SEEK

SEEK is a co-op we joined this fall. Last night was Family Night and Chris got to come and see a bit of what had been happening the last 13 weeks. Thankfully, my opinion and optimism for the co-op has not dwindled since my initial review.  The kids kept saying over and over again on Thursdays "Thank you Mom for singing us up for SEEK!".  What more needs to be said?  Well, I say a little more...

Amber ended up flourishing in her class and quickly didn't mind me leaving for the second hour.  By the end of the 13 weeks, she even chose to join in on craft time.  She is quite the little instigator/leader when it comes to playing her games and the other kids seem to enjoy her ideas.  She's made a number of friends.

Titus thoroughly enjoyed both his classes.  Titus' first class was "Community Helpers" where he met a police man, a doctor, firemen, pastor and others.  Sometimes it took some figuring out to understand whom he met in class that day (like the day he said he met the president and it was really the mayor). His enthusiasm to tell us was always wonderful.  His "Dramatic Expressions" (which he loved) was fantastic and they even put on a play at Family Night for us all to enjoy.  Titus was the "fire" in the old fable about the pig that would not jump over the fence.

(Click two photos below to see video)

Lance's fishing class has made him truly "Hooked On Fishing".  His passion was infectious and his brothers are now asking for their own fishing polls so Lance can teach them.  "Let's Play Sports" is what Lance likes to do most and there's no surprise he enjoyed that class as well.

Jared was just as excited about SEEK as his siblings.  For his first class, he enjoyed learning about all the different nuances of Thanksgiving in his "Celebrate Thanksgiving" class.  

For his second class, he (and the whole family when Dad read aloud) really enjoyed the book "My Side of the Mountain" and all the neat activities they did along with it; such as making moccasin shoes, building forts, meeting a Peregrine Falcon and more.  At Family night, they even but on a play/advertisement for a company that taught the skills they'd learned in the book.  Jared did an awesome job as you can see in video below. Like I always say he's my thespian in the making.

(Click pic below to see video)

For me, I enjoyed getting to know the homeschool mom's the most, be it while helping in Amber's class, participating in my "New Comers" class or at the park play-dates after SEEK each week the weather permitted.  Unlike other experiences we've had, this one was fairly stress-free for me too.  So much so that next semester (because I'm a crazy lady) I'm going to teach a class with my friend.  Stay tuned!!

P.S.  Despite the busy day and night daddy still made the time to read to everyone before bed.

Teaching My Newest Kindergartener

Don't worry, we're not going that old school with Titus.  

Up till this year, teaching Titus has been a very casual process; testing the waters with a lesson or two, then taking a break and trying again till I thought he could finally handle a schedule. Then, as I always do, I created a creative learning program just for him.

His day starts right after breakfast.  I have his brothers do their independent work at this time so I can focus on him.  His day lasts about two hours, then I send him off to play with Amber while I work with the older boys on the things they need my help on. 

I have used a number (as in too many) different phonics and spelling programs with his older brothers.  So one would think I would just use one of those for Titus, but alas no.  I am using some of the programs I used in the past but I've added three new ones for a grand total of five programs.  Stop laughing!  I know it sounds absurd, but believe it or not, it's really working.  Each program approaches phonics from a different angle and together they are working to make Titus quite the reader, speller and typer.  Yesterday, he actually read "Go Dog! Go!" out loud to Amber.

Here's the list:

• CLE Learning to Read What I like about this program is its wholesome gentleness.  I never have to worry about inappropriate sentences or words (like Learn to Read in 100 Days; great program, terrible content).  I don't use it alone because it moves a little too slowly.  If I was using this alone Titus would be bored and I believe loose his enthusiasm for reading.
• Adventures in Phonics with Christian Liberty Readers This is one of the new programs I bought.  What I like about this program, like CLE Learning to Read, is the readers are completely safe/appropriate.  However, unlike CLE, this program moves really fast.  We only do one worksheet a day and practice a lesson in the reader.  It's approach to teaching phonics is very different from the other programs I use but the differences do not seem to bother Titus at all, in fact I think it helps him excel. 
• Classical Phonics  I got it last year for Titus when I thought I could use one source (Memoria Press) for all my homeschooling needs (that hope was short lived).  I bought this with the First Start Reading Program.  I quickly ditched the First Start Reading Program (way too slow) but kept this book.  I used this for a long time to test the waters to see when Titus was really ready to read.  Now we use it about once a week for reinforcement and practice.  I do like/buy into the philosophy of the book and I particularly like that its designed to teach reading without writing, so it can be used with younger children.
• Rocket Phonics I have used this program from the very beginning of homeschooling.  I know it has changed a bit since my copy was published but I hope it has not changed in essentials.  Unlike Classical Phonics, I can't say that I buy into their method of teaching phonics. Thankfully, that has never stopped me from being able to use their book, I have just covered up or ignored their clue system from the very beginning.  To use it this way a child needs to have a basic understanding of phonics before beginning this program, but once they do its lots of fun.  The strength of this program is its heavy focus on comprehension.  From the very beginning, when the child is only reading a word at a time, they must find the word in a silly picture.  It then progresses to phrases describing the picture that the child reads and then decides if it describes the picture, saying "True or False".  As you continue to progress, the stories move from silly to quality, never twaddle.  Depending on the section we are in, we do two to four pages a day.
• Read, Write & Type  I found this program while looking for a typing program for my older children.  When I tried it out, I realized it was too elementary for them but just right for Titus. I would not suggest this program as stand alone phonics program, it jumps around too much and lacks explanation of phonics/spelling rules.  But as a program to reinforce spelling/phonics and teach typing I give it five thumbs up.  This is Titus' reward for completing the rest of his school work each day.  He really likes it because he thinks its funny and he gets to use the computer.  I like it because its safe/benign and it gives him a leg-up being able to type so young.  I think being able to play piano has helped him learn to type quickly.

