The Plan (the typical “what we’re using this school year” post)

This year is going to be our first not-first year.  First we homeschooled just our middle two, and that was a big year of firsts – first time being involved in the local homeschool group, first homeschool field trips, first year of picking curriculum, first time to really do school at home, and so much more.  Then last year, we brought Bubba home from public school and kept the two middle kids (then first graders) home, and it was my first year to really feel responsible for homeschooling school age children (kindergarten is not compulsory here, so I had always previously talked myself down by saying, “Oh, this isn’t even real.”), our first year to have all the kids home, our first time to use Tapestry of Grace, our first time to be involved in some of the older-kid homeschool activities, and the first time that I really considered us a homeschooling family.

The night before we started school this year, Bubba told me that last year she was nervous a year ago (something that I knew well) to start homeschooling.  Then she did something that I hope I never forget:  She thanked me for bringing her home to homeschool her.

And so we dove into this year with much anticipation and excitement!  Here’s what we’ve been up to for the past few weeks:

Tapestry of Grace (TOG) – This is our history and “all the other extras” curriculum.  While history isn’t usually very high on the list of things that elementary kids spend their time doing, we have just loved the flexible and fun approach that Tapestry of Grace uses to teach kids.  We use history as a framework to learn so many other subjects.  We will be doing Year 1 – Creation to the Fall of Rome . . . We are four and a half weeks in, and WOW – so.much.fun!

Art – This year, for the first time, I have art scheduled during the morning, right smack dab in the middle of prime schedule realty.  We are going to be doing a lot of hands-on projects that go with TOG, but I am also going to work with the kids through the book Drawing with Children.  And I have a few art projects that we are just going to do for fun – like splatter painting (or maybe marble painting) a giant canvas that I got on sale!

Composition – We are using Institute for Excellence in Writing for the first time, and we are using IEW’s writing curriculum that goes right along with the time period that we are studying in history.  We’ve done one class with a couple other families, and so far so good!

Literature – This is covered by TOG, and for the first time I will not be using a separate phonics program with all of my kids.  For some of them, we’re simply going to read history and work on vocabulary, reading aloud, etc.

Spelling – Spelling Workout B for my middle two and a brand new program – Spelling Power – for Bubba.  I am super excited about Spelling Power for her!  Traditional spelling programs were not bringing out the great speller that I know she could be; Spelling Power seems to be helping.

Math – Horizon’s math, same as last year.  I thought about switching, but then decided to stick with, “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it!”

Grammar – First Language Lesson for the Well-Trained Mind; I might add a poem or two for memory work.  We’ll see how the year goes.

Handwriting – I’m going to give my second graders a break from handwriting, so long as they continue to hold their pencils correctly and form letters neatly and correctly.  The fourth grader is going to continue to work on cursive penmanship in a Zaner-Bloser handbook.  She’s thrilled.  I’m hoping that by that by the end of the year she will have forgotten that that book exists and is just doing her work in cursive.

Latin – When Bubba gets done learning to type (She started last spring, so I’m guessing in about 6 to 8 weeks she’ll be doing well enough.), she’s going to start a course of Lively Latin.  I’m super excited to do this with her; there’s pages and pages of cool stuff to learn!

Saving the best for last – We’ll be diving into God’s Word through a group Bible Study, and we’ll be studying lots of Old Testament history with TOG.

Beyond that we’ll still be doing gymnastics and piano and all the other bazillions of things that we do, but I have also scheduled in some rest time most days.  The kids will be able to work on whatever work they have left or any projects that they want to work on or their own thing; I am hoping to use that hour or so each day to get my own work done – lesson plans and bills.  So far, in the past four weeks, I’ve only gotten to have about half of the rest times that I scheduled . . . but that is largely because we’ve spent extra time playing outside, and you won’t hear me complain about that!

What are you using this year that is really working for you?

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School Is Out For the Day! (and a little update)

Eek!

We just killed the largest spider ever in our basement/school room.

