A Beka Consumer Math

Consumer Math Workbook

This year we are using A Beka Consumer Math with my high school seniors.  They have gotten through Algebra II and wanted something more practical this year. (and easier LOL)

I chose this book because our cousin uses it in her school.  We had never used A Beka products before now.  I know A Beka has their own course schedule and lesson plans and honestly I never looked at them.  I think they are in the teacher's guide which I have yet to open.  Maybe I should have, however, I went through the book and organized a year long plan along with assignments.  I know I will be using this again with my youngest child when she is ready so I need to put it somewhere where I can access it later and thought my blog is as good a place as any.  So here it is.

I based my year on a 36 week year.  I give them a day break after each test day and a break here and there.  I aimed for 4 days of assignments each week and some weeks there are 5 days.  I didn't assign all the exercise problems, as I know my kids don't need all that practice.  I assigned worksheet pages from the workbook but won't be having them do any of the skills check that is on top of the pages.  They will only do the lesson exercises on the bottom half of the workbook pages. So when I assign a "worksheet" and it is two pages, it refers to the workbook page numbers and they will only be doing the reviewing exercises on the bottom half of each page.

Consumer Math Textbook

I didn't look at the calendar when I planned this year.  When there is a holiday one day then I will push the "free" day to the holiday and plan the rest of the week accordingly.  We will probably take the whole week for Thanksgiving but if we don't then they will do the whole week in three days instead of 5 or skip the worksheet if it is scheduled for that week.

You are welcome to use these assignments or adapt them for your own use.  If you do use them, please just comment "thank you" in the bottom so I know others are using these assignments too.  Let me know if you like, how you like them and if you would like me to post more of my curriculum I use with my kids.

You can buy the textbooks at abeka.com. You really only need the student Text, student workbook, and teacher's edition text, teacher's edition workbook.  That way you have the answers.  You might be able to find them used for sale too.

Here is the link to the Google Doc that has the whole plan.
Abeka Consumer Math Year Plan with Daily Assignments

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin - Homeschool Literature Unit

Let me first say..... WE LOVED THIS BOOK!!!

It takes a couple chapters to get into it but once you do, if you like a good mystery, then you are hooked!

I borrowed three of the same books (same publisher, same publishing date) from our local library.  I chose this book because my kids love to watch mystery-type shows and thought they would enjoy a good mystery.   I also chose this book because I already had a workbook to do while reading the book.  You can buy it here: The Westing Game .  There are sales throughout the year and I think I bought it on one of the "pay what you want" sales they have every  couple months.

I printed out the workbook pages for the kids and put it in a folder with those three prongs in it.  This way it wasn't in their regular English notebook.  It was special.  I also created bookmarks for the kids with their name on the top of it so we could see whose book was whose from the bookmark.  The bookmark also had a picture of the book and on the back had special vocabulary.  Actually if I were to do this again I would have put the list of characters on the back. Throughout the book it can be a bit confusing who is who.  It would have been helpful to have a basic character sketch on the back of the bookmark. (I hadn't read the book when I created the bookmark).

We cruised right along with reading the introduction and about the author prior to beginning the novel.  We talked about the time period and that they didn't have ready access to computers, no internet, and no cell phones.

As we read we discussed the clues and discussed the characters.  The kids were assigned the workbook work as they read as well.  After a while we gave up on the "before you read" pages and focused on the while you read and after you read pages. By the end, we gave up on the questions all together and just discussed the questions together aloud.  We did focus on vocabulary though (as this was what my kids needed) and created a "murder board" on our white board. (read below for why)

With a bit more research on the book since we finished it, I found this awesome document that gives great study questions and chapter vocabulary.  Beware, it automatically downloads to your computer and takes Microsoft Word to open.  It is worth the download.

Here is another one that gives space for answers but has no vocabulary.  It is all short answer questions.

There are so many characters and clues that it can be hard to keep up with.  We ended up creating a "murder board" on our white board with the clues, characters, etc.  The kids created what they needed to keep track.  However, I found this great graphic for organizing all the information,

I also found an excellent, inciteful character list (don't read it if you don't want to know who wins until you read the book).

