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Secular Homeschooling in Canada

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Is a Boxed Curriculum Right for Your Homeschool?

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When we first began our homeschool journey I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know where to find secular curriculum – I didn’t know about boxed curriculum. Fast forward four years, and I don’t think I would still be homeschooling without using boxed curriculum. But how do you know if boxed curriculum is right for your family?

Is a Boxed Curriculum Right for Your Homeschool

Is a Boxed Curriculum Right for Your Homeschool?

*This post is part of my brand ambassadorship with BookShark. This post contains links to BookShark, and there are affiliate links. See my my disclosure policy for more information.*

With three children homeschooling this year, boxed curriculum has been a great time and sanity saver for our homeschool.

Boxed Curriculum Provides Ease of Use

Boxed curriculum might be for you if you don’t feel comfortable to plan lessons on your own and you don’t want spend hours and hours of prep work. Searching for curriculum takes a lot of time and energy!

Boxed curriculum is open and go. There is very little prep work for the homeschool parent to do ahead of time for the lessons. BookShark includes Instructor Guides, lesson plans and for some subjects such as science, the manipulatives for experiments.

Simply choose which subjects you need, and have it all shipped to your door. Essentially it is school in a box. You get everything in one box and don’t have to shop around. You will still need to buy typical school supplies like pencils, paper, binders, etc. of course.

Secular Homeschooling using bookshark

Boxed Curriculum Works for Multiple Ages

BookShark for example has ages specified on their subject levels. For example, Science Level 2 is ages 7-9— perfect for teaching your children together despite an age difference. Teaching all your children together regardless of their age  and makes it more fun to do projects or experiments together.

Learning more subjects together means less one-on-one instruction time is needed with mom. There is also the benefit of spending time together as a family.

Boxed Curriculum is Best …

  • for your first years of homeschooling
  • if you have multiple children
  • if you like structure
  • if you are confused and overwhelmed by an eclectic approach

Many of the books you get in a boxed curriculum like BookShark’s literature based curriculum can be used again, and the bonus is that you are building your home library.

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Learning To Spell with BookShark Language Arts - Level 2

Learning To Spell with BookShark Language Arts – Level 2

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Learning To Spell with BookShark Language Arts

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I am not a strong speller, but with the help of spell check I make do. I don’t want my kids to be relying on spell check for their spelling needs, but instead to have a great foundation in spelling. A strong foundation in learning to spell is just what we are getting this year with BookShark Language Arts.

Learning To Spell with BookShark Language Arts - Level 2

Learning To Spell with BookShark Language Arts – Level 2

*This post is part of my brand ambassador contract with BookShark, they provided us with this great curriculum, in exchange I’m sharing what I think of it with you. I am 100% honest with you about how I feel using this curriculum. This post does also contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.*

The prep work for using BookShark is very minimal for parents, which has always been a plus for me. The Language Arts does require a little advanced preparation for you to do, for example writing  flashcards with each week’s spelling words on them. It takes me minutes to write out a few weeks worth of cards at a time, so it’s not a burden whatsoever. I bought my index cards and card file box to store them in. This keeps them together and easy to store away for my other children as we continue homeschooling.

Language Arts Day one of our schedule is writing their words. While the schedule suggests their doing it on a large surface such as a chalkboard or marker board, that didn’t work for my kids. What has been working for us is to write them twice a piece of paper. Simple, but effective. And effective is what we are going for.

Language Arts Day two is a pre-test. We do it just as the BookShark suggested schedule says. I have them look over their spelling words, and once they are ready I will say the word as well as use it in a sentence Then they spell out their word on paper. If they get one wrong they rewrite it.

Language Arts Bonus day: Days 1 and 2 for us are Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday is our day without scheduled lessons, but we use our driving time on this day to practice and master their spelling words. I have written their words on an index card to grab as we head out the door. They sit in the back seat together and ask each other their words.

Learning To Spell with BookShark Language Arts cards we take in the car

Language Arts Day 3 is a review day in the schedule, a chance to work on words they have haven’t quite gotten yet. If they aren’t having problems, we have fun making silly sentences as suggested in the schedule. Learning to spell can be a lot fun if you let it.

