Take -Alongs

There are several reasons I blog about our home school:

 1. To have a kind of a year book to look back on when the boys are older.

2.  To remember when I get to the younger boys what works and what I did with big brother(s) .

3. This process is new to our extended family and it's an easy way to let them know what we do

4.  I enjoy the research part of finding educational treasures almost as much as getting to see my favorite little people during the day. 

5. Since our oldest is not yet old enough to qualify us for co-op, this is a great outlet for nerdy home school talk. (We do play dates, etc with our good friends. It's just that everyone else in our close circles are just on different educational paths than we are)

So, I place a monthly order of home school supplies and get excited about some of my finds. On unit 3, I came access a Take-Along Guide for Leaves.

 For each unit, I've been looking for three living books. One fiction, that is usually covered with the literature package I bought from MFW. The other two I am looking for are a non-fiction, science book, preferably faith based, but I'll accept neutral non-evolution based and also a specifically faith base one usually having to do with the bible verse tie in. 

As I was researching for this week's Nest unit, I discovered the Take-Along books are a series of 14 books covering a wide range of nature topics . It's neither liberal or specifically faith based, just great information. I love the reference nature of these resources. They can be relative for several years, for all the boys and used for different angles of topics. Huge bonus, My Father's World has a few of them listed future years curriculum. So, I bought a few more this month.

Mail, a favorite site is seeing the Amazon smile on my porch :

Take along books so far:

9 of the 12 deliveries that came today for November learning. 

The main reason we opted out of more structured programs like a classical conversations group I was interested in, the University model for homeschooling or even our church's great preschool MDO is because I had to chose for financial reasons to be able to go with hand picked resources I wanted or someone else's program. My nerdy research side won :-)

Unit 5- Nest

Unit 4- Apple

Great faith tie in for apple between the garden for Adam and Eve for Doodlebug and Fruit of the Spirit for Munchkin . 

Munchkin has requested an apple pie, so I'll be learning something new this week too. I've never made one before , here goes life long learning for all of us :-)

Review Intro - Unit 3

Review weeks help us prevent burn out and also to avoid the socialization pitfall that stereotypes  homeschooling . We had a play date, went and saw family, had more outside time and the boys led the activities for the week. Munchkin likes to teach so it gives him a chance to teach me what he's learned. We reviewed and read weekly books, bible words and concepts for Creation, Sun, Moon and Leaf. For Doodlebug, we played games that incorporated his bible stories, shapes, colors and numbers. 

I also designed and began working on our end of the year quilt. Here's a preview of the squares. I used the same clip art from the weekly graphics for a consistent feel. I'll print these to photo paper, colorfast and sew together.