Jennifer Lambert

A Sacred Balance

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Grammar Foundations

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July 2, 2013 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

I’m rereading The Well-Trained Mind.

I am getting back on track and realizing the importance of a classical education. I still love some aspects of other methods and we occasionally incorporate those into our lessons, but I am a classical mama at heart.

Making improvements to our schedule and organization will make our schooling easier and more productive.

Classical English/Language Arts is spelling, grammar, reading, and writing.

Spelling:

I ordered Spelling Workout B for the girls since we don’t have a formal program and I remember that Liz loved it.

I hear great things about All About Spelling too.

And Kate loves her new spelling workbook. I have to distract her from completing the whole thing on her own when I turn away!

Spelling Workout

Tori cried all the way through the first lesson. I don’t think it’s too challenging for her.

I just think she was overwhelmed by something new – that pointed out she needs more help than Kate does.

I encouraged her to read the directions to me and we did the exercises together.

She admitted that it wasn’t too hard after the ordeal was all over.

And now that we’ve completed vision therapy, she’s much more confident with all aspects of her life and school.

Spelling Workout

Classical Mama reading material!

The Well Trained Mind and First Language Lessons

Grammar:

We’ve almost completed First Language Lessons 1. My book is an older edition and it has both level 1 and 2 in a single book. Liz completed that in 1 year! I also teach mini-lessons as needed that come up in our writing and other studies. I love grammar and the girls also get lots of grammar education in Spanish and Latin. We also plan to completely go through Logic of English beginning this fall since All About Reading Level 3 isn’t out yet.

Reading:

We read a lot. I mean, seriously, a lot. Kate tries to sneak books upstairs at bedtime and I’ve taken to having to almost strip search her or she’ll stay up reading and won’t go to sleep until 10:30!

Tori reads to Alex every night before bed. It’s the sweetest thing. He’s a great audience for her. Liz sneaks off to read instead of doing chores. Can’t get too angry at her, lol.

Our school reading does follow the history cycles with Story of the World and Tapestry of Grace. We love historical fiction! We also have units each month for the littles.

Narration:

We’re really good at narration. As an English teacher, it comes naturally to me to ask questions about our reading and the kids are more than happy to oblige, even Alex! They give me the greatest details and I love hearing what they each remember. Sometimes it’s not something that I paid special attention to in our reading and it’s fun to hear what they thought was important.  I am pleased at their comprehension.

Notebooking:

We love notebooking. Liz has done well transferring her narration to paper. We’re working on the girls. They do better with freedom to write and draw about what they’re learning. They always exceed my expectations.

Penmanship:

We’re also reviewing a fun cursive program – Prescripts. The little girls really love it. Tori loves copywork and I try to make sure she has enough, but not too much. Liz doesn’t care for copywork, but I try to give her some for Bible or history to help with her memorization. Alex is beginning to actually write letters instead of tracing and it’s so exciting!

Writing:

We also reviewed IEW (for Liz). It has completely changed the way I homeschool. It is an amazing program and the methods are cross-curricular and I am so pleased by the improvements! I am even teaching the girls how to write with the info I learned in TWSS. Alex is already narrating to me or his sisters! We incorporated some of the methods, but we don’t formally utilize the writing program.

Organization:

I am organizing notebooks for our “new” school year. And I plan to be more proactive about having the girls put their own papers in their notebooks each week.

Recommended resources in The Well-Trained Mind…

Writing Strands: I really loathed the style of these snarky little books.

Rod&Staff: boring and too textbook-y.

A Beka: not advanced enough and expensive for workbooks and boring little readers.

Handwriting Without Tears never worked for us, but apparently it’s great for most everyone else. Go figure.

We all love D’Nealian.

I’m rereading The Well-Trained Mind.

I am getting back on track and realizing the importance of a classical education. I still love some aspects of other methods and we occasionally incorporate those into our lessons, but I am a classical mama at heart.

Making improvements to our schedule and organization will make our schooling easier and more productive.

Classical English/Language Arts is spelling, grammar, reading, and writing.

Spelling:

I ordered Spelling Workout B for the girls since we don’t have a formal program and I remember that Liz loved it.

I hear great things about All About Spelling too.

And Kate loves her new spelling workbook. I have to distract her from completing the whole thing on her own when I turn away!

Spelling Workout

Tori cried all the way through the first lesson. I don’t think it’s too challenging for her.

I just think she was overwhelmed by something new – that pointed out she needs more help than Kate does.

