All posts by Brian

Homeschool Plans 2015-2016

I can’t believe I have two school-aged kiddos this year! Last year Grace would tag along on our learning adventures, but I never forced her to listen or participate in an activity. This year, with her being officially kindergarten, it will be different! The pressure is on… 🙂

Jonathan- 1st grade

Discipleship Studies-

* Bible: Continue with Long Story Short & Old Story New Devotionals (family). Read the Gospel Story Bible (family). Jonathan has been reading daily in his Adventure Bible (NIrV), and I hope to keep encouraging this habit!

* Bible Memory:  Awana Wing Runner handbook & music

Character/Habit Training:  I hope to go through Laying Down the Rails for Children as a family. Doing projects from Plants Grown Up during weekly “Mug Time”.

Disciplined Studies-

Reading- All About Reading 3 and continued practice reading books! Right now I use this Leveled Book List to help select books for J. at the library. He will comfortably read “Henry & Mudge” type books. He still mostly reads aloud, not to himself. We will see if his confidence grows this year.

Math- Singapore 1A and 1BMiquon Orange/Red. We started Singapore 1A last year and J. grasps the concepts of addition and subtraction fairly well. He doesn’t have his facts memorized yet, so this summer we have been doing math games and experimenting with Miquon math. My sister in law gifted me with a set of cuisinaire rods when Jonathan was little and I found the Miquon books that go with the rods. Miquon and Singapore are very complimentary programs. There is even a chart which correlates the two, so I plan to use them together.

Handwriting- Handwriting Without Tears 1st Grade. I’m not a huge fan of the font that HWoT produces, but the program has worked well so far for Jonathan. He still needs practice in correctly forming letters.

Spelling- All About Spelling 1. We are venturing into spelling this year! Now that Jonathan is able to write all of his letters, it’s time to build words. This program complements our reading program. We shall see how it goes!

Grammar- English Lessons Through Literature 1 (plan to start in January once we have more copywork practice). This teaches grammar and sentence structure through observing and copying sentences from classic works. It also introduces narration and picture study.

Discussion Studies-

History- Truth Quest American History for Young Students 1 and relevant read alouds. I’ve developed a tentative plan which takes us from Explorers through the American Revolution this year. I will highlight the books we read along the way!

Geography- Legends and Leagues– We reviewed world geography last year, this will be a fun weekly review of maps and cartography.

Read Alouds- I pull read alouds from different book lists. We usually have at least one fun read aloud going!

Music- Cartoons, Classical Music & Composers- Jonathan is taking this class through our local co-op. This is our first year in this co-op, we shall see how it goes!

Discovery Studies-

Science- human anatomy & physiology using 106 Days of Creation Studies– We have used this book slowly over the past two years to guide our nature study. We will be diving into health & human anatomy this year and supplementing with read alouds.

Nature Study- drawing what we see outside in our nature journals. Read Outdoor Secrets and perhaps Christian Liberty Nature Reader 1

Art- J. is taking a co-op class in art, we will see how that goes. The children and I are also doing exercises in Drawing with Children.

Extra Curricular-

Trail Life Scouting

Gym co-op class

A sport of some type- In the past we have done swimming, soccer, gymnastics.

Grace- K

Grace is a young K student, so this is a basic plan. My thoughts are not to emphasize formal academics until she is 6, but to gradually increase our consistency in the 3Rs [reading/math/writing]. She generally wants to do what her big brother is doing, but I will let most of the rest be optional this year. Next year when she is 6, she will be required to do academic work. 

Discipleship Studies-

Bible: Continue with family devotional & Bible reading.

Awana- Hang Glider handbook

Character/Habit Training– Laying Down the Rails for Children, Polished Cornerstones project at weekly “Tea Time”.

Disciplined Studies-

Reading- Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and possibly All About Reading 1– Grace wants to read, but needs lots of practice. We started with AAR1, but she was struggling with letter reversals and reading sentences. I felt like 100 Easy Lessons offered a more gentle start and then we will transition back to AAR1. She also loves to write, so I’ve toyed with the idea of starting her with All About Spelling as well, so she can write her stories down.

Math- Singapore EarlyBird B– This has been a fun PreK and K series for my kids.

Handwriting- Kumon Workbooks– Grace already completed Handwriting without Tears K, and I felt like she needed additional practice before moving on to the next level. I think the Kumon workbooks will fill the gap. I’m toying with the idea of getting Delightful Handwriting.

Discussion Studies- together with Jonathan

History- Truth Quest American History for Young Students 1 and relevant read alouds. I’ve developed a tentative plan which takes us from Explorers through the American Revolution this year. I will highlight the books we read along the way!

Geography- Legends and Leagues– We reviewed world geography last year, this will be a fun weekly review of maps and cartography.

Read Alouds- I pull read alouds from different book lists. We usually have at least one fun read aloud going!

Discovery Studies- together with Jonathan

Science- human anatomy & physiology using 106 Days of Creation Studies– We have used this book slowly over the past two years to guide our nature study. We will be diving into health & human anatomy this year and supplementing with read alouds. Grace is really excited and curious to know how the human body works!

