This past weekend one of my sisters gave me a special treat… she offered to babysit so we could have a date night! This was unexpected but very much appreciated. Not only did she come down to babysit but she also sent me to get a manicure… something I haven’t done in quite a while.
I tried to resist but I was glad that she insisted because I really did need that little bit of quiet time without anyone else. It allowed me to clear my head a bit and make some plans for the next couple of weeks. I made a few goals to work on and tried to form a plan of action to achieve these goals while I was out and about by myself… I probably should’ve written some of this down but I didn’t.
If the weather hadn’t been so chilly I might have stayed gone for a bit longer but I was freezing by the time I finished at the salon and ran a few errands so I headed back home… little ma’am was happy to have me back and she covered me with kisses when I returned.
We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and we pray that you have a Happy New Year! Our house is full as we’ve had some older kiddos visiting but that makes our hearts full as well so we have a good balance going on.
It’s hard to believe that this year is almost finished and a new year is about to begin. It’s definitely been an interesting year in many ways… the past couple of years have been interesting and have brought lots of hardships and trials but they have also brought us lots of unexpected blessings.
I read something earlier about letting out tears from 2022 be the seeds for 2023 and that sounds like a good idea to me. I know that 2022 has been a year of major adjustments here in our household. After spending most of 2021 in the hospital with Shyanne and away from our family, it has been quite an adjustment for everyone. I’ve also been dealing with some health issues but hopefully, I am on the way to getting better. It’s been a tough year for sure and it’s definitely been a struggle to get this far but we survived and I have faith that next year will be even better!
We have been using these books as part of our Art/Music studies. They make lessons so quick and easy and the kids love coloring the pictures while they listen to the various music selections.
We will often add an educational video from YouTube if they seem to be more interested in a particular composer/song.
The one thing that I haven’t found was tests to go along with the lessons which aren’t absolutely necessary but sometimes I like to have them just to see if they are really paying attention to what we are learning about or not.
Here are the ones I’ve completed:
COLOR THE CLASSICS – GODLY COMPOSERS (September – October – November)
I can’t believe that I haven’t found this site before but I just had to share it with everyone else because this is so awesome! I mean this can and will save me a ton of time and it makes some parts of homeschooling so much easier and my kiddos actually enjoy reading this series.
Magic Treehouse books are geared towards 1-4 grades (6-10 years old) but I’m actually going to be using them with my 3rd grader and my 5th grader because it’s just easier to combine things when I can. The older kiddos (and little miss) will be listening in as we will be in the same room so they will all be learning as we go.
**This post does contain some affiliate and/or referral links to products and/or services that we use. If you happen to click through a link and make a purchase we may earn a teensy-weensy small commission (at NO EXTRA cost to you) if a purchase is made through these links. These links help to support our family, our blog, and our homeschooling mission. This means that we can keep bringing you great recipes, ideas, and tips for FREE! Click HERE for a full disclaimer. –Thank you!
We usually school year-round so this week is a planning week for me… actually, it’s a ‘catch-up’ on everything around the house week before the place gets condemned (jk) kinda week but I have been getting some planning and printing done, and have the next three weeks of learning ready to go. I still felt like I needed a little more reading for the boys and I’d found a couple of Novel-ties study units but you know me… if we were going to do a few books out of the series why not do them all? BTW, I haven’t forgotten about the Little House on the Prairie Unit Studies and I will get back to them just as soon as I have a chance to catch my breath around here. I also have some plans to create a ‘ready-made’ unit study guide that can be used with just about any book…. when I find some spare time that isn’t already set aside for something else or being used to chase around the almost 2-year-old who is getting to be very mobile despite her prenatal diagnosis of ‘being nothing more than a vegetable’… she sure fooled them!
Where has the time gone? I can’t believe it’s been two years this week since little miss made her debut and I still remember how scary that was but she has been such a blessing to us and we are so very grateful to all of our prayer warriors for helping us get through those traumatic events… words could never express how grateful we are and how blessed we have been to be surrounded by so many loving and caring people!
Anyways, getting back to my reason for writing this post… I couldn’t find any ready-made unit studies for all of the books so I figured I’d just make my own, but who am I kidding? I don’t really have time for that right now so the next best thing was to ask my dear old friend, Google, and she hooked me up with some links to check out. Among them was a link to this wonderful blog post HERE, which is where I learned that the Magic Treehouse has a website and FREE Lesson Plans to go along with their books… WHATTTT????? Why has no one told me this before????
They also have a ‘special education’ lesson plan to use with grades 3-5 and this will work put great with our kiddos. My kids are already using the Living Education for Language Arts and Math so I’m not set on them needing any extra work but there are some great activities that we can definitely incorporate into our daily lesson plans. The site also has several different games and online activities for the kiddos but I haven’t had a chance to really check them out yet. Be sure to check the ‘Parents’ tab and the ‘Teachers’ tab for the different activities.
I just purchased a few of the ‘Fact Checker’ books as well to go along with these and I will buy a few at a time as we read through the series… there are more books than I had previously thought but you can never have too many books, right?
These would also be great to use for summer reading to keep the kiddos from getting bored!
I know most families are just now finishing up their 2021-2022 school year and looking forward to a few months off but we aren’t like most families. We’ve decided to adopt more of a year-round school schedule which allows us more flexibility to take time off whenever we need a break or have something important or unexpected come up… which has happened a lot lately!
We have it planned so that we can take a one-week break every three weeks or so with a two-week break around Christmas and at the end of our school year. We can adjust this as needed, for example, we could complete six weeks of school and take a two-week break if needed. Or we could have two weeks of school with a break and then have four weeks… we have a little bit of flexibility for whatever we need to do without feeling ‘rushed’ to get finished.
We finished our 2021-2022 school year back in March and I was tempted to take a few months off and not start back until August/September but I know from past experiences that this doesn’t go well and that it takes FOREVER to get a couple of the kids back into the school routine. You can read more about last year’s curriculum and routines HERE. Last year was pretty crazy but we adapted and we survived!
Last year I switched to some Living Education Books from Master Books for our Language Arts and Math and we absolutely loved them so we went with them again for this year. We used some materials that we already had on hand and I ordered a few new things to go along with our studies. So far, everything has been working out well and many of the studies have been overlapping/going right along with each other which has been really nice as it helps to reinforce what we are learning and gives a little bit of review as well.
