Homeschooling August 2005

Yesterday my determination letter came from the Department of Education and we are officially homeschoolers! Good thing since we have been at it for weeks now.

Recently we have kept on with the math lessons. I am amazed how well DD is writing her numbers now. She also watched a Discovery Channel DVD about sharks because she didn't want to swim at the lake last weekend fearing sharks in the water. I thought learning about them would help, and it has.

Today we will start the August calendar (oops), do another math lesson, and work a bit on phonics. We will also do some lifeskills lessons which will hopefully result in DD's room getting clean.

Bye,
-Jo

I need to start posting in here on a regular basis. You always seem so excited, and I feel like 70% of the time I'm just going threw the motions. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Homeschooling Trey, I don't want him in public school, I've got to get re-excited about it.
Maybe I need some more of the "fun" stuff, I really enjoyed learning with him about volcanoes. Maybe a weekly fun learning project?

I did run to the book store yesterday and finish buying 2nd grade curriculum and the extra work books I'll need for Savannah in a few years. New books usually do it for me I just haven't had a chance to look threw them yet, I'm sure that will add to my excitement.

Anyway, we're not HS'ing this week but he starts 2nd grade Monday. And thanks for the reminder about the August calendar (oops)

My Saxon Phonics arrived yesterday. I gave DD the assessment and it said she had very strong phonemic awareness and we could accelerate the program! Much of the program will be review, but things that will be new to her are:
writing lowercase letters
sight words: the, said, was, has, are, to
breaking words into syllables
long vowels (open vowels and silent e)
/k/ spelling rules in initial and final position
digraphs (sh, ch, th, oo)
combinations (er, ar, or)

So it seems this will be a good level for her, comfortable but with plenty of new skills. Yeah!

We still didn't do our August calendar. Oops again.

Today's schedule:
2 phonics lessons (10 minutes each)
1 math lesson (10 minutes)
calendar (15 minutes)
re-read our insect books

Better go get busy.
-Jo

Yesterday we had a very productive homeschooling day.

2 lessons of phonics (I want to catch us up so the first lesson of a new letter falls on Monday)

one math lesson

reviewed metamorphosis, which DD cracks herself up trying to say

she read the insect book to me

we went out last night to look at venus and the stars and talked about the difference between stars and planets

Today we will do the last Ll lesson of phonics and maybe try to gather some new ants for the ant farm because all the others died. I also want to go for a long walk/run on the recreation path, so I think I'll take DD and have her ride her bike. And we WILL get that room clean.

Bye,
-Jo

Danika and Abrehem and I have done a few unit studies based on Reading Rainbow books. We get the book out of the library and read it a few times to get familiar with the story. Then I tape the RR episode (if you go to http://gpn.unl.edu/rainbow/schedule/rrscedule_pbs.asp you can see the national broadcast schedule) and we watch that. Then we read other books by the same author or books on the same subject, and we even take a field trip if we can (for example, we went on a bat watch after Stellaluna). Danika has really enjoyed this.

I am trying to make sure that I spend an hour each morning doing something "homeschooly," reading or working on Danika's workbooks (which were given to us by a friend and which she LOVES to do) or playing math games from the book Math Play. I'm trying to decide whether I want to designate each day for a certain "subject" or whether I just want to go with the kids' flow. I'm leaning toward the latter. They are, after all, only 3 and 2, and the more I think about it, the less formal I want to be about this while they are so young. They are thriving just by reading books and playing outside and going to storytime, etc. Why mess with a good thing?

We have continued going to preschool co-op with other members of our homeschool group twice a month, and the kids like that. We read stories, do some activities, and do a little craft. For example, last time I led I read a book about patterns, had the kids point out patterns in the room, gave them squares of construction paper in different colors and had them line up so their papers made a pattern, and then we glued differently colored pompons on paper in rows of patterns (more or less, the kids are aged 2-4!).

We've also made an effort to be more social this summer. I often fall into the trap of thinking that going anywhere is so much effort that I don't bother to go (plus I am very plan-oriented, so if I am planning to clean the bathroom, for example, I have a hard time switching gears if someone calls and says "Let's go swimming!"). But we have gotten together with friends more this summer and that is fun. One friend has a creek in her backyard and the kids spend hours playing in the creek. I've started keeping a backpack packed with changes of clothes for each kid, snacks, and water bottles so that if plans change quickly, we're ready to go. That helps a lot!

