

Happy New Year!


As we put up a new calendar and think about all of our personal goals and resolutions for 2019, this is also a great time to set some fresh goals for your homeschool.



This point in the school year, whether you follow a traditional calendar or homeschool year-round, is a perfect spot to stop and reevaluate. Ask yourself what is currently working in your homeschool and what needs to change. Clarify your vision, declutter your time and your space, and set some priorities.

I want to encourage you to pray and ponder the direction your homeschool needs to go in 2019, and then write down some specific goals. This doesn't have to be a long list. Perhaps narrow down your goals to 5 top priorities. But writing them down helps make them real to you. To help you with this process, I am offering you a free goal setting printable!

Once you have those goals written down and prayed over, you can start setting up systems and making plans for success in meeting those goals.

I am going to share with you my top 5 goals for our homeschool (Shield of Faith Homeschool) for 2019 in just a minute, but I want to remind you that your goals and my goals may not be anywhere near the same. And that is just as it should be! You should be focused on your own family and the unique needs of your own children.

Here are my Top 5 Goals for Our Homeschool in 2019:


1. Read Aloud Consistently

We all love reading, we all love books, and reading aloud as a family is so beneficial. So whether it be a work of classic literature, a fun character building story, or a book related to a topic we are currently studying, I want to make reading aloud daily with my children a bigger priority this year in our homeschool.

2. Scripture Memory

Building a strong shield of faith in my children is the ultimate goal of our homeschool, so getting them into the Word and getting the Word into them is a big priority for us. We have done a lot of Scripture memory work, but I really want to challenge us all a bit more in this area in 2019.

3. Big Discussions

It can be so easy to get busy checking off assignments and completing tasks that we don't take the time to talk about what we are learning. As homeschoolers, we have such a golden opportunity to create meaningful relationships with our children by slowing down long enough to just talk with them. So  facilitating more big discussions in our homeschool is a goal for us in 2019.

4. Sing Together Daily

My husband and I are both very musical people. We both love to sing and enjoy listening to Gospel music. And although we have sung a little bit here and there with our children, I definitely feel like we could do a better job of passing on songs and hymns of the faith to them. So I am setting a goal of singing together daily for our homeschool this year.

5. Play More Games!

All work and no play makes any homeschool dull. Again, it can be all too easy to get into a rut of just checking off boxes that we forget to keep learning fun and exciting for ourselves and our children. So many key educational concepts can be effectively taught and reviewed with fun games, and I want to include more games in our homeschool in 2019.

Now that I have clarified my goals for our homeschool this year, I can really get to work setting up helpful systems and making plans for meeting them.

Do you need help thinking through your homeschool goals for 2019? I have created a helpful goal-setting worksheet for you! Just click here and enter your email address to download it and get started making 2019 your best homeschool year yet!



Check out the fun homeschool apparel and gifts available now in our Shield of Faith Homeschool Gift Shop!

Saturday, December 8, 2018

5 Reasons I Am So Glad I Was Homeschooled

Being a homeschool mom who was homeschooled myself gives me a unique perspective on private home education.

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Homeschooling so much more to me than just some cause that I am passionate about.

When you talk about homeschooling, you are talking about me.

I hear many new homeschooling parents expressing their fears, concerns, and insecurities about whether or not they are truly capable of teaching their own children. The fear of somehow "messing up" your children or of having them grow up to resent homeschooling is very real for many people.

So I thought I would take a moment here to hopefully ease some of those concerns and offer you a bit of my perspective as someone who has been both the child and the parent along this journey called homeschooling.

I am thankful for so many reasons that my parents made the choice to educate my brother and I at home. They made this decision on faith and it was deeply rooted in their Christian convictions. It was not a popular choice at the time (Hey. I was a homeschooler before it was "cool", y'all!).

And today, I want to share just 5 of the biggest reasons I am personally so glad I was homeschooled.




#1 - Homeschooling made me an original, not a carbon copy.


My parents set an important example when they went against the "norm" and chose private home education for my brother and me. I learned young that it was OK to follow God's leading and to make choices that others might consider peculiar.

