Oraganization Tip: Library Due Dates

If you are anything like me, getting books to the library on time is an interesting task.  I actually stopped borrowing so many books, because I was not getting them turned in on time and many were getting lost. 

Today, I had to borrow some books that I need for a unit study that I want to do with Tarja.  I found a total of five books that I needed.  After the books were checked out, I took a picture of the receipt with my cell phone.  This will help me if I lose my receipt.  Now, I can check and be sure that I have all of my books together when it is time to take them back. 

Next, I entered the due date into the calendar/alert tool on my cell phone.  In the area marked "details," I entered the number of books that I have checked out. 

This little system should keep me from having any overdue, lost or forgotten library books. 

Have a Great Day!
Laurel Santiago

A Morning at the Santiago Homeschool

It's still summer time.  Public school starts at the end of August.  We never really stop having school, but our lessons seem less formal during the summer months.  If there is an opportunity to go do something fun, we do it.  If it is 120 degrees (I'm not joking), the kids can't safely play outside, and so that's a good time for copywork, stories, watching movies, etc.

This particular morning, we all got our sleepy heads up around 9a.m.  Don't homeschoolers get up around 5a.m. to feed the animals? We don't have a hobby farm or ranch, even though I did acquire four little chickens yesterday.  Basically, we get up when we feel like it, but I try to not let the kidlets sleep past about 10a.m.  If you see how late we stay up at night, you will understand. 

Melody had a friend come over to remove the alternator on my expedition that has been out of commission for several months.  My mom mobile has been a disaster lately.  Hopefully, replacing the alternator is the magic fix (crossing fingers). 

The same friend took Melody out to lunch.

I got Abbey to help get Tarja and Ivana ready to go out to a lunch of our own.  Tarja and I won a salsa making contest last Saturday, and one of our prizes was a gift certificate to her favorite restaurant.  While getting ready, Abbey got Ivana to use the potty, which was no easy feat.  I got their hair done and we were off to go buy a bag of chicken scratch for our new pets and then to our lunch date.

Lunch was great. We got through the entire meal without our usual terrible two year old temper tantrum.  The one that got the most food on her shirt was me.  How does that work out?

Ivana used the potty again.  She wasn't happy, but she did it.  Yay!

We got home, changed my shirt, put a load of laundy away, let Tarja go over the living room and hall way floor with the Dirt Devil (she loves that job for some reason).  Abbey helped me get plastic covers on some baby clothes that I made for sale.  She and Tarja got the chickens fed, watered and loved on.  I started a new load of laundry and nearly got the kitchen table cleared of the crochet and craft stuff.  (The kitchen table is my design studio).  I also repaired a shoe that Tarja tore after wearing it for only one day.

Ivana can now open all jars and bottles......and somebody left a nail polish bottle down in her reach.  She is now silver and glittery all over.  Abbey got some of it off of her.  It's nap time......but nobody is napping.

 Tarja and I went over her reading/copywork lesson that I took directly from McGuffy's Eclectic Primer.  I played the Overature from The Nutcracker for her.  Now she is watching a movie while Abbey and I work on Abbey's Alison.com courses. 

This is just half of our day, but we've got it sewn up so far.  

There is something that concerns me about homeschooling families, bloggers, and writers.  We feel the need to present our families as perfect, trouble free, drama free families.  It's not true.  We have bad days.  We have excellent days.  We have days where we wonder if we have the right to be mothers, much less homeschooling mothers.  We blame our troubles on everyone around us.  Honestly, I know that one of my children would be shy, whether she is homeschooled or not. One is quite confrontational.  It wouldn't have mattered where she attended school.  One is quite lazy.  Would she not have been just as lazy in school?  Sometimes, I have to give up on getting the house cleaned up, because we have lessons and activities to do.  Sometimes, I have to answer to my husband, when he gets home and wonders why the house is a wreck after he spent 12 hours working in the heat.  Sometimes, dinner isn't until 9pm, although I try to make it well worth the wait.  There are days when our 9pm dinner is a crappy meal of chicken nuggets and chips.  I have to make choices every day to make things work out for my family. 

I am spontaneous, creative, pragmatic, and busy. If something isn't working out, I will change it up in a heartbeat.  Schedules, rules, routines, regimentation!  You won't find that in this blog.  You also won't find me complaining.  I might state facts such as the nail polish incident, but I have no complaints.  My life was and is being designed by me.  I am truly grateful for all of my friends, family and blog readers/followers.  This has been a wild ride that has spanned over fourteen years of my life and I am always excited about having the opportunity to share our lives with you.

