Where Oh Where Do We Read?

When I was growing up I loved to read and read every chance I had. In the car, on the boat, or at my desk at school my nose was in a book. These days my preferred reading locations are in the swing on my front porch or a chair at the beach (I said favorite not most frequent). Sometimes we forget that if we as adults would rather read somewhere comfortable and happy our children probably would too. I think it is important, especially with those that do not love reading yet, not to make reading something you only do at a desk during ‘school’, we need to ignite the flame of reading passion!

Start those fond thoughts of reading by doing fun family read alouds in a comfortable place at home. My littles like to be in my lap in the recliner, while my bigger children gather on the couch to hear me read. This helps them see reading in a positive light as a fun activity, not just boring schoolwork.

We also love to read outside. Sometimes I read aloud and sometimes it is the older children reading to themselves. During these beautiful spring days, we like to take a large blanket or tablecloth and spread it in the grass so they can lay down and read while getting a bit of sunshine and fresh air. A tablecloth may seem like an odd choice but I find they are often easier to clean than the blankets if the grass gets stuck to them. Sometimes, they use our front porch or string their hammocks from the playset out back.

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We have the benefit of taking a lot of day trips as we travel with my husband on business. This means we get to see a lot of great places but it also means we sometimes spend a lot of time in the car. Reading in the car is a great way to pass the time and get in more reading. Even my four year old brings books to look at the pictures while we ride.

When we are reading during our ‘school time’ and I need the children to stay with me and not spread out into other locations they have comfortable places with-in our school room. They have large pillows or bean bags that they can sit in and for Christmas they received these hanging pod chairs that they can use in their rooms or in our school room. They love being able to just relax and read. One of my favorite parts of our school room is the window seat that my husband built for me to be able to sit and read to our children. It might be a bit silly but I had always wanted a window seat where I could curl up and read.

There are many other places to read. The important thing is to remember that reading does not have to happen in a desk or in isolation. By reading in comfortable places and various times we start to help our children realize that reading is a pleasurable adventure and not just ‘boring schoolwork’. I know that most of my fond memories of reading did not occur sitting at a desk. I encourage you to get out a good book, or your tablet and read! Try a new place, a new time, or maybe a new genre.

Tell us in the comments where you like to read!

When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

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Keeping the Read aloud Revival Alive

A+ Interactive Family Math Review

With a preschooler and a new baby in the house I have been working towards more independent/self study lessons for the older children. So I was grateful for the opportunity to review the Family Math Package by A+ Interactive Math (by A+ TutorSoft Inc.) with my oldest son. He is a sixth grader who has typically done well in math but struggled some this year with decimals and fractions this year.

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This program provides online lessons and practice questions followed by online quizzes and tests. When we got started I realized that I needed to show him where to take the quizzes and help him with general navigation around the program’s interface. After that initial help he was able to operate the system independently. I loved that the practice questions allowed him to go back and fix mistakes but the quizzes showed me the score he received on his first attempt. If a child does poorly on an attempt, you can have a new quiz created for them to complete. Since we chose the Family Math Package we had the ability to place him in the grade level that we felt best fit his needs and chose the lessons I wanted him to work on. The Family Math Package allows you to use the programmed order or skipped around to work on the areas of highest need.

We have found that it takes my son about 15-20 minutes to do a daily lesson including practice problems. This length of time is nice for us because it fits well into our philosophy of short lessons to keep attention and it is easy to fit into a busy day. He does work through problems reasonably quickly and it could take a bit longer if you have a student that works at a slower pace.

When I reviewed the first quiz result I was shocked that he only scored a 20/100. Normally he’s pretty good at testing, and the first lesson should have been a review for him. So, I asked him about it. “Mom, I thought I could only use the computer. I didn’t use any scratch paper.” Sometimes he does follow instructions! The moral of this anecdote; if your learners are new to online math it may be worth it to encourage them to work their problems out on paper before answering.

Once he understood how the lessons worked and that he could use his pencil and paper to figure the answers things went smoothly. This week he even came up to me all excited, “Mom, I got a 100, that is three 100s in a row!”

