Hi guys! Are you ready for Part 2? If you missed Part 1 of “What I Bought at the Homeschool Conference,” check it out here. (This is a picture of the lunch/snack area at the Homeschool Convention.)
The next thing I found, or should I say Meg, my 8 year old daughter found, was these handwriting books:
We were ready to purchase a new Handwriting book for Meg. I’ve seen these books many times before, but they just didn’t catch my eye enough to buy. But now that I look at it, I can see that it is perfect for her. It motivates her and that is the key; finding what motivates each child. (And ourselves, for that matter!) Thank you Meg.
Inside pages
On each page they show you how to draw something. The very specific ways they are drawing these lines are a help in writing letters. There is also a second book to buy to write in.
Each 2 pages has 1 page to draw your picture and the other page to write the words. There are 8 levels of these books and this is level 2. I like these books.
Then we bought this book on Cleopatra. A great history book. They call these “living books” as opposed to text books. Maybe they call those “dead books?” I don’t know.
These are full size paperbacks – about 9″x12″. We have a number of these on George Washington, Leif Erickson, Christopher Columbus, etc. They have great pictures and just the right amount of text.
On the back it says it’s for 3-8 year olds. I think these are good for all grade school ages, again, depending on the child.
Meg and Henry have both been interested in Cleopatra lately because they saw it on a little animated movie at BrainPopjr.com (Our children love this website. You can get a 5 day free trial. We are still assessing if we want to pay a yearly fee for it.) So I saw the book and thought I’d seize the moment of their interest.
This is what we do as parents that teach. We don’t force feed it. We notice a moment that they are naturally interested in something and then we simply, easily build on it little by little. “Oh you want more, ok, let’s read something else or go to the library or talk about it at dinner or search it out on the computer. Had enough? Ok, next thing.”
We just go with the flow. And I just have to say that it has taken me years to improve in this area. So. Now you get better at it, faster than I did. That’s an order! : )
Next I got this School House Rock computer software.
Perfect for Meg, 8 and Henry 6. 90% of the time our children are on the computer they are playing educational games like this.
My husband did buy an Atari one year recently for Christmas. Remember the kind we had when we were children? Hey, they love it! But I think it is stuck in the top of a closet right now.
The whole area of computer games is something I have avoided jumping into because it kind of seems like a bottomless pit. Just another reason to stay on the computer and we certainly don’t need any more of that. If the children get on the computer during the day, I try to limit it to 1 hour. Max. Hopefully : ) But I can see them, very soon, building websites and editing videos. We will see.
Ok, now, back to books for Mama! I also got this:
Uh oh, I hear you saying “She isn’t going to stop at homemade laundry detergent. She is going to make us do all kinds of weird, homemade things.” Oh don’t worry. It’s all going to be ok. And fun. And pushing comfort zones. And rethinking what we’ve been taught for years. And…..Eek. I better stop.
I’ll just let you know if I come across anything good. We’ll leave it at that for now.
And then I got this book.
It’s about teaching young ladies to be young ladies. Sounds good. Looking forward to that.
And Emma got this assortment of books which she reads at lightning speed.
Keeping her in books (that we approve of) is quite the challenge. But so far so good.
So that’s about it for this year’s conference.
For Our Other School Materials
Whenever we are ready for a new year on some subject, we just order it at that time. We don’t stay on a schedule like public/private schools. If we finish a math book in November, we order the next one then and work on it til we’re done.
Oh and one more thing. The websites for two of my favorite booths where we got some of these books are below:
Hope you’ve enjoyed this little shopping trip. Until next time.
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