Using the Bible as Your Primary Textbook
Ask any veteran homeschooler about burn-out, and she’ll quickly get to the topic of curriculum. What mother hasn’t sincerely purchased piles of curriculum only to discover later that her choices were a terrible fit for her family? (Waving my hand here!)
If you’re already partway into your homeschooling year, yet you’re worried about the curriculum choices you’ve made, you probably don’t have the money to just throw it all away and start over.…
Anne, you state that you use Abeka to teach reading, yet you also say that All About Spelling is your favorite spelling/phonics program. Do you use both at the same time, or use Abeka for two years (K & 1st) than switch to AAS in 2nd grade, or maybe some other combination altogether? Also, could AAS be used alone, as the only resource for teaching reading & spelling? From my preview of their website, I almost think AAS could be used alone, adding in readers as the child progresses.
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Note: We strongly urge you to purchase the following book by Ruth Beechick, before attempting to use our vocabulary suggestions:
How We Teach Vocabulary
When we were students, we remember having lists of vocabulary words to learn each week. Starting in the younger grades, we would have to learn three or four words per week, with definitions. The words were easy and predictable at first, with common prefixes and suffixes. As we matured, we found ourselves learning up to twenty new vocabulary words per week, and that was not counting the words we memorized for other subjects, such as math, history and science. I remember cramming for each Friday’s test, desperately looking for some way to remember all the precise definitions. As a good student, I consistently scored well on these tests – until the time came for an end-of-the-year review. I never did well on that test! There was just no way to remember the meanings of an entire year’s worth of unfamiliar words.…
Note: We strongly urge you to purchase one of the following books by Ruth Beechick, before attempting to use our spelling suggestions:
Spelling… It was troublesome for me when I was a child, yet my husband claims it was his favorite subject. God has made each one of us unique, and this uniqueness shows up especially well in spelling! That’s why we’d like to take a moment to explain our philosophy.…
We believe that so much of what we call “Language Arts” is much easier learned in the context of actual language.Not only will your children learn all the separate components of language, but they will also see how real words operate in real-life writing.…
We have agonized over handwriting in our house. We have two seemingly conflicting viewpoints: First, we don’t consider handwriting “busy work.” Rather, we think handwriting should be incorporated into the other subject areas your children are learning, such as Bible, history, science and literature. On the other hand, as we’ve been evaluating numerous handwriting products on the market, we have noticed a similar theme… children need lots of practice to become efficient at handwriting!…
We have fallen in love with a very unique method of grammar, called the K.I.S.S. Approach and designed by Dr. Ed Vavra, a professor of English grammar at Penn College. We encourage you to visit his website and read more about the K.I.S.S.…
Writing is one of the tools God has given us to communicate with others. Not only can writing be a more permanent form of communication (than, say, speech), it is also more closely evaluated than speech. For instance, if we make a grammatical error while we’re telling about our visit to the mall, most people won’t even notice. However, if an author makes an error in his writing, everything else he says will be looked at with suspicion. Does this author really know what he is talking about? Is he careless?…
(Originally written in 2001, when my oldest son was in kindergarten, to give some advice to a friend …)
Hi, friend…
My dishes are done and my laundry is folded, so now I can play for a few minutes. I’m going to try to write down my favorites for homeschooling in every area I can think of, to help you get started. Okay, let me go down through the subjects in the order we do them each day.…
Anne, I have seven children, but we’re having trouble with spelling. I used Ruth Beechick’s books for my first 5 children successfully to teach spelling. This has not been the case with my last two boys. I feel swamped at all the choices of spelling curriculum and need to come up with a plan soon to help them be successful (especially the 13-soon-to-be-14-year-old, who still struggles with spelling when he’s writing essays, etc.).
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For May 12-18, 2013
Torah
1: Numbers 4:21-37
2: Numbers 4:38-49
3: Numbers 5:1-10
4: Numbers 5:11-6:27
5: Numbers 7:1-41
6: Numbers 7:42-71
7: Numbers 7:72-89
Haftarah
Judges 13:2-25
Apostolic Scriptures
Romans 4:1-8:39
Download Schedule
Homeschool Helps
Naso at www.TorahSchool.org
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