Prayer Journal for Kids

I'm still working on Bible resources and am adding these prayer journaling pages for our notebook. Our focus this year is on praying scripture, but we've also studied and learned about praying like Jesus prayed (The Lord's Prayer), so we will use both pages alternately.

My children are very thoughtful in their young prayers, so I'm encouraged to teach them more about the power that comes with those prayers and the power that is the Living Word of God!

Spell to Write and Read: "Learning Log" Notebooking Pages

We LOVE our Spell to Write and Read! We are just beginning our fourth year with it and after so much "practice", I'm finding there are a few things I like my own way.

Though we loved the primary learning logs, we do not like the black 3rd yr+ logs. Too much work for the results. So, in an effort to simplify, I've made my own necessary notebooking pages. These include "collection" pages that were not originally in the learning logs, but were suggested. Such as abbreviations, homophones, etc. Son has enjoyed "collecting" these words and categorizing them.

I'm making these pages available to anyone interested. I've also put the link in my sidebar. I hope that they will be of benefit.

We keep them in a three-ring report folder with a clear front. Son creates his own cover for each year which makes things more appealing to him. Some pages may require more than one page, and it never hurts to have a blank for some extraneous word collecting.

Please let me know if you "grab" these, and what you think!
*Link has been edited. Please re-try new link to file.

*These pages are not endorsed by SWR. Nor are they absolutely true to the program. They are my expression of how we currently use the program with our 8yo son who is very much the reluctant writer. These pages may be used for any spelling program or notebook. They are my more relaxed attempt to add back in some of the content of what was in the black learning log that we skipped last year because of writing.

Scheduled Reading

I'm very excited about a plan I came up with to conquer our reading woes. Now, our reading woes are probably different than most. Ours are not related to whether or not we want to read, but the bloomin' fact that we want to read too much. Of course, the idea that there could ever really be TOO much to read seems ludicrous, however we love to read and have a LOT to choose from.

That said, and the very fact that most of our curriculum is literature based, we could easily drown in books. My solution involves using a blank calendar. I've chosen all the books that we will read for each subject based on availability and time. I've recorded one for read-aloud and one for son to read on his own, for each topic. I've assigned them days on the calendar based on the size of the book. Then I've split the number of pages by the number of days to read each title.

Now we know exactly what to read and when. There is no floundering in search of the perfect book. No forgetting I meant to get a certain book and having to settle for something else. And NO letting valuable reading time slip by! There are always two books being read. We've begun using this method over the last month and are very pleased. One thing I have realized though, is that I should keep Saturday and Sunday free for catch-up reading for there are days when reading doesn't happen. (I initially used those days for scheduling.) Of course, I want to bean myself in the head when that happens, but I'll try not to get to frustrated. I've been quite happy how willing he is to read on Saturday and Sunday, too. Reading is becoming more of a daily habit and less of a weekday school task/chore!

I made son his own copy of the calendar for his notebook so he knows exactly what to read and when. I did not break down the pages for every book, but will do so periodically as a gather them a month in advance. Overall, I'm hoping this will add to his ability to self-govern his time and responsibilities. We'll be doing that a lot this year as we add his sister to the fray.

I truly believe that this will keep us on track better time wise. We didn't finish our Truthquest volume last year because of not scheduling the subjects (why we are now reading history!), so I have great hopes.

A Notebook of Notebooking Pages

I love using the notebook method for our schooling, but there are side effects. One is lots of paper and copies. Another is the stacks that come with lots of paper and copies. Then there is also the lost or damaged paper and copies which leads to the replacement copies of the paper copies and that means more paper, more ink, etc. Whew! I get tired of stacks of paper. Worse than that, I get tired of constantly having to come up with notebooking pages. I would much rather plan for them and have them ready, even if it's a year in advance. This takes some organizing.

With some forethought I'm hoping to keep all those copies representing hard work on my part, organized and ready for easy access. I'm trying another notebook. This one I'm organizing by date. More specifically, by month. For some reason, organizing by subject did not work for me. I think that had to do with my subject notebook getting too big. I wasn't consistent in keeping things together and I didn't want to lug them all around, all the time.

I'm working hard to come up with notebooking pages for the various subjects and levels I need. This is not part of the job I enjoy, but part that is very valuable and necessary. I've learned that using notebooking as a criteria for selecting my curriculum can be helpful. For instance, this year's geography, "Trailguide to US Geography" also has available a multi-level notebooking CD.

I'll share more about our notebooking choices in the future, as time allows.