Homeschool Schedule and Planner Layout

The last two years I made a planner using Publisher and had it printed at Staples. It was a lot of work and expensive to print. This year I wanted to keep things simple and decided to use a spiral bound notebook instead. This notebook has been the best planner out of all the years I've homeschooled!

I printed our weekly schedule in color and taped it inside the cover of my notebook. Then I use color coordinating ink pens and colored pencils to match the printed schedule. It's colorful and yet simple at the same time.

I don't use a planner to schedule out what needs to be done, I use it to keep up with what we've completed. In the morning, I check what is scheduled for the day and transfer that to our current date.  I write the date and then in green ink (our together subjects) I go down the page adding the subjects, skipping every two lines. First skipped line is my son's and his is written in blue, the second is my daughter's and she is in pink. To draw the eye more (or maybe just to please it) I "highlight" the words with the same colored pencil. As we move through our day I add what we've done and if needed, I have room in the margins to write notes.

                       

Just in case you were wondering, we love our new schedule! The time slots are all designated the same. A together subject, followed by a round robin of my son requiring assistance and my daughter working independently, till after the next together subject where that switches up. Then my son works independently while I help my daughter. It's basically the same all week long with just a few variations in some of our subjects. The kids like knowing what's next. 

Our attendance record is hole punched and in a three ring binder along with "printed" lesson plan schedules. We call it the "Mom Binder" and it is divided by subject; Records, Bible, Language Arts, Math, History, Geography, Science and Nature Study. Since my planner is three hole punched I could clip it into my binder but I haven't found it necessary yet.

So there you have it, an easy peasy and inexpensive way to keep up with your days!

FREE Continent and Country Study Packet

I am so excited to share with you what I've been working on for my family! I've been hunting high and low for a country & cultures study for my 5th and 8th graders to do together and its been rather frustrating. I found a few that might work but they cost an arm and a leg. Plus, I would still have to tweak them for our grade levels. Other studies lacked the cultural depth I wanted to cover. Finally, I decided to just bite the bullet and make my own.

Once I actually sat down and figured out what I wanted the kids to study, it was only a matter of assembling it. One of my "must haves" for our Country and Culture Study Packet had to be ease of use. I want the ability to access one file to print out as many packets as required to cover a term's worth of countries. Adaptable to multiple resources, is another must have. We enjoy using living books, textbooks, videos, and curriculum. I wanted a packet that could work with any philosophy.

I'm sending this packet to Staples for a bulk printing for the rest of the year. Then I will only need to print 2 maps to complete the packet as we come to whichever country we've decided to study. One is a regional map, showing border countries, and/or bodies of water. The second is a map of the country itself, the kids will mark key cities and geographical features on this one.

We plan to travel through all the continents and visit the commonly known countries, beyond that I haven't decided. This Country and Culture Study Packet is going to save me hours of work and I hope it helps you too!!

Best Middle School Math Help Ever

I found it! REAL MATH HELP.

Pearson Education operates a website called "Virtual Nerd" and it's fabulous! The site has been around since 2008 but Pearson acquired it in 2013 and expanded upon the creator's already amazing resources.

They cover several courses of math and I see us utilizing this site for many years to come! The entire site has over 1500 videos! Clicking a course, grades 6-8 for example, directs you to their middle school page which has 413 tutorials organized by topic. Pick a topic and you have sub-topics to choose from. The videos are short, clear and to the point. The only thing I need to provide my student are the practice problems.

I feel like I've hit the jackpot and I want to shout from the roof tops "math help is here"! Go and check it out!

www.virtualnerd.com

Pre-Algebra, Ratios, Proportions and Unit Rates

Let me be really honest right here, I FAILED pre-algebra in school. I'm not sure that it was a lack of understanding, as much as it was a lack of interest. Okay, misplaced interest, in boys. If only I knew then what I know now. Anyway, I never really grasped the whole algebra scene until I hit college and had to take a remedial math. I actually enjoyed that class and finally began to understand the complexities of Algebra.

Fast forward nearly 30 years and now I'm trying to help my 8th grader acquire the skill of algebraic thinking. It's been tough. Winding our way between homeschool philosophies, and a  variety of curriculum hasn't helped matters any.

We are revisiting Math Mammoth this year. We had tried it once before a couple of years back but I think we stopped in order to follow a more living (Charlotte Mason) approach. Math Mammoth has been "okay" for the most part. The text speaks directly to the student which works until it doesn't. The lessons get tiresome as the author tries to incorporate a variety of methods to solve a problem. I don't remember her earlier curriculum being common core aligned but it is now and she is continuously trying to cover all her bases. It's easy to get bogged down with it all.

We are at that point right now with Ratios, Proportions and Unit Rates. I had to find a different resource to help her understand what she was doing, the steps she needed to take and find plenty of practice problems (with answers!)

I found a Pre-Algebra book on the Internet Archive that provided examples, guided practice, practice problems and answers in the back. We like it's set up.

To increase fluency and remove "Mom" from the equation I also found these videos on YouTube by Tyler Dewitt:

Understanding Conversion Factors
Converting Units with Factors
Converting Units using Multiple Steps
Multiple Conversions (Part 2)

Tyler has a couple of more videos in this playlist about using unit conversions with area and volume, and converting metric units of volume. When we get there we will watch those too.

I also printed out "How to Convert Units of Measurement" posted by Stan Brown at his website BrownMath.com We like how he gives step-by-step instructions. In fact, he has a ton of teaching tips and a couple of free math texts (statistics and trig) on his site, you should go check him out.

Well, it's time for me to go tackle some algebraic thinking!