As a homeschooler, I didn't have to worry much about "fitting in" with the crowd. Instead, I was free to "stand out" and to be comfortable making choices that might go against the flow. I learned how to think for myself rather than letting peers, state sponsored curriculum, or popular fads think for me.



I see this same independent spirit in so many fellow homeschool graduates who are now out there running their own businesses, serving in unique ministries, raising strong families, and turning the world upside-down as they reach for their full God-given potential.

I am a unique individual, custom-made by God, and my home education reflected that. I was raised to be original, not a carbon-copy of everybody else out there.

#2 - Homeschooling built strong family ties.


Every family has its squabbles, and homeschooling families are no different. We certainly had our share growing up!

But because we spent years living, working, serving, and learning side by side 24/7, our family built strong bonds that have stood firm through some pretty big storms.

My only sibling is my brother who is 8 years younger than I am. If we had been a public school family, I would barely know my brother. We would have never attended the same school at the same time, much less shared any educational experiences together. He would have had his set of little friends in his age group and I would have had my set of big friends in my age group. And we would both be totally different people than we are today because of it.

As it was, though, my brother and I grew up best friends and influenced each other significantly.

In so many ways we are as different as day and night - he likes the spotlight and I prefer the background, he craves noise and I crave quietness, he's a lefty and I'm a righty, he has brown eyes and mine are blue, he has a sense of fashion and I couldn't care less about style - BUT my brother and I have shared everything from read alouds, field trips, and science projects to friends, hobbies, and service projects.

We both have strong interests in music, and for years we even traveled together in a Gospel music group.

Growing up, whatever my family did: we did it together. And THAT made us a strong family.

I see this same thing happening in my own little family, too, and it is a blessing. Our three children have some pretty significant age gaps, but because we live and learn together they are so close!

Family life is priority for us, and that lifestyle comes so naturally for me. Homeschooling helps build stronger family ties, no doubt about it.

#3 - Homeschooling provided me with the best education possible.


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Face it, homeschooling is the absolute best way to educate children.

Loving parents who take the education of their own children seriously and pursue excellence with strong conviction have no equal as educators. Public school classrooms with one teacher to 30 students just can't possibly provide the same level of quality.

And the research speaks for itself: we consistently outscore our public schooled peers.

I attended public school through the 4th grade. I remember that I was often bored and felt so stifled due to having to work at the pace of the slowest student in my class.

But when we started homeschooling, I was free to work at my own level, to advance at my own pace, to fully pursue topics that were interesting and meaningful to me, and to enjoy a lifestyle that embraced my natural love for learning. That simply cannot be duplicated in any classroom environment.


#4 - Homeschooling gave me a Biblical worldview.


This one is HUGE.

If I appreciate nothing else about my education as a homeschooler, I definitely appreciate this reason right here.

Because my parents were free to choose their own curricula, they were careful to choose resources that were of the best quality while always pointing us back to the Word of God as the ultimate source of knowledge and wisdom. 

My parents took Deuteronomy 6:4-9 seriously and applied it to our education. 

 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

And I am so thankful, because my parents taught me to see life and the world around me from a Biblical perspective. 

There's not an area of my life that this has not blessed.

#5 - I received the best possible preparation for my role as a homeschool mom.


I can't think of a better way to be prepared for something than to spend your childhood immersed in it!

Being a second generation homeschooler definitely has its perks. 

Sure, I have had to find my own groove and get to know the unique needs of my own children, but I started homeschooling with so much more knowledge about the resources and curricula that were available than most first year homeschool moms. 

I already knew what homeschooling looked like in everyday life (the good, the bad, and the ugly), so there was no big lifestyle shock. 

I was already well-versed in legal requirements for my state, and I had no real doubts that by God's grace I could do this.

Not to mention, I have a built-in support system in my parents. Not only can they take over as "substitute teachers" in a pinch, but they support all our homeschooling efforts 100% because they get it. So many homeschool moms do not have that level of family support, and I count it as a big blessing indeed.

I can not imagine NOT homeschooling! 


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Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Our Review of Kindergarten with Ace and Christi: Using A.C.E.'s Reading Readiness Program With My 4 Year Old


Little Brother (our 4 year old middle child) is doing K4 this year.