Have a Great Day!
Laurel Santiago

Easy Organizing Tip #1

A lot of us are working out our new "back to school" schedules.  Some of your are planning curriculum and lesson plans.  Some are trying to figure out how to balance work, homeschool and extra curricular activities.  It's not something that we normally categorize as "easy." 

Here is the number one, most important thing that you can do for yourself and your kids before school starts:

GET A TOTE BAG OR BACKPACK FOR EACH AND EVERY ACTIVITY THAT REQUIRES STUFF.  Tee ball?  Dance? Twirling? Girl Scouts? Youth Group?  Most activities require that you carry around something related to that activity.   For each activity, have a tote bag or backpack that is large enough to house everything that has to be taken or worn to that activity.  For example, if your child is in Awana club, have a bag that houses her shirt, vest, book, and even a pen or pencil.  If you have a softball player, put a bag together that has all of her gear, shoes, balls, glove, and anything else that you hope to never forget when you go to practices and games.  After you wash her uniforms, stick them right back in the bag. 

I also have a durable, soft sided, insulated lunch bag that is now the first aid kit.  It works for boo boos in the house, and gets to go in the car for boo boos that happen everywhere else.  For the toddler, we always have a couple of diapers and a container of wipes in the car. 

What do you do with all of those bags, backpacks, kits, etc. that you have put together?  I like to hang mine near the back door.  It's not the most beautiful display, but it makes me happy and keeps us moving efficiently.  That was easy!

Have a Great Day!

Laurel Santiago

Family Field Trips

We are truly the homeschoolers that don't stay home.  In my opinion, getting out to see and do things around the community is one of the easiest ways to get an education.  If you can go further than your home town, that's even better, but in most towns, there is more to do than you think.  If you live in a town that doesn't offer much, then stick your neck out and get something started.  It's easier than you think.  Here is a list of some of the things that we have done this summer, up until the time of this writing: 

Discover the Dinosaurs
This was a fun display of life sized dinosaurs that could be manipulated by the children.  They had information about dinosaurs on display and a room full of dinosaur themed activities and bouncy houses.

Summertime Extravaganza:

We spent all year raising money for The Sparklers to parade down Mainstreet USA at Disneyland and participate in a showcase with other twirlers and Dancers at Knottsberry Farm. 

We had a Family Life Challenge picnic, a group yard sale, many bake sales, and have attended several pool parties and birthday parties. 

Last weekend, we went to the ribbon cutting for the new Rattlesnake Bomber Base Museum that was recently opened in our town. 

Today, we attended a special concert, featuring Juan Campos, a blind singer and pianist that travels around the area playing, singing and praising God for the wonderful talent that God has given him. 

So far, our field trips, both minor and major, have covered a multitude of subjects such as science, history, fine arts, civics, and have provided social opportunities for our homeschooled children.  All that I had to do was keep my eyes and ears open for things to do around town, gather up my family, and go.  That was easy!

Have a Great Day!

Laurel Santiago

Music and Composer Study in the Homeschool

Music is a very important part of our homeschooling.  How do we fit it in?  For starters, we listen to a lot of music, of all kinds.  It doesn't matter to us if it is oldies, today's hits, opera, or something else.  We keep music playing during the majority of our days and evenings. 

Although, I was a musician, I don't force my children to learn musical instruments unless they want to do so.  We do have a very busy baton twirling and dance team and we use a wide variety of music for that.

As for focusing on specific composers, you can listen to classical music for free on Spotify.  If you would like to focus on a specific composer for a specific term or period of time, you can find playlists galore on the internet to listen to for free.  I chose The Nutcracker for Tarja for this term.  She already somewhat knows the story of The Nutcracker, because she has watched several children's varieties on Netflix. I found a playlist of various pieces from The Nutcracker on Spotify and turned it on for her to listen to while she does her copywork.  As each piece plays, we talk about the name of the composer and the name of the piece.  She recognizes a lot of the pieces from cartoons, but now she will be able to identify them by title and composer.  We will repeat the same music daily for at least a month. 

Some of my favorites to introduce to children are:

The Nutcracker
Peter and the Wolf
Swan Lake
Scheherazade
Tubby the Tuba

These are all fun and important works to learn and remember.

THAT was easy!

Have a great day!
Laurel Santiago

Literature in the Homeschool

Many English textbooks cover literature.  However, does literature learned from an organized curriculum turn children into lovers of classic stories, poems and novels?  It might, but it never worked that way for me or for my children.  I have always loved to read, as long as I got to choose the books that I was reading, but I never loved to read the books that my teachers commanded that I had to read within a certain time frame.  I'm no expert in psychology, but it seems like it works that way for a lot of students. 

