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!

Homeschooling during Coronavirus? Help for the Non-Homeschooler!

Worried about working from home or just being home for weeks on end (akin to summer break) WHILE educating them? I've been doing it for almost 19 years and, yeah, it's a lot to handle!

Thankfully, Rage Against the Minivan has help for you in the form of this awesome blog post and checklist called COVID-19 School Closure Homeschool Checklist!

When it was shared on Facebook, there were some rude comments, like "good luck with that" and "don't be disappointed when it doesn't work out," but I chose the high road of encouragement:

"I homeschool 5 kids ages 10-18 and have from the beginning. This is a great schedule! I think the 2-page paper is a lot for some kids, but the rest seems reasonable to me! You go, girl! Plus for a lot of kids who are in school 7 hours a day plus homework, this is going to be a walk in the park but they will still be learning!"

You can also check out my article titled Bust Indoor Boredom over here at Calgary's Child if you need more ideas for how to keep kids occupied while home!

And if things get too stressful during this already-crazy time, just toss it all out the window and PLAY, watch movies and documentaries, read to your kids (check out Read-Aloud Revival), bake together, snuggle up and eat popcorn. Have fun!

Or your life right now might more closely resemble this every now and then (shrug):

#Time4Learning First Grade Demo Language Arts #Homeschooling

If you like what you see, please use my referral code to sign up and come back here to tell me how much your kids love this program! (originally posted April 24, 2016)

Update: 11/22/19 just signed up my high schoolers again because I am in love with the English program!

Senior Year Homeschool Plan 2019-2020

Joel turned 18 in June and I love homeschooling so much I wanted to keep him an extra year. It's going to work out that way for my oldest three kids, but I should have my younger two on track to graduate sooner. We'll see. Maybe I will try to keep that last kid around several more years LOL

This kid can now officially be called an Eagle Scout as of August 15, 2019.

Here's Joel's senior year plan:

Math
Finally going to kick Algebra's butt using a workbook with tons of problems because he doesn't work best with a program like Teaching Textbooks. Then we'll move on to a Geometry workbook so he has some basic knowledge of these two concepts as he heads out into the world.

Literature
Here's what I have so far on the list for all the kids, but for now I'm checking into The Outsiders, some sort of classic, something Shakespeare, some short stories, something contemporary. First up is The Great Gatsby.

I either read these books aloud to Joel and his brother (10th grade) or we listen to an audiobook. We talk about the book, sometimes write papers, discuss things like plot, structure, foreshadowing, etc. We will try to do this 3 times a week.

Taking certain things into consideration, and it's hard to choose since I only have one more year with him, (in the past we've read quite a varied list, like Okay for Now, Station Eleven, Fahrenheit 451, Wednesday Wars, etc.):

Here is what PrepScholar says are the 31 best books for boys to read in high school.

Here is how BuzzFeed weighed in with 26 Contemporary Books That Should be Taught in High School

I also have a list that I'm going through based on The Read-Aloud Family and Honey for a Child's Heart.

I also highly recommend Time4Learning for their English for high school; amazing short story and book ideas and great teaching to back them up. Please tell them Kerrie McLoughlin sent you!

Grammar
Easy Grammar (4 times a week)

Writing/Composition
We work on this a couple of times a week, incorporating the literature into it. This year we'll also write a research paper.

Science
Apologia Exploring Creation Biology, utilizing the student notebook for homework and experiments

History
Our Pioneers and Patriots during Morning Time (which can be any time of the day when we can all come together) just to cement some of the history concepts. He has learned about Government and all sorts of history already so this is just a refresher, not really a necessity. Plus he may end up taking a History at the community college, and one semester counts as a full year of credit for high school.

Physical Education
The kid goes to the gym 6 days a week

Spanish
Dabbling in this during Morning Time with the younger kids

Psychology

October through December: 8-week accelerated Psychology course online through our "local" community college (local means it's like 20 minutes away) for dual credit. Eight weeks of this count as a full one-year credit.

Criminal Justice

January through May: Tentative plan will be to take two more classes, maybe History and Law or Criminal Justice. He would like to go into law enforcement, so we are determining the best classes for him right now.

Job/Life Skills
Working for a lawn care business 20-25 hours per week

Field Trips
Art Museum
Truman Library
Still working on this list!