Language Arts Day 4 is spelling test day! Fun! Since we have started taking our words into the car with us, they have been loving spelling test day because they almost always get them 100% right. They love being able to tell Dad just how well they did when he gets home from work.

Language Arts Level 2 and Level 2 Advanced Spelling

BookShark has three Language Arts options for level :
1. regular
2. intermediate
3. advanced

The reason we are using Level 2 Advanced for my fourth grader is explained in this blog post. But it comes down to wanting to teach my two girls together as much as possible while knowing they are but still in the “proper” grade/age range. We all hear our kids gets asked what grade they are in. For the most part the only true difference we have seen has been their spelling words. In week 7, my girls got a real kick out of the fact that they each had a few of the same words on their spelling lists. They are working on the same type of words each week — compound words, two syllable words that end in -y, etc which makes teaching them.

Our Language Arts Take Away

The biggest help in learning to spell this year has been the ability to take our words with us. That extra time spent on them when they would normally be watching a DVD has made the biggest difference. For example, it took one 45-minute drive to the city to grocery shop for Austin to get the hang of spelling oatmeal. She hates the food itself and for awhile hated even trying to spell it. With a lot of laughing on the drive, she finally mastered it, and remembered it past that day.

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How I Homeschool Multiple Ages With Ease

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One question I always hear from fellow homeschooling moms is how do you homeschool multiple  children of different ages? There is more than one way to homeschool multiple ages, but I’ll share how I do it. This is what is working for our family and might work for yours or at least give you some ideas for finding what works for you.

How I Homeschool Multiple Ages with Ease

How I Homeschool Multiple Ages With Ease

*This post contains affiliate links, see my privacy policy for more information. I am an ambassador for BookShark – they provided curriculum for us to use in order to facilitate our reviews. BUT I truly love using it, and we continue to do so for as long as possible.*

Last year was the first year I had all three of my kids homeschooling together more or less, four days a week. My youngest was doing pre-kindergarten work, I let him go at his own pace with it but he wanted to be at the dining room table or on the couch with his big sisters when they were doing schoolwork.

Having him wanting to learn along with his big sisters was a nice way to ease into having the three of them learning together. He was learning some patience waiting for Momma to make it back area the table to help him just like she did with his sisters.

Learning Some Subjects Together

Choosing BookShark homeschool curriculum was the one factor that made teaching multiple ages easiest. It’s literature-based curriculum which means we sit down together and read our history, science, and this year’s language arts. We all get to cuddle and relax with a great book.

Last year our History and Science was Level 1, which is for ages 5-7. This year History and Science is Level 2, for ages 7-9. My girls are in the perfect age range for these making it seamless to teach them together. Gauge, who will be five in November, is learning along with them and enjoying every minute of it.

I’ve never been a parent to limit what books my kids can read, and I don’t limit Gauge either. Although the ages our curriculum might be a bit older for him – a bit over his head, he always learns a little something from the books. Next year when he is in grade one, I’ll loop back to Level 1 with him.

Shark Buoyancy - Animal Science Experiment

Learning Some Subjects Individually

For individual workbook subjects such as math and language arts we still sit down together at the dining room table. Each child gets their binder out, or in Austin’s case a laptop for Teaching Textbooks.

I let my kids know what lessons to start, and off they go. I am right there to help each as they may need it. I can easily walk around the table to help each and make sure that they are the right path as far as understanding and getting their work finished.

Reading Aloud or Individually

For reading aloud time they love to sit in the kitchen and read at our island while I’m making bread or doing the dishes, both of which I can do without thinking about and completely listen to them while they read.

As a bonus their siblings will be in the dining room or living room working on their own thing, not interrupting, or at least that’s always the hope.

Using BookShark Curriculum

Using curriculum such as BookShark has made teaching multiple children flow nicely for us.

I think that you can easily homeschool multiple ages together if that is what you want to do, and if you are choosing a curriculum that is going to help you with that goal. Curriculum that is based on a range of ages rather than a strict grade can help you do this.

Recommended Resources for Homeschooling Multiple Children

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Homeschool Scheduling Made Easy with BookShark

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How do you do homeschool scheduling? Are you flying by the seat of your pants or do you spend hours planning it out, writing it in your planner and hoping that it is perfect? I changed things up this year and have to say I’m loving schedule we have. Two of our main subjects are all laid out with nothing headache inducing or stressful about it.

