Note: We have a busy next few days, so I am not including all the links to the items I bought in order to get this post done. I will be revamping the resource page soon and will include them there. If you are interested in something below and can’t find it, please let me know, and I will be glad to help you.

La Clase Divertida was totally an unintended purchase and totally Maryann’s fault. She went into the convention knowing she was going to get this one. I got hooked when we stopped at the vendor booth. We love, love, love studying Spanish here, but we have been dreadfully inconsistent in using our Salsa videos this year and then I never seemed to have time to pull together activities to reinforce what we learned on the videos. We also lost our native speaker teacher at the church. This will allow us to use a program that is all laid out for us — do this Monday, this Tuesday, etc. Everything we need is in the box. We can keep doing Salsa on the side, but hopefully make more progress with La Clase Divertida. We are excited to start.

I got the Outdoor Secrets Companion from Simply Charlotte Mason. We already own Outdoor Secrets and plan to use them for some gentle (indoor) nature study starting in the Fall. I also picked up the Lingua Angelica CD from Memoria Press to listen to in the van. I did did not get the workbook or song book — we are just going to listen to the prayers. Because of my Spanish purchase, I decided to hold off on Song School Latin for another year. Finally, on Sarah’s recommendation, I picked up a copy of Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization from IEW. We love poems and are good at memorizing. I think this will be well-received.

Outside of reading and math our main focus of study next year will be strewing continent baskets. We will be learning about the various continents and their countries along with animal habitats via picture books (inspired by Elizabeth). We will be reading, playing, watching, cooking and doing art. They have already seen some of these items and want to start tomorrow. I had intended on starting the first of August after the bulk of our summer activities were over, but at Olivia’s request, I think we are going to have to begin sooner — maybe right after Easter.

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What is a morning basket?

Map puzzles and games as well as both Wee Bee Tunes travel adventure DVDs.

Eat Your Way Around the World and Geography Through Art from Geography Matters. I also stumbled upon Home Art Studio and loved the looks of the program. It just so happened that their First Grade DVD was art projects from around the world, so I snapped it up. I think these are going to be fun!

Next, we got Wee Sing Around the World and then three of the Maestro Classics CDs. They were supposed to be at the convention last year, but were not. I was so glad they were there this year. I got Peter and the Wolf for our Russia study. Juanita, the Spanish Lobster for Spain, and then The Tortoise and the Hare has a French flair. More fun!

The final pieces for our world study (for now) include a couple of Dover coloring books and the Usborne Sticker Dolly Dressing Around the World book.

Finally the Logic of English is my biggest impulse buy and most schooly-type curriculum that I purchased. I attended a session by Denise Eide and was so sold on her common-sense, systematic approach to teaching spelling and reading to all kinds of learners, that I had to go by her booth and ask a ton of questions. I am hoping by working through this program it will eliminate the look between terror and frustration that Olivia gets any time I ask her to sound out a word that she does not know. I think we jumped into The Wand way too early for her and will shelve it for after we finish this program. I think it will be a good review, but was falling short for us in cementing those lower level reading and spelling skills. I will also be using this program to teach reading to John as well. I love the focus on phonograms, games, and the fact that every lesson in the book offers activity options for all the different modalities of learning.

When I got out of the van Olivia’s first question for me was, “What did you get me?” Teasingly I said, “A new reading and spelling book.” I was amazed when she excitedly responded, “Oh yay!” This may not ever be the favorite part of our day, but I am hoping by giving her the tools she needs to read with more ease she will appreciate the effort we put into the program.

We will start working on learning the phonograms (both Olivia and John) after this week. This will be a great intro to the program as games are the main method of review in this portion of the program.

Finally, this is the FUN! photo. Add to this a book of jokes I picked up. I forgot to put it in the photo because we have to keep it handy to read from throughout the day.  They love it.

Yes, I over-spent. Yes, I still have more to get. The good news is I have stuff to sell, so that will recoup some funds. We’ve been low tide for a while around here, but I feel a high tide coming on and I think it is going to be exciting.

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