Summer school?

I had originally planned to just unschool over the summer, but as we near the end of this academic year and I look at the strengths and weaknesses of my kids, I think maybe we should do some very light schooling over the summer. So here are my utterly random thoughts about this...

Elf:
Needs improvement in reading level and remembering math facts...
Idea for reading: Have him read aloud daily, starting with easier books (like level 2 and 3 Bob books), then work his way up to level 2 readers. Also work through Phonics Pathways. Supplement with Starfall.
Idea for math facts: Drill pages left from Saxon Math 2, flashcards.

Fairy:
Need to make sure she recognizes letters A-Z and numbers up to 20. She can verbally say all her letters and can verbally count to 30+, but falls a little short on recognizing the same things on paper.
Idea: Alphabet activities on Starfall. Counting activities from Learning Page.

Does this seem reasonable, or am I being a cruel mom taking their summer away?

Samples from this week...

Fairy's work

Elf's work

Another week down....

Only 7 more to go in our school year! So here's my brief weekly report...., and here's a link to samples...

Language Arts:
Fairy:
We have read the stories, and done the accompanying art/letter work up through the letter "D" (Oak Meadow). She has also done several more pages in Get Ready for the Code. I also used alphabet flash cards with her one day this week.
Elf:
He's been doing daily copywork, using a sentence from the stories I am reading. He took a spelling test from lesson 4 in ETC and got all the words right! So we moved on to lesson 5, where he's doing a mixture of beginning and ending sounds ("sh"). I've also been having him read daily, from "Green Eggs and Ham" or a level 3 Bob book, and he chose to review some level 2 Bob books as well.

Math:
Fairy:
I am working with her to make sure she can identify the numbers 1-10 easily. So, we reviewed 3 and 4 this week, and she did a number line activity from a workbook I picked up at the teacher supply store.
Elf:
More review work, with number families - I made up some supplemental worksheets for this on my computer, and then an assessment from Saxon Math 2. We are also working on telling time to 5 minutes.

History:
We are reading about Ancient China in the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia. I read a book of stories called The Butterfly's Dream. Next week I plan to make Chinese type artwork and some calligraphy with the kids.

Science:
We have been studying plants and their life cycles. We read chapter 5 in Real Science 4 Kids this week (plant life cycles), and the kids made drawings of plants at two different stages, complete with roots. We haven't been able to plant any sunflowers yet, so I am off to the nursery today to pick up potting soil and some empty six-pack plant containers, so that we can get going with planting! We also need to decide on science projects for the charter school's science fair which is in ONE month.

Other:
We had Jenny's kids over this week for a few hours, and wow, 5 kids are hard to keep up with! But, we had a lot of fun. Elf has been spending a lot of his free time building things... well, pounding nails into various pieces of wood, which he calls "contraptions". Fairy has learned to make scrambled eggs. We finally watched the 2007 version of Charlotte's Web, and it was pretty good - now we just need to finish reading the book!

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Weekend learning...

Ah, the joys of weekend homeschooling! Things kept coming up during the week, so we kept postphoning lessons, but finally got around to them today, and as always, made some changes to our ever-evolving way of homeschooling. Started off the same as last time, with calendar and weather/temperature charting, then we recited the days of the week and the months of the year. I then read OM's version of "Goldilocks & the 3 Bears" out loud - Fairy did Papa Bear as a "B", and Elf did copywork (Once upon a time there were three bears), along with a drawing of the three bears. Then the change - both kids couldn't seem to work together, and I was having difficulty giving either of them the attention needed, so Elf got some play time while I worked on writing "A" and "B" and doing some work with the numbers "1" and "2" with Fairy. She also did 4 pages in Get Ready for the Code. Then, she got play time while Elf worked on ETC, math (addition facts up to 10 - again review work), and read a level 3 Bob book aloud. This alternation (M's suggestion) worked really well, so I'll keep doing it for the time being, bringing them together for stories, social studies & science. Later, when it's cooler out, we're planting sunflowers and nasturtiums (both from seed), and then the kids will draw pictures of plants, which I will help them label. Pretty basic - we're just labeling parts like stem, leaf, etc.

I have decided for the remainder of this school year - 8 weeks and counting! - to do a lot of review work with Elf, focusing on basic math facts and improving his reading skills. We'll continue this work, lightly, over the summer too. And I want to work with Fairy on making absolutely sure that she recognizes her letters and numbers. I need, and want, both of them to have a good, solid base for further education in the fall. While Cyrus can read books like Frog & Toad, it can be a drawn out process, and I want him to feel comfortable reading.

