Guest Review: Easy Peasy and Genesis Curriculum

I am pleased to bring you this wonderful guest post review by Emmy Daniels.

Easy Peasy

This review is about two different curricula, Easy Peasy All in One Homeschool, and Genesis Curriculum. The same person created both of these, but they are two different curricula with completely different styles. I am going to give an overview of each one, what I like and dislike about each one, and how I personally am going to be using them this coming year with my four children.

Easy Peasy

Easy Peasy is an all-in-one complete curriculum that is free to use. It goes from preschool (learning to read) all the way through high school. The content is based on what the creator, Lee Giles, was using for her own children. She saved all the books and sites, links to videos, worksheets, etc., that she was using so that she could re-use the same things for her other children. She then decided that she could make it available for others to use. I love that she keeps her curriculum free, and she does that because she has a desire to make home schooling easy and possible for more people.

Easy Peasy is divided into levels and years. The levels are roughly equivalent to grade levels, but they tend to be a bit advanced in the reading, so there are placement tests available. The years include math, reading, writing, and LA (grammar and spelling), with thinking and computer every week or so. At the middle school levels, Foreign Language is added. Everything is online, but Lee has started to make LA and the readers available in book form. There are also four “years” to choose from, and those cover Bible, history, and science daily, with health/PE, music, and art every week or so. There are two levels in the years: L for 1st through 4th grades, and M for 5th-8th. This is designed to be done together, so that all levels are learning the same things, with the higher “M” level going a bit more in depth. You cycle through the years twice, once at the L level and once at the M level. The year subjects are: Year 1 — Biology, Ancient History, Matthew and historical books of the Bible; Year 2 — Animals, Early American History, Mark and New Testament minus the other gospels and Revelation; Year 3 — Earth Science, Geography and Cultures, Luke and Psalms and Proverbs, and Year 4 — Physics and Chemistry, 20th Century History, John and Prophets.

The best thing about this curriculum in my opinion is the lack of lesson planning involved. I love that it is laid out day by day, with instructions for each day. My kids like that they can do it themselves and work at their own pace. There is enough variety with online games thrown in, an occasional video, and a few projects as well. The curriculum is challenging enough without all the extra busywork that can drag a subject out. I don’t love all the screen time, but I have started to buy the readers, which cuts out a lot of the online reading. My husband and I own a computer repair

business, so luckily we always have computers that he can refurbish and we have enough computers for each kid to use. Others families with several children and not as many computers may have to take turns, which could make for longer days. My younger two especially like the online games that are included in the curriculum.

Genesis Curriculum

Genesis Curriculum is a completely off-line curriculum designed to be used as a one-room schoolhouse type curriculum. The parent reads the material to all students. It is best for about 3rd grade until 8th, although it can be used for high school as well with more in-depth study added. The main curriculum book includes Bible, Greek or Hebrew, spelling, vocabulary, grammar, writing, science, and social studies. (Reading is not included). There is also math you can purchase separately, along with workbooks for each child, an answer book, and a map book. What I love about this curriculum is that all of the lessons are based on the Bible reading. There are 4 years in this curriculum: the Book of Genesis to be followed by the book of Exodus, and the book of Matthew to be followed by the book of Acts. In each one, you will read through the book of the Bible, and the science and Social Studies lesson will come from something in the reading. Each week there is a memory verse to learn together. In the Old Testament books, you will learn some basic Hebrew, and in the New Testament ones, you will learn basic Greek. I love this style of teaching! I read to the kids and we can all have a discussion about what we learned. I also like that the lessons are varied. One day you may learn about a type of animal, and the next you are learning about how an engine works. I tend to get a little bored when studying one subject for too long, so I personally like the variety that this curriculum provides. The vocabulary will generally come from the Bible passage of the day, with review days thrown in, and the writing assignments are based on the things you are learning. This curriculum is extremely affordable as well.