Math was easy because I am convinced, after much research and trial/error, the CLE Math is the only Math program for us.  If the proof is in the pudding, then his older brothers standardized test scores prove its effectiveness, they consistently score 3 to 4 years above grade level.  It provides breath, right amount of repetition, tools for mastery and application of math principles from the very beginning.  He is progressing well, already at Lesson 65.  Once he's been introduced to all his math facts, I'll start him on XtraMath.

For now we only do this schedule three days a week, Monday to Wednesday.  On Thursday, he has his SEEK classes and Friday we leave free for catch-up and field trips.  Maybe if I'm lucky this schedule will work for Amber and I won't have to re-create the wheel a fourth time :-P

What We're Doing for School This Year - Middle Ages

I realized it's been a year since I last posted what we were doing in school.  Last year, I had great plans for using a more traditional approach.  I thought continuity might be the key to success, I was wrong.  Shortly into our school year I realized I'd made some poor choices, at least for our family.  Some of the curricula I returned right away.  Some of them I held onto and tried to make work, because frankly, I had them and with the move I didn't have the time to look for something new.

When we took our break a Thanksgiving, it was abundantly clear we needed to make some serious changes.  This time I decided to get the boys input.  I took them each aside and had them rank everything we were doing from 1-5 and tell me what they liked most and least.  To be honest, I thought I knew what they would say but I was quite surprised in a number of cases.  I took their input and began to re-plan the rest of our school year.

In December, I spent the six hour drive to Tennessee reading the Ambleside FAQ, blogs on how to make Charlotte Mason work, along with trying to read her actual teachings.  In the end, I felt too overwhelmed (life was still crazy because of the move) to jump right in.  So when we got back from vacation, I bought a curricula that claimed to follow her philosophy and hold your hand.

We started in January and made it four weeks into that curricula before we scrapped it too.  I say "we" because there was no doubt in any of us that it needed to be dumped.  Unfortunately, that meant I was starting over for the third time in a year.  Thankfully, by finding what didn't work I was finally able to focus in on what would work for us.  By the end of February, we had found a new rhythm that worked.  We were doing everything my way and not following anyone's planned curricula.  Go figure, I really did know what was better for my family.  Amazingly, despite all the changes during the year we still managed to finish my main objective for the year; which was to finish our study of the Ancient History: New Testament Civilizations.

We are continuing on the same basic pattern this year and its still working.  I say basic because I have tweaked a few things (I'm sure I always will) but how we're doing it is still working; the kids are learning, we're not fighting and we are even having fun.

We slowed things down a bit during July and August because we decided to do the Bible Bee Challenge over the summer.  (Which by the way is an awesome program, easily encompassing a reading and writing curricula in one.)  As of this week, we are finally up to full speed and this is what we're doing:

How Our Week Looks

Monday to Wednesday is when we get through the bulk of our school work.
Thursday is SEEK Co-op  and daily work
Friday has a varied schedule, incl. some daily work, science, logic, Ray's Math and time to catch-up or take Field Trips.
Additionally:
Monday is Piano Lessons in the Afternoon.
Wednesday is Golf Lessons in the Afternoon.
Any day can be baseball games/practice.

Monday to Wednesday we try for a four hour day, from 9am to 1pm.  However, it frequently takes a little longer due to distractions.  I have a rough draft of the semester in an Excel Sheet.  Then I fill in their Student planners one week at a time.  I put the items they can do on their own on the right and things they need me for on the left.  For Titus, I take a slightly different approach I'll cover in another post.  

Here's what we are using this year: (I have put Lance and Jared together with slashes for slight variations in what they do.)

History and Reading.  These subjects have always gone hand-in-hand in our house.  Our focus this year is the Middle Ages.  For our core/back-bone History book we will continue the M.B. Synge Story of the World Series (not Bauers).  These are available online for Free but I prefer reading from a hard copy.  We will finish Vol. 2 the first half of the year and then hopefully read through Vol. 3 the second half. To do this we'll need to read-aloud about three chapters a week.  Much of our Read/Aloud and Independent reading will focus on the Middle Ages but not all.  I have already tweaked my list of read aloud and independent read books for the year, so I won't list them here today.  Instead, I will continue to list them in my Monthly Book Reviews as we progress through the year.   

