Our Homeschool Feast

August is Relaxed

2009-07-23T09:32:00.002-05:00

We do school year round, but our summer months are much more unschool-ish. Recently my oldest son spent 3 weeks in the hospital with severe pneumonia so we had our 5 year old granddaughter 24/7. It's more of a challenge to have her, and fully integrate her into our family overall...planning meals is more challenging (She eats as much as any of the adults in the house!), we only have so many of her clothes so we have to do laundry a bit more often (every day pretty much), and she is learning to read. So none of the "older kid" research ideas work for her. She has to be paired with myself, or one of the older children for any and all school work. She is home now, and happy to sleep in her own bed, I imagine! We are all happy her Daddy is on the mend and home again.

I picked up August's monthly Teacher's Book Bag. The theme is The Sun, Seasons and Solar System. It sounded fun, since there are several summery/sun projects. I wish we had light sensitive paper! I am not even sure where one buys that. We have recently switched from lapbooking to notebooking. Maybe it would more accurately be called "Lapbooking in a notebook", lol. So yesterday we took advantage of some of the school supply sales and picke dup some folders (the kind with pockets and brads) for our next few until studies. We learned a great deal about the sun yesterday. It was more interesting than expected for both Artkitty and I, and just as interesting as I expected for Bouncyboy! =)

Today we will be looking at Earth's relationship to the sun, and possibly the Solar System...I haven't totally decided yet since I don't want sit down school work to last more than an hour, 2 at most so we can do more projects and fun stuff!!

Next month we will start our Oklahoma unit! Woot!

Bread Starter Mix Take 1

2009-05-25T20:13:00.003-05:00

Making yeast bread from a “starter” or “mother”, making pretty much anything that required fermentation really, has been around for a very long time.

Yeast spores occur everywhere, including the surface of cereal grains, so any dough left to rest will become naturally leavened. Although there is some evidence in the hieroglyphs to suggest that in Egypt, sometime around 1000 BC, the Egyptians isolated wild yeast and were able to introduce the culture directly to their breads. While modern yeasts were developed in the late 1800’s shortly after Louis Pasteur discovered how yeast works, it’s not something most of us think about when enjoying our sweet breads. He used grapes to establish that it was the dust on the surface of the fruit’s skin which made wine ferment, that yeast was a living organism and that only active living cells can cause fermentation.

Basically, fermentation in dough, or bread starter mix, can be described as the breakdown of the starches in flour by the yeast to produce carbon dioxide, which in turn expands the gluten proteins in the flour and causes the dough to expand. Although thanks to Alton Brown, I cannot use any type of yeast without seeing tiny, burping sock puppets inside. =)

Last week we went to my aunt’s house. She had requested help with a recalcitrant printer. Before we left she offered me a “Friendship Bread Starter”. I was delighted to accept! I have kept, fed and cared for bread starters off an on for my entire adult life. My mother had one for a very long time she called “Herman”. I am still unsure how it got that name or where it originated. Mama’s Herman lived in the refrigerator. The yeast (or sourdough) bread starter that I am more familiar with is left on a counter, in a plastic bag.

The basic idea of a bread starter is that you mix it (mash the bag) every day, halfway through a 10 day fermentation process you add milk, sugar and flour, then on the 10th day, you add to your starter, divide it for friends and bake. This time, as I baked my first loaves of bread (blueberry bread, if you are curious) , I thought, “Why not experiment a bit and see if we can’t make this a bit healthier or have less calories/carbs for those of us struggling with weight or diabetes?” Thus the beginning of this experiment was born.

So that would be Day 1 of our 10 day starter. I want to begin by saying that I did not have everything I needed to make my starter AND bake bread. Not having any but organic whole wheat flour and some all purpose flour dregs, I added ½ cup all purpose flour and ½ cup whole wheat flour to the starter, ½ cup of sugar and ½ cup of Splenda, and 1 cup of whole milk. I must pause here and thank my middle son, The Milk Fairy, who dropped off milk that morning on the way to work. Bless him and his little Arby’s uniform with wings!

So already I was playing fast and loose with this starter. Okay, well, perhaps not “fast and loose”, but in my experience with bread starters you do NOT substitute. When I asked why, the response I would usually get was, “Well, you will kill it!”. So, since my starter already had some sugars and flours, etc, I thought that I could potentially just reduce the sugars and give it a wee bit of a different flour that it would be fine. So far, it seems to be (knock on wood). I did have some teeny brown speckles from the wheat flour which was darker than the all purpose flour. When I baked my two loaves I used the organic wheat flour and honey and the blueberry bread was truly wonderful! Although, in hindsight, I think you could use half of each every time it called for flour and you would be fine. That, however, is another experiment!

So today is Day 6. Today I had to add 1 cup each of milk, flour and sugar to my three starter bags.

In one bag I measured out and added (with Artkitty and BouncyBoy help) 1 cup of Splenda, 1 cup of milk and 1 cup of all purpose flour. This bag mixed VERY easily, and the mix was very, very pale in color.
In the second bag I measured out and added (again with the above helpers) ½ cup of Splenda, ½ cup of sugar, 1 cup of milk and 1 cup of all purpose flour. This bag was more difficult to mix, and surprisingly much darker than Bag 1. The only theory we could come up with to explain this is the difference in consistency between regular white sugar and Splenda. Sugar is much denser. So perhaps the denseness of the sugar creates a color change when the ingredients are mixed.
In the third and last bag, I measured out and added (alright, Artkitty and BouncyBoy did with supervision) ¾ cup of local honey, 1 cup of milk and 1 cup of all purpose flour. This proved to be MUCH more difficult to mix together well and darker than Bag 2, and much darker than Bag 1. That was to be expected since the honey itself is a brown color.

The only thing that I did not try was a ½ honey and ½ Splenda combination, although I suspect that it would work very well. You can see the color comparison below.

Days 7, 8 and 9, I will be simply mixing (mashing) each bag. On Day 10 I will again add sweetener, milk and flour to the mixes and divide each up to give away to friends, and bake two loaves of bread from each mix. My plan is to continue adding the same sweetener that I added today for the starters. When I bake I will again use the organic wheat bread (since that worked remarkably well last time) and the same sweeteners, although to be honest I am sorely tempted to bake with the ½ Splenda and ½ honey combo instead of just Splenda.

End of Day 6! Burp, little sock puppet yeast, burp!! =)

Internet yeast/bread history resources:

http://www.breadinfo.com/history.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2791820

http://www.altonbrown.com/
http://www.splenda.com

Seasons At Home Magazine Giveaway

2009-05-11T18:48:00.002-05:00

Seasons at Home magazine is a full-color, printed magazine that focuses on life skills needed in the running of a home. Seasons is filled with articles and projects that revolve around homeschooling, sewing, cooking and baking, gardening, Titus 2 encouragement, themed teas for mothers and daughters, father/son projects, and daughters at home.

Each month they are giving away TWO full subscriptions to this magazine!

Please go to:
http://www.joyousnotions.com/2009/01/joyous-notions-giveaways.html
for more information on the monthly magazine giveaways and/or

http://www.joyousnotions.com/
for more information on THIS month's giveaway.

The above website address will also contain more information on the wonderful offerings from these good people. They do monthly seminars (The Wise Guy and Joyous Home Making) as well as a monthly quilt block membership as well as other, delightful offerings for those of us who are teaching our children and young adults how to best run their own households!

You may need to cut and paste the website address into your browser. I apologize but I never have managed to get links to work correctly in my blogs.

Good luck!!

Good Bye Michelangelo

2009-01-15T22:38:00.003-06:00

BouncyBoy went to look at his beloved Triop tonight and poor Michelangelo had gone to that Big Jurassic Park in the Sky. We didn't know that they only live about 2 months. Of course we are assuming that Michelangelo was a "he", but since he had no she, there were no eggs, so...

Daddy has assured one sad, sobbing BouncyBoy that we will purchase a new Triops kit. Someone remind me to kick Grandpa in the shins the next time I see him. First we spend hours trying to find the right habitat, then we get it set up and we don't SEE the eggs hatch or see the babies so we don't feed them. Michelangelo was a cannibal, the ugly little monster. He ate his siblings and grew fat and sassy on them.

But he was a survivor and ALL of my kids thought he was "too cool", and BouncyBoy adored him.

Good Bye, Michelangelo. You will be missed.

Finished with Colonies

2009-01-15T21:03:00.003-06:00

Finally! We are done with the 13 Colonies!

Our plans look like something like this:
A brief study of presidents and the presidential inauguration.
A lapbook and study of chocolate!
We will start our Continental Hop with a study of Africa. (maybe)
Not sure after that. We still have our big study of Oklahoma, but I want to wait til spring...although March could easily be 'spring-y" enough. lol
Artkitty wants to study...okay wait for it....art! lol We have a lapbook kit of Art Appreciation: A Study of the Masters.
BouncyBoy wants to study slavery. Not sure why, but it would be a good follow up to the colonies, so perhaps.

if we don't get to it this school year, I still hope to explore the other continents. It's not an in depth study, but could become one depending on interest and time. So I expect us to explore some more fully than others. Artkitty wanted to do Australia first and that could still happen.

We were slated to to Famous American Women and King Arthur and didn't get to either of those...so if we don't before summer then we *will* do those next school year. BouncyBoy also wants to study "galaxies", so who knows where we will end up?

The recent bills being proposed in the OK Education Committe have me concerned although so far people are saying they are against it...not *enough* people have said that yet. I look back on our school year. On all of the different things we studied. Things we may not have gotten to study under different laws. Yes, we are still struggling with math. But I think we finally have a handle on it this year and can finally start to move forward again. Yes, we need to work more on actual grammer. We have plenty of time.

Artkitty has started the second book of her Terry Pratchett series. She recently listened to Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book and now wants to read his Coraline. Honestly, how many 12 year olds today are reading Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman?

BouncyBoy is reading more advanced chapter books. Ones with 15-20 chapters. Oh, he still loves the smaller ones, but he's on his third of the Deltora series and excited for more.

Soon my Artkitty will start her art lessons again. We are working on turning her artwork into bookmarks. They are sooo lovely! I posted one here.

I am waiting on test results from my doctor...will post when I get those. =)

I Heart New York?

2008-12-10T15:24:00.004-06:00

Moving right along with our First 13 Colonies studies. We learned more about New York today than I ever knew. It seemed that I should have known, but somehow...didn't. Now I wonder if I forgot, or if I was truly never taught it.

1/3 of the battles of the Revolutionary War were fought in New York.

The first woman to fight in the Revolutionary War was Margaret Corbin. She took over her husband, John's, cannon when he was killed. She was also the first woman to receive government funds for disabled soldiers. During combat her chest, shoulder and jaw were severely damaged. She was 25.

The first NY settlers, Dutch colonists, were called "Knickerbockers" because of the short or "knickered" pants they wore.

The Indians who were settled in NY when the colonists came, the Iroquis, were matrifocal in their living arrangements. They lived in longhouses, and lived together based on their relationship through the women. A grandmother and grandfather, the grandmother's sisters and their husbands, the grandmother's daughters and their husbands and unmarried sons would all live in one longhouse that was appx 200 feet long!

Whew! We studying the lost Roanoake Colony, and Jamestown as well. The kids asked to make a Jamestown colony on Sims, and I allowed it. Their colonists burned themselves up by putting a Christmas tree too close to a fireplace. No fire alarms to call the firemen in old Jamestown and no phones, so they all died but one! In reality, of course, we talked about how people would have flocked to put together a water brigade to put out a fire in Jamestown Colony...but that if that failed, yes it would have just burned down. It was an interesting look at colonial life. =)

We have been studying the colonies in general. How people lived, what jobs were common, apprenticeship, which crops would have been raised and why. We found a Jamestown Adventure game free online that the kids played some. It wasn't as exciting as flaming Sims, but they did learn a lot about how the seasons and the crops affected people.
Find it at http://www.historyglobe.com/jamestown/

We also watched the American Girls: Felicity movie the other day. It's set during the same time period. It supplied a LOT of thoughts and subjects for discussion. I am seriously considering ordering the books from the library for Artkitty to read while we study the colonies.

Find more info at http://www.americangirl.com/movie/felicity/

Books! Artkitty has just started Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett and BouncyBoy is reading the first Dragons of Deltora book.

We are still reading The Lightning Thief out loud together, mainly on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have 6 chapters left of it. I have been reading A Dog About Town (A mystery told from the dog's point of view. Since he is the sleuth, that makes sense. lol) and Wolfsbane and Mistletoe. Yes, that would be a book of short stories that are both holiday and werewolf orientated. Hey, I claimed to be I was normal!

Now, off to exercise!

No More Money...Colonies

2008-12-01T13:28:00.004-06:00

We finished our money lapbooks. Although I have to say that I feel that the kids got very little out of these lapbooks. My hope was for them to deepen their understanding of money, and how it works, and finances, budgets, etc. I am just not sure how much actually sunk in, I am ashamed to admit. We had so much going on with people living with us, etc. that it was just harder for everyone to focus. Maybe later in the year I will look at it from another and try again. Maybe I should print out fake money for them and make a list of fees for everything from lunch to computer time, thus forcing them to count out the correct amount of money for a few weeks. Hmm...now that I say that I wish I'd done it while we were working on the lapbook!

So we start the Original 13 Colonies tomorrow. I have TONS of resources. This may be a giant lapbook! Hopefully it will be interesting and fun! I am using one of the History Pockets books, and one of the things that you make are bookmarks for each section. I think that is crazy cool.

Money, Money, Money...and Elections

2008-11-05T00:03:00.003-06:00

Today we started a money lapbook. I had wanted to do elections and then realized that **I** wanted to do elections. Pinky and BouncyBoy wouldn't get anything out of it and Artkitty wouldn't CARE. So I decided that my goal was to help her understand why she should care. So we spent the morning on the money lapbook and the afternoon on elections.

I went to vote, and I had to beg a ride to do it so I hope that it was a powerful message considering that I am not a supporter of either the Democratic or the Republican party.

Even Loki got involved and did some internet research and some discussion. I think Artkitty learned a lot, actually.

So now on to money more seriously. Then after money we are studying the First 13 Colonies and the Pilgrims for Thanksgiving. Still not sure what we will study after that during December, but we are discussing it.

We are walking to the park when we can before it gets too cold, and while it's sooo pretty of a walk. Shuffling our feet through the fall colors. Beautiful!

Last day of Ancient Greece

2008-10-08T14:00:00.002-05:00

Today we studied the Grecian alphabet and wrote our names in Greek. We also did mazes and talked about the minotaur, although they already new about him and his story. We also studied Ancient Greek architecture and the Three Orders, Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. We did our LAST mini books and tomorrow will be putting out lapbooks together. I will get pictures up of them and the Olympic lapbooks as well.

We are doing a short, unplanned, lapbook after that on Halloween and then the Election process in November. After that I am just not sure. Perhaps we will work on a short "Planning a Road Trip" mini book in honor of their grandparents hopefully coming to visit. I am also debating on doing Dickens again during the holidays. We did Dickens, and A Christmas Carol, with the focus on the story last holiday season. I am tempted, mainly because there was SO much information in the lapbook kit I purchased last year, to do another one, with the focus being more on Charles Dickens the man and the time and daily life, clothes, etiquette, etc. of that time. My only fear about that is that the kids would hate it, and I would be the only one enjoying it. lol

December might also be a good time to do a lapbook on money, since so much is spent during that time of year. That may be the direction for us to go in after all, since it would be more easily adaptable for all ages and I really HAVE all ages now!

I am trying to decide what to do with Pinky while the other two do the election lapbook. That may be a good time for me to start her a alphabet sounds lapbook.

Friday will be devoted to party planning (major eek) and Saturday will BE the party. Maybe a few days off next wee are in order...

An Addition

2008-10-07T15:17:00.003-05:00

So now we have an addition to our lives and our school 3-4 days a week. My 4 year old Granddaughter. Pinky, since she loves pink.

