Back to School {The First Week}

In my Back to School – Planning post I talked a little about what we were doing for the year and how we were fitting it all in. In this post I’d like to just recap our week. I’m not always good about doing this weekly but the first week is always important to me, even if I’m finally finished writing about it 3 weeks later! It is my way of scrapbooking digitally our year and there is just something indescribably special about the first week. The kids are excited for what’s to come. I’m excited for what’s to come. Everything is ripe with possibility even as we stumble through getting the daily rhythm down.

So how was our first week?

Math and Art were our biggest hits for the week.

For math we’ve switched to Khan Academy this year for our oldest son. His dad started using it to sharpen his own Algebra skills over the summer and Gabe started sitting down beside him and helping him work out problems. He absolutely loves it. Khan is self-paced, independent, and FREE! We had already been using Khan for history, science, art, and math supplementation (they have great videos and now they’ve teamed up with the guys who do Crash Course whom my kids LOVE and we use for history and science) so this was a natural carryover for him. Since Gabe is already a year ahead in math, using Khan will give him the independence to move ahead at his own pace. He may end up doing two years in one this year and be into Algebra by year’s end. We also allowed the other kids to try it since Khan does have math all the way down to an early elementary level, but we found after a few days of trying that they still preferred their Teaching Textbooks for math.

Although Teaching Textbooks is very pricey, I LOVE their program. It is set up tutorial-style so each kid is completely 100% taught on the computer without me. It is great for auditory and visual learners or for those that need someone to sit with them step by step through each problem. It does automatic grading and my kids love it. That is enough for me to spend the hefty price tag. Plus, we discovered that the book is actually just a repeat of what they are already doing during the lessons and a needless piece so we’ve eliminated that this year and gave each kid their own spiral notebook to use for working out math problems. That saves us $30 for each program. And you can use them with more than one child so we are only buying one year at a time and by next year won’t have to buy any. While the 2nd and 3rd grader are doing their math independently on the computer, it frees me up to work with Ivy and Eli with their Pre-K math and phonics.

Art was also well received this week. Mainly, because we actually did it! Every year I have these great intentions for art and music and every year life gets in the way and then they get bumped for the more “important” subjects that are required. So this year I decided no more. Creativity is a must for me to flourish and it is extremely important for my ten year old girl as well. This year we bought everyone their own sketch pad and we labeled them all pretty and are keeping them organized in an inexpensive tote from Michael’s. For the two littles, I used a primary composition notebook and  covered it in pretty scrapbook paper and then laminated the covers to keep them sturdy for the whole year. This allowed them to be cheaper (twenty five cents back to school sale!) and keeps them accessible for their age range.

Our first week of art we read the Drawing Rules in Drawing in Color and talked about how their is no wrong way to draw. We read ish and Dot, which the littles especially loved and imitated immediately in their notebooks. Our first assignment was to draw whatever we liked. Each child shared their picture and everyone said one thing they really liked about each picture as well as one thing they would like to improve upon for the year. The kids did not want the afternoon to end and it has inspired Lily to check out several drawing books at the library and she has been practicing every night. This year we will be focused on learning to draw animals in pencil using a combination of youtube tutorials and Drawing Animals in Nature with Lee Hammond . This will mesh very well with our zoology science course.

Zoology, unfortunately, started off a little rocky. I was so excited to start the lesson with a great hands-on, visible way for them to understand the concept of classification through classifying legos. This ended up with mostly fighting over said legos and Norah ended up teething and crying for a huge chunk of our time. It was a bit of a letdown for me because I have such huge expectations for this year’s zoology lineup. Our second week fared way better after a trip to Fontenelle Forest to pick up our Vertebrate/Invertebrate Educator’s Trunk and the kids got to handle and feel all kinds of bones and animal skins. My favorite was the owl skull and bobcat skull. After examining everything, the older two got to dip into their first experiment and the littles played an online classification game, all was right again in our science world.

We kicked off our first week of history by diving into Columbus and the Age of Exploration. The younger ones listened to me read from A Child’s History of the World, which I just adore, while they happily constructed ships out of our magformers. They colored and notebooked and then finished off their time playing an online game about Christopher Columbus.

The older two are doing history with daddy again this year. He is a huge history buff and has a wonderful conversational Socratic method style of teaching that our kids just love. They are watching the Crash Course World History and US History videos in conjunction with their reading and then join me on another day of the week for fun history where we get to watch the Horrible History videos, watch fun songs and do map work. Favorite song of the week: Fifty Nifty United States. I learned this song in fifth grade and it has stayed with me to this day. I am giddy passing it on to my children. They are song nerds in the same way I am. Okay, maybe I’m a bit more of a song nerd but they really do love this song. This has been our constant car-schooling anthem for the past couple of weeks to go with our geography study for the year.

I’ve been most impressed with Ivy this week. Being 5 and “officially” starting kindergarten, I wasn’t sure how involved she’d be for the multi-age taught subjects like history, science, and geography. We always have stuff planned for the littles but beyond their basic 3 R’s in the morning, we don’t require them to do school. They are free to play or watch an educational video. But she’s stuck with us through much more then I thought she would. She played the Columbus history game like her older siblings, she’s colored history sheets while listening to the stories and she’s even picked up on the Latin we’ve been studying. And her coloring has taken a dramatic turn for the better since school has started. I perceive that she will show the most overall growth this year.

Latin was by far the most unexpected successful subject of the week. We discovered Classical Academic Press by accident last year through their sister site HeadAdventureland.com which is full of fun, free latin videos!!! (Check out our fave…The Three Little Pigs!) The older two have totally resonated with the DVD chants in the Latin for Children, Primer A. They love doing the activities and discussing everything with their dad over coffee. And the younger 2-4, depending on if the two littles join us, are throughougly enjoying SongSchool Latin. It is SO kid-friendly and fun that the kids can’t wait to do Latin and have told all their friends they should too. Even I have awoken in the middle of the night with a catchy Latin song stuck in my head. Makes me want to check out their SongSchool Latin Spanish.

I also enjoyed doing Bible with the littles this week. We read out of Vos’s Child’s Story Bible starting again at the beginning. And I was once again captivated by the way she conversationally draws the little ones into the story while simultaneously weaving Christ’s redemption story in from the very beginning pages of Genesis. This is by far the BEST story Bible I’ve ever read. The children sat and listened spellbound and asked for more when I was done. Can’t ask for more than that!

Some other fun highlights of our first week…

The girls temporarily dying their hair purple and pink.

Enjoying playing golf during recess time.

Building nanoblocks during free time.

Watching caterpillars emerge as butterflies!

Taking care of pet toads.

I’m so excited to see how the rest of our year unfolds.

How was your first week of school?

Back to School – The Plan {2014-2015}

It’s time again. Everybody is posting first-day-of-school pictures on Facebook. Although I missed that deadline by 3 weeks (as I usually do with getting pictures up on Facebook…still have a whole summer’s worth of albums to put up), I did manage to take a first-day-of-school picture. Maybe sometime soon it will get to Facebook. Maybe…

I’m ready and not ready to start all at the same time. I’ve spent the last month cramming to get everything done (we’ve switched doing all our lesson planning to OneNote but that is a post for another time) and still am a bit behind.

All in all though, I’m pretty happy with our schedule and our curriculum scope and sequence for the year. After running it for a few weeks it needs some minor adjustments, but overall we did good. The major goal I am setting for myself this year is to get up earlier and more consistently. Last year with having a newborn and being up most nights, I didn’t do very well at all with getting up at a consistent time. We still had a great year and accomplished a lot but I always felt like we were running behind all the time. Mainly, because we were running behind all the time. With Norah past the one year mark this school year, my nights are a bit more regular.