CLE Math 7/ CLE Math 5  This has been the one constant in our curricula for years.  I've covered why I don't use anything else in other posts.  How we use it has varied a bit.  For instance, I have dropped the quizzes because of our shortened week, and they boys see it as a reward. To allow them to begin first thing in the morning, I try to go over the new section with each of them the night before.  This minor tweak has really helped them finish their math efficiently each day.  I have also dropped the daily drills since they continue to do XtraMath each day instead.  Jared asked to do more word problems so I got him this Daily Word Problems 4 book.  

Additionally, on Friday's we do oral math, specifically Ray's Arithmetic Intellectual/Primary.  This program is available on numerous sites for free; I think I got mine off Google Book.  In theory, I see how you could use this alone but it would require a lot of my time.  The time they spend doing math is the main time I work with Titus M-W.  So I limit this to Friday's, to stretch them a bit.  We only do one lesson at a time, frequently with the student flopping all over my bed while I call out the questions from my rocking chair.

Perplexors C/ Perplcxors A for Logic.  Since Mind Benders Book 3 is part of Lance's Writing program I chose I different logic program to challenge them, and frankly this one was free shipping on Amazon.  I think learning logic is very important, the lack of an ability to think logically is riddled in our society.   The boys can do one problem any day of the week, and it varies when they choose.  The important thing is they always choose because this is a subject they have always enjoyed.  Level C is getting a bit challenging for Lance but he still likes it, Level A appears just right for Jared.

Daily Language Review 6/ Daily Language Review 4  These are no frill short daily drills that will prepare them for what will be on the standardized test at year end.  They do these independently five days a week.  The teaching comes when I go over their answers or if they encounter a topic we've never discussed before.  Additionally for Lance, I have him learn one word a day, using Vocabulary Cartoons - Elementary Edition.  This unique program uses humor and mnemonics to make the words stick in his memory.  Each day, I have him write out the word and definition, then use it in a unique sentence to make sure he understands the meaning.  I periodically test him on the words he's learned and I'm amazed the retention is complete every time.  Don't let the "Elementary" in the title fool you, I doubt most High School kids know all these words.

Visual Latin  We have used Latin to teach English grammar for the past two years.  However, the classical approach to learning Latin was getting dry for all by the end of last year.  I am very glad they have the classical foundation but I believe this program is going to work better from here out.  The first five lessons of Visual Latin are free.  We just finished lesson five yesterday so I'll be buying the rest this weekend. Each lesson is nicely broken up into three video and three worksheets.  Therefore, each day we watch one video twice (under 10 min.) then we do the worksheet together; either orally or with our Boogie Boards*.  We do this M-W, and I was amazed how easy it was to fit in our schedule.  The boys really like the videos because of the instructor's humor.  They also like that each lessons includes some translation, which gives them a sense of accomplishment.

Write Foundation Sentences to Paragraph/Write Foundation Creating Sentences
This had come on my radar many years back, but at the time it was geared to upper middle to high school.  When it came back on my radar this summer I was pleased that they now have these two new programs.  The boys both took a placement test to determine which level to use and Rebecca (the creator) was quick to answer my questions.  The program is very adaptable.  She provides outlines for doing each lesson over one or two weeks.  I have modified it a bit more to do each lesson over six days, so that we can complete each lesson in two weeks only M-W.  So far, so good, four weeks in; which is more than I can say over the last writing program we tried.

Spelling has been a bit of a struggle in our house for many years.  I'm not willing to accept the "some kids just can't spell" excuse so I continue to search for the right method.  We did "All About Spelling" for the last few years and this taught them the rules of spelling but they seemed to be having trouble remembering to apply them when they wrote independently.  This year we are trying a three prong approach.  For Lance we're trying Apples.  This program is designed for the older child that still struggles a bit with spelling.  It's designed to be a simple one year program, where the child does one worksheet a day.  We are about 40 lessons in and so far Lance doesn't mind and I think it may be helping to improve his spelling.  For Jared I'm using Building Spelling Skills: Level 4.  The words in this curricula are appropriate to advanced.  When he follows the program, he has mastery of the words each week.  They complete these curricula independently five days a week.

In addition, we do Sequential Spelling for Adults together four days a week.  I'm hoping if I hit spelling from enough different directions it will stick.  I'm using the adult program for efficiency and to avoid it being tedious.  The adult version is a condensed version of the Seven Children's books in the Sequential Spelling Series.  This takes us only a short time to do each day.  We all take out our boogie boards*, then I say a word.  Next, we all write it.  Finally, we hold up our boards, check their spelling and we move on to the next word.  It's quick, its easy, it's done.