If you found this post helpful, please leave me a quick "thank you" comment, and if you would like me to continue to post our curriculum, let me know that too.  :)

Tom Sawyer ..... Homeschool Literature Unit

It's been a while since I posted a unit that we were working on.  This one is on Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.  It is geared for Middle School but you can use it with elementary school and even high school.  We are high schoolers here and I adapted the sources I found to my kids and their learning styles.

The front etching found on the first edition.

Tom Sawyer is an American Classic.  Mark Twain wrote in the preface that he wanted to write a Tom Sawyer as a satire against the other children's books where the main character was always good, helpful, honest, and warm-hearted.  He knew this was not always a reality. He wanted to write a 'real' story about childhood.  He based his characters off people he knew including himself and told stories in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn that really happened to both himself and some other boys he knew.
book.
which kids will enjoy and adults will find themselves reminiscing about their 'good ole days' (my term not his).  When it was written, cities were booming with buildings and hustle and bustle of people everywhere.  Life was busy and people dreamed of simpler times; times when they were younger, without a care in the world.  They dreamed of moving out of the city and into smaller towns.  Twain wrote

In it he describes the scenes so clearly that you can picture them in your mind as they are playing out in the book.  He uses dialogue in real dialect for the times and from his childhood days living in Hannibal, Missouri.

This story is a great 'read aloud'.  It lends itself well in both narration and in dialogue to reading out loud.  With a bit of practice you can get the cadence and dialect of the language.  While reading aloud you may even find yourself reading faster and faster as the action climaxes.  After a few pages the characters begin to come alive and for me, they take on voices of their own.  As a family, we find ourselves laughing at the events in this book, particularly the church scene in chapter 5.

When choosing this novel, I researched online for a study guide or a literature unit that was already done.  I found these:

This one from Scholastic - 4 printables
And this one from Glencoe -this one is a whole workbook that you can print and complete.


Here is a great source for character studies:

Character List
Character Map
Character Analysis - look on the left hand side and scroll down to find the names of the main characters.

Here are some sites for quizzes to take online:

Interactive Quiz
Another Quiz - this one has several kinds of quizzes.
Another one - look on the left column and find the second quiz on this site too.  Submit your answers for grading.
Essay Questions

We borrowed our last novel we read together from the local library, but this time I didn't have time to make a request to the library to gather enough books for us.  So I just went to the book store and bought four.  It is not the most cost effective, but I wanted everyone to have their own book and I needed one too.  The bookstore didn't have four of the exact same book from the same publishing company.  I bought two of the same and one of another and one of yet another publisher.  All books had the same words and didn't paraphrase or rewrite the book in a different way.  So while we weren't all on the "same page" we were all reading the exact same story with the exact same words.  A bonus from getting three different book publishers was that we had a couple different introductions that we read to prepare us for the book.  One book had footnotes that gave additional background information.  One book had pictures throughout.  That was encouraging to one of my kids as they enjoyed seeing the pictures of the scenes while reading.


If this post was helpful for you please leave me a quick "thank you" comment so I know that it is worth my time to post these.  If you would like to see more or would like to suggest a book you want more curriculum on let me know that too.  We may have already read it, but no matter, I enjoy searching for curriculum and creating stuff too. :)

Hoot! By Carl Hiaasen

A week ago we began a new novel.  It is called Hoot, by Carl Hiaasen.  It was published in 2002.

It is a story about a kid who moves to Florida and has some trouble with some bullies.  In the process of dealing with this he ends up in a mystery that involves a new pancake house being built, alligators, poisonous snakes, and some burrowing owls.

We are thoroughly enjoying this novel and find ourselves laughing at the antics.  We are also learning a lot about the nature in Florida including burrowing owls and how to deal with a bully.  This novel does have some "language" in it and I find myself changing some of the cuss words to more appropriate words.  My kids are teenagers so they have heard these words before but still try to replace these words as best we can when we can.

Hoot lends itself to a science research project.  So far we have researched the Burrowing Owls and the laws that protect these creatures.

My older two began to work on lapbooks about the owls. They are not completely finished but so far this is what they look like.