Last year I used the Book of Matthew with all four of my kids, having the older two do the “Explore More” section, which is an option for further study for each day. I didn’t use the writing part of Genesis curriculum; instead, we used Easy Peasy language arts along with the reading. We did do the spelling, vocabulary, and grammar in Genesis curriculum, though, so my kids were sometimes getting double language arts. I am ok with that, though, and I am amazed at the progress my kids showed in those areas last year. My kids enjoyed the time spent together with this curriculum.

This year, I am using Genesis Curriculum Book of Acts (it follows the Book of Matthew and will continue where we left off with the Greek lessons) with my younger two children (ages 8 and 10) and my older two are using Easy Peasy High

School (ages 12 and 14). My 12-year-old daughter is a bit ambitious and wants to do high school level classes for credit during middle school and get college credit while in high school, so she is doing the Easy Peasy High School level courses. Although you can use Genesis Curriculum in high school, I personally think Easy Peasy is a better choice, because they provide everything needed as far as how to grade and how many credits to give for each course. One thing I’m excited for this year is a Learning to Draw class my oldest will take, available on the high school site. My younger two will use Easy Peasy for LA and writing, and my 8-year-old will also use a cursive handwriting curriculum. All four kids use MathUSee for math.

If you are looking for a comprehensive and affordable curriculum, both Easy Peasy Homeschool and Genesis Curriculum are excellent choices! They are easy to use, complete enough without a lot of “fluff,” and they both have a lot of support with Facebook groups and Lee Giles herself available to contact through Facebook or email. I highly recommend both of these, and I am so thankful to have found them to use in our home school journey!

About Emmy Daniels:

This is the start of my 10th year homeschooling. I have 4 kids who are currently 8, 10, 12, and 14 (later this month). My husband works from home as the owner of a computer repair shop, and I am a mostly stay-at-home mom who works a few hours a week at our local recreation center and also takes care of my disabled mother in my home. With so much going on, we love that home schooling can be flexible to fit the needs of our family! Our family loves the Lord and we like to read, hike in our beautiful mountains, hunt, camp, and participate in 4H.

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Deals and Freebies!

Last Call! Apologia Digital Back to School Sale 25% off through 9/15!

The World of Peter Rabbit and His Friends Only .99 on Kindle! We love Beatrix Potter’s stories and this one includes her original illustrations.

Wind in the Willows on Audio for only $2.95

Sunny Under the Sea Free (always double check because Amazon changes prices regularly!)

Alice in Wonderland on Audible for less than $1!!

FREE: Check out this great new FREE resource for classical and Charlotte Mason education! Classical Christian Education & Charlotte Mason. Great for folks already homeschooling or if you have friends that are looking into it!

FREE Fantasy and Fairytales StoryBuilders from Write Shop!

Letter B Preschool Activities and Printable!

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Our first week went wonderfully! I know that it may not always be as smooth but he was so excited to have his own work and feel like one of the ‘big’ kids. He loved learning all about letter A and practicing finding it and writing it. He also loves our nature studies so he enjoyed finding ‘ants’ and learning about them. I thought we were going to work with shaving cream and drawing our letters but we switched it up and made the letter A with Play Doh for one of our tactile activities.

This week we will be using the printable cards (free download below) in a sensory bin, eating “B” snacks, doing some physical activities with balls, and a study on birds. Now that we have two letters worth of cards we can also start working on sorting them and matching the picture with the beginning sound.

I’m really excited about the bird study because my son loves birds! We often take walks to look for birds and we even got him an inexpensive bird feeder to hang in our front yard so that he could watch the birds from the kitchen window. Bird studies can be as simple as sitting outside and watching for birds. If your child shows interest there are also some great simple bird guides both in print and online to help you identify the birds. You could even just talk about their size and colors.

bird picture

He has a set of sorting bears that we may use to work on the concept of big and small in keeping with the ‘b’ theme (big bears). This is a great way to also help develop fine motor skills. You could also use stuffed animals or other household objects.

Remember that it is important to keep it simple and engaging. Children learn best through play, so while we will learn about the letter B I want to keep it fun and active. This is one letter that my son actually already knows (it is the first letter in his name) but I think it will be fun to review the letter. Also, keep in mind that letting them help prepare the snacks can be a great way to start teaching them the valuable life skill of cooking and preparing food.

