The Every Day Home School

Under the Sea Dioramas

2012-01-16T21:58:00.000-08:00

For science this year we have been using the Neoe Biology II. It's working well and is fairly easy to adapt for the varying abilities of my 4, 6, and 8 year old. But I find it a bit simplistic and a bit monotonous at times.

Our underwater creatures lessons seem to have gone on forEVer. So,using some of the internet links in one of our Usborn books, I discovered thsi cool project:

http://www.amnh.org/ology/index.php?channel=marinebiology#

I had a super hard time finding the curlers to make the sponges. So we skipped that. And pom-poms (the cheerleader kind) were hard to find too. So we adapted the sea anemonea by using toilet paper rolls and strips of construction paper. My idea was to curl the strips of paper down using a pencil, but the kids found this very tedious. So our sea anemoneas turned out to look more like palm trees. Oh well.

Brain coral closeup.

We made these by sticking the radiatorre pasta in home made play dough and then painting it green. I recommend hollowing out the under side a bit to facilitate the drying process.

We did not use boxes for the background because I didn't have any on hand. We used large manila file folders. I opened up the folder and turned it so the center line was horizontal. Then I made a center cut in the bottom flap from the edge closest to me up to the horizontal line. Then I folded the two flaps over each other and stappled them together. This formed HALF of each diorama. Repeat this process and then fit the two halves together and secure with tape or staples.

This mad e agreat back drop forour diorama, which we then painted and dried before adding the sea life.

Here's a picture of another one

Poetry Memorization

2011-12-27T23:30:00.000-08:00

I love poems. I always have.

I have deliberated as to how to share that love iwth my kids. From my previous post you have seen that we incorporate a poem into our morning routine and it has been immensley fun to learn these simple poems together. THe kids love taking turns leading the poems as well.

I had been taking most of my poems from My Montessori Journey

and then tonight I came across this great resource and have selected Wise Old Owl for our next poem.

I do love the concept of having objects in the pocket chart or in a basket to help youngers remember the poem.

I have also found that devising hand motions with the children is a wonderful help in memorization. It's fun to say the poem and do the motions all together.

Here is the Owl Craft that we will do with the poem.

Starting Your Homeschool Day on the Right Foot

2011-12-12T22:43:00.000-08:00

I'm not the best planner/organizer, but one thing that I am very pleased with this school year is the way we start our school day. I seem to have finally found the right formula for getting the kids off on the right foot each morning. It's quick and simple,but unifying, meaningful and memorable. HEre's how we do it:

After breakfast, chores, brief scripture reading (at the breakfast table) and personal grooming time, I head downstairs to the school room and gather the kids on the rug for RUg Time. And then we follow these steps.

1. Prayer
2. One patriotic song or quote from Wee Sing America. We listen to the same track for a whole week with the goal of memorizing the song or quote.
3. Pledge of Allegance
4. Scripture verse memorization
5. Poem recitation

That's it!

Each child gets to say the prayer and lead us through the 5 steps for an entire week. We rotate from oldest to youngest so that the youngest child is very familiar with the scriptures,song and poem that he is to lead during his week. I try to keep the poem and scriptures up for the 3 weeks,but we do rotate the song weekly unless we need more time to commit it to memory.

Simple right? Right! And I think that's been the key to our success. I have notions of adding in a Portuguese word of the day, and a nursery rhyme/song for our toddler. Maybe starting in January.

From rug time, we do group classes. HEre are our group classes and how they rotate during the week.

Monday: Science
Tuesday: History
Wednesday: Art, Science and Old Testament
Thursday: Old Testament, science and P.E. (the kids all do gymnastics together in the afternoon)
Friday: Music and Poetry

Depending on how long we spend on group classes, we may be ready for snack. Or we may head right into one-on-one time or independent work. I often will prepare "snack tray" and bring it downstairs full of fruit, crackers, cheese,chips, muffins, nuts or what ever else is on hand.

I send my 3rd grader to her desk to do her independent work after group classes(written out on a schedule the night before) while I take my 1st grader to the "teacher's table" to do her math, phonics and language arts.

Then I send her to do independent work while I do math, phonics and LA with my preschooler boy. (He was doing legos or some other quiet play while waiting hs turn). Then I let 1st grader and preschooler off for the day. They may play together indoors or out, but usually I don't let them on the Wii until 3rd grader has also finished school. Usually this is a good stopping place for lunch also and I put our 15 month old down for a nap.

Then I'm free to finish up the day working one-on-one with my 3rd grader. We're usually done with our day by 1:30 or 2pm. Currently, when teh weather is good, we like to take off after baby's nap to a local skateboard park. We get there just before the older kids are out of school and have the place to ourselves for a while. We bring bikes, skates, scooters and a thingy you sit on that has handles and four wheels. It's fun!

And in case you were wondering, our 15 month old girlie just finds ways to entertain herslef in the school room during the morning. Usually she is off making a mess in some corner! I do take breaks to read her a quick book or do a simple puzzle with her. This helps tremendously to keep her happy and satisfied. Often she is on my lap playing with my hair or reaching for things on my desk while I work with a sibling. I have lots for her to explore in the room, but of course she wants everything that is off limits, like paint and markers! She keeps us on our toes,that's for sure!

Slashing the Grocery Bill

2011-12-05T06:52:00.000-08:00

Homeschoolers have an added strain on their budget to begin with. I see this as a blessing (sometimes) because it makes us extra savvy shoppers. I'm forever looking for ways to economize when possible. I know the holiday season hardly seems like the time to be cutting back on your grocery bill, right? But I found a way to make it work without skimping on any of the yummy holiday treats! You can visit my other blog to find out how.

Kelly

Book Club: My Side of the Mountain

2011-11-30T06:45:00.000-08:00

I had heard that only 12 year old boys enjoy reading My Side of the Mountain, but I must say that our whole book club (none of us have a 12 year old boy) really enjoyed this read. Here's how our meeting went:

1. Go around the circle and share your favorite part.

2 We discussed certain points of interest in the book such as Sam's ability to remain isolated for so long without a search party coming for him!

3. Divide into family teams (we have 3 families in our club) and play Plant Concentration. I made color copies of the plants that were mentioned or drawn in the book (just got imaages from google) and glued them onto construction paper squares. On the back of the squares I labelled them A, B, C, etc. I then taaped them to a large board. on another board I taped similarly prepared squares with the names of the plants I had selected. On the back of this second set of squres I lableled them 1, 2, 3, etc. The object was to match the name of the plant with the correct picture in a Classic Concentation sort of way. Each family had an answer key to help them.

4. Fashion show! THis was a real hit! We discussed Sam's need to create his own clothing while away in the woods for so long and the methods he used for doing this. And while we didn't have any deer skins available, we did have plenty of brown paper sacks fromthe grocery store. Each family was given the same nubmer of grocery bags, some yarn, tape, scissors, whole punch. Each family was removed to a separate part of the house to work on their own fashion creation using the supplies given. Each family chose a member of the family to model the creation and be a part of the fashion show. So cute!

5. We ended with some pancakes and blueberry jam. No, no acorn flour here. Just hand ground whole wheat flour. They were gobbled right up!

SUper fun night! I hope you have fun with these ideas too. Let me know if you have other ideas for making a book club night with My Side of the Mountain.

Vocabulary Practice for Read Aloud Books

2011-07-19T22:11:00.001-07:00

I've tried tackling vocabulary from the traditional "Schooly" way with workbooks. I suppose it worked fine enough. But I always found that many of the words were too easy or irrelevant to my daughter's life.

So then I tried using a more organic approach to vocabulary and gleaned my vocab lists from our reading, both silent and read aloud. I would plug these words into spelling city dot com (most of that site is free but you can pay for the extra goodies). Again, that worked for a while, but quickly became tedious and boring for her. She keeps me on my toes, I'll give her that.

Then I tried just giving her a list of our words from reading and then asking her to choose four or five to look up in the dictionary. HOLY MOLY! It was like pulling teeth. She apparently doesn't heart the dictionary just yet.

Well, then I decided to try something new. I'm not sure how this idea came to me, but I'm glad it did because it seems to be working (so far). I wrote each vocab word on an index card with a sharpie. Then I hole punched the upper left corner and put all the cards on a ring. I then read through the words with her several times so she would know how to pronounce them and would recognize them while listening to the book.

I handed her the dictionary (YIKES) and asked her to listen for the words on her cards as I read aloud. When she hears a word from the list, she has the option of writing down her own understanding of the word's meaning given its context in the book, or looking it up in the dictionary. I suggested that she write down the page number that the word appears on in case she wants to go back and read the word in context later.

As we began it was fun, but I quickly realized the dictionary was actually much more of a nuisance than a help. Stopping to look up the words slowed us down and interrupted the flow of our story. It was much more fun and productive to have her infer the meaning from the text and write down her own definition. If she had trouble with this, I would then have her pull out the dictionary. Or if we were anxious to read on, I'd just give her guidance until she arrived at the correct definition. Thus we remained on friendly terms with the dictionary and kept our story rolling.

I should mention that I only give her vocabulary words from a few chapters at a time. I don't give her all the vocab words from the entire book. She'll have several sets of words on separate rings by the time we finish the book.

So far...it's working. I like having the words on separate cards and gathered on rings. I think it will make it easy to have fun review games at the end of the book. I'm envisioning vocabulary memory games or matching games. I like this better than workbooks, straight dictionary work, or resorting to online vocab practice. Asking her to do anything online simply leads to endless dawdling and game playing. ICK!

Better Than Christmas!

2011-07-17T22:21:00.000-07:00

Does anyobody else out there love to order curriculum as much as I do? Or am I the only one that gets a long-lived natural high out of selecting the perfect set of studies for each child?
And when it all comes to the door (I'm an online-shopping-kind-of-girl) and I get to open it with the kids and smell that new book smell, and flip through the materials imagining all the great lessons we'll have....AH...it relaly IS better than Christmas.
I love to see the kids eagerly paw through the piles of books and materials to see what lies in store for them in the coming school year. Of course, I have to keep a few surprises up my sleeve, just to keep things interetsing for all of us.

I don't have all my stuff ordered yet. And only a very small portion of it has come to the house so far. But the anticipation is making me giddy. You may be wondering just what curriculum I've selected that is causing all of this "Christmas In July" type joy.

Here's my list for Third Grade Girl:
Lang ARts: Paths of Exploration at geomatters dot com. This looks like fantastic stuff. The rewviews are terrific. I'm ordering because it accomplishes my goal of giving my children a solid understanding and love of American History without beating it over their heads, while at the same time providing a flexible/adjustable and very thorough lang. arts program using living books. I love that it effortlessly creates a portfolio for the student as you go. This actually includes a little science and obviously some history as well.
I'll be supplementing the grammar with G.U.M Drops and spelling with Spelling WOrkout.
Also, at the end of last year someone introduced me to Ignite your Writing, which you can download at CurrClick for ten bucks. It's fantastic! Short,fun, clear writing assignments that my daughter doesn't hate! All for ten bucks.And there's an advanced version also. We'll continue with that next year too.

Math: We used teaching textbooks grade 3 last year. IT started off well, but got very boring for her. Sheresorted to using JUST the book because she got really put off by all the online demos, cheering monkeys, and "silly" games. SO this year we're going the no-nonsense route and using Saxon Math. I got the books used from a local second hand homeschool curriculum store.

First GRade GIrl:
Math: We're nearly done with RIght STart Math level A. I'm sure we'll go on to level B since she's loving the program and doing very well.

Lang ARts: We flew through the K year of Sing Spell,Read,Write and we're now about 1/3 of the way through the first grade portion. We'll keep on chugging there. My only misgivings about this phonics program are the following: I don't like the sequence. Looking ahead, I can see that it is going to really throw a lot at us all at once, while in the beginning we were bored with endless reptition of simple concepts. Also, we don't really "sing" much with this program as the title would seem to indicate.The teacher's manual says to start each lesson with asong, and end each lesson with a game. But so far, only a couple of songs have been introduced (and they all sound alike to me). And the games....where is theinformation on how to play the games and at what point they should be introduced? I find it all a bit confusing. I just kindof make use of the games as I see fit by looking at the materials and guessing where they best fit intomy lessons.BUt Icertainly don't play the same ol' games every time.
If I could choose again, I might go back and do the K12 grade 1 phonics program with her. It worked very well for my oldest, althoughit was very visually bland. I loved their letter tiles, built in review, and predictable, consistent sequence. I disliked their spelling however! I guess you can't have it all, right?

My kids do History, ARt, and Science all together. EVen the preschooler boy.
So here's a quick rundown of those subjects:

Art: Harmony Fine Arts. It's a very Charlotte Mason approach to both art appreciation and art "lessons" as well as music appreciation. Can't wait!

Science: We're doing something new this year. We'll be using Noeo (sp???) Biology Level 2. I think I can tailor it to all ability levels.

History: Wow, we loved Story of the WOrld level 1 so much last year that we only got half way through the book! We spent a lot of time on each chapter. So we'll just pick up where we left off and move on to Book 2 when we're ready.

There you go. Sounds simple enough right? I'll add more later about ideas I have for poetry next year...and I finally have had a successful idea for helping the kids learn vocabulary from our read aloud books. That's for another post as well.

Our First Science Fair

2011-04-06T22:26:00.001-07:00

I don't remember being in a science fair as a kid. I did a couple of "academic fairs" and always entered in the Language Arts section, but never did a science project.

I decided to encourage our second grader to attend the Washington State Science and Engineering Fair for several reasons.

First,I felt like we needed a bigger goal to work toward. I wanted to see our daughter make steady, long term progress on a project that required more than 30-60 minutes of her time and effort. Completing large projects is an important skill.

Second, I wanted her to feel part of something larger than our home school.

Third,I wanted to inspire her with the wonderful world of science in a way that our texts really can't.

And fourth, I wanted her to have an outlet for her sometimes competitive nature.

I do feel that all of our objectives were met. She did a fantastic job and even said, "wow,science is fun!" several times throughout the experience. You know how that affects us homeschooling parents. :)

Admittedly, the day of the fair itself was entirely exhausting for our family of six. We all went. My husband left work early and took the ferry over the Puget sound with us to the Bremerton Highschool where the fair was held last week. Our little 7 month old baby probably felt it the most. We left the house at 11:30am and returned home at 11pm. And that was because we left the second session of judging EARLY!!

Still, there is something to be said about sharing these experiences all together. It helps to have the younger ones witness the process and gear themselves up for the day when they can participate too. (I do have feedback for the organizers on the scheduling however....)

If there is a science fairinyour area, I'd strongly encourage you to look into participating. If you can't find one, think about organizing one,even if it's a small affair with just your coop. Need a venue? Check with your local YMCA to see if they can lend you a room for the occasion. You could even do an online science fair! And post all of your projects on a common blog. Why not??

Our daughter placed second in her grade. She felt good about her work. She met some great people, saw some great displays, learned some great study skills, and maybe even learned a little science along the way!

Poetry Tea party

2011-02-27T23:09:00.000-08:00

This post is a companion to the previous post. As a new fan of the Brave WRiter website/blog, I've decided to implement a monthly poetry tea.

The idea of holding a poetry tea inspired me because I've struggled with finding the right way to introduce my kids to poetry. I wanted them to enjoy poetry most of all, without making it feel like a chore.

You can read all about what a poetry tea party is here:http://www.bravewriter.com/bwl/poetry-teatimes/

Our younger participants repeated lines of previously selected poetry that was whispered in their ears, or showed off pictures of a favorite poem that they had produced. My oldest actually decided to play a piano piece instead of reading her original poetry that she had prepared. The family we invited to share the tea tiem with us shared some wonderful poems as well.

Next time, however, I think I'll try to put more emphasis on the actual poetry part of tea time, and less emphasis on chit chat during the tea. You know how H.S. moms are. They can't stop talking when they get together. GUILTY!! It's so fun to connect with other moms and I think that our conversations actually overshadowed the poetry part of it jsut a bit. But we had fun, we enjoyed poetry, we saw our friends and we had a great time setting up the fancy affair. So I'm chalking this up as a total first time success!

Give it a try. It's fun! Then let me know how yours went.

Curriculum Review -Writer's Jungle

2011-02-06T21:54:00.000-08:00

I wanted our return to homeschool to be successful. So I had to do some deep thinking about what was it (other than total sleep deprivation from new baby and the fact that we never got a summer break) that was causing friction in our home school.

I think there was some stress over the grammar/writing/lang arts part of our curriculum. So during our down time, I did a lot of research on writing curriclums and I asked myself, "What do I really want her to get out of a writing curriculum this year?" WEll, the answer surprised me: I don't want her to hate it. That's it. If we could just get beyond hating the task of writing and balking at every little word that is requested to be put on paper, I'd be a much happier mamma.

I ordered the WRiter's Jungle from Brave Writer.com and I have to say that I'm really pleased with it. The author, Julie B., seems to think the same way I do. But she does such a better job of actually channeling those thoughts into actual writing instruction. It helps that she really is a writer too!

We also subscribed to The Arrow, which is an age appropriate monthly newsletter with copy work and dictation material, as well as some tips for teaching the grammar and literature points in the selection. I'm not sure it's worth the money. She talks quite a bit about copywork and dictation in the manual. I think it's enough information to go on without paying for THe ARrow. But if you really want a plug and go system for copywork/dictation/grammar/lit then it would be with your while to subscribe.

I would recommend Julie's work to anyone. The only "drawback" (if you can call it that) is the fact that this manual is only written for the parent who will teach writing. It's not actual writing assignments or instruction for the student. So the parent needs to be able to digest the information and apply it to your student's age and cirumstance. Some of her recommnedaitons are very concrete and easy to implement. Some of them are just concepts and general attitudes or approaches that may seem vague or difficult to implement. Still, I'm very glad I got it.

Her site/blog has a ton of free information that I LOVE, and I have been slowly working on adding her tips and tricks into our writing curriculum.

And we are BACK!

2011-01-31T19:43:00.000-08:00

Today was our first day of our return to homeschool. And it felt great. Mostly it felt gret because my daughter has now made the choice to be on the journey with me as a partner, rather than an unwilling tagalong. She has looked on the other side of the fence, and decided that the grass really is greener right here at home. Wow. That's pretty much all the validation I ever need.

Experimenting with public school was probalby the healthiest thign we could have done for our homeschool. At first it made me angry, even a little scared, that we were delving into the depths of government run education. But the insight we gained into ourselves, our family, our relationsihp to learning and each other is priceless. Irealize that I'm being vague when referring to the positive effect that this experience has had on our family and our homeschoo. Truth is, there have been so many benefits (not academic) to this experience that, if I was asked, I would certainly recommend that every homeschool family take a break when they feel the need, and just give public school a temporary try. You might be surprised at what you gain.

My Recipe Library

2011-01-10T21:26:00.000-08:00

I've always thought it would be a good idea to keep my favorite recipes online so that I can access them anywhere, easily search through them and share them with ease.