I love all of the reports and data that I can access to keep track of how he is doing without having to constantly look over his shoulder. I can see how he did on the practices and worksheets, what his averages are, what lessons he has completed, and other useful reports from the admin panel. You can see some examples of reports that I had for my son below.

We have enjoyed using this program. For our family, I do not think it would work as a standalone math program this year. My son needs a bit more instruction and practice but it made an excellent review for him and helped him understand some areas he had been struggling with. With the instruction, practice, and quizzes it could be a complete math program for many students depending on the ease at which they learn new math concepts. I intend to use this program to continue reinforcing math concepts and introduce new concepts. He enjoyed the immediate feedback of the online grading and the ability to go back and see what he missed.

If you are looking to foster some independence in math or to review skills that your child is struggling with I suggest checking out the Family Math Package by A+ Interactive Math (by A+ TutorSoft Inc.). If you want even more automation they also offer an Adaptive Math Curriculum that has the student go through pretests and then gives them lessons based on the results of the pretests. You can click below to read reviews about that program from some of the other Crew members.

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Help Teaching Pro Subscription Review

When I agreed to review the one year subscription to Help Teaching Pro by HelpTeaching.com I was expecting to use it with my older two children (ages 10 and 11). However, as we got into the review I found that it also had some great printables for my younger son who turned four during the review period.

For my four year old, I printed off lots of worksheets. He loves to ‘do school’ when my older children are doing school and while we do lots of hands on activities he likes to have a few worksheets that he can complete. There were some wonderful worksheets for working on various preschool concepts. We focused mainly on the numbers and shapes worksheets with him because that is something he enjoys learning more about and had recently been working on. They were short and simple which I think is important when you are dealing with preschoolers and he enjoyed completing them. As I look at planning for next year I intend to continue to use these types of worksheets to supplement our hands on activities.

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The older children were more interested in the lessons that are offered as a part of this subscription. There are lessons on a wide variety of topics and subjects but we chose to focus mainly on the various prefix and suffix lessons. These were short video lessons with a quiz that could be taken after the lesson. We worked through them together and the children seemed to enjoy them.

We are also using some of the ready to use math worksheets for review of concepts that they were struggling with this year in math as we prepare for our end of year testing. I have found that printing the worksheets and having the children complete them is best for my students, but they do have the option of online completion which may be a great tool for other families. With that option you can schedule it for a certain day and time and make it timed or untimed.

There are lessons for math, English language arts, science, and social studies. In addition to those categories, the printable worksheets also include seasonal activities, art, music, physical education/health, and vocational education, There are even sections of graphic organizers and study skills.

They have a test maker option that I think could be a great time saver if you are creating tests. You can either use questions from their test bank based on grade level, subject, and topic or you can add your own questions. There is also a worksheet component to this feature that allows you to create math worksheets and games. In the games section you could make a word search using whatever selection of words you want to use. This is a great review for spelling or vocabulary words.

I think there is a wealth of information and resources in this subscription. I do wish that the lesson options were a bit more comprehensive as I think some subjects and ages are covered much better than others. However, there are many great printable worksheets and you can even generate your own tests and worksheets. For most families this is not going to be a complete curriculum but a great supplement. I think Help Teaching Pro would be most helpful to families that were looking for more practice or review or those looking for resources in creating their own lessons.

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Apologia Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology Review

I am excited to share my review of Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology by Apologia with you today, but first I want to give you a little back story. When I first started homeschooling almost six years ago I started with a ‘box’ curriculum. I figured out pretty quickly that it was not working for us and started creating my own science curriculum. Part of our studies that year included a study of the planets and a family member suggested that I check out Apologia’s Astronomy book as a resource. The children loved it and we ended up using it for the entire semester instead of just the month that we had planned on spending on astronomy. We have been using Apologia ever since. We have enjoyed each book that we tried and Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology is no exception.