Snack Ideas:

Banana
Biscuits
Blueberries
Bagels

Extra Resources:

Letter B Upper Case Craft Freebie

Letter b Lower Case Craft Freebie

Optional Activities:

Play Ball (This is a great way to get in some physical activity and work on gross and fine motor skills.)

Nature Study on Birds or Bees ( This can be done for free by just going outside and observing nature at your home or local park, but if you want to attract more birds to your yard or make it an on going project you can add in an inexpensive bird feeder or this simple field guide for backyard birds.)

Work on Big/Small or Bitter/Sweet concepts (You can use sorting bears or choose activities from around the house to work on big/small and for bitter/sweet you can choose simple foods like lemon juice/ candy or fruit)

Don’t forget to download your free letter B sensory bin pictures to use this week!

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Deals and Freebies!

Apologia Digital Back to School Sale 25% off through 9/15!

Wind in the Willows on Audio for only $2.95

Alice in Wonderland on Audible for less than $1!!

SoTW Ancient History Week 1 and a few other fun lessons!

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We eased back into our homeschool routine this week after enjoying some summer fun last month. While not perfect, I was pleasantly surprised at how the transition went. It can be really hard for my children to transition from the freedoms of break to the more structured ‘school days’. I intentionally kept this week just a little lighter and shorter to help ease the transition and we were finished most days by lunch time.

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For our first week of volume one of Story of the World we did the introduction lesson. This is a shorter chapter that explains history and archeology. This was very much a review for my older children and we kept it fun and simple. I read the chapter aloud and then we did a fun chocolate chip cookie archeology activity.

My four year old helped me bake cookies with chocolate chips and pecans in them. Then each child was given a cookie, a toothpick, and a pastry brush. They used the ‘tools’ to excavate the cookie and count how many chocolate chips and how many pecans were in their cookie. Then we snacked on cookies and milk! The activity was a big hit but if I had it to do over again I would have purchased some small paintbrushes to use instead of the pastry brushes just to have the sizing work out better.

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Then one night this week we settled in for a family viewing of The Magic School Bus Shows and Tells. This fun and lighthearted show has a great explanation of archeology and had the children laughing while they learned. If your children are new to these concepts, you might want to include some of the other activities from the activity book or our free lesson resources guide.

In other Story of the World news I have updated the book list through chapter 26! I’m hoping to work on it some more this weekend and I am still on pace to be finished by the end of September with all 42 chapters. Check it out and let me know in the comments if there are any great books that I missed.

Next we will dive into chapter one and learn about the earliest people and the nomadic way of life. I’m looking forward to letting them do a cave art activity. We will be reading the chapter and completing both the map from the activity guide and a Nomadic Life notebooking page. I am hopeful that the notebooking pages will be a good way for them to show me what they learned and help it ‘cement’ into their memories.

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In our Apologia Science text we were learning about gravity, friction, traction, and drag. This was a lot of fun and they are excited to finish the chapter next week. We had the chance to look at their bikes and the hand brakes that they use to see how friction is used to stop their bikes. In addition to a few other small science experiments that were included with that chapter, we decided to make a homemade slip and slide and test out what they had learned about friction and using a lubricant to reduce friction. It maybe September here but the weather is still quite warm so this was a fun way to cool off on a Friday afternoon and probably their favorite activity this week.

The preschooler had great fun learning about the letter A and doing chalk pastel art lessons on his trampoline! We have all been enjoying working through the Forensic Faith book that we are reviewing and I can’t wait to share more about that with you in a few weeks. The older children did a wind in the trees art lesson that turned out really cute. Just in case you think that our week seems to have gone too smoothly or easily, I will say that we lost a DVD that was integral to my son’s writing curriculum and my daughter is missing her science notebooking journal. There were also some moments where we had to work through issues with them, but all in all it was a good first week back and we are excited to see what this year brings.

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Deals and Freebies!

