Home schooling High school

Assalm alykom:

With all my years in homeschooling, I have noticed that most families home school in the younger grades or at least until 8th grade. I have had a very difficult time finding any families who home school in high school. Well, I will be reaching this point next year. I am looking for any families who home school in high school. I would like to know if you use an online school and any pros and cons that you can tell me about your experience. You can contact me at umnour1@yahoo.com.

Some of my Favorite websites for Homeschooling

Assalam alykom:

I want to share a few websites that I find to be an integral part of my homeschooling. I use these sites everyday with my children.

http://www.spellcity.com/ This site is has made my children great spellers. You can create your own spelling lists for each of your children, regardless of the level of the child. There is a section that teaches the child the words, tests the child, and a games section that uses the words. They have a new feature now that you can create your own sentences to go with your words. I used the kids names. They were excited to hear their names in Arabic being pronounced.

Another site that I found, helps with memorizing Math facts for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. It is full of interactive games that they can play. My kids just love it and cannot wait to do it each day. This is the web site: http://www.fun4thebrain.com/ They have a sister website for multiplication that has worksheet drills that you can print out. I like to use them to time my children. http://www.multiplication.com/

Here are a few other websites that I use for the younger grades to help with their phonics.

http://www.iknowthat.com/com

There is also http://www.starfall.com/ . I am sure every homeschooler knows this site. It has been around for a long time. I have used it for all my children and really taught them to read from it. I hope you find these useful.

Play Dough Arabic Letters

I am now on my fourth child learning Arabic. My husband and I make a combined effort to teach our children Arabic. I start them out with their letters and then we work up to connecting words. Once we reach the grammar rules, I have to turn them over to my husband. I like doing play dough with my children. The Arabic letters are so curvy and artistic that the younger children have a little trouble writing them at first. Doing play dough helps them to create the letter that they would not likely be able to write very well. I used a common recipe for play dough.

You'll need:
Flour 3cups
Salt 1 1/2 cups
Water 3 cups
Vegetable Oil 2TB.
Cream of tartar 1TB.
Food coloring few drops or unsweetened "Kool-Aid" 1pkg.

Mix ALL of the ingredients in a large saucepan.Cook over medium low heat, until the dough comes away from the edges of the pan and it becomes difficult to move the spoon. Remove from heat. Cool until it can be handled.Place on counter or wax paper knead 3-4 times.Store in an air tight container. I put glitter in mine to make it more fun. I also found neon colors of food coloring, and they are nice and rich with color. I have also used tempera paints in the past.

I have a second grader also and she is now forming sentences. I found this book and I really like it. She is able to do the book and it is nice and colorful to keep her interested.

The pumpkin patch

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Here is another field trip we took. It was a local pumpkin patch. Here is the link for it.

It is quite a place! It has animals , rides, and of course pumpkins! My children had a great time!

A Fly Craft

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I was teaching my little girl who is in kindergarten about bugs. We were learning about the house fly as one of the bugs. It is quite a gross creature! We stumbled upon this little craft and my 7 year old daughter made one also. They had fun running around the house smacking their older brother and sister with the flyswatter. Click here for the template.

Field Trips

Assalam alykom:

I am planning this year to do many field trips with my kids. This has been something a little lacking in our past homeschooling days. We were always moving around. So, planning field trips did not make the school year each time. We took our first trip to a local family apple orchard. It is very close to our home. The orchard was family owned and operated. The family was so kind to us. The owner gave each child a bag and allowed us to pick all different kinds of apples. She explained how the orchard worked. She had a small area where they made apple cider and showed the kids how it was made. She had a apple sorter and polishing machine and she ran a few apples to show us how they sort them all. In the end, we bought a bag of apples and some cider. From the bags she gave the kids to pick their own, we had so many apples. My daughter tried her hand at an apple pie and it was very delicious. We are planning to go to a local pumpkin patch this week. My son is studying American History and of course the American Indian. I am calling around to local reservations with the hopes to visit and learn more about their culture.

Another year down in homeschooling

Assalam alykom:

I have been so busy to put time in my blogs. I have really wanted to update my readers on my homeschooling journey. This is our 9th year of homeschooling with the exception of one year that we all went to an Islamic school. This year and last we used the Oak Meadow books. I had one child at 7th grade, then, 5th grade, and 1st grade. I have to say, this is the most economical full packaged curriculum. I also have to say it is not the most high quality either. The saying goes that you get what you pay for. For first grade, I still am not happy at all with the level of teaching. It is so light that it almost seems uneducational. I realize that it is a different form of education that is similar to the Waldorf style. However, I wonder where the child eventually catches up with reading and math. At first grade, there is still very little reading, if any and math has almost no computation at all. I supplemented my own, and felt I wasted my money on the curriculum. For second grade, I just went to Ebay and bought some things. I got the Scott Foresman Language Arts and Singapore Math. The local Catholic school was retiring their Science, Health and Social studies. I bought them for a small donation along with the teachers manuals. Last year, I had a 5th grader and a 7th grader. I like some parts of the Oakmeadow in the upper grades. For next year in 6th grade, I already have that whole curriculum from my other child. To save money, we are just going to go ahead and teach it to my daughter. For 8th grade, I decided to pick and choose. I like the English and the History in Oak Meadow. It has them reading classics instead of the new books. These classics tend to be more wholesome and have more meaningful stories. I also like the writing that is in the Oak Meadow. It has a great deal of writing and my children are really good writers from it. They can writer a 2 to 4 page report on something in a blink of an eye. Their reports are organized and their content is very good. I decided to switch to Singapore Math and Science. The science in Oak Meadow is really uneducational. There is not much explanation and the experiments almost never work. The math is very light and easy for my son. I think that he could be more challenged. So, I decided to try the Singapore math. Also, I got it much cheaper on Ebay than the Oak Meadow Math. This year I am going to also add another student. My 4 year old daughter will now be part of our school. She will be 5 soon and needing to be taught kindergarten. I have not worked with her at all. I am in no hurry since I have my hands full with the other three. My husband is taking over my oldest exclusively. This way I have more time to spend with the other three. Also, the higher grades are more complicated, and I spend alot of time studying and understanding the material so I make sure they are getting the best knowledge. Overall, we had a great year! Our new little farm was a great educational lab for the kids. We saw baby goats born before our eyes, we watched barn swallow build nests and raise their young, we have so much area to run and play, it is so dark we can see every star like a planetarium, the list of wildlife is on going, we have seen pheasant, deer, porcupine, raccoons, woodpeckers, opossum, chipmunks, honeybees, lighting bugs, coyotes, hawks, geese, humming birds, rabbits and the list goes on. I pray that all of you homeschooling families have had as much success this year as my family has had!

A Recycled Picnic Table

Assalam alykom:

The nice thing about old farm properties is that you can find alot of Junk. I made this table out of old planks of wood that I found in my barns and cinder blocks that where scattered through out my pastures. My kids and I cleaned up the wood an nailed them together to form the top. Then we just used planks of various sizes to form the seats. It is not as stable as a real table, and I always tell everyone to sit at your own risk. We have enjoyed many dinners outside so far on it. I love any craft that turns junk into a usable item.