Please see my Ultimate Field Trip List (Kansas City) when I have that live (coming soon!)

First Day of School Signs

I love the first day of school pictures on Facebook! Why not also for homeschooling?

Here is one of ours from 2018-2019. You can't really see what the signs say so I plan to do more of a close-up this year, but I love how they are all together and by the pool, no less, on the first day of official homeshooling! They were first day of 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th.

Here's how to get the free printables.

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!

Easy Ways to Homeschool High School

“Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.” ─ Goethe

Update 5/15/2020 and this is my first homeschool graduate

People look at me like I just sprouted wings when I answer YES to their question of, "Are you going to homeschool throughout high school?"

I mean, we've been doing it for 3 months now during freshman year for my oldest and it's going well. He enjoys it and doesn't want to go to "normal" high school, as one of his Catholic school friends put it. Guess what? Homeschooling might be the NEW NORMAL for a lot of people! BAM! Take that!*

Yes, it's a leap of faith but that's what we took 10 years ago when we first started. Has everyone learned to read on schedule, is everyone caught up on math, do they all know their state capitals and important historical and scientific facts? Nope. And I'm not freaking out about it as much as I used to.

The worst that happens is my youngest two need help in religious education classes and at coop with their writing and reading. For now. They will pick it up and be off and running when they are ready. I can have this kind of confidence because I saw it with my 13-year-old, my 15-year-old and also my 11-year-old who is just NOW starting to read great (thanks, honestly, to Instagram messages and postings and texting her friends).

Oh, and the other bad thing that happens is when they play a game in gym and have to know the state capitals to advance, and my kid is like, "HUH? That's what GPS and Google and your computer and phone are for and when do I ever need that information?"

I feel like I have to address the social thing, even though it's super ridiculous. My high schooler is overly socialized. Like I spend a fortune in gas socialized. He gets a full day on Wednesdays ... I'm talking 10:30 a.m. until 9:30 p.m. ... at our local Catholic homeschool coop and then Theology of the Body for Teens. And Mondays he takes Latin there. Then there's Boy Scouts, and he's currently the Senior Patrol Leader in his troop. Oh, and there was that field trip to the World War I museum he recently went on and that field trip to the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum (socializing AND learning at the same time ... WAHOO!). And I'm forgetting a ton of stuff. But don't worry, because even though Kansas doesn't seem to care what I do, I keep an Excel spreadsheet for my high schooler for the purposes of his transcript. I keep track of hours and he's doing great.

He has a lawn care job (when he's not soccer reffing or working at the gymnastics place or babysitting or altar serving funerals for income) and works with friends. He is always going to movies with friends and hanging out with friends and adults like extended family and there you go. Oh, and did I mention he's starting to DRIVE?

All YOU have to do is Google "homeschooling high school" and check out all the bazillions of links, like:

• Curriculum links for real books
• Khan Academy for math and more (free!)
• Time4Learning (we used this for a year). Here's my referral code!
• Virtual school (we've used it; free!)
• Discovery K-12 (put your own thing together FREE)
• Reading Eggs (we use it)
• Math Seeds (we use it)
• ABC Mouse.com
• IXL Math
• CTC Math
• The math they use in public school that made my kids cry because it was timed and stressfu
• Life of Fred (we love it)
• The What Your (fill-in-the-blank-grade) Grader Needs to Know series through 6th grade
• Starfall
• Saxon, Seton, Singapore, Teaching Textbooks, Catholic Heritage Curricula
• And about 75,000 other resources that are either free or middle-of-the-road  or costly.

And yes, question-asker, I have lots of friends who have homeschooled up until 9th grade then decided to send their kid to high school. I try to never say never these days, and I realize we could be sending a kid to high school someday. I have 5 kids and they all have different personalities and dreams and goals and wants and needs. I respect that. It's working for us right now and I am going to just be totally thrilled about that and enjoy every minute of it.

So, don't worry, Friends Who Send Your Kids to School and Family Who Sent Your Kids to School ... I got this.

*Disclaimer: I did not write this post to spark a debate. I fully realize homeschooling is not for everyone. I can't imagine my parents homeschooling me! I just wrote it to point people who ask to a post so they can read my views instead of getting the deer-in-headlights look from me because they have caught me in the middle of a busy day to ask me a very complicated question! Do I think my kids will be perfect if I homeschool them through high school? Of course not. They are subjected to some of the same temptations as any other teens, and they have hormones just like any other teens.