Typing Instructor for Kids  After much searching this was the only program I could find that was affordable and customized itself to the child.  The audio is a bit annoying but the boys just turn it down or off.  I have them both set to achieve 20 wpm.  They do one lesson independently M-W.  Additionally, for memorizing scripture and typing practice they use a free program called Scripture Typer. 

Geography - Seterra This is a free tool we've been using for a while.  The boys enjoyed learning about the countries last year using Memoria Press's Geography I but it didn't work to reinforce their location, this is where Seterra came in.  They have both completed European Countries and Capitals and are now working on European Rivers.  The bonus is that its free, to use online or in our case we downloaded a copy years ago.  This they do independently, the same time they do XtraMath and Scripture Typer.

Science  We are launching this subject slowly.  We will speed up when baseball season ends and Chris will have time to lead the experiments.  We are starting using a curricula that is an introduction to Physics Science and heavy on the biblical application.  We are reading this curricula four days a week.  Next we will begin Tiner and Apoligia.  For the first semester, I will read one chapter a week from Exploring the World of Chemistry by Tiner.  For the second semester, we will read one chapter a week from Exploring the World of Physics by Tiner.  We used two other books in this series last year and I liked how it added a bit of history and living science to our days; all from a Christian perspective.  From Apologia we are going to use the recently released Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics.  We will be using this book the entire year, splitting the two sciences between our two semesters.  However, I think we are going to forgo buying the experiment kit package or the notebooks this year.

That's about it for my two oldest, I'll be posting on the menagerie I'm using with Titus in another post.

* The Boogie Boards I refer to in this post are our new favorite schooling tool.  I originally got one for Amber to occupy her while we worked, then the boys started borrowing it so much that I got one for all of them.  We use it for Latin, math, spelling, vocabulary work and general doodling.

Back to the Books

I'm a tough schoolmarm.  I only give the boys three weeks off in the summer but the reality is that I know how life goes and I know my children.  If my boys turn off their brains too long they don't restart easily (like a car trying to start in really cold weather).  Also, I know life will happen (illness and other distractions) so that if we school year round we generally avoid the stress of feeling behind when life does happen and we take a short break.

However, we are not starting full time schooling till our friends go back to school in August.  I'm hoping to ease them into a very different schedule for the coming school year.  We are using a lot of different curricula and strangely (if you know me well make sure you're seated) much of it is from the same source.  I'm a self admitted curricula/book addict but am overcoming my addiction for the sake of my children.  LOL

Here's the full time schedule.  Right now we are at about 60% and will ramp up over the next six weeks.  Adding something new each week till we are functioning at full capacity (I hope).

LANCE (5th Grade):

Latin - Latina Christina I
Math - CLE Grade 6 and XtraMath
Spelling - All About Spelling
Grammar - English Recitation Grammar Workbook I
Writing - Classical Composition:  Fable Stage
Literature - CLE Grade 6 and Memoria Press Literature Guides (Lassie and Door in the Wall)
Geography - Geography I: Middle East, North Africa and Europe
Science - God's Design for Weather and Planet and Wonders of Creation (Weather, Ocean and Geology), and Planet Earth by Tiner w/ Notebooking supplements
Classical Studies - D'Aulaires' Greek Myths and Famous Men of Rome
History - Greeks and Romans via Tina's Curricula 

JARED (3rd Grade):

Latin - Latina Christina I
Math - CLE Grade 4 and XtraMath
Spelling - All About Spelling
Grammar - English Recitation Grammar Workbook I
Writing - Introduction to Composition
Literature - Memoria Press Literature Guides (Grade 3)
Geography - Geography I: Middle East, North Africa and Europe
Science - God's Design for Weather and Planet and Wonders of Creation (Weather, Ocean and Geology), and Planet Earth by Tiner w/ Notebooking supplements
Classical Studies - D'Aulaires' Greek Myths and Famous Men of Rome
History - Greeks and Romans via Tina's Curricula
 
TITUS (Pre-K):

I have ordered and have on my shelves a variety of resources to try with him this year.  I'll post later when we find the combination that works best.  He is showing both ability and interest in reading so that is the goal this year.

You'll notice a number of similarities in curricula between Lance and Jared.  Much of this is driven because of my change to using Memoria Press.  Jared is right on target for 3rd Grade but if I rush Lance ahead in all subjects he would be missing important foundational elements.  Doing subjects together is not new to us, frankly I feel its part of survival when you have multiple kids.  To that end, we have always done Science and History together as a family.  I have just expected more out of Lance than I did Jared; by using the note-booking method this is easily achieved.

We start out our new year this week and I'm sure I'll tweak things along the way but I think we are closer than ever to being on the best path for our family.

English by the Books

When I was a kid (Hee, Hee), we had one class called "English" that included grammar/punctuation, reading/literature and writing.  I am confused by the term "Language Arts" because sometimes is seems to mean only grammar and other times it seems to include reading and literature.  However, what I'm most confused about, no matter what you call it, is how and when to teach the different components of "English" to my children.  

English is not my strongest suit (you may have noticed).  Though I love to read, I am much more comfortable teaching numbers and science.  Plus, no matter how hard I research a new tool for teaching, I have one child who never likes the new approach/curricula.  That is until now....