This has been a different experience for me yet again. It was scary and exciting and necessary when I first pulled my oldest, Loki, out of middle school 10 years ago. Then the following year when we made the huge decision to keep Dragon at home. I was terrified. He was ADHD and OCD and a bunch of other letters that meant that he took too much medication and made me insane. We spent the next 2 years slowly removing him from his medication and teaching him self control along with math and history, etc.
Artkitty and Bouncyboy have never been to a public school. Artkitty turned 12 today. Bouncyboy is now 8. I taught them both to read, to write, to tell time just like I taught them to walk and use silverware rather than fingers to eat and how to button shirts or tie shoelaces, or talk. Homeschooling them is natural and normal. It's what I have always done with them.
Pinky is different. She's lived with me off and on since she was 10 months old. She's mine...and yet not mine. She was walking when we first saw her, none of us had a hand in teaching that. I contributed to her learning her left from her right, and learning to talk (although not as much as I'd like) and eating with silverware, and her initial manners...but there are so many things that I had no part of.
It's an odd feeling. I don't know her strengths and weaknesses like I do the others. I don't know which things will be a struggle ahead of time. In that way I expect to make more mistakes than I'm comfortable with, but she will be my fifth homeschooled child. Surely by now, I have done it enough to balance some of that out?
She's getting daily computer time, educational games and websites, for the first time in her life. I am often surprised by how smart she really is. She is certainly some letters (ADD at least), but like Artkitty, I don't plan to let her in on any potential labels. They would just hold her back. Now that she's older, it helps Artkitty to understand that her dyslexia can be what causes her to switch letters and numbers around in her head, so she gets less frustrated when it takes her longer to understand what she's seeing. When she was learning to read, it would have just seemed like an insurmountable obstacle rather than merely a challenge to be met and surpassed. Little Pinky has no common sense to speak of. She cannot understand how people could be strangers or why one wouldn't wish to walk in the road with the cars. She is a different challenge yet again.
She is grasping her numbers and counting incredibly fast. She works hard with supervision but plays and doodles and loses her focus if left to finish a task unsupervised for even a moment. It's more exhausting for me both mentally and physically. It's also relieved my heart to know that she's with me, and learning, rather than in some daycare with who knows who, learning nothing, or worse, learning who knows what!
So, we have made some alterations in our schedule already. Some days we walk to the park first thing in the morning and begin our school day later, and end it later. Some days we don't do anything structured at all. I need more down time to rest and plan. Of course our printer is broken and I am writing out everything, which may be contributing to my fatigue.
Being able to send home the things she's done to her Daddy, Loki and being able to watch his face light up as he delights in her accomplishments, is worth it. He sees her differently now, which is wonderful to watch.
It's interesting and scary. It's exciting and tiring. It's wonderful to be able to share this newly opened door to yet another adventure in homeschooling.

I should get a helmet!

Illiad and Odyssey

2008-09-25T14:11:00.004-05:00

Today we studied Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Odyssey is one of my favorite stories so it was wonderful to share it with the children!

I know that I have not been blogging and I am sorry. Some heath issues came up, and while we were still doing schoolwork, I couldn't make myself blog as well. It would have just came out whiny and self absorbed and that isn't what this blog is about. I will say that the days we have done school work were some of the days that kept me sane. Immersing ourselves in the life of the Ancient Greeks was by far more enjoyable than worrying yet more!

The above gorgeous piece of artwork is the Euphronius Krater....

January 18, 2008: ROME—Italy is scheduled today to unveil the Euphronius Krater that recently was returned to the country by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Italy secured the return of the 2,500-year-old vase in February 2006 as part of a deal that included 20 other antiquities. The Euphronius piece will be presented in a ceremony hosted by Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli and his predecessor, Rocco Buttiglione, who started the country's high-profile campaign to recover stolen art. The work will become part of an exhibition at the Quirinal presidential palace featuring recovered pottery, sculpture, and paintings.

We are still continuing to read with breakfast, and I still LOVE it. Bouncyboy is zooming his way through two different Bionicles chapter book series, as well as a Star Wars series thanks to this new morning routine and I simply can't keep my Artkitty in books! We are also still trying to be done earlier in the day, and I can honestly say that it has meant a LOT more cooperation and a lot less arguments over all. I am hoping this helps us to avoid burn-out.

And while not at all Grecian, Artkitty finished her very first oil painting. We are all terribly proud of it and her!

Ancient Greece

2008-09-08T14:03:00.003-05:00

Blogging early for me today, woot, and some changes to our schooling.... We finished our studies of the Olympics and since Artkitty and I were butting heads more than anything else, we took a week off. Now we have officially dived into Ancient Greece. Today we studied an overview of Ancient Greece and it's city-state (or poli) structure and cultures, compared maps of Ancient and Modern Greece, learned about philosophy and Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. We did math, vocabulary and a little grammar and even read.
Now we are done for the day. Already. YES!
Homeschooling, especially once your child hits the tween/teen years where they want more control, is a balancing act. You attempt to balance what you know your child needs to learn, what you want your child to learn and what they want to learn...and often how they want to learn it as well. It's necessary to give your children a certain amount of control of their learning. I'd even say it's essential to foster the child's on desire to learn. However, you are also the adult, the teacher, the parent, and you have to have parameters. "We are studying this math this year because it's what you are ready for and need to learn. Which of these 3 books/sets/curriculum would you prefer to use?", goes over better, and is more apt to actually be utilized by the child than, "Here's your math. Do it." This makes them an active participant in their schooling rather than just a student.
We had been struggling with Artkitty and Bouncyboy feeling like they did "nothing but school". I pointed out that they got up very late in the day, so we were often still doing school when Daddy got home. As a result, they felt like they did nothing but school all day. I felt like I got NO down time between school and needing to deal with dinner, etc. It was simply too difficult for all of us. So we got out our school goals, devised a reasonable schedule for each daily task, and planned a daily schedule. I then gave them 3 options. If we start school at THIS time then we will be done at THAT time, or if we start at this later time, then we will also be done at this later time, etc. We came up with a simple plan of starting our day earlier than we had been by quite a bit, and therefore finishing earlier by quite a bit.
Then Sweet Hubby and I spent the past 3 days dragging children from bed at hideously early times (for me anyway, lol) and changing their schedule. So they were in bed by 11 last night and up by 9:30 this morning and we are now done. Hooray! We are doing our more boring, more structured work earlier to get it out of the way, minibooks last, so that I can adjust the number of minibook subjects to our remaining time. Today it was only two minibooks...which is less than we have been doing and to be honest, I am happy with it. We got so much else done withOUT the constant struggles that if it means we need to do a little less each day on our unit study so be it. It's worth it.
We are now starting our day quietly, with breakfast and our 30 minutes of reading. So each of them sits and reads silently while they eat breakfast. For 30 minutes. No, I am serious. It was quiet. I drank my coffee and read email and looked at news in peace. Yes REALLY. I swear if nothing else from this new agenda works, we are KEEPING beginning our day with reading during breakfast!! It means everyone's day starts calmer and quieter. If one of us needs that extra time to wake up before we can speak civilly to other, they get it! No rushing to grab food and begging for tv during the meal and a frantic search for notebooks and pencils. Nope. By the time we needed those things, everyone was awake, in a good humor, and remembered where they'd left everything.
My husband is actually home sick today so he is asleep on the couch. But if he wasn't, then he would not be due home for 3 hours at the earliest. I have 3 hours to relax, or help the children pursue their individual interests, or to get some laundry done, etc. I didn't end my school day frustrated and cranky and neither did they. Happy sigh!

Only problem now...keeping these kids in books to read! lol!

Olympics Day Four

2008-08-13T14:49:00.003-05:00

Today we did our brief looks at diving, swimming and canoe/kayaking. Interesting sports! Swimming is considered a "glamor sport" for the Olympics. That cracked me up. I just don't see those people as glamorous!

We studied a fantastic athlete, Wilma Rudolph, shown above. Suffering from polio and scarlet fever as a child, after being born prematurely, one of her legs was crippled, ans she wore a brace. She didn't actually walk properly until she was nearly 12 and went on to run her way to winning 3 Gold medals in the 1960 Olympics. Studying about Wilma lead us to a discussion of segregation, which was common is Wilma's youth. Segregation confused the kids. It was difficult for them to wrap their minds around being judgmental of others based on their skin color. Made me feel really proud of both of them, although I suspect that my Old South bigoted Daddy spun in his grave. lol!

We read chapter on of Grammar-land and met pompous Mr. Noun. The story is really delightful. Caitlin already knows the information, and Joshua has a working knowledge of it but this story has them both enthralled and they don't might boning up on Grammar basics as a part of the story.

We also learned a little about the commemorative stamp that the U.S. post office had created for the 2008 Olympics and the kids each made their own 2008 Olympic commemorative stamp! A small but fun project. =)

We defined our vocabulary words and wrote our daily quote and updated our Medals boards.

I woke everyone up an hour earlier to get an earlier start, and now all we have left is 25 minutes of math. I have the new words, quote and tomorrow's plan on the board already. I deliberately planned a little more lightly today than I had at first hoping to help the kids decide that getting up earlier would be *better* because we would be DONE earlier. So far they aren't convinced. =)

Fuwa "FOO-uh"

2008-08-12T17:01:00.007-05:00

So day three of Olympic games studies done! No major attitude problems but no major lightbulbs either, lol. We all LOVED studying about the "Fuwa", the official Chinese mascots for the 2008 Olympic games. First we studied about mascots in general, and when you would potentially see mascots and what they were for. We went on to relate that to personal totem animals which are found in many belief systems and how those symbolic animals would inspire a person to be more like them. Each of the kids were asked which animal would they choose as a personal totem animal to learn from and be inspired by. Artkitty choose the Giant Panda...to help her with being more pleasant, happier and calmer, while remaining strong. BouncyBoy choose a dragon to help him to be strong and patient and wise. I thought the choices were interesting.

Each of Fuwa has a rhyming two-syllable name -- a traditional way of expressing affection for children in China. Beibei is the Fish, Jingjing is the Panda, Huanhuan is the Olympic Flame, Yingying is the Tibetan Antelope and Nini is the Swallow.When you put their names together -- Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni -- they say "Welcome to Beijing."

We loved learning about these little guys and their relationship to the Olympic rings themselves. The Olympic rings were designed by Pierre Coubertin (no, I didn't remember his last name, CUT AND PASTE for the win! anyhow...)
He selected that design and colors to stand for unity and peace between all mankind, and the colors were in the flags of most of the countries representing *everyone* as a whole. Pretty much unity through sportsmanship. The kids have only one task left for today...they are choosing a mascot for our home school. lol I cannot wait to see what they come up with!

We had our vocabulary words, brief studies of Olympic shooting and archery, math drills and music today. No person study, however brief. I knew that the minibooks they created on the Olympic rings and the Fuwa would be extensive and that actually making them would take up extra time. Printer refuses to work, so I am hand drawing all of their mini books based on what I see on the computer screen. Whew!

We found it interesting that archery, which was so necessary for survival in certain cultures and during certain times of human development, is now really just a sport.

We were disappointed to discover that they only use air guns for the shooting. Artkitty really wanted to watch the shooting competitions, so we may look some up online yet.

We updated our Top 5 Countries That Have Won the Most Medals Chart and got our Top 3 Athletes That Have the Most Medals Chart started.

No one complained about the additional 5 minutes for math (although they did discuss if it was 15 minutes or 20 minutes yesterday, they didn't balk much at it.) This weekend I will be purchasing their daily math books. We didn't read more grammar, mainly because my throat is still sore, but better, and I do NOT feel like ruining any improvement...and I would like to be able to do worksheets or something for each chapter, so in lieu of a printer, I need to hunt up and save some worksheets that they can easily reproduce in a notebook without rebelling about the tons of writing, lol

Okay, so far so good....and honestly I am ready to increase our daily sports reviews and move this along so we can do more Ancient Greece!! =)

Olympics Day Two

2008-08-11T17:50:00.005-05:00

I am so freaking exhausted. I don't know how the kids' brains feel, but mine is overloaded. lol

Today we learned about Jim Thorpe. Very cool Oklahoman. At the tender age of 24, Jim Thorpe sailed with the American Olympic team to Antwerp, Belgium for the 1912 Olympic Games. Remarkably, he trained aboard the ship on the journey across sea. He blew away the competition in both the pentathlon and the decathlon and set records that would stand for decades. King Gustav V presented Thorpe with his gold medals for both accomplishments. A total of 15 different sports are included in these events. Supposedly, before Thorpe could walk away, the king grabbed his hand and said, ’Sir,' he declared, 'you are the greatest athlete in the world,' Jim Thorpe, never a man to stand on ceremony, answered simple and honestly, 'Thanks, King.'" However, when it was discovered that he had spent 2 years on a semi pro baseball team, his medals were revoked and his records were removed. He ended up not even being buried and memorialized here in OK. Kind of sad, huh?
For more on Jim Thorpe:
http://www.cmgww.com/sports/thorpe/bio2.htm

We also learned about the Olympic Torch. During the the Ancient Olympics, the torch was initially lit by the sun, and then used to light the flame on the altar of the Goddess Hera, where it was tended and remained lit for the entirely of the games. This year for the 2008 Olympics, the torch traveled 130 days from Greece to China. There was a total of 21,880 torch bearers along the way.

We also learned a little about wrestling and judo, as well as some about the metric system. We had our vocabulary and began reading some grammar from "Grammar Land: Grammar Fun for Children by M.L. Nesbitt from 1878. It's a delightful old fashioned story about the parts of speech. I thought that it might be a slow, more fun way of introducing my plan for daily grammar into our schedule. The kids also did math drills for 15 minutes. (Well, Bouncy Boy did his twice!lol) Tomorrow the time will be increased to 20 minutes, so that my next week they are accustomed to spending the allotted 30-45 minutes a day on math.

We got a late start. I am not feeling so great, and last night Artkitty wasn't either, so I didn't push. We tried to work on a participating countries project which has completely defeated me without a printer. Ah well, we have plenty of time to get to it. We looked up and started our ever changing chart of the top 5 counties who have won the most medals so far. I had hoped to also get the athletes chart started, but we just ran out of time. So, for tomorrow then. =)

"Anthem" was one of our vocabulary words today, so we ended up in a lively discussion of our national anthem, and I sang the first stanza to the kids. Then we discussed briefly what each line of that first stanza meant. It put into a better context for them that they play the anthem from that athlete's country during the medal ceremonies. I found myself tearing up a little trying to sing about the flag, and how important it can be as a symbol of who we are as Americans, especially those in combat. I have a LOT of issues with our government, politics, government education, even American society...but I am glad that we live in a country where we have the freedom to choose to homeschool, the freedom to choose to selectively immunize, and the freedom to complain about and disagree with whatever politicians, and politics and laws we wish too. It caused me to weep a little bit in gratitude thinking of all of the thousands of men and women who gave their sweat, their hard work, their mental and/or physical health and their very lives so that I could sit in my comfortable home and complain. Thank you, folks...it's not enough, but thank you.

I don't know about the athletes, but the Olympics are making ME tired. =)

Olympics Day One

2008-08-08T18:41:00.004-05:00

So today we began our Olympics/Ancient Greece studies. When we are done we will have two lapbooks, one on the Olympics and one on Ancient Greece.

We began with our daily quote and vocabulary words. We did NOT begin with making the vocabulary minibook as usual. That hasn't been working out so well for Bouncy Boy, so we will define the words together, and then devote a day to making the vocabulary mini book. I suspect that when he remembers how much he hates doing it all at once that he will gladly go back to doing a few each day, lol

We learned a bit about the Ancient Olympics. Women were neither allowed to compete nor attend the Ancient Olympics. Any caught watching were put to death. Yow! athletes competed naked in sprints, wrestling, chariot races, and others. Worship was an important part of the original Olympics. So when Rome took over Greece and the Olympics were moved to Rome, they were soon after abolished by the Christians as were all forms of pagan worship. A Frenchman actually re-established the Olympics essentially as we know them today. He primarily wished to do so to help people become more well rounded, to learn fair play and to promote world peace. Wow. Big goals, Pierre! (Yes that was actually his name, but I cannot recall how to spell his last name, so we are on a first name basis, Pierre and I. )

We learned about how the Olympics are moved and occur every four years. This year Beijing is hosting them. They build new buildings even for the event. OMG....how do these buildings fit in with the ancient architecture of China? Guess China is growing up...or something.

We also studied some about the Olympic torch relay and how the fire is carried from city to city, area to area, and transferred from person to person. The first person this year was in his 90s! It was a really interesting day and now we are planning to watch parts of opening ceremonies.