I encouraged her to read the directions to me and we did the exercises together.

She admitted that it wasn’t too hard after the ordeal was all over.

And now that we’ve completed vision therapy, she’s much more confident with all aspects of her life and school.

Spelling Workout

Classical Mama reading material!

The Well Trained Mind and First Language Lessons

Grammar:

We’ve almost completed First Language Lessons 1. My book is an older edition and it has both level 1 and 2 in a single book. Liz completed that in 1 year! I also teach mini-lessons as needed that come up in our writing and other studies. I love grammar and the girls also get lots of grammar education in Spanish and Latin. We also plan to completely go through Logic of English beginning this fall since All About Reading Level 3 isn’t out yet.

Reading:

We read a lot. I mean, seriously, a lot. Kate tries to sneak books upstairs at bedtime and I’ve taken to having to almost strip search her or she’ll stay up reading and won’t go to sleep until 10:30!

Tori reads to Alex every night before bed. It’s the sweetest thing. He’s a great audience for her. Liz sneaks off to read instead of doing chores. Can’t get too angry at her, lol.

Our school reading does follow the history cycles with Story of the World and Tapestry of Grace. We love historical fiction! We also have units each month for the littles.

Narration:

We’re really good at narration. As an English teacher, it comes naturally to me to ask questions about our reading and the kids are more than happy to oblige, even Alex! They give me the greatest details and I love hearing what they each remember. Sometimes it’s not something that I paid special attention to in our reading and it’s fun to hear what they thought was important.  I am pleased at their comprehension.

Notebooking:

We love notebooking. Liz has done well transferring her narration to paper. We’re working on the girls. They do better with freedom to write and draw about what they’re learning. They always exceed my expectations.

Penmanship:

We’re also reviewing a fun cursive program – Prescripts. The little girls really love it. Tori loves copywork and I try to make sure she has enough, but not too much. Liz doesn’t care for copywork, but I try to give her some for Bible or history to help with her memorization. Alex is beginning to actually write letters instead of tracing and it’s so exciting!

Writing:

We also reviewed IEW (for Liz). It has completely changed the way I homeschool. It is an amazing program and the methods are cross-curricular and I am so pleased by the improvements! I am even teaching the girls how to write with the info I learned in TWSS. Alex is already narrating to me or his sisters! We incorporated some of the methods, but we don’t formally utilize the writing program.

Organization:

I am organizing notebooks for our “new” school year. And I plan to be more proactive about having the girls put their own papers in their notebooks each week.

Recommended resources in The Well-Trained Mind…

Writing Strands: I really loathed the style of these snarky little books.

Rod&Staff: boring and too textbook-y.

A Beka: not advanced enough and expensive for workbooks and boring little readers.

Handwriting Without Tears never worked for us, but apparently it’s great for most everyone else. Go figure.

We all love D’Nealian.

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Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: classical, Language Arts, reading

Logic of English review

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure. Please see my suggested resources.

February 12, 2013 By Jennifer Lambert 3 Comments

I was so excited to meet Denise Eide at Allume and sit with her at dinner one night!

We both share a love and fascination for language and she offered her curriculum, Logic of English, to me to review.


This is an extremely comprehensive program and I am very impressed with all the research and hard work that Denise and her family put into this. It is quite amazing.

As a former English teacher, I can tell you: this program is all you’d ever need for a language arts program with your students or children. It covers reading, spelling, handwriting, grammar, the works!

Read about how the curriculum is structured in three parts at their website.

While my girls are at different stages and we can’t utilize some aspects of the program at this time, we do love some of it right now and I plan to use the games and supplements with Tori and Katie next year.

Elizabeth is mostly beyond most aspects of the curriculum, but the grammar cards are perfect for her Latin review. I love how advanced some of them are! They cheer this little grammar girl’s heart!

Liz reviews advanced noun cards.

grammar cards

Tori and Kate’s favorite aspect of the program right now is the cursive workbook. They practice the directions with their fingers and then practice the letters with a pencil. The directions refer to baseline and midline. They really get it. Better than any other cursive workbook I’ve found. We like simple.

early cursive writing
cursive writing workbook.jpg

The reading program is a bit advanced for them (especially for Tori) right now and we’re already halfway through another curriculum this year, so I plan to hold off and pick it up when we’re finished with that other one. I love that the curriculum uses phonetic symbols on the flashcards. Kate can read the cards on her own and understands them and loves it! I plan to introduce the grammar cards to the girls very soon and get some basics down for them.