I ordered a Sonlight catalog recently. I had always avoided doing so because I had heard they are overtly Christian and we are not (in fact, we attend a Vajrayana Buddhist center), but I heard from enough people who also are not Christian that love Sonlight so I ordered the catalog. I was impressed with what I saw so I bid on (and won) the Pre-K and K instructor's guides on E-Bay. The K one has arrived and I am waiting for the Pre-K. Looks pretty interesting, and it looks like I can just leave the Bible study and missionary story stuff out (and substitute it with Buddhist stuff, if I want) and still have a great curriculum guide. I don't see myself as the type to follow any one particular curriculum. I see myself pulling from lots of different sources. But as history and reading are two of my favorite things, I think using the SL history core will be a lot of fun.

That sounds really neat. I've never seen Reading Rainbow, but I think I understand; is it a show where someone reads a book on the air? Those activities sound great. I wish we got PBS here.

DD's room was the homeschooling center stage today. We spent 3.5 hours in there cleaning and organizing. She certainly learned life skills! Now she can:

test markers to see if they are dried out

sort stuff by category like art supplies, books, dress up clothes, etc.

make a bed with a bit of help

arrange books by the height of their spines

vacuum

So tomorrow we will do that last phonics page to get us on a one letter a week pattern.

It may sound odd, but I really do go with DD's flow more than it may sound what with the structured lessons and all. She has to ask for a lesson, which so far she does, like clockwork. We also only do as much as she is willing to do, which is sometimes more than I expected.

We are also following her interests totally for science and social studies, although I admit to stacking the deck by planting books and toys connected to the topics I put on our enrollment form with the state. She jumped right on the insect bandwagon with the appearance of an ant farm, so we've already covered the objectives for that unit study.

Have a good Sunday everyone!
-Jo

We'd never leave the pool.

Danna, I like your idea of leaving a packed bag in the car. I always leave a packed diaper bag but now I think I'll add a change of clothes for Trey.
(that reminds me of a thread I've been wanting to start, maybe later)

We start 2nd grade tomorrow. I wanted to start today but Savannah had her 1 year check up and that threw me off schedulle.
My goal for this year is a little better planning the night before, makes for a much better day at our house

Not so much homeschooling here.

Did the fair on Sunday, so no time. Although, we did read four books last night, including one on the butterfly life cycle.

DD didn't ask for lessons today! I had to write that she does like clockwork, didn't I?

Oh well, she is only 4. I don't have to rush anything, and I managed to keep my mouth shut and not ask her if she wanted to. I'll do an experiment and see how long it is before she asks.

Today she caught lots of grasshoppers, played with her dolls, and is in the hot tub with her grandmother right now waiting for the stars to come out. That's enough for a four year old on a beautiful summer day.

Bye,
-Jo

Danika is still very interested in the rain forest, an interest that got started during our The Shaman's Apprentice unti study. We have been continuing to read books about the rain forest. One that we have now is called Amazon Alphabet by Martin and Tanis Jordan. It's a beautiful book.

Today while we were reading it, when we got to J/Jaguar, Danika said, "The jaguar is a predator!" I said, "Yes, that's right. And what does the jaguar hunt?" She said, "Prey!" So after we finished reading the book, we picked five animals from it (Jaguar, Piranha, Quetzal, Tree Frog, and Caiman) and made a little chart in a notebook with the headings Predator and Prey. I wrote the names of the animals down the side, and under each heading we wrote down either what the animal eats or what eats it. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/coloring/ was particulary helpful in finding the answers. I also found phots of all five animals and sent them to Frank to print off and bring home. We are going to put them on a large piece of paper and draw pictures each animals predators and prey. I haven't yet decided whether to do it chart-like or cluster-like.

Danika was very tickled to discover that jaguars sometimes eat eggs (like she does!) and that piranhas eat each other! She also thought it was neat that the kinkajou, which we read about yesterday in Welcome to the Green House, by Jane Yolen, eats quetzals.

Have you read The Great Kapok Tree? I love Jane Yolen, but have never heard of Welcome to the Green House. I bet it's good though.

Last night we looked at the stars for awhile and talked about constellations, and before bed I read her 3 books: Where the Wild Things Are, Chester's Way, and Olivia.

Well, DD got a letter today from her friend Chandler. She promptly responded, which seemed to remind her about doing "letter lessons" because she asked for one.