This novel was also made into a movie and we were excited to watch it.  However, when we did we all felt that we enjoyed the book so so so much better.

Here is a You Tube video of burrowing owls.  There is no commentary, just the owls.
This video has commentary and while pretty "dry" gives lots of information about the owls.

This website is all about the Burrowing Owl and has lots of great information and videos about them.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has good information about the Burrowing Owl and other wildlife in Florida.

We love incorporating learning through our reading.  It feels more natural that way.  It feels more purposeful as well.

Carle Hiaasen has also written other novels as well.  We will most likely be reading more of his novels.

How to Create a Unit Study around a Book. Snowflake Bentley, By Jacqueline Briggs Martin

There are so many different methodology for creating curriculum for your child.  Homeschooling allows you to cater to your child's interests and needs.  Here I give you just a few of many ways to create a unit study around a book of interest.

FIRST, choose a book or novel that interests your child.  Often it is easiest to create a unit study from a book that is historically based, about a real person, or has a science theme.

Let's take the book Snowflake Bentley, by Jacqueline Briggs Martin.


This is a nice little book that you can read in about 5-20 minutes. It is a nice story about a man named Wilson Bentley.  He was homeschooled for most of his schooling. It talks about his interests and what he did with his interests and how he made an impact on the science and weather communities.

NEXT, determine the subjects that you can pull from the book. This book has a science theme along with a history piece, and we are reading a biography.  This lends itself to having a science component, a history component, a literature/writing component, and because of the topic of photographing snowflakes, art.

List the subjects:
1. Science
2. History/Social Studies
3. Literature/Writing
4. Art
maybe even Math.


THIRD, depending on your child's age and abilities you will want to create the lessons.

Let's start with History/social studies.  Bentley was born in 1865.  This was right at the end of the Civil War.  You can discuss this.  You can find on a map where he was born.  You can create a timeline of his life, noting all the ages and events in his life. You can add to the time line other major events going on during his life time. (ie. wars, presidents, etc)

Science: This book lends itself well to so many different facets of science.  First, he studies weather.  You can study and record the weather for a two week period noting differences in temperature, humidity, or even as simple as recording sunny, rainy, and cloudy days. Next, he studies snowflakes. You can study how snow is formed, how snowflakes are formed and look at microscopic photos of snowflakes including the actual photos that Bentley took. (see notes and links below)  You can study how microscopes are used and what they do. You can look in a microscope at raindrops, snow if you have some, and other items.

Literature/writing: Because this is a biography, you can look up Wilson Bentley in the encyclopedia or online and gather more information about this man and his work.  You can also use this opportunity to define new words/vocabulary from the book and research using encyclopedias or online,  snow, snowflakes, microscopic cameras and the sort.  Have your child write a biography of him/herself or summarize Bentley's life and work.  You can have your child keep a journal during this unit study of the weather, what he/she is learning, and what they think about Bentley and his works.

Art: Create paper snowflakes. Draw snowflakes on black paper with white crayon, copy some of the photos by drawing them on black paper as Bentley did. Discuss how the snowflakes are 6 sided and all the same.

Math: Chart the weather on a graph, count the six sides of the snowflake, use snowflakes to practice math facts, multiply and divide according to numbers of spikes on the six spokes of the snowflake.  Just make it up as you go along. Predict rainy weather according to probability.  You can do anything with math.

Be open to new ideas that arise as you read the book.  Pay attention to your child and the interest level that he/she shows.  Make new activities using these interests.

Create lessons to cover across your children's ages.  You can beef up any of these plans for older children including having them act out his life, make a stop animation video of his life from Legos or other figures, or ask them to further research the science of snow and forecasting the snow and write a report.  Also, the story is written in poem form. You can do a ton with this topic for your older children, but remember, the older kids like to make paper snowflakes just as much as the younger ones. {wink wink}  Listen to your older kids' questions.  That will clue you into what they want to learn and can guide you to creating meaningful projects for them too.  I can't tell you how many times they ask me a question and I say, "I don't know but we can look that up.  Why don't you research that and bring us the answer?"

