Monday, September 19, 2011

A New School Year Underway!




Last Monday was our first day back to school and for us the start of our 3rd year with homeschooling.  I am so excited about all that we are doing this year!!  I'm finding myself still making adjustments to our schedule, so if things are not running smoothly for you either, just step back and evaluate your day.  Are you trying to cram too much into your day?  Is there a better time you could be working on certain subjects? 


The "Type A" side of me wants to complete and check everything off my list for each day but my desire is for this year to be 1) FUN and 2) LOW-KEY!  So this means I have to work extra hard on allowing myself to 1) RELAX and 2) NOT STRESS about getting everything done on time.
This year I have divided up our school day into 2 parts: morning and afternoon.  In the morning we are doing Table Talk devotions at breakfast followed by our Expedition Earth world geography.  The afternoons is when we are doing math/language arts (while my toddler naps).  I am using Math Lessons for a Living Education: book 1 with my Kindergartener and Math Lessons for a Living Education: book 2 with my 2nd grader (to learn more about this math curriculum go here). 

XTB Devotional!
Expedition Earth is a one-year world geography curriculum.  Each week we will be learning about a different country, with 31 countries in all!  This past week was our "Intro to Geography" week and one of the highlights of the week was making a paper mache earth!   I cheated a little and purchased a Paper Mache Kit from Michaels called "Celluclay".  You just add water and then mix!

After they dried (which took several days) they painted them blue!

Then they dried again overnight.

Then painted on the Continents!

We will also be learning about 6 animals from each country and adding them to our "Wall Classification Chart"
No Animals have been added yet.


And what is a world geography curriculum without a huge wall map?  This was purchased at Costco!



"Expedition Earth" has so many fun activities including:
  • 7 Wonders of the World
  • World Lap Book
  • Geographical Locations
  • Mapping Skills
  • Science: Ecosystems Study
  • Geography Vocabulary
  • People of the Region
  • How to Pray for the Regions
  • Christmas around the world
  • Children like me
  • Science: Animals mini-books for each country
  • Science: Animal Classification Study
  • Food and recipes
  • Craft activities
  • Country Songs
  • Fun activities and games
countrypromo


We are also incorporating learning about missionaries into this year.  We will be reading from Heroes for Young Readers.  This week we start with, Gladys Alward!


The girls are having so much FUN so far and that makes me happy!!  Now off to China we go!

I plan to share more with you this year as we travel the globe!






2 comments:

  1. Looks like fun! I like the hand-made "earth" spheres!

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  2. Hi! It looks like you're off to a great start, I hope you have a wonderful year! :o)
    Erica
    www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com

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