After listening to the first speaker of the homeschool telesummit I told you about, I had the extra inspiration I needed to start this project. THe speaker does the same thing! I forget her name at the moment. She runs the site at www.princessacademies.com

Anyway, here's a link to the beginnings of my recipe blog. It will build ever so slowly. But "slow and steady, steady and slow, that's the way we always go." --Goofy.

http://recipelibrary.blogspot.com/

Teaching Patriotism

2011-01-06T10:13:00.000-08:00

I'm not shy about telling my kids how lucky they are to live in such a great land with so many opportunities and blessings. I try to show my passion for politics and love of country in my every day pursuits. I know some parents try not to be "political" in front of the kids so as to allwo them a chance to develop their own policial views. Whhaaaaat? If I don't teach my kids what I believe is correct and true about politics and our sacred duty to uphold the constitution, there are plenty of folks on the other side of the fence that would be HAPPY to brainwash them into their camp.

My mom tells me that when she grew up in California during the 50s and 60s, she believed that government was all good, that government could do no wrong, that there was no such thing as a "bad cop" and that all public officials could be trusted implicitly. Well, guess what...our kids can't afford to grow up like that!

So, while I don't regularly preach politics, I DO make a point to show my patriotism. I had a wonderful opportunity to do just that last night as we read from a great book called (IN THE YEAR OF THE BOAR AND JACKIE ROBINSON)IN THE YEAR OF THE BOAR AND JACKIE ROBINSON BY LORD, BETTE BAO[AUTHOR]Paperback{In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson} on 1986
.

Without spoiling the book for you, it's about a Chinese immigrant family. THe story is told by the young daughter in fifth grade. One day her teacher asks the class why Americans are so in love with baseball. What is it about baseball that Americans so deeply resonate with? No student could think of a good answer. So the teacher lays out this elloquent explanation:

"In our national passtime, each player is a member of a team, but when he comes to bat, he stands alone. One man. Many opportunities. For no matter how far behind, how late in the game, he by himself, can make a difference. He can change what has been. He can make it a new ball game.
"in the life of ournation, each man is a citizen of the United States, but he has the right to pursue his own happiness. For no matter what his race, religion, or creed, be he pauper or president, he has the right to speak his mind, to live as he wishes within the law, to elect our officials and stand for office, to excel. To make a difference. To change what has been. To make a better America.
"And so can you. And so MUST you!"Pg. 92

That is so powerful. I love it. It's why I cry at every game when they sing the national anthem.

My daughters and I had a beautiful conversation about the blessing of freedom and what makes it possible. I was clear about the two things we must do to maintain our freedom. Namely, we must honor God and keep his laws. We must also honor and uphold the Constitution.

My 7yo then piped up and said, "Mom, Obama likes to recycle. So that's good. He does good things." Uh....where is this info coming from? "My teacher told me!"
The look on my face must have said it all, because then she back peddled and said, " I mean, I don't know. I just know that."

Yeah, like I said, if I don't teach, there are PLENTY of others who will.

Home Education Super Summit

2011-01-04T11:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the first day of the FREE 10-day super TeleSummit. If you missed the first day, you have unitl Thursday to listen to the recording here:

http://www.hecoa.org/supersummit.html

If you'd like to officially register for this free teleseminar, you can contact Dianne here:

Dianne McLean
www.hecoa.org
seminars@hecoa.org

Or visit the site to sign up. I'm really looking forward to the reports on TJed, self government, "unplugged", high school, and socialization.

Enjoy~

Experimenting with PUblic School

2010-12-26T21:55:00.001-08:00

I've held the "option" of public school over my daughter's head for some time now. I know it's not totally healthy. When I can't think of anything else to motivate her into action, I would let her know that public school was only a phone call away. That was usually enough to get her busy again.

THen one day, we had an argument. It was fairly poignant. It stung on both sides I think. Something inside me went a little cold and I just felt that public school was no longer a threat to keep her in check, but a viable option that needed to be explored. I felt tha tmy stress load with the new baby was ever mounting. I Felt that homeschooling had become less attractive as I felt more and more overwhelmed. It was really hard to monitor behaviour while nursing from the couch or in the baby's room and when I finally got up to discover that the Wii had been on the whole last half hour instead of doing (what ever I asked) I generally would flip out because I was so tired, so sleep deprived, so short on patience.

So, that day, I really did make the phone call. We went down tothe school and I enrolled her. We started classes the next day. I had mixed feelings. I know my 7yo did too. She was excited to see our neighbor boy would be inher class, yet nervous and anxious about the unknonw. KNowing my daughter the way I do, I was sure she woudl love school. I just wasn't sure if I WANTED her to love school.

Well, I was right. When I picked her up on the first day she had the BIGGEST smile you ever saw to go with a red stain mustache that was evidence of a classmate's birthday party. Ugh. I felt like a failure. She loved public school way more than homeschool. I had given it my heart, my all, my soul. And failed. AFter all my strong feelings and convictions about the benefits of homeschooling, here I was having to admit that "government" really could make school more enjoyable for my child. It was a hard pill to swallow.

That was Dec 1 of this year. So she's had 3 weeks of public school. In that shor ttime, we've both learned a lot. Here's what's good to say about the experience thus far:

My daughter has learned to use an alarm clock. I don't have to nag her to get up and do anything. She gets up on her own and is ready for school without any nudging for me. She comes home with a smile! She enjoys her homework. She has made new friends. I have oodles more time. I can focus on my other children rather than squeezing them in between lessons with my oldest. It makes me feel like a better mom. There is more peace at home as we have no arguments over school work anymore. Her teacher is a doll. She really cares and does the best with the resources she has available. So, lots of positives right?

Obviously, I was concnerned about academics. We did second grade lastyear. Putting her into a second grade classroom felt very backward. They tested her at a 4.5 grade reading level, but dont' really have the time/resources to help her progress from that point. She'll be in the "top" group fo course. But that doesn't really mean she'll get the customized education that I'm used to providing her with. Theyactually told me that they stopped the reading test because she had done so well, but the third grade teachers didn't want the second graders moving beyond a certain point before coming into their classes. AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I had to squelch a big scream when I heard that.

Of course, personally I have a hard time with the school politics, the rig-a-ma-role of having to be part of sucha large system and play by their rules. Being controlled by their schedules, and subject to their policies is hard for a mom who's never experienced that. It feels like I have to just roll over and play dead.

A friend at a Christmas party explained it very well. She said going from homeschool to public school is the same as going from self employed entrepreneur to subservient employee. It's a super hard transition.

Well, my duaghter contineus to enjoy public school. I am trying not to show my distaste for the "big box" education they provide in her presence. HOWEVER....there's been a change, which I will explain more about down the road. But suffice it to say for now, that I think we'll be back at homeschool in February. Details to follow....

Story of the World - Mud Bricks

2010-12-26T21:47:00.001-08:00

I've been really bad about posting on this site. Most days I feel like what we're doing is pretty run of the mill and not exciting enough to post here. That and a significant time shortage translate into very few posts.

But, better late than never, I say. So here are a couple of "fun" things we did back in November.

1) Making outdoor art.

And for Story of the World, we went outside to experiment with making mud bricks during our unit on the Indus Valley Civilizations.

We also had a pretty good time making up our own story about what could have possibly happened to the Mojenjo Daro city. I think our version of its disappearance involved alien abdutions.

Science Fun

2010-10-17T20:58:00.001-07:00

I'll be the first to admit that school this year is pretty unexciting. Adding baby #4 to the family 6 weeks ago has taken its toll. And yet I'm still pleased with the progress we're making and the steady pace we're somehow keeping up.

So here's one of the funner things we did last week for science:

We used red cabbage juice as an acid base indicator to test various household liquids. Fun!

Book Club: A Lion to Guard Us

2010-08-26T21:32:00.001-07:00

Our Family book club had another meeting this morning. This time it was at our house and we discussed A Lion to Guard Us.

My kids all really enjoyed this book, as did I. There was SO much to explore in this book and I could've taken a lot of different angles. For time's sake, I had to leave out things like famous places/icons in London, the Bermuda Triangle, island vegetation and wild life, and building a model of Jamestown, VA.

Well in advance of the meeting I asked parents to help their kids create a diorama depicting one of the many settings in this book. Here are the dioramas that my girls did:
This one depicts an island setting with palm trees (above).

Here's another (below) depicting the night the kids were kicked out of Mistress Trippet's house and ended up on the docks at night where they met a crazy woman who wanted to snatch Meg away.

Other settings could include Miss Trippet's house, Dr. Crider's home, the ship, or Jamestown.

So here's how our 1 hour meeting went today:

We started by discussing a few lead in questions from below until we had established the living conditions of the children and their plight in life. Then we made biscuits (the ones Jemmy and Meg may have eaten on the steps with their stew behind a closed door).

Baking Powder Biscuits (makes about 1 dozen)

1/3 cup shortening1

3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup milk

Heat oven to 450 degrees. Cut shortening into flour, baking powder and salt with pastry blender until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Stir in just enough milk so dough leaves side of bowl and rounds up into a ball. (Too much milk make the dough sticky, not enough makes biscuits dry.)Turn dough onto lightly floured surface. Knead lightly 10 times. Roll 1/2 inch thick. Cut with floured 2-inch biscuit cutter. Place on ungreased cookie sheet about 1 inch apart for crusty sides, touching for soft sides. Bake until golden brown, 10 to 12 minutes. Immediately remove from cookie sheet.

We continued to work our way through the critical thinking questions/activities as we prepared the biscuits. THen while they were baking we had each child present their diorama.

We then held a character vote. I listed 5 main characters on the board and provided each child with a ballot to vote for one of the five as their favorite. We discussed "characters" and the voting process. The ballots included a space to draw a picture of the favorite character. The ballot box was an empty kleenex box.

By then our biscuits were more than ready so we ate and discussed a few more critical thinking questions from below.

I had planned to do the copper polishing experiment, but we ran out of time. Our family did this experiment on our own today instead of our regular science lesson. See below.

Critical Thinking Questions

1. What is the father’s name? Why did James Freebold travel to Virginia? He was a carpenter and they asked him to help build houses in VA. Why did the rest of the family have to stay behind in London? Because VA was a wild place not ready for women and children.
2. Why is the brass lion’s head door knocker important to the Freebold children?
5. Why does Amanda decide to journey to the New World?
6. According to Ellie, why does Mistress Trippett want to keep the Freebold children in her home?
7. Why does Mistress Trippett feel she is entitled to Amanda’s money? Why does Amanda disagree?

Fainting: Read and discuss the following information. Can your student determine the cause of Mistress Trippet’s fainting?

Fainting is a temporary loss of consciousness due to a drop in blood flow to the brain. The episode is brief (lasting less than a couple of minutes) and is followed by rapid and complete recovery. You may feel lightheaded or dizzy before fainting.
When you faint, you not only experience loss of consciousness but also loss of muscle tone and paling of color in your face. You may also feel weak or nauseated just prior to fainting, and you may have the sense that surrounding noises are fading into the background.
Fainting may occur while you are using the bathroom, coughing strenuously, or when you have been standing in one place too long. Fainting can also be related to fear, severe pain, or emotional distress. A sudden drop in blood pressure can cause you to faint. This may happen if you are bleeding or severely dehydrated. It can also happen if you stand up very suddenly from a lying position.
Ask the kids to act out Miss Trippett’s fainting spell.

9. How does Dr. Crider help the children on the night they are chased out of the Trippett house?
10. Why do the children have to travel in the hold of the ship? What are the living conditions in the hold? Dark, crowded, smelly, no place to lie down.
14. Who is it that often carries the lions head and polishes it? (Jemmy). Why do some people aboard the ship think the lion’s head door knocker is made of gold? (Jemmy told the children it was gold because he wanted to show them he had something even more important than their toys).

Copper Cleaning Experiment

While she is sitting in Dr. Cinder’s kitchen, Amanda thinks to polish the copper pots and pans. What is copper and why do copper objects need polished? Copper is a rock found in the ground. It is a kind of metal and looks like a brownish reddish orange rock when it is found. Copper is a good conductor or carrier of heat. Copper is used to make wires, plumbing pipes, doorknobs, faucets and even lamps and jewelry. Copper in small amounts helps plants grow. Copper tarnishes or changes color and looks dirty when it is exposed to air. Did you know pennies have copper in them? They do, and copper pennies, like copper pots and pans tarnish. How do you clean copper? Let’s do some experiments to find out? Our question to answer is What kind of cleaner will work best to clean copper? Create a chart and make a prediction or hypothesis about which cleaner: dish soap and water, vinegar and baking soda, lemon juice, household cleaner or toothpaste, will clean copper best. Then set to work testing your prediction. Results: The lemon juice and vinegar and baking soda should work to clean the penny the best. The acids in the vinegar and lemon juice react with the metal (copper) in the penny and clean the tarnish off.
Alternative: silver polishing.

16. Why do you think the composition of the lion’s head door knocker is so important to the ship’s passengers?
19. What do they find to eat on the island? Eggs, fish, wild pigs (pork) served on leaves. What do they build their houses with? Rocks, Logs, Branches, mud, and palmetto leaves for roofs.
Do you think the children enjoyed living on the island? Why?
20. Describe Mr. Freebold’s condition. Will he be okay?

Jump Start

2010-08-25T22:35:00.000-07:00

Baby #4 (another lovely little girl) will be joining us the week that school officially starts around here. So, I've been tryin go get a jump start on our next school year so that when September comes, I won't feel totally lame for taking some time off with the new baby.

I have to say that this little experiment has really made me consider being a year-round-homeschooler. It was so refreshing to take all of July off. But then as August crept on, I really didn't mind spicing up our slower days with a little schooling here and there. It's been gentle and gradual. If the weather was nice, we played outside. If it wasn't we got more school done. That simple. I like the pace we're at and if we kept it up year round, then there really wouldn't ever be aneed to "cram" or hurry or skip over. We'd just ease our way through all the info as we go through the year. Hm....something to consider.

Anyway, just thought that I'd share some of the stuff we've been working on lately. AFterall, this is something of a photo journal to supplment our portfolio and a great way to log some of our projects.

So here, below, is a model of the Nile River. We're doing Story of the World Book 1. Grass represents crops and it was fun to flood the river to water our crops.

We talked about early writing including Hyrogliphs and Cuneiform. Here are the girls' names written on clay tablets in cuneiform, well one of them.

We're in the process of making a mummified chicken so I'll have pics of that in about 3 weeks.

Here are the models of Cheop's Great Pyramid that we made tonight:

We're LOVING this history program. So fun.

In science, here's our model of a Helium atom: By the way, we are not using K12 online school for science as I had previously planned. We're using Real Science 4 Kids and we've started with the Pre level 1 chemistry. It's fun so far!

For Art, we're doing Great American Artists for kids. I only have 1 pic of the projects we've done so far. We talked about THomas Jefferson's love for arches and architecture. We discussed keystones and then made our own arches with (scented!) playdough.

Comments on this Blog

2010-07-29T21:40:00.000-07:00

Thanks so much to those of you who choose to step up and share a bit about what I've posted here. I apprecait input...I really do.

However, I don't speak, read, or write any eastern languages. Comments in languages that I cannot decipher will be removed. I'm sure you can see why: I simply have no way of moderating content if I can't read it myself.

I'm all for diversity and cultural awareness. I married a foreigner! But we can understand each other, and that makes a HUGE difference.

Thanks for cooperating. Not trying to put a damper on the fun, just letting you know that if I can't moderate it, then the comment will simply be removed.

I appreciate your understanding.

Kelly

Gearing UP!

2010-07-29T21:19:00.001-07:00

It's that time of year when homeschooling parents are cleaning out, brushing off, fixing up, and getting ready for the big "firstday" of school. That is, unless you're a "year-rounder" , in which case you're still plugging away steady as ever.

We do take summer breaks. Our sunny days in WA are way too sparse and precious to be spent inside doing school so we're pretty lax in the summer. However, this year is a bit different. See our "big first day" will be fairly anti climatic, since our little Ruby will be joining us that first week of Sept. When everyone else is off to the races, we'll be at a screeching halt.

So, I'm doing my best to get ready, get set, and go go go as much as we can during these beautiful and precious summer days, without depriving my kids of much needed and much deserved outdoor summer fun. It's a tricy balancing act.

Also, we came up with a name for our school. Since this is our third year of homeschool, I figured it was time to take the plunge and fully identify ourselves as part of the formal homeschooling community. OUr new school name is.....drumroll...
Cedar Heights Home Academy. Like it? I kinda do. Our back yard is loaded with cedars so it seemed to fit.

A Much Needed Pick-Me-Up for all Mothers

2010-07-02T15:40:00.001-07:00

Last Day of School and Home Exploration Program

2010-06-23T23:29:00.000-07:00

Today was officially our last day of school! Parts of me are jumping for joy, and other parts of me are going to really miss the opportunity to grow and explore with the kids each day.

Of course, we'll keep up a reading program, the book club and other educational opportunities as they arise. But I can see already how much I'm going to miss "school" for a while, even though I welcome the break.

In fact, I'm already busy at work developing our curriculum for next year. I thought I'd share it with you.

First, I have to let you know that we're having a baby in September, so our school year will be incredibly different no matter what curriculum we choose! We'll all be adjusting for a long time. Also, my second child will be starting a kindergarten curriculum. So I will officially have two students. The younger two have always been in school with us, but were mainly left to follow their own inclinations and I merely provided them with information or activities they requested. Next year we'll be more formal with the two of them, yet gentle as well.

So...here's the line up:

3yo: Before Five in a Row (with older sister), lots of manipulative's and creative exploration. Hopefully I'll be able to put together another preschool coop/play group for him next year.

4.5yo: Sing, Read, Write Spell K/1 program, Right Start Math level A, Before Five in a Row with younger brother. Working on another weekly preschool coop for next year (same as for little brother, not separate.)

7yo: This is where it gets a little crazy....

Math: Teachingtextbooks.com level 3

Science: K12 online school level 2

History: Story of the world Volume 1 with lots of supplements found at http://www.guesthollow.com/homeschool/history/ancient/books.html
I absolutely love this website! It's incredible. I hope the authors continue to develop the ancient history section. I've already decided to use their American History 1/2 for third and fourth grades. AWESOME stuff. And the lesson plans are free!

Reading: A lot of our reading will be tied to history and will come from the lists found on the above website. But I'll also be pulling some reading (both silent and read alouds) from this list:

A Lion to Guard Us , by Clyde Robert Bulla
Stone Fox, by John Reynolds Gardiner
Sarah, Plain and Tall, by Patricia MacLachlan
Henry Huggins, by Beverly Cleary
Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White
Li Lun, Lad of Courage, by Carolyn Treffinger
In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson, by Bette Bao Lord
Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Book of Three, by Lloyd Alexander
Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt
The Sign of the Beaver, by Elizabeth George Speare
The Cricket in Times Square, by George Selden
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, by Robert C.O’Brien
My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George
Call It Courage, by Armstrong Sperry
Ramona Quimby, Age 8, by Beverly Cleary
Pippi Longstocking, by Astrid Lindgren
The Hundred Dresses, by Eleanor Estes
Shiloh, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Caddie Woodlawn, by Carol Ryrie Brink
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis
Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery
The Door in the Wall, by Marguerite de Angeli
Ben and Me, by Robert Lawson

There are lots of free online resources to flesh out vocab, discussion, and story elements for most of the above books.