Bouncy Boy is interested in Tae Kwon Do, Archery and Fencing and will be doing mini books on each, he will also have to choose 2 athletes from those events and write mini books on each athlete.

Artkitty is too cool to be interested in more than the Equestrian competition, however, she will still be required to do mini books on 3 competing sports, and 2 athletes.

So for a few hours of school, and most of it listening, reading and writing, we actually learned a LOT today. We plan to spend the weekend watching various events either on tv or on the internet.

During the initial segment introducing the 2008 Olympics the narrator kept repeating, "It's not the triumph...it's the struggle!" Inspiring!

Math Curriculum Woes

2008-08-01T13:29:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I got a phone call. I won't say it was frantic, but it was a tired, overwhelmed, frustrated friend of mine who homeschools. I immediately picked up on her distress and asked her what was wrong, hoping that her family was well. She said, "My head is spinning!" When I inquired why her response was a decidedly cranky, "Math! I am looking at Math curriculums for this year!" I had to laugh. Me too, dear!
At the end of our school year a month ago the children, Gareth, and I made a list of things we had accomplished well, subjects that we had covered enough to achieve our personal goals and subjects that we weren't covering quite enough to suit us. Then we made a list of unit studies/lapbooks that we wished to explore for the next school year. When we are a bit closer to starting our studies again, we will pull out our unit studies/lapbook list and go over them. It will probably be revised some based on our interests, availability of resources, etc.
Math was one of the subjects that we didn't reach our goal on last year. I personally hate math. I was terrible at it in school. I failed Algebra. Which was no surprise when I tell about our teacher/coach throwing bricks at us for asking questions in class. (Yes, the man kept a brick on his desk. If you asked a question he thought was stupid, he would throw it at you. No joke. Memories like this pop up when people ask me why we homeschool.) I am not as terrible at it now. Years of working in jobs where I handled money, being responsible for grocery purchasing and bill paying, etc has honed my basic math skills so that I can do it fairly well now. Do I still dread it, ohhhhh yes! Can I do algebra? Nope. Thank goodness for math inclined husbands to teach advanced math! So I find myself wondering how much of my distaste for math leeches into my math lessons. It's something that I work on. I'd rather my children were math inclined and did it easily, for fun even, than struggled with it every day like I did for so long. But I digress.
So a week or so ago I started the inevitable process of deciding on a math curriculum for this year. We (Gareth and I) decided that in order to meet our math goals for the children that we needed to take a more aggressive stance on math. We chose a 3 pronged approach. First, one of our lapbooks will be directly math related. Second we will do weekly basic math drills instead of a regular math lesson for that day....online drills, flashcards, timed drill worksheets, etc. Finally we will add a daily curriculum OF SOME TYPE to our schedule. And there, my friends, is the woe.
We looked at three different workbooks (boring!), multiple online curriculums (usually fairly cool and way, way out of our budget), regular textbook based curriculums (school at home...flashbacks to bricks being lobbed my way...) and finally...gave up. Yes, this IS my method for selecting a math curriculum. I look and explore and read and test and try until my head is spinning and I am certain that my brain is about to explode under the pressure of attempting to absorb it all and then I STOP. I let it all lie a week. Or two. Then I go back and start again, leaving out the ones that are completely not going to work (like the ones we simply cannot afford).
Eventually I will settle on one, and we will use it for the next school year. It may work beautifully for that year, or it may not. It may work for two years before I have to start searching all over again. Math is something that is constantly being re-evaluated in our home. Teaching the different stages and/or types of math is differnt, and often requires different curriculum, or manipulatives or more board work and explanations or more drills and rote memorization. Each child also learns math differently, and an individual child may even learn more easily at different times in their lives. Our son learn math easily and well. He loves it. He will do math drills FOR FUN. He gets that (insanity) from his father. Our daughter struggles with math. She is dyslexic, and I suspect that at times she struggles with the numbers being switched around for her. So she can and does do it, and she does it correctly, but she abhors it and it takes her forever. So we even have two different types of math learners on top of the rest.
How do we choose a curriculum for math that will fit both of their learning styles, teach both of them the most effectively, be fun enough to keep their attention without being too much fun so they don't learn, or be enough memorization and repetition so that they retain the math they are learning without being too boring? My answer: I have no idea. It is a new challenge that we face, so far, every year for the past two or three years now.
We have been a homeschooling family for 9 years, pushing 10 now. How did we do it with the older boys? Honestly, we did the textbooks, school at home approach with both of them. It was AWFUL. It was a struggle to teach and learn, so no one was happy, and it was like that every single school day. So that tends to be thr first thing that we throw aside, because it didn't work well for us in the past. If my husband had been their ONLY math teacher, it may have worked...but then again it may not have. So, now we search for different means, if we can.
I slide my sword, shined and gleaming into it's finely wrought leather scabbard and strap the entire thing securely to my side. I don my best, most beautiful and yet most durable armor. I check my supplies. Parchment and ink for notes, a messenger birdy ready to fly my words to my husband, tokens of support from my homeschooling friends, all packed in my saddlebags. I mount my faithful steed, Internet, white coat glowing with health. He dances beneath my legs with the desire to run, to explore...and I am off! Off to do battle with the evil ogre, Math Curriculum! Will I slay the beast? Will I defeat him and mount his irritating, frustrating, mind spinning head on my wall over my mantle??? Heck, no, he is UGLY. lol But my point is, don't be afraid or shy to ask other people's opinions on curriculum. Don't be afraid to ask on this forum or on any other. When exploring a curriculum website, check to see if they have a user's forum, and read through it for user's comments. Some times that is very informative about the product!

And finally...don't feel bad, or guilty if a math curriculum or plan doesn't work. Choose another one. Move on. Continue to try! Don't be ashamed of having to search for a new math curriculum every year. Don't be surprised if you have multiple children, if each child has to have a different math curriculum, or even if the math curriculum that worked for your child for basic facts (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) completely has to be thrown out for geometry or algebra or fractions, etc. One of the advantages we have as homeschooling parents is that we can continue to search out that perfect program or method until we find one that WORKS, instead of forcing our kids to "muddle through".
We older, or more experienced homeschoolers tend to NOT share with the list some of our woes. It's embarrassing to admit that 9 years later we haven't found the "perfect" math curriculum. I am trying to change that, most especially on my person homechooling blog. I write about the lows just as much as the highs. Homeschooling is a lifestyle, an adventure. It's ever evolving as we grow and ever changing, constantly presenting us with new challenges as well as new triumphs!

So send for your squires, fellow homeschoolers. the Quest for Math Curriculum has begin again!

Thinking about school...

2008-07-21T16:45:00.005-05:00

We have decided on the following to supply our music program. I got the program today, installed it. It's amusing and the kids are excited about using it this fall. Hooray!

http://www.harmonicvision.com/madfact.htm
Music Ace Deluxe

We will also be lapbooking again, and are planning our lapbooks. Besides music and lapbooks (to cover various subjects), I am adding a regular math component, even if it's just 1 lesson a day from a workbook. We will also be adding a grammar/language arts component (looking at programs, etc now). Now the question is do I attempt to add that for just Artkitty or for Bouncyboy as well?

Answer: It will depend on the program.

Goals for this year:
1. More math
2. Improving handwriting skills
3. Improving grammar and English skills

Finally Butterfly Lapbooks

2008-06-28T20:31:00.002-05:00

Joshua's lapbook. =)

And Caitlin's lapbook!

We are enjoying our summer vacation. I have been doing a bunch of herbie and common sense cooking. That's real life experiences that count as homeschooling, right?

More later on it all!

Bye bye Painted Ladies

2008-06-11T21:17:00.004-05:00

So today we released our Painted Lady butterflies into the "wild", if the backyard could be called wild. We were pretty sure that we saw them mating yesterday and we didn't want to risk eggs being laid where there weren't enough leaves to support the caterpillars. They were clearly unhappy in their small habitat and we couldn't let that go on any longer.
This evening, well before it got dark, Daddy held the habitat and opened it. The first one went out immediately but then the next two took longer. The last one had to be coaxed a little, as you can see here below.

So tomorrow we will put the lapbooks together. I will post pictures of those tomorrow or the next day. Then our summer break! Woohoo!!

2008-06-09T13:20:00.005-05:00

So we have butterflies! Four survived. They have all now emerged from their pupas. We didn't get any pictures of partial emergence, but the ones we did get are pretty cool!

Above are two pictures, the same picture, but the second one is marked so that you know what you are looking at. This is soon after the first two butterflies emerged, which Artkitty names Bob and Jane, lol. She says that Jane is more curious and brave while Bob is more shy. You can clearly see (marked in light blue) the yet unhatched chrysalids, as well as the poor pupa that didn't survive (marked in orangy red). The ones marked with purple have yet to hatch. I did enhance the colors of the butterflies in the second picture so that you could more clearly see the markings. They are truly lovely. Easy to see why these guys are called "Painted Ladies"! Something else that I found interesting, the blood looking stain (marked in green towards the bottom), is meconium. It is the remains of the liquidfied caterpillar body as well as other waste produced by the transformation. The butterfly releases it from it's anal glands upon emergence.

Here are a few more pictures of our Painted Ladies. =) If any of these look odd, they were taken THROUGH the mesh of the habitat, so yeah, ended up a little....off looking. Anyhoodles, enjoy!

Caterpillars to Pupas!

2008-06-03T21:17:00.002-05:00

Well I DID say I behind on blogging, so two in one day...and our caterpillars are officially Pupa! Woot!

Caterpillars

2008-06-03T21:14:00.004-05:00

We are doing things, but I am just not blogging as I should be. So without further ado...caterpillars!

Experiment

2008-05-24T14:42:00.003-05:00

So our butterfly larva were packed in some filler that was biodegradable, organic and water soluble. It's made from vegetable starches. It was suggested in the kit to do an experiment where you put a couple of pieces. So we did...and...I got a bunch of pictures! Woot!

Finally, Butterflies! (Well, sort of...)

2008-05-23T16:14:00.003-05:00

Our baby butterflies arrived today! Woot! We are all so excited! There is a dvd video, and a cool life cycle poster and the butterfly habitat/net and a jar with 5 larva inside...along with some teeny green almost fuzzy looking round things and a bit of what looks like silk. Almost spiderweb-ish..oh! and some cool packaging filler!

We took pictures (posted soon!) The packaging filler turned out to be organic, biodegradable and water soluble so we are currently doing a science experiment to see if it really does dissolve in water. Those pictures posted soon also. =)

We learned that the silk/web is normal and helps the larva to move around, and that the green balls are larva waste (eeewwww!) called "fross". Hm...should I add that to the spelling/vocabulary list?

Anyhow...butterflies. =)

More Math

2008-05-07T14:09:00.004-05:00

Okay so this math program doesn't suck as much as it did the first day. Some of it ArtKitty (she who used to be Fairygirl but has informed me that fairies aren't her "thing" anymore) really enjoys. When she is doing the daily work each question has a 10 minute timer. She has been really enjoying the challenge of trying to beat the timer. But then the end of the chapter mastery test is a "how many can you do correctly in 1 minute" quiz. She sucks horribly at that, and today it frustrated her to the point of giving up. It was my fault, I was working and should have been helping her more for this test. Once I did, she focused and passed with flying colors.

For whatever reason my babies freak out over being timed. I do too, but I never told them that. They confuse themselves because they are looking more at the stupid clock than the work, etc.

BouncyBoy doesn't totally hate it, but he's not having any fun. he asked me today, "When do I get back to doing times, Mama?"

This program may not be for him, sad to say...and especially sad when the woman doing the customer service, etc. told me that she didn't expect BouncyBoy to be able to get past the first Unit. I thought at the time..."If your program is good, and teaches math based on the foundation in the order necessary to advance shouldn't *anyone* be able to do this as long as they can read and understand number values?"

Sooo, chugging along on our math. I think this would be better if we only had to spend 30 minutes a day on it.

Math just sucks.

2008-05-05T14:49:00.002-05:00

So today we started using a new online math program. Ilearn. We are in the "pilot" program they are working on for homeschoolers. So far, I am not so impressed. FairyGirl struggled with the placement testing because it is timed, and she can't do math timed. Just can't. She can DO it, but she's slower. So she didn't pass any of the placement tests for her level. None. Zilch. She got 30-40% on each one because she didn't finish any of them. Okay, since she is my math struggler, this makes sense to me, and her backing up and doing addition and subtraction again for awhile won't hurt her any. Frustrates the heck out of us both, but better for her to have a firmer knowledge of the basics.
KarateKid, however, is another story. He also did not pass the mastery tests. he only got 80% and the requirement is 90%. So he was placed at the very beginning of the math for his level. They have him COUNTING. I am not kidding here, this is supposed to be math for 4th through 8th graders, but the first unit first chapter is COUNTING. So he and I spent about 30 minutes while he did the "challenge quiz" at the beginning of each chapter. If you pass that at 80% then you can skip the chapter. WHAT?! So how come it's not 80% for the PLACEMENT tests? So he is clicking the number of basketballs in the box and entering that number. That's it. This child has been multiplying, HELLO! The poor child is bored to tears. sigh.

Guess we will see how it works (or doesn't)tomorrow...

You can see our feeders!

2008-04-29T23:54:00.003-05:00

10 days since we had our day out. Seems like forever. We have had grandbabies born and still wait for one to be well enough to come home from the hospital. It's been a hard 10 days.

The kids have been playing outside a lot, nearly every day while the weather is SO beautiful. I don't know if we have learned anything about anything in particular that I could put my finger on...but I know there have been plenty of questions asked and answered. I got a new camera (on clearance, woot), so during the next week or so Fairygirl (who has discovered a true love of picture taking!) and I will be posting pictures. We are hoping to go back and get pictures of all of the lapbooks this year that we have been previously unable to share. We are pretty excited and this will make our butterfly unit that much cooler, as well as the Oklahoma unit when we start it later!
We mapped out a loose plan for the next school year, one that I expect to change but was glad to see develop anyhow.

So for today, here are pictures of our little bird feeders and habitat-ish area that we created on our back porch for our extensive birds study!

Afternoon Out

2008-04-19T00:26:00.003-05:00

Today we went to the library. The kids needed to turn in pirate books and FairyGirl had Cat Warrior books to pick up. Yes, my ever growing, ever changing fae daughter has decide that she can navigate the wide world of Tulsa Public Library website on her own. So armed with her library card, she has been browsing books and making a list of ones she wishes to read. So...Cat Warrior books by Erin Hunter. Hard to believe that there are any left she hasn't read! lol

Then we went to Gardner's Used Books. I found a couple of Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter books that I hadn't read yet, woot! FairyGirl picked up numbers 1 and 2 of one of Tamora Pierce's series'...The Song of the Lioness series...Alanna:The First Adventure and In the Hand of the Goddess. BouncyBoy actually found yet another of his Black Belt Club books...Beware of the Haunted Eye, so he was pretty excited about that and he also chose one of the Secrets of Droon books. Unfortunately it's number 7, so I hope he still understands the story. Title is Into the Land of the Lost by Tony Abbott. Oh yeah, and a Green Lantern comic. His Bubba has him utterly hooked on GL. sigh.

Then we walked down to the end of the building and went to Coffee by the Book. We ordered an iced mocha and teeny slice of pound cake (me) a cookies and cream frap and larger slice of pound cake (Fairy) and a big ol' chocolate ice cream cone (Bouncy). Then we read our books, and talked and I read a paper (Booklist News)that talked about a follow up book to Chocolat. Woot! exciting stuff. =)

Sitting there at that table, in that coffee shop, talking to my babies about what they were reading...having BouncyBoy tease me about "reading the newspaper like and old man" I thought, "This is fun. I am really enjoying being out and about with my babies...doing more relaxing more fun stuff rather than just a ton of errands."

My asthma is really bothering me today, but for awhile I was able to push it to the back of my mind and laugh and talk with my poor wee antisocial homeschooled kids. =P

It was good. =D

Pirates Fini!

2008-04-14T13:06:00.004-05:00

Pirates are Outta Here, woot!!

