Book Spine Poetry

April is National Poetry Month in Canada... did you know that? 

I did not.... but while I was raving about the cool poetry project I was thinking of doing with the kids I was schooled by our local librarian!

As you have probably figured out by now, I am not a language arts type of person... 

sure we read and write but beyond that, I'm kinda hopeless!!

Luckily there are great free resources out there... I rediscovered this website the other day.. a free site with tips and poetry lessons for kids?!?!  Fantastic!

Kenn Nesbitt's Poetry4Kids

There was a great post about creating book spine poetry.... right up our alley! 

 So we gathered a ridiculous number of books from our unnatural book collection and went to work... 

The kidlets had a blast and came up with some neat poems... what a great perspective!!  

We loved this... I highly suggest you try it out!!  

The only downside was the massive clean up of books when we were done...lol ;)

Our curriculum choices 2017/18

Wow.. it is nearing the end of August… already!  Where did the summer go?!?!  My kidlets have finished up their summer workbooks and projects and are ready to start a new year.  Some people have asked me what that looks like when we homeschool year round… well part of it means cleaning up… organizing our homeschool closet, filing away projects and artwork, and restocking the kid’s bins with new workbooks, pencils, etc.

The kidlets love getting a new notebook, folder and some cute stickers :)

*Shameless Usborne plug-  I am an Usborne Consultant and would love to find you the perfect books to supplement your learning or help you develop an entire unit!  You can find my Usborne Consultant FacebookPage here or drop me a line!  But if you have a homeschool friend that is a consultant make sure to throw some business her way!*

Here is how our year is shaping up for units and curriculum… lining up with my philosophy of reading, writing and math everyday!
Sweet Pea is 11 years old and Goober is 8 years old.

Math

Both kidlets work through the MathSmart workbooks.  I explain new concepts as needed and we use Khan Academy as a supplement when needed.

I love living math books… this is a great link to a wide variety of math topics.. www.livingmath.net.

The kidlets also love to play Prodigy math game.  I have to be careful not to help too much here as it adapts to the learner and will get difficult if I hep with answers ;)

Usborne books also has a great selection of math activity books. We are adding these to our bins this year….

Times Tables Activity Book 

Decimals and Fractions Activity Book

Math Puzzle Pad

 Language Arts

Goober will be starting cursive writing this year using Handwriting Without Tears.  

Sweet Pea will continue to develop her cursive using this neat workbook....

I love All About Spelling... I find we don't use the whole program... and because we do our own thing we can totally pick and choose what works!  So I usually only purchase the teacher's guide, The LearningHouse has been great at helping us find what we need!

Here are the books we are using for story writing this year... Usborne of course! 

My first story writing book

Write your own story book

For poetry inspiration we are loving A Crow Doesn't Need a Shadow...

Our book lists are usually quite long...
We always have a read aloud on the go and the kidlets have a book on the go...

Here is our current read aloud, we are really enjoying it- The Girl Who Drank the Moon

Sweet Pea is currently reading Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCammilo, one of her favourite authors.

Next on her list is Hidden Figures Young Readers Edition

which will likely lead into a unit on astronomy and astronauts!

Goober is currently reading Fergus Crane (Far-Flung Adventures#1)

which will likely lead to a science unit on inventions!

Social Studies

We are continuing our study of Canadian History...

check out my blog posts to see how we are tackling this huge topic!

We have already covered First Nations and Vikings, next up Explorers, Fur Trade and Voyageurs!

Science

Science is by far our most random subject.... we go where the questions and interest leads us.  Anything and everything is up for grabs... check out my science blogs!

Sweet Pea has spent the last few years working through chemistry, biology and physics so this year she is going to read The Magic of Reality and The Science of Why.  I'm guessing they will lead us down some great paths of learning :)

For Goober we are going to pick some Magic School Bus Chapter Books and make a unit study, a lapbook of the topic or even some lego stop motion animation :)

Together we are going to work through this book I was recommended...Two Truths and a Lie... 

I like how it incorporates science and critical thinking!

Art

Now I'm not an art person... but my kidlets love it!  

We love ArtHub for Kids youtube channel for drawing, painting and folding tutorials, 

it really does give the kids a boost of confidence in their art skills.

We will also work through ArtTango.com , free art lesson plans for kinder through Grade 5... we used it sporadically last year and I was really impressed with the projects! 

French

I am very grateful to my parents for sending me to french immersion when I was young...  however teaching my kids to speak french after more than a decade of practice is pretty interesting!  For french I find a varied approach seems to be working best for us.  We mix it up with nursery rhymes and simple songs, reading french pictures books, watching french tv shows, and simple worksheets.  French is most definitely our work in progress, however I have noticed the more consistent we are the more the kids pick up and retain... so my goal this year is a little something french everyday!

Hope everyone's homeschool planning is going well... 

and that you find some great resources that work for your family :)