Writing: Writing With Ease level 3

Grammar: First Language Lessons Level 3

Spelling: AVKO Sequential Spelling

Logic: EPS Primary Analogies, Book 3

Vocabulary: EPS Wordly Wise 3000, Book B

There you have the meat and potatoes for next year. We're going to skip the music and art for simplicity's sake. But I will continue to enroll her in the YMCA Homezone program. This is her favorite thing all week and it consists of 2.5 hours of swim/gym/art classes. I think that I will also make good use of our local parks and rec program as they do offer fantastic art, music, drama and leisure activities for all age groups.

So, it's not the cheapest list, but remember that I get $1500/year from the Home Exploration Program, which is part of the Quilcene School District here in Washington. I've mentioned this program before, and I'll mention it again because it is FABULOUS. I couldn't be happier with the program.

Some of the BEST things about this program are the flexibility, support, minimal oversight and of course the absolutely fantastic field trips!

Here's a sneak peek at some of the field trips planned for next year. And remember, these are FREE, meaning you do not have to pay to attend the field trips (which are optional) and the funds do *not* come out of your annual $1500 allotment.

* Olympic Park Institute Overnight
* Ropes challenge course
* Whale watching
* Sail the Lady Washington
* Pumpkin Patch
* Bainbridge Island Acquatic Center
* WHirly Ball
* Fort Nisqually
* Tour of a local chocolate factory
* Museum of Flight
* Harlem Globe Trotters
* Seattle Childrens Theatre
* Seattle Art Museum
* Pioneer Farm overnight

There are lots more. That's just a sample. If interested call Rose Marschall at
(360) 808-2662 and tell her that Kelly A. sent you. I'll get an extra bonus in my annual allotment if you do! And hopefully we'll have a chance to meet up and enjoy some great homeschooling together.

Good Things to Come

2010-06-16T07:18:00.001-07:00

Standardized Testing

2010-06-01T22:29:00.000-07:00

Remember the Iowa Tests that we had to take in elementary school? I do. I remember the preparation, then the actual taking of the tests (it took DAYS) and then anxiously awaiting scores and wondering what they meant as far as my "smarts" went and how it would affect the teacher I'd be assigned to next year, the reading groups I'd be placed in, and mostly...what my parents might think. Yikes. Way too much stress for an elementary school child if you ask me.

But then, nobody had ever told me that you didn't have to take the test. We all HAD to take the test right? OR so they would have us believe.

So, I think the very last standardized test I ever took was either the ACT or the SAT (both?) to get into college. And I've never needed or wanted to take another standardized test since then. The irony is that, for all the importance placed upon these tests, they have ever ever ONCE had any bearing on my "real life" experience after my schooling. How about you?

Did any of your employers ask for your ACT results? Did the OB ask for your SATs before they'd consent to help you on your way to parenthood? Did your neighbors ask for the scores when they were getting to know you? How about your church community or your children's school personnel? What? You mean there's no relation to real life and those silly standardized tests?

Then WHY on earth do we care about them so so much?

Let me tell you about my most recent encounter with testing. I'm due with our fourth child on Sept 7. Given that this coincides with the beginning of the school year, I had serious doubts about whether or not I could continue to home school this coming year. So I began to search out other options for my soon-to-be second grader, who has been doing second grade work all year long. She's 7 now and is a terrific learner. She excels at reading, logical reasoning, and math and science. Although she claims her favorite subject is history. She recently devoured several books on mummies and pyramids. Ever since she's been regurgitating the most interesting facts about ancient Egypt. Stuff I certainly never knew.

Anyway, I knew my daughter was "gifted" (public school word) and I didn't want her thrown into the masses. So, I thought that if I could get her into our district's "gifted" class room she'd at least have some chance of surviving the year without withering in boredom. The acceptance process for this very elite, select group of young scholars required several letters of recommendation, and survey, evaluation and MOST importantly testcores above 92% in all subject areas. wow.

I decided to give it a shot. If for nothing else, I just wanted to see the public school system in action...testing, evaluating, categorizing and compartmentalizing. In other words, standardizing. How the heck can you standardize intelligence anyway? Isn't that what they were looking for? The SMART kids? The GIFTED kids? How the heck can a test tell you that? Anyway, I thought I'd find out. We had already missed the main test date, but they were told we would be lucky to get into a special testing date held especially for private and homeschooled children. ooohhh, thank you so muuuuuuch for accommodating my little fam.

I made no big deal about the test. I didn't make any effort to prepare her or tell her why we were taking the test, other than it might help us decide if we would be homeschooling again next year or not. that's all. No stress. No "GOOD LUCK", no "DO YOUR BEST", no "GO GETTEM TIGER". Nothing like that. She calmly followed the staff into the testing room with a quick smile and a wave over her shoulder as she went. OF course, I was barred from the testing room. Heaven forbid she have any family support.

The test lasted four tedious hours. And I stayed on site waiting for her with my 2 and 4 year olds. I was equipped with food and toys to last that long. There was only one other boy there form a private school who promptly informed us that he had been studying and practicing for this test for WEEKS. Thanks kid. We needed that.

Anyway, as the test wore on, my daughter stopped coming to visit me on her breaks. She preferred to socialize with the other kid and play board games during break time. No surprise. My kids are all very social and enjoy making new friends everywhere they go. (So much for socially crippling my homeschooled children, eh?)

All right, we took the test. And to my relief we finally left and went home. Then came the months...yes I said MONTHS...of waiting. It was more than 2 months actually. I opened the envelope with some excited curiosity, I confess. that all faded into disbelief, outrage, and then complete disgust for what I had just allowed the public school system to do to my child.

The scores were not "good". They would indicate that my child needed remedial help in all subjects. So needless to say she was not accepted. There was a pity letter included, stating that I could repeal the process if I liked and try to convince the board that my daughter was smart enough to join the gifted class. No thanks.

I was so completely appalled by the system's inability to correctly identify a child's level of ability that I no longer wanted any part of it for me or my children...EVER. So, my decision was made then and there. They had already made a box for my child. And I knew that if I ever put her in public school, she would be labelled and crammed into that box for good. There would be no hope of breaking the cycle if I ever allowed it to begin.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Every mom wants to believe that their child is special, smart, gifted, talented, super uper duper the bestest in the wordlest. Right? And maybe you think I should really look at those scores and reconsider the path I'm taking with her.

Ohhh boy. If only I had recorded every comment I've had from Sunday school teachers, piano teachers, neighbors, relatives, preschool teachers, swim coaches, and the like regarding my child's unusual maturity, level headedness, brightness, ability to learn, ability to lead, ability to empathize and show compassion, etc. Not to mention the fact that I myself have been schooling her in curriculum considered to be well beyond her age level for nearly two years now. I'm pretty sure I've got a kid who would qualify for a "gifted" program. But that's neither here nor there.

My point is this: If I wasn't convinced before that standardized testing is a bunch of hooey, I certainly am now. It's meaningless. And how much time, money, effort, worry and stress does it cost our communities and our kids every single year! It's wasteful and wrong.

I've just read John Gatto's book Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling in which he confirmed my feelings that standardized testing is absolute nonsense. I recommend you read the book for a number of reasons. It's very enlightening. He makes the point that we could each be part of a revolution in which standardized testing is done away with in all schools, simply by refusing to take them. Interesting.

As for me and mine, I'll make every effort to avoid them in the future.

Baby CHICKS!

2010-05-21T19:20:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd never do it...but I did. I agreed to let the kids raise some chicks. I figured, if we're going to spend money to feed and care for a pet, at least we can get something out of it, right? Some fresh eggs would be great! And I have to admit, they're pretty darn cute right now.

We've had them for two weeks, so they still live inside under a heat lamp while they are feathering out. The kids have been helping me retro fit an old plastic play house into a chicken coop so we'll be ready for them when they move outdoors. The neighborhood kids keep streaming in to see our baby chicks. And we've already had several neighbors offer to pay us for fresh eggs, which I had not expected. I'm not sure what our egg production will be like, but even if we only get enough to feed our own family and then some to sell so we can pay for their feed, I'll be super happy.

So, I admit that the kids weren't the only ones who wanted these little fuzz balls. After all the reading I've been doing, and the class I'm taking online at the TJed Academy and Prep school, I'm very very motivated to increase our self reliance. Especially given the current state of global economic affairs.

Greece is down and out, and our country is close behind. And you know what they say, the bigger they are the harder they fall. I fear it will be especially true in the case of our great land, unfortunately. Maybe not. But in any case, I want to be prepared for ANY thing that comes my way.

And it's been great fun, really. The kids have been eagerly watching me and anxious to help as learn to be more self reliant. Here's what I've been up to in that area:
Beefing up our food and water storage. I'm currently shooting for three months and will expand from there.
Expanding/planting this year's garden (pumpkins, peas, corn, tomatoes, beets, onion, carrots, green beans, radishes, pickling cukes, zukies, and broccoli)
Learning to compost
Making my own toothpaste, laundry detergent, hand soap, and home cleaners
Baking more bread (I took a class on making sour dough bread too!)
Planting more edibles around the yard (I've added 3 huckleberries, 1 raspberry and 2 blueberries to the yard so far this year).
I bought myself a pressure canner for my birthday (AGH, I'm almost 34) and scavenging canning bottles where ever I can.
There's more, but I'll stop boring you there.

I feel this urge to get as much done before baby 4 comes. It's a girl by the way. And if I have my way, her name will be Ruby.

I gotta tell you, it feels REALLY good to be able to DO something about the situation by taking control of my family's own food security rather than just fret and hope for the best. For me, action has led to hope and optimism. I guess it just goes to show you that if you are prepared, you shall not fear.

I've got a long way to go and TONS to learn, but I'm so enjoying this journey and SO SO glad that my kids can take this journey with me. I wish I had grown up learning this stuff easily and comfortably via normal daily living instead of taking a crash course in it. But it's never too late, or too early to learn self sufficiency.

Oh, and by the way, if you notice to the right here, I've been reading lots of Sharon AStyk's book on this very topic. She has been inspirational to me. HOWEVER....I must submit a personal disclaimer here. I do not totally endorse her premises for pursing self reliance. She's all about climate change and peak oil. I am not. But the great thing is, that regardless of our differing values and motivation, we come to the same wonderful conclusion: That our country MUST increase its self reliance and we must start with individual households and communities to do so.

Off Topic: Self Reliance and the Home Mini Factory

2010-04-02T07:08:00.000-07:00

This may or may not fit completely in line with the homeschooling theme of this blog. But if you're a TJed fan, like me, then you'll have already read (or be plannign to read) The Coming ARistocracy by Oliver DeMille. It's a short, power-packed book that will really get you thinking about your current lifestyle and how you can change it to empower your own freedom through self reliance.

In fact, I'm in the second week of an online TJed online Academy class about creating your own Mini Home FActory as a means of promoting freedom through self reliance. I feel like this is the class I've been wanting to take for YEARS but wasn't really sure how or where to get the information. I'm loving this class! It will be offered again in the fall, so if you're interested, let me know and I"ll send you the mentor's email so you can get the details.

Anyway, I'm learning a LOT and I just thought I'd share some of the fun links from our class discussion last night. I won't comment on them very much except to say that No, I am not a hippie. I consider myself to be the ultra opposite of a hippie. I'm a conservative through and through. HOwever, I do believe in freedom from the government through self reliance. And through that paradigm, all of this "tree huggin, land lovin, DIY" stuff really makes a ton of sense to me.

So...here's some links to check out and get you thinking about how dependent or independent you are within your own home, and what that means for your family today and in the future.

http://www.cheftessbakeresse.blogspot.com/ (YUM. Our mentor shared the recipe for Hearty Oatmeal Soup from this site. Look it up.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCPEBM5ol0Q Incredible!

AS pointed out in the above clip, there was a time when it was cool, and even politically correct, for everyone to grow their own food at home:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCPEBM5ol0Q Yeah, that's what I'm talkig about!!

www.neighborhoodbeekeeping.com Most of us don't live in UT, but could find something smiliar closer to home if interested???

http://www.backyardurbangardens.com

http://www.urbanhomestead.org

Here's what I really came away with last night: Think local, think close to home. Free yourself from imported goods that you could find closer to home or make yourself. Example: where were your shoes made? CHINA? Probably. Here's an alternative source for shoes: http://www.aurorashoeco.com/index.html
Something to think about!

Planets Preschool Lesson Plan

2010-03-16T15:21:00.000-07:00

Well, since becoming pregnant in December of 2009 with baby #4 this blog has certainly suffered. Not because I wasn't thinking about posting everything that's been going on, but because I was simply too tired! I'm sure you can all relate to first trimester blues. Yikes. Glad that's mostly behind me now.

So, let me get back on track by posting about one of my more successful preschool lessons that I taught today for my daughter's coop. There are five kids in the coop, so it's a nice cozy group. Here's what we did today:

Space lesson plan

Imagine you’re climbing a ladder into the sky. You can look down and see the top of your house. The cars and people are so tiny! The ladder keeps going so let’s keep climbing. Look down. All we can see now are the tops of the clouds and the big blue sky above us. Keep climbing. Now we are above the earth’s sky and it’s very dark. We are in Space! What is space? (Definitions may vary, but you might explain it as everything beyond our own planet earth and the bubble of air that surrounds our earth).

Hm....wait a minute. How do people usually get up into space? Do people climb ladders to get into space? No....that’s silly. You have to be trained as an astronaut, kind of like a pilot, so you can fly a space shuttle into space. (Show a picture of a space craft if you have one. Pg. 28 of Look into the Stars by Buzz Aldrin could work).

Now we’re going to pretend that we’re taking our own space shuttle to explore space, just like a real astronaut.

Sing It's A Blast http://www.preschooleducation.com/sspace.shtml
Sung to the Eensy Weensy Spider.

Put on your spacesuit. We're going to the Moon.
(pretend to step into pants and buckle boots)
Climb aboard your rocket ship.
We're gunna blast off soon.
Put on your helmet.
Strap yourself in tight. (pretend putting on helmets and buckling your safety belt)
You better check your controls.
Get ready for the flight. (pretend to turn on switches)
(You may wish to teach this to the kids line by line so they can sing it though all together before doing the blast off)

Say: The countdown has begun! (wave and salute)
Here we go, Get ready, Get set!
5, 4, 3, 2, 1
(slowly rise from seated position)
Blast off!
(jump up)

Now we’re up in space. What do you see? (let the kids imagine and role play) Talk about the way you’re floating because there is no gravity. Explain gravity as something invisible that holds you and everything else to the ground. Point out the sun, the immense expanse of darkness, large chunks of rock or asteroids. Pretend to see the planets and then direct their attention to http://scintro.com/kid/planets/index.html
As an alternate for the Styrofoam ball and CD, try using homemade play dough and discs cut from poster board. It worked great for us. I also let the kids decorate teh paper disc with water colors before adding the glitter glue.
Here's what mine looked like:

And here's what the kids made:

Snack: Astronaut food. Give kids a plastic bag with half a box of pudding poured in. Add appropriate amount of milk to each. Seal the bag. Let the kids mush it in their hands till thickened. Cut off a corner and let them suck it out the way an astronaut would to prevent liquids from floating away.
Show them pics on page 18-19 of Exploring Space: Astronauts and Astronomers by Judy Monroe Peterson. Read about life as an astronaut as children are snacking.

Coloring Time: http://funschool.kaboose.com/images/printables/space_9planets.pdf

Free/Exploration time.

Book Review - The 5,000 Year Leap

2010-01-20T23:44:00.000-08:00

This is a must read for every US Citizen. Leon Skowsen has provided the world a great service by writing this book. My first thought upon finishing the book was, "How on earth did I make it this far in life wtihout ever having anyone lay out this information for me before?" This ought to be standard reading for every Jr. High kid out there!

Ok, a lot of the information was familiar. None of it was totally foreign, of course. I knew a little bit about every principle in the book. But never had anyone taught me the "whys" and the "hows" of freedom so clearly and simply as did this book.

I could list sevral things I learned from each chapter, and quote at least half the book for you (it was that good!). But I won't. I'll tell you about 3 things that come to mind right now that I've learned.

1. At the very beginning the author clearly defines the various kinds of government our world has experienced through out time, listing their characteristics and effects on the people they govern. I was shocked and sickened at how closely our current administration has aligned itself with the definition of total monarchy, and how close we have come to losing the gift our Founding Fathers bestowed upon us with God's help.

2. I learned why it is in accurate to describe America as a democracy (although we often do) and why we ought to be clear that America is a Republic. Remember the pledge of Allegance? Hopefully they still say it in schools. I know we say ours every day. Well, we say, "and to the republic for which it stands." There's a reason for that.

3. Separation of church and state does NOT mean separation of religion and state. While government is not to endorse any specific religion or show preference for any given faith, it is VERY much the obligation of governemnet to recognize the Creator's hand in all things and abide by the natural laws of heaven. This was huge for me. I finally have a concrete response to those who are all about removing GOd from every public place.

Those are just 3 of the many things I gleaned from this book. Overall, I have an incrased sense of awe and love for the men who sacrificed so much to build our nation and give us teh foundation for freedom. It is now our sacred responsibility to pass this knowledge on, to fight for its preservation, and oppose any effort to destroy these 28 principles of freedom.

Family Book Club - Indian in the Cupboard

2010-01-09T17:00:00.001-08:00

First, I guess I should welcome myself back to the land of blogging after a nice long vacation. Hope it was a terrific Christmas/New Year for all of you. Lots of things going on here at home while absent from the blogosphere including house guests, toilet floods and plenty of "hanging out". This first week back in the groove was actually very refreshing and I think we're all glad to be back.

Anyway, last night was our turn to host the book club again (this was our fourth club meeting) and I think the meetings are getting better and better.

Here's how our meeting went:

I selected book discussion questions from this site: http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/collateral.jsp?id=1341_type=Book_typeId=886

From there, I could have really dug deep into Iroquois Indian life and explored that in detail. But we only had 60 minutes to work with so I chose to focus on the Three Sisters that formed the base of their diet: beans, corn and squash. I had chosen books from the library with pictures of a three sisters garden and we talked about Omri's lack of experience with squash. I had a butternut squash to show them.

Then, I had the kids put on blindfolds as I passed out samples of each of the three sisters. First I passed out small cups with a bit of corn and invited them all to touch and taste, but not to talk about it outloud. Then we set that aside and repeated the process with beans and squash. Then I asked them to guess which of the 3 sisters they had been fed first, second, and third.

After removing the blindfolds, we took votes to discovere which was the kids' favorite "sister". Turns out it was a tie between the corn and the squash, but I'll have you know I put in a generous amount of brown sugar and butter in the squash. Side note: I served the squash sample in a small cup with a popsicle stick so they wouldn't have to lick it off their fingers.

THat activity doubled as our snack. From there we talked more about the magic of the cupboard and its ability to transport the figures across time. I asked the kids to think about what time they would like to travel to if they could hop in a magic cupboard.

Each child was given an empty cereal box and scisors to create their own magic cupboard. Inside we colored pictures of a time and place that we would each like to visit if we could hop in the magic cupboard and go anywhere. OF course, the cupboard only worked with the magic key, so each child was given a laminated key with a red ribbon tied in it with the word "imagination" written on it. With more time, it would've beenf un to cover the box with paper and decorate it.

They each got a chance to show their magic cupboards to the group and explain the picture inside.

We had a great time and as usual, we are looking forward to the next club meeting!

