Our 2013-2014 Homeschool Curriculum Choices

Our oldest daughter went to public school for her Kindergarten year and the bus ride was outrageously long and we had a few minor issues as well. Because of these issues, we've decided to homeschool the girls.  So for the past few months, I've been researching curriculums and deciding what we would use for this year. I have a very tight budget, so I tried to find mostly free or very inexpensive curriculum choices that wouldn't be too difficult to implement since we also have a 16mo and expecting a new baby in January. We'll be getting started next week and will probably work through until mid-January with as few breaks as possible so that we can take a good 1-2 month break then while we get baby settled in. So here are our "low spend" curriculum choices for 2013-2014 school year!

Heather - 1st Grade
Bible -  
We will be using Raising Rock Stars Bible program for learning the Bible history (this will also integrate into ancient history at several points throughout the year). We will be using ABC Bible Verses by Susan Hunt for our Memory Verses and devotional.
Math - We will be using Math Mammoth this year. I found a great deal on Homeschool Buyer's Co-op for 1st -6th grade light blue math curriculum for about $70 total! So assuming we like this curriculum, we're set for the next few years! I like what I've seen so far and just finished printing the first workbook and the corresponding reviews & tests. Even if we don't like it as well as I think we will, we can still use it as a resource for extra work and such.

Language Arts:
Spelling -  
K12 Reader lists for 1st grade and a few DIY worksheets and games that I found online. We'll play some fun games with the words and do word searches (which she enjoys), word scramblers, shape puzzles, and some typical copy 2-3 times each and the like with a test on Fridays.
Grammar - 
First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind by Jessie Wirts along with a few corresponding worksheets I've found for free online. I was able to use Swagbucks to pay for half the price of this book. I got it gently used on Amazon for a great price!
Phonics - 
We'll be using the Progressive Phonics readers and the Spectrum Phonics Grade 1 workbook this year. It'll last through December and then we'll transition to more reading than phonics.
Reading & Comprehension - 
Through December, we'll be reading from McGuffey's 1st Eclectic Reader. Once we finish that reader, we'll start using Easy Peasy All-In-One Homeschool Level 1 for reading. This will include reading 'The Tale of the Jolly Robin' and some other stories on there (all material will be free on the public domain using the Kindle App on Heather's tablet).We will also read some short stories, fairy tales, aesop's fables, and other selections from the book "What Your 1st Grader Needs to Know." I was able to purchase this book completely using Swagbucks!

Social Studies - 
We will be studying ancient history this year. We're going to start with Creation and use the Bible as the core for our History studies as well as bringing in other topics in a timeline order. We will be studying ancient civilizations such as Ancient Egypt, Greece, & Rome using Lapbooks and a variety of living history books that I can find at the library or by using swagbucks to purchase through amazon. This will be more time consuming for me but I just haven't been able to find a free or very inexpensive curriculum that I like so far. We will be borrowing some things from Easy Peasy AIO Homeschool as well. In addition, we will have a few short unit studies on local history. We have a wonderful Pioneer Museum here in town that usually has a few special events throughout the year that we are planning on attending. There are also 2-3 nearby Civil War re-enactment events around the state. We will choose one of them to attend as well.

Science - 
We will be using the Easy Peasy All In One Homeschool, Year 1 program for science this year. It uses Mr. Q's Life Science (free), kidshealth.org, and other free online information to teach science with several hands-on activities throughout the year. I am really looking forward to using this program!

Extras:  
We will be using the Easy Peasy AIO Homeschool program for music appreciation, Art, & P.E. We will also be choosing a couple of fun classes with our local homeschool co-op as well. At some point this year, I'm hoping to also teach her to play the piano but haven't decided on details for this yet. She will be playing soccer with the local recreation league and I am considering putting her in cheerleading with Upwards as well but we haven't decided yet. Usually we attend a dance school as well but they had to take some time off recently and we aren't sure when they will be re-opening. We will probably enroll both girls in this as well when it does depending on what activities we are doing at the time.

Mikayla - Preschool:
Bible - We are using Carissa's Raising Rock Stars Bible program as our core learning for Bible as well as the bible verses from RRSP which uses the book "ABC Bible Verses" by Susan Hunt for the memory verse and devotional for each week. (Heather will be participating in this as well). 

We will be using Carissa's Raising Rock Stars Preschool program as our core along with a few other random printables depending on the topic for the week. She already recognizes and knows the sounds for all of the letters. So we'll be reinforcing this as well as working on writing letters and recognizing lowercase letters this year. It also includes a sight word each week along with a number, color, and shape. I will be adding extra resources for these things as well....especially the numbers and shapes which she is still weak on. She has colors down pretty well so I shouldn't have to add anything for that.
 