Apologia sent us the text, Junior Notebooking Journal, Notebooking Journal, and the MP3 CD. When it came in the mail, the children were thrilled to be able to ‘un-box’ their new goodies. My husband has more of a science background than I do and enjoys anatomy so we decided to do this science in the evenings as a family to allow him the opportunity to participate. We all gathered in the living room and my husband would read aloud a section or two of the text and then we would discuss what he had read.

As we went through we did many of the “try this” activities that are included. These are one of my many favorite parts of the curriculum because they provide hands on activities that are quick and easy and often need little to no advance preparation. For example, in the second lesson where we were learning about bones of them simply had the children hit a table with their hands and then hit the table with a cushion between their hands and the table. This helped to demonstrate the cushioning effect of cartilage between the bones.

There are also more in depth experiments at the end of the lessons and in the Notebooking Journals. The first lesson focuses on cells and the end project was making an edible cell using Jell-O and candy. That was certainly a hit with my kids. There are looking forward to some of the other experiments such as testing for Vitamin C and making a stethoscope.

While we did the reading and experiments together, the children worked through their notebooking journals on their own. My 6th grader used the regular Notebooking Journal and my daughter who is 4th/5th grade used the Junior Notebooking Journal. There are some activities and pages that are very similar but the Notebooking Journal is more involved. For example, in lesson one some of the pages are the same but the Junior Notebooking Journal has several coloring pages (which work great for keeping little hands busy while I read) and an extra ‘lapbooking’ style page. The Notebooking Journal has a crossword puzzle and review questions that are not in the Junior Notebooking Journal.

Did I tell you how much I love having the CD that goes along with this text? There are so many wonderful ways to incorporate it in our lessons. Sometimes we use the CDs to listen on the road. This is a great way to get some school done even on those busy days when we aren’t home. Also, my son loves to listen to audio books before bed and he can just put it into his CD player and listen to it, giving him a nice review of what we have learned so far. Since we do science together I have not used it to help a struggling reader, but I know several families that will allow the child to listen to the CD while they follow along in the book. The CD is the book read aloud word for word so this is a great support for struggling readers.

In case you couldn’t tell, we absolutely recommend this product. The science is in-depth and thorough but full of fun and easy hands on projects to make it all stick. You do need to know that it is written from a Christian creationist standpoint. This is a big positive for us and we love how it explains the role of the creator in the science, but we know that some people may wish for a different view point. While you are checking out Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology you can also take a look at the books in this elementary series.

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Homestead Homeschool: Our Livestock Show!!!

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I promised that I’d share the results of the livestock show with you! The children had so much fun and learned so much. This was an all day event as we were there before 9 am and did not leave until almost 9 pm. I think we were all exhausted when it was over but it was a day well spent.

Elizabeth took her goat out in the ring a total of four times, once as a helper in the special needs show, once to be judged on showmanship, once to have the animal judged in the market class, and then for the final ‘auction’. She was awarded Reserve Champion (2nd place) for showmanship and 6th place for market class!

Matthew had three opportunities to take his pig in the ring, showmanship, market, and auction. He received 4th place in showmanship and 3rd place in market class. He did a great job and showed a tremendous improvement in control of his animal from last year. We were so proud of both of them.

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I hope you enjoy these pictures from the show. If you want to know more about their animals make sure you check out, Homestead Homeschool: Our 4-H Goat and Homesteading Homeschool: Our 4H Pig where I interviewed the children about their animals. Their next step will be to complete a project record book detailing their experiences and what they learned in the process. This is a great way for them to practice writing skills, typing skills, and financial math concepts. I love that they get a chance to use the things we are learning in a practical setting. It really helps them understand why they need the skills I am teaching them. Anyone else enjoy 4H projects?

When you sign up for our free resource library you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

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Deals and Freebies

Don’t Forget Our Giveaway Going On Now at Launch Day and a Livestock Show!

Free Poetry Pack from Write Shop!! 39 page PDF for grades 3-9

Sign-up Now for this FREE challenge that starts Monday! Don’t forget to sign up for the 5-day no-prep crafts challenge from Jamie at Hands On As We Grow. The deadline is fast approaching! It’s perfect for preschoolers to get crafty without the hassle! Click here to learn more!