We also did a math lesson and got our August calendar up to date. Then she helped me make corn chowder which involved picking corn, potatoes, and carrots from the garden. Now we are going to the post office to mail her letter back to Chandler, and then we are going swimmming at DSIL's pool, which is phys ed.

Both the boys were up past midnight reading! DS13 finished Harry Potter/Half Blood Prince and DS15 is almost done with The Good Earth, which is a World Lit summer homework assignment.

Better go take DD to the Post Office, she is winding up to a melt down.
Bye,
-Jo

Eclectic, on the run homeschooling in our world lately.

Yesterday:

Watched a Discovery Channel dinosaur movie.

Read a bunch of book in the bookstore.

Thai food for lunch, tried things we had never eaten before. I loved it, DD, not so much.

Talked about the food groups and what each gives your body.

She worked on identifying money and helped me pay at the stores. She now knows all four coins and their values, and can identify bills by value.

Did her Olivia puzzles and a set of four farm scene puzzles after dinner.

Read the moon book and Olivia before bed.

Today:

Grocery shopping; she got four nectarines and two apples bagged for me on her own in the produce section. Then she added the pieces of fruit.

A lesson each in math & phonics.

Caught two grasshopper and a cricket. They are in the insect house for viewing.

Will try again to see the moon through the binoculars and the meteor showers, it has been too cloudy the last three nights.

That's all the news fit to print!

-Jo

Big excitement this morning at the mailbox.

They all look good and healthy and are suppoed to grow and grow for the next week and then become chrysalises. We are having some conflict though, because I want to put them in the middle of the kitchen table, and DD wants them in her room.

We are up to date with the August calendar.

DD took her first test Saturday, and she did a really great job. I have to keep a portfolio of those and use them to have her progress assessed in June.

Today we will:
do a math lesson
do a phonics lesson
read the butterfly book again
look at the moon through binoculars tonight
read some books, probably Piggie Pie and Ox Cart Man, those are the recent favorites, although Olivia and Miss Rumphius are always possibilities too.

See You tomorrow,
-Jo

I figured out that we only need to do 3 lessons a week to make it through to June, and that includes taking the boys' school vacations off. Excellent!

The caterpillars are growing so fast! They remind me of DS13! I also wish I could figure out a way to record DD and post it here so you could hear her try to say metamorphosis. Hilarious!

Today:
our last math and phonics lessons of the week
read some books
go find some milkweed and see if we can find any monarch caterpillars
set up the ant traps

All the ants in the ant farm died. DD wants to set up some jars with different foods in them near the anthill and try to trap some more. We'll give it a shot!

See ya,
-Jo

It must be a few months since I posted anything on this thread, shame on me. I always read along though, and I'm inspired by you all.

Us? Well we stopped homeschooling for the summer holidays, as always. We keep to the old school year usually. That doesn't mean we don't do interesting things if they come up, but rather that I just don't stress about anything. During the term time we are either doing things, or I'm worrying that we should be doing more! Usually both For the past few weeks we've just been going with the flow. Bedtimes and getting up times are very fluid in the school holidays, I don't worry about it much at all, within reason. DS14 often has his friend to stay and they go to bed in the early hours.

For the past few weeks DS has been spending lots of time with his two best friends, one homeschooled and one not. He's been to the cinema, to sleepovers and has spent much time hanging about in his room with friends, playing on the computer and listening to music. He's also read a lot as always, Harry Potter of course being one of this summer's favourites, but also the new Doctor Who books, and a few others. He's currently eagerly awaiting the sequel to Eragon, due out soon, and I have Lord of the Flies lined up to study in September.

DS was so negatively affected by his school experience, the most thrilling thing for me about home education has been seeing his confidence improve and his social life take off in leaps and bounds over the past two and a half years. I sent a confident little boy off to school aged 4 and was given back an eleven year old who had lost enthusiam for learning, was lacking in confidence and expected everyone new, adult and child to be nasty, as that was mostly his experience in school. Now my favourite pastime is just to watch him being 'himself.' He even has a girlfriend ( recent development and one that makes me feel very old! )

We will start 'work' in September. Not the day that the schools go back - that is our designated 'NOT back to school day!' and deserves celebration, I think. This year we're planning to have several home educated friends over to celebrate. I expect we'll start work the next day, or maybe the following week. Can you tell I'm not very structured?

I definitely lean towards a semi autonomous method of home schooling. As long as Maths and English are in place, I really don't mind what else he is learning, as long as he is learning something. So I am likely to set aside a couple of hours for 'work' but not to mind what he does. This year I want to be slightly more organised and discuss goals with DS, find out what he would like to achieve and work towards his goals.