Other subjects - she will be sitting with us and listening as well as doing age appropriate activities with Heather's Science, Social Studies, P.E., music, and art. These subjects will be very integrated between the two ages so that both girls can learn the same thing and it should also help with keeping both girls occupied at the same time. 

I'm hoping to blog about our activities, field trips, and lessons throughout the year. I'm looking forward to showing the girls lapbooks (which will play a large part of our learning in Science, History, & Bible), projects, and other things on here as well. I hope you enjoy it and don't forget to check back for updates!

There's a New baby Gladwell on the way!

Our little family is growing again! Michael is now a  year old. We recently found out that we will be having another baby around January 20th, 2014. I'm almost 12 weeks along so right at the end of my first trimester. Unfortunately for me, pregnancy sickness kicked in strong around 8-9 weeks along and it's not easing up yet and showing no signs of it doing so any time soon. I've been rather miserable with it honestly. I've tried the seabands, B6, Zofran, and Phenegran as well as ginger ale and ginger snaps. While some of them help a little bit, Phenegran is the only thing that eases it off enough for me to sleep at night. Unfortunately it also makes me so sleepy that I can hardly get up in the mornings. Due to the amount of "morning sickness" I've been experiencing, I think it's going to be another girl. And for those who are asking "Don't we know what causes this?" Yes...Yes we do and quite enjoy it from time to time LOL I was actually using Ortho Micronor (mini-pill birth control) and unfortunately it didn't work and I ended up with a surprise pregnancy. Apparently God decided we needed another baby now. LOL We're fine with it despite the initial shock. ^_~ Thankfully we still have most of the baby gear. I still have some baby clothes for either gender. The only thing I don't have is a good standard sized baby swing. I'm hoping a friend of mine will let me borrow hers though. It's going to be interesting having 4 kids at home, especially with Michael still breastfeeding about 3x a day and adding a newborn to that. We're also going to be homeschooling this year. Heather is going into first grade and I'll be doing pre-K with Mikayla and some toddler things with Michael (mostly educational play). We'll be using Easy Peasy All-in-one Homeschool curriculum online as the base of our studies. I'll be using Math Mammoth for Heather's mathematics and a couple of other things in the language arts area. I'm really looking forward to homeschooling them. I just hope the pregnancy yuckies ease off before August so that I can function and focus on teaching them.

In other news, the clothing detergent that I made back in January is only just now running out. I have about half of the liquid softener bottle I'm reusing left of the detergent. I just made the second batch this evening and have it setting now so it'll be ready to use in a couple days. It worked really well! I got about 6 months out of the one 5gal. bucket! I just had to buy another Fels Naptha bar of soap. I still have plenty of the washing soda, borax, and oxiclean for several more buckets of detergent! I'll just need a bar of the FN soap each time. Very cost friendly! Definitely worth the investment in the 5 gal buckets with lids and the WS, B, & O! I'm looking forward to using it for years to come!

Over the next year, I'm hoping to keep this blog updated with lots of homeschooling information such as the activities we're doing and special projects. I'm hoping I'll remember to keep it up LOL

Results are in! (Detergent)

So in my last post, I blogged about making our own detergent & dryer "sheets." I'll add a picture tomorrow but I wanted to post the results. The detergent came out really well. It is very gelled and gloppy (is that a word? LOL) It's not pretty like store bought detergents, but I like it. I use the wide mouth funnel from my canning kit to help feed it into the liquid fabric softener bottle I'm reusing (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, right?!) In the directions, it said to fill half the bottle with the gelled detergent in the bucket and then fill with water and shake to mix. I actually prefer mine a little stronger, so I fill 2/3 of the bottle with the detergent and fill the last third with water and it works great! I love the smell of the detergent and it's VERY LOW sudsing. It took a little time to get used to not seeing a lot of bubbles in my washing machine water but I actually like it. The clothes come out smelling fresh and clean and seem to be getting clean. I haven't noticed any staining that wouldn't have come out with our store bought detergent or any dingyness or any other signs that it's not cleaning as well so I'm happy with it. Even better is that it works great with my cloth diapers as well!!! Normally I have to use a powder detergent that I mix myself and still rinse like crazy. This liquid detergent however is working great, getting the diapers clean, no ammonia odor in the mornings, and no buildup! All in fewer rinses than I was using before! SCORE! It's very cheap to make and I should be able to make several more gallon buckets full before I run out of the boxes of ingredients I've already purchased. I'm really looking forward to seeing how it performs in the long run. I'll probably invest in some other essential oils (lavendar?! ^_^) for my next batch. I liked having the Tea Tree Oil in this batch though. The dryer "sheets" are working great as well. I cut 3 sponges in half and keep them in the bucket with the softener mix. I have found that I prefer 2 sponges in each dryer load as it seems to work better. I love the lavendar fragrance! I used the Great Value brand lavendar liquid softener mixed with 3-4 bottles filled with water and mixed together in a 5 gal bucket. It's great!!!