This is a deal I “splurge” on each year to give me inspiration and help throughout the year. Need a little homemaking inspiration? Join 100,000 women who have said YES to the Ultimate Homemaking Bundle since 2012. Get 129 eBooks, eCourses, and printables designed to help you declutter and organize your home, balance your many roles, meal plan and serve healthier meals, plus resources for parenting, marriage, working from home, self-care and much more.

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Princess Cut: A Family Movie Review

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Am I the only one that has a hard time finding movies that are appropriate for our whole family but still interesting for the adults? So I was thankful to have the opportunity to review Princess Cut by Watchman Pictures. While I may be the one ‘officially’ reviewing this movie, we watching it together as a family movie night. The children were thrilled because we went all out and bought pizza to eat while we gathered in the living room to watch the movie.

As we started to watch the movie the first thing that caught the attention of the children was that it took place in our home state at a location that was very near a town where we have visited. The movie portrays a Christian young woman and her journey towards finding real love. Without spoiling too much of the plot, I can say that there are a few twists and turns in her journey that really surprised my children. She had setbacks but as any good romance movie should, it had a happy ending. One thing that stood out to me was how well it portrayed her relationship with her parents and how they were there to help guide her on this journey. It did not make it out to be a perfect relationship where no one made mistakes, but it showed how they could forgive and move forward after mistakes were made. I look ahead into my own daughter’s future and hope that we can one day (many years from now) help her along her own journey to finding real love.

The one ‘flaw’ that I noticed in the movie was that the timeline seemed a bit rushed. The entire course of the movie took place in less than one full crop season but lots of major decisions and relationships took place during that short amount of time. My children at 10 and 11 did not notice, but had they been a bit older we would have had a conversation about how they shortened things for the sake of the movie but in life those processes would take place over months or maybe even years. This certainly did not ruin the movie for us but is something that may be worth a conversation with your teenagers after watching the movie.

So what did everyone think? My 10 year old daughter said, ” I thought is was a good movie but I wish it had shown the wedding.” Before we started watching the movie, my eleven year old son grabbed a blanket and said he was going to use it to cover his eyes if they started any of that ‘kissing’ stuff as he does not much like ‘romantic’ movies. However, when I asked him after the movie what he thought he said that it was a good movie and he liked all of the surprising twists and events. My husband, who prefers historical films, watches these types of movies with me because he loves me. His thoughts were that is was like, a “Hallmark movie with Christian values”.

All in all, our family really enjoyed watching this movie. It was appropriate for the entire family without being boring for the adults. We felt that it shared values that are important to our family in a way that did not come across as ‘preachy’ or dull. I can wholeheartedly recommend Princess Cut to anyone looking for a fun romance with Christian values.

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Victory Gardens and Ration Books

20180405_120333 — It doesn’t look like much now since the seeds have not sprouted but hopefully by the end of the month it will have beautiful plants.

World War II changed the fabric of the United States in ways that are unthinkable to us today. How do we help them understand what life was like here on the home front during the World War II period? I really wanted my children to understand the sacrifices that were made by both our military and our civilians during World War II. This week we have been focusing on life on the home front. In addition to conversations about what it was like we planted a Victory garden and started using our simple version of ration books.

For the Victory garden, the children first researched what types of foods would typically have been planted in a Victory garden as well as the types of seeds that could be planted in our climate this time of year. Then they had to till the soil and remove any weeds. Once the soil was ready they went through and found seeds that were appropriate and planted the seeds. Over the next few weeks they will tend to the garden and hopefully get to enjoy some of the ‘vegetables’ of their labor.

If you do not have enough space or have other restrictions that do not allow for a full garden a few small containers can still give you a hands on experience. My three year old wanted his own so we cut off the top of a milk carton, filled it with potting soil and planted lettuce. You can make something simple like our milk carton planter or purchase indoor gardening kits like this farmers garden window sill kit or these herbs in a jar.