Turkey Day Pop Ups

2009-11-25T11:36:00.000-08:00

The other day I asked my 6yo what she wanted to make for her Uncle's birthday. She replied that she would like to make him a Thanksgiving Day Popup Book. Interesting response, I thought.

Ok. So after checking around on the net, we settled on TG popup cards.

We used this terrific website that I think we'll return to in the future when it's time to make other holiday cards.

http://www.robertsabuda.com/popmakesimple.asp

Dikes and Canals

2009-11-16T21:48:00.000-08:00

Our history class thus far is more like geography. We've been covering the continents, beginning with Australia and we are currently nearing the end of our Europe Unit. Today we did the Netherlands, which stimulated a discussion of dikes and canals. Here's our model we made today:

It's home made play-doh. Gets pretty icky after sitting for a while. But it was a fun way to experience what a dike is. As a spin off we will read Hans Brinker: Or, The Silver Skates: A Story of Life in Holland (Illustrated Junior Library Edition, 1945)
That is, we will read it after we finish reading The Borrowers
and
The Wind in the Willows (Signet Classics)

So many good books! So little time

Spelling Games and Activities

2009-11-11T23:44:00.000-08:00

I am forever looking for new ways to do spelling. The old study-cover-write method sure is boring for all of us.

Here are a few ideas that I have recently gleaned/created and they seem to be working well for us:

1) Use fun foam pre-cut letters to spell your words.
2) Choose a different font for each word and type it out on the computer.
3) Phone spelling: Use a phone keypad to spell out your words in numbers. Example: Hug = 484
4) "Bounce" Spelling: Bounce a ball to each other as you take turns spelling out the words. One letter per bounce (thank you yahoo group for this idea!)
5) spelling bingo: I make up grids and laminate them. Then I can use them for any list. Fill in the grid with current list of words. Then print out a list of the words, cut them out, put them in a can. In another can, put the letters B I N G and O. I like to write them on popsicle sticks. Each player takes a turn pulling out a BINGO letter and a spelling word. The player then calls out (for example) B -Mother. Cover your square if you have it.
6) Use alphabet stamps to stamp out the spelling list.
7)Write the words in a try filled with flour, salt, sand, or cornmeal.
8) Hang Man, of course, is a favorite.

By the time we've done all that, the spelling test is a snap!

Any other ideas? I would love to hear them.

Food Guide Pyramid Activity

2009-11-11T23:28:00.001-08:00

Of course, Thanksgiving is a terrific opportunity to discuss pilgrims, indians, turkeys and gratitude. But with all the eating we do this time of year, it's also a really great time to talk about food and nutrition.

We had fun doing a group lesson on the food guide pyramid. I used yarn and pushpins to make the pyramid on the side of a cardboard box. Then after a brief lesson on the food groups, we looked through newspapers to find pictures of food items and then pasted them into their correct food category on the pyramid.

We all had fun hunting for items, deciding where they go, cutting and gluing. Here's what we ended up with:

Believe it or not, we had a hard time finding items for the grains group. So I ended up printing some things out on the computer to stick in there.

I also did some research to find out how much of each food group each member of our family should be eating based on age, gender, and activity level using this site. I wrote that information next to each category on the pyramid. Now when we eat my kids are always commenting on what food group they are eating from.

Book Review: The Virginian

2009-10-30T23:03:00.000-07:00

I think I started this book back in August! I'm embarrassed to admit that, but it is true. Wow, it's been really hard to find time to read since school started. Hm...go figure.

But besides that, I had a really really slow start to this book. Westerns are not usually my favorites and I had my doubts about this book but took my chances. Boy am I glad I did. I never would have read this book if it hadn't been given to me as required reading before attending a Thomas Jefferson education Home Schooling Seminar in Portland this fall. The seminar was focusing on how to teach a piece of classic literature to your kids. Unfortunately, I never made it to the seminar. But I'm grateful for the motivation to pick up this book.

It wasn't until after I started reading that I learned that this book was the origins of a famous 1960's TV series. And after searching on You Tube, I discovered that there are much more recent films/shows based on this book as well. There was even a musical!

In a nut shell, it's that familiar old story line of boy meets girl. She's educated and has a family name to live up to. He's a rough and tumble cowboy with very little education but was blessed with intellect, courage, a keen conscience, wisdom, determination, vision, patience, and a work ethic that won't quit. He inevitably wins her over (though nearly missed his chance) and she is smitten by his ultimately superior character and charm.

But there are other story lines, or themes in this book, not the least of which is another familiar one: Obtaining the American Dream by overcoming any and all obstacles. Nothing can stop a dream from becoming reality in the wild west where men were truly free. Nothing, of course, except one's own self.

The book adeptly handles other delicate issues and moral questions such as class envy, religion (or lack thereof), and justice of the law in a land that was often lawless.

I loved this book. And, as is usually the case after I finish an excellent book, I find myself wishing that it were not over. I always feel like I've said good bye to a good friend that I will not see for a very long time when I finish a great piece of literature.

In fact, I was so taken by this book that I began to look for country side real estate and thought about adding some rustic decor to my home. There most certainly is a power in this book that brings to life an era when responsibility lie squarely upon the shoulders of the INDIVIDUAL (i.e. not the government) to make sure that he/she got what was wanted out of life. Something in me yearns for those times when the word "bailout' applied only to hay and not an entitlement-hungry, zoned out, morally decadent generation of has-been citizens.

I highly recommend this book. It offers lessons in nearly all areas of life including history, love, and the importance of life-long learning. I hope you enjoy it. If you have read it and have a comment to share, please do!

Kelly

Published Author at Age 6

2009-10-30T22:51:00.000-07:00

My 6yo and I have been discussing the writing process: pre writing, rough draft, editing, final draft, illustrating and publishing.

To complete the process, I told her that we would indeed publish her finished work. So, without further ado, may I present to you, Chickens Walk on Two Tiny Feet.

Dancing Raisins

2009-10-30T22:46:00.000-07:00

This was a fun one for my 2yo, but also managed to captivate my 3yo and 6yo for a bit.

Dump some baking soda raisins and vinegar into a jar and wait. The bubbles fill the crevices of the raisins and make them float (like water wings on your baby). Then as they rise to the top, the bubbles pop, the raisin sinks, and it starts all over. Fun to watch.

Don't let your raisins soak for too long after the experiment. Vinegar and soggy raisins are not pretty.

Skip Counting Ideas

2009-10-30T22:42:00.000-07:00

I love our 100s board. I paid a pretty penny for it from Insta-Learn, a local WA company, but I think it has been worth it. We've used it in so many ways, and I'm sure we will continue to do so. It comes with chips that correspond to each number. And each chip has a "key" or series of notches on the bottom that is unique. So it will only fit in its proper place.

Here you see us using the 100s board without the chips. We're using puffballs to practice our skip counting by 3s and 4s. It was a very helpful visual.

We also used some Montessori style bead chains to practice our skip counting.

October Art Projects

2009-10-30T22:19:00.000-07:00

I know the month is over and sharing ideas on October art projects is a bit pointless, but just for future reference and to remember all the fun we had, here are some of the fun projects we did during table time this month:

Pumpkins:
These are just brown lunch bags stuffed with newspapers and painted.

Ghosts:
These are made by placing construction paper cut outs between 2 pieces of wax paper and then ironing. We had a lot of fun with them.

Bats:

Pretty self explanatory.

And Spiders:

We also took a walk to collect fall leaves and pinned them up on the line that also supports our ghosts and spiders:

Here's one that is a bit off topic but the kids loved it:
Balloon Printing:
I forget where I got this idea. I think it was from the workbox Littles yahoo group. I covered our table with white paper (from a roll), poured paint in a tray for them all to share, and let them have at it. Of course, by then end we had just a bunch of grayish blackish paint, but the process was enjoyable. And the finished product was something like a mural that now hangs on our wall.

Alphabet Exercise Cards

2009-10-28T22:11:00.000-07:00

I saw some really great alphabet exercise cards on one of the yahoo groups I follow. But they were all in color (my printer is NOT) and I wanted so spice them up with a few more challenging exercises.

So...I made up some of my own and I'm happy to share them with you here:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcDXg4_j5C40ZGM3MjhnZDJfNGZkNjRxeGYy&hl=en

For some reason Google docs always changes my formatting so they don't look as pretty as the originals. Oh well. Hope they are useful to somebody out there.

And you can ignore the last 1.5 pages if you like. I was trying to save space for another project of mine, which entails a 3-part matching game for different country flags.

I thought it would be fun to pick out the cards that spell the child's name, or pick an exercise to go with the letter of the week, or spell out the subject of a workbox and do the exercises before taking out the workbox. Lots of possibilities. I'm just looking for ways to keep my kids moving as the weather gets wet and cold.

Christmas Wish List

2009-10-27T16:15:00.000-07:00

Here's something I really want to get my kids for Christmas

Here's what Glenn Beck says about his new book for kids:

"I've gotten so sick of complaining about other people's books targeting our kids that I figured I'd just write my own. But instead of hidden messages about global warming, universal healthcare, and greedy corporations, I filled my book with messages about controversial things like family, faith and forgiveness."

Fun American History

2009-10-23T09:31:00.000-07:00

There's yet another great yahoo group that I love called Click Schooling. They review lots of great online learning resources.

Diane runs the group and I am not allowed to share her whole review wtih you due to copy write laws, but here's the link from the Smithsonian regarding that famous George Washington painting you have seen your whole life, but probably know very little about

Recommended Website:
Smithsonian' s George Washington: The Portrait
http://www.georgewashington.si.edu/portrait/index.html

There is a great section for kids with all kinds of learning tools.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Lessons

2009-10-23T09:27:00.000-07:00

I just barely read this in our work box yahoo group and thought it was so fun that I'd share it here as well:

Pumpkin Places
"Fresh from the World" is a program by the University of Illinois extension that explores different aspects of food in our lives. There are a series of slideshow videos – this one is "Pumpkins…The Scary Squash!"
http://urbanext.illinois.edu/food/sections/pumpkins/?page=0

There are "Back" and "Next" buttons, which are helpful to review information. For the sake of comprehension, kids can view this once just to get familiar with it, a second time to make a note of vocabulary (especially words they don't know), and then a third time to answer the questions on this worksheet:
http://www.trcabc.com/wp-content/uploads/Pumpkins...The-Scary-Squash.pdf

Want to carve a pumpkin, but with no mess? Here is a way your kids can do just that!
http://www.cubpack81.com/images/carve_pumpkin.swf

And finally, here's a great way for your students to write a scary story while practicing parts of speech. Go to Spooky Night ad-lib where kids fill in the blanks with the correct parts of speech and make some silly – er, scary – stories! You can even print them out.
http://holidays.hobbyloco.com/halloween/story2.html

The Growing Book Club

2009-10-19T22:40:00.001-07:00

Here's another fun update on our Family-to-Family book club.

Our friends chose Charlotte's Web to read for our last book club and it was a huge hit with the kids. They also hosted the meeting and planned the most adorable activities for the kids.

We made spiders out of cupcakes and string licorice. The best part were the paper plate webs the kids made (center cut out with holes punched around edge and laced with yarn), complete with words cut from newspaper just like the ones Templeton would have chosen for Charlotte. Very cute. The kids had a blast.

So the word is spreading and we now have a third family joining the book club. They have chosen a really fun book for us to read this time:

And I'm pleased to say that in the last 2 days we had a fourth family join us! It's so terrific to see other families join us in our love of literature. What a fun way to bring families together while teaching children that reading is a life long pursuit for all of us. I couldn't be happier about the way things are turning out!

The Ressurection

2009-10-19T22:35:00.000-07:00

I had posted this little story on my family blog a few weeks ago. But as I re-read it, I noticed again how big an impact good literature can have on our lives and the important discussions it can initiate with our children.

So I'm sharing this with you here as yet another example of how good literature can waken even the youngest of souls to everlasting truths.

We read Charlotte’s Web a while back. If you have read it you know it’s about a pig named Wilbur who is afraid that he will be killed by the farmer at Christmas time. His Spider Friend, Charlotte, resolves to keep him a live by making everyone believe he is “some pig”.

Well, more than once in the book, Wilbur laments his situation by repeatedly saying, “I don’t want to die….I don’t want to die….”

Poor Sofia was truly distressed by these passages and started asking me lots of questions about death. How do you die? Why do you die? Am I gong to die? Are you going to die? When? And then she would always end the conversation in a sad whiny voice with, “Moooom. I don’t want to DIE!’ and then I’d do my best to console her.

Well, then about a week ago, I was in the bathtub reading the Ensign (a magazine published by the LDS church). Sofie sauntered in and stood next to me, looking at pictures in the magazine. She pointed to a picture of Christ (I can’t remember which picture it was) and asked me about it. Our conversation, led by the picture, was about Christ’s death and resurrection. I explained very simply that Jesus died. "Oh, He did??"

And then I explained that he is alive again. "OH HE IS????" And that because he died and lives again, we can all live again with him after we die.

Her reaction to this glad news was so sweet, so sincere, so pure…I can hardly describe it. Her face literally brightened and she smiled so big. “Oh mommy! That makes me so happyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!”

And for one second I was able to look into a child’s heart with all it’s innocence and purity. She didn’t doubt or question the resurrection. She accepted it fully and with joy. She understood it immediately and laid aside her fears of death. We’ve never had a sad conversation about death since.

Being “mom” is sometimes draining, EXHAUSTING, mundane and very demanding. These special little moments when we get a glance at the bigger picture are the best, sweetest rewards. And there’s no other way to earn them. So glad I get to be mom and be part of these little awakenings in each of their little souls.

Pumpkin Snacks

2009-10-15T22:49:00.000-07:00

Here's another way to make pumpkins a fun and yummy part of your October:

Cut a face into any size flour tortilla.

Brush the tortilla with vegetable oil that has been tinted with 2 parts yellow and 1 part red food coloring.

Fry it gently (both sides) and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar while still warm.

Yum.

(here's one that hasn't been munched yet)

Learning from Literature

2009-10-12T16:31:00.000-07:00

As a Thomas Jefferson Education proponent, I fully endorse the use of classic literature (and other media) to teach valuable life lessons and educate our children.

I was really encouraged to find this article that supports this use of literature to teach one particular lesson of triumph over hard and difficult times.

I'm quoting directly from http://www.ldsliving.com/magazine/article/2218/FHE:-Change

"Let me share with you three approaches to handling growth and change and our tomorrows. To illustrate the first, do you remember the famous book Gone with the Wind? Scarlett O'Hara, in times of great stress, uses a phrase that is characteristic of her approach to facing difficult challenges. "I won't think about that now," she says. "I'll think of it all tomorrow. . . . After all, tomorrow is another day."

We see another approach in the popular play Annie. Annie, an orphan child, is mistreated, abandoned, and neglected, with no real evidence of having a brighter future. But in Annie's mind she has hope; she has faith. As she sings those famous words, "The sun will come out tomorrow," she lifts and leads herself and others out of the darkness of their despair into the sunshine of hope. Annie doesn't know what tomorrow will bring, but there is no question of her unwavering optimism.

The third approach is found in the musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown
. We see Molly at the beginning as a backwoods girl with few opportunities, no education, and no refinement. While wrestling with her adopted brothers she is pinned down, and one of them yells, "You're down, Molly! You're down!" Molly responds, "I ain't down! And even if I was, you'd sure never hear it from me 'cause I hate the word down, but I love the word up 'cause that means hope. And that's what I got. Hope for someplace prettier and someplace cleaner. And if I gotta eat catfish heads all my life, can't I eat them off a plate and in a red silk dress?"

Scarlett O'Hara tells us something about waiting for another day if we cannot handle any more today, and that is an important lesson. We can live with the hope and maybe a promise that tomorrow will be better, since it may seem at times that it can't possibly get any worse. Annie has great faith, knowing that as bad as things are, the sun will shine tomorrow. And that's only a day away. But Molly Brown won't wait until tomorrow. She believes that the promise of tomorrow rests in her hands today. She refuses to be down for even a dayâ€”and even if she were down, no one would know it. Molly realizes that if happiness is dependent on tomorrow, then when tomorrow comes she can still be living in expectation of a better day. She plans for tomorrow by taking care of today."

(Ardeth Greene Kapp, My Neighbor, My Sister, My Friend, [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1990].)

Books to Grow On

2009-10-07T01:49:00.000-07:00

AGAIN I need to thank some person on some yahoo group (sorry for the generalities) that mentioned this amazing resource available through yoru public library called Books to Grow on. They are amazing! They are literally lessons in a box based on a theme that you select in advance.

Here's a pic of just one of the MANY selections they offer. This one is an alphabet themed box complete with letter blocks, felt board activities, books, CD, DVD and manuals.

Se if your library has them. They are AWESOME. All three kids are enjoying them on some level.

D Day

2009-10-07T01:41:00.000-07:00

My Pre Ker is well on her way to a solid phonics foundation. But as I went through the letters/sounds with her the other day I noticed we need to do some brushing up and cementing of things.

So we're on Letter D this week.

Here's what we did:

This is our Letter Board. Words were taken from http://www.letteroftheweek.com
dog, Donald Duck, dinosaur, dolphin, dentist and dance.

Books we are reading:
Delicious!

and

Ducks Disappearing

Here's what is her workbox for letter D tomorrow:

Tracing D with finger and then writing in the salt tray.

Reviewing what's in our D sound drawer

Print outs and activities from Teacher File Box dot com.

Math Wrap Ups

2009-10-07T01:36:00.000-07:00

I love the WorkBox yahoo group that I belong to. The ladies on that group are SO incredibly talented! I'm grateful for all their inspiration.

Here's something that I recently learned while perusing the photos in the workbox group:

What a great way to memorize math facts! You can buy math wrap ups online, but I had everything I needed to make these for free. I love them because they are self-correcting, which is very Montessorian. I do love all things Montessori.

More Fall Fun

2009-10-07T01:18:00.000-07:00

Can't help it! I love Fall. Here are some of our recent Fall activities and projects:

A Feelings Pumpkin:

WE combined our pumpkin theme with our "feelings" lesson. This pumpkin has 4 faces, each face expresses a different feeling. He's easy to make. Just find a pumpkin template and trace/cut it out on construction paper 4 times. Fold each pumpkin in half, glue them together and voila. Use a pipe cleaner for the stem. Decorate faces before gluing together.

Here's another:

This was a fun project. Our little owl was used to help us learn the following poem for one of our music lessons:

High above in that old tree, HOO, HOO, HOO
There is someone watching me HOO, HOO, HOO
He's keeping me within his sight, HOO, HOO, HOO
As he shrieks all through the night HOO, HOO, HOO

They say the Owl is very wise HOO, HOO, HOO
He's smarter than the other guys HOO, HOO, HOO
But I'm not convinced it's really true HOO, HOO, HOO
BEcause he's forever asking "who?" HOO, HOO, HOO

If knowledge is the Owl's game HOO, HOO, HOO
Then why doesn't he know my name? HOO, HOO, HOO
I've told him time and time anew HOO, HOO, HOO
But still he keeps on asking "Who?" HOO, HOO, HOO

I wish that Wold would go away HOO, HOO, HOO
It makes me mad to hear him say HOO, HOO, HOO
But there's nothing left for me to do, HOO, HOO, HOO
Except to tell him to ask YOU! HOO, HOO, HOO

Have the kids repeat the HOO, HOO, HOO each time to practice making a high pitch sound in their heads. Contrast it with a low pitch HOO in their chest/throat.