Cleaning News:
Unfortunately, the past couple of months have been really rough on us. We've been sick a lot with one thing or another. We don't usually deal with so much sickness in an entire year, and definitely not in 1-2  months time! Over Christmas, I had the flu (type A). We've all had nearly constant sinus/ear infections off and on ever since it turned cool. The weather keeps changing back and forth from warm, to cool, to COLD and back again at the drop of a hat. It's been really rough! Then just last week, my two youngest ones got the flu! Thankfully, DH, ODD and I did not pick it up...which is amazing since my 2 youngest had flu type B. We've all had the cruddies though. Anyway, due to all the sickness lately, I've fallen behind on my cleaning challenge and haven't completed any more days. I'm hoping that if we continue getting better this week, I'll be able to get back into the swing of things next week. I have been doing fairly well with keeping the cleaned sections straightened and halfway clean however. I'm trying to keep the clutter put away, the floors swept and swiffered, and the "benches" (counters) cleaned off and wiped down. It's not perfect, but it's an improvement over my past habits of just letting it go completely!

Making Laundry Detergent

I decided recently to make my own laundry detergent to use on both our clothing and my cloth diapers. It's a fairly simple recipe but time consuming. I used the recipe from the Duggers' family website and made a couple of changes. I've made the dry powder before for my diapers but decided to do the liquid this time as it seems to be cheaper in the long run. It makes a 5 gallon bucket worth of liquid detergent. I also made the softener sponges for in the dryer as well since I was running out of both my All Free & Clear and my dryer sheets. I have pictures of the process to make it more interesting. LOL I'm looking forward to seeing how it all works out when I start using it tomorrow.

Dryer sponges
Mix 1 bottle of liquid fabric softener with water. I refilled the fabric softener bottle with water 3 times and poured it into the bucket. I have a 5 gallon bucket from Lowe's with a lid to contain it. It fills up about 2/3 of the bucket. You could probably get 2 bottles of fabric softener and be able to fill the 5 gal. bucket with water if you prefer to make it larger and last longer. I got cheap sponges without the scrubbers and cut 3 in half and tossed them into the softener/water mix and stirred it all together. Whenever I place a load of clothes in the dryer, I squeeze the excess out of a sponge and toss it into the dryer with the clothes. After the load is finished drying, I toss the sponge back into the bucket to soak and use another one for the next load. Works pretty well.

Laundry Detergent

1 bar Fels Naptha soap, grated
1 c. A&H Washing Soda (NOT Baking Soda)
1 c. Borax
1 c. Oxiclean (liquid or powder)
Fill with hot water
Optional: 1 Tablespoon Tea Tree Oil or other essential oil (not fragrance oils!)

Step 1: Grate Fels Naptha Bar soap into large pot and cover with hot tap water. Heat to melted liquid, not boiling.

Step 2: Pour melted soap into 5 gal. bucket.

 Add Washing Soda,

Borax,

Oxiclean, and essential oils.

Stir until powders are dissolved and well mixed. Add warm tap water and continue stirring until everything is well mixed.

Cover with lid and let sit overnight.

It should be gelled and gloopy by the next day and ready to use. I plan to reuse the liquid softener container and pour the detergent into it to use on a daily basis.

20 Days to Clean & Organize Your Home Challenge

Recently, our church participated in a Daniel Fast. I was not up to food fast this year (although I have done it in the past) so I decided to fast Facebook and in the process started a challenge to clean and organize my home. I will admit that I have been very lazy about housekeeping since Michael was born. He's been a lot more clingy than I'm accustomed to dealing with and it has made things more difficult for me. I've also been dealing with a little bit of post partum blues/depression which left me very subdued and unmotivated. As part of my Facebook fast, I decided to kick myself in the rear and begin this cleaning challenge to help me get out of my doldrums and re-enter life. I've also been using the YouVersion Bible App on my phone again to do daily Bible readings  and devotionals, which have helped tremendously! The Challenge was originated by Katrina at The Organised Housewife So drop by there and take a look! I customized it to my needs but I love her layout and printables for during the challenge. I've just completed Day 6 and have been able to complete most of the tasks. Unfortunately, I didn't think about taking pictures of all the work until just recently but will try to add pictures as I go along from here.