Alex and the girls love the book Doodling Dragons! Even though they already know their letters and sounds, it’s fun!

I am extremely impressed with all aspects of this curriculum. It works with classical and Charlotte Mason style education perfectly, with memorization, dictation, and narration aspects. I look forward to utilizing it to the fullest extent.

Also, check out these new products!

Foundations Phonics A-D

Phonics With Phonograms

A fun, effective phonics recognition game that eliminates exceptions and provides a complete picture of the phonograms needed to read and spell!

Buy the Phonics App!

The girls really like the workbooks and knock out a lesson almost every week. We refer back to the flashcards for review. This is a complete English Language Arts program that helps my girls analyze phonics and learn to read well.

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Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: English, Language Arts, reading, review, spelling

Monster Nouns

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure. Please see my suggested resources.

November 6, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

The girls loved these Chomping Nouns fun pages!

It fit in well for Halloween week.

Chomping Nouns Game
Chomping Nouns Printables
Their different styles of learning fascinate me.

Notice how Tori’s nouns are all lined up, neat in columns.

Neat Nouns

Kate’s words are in the monster’s mouth all haphazard and messy.

Respect the differences!

Nouns Everywhere

The girls are still writing in their journals every day.

Most of our writing and reading come from the Tapestry of Grace Year 2 curriculum. We’re working our way through First Language Lessons.

Stay tuned for posts on All About Reading Level 2! I just won the program and we’re really excited to get started!

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Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: elementary, Language Arts, notebooking

Notebooking and Journaling

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure. Please see my suggested resources.

August 24, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

We’re excited about our new junior notebooking journals!

The girls begged for cursive work and I found these fun cursive workbooks that have animals for each letter.

It’s like cross-curricular with science! super!

Writing in Cursive Workbooks
Cursive Workbook

Tori taught herself how to write her name in cursive from our wall border!

Tori practices her cursive on the Aquadoodle.

Aquadoodle Writing

Tori loves Draw Right Now. We just got the whole set on sale! (her cat is upside down – haha)

Draw Write Now Cats

I made pretty notebooking journals!

I covered their new writing journals with scrapbook paper and ribbon.

Tori has a blue striped front and Katie’s is green argyle.

I plan to put something decorative on the fronts, but haven’t gotten the stuff yet.

Paper Covered Journals

The backs are both Hawaiian print. We lived in Hawaii for three years. They girls still call it home.

Hawaiian Print Journals

I added a schedule on the inside cover with another fun paper cover for each girl.

Weekly writing schedule:

Mondays, they write about anything they did over the weekend.

Tuesdays are writing from our weekly vocabulary or spelling list.

Wednesday is narration day from history, science, or literature reading.

Thursdays are dictation. This is our most difficult writing task.

Fridays are fun choice – favorites from the week.

Daily Journals

This is now the first thing the girls want to do during our school day! They love it!

This week we loved this fun printable and foldable from Scholastic: wallet words.

They had to determine which picture began with which blend: BR, GR, or TR.

Blends Booklets
Blends Books

Then we placed the cards in the wallet and folded it up. They loved showing it to Daddy!

We love Productive Homeschooling for fun printables!

ProSchool Membership - Productive Homeschooling Linking up: Every Bed of Roses, 123Homeschool4Me, Los Gringos Locos, Faith and Good Works
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stART

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January 14, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

I set up a class at our winter homeschool co-op using the story+art ideas from A Mommy’s Adventures.

story+art=StArt

I have a theme each week and check out books from the library and bring art supplies for a craft. There are about a dozen kids signed up, grades K-2, including my Tori and Katie (for whom I planned the class).

Last week, we read some ABC books and did initial collages.

I had all sorts of collage materials, hoping to appeal to all the boys and girls: moss, rocks, sequins, shells, beads, jewels, stickers…

We all got a kick out of this alphabet book: A is for Salad. The pictures illustrate the letter, but the words say something a little different.

Victoria’s and Katherine’s initial collages:

Initial Collages

I did one with Alex at home. He was so proud!

Making Initial Collage
Gluing His Letter

I couldn’t get the ‘A’ to print straight. Oh well, he didn’t mind.

Letter A Collage

This week, we read about dots and did Do-A-Dot pages.

Those were a real hit!

Sea Turtle Dot Painting
Seahorse Dot Painting

I got the dot printables from Making Learning Fun. We used the theme of Swimming Creatures to go along with our Apologia Science class.

 
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Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: art, Language Arts, preschool, tot school

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