Homeschooling and Funschooling July 20th

http://www.stretcher.com/stories/03/03jul21h.cfm

200+ "things to do" in the summer, many of which are educational.

On the homeschooling front.

Yesterday DD asked to do "numbers" (her math sheet) and when we sat down and I read her the directions, she refused to do it. So, I said, OK, and started to put it away, and she started screaming, so I put it back down on the table. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye and asked, "If I do a really good job, can I have a popsicle?" This totally floored me because we don't do rewards, so I really wonder where this came from! I told her, you can have a popsicle when we're done, but it has nothing to do with your work on your numbers. Then she got right to work, happy as a clam. What the heck was that?

She also did short a/i review, we played a game of initial sound dominoes, and she painted with watercolors.

Today we had to do the shopping extravaganza so for homeschooling we listened to some really funny world folktales on tape on the way there, and then a new CD of Ballet Stories on the way home. DD did her first commercial transaction. She bought a .99 headband, and got a penny in change. She was pretty excited! We also talked about nutrition at Applebees for lunch.

I found great homeschooling things today. One of our themes will be insects, and I got a nice, wooden ant farm and a fine, soft, mesh insect house you put them in to observe them.

There is a Barbara Cooney exhibition at a local museum, and we are going to go. I had the books Miss Rumpius and Island Boy, but today I found a paperback copy of Ox Cart Man, so DD will be familiar with her three best known works before we go. Plus, it's just a great book.

I got a book about the moon, and a set of round fraction tiles (well, the tiles themselves are triangular, they go together to make a circle)because the others I ordered were rectangular.
I also got markers, crayons, and colored pencils at .99 a box. And a book of 15 sheets of 11x18 watercolor paper for 1.99!

Anyway, that's all the news fit to print!
Bye,
-Jo

DD just put on her sneakers and came over and informed me, "These are my marathon shoes. I tied them in devil knots, and now I'm going for a run. I'll stay on the lawn where you can see me so you can tell me when I have run as much as a marathon, OK?" What a pistol.

I'll resist the urge to make cracks about me and all my friends...

Today DD was just voracious. She was really quite demanding about what she wanted to do, and it's a good thing I was just hanging out and being mellow and reading the homeschooling magazines I got yesterday.

So far she has:

done a page of "numbers"

caught 17 crickets and put them in her insect house

colored a butterfly life cycles page and a penguin printout (bless enchanted learning for these two!)

drew two penguins on two different papers and then dictated their stories to me (one has two human friends and one polar bear friend and Santa feeds him human food)

asked me to read three books to her: Ox Cart Man, The Moon Book and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom then she said, "Now it's my turn to read to you" and then read me the first Bob Book

Whew! What a little energy bomb!

Tomorrow we have to go pick up the boys from scout camp in the Adirondacks, which is a 3.5-4 hour drive each way. We'll listen to lots of stories and probably see some fun things.

See ya later,
-Jo

Josie has continued on her math binge. Yesterday I had to go to the drug store. It was so hot and so we were staying inside a lot, so I bought a color book for Lou and a math workbook for Josie that looked fun. After a lot of grumbling about wanting a color book (and hogging Lou's color book), she eventually sat down with the workbook on her own. And when she looked up she'd done about ten pages!

Lynn Siprelle, Editor

We're still HS'ing everyday, I just forget to post
Trey's still finishing up 1st grade American Heritage (we got behind when I had Savannah) He’s probably got about 8 lessons to go.
He's finished with 1st grade Science; we will officially start 2nd grade around the 2nd week of Aug. For now he's doing a lot of fun Science things from his "Science with Air" kit from Usborne.
He's reading from his 2nd grade books already (reading is not his best subject so I didn't take a break)
As far as Math, he's just a wiz kid. That's great news for me as it's my weakest subject. He can add and subtract double digit numbers in his head and on paper. He's starting to multiply and seems to have just picked that up as well.
Spelling like Reading, is not one of his favorites but he's doing good.

Today we read some, practiced handwriting, did science for fun, a lesson in American Heritage, and a page of Math just for practice. Also played a card game that teaches state capitals (I lost!)

OK, one more way DD is like me -- we learn through stories, reading, writing, telling.

She loves her Usborne Greek Myths book, which I got along with a nonfiction book about Ancient Greeks. Mixing the stories and the nonfiction seems to help her learn so much better, even when the nonfiction is really engaging and well written. Get a story in there and she remembers absolutely every last detail. Blows my mind.

We've done a bit of math but, to my great surprise, she has gotten bored with her workbook. (She was Miss I-love-workbooks not so long ago) She did a fun camp at the science museum this week called Math Kaleidoscope -- art projects based around geometry, fractals, tesselations, etc. -- so I'm satisfied. Plus we've played lots of Blokus. Can I say again what an awesome game that is and how everyone should have it?

Mostly she is just read read reading. I've let her read some things I had been hesitant about, namely the Roald Dahl books. But she loves them, and I think they are OK. We started The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe as bedtime story. She is reluctantly enjoying it -- getting through the whole novel a chapter at a time requires a level of persistence and patience she hasn't quite reached, but I hope that as she gets increasingly hooked her persistence will increase.

Next week is a no-camp week, so I'm going to get a bit more structured during DD2s nap times. With the heat I have been quite lazy in the mornings!

I have left off our Calculadder drills, but we'll probably start that back up next month. I sent this year's paperwork in to the school district office, and our "year" officially starts Aug 1 (and ends July 31, 2006).