We ordered our caterpillars but they said shipping was FOUR WEEKS, so we decided some down time was in order. Babies are coming and I am exhausted, stuff is blooming and the kids want to play outside every day. So we decided to let them, and resume our work when our butterfly kit arrives. I expect that to take us through the summer, although we may do a book report lapbook in there somewhere. =)

I am amazed at how much we covered this year, especially with so much chaos in our lives. Tea, Grass, China, Hawaii, Dickens, Grinch, Sled Dogs, Birds, Pirates, and eventually Butterflies. I still need to work more on integrating more math into our work, but that was the only true thing that seemed to be "lacking". Not that we didn't do any, just that we mainly did drills and that isn't working as well for us. We haven't tried manipulatives so maybe we will give that a shot. We balanced so much history and science which I am really pleased about. My BouncyBoy learned to read well enough to read to himself. FairyGirl is blogging and learned to do a correctly formed book report.

I have a lot I'd like to do next time, and I did save our Oklahoma lapbook for when we have a good digital camera, and more time. I'd like to do more places, I'd like to do a music lapbook. Maybe we will get to go to Michigan and the kids can turn our travels into a lapbook. That would be cool.

So, we are relaxing and resting, watching my tulips bloom, etc, while we wait for caterpillars to arrive.

Pirates Another day...

2008-04-07T14:39:00.004-05:00

So many things happened at once last week that we only did half a week of pirates. So we are finishing them this week. Soon Pirates will be history! yuk, yuk...yeah not funny, okay. Today we learned about Anne Bonney and Mary Read, two of the most famous women pirates in history. It was interesting to discover that poor Mary was forced by her mother to dress as a boy and pretend to be a boy child in order to get support from her mother's mother-in-law, after her mother's husband had passed away. The husband wasn't Mary's father, btw. Gasp! (yes, I glossed over that part with the kids. Maybe I shouldn't have but trying to explain it to BouncyBoy would be a NIGHTMARE!!!) But basically due to being raised virtually as a male, she was more comfortable as such in a public setting. Scary! Anne came from a wealthier family and was simply a wild child. Throwing in with pirates, sailing the seas, killing people, robbing people, barely escaping hanging? Yeah, that's pretty wild all right!

We also learned about the Jolly Roger. There were three common opinions on how it got it's name. 1. from the French term "joli rouge" which means "pretty red", simply because at one point most pirate flags were red/on red background. Once the white and black flags became more common a red flag meant that ship would give no mercy nor take prisoners. 2. It may have come from the english term "roger" which was another word for vagabond or finally 3. It could have come from the old nickname given to the devil, "Old Roger". I think I like the sounds of the first one.

Now BouncyBoy has seen an advertisement about a kit that sends you a butterfly house complete with caterpillars and food. You watch the caterpillars grow and cocoon then you transfer them to the butterfly house and watch for them to emerge. You can feed them for 2-4 weeks it says then you release them. The kit is ordered from
Then he and fairyGirl would like to do a lapbook on butterflies to go along with the kit. Fortunately I have found a free one online. Woot for free!

So we will probably either take some time off or do our previously planned book report lapbook while waiting for our butterfly kit to arrive. Then butterflies. Then I think we may take a while off. Depends on when we have babies and such. =)

I hope the links come through I have been struggling with links here lately. If not I will post them on my twitter. =P

Argh, Matey!

2008-03-31T11:41:00.003-05:00

I didn't expect pirates to last long and the unit isn't. We ended up doing some work over the weekend to get caught up. Our vocabulary words for this week are:
mast, musket, ransom, scurvy, shackle, shanties, sloop, tiller, tricorn, vagabond, and victuals.

We learned lots of yucky stuff that pirates ate. Pirates clearly has a caste system of captains and seamen and then boys. There we a lot more rules to being a pirate than we realized, but since the water went foul, they drank mainly booze. If I had 100 drunken men under my command I'd want plenty of rules to keep them in line also.

Today we learned about weapons like the flintlock pistol and the boarding axe. We also learned about the difference in clothing between captain and crew as well as some of the rules of the pirate code.

I feel like a whole shipload of pirates "flogged" me and made me "walk the plank", then fished me out of the water and "marooned" me on a desert island! next week we are taking the week off. Then we will start doing book report lapbooks. I hope that's not more work than any of us want to do!

Tough Day

2008-03-28T00:04:00.003-05:00

Sick KarateKid (although I am considering renaming him to BouncyBoy...the child is never still,even when he's sick)today and crisis with Dragon and Hals...so we drove nearly all day and got very little schoolwork accomplished. Since I make a plan with every unit, a timeline, etc, it gets incredibly frustrating when my plan gets thrown off. Why this still bothers me, I don't know. I don't feel well today either and I think that it's harder to simply accept that we didn't get as much done as normal and go on.

BouncyBoy is reading The Magic Treehouse: Pirates Past Noon

FairyGirl is reading: A Wizard, a Witch and Two Girls From Jersey by Lisa Papademetriou, which has NOTHING to do with pirates. =/ But she seems to be enjoying it. She has a selection of pirate-ish books to read. Drift House by Dale Peck and Bloody Jack by L.A. Meyer. In Drift House two siblings go to stay with their Uncle, who lives in a house built on a boat (not a house boat, this looks much bigger, lol.) When they wake up they are out to sea, and adventures await! Bloody Jack begins the adventures of Jacky, a young 18th century street urchin who, in spite of being female, disguises herself and lands a job on a ship. Meals and a bed are heaven, but she has to keep her true identity a secret! Hopefully book reports will follow on FairyGirl's blog.

Tomorrow is another pirate-y day....

Pirates!

2008-03-26T02:05:00.003-05:00

Started our pirates unit today. The kids had a blast making realistic looking treasure maps and learning about piracy historically. It was a super hectic day with picking up a vehicle from the mechanic and a grocery trip thrown in the mix, but we got it done.
They wanted the edges burned and we did that. They were THRILLED. They put tea washes over the paper so it would look aged. Fairygirl wanted a burned hole in the center of hers, so I did that...but yanno the whole burning thing...fire and all...not so controllable sometimes. So her hole was larger than she wanted and I was on her grumpy list for awhile. She finally figured out how to work around it so it ended up okay.
How I Became a Pirate and Pirates Don't Change Diapers are two of our books we ordered from the library. A full list will follow.
the plan is for this unit to take a mere two weeks. Then we are talking about doing lapbooks based on the books we are reading rather than our planned Oklahoma unit. I'd prefer to save Oklahoma until we have a digital camera and that won't be before the end of the school year soooo... not sure what they will choose to do yet.
Flexibility! One of the perks of homeschooling! =)

Birds Unit Lapbooks!

2008-03-13T23:57:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Halsie for the use of her camera!!

Birds Unit Winds Down

2008-03-12T15:49:00.003-05:00

We have completed all of the mini books for our Birds Unit. WOOT! We are continuing to FeederWatch 2 days a week through May, I believe. Today we saw our first House Finches! The males are so pretty with their wee orangy red heads!

We have roughly 20 minibooks for this lapbook. I cannot WAIT until we can take pictures of lapbooks to show everyone! The kids are really getting in the groove of lapbooking and their books look better every time.

We learned about bird conservation, the Birding (Birdwatching) Code of Ethics, we learned about how birds are valuable in nature and to people, we learned about birds' defenses.

There was even more we could have learned, but we are done, for this year. =) Maybe we will do a unit next year on a more specific kind of birds, like birds of prey. This unit was more general and we focused more on birds we see in our yards...so primarily songbirds and woodworkers.

Above is a picture of the Male House Finch. Today alone, for FeederWatch we will turn in the following: Song Sparrows-4, Pine Siskins-1, House Sparrows-2, American Robins-3, Common Grackle-3, Mourning Doves-2, Starlings-1, Dark eyed Juncos-3, Northern Cardinals-1, Cowbirds-1, Downy Woodpecker-1

Pictures are coming...really! Honest! (Well, I hope, anyways!)

sick (us not the birds!)

2008-03-04T19:20:00.003-06:00

Yes we are passing around some yuck. The best part is that we aren't sharing it with a slew of kids in some school and that since we are homeschooling we can be as vigilant or as laid back with our school part of our day as we need to be. So right now we are JUST birdwatching. The kids are doing whatever math drills or spelling online and reading and watching birds. We have seen Cowbirds and Starlings as well as woodpecker but he wouldn't let us see if he was a Hairy Woodpecker or a Downy one. They look a lot alike! This adds to the list of types of birds we have seen in the yard.

FairyGirl went out in the cold and filled feeders and chipped ice off the top of the water dish. She was very worried about any local fresh water supplies being frozen and birds going thirsty. Goody, so add to our dogs and cats IN the house now she's adopted some 100 plus birds OUTSIDE the house. lol

We have granddaughter KitKat, and it has been a challenge to convince her that educational tv is all that is allowed and then not all the time. Poor abused baby

So both parents have been/are sick, cross your fingers the kids don't end up with it too..

Yet More Birds

2008-02-23T20:49:00.003-06:00

I have been trying to get this blog posted for days! We have learned so much about birds! We learned the biology of bird eggs, and we learned about bird anatomy. We were surprised to find how many body parts that we have in common with birds! We also compared a human egg/embryo with a bird in it's egg and it was really interesting to discover the commonalities there as well.
We managed to find some cheap refillable feeders for $1 each today and purchased two. We were also able to get some inexpensive food. So we filled our feeders, and anchored another one to the rail of the deck. With the rain we decided that it wasn't sheltered enough, so we got a rectangle plastic lid and anchored it to the top of the feeder. So now the poor birds can at least hunker under there and eat dry food. The other one we hung just under the corner of the porch awning, and anchored it to the post that holds the awning up. Didn't want the poor birds swinging in the breeze while they tried to eat! We also got another clear plastic lid, put some rocks in the bottom and filled it with fresh, clear, not frozen water and put that under the porch awning as well. It is virtually a bird utopia out there! Okay, it's not, but since it was a lot of work, we are proud of it anyhow.
We got our feederwatch kit and it is SO cool!! You get full color poster and mini poster that has the top 25-30 most common birds in Eastern and Western North America. You also get a gorgeous fold out calendar for the rest of the year with pictures sent in by previous participants. (Oh! I wishwishwish I had my digital camera!) You get a handbook, instructions book and a tally sheet. It is a LOT more complicated than we even realized, which rocks. If you are entering your data online (which we are), then you watch two consecutive days every week, with 5 days between your watch days. So we chose Tuesdays and Wednesdays. On those days they want you to report the high and low temp (if it is above or below certain ranges anyhow), precipitation around your feeding area (how much and what type...we need a rain gauge!)as well as some other feeding area info. So, for the rest of this school year we are planning to do Feederwatch two school days a week, and those days we will not make any mini books. We will do our other regular daily work, but no mini books for our unit study. We don't want to get burnt out. Those days instead we will be compiling weather data in different ways, etc, so more science. That should please KarateKidd!
So far we have seen Dark Eyed Juncos, Northern Cardinals, House Sparrows, one red Bellied Woodpecker (not at a feeder, just in the yard) and some black birds that we still haven't gotten a for sure identification of yet. They tend to leave before I get our identification pictures out, but maybe now with the new poster, we will figure them out!

For more Feederwatch or birding info:

Birds at the Feeder

2008-02-18T16:42:00.002-06:00

Today we saw several Dark Eyed Juncos at our bird feeder! They are lovely as the picture here shows. We finished studying flightless birds so we can move on to reproduction tomorrow. Each of the kids has chosen a bird to do a mini report on. FairyGirl chose our pretty Dark Eyed Junco and KarateKidd chose the Kakapo. The Kakapo is the only flightless parrot. Since none of us knew that any parrots were flightless this impressed KarateKidd a great deal. Not quite as much as the Cassowary. It's large, flightless, has 3 toes and the middle one has a 5 inch claw which it uses to disembowel attackers. Sound familiar? KarateKidd has decided that the Velociraptor must have been an ancestor of the Cassowary.
So today I spent more time than I wanted printing out reference sheets for the kids' bird choices, and pictures so they would not *have* to have access to the internet to do their reports. I figured if I printed out 2-3 pages on information for them to look through for the required answers that the projects would be more apt to get done with less distractions.
So far the only downside to our bird unit is that I sure wish our Project Feederwatch kit would hurry up and arrive! I ordered it Feb 1st and it usually takes 3 weeks to process and arrive. So I am not expecting it until the end of this week.

Okay on to paying bills, cleaning up and planning dinner...

Birds Can Eat!

2008-02-14T14:26:00.003-06:00

After lighter days Tuesday and Wednesday due to errands and such, we got back on track today with putting out our preformed bird seed bird feeder. No this is not our first choice, but money being what it is, is was the cheapest. We are hoping to still get our chosen seed this weekend even if all we do is scatter it around our "feeding area" We tied the bell shaped seeds to the railing on the deck. Then we put a few largish heavy rocks and a couple of cut small pine twigs with the pine needles still attached and tied it all down. Hopefully this will give enough cover that birds feel safe to come and eat. So we still need to put out some water as well. We think our little feeder area is quite pretty though and wish we had a picture!
We learned about how birds communicate through songs and calls and how birds move through walking, running, swimming and flying. Birds also communicate via body language like feather or crest ruffling, wing flapping or clapping, beak chattering.
Our vocabulary words today are: digestion, flock, and food chain.
We listened to bird sounds focusing on woodpeckers that are actually seen in our area. It was very cool to listen to the different sounds and drumming and try to decide if we had ever heard them before. We actually get a few different wood pecker species here, and several different species in Oklahoma over all. None of us knew that! The picture above is a red Bellied Woodpecker common to our area. I found this one amusing since it has no red on it's belly at all! lol Apparently this bird is often kicked out of it's nesting holes by Starlings...so it returns the favor by kicking other woodpecker species from their nests! Talk about needing counseling!
The kids are doing their 30 minute yardwatch for birds now. We decided to start watching so we could get used to it. GBBC is this weekend, so we might as well adjust to it since after that we should be full into the Feederwatch program. =)
They still have math drills or a game to play (they haven't decided yet), and spellingcity to practice their spelling/vocab words. I expect them to want to play on their science gizmo website, but since that is only temporary I have not been requiring it. We are getting plenty of science in this unit! Which is fine since the last one was more history and geography orientated it all balances out.

Birds are Cold Today!

2008-02-11T15:35:00.000-06:00

They must be cause it's like only 34 degrees and rainy/icy/snowy. Poor birds! We started our birds unit today. We have 24 vocabulary words, so we made our vocabulary mini book today and are actually studying 3 words a day for vocabulary. Today's words are captivity, clutch and colony.

Then we learned about different kinds of bird feeders, how to properly place and maintain the different feeders and which seeds/food different birds prefer. So we have decided to put up 3 feeders. We are putting up 1 suet feeder and 2 platform feeders. The platform feeders are taking the most thought. I honestly think the easiest method would be to use disposable cake pans, so that we can either replace them entirely every 2 weeks or wash once and then replace the next time. We have concerns about being able to wash them and get them dried and rehung and using disposable somethings would eliminate that issue. We discovered that we also need to put out fresh water every day. I am thinking a small disposable cake pan for that at well. Pondering it anyway.

Fairygirl really, really wants a hummingbird feeder. Me too, but since I have seen how they can also attract wasps and ants I am pretty against risking that. This whole feeding birds thing takes a LOT more planning, thought and education that we thought! lol

We also decided to use black-oil sunflowers and corn (hopefully mixed cracked and whole) for our bird food. Those two will attract the most variety of birds. They are the favorites of many and the ones that are not a favorite will eat the other kind, so we decided that that covered all of our bases pretty well.

Then we bird watched for a while and we saw a male Northern Cardinal and some House Sparrows..the males and females look a lot alike right now so we weren't 100% sure if we were looking at males or females. We also did one of our favorite things; we listened to their songs! The cats were unhappy with that plan thinking that we had birds in the house, so that was funny.

Now the kids are playing 4-way Countdown for their math, karatekid needs to finish writing his vocabulary words on his "eggs", then they both need to go visit spellingcity where they will probably play some spelling games. Fairygirl is reading Guardians of Ga'hoole: The Rescue and KarateKid will start FatBat and Swoop by Leo Landry today.

So we need to do some shopping before our feeders can go up. I also signed us up for Feederwatch, so am anticipating the arrival of that information. Oh! I turned in the Scholastic book order for Feb today as well. Busy busy busy....

The End

2008-02-07T16:29:00.000-06:00

The children are putting together their sled dog lapbooks as I write. Then we are taking a much deserved 3 day weekend before diving into Birds on Monday.