Homeschool High School Physical Education PE Lesson Plan 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th Grade

So whenever I would Google something like "homeschool high school lesson plans" or anything similar, I came up with jack squat. Or something I had to pay for. And when that happens, I spend many hours working on my own lesson plans and then I know I have to share them with others for free!

This is for a Catholic homeschool co-op with about 30 kids in the class, so I had to leave some things out because of class size and the size of the gym.

I am supposed to have 2 adult helpers, so I am hoping to prep them ahead of time so we can each work with a group of 10 roughly.

I only have about 45 minutes for the class because Mass is directly afterward and we want to make sure the kids have some time to freshen up before going to church (time to change back into their uniforms, etc.). Co-op committee is working on exact wording so we are all on the same modest page. Don't need any "distractions" ... know what I mean?

The only sport I know how to play decently is baseball. So I am going to be learning some new things for sure. And then filling in with lots of random fun things that get us moving. I don't think gym class just has to be about learning new sports and how to play them because obviously it didn't work for me during all 13 years of my schooling. But I will never forget the FUN gym days when we got to play with the parachutes and just mess around MOVING OUR BODIES. Structure can be good and structure can also be stifling. I'm going to try to make it work.

I'm starting every class with stretches and 3 laps around the gym. There's your structure. I'm done. I also like to know what's going on so at the end of each class I'll let the kids know what we're doing the next week. Maybe even pop a note up in our grading system to let everyone know just for fun.

No fitness logs, nothing to read outside of class. No homework. At first I felt bad, like I wasn't being a rigorous (hate that word) enough teacher for what some of the parents want. Then I realized Harvard won't care exactly how or what I taught these kids in PE or if they kept a daily fitness log or wrote me a report on their favorite sport or athlete.

Fake homework: put your flipping phone down and go move your body the rest of the week, m'kay?

Here we go, and I'll let you know at the end of the year how it worked out! In case you're interested, here are the books I'm using, as well as online resources and also STUDENT TEACHERS, yo! I'm assessing in the first class what everyone is good at so I can have them help teach and give them some teaching experience! I will also have 2 helpers so I will find out what they already know as well.

Physical Education

Grades 7-12 Wednesdays, Third Hour

10:45-11:45 (Mass is at noon)

Gym

*You are allowed to quickly change between 2^nd and 3^rd hours into something appropriate for gym class. Comfortable but modest, please. I won’t work you crazy hard but you might break a sweat and if you wear a skirt for your uniform, you might want to change into long shorts or sweatpants. More direction on this will be coming from the committee so everyone is clear on what’s expected as far as clothing J Mass is at noon so I will make sure you’re out a bit early so you can get changed and be on time.

Description:

Stress the importance of physical fitness and taking care of the body God has provided for us the best we can. Running, stretching, badminton, soccer, tennis, handball, kickball, dodge ball, wall ball, jump rope, cardio, volleyball and more.

1^st Semester 2016

1.      August 24
Stretching and laps and attendance
Getting to know you question activity back and forth across gym
Talk about what you do outside this class for physical fitness on a regular basis
Kickball if time

2.      August 31
Stretching and laps and attendance
Dodgeball, Kickball

3.      September 7
Stretching and laps and attendance
VOLLEYBALL: Intro, Rules, Serving, Bump, Set Pass
Keep It Up (passing skills) with volleyball or beach ball