Our first real head way came a few weeks ago with "Grammaropolis" (Thanks Brandy!).  This product is available on the computer or as we prefer as an ipad app.  I posted a video of one of the songs above but before you hit play, I must warn you, this song will stick in your head!  My first thought was, "Great, more silly songs stuck in our heads but will they learned anything?"  The answer is a sound, "Yes!".  There is more to the program than just silly song videos, badges and quizzes that keep them motivated to learn.  Now when I ask them about a word or a part of speech, they are quick to identify and explain.  "Yay!"  And best of all I'm not the only one saying, "Yay!", they like it so much, they ask to do the app after their school work is done.  What more could a mother ask :-)

My next thought was, "Do they have a punctuation app?".  Unfortunately, they are working on one but it will be a while.  However, they did direct me to some books called "The Puncs". 

With the idea of living grammar books in my head, I started gathering up books from the library, my shelves, catalogs and the internet.

I finally realized that my son was not pushing back on English all this time, he loves to read, he was pushing back at the idea of doing worksheets.  He dislikes worksheets of any kind no matter how short in length.  He's my relationship kid.  I need to remember to keep learning relational, and I am.  Books are relational, apps are relational and apparently me writing the worksheet exercises on a white board and having him mark it up there is relational.

After painstaking research two years ago, I thought had finally found the perfect "Language Arts" program called "Easy Grammar".  The name appeared very appropriate. It was:

• Designed to be done in about 10 minutes.
• New ideas are introduced in tiny pieces.  (To the teacher and the student.)
• There is plenty of review, including "Daily Grams"
• It includes a complete answer sheet to everything (I'm not ready for "Language Arts" programs that think I can correct the worksheets myself.)
• When I had a question about how to begin, the author of the book gave me a thorough answer.  I like authors that are very accessible.

I know what you're thinking but I just said I wanted to use living books, not worksheets.  So why am I talking about this now?  Well, I am back to using it too, but this time he's not writing in the books, instead we do it together on the big white board.  This seems to make all the difference(It might also help that my son is two years older too. My poor burnt pancake!).

This is how "Language Arts" all comes together for us...

Before we start "All About Spelling" for the day we sit down and read from one of our living grammar books.  We discuss the concept introduced in the book a little, as it relates to their journals.  Next, I write on the white board four or five exercises either from the main "Easy Grammar" workbook or "Daily Grams". They correct them on the board while we discuss the ideas further.  Then we kick into our regular "All About Spelling" routine (click here for more on our routine).

This new plan is working great!  I'm not getting any push-back and though it's only been a few weeks we are ALL starting to learn a lot.  Perhaps in a year or so you'll see the improvement in my posts. LOL

125th Anniversary of Pone de Leon Inlet Lighthouse

On November 1st we invoked on a journey to Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse for "Homeschool Day". 

Prior to arriving I really didn't know what the Homeschool Day would entail.  I couldn't find an itinerary on their website but i did find another website discussing the field trip that said the event involved a lot of workshops for the 10 and older crowd.  Well, since my crew is all under 10, and not of the inclination to sit for hours in chairs during a workshop, I almost backed out upon reading.  However, in the end, I decided that if all we did was tour the grounds and climb the lighthouse the boys would call it a success.

Ponce Inlet is a good 90 minute drive from our house.  I'd like to say I got up the courage to venture out with all four kids that far by myself, but alas I did not, I invited Christina to join us, so glad I did.

When we arrived our packet was waiting for us and Mary walked us to our first activity; "Guess What This is?".  It was a table set up with a variety of useful things from the past that the boys had to guess their use.  The boys really enjoyed this process and the lady attending the table was a incredibly knowledgeable and entertaining.  The activity took place inside one of the permanent exhibits at the lighthouse museum.  I was thrilled to see the exhibit was very baby proof and full of interesting stories about the people who at one time had called the lighthouse their home.  After the activity I took a few minutes to read some of the stories posted around the old house that our guide had suggested reading.

We then proceeded to the other museum house where they had a number of very interesting and informative hands-on exhibits explaining how the shape of the lighthouse glass bent the light just right, how they used a bag/bucket system to rescue people wrecked at see, among other interested exhibits.

Our next workshop was a hands on exercise to teach the children about channel markers and how to calculate a knot. What a hoot!   Lance was the Boatsmans (I think :-), he counted the knots on the rope.  Jared helped carry the rope and Titus was in charge of turning the timer and calling "Mark!".  The kids managed to run 10 knots per hour.  On the way back through the channel to "port" Titus crawled in to help with the boat, which was rather funny since you couldn't see his head above the side.  The couple in charge of this workshop made it not only informative but very entertaining.  I'm sure the boys will never forget how to calculate a knot.  Great tie in to some of the stories of Columbus we read last year.