Nature Study- drawing what we see outside in our nature journals. Read Outdoor Secrets and perhaps Christian Liberty Nature Reader 1

Art- Draw, Write Now 1. The children and I are also doing exercises in Drawing with Children.  Grace is currently first on the waiting list for art in our co-op. I hope she gets in!

Extra Curricular-

American Heritage Girls Scouting

Spanish Co-Op Class

A sport of some type- In the past we have done swimming, soccer, gymnastics. She is very interested in dance.

File Server and Hard Drives

I bought awhile back a stand alone file server.  My desire is get a standalone file server that I can upgrade the hard drives without doing a whole bunch of work to keep it up and maintain it.  This is what I bought, and I’ve been very happy with it.

First, I wanted a File Server that I could connect to our MS Server 2008 Active Directory users so that I didn’t need to recreate all of the users again.

Second, I wanted to know that if I needed an extra 2 TB hard drive that it wouldn’t be hard to add it in. This setup is perfect. You can pull out the Bays and add new ones in.

Some of the surprise benefits that I have found is that they do regular updates, and are adding new functionality on-demand (so, if I don’t want the functionality, I don’t have to download it).

 
I bought this Synology File Server:

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The Hard drives I bought to go with the File Server:

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Switches

One of the networks that I have been working on, I have been adding some switches and firewalls together. So far, it has been a really good setup. Here is what I have:

Firewall:

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Switch:

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Bluetooth Car Audio

This is my new favorite toy. I bought the following:

Here is why I like it.
#1. It connects into my car’s Aux input. And it connects into my lighter outlet for power (no need to recharge batteries all the time).
#2. It works great with my iPhone. It autoconnects if when I turn on my car I’m on a call or playing music, it automatically switches over.
#3. It doesn’t automatically connect to my phone and turn on my music like some of the other devices do. Some people see this as a feature. I do not, because sometimes I listen to my radio, and if I wasn’t paying attention, I might have the radio on, and then the bluetooth podcasts would be playing in the background and I would lose my position.
#4. (this is the worst piece) People can hear the road noise when I use the handsfree. But also note that I have a Corolla and it is loud. I wish that I had my old Camry that was pretty quiet and much smoother.
#5. There is a button that I can push to connect. If I push this button and someone is calling, it will answer the phone. If I push the button and there is no phone activity, it automatically starts the from the last place where I was listening to music or a podcast.

Overall, I couldn’t have wished for anything more. It is very easy to use and after the installation (which was easy), I haven’t had to do anything else.

Foscam IP Cams

We recently installed some IP Cams in our house in order to watch over our kids. After the initial installation (which was a little brutal), these have been excellent. On the 2nd camera, the installation was pretty easy. I think that the key to using Foscam cameras is to always do the firmware upgrade.

Here are the exact models that we installed:

Here are the values for me:
#1. 2 way audio
#2. There is a $5 iPhone app that is a little flaky, but is fantastic in our home. It allows us to watch the kids as long as we have WiFi
#3. You can choose to keep the video stream only inside your router’s access or to allow web access.
#4. There is an option to record the video.
#5. Many ways to connect: webpage, iphone, ip address.
#6. Uses WiFi. For our house, the RF signal ones just don’t cut it. We have plaster walls and we just struggled to get something to work.

Cardinals vs Cubs

Andy, Jonathan and I took my dad to a Cardinals Vs. Cubs game last weekend as his Father’s day present.  We drove to Busch stadium for the day.  It was 95 degrees out, Jonathan and I immediately started sweating after exiting the air conditioned car.  Here is the little guy sweating…

We made it through 6 innings before getting a little too hot.  It was a fun day to go to the park, and it was fun to see Jonathan realize that the baseball players were really right there instead of on the TV.  We also ran into Daffy Duck at the park.  Jonathan was a little intimidated at first.

Daddy Is a Super Hero!

Shortly before naptime today Jonathan and I got on the subject of babies. I can’t remember even how we got on the subject or what was said, but it ended up with me pulling out a box of old pictures to look for pictures of Brian and me as babies.

I never did find a baby picture of Brian, but as I was pulling out pictures, one in particular caught Jonathan’s attention. His eyes grew wide and he said with a gasp of excitement: “Daddy is a super hero!”

Jonathan was just so excited– he kept telling me that his daddy is a super hero! And he insisted that I put the picture up in his room where he could see it as he fell asleep. So… if he tells you his daddy is a super hero, now you know the back story! 🙂

Cubs VS Reds

On Friday. JHK and I went to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field.  We picked up the EL in Evanston and took it to Wrigley.  We only made it to the 7th inning stretch.  The temperature got up above 40 somewhere, but I don’t know that it made it to much over 40.  By the 6th inning JHK was shivering relatively well, but insisted that he wasn’t cold.  On the way back we made friends with the conductor, he even made the horn go peep peep.  The next day, there were two highlights, he went to a game and the train went peep peep.

The Squirrels in the Yard

On Saturday, we were looking out the window when Jonathan noticed the squirrels in the yard getting really close to his tricycle and he said how they were going to get his tricycle.  So I let him run out and get it and put it in the garage.  When he got back in, I asked him where all of the squirrels went.  He said, “The squirrels all went back to their mommies because a Jonathan Monster was outside and scared them.”  I assured him that his assessment was 100% accurate.  

🙂