We went to the library, then the comic book store then lunch with Aunt M., then home to watch the animated movie about Balto. As I wiped tears at the ending, they began working on their mini report of the story of Balto and how the Iditerod race commemorates the run that saved the dying children of Nome, Alaska from a Diptheria epidemic. I wish that the animated story (while a good story, don't get me wrong) was a bit more historical...telling us more about the other dogs and their mushers that also made that fateful and heroic trip. This is the last sled dog picture for this blog and it is of Balto and his musher (right) and Togo and his musher (left). Togo is the lead dog who's team actually ran the most miles of the journey from Anchorage to Nome. So while he may have not gotten any love in the animated movie, I wanted to recognize him and his heroic efforts here along of Balto.

We did discuss quite a bit about artistic license and the things that were added to the story to make it more interesting that we not necessarily true. We all agreed that it was kind of sad since the actual story was easily as heroic as the made up version.

I can't even begin to express my relief at being done, my sense of accomplishment that this unit went so well for us, or my surprise at how much there was to learn! We learned about sled dog breeds, teams, equipment, training, care, food (a sledding dog consumes about 10,000 calories a day!!), types of races, Alaska (Did you know that a 13 year old boy won the contest to design the Alaskan state flag?), history of sled dogs (they played an important roll in the Alaskan Gold Rush as well as being vital to the native people). We learned about the Iditerod, the great race that commemorates that fateful run to deliver Diphtheria medicine to Nome, and Susan Butcher who is a 3 time winner of the race.

I have to admit when FairyGirl chose this unit I did not expect the kids to learn much. It goes to show, you can learn a LOT from nearly any subject if you set your mind to it!

last week for sled dogs

2008-02-05T03:33:00.000-06:00

We are in the final stretch of our sled dogs unit. 4 days left, a weekend off and we jump into birds. The kids took pity on me and decided to NOT study two things at once, hooray! So we will *all* start birds on the 11th. I even signed us up for Feederwatch and their curriculum. Then we will all do pirates. A certain little girl agreed to do pirates but sulked quite outrageously until we reminded her that the Firefly Crew were pirates! So we may have to watch some Firefly during that unit...and of course Muppets Treasure Island. Then we will move on to Oklahoma. So Feb 11th to March 15th appx, Birds, March 15th to April 15th Pirates and April 15th to May 15th, Oklahoma. Unless we end up taking some time off when babies are born, then we may not finish Oklahoma until June 1st. If we take any summer time off I usually get us started schooling again by August 1st. In my files I have lapbook curriculum on money and deer and one I think on Charlotte's Web. Although the more I ponder it the more I think that Oklahoma may get stretched out for more than 4 weeks. We could potentially do some wandering and take actual pictures for that lapbook. That might be a fun twist!

Today we learned about the care and feeding of the sled dogs. Dogs who are running (mushing) consume appx 10,000 calories A DAY compared to most household pet dogs who consume about 1,500 calories in a day. I don't know that the kids truly grasped how may calories 10,000 are, but as someone who has counted every calorie and fat when dealing with my gestational diabetes, I sure did! It's just a staggering amount!

We also learned about the little boy who designed the Alaska state flag and the elements that he took to create it. It was quite cool, really. We traced the Iditerod race on a map online and looked up the weather for today for some of the different stops, as well as found webcams so we could actually LOOK at a few of those places. It was really quite interesting.

Fairygirl started reading a book about Susan Butcher, multiple winner of the Iditerod. She apparently had an uncanny bond with her dogs! Karatekidd started a Miss Mallard mystery about a poor husky puppy that gets puppynapped!

The we all went out in the beautiful weather and gathered my container pots, and emptied them all of old dirt and lined them up in preparation for spring planting. We found a cute little Lamb's Ear plant which made me cry since I'd lost all that Pam had given me when we moved. Not sure how the little guy managed to follow us and end up in one of my container pots two springs later...but he was welcomed with joy and we replanted him in the garden area that lines the back of the house. Our first thing ever to be planted there. =)

Some days it is SO hard and the kids and I fuss over every little thing. Other days are warm and fuzzy and you want to wrap them up to save forever (or at least video tape them to show the potential naysayers!) Most days really are like today. We learned a LOT. Some of it was fun, and warm and fuzzy. Some of it was more routine. We fussed some and agreed some, and in the end it all got done, and everyone had a bit of computer play time and then some outdoors in the cool sunshine time.

Tomorrow or Wednesday we need to go to the library and pick up Balto. =)
I enjoy the homeward stretch of a unit, especially when we actually stay fairly close to my planned schedule. The sense of accomplishment help to carry me through those rough days!

Okay totally not homeschool related but...

2008-02-02T18:29:00.000-06:00

Some days school means you have to learn to laugh. And since this is a common issue at our house....yeah, kitties don't appreciate us learning about sled dogs, so they do something about it! lol

moar funny pictures

Only bad thing about lolcats is that kitties can't spell....so my children don't learn to read by reading the captions. Ah well, you can't have everything!

2008-01-27T01:45:00.000-06:00

More Sled dog links:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/sleddogs/balto.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/sleddogs/index.html
http://www.centralpark.com/pages/attractions/balto.html

We also decided to also check out the following from the Tulsa Library as well as what we previously requested:
Balto the animated movie
Dogsled to Dread: A Miss Mallard Mystery by Robert Quackenbush(I am hoping to convince KarateKid to read this one in between MTH #3 and #4...Since #4 is Pirates and we are starting that lapbook about the 15th, but will be done with #3 before then!)

And this is a generic link to the tv show "Nature" on PBS, they have some decent nature orientated teacher's guides and resources. Unfortunately the one on Alaska and Sled Dogs is too old for the teacher's guide to still be up. Fiddlesticks!
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/educators.html

At any rate...awesome how interested the kids are in the Sled Dogs unit. Balto, as well as the types of dogs, and the incredibly harsh conditions fascinate them to the point that I am still getting questions today! =)

I have our minibooks for Monday printed...since we are babysitting I just hope we get them done!

Malamutes, Siberian Huskies and Chihuahuas?

2008-01-25T17:20:00.000-06:00

So today we were learning about the different breeds of sled dogs and some of their history. Thanks sooooo much to my friend, Yavonn, for the Inuit info she sent me! It fit in beautifully!

KarateKid, ever the charlatan, was asked, "What were the first 2 breeds of sled dogs, historically?" His quick and totally dead pan, serious response, "Siberian Huskies and Chihuahuas!"

Yep, we can switch out a chihuahua for a Malamute and NO ONE will notice...yep, sure! lol The picture above will give you an idea of the size of a Malamute, so you can see how they are naturally easy to mistake for a chihuahua!

So I guess so far we are enjoying learning about sled dog! Woot!

Sled Dogs

2008-01-22T11:47:00.000-06:00

Thought I would share some of the info we are using on our sled dog unit/lapbook..

Books:
Puppies, dogs, and blue northers:reflections on being raised by a pack of sled dogs by Gary Paulsen
Akiak : a tale from the Iditarod by Robert J. Blake
Susan Butcher and the Iditarod Trail by Ellen M. Dolan.

Movies:
Balto

Websites:
http://webtech.kennesaw.edu/reading/balto.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/sleddogs/making.html
http://www.sleddogcentral.com/links.htm
http://www.k9web.com/dog-faqs/working.html#l_2837811
http://www2.grand-forks.k12.nd.us/iditarod/iditarod.html
http://www.education-world.com/a_lesson/lesson300.shtml
http://www.iditarod.com/

Lapbook Kits:
~HoaC Sled Dogs Lapbook Kit, e-book~
http://www.handsofachild.com/shop/Sled-Dogs-Ebook-P456.aspx (remember that even if you don't want to purchase a lapbook kit, each kit usually has free downloadable sample pages that may be of help to you!)

Purchased Curriculum:
~Read and Understand: Celebrating Diversity~
Info on this book:contains 22 stories, including:
Biographies—Jim Abbott, Susan Butcher, Evelyn Cisneros, George Washington Carver, Martin Luther King, Jr. and others * Fiction—My Granny's Bread, The Game, Going to the Library, Count with Us * Nonfiction—The Pinata, How Does It Grow? (corn, wheat, rice), What's Your Favorite (3 ethnic recipes), The Great Melting Pot
Each of the stories is followed by four pages of activities: comprehension, vocabulary, an activity that allows students to connect the story to their own lives and a cross-curricular activity

I went ahead and bought the e-book version of this (even though it says it's grades 1-2) primarily because there are SEVERAL mini biographies of people I would like to cover, including the vocabulary, etc. For $16 I thought that I would be able to utilize the info over the course of more than one year.

How long I can use an e-book curriculum/workbook/lapbook kit tends to be a big factor for me in whether or not to purchase. After having finished our Dickens: A Christmas Carol unit, we had appx. 30 minibooks for that lapbook and I STILL have a ton that we didn't get to. So we will be able to use that kit again next winter and simply look at different aspects of the story next time. We didn't get to delve into the era differences very much (clothing styles, attitudes about women/children), or the money differences very much and we didn't even come close to watching all of the movie versions for comparisons that we had planned to do. So next year, I can utilize the same kit, but access different resources for a lapbook that may be more historical and Dickens-as-author centered. So since I paid about $15 for that one as well, I am considering it an excellent deal.

So I am feeling better today, although I have to learn to get past expecting each day to be "perfect". Homeschooling for as many years as I have been, and I still expect every day to be like Snow White walking through the forest being followed by birds and butterflies while she sings with joy and hope. This is why I am trying to remember to blog here frequently, and to blog on the BAD days along with the good ones. DON'T give up! DON'T assume that you are messing up your kids or not homeschooling well enough just because you don't have perfect days!

Does anyone remember their childbirth breathing techniques? Use 'em! lol

Blue

2008-01-21T17:49:00.000-06:00

Some days are just hard. Not sure why that is really, just that, some are hard. This morning I got up, felt good, was gung ho, hit the chores and the schoolwork right after food. Nearly 6 hours later I fell apart. Nothing wanted to work. The kids weren't listening, weren't co-operating, messing up simple instructions...my computer freaked out, my rechargable mouse died...I realized that I had hit thr ground running so hard this morning that I missed some of my meds, and now was feeling a migraine coming on. So I went through the barrage of blues...the questions we all ask ourselves during the hard days. Is this really what is best for the family? For the kids? What am I missing or what are they not getting? Am I too lenient or too strict? Am I expecting too much or not providing enough of a challenge? What am I doing wrong?

Mainly today, the big question should probably be did I push too hard too fast for all of us? I have been sick a long time and this was probably a bigger workload today than any of us thought it would be. I don't think any of us started today thinking that school would be more than the 3-4 hours it usually is at a time and that simply wasn't true.

I have been struggling with bedtimes and not enough "me" time. It seems so selfish, and makes me feel like a awful parent to even think that. Bedtimes are important so that the kids get enough rest to be healthy, to grow and to assimilate everything they learned the day before and so they are not too tired and cranky to learn the next day. Bedtimes are also important because after that I can turn down the SuperMom Alarms. Not turn them off, no, never...but maybe turn them down. Time for me to recuperate my own brain cells, to relax a little and just be myself or just a wife rather than wife, mom, teacher, employee, etc etc. Lately even our play time has been full of obligations. No relaxation there!

So today was hard, and I am blue, and tired and questioning myself, and our decision to home school. See? Everyone does it.

Still Sick but More Reading and Hairspray!

2008-01-18T02:07:00.000-06:00

I am still sick, but not really. Been diagnosed with chronic asthma. So the past few weeks of me being sick as actually been an ongoing untreated asthma attack! Now I am struggling to get that under control, and discover what triggered this extreme attack. So lots of research and homeschooling on asthma has been happening for us.

KarateKid finished the second Magic Tree House book, Knights at Dawn! Woot!

FairyGirl has finished the first book in a new series for her: The Sister's Grimm: The Fairy Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley. I am hoping to convince her to tell about it in her own blog.
Here is a link:
http://www.sistersgrimm.com/newsite/index.html
Excerpt from the website: In Book One of the series, we meet two sisters, Sabrina and Daphne, who have been sent to live with their mysterious grandmother, Relda Grimm. From their first day in Ferryport Landing, the sisters begin to unravel a mystery that reveals a family secret. Sabrina and Daphne learn they are descendants of the Brothers Grimm, whose famous book of fairy tales is actually a history book.
She told me all about it, sounds like a very cool story!

We also watched the new 2007 version of Hairspray. LOVED IT! I highly recommend this musical. The actors are phenomenal. I have an entire new appreciation of John Travolta's acting ability. He played the role of Edna Turnblad, the overweight mother of the show's overweight heroine, Tracy. The story is about acceptance, of self and of others who are different. It addresses the attitude of society towards overweight people, off or unusual people as well as negros during the 60s (the time period for when the show is set.) The songs are phenomenal and not only did we purchase a copy of the soundtrack but the songs are catchy and stay with you for days. The cast is filled with talent like Christopher Walken, Queen Latifah and Michelle Pheiffer as well as the aforementioned John Travolta and plenty more quality actors, both the familiar and newly introduced!

http://www.hairspraymovie.com/

and some excerpted lyrics for your amusement (and mine)..."You Can't Stop the Beat"

You can't stop an avalanche
As it races down the hill
You can try to stop the seasons, girl
But ya know you never will
And you can try to stop my dancin' feet
But I just cannot stand still

'Cause the world keeps spinnin'
'Round and 'round
And my heart's keeping time
To the speed of the sound
I was lost 'til I heard the drums
Then I found my way

'Cause You Can't Stop The Beat
Ever since this old world began
A woman found out if she shook it
She could shake up a man
And so I'm gonna shake and shimmy it
The best that I can today
'Cause you can't stop
The motion of the ocean
Or the sun in the sky
You can wonder if you wanna
But I never ask why
And you can try to hold me down
I'm gonna spit in your eye and say
That You Can't Stop The Beat!

You can't stop my happiness
'Cause I like the way I am
And you just can't stop my knife and fork
When I see a Christmas ham
So if you don't like the way I look
Well, I just don't give a damn!

***

I cannot get the images of John Travolta in a fat costume, playing a woman dancing in a red sequined dress and high heels to this song out of my head...oh....my.....god....I am grinning like an idiot now!
Fair warning there is some sexual innuendo (it was mild enough that it went over our kids' heads though), and if the idea of Black and Caucasian people dating or marrying offends you this is NOT the show for you! For that matter if the idea of overweight people being happy with who they are and the way they look or dating "pretty people" offends you, again, skip this one. But if you love a dance beat, catchy music, wry humor and the idea that things should, do and are changing and society should become more accepting and tolerant and perhaps by accepting and tolerating our selves and those in our immediate area we will make a stand and teach via example....then tune in, and prepare to wake up with one of the songs in your head the next morning!

Reading Woot!

2008-01-03T23:52:00.001-06:00

So I have been sick for the past 3 weeks. It has been miserable. Bronchitis. Thanks to that we haven't gotten as much school work done as I'd like. A Christmas Carol ended up on hold although we could finish the mini books and the entire lapbook in 2 days I think. Maybe tomorrow if I am up to it, otherwise it will wait until Monday. No harm done. The kids did do a small lapbook on How the Grinch stole Christmas that they didn't need my help on, thank goodness! Next on the agenda, yet another surprise (does this make the 2nd or 3rd curve ball the kids have thrown me this year?)...the kids have decided they want to do a lapbook on sled dogs. Okay, I got a freebie kit for one of those so I am all for it. Kits sure make less work for the Mama!

One of the things we have been doing is reading! Fairy Girl read the second of the Spiderwick Chronicles after we did the first one as a read aloud by candlelight while we were out of electricity. She requested the rest from the library so clearly those were a hit! She also read some Yule gifts: Spaniel in a Stocking (Animal Ark), Ella Enchanted and The Two Princesses of Bamarre.
Karate Kid has surprised me the most. His reading ability jumped a bit and he has been reading a chapter a night out loud to me! Woot! We struggled with this a few months ago and some days it seemed to work and others...not so much. He struggled with staying with one book and all sorts of things. So when we started again this time I was afraid to say anything....didn't want to jinx us! lol However he finished The Magic Tree House Book 1: Dinosaurs Before Dark last night! *happydance* We logged on to the website and he answered the trivia questions, we downloaded and printed his first stamp to go into his MTH passport I got from Random House. He was sooooooo excited! We started book 2 tonight! I am so thrilled to see him reading at his reading level. I knew he could, he just couldn't stay on task long enough to actually DO it.