The final workshop before we took our lunch break was on latitude and longitude; specifically how to use The Mariner's Quadrant to determine your latitude.  This tied in nicely to awesome video we watched last year called "Lost at Sea: The Search for Longitude"; about how John Harrision who found a way to calculate longitude in 18th Century.

After this workshop everyone was ready for a break, so we went out to the picnic tables for a quick snack and then returned for the second half of our day.

First thing boys wanted to do was climb the lighthouse.  Christina was kind enough to offer to carry Amber, which worked out well since the mighty one was fearless on the way up but not so much on the way down.  We had quite a view from the top.

At the top we learned about how a Crystal Radio worked and realized we were at the lighthouse on the exact day of the 125th Anniversary of the original lighting of the lighthouse.  To commemorate the day the last child (now a beautiful woman) to be born at the lighthouse was there to answer questions about what life had been like living at the lighthouse.  I wish we'd had time to just sit, talk and listen to her but sitting still is not one of Amber or Titus' greatest skills yet.  The fact that there was plenty of room for these two to just run around at the outdoor workshops is one of the things that made this day a huge success and enjoyable for everyone.

The final workshop we attended was "Wig Wag Flag Communication", it was lead by an extremely knowledgeable and entertaining gentlemen (both to the kids and the parents).  Again after some back ground it turned into another fun hands on activity of deciphering and then sending their own messages.

During the workshop Titus was getting tired so Christina took him on the nature walk, after which we decided it was time to go home.  Amber was ready for an afternoon nap and everyone was tired after a very educational and entertaining day. All in all it was great day and the staff of volunteers both friendly and informative.  There were still a few things to do but I'll be sure to put it on our calendar again for next year and we'll do them then.  There are other interesting activities at the lighthouse throughout the year so maybe we'll bring Daddy and go back before.

On an aside; when we got home Amber had a belated B-Day gift, her first tutu...

  She was thrilled and pranced around in till Daddy go home.

Back to School

I realize that one of the main challenges of homeschooling for me is that I have ADD.  I am bored too easily sometimes and since my boys would rather play than do schoolwork its easy for us to get off track.

We've been on a break from school for a month, plus now that we are home, Lance has swim lessons on Tuesday, baseball practice three nights a week and games on Saturday.  Transition to being home and increased activities was going to make for an interesting week.  I knew this week would need a lot grace mixed in if it hoped to have any success.

The two highlights of the week were a spontaneous science experiment courtesy of our friend Christina and life tying into the bible.

When Christina came over this week she brought the ingredients to make a pseudo lava lamp.
I of course had to muck with the instructions; ie. try a whole piece of alka-seltzer all at once,  put gum on the top to stick the alka-seltzer to and then turn it over, etc.  It was fun!

We are enjoying listening to the Seeds of Change CDs (Thanks Brandy!) for worship time in the morning or during free play.  We also continue to read through the Hulburt Study Bible, which I like because of its conversational style and the interesting tidbits I am learning too, such as the origin of the term "Scapegoat".  I thought it was really neat this week that we read about the day of atonement, then Jared noticed it was Yom Kippur on the calendar.  Yom Kippur is the Hebrew name for "The Day of Atonement" so it was a really cool tie in between the bible and life.

Back to our regular school work:  I decided the boys needed to write more for a number of reasons; I had let it go a bit because its not my strength (you may have noticed) and Lance always pushes back hard when we start.  However, this time The Hippie (aka Chris) got Lance's buy-in by explaining how fine motor skills obtained through writing would help him improve at baseball.

So with buy-in secured, I began the new plan using the following tools:

• Fable Dictation - What we do here is I read either an Aesop Fable (Seemed appropriate since we are studying the Ancients this year.) or a fable from "Solomon and the Ant" by Sheldon Oberman.  Then the boys narrate it back to me and I type up what they say.  I then print it out for them to edit and we print a final copy.  Jared in particular enjoys this exercise and narrates fabulous stories; here's a link to this week's story.
• One Lesson from the  Wheeler - Elementary Speller four days a week (FREE).  These are short Charlotte Mason type lessons, tested over time and peppered with beautiful literature. My choice was reinforced this week when I found this site arguing the superiority to older methods of teaching reading through spelling, it includes links to other free resources also. (We did three lessons this week so not too bad).
• Work on AAS Level's Two (Jared) and Level Three (Lance) two to four days a week.  I'm going to take these one lesson at a time.  Some will take more than one day especially as we progress to higher levels. See my previous post on how we use All About Spelling. (Two days this week).
• Prima Latina - I went ahead and bought the DVDs that go along with this curricula that teach the class for you, which works great.  The boys like it a lot and are even practicing Latin at dinner time.  The guide suggests only doing it two days a week so we follow that schedule.  I chose this Latin program for it boasts that it will help them learn English grammar as well. I'm crossing my fingers.

