Homeschooling

A Review of “Homeschool Planet” Daily Online Planner

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homeschoolplanet1

I’ve been tracking our homeschool assignments and hours in a planner. However, I needed something easier to use now that I have 2 kids that I am homeschooling. That’s when I decided to try Homeschool Planet.

homeschoolplanet

Homeschool Planet is “a full-featured planner that doesn’t require hours to learn how to use it. Just launch Homeschool Planet, click on the calendar, and start adding classes, assignments, and appointments!” (quote taken from their website)

What I like:

  • I can add assignments for each child easily.
  • If the assignment is basically the same the entire year – like Lesson 1, Lesson 2, etc, the program can input that in automatically for me and change the number assignment each day.
  • Along the same lines, if the assignment is “do the next chapter”, I can easily put that down for each day without copying and pasting it or writing it down each time.
  • I can pre-assign certain subjects for certain days.
  • You can allocate times to each assignment to help you keep track of your total hours. I don’t really rely on this. I manually write down how long each assignment took. However, I like that I have this option.
  • I can easily print the day’s assignments for each child on separate sheets of paper. You can keep these in a binder to have a record of what you have done.
  • It’s easy to move assignments around. Maybe life got in the way and you couldn’t do any schoolwork. You can easily move the assignments to the next day and all the future assignments will shift out (or you could say to double up for the next day).
  • You can view your whole family’s schedule together to see how every meshes together or view each member’s schedule separately.
  • There is a free 30 day trial so you can try it out and see if it’s a good fit for your family before you commit.

Homeschool Planet Screenshot

Overall – I love this planner and will renew my subscription.

Cost: Homeschool Planet costs $65 for a 1 year subscription OR $6.95/month.

View their website here to see a full list of features.

 

How I do Morning Family Devotions with 3 Kids

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Morning family devotions with 3 kids

I want to instill the practice of morning devotions with my children. We already do something right before bed, but I wanted to do something in the morning.

Previously, my oldest was supposed to read her devotional each day and write the focus verse. However, I don’t think she always did this or did it thoughtfully. She needed more accountability. I also wanted to instill the practice in all of my children and have them see it done each day.

My new plan:

We will all do devotions together each morning. Each child has an age appropriate devotion or children’s Bible to look at or read including the 3 year old. I will also have my Bible to read. This way, everyone sees the others doing their devotions, plus they see mom reading her own Bible.

I will usually read part of a proverb from my Bible out loud while the kids look through their books.

Then, I will read aloud from the youngest two’s devotion

Then I will ask my oldest what hers was about

So far this has worked for a few weeks. They know and expect that we do a devotion each day. I keep it short since the attention span of the youngest 2 are short.

These are the books I use:

Baby Bible ABC for my 3 year old

Day by Day Begin to Read Bible for my 5 year old

Adventure Bible Books of Devotions for my 8 year old

Cat & Dog Attitudes Homeschool Curriculum Review

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Catanddog attitudes curriculum review

Cat & Dog Attitudes! Living to Make God Famous! by UnveilingGlory

I saw this study at my homeschool convention last summer and purchased it. The part that appealed to me was that they teach character concepts using a cat and dog as a visual. A cat is an animal that is “me” focused. A dog is an animal that is “others” focused. Our goal is to be more like a dog – other’s focused. In this way we will glorify God.

There are 30 weeks of lessons with 3 lessons a week along with a weekly Bible verse.

Books that I use:

  • Parent’s Guide – It’s easy to read and tells you what to say.
  • Children’s Workbook – Gives some activities for your child and questions to answer for each lesson.
  • I heard Good News Today 2: Big Life – This book has many stories about various individual’s conversions to Christ in other parts of the world. The stories are relatively shortish and have nothing to do with the daily lesson focus. However, my kids are bored by them. They do get old after awhile since they have the same theme of a broken person coming to know Christ. I know that’s what Christianity is about, but the stories felt monotonous after awhile. Also, some stories talk about alcoholism & drug abuse, although briefly. I didn’t like that for my young kids.
  • Because He Liked It! 101 Glimpses of God’s Glory in the Animal World – We love this book! This cartoon like book focuses on the “strange” attributes that God created certain animals with. It’s fascinating! Good for science.
  • 102 Differences Between Cats & Dogs for kids. Love it! We read a few of these cartoons each day of the lesson plan. They visually help explain the difference in behavior between a cat and a dog.

My Opinion:

I am now half-way through the curriculum. The theme of “How to make God famous” doesn’t sit well with me. I’ve changed the wording to “How to glorify God”.

I still like the use of the dog & cat visual to talk about character traits. I like the memory verses.

We don’t always read the missionary story each day, so I supplement with something else. Otherwise, the curriculum is pretty light.

Do I regret using this curriculum? No. I like the cat & dog visual. That being said. I would prefer just to use the 102 Differences Between Cats & Dogs for kids book and do my own thing.

 

Doing a 31-Day Winter Read-Aloud Challenge for my Kids

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read

I came across a blog by Sarah Mackenzie called http://amongstlovelythings.com. She has a 31 day winter read-aloud challenge on her blog. Her challenge is to have my kids read aloud for 15 min a day, for 31 days. If they can’t read, they can make up a story using the pictures in the book.

The challenge got me to thinking about the benefits of reading out loud.

  • My child would be reading more and exposed to more ideas, vocabulary, etc
  • It would help my child practice their speech
  • It would provide additional input to my child’s brain. Not only are they using their voice, but “hearing” it also – multi-sensory
  •  It also helps the person they are reading too.

I look forward to hearing my oldest read to her 2 younger siblings. I also look forward to my 5 year old making up his own stories. I think that is a good skill to have. He may not be able to read a book yet, but he can use his creative juices to think up a good story.

Today was our first day or reading aloud. My 5 year old was very hesitant. I don’t know if he was scared to make up a story for fear that it would be wrong or I would get mad at him, or he just didn’t understand the concept. I finally managed to get him to make up a story using one of his easy reader Super Hero books. It took only a few minutes, not 15. We’ll work up to it. I’m anxious to see what happens to the stories as we do this everyday.

I found my 8 year old reading to my toddler. The timing wasn’t right since it was at bedtime and both were supposed to be in bed, but I zipped my lips and just let my oldest read. It was good practice.

I can’t wait to incorporate this practice on a daily basis and see what happens!