I am feeling a bit better after sleeping most of today. Maybe I am gonna whip this plague and we can move on and learn about those sled dogs after all! =)

TGIF

2007-12-07T15:27:00.000-06:00

We are just past the 2nd ghost in listening to A Christmas Carol. We have 8 minibooks to finish today, well 2 left now. Eight sounds like a lot, but 3 of those you do some little thing for each ghost, so it' s not really a lot.

Fairygirl is again struggling with multiplication. I give up. Time for Sweet Hubby to take over as math teacher. She and I just argue incessantly about it. It's not worth it.

We are enjoying A Christmas Carol and our unit study. But we are all getting tired and ready to do more holiday things too. Maybe school a day off a day next week...

Would Smelly Jellies be Dickenesque?

2007-12-03T16:45:00.000-06:00

Probably not, so I made the kids wait until we were done with regular school work to make them. We made our mini books for last week's vocabulary words. I know, we should have done those Friday, but I dropped the ball I guess. So anyhow, we did it today and THANK YOU Yavonn for sending me some pre made ones. Saved me this time for sure!

Then we went over our new words, wrote them and discussed them. We listened to Patrick Stewart read A Christmas Carol to the point between the visit of the Ghost of Christmas' Past and the Ghost of Christmas Present. We still have 2 more mini books to make dealing with Scrooge and Marley, and the Ghost of Christmas Past before we move on with the story.

I found the Disney version Mickey's Christmas Carol in a small paperback book at Gardner's used books, so once we have finished listening to Mr. Stewart (although he is SUCH a wonderful reader and voice actor...he can read me stories from now on! Such great voices for different characters, fantastic display of emotions...you can almost see the facial expressions! Anyhow...)then we will read aloud the Disney version.

I have to say that this unit study is leaving us all with some pretty good warm fuzzy feelings so far. We haven't delved too much YET into some of the deplorable environments of that time, so I expect some melancholy when we do. We are also all trying to use our vocabulary words in sentences every day. The kids are fairly good at it. I need to come up with some kind of a prize for whoever used the most words each week. lol

Okay...onward!

Unschooling can suck

2007-11-30T15:49:00.000-06:00

Why? Because often it is life events, for better or for worse, that instigate an unschooling experience. We had that happen today. After a doctor visit with a family member and a discussion about an abnormal pap smear, I got to chat with FairyGirl about Human Papillomavirus. This was not an unschooling experience or conversation that I wanted to have with her yet. She's only 11! But perhaps better now when I can share her father's and my super conservative (and possibly even unrealistic in today's society) views on premarital intimacy. So, we did some Biology/Science today and to be totally honest I am too exhausted physically and mentally to manage anything else!

Some days it all works like clockwork...and other days you need some clock repair! =)

more on the kit...

2007-11-29T09:58:00.000-06:00

No formal school today. We have KitKat and Zany today, and in fact had them over night. It was...exhausting! lol I do not know how you folks with 4+ kids under the age of 10ish do it...you have my DEEPEST respect and admiration!!!

Anyhow, more on our minibooks of yesterday and our kit that we bought.
www.liveandlearnpress.com

My biggest complaint is that you can't remove stuff because it's in a .pdf file. So I will end up using white out for the minibook for vocabulary. It has some good vocabulary words, don't get me wrong, but the focus for them was more on the poor/giving to the poor/benevolence aspect of the story and we really wanted a wider range of words for our vocabulary. We also chose far more words than they suggested. Which sure made me shake my head since it says right on the first page that the information is suggested for middle and high school students. Say what crazy homeschool product seller?! So yeah, my 2nd and 5th grader are both doing 36 words for this unit, 9 per week for 4 weeks. FairyGirl is doing more written vocab and spelling work while KarateKid's is more verbal BUT they will both make a minibook with their words written inside. Okay, so there is my gripe about that. =)

Yesterday we glued together the minibook for the timeline. Figured that it would be easier to write on if it were dry! We also did a minibook Holiday Card that was drawn and written from the perspective of Scrooge before his visits from the Ghosts. Oh that was fun! KarateKid asked for me to print him out a picture of gold coins and he decided to tease his sister by making his card TO her from Scrooge. She apparently owes the old miser 5000 pounds! hehe So we also discussed some of the aspects of British money during that era. FairyGirl's book was all illustrated by her, showing Scrooge with all of his money gathered around him. The inside was filled with advise to pay your debts, pay your taxes and have a Bah Humbug Holiday!

We also made a Book in a Minute minibook. This totally cracked me up!! Here is the website:
http://www.rinkworks.com/bookaminute/classics.shtml

Here is the Book a Minute:

A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens -Ultra-Condensed by Samuel Stoddard and David J. Parker

Ebenezer Scrooge:Bah, humbug. You'll work thirty-eight hours on Christmas Day, keep the heat at five degrees, and like it.

Ghost of Jacob Marley:Ebenezer Scrooge, three ghosts of Christmas will come and tell you you're mean.

Three Ghosts of Christmas:You're mean.

Ebenezer Scrooge:At last, I have seen the light. Let's dance in the streets. Have some money. THE END

ROFLMBO!!!! I thought this was such a a funny, but accurate thing to have as a minibook for our lapbook! So we printed that out, the kids chose their colors and font and we cut it all apart for them to put in their minibook how they chose.

We also got the minibook partially ready that has some common British phrases accurate to the time that the kids will translate into common language. Not sure how entertaining that will be! lol

We are planning to do a largish book vs tv media comparison study. We are going to listen to Patrick Stewart read "A Christmas Carol" (insert fangirl squealing here!) and we are going to watch the traditional version featuring him (although I am tempted to find the original but if I recall, it's pretty scary), as well as the Muppet version, the more modern Scrooged, the Disney version and hopefully one other version suggested to me by a friend. =) Then we will make mini books showing the differences and why we think those particular changes were made.

So, there we go...we had an incredibly productive and full day yesterday! I don't feel bad AT ALL about taking the day off today. I mean geez, guys, we are watching Blues Clues, Sesame Street and Between the Lions...so we are learning, um, something. lol

Oh! Before I forget...here is where I found some of the original illustrations from A Christmas Carol. Very cool!
http://charlesdickenspage.com/illustrations-carol.html

minibooks

2007-11-28T14:02:00.000-06:00

Finally what seemed like a successful school day again! Woot! FairyGirl is done with her work, while KarateKid is finishing now.

We thought we'd try something new this time with our lapbooking. I bought a downloadable kit. It includes preprinted mini books that you print and fill in. I am thrilled about this on one hand and frustrated on the other hand. Always before while the kids did have some minibook ideas, for the most part I suggested our minibook ideas and most of the folds and styles. I tried to give them 2 or 3 fold options per book to choose from because letting them come up with one on their own meant spending 2 days waiting for them to decide on a fold for ONE minibook! That's not enough progress to suit me. lol So I love the fact that the books have preprinted graphics, while some of them allow you to create your own graphics. I love that the minibooks have pre-determined folds and shapes. Yes, it appeals to my control freak nature! More importantly, you could fold differently if you so chose, or cut it out differently, or even just cut out the graphics and use them on your minibook in your own manner. It's also feels a little limiting to have the minibooks already planned for you. What if we wanted to explore more tv and movie versions vs the book? Well, we DO want to do that. So we will not do some of the suggested minibooks and instead doing more of the book vs movie comparisons. =)

So now that I have managed to realize that it's OKAY to not do every freaking minibook exactly as suggested....I love this kit!

More later...

Dickens Vocab List

2007-11-27T12:16:00.000-06:00

1. miser – a cheap person

2. anonymously – not using your name

3. tremble – to shake or shiver

4. tunic – an overshirt

5. transported – taken from place to place

6. delicacies – sweet treats

7. peered – to look closely

8. stuttered – to repeat

9. haunted– troubled

10. resolute- firm; steadfast

11. idle – inactive; lazy

12. specter– ghost

13. chamber – room

14. phenomenon – experience or occurrence

15. apparition - ghost

16. transparent – see-through

17. opaque – not clear; solid

18. melancholy – sad

19. domestic - taking place in the home

20. idol – hero

21. inquired – asked

22. pedestrian – walker; a person on foot

23. steeple – decorative high point of a building, usually a church

24. crutch – prop or support

25. vacant – empty

26. unaltered – unchanged

27. ignorance – lack of knowledge

28. concealed – hid

29. trivial – minor; unimportant

30. dialogue – conversation

31. neglected – uncared for

32. honor – respect; admire

33. grieved – upset; unhappy; distressed

34. faltered – weakened; hesitated

35. waning – fading

36. make amends – apologize

Finally Done!

2007-11-26T12:45:00.000-06:00

We finished our Hawaii lapbooks today! Woot! This one has been a real struggle. I thought that Hawaii would be very cool, and each of the kids enjoyed aspects of it...the Gods, volcanoes, endangered species....those were hits. Hawaii overall and making minibooks about it...a flop. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't work as well. This was a not as well. So these lapbooks are smaller, and have less info in them, but they are also interesting. FairyGirl especially wanted to simply write stuff in/on hers...so she did. So these are very freeform and a little funky. They were also surprised at how much they DID learn (I think they thought they'd slacked off enough to not learn anything! Surprise!)

And tomorrow we are starting our holiday unit, potentially TWO lapbooks...1. Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and 2. Holiday Stories and Poems!

Exciting!

I will post the massive vocabulary list tomorrow!

*doing the finally done with that unit happy dance*

Where Does the Time Go?

2007-11-19T13:27:00.000-06:00

We have been unschooling our way through Hawaii as well as other things and our Hawaii lapbooks are not coming together as I had hoped. Darnit! It was such a good idea also!

Grandma and Grandpa were here and they bought the kids a fairly nice microscope. So we have spent some time nearly every day looking at different things through that. Today, when I checked my blood sugar, I smeared some blood on a slide and we looked at that as well as some of my different plants in the house. It's pretty cool, I have to admit!

Maybe I will have to convince the kids to make a Science lapbook....hmmmm....

I know, most people say that I should stop trying to structure my children when they want so badly to be unstructured. But honestly, we learn better utilizing both methods so...

I am sorry to everyone who reads this and is hoping for my daily blogs. I have gotten so much out of the blogging habit! I apologize.

Too many life experiences going on or our house, with kitty spaying, and kitty surgeries and family visiting, and early holiday meals and the adjustment to everyone having their own bedrooms.

Okay, back to schooling!

2007-10-30T13:59:00.001-05:00

Things have been a little crazy at our house and crazy interrupts our school groove. Draggie and Hals are attempting to get all of his stuff actually moved out so KarateKid and FairyGirl will have rooms of their own for the very first time! I am hoping that this eventually is MORE conducive to a learning environment. Crossed fingers!

The kids have studied and made a minibook on the Hawaiian language. It was great fun! We are still studying the history, in small bites. They have really enjoyed learning about the last Hawai'an Princess though!

Today we also started working on studies about the many endangered species of Hawaii. We studied Monk Seals and Pilot Whales. KarateKid made whale sounds for at least an hour after! lol Wish I could figure out how to put the whale sounds in a minibook without trying to put a cassette tape or something in there!

The picture above is of a baby Monk Seal. There are less than 1,300 alive at this point. This lucky gal was part of a small introductory rescue program. They rescued 6 weaned females pups and kept them in a penned in shoreline for the winter to help them overcome undernourishment and protect them from predators. Monk Seals do not react well to humans or human intervention so contact with these babies was kept to a minimum. But each of them was successfully released in the spring in full, good health. It was incredibly interesting!

We have also been playing some online Mad libs. I swear the kids will play Mad libs for hours but try to traditionally teach them grammar and their little eyes glaze over!

So we are busy and doing plenty and still chugging away on this unit. I have to admit that it has NOT been as easy as China was! Is it because the kids aren't as motivated? Is it because I am not as organized? Is it because will all of the chaos we are all tired and just don't care???

Whatever it is, I am determined to overcome it. Hawaii has a ton of wonderful rich resources and I would hate for my Bears to not learn as much as they should about it!

Monk Seal links:
http://www.pifsc.noaa.gov/psd/captivecareproject.php#monkseal
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/crittercam/index.html
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/coloringbook/monkseal.html
http://www.oceanconservancy.org/site/PageServer?pagename=fw_monkseal

Behind on posting

2007-10-18T12:50:00.000-05:00

Our school hours have been erratic to say the least, which has thrown off my posting groove!

We have been studying volcanoes and are in the process of making a volcano mini book. Today we read The Shark God by Rafe Martin and Pele and the Rivers of Fire by Michael Nordenstrom. We also visited some Hawaiian mythology sites at:

http://www.k12.hi.us/~kapunaha/student_projects/Legends_of_Hawaii/legends_of_hawaii.htm

http://www.nativehawaii.com/hawaiianlegends.html

I expect us to be studying the ancient Gods and Goddesses of Hawaii for a few days at least! KarateKid is utterly enamored with the Shark God! (no surprise there!) Since I have been to Hawaii I hda some cool (and a little eerie) stories to tell the kids about it and about Pele specifically.

I will share those another day. =)

Library Books: Hawaii

2007-10-12T18:52:00.000-05:00

Books we have picked up so far from the Tulsa Public Library:

From Cane to Sugar by Jill Braithwaite
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park by Sharlene and Ted Nelson
Aloha! by Jacqueline Sweeney
Little Honu by Jacqueline Sweeney
The Volcano Goddess Will See You Now (The Zack Files) by Dan Greenburg
Luka's quilt by Georgia Guback
The Black Pearl Mystery created by Gertrude Chandler Warner
The Shark God Story by Rafe Martin
The Voyages of Captain Cook by Richard Humble
The Last Princess : The Story of Princess Kaiulani of Hawaii by Fay Stanley
Hawaii by Ann Graham Gaines
Hawai'i by Martin Hintz
Welcome to Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park by Teri and Bob Temple
Pele and the rivers of fire adapted and illustrated by Michael Nordenstrom
Haleakala National Park by David Petersen
Hawaiian Alphabet by Lori Phillips (teaching the language of Hawaii)

Out of the Habit

2007-10-10T16:13:00.000-05:00

I got out of the habit of posting every day after our school hours! Shame on me!

Seriously I have been fighting migraines for nearly 2 weeks now, which leads to a MUCH more relaxed unschooly atmosphere at my house.

I got vetoed when it came time to start Greek Mythology. I am pretty tough on the kids on school and schoolwork, but I wasn't finding enough material to suit me either. So they rebelled and chose to study Hawaii instead. I didn't plan on us studying any individual states besides our own. Some are very interesting and others...not so much. My OCD screams at me for us to spend the same time on each state and that just won't happen. So. Hawaii. Our vocabulary and spelling words are on the board. Books are enroute to the library (yes another huge list). I have looked up a ton of Hawaii sites. Hawaii is in fact a very interesting state. They have their own native culture, their road to statehood, a multitude of flora and fauna (many now extinct or endangered), volcanoes and even the historical bombing of Pearl Harbor to study. So overall, it's actually an excellent state to choose for a unit study.

Today we watched "Dirty Job" a program where this man looks for the yuckiest, dirtiest jobs out there. It's NOT one of our usual programs. Today we watched part of a pet groomer's day (not Hawaiian related but, wow, we had no idea how yucky of a job that is!!!) and also a segment about an algae from Hawaii that a company in Hawaii cultivates from nature, grows, makes happy and healthy and then stresses and angers until it releases an antioxidant, which is then filtered from the algae and processed into gel pills for human consumption. This particular antioxidant is supposed to be 500X better for you than say, Vitamin E, for example. It was a really interesting (and icky!) first tv show on Hawaii and a cool introduction to the hundreds of health and life giving plants to be found there (or that have already been lost from there!)

So this week we are reading 30 minutes a day, studying our words and getting back in the math groove as well as our usual karate and art activities. FairyGirl finished the first Beatrix Potter mystery book in Susan Wittig Albert's Cottage Tales series. Excellent stories with a cozy mystery (so not all dramatic and full of blood and guts) and the animals talk to each other. It's a challenging read since Ms. Albert writes much of it in dialect but FairyGirl finished it! WOOT! I was so proud of her. It's for sure far beyond her reading level. To find out more about the series:

http://www.cottagetales.com/books/index.shtml This is Susan Wittig Albert and her husband's website. Very nice one too! =)

China Lapbooks Done!!

