Junior Great Books Table of Contents and Overlap in Stories

We discovered Junior Great Books when my daughter Callie took a homeschool co-op course around 5th grade. Now I'm in love with them and try to buy up all of them. Some of them we consume and are not in love with, so we pass them on. Some we save and I hope to teach my own Junior Great Books class at the co-op someday :-) Here you can find the Table of Contents for the books we have read:

Series 2, First Semester (1992) (selling in upcoming homeschool used book sale)

The Happy Lion by Louise Fatio

The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin by Beatrix Potter

How the Camel Got His Hump by Rudyard Kipling

Kanga and Baby Roo Come to the Forest, and Piglet Has a Bath by A.A. Milne

Arap Sang and the Cranes (African folktale as told by Humphrey Harman)

Blue Moose by Daniel Manus Pinkwater

How to Keep a Book Journal (Readers Journal) and Booklists Galore! #readalouds

ANYBODY can keep a book journal. For example, my mom will be 71 years old this May and I just ordered a book journal for her off of Amazon for $20 and had it sent to her house as a surprise. She retired and was going through books like tissues, and then she would share her thoughts when we saw her. I am keeping a log of what I'm sending her to read from my house and also what I'm getting for her from the library, but some of them really spoke to her, and I wanted her to write down her thoughts for me, her daughter and only child, and also for her five grandchildren.

(Update: The book journal felt like a job to my mom, and I can understand why. It had two pages to fill for each book you read, and I wouldn't want a job like that either. I like my free-form spiral notebook better, and it's cheaper. I passed the book journal of my mom's to my daughter, and it also felt like a job to her. It finally found a home with a teen girl at co-op, but I need to check in with her on her feelings about it! Here's a link to it in case you're interested, and, no, I don't get an affiliate fee for sending you there!)

Current Read-Alouds and Independent Reading Winter 2021

Welcome to the Winter 2021 edition of Current Read-Alouds. If you're not familiar with Read-Aloud Revival or Pam Barnhill (morning basket) or Brave Writer, simply click on the links 😉 I also read to the kids from our Afternoon Basket (because we can't all get going early enough to call it a Morning Basket 😂), which currently includes Story of the World Volume 1, The Gift of the Magi (oh, the vocab words!), and Reading 7 for Young Catholics, among a few other things, like this one:

Scroll down to find out who is hearing which book!

October Homeschooling Fun

October is one of my favorite months!

This month Sam (my youngest, and the one who went to the NICU) turned 10. My husband and I hit 21 years of marriage and the next day he left for Kuwait for 6 weeks (airport field trip!), the same day we closed our swimming pool.

We've been to Paradise Park in Lee's Summit, MO twice (once to play mini golf with our POGO Pass), Wonderscope in Shawnee, KS (POGO Pass), Worlds of Fun in KCMO for the teen boys, a barn dance for my teen girl, three different skate parks, my dad and stepmom's for a lovely day of visiting and not cooking, as well a visit with my grandmother.

Kayaking on our pond, homeschool coop, church, and the Kansas City Chiefs, peppered with my teen boys working hard at their jobs and everybody homeschooling like champs.

I got to see Downton Abbey finally with friends last night, and this weekend includes Kansas City Boo at the Zoo and Johnson Farms in Belton, MO.

Then we get to hang out with my mom next week and then we have HALLOWEEN (to include giving Boorito a try at Chipotle for the first time)!

What are you up to this month?

Drove to our local pumpkin patch, Johnson Farms, just to get pumpkin donuts for our reading time

I needed a coffee (surprisingly, NOT pumpkin spice), and the trees at Starbucks were gorgeous!

A fun book for our story time!

You can always count on Trader Joe's to have something related to a fun, festive fall.

How to Create a Homeschool Vision Statement

Holy cow. I received Pam Barnhill's (Homeschool Solutions) Put Your Homeschool Year on Auto-Pilot 10-module course to review and so far just the first step has changed everything for me! The first step is about creating a vision for your homeschool so everything else can progress from there.

The second step is about creating goals for each child and then after that you come up with the subjects and resources you'll need to meet the goals and stay in line with your vision statement. I'm really excited to progress through this course!

Your vision statement might look ENTIRELY different from mine. It might focus more on getting your kids to Harvard and use words like "rigorous education" and that's great for your family! For my family, I like to focus more on a lifelong love of learning so they are always WANTING to learn and also I want them to serve others, be good workers, and have a lot of fun with this life they have been gifted.