He was so large that you could practically hear is pointy little legs scurrying across the stained concrete floor.  And he blended with the floor perfectly – why, oh why did we have the floor stained brown?  Why didn’t we go with something a little less spider-color!

Now if you are thinking of writing and telling me how we should have kept him as a pet and watched him as a homeschool project, then great, why don’t you move here – I’ll be moving ASAP!

(Not really, I’m headed back there right now.  In my head I’m also quoting Joshua 1:9, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified . . . .”  Stop laughing at me!)

Updated to add:

Posted that at 10:49.

Then at 1:43ish, I just killed a wasp in my house – it was inches from where I was sitting at my desk.  I kept telling myself that that buzzing was another fly . . . a big one.  It was not.  What is going on here!?!

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The Art Book

When Bubba was in kindergarten her teacher was awesome.  And by “awesome” I do mean that God gave her the best teacher ever . . . for her!  Mrs. S was all kinds of cool, but for my child’s needs one of the coolest bits was that the year before Mrs. S had been the school’s art teacher.  Budget cuts got rid of the art program at Bubba’s public school, but Mrs. S was able to slide into an open kindergarten room . . . yay for us!

That year Mrs. S had all of her students make an art book.  Bubba’s art book has a laminated cover and is ultra cool!

The year that I homeschooled Little Man and Dimples for kindergarten we put together an art book too.  There’s no laminated cover, but the kids learned a ton . . . and we had lots of fun!

So without further ado, here’s our art book:

The cover – simple straw painting (put your paper in a box and your student in a paint shirt, allow child to dip end of straw into paint, put opposite end into mouth, then blow – don’t inhale – paint onto paper) This was just a random project that we did, but it made a colorful cover.

“The primary colors are red, yellow, and blue.”  We talked a lot about the primary colors for a while.  For this painting I gave the kids red, yellow, and blue fingerpaint and told them they could paint whatever they wanted.

“The secondary colors are orange, green, and purple.”  We did a lot of little experiments turning primary colors into secondary colors; we used food colors in water, homemade play-dough, and cookie icing.  Each time we started with the primary colors and ended up with a whole rainbow.  Then we made these “blotter bugs!”  This is one of the projects that Mrs. S did with Bubba’s class.  You start with half-sheets of typing paper.  Fold the paper in half then open the paper.  Allow children to dribble a few dots of the primary colors near the fold.  Then have the children re-fold the paper and use their fingers or the sides of their hands to smoosh the paint all around.  Open the paper and allow it to dry.  When it is dry, students can cut around the painted area and glue on googly-eyes.  We also colored the little chart that is on the left; Little Man got his upside down when he glued it on the paper, but it still works.

After learning about primary and secondary colors, we ventured into warm and cool colors.  After that we talked about neutral colors.  This page was simply a matter of coloring pictures to help us remember which colors are warm/hot colors and which colors are cool colors.

We actually did two different projects to make this page about monochromatic colors.  First we got out some orange acrylic paint.  We squirted a rather large blob of it onto a paper plate.  I had already used a ruler to draw a long rectangle that was divided into half inch sections for the kids to paint.  We painted the very center space orange.  Then we added a bit of white to the orange and painted the space to the left of the middle.  We added more white and painted another space and on and on until we ran out of spaces.  I would have liked it if we had actually gone a little lighter, so the kids could see how light orange can be . . . but not everything works out like I want it too.  Then we got out a second plate (because our first “palette” was rather full.), squirted a rather large blog of orange and added a tiny hint of black.  We painted the first space to the right of the middle.  We added more black and painted a space . . . until the whole thing was full.

The second project we did was simpler, though it was still fairly difficult for kindergarteners.  I told the kids to draw circles or ovals (I think we were studying circles and ovals in our curriculum too) all over their papers.  I was expecting some big, giant, overlapping circles.  As you can see what I go was a lot of small, non-touching ovals.  Then I had the children go through our crayon bin and pic out every shade that was even the slightest bit orange (orange, orange-red, red-orange, yellow-orange, peach, etc.) .  We had a pretty big pile!  Then we started coloring.  I told them to try to avoid coloring touching spaces the same color.  They did a pretty good job at that.  When the whole page was full (a week later), the project was finished.