Pumpkin Poem:

(sorry it's sideways)

Each morning we have "table time" before we dig in to our workboxes. Table time consists of a song, prayer, flag, calendar, weather, poem and then some kind of group activity like a game, craft, experiment or project.

I change the poem only every 2 weeks so that even my littlest one has a chance to learn all the words. I make a puppet of sorts to go with each poem and they each have a turn holding it during the poem. So we say the poem 3 times each morning.

Here's our pumpkin poem for the first 2 weeks of October:

Pumpkins oval, pumpkins round,
Pumpkins tumbling on the ground
Pumpkins orange, pumpkins gold,
Pumpkins even white I'm told!
Pumpkins FAT and pumpkins thin
Pumpkins with rough bumpy skin
Pumpkins pretty and pumpkins fun
OH, how can I pick just one?
(there was more to the poem, but I cut it down to 8 lines becaue my chart only has 8 pockets.)

So, for tomorrow's table time here is what we are going to do:

This is a flannel board game that I got from Teacher FIle BOx dot com. I do love my membership with them. So worth it. This is called "Witch's Cat" and you first need to teach the kids this poem:

Come my pretty
Come my pet
You can't hide
I'll find you yet!

Then you call one child up to look under one of the objects to see if the cat is there. If not, she sits down and someone else gets a turn. If they find the cat, they are the next to hide it in a different spot while others hide their eyes.

Fall Fun

2009-09-27T20:28:00.000-07:00

We celebrated the first day of Fall, which was September 22, by covering up some of our bare wall space with this fun Fall Tree.

I got the idea from my membership at TeacherFileBox.com

I used lunch bags for the branches. And for the leaves I made my own template. Each leaf has a green side and a "fall side" that is either red, yellow or orange. The green sides are numbered and help us count down to Halloween. Each day we flip a leaf over so we can watch the tree turn colors and it helps cut down on the "how many more days to Halloween mom?" questions.

Once all the leaves are turned, we'll drop them one or two down to the base of the tree as we watch the seasons turn to winter.

Maybe when winter hits we'll put snow on our tree and decorate it with lights for Christmas. It could be a really fun way to celebrate each season.

Then we read some really cute Fall stories: the Biggest Pumpkin Ever
and
The Scarecrow's Hat

I love Fall. It's my favorite.

How Did You Remember 9-11 This Year?

2009-09-19T22:04:00.000-07:00

In the past I had never really been sure how to remember or commemorate 9-11. I usually put out a flag, say a prayer, and go about my day. I always remember the rush of feelings I had on 9-11-01.

At the time I was a newly wed, living in Brazil and teaching English to business professionals. I was in the teacher breakroom, catching up on email when a fellow American teacher approached me and said, "The World Trade Center was hit." I thought she meant the one in Sao Paulo. I had driven by it several times. I was concerned but not devestated.

Then she continued to explain as she took my hand and let me to a small TV propped up on a small stand in the upper corner of the room. I watched the planes hit the towers, over ....and over....and over...

I was speechless. The other Brazilian teachers and staff made kind comments like, "I'm so sorry Kelly." or "It is terrible what happened to your country today."

Never have I missed my homeland like I did at that moment. I wanted so badly to be "home" and grieve with my countrymen. I felt so alone in my sadness at what had happened. My Brazilian husband, while supportive and caring, just couldn't relate to the sense of loss I felt. I went home that night, and searched our little apartment for the small American flag that I had packed before returning to Brazil after our honeymoon. I removed it from the pole and carefully sewed it to the backpack I used for lugging all my teacher supplies around the city with me every day. As I sewed it on to my backpack, I wondered if I was making myself an international target by identifying with a country that was the aim of so much hate and anger. But I didn't really care. I remember feeling oddly proud and yet slightly apprehensive as I walked the streets with my American flag sewn on my backpack. When ever I crossed a fellow American, they would notice my flag and offer encouraging words.

Anyway, a lot of healing has happened since then. And this year I just felt like it was time to my 6yo in on some of what happened that tragic day, but in a non-feaful way.

So, on the recommendation of some great moms that belong to the WorkBox yahoo group, I got hold of a book called The Man Who Walked Between the Towers
It was a great book and a fun way to introduce the twin towers to my girls. Then we read September 11: A Primary Source History (In Their Own Words)
for the information I needed to help explain what happened on 9-11.

We did this during table time (the group time we have before doing workboxes). Of course, I was crying as I shared some of what that day had meant to me. My 6yo seemed interested, but not deeply concerned and a bit puzzled at my emotion. I didn't really go into it a whole lot or explain my tears in great depth.

But I am glad that I opened her eyes a tad to the reality of 9-11 and I'm sure we'll touch on it again in future years.

By the way, reading this book inspired my husband and I to watch the movieMan on Wire

It was great! My hands were sweaty the whole time watching this tight rope walker! Lots of history to be learned in this movie. There was one small part that was TOTALLY inappropriate for kids and it completely blindsided me. I was NOT expecting it. So...beware.

First Day of School Pictures And .... Stuff

2009-09-09T23:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our first day of school! Hurray! It went really well.

We've got a 2yo, a soon-to-be 4yo, and a 6.5 yo.

Well, since we made a last minute switch in our plans to attend WAVA, we don't have official curriculum to follow yet. We withdrew from WAVA at the last minute in favor of a home school program available through the Quilcene district (thank you Chari for telling me about it!). This program reimburses WA home school families up to $1500/child/year for approved materials and activities. BONUS! And you get to keep your home school status. AND there is only minimal contact with the school district. AND you are in control of the flow of the work and which classes you take. Wow, what a great partnership between the state and the home schooling family. We jumped on it....at the last possible minute. Which means our books won't be here until next week. So in the mean time, we're just having fun reviewing concepts from last year.

It's actually been really nice to just follow my gut and give my kids work that I know they'll enjoy (mostly) and that gets my creative juices flowing too.

So, while we're waiting, here's just a peek at some stuff that has gone in the boxes recently:

for the 2yo:
Digging puzzle pieces out of rice. He loved it.

So now we'll try digging magnets out of the rice to arrange on our magnet wall that is about 2 ft. x 3 ft. and located right next to my desk where I can keep tabs on the mess.

Have you ever played with wedgits? They're fun.

Matching eggs that have been filled with various things from around the house (rice, nails, chocolate chips, paper, spools of thread, beans, etc)

I got these colored chips at Staples. He drops them into a yogurt container that has a slit cut in the top of it. Keeps him busy for about....7 minutes or so.

I got these blobs of colored glass at the thrift store. He sure likes putting them in this bead organizer.

For my preschooler:

She punched holes in this foammie stuff and then sorted the colored dots.

Then we saved teh dots to decorate our Letter I the next day:
Above: Finger paint from the dollar store. Don't forget the apron...

Above: pattern blocks are from discount school supply. The printouts are from www.prekinder.com I think.
ABove: number quantity. holes are punched in trimmed yogurt lids and little fingers put pony beads in the holes.

More number quantity work.

You know what...I need to get to bed. I'll finish this post tomorrow! Enjoy

Preschool Activities

2009-08-31T23:36:00.000-07:00

So, my 2yo and 3yo will be increasingly active in our school room this year. I have the challenge of making our school room user-friendly for all of them now.

Coming up with activities for the 2yo is proving to be the most challenging, but here are a couple that I think he'll like:

He'll spread out the different colored pieces of felt and then try to toss the matching bean bag on it. I think my 3yo will like this too and it can be used in a variety of more/less challenging ways.

Sorting plastic silverware. Just for fun. Got it at the dollar store.

Sorting sea shells (bought them at fred meyer) into a 12 compartment bead organizer. This is re-do of an older version I had of this activity. I used to use the entire bag of shells (but it took way too long for them to do) and have them sort it in a muffin tin (but the thing was way too big). I think this will work better and re captivate their interest in the activity. I may add tweezers to make it more challenging and the 6yo will probably like it too.

More to come, I hope.

Morning Routine and Chore Chart

2009-08-31T22:49:00.000-07:00

I have been pondering the question of how to organize our morning routine and our chores for many months...probably since the beginning of the year. I was delighted when the workbox yahoo group had a very indepth discussion on the topic. I also read the book A Thomas Jefferson Education Home Companion
and got some terrific ideas. Then my friend from church told me about a system she had put together for her young children as well. So my subconscious had plenty of ammunition to keep it firing and it FINALLY came up with something that seems to be working pretty well in the 3 days I have been putting it to the test.

Here's what I needed from a chore system:

I wanted ONE chart for both morning routine and chores.
I needed REAL, meaningful work to get done at an age appropriate level.
I needed it to be motivating, simple, easy to use. I also need it to be flexible enough to roll with a very unpredictable group of kids. And because I rarely hold myself to a rigid set of steps to complete each day, I didn't feel like the chart should always be the same for them either. There needed to be an element of choice, of ownership, of pride.

So....

Here's what our chart looks like at the beginning of the day:

The 2yo is not included on the chart yet. But he does get to help out when he can and gets the same sort of "reward" as the girls do when/if he does.
I put magnetic tape on the back so it can hang on my fridge and I can slide it up out of 2yo's reach. I got this pocket chart at the dollar bin at Target.
The row of icons just under each girl's name is the morning routine. It's the same for them both:
eat, toilet, brush teeth, get dressed, put PJs away, brush hair. Each completed icon gets 1/2 of a "bean" (explained later). So finishing the morning routine = 3 beans for each girl. A half bean icon is placed in front of each completed step of the morning routine so that it is visually obvious how they're progressing along.

Then I get out my box of chore tickets.
And I choose a variety of chores that actually need to get done that day (i.e. work that I would do myself anyway, but would like them to complete.)

I lay those chosen tickets out on the table and let each girl choose their own chores. Each chore has a "bean" value. My 6yo needs to choose enough chores to add up to 5 beans. The 3yo only needs to choose enough chores to add up to 3 beans. And I'm finding that we may need to start her out even more slowly, and that perhaps the 6yo could handle more responsibility. But we'll see...
Anyway, after they've chosen their chores, the chore tickets go into the second row of the pocket chart below their names:

In this example, she has chosen to collect all the laundry and take it downstairs for 3 beans. She also chose to empty the dish drainer for 1 bean and put away her own pile of laundry for 1 bean. That's five beans. So here's what it looks like after she does the work:

Then we count all the beans she has earned that day. A typical day would be a total of 8 beans for the 6yo and 6 beans for the 3yo. So we get real lima beans and put them in the jar :

When the jar is full they will get to do something special. They've already decided that they want to go to a paint your own pottery place and have a fun day making a special piece.

I'd also add, that they can earn beans in other ways besides chores. I try to "catch" them doing nice things for each other and for the family. Good deeds, no matter how small, are noticed and rewarded with a bean or two. I try to resist the tempation of removing beans for bad behavior. But I confess that on one particularly exhausting and frustrating day, I dumped out the jar and made them start over. I wouldn't do it again. It's very discouraging for the kids.

My only other comment is that we need to set some ground rules for how quickly the chores need to be done. Before we start school? Before they can go play? Before dinner? BEfore bed? See, that's where the flexibility part comes in. Sometimes I don't get my work done until weeelllll into the night. But for consistency sake, I think the rule will be that chores must be done before school UNLESS they have chosen a chore that cannot be completed until later in the day such as setting the table for dinner or clearing the dinner dishes.

Another flexibility plus of this system: I have some blank tickets that I can use at a moments notice should a "new chore" present itself. For example, tomorrow I think I'll write one for "clean out the microwave." That will probably be a 4 or 5 bean job.

I've also told the girls that if they'd like to do MORE than the required number of beans, they can choose between receiving the extra beans or receiving a dime for each extra bean they've earned. For example, if my 6yo did 8 beans worth of chores in a day, then she could choose to receive all 8 beans, or to receive 5 beans plus $0.30. It's one more way to help her feel some ownership/control in the process. Plus it teaches decision making, math skills, and money management as she earns more.

There you have it. Our new system. Let me know if you ever decide to give it a try yourself and how it worked for you? And any suggestions for improving it?

UPDATED AUGUST 9 2010: I'm glad that this post has been helpful to some of you. I've had several requests over the past year or so for copies of the chore chart images I used. I'd be happy to share....if I could find them! I simply don't know what happened to them. The hard drive monster ate them. But all you really need to do is search the google images clip art for the images you need. Good luck!

Oh, I should also note, that a year later, we don't even really need the chart anymore, which I consider a blessing since charts are not my thing. We still use the bean jar, just not the chart.

Great New Blog I found

2009-08-28T15:19:00.000-07:00

I just recently joined yet ANOTHER yahoo group. I'm to the point where I need to start thinning out my memberships, but they're all so great so I don't know who to cut.

Anyway, the group I recently joined is called workbox littles. And I just got a message referring me to a great blog that I thought I would pass along here as well.

In fact, it looks like it has so much great info that I'm going to post it permanently in my sidebar.

Hope it's useful to you as well.

New Nationwide Study Confirms Homeschool Academic Achievement

2009-08-26T14:25:00.001-07:00

Ian Slatter
Director of Media Relations
August 10, 2009

Each year, the homeschool movement graduates at least 100,000 students. Due to the fact that both the United States government and homeschool advocates agree that homeschooling has been growing at around 7% per annum for the past decade, it is not surprising that homeschooling is gaining increased attention. Consequently, many people have been asking questions about homeschooling, usually with a focus on either the academic or social abilities of homeschool graduates.
As an organization advocating on behalf of homeschoolers, Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) long ago committed itself to demonstrating that homeschooling should be viewed as a mainstream educational alternative.
We strongly believe that homeschooling is a thriving education movement capable of producing millions of academically and socially able students who will have a tremendously positive effect on society.
Despite much resistance from outside the homeschool movement, whether from teachers unions, politicians, school administrators, judges, social service workers, or even family members, over the past few decades homeschoolers have slowly but surely won acceptance as a mainstream education alternative. This has been due in part to the commissioning of research which demonstrates the academic success of the average homeschooler.
The last piece of major research looking at homeschool academic achievement was completed in 1998 by Dr. Lawrence Rudner. Rudner, a professor at the ERIC Clearinghouse, which is part of the University of Maryland, surveyed over 20,000 homeschooled students. His study, titled Home Schooling Works, discovered that homeschoolers (on average) scored about 30 percentile points higher than the national average on standardized achievement tests.
This research and several other studies supporting the claims of homeschoolers have helped the homeschool cause tremendously. Today, you would be hard pressed to find an opponent of homeschooling who says that homeschoolers, on average, are poor academic achievers.
There is one problem, however. Rudner’s research was conducted over a decade ago. Without another look at the level of academic achievement among homeschooled students, critics could begin to say that research on homeschool achievement is outdated and no longer relevant.
Recognizing this problem, HSLDA commissioned Dr. Brian Ray, an internationally recognized scholar and president of the non-profit National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), to collect data for the 2007–08 academic year for a new study which would build upon 25 years of homeschool academic scholarship conducted by Ray himself, Rudner, and many others.
Drawing from 15 independent testing services, the Progress Report 2009: Homeschool Academic Achievement and Demographics included 11,739 homeschooled students from all 50 states who took three well-known tests—California Achievement Test, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, and Stanford Achievement Test for the 2007–08 academic year. The Progress Report is the most comprehensive homeschool academic study ever completed.

The Results

Overall the study showed significant advances in homeschool academic achievement as well as revealing that issues such as student gender, parents’ education level, and family income had little bearing on the results of homeschooled students.

National Average Percentile Scores
Subtest	Homeschool	Public School
Reading	89	50
Language	84	50
Math	84	50
Science	86	50
Social Studies	84	50
Core^a	88	50
Composite^b	86	50
a. Core is a combination of Reading, Language, and Math. b. Composite is a combination of all subtests that the student took on the test.

There was little difference between the results of homeschooled boys and girls on core scores.

Boys—87th percentile
Girls—88th percentile

Household income had little impact on the results of homeschooled students.

$34,999 or less—85th percentile
$35,000–$49,999—86th percentile
$50,000–$69,999—86th percentile
$70,000 or more—89th percentile

The education level of the parents made a noticeable difference, but the homeschooled children of non-college educated parents still scored in the 83rd percentile, which is well above the national average.

Neither parent has a college degree—83rd percentile
One parent has a college degree—86th percentile
Both parents have a college degree—90th percentile

Whether either parent was a certified teacher did not matter.

Certified (i.e., either parent ever certified)—87th percentile
Not certified (i.e., neither parent ever certified)—88th percentile

Parental spending on home education made little difference.

Spent $600 or more on the student—89th percentile
Spent under $600 on the student—86th percentile

The extent of government regulation on homeschoolers did not affect the results.

Low state regulation—87th percentile
Medium state regulation—88th percentile
High state regulation—87th percentile

HSLDA defines the extent of government regulation this way:

States with low regulation: No state requirement for parents to initiate any contact or State requires parental notification only.

States with moderate regulation: State requires parents to send notification, test scores, and/or professional evaluation of student progress.

State with high regulation: State requires parents to send notification or achievement test scores and/or professional evaluation, plus other requirements (e.g. curriculum approval by the state, teacher qualification of parents, or home visits by state officials).

The question HSLDA regularly puts before state legislatures is, “If government regulation does not improve the results of homeschoolers why is it necessary?”
In short, the results found in the new study are consistent with 25 years of research, which show that as a group homeschoolers consistently perform above average academically. The Progress Report also shows that, even as the numbers and diversity of homeschoolers have grown tremendously over the past 10 years, homeschoolers have actually increased the already sizeable gap in academic achievement between themselves and their public school counterparts-moving from about 30 percentile points higher in the Rudner study (1998) to 37 percentile points higher in the Progress Report (2009).
As mentioned earlier, the achievement gaps that are well-documented in public school between boys and girls, parents with lower incomes, and parents with lower levels of education are not found among homeschoolers. While it is not possible to draw a definitive conclusion, it does appear from all the existing research that homeschooling equalizes every student upwards. Homeschoolers are actually achieving every day what the public schools claim are their goals—to narrow achievement gaps and to educate each child to a high level.
Of course, an education movement which consistently shows that children can be educated to a standard significantly above the average public school student at a fraction of the cost—the average spent by participants in the Progress Report was about $500 per child per year as opposed to the public school average of nearly $10,000 per child per year—will inevitably draw attention from the K-12 public education industry.