I'm really trying to stick to many short lessons(15-20 min each) verses a couple long lessons a day.  However, math has always been a challenge, since it takes longer.  My new solution is to mix it in between the subjects above.  For instance, while I work with Jared on Wheeler, Lance does some math, then they switch.  It gives them three short sessions to finish their math lesson each day.  If Jared finishes early he can do Xtra Math and if Lance finishes early he can read Life of Fred.   If they need longer to finish their math, they have to complete it before Dad gets home or they miss out on the evening activity.  So far that's been sufficient motivation but it came close one night.

For History, Lance completed reading The Golden Bull.  This book gave us many opportunities to discuss issues of character and culture.  It is a great book for triggering discussions with your kids.  Other than that, we worked on reviewing the timeline and geography learned so far this year.  I was pleased that the boys seemed to have retained much of what we learned.  I hope this weekend to get organized and get back on track with our history curricula again.

This weekend Lance had his second baseball game and we did some household rearranging.  Lance's team lost the game but I'm proud to say had a great time anyway.  Lance got to steal home (I great thrill for him and the main reason he wanted to move up to minors) and pitched very well in the final inning.  

At home we had to deal with a dangerous combination; an extremely agile 11 month old and tile floors.  I'm always amazed that we have to do MORE child proofing with each new kid.  This time we had to fence off the entire front room.  She had started climbing on the couch and running back and forth at a moments notice. It was just a matter of time until she ran off before someone could catch her.  She was also starting to terrorize the bookshelves.  The upside is that putting up the gate made it safe to take the Legos back out of the attic for the boys to enjoy.  Not sure how many more times we can revinvent the front room but something tells me this isn't the last time.

Curricula Choices for 2012-2013

For ease of teaching, in many cases I have my two oldest children doing the same or similar material, I just expect more from my older son.  Not only is this easier for me its seems to sit better with them, I get less of the "but he's...." both from envy (they'd rather do that) or resentment (why doesn't he have to do that).  Sometimes the answer simply has to be because your older or younger but I like to avoid conflict when I can.

HISTORY:  This curricula I have created myself for this year, and have posted previously my intent, process and now have a separate page for tracking out progress above.  I'm excited about all the living books I continue to find.  Many more than were on my original "Ancient Books" post.  We do this as a family, if Titus is awake I make sure to have extra sheets for him to cut, glue and color as he sees fit.

Our history curricula will also double as Readings, Geography, Bible, along with Art and Music History study.   However, I do plan to go a little deeper in each subject.

BIBLE:  Our plan is to read through the Hulburt Study Bible this year.  I try to read this to them at breakfast.  It is a nice way to start the day that we all seem to enjoy.  This Bible has 168 chapters that are designed to encompass the main points of the bible in one continuous story.

LANGUAGE ARTS:

• Writing:  I plan to continue having them write regularly in their journals.  However, this year I'm going to take it a little farther on alternating weeks.  One week will just be journal entries.  Then the next week we will use the writing methods taught in "On Teaching Writing" by Jennifer Crider to edit and expand on one of their entries from the previous week to create finished work.
• Grammar:  We have chosen to use KISS GRAMMAR this year.  It is a free online curricula created my a University of Pennsylvia professor.  It had rave reviews, takes a living books approach and its free (the second grade books are free online too).  We have been simply doing a lesson a day, two/three days a week for now with Jared.  Lance I'm still working on what to use.
• Latin:  After much debating I have chosen "Prima Latina" for their Latin program.  I chose it for a number of reasons; the DVD to help teach, the emphasis on teaching English grammar along side and the claim that I need not know any Latin myself.  I have the materials and have reviewed them, they suggest just two days a week so that sounds reasonable.  However, I think I'll wait till our friends are back in school in August to start.
• Copy Work:  For this I plan to use the Bible and the poems of Robert Louis Stevenson.  The 1930's version of "A Child's Garden of Verses" illustrated by EulAlie was suggested as one of the best, so that's the one I'm using.
• Narration:  It seems only appropriate to use Aesop's fables for this task this year.   That said I am still debating over which version to use.  I may use a couple different version, I'll share them as I go.  I do not know if I will formally try to type their narrations for documentation purposes or use something else to document comprehension.
• Reading:  We are doing so much reading with our History curricula and the bags full of books the boys pick up each week from the library I haven't decided if I'm going to do a formal Reading curricula or not.  If I do it will CLE Reading, since I already have, I really like the stories and the boys have not minded the workbooks in the past. The workbook aspect goes against my push for CM focused home school but I worry about tracking their comprehension as I stated above.
• Spelling:  We will continue to use "All About Spelling";  Level 2 & 4 to begin.

MATH:  This is an easy choice; CLE Math Grade 5 and 3.  I have researched this subject ad-nausea and have found no better curricula for content or the boys enjoyment.  We will also work to complete XTRA Math and Life of Fred (for my older son) this year.

SCIENCE:  Since they would be learning the Latin names of constellations in "Prima Latina" and we are studying the Ancients I decided to study Astronomy this year.  I chose Apologia's "Exploring Creation with Astronomy" for a couple of reasons.  It appears to follow a CM Approach, and it comes in complete packages for ease of use.  You can buy the box with everything you need to do all the experiments (which I did) and they have introduced "Junior Notebooking Journals" that have all you need to complete a great Astronomy notebook by year end that's geared for the elementary years.  They suggest doing this two days a week to finish by year end, so I am hoping that we can make the time for Chris to do this with the boys at night or on the weekends.