This year is a big adjustment for us schedule-wise in that it is MUCH more structured. I’ve always been a very relaxed homeschooler. I loved that we could start school at 10ish, be done whenever-ish and follow lots of rabbit trails, especially in history and science. But this year I have an official junior-higher going into seventh grade, a fifth grader, a third grader, a second grader, a kindergartner, a preschooler, and a toddler. To say my life is full is an understatement. Somehow I need to move my seventh grader into more challenging work to prepare for high school, which is really just around the corner, while also making the time to spend with my kindergartner who is just ripe for learning to read. But I also need to give extra time to my two middles, third and second graders, who still need more teacher-to-student time as they are transitioning into independent readers. I need to keep my preschooler busy and out of trouble and my one year old just learned this week (yeah me!) to climb chairs. I see impending disaster in my future with that one.

So this year hubby and I sat down and brainstormed like crazy pasting and copying subject time slots until everything that we wanted to do meshed with everything that we needed to do. This was no small task. This is the most packed, structured schedule we’ve ever been on. I’m not going to lie, the day before school started I was trying not to have a mini panic attack at the thought of sticking to a schedule. Just ask my husband. I am NOT good at following schedules. I just love to make them. I adore planning for them. And they always seem so ripe with promise every year. And then I immediately deviate and forget I even made one. I like my rabbit trails and interest-led learning that takes place and I’m not sure if there is any room for that this year.

But I also know that more important than my need to have fun and go off on learning tangents, is the need my kids have for structure. The need I have for structure. There are too many of them and only one of me. They all need my time and each of them is equally important. So a structured schedule it is. And even though there is a small part of me that cringes at using a clock and a timer, the bigger part of me loved that we got to all our stuff and started on time every day.

Here is what we are learning this year.

Math – Teaching Textooks (2nd, 3rd, 5th) and Khan Academy (7th)

Phonics – Bob Books, Starfall, YouTube (Pre-K)

Literature – list varies for each child (All)

Grammar – First Language Lessons (2nd, 3rd) and Rod & Staff English (5th)

Spelling – Rod & Staff Spelling (2nd), Abeka Spelling 2 (3rd Grade)

Writing – Basher’s Creative Writing and Writing with Skill (5th and 7th)

Cursive – Kumon Cursive: Letters and Kumon Cursive: Words (2nd, 3rd)

Latin – Songschool Latin (2nd, 3rd) and Latin for Children, Primer A (5th, 7th)

Spanish – Rosetta Stone 1 & 2 (5th and 7th)

History – Age of Exploration and Early American History (All)

Geography – United States & Capitals (All)

Science – Zoology (All) and History of Science (5th & 7th)

Art – Technique: Drawing in Color and Drawing Animals in Nature (All)

Art – Appreciation: Baroque, Romantic, NeoClassical, Pre-Raphaelite

Music – Theory: Basher’s Music: Hit the Right Note (All)

Music – Appreciation: SQUILT Technique with Baroque, Romantic, and Classical styles; Composer Studies

Bible – Chronological Study Bible (5th, 7th), Child’s Story Bible (K, 2nd, 3rd), Awana (All)

Philosophy – Little History of Philosophy (5th, 7th)

Logic – Argument Builder (7th)

Physical Education – Aerobics & Weights (Girls), Boxing & Weights (Boys)

I am hoping to write a separate post for an in-depth look at each subject. That may or may not happen. I can’t promise anything. I always have way more blog posts floating around in my head than I ever get the time to sit down and write. But I can give you a glimpse into our year and our week. I’ve uploaded my Relational Subject Comparison 2014-2015 for the year to give you a small taste of what we are going to be studying for each of the 36 weeks.

History is the peg we hang our year on. It is the rudder that is driving everything else. We follow a chronological 4-year history cycle and literature, geography, art, music, and sometimes science are all, somehow, related to what we are studying for history. So this year I created the above 36 Week comparison sheet and wrote the key historical peg we’d be studying then, during my planning, I used that to determine which week we read or mapped or did what activity that correlated in a different subject. It makes the year flow better and allows me to pre-plan some rabbit trails without overburdening our schedule down. I can use this as a quick-glance guide for each week’s planning to remind me during the nitty gritty weekly planning, especially for pre-requesting library books. This style of planning also helps us to cement information in our head when it is presented in different ways throughout the week. This year we are on year three of the cycle which covers from Columbus up to the Civil War (1492-1860’s).

Here is a blank Relational Subject Comparison for anyone else who is interested in planning this way.

Some people look at the above list of subjects and can’t imagine how we get it all done in a week. Here is a small taste of what our Sample Week looks like so you can see how we make this a doable reality. Remember, we don’t do every subject every day and this is fitting in essentially 5 different grades into one week. Not every grade is doing every subject on the above list. And it is especially important for new homeschoolers of younger children to remember that our schedule was not always this full. We started out with years of 2-3 hour school days and lots of extra time for library and field trips, lots of nature walks and outside play and, most importantly, LOTS of interest-led learning. Enjoy your little ones. Enjoy the slower pace. There is a time and season for a busier, more challenged schedule but the early elementary years is not that season!

So, how did our first week go you ask?

Find out here.

PAYSON ACADEMY

2014 – 2015

 

Back to School {Weekly Wrap Up}

Back to school already?

Yes, we are doing school already. And, I admit, I wasn’t quite ready to get started this year. Norah Belle just showed up in our lives two months ago. I’m just starting to get my house back in order. But starting early does make sense for us. This will allow us the flexibility to take 2 weeks off in the fall, 3 weeks off at Christmas, and two weeks off in the spring while still getting in a full summer break next year as well as taking everyone’s birthday off and getting a few partial field trip weeks in the mix.

Our Week

Getting back into routine is always hard. This year will be my biggest year teaching. I’m officially teaching four: sixth grade, fourth grade, second grade, and first grade. That said, technically I’m teaching six. Ivy, preschool, is already asking to read and is the most excited about doing school. She wants to be involved and she wants my undivided attention. This will prove tricky since I’m more apt to multi-task between students needing instruction and those needing help or clarification. And Eli is in full-on potty training mode. Then there’s the normal challenges of life like nursing Norah and dealing with Eli’s toddler energy and other learning challenges like attention spans and reading delays.

I knew the only way I could accomplish my homeschooling goals this year was to make a few changes.

One, get up early.

Two, meet with the Lord daily.

I can’t even begin to tell you how hard this has been. I am a night owl. I LOVE staying up late and talking with the hubby over coffee or getting lost in a new Netflix series together. But it was very clear to me that this year I needed to get up by 6:30 and have some quiet time before my other early birds arose. It has been very hard but very worth it. Just meeting with God first thing on the quiet of my front porch swing has allowed me to face each day’s chaotic challenges in much healthier ways. The bonus is savoring a cup of coffee and some first of the morning conversation with my oldest boy. He is just entering junior high and I am enjoying getting to know him as a friend, not just a son. He’s funny, quirky and we’ve had some good heart to hearts just swinging together or enjoying the flowers in the morning sun.

Our week officially started with ART. Every year our schedule is so full and when unexpected life happens it always seems like the fun stuff gets pushed aside for the essentials. Well, this year I am determined to change that. I decided to make the fun stuff a priority for us. We are living life at home and while we do need to cover the essentials, I want the love of learning to stay passionately ignited in all of us. I want our home to ebb and flow with productivity and rest, creativity and logic.

We are starting with the basics of pencil drawing technique. This week we focused on seeing basic shapes in the world around us and translating that onto paper. We emphasized 3D shapes and practiced drawing cubes, spheres, cylinders, and cones. This wonderful youtube tutuorial helped us. I was amazed at my 7 year old’s drawings. He was the only one to listen about how to hold the pencil and how to do the short, light sketching strokes. Maybe we have an artist in our midst! We used our geometric blocks as models which Eli thought was great fun to play with while the others worked.

Reading, reading, and more reading. Reading has been both rewarding and frustrating this year. My oldest two are reading every chance they get including sneaking books to the lunch table. (Brings back memories for me!) And my oldest daughter, nine, has finally discovered Harry Potter.  She has read 3 of the books in the past two weeks and watched the first two movies.

