Music education is a requirement at our house. Greg and I just had one year’s worth of musical instruction each and can barely pick out a few songs. But it is one of our regrets. We wish we had stayed with it longer. And so, we have required each of our kids to pick and learn a musical instrument, and stay with it for 2 years worth of lessons.

K played the violin for almost 3 years, and has translated that to now playing at the keyboard just for fun (and she’s much better than I!). Z and Little E each chose the guitar and are awaiting their turn for lessons, but for now enjoy making up songs on their own. (Can you guess what color Little E’s guitar is?…yep, pink!)

But J has had to wait the longest for his instrument. A few years ago, he decided on drums. Now he has a good ear, and can pick out some pretty stuff on the piano and on the guitar, but drums is what he wanted.

Well, drum sets, and drum lessons aren’t cheap. (Neither is a violin, but we rented that.) We told J that he would get his drums, but he had to wait until we could afford to pay cash or them.  And he waited, and waited, and waited… for 2 long years he has waited.

Well, this Christmas, guess what was under the tree for him?  (well, actually it was next to the tree, because those boxes were big and heavy!)

My boy has his drum set now and he’s LOVING it! 

J jamming with a friend on his new drum set

He gets to play freestyle whenever he wants, as long as he gets his chores and schoolwork done. and he “has” to end his school day with 30 minutes of drum lessons and practice. His favorite part of the school day.

It was a lesson in Patience for J. But now he’s got his wish, and I’m getting a huge lesson in drumming, and am loving hearing my boy explore his musical side. Don’t you love it when you can make something happen for your kids?

On my Learning to Read: Celebrating Success post, Bobbie  asked about the Bob Books, a series of books for beginning readers that we use. So I thought I’d do a quick review.

Bob Books, Set 1: Beginning Readers

The Bob Books are these short little books, that come in sets of 12, that incrementally build on each other. The very first book, covers just four sounds (M, A, S, T) and on sight word (on), and each book builds from there.

The stories are so short and so doable for a beginning reader that they instantly give the child a sense of success. They’ve read an entire book!

It’s an incredible thing to be able celebrate, and the beauty of the Bob Books is that they give that opportunity to succeed early and often. 

The books themselves are not a reading program and should not be used on their own. Every child needs help learning the phonemic sounds, phonological sound combinations, and sight words of the English language. What the Bob Books give are an opportunity to practice reading in a book format very quickly, building on that sense of success.

Personally I’ve looked at and tested a LOT of different reading materials and tools over the last 10 years, as I’ve sought materials to help my own children learn to read, and I have to say that the Bob Books are crucial element to our reading program, especially at that early reader stage.

Even Z feels success with these books (he’s able to read the first few, and that knowledge that he can read at least some books, helps build his confidence and motivation for further reading).

Here’s an example of what you’ll find in a Bob Book. I grabbed the third book from the first set off our shelf. It’s title is “Dot”. 

As you’d expect the book is about Dot. The whole book uses 9 words total to tell the story of Dot, her dog and cat, and a hat.  So there’s a lot of repetition of common words, using sounds the child already knows.

At the beginning of each book is a list of the sounds that are covered in the book, which is helpful for determining if your child knows the sounds they need for that particular book.

Each page in the first set usually only has one sentence, but I have noticed that towards the end of each book, there might be a page that has one or more. So the child is feeling confident on each page, and has read the words in the book a few times before they get to a page with more words, like this:

As you can see the pictures in the book are simple, and not overwhelming, which for my kids is very important. When they are learning a new skill, they do much better on pages that are simple and in black and white, so this works perfectly for us.

I borrowed my first set for K, when she was just beginning her learning to read journey, as I always like to test something before buying it. Since then I of course have purchased my own copies (and have lent them out a few times too) of all three sets. J used these in early in his learning to read journey, as has Little E.  

Z of course is still working through the first few books, but that’s Z and with his dsylexia these books play an important role in his feeling successful in his efforts.

