Look! We're Learning!

Early Learning. Happy Teaching.

  • Shop
  • Printables
  • Homeschool
  • Crafts
  • Parenting
  • Blog

Our 2013-14 Student Photos

August 19, 2013 by Selena Robinson 5 Comments

First Day of School Picture Day: Look! We're Learning!Back to school means first day of school pictures! I still find it hard to believe that these kids are big enough for 3rd grade, kindergarten, and pre-K, but they are!

First Day of School Picture Day: Look! We're Learning!We printed these adorable First Day of School Printable Cards from Three Dinosaurs.

First Day of School Picture Day: Look! We're Learning!

Roo’s first year of school! He’s so excited about learning to read!

First Day of School Picture Day: Look! We're Learning!

Pooh’s first year of actual schoolwork. He’s more excited about looking like he’s “doing school” than anything else.

First Day of School Picture Day: Look! We're Learning!

Tigger’s an old pro by now. She’s excited about learning American history and science this year.

First Day of School Picture Day: Look! We're Learning!

Every year, we try to get the kids something new. We were superbly broke this year, so they just got new notebooks. The great thing about kids, though, is that they love just about anything as long as it’s new. The boys were thrilled to have real notebooks, instead of tot writing paper. Tigger got her very first binder with a few Lisa Frank folders.

First Day of School Picture Day: Look! We're Learning!

And one final shot with their backpacks. As you can see, Pooh is really into this “I’m cool” phase. I’d like to say it’ll pass soon, but I think we may have another 10 years or so of that stage.

This post is part of the iHomeschool Network “Not Back to School” Blog Hop! Visit our fellow bloggers and link up your own posts by clicking the image below!

NBTS Blog Hop Calendar: Look! We're Learning!

Our 2013-14 Homeschool Room

August 12, 2013 by Selena Robinson 14 Comments

Good morning! It’s another new week here at Look! We’re Learning! and we’re ready to get started!

I’m fully engulfed in the “back to school” spirit and I’ve been sharing our homeschool plans for this year recently. Last week, we featured our homeschool curriculum choices for 3rd, K, and PK. Today we’re sharing pictures of our homeschool room for this year.

Our Homeschool Room: Look! We're Learning!

 Our Homeschool Room

We don’t really have a dedicated homeschool room (as much as I wish we did). So we have to make do with what we have, right? 🙂

Our Homeschool Room: Look! We're Learning!

As you can see, our homeschool room doubles as our dining room. If you’ve seen our previous post about homeschooling in a small space, then you already know our basic setup. We did make a few changes this year, though.

Our Homeschool Room: Look! We're Learning!

We’re keeping our reward coupon system this year, but we’re going to make a few changes to it. We’re not exactly sure what our basis for handing our Play Bucks will be yet. I’m leaning toward adapting it to their schoolwork, but we’re undecided for now.

One thing we did decide on was the need for a better daily schedule. We’ll be sharing our detailed schedule in a couple of weeks, but we’ve already instituted a simple picture schedule to give the kids a heads-up on what we’re doing each day.

To make it, I just downloaded the free workbox tags from Homeschool Creations and then laminated them and added velcro. That way, we can just add and remove subjects based on what we’re doing that day.

Our Homeschool Room: Look! We're Learning!

The long wall in the room houses our picture world map, our chalkboard, our fruitage of the spirit “tree”, and a beautiful piece of artwork we picked up recently.

Our Homeschool Room: Look! We're Learning!

Isn’t that beautiful? We bought it at the Liberated Minds Homeschool Expo. The title is “Plant Da Seeds And They Will Grow” and it’s by an artist named Jah Peeps. I love how the “tree of knowledge” is supplemented with books about topics such as love, wisdom, and truth.

Those are several of the core values we try to instill in our children. It was very moving to me that, when the children receive that kind of foundation, they feel comfortable in life – just like the picture shows.

Our Homeschool Room: Look! We're Learning!

Here’s a close-up view of our picture world map. We love this map because it’s full of pictures that automatically capture the kids’ interest. They ask questions on their own: “What’s that animal?” “What’s that building?” It gives us a simple way to stir up enthusiasm for geography.

Our Homeschool Room: Look! We're Learning!

I still keep all of our books for the year in a crate next to the bookshelf. These are the same books we featured in our homeschool curriculum post for last week, along with our first read-aloud. Can you guess what it is by looking at the author? (We’ll be sharing our reading list soon.)

Our Homeschool Room: Look! We're Learning!

One change we made was to designate one wall as our themed chart space. We’ll be rotating out charts through the year that relate to the topics we cover.

Our Homeschool Room: Look! We're Learning!

Fractions are coming up soon.

Our Homeschool Room: Look! We're Learning!

As is a discussion on the properties of light.

Our Homeschool Room: Look! We're Learning!

We still keep most of our supplies in our bookcase. Our basic homeschool tools (binding machine, laminator, and pencil sharpener) are right on top.

Our Homeschool Room: Look! We're Learning!

The top shelf holds dry erase markers, chalkboard erasers, pencils, pens, and some art supplies. We also have most of the books in the Core Knowledge Series and my trusty homeschool binder. The second row is where we keep individual workboxes that we’ll be using off and on during the year and a basket with several of the Children’s Busy Books. (Look for us to share some of our activities from those in the future.)