This page was part following directions, part practice in patterns, and part learning about line and shapes.  I gave directions and the kids were able to iterpret them as they wished.  The first line I probably said something like, “Make a pattern with diagonal lines and curvy lines.”  For the second line I told the kids, “Make a pattern using horizontal and vertical straight lines.”  This was one of our least fun and most structured art pages, but it was good practice for everyone.

Texture bugs.  These were simple and fun!  Simply look around the house and find anything that is any fun texture that can be glued down.  Here I used brown rice, split peas, sandpaper, and some fabric scraps.  Have the kids cut out circle or semi-circle shapes and glue everything down.  (For the rice and split peas, we just made circles and semi-circles of glue then sprinkled the rice/peas over it like glitter.)   A few googly-eyes and some drawn on feet and antennae later, and you’ve got some really great texture bugs that remind your students that texture means that things feel different!

This was our last project, a watercolor tutorial.  Really, go check out this tutorial; it is well done and includes lots of great techniques that are handy for kids to know/be able to use!  I wasn’t smart and didn’t trim the paper before we did it, so part of our tutorial is missing – oops!

I also intended to have the children do a self-portrait, but I never got around to it that kindergarten year.  We did finally do them when they were in first grade, but we used oil pastels to color them, and they smear a bit when touched.  For that reason I have not included them in the book.

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A New Season

These three bags hold my summer’s sum of work – three bags of inspiration and ideas, all ready to share with a class of early elementary-age students . . . I hope!

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

I have probably quoted that verse thousands of times.  It is one that remains in my memory, always close to the surface.

That was an oft quoted verse during our adoption; that season of paperwork was just so frustrating.  Then once we got the two kids home, I was often exhausted and used that verse to remind me that I could keep calm/stay awake/be patient for just a bit longer.

During my half marathon training, countless times, I prayed a prayer that went something like this:  “Dear God, (even though I am hating this right now) thank you that you gave me legs that work and a body that can run and the will to do this thing that is a little bit nuts.  Thank you that I can do all things – not in my own power (because I feel like I am going to fall over and die!) – but because you are my strength.”

And during my husband’s medical school then residency years, there were so many, many times that I used that verse to remind myself that God would carry me through this thing that He called me to – not in my own strength but in his.  It was usually as my husband worked 30+ hours straight then came home exhausted to sleep or when he had to dash off in the middle of a family event to tend to another family’s needs.  When I was tired and wanted help with our own children, but the pager beckoned . . . then I’d remind myself, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

And God always proved faithful.  I didn’t always get it right, and I wasn’t always patient.  But God did allow us to walk through those years with Grace and Peace.  We did all survive, and we have some great memories to show for it all.

Now, as I am standing before a new season, one filled with mystery and fraught with questions, I am reminding myself of the same thing.  Yet, I am reminded that this verse doesn’t come without questions.  I am reminded that I am so much better at relying on myself than the strong arms of my Father . . . but it should be the other way around.  I am reminded that I shouldn’t wait to ask Him to carry me; I should do it early in the journey . . . instead of waiting until I am worn out and bruised.

And so, as I head into this new school year, this year of teaching and learning, this year that seems ripe with challenge and full of exciting opportunity, I am asking God right away, “Please carry me!  Please help me!  Please enable me to be the teacher and mother that I am supposed to be and to encourage my children to be who you want them to be.”  Amen.

{Here’s hoping I can remember Who’s in charge here.}

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For Julie

You don’t see here all the things I do wrong . . . but wow(!) there are days that nothing goes right!

Like today.

It’s 9:57.

One child is coughing.

Another child is saying his ear hurts.

I think I’m going to have to cancel our swim date.  (Big bummer.)