Answering the Critics

This particular study is the most comprehensive ever undertaken. It attempts to build upon and improve on the previous research. One criticism of the Rudner study was that it only drew students from one large testing service. Although there was no reason to believe that homeschoolers participating with that service were automatically non-representative of the broader homeschool community, HSLDA decided to answer this criticism by using 15 independent testing services for this new study. There can be no doubt that homeschoolers from all walks of life and backgrounds participated in the Progress Report.
While it is true that not every homeschooler in America was part of this study, it is also true that the Progress Report provides clear evidence of the success of homeschool programs.
The reason is that all social science studies are based on samples. The goal is to make the sample as representative as possible because then more confident conclusions can be drawn about the larger population. Those conclusions are then validated when other studies find the same or similar results.
Critics tend to focus on this narrow point and maintain that they will not be satisfied until every homeschooler is submitted to a test. This is not a reasonable request because not all homeschoolers take standardized achievement tests. In fact, while the majority of homeschool parents do indeed test their children simply to track their progress and also to provide them with the experience of test-taking, it is far from a comprehensive and universal practice among homeschoolers.
The best researchers can do is provide a sample of homeschooling families and compare the results of their children to those of public school students, in order to give the most accurate picture of how homeschoolers in general are faring academically.
The concern that the only families who chose to participate are the most successful homeschoolers can be alleviated by the fact that the overwhelming majority of parents did not know their children's test results before agreeing to participate in the study.
HSLDA believes that this study along with the several that have been done in the past are clear evidence that homeschoolers are succeeding academically.

Final Thought

Homeschooling is making great strides and hundreds of thousands of parents across America are showing every day what can be achieved when parents exercise their right to homeschool and make tremendous sacrifices to provide their children with the best education available.

The New School Room

2009-08-23T23:52:00.000-07:00

Drum roll please.....

Ta DA!

Wow, my brain had to work really hard to figure out a way to organize this room for optimal schooling. And I have to say that after MONTHS (all summer) of agonizing on just how to make it work, I'm really pleased with the outcome. The walls are still pretty bare/boring. And I have a few more things to figure out, but we're definitely almost done.

Here's a tour of the room.

Above: This is our shelving area. I take somewhat of a Montessori approach and have made many of my own materials using their philosophies. This is where I store those "works" and they are often swapped on a regular basis to keep things interesting.

Above: Our easel and computer station. I use the white board on the easel for just about everything so I kept it close to the table.

Above: I bought these cool little school chairs that will last a life time off of craigslist for $5/each.
The table was also a craigslist find and it was FREE!! wahoo. I just cut the legs down to size so it would be the right height for my girls. And the little guy sits at the smaller table on the end. They were painting tonight. Please pardon the mess.

Above: These are my new babies. We just put them up. They're the trofast shelving system from IKEA. And I'm pretty darn sure that I'm going to absolutely love using them as workboxes. See, we also use the Sue Patrick workbox system (google it and you'll find a TON of info). This is a huge step up from the previous workbox system I was using (see previous posts on workbox system). I got the idea of using these things from a post on a wonderful workbox yahoo group. I was hesitant to spend the money on these things. But you know what? I learned last year that the space in which you school really makes a HUGE difference in your school day. A neat, organized, clutter free, well lit and inviting space will allow for a much smoother and peaceful day with less frustration and more success. And that's really hard to put a price tag on.

Above: Teacher's chair. Now that I've got the trofast storage system, I can have the big green shelves for all my stuff and bring order to my life! Hurray. I also replaced my big hulky, huge computer armoire for a much smaller desk that I got for cheap on...you guessed it...craigslist. Now I can look out into the room without turning around or getting out of the chair. It's very fung shway. Or is it feng shuia? I don't know.

Above: Ah, this is my newly created Calendar/weather/#of school days center. I got the idea from a really great blog that I love at http://www.dayindayoutdayupdaydown.blogspot.com/
She also uses workboxes and has an adorable school room so take a peek.

Above: This used to be our shoe closet. And yes, we always had dozens of shoes strung out all over our school room no matter how many times I picked them up. So the shoes have a new home out in the garage and now I can organize our art supplies, games, puzzles, musical instruments, play dough, my overhead projector....etc. On the other side of the closet I have stored all of our Montessori bead material (which I made myself). yeah, it's finally done. hurray.

There you have it. I'm ready for fall so bring it on! We won't be starting with formal curriculum for a couple more weeks, but we're rip roarin ready to go!

First Successful Family Book Club Meeting

2009-08-23T23:43:00.000-07:00

Well, it took some time to pull it off, but we've had our first family book club meeting. And it was a hit! We had a superb time.

For those of you who may not be aware, we read Stuart Little by E.B. White with a family who has children of similar ages as our own. Then we set a date to meet at our house for a simple book discussion, a craft activity related to the story, and a treat.

The meeting lasted about1.5 hours (but could have been shorter if the adults weren't enjoying themselves so much").

To get the discussion rolling, I shared some information on the author with the kids and then used a few of the questions from this site to further our discussion. IT was great to hear from the kids about how they enjoyed the book and what they thought of it. So fun.

For our craft, we made small beds for Stuart out of Popsicle stix and matchboxes. Here's a look at one of them (unfortunately I didn't get pics of the rest):

I kept the treat very simple since we had just arrived back in town from vacation. We had jello and whipped cream. Doesn't get much easier than that but I think most of us enjoyed it.

Our friends offered to choose a book and host the next month's meeting for us! We'll be continuing on with the same author and reading Charlotte's Web. I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

Post Card Kids

2009-08-23T23:35:00.000-07:00

So, after being absent from my blog for a goooood long while, here I am again. Like most homeschooling moms, I've been very busy rearranging, organizing, decluttering, planning, and generally trying to get my ducks in a row for the coming school year which is ever so quickly approaching.

I had envisioned homeschooling over the summer. And while we did do a few things (unit studies on bees, the orchestra, lots of reading) my brain and my body just needed a break from the day-to-day grind. And I wanted my kids to enjoy summer to its fullest. So we put the books aside for most of the summer and just enjoyed being immersed in summer time activity.

However, I continued my never ending research on possible projects and materials. In the process I came across a great yahoo group called Postcard kids. You can join it here.

This is a great way to have fun while learning US geography. We just started this month and have been taking a nice easy pace so as not to get overwhelmed with all the sending and receiving of postcards. Here's a look at our map and our cards:

I used rubber cement to adhere the map to the foam board. I got the map from a dollar bin at Target while visiting family in Idaho. The board is then hanging from 2 clothespins that I hot glued right to the wall. YEP! you can do it and it will come off without damaging the wall.

My kids are loving this little "club" they're in. After we've got them all, or perhaps as we go along, it would be a great opportunity to use our postcards for further unit studies on each state or for notebooking/lapbooking.

A Teacher Slams Obama

2009-07-24T18:27:00.000-07:00

This was just sent to my e-mail and I thought it entirely appropriate to share with you here. You may or may not agree. In either case, this will give you something to think about and discuss with your children.

April 17, 2009
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington , DC 20500

Mr. Obama:

I have had it with you and your administration, sir. Your conduct on your
recent trip overseas has convinced me that you are not an adequate
representative of the United States of America collectively or of me
personally.

You are so obsessed with appeasing the Europeans and the Muslim world
that you have abdicated the responsibilities of the President of the United
States of America . You are responsible to the citizens of the United
States... You are not responsible to the peoples of any other country on
earth.

I personally resent that you go around the world apologizing for the United
States telling Europeans that we are arrogant and do not care about their
status in the world. Sir, what do you think the First World War and the
Second World War were all about if not the consideration of the peoples of
Europe ? Are you brain dead? What do you think the Marshall Plan was all
about? Do you not understand or know the history of the 20th century?

Where do you get off telling a Muslim country that the United States does
not consider itself a Christian country? Have you not read the Declaration
of Independence or the Constitution of the United States ? This country
was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and the principles governing this
country, at least until you came along, come directly from this heritage.. Do
you not understand this?

Your bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia is an affront to all Americans. Our
President does not bow down to anyone, let alone the king of Saudi Arabia .
You don't show Great Britain , our best and one of our oldest allies, the
respect they deserve yet you bow down to the king of Saudi Arabia . How
dare you, sir! How dare you! You can't find the time to visit the graves of
our greatest generation because you don't want to offend the Germans but
make time to visit a mosque in Turkey . You offended our dead and every
veteran when you give the Germans more respect than the people who saved
the German people from themselves. What's the matter with you?

I am convinced that you and the members of your administration have the
historical and intellectual depth of a mud puddle and should be ashamed of
yourselves, all of you.

You are so self-righteously offended by the big bank ers and the American
automobile manufacturers yet do nothing about the real thieves in this
situation, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Frank, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelic, the Fannie
Mae bonuses, and the Freddie Mac bonuses. What do you intend to do about
them? Anything? I seriously doubt it.

What about the U.S. House members passing out $9.1 million in bonuses to
their staff members - on top of the $2.5 million in automatic pay raises
that lawmakers gave themselves? I understand the average House aide got
a 17% bonus. I took a 5% cut in my pay to save jobs with my employer. You
haven't said anything about that. Who authorized that? I surely didn't!

Executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be receiving $210 million in
bonuses over an eighteen-month period, that's $45 million more than the
AIG bonuses. In fact, Fannie and Freddie ex! ecutives have already been
awarded $51 million - not a bad take. Who authorized that and why haven't
you expressed your outrage at this group who are largely responsible for
the economic mess we have right now.

I resent that you take me and my fellow citizens as brain-dead and not
caring about what you idiots do. We are watching what you are doing and we
are getting increasingly fed up with al of you.

I also want you to know that I personally find just about everything you do
and say to be offensive to every one of my sensibilities. I also promise you
that I will work tirelessly to see that you do not get a chance to spend two
terms destroying my beautiful country.

Sincerely,

A very real American

MS Kathleen Lyday
Fourth Grade Teacher
Grandview Elementary School
11470 Hwy. C
Hillsboro , MO 63050
(636) 944-3291 Phone
(636) 944-3870 Fax

Pocket Charts Galore!

2009-07-24T14:56:00.000-07:00

I've been reading this terrific book, which I actually found at a garage sale:The Scholastic Integrated Language Arts Resource Book (Grades K-2)

and I've been turned on to the value of using pocket charts in lower elementary. I personally don't remember there being any pocket charts when I was in public school, but after reading this book, I see the value in have several of them around.

Here's the first one I just completed making for under $3.00

This will be great for practicing sight words and spelling words. And my 3yo likes to spell her name with the chart as well as other small words she is learning.

To make this, I used a piece of old black felt for the back and bought a shower curtain liner for the pockets. The one I bought was pretty thin and sewing on it was like sewing on freezer bags, you know? Not really fun and difficult to work with. But it's definitely functional. It might be easier to work with that clear plastic material they use for covering seats. But I've got plenty of shower curtain left so I'll keep using that.

The whole thing is 18"x8". I cut the shower curtain in 2.5" strips and the pockets themselves are appx. 2.5 inches across. I made the letter cards 1.75"x 1.75" on card stock. There are 4 lower and 2 upper for each letter.

This easily rolls up for storage. Be careful not to unroll it until it is lying on a flat surface or your letter cards will fly all over.

I plan on making one for the 100 days of school as well as one that can hold larger sentence and word strips for poems and center instructions.

This chart is small enough to be used on a table/desk or on a work mat. But for larger charts, I plan to use hook and loop Velcro and just stick it to the wall. Another idea is to hot glue clothespins to the wall. I've done this several times for other things and you can remove them (with a little force) without any damage to the paint.
After you've made your pocket charts, you will find really fun ways to use your charts in these books:
100 Riddle Poems for Pocket Charts

Month-By-Month Pockets Charts: 20 Knock-Your-Socks-Off Pocket Chart Poems With Lessons That Take You Through the Year & Build Skills in Reading, Math, Science & More

Big Book of Pocket Chart Poems: ABCs & 123s: Engaging Poems, Lessons, and Instant Templates to Teach the Alphabet, Number Concepts, and Phonics Skills

Scholastic Interactive Pocket Charts: Nursery Rhymes (Grade prek-2

Happy Charting!

Orchestra Unit

2009-07-15T14:08:00.000-07:00

We're continuing on with our orchestra studies.

First we read

And we also did our Stand Up Orchestra, which is a really cute 3d representation of an orchestra. If you'd like me to email you the PDF I will. Just leave a comment here and I'll send it. Here's a pic:

And thank you to the wonderful blogger at http://www.homescho olblogger. com/joyfulschool /
who posted a terrific series of orchestra lap books at this site:
http://www.squidoo.com/stringfamilyunit

We can't wait to dig into those!

UPDATE on our family book club: The other family that is scheduled for our August book club has settled on Stuart Little .
We've got our copy and we're ready to enjoy another classic.

Have to Share

2009-07-12T23:40:00.000-07:00

I'm up late reading. And I found something that just had to be shared from the book "Leadership and the One Minute Manager" by Ken Blanchard. On page 33 it reads "There is nothing so unequal as the equal treatment of unequals."

Wow, what a perfect description of public education's one-size-fits-all model. I loved it even more because of the way it combats today's notion that EVERYONE is entitled to the same treatment and same outcome in this country regardless of your individuality and personal desire and work ethics.

The idea that we all have to have equal outcomes and that we all have to have equal access to every so-called "entitlement"out there is ludicrous in my view. The only equality we have is that we are equally valued in the sight of God, and we all have unlimited potential to achieve even the most lofty of ambitions.

There is no person or organization that is "too big to fail"; No race, no religion, no creed, no human condition that entitles an individual to endless sums of public money.
When we "level the playing field' so much that no one person can be distinguished for their ability to excel, to achieve, to thrive, and flourish; when we have been so stripped of our individuality and prepackaged as identical wards of the all-powerful state, then I believe we cease to possess the very traits and characteristics that make us priceless members of the incredible human family. It is our God given uniqueness, individuality that makes us who we are.

For the most part, we all come to this human experience with a different set of divinely devised talents and abilities. It only follows, then, that we will be afforded the opportunity to express that individuality in ways that result in varying degrees of "success", what ever that may mean to the individual. Declaring (no mandating) that each person be forced into sameness, is direct opposition to the Creator's plan for personal choice and responsibility for one's choices.

And while I believe that it is also our duty to care for those who are unable to care for themselves, it most certainly is NOT my responsibly to ensure the equal outcome of financial success for the general population.
Ok, I'm done lecturing. I'm off to bed.

Teaching US History to Lower Elementary

2009-07-10T22:59:00.000-07:00

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading The Thomas Jefferson Home School Companion. I've gleaned so much from it. I'm almost done.

I've come to truly gain a deeper understanding of the important connection between quality, literature based education and the preservation of our freedoms as our Founding Fathers intended.

I have always had deep respect and love for our nation and reverence for our freedom. I find myself developing a resolute passion for passing this love and reverence on to my children, their friends, our neighbors and the world.
But it all starts at home, right?

So I've been researching some great resources for teaching US history at home.
First, on the 4th of July we watched a musical called 1776. It was light hearted and amusing, while also informational and uplifting. There was a tad bit of adult humor that went right over my 6yo's heasd without notice.

I have also added the following resources to my wish list:

Lynne Cheney has an entire series that I'd love to own.

I'd also love to get

This is a bigger ticket item, but I see it having lasting value for many many years to come.

I think you'll also really enjoy the freebies located at this great site: http://www.homeschoolpatriot.com/freebies.html

And this free site is a terrific unit studies approach to Native American history:
http://www.guesthollow.com/homeschool/history/pics.html

More great free resources for American History Here:
Patriotic Music Lesson http://www.squidoo. com/patrioticmus iclesson This one's not done, but so far it is about the Star Spangled Banner that we did for Flag Day and the 4th!

The United States Flag http://www.squidoo. com/unitedstates flag
Lesson plan with lapbook and notebook materials.

Family Book Club

2009-07-09T23:05:00.000-07:00

My head is swimming with great ideas for the coming school year. Sometimes I feel lost in the rush of ideas. It's been a struggle to keep my thoughts organized enough to actually be able to implement them. I've finally come to accept that our home school will be ever evolving and always a work in progress. It will never be "just right". And that's ok.

But I am feeling good about taking one step toward setting up a family-to-family book club as suggested in the book I'm currently reading: A Thomas Jefferson Education Home Companion

I've invited a family with similarly aged children to join us in choosing a classic (there's a terrific list of claassics for all ages in the book mentioned above), reading it at home as a family , and then joining us one month from now to discuss the book with our kids, do a fun activity relating to the book, and then share dessert together.

I was happy at their quick acceptance of our invitation and we all look forward to our August meeting. I'll keep you posted!

Starting Your Montessori Home School

2009-07-03T16:17:00.000-07:00

I certainly do understand those parents who like the idea of implementing Montessori at home, but really have no idea where to start. I get that!
I wasn't very organized in my approach. I had no manuals or formal training. I just started reading, researching, and then I dug in making materials that I thought would interest my kids.

And then I kept it going! It's a never ending process.

I find that making materials for my classroom to keep it fresh and interesting for my kids challenges my creativity and problem solving skills to the max. I've actually come to really enjoy the task almost to the point of becoming a hobby. It's what I do when I have spare time, or after the kids are in bed. I research the internet for the endless ideas from other amazing teachers/parents that are giving their kids their very best efforts at home.

Here are a few resources that really helped me get started:Teach Me to Do It Myself: Montessori Activities for You and Your Child

Basic Montessori: Learning Activities For Under-Fives

Teaching Montessori in the Home: Pre-School Years: The Pre-School Years

Reading those books, and perusing the internet was a terrific start to my own Montessori classroom. FYI: For those of you implementing Montessori methods in the home, you'll be interested in this site here: http://www.polestarmontessori.com//

As you really get into the Montessori Mode, you will look at things differently as you visit the dollar store, yard sales and thrift shop. Nearly everything you see will become a future "work" in progress.

It's actually tons of fun, especially when you see your little ones enjoying the materials you've labored to create.

Here are just a couple of things I've been working on lately:

I got the pictures for this (above) work from www.montessorimaterials.org which is a favorite site of mine. We have a section of wall in our school room with magnetic paint and we like to use the magnet wall for various things. On this work I've added sections of magnetic tape so the poster can hang on the wall. It's also reversible. The other side has the percussion and woodwind families on it.

Here's another quick and easy work:

This one is pretty self explanatory. Just a shoe box taped shut and a cut out of my daughters shoe taped on top. I drilled holes in the shoe and laced it up. (remember to drill the holes and lace the shoe before taping the lid on to the box).

I'm getting HOOKED

2009-07-01T14:44:00.000-07:00

All right. I've been really on the fence about how we will proceed with my children's education next year. Turns out we DID get a variance into a "better" public school for this coming fall, but I'm still not certain that any public school, no matter how great it is, will be right for our kids.

So in the mean time, I'm keeping that option open while I scout out more information on the TJed model.
Turns out there are 2 great yahoo groups for those living in the Pacific NorthWest:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TJEdNorthwest/?yguid=145542427 Discussion Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TJEdNWinfo/?yguid=145542427 Announcement Board

And you'll love what you find here at the "official" TJed website:
http://www.tjedonline.com/ although some of the info is only available to paid members.

As explained by Oliver himself, parents go through phases as they discover this model. I'm currently in the "overwhelmed' phase where it all seems a bit daunting. Yet I'm trudging forward, determined to find out if this is really the direction I want to take my children's education, and if I have the drive to make it happen. The more I learn, the more hooked I become. I'm just hoping that I come out the other end with an exact vision of how to implement this model and not botch it up.

Oh, and if you've not yet heard, Oliver DeMille, author/coauthor of the TJEd series is also Chancellor of George Wythe University in Cedar City, UT.
Here's a clip on GWU

A Special Affirmation for Home Schooling Parents

2009-06-24T21:24:00.000-07:00

As you look around my blog, you'll probably notice a very eclectic approach to our homeschool. I've picked up bits and pieces of nearly every methodology that I've studied so far and melded them into my own brand of "Kelly School".

