Narration...

image courtesy of hearinghealthmatters.org

One of my favorite Charlotte Mason "tools" is the art of narration. Simply put, narration is "narration is retelling in your own words", allowing a child to tell you what they have learned. Narrations can be verbal, written, acted out, drawn/painted... so many options!

Narration is something I have used all along, and still use, even with teenagers. For example, I leave the kids notes every morning that I work. Today's note asked them to each read or watch something to do with science, and that I will expect them to tell me something about it later. That's a very simplistic approach to narration, one of the most basic. It is certainly easy to implement!

Sometimes I ask for more involved narrations, usually written. They can write a story, or a summary. The Girl writes a lot of short stories, and illustrates them. She's spontaneously made art projects that go with what she learned, such as a 3D frog life cycle collage. The Boy tends to be more straightforward in his approach—he'll write a summary, or an outline of facts. Sometimes though, he'll render an image of something he studied in Blender, and he has notebooks full of diagrams, conversion charts, and things of that nature.

Why use narration?

First of all, it naturally teaches the kids to summarize... at least a little, though as anyone who has listened to kids talk about their interests know, they can really give a lot of detail!

Secondly, telling back what they have learned cements it more firmly in their minds.

Thirdly, it is a form of feedback that can be expressed in so many ways. Tests don't generally allow as many creative approaches! And narration lets kids add in more of what they do know, even from ideas/readings/other things that may at first seem unrelated. Tests don't have that flexibility.

I'm eager to hear about what my kids learned this morning!

Wrapping up the Week...

August is almost over!?! Seriously, where does it go?

We had a decent week. The Boy is settling nicely into his junior college classes, and is getting used to the homework load. I got to see my work space at the same junior college this week, inside this imposing brick library...

I am stopping by the library today to pick up a few books, before we head off to our weekly park day, so that we can start our [loose/relaxed] studies of the Renaissance and astronomy....

     


Plus I ordered this book to round out astronomy.
We'll get going with our history, astronomy, and geography read-alouds this weekend/next week, then add in math for The Girl in the next week (for some reason, she is still having trouble with telling time, so we'll work on that first, before moving into a review of multiplication and division), and writing for both and math for The Boy the first full week of September. Thankfully, I did find a good deal on The Boy's math -- Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1, v2.0 -- on homeschoolclassifieds.

As to what else we have been up to... the kids found season 8 of Dr. Who on Netflix. We also found a period drama (mini-series) called Dancing on the Edge, set in early 1930s London, and beautifully made. It has led to some good discussions so far too! We've been working on cleaning and other schedules for the household, especially since it looks like M will be working 6 days a week for some time. The kids are stepping up to the challenge of taking on more responsibility very nicely... at least so far! The Girl's been working on clay and paper sculptures, The Boy on 3D art with heavy paper, lots of reading going on.

I'm working on a list of cook-ahead breakfasts and dinners for busy days. And a list of documentaries that I think we would enjoy, and that would add to our educations fairly painlessly. I also have this book to read by Tuesday night!

And our last butterfly hatched! We had almost given up on the third chrysalis...

Have a good weekend!

Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Mo...

Wow, choosing a focal point for The Girl's history and lit studies next year is HARD! She doesn't really have any historical interests that have come to light, so I'm just throwing some options together.

Current thoughts... I have two three four main ideas at the moment as to what she could do. Maybe some reader feedback could help a bit?

image courtesy of deviantart.com

Option A... The Fairytale Project:
A comparative study of major fairy tale forms (Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella,etc.), using the The Classic Fairy Tales: A Norton Critical Edition, along with various versions of each fairy tale, including movies. Poetry, and even some Shakespeare (Midsummer Night's Dream) would be easy to work into this. I can see working in some world cultures too, as there are variations on the fairy tales throughout the world. This would also allow for bringing in more modern novels/fairy tales, such as The Sisters Grimm series, and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making.

I know this isn't "history", but rather more strictly a literature study, but then she is only going into the seventh grade, has studied a fair amount of history already, and will be tackling it again in high school.