As we enter into the fall season and return to our routines it often feels much like a new year and a chance to start over. What are you doing to get/stay healthy? I am trying to drink more water and take daily walks.
If you are looking for some starting over with a healthier lifestyle you might want to check out the Healthy Living Bundle that is on sale for just a few days. At only $37 for 93 ebooks, ecourses, and printable packs it is an excellent deal. This includes help with allergies, nutrition, gardening, exercise and more.

Free 5 Day Learning without Worksheets Challenge: FREE 5-Day Learning Challenge We have done several of her different challenges in the past and they are lots of fun and easy to implement.

Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

Enrichment Studies has a great free fine arts memory match game this month!

Free Help Your Child’s Memory Book from All About Learning Press!

Reading Eggs Review and FREEBIE!

When I agreed to review Reading Eggs, I thought I knew exactly what to expect because my daughter had used this program several years ago. We enjoyed the program then, but I was very pleased and surprised to see how much more it included now.

For this review I was using Reading Eggs with my four year old son. I was a little concerned about whether or not it would be too difficult for him as he has just recently started expressing interest in letters and numbers. However, when I logged in I found that not only could he work on the reading eggs program that I remembered but they have a new section that is designed for ages 2-4. This gave us a lot of flexibility.

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When we tried the first lesson of the regular reading eggs (designed for ages 3-7) my son was able to do it but it was a little more difficult and he honestly did not really enjoy it. I feel that it is a great program and some children may be ready for it at age three but some children will need to be a little older before they are ready for that component. It started with the letter m and was teaching the sound (not the letter name) using a variety of activities related to m. He did the first activity or two but grew tired of it before the lesson was over, but he could easily go back and finish at his own pace.

Though my son was not quite ready for that portion of the program it is still a great program. Reading Eggs starts at the very beginning with letter sounds and continues through fluent reading, their highest levels Reading Eggspress works on reading comprehension and fluency for children ages 7-13. It is a fun and thorough program that works great to help improve a child’s reading ability. Luckily for us, they also now have Reading Eggs Junior.

When we tried the Reading Eggs Junior section (ages 2-4), we knew we had found the right fit. He absolutely loved it and could not get enough. They had books that he could look at and listen as they were read aloud, short videos that worked on letters and other educational concepts, and lots of different games to help him with preschool level skills.

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He knows all of his colors but really enjoyed playing the color games where he would match part of an object to the rest of the object in the same color. For example, they might have a purple and a pink car and two cut out circles form the cars (one in each color). He would then have to move the colored circle into the right spot. He enjoyed a game where he had to sort butterflies onto flowers based on their color.

They also had counting games, alphabet games, puzzles and more. The one thing we noticed with the games is that you needed to be used to using a mouse in order to successfully complete the activity. While many children have this skill, it was not something that my four year old had mastered because most of the time he does his activities on the kindle and uses a touch screen. He did get more proficient with the mouse as he worked through various activities.

Each game/activity is done in a map style layout (see the pictures above) and gets progressively harder. They program will let him return to one he has already completed but it will not let him move ahead until he completes that level. This helps keep the children from getting frustrated by the difficulty level. I should also note that in the regular Reading Eggs program it is set up in a similar manner but children can take a placement test to determine where they need to start so that they do not have to go through the lessons from the beginning.

My one real complaint about the program is that it is not compatible with Kindle. While this will not be an issue for many families, we find that logistically it is better if my son’s programs can be done on our kindle. He is better able to navigate the kindle than our desktop and can be more independent. However, this is still a wonderful program and we will work around the kindle issue using it on our desktop. Thankfully, my older children enjoy helping him and can assist him when I am not available.

If this sounds like a program that might be a good fit for your child, I have a wonderful offer for you. Reading Eggs has agreed to give my readers a FREE four week trial of the program. This is a great way for you to try it out and see if it is a good fit for your family.

In addition to the wonderful online program, Reading Eggs has just released new workbooks to accompany the program. While we did not personally use them I am hearing some great things from the reviewers that used the new workbooks and I encourage you to check out the other reviews to learn more about those.

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Letter A Preschool Activities and Printable!