Luc is seven. He is my struggling reader. I pray daily for how to work with Luc. He is completely apathetic about reading and bucks against learning. My gut is to keep pushing but there is a fine line between challenging your child and killing their joy of learning. Luc does love to play. He plays everything he learns. And he would much rather be playing then in “school”. So this year we’ve decided to go with Batman phonics books. He still struggles. He still resists. But after he wades through a page and then practices rereading it a few times, his whole demeanor changes. A smile lights up his face. He can read about one of his favorite super heros and is so proud of himself. I wish I could say that changes his attitude and inspires him to keep practicing. It doesn’t. The next day it is right back to the start of this push and pull reading relationship.

But I’m confident that with enough perseverance we will make some major breakthroughs this year. Just look at that smiling boy reading with his mamma on the porch swing. Beats sitting at a desk, right?

Math for the older two is simple and easy. Teaching Textbooks have been our best friend. The kids LOVE doing their math on the computer. I love not having to teach it. I love that they love doing it and beg to do extra lessons in their free time. I love that it tutors them and grades them and tracks everything for me. The only drawback? It doesn’t start until third grade. That means Pre-K through second grade is still on me.

This year I will be doing all three. Ivy in Pre-K, Lilah in first grade, Luc in 2nd grade. We will be using a multi-level teaching style. I will focus on introducing a concept through a living book. All three will practice the concept through manipulatives at their own level. Each has a dry erase binder with practice sheets of concepts they need to practice. We will also be doing some fun picture mystery math pages. Emphasis will be on playing math to truly understand concepts and LOTS of living books that bring math to life without a textbook.

I’m super excited about science this year and so are the kids. We are using the Max Axiom graphic novel science series as our jumping off point. This is no ordinary science book. Don’t let the comic book style fool you. Each book covers a specific science concept…electricity, magnestism, states of matter, etc…in an in-depth way.  We will follow that up with watching a Bill Nye the Science Guy video and supplement with a hands-on experiment and Magic School Bus books and videos. My kids fell in love with Bill Nye last year and most all of them can be found free on you tube. 

This week we started off learning about the scientific method. We practiced using it with these wonderful printables from Crafty Classroom and used the same experiment they did in the Max Axiom book. In Bill Nye’s Do It Yourself Science we learned that science is repeatable and can be tested again even if you know the outcome. So we retested the experiment in the book of finding out what type of levee keeps more water from flooding a town: rocks, soil, or clay. We recorded our hypothesis and data. This upcoming week the older two will be learning how to share their findings through a science board display.

This year for history we are covering the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Reformation. Adam, who has a passion for history, will be teaching the older two as well as covering philosophy, logic, and the Bible with them. I will be supplementing through a healthy diet of living books, notebooking/lapbooking, and map work. 

This week we started off the year recapping the Roman period and overviewing how the Roman Empire fell and how Christianity spread through Europe. We focused on Constantine and we rounded it out with the story of St. George and the Dragon. Even I learned something new this week. I had heard stories of St. George but, fantastical as they are, they don’t beat the real story of him being a follower of Christ and refusing to bow down to the Roman Gods. He was tortured and martyred by decapitation under Emperor Diocletian for standing up in his faith.

And the best highlight of our week? 

This wonderful pencil sharpener that I bought used for $5 at a homeschool curriculum sale this summer. No more blisters. No more wasting time searching for a sharpened pencil when we should be working. No more pushing off art because the task of resharpening all those colored pencils just seems too daunting. I’m in love with this machine. It is not just an electrical pencil sharpener (had one of those…worked not at all) but an industrial pencil sharpener. My son laughed at me when I took a picture of this. But, to me, it is one of the most beautiful pictures of our week.

Joining up with…

~ Taking a Breather ~

Chrrp chrrp chrrp…

Do you hear that? That’s the sound of the crickets chirping in this lonely cyber space.

In the midst of getting ready to close on our new house (Don’tcha love the sold sign?), I’ve been a busy busy beaver around here and haven’t had much time to post.

We are packing, packing, packing.

Still homeschooling among the boxes. (Hope to backtrack when I get some time and post all the great living World War I books we used!)

It looks so empty with all our books packed up. Sniff sniff…

And painting…can’t forget the painting. It’s easy lunches in the living room so that parts of bunk beds can get painted white  on our dining room table (way too cold to do outside!) to be all ready for this wonderful princess space. Can’t wait to show off the final product!

Still to do:

• Pack coat closet.
• Pack bathroom closet.
• Pack kitchen.
• Finish packing scrapbook supplies.
• Clean desk (a.k.a. file the HUGE stack of papers and find homes for random stuff that’s been dropped off here) and finish packing office supplies.
• Finish painting.

And the littles? 

They are merrily jumping on beds…with permission this time! We broke down bunk beds (i.e. see painting) and piled all mattresses in one room. They are “camping out” for the next 2 weeks. This makes a great space for daddy, his guitar and our nightly devos!

All the dressers have been moved into the other bedroom along with the toys. So we now have a designated toy space so I have room to pack. At least, that is how it works in theory! I must say I do like having all their clothes in one room. We paired them down quite a bit so all 6 children’s hanging clothes fit in one double closet. It is nice doing laundry and then putting everything away in one space. It makes me think that Michelle Duggar was on to something!

But today?

Well, today is no chores day. We had pop tarts for breakfast (Did I mention how we are on the easy convenience meal plan right now? My kiddos love it.) on paper napkins. No dishes. Laundry caught up yesterday. Most packing done. So this morning I will enjoy a cup of coffee and have a guilt-free morning blogging around and pinning stuff to my boards. Oh how I have house love right now!

Where I am visiting this morning:

• Ruffles and Stuff ~ vintage, shabby chic recycling and crafting
• The White Bench ~ creative elegant crafting
• Mom Tog ~ for mom’s who love photography
• My Romantic Home ~ need I say more?
• Modge Podge Rocks! ~ for a smorgasbord of ideas
• The Beehive Cottage ~ shabby chic goodness

 

An Impromptu Art Lesson

My son has been taming a cat. Well, more an adorable fuzzy little ball of black fur kitten. He’s the runt of the country kittens living under our porch. And he’s not doing well. He’s being pushed out by the others and not allowed to feed. He’s learned to trust us, especially Luc, as we’ve tried to supplement him a bit food-wise. But he’s not gaining weight and he’s sick. It’s quickly turning into winter weather and I fear he isn’t going to make it.

Luc has become quite attached. He plays with him daily (don’t worry, we bought him a flea collar). The cat has come to trust him. His name is now Hershey. How could I possible stand by and let him die in front of him? And trust me, if I could I’d run this little bundle of fuzzy joy to the nearest vet, get him his shots and meds and take him inside to become part of the family in an instant. All Luc is asking for is this kitten for Christmas as his pet. He offered to take his portion of Christmas money for presents and give it to little Hershey to pay for vet bills. But there’s this little thing of allergies and a rental agreement standing in our way.

So we did the best thing we could in this situation. We took him to the Humane Society. It was daddy’s idea and I was so thankful that we could take him to a place where he would be cared for and adopted out while giving my kids a chance to see all the other little kitties and animals up for adoption. The kids loved seeing all the little critters. They were making their lists and pleas as to what they wanted when we buy our house.

I’ll admit, Luc held up like a champ. But he lost his friend. He was a sad mess most of the night. He held on to Lily’s little stuffed black cat trying to soothe his heart loss and he cuddled next to mommy a lot and we talked, for the millionth time, about why we couldn’t keep little Hershey and why Santa still can’t bring a real cat for Christmas.

And I’m not sure what inspired the request but suddenly I found myself at the learning table drawing a kitten for Luc. Luc and Lily were amazed at my drawing ability (not stellar, but not bad) and were suddenly inspired to draw something in a realistic way too. Suddenly everyone was drawing and I was reminiscing about drawing when I was little and Lily was oohing and aahhing trying at my old stuff and trying her hand at different techniques. And before we knew it, Drawing in Color (the most amazing kids art book ever) was pulled out and kids were flipping and experimenting.