Homeschool Scheduling Made Easy with BookShark

Homeschool Scheduling with BookShark

*I received BookShark curriculum for our school year, and in exchange for sharing about it with you this year. Homeschool review of BookShark.*

Why is this year been so different? Because this is our first year using BookShark Reading with History and Science. They have the curriculum planned out for you to follow along with for 36 weeks, or how ever long it takes your family at your pace.

Each week has it’s own schedule, with specific instructions on using it laid out for you including the worksheets. There are optional activities scheduled in too that we have been having a lot of fun with.

How many days a week are you working on school?

A glimpse of the weekly schedule shows a four day schedule. They say that they have planned it this way so that you can use the fifth day for other activities or topics that you and children may be interested in.

The easy homeschool schedule provided is Day 1-4, you get to choose what days are the days that you do school, we do scheduled school Monday-Tuesday, and Thursday-Friday. We need that day off in the middle of the week.

When you read though the parent instructor guide you’ll see that it isn’t written in stone, you make it work for you as we have. Who knew homeschool scheduling could be so easy right?

Alphabet Letter of the Week

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What are you suppose to do on those days?

They have it all laid out:

  • what book to use
  • what pages in that book to read
  • what worksheet numbers correspond to those pages

For example, in the Science Level 1 the first three days it is book work and the corresponding worksheets, as well as optional activities that you can do together. One the fourth day, it’s hands on experiment day, a favorite in our house.

Easy homeschool scheduling curriculum

We are using Science Level 1 and Reading with History Level 1 this year. We discovered early on that we prefer to do larger chunks than tiny bits each day. Tuesday and Thursday are Science days, and Friday is for history. As well as other subjects such as math and language arts on those days as well.

If you are at all disorganized, like I tend to be, then you want to check out BookShark! When you are looking at the different subjects you can see more detailed samples of their schedule and work listed under samples. BookShark has the stress of figuring out how much to teach each week.

More Resources for Homeschool Scheduling:

We all have to do the best that we can for our children and for ourselves no matter what kind of schedule we like to use. Maybe just flying by the seat of your pants, learning what your kids are interested in works best, and some days, that’s how it has to go here.

It doesn’t take long to go through the curriculum, at most we spend an hour and a half. That’s between the reading and the worksheets, and going over everything.

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How We Do Read Aloud in Our Homeschool

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I love reading, although I hated it as a child, and I think because of that, have always read to my kids, and encouraged them to read whatever they wanted. I want my kids to love reading as much as I do. I haven’t always done planned read aloud in our homeschool. It’s something new that we are doing this year and has been a great addition to it. We love books already after all.

How We Do Read Aloud in Our Homeschool

How We Do Read Aloud in Our Homeschool

*This post is part of a series of posts that I have been writing in exchange for receiving BookShark curriculum. My opinions are 100% honest at all times.*

Why have I added read aloud to our homeschool routine this year? Because BookShark Reading with History includes some amazing books, and the schedule in which to read them. They make it simple to plan for, and fun with interesting books.

How We Do Read Aloud in Our Homeschool

BookShark provides you with a base schedule that you can choose to follow as you like. My favorite part of the history schedule is the read aloud part. They tell you which book to read, how much to read each day. They also provide you with the books too so no fear of not having the book you need when you need it.

We start each school morning with reading now. It has been a lovely, slow and relaxing way to get our days started. All of us sit together on the sofa to read a chapter or two. No more jumping right into math or spelling. Easing into school in the morning or the afternoon is more our style now.

Audiobooks

What happens when you just don’t want to read anymore or your kids are tired of hearing your voice? Audiobooks. In fact, after a few books, that’s what I decided to grab. Instead of me reading Henry Huggins I requested it in audiobook form from the library for us to all listen to. And because listening to Neil Patrick Harris read it is much better than listening to my own voice.

First thing in the morning only, we can listen during the drive to the library or to get groceries. A perfect use for an otherwise boring drive of just listening to the radio.

The Reading with History 1 curriculum comes with a number of great read aloud books, a whole school year of them. So far we have read Charlotte’s Web (our favorite without a doubt), Little Pear, and Owls in the Family which was awesome in part because it takes place in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

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