Your vision statement might focus more on sports and it might not focus on religion at all. All families are different!

Here's what I came up with for our vision statement after 12 years of homeschooling:

In our homeschool, we refuse to be dictated by man-made timelines and society’s standards of “normal” (bedtime, travel as a family, job as learning, etc.) and have a lot of fun experiencing the world and the people and places in it, including field trips, dates, book clubs, and party school.

In our homeschool, we strive to consistently practice basic skills like math and language arts until we master them, learning at our own pace and finding out about things we are interested in along the way.

In our homeschool, we strive to practice our religion (serving each other and others, volunteering, TOB), equip our kids for whatever God may call them to, and learn life skills (self-sufficiency, good work ethic, chores, cooking, finances, relationships with siblings, extended family and others).

In our homeschool, we strive to foster a love of books and conversations, sharing good stories and discussions, trying to cultivate a lifelong love of learning.

In our homeschool, we strive to love each other well and point each other to God, enjoying our time together as a family and offering a welcoming haven in our home.

What would your homeschool vision statement look like?

7 Things I'm Doing This Year to Make My Homeschooling Work Better with 5 Kids 2018-2019

I'm that slacker homeschool mom. The one who takes a half day off no problem, convinced that it will just be one half day and no more. Then it turns into another and another and soon we're like, "Uh, why don't we know cursive handwriting and multiplication tables?"

So after 11 full years of homeschooling, I'm learning. We are all settled in our new home in the country and we have a lovely little routine that won't likely be broken up by fixing up a house, moving, vacationing, a new baby, etc. It appears to be a smooth-sailing year up ahead. (yes, I know ... the best-laid plans!!!!)

1. Six weeks on, then a break
Teaching for 6 weeks at a time then taking a 1-week break. We'll still get a Christmas break, of course, and one of our 1-week breaks will count as Spring Break. We'll need to go until the end of June, but then we get 8 full weeks off after that (July and August).

2. Teach more than one at a time
Combining them. Brave Writer Help for High School will be done this year with both Michael and Joel (freshman and junior). They'll learn the material together as I read it to them so I make sure I know what's going on as well. They'll write papers and assignments at the same pace.

3. Make them accountable and independent
Emailing links for the week to the high schoolers with videos I want them to watch (e.g., Crash Course Biology, Crash Course History, cool documentaries on Amazon Prime, Netflix or Hulu, etc.) Copying their workbook pages for Easy Grammar and giving them the entire week's worth at once so they can do it all Monday or do it all Friday or throughout the week, working at their own pace and being able to deal with other things they have going on at the same time. I think learning how to manage their course load is important. For the younger kids, letting them know which pages need to be done by Friday in Explode the Code (such a fun workbook series for Language Arts).

4. Make things special
Making things special more often, like we planned to do last year. Today we have Back-to-School Little Debbie snack cakes with a battery-powered candle and some picture books. Yes, I make my older kids sit through picture book time. And I also make my younger kids sit through some things which may or may not be currently over their heads. It all works out in the end. Take time for fun field trips like we've always done, with our friends and on our own.

5. Lunch-n-Learn versus Morning Basket
Instead of a Morning Basket, which is a fabulous concept, I am doing a Lunch-n-Learn since the kids all wake up at different times, which is fine by me. We eat lunch, I read to them a selection of things covering all subject areas, and they are free to create art during this time as well. I don't need their eyes on me at all. They can paint or draw while they listen.

6. Be prepared
Before the kids even wake up, I pull off the main homeschool bookshelf anything I'm hoping to use that day. That way, I can SEE my "workload" for the day and so can the kids. Over the summer, I cleared the entire shelf off so now it's organized like this, and I don't have anything on there that will distract me from the current set of 6 weeks of homeschooling.

7. Check myself before I wreck our entire year

I must have rules for myself, which is something I always rebelled against. This year they include things I can handle: I can do my paid work in the morning after prepping for the homeschool day. I can only check my phone to handle immediate things like if my husband texts, a friend wants to come and play, etc. Otherwise, STAY OFF FACEBOOK and other social media is the number one rule for myself from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Don't go on a 2-hour field trip and call that an entire homeschool day. Oh, and make sure I'm logging their homeschool stuff every single day. I like to look back on it and it's helpful to have records just in case.

Check out our first official day of homeschool, day after Labor Day.