There is a new model, however, that has me so deeply intrigued, so thrilled and energized that I have to make mention of it yet again here in this post. Looking at my side bar you may have already guessed what it is: The Thomas Jefferson Leadership Education model. You can visit this site to learn more about teh basic tenets of this education model.

I'm in the middle of reading one of DeMille's book (up until 2am the other night with it) and each page has me nodding my head and saying, "Yes! This makes so much sense."

My one hangup is that, while they claim it is simple and straight forward, it doesn't feel that way to me. At least not yet. Of course, everything new seems a little scary and overwhelming at times. I never thought I'd be able to homeschool at ALL until I tried it....for four months. Then I started to find a groove.

So, while I may not be able to implement a full scale Leadership Education program today, I am definitely making progress and applying a few nuggets of gold that I have immediate need for in my home.
For exmple, we did our six month purge and it felt terrific! We unloaded books, clothes, toys, electronics, DVDs, tools, and more. And today I instituted the Bean Jar Game. I think it will have a whole variety of applications in our every day lives, not just in school.

I've come to accept that making a Leadership Education Home will be a continual work in progress. But that's ok. I look forward to adding many key elements of the TJed into our school, home and family life.

Here's a section of the book that especially gave me strength. Speaking to mothers and wives the author writes,

"We want to affirm your personal mission and unique purpose and share with you our conviction of the incomparable importance of home and family...You have the potential and capacity to accomplish what is needed....Every sacrifice and diligent effort you make will be fruitful in some way at some time and minister to your own success and happiness. Some women wonder if they are "missing their mission" as they nurture family members and "keep the home fires burning." In fact, they are fulfilling their mission and preparing themselves for future purposes through a refining crucible of greatness that has no equal."

Farmer Boy Cooking Experiment

2009-06-19T19:27:00.000-07:00

We're now on the third book of the Laura Ingalls series, Farmer Boy. We're enjoying it very much, but we're taking a break from the lapbooking. I feel myself slipping into summer mode and don't mind the break! I need it, I think.

But our mouths water with every meal that Almanzo has with his family! When we read that his favorite dish is fried apples and onins, however, we couldn't help but question his tastes. ick, we thought. But we were also curious so I found this recipe:
http://www.recipezaar.com/Fried-Applesnonions-Little-House-211328

and we gave it a shot.

It might have turned out better if we'd used the bacon. We just skipped the bacon and used olive oil in the pan. And we goofed and peeled our apples instead of leaving on the skins.

Not my favorite thing to eat, for sure. But we ALL had plenty of it and even my toddler son seemed to like it all right.

I'm wondering if we ought to invest in the little house cookbook and delve deeper in to Almanzo's delicious world. (He always has apple pie and doughnuts to spare!)

Chore Charts

2009-06-17T14:19:00.000-07:00

All right, so now that I've identified myself as "anti chart" you'll find me quite hypocritical to be setting up ANOTHER chart system for my kids, albeit very simple and uncomplicated.

When I was a kid my mom had a really simple chore system which I've decided to reinstate with my own kids since it was easy to understand, easy to use, and everything else I've tried hasn't worked! Ha ha. Going back to my roots.

I think my mom purchased pre-made charts (that was before everyone had their own mini office at home. And I've recreated the same sort of charts to suit our particular circumstance.

The charts are divided up by room and each room has a "quick clean" (daily) and a "good clean" (weekly). You can see the charts I've made so far for the BATHROOM and BEDROOM.

These are simple to use and even my 3yo can follow them by looking at the pictures. It's working well. I simply indicate to them when it's time for a quick clean or a good clean and they know which part of the chart to use. We did use our Monday night family lesson (held weekly) to review these charts and I gave a demonstration on how to follow them exactly. Now they're doing it almost on their own. Hurray. One small victory for our household.

My Modified WorkBox System

2009-06-16T15:42:00.001-07:00

I've never been a "chart" person. For as long as I can remember, I've never been good at writing lists and checking off items. In college all my planners (despite my best efforts to use them) only became "extra stuff" in my back pack and a good place to loose things. In school, in business, in home organization...I've just never been one to utilize charts and checks.

I realize that I'm more of a big picture person rather than a detail person. But I've tried to use charts with my kids over the years because I know that young children thrive on routine. It always works against me because they remember the chart...I forget the chart...then the chart becomes meaningless and eventually gets tossed out. Ugh....

So when I came across the Sue Patrick WorkBox system, I thought it was cool but I was reluctant to use it because of the rigidness of the routine and the obvious use of charts and schedules. However, with a few twists of my own, I thought that the work box system would be just what our home school needed to give it new life and direction. I only ordered the e-book for $18 and that was plenty for me to go on. I really didn't want all the consulting and all the pre-made materials because I realized that I would be giving it my own flavor anyway.

The basic concept in this system is that the day is broken up into bite size pieces of clearly presented work that the child can do on their own. Occasionally a work box will require mom's assistance and is clearly marked to that effect. AS the child completes work, the boxes are removed from the shelf so the child can see how they are progressing and how much is left to do before school is over.

I decided to give this a try for one main reason: it seemed like a great way to get my kids to use our various montessori-themed materials in the room that I know they'd benefit from, but never really seem motivated to pick up. That was it. That was my motivation.

See, our school room reflects HOURS of my time and effort, not to mention some investment in supplies and materials. And while I like my kids to be free to roam and choose as they will, I was often frustrated when they didn't choose the materials that seemed especially pertinent to their current studies and development. Sometimes they wanted to do nothing at ALL and then we began to disagree on things, which never bodes well.

So when I saw this I thought, "PEFRECT!" I can put the works in the boxes and that way they just "have" to do the work in order to get through the day. Then I wondered if it would be too much structure and I would be defeating the entire "follow the child" philosophy. However, the materials I present do generally follow my children's interests. So I reasoned that by providing a "required" list of their chosen interests each day, I would be able to find some nice middle ground and perhaps get much more accomplished.

I reserve the right to modify the boxes as our day goes along. Already i can see that sometimes I put too little or too much in the boxes. For me it's not really about getting all the boxes done. It's more about making better use of our time and using a wider variety of materials and resources in our day. If we don't finish all the boxes, I just save them for the next day. This still allows the kids to work at their own pace with out feeling rushed or compelled. Or if my daughter groans when she sees the contents of the box, I don't mind tweaking it a bit to make it more interesting for her. Stuff that HAS to get done is put in the first few boxes and is interspersed with lighter, funner activities like puzzles and games.

Today was our fourth day using my revised work box system. I didn't follow all of sue's suggestions, or use all of her forms. So far, what I've set up is working quite well for us and my daughter even said to me yesterday, "Mom...this feels so different. It feels like I'm back in my Montessori school." WELL...you can imagine how happy that made me. So as long as they are enjoying it, we are making progress, and we're not arguing, I call that success and we'll keep on.

Here are some pics of how I put the work box system together at our house:

I did not use the shoe racks as Sue suggested. I remodeled the top half of our entertainment hutch to include more shelving and stuck plastic wash tubs ($1.88 each) on each shelf.

Here's my very easy method for adding shelving to the hutch:

This would be easy to take a part should we decide to do that.

The pink boxes are for my 6yo. I gave her 9 boxes (rather than 12) and that seemed to be plenty for her. There were enough boxes to get the more "academic" stuff as well as the fun stuff. My 3yo has the 6 green boxes. She may or may not get to all of them. As long as she works diligently through out our school day I'm ok with what ever she gets done.

Once they finish a box, the work goes back on the class room shelf (not the work box shelf) and the boxes are stacked in the bottom of our shoe closet:

I chose these wash bins because the clear shoe boxes that Sue recommends, while slightly cheaper, were also very much smaller and would not hold many of the works we have in our class room. So I went with the bigger boxes even though they were not clear. I can even fit all the pieces of the broad stair in there. I also like them because we often do work on the floor that requires some writing. After emptying out the work box, you can flip it over and it makes a nice little writing surface so that we're not having to get up and down from table to floor all the time.

The girls also enjoy using the schedules that guide them through their work boxes, and checking in and out of class each day.
I have these stored on the side of the hutch when they are not in use.

Here's where they check in and out:

Moving around the room to use the schedule, get boxes, going to the floor, returning work to shelves, putting away boxes etc helps them to keep their energy levels up.
So far, I give this system (with my own tweaks) 5 stars because we are getting much more work done, we're using a much wider variety of materials, we're getting quality work done too and we're having fun with almost NO FUSS from the girls.

I am glad to have found a system that allows me to use an eclectic approach in our school room. This is a great combo of high structure and organization mixed with the montessori style works and philosophy, sprinkled with our required work from the state sponsored WAVA program.

What's even better about this is that I finally have a concrete way of including my little guy who is not even two yet. I have 2-3 boxes for him at the bottom of the hutch and here he is using the magnet work which he chose to do himself and voluntarily cleaned up when he was done:

My only regret....is that it's the last week of school! I wish I had discovered this 10 months ago! Oh well. Live and learn. It's going to be a great summer.

Book Review: The Walking Drum

2009-06-16T09:50:00.000-07:00

OH...how long ago did I start The Walking Drum ?

And I finally just finished it this past Sunday. It's 461 pages long, and while I enjoyed the book very much, it certainly did drag on in places.

I never thought I'd find myself reading a Louis L'Amour book. I thought he only did westerns, which are not usually my favorite. But in the spirit of trying to give myself a classical Thomas Jefferson education as suggested in the book A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the Twenty-first Century, I read this book. I am trying to work my way through the list of books at this site: http://www.gw.edu/academics/certifications/5pillars.php

The Walking Drum is a historical novel taking place in mid evil times as the main character, Mathurian, travels his way across Europe and the middle east after discovering that his mother was killed, his village pillaged, and his father taken as a slave. His mission to find his father (not even knowing if he was alive at the time) and rescue him from slavery takes him across many lands and into many adventures.

Mathurian roller coasters from rags to riches several times in the book. The one constant through out the book is his thirst for knowledge, his love of culture, his desire to learn, his curiosity, and his awareness that knowledge truly is power; that his mind is his sword.

In the end, it is not his might, strength, skillful sword that allows him to find and rescue his father. Obscure knowledge that was very rare and highly valuable in those time is what allowed Mathurian to complete his mission. That lesson, along with the idea that it's the journey rather than the destination that matters, are the underlying themes in this book.

I kept track of new words I learned as I read, looking up their definitions and writing them in a notebook. I can't tell you how wonderful it felt to give myself this little task. It was so satisfying, on a really deep-down level, to enrich and expand my own repertoire of knowledge in this way.

I do recommend this book even for those who do not consider themselves history buffs, mid evil fans, or adventure lovers. The story is told so well that you'll be turning pages all night.

My children knew I was diligently reading this book and often asked me about what was happening int he story and what I was learning. I think this is one of the greatest benefits of having read the story. Hopefully my example of life-long reading will take deep root as i continue on my own TJed journey.

Top Five Tips from This Past School Year

2009-06-14T16:29:00.000-07:00

We're wrapping up the year and just about finished with our entire first grade curriculum. In fact, we only have 2 math lessons left to do, but WAVA still likes us to log attendance (and actually do work) until the end of the year on June 18.

We've had a fairly good year. I say "fairly" because as Mother and Teacher, I know where exactly where I goofed, where I could have done better, where I should have done better. But on the whole, I think our first year of homeschooling was a success.

Of course, if I were to do it all over again...boy would I do it differently! I suppose it's better to learn from your mistakes at the very end of the year, than to have never learned from them at all.

Here are five big lessons I learned this year of home school.

1) Less emphasis on the product and more attention placed on the process. I'm by no means a perfectionist. But I do think I got hung up a bit on making sure we did each step, each section, each suggested activity. I loosened up about half way after learning that if we master the skill or concept with one activity, there's really no need to hammer on it. And if we don't come out with a "pretty" end product like the one in the picture, it's really ok. What DOES matter is how we arrived at our product and what learning took place.

2) Set ground rules from day one. I was told to do this, of course. But being SO GREEN, I had no idea what ground rules I would need! And I wasn't even sure how our day would look or be structured so I didn't know how to tell my daughter, "This is how our school will work." So we just played it by ear a llloooooooootttt. Things changed too often. Schedules were not predictable. I was learning to juggle my 3 young children, homeschool, and all of my other existing responsibilities without going mad. It took a long time to figure out.
In the future, I intend to have a set routine for our school day so that we all know what is expected and how things will operate. This will no doubt eliminate some arguing, confusion and tension (not to mention stress). (More on this in the next post)

3) More games. I've only just begun to dig into the exciting world of File Folder Games. My girls L-O-V-E them. And I see now that so much learning can take place via games and other "fun stuff", which allows us to toss out the tired old work sheet and learn a concept in a more relaxed way. Worksheets have their place of course. But we need to sprinkle our day with more relaxed learning materials like games. I will be adding in more leisurely games, activities and such to spice up the day and give them a break from "book work" while sill helping them learn.

4) Trust My Instincts. There were times when I knew that the lesson was boring, that my daughter would not enjoy a certain activity, or that we could find a better way of doing a certain lesson. But being new, I feared the unknown. I feared veering away from the curriculum. I feared that if I jumped off track, we would not get back on and my daughter would miss out on important information or skills. So I stuck to the curriculum like a bee to honey and regret missed opportunities to add our own personality and flavor to school. There were times when my daughter expressed an interest in something, but because I feared falling behind the school schedule or taking too much time away from "required lessons" , I put her off indefinitely at times. I regret that. From now on I will take more cues from my children and do better to incorporate their interests into our lessons. I will trust my ability to know and love my children better than any curriculum ever could. Certainly only good things can come of that.

5) Make Myself a Priority. It was just a couple of months ago when burn out was really starting to set in, that I really made a conscious effort to put myself back on the list of priorities. I started working out (at least twice a week) again, I made sure that I got to SIT DOWN for a meal, that I got enough sleep, that I had time to read for enjoyment and personal enrichment, that I saw my friends once in a while, etc. It makes a huge difference.
Yes, there are still late nights when I'm up cleaning and organizing the school room, preparing new materials for the shelves and creating games. But knowing that I can carve out a little time for me during the week helps to keep me going.

Finally Finished Little House on the Prairie

2009-06-07T19:49:00.000-07:00

The girls have really loved reading the Laura Ingalls series thus far. We recently just finished Little House on the Pairie (second book in the series). And as promised, here are some pics of our lapbooks:

We ran out of room for all the minit books so some of them ended up on the outside. And to be honest, I got a little burned out on this project because it lasted so long. There were a few chapters that we did not lap book simply because I was loosing enthusiasm. But on the whole it was a great way to digest, recall, and summarize information from the book.

Inside of 6yo's lapbook:

Keeping our Social Butterfly Connected

2009-06-02T23:40:00.000-07:00

I'm WAYYYY late getting around to this topic that I promised to blog about forever ago. Maybe nobody notices or cares (LOL) but it is something I wanted to write about.

One of my major concerns when starting homeschool was how to keep our social butterfly alive and thriving. My husband especially had concerns as he is Brazilian and had never heard of home school or known any home schooled children before this. He envisioned a "geeky" socially inept, friendless, lonely child who wouldn't be able to throw or kick a ball to save her life.

If you read my very first post (archived) then you know that we had put our 6yo in a Montessori school for 3 mornings a week. Then we whittled it down to 2 mornings a week. the school made special arrangements to accommodate our budget in that way. And when things kept getting tighter, we just cut Montessori all together and that's when I got really serious about learning how to implement montessori techniques at home.

That's also when I had to get really serious about supplementing her social calendar to compensate for the lack of contact at a school.

Here's what we've done to keep our 6yo connected.

1. Our YMCA runs a program called HomeZone and we LOOOVE it. Once a week she goes there for art/gym/swim. It's a 2.5 hour block and she has met some nice kids there. I don't think we have made any real "friends" that we connect with outside of the YMCA, but it's a great group setting where she is involved in team activities and projects. It's divided into Fall, Winter and Spring sessions. Each session costs about $85. Some school districts provide vouchers to students in the public virtual academy to off set the cost but our lovely district does not. What ever..... I'm done beating my head against the district wall on that subject.

2. Ballet. We found a very affordable ballet school and she enjoyed that very much until this spring when she all of a sudden decided that she didn't like it anymore. Hm. I wondered if I should be hard nosed and make her stick out the year. But I thought, no....she gave it a good college try. She performed. She discovered that ballet is not her cup of tea, so let's move on. And move on we did.

3. We moved on to parks and recs soccer. It's a 9-week session and is more affordable than other private soccer schools. SHe LOVES it. It's a great way for her to learn sportsmanship, team work, and physical skill. These are things that I cannot really provide at home so we gladly pay the fee.

4. Most recently we have discovered a FREEEE 4-H club at a wonderful working farm just 20 minutes from here run by a very sweet elderly couple that has a passion for farming and kids. My daughter LOVES animals so this was perfect. Once a week she goes to the farm for 2 hours with appx 5-10 other kids (she's the youngest and I think that's fine) to work with the animals. She is becoming a poultry expert and will be showing chickens at several county fairs this summer.

5. For a while we had been doing Friend Friday. This involved having one of her friends over for a play date on Friday mornings. This gets tougher as she gets older and most of her friends are in public kindergarten. Friday is sometimes our field trip day as well so we go to public places where other children are likely to be.

6. This might sound really lame, but when I go work out I drop my kids off at our club's child care for an hour. My husband does as well. And believe it or not, the kids have made an excellent friend through this. We met another family there with a child my daughter's age and they play racquetball together with their fathers each Friday night at our health club. We've had play dates at the park and been to each other's b.day parties too. Definitely made a real friend there.

7. We have a terrific network of friends at church. There is a very special organization for children that has weekly Sunday meetings and periodic activities. This is KEY to our social well being. We never miss a church activity because our friends there are the lifeblood of our social network.

8. I've often wondered what response I'd get if I offered to run a children's book club, a cooking club, or some other sort of club. My main goal would be to have children at the house in an attempt to foster friendship and learning at the same time. Maybe this summer I can work on that. I have had phobias about getting in way over my head and not being able to make it interesting or organized enough. I keep meaning to read books like Homeschool Co-ops: How to Start Them, Run Them and Not Burn Out. Again, might make some good summer reading.

So there you have it. That's the crux of our social calendar. And believe me, it keeps me plenty busy. There are times when she tells me that she misses her friends at Montessori, and she is sad when a friend cannot come play because they are at school. But on the whole, I think we're doing ok. I would like to do more but time and money are always in measured supply.

I'd LOVE to hear about how others keep their children socially satisfied while doing home school.

Fun with Sight Words

2009-06-02T23:12:00.000-07:00

Anybody else out there have good ideas for making sight words a little more fun? It took me a while to figure out something that would actually make it enjoyable to learn sight words for my 6yo. And of course I'm always looking for new ideas because even though SHE may love to play this game 10 times in a single day....I can only handle so much of it.

I got this from TeacherTube.com (if I remember correctly). It was called "Moose!" when I first saw it but we call it "Unicorn!" because that's what my girls are into.