We have been keeping up with history. I've been recording a bit every night, but we're getting close to our history co-op so we need to double up chapters so we can finish in time. We just read about the Viking invasions, the Battle of Hastings, and feudalism. I don't think Olivia is getting into it much, but Anna Kate just soaks it up. I think she is as much a history lover as I am. Olivia gets some of it, though, and will probably enjoy it more as she gets older. I'm sure they will both enjoy our history co-op, since we will get to branch out a little more than usual and learn with our friends. We'll probably start that the middle of August.

I have to say, reading SOTW has put the pieces of the puzzle together for me. I always liked history, but I learned it piecemeal sort of independently from school, from my own reading. I am so enjoying what we're learning! I really enjoy relating the literature I'm reading to the historical periods we've learned about. Even reading the major prophets in the Bible was much more exciting after gaining a better understanding of ancient history.

We've been watching way too many videos, ever since my DSIL sent us all her Disney and what-not kid tapes. I think we'll watch through the end of this month, then will pack them away for the month of August. Our pastor has challenged us to go on a media fast, of sorts. Or, a "noise fast" as he characterized it. I'm all for it, except for the internet part.

So, that's what we've been up to.

Last night DD packed a bag with stuff to entertain her on our 8 hour drive today and she threw in the 2 Bob Books I read her (and then she 'read' back to me) the night before.

She pulled them out on the ride home and started to do the "Mommy, what does this say?" routine. I, of course, was driving, so I said, "you'll have to wait until we stop." DS13's best friend, who was sitting next to DD, said, "sound them out." (I havn't gone down that road with her yet, because I don't want to push her. If she asks a word, I tell her)

DD asked him what he meant, and he showed her with the title of the book. She copied him, and they did the same onto the first page of text, and then she pulled a Josie-total lightbulb moment. She exclaimed "Oh, I get it, I get it!" and then read the rest of that book and the next, without a hitch. The 2 adolescent boys were so amazed and excited. The first thing DS's friend told his mom when we got him home after a week of camp was "I taught her how to read!"

How cool was that? I only wish I had a video camera in my head to capture these things.

-Jo

P.S. Shaun, I completely cracked up at your little Miss Workbooks statement, because that is totally DD right now. Especially if they have stickers.

Oh, and Susannah, I'm only being this structured right now because I can. The office still isn't done, so I thought if we got in a routine now it would help with when the schedule gets hairy in a couple of weeks. My "official" start date with the DOE is September 1st. I'm also sure that there will be plenty of down time during the year. I only planned 140 actual instructional days of 60-90 minutes each, and since we've already started that leaves us plenty of wiggle room between now and June, which is just how I like it!

DD is in an obsessive mood right now, don't know where she gets it.

So here is the list for the last two days:

two pages of math
set up the ant farm
caught ants for it
observed the ants for hours
ant coloring sheet from enchanted learning
did ant life cycle sequencing cards from enchanted learning
read The Magic School Bus Gets Ants In Its Pants
read What Is An Insect?
talked about similarities between ant and butterfly lifecycles
learned the word metamorphosis

See a pattern? Yup, the newest obsession is insects, in particular, ants. We've been having a very fun time!

Honestly, I'm kinda hoping that tomorrow is a little quieter on this front, because I have much to do around the house and on the business plan. If not, I can deal with that too.

See Ya,
-Jo

I'll post it here and put it in the links too.

This is the samples lessons for a packaged curriculum. Some of the lessons are computer-based, but many are pdf. There are some great reading selections with writing activities to go with them, grammar stuff, and so on. I found quite a bit I printed off for DF's third and sixth graders and a young man I may end up tutoring later this year who is in fourth grade.

http://www.k12.com/curriculum/sample_lessons.html

Yesterday DD updated her calendar, read four books, and observed her ants so more. She also watched a Dora the Explorer DVD for too long, and today is going to be just as bad. Bad Mommy!

Have a great day guys!
-Jo

my kids have been off school for two months so far and at least another to go before school starts here. Workbooks here are excruciatingly expensive compared to what I'm used to and all my bookmarks are on my own computer which is in a box, and I can only remember a very small handful. Better check back through previous threads to find links!

it's difficult living in someone else's house when they have very different rules, and all your stuff is packed away somewhere and you have no place to store the few things you do have out. The kids' behaviour has been all over the place, and they seem to have left their brains in Singapore as far as I can tell. Bad news is that even if the house purchase goes at lightning speed as planned we're only just going to be in there settling barely a week before the kids are due to start school, and more likely I'll be driving them from my parents' house to school for a week or so before we move in. Plus, DD doesn't actually have a place so we're having to appeal that. I suppose the good news is that by the end of September things will be settling down, so at least there is an end in sight, even if it's an uncomfortably long way off.

so for anyone who thinks kids survive on chaos instead of routine, get your head seen to!!

and then my mother's going in for an operation (relatively minor) tomorrow, so I'm uprooting the kids to stay with some cousins for an unspecified number of days so Mum can rest for a few days at least. OH CRAP!

I know it will all come together but it doesn't feel like I'm much in control of it all at the moment, and I'm having to constantly remind myself that's only to be expected. Right now I'd better get some stuff moved around while my parents are at the hospital for some pre-theatre stuff - DH arrived back last night with 3 of our shipped boxes, so I need to get some stuff out of the way into the loft so it doesn't get too hellishly cluttered here.

Jo - I have a bug-loving daughter too, much to my mother's bemusement. So far she hasn't brought anything other than feathers into the house, so that's a relief! Unfortunately bugs are just fascinating things and they don't usually skitter off if you get close either, which makes them easy to observe.

Kerri.

((((Hugs)))). It is *so* hard to be in transition. Blessings and peace to you!

I haven't got much to report otherwise, just came on to hug Kerri. We're up to the Mongol empire in history.

Love,

Susannah