My favorite links!

As a first year homeschooler I like when people share information with me since I am so unfamiliar with this whole new world. 

I will continue to add to this post as I find new favorite links! 

Whether it be free printables, games, learning websites, etc. 

I will also post that the list is/was updated when I add to the list. :)

Enjoy!

Curriculum Websites:

Easy Peasy All in One Curriculum FREE 

Seriously this website has been a life saver in our urgent decision to decide to homeschool. A friend suggested it to me thinking it will be ok for me for a couple of weeks... but honestly I love it, my kids love it! I don't see us switching up as of right now. Alot of people complain that its way to much computer time. My children love games. They learn from it. So why change it?! PLUS its already planned out for you! We do Math, Reading, Language Arts and "PE/Health". The Reading I'm not a huge fan of because the stories were on right now aren't holding my children's interest very well. So we might find something to replace it with next year. As far as History I am doing Famous Americans Mini Booklets and we find things about the person we are learning about to throw in the mix. A video, a book, a website that has information about them and sometimes we do mini research reports. Science, I am using a text book for that one so we have more reading time. We also do Zoology right now. We do mini books with that and also find things to add in about the animals we are learning at the time. We do when we have time Art, Science Projects and Homemaking. We do Scripture Study every day whether its reading or coloring or doing a craft to help us learn. 

Preschool Curriculum 

This is what I use to get MOST of Alexander's curriculum from. We use this for our Preschool Co-op. Its completely free too. Just a bunch of the cutest ideas and FUN printables. Seriously another life saver!!! 

FREE Printables: 

TeachersPayTeachers 

Not everything here is free but you can find TONS of free printables on this site! I love it!!! 

Videos: 

Netflix 

YouTube 

Support Groups:

There is ALOT out there. You just have to look. On Facebook just start typing in homeschool and tons pop up! You can even get specific and put in your area with the word homeschool. Or your curriculum you use along with homeschool.  Here are some I have discovered that fit to my needs. I haven't taken advantage of them all yet as like I said there is ALOT!

Kaufman County (and surrounding areas) Homeschoolers 

Homeschooling with Netflix 

LDS Homeschool 

Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool 

Easy Peasy Homeschool - General Chat Group 

Texas Easy Peasy Homeschool 

Christian Homeschooling with Netflix, Amazon, You Tube, Roku and MORE! 

Free Homeschooling Resources 

LDS Homeschool Connections 

Homeschool with Movies 

Affording the Homeschool Life 

Brainstorm for ideas:

Pinterest 

Homeschool Perks:

Six Flags Read to Succeed 

Pizza Hut BOOK IT! 

Preschool Co-Op

Today we learned the letter Ee, shape Diamond, number 4, and the color Purple. Preschool is so much fun because look at all these cool printables that you can print out and have the kids do. I laminate them and keep them for Alexander to do while I am teaching the older children when he feels like hanging out in the school room with us.

Writing sheets. I laminated them so I could keep them and they use Erasable Markers to draw on them.

We used these to put the numbers in order.

I laminated this to keep forever. It's a puzzle.

I laminated this to keep forever. It's a puzzle.

We use these to play a matching game. Match the colors!

We use these to put in order and/or I lay them out NOT in order and call out numbers and the kids jump from number to number when they see the number I called out.

Family Tree

This week we are focusing on 1 Nephi 5 for our Scripture Study. I have an brilliant friend who suggested this craft too me to help the children understand what descendants are. We made a family tree! We talked about family history, descendants, generations, ancestors and our family name. We listened to a couple of talks: https://www.lds.org/ensign/2003/08/one-family & https://www.lds.org/new-era/2009/02/the-value-of-a-good-name Then we went to work on our family tree. As sad as the little tree looks because of inexperience it was fun. Here is the link to this craft if you want to try it for yourself. http://pikadillycharm.blogspot.com/2011/11/paper-bag-fall-tree.html?m=1

Tomorrow we will learn more about the plates of brass. :o)

Happy Columbus Day Yall!

Humm.... I'm just realizing I didn't plan any activities to do for Columbus Day! Oh well... will add that to our list of to do's for tomorrow! Today was a catch up day for us and since Daddy had off work today (Thank you Triump Bank & Christopher Columbus). Its amazing how much and how fast you can do to catch up at home. We did 3 days of Language Art and Math in less than 2 hours! Whoop Whoop! 

My favorite part of today? 

Was this craft:

One of my biggest faults

One of my biggest faults with homeschooling is just letting go. I have added art to our daily routine and when I want it to look a certain way I have anxiety when the kids have their own ideas.  Like its really bad! Especially when its something I really want it to look good so I can hang them up for decorations. I understand if you just let their creativity flow that its good for them and then you might get something awesome out of it, but the MIGHT is a big nail bitter with me haha. Lexie has a thing for over crowding her art. I'm trying my best to get her to understand that sometimes less is more. Here is a perfect example of what I mean.  Luca wanted to mostly play at the park when we tried doing his so I let him do his hand print then I cut the hat and let him glue it on. Then he ran off to play so I went to work on finishing his picture for him.  Then a couple days later I let my kids finish theirs at home since they were to busy at the park.  I helped Alexander mostly with his  letting him hold the brush with me. 

Dakota's

Lexie's

Alexander's

Luca's

A few Fall things we have been up too

Here is some photos from things we have been doing the last two days.

A friend was sweet enough to let Alexander tag along for a "preschool field trip" to the Gentle Zoo. 

I didn't have enough energy to walk around that place after just recovering from being sick. So Lexie and Dakota made little cakes in the Easy Bake Oven as our special thing to do while Brother was gone.

Today we made these cute little photos to hang up in our home. This one is Luca's. We didn't finish all of ours yet. But I will take photos of each individuals tonight and post them. We had to come back and rest from the park first before finishing.

Mommy is going back to school ;)

I am finding myself having to keep a cheat journal for myself.  Its been quite a while since I have learned about proper and common nouns, action verbs and linking verbs and greater than less than (alligator sign). Thank goodness I am starting at this level with them in their homeschooling journey because I would be alot more lost ;)

The kids are getting tired of the book we are doing for Reading. Its called "Jolly Robin". They have challenged their-selves to finish the book today. We have 9 chapters to go. 22 chapters in all. I'm getting excited we have almost accomplished a whole book together! While we read this book we do spelling words that choose from this story and they also learn they Roman Numerals. So we read, spell and do math. They also do a summary in their journal after each chapter so I know that they are listening to what they are reading.

Our next book is The Tale of Peter Rabbit. What has been your children's favorite chapter book to read so far? We are getting our Reading curriculum from Easy Peasy All in One Homeschool this year. What is your favorite Reading Curriculum?