So, you write the sight words your child is learning on Popsicle sticks and put them in a can. Add 3 more sticks with the word UNICORN (or any other fun word that your child might like).

This game works best with 2 people.
The object is to have the most sticks at the end of the game.

To play: Take turns drawing sticks from the can and reading the word on your stick. After reading it correctly, lay it in a pile at your side and the next player draws a stick.

If you draw the UNICORN stick you must return all your sticks to the can except for the UNICORN stick. These sticks are left to the side after being drawn.

Continue playing in this way until the last UNICORN stick has been drawn. The player to get the last UNICORN stick loses all their sticks. The player with remaining sticks (regardless of how many) wins.

Why we love it:
My daughter is very competitive and not a very gracious loser. So playing games at any opportunity gives us a chance to practice gracious losing and winning behavior.

The sheer repetitiveness of this game is its greatest value. Because the sticks are returned to the can after each UNICORN stick is drawn, you child could potentially draw the same word 3 times in one game. This is a fun, non-intimidating way to get repeated exposure to the words. You could even have them spell the words or write them down as they are drawn.

My 3yo likes to sit on my lap and draw the sticks when it's my turn. I read them for her and she gets to feel included in the 6yo's school work.

Typically we add 3 new sight words a week. Right now we have 26 words in the can. I periodically remove the words she has mastered so that our games are not eternal.

MATH VARIATION: We do something similar with math at times. I have sticks with numbers 0-20 drawn on them. I give her "magic number of the day" (sort-of like Sesame's Letter of the Day). She then draws a number from the can and has to decide if we need to subtract or add from that number to reach our magic number. Example: If the magic number is 13, and she draws 5 then we figure out that 5 + 8 = 13. If she draws 20 then we figure out that 20-7 = 13. We keep a yards stick handy and use it like a number line for this game. Or we use our Arithmasticks that we ordered from Montessori-n-such.

Sound Drawers

2009-05-22T18:36:00.000-07:00

Here is a pic of our sound drawers

I found a bunch of these little drawers for sale at the dollar store and hot glued them all together.

Here's what I have in my "s" drawer

I have a mix of things that I had around the house (picture of sandles and mini scissors), things I bought at the craft store in the wooden crafts section (sun), and things I ordered from Montessori Services (spider).

The heart shaped box on top is our Story Box.

Sometimes I will put 5-10 objects from the drawers into the story box. Then we sit in a circle and take turns pulling out an object. The first person uses his/her object to begin telling a story. The next person uses his her object to continue the story where the first person left off. You can then record the story, make copy work from scenes in the story, illustrate the story, act out the story...or not.

My kids love this activity. We've come up with some pretty loopy stories in the past.

We also use the sound drawers together with our home made sandpaper letters in a more traditional way to identify beginning sounds.

More of my Montessori Creations

2009-05-22T00:05:00.000-07:00

Here are just a couple more things that I've made over the past while to help my 3yo with introductory math:

I made this after I saw the unifix stair online. I created the number columns on my computer and glued them to some foam board. I used match sticks to better define the top and bottom of the columns. I followed the Montessori bead stair colors as best I could given the colors that were available from the selection of Unifix cubes I had. The cubes were included in our materials sent by WAVA.

And here's my own version of the Montessori Spindles

This is made from an old curtain I had around the house. I stitched a few simple pockets and used stickyback felt numbers from the craft store.

My 3yo really enjoys both of these activities.

UPDATE: After reading one of the comments from a very kind reader who pointed out the missing "0" from this work, I've since modified the work to look like this:

My Version of the Golden Bead Material

2009-05-21T22:23:00.000-07:00

I put off making the golden bead material for a very long time. It just seemed so laborious, so expensive and time consuming. And I kept hoping that I'd find something else to use in its place. Nope. I really needed the golden bead material. So I just had to bite the bullet and make it.

Luckily, I came upon an idea that I believe saved me tons of time, money and effort.

Instead of using "golden beads" and metal wire, I used black pony beads (none of the craft stores had gold) and black plastic string as pictured below:

The spool of plastic string cost me $2.00 and a bag of 720 beads cost me about $4. I bought 3 bags of beads. It is so quick and easy to string up 10 beads and double knot them on each end. They aren't perfect, of course. They're definitely not like the real thing. But they convey the same concept and I think it's okay to teach our kids to be flexible and make do with what is available to us in any given situation.

So, when it was time to make a hundred square, I used the same techniques as described (in French) on this site: http://aidalavie.blogspot.com/ but I used white pipe cleaners instead. Again, I paid about $2 for a pack of 100 pipe cleaners and they are very easy to work with. I didn't even really need pliers to finish off the ends.

Here's a hundred bar all strung together

Again, they aren't fancy, but they do the job and they were very inexpensive and MUCH easier to make than if I were to use wire.

Montessori Style Thousands Chain

2009-05-14T16:19:00.000-07:00

I'm a huge montessori fan and I try really hard to supplement our WAVA curriculum (which can sometimes be very 2 dimensional and dry) with lots and lots of montessori work.
My 6yo has been asking me lots of questions that would indicate some confusion about the decimal system and place value beyond the "tens place". So I put together some very simple activities to help out with that.

We made the place value cards (copies can be found at http://www.jmjpublishing.com/ once they get their site back up). She recognized those cards from her days at montessori and caught on VERY quickly to the concept of 100s and 1000s.

And then I put together a 1000s chain and helped her count all the way up to 1000.

Too bad my printer was almost out of ink and the arrows aren't so pretty. But she enjoyed this hands look at place value. The chain is very big, obviously. We did this work on our living room floor and she had a good time manipulating and configuring that big long chain. It took me 2 nights to make the chain from pony beads on plastic string. The red beads break up the groups of tens. I believe the real thousands chain is gold. But I couldn't find golden pony beads. So we decided that black and red would suit us just fine.

Corn Cob Doll

2009-05-12T22:49:00.000-07:00

I was late getting around to this activity but wanted the girls to have this experience anyway. We should have done this back when we were reading Little House in the Big Woods, but oh well.

When I presented the activity I was surprised that my 6yo chose not to be interested. She really didn't have any desire to make a corn cob doll. So I let that be. My 3yo, on the other hand, thought it would be great fun. So we ate our corn for lunch and then we had to let it sit for about 1 week before it felt dry enough to use. I even went so far as to set in in the oven at 200 for a little bit to encourage the drying process.

I let my 3yo paint the cob. Then I helped her glue on a wad of yarn for hair (then I used a staple gun to make sure it was on really good. We glued on some googley eyes and then I helped make a little dress. We wound some pipe cleaners around it for arms and VOILA! Ella the corn cob doll was born, just like Laura's little corn cob doll (sort of).

Race To a Quarter

2009-05-10T23:06:00.001-07:00

Here's a money counting game that we adapted to suit our needs.

The original version can be found here: http://www.ehow.com/video_4429481_play-money-game.html

We play race to a quarter (or race to .50 or .75 depending on our schedule and interest level). It's always out on the shelf and makes a great break-time activity:

The play money is from Staples. The box holding the money and the dice is an old container that originally contained screws from the hardware store. I glued paper cut outs of the various coins at the top of the page before laminating the sheets. The paper coins were included in our Math text.

Best Home School Picture Ever

2009-05-10T10:05:00.001-07:00

Study Helps for Laura Ingalls Wilder Series

2009-05-08T18:27:00.000-07:00

So, as I mentioned, my girls are loving their study of the Laura Ingalls Wilder series. We're in the second book, Little House on the Prairie.

For the first book, I had tried to introduce them to Notebooking pages. The girls weren't really into it. They didn't want to do it and I met with some resistance. Well, the last thing I want when I'm trying to instill a love of literature is resistance. So we stopped the notebooking and switched to lapbooking.
I highly recommend the site at homeschoolshare.com where they offer free lapbook templates for these books.
The girls LOVE lapbooking and it is a great way to break up the reading into bite size pieces that they will remember. Then when they've finished the book and the lapbook, they have a great portfolio of memories that they can keep forever.

I'll post our lapbook when we've finished it.

This has also been a great discussion starter as we talk about various things like lazy cousin Charley who deserved to be stung by a swarm of bees. Or the way Laura refused to complain out loud when her legs hurt from riding in the wagon so long. These books are so full of Life Lessons and it has been so fun getting the girls' feed back on what they read. I feel like we're just starting to get into the spirit of the TJed model as we discuss these great stories of life on the wild frontier.

I also created a map showing the Ingalls' move from Pepin, WI to Independence KS.

This map was printed out from a site that I love at http://www.yourchildlearns.com/megamaps/print-world-maps.html

I used rubber cement to adhere it to foam board and colored in the states where the Ingalls family traveled.

There are T pins labeled with the states they passed through and a black dotted line showing their travel path. The labels are Avery address labels colored with colored pencil.

I keep the pins in a small fishing tackle box. The cover of Melissa & Doug USA Map 51-Piece Floor Puzzle
that we've had for years serves as a guide while she completes this activity.

My daughter LOVED this activity so much that she asked for a larger version that of the whole USA. So here's what I put together for her:

I covered this map with packaging tape since our 1yo had already tried to rip it off the foam board. That made it harder to punch the holes with the T-pins, so I pre-punched them before giving this work to my daughter. She loves it!

Here are the pins for the 48 states, 5 Great Lakes and the Salt Lake stuck in Styrofoam when not in use. Dividing up the state pins by color really helped her as she located the various states on the map.

Reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder series

2009-05-08T15:32:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in last night's post, I'm ramping up my efforts to feed my mind with classic literature as recommended in the TJed model. And of course, I'm not leaving my kids out of the picture.

I began wondering just where I'd start on my journey of classical education with the girls. They're young (6 and 3) and not ready for reading chapter books on their own, obviously. As I thought about it, I remembered that I had the whole series of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books stashed a way in my storage room. I eagerly dug them out and began looking through them. My mom gave me the set when I was about 10 or 11 and I remember spending hours on my bed engrossed in those books, sometimes finishing a book in just one or two days. It was fun to find my old book marks tucked in the pages. What great memories.

So that settled it. I had at least several months worth of reading material sitting right in front of me and I couldn't wait to dig in.

When I presented the books to the girls they didn't seem all that interested. I tried to convey my enthusiasm and my love for the books. They did seem curious to find out why I'd be so passionate about some boring looking book. We began to read Little House in the Big Woods all cuddled up in my bed and after the first chapter THEY WERE HOOKED. My 6yo especially loves these books and begs to be read to often.

We are now reading the second book, Little House on the Prarie, which is the most familiar book of the set thanks to the TV Series. By the way, here's a fun clip of highlights from that show and it is amazingly true to the book:

After we finish reading the books, I'd like to get the girls the Little House on the Prairie - The Complete Season 1
but I want them to read it before they watch it.

We're having lots of fun supplementing our readings with other study materials, which I will post about shortly.

The Thomas Jefferson Education

2009-05-08T00:07:00.000-07:00

It's late and I really should be sleeping so that I can be my best self when my kids need me tomorrow. But I really need to just say a few words about A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the Twenty-first Century
by Oliver de Mille. You'll see that I have this book posted to the right as a "must have" and it certainly is, in my opinion.

This is a book that should be on every parent's shelf. It explains the different goals of the various types of education available today and asks a simple question: "Is the education your child receives preparing him/her to be everything they are meant to be?" That's paraphrasing of course.

This book brought something to my attention that I had already known, but never really given conscious thought to: In the past, public education was considered the only viable option for poor children. Wealthy children destined for greatness were home schooled with mentors and classics. Hm. I hadn't really thought of public education as a last resort for those who have no recourse. But that certainly was the beginning of "public" education.

I'm not going to spend lots of time here outlining the pros and cons of public versus private education. I think De Mille's question is really the only one that needs to be posed and when it is answered truthfully, each parent will be led to the kind of education that is best for their child.

Reading this book was a joy. It gave voice to truths that I have held dear for a very long time. It rang true to me instantly and I read it through as quickly as I could. I became convinced more than ever that real education, or leadership education, is best obtained through extensive reading, writing, and discussion. This book embodied every thing that I love about educating and inspired me to take steps toward improving my own education so that I can mentor my children to the best of my ability.

In an effort to take this book seriously and improve myself as a mentor, I am indeed reading more classics as recommend by de Mille. Right now I'm reading The Walking Drum The trick is finding time to read for myself while balancing all my other responsibilities. But I do realize, now, that a good mentor is key to the entire education process. I have to make time for me. I have to be the best that I can be so I can pass on what I've learned and set an example of life long learning.

Home School for Dummies

2009-05-05T21:41:00.000-07:00

So, I guess I could call myself something of a cross between a newbie and a veteran home schooler.

We're approaching the end of our first year of home school. It's been a great ride. But I wanted to share with you my intentions for even starting this blog, especially this late in the school year.

See, as a newbie, I really didn't have any experience to guide me through this process of teaching my children academics. Given that we live in the information age, I naturally turned to the internet for help and was OVERWHELMED at the absolute plethora of resources. Let's just say that homeschool resources and blogs are not in short supply. And I think that's great.

But as I came across all these wonderful blogs, I was both encouraged and discouraged; inspired and bewildered. So much information, so many amazing families, so many cool projects and ideas, so many...so much...so wonderful...SO IMPOSSIBLE! Agh! I felt like I lacked the homeschooling gene that all these incredible super human mothers possessed. I happen to personally know one such mother. She's mother of 5 and runs the most amazing home school you'll ever see.

Anyway, I began to wonder where I would fall in all of this. Would I land on my feet if I leaped into this world of homeschooling? I mean, the kids I see on these blogs are genius, the parents are superb. The home class rooms are works of art and engineering mastermind. I could almost hear choirs of angels singing at me through each post that revealed intelligent, capable, knowledgeable, industrious, kind, giving, and persevering over achievers of every age.

WHAAAAT? For REAL? How do these people have time to be so well rounded and so incredibly talented???

What I needed was a Homeschooling for Dummies resource guide to walk me through it all.

If you can relate to what I'm saying, then you're in the right place I hope. I don't intend to impress or overwhelm with what I'm going to share on this blog. I intend to lay it all out on the line and just tell it like it is: the good days, the not-so-good days, and everything in between. Hopefully it will put things into perspective and make it all seem a little more doable...especially for myself! LOL.

Enjoy.

Our Decision to Home School

2009-05-05T20:31:00.000-07:00

I'm a lucky woman. I get to stay home with my children and raise them myself. Not because it's easy, or because I can't get a job, or because we don't need/want a second income. I do it because I believe that my most important role that I will ever fulfill is that of mother. I believe that NO success can compensate for failure at home.

Am I perfect? NO. Do I have days when I wish I could go to work and leave the chaos at home? YES. But don't we all?

When my oldest child reached school age I had to make some really tough choices about her education. When last September rolled around and it was time to enroll her in kindergarten, I just could NOT do it. I had been putting it off for months. I felt at my core that public school just wasn't the right place for her.

There are lots of reasons to both love and hate public school. And sometimes it's hard to really put your finger on those reasons. But if you've ever had misgivings about having your children in public school, it might be for one of the following reasons:

1) You worry that your child's academic needs are not being addressed. They may be way ahead, or way behind. In either case they aren't getting the attention they need and deserve. The schools do NOT cater to the fast learners. Unfortunately, the "no child left behind" movement also means that "no child can move ahead of the pack". Teachers have to bring up the rear, not blaze trails for the gifted learners. This makes mediocrity not only the norm, but the goal.

2) Your child experiences social injustice, ridicule or harassment at school which impedes the learning process and pretty much makes life miserable for you and your child.

3) Your child's love of learning is being squelched and you can't stand to watch a thriving spirit slowly go numb and die.

4) You are concerned that your children will not be taught correct values or principles at school and will be exposed to demoralizing behavior, practices, theories and personalities.

5) You are concerned that public school is more about forming your child's political opinion while their young minds are susceptible to liberal agendas. Some conservatives go so far as to call public schools "liberal re-education camps". That may be a drastic statement, but I support it...at least to a degree. Just take a look at this clip from a Finnish documentary:

WOW! Yeah, Glenn Beck had a few comments to add to that. You should check his site at www.glennbeck.com and go to the archives for November 7, 2008.

Now, I am not saying that every teacher and every classroom is bad! I have some really fond memories of my education as a child. I went to public school until I graduated at age 18. And I lived! And I learned. And for the most part, it was an acceptable experience. But, at the risk of sounding very much like your grandparents, I have to say that the public school system has continued down a liberal, unionized path over the past few decades that I cannot endure. School just isn't what it used to be even 20 years ago. And my gut told me that public school is simply not where I want my children to learn.

It was a tough decision, but I listened to my gut and did NOT enroll my daughter in public school. So then I had to look at my alternatives, which included private school and home school.

Well, like I said, we're a one-income family and private school is pretty pricey, especially here in the Seattle area. And I had misgivings about home school. I just didn't know if I could do it. I didn't think I could be patient enough, or knowledgeable enough, or fun enough, or dedicated enough, or organized enough to get it right. I mean.....this is my child's education we're talking about! Shouldn't I just leave that to the experts?

I agonized over this decision for a very long time. I consulted friends, teachers, parents, and also my daughter to get her input. Here's what we ended up doing: First, we learned that kindergarten is totally optional in the state of WA. Our state does not even require a child to be in school until age 8.

ISN'T THAT RIDICULOUS? Yes, but true nonetheless.

We ended up taking a multi-faceted plan of action. We made some adjustments in our family budget that allow us to put our daughter in a private Montessori school for just 2 mornings a week. And we also take advantage of a home school program provided by our school district at no additional charge. They will tell you that the program is "free", but really it's just your tax dollars being spent in a different way. You pay for school whether you are there or not! Again...ridiculous. Who else but the government can get away with forcing you to pay for something that is unwanted because it is so sub par?

But this new trend of "public school at home" does seem to be on the rise as parents demand more control of their tax dollars and their children's education.

We chose this path because 1) our daughter is vivacious and extremely social....almost to a fault. And I do have concerns about being able to meet all her social needs with out regular contact from her friends at school. 2) While paying for 2 days at the Montessori school is a stretch, it's doable with a few adjustments to our current habits. However, paying for five is completely out of our budget. 3) I like having 3 days a week when I don't have to rush out the door to school. We can set our own pace and take our time doing home school! So it's been a terrific blend for our family. A really incredible balance of a brick and mortar "school" setting combined with our home school.

If you live in WA and want to check out the "free" online school (virtual academy) you can go to www.wava.org I know they do have online schools for various other states (such as Colorado and Georgia for example).

In March of this year, our budget finally hit the breaking point and I withdrew my daughter from the Montessori program with heave heart. But we have found ways to make up for that in other ways. A future post will explain in more detail how we've been meeting her social needs.

I'll be honest, homeschooling is hard work, even more than I anticipated. We got off to a very rocky start and I had a huge learning curve during the first couple months. But it's getting better, easier, and more fun. And if I had to do it all over again....I would! I can definitely see making home school a permanent lifestyle choice for our family, as long as we continue to find ways that supply social experiences for our children as well.

If you've thought about home school, but you're not sure if you can do it I would just recommend that you start researching, talking, and praying about it. And remember, you don't have to do it forever! You can do it for one semester and see what you think. But do think about it. This is serious stuff that we're up against in the public schools and parents MUST take an active, central part in their child's education.