FINALLY, determine how you will put this all together.  Often times, we use lapbooks (folders) to keep and present the material we have learned.  It keeps it all organized and makes an easily transportable and easy to store package.

Resources for Snowflake Bentley online.

The Snowflake Bentley official website.

A beautiful YouTube video of Snowflake Bentley's snowflakes set to music.

A Quia Quiz on Snowflake Bentley.

A great website all about Snowflake Bentley and snow.

The beauty of the internet is that as parents/teachers we have the world at our fingertips.  We can search any topic and we have a multitude of great resources available to us.

Fun books to use for Unit Studies:

Magic Treehouse Books, by Mary Osborne Pope (K-4th grades)

Dear America series books (4-9th grades)

American Girl books (3-8th grades)

I Survived series by Lauren Tarshis (4-9th grades)

Don't be afraid to create your own unit study for your children. It is not hard and you don't have to spend a lot of time on it.  Sometimes just reading the book together and listening to the questions your child asks you will help to create activities surrounding the book.

There are many times I just choose a book and begin to read it with my kids and the unit study evolves while we read.

The Great Wheel - Homeschool Lesson on The Ferris Wheel, 1893

Several months ago we bought a curriculum that we thought we would use solely, however that didn't pan out but I kept the books and such and have been pulling this and that from it all year long.

I pulled this one off the shelf a week or so ago and we began reading it.


The Great Wheel, by Robert Lawson.  It is about the building of the first Ferris Wheel for the Chicago's World's Fair in 1893.  The fictional story is weaved in with factual information about the construction of the wheel.  The main character, Conn is an Irish immigrant and we follow him from Ireland, on the boat to America, and his involvement with the Ferris Wheel. The story is intriguing and both me and my preteen children enjoyed the story.

I picked it up with really no plan other than to read it together as a family.  From our read much has sparked our interest.  We are at this point half way through the story and we have already done quite a bit of research on the first Ferris wheel as well as on Mr. Ferris himself.  We have also had great discussions on concrete and how it sets, setting footings for large buildings and structures, and on weight disbursement.

I thought I would offer a few sites that we found some great information to help your lesson if you choose to read this wonderful story.

Here is a wonderful "Mixbook" that someone created with photos of the great wheel which gave us a better understanding of how big this thing was and what it all looked like.  It also has photos of typical homes in Ireland at the time and typical people who would have worked on the wheel.

Here is an great article of the creation and end of the Ferris Wheel of the Exposition of 1893.  It uses higher vocabulary as much of it is from news articles of the time.  Meant for older students and adults.

Here is a pretty thorough article of the 1893 World's Fair.  It includes information about Nicola Tesla's experiments, women's rights, a telautograph, and lots more.  It also has pictures of the fair as well as the advertising art and maps of the grounds.

Here is a good picture of the carriages.

Here is a great picture of the Ferris Wheel.

Here is a good picture of how big the carriages were.

Here is a picture of it towering over all the buildings of the Fair. It stood 296 ft tall.


Here is a great YOU TUBE video created by a group of students on the 1893 World's Fair.  It gives a wonderful overview of the fair.

I will continue to add to this post as we continue to read the book and find more interesting things to research.

If you found this post helpful, please leave me a quick "thank you" comment.  This way I know that posting things like this is worth my time.  If you have any questions or comments or suggestions please post those in the comments as well. :)

Happy Reading!

Nerdy Ned's Totally Awesome, Super-Cool Bible Stories

I can't believe I haven't shared this book with you yet.

We have been including Bible study in our lessons each day. About a month ago I bought this book from Sam's Club. I thought it might help us get to know the stories in the Bible quickly and in a fun way.

We have really enjoyed this book. It is quick and easy and leaves out a lot of the details of the stories but gets to the jist of the stories. We have had great discussions with this book and at times gone to the Bible for more of the story.  There are cartoon-like drawings in the book too, to keep the kids interested and space for the kids to "doodle" also. If you are looking for a book like this for your kids/grandkids, I highly recommend!

Updating our Homeschool Curriculum

This past weekend I bit the bullet and began to feel guilty that my kids weren't learning spelling words and weren't getting much grammar in the Sonlight program.  So I bought these new items to round out our learning this year.