Today though, we went to a home education meeting in a town about an hour away, its the second time we've been there and it's been really good for DS to meet other home educated teenagers. I've also made a few contacts there, and we hope to be getting involved in a teenage group and also a book group for keen older readers.

Before September I need to go through our HUGE pile of homeschooling stuff and get it organised. I also need to resubscribe to some homeschool email lists I used to get. I unsubbed because there was such a volume of messages, but now I find I miss the interesting bits!

Now I've waffled on and sent you all to sleep I'm back off to lurkdom!

Great to see you!

I went on to enchanted learning to get DD a walrus printout, and visited the calendar, which reminded me that tonight is the full moon. We will go look at the moon through the binoculars again tonight. The last time we did was on the waxing gibbous moon night, and it was such a huge hit with DD.

I have to say, reading the moon book and then doing with the binoculars; reading about ants and then doing with the ant farm; reading about butterflies and then doing with the butterfly garden really seems to work for DD. She is an experiential learner right now, for sure.

I told the DOE that DD would either take ballet or gymnastics as part of her phys ed curriculum. DD chose ballet, so I signed her up today and she starts classes on Sept. 7th.

That's all for now,
-Jo

Today's homeschooling was cooking, as mama was in the mood for something different.

We made gazpacho with garden tomaotes and a fruit salad that is strawberries and black grapes in a balsamic vinegar reduction. DD cut lots of produce.

She also watched a shameful amount of TV and painted 2 pictures. Oh, and we also pulled the glads that were past their prime out of the garden.

Tonight I plan to relax, relax, relax. DS13 may get tagged to read to DD later.

That's all,
-Jo

We have three so far, and once the other two are done we will move all of them into the butterfly garden so we will have a great view when they emerge as butterflies in a week to ten days. DD is very excited.

We have also completed a couple more lessons. So far she has learned the sounds and lowercase forms of l,o, and g. She also learned how to code a short vowel with a breve and to blend sounds to read a word (log) and unblend them to spell. She learned that a sentence is a group of words that go together to make a thought, and that they start with an uppercase letter and end with an endmark, and we played a game for her to identify how many words are in a sentence. Yesterday she learned what a compound word is and identified the two words joined to make each compound work I said.

In math she is really getting the hang of double digit numbers, and yesterday we learned about sides and angles of geometric shapes. She also has conquered fewer/equal/more and ordinal numbers first-fifth and last.

Today she has a math assessment and we are going to play initial sound dominoes.

Yesterday we read King Midas and the Goden Touch and The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and today she has already pulled out Cinderella and Professor Puffendorf's Secret Potions.

I decided to inventory all the resources I brought home and group them by unit studies to make a lending library for our local homeschool group. I have close to $7,000 worth of stuff down there that I bought when I was teaching, and it is stupid to have it sitting in my cellar unused. So far I have done unit study boxes for Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Rome, and Space. Later today I may tackle Weather and Geology.

I already pulled out Insects, Water, Seasons, Nutrition, Holidays, Dinosaurs, the Five Senses, and Maps & Globes for DD this year. I also gave DF American Indians, Colonial America, American Government, Animals, and the Human Body for her two kids.

I also found a math book and three science books (textbooks) I would be happy to give away, as well as several second copies of books. All my hardcover reading books (novels) are going to our local library too, so they can be used, and when I need them, I know where they are.

That should keep me busy!
-Jo

DD is really into her "lessons" and this morning she actually turned off the TV and said. "Come on Mom, let's do lessons!"

Today's phonics lesson was the sound of Hh and how to write both forms of the letter. We also reviewed compound words.

In math she learned how to illustrate math stories and that equasions are the numerical representations of these stories. She also continues to work on right/left, more/fewer, and ordinal numbers. Pennies were also introduced in this lesson, which lead to a good talk about Lincoln.

For science we read two books about insects working (making honey and so on), and made a journal entry about the chrysalids. My BIL is a beekeeper, but DD has made it clear she DOES NOT want to go to the hives.

I made myself a calendar to keep track of our daily activities. I also started a binder to keep work samples and pictures in. This will be my portfolio record for the state.

Today I called and reserved tickets for 4 shows at a historic theater 60 minutes away. Three shows are music and dance from other cultures including China, the Dominican Republic, and Uganda. The other show is The Peking Circus. That will be fun!

That's all for today.
-Jo