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Rationing can be a difficult concept for children who have been blessed to never live through it to understand. So we created a simple ration sheet and chose three things to ‘ration’ in our house for the month of April. We are rationing chocolate milk, candy, and kindle/computer time. Real ration books had removable stickers that you turned in to procure your goods. However, in the interest of simplicity ours is more like a check sheet that will get marked each time they use one of those items. Once all the boxes are checked for an item, they do not get any more of that item until May. If this is something you are interested in, you can find a copy of it with the items left blank in the free resource library (you can sign-up for access at the bottom of this post). The children are very excited about the project, but I’m not sure how they will feel when they run out of something before the end of the month. I’ll keep you updated in our history updates.

We also watched a few video shorts from training and propaganda videos for World War II. These were popular cartoon characters that were used to encourage support for the war or train soldiers. There are many of them but some of them may not be appropriate for all ages due to crude humor. I have shared some links below to some that we found were good examples.

I have also found a few recipes that were designed for making foods using rations and limiting ingredients that were hard to come by. We are going to try a few of those recipes over the next few days. If they are enjoying that, I may challenge them to modify some of our favorite recipes to be more ‘ration’ friendly and see what they can create.

I have included some links below that have great information on Victory gardens and rationing. I would love to know if you try any of these ideas or if you have other ideas for helping children understand what life on the home front was like during World War II.

Victory Gardens

Rationing

Videos

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Deals and Freebies!

As someone who is trying to balance a six week old, homeschool, blog, and all of the other things life is throwing at me and still be consistent with my daily walk with God this webinar really appeals to me. I also happen to love Jami Balmet and have done several of her online workshops.

Want to learn how to find God in the middle of your busy life? Jami Balmet and Ultimate Bundles are hosting a free webinar called Finding God in Your Busy Day (creative ways to grow your faith when you don’t have time for devotions). Jami will teach you where to find unexpected pockets of time for God and devotions, where to find Bible Study resources, and what your Bible study time should consist of. Register for the webinar.

Don’t forget to sign up for the 5-day no-prep crafts challenge from Jamie at Hands On As We Grow. The deadline is fast approaching! It’s perfect for preschoolers to get crafty without the hassle! Click here to learn more!

Our new middle grades historical fiction novel, Heroes Next Door: Hornet 24 is now on Amazon available for pre-order with a release date of April 10th! We are super excited about this and would love to have you share it with your friends!

Spring, One of My Four Favorite Seasons!

Spring is one of my four favorite seasons! Honestly, I enjoy all of the seasons, but by the end of one season, I’m ready for another. This year’s weather has been a roller coaster ride, and we have bounced between cold weather and warm weather for the last month. I’m hoping this warm weather is here to stay for a while.

Spring feels like such a time of renewal and new life. The birds are out singing, the flowers are blooming, the bees are buzzing, and life seems to hold so much hope and promise. I can’t forget my favorite part of spring, strawberries! We just had our first bucket of fresh strawberries for the season last week and they were so good!

Spring Fever Homeschool Solutions

One part of spring that could be viewed as a negative is ‘spring fever.’ The children, and if most of us are honest, the parents are ready to be outside. Sitting inside and doing schoolwork can seem arduous on the first pretty days after winter. To balance that natural desire to be outside enjoying the weather with our need to complete our schoolwork we take school outside.

Sometimes, like today, we literally take our schoolwork outside. Math seems a bit less tedious when there is grass under your feet and sun on your face. The children either take a table cloth to lay on, sit at the picnic table, or grab a folding chair and take their work outside. To help us stay organized when we do school outside, we keep book bags where they can store their materials.

Rainy Spring Day Homeschool Activities

When it is time to come in or on rainy days, we can do schoolwork related to spring inside. This can be completing on of the fun Spring Chalk Pastel Lessons, doing a study on birds, flowers, or plants, or even reading books about Spring. We have started going through the spring chalk pastel art course and are really enjoying it.

It is such a fun and easy way to incorporate art into our nature study this month. A couple of good book options are Eric Carle’s The Tiny Seed or the one we want to read this year, The Penderwicks in Spring. We have read the first book in this series and really enjoyed it.