Our Homeschool Room: Look! We're Learning!

The last shelf is where we keep more art supplies: paints, crayons, brushes, etc. On the right side, I keep our homeschool records in a portable filing box. We’ve never been visited by any truancy officers or school district representatives, but I like to have our documents ready in case that happens.

And that’s our homeschool space! It’s small but we make it work! We’d love to see pictures of your homeschooling rooms! Feel free to tell us about them in the comments!

This post is part of the iHomeschool Network “Not Back to School” Blog Hop! Visit our fellow bloggers and link up your own posts by clicking the image below!

NBTS Blog Hop Calendar: Look! We're Learning!

Big Book of Homeschool Ideas

Our 2013-14 Homeschool Curriculum

August 5, 2013 by Selena Robinson 17 Comments

It’s the most wonderful time of the year – back to school season! When I was young, back to school time was the best part of the year for me. (I am an unabashed nerd, by the way.) We’re trying to create a similar atmosphere in our home so that our kids grow to love school and learning in general.

I found this year to be one of the easiest planning years so far, since we’re using more pre-planned curriculum. Typically, we’ve been the grab-and-go type of homeschoolers, meaning that I would grab several resources and just use what I like to put together our lessons.

In 2013-14, we’ll have a 3rd grader, a kindergartner, and a preschooler, though, so time is at a premium this time around. And packaged curriculum has been a wonderful planning timesaver.

Our 2013-14 Curriculum: Look! We're Learning!So, without further ado, our curriculum for 2013-14 is as follows: *drumroll*

Third Grade Homeschool Curriculum

Our 2013-14 Curriculum: Look! We're Learning!

We’re using West Brooke Curriculum as the core foundation of our school year with Tigger. It’s a very affordable program (around $100 for the lesson plans and books) that is based on the Core Knowledge series “What Your ____ Grader Needs to Know” and the publications from JW.org. As Christians, it’s our goal to keep the Bible before our children everyday and West Brooke Curriculum does that by including a daily lesson from the Bible.

Our 2013-14 Curriculum: Look! We're Learning!

For example, Week 1 features a lesson that includes use of the Bible Character card for Joseph and Potiphar, the Picture Activity “Joseph is Sold Into Slavery”, and Teach Your Children: “Are You Ever Jealous? Joseph’s Brothers Were”.

Our 2013-14 Curriculum: Look! We're Learning!

Here are the West Brooke Curriculum books for third grade, including the Usborne Encyclopedia of Science, Modern Day Phonics, Sequential Spelling, and Draw Write Now Book 6.

With West Brooke, you can choose your own math program. I decided to go with A+ TutorSoft Math and use the 3rd grade computer program along with the downloadable curriculum and workbook I got from Currclick.

Our 2013-14 Curriculum: Look! We're Learning!

The workbooks make it easy to just print what you need as you go, but I’m the kind of person that will put that off until the last minute if I don’t do it all at once. So I printed the entire workbook and put it in a binder.

Our 2013-14 Curriculum: Look! We're Learning!

P.E. is a bit of concern for us this year as well. I’ve been resistant to structured physical education for a long time, because I felt that daily playing would be enough. But our kids, especially Tigger, need a lot of work on their balance, coordination, and stamina. We got a chance to try the program Family Time Fitness a while back and we absolutely loved it!

So that’s going to be our daily P.E. Our plan is to do it four days a week before breakfast and then go on with schoolwork. We’ll be posting about our progress and hopefully we’ll all get into better shape together!

Family Time Fitness

Kindergarten Homeschool Curriculum

Our 2013-14 Curriculum: Look! We're Learning!

I’m not the kind of person to worry too much about structured work in kindergarten beyond basic math, reading, and writing. We’ll be reading lots of history as a family and performing basic science experiments, but as far as daily work with Pooh goes, it’ll be the three Rs. We picked up a couple of kindergarten workbooks, including Practice, Assess, Diagnose: 180 Days of Reading for Kindergarten, and we’ll be supplementing with lots of art and storybooks.

Preschool Homeschool Curriculum

Our 2013-14 Curriculum: Look! We're Learning!

We’re even less structured with preschool, but we will try to focus on reading skills. Roo has gone over phonics and he has a basic understanding of them, but he’s not confident enough to read just yet. As a result, we’ll be trying out the program Reading the Alphabet with him to boost his confidence in his decoding skills. (Look for our review of the program in two weeks!)

*A quick note: This curriculum post does NOT include our reading list for all three grades. I’ll be sharing that in a couple of weeks.*

Have you finished planning your school year? Have you made any adjustments in our approach this year? Let us know in the comments! Keep on learning!

This post is part of the iHomeschool Network “Not Back to School” Blog Hop! Visit our fellow bloggers and link up your own posts by clicking the image below!

NBTS Blog Hop Calendar: Look! We're Learning!

Art for All Ages Bundle - 3 ebooks!

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
Hi! I'm Selena, a teacher and a veteran homeschool mom to four. I'm so glad you're here!
About Me Contact Terms of Use Privacy Policy Places I Share
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Instagram
Homeschool Printables Unit Studies Shop the Store
Copyright ©2023, Look! We're Learning!. All Rights Reserved. Design by Pixel Me Designs