4.      September 14
Stretching and laps and attendance
VOLLEYBALL: Spike & Tip, Block, Dig

5.      September 21
Stretching and laps and attendance
VOLLEYBALL: Offensive and Defensive Strategies and Game Play

6.      September 28
Stretching and laps and attendance
VOLLEYBALL: Finishing up, more game play

7.      October 5
Stretching and laps and attendance
Bean Bag Fitness Challenges

8.      October 12
Stretching and laps and attendance
Bean Bag Fitness Challenges and Clean Up Your Trash

9.      October 19
Stretching and laps and attendance
TENNIS: Intro, Rules, Ground stroke forehand, backhand, control

10.  October 26
Stretching and laps and attendance
TENNIS: Serve, ground strokes, demo doubles games

11.  November 2
Stretching and laps and attendance
TENNIS: Volley and game play; Smash and game play

No Rules Tennis

12.  November 9
Stretching and laps and attendance
SOCCER: Intro, Rules, Dribbling, Passing

13.  November 16
Stretching and laps and attendance
SOCCER: Shooting, Heading (?), Trapping, Tackling

14.  November 30
Stretching and laps and attendance
SOCCER: Goaltending, Offense, Defense

15.  December 7
Stretching and laps and attendance
Volleyball, Tennis and Soccer Recap and Quiz
Hungry Hungry Hippos

16.  December 14
Stretching and laps and attendance
Parachute fun

2^nd Semester 2017

1.      January 18
Stretching and laps and attendance
Partner games: king of the mountain, fake and push, toe boxing, push-up tag

2.      January 25
Stretching and laps and attendance
HANDBALL: Intro, Rules, Passing Drills and Games

3.      February 1
Stretching and laps and attendance
HANDBALL: Shooting Drills and Games, Skill Games

4.      February 8
Stretching and laps and attendance
Jump rope activities

5.      February 15
Stretching and laps and attendance
Team games: tug of war, rope jousting, etc.

6.      February 22
Stretching and laps and attendance
HACKEYSACK

7.      March 8
Stretching and laps and attendance
BASKETBALL: Intro, Rules, Ball-Handling Skills

8.      March 15
Stretching and laps and attendance
BASKETBALL: Passing and Catching, Dribbling, Play

9.      March 22
Stretching and laps and attendance
BASKETBALL: Lay-Up and Push Shots, Jump Shots, Play

10.  March 29
Stretching and laps and attendance
BASKETBALL: Defensive and Offensive Strategy, Play

11.  April 5
Stretching and laps and attendance
More Team-Building Games

12.  April 19
Stretching and laps and attendance
BADMINTON: Intro, Rules, Clear Shots

13.  April 26
Stretching and laps and attendance
BADMINTON: Serve, Smash, Drop & Drive Shots

14.  May 3
Stretching and laps and attendance
BADMINTON: Net Shots, Game Play

15.  May 10
Stretching and laps and attendance
Handball, Basketball and Badminton Recap and Quiz
Hungry Hungry Hippos

16.  May 17
Stretching and laps and attendance
Parachute fun

9th Grade and High School Homeschool Lesson Planning ... Getting Ready

It's insane to believe that my oldest is 15 now and hitting 9th grade this fall. Sure, he should be in 10th grade now but we started when he was 5 then slowed down once I started having baby after baby and found myself with limited time and routine skills. "Holding him back" a year wasn't a decision made because he couldn't handle school, but it was my problem, quite honestly. Also, we like to have so much fun around here and do FUN SCHOOL and LIFE LEARNING and even some TRAVEL SCHOOLING and we are all pretty happy with that.

You should see some of the looks I get when people find out I'm planning on homeschooling all my children through high school. They range from amazement and admiration to shock and disdain. Uninformed kids his age sneer and ask him, "Don't you want to go to NORMAL school and be NORMAL?"

Well, for their "normal" school experience, we are heading back to the Catholic coop this year ... one day a week but we get to start about 10:45 and go to 3:15. They get to do 3 classes plus Mass, lunch and recess. They get a yearbook. They get a Christmas and an end-of-year program. It's awesome.

Recently I realized I needed to figure this high school thing out. We didn't want to sign up for virtual school because I heard from several of the teachers and parents that a high school student was doing 40 hours plus of schoolwork per week in that program. That doesn't fit into our idea of school or life. We are not on the fast track to Harvard around here.

So instead of going in totally blind or ordering an expensive pre-packaged curriculum, I am using summer to research and digest information. I sit by the public pool watching my kids play while listening to homeschool podcasts and reading homeschool books. Here are a couple of things I have found so far and I'll share more info as I get it.

Homeschool Highschool Podcast
I started listening to this great podcast on my iPhone called Homeschool Highschool Podcast and am getting some great ideas from it. I feel like you can slack off a little bit and have fun through 8th grade but when it comes to high school you have to get serious. You should have all the basics down (teaching them to read and write and do basic math) and now it's time to really teach them how to think and get some advanced concepts down.