Other times, I use various parts of the season to create natural learning opportunities. It is the perfect time of year to learn about plants and gardening. You can study how to grow them, pollination, and nutrition by actually planting a garden, harvesting your crop, and my favorite part, eating what you grew.

If you cannot plant a garden where you live, you can plant a few windowsill plants or visit a local farm. In addition to gardening, we love to raise baby chicks to become laying hens which provide eggs for our family and some of our friends.

Even if you can’t raise chickens, it is a good time of year to visit your local lawn and garden or feed store and let the children see the baby chicks. You can also purchase simple kits to raise and release butterflies or lady bugs that let children see the life cycles up close. These are nice because it gives you the live animals and hands on experience without the long term commitment of animals like chicks.

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Spring Bird Study

Spring is also an excellent time to study birds. You can get a field guide, like this Peterson’s First Guide to Birds to help you identify the various birds you see near your home. This is one of my favorite bird guides because it is very simple and easy to use. Some other guides are more thorough but can be overwhelming to children (and parents that are new to bird watching).

If you want to entice more birds to your yard or make it a bit easier to study them you can put up a bird feeder. This can be a homemade one or something like this inexpensive bird feeder that attaches to your windows.

I’ve talked about Our Hiking Adventures before, and spring time is a great time to hike. This is a great way to see different plants and animals while getting a bit of exercise. There are other Peterson’s First Guides like the bird one above that can be a great way to learn more about what you are seeing as you hike.

If you have small children, they may enjoy just walking and looking for various colors or shapes. Whether you go to a local park or simply ‘hike’ though a nearby field or forest it is a great chance to get outside and enjoy spring.

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Spring Fun

Of course, Spring is not only about school. There are so many fun things to do in the spring. You can go to a local farm and pick strawberries or visit your local farmers market to pick out yummy spring vegetables.

My children enjoy picking (and eating) strawberries, and it seems they eat more than they put in the baskets some years. Our strawberry-farming friends even joke about weighing the little ones before and after picking. This is a great way to get children excited about eating healthy foods and provide an understanding about where food comes from.

It is a wonderful time to break out the sidewalk chalk and the bubbles and just enjoy being outside. Kites are also a big hit at our house; from little simple ones, they make themselves to larger ones that need a little help and guidance. They are a fun way to spend a spring afternoon.

In addition to these ideas, I’ve added a fun spring bucket list to the free resource library with lots of fun ideas for spring!

Spring Ideas and Resources

When you sign up for our free resource library, you will get a link and password to the library; we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

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This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always, I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in, and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

Deals and Freebies

Schoolhouse Teachers is now offering a lifetime option! They are a great place for a one stop shop curriculum or a way to have a lot of options to fill in different electives and courses into what you have already chosen.

FREE zoo scavenger hunt from Journey Homeschool Academy

The Homeschool Curriculum Summit is coming soon! Grab your free ticket now!

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

FREE Month of Kindle Unlimited: I have been using this for my own pleasure reading as well as books for my son and daughter and really enjoying it.

Not Consumed has a new Pre-K and Kindergarten Curriculum for sale!

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

The Mistakes I Made….

I think I could write a book about various mistakes I’ve made along this homeschool journey but I’ll focus on a few that I think may be fairly common and hopefully either help keep someone else from that same mistake or at least make you realize you are not alone.

My background is that of a public school student, teacher, and principal. So when I started homeschooling, I tended to fall back on what I knew. I found a curriculum that while Christian was in a very traditional style, I set up a classroom for us to work in, and I set up a daily schedule that looked much like the schedule I would have had in my classroom.

Our schoolroom before we finished setting it up!

That scenario might have worked well for some other family, but it was not a good fit for our family. We still have the room (though we don’t always use it) as it did work well for us to have a place to keep all of our homeschool things and to get away from everything else when we needed to focus on school. I learned that school could happen in that room but it could also happen in our kitchen, outside, or even in our van. We have however, greatly changed both curriculum and scheduling techniques.