We started K4 back in the early spring using The Gentle + Classical Preschool Level 1. This was a terrific program designed for 2-4 year olds, and we really had a lot of fun using it through the summer.

This post does contain some affiliate links, and should you decide to make a purchase after clicking one of the links I have provided for your convenience, I will receive a small commission at absolutely no extra cost to you. Thank you for blessing our family this way!

Then in August, we were given the opportunity to borrow the entire set of 4 Teacher's Manuals, phonics audio CD, and phonics flashcards for A.C.E's Reading Readiness Program, Kindergarten with Ace and Christi, from a friend to use with Little Brother this year. It was a deal I simply could not pass up, and then the Lord provided the finances for us to get Little Brother the set of PACEs (workbooks) to complete the program!

Although I had never used this particular program before (I used ABeka's K4 with Big Brother), I had heard and read great things about it and was very eager to give it a try.

My husband learned to read using A.C.E. curriculum. It was so funny, he came home from work the evening I had gotten the flashcards, and his eyes lit up with recognition when he looked into the box: "Hey, where'd you get Abby Antelope?!" He STILL remembers the names of all the little animals that the program uses to help teach the letter sounds.

And now, here we are 6 weeks into the Kindergarten with Ace and Christi program, and I wanted to share our review.

Kindergarten with Ace and Christi is a full-year program from A.C.E. designed to help 3-5 year olds get ready for learning to read. 

This program is what we might call "old-school" Kindergarten as it does not expect students to begin reading or to begin writing letters or numbers just yet. So although the program is called "Kindergarten," it is more like a modern Pre-K program. I find it to be at the perfect level for Little Brother.

As I stated, the program requires the use of a set of 4 huge Teacher Manuals. These manuals contain all the daily stories and lessons, detailed instructions for completing all the students' PACE work, scheduling suggestions, P.E. activities, songs, Bible memory work, craft ideas, reproducible games and bulletin boards, and much more. The daily lesson plans are so well-organized and very detailed so that almost anyone could read through a lesson and be able to teach it right away.

The curriculum was originally written for use in a church-school setting, but it works great as a homeschool program!

Little Brother has 5 PACE (workbook) subjects, and each subject has 12 PACEs to complete for the year just like in all the other levels of the A.C.E curriculum. The subjects include Word Building, Math, English, Science, and Social Studies. Little Brother has been so thrilled that his workbooks look just like Big Brother's on the outside, they simply contain work that is on his level. I even created Little Brother his own goal cards so he can keep up with his daily work just like Big Brother does.



The PACEs are all conveniently color-coded by subject. Little Brother likes putting a sticker in each box as he completes each subject for the day.

He uses basic Crayola markers and jumbo crayons to complete his PACE work since these are best suited for his little hands. He will be slowly transitioning to using a pencil, but he still will not be writing letters or numbers yet this year. He has a child-sized folding chair that he brings to the coffee table each morning, and we work together there in the living room. Most days we are able to complete all his work in less than an hour.

Word Building is where the phonics sounds are introduced using fun stories about animal characters. Each week we meet a new animal friend. These animals all have alliterated names like Abby Antelope and Sandy Sunfish. The weekly animal's corresponding flashcard gets placed on our living room wall, and we listen to the phonics sound on our CD. I read the animal story each day while Little Brother follows along with the illustrations in his PACE. Letters are not introduced in alphabetical order and letter names are not used so as to focus on the sounds in preparation for phonetic reading instruction later. (Little Brother already knows all the letter names, though, thanks to Leapfrog Letter Factory!) Through songs, stories, simple PACE worksheets, file folder games, and crafts Little Brother is getting a rock-solid foundation in phonics through the Kindergarten with Ace and Christi Reading Readiness Program.

His English PACE activities further drill the letter sound of the week while also working on important vocabulary, concept of left and right, simple cutting and gluing skills, tracing, and more.

Here is a fun macaroni project we did when we were learning the Mm sound with Milton Mule.





Bible stories are beautifully illustrated in the Social Studies PACEs. Scripture memory work is also built into the curriculum. Little Brother is currently learning to recite Psalm 100, and I love that the lesson plans give fun hand motions for each phrase of the memory work. In Social Studies there are also fun stories and simple worksheets about families, homes, community helpers, etc.