Again, these are not a complete program, but rather one (essential) tool in your learning to read tool box. I do use other readers as well, but these are the first that my children use in their journey.

If you don’t already have access to the Bob Books, I recommend either borrowing a copy from a friend or fellow homeschooler, looking for a used copy (if you can find them), or grabbing a set on sale. (Today as I write this I see Amazon has a great price on them, so you might check there as well)

Hope this helps!

…Shannon

P.S. Thanks Bobbie (Clumsy Crafter) for asking the question!

P.S. S. Here are a few more of the resources we use for Learning to Read:

If you are studying biology this year like we are, here’s a great way to reinforce those biology facts – with biology songs. 

Songs for Teaching has a whole page of biology songs to help reinforce those biology facts.

If you click on a song link, it’ll take you to a page that gives you the option to listen to the biology song and gives you the song lyrics written out.

There is also an option to buy the download or CD, so if you are having younger kids access the site, you may want to instruct them as to which button to click to listen to the songs.

The science songs page also include numerous biology-related songs, including life sciences, botany, and human physiology (anatomy).

As my daughter is on a mission to do a full year’s worth of high school biology in 2 months, we’re always on the look out for activities that reinforce her learning outside of the biology text book. You can bet, this site is going to be on her to-d0 list for next week!

Many thanks to Karri Fieglin for sharing this resource!

Is it really possible to make money working from home and homeschool at the same time? 

Absolutely! I’ve done it for over 11 years, and so have many other homeschooling parents.  In this episode of the Living Life at Home podcast, Teisha Shelby-Houston (aka LadyT) and I share our insights into working from home while homeschooling.

Teisha is  The Business Coach for Moms and the author of Get Your Home-Based Business Up and Running in 30 Days, Even with a Baby On Your Hip. 

Teisha is a work-at-home, homeschooling mom to 5 kids, four boys and one girl, ages 17 to 3.  And she is passionate about helping moms, like you and I, stay at home with their kids.  

In today’s podcast, Teisha shares her heart and experience on how it is possible to earn money working from home while homeschooling your kids. Some of the topics we talked about included:

• What the first thing is you need to do if you want to make money from home

 

• How your interests, passions, and God’s plan for you factor into how successful you will be

 

• The question you should ask your friends and family that will help you find identify which options are best for you

 

• What prayer can do for your work-family balance

 

• What homeschooling looks like in her household

 

• What it means to set our kids up for success

 

• How to balance kid activities with family needs and work

 

• What your children learn from your example

Teisha and I had such a fun converstion, I wish we had more time than the hour to talk ‘cuz Teisha is really generous with her experience and expertise and so passionate about helping moms like you and I succeed in both our personal and professional endeavors. I hope you enjoy listening in as much as I did recording it for you.

To listen in, simply click the play button below. To download the recording to your computer, right click on download link below and choose ‘Save Target As’.

Insights on How to Make Money Working From Home While Homeschooling Your Kids [ 1:01:50 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

…Shannon

P.S. Don’t forget to download Teisha’s free ebook Get Your Home-Based Business Up and Running in 30 Days, Even with a Baby On Your Hip. Even if you are an experienced work at home homeschooling moms like myself, you’ll find useful tips and insights. Enjoy!

P.S.S. Want a free transcript of this episode? Be sure to subscribe to our email list and I’ll let you know as soon as the transcript is available. Thanks!

My 12 yo daughter is nearly done with Teaching Textbooks Math 7 (she’ll finish by Spring Break in March 2010) and my 10 yo son just started a few months ago.

So, when another homeschool mom asked me about Teaching Textbooks, as a possible homeschool math curriculum for her 9 yo son, I was happy to answer her questions.

One of these days I’ll write a full review, but in the meantime, if you are considering Teaching Textbooks as a possible homeschool math curriculum, I’ve pasted our Q&A here.  If you have additional questions about Teaching Textbooks, feel free to put them in the comments, and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Does your son like it?