The Pioneer, by Robert T. Barrett

Option B... Pioneer Times:
I'd use books like the Little House books, Abraham Lincoln's World, Pioneer Girl: A True Story of Growing Up on the Prairie, Caddie Woodlawn, and some Native American resources as well (Birchbark House?). She could do hands-on projects -- making butter, quilting, and so forth. And there are plenty of movies and documentaries that could flesh this out. I'm kind of taking notes from The Prairie Primer, but that resource on the whole is too religious for me, thus the piecing it together myself.

I could see her going one of two ways with this... either really enjoying it, or really being bored by it by the end. And I don't know which is more likely, though if she enjoyed it, something fun to follow it up might be a homemade study based on Where the Brook and the River Meet (which features the Anne of Green Gables series, but again is too religious).

From Matilda, by Roald Dahl

Option C... Picture Perfect:
We would use selections from A Picture Perfect Childhood, which contains fantastic monthly lists of [picture] books related to famous people, historical events, the arts, Shakespeare, and more. Before you say "picture books are too young", consider this passage from the book:

There were times when I was dealing with my own teenagers that I found a picture book could better simplify things that were mournfully drawn-out and completely over a child's head in a dry text book. Sometimes a picture book made them care about a subject or a historical person whom they had not cared about before. Many times, a picture book condensed into a nutshell what I had spent the last hour trying to tell them. In history, a world and time zones that reach far and wide, I have found that a picture book can prove to be a capsule-size time machine which can be swallowed more easily than trying to climb and ride the whole elephant. 

And, Jim Trealease writes, in The Read Aloud Handbook: "A good story is a good story. Beautiful and stirring pictures can move fifteen-year-olds as well as five-year-olds. A picture(s) book should be someplace on the reading list of every class at every level."

image courtesy of kidlitfrenzy.com

And Option 4... Science with More:
My other thought was to pair up the Scientists in the Field series with either biographies or works of literature, depending on the exact book. For example, perhaps Digging for Bird Dinosaurs with The Dragon in the Cliff; Wild Horse Scientists with Misty of Chincoteague; Gorilla Doctors with either something on Diane Fosse, or My Life with the Chimpanzees; and perhaps The Frog Scientist with The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. 

I'm sure I will figure this out, or The Girl will help me figure it out, before September... I hope.

Derby Days...

The Girl attended her first roller derby tournament over the last weekend! We spent two nights, two days, in Bakersfield. While they did not come home victorious, our girls played hard, and played clean games. They lost the first bout, won the second, and lost the third. While I did take some photos of my own, there were professional photographers on the scene too, so here are a few pictures of The Girl from day 1...

I wish there was a better picture of her from day 2, but at least she can be seen in this one...

The nice thing is that they get another chance -- next month they are playing the team from day 2, the Bakersfield Juniors, but at a home game.

It was a good weekend in many ways. First, the girls spent all their time together, so it helped the team bond a bit more. Secondly, The Girl has never been away from me for the night before, so spending two nights, plus travel time there and back, with her coaches and teammates was an interesting experience for her, one that I think helped cement that she's growing up. I also got that lovely thing I have so rarely... alone time. I read all of The Other Boleyn Girl in my hotel room! And now I'd like to see the film adaptation. And, I rode down and back with a longtime derby skater/derby mom, so I learned a lot more about the game, and the players and players' families, in the six hours each direction.

Other than that, what have we been up to?

Math -- The Girl is burning through Life of Fred Cats, and The Boy loves Life of Fred Prealgebra with Biology. They are enjoying it enough that they agreed to continue with the books over summer, just a lesson (The Boy) or two (The Girl) a day.

Writing -- The Boy is working on an essay outline, and spends some of his time working on his story plot. The Girl is practicing sentence structure and spelling. She learned to text over the long weekend.

Self-taught -- The Boy is working hard on computer coding. He regularly chats with a computer science major at fencing, who helps him figure out what codes to tackle. The Boy has also set a goal, with his coaches, of moving up to competitive level fencing by fall, starting with smaller, local tournaments, and going from there.

The Girl has the next derby game to get ready for. She's been working on her sewing skills lately, altering a stuffed animal into something resembling a cat version of L. Frank Baum's "Patchwork Girl" (of Oz). She also learned how to use my vintage sewing machine, and made a purse for one of her dolls.

