The Huffmaster Family

I came across this awesome free game (although they do have a paid version as well) called Times Attack made by a company called Big Brainz! I downloaded it for my son, who hasn’t started multiplication yet but will this semester, after I got a recommendation from my friend April at Walking In His Ways. I was amazed since generally computer games “aren’t our thing”, but it’s colorful and very educational and geared for what seemed like my son personally. LOL It’s got fire, dragons, cavemen with big sticks, dungeouns etc.

Just very fun and my son who upon loading the game couldn’t tell you the answer to a multiplication problem (only fair to say because we’ve not studied that yet…that’s coming this semester *wink*) walked away knowing the answers to several problems that he figured out all on his own! It seems to really help with memory because throughout the game it repeats the previous problems. Anyway, it was just very fun so try it for yourself and enjoy! When you get to the Times Attack page, you’ll want to choose the base version (free) which teaches 2’s-12’s.

Blessings, Dawn

We are just moving right along since we started back to school last month! I’ve very pleased with the children’s progress!

Most everyone has finished their Lifepac Unit 1’s and are moving on to or for some well into unit 2 in each subject.  Before we started the Alpha Omega program I had heard that some found it very boring, but for us it’s quite the contrary. The children all say they are learning things they didn’t know before and they feel a sense of accomplishment as they finish each unit vs looking at a big ole textbook thinking they will never finish it. Of course we do use lots of supplementary materials as well. We love to read so the children have a wide variety of books at their disposal about various subjects and in different genres. Their minds never stop learning so I’m filling it the best I can!

This being just our second year of homeschooling I found the first year overwhelming as far as planning goes. With the Lifepacs it’s easier for us to set goals…1 unit per month and we take the number of pages in the lifepac and divide it by our number of school days to tell us how many pages need to be done each day. All the children keep up very well, although I do have some extraordinary acheivers who do far more than what is required, and that’s OK with me too! I also like that it’s budget minded and I only have to order units as I need them instead of everything at one time.

Ok so I’ve rambled on long enough about our curriculum choice I think!

I came across a blog called  The Quiverfull Family , where I found these audios by Robin Sampson owner of the Heart of Wisdom website. You can download the free homeschooling audio downloads here! To quote the owner of A Quiverfull Family

She is definitely a deep thinker with a heart for the Lord. I so appreciate her focus on keeping Jesus first in our homeschools, and keeping everything biblically focused.

and I tend to agree! Enjoy!

Blessings, Dawn

This is what I love about homeschooling. That’s big sister showing her little siblings a big fuzzy green caterpillar.

The children have decided they are bored, and want to keep doing school! How they can be bored with a new sister in the house is totally BEYOND me, but well…alrighty then! I’ll turn them loose on the books! ROFL

So we plan to “loosely” go ahead and start back up with our studies on Monday the 15th! I made up some lesson plans yesterday, and this is one reason I love the AO Lifepacs! The goal is to finish one unit (booklet) per month, so I can just take the number of school days we are shooting in any given month, and divide those into the number of pages their unit has and voila…lesson plans!

That way each child knows how many pages per day, per unit they need to do to meet their goal for the month, then take the unit test at the end! Super easy! So we’re enjoying these last few days of down time and gearing up for Monday!

On a side note of gearing up…I was excited to hear that Steve and Teri Maxwell of Titus 2 Ministries will be speaking for an evening session only, about 45 minutes or so away from us on Thursday the 18th! If finances and time allow, Lord willing, the baby and I (and possibly hubby) will set out that evening to go listen to them speak! Even though I’ve heard it can be sort of like one big infomercial (although I plan to buy NOTHING, just hoping to be able to pick up books and flip through them for later reference) I’m really hoping I can go, just so I can mark it down in the memory book as my first “homeschool conference” since we began home education!

Blessings, Dawn