I was amazed at the results. Here is this 5 year old boy and 8 year old girl just producing these images that blow their usual drawings out of the water. These are the homeschooling moments that I live for! And they never happen when planned! Lily asked if tomorrow she could draw some more. She said she wants to do it for school and even in her free time. I’m looking forward to what their free time will be filled with over the winter. Audio books here we come!

Lily's Cat - 8 years old

Luc's Cat - 5 years old

Playing Doctor: Germs and Our Immune System

The kids have had great fun this week studying about germs. I figured, mainly since everyone had a cold, that this was a good place to start. We did a mini overall introduction to the human body last week with a few fun worksheets and watching Osmosis Jones. Of course, as you can see above, we dug out the doctor kit and the littles have been playing all week. They were even fighting over the outfit so their solution was that Lilah got the shirt and Luc the scrub pants. He made up for it by donning a mint green oxford button up. He actually did look like a doctor then! It made me smile.

Although we’ve read several good books and watched several good videos, I think the kids favorite activity was learning how to wash hands properly. Ivy has been in the bathroom every chance she gets now to put soap on her hands (and whatever else she can). Our house mess level has been high but overall the kids have been enjoying themselves. It has been harder sticking to the other schedule of maintaining math and language arts. The first week back is always hardest. My weekend plans, other than Eli’s birthday, is to tweak this part to make sure we stay on schedule. I think what will help the most will be me being even more prepared. I thought I was this time with everything all printed out but I’ve found it’s the little things that will make the biggest difference to us…already-sharpened pencils, papers already on clipboards the night before for each child, as much chores as possible already done the night before to make a smooth morning transition.

We studied how our body works to keep germs out, combat germs once they invade, and how our body naturally heals itself. We also read about the doctor and immunizations. Most of our technical stuff (for the older two) had to do with the job of white and red blood cells. Here is a sampling of what we used.

Free Resources:

• Magic School Bus: The Giant Germ Lapbook at yeeshallknow for the older students
• copywork pages from The Human Body Copywork (only $1.50 for 3 Volumes!!!)
• lapbook pieces from the pre-K Human Body Lapbook for the littles
• mini lapbook piece on the body healing (great for everyone to use) at 1+1+1+1

Living Books:

(There are many other great books to go along with this one.)

Other books we used:

• About Me (Childcraft) – great overall resource for a human body study with children. Worded as a living book and keeps the kids interest the entire time. Great for older or smaller children. Use the parts that go with what you are studying. We will use this book each week and just read bits and pieces as we go.
• The Giant Germ – a Magic School Bus chapter book that Gabe read independently this week.
• Judy Moody: The Doctor Is In – a chapter book that Lily read indepdendtly this week.
• Daisy The Doctor (Usborne) – a great read-aloud for the littles
• Bernstein Bears Go to the Doctor – another great picture book for the littles

Free Videos:

• Magic School Bus: Inside Ralphie – you can’t go wrong with Ms. Frizzle! Lots of great scientific information.
• Hand Washing for Kids – an adorable little cartoon kitty shows you the right way to wash hands
• Protect, Don’t Infect: Germ Wars – a great little cartoon similar to those old Saturday morning PSA’s on television…my kids loved this one!

Free Lessons ~ Health, Nutrition, and the Human Body for Healthy Kids

Discovered a great new site for homeschooling moms…

Nutrition for Healthy Kids is a blog dedicated to teaching our children about proper nutrition. This homeschooling momma steps out of the box and teaches young children to think critically about their food. Her lessons go way beyond the public school’s general 4 Food Groups philosophy. What’s the difference between organic and non-organic? Can you taste the difference? See the difference? She explores using the scientific theory to go through lessons on everything from basic food nutrition to grocery store plu codes and knowing what a GMO is. Each lesson comes with a downloadable worksheet for the kids to use in their science investigations. And there is lots of hands-on (with little prep work) and opportunities for field trips.

I was planning on doing a Nutrition, Health and Hygiene, and Anatomy and Physiology unit this upcoming winter anyway. A good can’t-go-outside science unit to work on.  This site will tuck in neatly to what we will already be doing. Besides, flu season is the perfect opportunity for a field trip to our doctor for a seasonal shot! And our kids have all been under-the-weather this week so it will be the perfect time to start studying about germs and how nutrition can heal your body. My goal is for the kids to take an active role in their own health and understand why mommy and daddy make some of the decisions we do. I want them to decide what foods will build their immune systems and I want them to begin the process of learning the basics of cooking. We will also be spending the winter planning our spring garden so that will also tie in nicely. We will also be focusing on two very important key biblical elements…the fruit of self-control paired with the freedom we have under Christ. I will be curious to see how their knowledge plays out over the season of over-indulgence!

Here are some other resources we will be using:

• The Human Anatomy Tour
• Anatomy Arcade
• Magic School Bus – Giant Germ Lapbook pdf
• Magic School Bus – Missing Bones Lapbook pdf
• Human Body Squidoo Lapbook (and other notebook links)
• Label-Me Human Anatomy pdf Worksheets
• Pre-K Nutrition Booklet
• My Body Lapbook (Homeschool Share)
• The Human Body Copywork (only  $1.50 for 3 Volumes!!!!!)
• American Dental Association’s pdf Color and Activity Sheets
• Drop of Blood 3D Model (Creekside Learning)
• Circulatory System Rap
• The Circulation Game
• Body Bingo
• The Immune System Game
• 3D Food Pyramid Craft (features 3 controversial theories)
• Traditional Food Pyramid Cut and Paste
• Brain Hemisphere Hat
• “Ectomy” Brain Game
• Junior High Study Guide Worksheets (to The Children’s Atlas of the Human Body)

If you’ve done any clicking, you can see we are going to have loads of fun with this study! We will use the books we have on our shelf first and then, if needed, supplement with the library. What do we have on our shelf? Take a peek!

I hope to add each week what we’ve done specifically for the week and what resources we used. This will allow for a more detailed list then I can provide here as well as lots of fun, free video links to specific units.

Our schedule:

• Week 1 – Germs, How the body heals, Doctors, Teeth and Dentists
• Week 2 – Nutrition, Vitamins and Minerals, Supermarket
• Week 3 – Anatomy: 5 Senses
• Week 4 – Anatomy: Cells, Bones, Muscles
• Week 5 – Anatomy: Heart, Lungs, Stomach

Fall Break ~ Spookables and Other Such Halloweeny Things!

Maybe it is because it is my husband’s favorite holiday. Maybe it is because fall birthday anticipation is ramping up. Maybe it is the irresistible draw of beautiful autumn leaves. But fall and Halloween is almost as big as Christmas around here…almost! The kids have been caterpillar hunting, jumping in leaves, making scarecrows, dressing spoooooooky just for the fun of it, watching scary movies, reading Halloweeny books, and eating favorite fun fall foods. Here is a smorgasboard of pics to feast on.

What happens when you let a little girl spend her allowance on anything she wants? She buys vampire blood. Add to that a little of mommy’s eyeliner pencil and you’ve got fresh new Frankensteins. This book has been Lily’s favorite read over fall break. Who knew my little girl would like such a classic, yet dark story? Hmmm…she must take after her dad!

We’ve been having some fun with food around here. PB & J is standard fare. How to make it interesting? Pumpkin cookie cutters and a little carving work. The kids loved it! Feel free to steal this one!

Schoolish things? Always! But on their own time and in their own way.

Picture Books being read:

• Halloween Hats
• There Are Monster’s Everywhere
• There’s a Nightmare in My Closet
• Goodnight Goon
• Woo the Not so Scary Ghost
• Berenstain Bears and the Prized Pumpkin
• Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat

Chapter Books being read:

• Mary Shelley’s  Frankenstein
• Bunnicula series
• R.L. Stine’s Mostly Ghostly series and Rotten School series

Movies being watched:

• The Addam’s Family (You can get the whole series on Netflix! Also most hummed tune around here.)
• Casper (movies and old cartoons)
• Ghostbusters
• Phineas-n- Ferbenstein
• Dora’s Spooktacular Halloween Boonanza
• Pooh’s Heffalump Halloween

Sew Simple Owl Softies and Mommy Time

Lily's owl softie.