As each animal is introduced in Word Building and English, we learn a bit about that animal in Science. So far we have also covered the days of Creation, hot/cold, and weather.

Math is one of Little Brother's favorite subjects because he loves to count! Right now in his PACEs we are reviewing counting and number recognition from 0 to 10, and he has had fun learning how to do simple matching, color-by-number, and dot-to-dot activities. By the end of the year he will be doing some simple addition and subtraction problems. (We are also still adding in activities from the book Preschool Math at Home because they are so fun and simple to implement.)

The Science and Math PACEs all have extra "homework" pages included in the back for extra skill practice to be used as desired. Little Brother loves his PACEs so much, he asks to work on these pages many afternoons on his own.


We slide each of his current PACEs into page protectors and keep them in a binder along with his weekly goal card. On the front of his binder is his progress chart where he places stickers for completing PACEs and reciting his weekly memory verses.



Here are some final pros and cons I'd like to share about the Kindergarten with Ace and Christi program:

Pros:

  • Provides a solid foundation in phonemic awareness and early math skills
  • Teaches from an unashamedly conservative Christian worldview
  • Activities are developmentally appropriate for the students for whom it is intended to be used
  • Multisensory approach makes it an excellent choice for any learning style
  • Lesson plans are extremely well-organized and easy to use; very much "open and go"
  • Lessons can be easily "tweaked" so that adding or substituting other activities as needed is simple
  • Provides gentle school structure and important skill practice without taking up the child's whole day with academics
  • Beautiful full-color illustrations in the PACEs help to make the stories engaging for the child

Cons:

  • The Teacher Manuals are pretty expensive. That's why I was so thankful we were able to borrow them! (There are many homeschool buy and sell groups on Facebook as well as on eBay where you can often find folks reselling their old manuals for a cheaper price, or you might ask around in your local homeschool community to see if anyone has a set you could borrow.)
  • The Manuals are also quite bulky. (Not really a bad thing as they contain such great lesson plans for the entire year. I just pull out each day's lesson plan and put them in my own binder so I do not have to flip through hundreds of pages all morning long.)
  • Some stories and activities were obviously written with church school students in mind. (I would love to see ACE come out with a homeschool version where all the children in the stories are homeschooled haha!)
  • A few of the stories can get a bit long for younger attention spans, but we can usually solve that issue by either taking a break or giving Little Brother something to color or a puzzle to work on while he listens.

Also, be sure you check out this video about Kindergarten with Ace and Christi from veteran homeschool mom Andrea Mills!

In all, I am extremely happy we get to use Kindergarten with Ace and Christi with Little Brother for K4 this year. He is loving it! He asks every morning (even on weekends!) if we can "do PACEs." 

And I feel like we are setting positive habits while he's getting some great preparation for good things to come in Kindergarten/K5 next year (when we plan to transition him to Masterbooks curriculum).


Do you have any questions about Kindergarten with Ace and Christi or how we are implementing it in our homeschool? There's really not a lot of information about this program online, so please feel free to drop your questions in the comments below.

Here I should mention that I am not being paid or reimbursed in any way by ACE to give this review, nor did they ask me to do so. I am just a homeschool mom/blogger simply sharing my own personal experiences and opinions in hopes of informing and inspiring others. 






Saturday, June 9, 2018

Our Homeschool Curriculum Choices for 5th Grade and K4


Our 2018/2019 homeschool year has begun!


This post contains some affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking one of my links, I will receive a small commission at absolutely no extra cost to you. Thanks for your support!

Through the summer, our goal is to log three full days of school per week. Once August gets here, we'll be doing four school days per week. Year-round homeschooling gives us the opportunity to work fewer days per week and take more frequent breaks.

We officially started back June 5th, and so far everything is going pretty smoothly. We have tweaked our schedule a little, started using a new motivational system, and added a few new activities to our days.

Big Brother is doing 5th grade this year, and Little Brother is doing K4 (pre-kindergarten). Baby Sister is currently 4 months old.