For the 4th grader:

• Evan-Moor Building Spelling Skills 3 (I went down a grade because I know she isn't ready for the 4th grade version yet)

• Spectrum Language Arts Grade 3 (Again this is where she is)  I anticipate she will finish this up pretty quickly and we will move on to Grade 4 before spring time.

• Evan-Moor Daily Paragraph Editing 3

• Carson-Dellosa, Skill Builders - Grammar Grade 3

• Carson-Dellosa Skill Builders Reading Comprehension Grade 3

For the 7th graders:

• Spectrum Language Arts Grade 6 (again, they aren't quite ready for higher levels, plus Spectrum only goes up to Grade 6 in this book)

• Evan-Moor Building Spelling Skills Grade 5 (This is where they are)

• Evan-Moor Daily Paragraph Editing 4 (I got this on super sale.  I will use it with the older ones and it will be easy but I have it also for the younger one when she is ready for it)  I will get the level 5 when they finish these.

• Carson Dellosa Reading Comprehension Grade 5 and Grade 6 (one needs one and one needs the other)

• Carson Dellosa Grammar Grade 6 (I will use this for extra practice from the other language arts book)

• Rainbow Bridge Skill Builders - Reading Grade 6 (This will be an extra practice for the kids as well)

My focus will be on building skills so they can master these and then move on.  I am pleased with my choices and we will be beginning these tomorrow morning.  Yippee!

I still have a bit more tweaking to do with our plan and I need to work on Science instruction.  I think we are going to focus on units here.  

Free Homeschool Curriculum Pack - My Side of the Mountain

This is an awesome freebie and I hope you are able to take advantage of it.  It is for just a few days but even if you don't get a chance to get this for free, it is still a great deal at $9.99.  This is a curriculum pack for the book My Side of the Mountain.  What I like about this is that the book tells of a boy (teen years) who lives and camps on a mountain.  It talks of survival skills and getting ready for winter.  This is all right along with what we have been interested in, in our family.  Getting ready for what ever happens.  Preparing for the coming seasons, etc.  We will be studying this book and the skills that go along with it.

So here is the link, be sure to read the "fine print" to get the coupon code.  This deal is only through October 24, 2012, so hurry along and get this download.




http://www.freehomeschooldeals.com/free-my-side-of-the-mountain-a-literature-unit-based-project-pack-91-pages-save-9-99/






Have a great day!

Homeschooling 101, part 2 (and Freebie)

This is a 2 part article on my homeschooling panic and return to reality.  To read part 1 find it here.

In my struggle to figure out what I was doing wrong I went back to my sources.  Clearly other people were not having the same troubles as me.  Why was I struggling so?

I went back to the internet to look at other families and what they were doing and what I was doing wrong.  I searched for a plan book that would help me organize my thoughts and my ideas.  I found a few things, but nothing that I loved.

I decided on these things.  I went from year calendars to month calendars and then all the way down to weekly schedules.

This one is from donnayoung.org

Find these awesome month calendars at freehomeschooldeals.com

I also printed out Book Lists.

I can't wait to fill them in with all the books we have read.  I plan to have the kids each fill one out with the books they read through the year and then I will fill one in with all the books we read together as a family.

You can find the Book List forms at freehomeschooldeals.com.









Then I moved on to a Semester Planner.  I like that each semester is on one sheet of paper.  You can see that I have already begun filling it in.

Now I am beginning to see where we are going this year academically.












I made my own weekly scheduling pages since I didn't find any that I loved.  I used Open Office to create this and I have the file right here for you if you want to use it too.


I made the pages colorful by adding color to the text.


Now I am finally beginning to see where we are going and what we are doing each day.  I may not plan every week and I won't be planning our math for the older kids as their math program goes along in lessons and they do a lesson a day pretty much.  I don't have to plan for that.


It may also be a good idea to use these as an historical record of what we did each day.  I will be adding the books we read, the topics we study, the activities we do and the field trips we go on.

I am finding that most homeschool families teach a skill to mastery.  My kids didn't always master all the math, spelling, and reading skills they needed and I will be spending some good time with them on these skills so they master them.  I truly believe that this sets homeschooled kids apart from public schooled kids.  It is the level of mastery.