We're getting back into our regular routine bit by bit this week, and should be back in the full swing of things by next week! Hope your week is going well!

And We're Back!

...What We've Been Up To...

Hikes with friends and family

Derby practice

Sorting through books and clothes we no longer need

Tutoring a friend's teen in math and writing (my job), and photography/camera use (The Boy's job)

Changing up our learning approach a little for the rest of our school year

Library visits, now that I finally paid off The Girl's overdue fines! And she discovered Charles de Lint, one of my all-time favorite authors, with The Cats of Tanglewood Forest!

Dying streaks of hair purple and then practicing selfies (please pardon the mess in the background!)

Celebrating spring with friends at the park

 The kids have been taking turns heading down to a local school playground for basketball with M

The Girl started exploring stop motion photography

Sculpting houses a la Dr. Suess!

I took up running... and love it, though I'm not very good at it yet!

Volunteer work (mine) at a teen crisis shelter

Celebrating the equinox with "Ostara" baskets

Fencing a sabre tournament (first attempt at sabre, he's on the right)

...Plans...

Math and writing every day (by which I mean at least 4 days a week)

Some fun reading aloud

And more reading aloud, hopefully to be followed by/interspersed with some field trips

Some physics, chemistry, and Henry Ford (The Boy)

Lots of frog studies and a bit about Catherine the Great (The Girl)

More volunteer work at the teen crisis shelter, and more tutoring

Perhaps an art project or two

Derby practice, fencing practice

More running, basketball, and hiking

Plenty of time to explore interests old and new!

Have a good week!

Hello March! Monday Musings....

...Celebrating!!!...

This week we are celebrating The Girl's TWELFTH birthday! She's asked for a special dinner, time at the local mini-golf/family fun center, and to get her ears (re) pierced. I thought we might also go out and get her a couple of new tops, etc. at a lovely little thrift store. She also wants a couple of books, but overall, she's not asking for much. I have a hard time grasping that my "baby" is turning 12!

 ...Outside My Window...

The weather is all over the place! On Saturday, we had a brief though intense rain-thunder-lightning storm. Then it was sunny and almost warm again! This morning is cold, overcast, and a bit dreary, with a drizzle, or another possible thunderstorm, on the way, though the rest of the week is supposed to be "pleasant and sunny".

We are getting some awesome clouds though!

...In My House & Kitchen...

Tonight I am making Veracruz-Style "Red Snapper", but with swai, because that it what I have on hand (I might leave out the jalapeno). Last night was spaghetti and meatballs, always a hit, and a couple of the other meals for the week include a chicken enchilada casserole, and my turkey 3-bean chili (a special request for The Girl's birthday).

...In Our Garden...

We're getting the raised beds built! My mom gave us a bunch of old lumber, so we are re-purposing it. I can't wait to have actual soil for my veggies to grow in, rather than the hard-as-stone stuff our yard is made of. The cherry and apple trees are leafing out, and the chickens have finally started laying eggs again -- we got three yesterday! We adopted four rabbits recently that are settling in nicely.

...In Our Homeschooling...

We're shaking things up a bit, and The Girl will be spending some time with Fred... we're lucky enough to have a friend that owns the whole series up through Beginning Algebra, so we can borrow books as needed. The Girl's really frustrated with Saxon lately, and I hate to see her starting to dislike math. She'll also be starting her online dinosaur paleobiology course this week (do note -- she's just watching the videos, etc., not really "doing" the class). The Boy is about midway through his online course in Scratch programming, and is already looking ahead at other courses he can take. He might "take a look at" LoF Beginning Algebra this week too, but will likely stick with Jacobs. He's also starting a foray into chemistry, so I've been gathering books, online resources, ACS's free middle school program, and he's going to check out some Crash Course Chemistry videos. This will be instead of physics for the time being.

...Reading & Watching...

