Elementary Math Spotlight - Schoolhouse Teachers

Elementary Math Spotlight

Schoolhouse Teachers.com 

This post contains my affiliate link. Thank you for supporting my blog and our homeschool!

Math may come easy to you but I for one have had a doosey of a time making math fun at my house. Math has been one of those subjects where I am constantly trying to strike a balance of fun and work. If this is you too, then please take heart friend, this is where Schoolhouse Teachers.com comes into play!

With SchoolhouseTeachers.com I can pick a class, even one I’m unsure of, like Starting Out With First Grade Math and then I just have to assist, not truly “teach” math. This makes my homeschool mama heart very happy. I can be confidant that the math course I choose will be taught well and that my student is learning.

 When each of my children reach about the age of five I start them with simple math workbooks from the Dollar Tree and real-life application with daily living. Once they start first grade we start a more "formal" approach to math. This class is just right for my first grade learner. It starts with simple one-to-one correspondence in lesson one and builds to mental addition and subtraction. This class  has colorful and interactive slides that teach a specific math concept before the student completes a related worksheet or activity.

More times than not, SchoolhouseTeachers.com comes to my rescue with just the course I need. And since math is a subject that isn’t my favorite to teach, I’m grateful to see so many math courses and workshops that are right at my fingertips!

There are also math workshops geared for elementary aged students and links to World Book Online articles about math.  I love the idea of having math workshops for my elementary-age children. We lean more to a mastery approach in math since my children start to get bored with repetitive review. 

Whole Number Place Value Workshop is one of the workshops that my third and fourth graders will be starting soon. This workshop goes beyond just ones-tens-hundreds place values. 

Other math workshops include the following:

1. Decimals Workshop

2. Fractions Workshop

3. Multiplication Workshop

4. Understanding Fractions Workshop. 

You can learn more about each of these workshops as well as all courses math-related on Schoolhouse Teachers.com by clicking HERE. 

Language Arts Spotlight - Schoolhouse Teachers

Language Arts Spotlight

Schoolhouse Teachers.com

This post contains my affiliate link. Thank you for supporting my blog and our homeschool!

Do you ever have those moments as a homeschool mama that make your eye twitch and you realize that Language Arts just isn’t your favorite thing to teach? No? Well I'm here to share a spotlight on some great Language Arts classes!

Back in my teaching days, I was the Language Arts teacher, but to this day I still do not like teaching spelling. All. The. Rules....now that makes my eye twitch. This is just one of the reasons why I'm grateful that I have access to SchoolhouseTeachers.com. With so many classes to choose from, I know that I can provide the opportunities to help my children to be thoughtful spellers and master the English language.

I had already planned to read several different versions of well-known fairy tales to my children this year, but I had not create the lesson plans yet. (Yes, so much to do and not enough time.) The other day I was scrolling through the Language Art classes offered on Schoolhouse Teachers.com and found this gem: Fun with Fairy Tales. Happy dance!! Now all I have to do is download and print the lesson plans then grab our stack of fairy tale books. As a busy mama of five that is a win-win in my book. 

Each class offered at SchoolhouseTeachers.com provides a clear and straightforward approach to the subject of Language Arts. Visit now to see what classes are available for your child. There are over 350 courses to choose from at Schoolhouse Teachers.com

Here are just a sampling of the classes available:

We have pre-reading, reading, and literature covered with courses such as:

ABC: What Will I Be?

Adventures with Books

African American Literature

All About the Alphabet

American Folklore

American Literature

Christian Values in J.R.R. Tolkien

Daily Puzzlers

Everyday Games

Literature Kits

Monthly Book Lists for Families

Pre-K Activities: Read and Play

Reading Lessons for Young or Struggling Readers 

Teaching Reading through Play
Worldviews in Literature

We can help your kids brush up on grammar, spelling, memorization, and research skills with courses including:

Daily Grammar

Fun with Memorization

Little Language Arts

Research Skills 7th Grade

Schoolhouse Spelling

Ways to teach writing abound with courses such as:

Adventures in Writing

Beginning Handwriting

Benjamin Franklin Writing Method

Creative Storytelling

Creative Writing

Daily Writing

Essay Writing 101

Everyday Copywork

Lapbooking

Sparking the Noggin: Creative Writing with Pictures

Writing

Writing: Advertising Copy

Writing: Mechanics

Round-up of Autumn Learning Fun

Round-up of Autumn Learning Fun

This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting my blog and our homeschool!

Autumn Fires

by

Robert Louis Stevenson

In the other gardens

And all up the vale,

From the autumn bonfires

See the smoke trail.

Pleasant summer over

And all the summer flowers,

The red fire blazes,

The grey smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!

Something bright in all!

Flowers in the summer,

Fires in the fall.

There is something just refreshing about the fall that I love. The leaves begin their slow fade before dropping to their final resting place, the weather gets cooler, and the pumpkin patches!!! Yes, fall is my favorite season. It also means hay rides, football games, sweaters and boots, and bonfires. Fall also now means fun learning activities for my children that revolve about leaves, pumpkins, acorns, and woodland animals.