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As a part of our relaxed preschool plan and my son’s strong desire to learn his letters, we are going to study a letter each week. Each week I’ll share snack ideas, sensory bin cards, crafts, and other resources for that letter.

I strongly encourage you to use only what seems to work for your child and keep it fun. It is far better to wait until they are ready to learn than to push them too early.

We will be using the printable cards (free download below) in a sensory bin, eating “A” snacks, practicing making the letter in shaving cream, and doing an ant nature study this week.

We won’t be able to pick apples for another couple of weeks but we may also do some fun apple pages from the extra resources depending on how interested my four year old seems to be as the week progresses.

Letter A Snack Ideas:

Almonds
Apples
Apricots
Asparagus (might be better with dinner but still a fun ‘A’ food)
Ants on a Log (celery w/ nut butter and raisins)

Extra Letter A Resources:

Letter A Upper Case Craft Freebie

Letter a Lower Case Craft Freebie

Optional Letter A Activities:

Apple Picking

Ant Nature Study (you can observe them outside, create a habitat in a jar, or purchase an ant farm)

Don’t forget to download your free Letter A Sensory Bin Pictures to use this week!

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Deals and Freebies!

Free 5 Day Learning without Worksheets Challenge: FREE 5-Day Learning Challenge We have done several of her different challenges in the past and they are lots of fun and easy to implement.

You Are An Artist Clubhouse Memberships are now Open for enrollment! and having a 25% off Sale through September 4th!!

Apologia Digital Back to School Sale 25% off through 9/15!

Wind in the Willows on Audio for only $2.95

Alice in Wonderland on Audible for less than $1!!

Memorable Monthly Musical Genre Study

Music Genre

In the past we have focused our music appreciation on famous composers and studied a single composer for a semester or a year. While I believe these are valuable we wanted to do something a little different this year that would introduce the children to a wide variety of music and help us create some fun family memories at the same time.

A little while back we were camping at a campground in Virginia and the folks next to us were playing some music that my husband and I had listened to when we were a little younger than we are now ( I won’t date myself too badly). The songs would come on and sometimes one or both of us would sing along because we remembered the lyrics even after all of these years. The children were amazed that we knew the words and wanted to learn more about the music we used to listen to. We realized that we wanted to expand their musical knowledge while still being careful about the language and content that we filled our ears and hearts with.

So this year we have decided to choose a different genre of music each month. Throughout that month we will listen to a variety of songs from that genre and learn about some of the famous musicians. Whenever possible we will attend a free or inexpensive local concert related to that genre. I will mostly use music that is available from Amazon Prime or YouTube to make this an inexpensive study.

Our first month we are starting with Bluegrass music! I know that it is not as popular or mainstream as some genres but I think it is so much fun. I love the instruments and the fun songs. Fall also tends to be a time when I can find more bluegrass concerts available locally. There are always several at our North Carolina State Fair and the apple orchard where we are hoping to pick apples later this month hosts multiple local bluegrass bands (among other genres). If timing works out we will hear a band at the apple orchard and if not we can catch a concert next month at the fair.

I have not scheduled out the other eight months because we will use the availability of free or inexpensive local concerts to help with our scheduling. We intend to study jazz, classical, gospel, big band, classic country, blues, rock, and Celtic music. I know that there are many other genre’s and sub genres that we could have chosen but we felt that those included many favorites that we wanted to expose the children to as well as a well rounded variety. Each month I’ll share a short post with the genre we are studying and some free resources that you can use to share with your children.

What favorite genres or musicians do you want to share with your children? Share your ideas in the comments!!

Bluegrass Resources

Please check these before using with your children to make sure they align with your family. I have listened to some of the tracks but not all of them.

Best Loved Bluegrass

True Bluegrass Gospel

A Brief History of Bluegrass

What is Bluegrass?

Bluegrass Instructional Materials

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Deals and Freebies!

SchoolhouseTeachers.com is doing an amazing sale this month! Buy One year get One Year FREE! We use this for several of our courses and one price covers all the students in your home for as many of their over 400 courses and you would like to use.

Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

Enrichment Studies has a great free fine arts memory match game this month!