Yes, my 10 yo son  likes it. All the lessons are fully explained in video format, and all the answers are fully explained step by step, so if he misses something he can click the solution button and see where he went wrong.

He does not like that each lesson is so long, i.e., has so many problems (20 problems, plus 5 practice problems per lesson). He’s used to a much shorter program, but he has adapted by doing a 1/2 lesson per day or a minimum of 2-3 lessons per week.

Any ideas about placement?

The Teaching Textbooks  has placement tests for each level, I highly recommend using them. Don’t go by what you think is the grade level; it’ll depend on what math program you’ve used in the past and where your son is currently at.  The placement test does a good job helping you position the student in the correct level. 

Also, you can look at the table of contents of each course to see what’s covered and see if your son is ready for that level of work. In my case, Teaching Textbooks Math 7 covers fractions, decimals, and some basic geometry, which is a good transition from our elementary math program, which is weak in these topics (in my opinion), before they are ready for Beginning Algebra.

Though I have to say because we moved from a mastery-based elementary math program to Teaching Textbooks (a spiral based program), there was lots of overlap in some areas and none in others.

I did placement tests with my son a couple times over two years because he was strong in some areas and not in others, and finally when he was ready, I just moved him into Teaching Textbooks Math 7, and that’s worked well.

From my perspective, it’s a big change for me, they basically don’t need me for math anymore (yes, I’m a little sad about that). My 12 yo daughter periodically will have a question when she gets a problem wrong and can’t figure out why (and doesn’t want to view the solution on the computer.)

But other than that…there’s no prep, no lesson planning, no teacher time at all. Just setting boundaries and saying “go do your math”. Which of course is a huge time saver.

Is it all on computer?

Depends on how you do it. It can be done completely on the computer, though you need a notebook or something to work the problems in.

The text book also contains all of the lesson materials (except the step-by-step walkthroughs & solutions, which are only on the CDs).

Because of some issues we were having with my kids, we now require the kids to do all the problems out of the book on paper.

So what my daughter does is watch the lesson on the computer (rather than read it), then does the problems out of the book (in a notebook, so the book stays nice for later resale and younger siblings), checks her answers after each problem in the answer booklet, and then inputs her answers into the computer for grading purposes.

My son watches the whole lesson and the problems on the computer, but works each problem on paper, checks the answer, reworks as necessary, and then enters the answer into the computer, and moves on to the next problem.

Different kids, different styles. But either way I require that they don’t move on to the next problem until they got the one they are working on right (no use doing the whole set wrong and then going back and fixing it…)

What about the testing/grading…is it on the computer as well?

There’s a quiz after each chapter, which is all dealt with on the computer (or in the textbook, see above). All the grading is done automatically for you on the computer and it keeps a record of it all for you. (nice)

Update: The high school level Teaching Textbook programs do not include the automated grading.

Is there a “lesson plan” or something that tells me how to get through it in a school year?

I’m not really sure. In Teaching Textbooks Math 7, there’s 118 lessons plus a quiz after each of the 18 chapters, so assuming 1 lesson a day for an 180 day school year, that’s pretty much how to get through it in a year.

You could look at the Table of Contents in the Teaching Textbook  you are looking at and see how it would break down. I set goals for the kids this way, based on where they are at, and how many weeks are left in the term, and how many lessons I think they can get through in a week and then term allowing for days off and slippage.

We’ve chosen not to try to complete it in a year. It’s taken my daughter at least a year and a half. There have been some chapters where she did a whole lesson a day, and others where a 1/2 of a lesson a day is fine.

But my style is to just let them go through it at whatever their pace is and not worry about what level they are in each year…just continuing on until they learn it. 

If you are working & homeschooling like I am, or are math challenged, or have a child who does best with visual or audio teaching methods, then Teaching Textbooks is a good, solid, and thorough math curriculum worth looking at further.