Here's something great from the website 7 Sisters Homeschool that I'm digesting.

Time4Learning
I'm also going to sign up my 9th grader for Time4Learning again this fall because it was terrific in teaching Math so that we both understood it and I could help him with it. The cost is minimal ... about $19.95 per month but lower because I have multiple children enrolled in it ... and so even if he just uses it for Math, it's worth it to me. Yes, I know Khan Academy is free, but it isn't as entertaining as this program and doesn't explain it how we need it to be explained.

HSLDA Resource
Also, I got this FREE because I'm a Kindle Unlimited member but you can get it as an ebook for $2.99.

This is the planner I am going to use, but I just found out that our coop is ordering Catholic planners for the junior high and high school kids, so that would take care of two of my kids. This means I could use TWO entire rows in my new planner for each of my other kids instead of cramming each kid into one row and then having one row left for things we maybe all do together such as library trips and field trips. Figuring out the perfect planner situation you'll stick with is hard!

I'd love to hear your ideas as well!

Time4Learning $12 for up to FIVE KIDS in Same Family Through April 30, 2016

YES YES YES! Okay, so we already made the decision to switch over to Time4Learning instead of virtual school for 2016/2017 and supplement with some Teaching Textbooks for Math.

Anyway, it would be $90 for all 5 of my kids per month. But they give a discount for big families and it was going to be $70 per month, which I was cool with.

Then I logged in today to find some things out just for fun and saw that if you sign up by April 30, your FIRST MONTH IS ONLY $12 for up to five kids!

BAM! SOLD! Why not sign up now and get it going? I can pause the membership over the summer if we want to (I've heard some kids still dig doing it in the summer) and start back up end of August or early September.

I'll be back to let you know how it goes for our family. We only really have two computers and one is mine for work purposes most of the time, so I'm going to have to relinquish it for hours at a time ... which is no big deal because I wasn't using it when homeschooling usually anyway. So my plan is to get two kids going at a time on Time4Learning while the others play or read. Then the next two can go, then the final kiddo. Maybe that "final kiddo" will be Callie, who loves to homeschool at night anyway. Probably do half hour increments or so many lessons or whatever but we'll see how it works best for our family!

Here are some screenshots from the site:

Here's my referral code!

What is a Homeschool Sandwich?

What is a homeschool sandwich? Well, we used to do a little school in the morning and then leave the house for the afternoon, then come home for dinner and mess around at night. Now we homeschool in the mornings, take a break for recess and lunch, then maybe go do something to get out of the house for a bit, and then back at homeschooling. Or else I am homeschooling my daughter some at night because she specifically says she does better at night and I have seen it to be true … except I’m tired then, but if that is when she learns best and her brain is on fire, then I am all in. So the sandwich is homeschool bread, break meat then more homeschool bread. Enjoy.

Review: Education.com

I found Education.com when I was Googling math worksheet helps. I get sick of buying workbooks that are full of fluff and that sit on my shelves. And I also get sick of getting workbooks for my older kids that are full of pages and pages of the same darn thing. I mean, once they get it, the get it, you know?! (interabang!)

So since I'm now trying to make sure my kids are learning much of what they are "supposed" to know (as well as tossing in puh-lenty of play and free and reading time!), I don't have to worry about having every stinking resource imaginable on my shelves. I'm not that homeschooling mom with 10,000+ books on her shelves. We have plenty for the kids to read and learn from, then we supplement with the library!

Okay, so I found Education.com and signed up because I get 10 free worksheets per month. Soon I found that wasn't going to be enough. I could either sign up for $3.99/month and pay for a year all at once or I could sign up for 1 month at a time at $4.99 (and they gave me a free month via email, probably because I was waffling). So as of the other day I'm sitting on a free month then only pay $4.99 per month to print all the worksheets I want.

The more expensive monthly plan only allows me a limited number of entire mini-workbooks, but that's okay because there are so many worksheets and slideshows and activity ideas that I think I'm all set.

What I'm saying, people, is that when I need to teach a kid about symmetry, I print some fun-looking worksheets, we cover it til the kid gets it, then we are done. Maybe we come back to it in a year to make sure it stuck. Oh, and the stuff on their site goes all the way through high school, from preschool!

So it is possible to homeschool for CHEAP! (of course I'll be spending a fortune on printer ink!)