Free Help Your Child’s Memory Book from All About Learning Press!

If you have been considering adding an art program to your curriculum, you need to check out the newest upgraded membership over at You Are An Artist. My children love the lessons with Nana and now they have two different membership levels, the newest one includes all of their lessons with some great new additions including the Presidents, hymns, and famous artists. They are also offering 25% off of any of their courses (not memberships) until 9/3!

Friday Favorites: My 5 Must Have Supplies That You Might Not Think About

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Today’s blog hop theme was Friday Favorites and I decided to share five of my favorite homeschool supplies that you might not have thought about. There are other supplies that we need as well (pencils, paper, books). I also did not include chocolate milk which I find to be necessary for me to function homeschooling or not, since I know many of you prefer coffee or tea. However, these are supplies that make my life as a homeschool mom a lot easier. I’ll share what they are and how we use them in no particular order.

Velcro Dots

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I am not sure how I would have survived homeschooling without velcro dots. Especially the preschool and early elementary years. I used them for our calendar time, I used them for counting games, for matching activities, and for identifying things on a map or timeline. I recently realized that I could use them on sheet protectors to make an extra pocket in our three ring binders. This was really helpful in keeping the pieces in my four year olds calendar notebook. I love that with velcro dots it is easy to keep reusing things and to switch things out as needed. They are also inexpensive, you can get 250 sets for less than $10.

Primary Journals

These are my favorite nature journals for young children (even through upper elementary). It gives them lines spaces to write and blank spaces for drawing, leaf rubbings, or even gluing flowers or leaves. They are fairly durable and handle being in and out of bags on nature walks without being overly heavy. My children get new ones whenever they fill one up and at the beginning of the school year. They are also great for young children who are learning to write and want to illustrate what they have written.

Boogie Boards

When I hear the term ‘boogie board’ my mind immediately goes to the ocean, but this is a different kind of Boogie board. This is more like a high tech etch-a-sketch and we love them in our homeschool. You draw or write on the board with the stylus and then when you are done you simply push the button and it erases. My children use them for school and play. One way we use them for school is spelling practice. They find it to be more fun to write it on the board than in their notebooks. They also use them to work out math problems and for doodling while they listen to me read aloud. It saves paper and clutter while being fun and reasonably inexpensive.

Magazine Holders

I love these for sorting books, particularly books that we are using during the current year or unit study. I sit them on top of the shelves and for example I can put all of our “Ancient Greece” books in one, and all of our “Skeleton Books” in another. I also use them to sort loose papers, extra folders, and extra notebooks. This allows me to keep those supplies handy and available without having them cluttering up desks or tables. The children could also use one on their desks to store folders or notebooks that they need throughout the school day.

Glider Rocker

Almost 13 years ago my husband bought me a glider rocker when I was pregnant with our first child. I have used that chair ever since. First, it was in the nursery but when we began to homeschool when he was six and his younger sister was four we moved it up to our school room. It provides me with a comfortable but supportive place to sit while I read, teach, or monitor progress. Even if you do not have a separate school room I highly recommend a comfortable and supportive chair. The glider rocker is also a great place for me to hold my littles and read. I even ‘sneak away’ to sit and relax or read in it by myself occasionally.

Those are five of my favorite homeschooling items. What items do you love in your homeschool that people don’t always think about?

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Deals and Freebies

Back to School Bundle Sale going on now!! Back to Homeschool Online Course Bundle

SchoolhouseTeachers.com is doing an amazing sale this month! Buy One year get One Year FREE! We use this for several of our courses and one price covers all the students in your home for as many of their over 400 courses and you would like to use.

Free Makeover Your Morning 5 Day Challenge! This is a great way to help re-focus and get your day off on the right foot.

Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)

Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)

Enrichment Studies has a great free fine arts memory match game this month!

Free Help Your Child’s Memory Book from All About Learning Press!

Check out these other posts:

Amanda @ Hopkins Homeschool
Angie @ Run Ran Family Adventures & Learning
Annette @ A Net in Time
Ashley @ Gift of Chaos
Betty @ Let’s Get Real
Brenda @ Counting Pinecones
Carol @ Home Sweet Life
Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses

Join Us For An Adventure Through Ancient History!