Same child cried during piano practice, because he’s frustrated that I’m making him actually play what is on the music rather than how he thinks it should be played.  (And I’m not talking about a child who knows enough to take creative license.)

Another child did an assigment all wrong and had to erase the whole thing.

She also spent a good amount of time playing with her pencil.

I got up late and am sort of crabby.  So far I’ve been able to maintain a smile (except for the way that I spoke to the child who was playing with her pencil – ug!), but I’m sure that is not going to last all day long without some sort of reprieve.

Coughing child hit ouchie-ear boy.  But ouchie-ear boy deserved it.  I know, because I heard the whole thing.

My grandpa had surgery yesterday.  I didn’t call, because I didn’t want to wake him . . . but now I feel bad that he called me before I called him.  And I can’t figure out when I can drive 45 minutes one way to visit.  And I probably shouldn’t take a coughing child anyway.  Blah.

The eldest seems to be the only who who is sane here today, and how bad do I feel for her – stuck here with all of us crazies!

I think I might just crawl back in bed . . . except that my sheets are in the dryer just now.

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Boxing and Sugar and School, Oh My!

We received this letter from a friend this week:

Dear [Gus] and [Little Man],

I am sorry for boxing you.  And I am sorry you got hurt.  please come play again soon.

from, [our friend]

That is definitely one for the scrapbook!  Oh, my lands!  I can’t tell you the laughter this whole situation has prompted.  Our children decided to box with a friend on a playdate.  Their was only one pair of boxing gloves involved, and my children weren’t smart enough to request to be the ones to wear them.  No one was really hurt, but there was one big, giant lump on one girl’s eyebrow.  Same eye that she clobbered a couple of weeks ago; that time she had a huge shiner!  I should pray for her safety more.  (And just to be sure to sound like a conscientious parent, yes, we were checking on the kids.  Yes, they were sneaky and only boxed when we parent-types weren’t looking.  And yes, they knew they shouldn’t have been doing it . . . but they did anyway.)

——-

A friend wrote me the following sentence in reference to our “last day of summer-let’s have lots of fun-day to celebrate and go swimming and eat chocolate chip cookie bars” event:

“I think jumping into a new school year calls for a pan of sugar.”

I couldn’t agree more!

——-

{wrote this yesterday but was just too tired to actually hit the post button}

While it is still hot, hot, hot outside, the temperature inside has cooled considerably; we spent our day having our first day of school.

The kids woke up to find at the bottom of the steps a pile for each of them – new school supplies, a few treats, and a mom-made All About Me Poster.  A little side note:  one of the things that I enjoyed this year was that when we went school shopping, the kids opted to save some money and not buy everything new.  We did buy a few new things – either things we didn’t have before or things that needed to be replaced – but over and over they said, “I don’t need a new one of those; I’d rather spend the money on something fun!”  I didn’t prompt this, but they are learning that smart decisions get rewarded!

We did a devotion this morning from 1 Corinthians, talking about how we should honor the Lord with everything that we do.

Then we dove into a checklist of back-to-school kinds of activities.

Here is list of things to do this week:

• Draw and color a page for the front of your binder.
• Organize bins and binders (each child has a bin where his/her school books live and a binder that is his/her main work binder)
• Sharpen pencils and have erasers ready
• Art Lesson (Yay!)
• “Why Study History?” lesson from Tapestry of Grace
• Calendar (one child decorated around the calendar, one child wrote family birthdays and holidays, and one child crossed off all the days until the 20th)
• Reading
• “All About Me” Poster (The kids were supposed to work on this any time they didn’t have something else to do)
• Put together a time capsule

And that, my friends, sums up the official end of our summer break.

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Oh, What To Do With All This Time!

Intentionally I have not scheduled a lot for the kids this summer.  We still have chores and piano practice (though only four lessons for the entire summer) and other stuff that just has to get done, but we don’t have any camps or classes or things that we have to run, run, run to.  Instead I decided that this summer was going to be the summer that we did all the things that I always say, “Oh, we just don’t have time for that” about.  And so I am posting a big list on the magnet board, a list of all the things we either don’t get to often enough or the things that we just haven’t gotten to at all.

