Piano that fits (perfectly!) in our homeschool

And just maybe, this could be the way to fit piano into your homeschool days too?

A few years ago we bought an electric piano with a cash gift from my dad.  He wanted us to have something in our home to remember him by and what could be better than music?  I remember marveling for many weeks that two just-plain music lover parents (definitely not pianists ourselves!)  could have this privilege in our home and could give it to our children.

Isaiah and Marian both started with lessons from a nice lady, but when we moved from that city, there was no finding a new teacher... at least not an affordable one!  Our kids have studied with Piano Marvel for over two years now and I'm amazed at the progress they've made:  just my kids, our electric piano, and our last-leg laptop that runs Piano Marvel for them....

To be sure, one kiddo has taken to Piano Marvel better than the other.  Personalities and strengths and interests differ.... but both of our big kids are plugging away at daily practice on lessons and songs they get to choose that they are guided to learn by Piano Marvel videos and note by note help.  (And can I just say, I love the songs that Piano Marvel makes available for my kids!)

Piano Marvel connects your piano or electric piano to a computer (see their site for details) and the program draws kids in with a bit of game-like appeal....  every note they play is scored.  Their sight-reading skills are challenged and precise progress is marked.  They can earn trophies and...

My kids... your kids!... can make music on the piano.  

It still completely amazes me that my kids are simply using this software program daily and they are developing real skill as budding musicians.  I'd post a video for you to hear it yourself but so far our star player is being super shy with his talent.  At this point, I'm ok with that.....  But I will admit I hope he'll let me share his music with you soon.

So friends,  you can check out the beauty right here:  and please remember to enter my promo code for a discounted rate for you and some distributor income for me.  Thank you!!!   

Referral/ Distributor Code:    Jill

K Family Homeschool Overview

I'm the kind that gets motivated and hopefully stays motivated by keeping the big picture in mind.  For homeschool, it's crucial for me to see where all this is heading...  And I haven't kept this blog updated well for a few years.  So a recap is in order.

Here's the big picture plan of what we're aiming for homeschool for K - 8 for our crew.

For us, Bible is tops and first.  But I usually think of it in family devotions which Matt leads before he leaves for the day or sometimes in the evenings.  The kids and I review memory verses but we don't cover too much else directly in homeschool time.

I'm a Charlotte Mason heart.  But I'll end up on the same page as Classical Education folks by middle school and for high school I think.  

Preschool

We've been grateful to be able to have our kids in local preschools primarily for Chinese learning, social contacts, and learning to enjoy local food.  We've always done half days for the kids in school for this age.  Afternoons, after nap or rest time, I did phonics lessons.  Since beginning math was also covered in preschool I didn't do any other lessons- just phonics.  We used star fall, progressive phonics free readers online, 100 Easy Lessons to Teach your Child to Read (Which is supposedly good for most kids, but hasn't been fun for any of ours or for me to lead them through!).  I love the free All About Spelling app of phoneme sounds.  

Kinder - Third Grade

<3 Things:  Reading, Writing, Arithmetic>  Extras:  PE, Chinese, Typing, Music

English:

~ Explode the Code workbooks 1- 6, fantastic for being independently doable work for young ones.

~ Cursive worksheets from Kidzone and then cursive copywork from Spelling Wisdom- Simply Charlotte Mason's book (for spelling, vocabulary, punctuation, and discussion of ideas.)  There was some fancy group that several friends mentioned to me years ago (it was pretty fancy priced so I didn't end up following that group) but they taught that it's very beneficial for kids to learn cursive early... by second grade.  So that's what we do....  print for all of K and 1st grade and cursive beginning in 2nd.  

~ I found the Scott Foresman downloadable workbooks that cover  basic grammarly writing lessons really well for these years.  We keep a little 50/50 mix of Copywork and Workbook stuff for these years... top it off with lots of read aloud together and call it good. (I tried to do Writing with Ease for these grades but it felt pointless to the kids b/c of my lack of valuable feedback... just Not a fit for our family.)
~ We try to do lots of read aloud... usually I read aloud after lunch and often Matt reads aloud at bedtime.  I try to expose this age to extra Science reading (Christian Liberty Nature Readers or any books we have...) and the kindle book:  Simply Charlotte Mason's Elementary Geography which covers super basic earth science, seasons, oceans continents....  Sometimes we look over our CC Timeline History Cards as well, and the kids look at our CC app for history memory points (and I love to see how that info comes up in their questions and discussions with us at other times.)  I love this.... The Best Part of homeschool in these years.  Read science, history, biographies, stories, poems....  Read lots and have the kids retell and respond in their own words. 

Math:  our kids are doing well to learn math from Chinese textbooks and tutors that come to our home to teach them.  One on one with tutors has made them all able to be ahead of schedule in the Chinese textbooks, which puts them a fair ways ahead of the American levels.  Chinese textbooks are cheap and excellently thoughtful.  I love them learning arithmetic in Chinese!