As many of you know we spent the last year focusing on US History. We are now ready to begin our second four year cycle through world history. We will be using Story of the World as our spine and adding in fun activities, literature selections, and lots of tasty food to make this a fun and engaging family study. I will have a 7th grader, 5th grader, and four year old tag-along this year as we work through Ancient Times.

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I have created a page of extra book recommendations. I have started with the first ten chapters but will be adding to that each week until I have finished all forty chapters of Volume 1 (and I plan to add the other volumes as we get to them). I have also created a resource list for each chapter that will include books, art, websites, food, movies, and other resources. At the end of this post you will find a free download of the resource lists for the first ten chapters. I will add the other chapters to the blog once they are finished.

We will begin Story of the World in September and I will be sharing with you the various ideas and projects that we use along the way. There will be extension ideas for the older children (literature, writing, research) and fun ways to include younger children. We will cover roughly one chapter per week, though there are a few chapters we will spread out over two weeks and a few that we will combine. In addition to Story of the World and the Activity Guide, we will be using some resources from The Productive Homeschooler,(formerly Notebookpages.com), You Are An Artist, and Home School in the Woods. I have also found many free websites, videos, and printables to round out the program.

You Are An Artist has a wonderful art curriculum that combines history and art together. We have the You Are An Artist Complete Clubhouse Membership that allows us to use both the history art lessons as well as dozens of other courses including maps, hymns, nature and more. However, if you just want art to go along with your history she offers a history subscription or the Ancient History Course. You can even try out the Coliseum video lesson for free!

This is our second time going through Story of the World and my two oldest children remember many of the lessons with great fondness. They loved making apple mummies, Lego pyramids, and cooking ‘ Elephant Ears’. We will repeat some of these activities but also look to go deeper into some of the studies. There are ideas and suggestions for a variety of learning styles. I look forward to sharing this Adventure through Ancient History with you and hope that you will join us in learning about ancient cultures and people.

Volume 1 Resources Chapters 1-10

Volume 1 Chapters 11 through 15

Volume 1 Resources Chapters 16-20

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Deals and Freebies!

You Are An Artist Clubhouse Memberships are now Open for enrollment!!

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It’s Time To Party (and Read)

Nothing says fun like a good party! So why not encourage reading by combining it with a party. There are many ways to combine books with parties, some are super simple and some more elaborate. While I do not discount them, I am not talking about parties that are rewards for having read a certain amount of time or books, but parties that incorporate reading. As one of my favorite authors once said, “Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably.” – C.S. Lewis

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One of our favorite ways to combine parties and reading are our “Poetry Tea’ times. During those times we sit around the table, complete with table cloth and our nicest dishes, and enjoy reading poetry while partaking in snacks. Sometimes it really is hot tea with cookies; other times it might be lemonade and popcorn, or milk and a bit of cake. I will read a few poems and then the children take turns reading poems. They look forward to these times of fun and reading.

There are times when we combine books and parties by focusing on the time period or geographic location of a book. For example, if we are reading Little House on the Prairie we might cook over our camp fire or make recipes from that time period. We loved making maple candy as they discussed in one of the Little House Books.

One I have not yet done with my children but have seen other children really enjoy are character parties. You can choose a book or let each child choose their own book and everyone dresses up like their favorite characters. You can have generic party snacks or if it is appropriate you can have snacks that are representative of the book. For example, if I was reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar I could have the snacks that the caterpillar ate. If I was reading a book about a ballgame I might have traditional ball park fare like hotdogs and popcorn.

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One idea that we recently participated in was a book tasting. A good friend of mine had seen the idea and offered to set it up for our 4-H club. It was so much fun. The children each brought some of their favorite books representing different genres and some fun easy to eat snacks. Then we put the books on different tables based on genres and gave the children ‘menus’ that they could fill out with information about books that they thought they found and thought they would enjoy reading. This gave the children exposure to a bunch of different books in various genres that were enjoyed by their peers.