2007-09-26T14:08:00.000-05:00

The kids are finishing their lapbooks for China now. Karatekid has one more mini book that we are waiting for the glue to dry then it will get either taped or possibly glued in and he's DONE. Fairygirl is working on hers and talking to ACE on the phone so who knows how that will turn out. lol She ended up needing an extra flap on hers (woot!) and he filled inside, outside, front and back of his. Assembling the lapbooks has been fun today (thank goodness!!) but also really rewarding for everyone. It's incredible to SEE all the things they learned about. I will take pictures and see if I can get them posted ASAP. We discovered that wide clear packaging tape truly rocks for many of the mini books and most especially for pockets for small crafts.

But honestly folks...we are taking a week's vacation!

So starting on Oct 8th: Ancient Greece and Greek Mythology!

See you then. =)

Days Whizzing By

2007-09-25T16:53:00.000-05:00

I just realized that an entire week has gone by without me posting! No, that did not mean that we did nothing. What that means is that I have learned a valuable lesson with this particular unit study. My original plan was 3 weeks of unit study, 4th week putting together lapbook and resting before we dive into the next subject. Well, we have actually been studying China for 4 full weeks (this week being the 5th) and yesterday and today we studied the Great Wall, and finished up the Chinese New Year. We made our mini books for the New Year. Tomorrow we start actual lapbook assembly. Now, what did I learn from doing China for an extra week plus? That I am SICK SICK SICK of China and of how intestive our studies are! I need a BREAK! lol
So, we may delay beginning Ancient Greece and Greek Mythology for a few days or even a week to rest our brain cells.

The kids are enjoying Mulan 2...again...I am glad that they are, but I am secretly hoping that the dragon eats everyone. lol

Abacus

2007-09-19T14:57:00.000-05:00

Today we primarily learned about the abacus. The abacus as we know it today, appeared (was chronicled) circa 1200 A.D. in China; in Chinese, it is called suan-pan. On each rod, this classic Chinese abacus has 2 beads on the upper deck and 5 on the lower deck. The upper beads were/are referred to as the "heaven beads" and the lower ones the "earth beads"

We read The Warlord's Beads.

We made an abacus (each) for our lapbooks, and played with some online.

http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/abacus/history.html

http://www.themathlab.com/alltreasure/chinesecalculation/chinesecalculation.html

http://www.tux.org/~bagleyd/abacus.html

http://www.sas.org/E-Bulletin/2004-03-05/mimsci/body.html

We Don't Need No Steenkin Organization!

2007-09-17T16:27:00.000-05:00

Anyone who knows how OCD I am is now laughing hysterically at my title for this blog. YES, I HATE to be disorganized. I often am, however. So, Monday began and I realized that I didn't have a plan for which China things we were studying today. Yikes! So we finished up silk by reading the story The Empress and the Silkworm. It's a Chinese folkstory. Very cute. Then we finished our study of the TerraCotta Warriors. We didn't make a mini book for the warriors, and I am honestly trying to decide what to do for that. KarateKid finished his mini book of things invented in China (finally!) and FairyGirl did a short open the flap book on traditional food prepared and eaten on the Chinese New Year. So. We still have the Silk Road (can you believe that I actually had no books on that subject???), the Great Wall and Chinese New Year to study before we are done with China. We have 2 weeks left of China including assembling our lapbooks. I actually planned us 5 weeks of study on China instead of a month and honestly I am glad that I did! Over the weekend we picked up some stickers of Chinese characters and tomorrow before or after karate we will go to the scrapbooking store and see what other stickers and papers we can find. The kids are thinking about making traditional looking robes for their lapbooks, but I am not sure how that would be implemented into the lapbooks themselves.
Fairygirl has decided she wants to learn guitar...again. She had decided this many times before and never followed through. Loki and A and Draggy and Hals were all here yesterday so SweetHusband pulled out his guitar and the guys had an impromptu jam session. Fairygirl grabbed one of Daddy's guitars and tried to strum along in vain. I think the idea of jamming with Daddy and her brothers may have finally pushed her into being determined enough to follow through this time. We shall see. KarateKid tests soon so I need to remind him to practice his camo belt form.
Done for today!

sick and tired

2007-09-13T01:47:00.000-05:00

This week has been the week for being sick! I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired.

So school has been very, very low key the past few days. Thus the lack of blogs. We aren't starting or stopping school at normalish times (for us) and by the time we are done, it's naptime for me! =(

Karatekid has worked on his Jumpstart 2nd grade game a lot. Fairygirl has read quite a bit.

We watched a show on The History Channel about Confucious. Really interesting! He died before ever knowing how much he has contributed to China! So sad.

We have been exploring what inventions China has the credit for making. Fairygirl made a minibook on the inventions already but KarateKid and I are behind on that project.

The kids read Grandfather's Puzzle and made a tangram to follow the story. In it Grandfather has a tangram in it's 7 pieces and he tells a story. As he reaches different aspects of the story he creates different pictures from the tangram pieces! Very, very cool. We are thinking about making a paper tangram to put in a pocket in our lapbooks.

We wrote our words, we skip counted, we wrote times tables. We drank tea. We have talked and talked and talked some more. We didn't make it to Tae Kwon Do Tuesday so we have to tomorrow. We discussed how only Emperors are allowed to wear yellow....which led to a reminder discussion of the color names in Spanish. We remembered them all but we finally decided that we never learned the Spanish name for "purple".

We remembered that Mahjongg is Chinese and have been playing our fair share of it as well. It's addictive. We even found an online version that is just like the Chinese play with you against 3 computer people, but we couldn't figure it out!

Today we made mini books about silk, silkworms and silkmoths. They have little 3D-ish moths on the front! SO cute! I am surprised that PETA hasn't jumped on the silk production though. All those caterpillars dead so silk can be made. I expected a larger outcry against it. hmmm.

I am amazed and yet thrilled that China has SO much to offer us! It is much, much easier when there is more information than we can utilize rather than me constantly searching for more information to futher our studies! It would be nice to think that all of our lapbooks will be this easy and fun, but I know better.

Oh well, day (11 and) 12 of China is officially over!

Monday Blues

2007-09-10T16:28:00.001-05:00

Mondays are always a little blue at our house cause we miss Daddy. Started out our day late and tired and cranky. Had messes to clean up....but my coffee order came! WOOT! Which reminds me that we should work on The Silk Road tomorrow. We should learn how my coffee/teas began their journey historically.

Today we watched a movie about the Chinese explorer Zheng He. He was captured at the age of 11 and castrated thus becoming an eunuch in the Imperial Court. He was given rewards and responsibilities above and beyond what most eunuchs were given and apparently grew to meet or exceed the expectations of Emperor Yongle. Some people even believe that he discovered America before Columbus did. The kids and I discussed that theory and if they have enough evidence to corraberate that theory. While the kids didn't think they gave enough evidence to support it, considering the number of sea voyages and other places he did go, both kids thought that it was possible that he may have been to America first.

We made paper lanterns. The kids were both amazed at how the lanterns looked in the end compared to the differents steps they took to make it. We cut out tiny yellow pieces of paper with our spelling words on them and glued them inside the lantern so that the edges stuk out into the inner lantern area. So our "learning lit up our lanterns". lol

We had to re-organize our schoolbook shelf, but that gave us a chance to look through our Chinese books again, to see what we still had to look forward to.

Then we played a game online that showed us how silk was made from silk worms. You are the silk farmer and you must harvest mulberry leaves, feed your worms, monitor the growth of the worms and boil them, all the while keeping pesky loud children away from your fragile worms so that you can sell the highest quality silk possible to your merchant. It was a short, yet fun game. We played it a few times!

Fairygirl told us the story of Cinderella and then I read aloud the story of Yeh-Shen. Yeh-Shen is a Chinese Cinderella story. We compared and discussed the two different versions and why they might be different.

Scholastic books came and then we sorted books and got the different orders put in different boxes for delivery. Now we have split up to different parts of the house to read and such.

Classical Composers & Instruments Lapbook

2007-09-07T16:33:00.000-05:00

Free download of the week from Homeschool estore.com

http://www.homeschoolestore.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=917

from the website:

This lapbook is a basic study of Classical Composers & Insturments, primarily for grades 4-12th. There are 26 booklets, including Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Handel, Vocabulary, Strings, Woodwinds, Brass, Percussions, Conductors, Bass & Treble Clefs, and so much more. Includes all instructions and also information about what to put in each booklet, including internet links for further research.

User review:
I wasn't all that pleased with the graphics, but the content gave me good ideas to make my own folds and books out of.Rating: [2 of 5 Stars!]

Cool article I plan to show the kids!

2007-09-06T23:59:00.000-05:00

Terracotta Warriors Visit British Museum

The first batch of terracotta figures, including the famed warriors, arrived at the British Museum in London on Tuesday, as part of the exhibition "The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army" which opens on September 13.
The show, which celebrates the life of Ying Zheng, China's first true emperor, is expected to draw a huge crowd. Advance ticket sales have reached almost 60,000, a British Museum record.
The twenty figures consist of a dozen warriors plus assorted musicians, acrobats, court officials, and their five horses, British media reports. They are accompanied by other cultural relics such as bronze, jade articles, and pottery.
The 120 objects from the mausoleum of Emperor Qin Shihuang, who ruled from 221 to 207 BC, were trucked to Beijing, from where they were flown to London, where an exhibition has been scheduled at the British Museum from September 13 to April 6, 2008.
The museum has created a spectacular ￡1m temporary exhibition space in its famous Round Reading Room to welcome the visitors.
Peasants digging a well came upon the terracotta army - foot soldiers, archers, cavalrymen, and officers of all ranks - in four pits at Xi'an in the central province of Shaanxi in 1974.
An exhibition of the terracotta army was staged in Edinburgh in 1985.
(CRI.cn August 22, 2007)2007-08-22

http://www.china.org.cn/english/culture/221729.htm

Another Sore Throat Day

2007-09-06T15:32:00.000-05:00

My throat is still sore today so we were more relaxed with our schooling. We watched Inspector Gadget's 15 minute tour of Bejing and saw the places where the Chinese emperors relaxed and prayed. So beautiful! We also watched a food orientated show on modern Hong Kong. It showed a man create homemade noodles from scratch using a huge bamboo pole to pound, pound, pound the dough. It was beautiful and fasciniating and yet very sad because since the pole is situated between ones legs it's "disfiguring" so none of the young men are willing to learn the ancient craft. They even showed a woman selling intestines on sticks to eat! Major yuck!
We made mini books for our vocabulary/spelling words to go in our lapbooks, and then we started mini books on generic facts about China.
Then they will play a wonderful math game called Countdown that was a gift from some dear friends of ours! We play it fairly often and really love it.
We tried our hand at cucumber sandwiches, which were actually a bigger hit than I expected. Not Chinese, per se, but an attempt to add more veggies to our diet.
The kids are finishing up their Chinese facts mini book creations and about to move to their math game. We have baths and Tae Kwon Do tonight as well.

I have been blogging at the end of our school day, to give me closure for each day, to reinforce in my own head what all we did that day. This has really helped me to be more aware of what the kids are learning and how hard we DO work on school even on the days that I don't feel well, which has been most of this week! I don't get a chance to talk about the schooling that goes on "unofficially" after our school day ends. I don't post about how often we play our math game or Uno in the evening. Or how often FairyGirl blogs or writes e-mail. Or how often they both do art. Or about the 1001 questions they ask and we answer. While this blog has become a good thing for me to end each school day with, and I hope a good thing for some of you to read for inspiration or hope or just acknowledgement that other folks have struggles with school...it is not the be all and end all of our homeschool experiences.

No, every minute of every day of life is a homeschool experience. Live, learn, laugh, right? More so than you know, unless you are a fellow homeschooler!

Taoism and Silk

2007-09-05T15:15:00.001-05:00

I still feel not up to par today and for some reason I can't change the font when I post so that's frustrating as well.
My Sweet Hubby stayed home also not feeling well. So when FairyGirl and I hit a roadblock on her division today she got to go sit with Daddy right away and figure it out. I am happier when she can work through math issues right away but it tends to make her cranky. She is frustrated with it (hence the cranky) but I feel that working it out correctly right away helps her to learn it better than waiting until the evening when Daddy gets home. Of course some days, waiting and looking at it with a more relaxed mindset is better too. Anyhow, today she got past her cranky, figured out what she needed to do and got it done. Hooray! She did a Vocabulary Match Up game and KarateKid and I discussed his word definitions orally. KK also did a page of math, mixed 2s and 3s multiplication. Then they both did more tangrams. Gosh they love those! Then they tried to do a Chinese Tao slide puzzle. It was interesting that FairyGirl worked at it the longest, but neither one managed it. So then we talked about Taoism as a philosophy and how the slide puzzle would fit into that philosophy. We read some passages from The Tao of Pooh and talked about them and what they meant and how they could be applied to our lives. Then then kids studied a book on silk and we had a discussion on what silk is and how it's made.
We tried a fun sandwich idea for lunch. FairyGirl loved it, but KarateKid still hasn't decided. He enjoyed it, but since sitting still to eat is still such a challenge it was a struggle. It's Bologna Wiggles! You slice 1 piece of bologna and 1 piece of sliced cheese very thin and mix them up so they look like worms or spaghetti (wiggly!) You can then mix in your favorite condiment (mayo, ranch, etc) or choose to go without. Then you fill a hot dog bun with the bologna n cheese mixture. Best news is that you can cut up 2-3 slices of each, put them in a baggie in the fridge and the kids can make their own Bologna Wiggles. Of course you can also let your child cut up their own, both things will cut with even a butter knife.

Okay I think we did plenty even though I didn't feel well...reading, vocabulary, math, philosophy, home ec, science with a jigger of history thrown in, yep, we're done for today!

Messy house

2007-09-04T15:07:00.000-05:00

I hate having a messy house. Although since today it means that the kids were very busy with schoolwork it's hard to complain too much. We read "The Emperor's Puzzle" and then KarateKid cut out a tangram in the back of the book and he and FairyGirl each tried to put it back together. It was a lot harder than it looked! lol They practiced skip counting in an effort to improve multiplication skills. FairyGirl is struggling with division and KarateKid has just started times 3. Dragontoes was home and working on Biology homework. He had a double digit multiplication problem with decimals. When I did it with ease, he was like "Woah, when did you grasp that so easily? You suck at math too!" I laughed and then had KarateKid do the problem. Which he did, correctly, with a brief explanation of multiplying double digits and decimals. Dragon was like..."That is SO cool, he's good at math like Dad. Wait, now I feel twice as stupid!" and went back to his college books. FairyGirl and KarateKid then wrote their words, and decided which ones were nouns or verbs. FairyGirl worked on reading her book on Chinese writing, "Between Heaven and Earth: The History of Chinese Writing" then she made a card with all of the writing in Chinese and a scroll of Chinese writing to go in her lapbook. KarateKid drew tons of Chinese characters that he had to ask his sister to read to him. She told him that she would this time but next time he needed to learn what the characters meant before he wrote them! lol We worked on some different ways to cut and fold mini books for our lapbooks. It was really interesting to make one and then see how if we slightly altered the angles of the folds that we could change a minibook from one that stood up, almost 3-D like, to flat, more like a book. FairyGirl worked on her China webquest while KK worked in his animal book. I have an upset tummy, so everything was directed from the couch or while I lounged. Now I have to figure out if my tummy feels like driving to karate. Either way now it's time to pick up my house (hooray!) and throw KarateKid in the tub for his pre-karate bath. If he doesn't go, it sure won't hurt him any to be extra clean! lol

Deja Vu

2007-09-02T22:57:00.000-05:00

Bedtime is a difficult time for us. All of the adults in the house are night owls and so would FairyGirl and KarateKid be if we would let them. So bedtimes are a struggle.