This week I made the kids a promise. A week of undevoted mommy time. Each kid picked a number and that was their special day with mom. After breakfast and chores they would have my undivided time until lunch to play with them how they chose. They spent the past couple of weeks pouring over ideas of what to choose and constantly reminding me of when their day was. No backing out of this promise! The Lord has been working this onto my heart for some time now. I had to cancel social dates, put my own work aside, and just be with the kids.

Day 1 ~ Luc (5) took me caterpillar hunting (in the rain) and we played with grandma’s special toys that are normally put up in the closet. We read lots of Mercer Mayer stories and drank hot cocoa with marshmellows.

Day 2 ~ Lilah (4) had a tea party with me. She dressed up in her fanciest princess outfit, picked out my outfit for me, picked out ribbons for our hair and makeup for our face. We looked fabulous in blue sparkly eye shadow! She picked out a pretty lace floral tablecloth and the good china tea cups and tea pot and some princess books, soothing music, and nail polish. We had chai tea with pumpkin bread. We painted nails and read princess stories while they were drying.

Day 3 ~ Lily (8) decided to have craft time with me. She poured over my pinterest boards and found just the craft she wanted to do…this adorable owl softie. She used her imagination and picked out materials she found in the house. She used her budding sewing skills to cut out the pattern, stuff the owl body, and sew the wings. Mommy sewed the body and the other parts to the body. I must say, it turned out quite adorable and she so loves it!

Day 4 ~ Gabe (almost 10) will be choosing to have me mend a hole in one of his favorite stuffed animals (something I’ve been promising but haven’t had the time to get to) and play Monopoly with me. He is very excited for his day tomorrow!

Day 5 ~ Ivy (2) will have the last day with me and said she wants to play Dora and read books. She will be pretty easy. For her, just sitting next to mommy is enough!

This has been a huge success for the week. I had to pray daily that the Lord would help me lay aside my other work and allow me to emotionally deal with my house being a wreck for a week for the sake of my children. The children have enjoyed it so much, as have I, that I think we will continue the tradition and use the first week of every school break as this special mommy time before I start any other projects, cleaning, or planning for the next school quarter.

Today we read Owl Babies to go along with Lily’s new owl friend. I forgot how much I love this book. I fell in love with it on a trip to Vail years ago and immediately bought it and set it aside for the this same daughter who was then in my stomach growing. I read this book the same way every time. It is not Owl Mother but rather Owl Momma. And we do not say baby owls we say owl babies. And when we are wishing we do not simply make a single wish but rather we wish and wish and wish and wish. There is comfort in the way mom reads a story. I hope they remember that as they are reading it to their little ones someday and realizing that it isn’t quite how mom read it.

 

Linking with ~

Fall Break ~ Caterpillars and Remembering 9/11

We’ve been on fall break around here. For me that entails LOTS of extra cleaning and organizing around the house. (Have you noticed it’s been kind of quiet around here?) For the kids it has entailed caterpillars. You may remember our post about our monarch caterpillars? Well, after several died due to Tachinid fly parasites, only one survived and turned into that beautiful Monarch butterfly.

It was a poignant moment. The morning of 9/11 we had read several stories dealing with the tragedy. The kids decided to make their own drawings based on the illustrations of Andrea Patel in On That Day While processing tragedy through art, our caterpillar died and broke free as a creature new, transformed, and utterly beautiful and full of hope. It was a glorious analogy for the hope that came out of that day for the still living. I’d show you a picture (I took beautiful ones of the butterfly with the kids while they were drawing) but, somehow, those pictures got accidentally deleted before I had a chance to post.

Since then, fall has dried the meadow grasses and we have had a caterpillar bonanza as woolly bears are flocking to the warmth of the concrete street. Everyday my kids are caterpillar hunting and coming home with hundreds of soft little fuzzies. And if you think I am exaggerating, proof is in the pictures. EVER DAY they hunt, EVERY DAY buckets and cups and bowls (even shoes) fill our porch with soft little pets to play with. I never knew there could be so many in one area! I think it is beginning to drive my husband crazy. Every night he dumps them out to escape to the wild or be eaten by birds and every night he finds more bucketfuls to empty. I love it. My kids are outside enjoying fresh air, playing, using imagination, and NOT playing video games. (I literally had to ban them the first week of fall break to even get them out the door.)

For more 9/11 inspiration (never too early to plan for next year…or pin it to visually remember), visit Elizabeth Foss at In The Heart of the Home.

~ 9/11 Stories for Kids ~

On That Day: A Book of Hope For Children

Fireboat

The Day America Cried

America Is Under Attack: The Day the Towers Fell

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers

New York’s Bravest

I Was Born on 9/11

September 11 2001: A Simple Account for Children

The Little Chapel That Stood

Rocks and Minerals Lapbook and Unit Study – Part I

*This series will be a 2 post series. Check back next week for part two!

I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I was to start this unit. I remember my rock collection as a girl. Our neighbor had a bed of river rock in their garden and I would spend hours digging through it always looking for just the right specimens. I imagined finding a glorious Indian arrowhead or a real dinosaur fossil. I would pour over the limestone that made up part of our wall in the front yard and carefully pick out chunks of rock that did have fossils in them. My imagination of what part of the dinosaur it might be from was far superior then the actual fossil sea shells they actually were. I remember combing the shores of a nearby river on family fishing trips searching for pieces of fool’s gold. I remember visiting a real cave and being mesmerized by the stalagmites and stalactites. I couldn’t wait to share this love with my children. As I was pouring over books and settling on activities, my husband would sigh and say, “Are you ever going to be done working?” But all I could think was this is not work!

Our school mission: head to the park and collect rocks. Use recycled egg cartons to hold specimens. Collect only 12 of the most interesting ones you can find. Head back home to identify and classify.

~ Experiments and Activities ~

The first thing we did was sit down and try to identify all the cool rocks we found. We have two wonderful field guides for this that the kids used: Smithsonian’s Rock and Gem and Eyewitness Rock and Minerals. I believe the kids classifie about 75% of their rocks and are still trying to figure out what the others are. This part was by far their favorite part of the week! Part of our identification came in the form of vinegar tests. Apparently any rock that has a bit of carbonate in it (think calcium, baking soda, chalk) will fizz when drops of vinegar are applied. Lily had great fun with this experiment.

Next we discovered how sedimentary rock is formed. We watched the Magic School Bus video on erosion (see below) and then did our own experiment in a mason jar. Fill jar with dirt (sand, soil, rocks) and water. Shake and let sit for an hour or two. Discuss the layering that happens.

We also talked about the layers of the earth. We listened to the kids favorite song (haven’t forgot the layers yet!) and watched this video:

Then we did a hands-on experiment to show how this works. We filled a tub with water (our liquid, moving magma mantle layer) then set pieces of wood to float on top (our continents, or earth crust). I showed how even not touching them they were always moving just slightly on the magma because of a solid floating on a liquid. This transitioned beautifully into a discussion on plate tectonics and how they work. We practiced butting the wood pieces up against each other in different directions to see how direction of force changed the outcome.

This led beautifully into a discussion on how mountains were formed. We used clay to showcase this phenomenon. We layered colors (our rock) into two long strips and then pushed them against each other until they buckled and folded causing both a mountain and the layers we so often see in rocks.

We also discussed climate change and how that affects the earth’s crust. The ice weighs down the crust sinking it deeper into the magma and then, during time of warming, suddenly (or violently) lifts back up to the surface again. Pretty cool stuff that I’ve never thought about before.

All this talk of plate tectonics led to a natural discussion of Pangaea. I had the kids trace the continents with tracing paper and then cut out their own Pangaea puzzle. They first had to fit it together how they thought it might go then I showed them what scientists theory was.