Here are our curriculum choices for this year:

5th Grade:


ACE (PACEs) for Math, English, Word Building, Literature/Creative Writing, Science, Social Studies, and Bible

Math Supplements (just to add in some fun challenges):

The Smart Alec Math Series Grade 5 Workbook



Fine Arts -



Piano Lessons (I'm teaching piano myself this year.)


Extras -

Weekly Book Reports (We're using reproducible pages from this fantastic resource.)

Quarterly Scripture Memory Passages

Life Skills-
Assorted daily and weekly chores
Practicing basic cooking skills
Packing Baby Sister's diaper bag

4-H (Homeschool Club, Country Ham Club, public speaking competitions, and more)

ACE Junior Regional Student Convention

Big Brother has a new binder organizational system this year for his work, and I got the idea from this YouTube video.

We also started a brand new Privilege System for Big Brother similar to what is shown in this YouTube video. I will be telling you a little bit more about our system and how it differs a little from the one in the video in a later post.

K4


(Check out this treasure and more from homeschool mom Erin Cox at Life, Abundantly!) 

Based on principles from classical education and the Charlotte Mason method, this curriculum for 2-4 year olds is thorough yet fun and so easy to add to our days. Little Brother (now a big, busy 4 year old) has been using The Gentle + Classical Preschool Level 1 since March, and he has learned so much already! We spend 2 weeks on each unit gently learning a new letter, Bible verse, life skill, science topic, social studies topic, nursery rhyme, motor skill, and more.

Other materials we are using for K4:








Life Skills-
Self-Care
Assisting with daily chores
Simple cooking skills (He makes some awesome little homemade pizzas!)

Little Brother joins in and listens along with anything we are doing with Big Brother that interests him. We also incorporate lots of additional learning activities from Pinterest and YouTube. By the end of this year, I hope to start teaching him some short and simple piano lessons.

I will be sharing over the next few weeks more information about our daily schedule, Big Brother's school binder, our Privilege System, our latest Morning Time routine, and more. 

Be sure you are a subscriber so you can get updates and access to lots of FREE stuff you can use in your homeschool!

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Monday, June 4, 2018

FREE Matthew 5:1-18 KJV Scripture Memory Activity Packet




We started our Summer Bible Reading Challenge here last week, and I appreciate everyone who is reading through the Gospels along with our family this summer!

I wanted to add in a Scripture memory component to our challenge, and I chose Matthew 5:1-18.

This is a very familiar passage. It is the beginning of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, and it contains the verses we call "the Beatitudes." These are beautiful verses, and I created this activity packet to help us memorize them over the next 9 weeks.

This packet includes teaching tips, hands-on memorization activities, copy work pages, and coloring sheets.

This packet would be the perfect addition to your family's worship time and/or morning basket this summer!

When you sign up as a subscriber to my email list, not only will you receive 2 free Scripture memory packets, but you will also be given access to ALL the free resources I create and post on my Subscribers Only page.

Subscribe to receive your FREE Matthew 5:1-18 Activity Packet AND access to my Subscribers Only page!

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Sunday, May 20, 2018

10 Homeschooling Books You Should Read

If you need some fresh inspiration and encouragement along your homeschooling journey, there's just nothing quite like reading a good book.


These are books that I have personally enjoyed and believe will be a blessing to you. Whether you are considering the possibility of homeschooling or have been at it for a while, you're going to want to get your hands on these books!

Public school educators are required to log a certain number of continuing education credits for their professional development each year. As homeschooling parents, I think it is vastly important that we also make an investment in our professional development as home educators. Reading the books I have chosen to list below can help you become the very best home educating parent you can possibly be for your children.

Happy reading! 

This post contains affiliate links. Thanks!

10 Homeschooling Books You Should Read




2. The Well-Adjusted Child: The Social Benefits of Homeschooling by Rachel Gathercole



4. How to Get Your Child Off the Refrigerator and on to Learning: Homeschooling Highly Distractable, ADHD, or Just Plain Fidgety Kids by Carol Barnier



6. 102 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum by Cathy Duffy


7. Warning! Public Schools Aren't for Christians by Richard "Little Bear" Wheeler




8. Lies Homeschooling Moms Believe by Todd Wilson




9. The Well Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise




10. A Mom Just Like You by Vickie and Jayme Farris



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