Tonight, KarateKid brought me the first Magic Tree House book "Dinosaurs After Dark". I remember purchasing it for FairyGirl when she was about the same age (7) but it was yet another attempt to help her with her dyslexic and reading issues. That first book we read together, she and I. I would read a sentence then she would. All the way through that book, we traded turns reading the sentences. I became as caught up in Jack and Annie's initial discovery of the magic of the tree house as she did! The next book we graduated to paragraphs, I would read one, then she would. Of course I had to help her with hers, but she did it. We read the first 3 or 4 that way, then we graduated to pages, and eventually chapters. Finally, finally over a year later she could read the entire books on her own! I think she owns (and has read) about 15 of the 30-40 book series. I tried in vain to get her to read one to me more recently but she wasn't interested. In fact, she stopped reading them at all about 6-8 months ago. So, she and I journeyed through Jack and Annie's world together for about a year (maybe a bit more) before I was left standing at the station. We have certainly shared other books since, and I recently began reading the first Harry Potter book out loud. It has been put up, and since "up" is currently missing, Harry is on hiatus.
But I often wondered what happened to Jack and Annie. Where did they go? What did they discover about the Tree House and it's mysteries (and owner!! What fun that discovery was!)
So about a week ago, I casually suggested the first book to KarateKid. He brought it to me, and with a little help, read the ENTIRE FIRST CHAPTER! Just like that! When he was done, I had to sit in wonder, remembering the agonizing times that poor FairyGirl struggled before she got to that point. Tonight, at bedtime, I said, "Okay you need a book to settle down?" and he said he did. FairyGirl said that she would read a "Pick Your Own Path" book to him if he wanted (they have recently started reading those together. Remember those? ) He came bouncing out of bedroom with Dinosaurs After Dark clutched in his hand and says, quite loudly, "What about I read to YOU, Mama?!" I agreed that would be fine and he climbed up in my lap. I listened (!!!) as Jack and Annie discovered for the first time (again!) that the tree house is magical. "The tree house began to spin. The wind picked up. Now it was whistling. The tree house spun faster....and faster. Then everything was still. Absolutely still." His eyes got wide when he read that part. It truly WAS magic to watch my baby boy discover this world. It was wonderful to be travelling with Jack and Annie again through the eyes of one of my children. So, Chapter 2 is in the can, and our bookmark has been gleefully moved to the first page of Chapter 3. Will Jack and Annie get eaten by dinosaurs? I can't wait to see if the ending has changed in the past almost 4 years....

China Book List

2007-09-01T18:12:00.000-05:00

Yes, we are terrifying the folks at the library, and no, do not look for any books on China to be available right now from the library because we have them ALL. lol

Between Heaven and Earth: a History of Chinese Writing
Material World: Silk
The Economy of China
Silk Peony, Parade Dragon by Elizabeth Steckman
Grandfather's Shape Story by Brian Sargent
Daisy Comes Home by Jan Brett
The Warlord's Puzzle by Virginia Walton Pilegard
The Story of Chopsticks by Ying Chang Compestine
Mrs. Frizzle's Adventures in Imperial China by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen
You wouldnt Want to Work on the Great Wall of China by Jacqueline Morley
Traditional Crafts from China
The World Heritage Series: The Chinese Empire
Cities of the World Series: Hong Kong by R. Conrad Stein
The Emperor's Silent Army: The TerraCotta Warriors of Ancient China by Jane O'Connor
The Empress and the Silkworm: by Lily Toy Hong
China: Many Cultures, One World by Kay Melchisedech Olson
Birthdays Around the World: Celebrating Birthdays in China by Cheryl L. Enderlein
Feathered Dinosaurs Of China by Gregory Wenzel
The Lhasa Atlas: Traditonal Tibetan Architecture and Townscape
The Colors of China by Shannon Zemlicka
Tibetian Tales for Little Buddhas by Naomi C. Rose
Grandma Lai Goon remembers : a Chinese-American family story by Ann Morris

And we also had one that had a recipe for fortune cookies, which we tried to make. Oh! They are no where NEAR as easy as they look! At least they tasted good...lol

Unschoolin

2007-09-01T12:07:00.000-05:00

Yesterday and probably for the rest of the weekend we will just unschool. The kids have PLENTY of books on China and we are off to pick up some more that came in. Maybe I will get industrious and list all the books we checked out. lol

The last couple of days have been harder for everyone to focus since we have had a lot of unsettling personal news (see my regular blog). I have found that switching to unschooling and just doing a lot of snuggle-reading and trying to direct their tv/movie viewing towards our subject goes a long ways towards helping us get back on track. This was one of those times when I was wishing for a movie on China that we haven't seen to put in for them. Oh well, Mulan again I suppose...

Odd Day

2007-08-30T17:08:00.000-05:00

We had an odd day today. I am not even sure how I feel about it. Maybe that is the problem. I don't think I feel that great today and it's just harder to find a groove and groove with it when you don't feel like yourself!

FairyGirl made a panda shaped book to write her How The Panda Became Black and White story in. We practiced cutting fold out shapes and mini books and talked about how paper cutting is popular in China. We did our usual math, spelling/vocabulary and such. We fussed more than we usually do trying to get things accomplished and after about 3 hours I called it quits.

I feel like we got a head start on school this year and that is a GOOD thing since we will end up taking time off when Grandma and Grandpa visits, and probably when the baby is born and perhaps if we get the boys. Do I feel like that was necessary to combat days like today that seem (or are!) unproductive? Nope. Not at all. Days like today happen. No amount of preparation can make every day go exactly as planned. I learned to accept that long ago and don't question myself nearly as often as I used to! (Noting the questioning of myself LESS not that I don't do it at all...I do, all the time!)

Okay, off to find something that makes me less cranky. I'm thinking cappucino and chocolate...

Lapbooking 101

2007-08-29T17:28:00.000-05:00

I promised a post on lapbooking with links and here it is! Below are the links that I used to get me started...and the ones I go back to for ideas.

http://www.squidoo.com/lapbooking/
http://www.unitstudies.com/books/index.aspx
http://www.geocities.com/gibsevengang/lapbooks.html
http://www.familyclassroom.net/hsboys/articles/21.html
http://www.geocities.com/mamabrown_1122/lapbooks.htm
http://www.txchess.com/minibooks.htm

These links are the nuts and bolts of it, how to do mini books, different paper folds, templates, etc.

http://www.notebookingpages.com/Notebooking_Pages_Free_Lapbooking_Elements.html
http://www.speechtx.com/one_sheet_book.htm
http://www.ruthannzaroff.com/mirkwooddesigns/templates.htm
http://teacherweb.com/tx/cadwallader/cchavez/index.html

And here is the blog of another Mom who seems to really have this lapbooking stuff down! WIth pictures!

http://homeschoolblogger.com/jaminacema/Lapbooks/

I joined a yahoogroup on lapbooking as well. I am beginning to worry, everything I read says that lapbooking is addictive! Just what we need, yet another addicting hobby! lol
No, seriously, I have seen my kids be inspired and be able to show off what they have learned in a way that I never dreamed would make them so happy.

Pebble-less Tuesday

2007-08-28T20:28:00.000-05:00

We have no pebbles. That seems like a small thing, but we need some pebbles! The Chinese played a game at one point, especially in the poorer communities, similar to jacks, except they used pebbles or stones. We were going to play today, to give it a try and we have -no- pebbles. Since I grew up in the country I am feeling a little bereft here! Children should have rocks, darnit! I may have to go buy or beg some from a friend. How sad is that??

Today is our lighter day. Tuesdays and Thursdays are lighter since KarateKid has...well karate. Or more accurately Tae Kwon Do. I discovered two things last year. 1. Absolutely NO computer time on days when we have karate class. It does something to his head so that he utterly and totally can not focus as well as I don't want to have to fight to get him off the computer and then fight to get him dressed, etc. It makes everyone miserable. 2. Too much schoolwork makes him so antsy and hyper that he can't do anything but vibrate during class. He bounces and talks and acts out constantly! So we do more school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and less on Tuesdays, Thursdays and the weekends. Yes, that's right, I said weekends. I am one of those parents that when they ask to watch a tv show on the weekend I choose something educational if I can find anything before I let them watch a cartoon. I send my kids to read or we read together. If they ask for computer time, they have to play an educational game before they may play another game of their choice. I keep thinking that if I slip these little dribbles of educational stuff into our everyday lives that they will grow into people who want, expect and choose to learn things as a part of their everyday lives. I hope! The #2 issue also makes me wonder if public schools would get more productivity from kids diagnosed with ADHD if their periods of sit down schoolwork were interspersed with periods of activity. Hmmm...

While SweetHubby and KarateKid were at the TaeKwonDo class, FairyGirl and I went to a scrapbook store and checked out some cute paper and looked for stickers or ideas for our China lapbooks. KarateKid's tea lapbook did get finished last night and we were proud of it! So, we are focused only on the upcoming China lapbooks. We keep getting more ideas. We saw a cute passport addition for scrapbooks that FairGirl thought might also be cute in a lapbook. FairyGirl also told me a story that she read in one of the books on China that we got from the library. It was a Chinese folk story about the pandas! I was so entranced standing there in the scrapbook store listening to her tell me this story....and she didn't even want to study China at first! I wanted to pump my fist in the air and yell "YES!" but the salesclerk would have looked at me funny so I kept my triumph secret. =)

Since I am enjoying sharing this unit study so much...here are the kids' words. Now keep in mind that we are studying them for 2-3 weeks. If they master them the first week, then we will change to new ones. If they don't that is okay too, we have the time.
FairyGirl: dynasty, aristocrat, predecessor, republic, nomad, navigate, monk, communist, influence, prosperous, tradition and compass
KarateKid: silk, miss, stick, stitch, sit, think, drink, fish, gift

Also, I have had some private questions about lapbooking so I am planning to share the links that I have found on it at some point. I know, I know, with all of the info and stuff that we are doing I could create my own cool China Unit study. It's a thought, believe me.

She's All Set Up!

2007-08-27T16:53:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I set FairyGirl up with her own homeschool blog and added it in my links.

Enjoy!

Monday, Monday

2007-08-27T15:27:00.000-05:00

We are nearly done for today. Fairygirl is doing some drawing for KarateKid and so am I. He ended up not getting his tea lapbook done because we couldn't get our printer to work! Grrrr!!!!
It is so frustrating when mechanical things prevent us from being as creative as the kids want!
We still need to read some about China, but I am thinking of perhaps curling up and reading a folktale later. I was hoping for us to have a movie to watch in case we had a day where I felt crummy but so far all I can find is Mulan, and we have already seen it.
I had to have a long talk with my KarateKid. It was hard for both of us. He is not doing the small amount of writing that I require every day (the date and their spelling/vocab words) and so he is running off to play when I am busy with work/phone/his sister. I shouldn't have to sit on him for the 15 minutes that it takes to write those things down every morning! We have so many other fun things to do that it's hard for me to understand why he wouldn't get it done so we can get on with the fun! But perhaps that is the perception of an adult speaking. So we talked about it and he cried and I cried. I hate the fact that we fuss for an hour or two every morning to get that accomplished. Am I forcing him to do writing that he doesn't want to do? YES! Gosh, I know that! lol But it really is a very small amount and he needs to work on improving his writing skills as well as learning about the date/days/months/etc and his spelling words! So, no, I don't think that it is unreasonable at all. I am hoping that our talk helps him to decide that he is making it harder than it needs to be. *crosses fingers*

Now FairyGirl is asking for her own homeschool blog to be able to journal about her school day, so I am off to see if I can accomplish that in a safe manner for her.

China R Us?

2007-08-26T21:17:00.000-05:00

So we start China tomorrow! I am actually excited. There is so many options to study about China that are beyond it's geography and history. I purchased and downloaded a small unit study for $4 from the Homeschool Learning Network e-store. Do I think this was the most uber unit study ever? Nope. Do I think I got my 4 bucks worth? Yep! http://www.hln-store.com/servlet/StoreFront
It included spelling/vocabulary words (so I didn't have to look any up for Fairygirl anyway, WOOT!) It also included a page that can be printed of the definitions, and a cool little match the word to the definitions worksheet. It also had a couple of printable maps, with suggestions on how to use them, a find-a-word puzzle on names of places in China, and links to 2 different interesting sounds webquests. There were a few other things (craft idea to make a timeline for example) that I was glad to see, again, so I didn't have to look up the info as well as some interesting generic China links and printable info.

I found a couple of interesting links on my own as well:
http://www.atozkidsstuff.com/china.html
http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/china/art/index.htm
http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/middle/china.htm

I found doing the research for some of it to be frustrating since so many folks cross over Asian cultures and history! But the kids are excited and I anticipate these lasp book slooking far cooler than the first ones now that we have one under our belt. =)

So the kids' assignment and activity list, spelling and vocabulary words are all on the board waiting for tomorrow. Go me!!

and so on and so forth....

2007-08-24T16:01:00.000-05:00

Fairygirl has finished her first lapbook pretty much by herself! I looked over it and had her correct a few spelling errors and she was done!
Karate Kid is holding out for a computer ink purchase because he wants to be able to put actual photos of tea in his. Picky child! lol

We got a package today of a ton of used Halloweek books that I bought online for $5. Couldn't resist! Karate Kid almost immediately read me Dinosaurs Halloween. His reading improves every day.

Fairygirl got a new camo pink and grey hooded shirt out of the deal and she immediately had to wear it! It looks like it will last her through the winter (hurrah!) and she loves it. She did a Hannah Montana pose for Dragontoes and Hals and I. The look on Dragontoes' face when his baby sister suddenly WAS a teenage girl for a few seconds was truly priceless.

So we spend the rest of this week doing just reading and math basically unschooling while we finish up lapbooks (lapbook in this case!) then next week we can start the next unit. We were going to study Missouri and Tom Sawyer since we had originally expected to be taking a weekend trip there during September. Now that isn't going to happen, so I am not sure how to juggle our planned unit studies. I am tempted to study Russia or New Jersey in anticipation of N and A's arrival but I am a little afraid of that making their transition more difficult.

Well, at least I have 3 days to figure it out. Oh yeah, I work well under pressure....NOT!

Whew!

2007-08-20T16:22:00.000-05:00

Okay today is done, school wise anyway. The kids jumped on the whole lap book thing. We did a TON of research for just the right pictures and drew and planned and cut out and....I ended up feeling a little overwhelmed by craft supplies, but they were in their preferred element!

Dragontoes is sitting here now a nervous wreck about his first college class. Hold on...he's heading out the door...... And yes, a few tears, MUCH encouragement and rechecking the required supplies twice and he's gone. Not sure which of us that was harder on. He's scared, I'm letting go.

The littler kids wanted to work on their lapbooks all evening too, but I was exhausted so I called an end to the "official" schoolday. Okay, okay, I called an end to craft supplies all over my house!
It's okay though, because now that lapbooks are a work in progress, I suspect that craft supplies will dominate our house for the next week. Ohhh, that reminds me. Note to self, e-mail FairyGirl's art teacher to see when the next session starts because I think it's the first week of September.

Sweet Hubby and I may end up with extra kids...and I have to say that I am pretty nervous about the prospect! 10 year old twins, cousins, just lost their last remaining parent. No one else in the families will take them. Frustrating since it would so drastically change our lives. They have always been private schooled and I suspect that whoever takes them will get some sort of stipend from a trust fund so that type of education can continue. That was the choice their parents had made. Do I even want to homeschool boys I barely know? How am I supposed to decide how they learn or what times of the day they learn best if I don't know THEM? Lots of questions with zero answers for now. The control freak in me is screaming in frustration. I guess she'd better get used to it. If we end up with the boys, we will have one 7 year old boy, one 10 year old girl (11 in October) and two 10 year old boys...and a 20 year old boy just starting college. Yeah, I have control of diddly NOW, so why on earth should I expect more control with the addition of more kids?

Does anyone besides me remember the old "Calgon Take Me Away" commercials?

Jumping on the Bandwagon

2007-08-20T01:31:00.000-05:00

Short but sweet...since it's late and I am tired.

Tomorrow is Monday. Again. Where did the weekend go so quickly? This year the kids wanted to try notebooking/lapbooking. For the past 2-3 weeks they have been studying grasses and tea. Tomorrow we start designing our lapbooks and choosing subject matter for them. We probably should have been doing so all along but honestly I wasn't sure that I could make grass or tea last a full month!

We still have more to learn. Still working on The Boston Tea Party with Karate Kid...and Fairy Girl just got her last library book yesterday. It's a HUGE encyclopedia of grasses...makes me wish we'd had it from the get-go!

Dragontoes (Christopher for those of you unfamiliar with my family's nicknames) starts college tomorrow. His Aunty M is taking Biology with him. I can't wait to hear how it all goes....