In the process I realized that the state only requires me to provide math and reading scores.  Realized probably isn't the word, remembered is more like what I am trying to say here.  I remembered.  Then I rationalized.  "If I am only to turn in reading and math scores and that is all we get done this year then I am okay by the eyes of the state."  If we get other stuff done too then I am better than the minimum, right?  We will read and we will do math.  We will learn lots more stuff in the process too.  We will read these books I have spent a TON of money on and we will learn from them too. Bonus right???

A bit more organization for us are these great buckets.  Each child has their own bucket with their name on it.  They keep all their notebooks, workbooks, and projects in it.  Inside they also keep their pencil and crayon case.  Everything is in the bucket.






These are our flash cards.  Most came from Target and are so useful for memory practice.

Homeschooling 101

Boy do I feel like I am in the midst of a college level class and I am struggling to figure out what the professor is really trying to say.  I sit in class, I listen, I take notes, I read the textbook, but they say one thing, I read about something completely different and then when I go to take the test none of the questions are anything about what the professor said or what I read and studied.  Sheesh!

Homeschooling 101: 

Here are things I have read.  Everyone does it differently.  All families are different. Teach what the kids are interested in. Most families teach skills to mastery.  

Here are things I have heard from others.  Everyone does it differently.  All families are different. Teach in units. Explore your world.

Here are things I learned from the homeschooling convention last June.  You need to pick a curriculum.  Get stuff for all subjects and don't forget handwriting, grammar, Bible, and all the extras. Everyone does it differently.  All curriculums are expensive.

Here is what I have learned from being a teacher in public and private schools for the past 19 years.  Curriculum must be well rounded.  Cover as much as you can in a year.  Electives are important.  Social Studies and Science are VERY important subjects to learn.

Here is what I learned from the homeschool laws of Virginia (where we live).  You must turn in a list of subjects you plan to cover over the course of the year.  At the end of the year you must turn in standardized test scores for reading and math for each child. Period!

So in my effort to be prepared I have scoured the internet looking for homeschooling families and reading their daily schedules, lists of subjects they are learning, and the curriculum they use.  I went to the Homeschool convention here in town (our state convention) and I listened to the speakers, I talked to the people in the vendor's hall and listened and looked at all the curriculum out there.  I thought about where my kids were in school (public school) and figured their grade levels were correct since they were all making decent grades in school.  I brought home all the catalogs and literature that they gave us.  I read homeschooling magazines,  and I talked to any other homeschooling moms I could.

I read more.  I surfed the internet more.

I emailed other homeschooling moms.

I chose a curriculum.  I paid a TON of money for it.  I opened the boxes when they arrived and was excited to see the wonderful books I paid a TON of money for.  I was happy.  I took the instructors guide to bed with me that night.  I pulled the books we would begin with. We started the next day.  I read to not let the curriculum guide you but for you to guide the curriculum.  I WANTED to check off the boxes when we finished with each thing.  I WANTED the curriculum to guide us.

In regular school (public or private) the teacher stands in the front of the classroom and the kids sit in the desks, eyes open and pencils sharpened and ready to learn.  The teacher teaches.  The students learn.  This is what my kids did on the first day with our new things.  They sat around the kitchen table and looked at me.  I started to "teach".  But it didn't go well.  We didn't know where we were going.  We didn't understand how this curriculum was set up.  There were no textbooks so we didn't know the sequence of things.  We didn't understand what we were to get from this reading.  I went back to the instructors guide for guidance.  It didn't answer my questions.  We continued hoping we would figure it out.  We kept going for two weeks.  I became frustrated because we weren't getting anywhere.  There was too much to do, not enough writing for the kids, not enough time in our day to get all the stuff done they wanted us to do.  We never even got to science!  NEVER!

This week I have had a panic attack about this.  My husband asked me if this was all going to work.  He questioned if we should send the kids back to school (public school).  I immediately said NO!  I just needed a plan, a sequence of things, a scope.  I needed to revamp.

Part 2 of this post is here.