Why do I follow HigherUpandFurtherIn's curriculum

I've been asked why do I follow Lindafay's curriculum when I love Ambleside Online so much. Well, here's the answer...from Lindafay. I just found this on a comment section of her year 3 page and she said exactly what I liked about her curriculum order. I couldn't say it any better:

The major differences between my schedules and AO are that I integrate Bible readings with ancient history and the children also learn US history during these early years rather than British History. They do the British readings, just later in fourth and fifth year. Also, in fifth year, we spend a whole year studying other non-European cultures-Africa, Middle East, Australia, Antarctica, India, etc…using great literature. (places AO doesn’t cover.) Some smaller differences are that I also changed some of the readings because they weren’t spread out evenly and easily for children, imo. I also added a few more items we found helpful.

Sunday School Teacher Appreciation Gift

Sunday is Promotion Sunday at our church, where our children are promoted to the next grade up in Sunday School. Over at Skip to My Lou's there is a wonderful idea for a teacher appreciation gift that we are going to make this week as a thank you gift to my children's teachers. It's so cute!!! Check it out - 7 Day a Week Teacher Appreciation! She has lots of very cute ideas. I love the Scratch Off Valentine cards!

Making Flubber

How do you start school fun??? By making Flubber. Do you remember the movie Flubber. Well, this is close but of course not REAL Flubber. We had fun and it gave the kids something to put in their school fun box for when they finish a subject early. Here's how we did it:

Ingredients:

Borax

Glue

Water

Measuring cup

Food coloring

Pour 2 cups of glue in a bowl. Add 1 & 1/2 up of warm water. Add food color at your preference.

In another bowl, mix 3 teapoons of borax with 1 & 1/3 cup of warm water.

Pour the water/borax mixture into the colored glue mixture. Now here comes the fun part. Put away the spoons, take off your rings, and dig in. You have to life up & turn the glue mixture over and over until you are left with about 1 tablespoon of water. The mixture will begin to gel together. 

Once you think you have all the water out that will come out, pour the water off the mixture and allow the "flubber" to dry just a minute or two.

It stretches! It bounces! It rolls! 

Store your Flubber in a zip lock bag tightly. It will seep out if it can!

Reading incentives

To help my children learn to read and work on their reading skills outside of our "school time", I would make game boards. I got this idea from Hooked on Phonics (which we loved!!). You can make game boards easily. Go to Donna Young's Game Board page and choose a game board. Each square could equal time increments (we used 15 minute increments) or a single book. I write what each square is worth on the square. When they complete that square, they either color it in or put a sticker in it. There is always a reward at the end. We live within 2 hours of Six Flags and they offer free tickets for reading. So our game board is always for a free day at Six Flags. We usually draw something at the end like "Yeah! We're going to Six Flags!"

We hang these on the refrigerator in plain sight. This makes it easy to remind them to do some extra reading. Also, seeing lots of stickers on a siblings map encourages others to "catch up".

This is a fun way to get them some extra practice. Most of my children are reading well, but we like this and will continue it this year!

The Movie "Orphans"

I was disgusted when I saw the previews for the movie "Orphans". Then I was so saddened to think that many people will believe this movie to be true. How many children will be affected by this movie? We are to protect and support these sweet children not portray them as evil!! Please sign the petition to bring awareness to the pain and sadness of this movie at: Sign the Petition. You may also go to the link at the bottom of my blog to learn more. Thank you for your loving support of those left behind.