We went to this really cool site: Continental Drift Puzzle and they were able to interactively try their hand at the Pangaea puzzle. The really cool thing about this site is the ability to rotate the continents. And you can do it how you think, you can try with a Pangaea outline, or just see how you measure up.

The main book I used as inspiration for these experiments was an older book I found at our library called Rocks and Soil by Robert Snedden.

~ Geology Living books  ~

Let’s Go Rock Collecting

Magic School Bus: Inside the Earth

Magic School Bus: Rocky Road Trip – this one is a chapter book that we used as a read-aloud at lunch time. It corresponds to the free lapbook below.

 Cool Rocks – Tracy Kompelien

 Geology Rocks!
50 Hands-on Activities to Explore the Earth

***************

~ Free Rock and Mineral Lapbooks, Printables, and Unit Studies ~

Magic School Bus: Rock Road Trip Lapbook – Yee Shall Know

Rocks and Mineral Lapbook – Homeschool Treasure Trove

Geology ideas and printables –  Eclectic Education

Geology printables – Enchanted Learning

Geology Squidoo Lens

***************

~ Rock Videos ~

Eyewitness Rock and Mineral Video

Magic School Bus Rocks and Rolls ~ Parts 1

Magic School Bus Rocks and Rolls ~ Parts 2

Magic School Bus Rocks and Rolls ~ Parts 3

*Note for you creationist science moms ~ I know many people, Christian and secular, debate the young/old earth theories. You will have to deal with a lot of editing of pretty much all the books if you do believe in the young earth theory. That said, here is a wonderful source via Answers in Creation to draw from if you need.

DON’T FORGET TO PIN THIS!!!

Less Screen Time

So I have in my head this great weekly wrap up on the rocks and minerals unit study we are doing right now. (Sorry, you’ll have to check back next week! 😉 But instead I spent much more time doing this…

and this…

and much less time on my computer.

Life is good!

Living Math: Dominoes

My budding learners are loving using Math Lessons for a Living Education book. They enthusiastically complete the worksheets and are ready to move on to the next story. But I’m not ready for them to. I notice that while they complete the sheets correctly they have yet to grasp the concept of true number recognition. How to solve?

Play!

Yep…dominoes is a wonderfully simple game to introduce number recognition. And they LOVED it! Just match the correct number of dots with the actual numeral. Sounds simple but for a 3 and 5 year old can be quite challenging. This made a short 15 minute math lesson draw out to an hour of wonderful playtime. This is what I like to see!

Want more of a domino challenge for an older child?

Domino Math Mats (love this!)

Domino Math Worksheets

Domino Math

How was your week in math?

To Test or Not to Test…Should I Test My Homeschooler?

Many homeschoolers must test due to state regulations.

Many homeschoolers choose to test to track progress and fill in educational gaps.

Many homeschoolers educate at home precisely to avoid testing.

Which is right? As with many hot topics in the homeschooling community, I don’t know if there is a right or wrong answer. Our state does not require it (thank goodness!) and I usually fall into the last category. The only testing we have done around here is the Math U See tests that follow at the end of each chapter.  I usually avoid testing like the plague. I grew up taking LOTS of tests (and acing them) only to forget the information the next day.

And I believe our flawed educational system is set up on a system of testing and tracking that ultimately fails our kids. Teachers struggle to fit all the information in that will be required of students taking the tests. There is little time to enjoy exploring subjects deeply. There are no rabbit trails to follow. Most history and science is repeated year after year (albeit at a slightly more complex level) so there are huge gaps of history and science that never get studied at all or are crammed into a short four-year high school level. Most teachers long to explore innovative new ways to teach and interact with their students. Most never get the chance because curriculum is already dictated due to test scores. This is exactly the kind of thinking that made my husband and I originally decide to homeschool in the first place. We remember what school was like and we knew we didn’t want that for our children.

My husband and I recently watched the Waiting for Superman documentary. It was completely fascinating. I agreed with a lot of the flaws and problems that crop up in our education system. Where I choose to part ways is in the solution. Their solution? Longer school days, more days of school, more push for excellence and higher test scores. I was saddened. The worst part was their discussion of tracking and how it automatically shuts out some students (usually of the poorer class) for upper college track learning. It made this out to be a horrible problem. These poor students could end up as…gasp…farmers or in a technical skilled position. Here’s my rub…why is being a farmer bad? Why is being an electrician not as important as being a doctor or lawyer or CEO executive? How could that doctor even function without food in his belly to provide energy unless the farmer provides his food? How could that doctor perform surgery unless an electrician makes sure his lights and equipment have the proper conduits to work? And, my experience has taught me, college isn’t needed for everyone. Working your way up in a company (used to be called apprenticeship) is, in many cases, more valuable to getting where you want in a job then a piece of paper with a completed degree.

 

This year we chose to test Gabe. Not in an official state-standardized sort of way, but in a more laid-back see-what-you-know sort of way. A couple of years ago I recieved a free copy of Spectrum Grade 4 Test Prep. It is a practice workbook for taking a standardized test. It covers Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, and Science. I was never sure if I was going to use it or not but held onto it anyway.

Why would I subject him to this if I feel so strongly in the other direction? Good question. The answer for me is complex and simple at the same time. In it’s simplest form, we wanted Gabe to have the experience of sitting down and knowing what it was like to take a test. We wanted him to be exposed to the art of having to take a test with all its pressures. I also wanted to know how we, as a homeschool family, stacked up against public education. (This was just for my own personal curiosity.) We’ve covered, for the most part, one full cycle of history including government and he is well-read in science. This, for me, would answer how well he retained some of the information we did study as well as how he would do with the pressure of having to answer questions on information he may have not been exposed to yet.

For instance, he officially has not studied fractions in math (we are doing that in fifth grade based on our curriculum choice) yet I know he’s read of fractions and worked with them in real-life situations. There is a whole test page on fractions in the math section. How will he do with assimulating this new information and making an educated guess?

On a more complex level, this also gives him a glimpse into the life of a public-schooled student. Answering worksheets like this? Standard for the public-schooled student. Worksheets are a daily habit. Multiple-choice tests are a standard, weekly practice. The tediousness of reading a section of text that is, usually, quite boring and then having to “comprehend” that information in the form of questions is status quo for the public-schooled student. Our family has been on a steady diet of living books, not dry text books. Part of me wanted him to have a bit of appreciation for how we do school as opposed to how he could be doing school. And the art of sitting down and just having to complete something no matter how boring or tedious is good for the character. A steady diet of it will kill the love of learning but a good dose every once in a while is good medicine!

That said, this test was hardly stressful. There was no timer. Bathroom breaks were permitted whenever he felt like. He could have a drink sitting next to him as he worked. And I, as the “teacher”, had the privilege of eliminating the crap part of the tests. (Is it really necessary to fill out a page about a personal narrative or answer questions about a bar graph that my second grader could ace or give politically correct answers to philosophies that our family doesn’t adhere to?) We just adjusted the grading to figure percent per area based on questions answered correctly divided by total number of questions.

At first he was excited…something new and different. He quickly changed his tune when he ran into a question he didn’t know because we had never gone over it.  His views on fairness were challenged. This was good fodder for us to discuss the education system and the parts he will eventually have to take part in whether he wants to or not. The experience also allowed us to learn about some heart issues of character that needed to be addressed.

He did excellent in Language Arts and Mathematics. Social Studies was his downfall. This was not because he didn’t necessarily know some of the material (although that played it’s part as we’ve concentrated on chronological history and have not spent a great deal of time on “social studies” of his immediate neighborhood), mainly he just refused to answer some of the questions. When asked he said this was his least favorite subject. I explained on how not answering a question brings down his overall grade and we talked about educated guesses and how to glean new information from the context of surrounding information.

Surprisingly, he also didn’t score as well in science. Which was unexpected for me because he loves science and is always walking around reading science books. Is it certain elementary jargon he’s not familar with? Is it asking questions of scientific topics he’s not really interested in? His interests lie mainly with electricity and chemistry and the elements. Would I be better informed to find out what he does know? I will be contemplating this further as I set up a more Charlotte Mason style test as I know this will give me a more accurate view! Check back for discussion on that!

