More on the Homeschool Front

I'm very excited because I just started really putting my curriculum together.  I went ahead and ordered the DiscipleLand curriculum.  It should be here in a few days.  I also went and got a heavy-duty hole punch and went to town on the Big and Easy Patterns Book by Teacher Created Material, Inc.  The only thing I was disappointed about was there were no coloring pages of lower-case letters.  Both my mom, an occupational therapist, and my mom-in-law, a kindergarten teacher with a Master's in childhood development, advocate not even introducing children to capitalized letters until they are well versed in the lower-case.  Its harder to break kids of the habit of writing all capitals than having them write all lower case and introducing capitals at the first of certain words.  So anyway, I found a website that has the lower-case letters and I printed them out last night after my printer decided it wanted to cooperate with my computer again....finally.  I also found a great site for making homemade musical intstruments.  I will, of course, put both links at the end of the post.  I also went to Wally world the other day and got some supplies.  I bought a box of divider tabs and made my own dividers cuz it was cheaper that way.  I already have a large supply of card stock and just used those.  I made one divider per letter/number.  I also added dividers for the main holidays:  Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day (I know, but its always a good training time to teach your kids to show others that they love them.), Easter and Memorial Day.  I'll probably add a few others as I go along, but that's what I've got so far.  I'm also going to get the Betty Lukens Small Deluxe Bible Set.  I saw the idea on my friend Michawn's blog (thanks, Michawn!) and was just blown away.  Its such a neat way to make the Bible real and tangible for kids.  Anyway, I found a website that has a great price on the set.  I will also put that link at the end.  

So far, this is how I'm going to organize my curriculum.  After each letter /number divider, there will be five days worth of activities having to do with that letter and number.  I intend to introduce a new letter and number each week, but we will go at Braden's pace.  Each day, Braden will get to color the same coloring sheet with the lower-case letter and the number.  (Repetition is good.:)  Then, we will have a Bible story that starts with that letter, i.e. A - Adam and Eve.  Each day there will be a new Bible story that starts with that letter. The Betty Lukens set will go along with each Bible story.  The DiscipleLand curriculum probably won't fit into this mold because they go through the books of the Bible in order, so we'll just add it in an not worry if the letter of the day doesn't begin the title.  This way, Braden will get the Bible in order, but also get reinforcement of the letters we are learning.  You just can't have too much Bible! :D  Then there will be a new animal each day that starts with that letter and we'll learn all about that animal, including coloring, activities, pictures, maybe even a nature movie when I can get a hold of one.  We'll also have a new object or job or whatever each day that begins with that letter to learn about.  Reading books will come in handy here. I'm going to be ordering some books from the Sonlight curriculum.   I've also got activities planned.  Numbers will be incorporated in all of this.  Any of the things above can involve counting.  My main goal with the letters and numbers is to have Braden be able to recognize written letters and numbers and be able to count to 20 using items as well as the written numbers.  Mostly, though, I'm more interested in teaching Braden about God.  I want him to truly know his Creator.  I want him to know the Bible because God reveals Himself to us through His Word.  You can be the smartest person in the world, but if you miss God, what's the point?  I would rather Braden knows and truly lives in honesty, valor, servitude, submission, righteousness, honor, friendship, love, from where authority truly comes, mercy, grace, wisdom, thanksgiving, prayer, truth, peace, faith and most of all salvation.  I want him to be a mighty man of God!

I'm also trying to get involved with a homeschool group here and also a Mom's Club.  That will be good for all of us.  There are some other resources I have found for certain things.  For instance, I want to teach Braden about dinosaurs, but I don't subscribe to the millions-of-years-evolution THEORY, so I set about looking for some alternative teaching materials.  Here's what I found:  Dinosaurs by Design by Duane T. Gish (Author), Gloria Clanin (Author), Earl Snellenberger (Illustrator), Bonita Snellenberger (Illustrator),  God's Dinosaurs: An Activity Book All About Colors by Earl Snellenberger (Author), Bonita Snellenberger (Author),  The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible (Revised Edition) by Paul S. Taylor,  Dry Bones and Other Fossils by Gary E. & Mary M. Parker.  There are others, you just have to google it.  Also, my mom along with others gave many suggestions for manipulatives to go with everything.  I'm going to make my own flash cards with lower-case letters and my mom suggested that I trace the letter in glue.  When it dries, there will be a raised edge your child can trace.  My sister Jennifer gave me a great idea for the flash cards as well.  I'm going to make my flash cards become a choo-choo train.  I have a three car train in the Big and Easy Patterns book and I'm going to put all the letters on copies of the train cars.  Each time I introduce a new letter, we'll put the piece on a ring.  By the time all the letters are introduced we'll have an engine, lots of cars and a caboose.  All with the raised edges of the glue.  I'm going one step further though by using glitter glue.  This way I'll have a raised edge along with a rough surface.  Oh, yeah.... I'm also going to make my own lace-cards.  I bought some cardboard at the store and I'm going to draw thick letters on each piece of cardboard and then punch holes all along the letter.  I bought long shoe strings for Braden to lace through the holes.  Another idea is to fill a cookie sheet with shaving cream and have your child trace letters in the shaving cream.  You can do the same thing with sand or corn meal.  The more researching I do on certain things, the more I will share my findings.  When I am completely done with putting all of my school stuff together, I will take pictures of it all and post it.  Maybe my research and toil:) will benefit someone else!  Okay, on to the linkage...

Homemade musical instruments

lower-case alphabet printouts

National Geographic Kids

Sonlight Website

Betty Lukens Small Deluxe Bible Set