We went from a traditional curriculum to using a different company for almost every subject. Some children do well with traditional curriculum but for us it was not the right solution. We used a variety of curriculum, focusing on hands on lessons and programs that worked well across multiple ages. The children started to enjoy our ‘school time’ more and it was much easier for me to teach most subjects together and only have to do things like reading with each child individually.

When we first started I blocked out my schedule to cover each subject five days a week during a certain time. For example, 9:00-9:30 reading, 9:30-9:45 spelling, etc. I found this was very frustrating for my children, sometimes we had to stop in the middle of a lesson, and sometimes they were done ahead of time. After a few weeks, I realized that I had the freedom to simply decide what we needed to cover that day and then work through it. We could move from one subject to another in natural progression. If my son drug his feet doing his math work (I’m sure that only happens at my house), instead of not finishing that day he knew he would have less play time that afternoon.

In addition to changing our daily schedule, at the end of our first year I realized that I needed to make a change in our weekly schedule. That change made such a huge difference for my planning and implementation. That first year I had planned out five days a week but it seemed like almost every week there were great field trip opportunities that I found out about and wanted the children to participate in: a trip to the local science center, a tour of the fire department, homeschool day at the local aquarium, etc. These trips were valuable learning experiences but because of how I had planned they made me feel chronically ‘behind schedule’. That second year I planned out our work over four days each week instead of five. This made all of the difference for us. It meant there was a day open for field trips or other appointments. If by chance we have a week where we do not have a field trip or appointment, the children have a day to enjoy playing Legos, working on projects, or other activities and I can get caught up on some household chores.

I’m so glad that I learned from those mistakes and found curricula that work well for my children and a schedule that allows us to fit in a variety of fun field trips and extra curricular activities. I hope that this helps someone not make those same mistakes. I’d love to have you share in the comments about what mistakes you made when you first started homeschooling.

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Homestead Homeschool: Our 4-H Goat

It is time for our monthly Homestead Homeschool post and this time I’ve interviewed my 10 year old daughter, Elizabeth. She is sharing today about the goat that she is raising for our 4-H livestock show next month. She is learning so much about responsibility, animal care, business, and public speaking. She will show her goat in the same show that my son shows his pig which we talked about last month in, Homesteading Homeschool: Our 4H Pig. If this sounds interesting to you, I encourage you to contact your local 4-H agent. Even if you don’t have the land or space to raise an animal at your home there are often ways to keep the animal at a local farm and the child go there to care for the animal.

Tell me about your 4-H Goat Project.

“I am raising a goat to show in the 4H livestock show. I will have the goat for about two months. I am training the goat to be able to walk with me on a harness around the ring. ”

Tell me about your goat.

“My goat’s name is Cream because it looks like ice cream with a chocolate head and a vanilla body. It has floppy ears and a short tail. She is really cute and soft. I enjoy playing with her.”

What do you have to do with your goat each day?

“I have to feed it twice each day. I take it out on a harness and walk it each day to practice for the show. I provide it with clean water each day as well as hay. I spend time playing with it and rubbing it each day. ”

What does showing your goat look like?

“I will get it cleaned up and ready for the show. Then I will have it in a choker collar and it will walk with me around the show ring. I will need to keep it between me and the judge. I will do this twice. The first time is for showmanship where they judge how well I work with the goat. The second time they will look for the meat and characteristics of the goat for the market class. ”

What do you hope to learn and accomplish this year?

“I want to learn more about goats and how to show a goat. I hope to get grand champion at the show. ”

What do you think other people should know about showing goats?

“It is fun and easier than some other animals. ”

This is her first year showing an animal and I’m looking forward to watching her grow and learn through this process. She is planning to sell her goat after the show for breeding. While goats can go to to market and slaughter they are not required to and she preferred not to go that route. Goats can be shown on a circuit at several shows, but we are just participating in the one local show at this time. The show is in April and I’ll post some pictures and results afterwards. If you have any questions about 4-H you can contact your local cooperative extension office or check out our post, But I don’t do animals…or using 4-H in our homeschool.

If you participate in 4-H, tell us your favorite part in the comments. Also, please feel free to ask questions about the goat or the show in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them.

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