Now, I am not being honest unless I admit I was a bit afraid of even giving him this test. I knew this was a good thing and would help his father and I evaluate where he is academically, where we feel he should be, and if that is due to testing bias or if there is really a gap in our teaching. But this meant flaying me open for vulnerability. How would I, as teacher, be judged? As I was grading his work my heart was racing and I realized that this test reflected on me as much as him. Or, at least, I felt it did even if it wasn’t suppose to. I had to take it to prayer and ask the Lord to show me what was really important, how I should view the scores, what we should change (if anything) and, most importantly, if this is an experience we will repeat with future children or whether it was even worth our time. Those questions have yet to be answered. But at least I was honest with the pros and cons of the experience. And, if nothing else, it just reaffirmed for me that testing academics is such a narrow view of how your student is progressing. The best part of this experience that I will take away is learning about my son’s heart, not his score!

I should have liked to be asked to say what I knew. They always tried to ask what I did not know. When I would have willingly displayed my knowledge, they sought to expose my ignorance. This sort of treatment had only one result: I did not do well in examinations.” ~ Winston Churchhill

For more discussion and thinking on this hot topic ~

• The Rise of the Testing Culture
• Why Do I Give Examinations? (A CM mom’s perspective)
• Conformity Strangles Creativity
• Stop the Standardized Test Tyranny
• Life-Ready Education {do we really need college?}
• The Case Against College Education
• Valedictorian Against Schooling
• Some Debt-Laden Graduates Wonder Why They Bothered With College
• What is School For?

Would love to hear your views on testing in the comments!

In Which Literature Captures Us and We Read Great Classics…

This week has seen a flourish of literature. As we study Mark Twain in the historical sense of post Civil-War and the invention of steamboats and the Mississippi River, we couldn’t very well not read Tom Sawyer! Gabe has been reading it on his own and we listened to parts of it out loud on audio during our table work time. The southern drawl and incorrect grammar has Gabe in stitches and even peeked Lily’s interest. We read two very fantastic living books about Mark Twain and practiced writing biographies. (Good language arts lesson!)

The Adventures of Mark Twain by Huckleberry Finn – Robert Burleigh

The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According to Susy) – Barbara Kerley

But I realize that literature has been the constant theme for our week. Delilah has been begging me to read Winnie the Pooh’s classic works to her, which I love to indulge. How can you not want to read it aloud? Any book in which every chapter is titled a very long title that always starts with “In which…”, I mean, what’s not to love?

Then there is Lily who randomly, completely out of the blue, brings me the book The Hobbit and asks, “Mom, what’s this book about?” After trying to explain she finally gets it (only because she saw The Lord of Beans veggie tale version) and now wants to read it. We have the whole series in paperback but also have one very nice larger picture version of the Hobbit. I pull this one out and start to read it aloud. Soon I have little people all around me listening and giggling. And I am thinking to myself, “Why have I never read these books? ” Yes, I watched the movie. It was okay (sorry all you die hard fans). But the book…oh wow. How the author just draws you in and hooks you conversationally. Elegant, no-twaddle, writing. A classic because it is just fantastic.

It spurred Gabe’s interest and he took the paperback version to bed (will be borrowing that soon myself) and Lily took the picture version to bed. Both have been reading it independently but I think I will also continue it as a evening family read aloud.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we have really lost the art of language in today’s books. I had such trouble in high school reading classical pieces but I believe it was because I was never exposed as a child to great language. Sure, I learned technical grammar skills and I was an avid reader. But classical language eluded me. It seemed foreign and much too hard to take the time to understand. How much I missed out on!

I remember getting a beautiful copy of Little Women (which I still have) one year for Christmas in junior high. I tried reading it several times. It was only when I allowed myself to read it aloud orally that the language flowed and I started to enjoy it.  How I would’ve enjoyed reading Winnie the Pooh or The Hobbit as a child. I am so glad that it is I, a loving parent, who gets to expose and gently introduce these classics to my children and not some stuffy teacher who has taught the same 5 classics every year for 20 years and has lost the love of why it became a classic in the first place!

What has been your experience with the classics? And how has that shaped how you homeschool?

The Pony Express Unit Study

We had a good first week back to school. The week was unbearably hot and humid (as in so humid my glasses fog up everytime I step outside) that it made me once again glad that I made the decision to homeschool in the summer and take a much needed spring break. It was a little harder for the kids to get back into the swing of things. Gabe, who’s nine, is very aware now that other kids have a long summer break and made sure I knew he wanted one too. Needless to say, we did a lot of retraining on habits and character heart training.

That said, we used our afternoons to do more formal workbox schooling and the mornings to work together on a particular subject. This week was the Pony Express. I must admit I had been putting this study off for a while. I just couldn’t get my head around what I wanted to do. Then I found some great activities (see below) that helped shape things up for me. The only thing I couldn’t find that I wanted was a mapping activity and copywork so I made my own (see below).

Pony Express Living Books we read:

The Sweetwater Run: The Story of Buffalo Bill Cody and the Pony Express by Andrew Glass – This tells the story of a young 13 year old boy who wants to join the Pony Express but is slightly too young. Through a series of events he ends up on the trail with important news of a new president.  This one is fun to read with the right voices.

Wanted: A Few Bold Riders by Darice Bailer ~ This is the story they liked the best. Gabe did one of his best narrations ever remembering more small details then he ever has. The story line is a group of kids who visit a museum and one of the boys ends up imagining himself as one of the displays. Is very relatable and grabs the kids attention right away.

Black Storm Comin’ by Diane Lee Wilson ~ This story is about a 12 year old boy who ends up on the trail. It is a completely engaging story from the very first chapter and I aim to borrow the book from Gabe when he is done. Good novel for junior high age.

Hoofbeats of Danger (An American Girl History Mystery) – Lily loves the American Girl stories. This is her first History Mystery. A good starter chapter book for mid-upper elementary.

Postal History Picture Books:

The Post Office Book: Mail and How it Moves by Gail Gibbons – What’s more to say? It’s Gail Gibbons!

In My Neigborhood: Postal Workers by Paulette Bourgois ~ Littles favorite mail book. A little boy makes a birthday card to grandma. The card makes its trip through the postal system. Quite detailed while maintaining audience attention!

Literature ~ read historical fiction of this time period

Grammar ~ learn formal letter writing skills

Copywork ~ use the Pony Express Oath as handwriting practice

Georaphy ~ mapping the Pony Express

Math ~ learn about money (cent sign), counting money, and how math relates to the postal system through stamps and weighing mail, littles reinforced number recognition

Pony Express Free Printables and Games:

• Mapping the Pony Express
• The Pony Express Oath – Copywork
• The Pony Express Audio Book
• Rail, Sail or Overland Mail – online interactive game
• Free Pony Express Color Pages
• Free Mail Game Printables for Preschoolers – from Our Country Road blog

Now for the play!!! It wouldn’t be a week of authentic school without some playing. Bags were donned, mail made, horses found (and then some to reduce quarreling) and our riders were off!

Camp Wrap Up

With counselors Dan and Anna.

Yep, I know…you are all very sad that these are the last of the 100’s of camp pictures posted!

My turn at camp with Lilah Jane came.  Our time together was sweet, short and long all at the same time. Two days without my baby and I was sore and needing to nurse ever so badly and missing the rest of my babies at home. But, oh how I never get to have one-on-one time with just one child! It was a blessing to just dote on her.