So that's where we are and what we're doing! Tomorrow I'm back and work, and life goes on as always from there.

Some new samples...

Elf's haystack and copywork

Fairy's letter "A" haystack Elf's math page
Fairy's math page

Spring break is over...

Back to homeschooling yesterday, but we tried out parts of Oak Meadow to make it more interesting, and so I could see what the kids thought of it, and it went really well. We started with doing our Saxon meeting books - calendar & weather/temperature charting - then I told a story from OM, about a haystack and a magic spindle. The kids drew pictures of the haystack - Fairy turned hers into the letter "A" (OM kindergarten work), and Elf did copywork on his. After that we moved on to math, where I decided to give them a break from Saxon and do some review work instead. I love Learning Page print-outs! Then on to ETC, with Elf doing 2 pages in his new lesson and Fairy completing a lesson (3 pages done). Finally, we finished up by reading in our biology book about the sprouting of seeds/early life for a plant. At bedtime I read them a Chinese fairy tale, as we are now studying ancient China.

Altogether a good homeschooling day! I am slowly realizing that, yes, I can meld all the bits and pieces together of all the program aspects I like. I don't have to define our homeschooling style by any one name, except maybe eclectic.

Would this be too much?

I am thinking, in addition to the plans I have outlined for fall, reading stories about Rome and the Middle Ages to Elf, maybe a story or 2 a week. This way he'll have fun with the unit studies, and still learn a bit about chronological history. Is this a good idea, or just overwhelming?

I can't believe I forgot to post about this...

but we finally made it to the Rosicrucion Egyptian Museum last Saturday. We've actually been hoping for months to make the trip, but it just kept getting delayed. Since we are now finished (for the moment anyway) with ancient Egyptian studies, this seemed like a great way to wrap it all up. And we had a fantastic time! So much to see... we played Senet in the garden, checked out all the pavilions, and slowly made our way inside. Once we actually went in, we saw everything from mummies to ancient mirrors, from a tomb replica (the kids' absolute favorite part) to a replica of a birthing room (although my MIL, who tagged along, could not figure out the purpose of the bricks... I tried several times, to no avail, to explain the idea of squatting during childbirth). My favorite part? All the day-to-day stuff. That is what fascinates me about history - it is not the big events, it is instead how people lived, regular people. I also loved watching the kids, especially Elf, connect what we had studied to what we were seeing, like the Code of Hammarubi, and statues/sarcophagi/etc. of famous pharoahs. Fairy loved the idea of a hippo-headed goddess for some reason. We also stayed for a planetarium show, and the kids were amazingly quiet during the whole thing!

Now for...

Today's topic - a recipe for success, or lunch! I'll give you my attempts at success... variety. We don't just sit down and school-at-home, nor do we do one hands-on project after another, or sit around reading for hours on end (although I could easily do that. Well, easily if I didn't have to stop every 42 seconds). We mix it up. A somewhat typical homeschooling session, for lack of a better word, might look something like this:

CircleTime first (adopted from Oak Meadow - it gets the children focused on what we're sitting down for)... verbal

Then we'll do our Meeting Books from Saxon, which involves calendar work, and checking the weather/temperature... writing, reading thermometer

Poetry memorization... again verbal

Explode the Code... writing

Then, we likely have a jumping jacks break, or a running around the backyard like maniacs break

Cyrus reads aloud... verbal

Math... written

History or science read-aloud time or watch a documentary/movie... verbal/visual

Maybe an art, history or science project, if we have time... hands-on

I also read from a chapter book at bedtime.

Biggest challenge...

I missed yesterday's from Dana's Principled Discovery Home Educaion Week topic due to writing an ecology report, so I'll try today's, which is to share one of my greatest challenges. For me, I'd say a great challenge is finding the right path of education for my family. I am easily attracted to many types of schooling, ranging from classical to Charlotte Mason, to Waldorf-based, to unit studies, and more. I can see benefits to each, and so I want to try them all. It doesn't help that, as we homeschool through a charter school, I have lots of stuff easily available.

I think what I need to do is forget the labels. As a home educator, I am free to pick and choose what works for us, and to move past what doesn't work.

Oh, and by the way, isn't my blog looking pretty? I feel blessed in that I have a friend who designed my great new banner for me. I could spend all day looking at it!