Day 1 - The Laundry area: I decided to start with something small instead of the kitchen (a huge job for me) to work myself in to cleaning. With Eddie's help, I put a wire shelf above the washer. I plan to get another shelf for above the dryer (I couldn't find the length I need to go all the way across so I just got one shorter one and will add the second later.) I then cleaned the washer and dryer well (inside and out) and ran a hot wash with vinegar and baking soda to clean the washer well. I also wiped down the walls and organized everything onto the shelf and got most everything off the dryer. Once I get the second shelf purchased and installed, I'll be able to completely clean off the dryer. Lastly, I swept and swiffered the floor area. This was a great starter for my cleaning challenge...not too big and not too small!
Day 2 - Our Bedroom: This was a much larger challenge for me as everything was cluttered and messy. Our room tends to be the catch all so it took a while but I managed to get most everything done. I cleared off the dresser and bedside table and cleared out the drawers. I got rid of the "rubbish" and things I didn't need or use anymore and then re-organized everything so only the necessities were organized out on the dresser. Once I had everything in a new home, I cleared and stripped the bed, and put the sheets in the washer. I vacuumed the mattress and fan blades and then swept and swiffered the floor, including under the bed. It took pretty much all day, but I felt like it was a success. Our closet and master bath will be a later day.
Day 3 - Kitchen: Bottom Cabinets and counters - Eddie has Wednesday's off work so I planned the kitchen for Wednesday so I'd have help to get it all done. It's a good thing I did too because I never would have been able to finish it by myself! We have problems with mice every winter and this one was no different. I finally got mice poison bait block stations (the ones that are child proof) and placed them around the kitchen/living room area a few weeks ago and I'm fairly certain at this point that they're all gone. However, they've definitely left many signs of their presence...especially in my bottom cabinets -_- We had to pull ALL of the pots, pans, bowls, Tupperware, serving ware, etc. out of the bottom cabinets, clean the shelf liners and sanitize the cabinet walls...all of them. We swept up a mountain of mouse droppings afterward -_- Eddie washed everything in hot soapy clorox water to disinfect everything. He was a HUGE help! After everything was clean, I re-organized my bottom cabinets and got rid of some things we didn't need. I found some locker shelves at Wal-mart on sale for $4 so I grabbed a couple of them and used them to help organize my Tupperware and large bowls. It's so nice to be able to find everything again and for it to be clean when I pull it out of the cabinets! Afterwards, I cleared and cleaned the counters and kitchen table, re-organized, and then swept and swiffered the floor. Top cabinets and the drawers will be a later day.
Day 4 - Living Room: This was supposed to be Thursday but I had to teach the breastfeeding class at the health department and run some errands so I did it on Friday instead. This was another fairly easy room. I cleared out my basket and cleaned off my side table. I also dusted/cleaned off the entertainment center, pulled it out from the wall and cleaned out from behind/under it as well. I re-organized the bookcase area and then swept and swiffered the floor and had to stop there. I still need to vacuum out the couch and clean the ceiling fan.
Day 5 - Floors & Pantry: Since Eddie's mom took the girls Friday evening, I used Saturday to catch up on my cleaning. I swept and swiffered our bedroom, laundry area, kitchen, and the living room. I also organized the "pantry" (all of 2 top cabinets -_-). A productive day but fairly easy. Most weekends are "free time" but since the girls were out of my hair, I took advantage of it.
Day 6 (Monday) - The Bathroom & hallway: I pulled everything out of the bathroom, cleaned the shower and tub, pulled the curtain down and put it through the washer, wiped down the walls and surfaces, cleaned the toilet, and re-organized the cabinet and shelves so it was less cluttered. The bathroom looks and smells much cleaner now and I'm quite happy with it! After I had everything cleaned and put back where it belonged, I organized the shoe rack in the hall way, put all the toys back in the girls room, and swept and swiffered the hallway. I then cleaned the girls rocker, Michael's walking toy, and a couple other large toys that live in the hallway before putting them back in their places. I'll be so glad when we get the larger bedroom redone so we can move the girls in there and get all their toys out of the hallway and organized into their room!

Tomorrow is Day 7 and I'm cleaning, decluttering, and organizing the girls current bedroom. It's all of 6' square...maybe a tad larger but it doesn't feel like it. LOL It has built in book cases around the top of the window. The twin size bed just barely fits against the window wall. The chest of drawers is between the bed and closet door with a pop-up hamper beside it that holds the girls stuffed animals. Most of the toys are kept in the bottom of the closet or under the bed with a couple of larger toys on the opposite wall. There's maybe 3' square of floor space left available and it's usually cluttered with toys. LOL I can't wait to get the larger room done! Until then, clean, declutter, organize and make do!