ART & MUSIC:  The boys continue their piano lessons and I hope to really follow through with Mona Brooks book this year.  However, the majority of the year will be projects linked to our history curricula.  I have chosen to follow the "study a picture and an artist" for a while approach.  I'm trying to link them in some way to what we are studying in history but the links may be loose some weeks.  The important part is the boys really enjoy this approach.

As of this week we are only doing History, Kiss Grammar, Journals and Math.  Next week our friends go on vacation so I might start easing in another subject each week.  I hope to be at full speed about mid-August when public school starts again in the part of the world.

If you are looking for something to directly complement Classical Conversations or just some alternative choices my friend Brandy has a large variety to choose from on her blog.

Ready, Set, GO!

It's the first week in July and in our home that means the start of the new school year.  I have spent the last month planning for this week and I'm sure the week will go nothing like I planned but here's what I've done to prepare.

First - Organize!  I read in an article on TOS (on their new handy dandy Free App) that the best way to get your kids to keep their space organized is to let them have a say in HOW it is organized.  We've tried a lot of "systems" in the past, but they were all MY ideas.  I realize now that their brains may not organize things the same way I do and when they have a say they are more likely to take ownership.

In order to start, we had to find their desks. they've been buried under my junk and their's over the last month.  With that done, I took out the new tools I had for them to choose from and discussed how they wanted to use them.

I offered them the choice of stacking their subjects on their desks, in the cabinet or in the extra magazine folders I had.  Both chose the folders, and both chose to keep them on their desk not on the adjoining book shelves. 

Next we discussed which colors they wanted and where they wanted to post their schedules.  I had purchased these dry erase "Wall Pop Calendars".  This is not their intended purpose but I hope it will work well.  They each have one square for their morning work and one for their afternoon work.   That will help my progression to a Charlotte Mason approach by limiting them to five subjects morning and afternoon and give me the flexibility of mixing up which subjects to do and when.

I made sure the both had their own rulers and timers on their desks to stop delays in finding them during school work time.

For certain subjects with a lot of loose papers I made them labeled binders.  For these same subjects I loaded the teachers manuals to my ipad as PDF; instead of printing them out or having to read from my computer.  This allows me to carry them around easily and switch quickly between subjects and children.  Specifically, I did them for Map Trek IV: Ancient (which came in a PDF) and KISS Grammar (which came in a Word Document that I converted to PDF).  I may also add my History Curricula as a PDF, but I'm still making many changes and I will most likely have to make hard copies and edit as we go along.
 

For the children, I went ahead and bought them "Student Planners" from a Well Planned Day.  I have always kept their activity logs on my computer but that was becoming cumbersome towards the end of last year.  I thought about creating something on my own, then decided this would be easier and I think better in the long run.  I am using the "Month At a Glance" for all their extra activities, ie. horseback riding, swimming, piano, baseball, etc.  I'm using the "Week at a Glance" pages for them to log what they do each day on the left and what books they read on the right. The planner only came with one page for books read and that would never do with my voracious readers.  This is going to take some time for them to take full ownership but I think it will be a great lesson in responsibility.  I'm giving them flexibility with recording as well.  Lance likes to write everything down from his schedule in his planner at the beginning of the day and check them off as he completes them.  Jared prefers to write them down in the planner as he completes them.

Second - Distraction.  Titus has not napped since he was 18 months old.  However, it has been clear for a long time he needs to.  The weekend before school we decided to initiate the quiet hour (or two) each day.  As it turns out he's ended up falling asleep 2 of the first seven days.  I do this around 2pm when I put Amber down for her afternoon nap.  On the weekends the boys use this time to read quietly for pleasure.  During the week I am using this time for the subjects I need to instruct them in without interruption, ie. anything with a read aloud element such as history.  I'm pleased with how it is working out.  Titus has been a little resistant some days but I think he'll get the hang of it and its imperative for Lance and Jared to have this uninterrupted time with me.  In the mornings, I am also bringing Titus upstairs when I put Amber down for her morning nap to read books or work on his numbers/letters on his iPad.  In the past, when I leave him downstairs, he interrupts the boys and they don't complete much.  In the mornings, the reward is one on one time with me if he can play/read quietly while I put her down.  

That's "the how" of the plan to implement our new year.  If the first week is any indication, I think we may actually have something that will work this year.  The boys say they really like the AM/PM schedule because "we can play in the morning when ever we are done and the same in the afternoon".  If they like it, we are much more likely to succeed. 

BTW, I only worked up to six subjects a day so far.  I'm easing them back into a full load.  Ironically our summers are much busier than the school year and we may have to wait for our friends to go back to school until we try a full load.

In the next post, I'll list out "the what" of the plan.