In this post I have gathered some links to fun and (some) free learning for children. Please always check the price before checking out. I hope you and your children enjoy all the great things about fall and have fun learning too!

Fall Learning Links:

Free Homeschool Deals by Jamerrill

http://www.freehomeschooldeals.com/70-free-fall-learning-resources-activities-for-kids/

(Hands-down this is my FAVORITE site to visit for free learning activities for our homeschool.)

Proverbial Homemaker
https://www.proverbialhomemaker.com/counting-pumpkins-1-12-free-printable-pack.html
(Limited-time Download)

Pre-K pages

https://www.pre-kpages.com/20-fall-leaf-activities-for-preschool/

The Imagination Tree

https://theimaginationtree.com/50-autumn-play-art-activities-kids/

Education.com

https://www.education.com/worksheets/autumn-fun/

(This site has fun and educational worksheets.)

Little Bins for Little Hands

https://littlebinsforlittlehands.com/fall-science-activities-kids-hands-sensory-play/

(This is a new to me site, but it has some great ideas listed.)

The Homeschool Scientist

https://thehomeschoolscientist.com/fall-science-activities/

Our Journey Westward with Cindy West 

https://ourjourneywestward.com/nature-study-3/

(We love Cindy West's Nature Explorer products, and she has some great posts about getting started with nature study.)

Be sure to check out my Pinterest board, Homeschool:Fall Learning for even more ideas!

Don't forget the Harvest Sale over at SchoolhouseTeachers.com. {aff link} The sale will go through the end of October. 

Grace for the Overwhelming Days

Thoughts for the Overwhelmed Mom

Have you ever had one of those days where your toddler outlasted your last cup of coffee? Or you have so many things coming at you at once that vertigo has you feeling sick? Yeah, me too! Life can be overwhelming sometimes...enough said. Right?

I've had my share of those days. Days where I wished I could just hide under the covers. Would hiding solve any of the challenges for that day, week, month or even some times a year? No, not really. Awhile back I was having one of those days that turned into one of those weeks. I would cry during the day and fall asleep exhausted at night feeling like a failure. By the end of the week I had had enough of it. I was tired of being overwhelmed!!! 

See the problem came in when I kept trying to do everything in my own strength, knowledge, and routine. I kept thinking if this situation was different then maybe things would be better, or if  "this or that" could change then things would be better. I knew deep down in my heart what I should have done the first time those despairing thoughts entered my mind. But I didn't, and instead tried to deal with the feelings of inadequacies on my own. I don't know about you, but for me that is a lonely road to travel. 

Once I said "enough already" and turned to God, He was already there waiting on me to lean on Him.

One of my very favorite passage of verses talks about leaning on Him and not on my own understanding. 

Proverbs 3: 5-6 (NKJV)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.

I have to trust Him, and know that He is working all things together for my good, (Romans 8:28) I have to lean on Him instead of trusting my own understanding. (Isaiah 55:8-9) When I acknowledge Him, then He will direct my steps. (Isaiah 30:21) So when those tough days come, and they will, I have to keep my thoughts on Him and offer up a prayer. Take heart, He is still there for you and me waiting for us to lean on Him. Blessings!

Our New School Year 2017-2018

Plans for Our New School Year

2017-2018

This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting my blog and our homeschool!

Wow! Can you believe that it is already October? I feel like this school year is flying by too fast for me. How is homeschooling going at your house? 

I think that our motto for this year is going to be "slow and steady wins the race". We are still working on our routine and line up for some of our subjects, but for the most part we are finding what works for us. 

This year, I have a 10, 8, 6, 3, and 1 year old. We are all learning to be more flexible than before with little ones. I have had to adjust our schedule to make room for those "interruptions" that will happen and really that's a good thing. I want my children to value people more than a to-do list, and since I'm their example I first have to show it. This homeschooling journey is becoming more beautiful the more I am learning to trust God's leading on what it is suppose to look like for our family. 

We are eclectic homeschoolers, with a CM bent, because "one size does NOT fit all" in my house. This year we will be using resources from Ambleside Online, SchoolhouseTeachers.com, Reading Eggs, Teaching Textbooks, and unit studies. I will include links below to each one so that you can check them out.

Last year was the first time that we ventured into a more Charlotte Mason approach to learning, but since I am still slowly reading through her volumes and learning myself we are not doing everything 100%. I get to help design some of the curriculum found at SchoolhouseTeachers.com, and I'm very excited to have this resource this year. I am using Reading Eggs with my struggling reader, and Teaching Textbooks for math with my artistic-driven learner. Then for fun, because my children actually like unit studies, I have sprinkled some throughout the school year. I hope you are having a great school year so far! You can tell me more about your school year in the comments below. I would love to hear from you!

Ambleside Online 
http://amblesideonline.org/

SchoolhouseTeachers.com
https://schoolhouseteachers.com/dap/a/?a=29803 {aff. link}

Reading Eggs
https://readingeggs.com/

Teaching Textbooks
http://teachingtextbooks.com/

Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett
http://unitstudy.com/

Also I am working on my own unit studies for the blog as well!!