CHRISTEPHI

When you use My Father's World, you really don't have to do any prepwork to get ready for your year. Things are all planned out for you and you can easily just open and go . However, I am a bit particular and like to have things just so. I find that putting in just a little effort before getting started helps eliminate small frustrations as we go along. Since I had the time and wanted to, I decided to do a few things to get ready for our year .  This post will make more sense if you read our curriculum picks first . The first thing I did was open our packs of student sheets and separate out the State Sheets and President Sheets. I used my brand new binding machine -- a Christmas gift from Hubby that delights my nerdy heart -- to bind each child's pages into a separate notebook.  Since you receive some of the sheets this year and the rest of them next year in 1850 to Modern Times, it made sense to me to separate them out so at the end of the year it's easy to se...

We are now a little over halfway through Creation to the Greeks and MFW First Grade. As you may have noticed, I dropped off blogging every week as I expected I would. It's easier to blog when the days are short and cold, but much harder to find time for it once spring arrives and we're out gardening and such in our spare time.  I wouldn't have it any other way!  If you wish to keep up with our weekly doings, you'll have to follow my Facebook page which is updated almost every day that we do school! So, now that we're on the downhill side of the year, I thought I would write a little about what has worked well for us this year and what hasn't. Our planners Back in January I copied the grid pages from my CTG and First Grade teacher's manuals and assembled them into a lesson planner for the year. (Remember: MFW allows for photocopying of the grid pages for planning and record keeping as long as you agree to never loan, give, or sell the teacher's ma...

We have been off from school since before Thanksgiving when our school year ended.  In that time, we celebrated both the kids' birthdays, two major holidays, bought a house and moved!  It's been a bit hectic to say the least.  Now that we're getting settled at our new place, I’ve been spending some time working out our lesson plan for the coming school year: slotting in spelling lists and math assignments, divvying up science units and lining up books to read for both personal reading time and family read-aloud time.  And I’ve got JUST the tool to help me do it! Homeschool Planet everything you need to organize your home and homeschool in an easy-to-use online planner Honestly, I don’t have time to learn new software at this point in my life.  And it’s not because I’m slow on the uptake when it comes to technology!  I’m pretty savvy!  But time is a precious commodity for a homeschool mama.  That’s the thing I’ve lo...

The motto of our homeschool is: " Learning to Love to Learn ."  One of my overarching goals as a homeschool mom is to teach my kids  how  to learn. I believe that if they know how to acquire and retain information, they will be able to do anything they set their hearts on, both as children and as adults. Veteran homeschool mom Debra Bell believes this too and that is one of the reasons she created The Ultimate Homeschool Planning System.  The Ultimate Homeschool Planning System is more than just a planner , it's a SYSTEM.  There's the mom's planner, the teen planner, and a younger student planner.  The system is designed to grow with your students, teaching them to take on more and more responsibility for their daily/weekly planning, scheduling, and time management.  As early as 3rd grade, students can keep a little checklist for each day detailing what they need to get done.  By the time they're in 5th grade they're able to b...