Here it is, for your viewing pleasure:

• computer games
• puzzles
• logic books
• art and nature games
• fun box activities – we have a box of craft kits, art supplies, and other fun stuff all of which needs a good amount of time to practice/play
• Christmas gift projects – The kids make gifts for each other for Christmas.  This year we are starting those gifts this summer!
• state puzzles, learn states
• sign language – learn the ABCs and a few other things
• practice math facts
• practice piano
• run around the house – Oddly, I have one child who LOVES this option and will choose it a lot!
• clean something – I have a “deep cleaning” list that lists a room of the house for each week of the summer; hopefully by the end of the summer the house will be wonderfully, blessedly clean.  (Probably it won’t, but a girl can dream, can’t she!)  We also have a list of chores that the kids can do for extra money.
• memorize a poem
• Play-Doh w/ Dimples
• stand on your head – They will try!  Oh, how they will try!
• draw (use drawing books?)
• copy recipes in recipe book (Bubba)
• Wii time
• do a craft from the craft books
• color
• Rush Hour – what a fun game!
• reading activity books – I got some new books that have reading comprehension activities; the kids haven’t seen them yet, but they will think the articles are cool.  (I think.)
• lap book – Bubba has a horse lap book that she started working on last summer.  She learned a lot from it, so I’m thinking she’ll enjoy finishing it this summer.

What things do you have for your kids to do when they get bored this summer?

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Things I Have Learned During This, My First Year, of Homeschooling

1.  The laundry room is a fantastic place to hide the good chocolate.  The kids don’t want to get sucked into helping with the laundry more than is necessary, so they stay far, far away.  And  a family of six people makes a lot of laundry.  And as it turns out homeschooling three kids with a preschooler in the house requires a lot of chocolate.  Chocolate in the laundry room just works!

2.  Kids learn vast – and by vast I do mean ginormous, enormous, really, really big – amounts of stuff just by being out and about!  When I was a teacher, I always wanted to do hands-on learning; it was also really hard.  The district didn’t have money to provide materials, or the required curriculum didn’t allow time.  Homeschooling has provided that forum for my kids.  Every week we do some sort of project or activity or field trip or fun thing that puts my kids in a situation where they are learning about their environment!  We’ve learned about tides by experiencing the differences in the beach itself.  We learned about the solar system by making a big model.  We’re learning about rockets by building (and hopefully launching) model rockets.  We learned about eagles (and a billion other kinds of birds and  manitees and dolphins and turtles and so much more) by watching them in their habitats.  We learned about the US space program in the twentieth century, then we saw a shuttle launch into orbit.

3.  Homeschooling affords one the opportunity to experience NO lines at fun places!  Sea World – no lines!  The zoo – no lines!  The National Park – no lines!  Everyone else is in school while we are on vacation!  (We also worked our tails off to get extra work done when everyone else was on spring break, but that was okay with us, because, “Look ma!  NO LINES!”

4.  I’ve learned a LOT about my limits this year.  I’ve learned I am prone to be cranky if: a.) I have not left the house in three days, b.) I do not have at least one day out of each week at home, c.) I do not get enough sleep, d.) I go too long without spending some time in my beloved kitchen preparing healthy food . . . or just really tasty food, which often isn’t overly healthy in the case of my kitchen.  In short, I am prone to be cranky.

5.  My children are willing to tolerate a lot.

6.  I really do like being with my kids.  While there are days that I would give both my arms and legs for five minutes – five. minutes. – alone, I do just love this time I have with my children.  I wouldn’t trade it for all the days of the week to run errands and have “me” time.

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Learning Objectives for Our Recent Trip to Florida

Sometimes I think this homeschooling gig is just too good to be true!  While we totally set aside the school books during the week we were in Florida (and we did make up for that book work when we got back home), we learned SO much more than could ever be learned in a classroom!