~Chinese textbooks that I love   taught by a local tutor.  (Written by a Chinese group to educate the children of Chinese parents who are growing up speaking English and not reading or writing Chinese....  so perfect also for our kids!)

A Must Keep Bookmark:  AmblesideOnline.com   Check often for the books they recommend nice links and a great free curriculum guide for homeschool

Fourth Grade - Fifth Grade

<Four Core and Four More>

Core:  English, History, Science, Math

More:  Chinese (and local minority language), Piano, Typing, Crossfit/Pilates, Baseball for boys and Art for girls.

English:  

~ Analytical Grammar Workbooks (Jr. An Gram and An Gram Mechanics) and Cursive Copywork
~ I might still pull in some of the Scott Foresman workbooks and occasionally use undone lessons in our Writing With Ease.  (I tried using WWE as a core of our LA lessons and it didn't work for us mainly because I felt like I wasn't able to give any valuable feedback to our kids on their work there.  But by this age, using a few of the WWE lessons is a good way for us to expose kids to more reading and responses- summaries and reflections- and some great literature selections.  It's also nice to stretch out the curriculum so that one book is useful for three kids!  It works for us!)  

~ Soverbose.com  for writing courses beginning late in 4th and 5th grade. (Summary, Essays, Literature Response, Research Basics...)

Math: 

~ Finish Chinese teaching at the end of fourth grade textbooks (this is approximately the end of basic arithmetic and the beginning of percents and decimals and fractions and higher vocabulary based math so it seems a good time to transition to English math.)  

~ The transition proved to be hard.  I tried Life of Fred but didn't stay with it (too little practice and the zany story-based lessons felt like wasteful distractions to my kids who just want to finish their math every day.)  I think the end of 4th grade in Chinese textbooks flows smoothly into 6th grade math at Thinkwell.  My kids have worked on Thinkwell for more than a semester now and I think we'll stick with it for as long as we can.... (the site is not attractive but the videos and learning experience for our kids and the price, when you purchase it through homeschoolbuyersco-op.org are great!....  that link is gives me credit on that site:)  Thank you!)

Science:

~ Kids read, take notes, narrate and make presentations at our 6-8weeks "Learning Sharing Times"

4th grade- Apologia Human Anatomy, 5th grade- Apologia Chemistry & Physics 

History:

~ Kids read and take notes and narrate and make presentations on Mystery of History or Story of the World...  

~  watch some CNN10 or news overviews, read a Gospel Coalition post on culture at least once every few weeks and discuss current events

~ exposure for geography learning too (climates, countries and capitals, oceans, biomes, environmental issues)

Electives:

~ Typing.com

~ Pianomarvel.com  (Please be sure to enter our referral code :   Jill  : to receive a discount off monthly subscription and we'll get a little bonus too!  Thanks friends!)

~Chinese textbooks.  So grateful for these books and local tutors to make this work!

Sixth - Eighth Grade

<Four Core and Four More>

English:

~ 6: Isaiah has been invited to join with another family near us that has boys around his age for Language Arts and History.  For Marian I plan to continue using Progeny Press Literature study guides, aiming to read and study through about one book per 9 weeks.  (Plus she reads much much more on her own every week!)  Word Build Online for vocabulary.  Soverbose courses for excellent writing help:  Essays, Research, Lit Response, and Professional Writing.   (This has met such a need for us!  Writing instruction, correction, feedback, all doable priced!)  Grammar- possibly daily grammar.com (for free) beginning at lessons under Parts of Sentence (lesson 91).

~ 7: Continue with SoVerbose for writing and unit guides for literature.  Possibly continue with Word Build online for vocabulary and dailygrammar.com.
~ 8: possibly we'll move to something else for this level?  Wilson Hill Academy??? 

History:

~ We're loving Mystery of History for keeping history lessons super interesting and doable.  For seventh grade I may take a break from history and go through North Star Geography from the makers of Mystery of History that make a good, interesting, discussable, doable curriculum.  We're big fans of Bright Ideas Press and looking forward to this one....

Science:

~ Apologia:  General Science in 6th grade, Physical Science in 7th grade, 8th grade????

Math:

~Thinkwell.  Our goal is Prealgebra in 6th grade (this is Thinkwell's "8th grade math").  Algebra 1 in 7th grade.  8th grade....  Geometry possibly?

Electives:  same as above.  Kids need to focus on sharpening their Chinese reading and writing and expanding Chinese vocabulary so they can pass the AP Chinese test in high school.  

Friends!  I was just introduced to the best way to save money on homeschool stuff.  Homeschool Buyer's Co-op.  It's free to join and it simply gives you access to buy curriculum and online subscriptions and homeschool helps of every kind for incredible sale prices.  I just bought Thinkwell for about 45% off.  And I'm waiting for WordBuild to go on sale to get that for hopefully save 30-60% as well!  Here's my link...  I'd love to earn a little bit if you go over to the Co-op page from my link! Thanks!!