Herrington Homeschool Materials: Critical Thinking Resources

I'm still going through my list of materials we're currently using right now for homeschooling and this week I wanted to feature our Critical Thinking resources. We started out with this book which was a great general place to start and now we've gotten several that are more specific. We usually do a few pages from one of the books before bedtime and I just alternate which one I choose. Here's what we're using now:

Mathematical Reasoning

This is one of my favorites. It's fun and colorful and some pages are challenging for Annie but some are pretty easy for her. I like that it's a good mix and it seems to cover a lot of mathematical concepts. This pretty much is our math curriculum right now (aside from weaving it into other areas like reading stories), and I feel like it meets our needs well. 

Visual Perceptual Skill Building

This is not my favorite. The pages aren't as colorful and more of them involve writing, which isn't really a big deal, but I just generally prefer to be able to sit on the couch and bust through a couple of pages. 

Mind Benders

These puzzles are super fun. Every page is a chart like this. I have to guide AP a good bit, but she's surprised me with how fast she's picked up on the technique of filling out the chart. [We use a page protector thing so that we can use it later with Graves.]

Thinker Doodles

This is honestly my least favorite. Annie's not really very into "directed" art. And at four, I don't think that's a huge deal. She's actually not even really great at coloring in the lines and she struggles to hold a pencil correctly. We try to work on it some, but there are SO many more things I think (at this age) are more important. It's just really not a huge focus. 

Can You Find Me?

This is another favorite. Annie loves the riddles and I think they are so much fun, too. It's fun to get her to explain her thought process for figuring them out, too. 

One last thing: we have these BrainQuest cards for both the kids. Graves usually does a card a night and AP does a couple. 

This is definitely one of Annie's favorite parts of "school" and it's certainly one of mine, too. More than just teaching her concepts, it's very important to me to teach her how to think and to be a person who thinks critically. 

Herrington Homeschool Materials: Slow and Steady Get Me Ready

A month or so ago I wrote a post on the different materials and resources we use for homeschooling Ann Peyton right now. I told myself I was going to try to step it up a notch this Summer and I have! I've been more consistent and we've added a couple of new components. I'm hoping to write a couple of posts about the new stuff later, but first I wanted to shared more details about what we've been doing for awhile.

First up: this book!


I'm so in love with it and I really think the kids benefit when I take time to do the activities in it with them. I'm not really a craft person. Let me rephrase that. I enjoy doing crafts with my kids as long as they're age appropriate and not over the top. I think there's a time and a place for super cute crafts, but so often I see crafts that are pleasing to the eye, but really aren't teaching kids many skills. Personally, I just hate it when kids bring home things from school that really didn't teach them anything- it's just to look nice on the fridge. Anyway, I need to get off my soapbox about crafts.

The thing about this book is that it's SO practical. Every activity is either a "life skill" (this is what most of AP's are) or something that will help them move closer to a milestone (mostly in Graves's case).

[pink paper clip for AP and blue for Graves]

We've done activities with play dough. One week the activity was teaching Annie to play hopscotch. Another week Graves practiced throwing a bean bag in a box. Fun activities that I just forget to even think about! They're all pretty inexpensive and mostly use things you'd have on hand anyway. Most of the time, the prep work required is minimal and the activities usually don't take a terribly long time themselves.

This was a good example of "life skill" that I worked on with Graves. (Of course Annie helped). We practiced with buttons, velcro, snaps and zippers! Of course there are tons of toys and dolls on the market to help children with these skills, but it never would have occurred to me to just collect articles of his own clothing (and his sister's) and practice with those. So easy and the kids had fun one rainy afternoon with this practical little challenge!



Annie knows her letters pretty well at this point, but we're still working on pre-reading skills a good bit and any time I can think of a way to incorporate alphabet activities into our day, I think it's a good thing. One week the activity was making letters with noodles. Coincidentally, we were having spaghetti that week and I just cooked some extra for her to experiment with.



This was last week's activity and probably Ann Peyton's favorite to date. She learned to sew! I borrowed a plastic tapestry needle from my mom and as the book suggested found a coloring sheet and tapped it to some cardboard. I poked holes in it with a nail and Voila! it was her own little "embroidery" project.

Each week (I try to do it on Monday) I look at what the activity is and collect supplies and do any prep work and then I pick times I know the kids will be well rested and we'll have enough time to enjoy the activities and plan to do it then. Right now that's how homeschooling looks in general. It's a very organic thing and very relaxed. We're flexible and if we miss a week's activities we just double up the next week. I really, REALLY enjoy this part of homeschooling- teaching the kids small skills and big concepts within the daily flow of our life!

Herrington Homeschool Materials

A couple of people have asked me recently what we do exactly as for as homeschooling Annie. Awhile back I typed up something to send to a friend about the different resources we use and I thought it would be fun to share a little more here. I think I'm going to do more specific posts about each thing later, but for now he's an overview.

1. The Well-Trained Mind - This book is like a manual on how to homeschool if you're wanting to give your child a classical education. It's a really comprehensive book if you're interested in homeschooling for the long haul. I think the chapters on preschool have been really beneficial as a stand alone resource, though.

2. Beginning Critical Thinking Skills - AP *loves* this. It's sort of like puzzles that teach basic concepts like shapes, colors, angles/lines, patterns and reasoning. It's really cool. The book is sort of expensive, but I've loved doing it with her (we do three or four pages a night).

3. Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready- This is the neatest book. It has a different activity each week from birth until age five. The first week is like leg exercises with your newborn and the last week of year four is "how to pack an overnight bag". It's practical and fun. We had it for the longest time and I never got it out, but now I'm using it for both kids. I love how practical it is and that it reminds me to do things I just forget about- like teaching Annie to play hopscotch. 

4. We have some alphabet blocks and flashcards, and we work on letters some but not obsessively. At this point, she can identify the letters and tell me the sound they make and (most of the time) tell me a word or two that starts with that letter.

5. We use this type of Kumon workbook for tracing - I laminated the pages and put them in a binder and she uses dry erase markers so we use the same sheets over and over. We also have a workbook that teaches her cutting skills as well.

6. For memory work, the little school she goes to has different Bible verses each month and usually one other thing (a poem, a song, a diagram, ect.). I also usually pick a hymn I want to teach her that month. One or two verses, one hymn, and a short poem/diagram/ect. per month. Very manageable. Plus we have a kids' catechism we use. One thing the teachers at Annie's school really harp on is memory work because it's SO much easier to learn facts when you're tiny.

7. I've written about this before, but the last thing is that we REALLY try to take advantage of the library. AP's teacher focuses on a letter a week and I try to go online and look up books at the library with things starting with that letter (we did "cat" books for "c", for example).  I also try to pick ones that go with the calendar, too (Thanksgiving, Black History Month, ect.). Plus, I've started picking one long read- aloud book for her because kids can understand stories that are slightly above their working vocabularies. That's been super fun and AP's loved this component.

Like I said, I'll probably share more details about our routine later, but this is the basics.