I am so very thankful that I have been learning to teach my children as we go through our everyday lives.  Our family discusses so many cool things now, and the kids have all become more curious, asking us questions about everything they see.  Homeschooling has become more of a way of life than something that we do or don’t do.

As we were finishing our long drive home, Handsome and I were talking about all of the things – some silly, some serious – that the kids have learned that week.  Here’s a partial list.

1.  Taste KFC’s reasonably priced family meals, and their grilled (or is it baked) chicken that is rather tasty.

2.  Experience the difference between high tide and low tide.  Notice the difference in the water level, the motion of the water/waves, and the look of the beach.  Discuss the moon’s influence on the tides.

3.  View pelicans and seagulls.

4.  Observe habits of coquinas.  See if it is possible to catch one.  Find coquina shells on beach and observe different colors and patterns of shells.

5.  Learn about the affects of UV rays and the difference that sunscreen makes when applied appropriately.

6.  Observe things we find on the beach, including seaweed, shells, a real (but dried up) sea horse, and trash.

7.  Observe the water that fills the sand castle moat.  Why does the moat stay full when the castle is near the water’s edge, but it stays empty (no matter how much water you pour in) if you are away from the water’s edge.

8.  Observe and experience movement of the sand under your feet.

9.  Spend some time observing birds in their natural habitat.  Observe an osprey nest with hatchlings.  Observe adult osprey with fish in his talon, sitting in tree nearby.  Learn about the habitat and habits of the Roseate Spoonbill, American White Ibis, and several other birds.

10.  Learn about, view in their natural habitat, and appreciate threatened and endangered species that live in the area, including the American Alligator, the Florida Scrub Jay, and the West Indian Manatee.

11.  View wild snake up close.

12.  Watched amazed at crabs on banks at Wildlife Refuge.

13.  Sit in helicopter.  Learn how a helicopter works.  Use pedals to move rotors.  Try on radio headset . . . but do NOT plug it in and talk to the control tower!

14.  Count boats on/near marina.

15.  Observe surfers, skim-boarders, and wind-surfers.

16.  Paddle hard when you find that you are in deeper water than you thought you were.

17.  Learn how Sea World rescues injured and ill animals; observe animals in Sea World’s “animal hospital.”

18.  Touch a penguin and learn what to do if one raises his tail in your direction.  (The answer: run!)

19.  Experience physics in action.  (ie. ride a roller coaster . . . over and over)

20.  Learn about sharks.  Touch a shark.  Touch and view a variety of shark’s teeth.

21.  Touch a ray or six.

22.  Feed dolphins.  Touch dolphins.

23.  Observe feeding time in the walrus area and play time with the polar bear.

24.  Watch beluga whales blow and then play with bubbles under water.

25.  Observe walrus reproductive habits . . . really did happen,  really wish it hadn’t!

26.  Improve IQ by playing Set, the game.

27.  Observe space shuttle on its launch pad.

27.  Observe a space shuttle launch.  Discuss plumes of smoke, the separation of rocket boosters, the trail of smoke, and so many other things!

28.  Catch and hold horseshoe crabs and gastropods.

29.  Follow progress of space shuttle mission for two weeks.  What is it that they really do up there in space?

30.  Learn geography of southeast United States.

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Feeling Earthbound

Since we watched the shuttle launch (posts on trip to Florida forthcoming), we have been keeping watch on the shuttle activities via this NASA site.  It has been so fun to see what is going on and what the astronauts were doing!  I would have loved this kind of play-by-play as a kid . . . I love it now, as an adult!

My favorite part:  Each day they play a song to wake up the astronauts; it is recorded on the list of activities.  For instance, a few days ago a Matt Redman song was played for mission specialist Mike Good.  (It was listed as “Lord we Have Seen the Rising Sun,” but I’m guessing it was “Shine.”  What a great song, given the circumstances!)  I know (from comments recorded there) that at least some of the songs were selected by family members – isn’t that cool!  There are also occasional messages to “earthlings!”

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