Here's to a fabulous school year! And click here to see how we're starting out with the 2019-2020 school year, starting with my senior!

Bath and Books Homeschooling Winter Edition #BraveWriterLifestyle #ReadAloudFamily

Sometimes it is so difficult to grab my kids in the middle of playing and have them sit and listen to me read. I love to read to them! Even the teens! Who doesn't love to be read to? I don't insist that they remain still or anything like that, but they can't be watching a YouTube show or playing Minecraft while I'm reading!

So I realized I had a captive audience in my two youngest, aged 8 and 10, when they were in the bathtub. I started grabbing books to read to them in the tub and they loved it! Here are some books we read this winter, and I think this activity fits in with the Brave Writer lifestyle:

Don't worry; my toilet was very clean ... we have been entertaining a lot so we clean the bathrooms often

Little Penguins by Cynthia Rylant (I love this one because there are 5 penguins, just like I have at my house, and they are having fun in the snow!)

Henry and Mudge and the Snowman Plan by Cynthia Rylant (level 2 ready-to-read book)

Mama, Do You Love Me? by by Barbara Joosse

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (we have the postage stamps with artwork from this book!)

The Button Box by Margarette S. Reid (this one inspired me to go buy buttons and a box at the local collectibles shop!)

Also, you have to check out this book: The Read-Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with Your Kids. I just got it and carry it around in my purse, devouring a page or two here and there when I can. It will change your homeschool and honestly make you a more peaceful and confident homeschooler!

Reading Snacktime: Esperanza Rising, Hot Chocolate and Little Debbie Fall Cakes #DoItYourWay

We just got back from being in Florida for two weeks. We had to jump back into not only our normal chaotic life, but also we are packing up our entire house to start moving Friday and Saturday. I really felt like we needed to take even half an hour to slow down and chill with our snacks, hot chocolate and a book. Here's how it went.

Joel (16) has had a cough and welcomed the time to lounge around on the couch listening to a book.

Michael (14) is pretty chill anyway (my least squeaky wheel) and is happy to hang out with us. I read this book to him a few years ago and we liked it.

Callie (12) BEGGED for more when I was done after half an hour and had to get back to packing.

Eva (9) got super antsy. I let her off the hook to go move her body or do Khan Academy math.

Sam (8) listened for a while then got antsy then listened some more.

We read something different every time and I hope to get into a more regular schedule once we move. The cool thing about this (inspired by Brave Writer's Poetry Teatime) is that we can cover science, history, math, anything. Life of Fred is a math book we might read during this time. Story of the World for history. Science might range from a picture book about bees to a textbook about astronomy.

I love that it incorporates ALL my kids so they are all learning. Sometimes the older kids are hearing a picture book. Sometimes the younger kids are hearing complicated terms from a textbook. It all shakes out.

You can have tea or water or anything you like to drink. You can have a snack or not. Healthy or not. Themed to the book or not. (there are great ideas for book club parties when the book is done) Do it your own way!

We are together and learning.

Homeschooling With 5 Kids in March of 2014

Halloween is Coming! That Means Parties! HELP!

I just realized it's time for Halloween parties. This means I have to snap out of it and figure out fun things to take to the homeschool parties since I don't have the excuse of having a baby/toddler anymore. It's time to STEP UP, people!

So I found this, which is super cute, and I emailed Mr. Kerrie to see if he can whip it up with the kids using his mad woodworking skills. It could be a pumpkin instead. We'll see what he says ...

Otherwise, I had to suck it up and hit Pinterest. Here are some cool things I found, and this ain't the half of it. I was just looking for EASY things!

And if you're looking for cute foodie craft ideas and ideas for how to handle the season in general while having tons of fun with your kids, check out my ebook! It's a witchy good deal! All 5-star reviews means I must have done something write. I mean right. Boo!

Got any parties coming up? What are you taking?

To First-Year Homeschool Moms

If this is your first year homeschooling you may be tempted to try to do everything perfectly. Please don't. Or do. Whatever works for you. You have to feel your way around this minefield that is educating your own kids, friends.

Try out unschooling or try out ordering curriculum or try out making your own curriculum or try out unit studies or whatever is in between. Just do me a favor, would you?

Give yourself a break.

Okay, two favors.

The other one is, don't compare yourself to the veterans.

But do ask for their help. Seek out someone who won't try to intimidate you or give you bossy, perfectionist advice and make friends.

Good luck. You can do this!