Today is the last day of the 5 Days of Homeschool Blog Hop. I hope you have enjoyed it! Check out the rest of the posts from today: homeschooling with the Brain in Mind

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SPECIALS!!!

I wanted to take a minute and let you know about a few great deals going on this week that you don’t want to miss.

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Notebooking Pages 50% off sale! This is a great deal for a lifetime membership and some added bonuses.

You Are An Artist Chalk Pastels has just opened up enrollment for the Clubhouse program (an annual membership). In honor of that the entire site is 25% off!!

Schoolhouse Teachers is doing a Huge Spring Sale that could have you set for curriculum for next year. Only $99 for your whole family! And as a bonus they will mail you a beautiful tote and a new print magazine. Check it out here.

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St. Patrick’s Day Fun and Resources

St. Patrick’s Day takes on many different forms in different families. For some it is a celebration of the life of Saint Patrick, for some it is about everything green, leprechauns and rainbows. With a new baby in the house we are not planning on going ‘all out’ this year with any kind of St. Patrick’s Day celebration.

Saint Patrick’s Day Homeschool Food Ideas

However, we are still going to do a few fun and simple things to remember the day. We love corn beef, so any excuse for corn beef and cabbage is welcome in our home, even if it’s nor really and “Irish’ dish. If you want to make your own from scratch, or you’re interested in some culinary history, check out the Corn the Beef Good Eats episode. It is also a simple meal to cook in my crock pot which is a big plus!

The children love fun thematic snacks, so I’ll let the older children choose a snack or two from the ideas below to fix on their own. Then I can read one of our St. Patrick’s Day books while we all enjoy the snacks.

Preschool Saint Patrick’s Day Ideas

For my three year old, we have changed out his Valentine’s Day sensory bottle for a St. Patrick’s Day themed bottle. I simply took out the pink and white beads and hearts (putting them in a bag for next year) and added in some adorable Shamrock jewels.

I found my Shamrock jewels at Hobby Lobby but you could also use something like this confetti that I found on Amazon Prime. The ones I found are different sizes so we can talk about smaller and larger. You could also use them for counting. Younger children will just enjoy seeing the colors and movement as they shake the bottle.

Shamrock Jewels

Add Water

Shake and Enjoy!

Saint Patricks Day Bible Lessons

I also want to use the St. Patrick’s Day Bible verse resource to cover the Beatitudes. We will use them for copy work with the older children. This is an easy way to incorporate it into our regular school day.

We will watch the clip about St. Patrick from Veggie Tales: Sumo of the Opera which tells the story of how he ended up ministering to the people of Ireland. I will probably also substitute the abbreviations page for their grammar work one day because I’ve noticed recently that we could use a review of some standard abbreviations.

Saint Patrick’s Day Homeschool Art Lessons

We will hopefully have time to enjoy a chalk art pastel lesson. They have one with a shamrock as well as a rainbow in their Spring Art Lessons that would be perfect to go along with this study. If you are going to do rainbows there is also a fun Magic School Bus episode about rainbows.

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What are your favorite ways to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day? I’d love to have you share your favorite traditions or resources in the comments and check out some of the fun resources below.

Saint Patrick’s Day Homeschool Resources

Saind Patrick’s Day Foods:

Appetizers (several of these could be used to make lunch of dinner and most are naturally green)
St. Patrick’s Day Snack Ideas
Festive Treats
Traditional Irish Dinners
Shamrock Shakes (this looks yummy though I’d skip the artificial dyes and either use natural or add some green fruit to color it naturally)
Lunch Ideas

Saint Patrick’s Day Books, Movies, and Music:

Patrick: Patron Saint of Ireland
St. Patrick’s Day, Gail Gibbons
Happy St. Patrick’s Day Curious George
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Clover
The Story of Saint Patrick’s Day
10 St. Patrick’s Day Rhyming Stories (free with Kindle Unlimited)
Irish Folk Classics (Free with Prime)
Magic School Bus: Makes a Rainbow (great for learning about rainbows to go along with St. Patrick’s Day)
Veggie Tales: Sumo of the Opera

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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