The easiest way to fit great literature into your school day is to not schedule it.  Don't break out the boring classics, sit your children down and insist on reading it or on them reading it to you.  Just........DON'T. 

Instead, be selective about the books that you read for fun.  For bedtime stories we are currently reading from a collection of Beatrix Potter stories and a Bible story book.   We never read these books for school work.  They are read when Tarja comes along and says, "Will you read me a bedtime story?"  They are also read when Tarja is playing and suddenly asks, "Will you read to me?"  Isn't that easy?  She gets her story.  I get her literature or Bible lesson covered, and nobody even knows about it. 

Have a Great Day!
Laurel Santiago

Reading, Spelling, Penmanship and Very Simple Grammar

My six year old has been learning the alphabet and how it works on time4learning.com, starfall.com and abcmouse.com.  All that I really have had to do up to this point is supervise.  This year, we are moving on to practicing reading with McGuffey's Eclectic Primer.   We are going over the letters, words and sentences on each page, over and over again.  I point to each item and read it with her as many times as she is willing and energetic enough to keep repeating it.  Each lesson is very short and simple. 

After we have done this, I give her a writing tablet that I purchased at the dollar store.  It's up to you if you want to use the imaginary line paper or wide ruled paper.  I have used both with my older children and it has really depended on the child as to what worked best.  Tarja seems to want to write all over the page, so we are currently using the imaginary line paper.  With that tablet, I have already printed out her full name and the current date.  We read that together and talk about it.  The rest of the letters, words and sentences are copied from her lesson that we read together out of the McGuffey reader.  I point out certain important things about her work.  For example, if there is a name on the page, it starts with a capital letter.  The sentences begin with a capital letter and end with a punctuation mark.  What kind of punctuation marks are they and why are they being used?  If she makes a mistake, she is to draw one, neat line though the mistake and try again.  No scribbling allowed.  She is instructed to write as neatly as she can. 

There is a method to this madness.  We have seen and read new works, particularly new site words by reading from the McGuffey primer.  Instead of moving on to something else and taking time to forget about what we just read, we are getting another exposure by copying the letters, words and sentences.  By copying the letters, words, and sentences, we are getting extra reading practice with the addition of which letters make up which word and how to print them correctly.  We get to practice writing sentences with punctuation marks, and get to add capital letters where they belong.  We get to commit our reading to memory, thereby turning our youngest children into children that are being exposed to and can remember great literature. 

For older children, you can use this same method with any book or even the Bible.  The Bible is a great resource, because the words and language can be very challenging.  It doesn't get much easier than this.

Have a Great Day!
Laurel Santiago

Welcome to An Easy Education!

Welcome to my new blog!  I have quite a few homeschool blogs and articles on the internet, and decided that since we are starting a new first grader this year, maybe it is time to start a fresh blog with a new focus.  Easy education may seem misleading.  There isn't much about education or homeschooling that seems easy, at least not at first.  I went through all of the awkwardness and negativity that accompanies becoming a new homeschooler.  Could we do it?  Should we do it?  Did we have enough money?  Would our children learn?  Would they become social misfits?  Were we doing the right thing?  That was approximately fourteen years ago.  Since then, we have one graduate that is working full time and taking online classes.  She is exactly on a path of her own choosing.  Our fourteen year old has been training for her future career with animals for about two years.  She has earned a diploma in Forestry and Wildlife Conservation and a certificate in psychology.  She is currently working on another one for Outdoor Adventure.

Our family belongs to our local homeschool group.  I am the founder and owner of The Sparklers Parade Corps which is our baton twirling and dance team. I am a certified USTA (United States Twirling Association) coach.  We have a small family business that is listed with our local Chamber of Commerce.  The girls and I are long time members of Girl Scouts, and have recently started a group called Family Life Challenge. 

We have four daughters: Melody, Abbey, Tarja and Ivana.  My husband, Augustine, and I, will be married 20 years in October.  We also have a white poodle puppy (we think he might really be a peekapoo) named Tico Suave.  Needless to say, we are very busy, loud and messy.

I hope to be a blessing to all who choose to follow my blog.  I will post video demonstrations of things that my children do, lesson plans (if you can really call them that), resources that I use for my own children (if I like it, I'll share it), ideas, and even contests and challenges.  Homeschooling is serious business, but it doesn't have to be stressful or scary or cost a lot of money.  Leave me a comment, follow my blog, and I'll do the same for you.

Have a Great Day!
Laurel Santiago