I did learn something though. I thought our little miss was always getting into mischief because of a desire to have more time with mommy. I always thought that if I could give her undivided one-on-one time then she would be content to be still and there would be less chaos in my house. But I was wrong. There is nothing like spending a large amount of quality time individually with a child to really see their true personality shine through. And this little girl does not have it in her to sit still. Oh, she would try. We would worship and sing and she would try so hard to sit on my lap or the grass but she literally didn’t have it in her. She had to move. I mean had to. I watched her with fascination. She literally could not help herself. And she would lose focus easily and instantly. This went way beyond mere age development of a three year old. My two year old has no problem focusing on something or sitting with mommy when it is pleasurable to her. This girl…well, she would want to sit with mommy…she would want to listen and dance to the music…she would want to participate in the activity but still she was losing focus and constantly needing to move. It was a blessing from above because it made me very aware that some things I was disciplining her for weren’t about discipline at all. And that when I do discipline, it will need to be done with that in mind. I will have to bend down to her level, gently guide her face to me and repeat many times the command of what needs to be done. Even when she was dog-tired at 9:30 at night and wanting a story and asking to go to sleep and go home, she was still moving. It did not stop until she finally just gave into sleep. I think knowing this will also come in handy when teaching her formally at home. A kinesthetic learner maybe?

Our time together ~

~ At the Barnyard ~

~ In the Chapel ~

~ Hayrack Ride ~

Lake View

Tipi Village

~ Trying to sit still for evening worship. ~

~ Canoeing and Paddle Boating ~

~ Petting a Tree Frog ~

~ Swimming ~

~ Smores ~

~ Making Friend Bracelets ~

~ Worship and Bible Study ~

~ Camp Shirt, Cuppie, and a New Friend! ~

“Cuppie” came everywhere with us. It was our life line to water (which also went everywhere with us) during 100 degree weather with a heat index of 115!!! And if you think that’s hot, try bearing it while cooking out hotdogs and marshies over a fire!!!!!!!

A Week of Camp

My babies went to camp this week. It has been my first real week without them. Sure, they’ve spent the night at gram and pop’s house or their cousins. But one night is not a week! I was a nervous wreck. I tried properly preparing them last week with a training boot camp of learning how to take showers by themselves (we are bath takers here) and making sure they knew address and phone number for pen pal exchanging and that they could still tie their shoes properly (you’d be surprised by how many times they slip their shoes on without actually ever tying them!).

By the pictures below you will see that they did absolutely fantastic! The camp very graciously kept us updated daily through their website and emails. They put up daily pictures of the campers for us parents to download and share. They sent us a daily email letting us know that days events and general camp happenings. And they allowed us to email the kids daily. Each camper received their letter at roll call in the morning. It was a nice tangible way to stay in touch with them even if they couldn’t email back! Amazing how email turned into something actually important and how all other emails suddenly became very unimportant!

Gabe's Camp Group

Lily's Camp Group

Lily singing morning camp songs.

Gabe gardening for a service project.

Lily dancing.

Gabe and Lily at worship.

Gabe ziplining.

Half way through the week the camp correspondents took time to sit with each camper and talk with them about how their week was going. Then they wrote a personalized email to me about each of my kids. Gabe enjoyed ziplining the most and Lily said she loved swimming the most. But, I will admit, I cried when they sent this picture of Lily with a smile of utter joy on her face. This is after her brave attempt at doing high ropes. I was so proud it just bubbled out of me in a big gushy mess!

Lily doing high ropes.

Gabe at the talent show.

Half way through the week Luc also got to attend camp with his Pop at Grand Camp. He was counting down the days the moment the older kids left. I can’t wait to hear how his week went! He sure looks like he had a good time!

Luc visiting the barn animals.

Luc with Pop in the background.

Luc and Pop on a hayrack ride.

Pop singing Rise and Shine!

Grandpa is a great teacher!

Service Project

I get to meet the kids at a family camp worship time this afternoon and then visit their cabins and help them pack up. It will be bittersweet for them, I know. But I will be SO happy to see them again! I will be going with Delilah on Sunday and Monday to a Taste of Camp and she is getting very impatient for her turn. So I will be back next week with more pics and camp stories!

How to File Paperwork if You Are Not a Planner {a.k.a. Unschooling}

That time is upon us once again….

Yep, filing paper work with the state education board. Fun. Fun.

This is my yearly quandary…

One of the huge advantages of homeschooling is following a MUCH more relaxed schedule. For us that contains a fair amount of unschooling…or child-led interests and rabbit trails. These really can’t be planned per say. But our state requires curriculum to be approved ahead of time. How do you balance spontaneity with a detailed plan to your state?

I do plan…in a general large-scale sorta way. We do history generally chronological. This year it will be modern history with an emphasis on the Great Depression, WWI and II, and the Industrial Revolution. But most of my planning comes in the form of strewing. I look for great living books to have on hand during chunks of learning time. I keep a running book list that I can use when purchasing on Amazon or at a library sale. We follow math and phonics in a somewhat sequential order but even these I hate to delegate to a “grade” because each of my children learn at different rates and sometimes we are still in the middle of a book when the school year “ends” and sometimes we are already in the middle of another book.

When I was trying to write out detailed plans to my state I was getting bogged down. What would we cover this year…when would we cover it…when would we be done? These questions my state would want to know and I would start sweating and becoming grumpy mommy as I desperately tried to put something on paper.

Don’t get me wrong…the planning part felt good. When I was done I felt this sense of accomplishment. Oh, of course that’s what we’ll study this year (i.e. science lessons all mapped out in great detai)! Happily I would start our year and miserably I would end it feeling like a failure because we were SO off track. Never mind that my kids were learning at a rapid pace. Never mind that they had filled their time with way more additional learning then I had written down. All I saw was those original lessons plans with a big red F across them!

Then I came up with a brilliant idea. Why not just write down a Scope and Sequence based on everything I had? I just started typing by category. Math? These were the books I owned (text and living). These were the manipulatives I owned. These were the games I owned. I put general grades after them. For instance, after listing Math U See I put K-5th Grade in parenthesis behind it. Suddenly I began to see a skeleton take shape. Eventually this is what I would teach to all my kids through all of their elementary school years and some beyond. Before I knew it I had an 8 page Elementary Scope & Sequence that MORE than covered any paltry state requirements.

I am free! This year all I had to do was pull up that file, delete and add a few things and in less than an hour I was finished. Print. Mail. Ahhhh….THAT felt good! The best part? Doesn’t matter that I’m homeschooling (officially) three children all at different grade levels. This one paper covers them all. Doesn’t matter where we are at the beginning of the year or the end. We have the freedom and leisure to learn any of this stuff at our own pace and our state has the peace of mind that we will be covering all the bases…eventually!

Here is a peek at my copy (your own will, obviously, vary) as well as a copy of my statement about using living books as that inventory list is WAY too long to send my state!

Elementary Scope & Sequence

Learning History Through Living Books

Feel free to download and steal these and modify for your own use!

Happy planning!!!

(P.S. please let me now if these links do not download right and I will try to fix! I tested them and so far so good.)

 

 

 

Entrepreneurial Lemonade

What is a 5 year old boy to do on a hot summer afternoon after returning from the park and discovering the cooler jug of lemonade sitting on the porch?

Why make a lemonade stand, of course!

But it’s tough to find customers when your house is in the country. After watching him chase down the lawnmower man trying to entice him to buy a drink, I decided to throw him a bone. I went in and found some dresser change.

“May I please have some lemonade?”

“Sure, mom…orange lemonade or banana lemonade?”

Apparently if lemonade is yellow it can be banana lemonade even if there is no banana in it!

“Banana please.”

Here is what 25 cents gets me…

Guess inflation is going up!

His sisters took my lead and each bought a glass too…some with quarters some with pennies.

This boy is quite entrepreneurial considering he won’t do chores for money. But he has been learning math and counting and he has been watching his older brother and sister with their pursuits of earning and spending money. I think he wants some of that!

His take home pay…

53 cents…or, as he argued with his sister, $39! Well, tomato, tomahto…I’m just pleased he’s taking initiative!

And, because I couldn’t resist, a little girl drinking lemonade appropriately attired in a citrus dress handmade by grandma, passed down twice! Nothing could be sweeter to pair with a little sour!

Joining in the conversation…