The Girl and I are starting The Dragon in the Cliff today. On her own, she's got a stack of books she's picking and choosing from, including Beezus & Ramona, Little House in the Big Woods, A Mother Goose Treasury, A Light in the Attic (she's discovered she really enjoys poetry!), and several non-fiction titles too. We've gone from not reading, to having to check on her late at night to make sure she's not still up reading! [enter mock exasperation]

The Boy also has a stack of books going, ranging from Chemistry for Dummies to a re-reading of The Kane Chronicles. Of course, he's stuck on the computer a lot lately, which I need to curb, so he has more time for all those books!

Together, we are still reading about northern California, and The Hobbit. I am about to start Quartet for the End of Time, which looks intriguing. I'm always on the hunt for good new (at least new to me!) novels. We finished season 5 of Downton Abbey last night, and though I am truly sorry it is over already, I loved, loved, loved the last episode! So we are back to Lost. And of course Big History, Walking with Dinosaurs (Cassia), and various other science documentaries, etc.

...Doing & Making...

The Girl is still sculpting.

Rollin' the Dice

 The Boy is combing through The Art of Tinkering and The Art of the Catapult for fun projects. I'm still working on finishing up a scarf, and I've got another batch of cat toys to sew.

...What We've Been Up To & What We're Doing...

 We were lucky enough last Thursday to get to see The Mayhem Poets perform in a "school" show. The kids had never seen poetry performed before, and it was a fantastic experience, and probably is part of the fuel behind The Girl's current poetry adoration. And of course, we went to park day with friends, had fencing and derby practice, though The Boy missed one fencing session due to allergies.

And then, to be done: The birthday. Fencing. Derby practice. Taking my dad shopping for The Girl's birthday. Maybe meeting with a friend that wants me to tutor her 8th grade, 13 year old daughter in algebra. Park day. More exercise (me). And we're planning a two-night camping trip for next weekend at a local campground!

Have a good week! And enjoy some tree pictures from our last park day...

Week One Down...

Phew!

Actually, the week, as far as homeschooling, went very well. Better than I expected our first week to go! We changed a few things around, but that's to be expected. We had some big hits, and no misses (yet anyway).

A slightly old picture, with her pal Emily

THE GIRL

The Girl tackled Saxon Math 6/5 this week, as well as a few lessons from Reading Horizons. The math was, this early in the year, mostly review work... a lot of pattern/skip counting, which I explained to her is a great way to practice multiplication. She finally noticed the pattern the 9 times table makes, and was very excited to share her discovery with me-- "Mom, the 10's go up, and the 1's go down, and then halfway through, you just turn the numbers around, and if you add the 10's and the 1's...they always add up to 9!" I remember too when The Boy made that discovery a few years back, and it made that part of multiplication so much easier. In reading, she worked on common words, "ed" endings, and silent e words. We also started reading Dr. Dolittle's Puddleby Adventures, which she very much enjoys. We read from A Child's Story of the Animal World (our "new" science/zoology "textbook") about the animal kingdom, and small creatures, such as the amoeba. And she watched a couple of episodes of Blue Planet. How we love David Attenborough! The Girl says "his voice is soothing and he knows SO much about animals!"

We did not get to our writing plan this week, but will add that in next week. I also hope she'll apply her reading lessons more next week to actual reading. I picked up a few library books for her, and we've been writing each other notes, plus I leave her a note every morning when I go to work and she's still sleeping. And I need to pick out some projects for her to do from The Amateur Zoologist.

Another slightly old picture

THE BOY

Something has happened with The Boy. Somehow over the summer, my boy really started growing up. He took all responsibility for his own work this week, and did everything I gave him to do without complaint. Not only without complaint, but happily!

This week he tackled his first lessons in The Art of Problem Solving. Now, if you have never seen this math series, it's pretty tough. It is what is called "discovery based", meaning that they give him several problems to solve at the beginning of the lesson, and then explain ways to approach them. This fosters a different sense of understanding than math he has done in the past, and so far he absolutely loves it. I had him sit down yesterday and read, a second time, through their solutions, and he kept saying "I never thought of it this way, but they make it easier". He did manage to get nearly every problem correct this week, so I think we're off on the right foot. He also read a chapter in Conceptual Physics, defined the key terms, and answered a couple of the comprehension questions, in addition to watching a lesson from How Things Work, which involved fairly copious note-taking. And he watched an episode of Into the Universe, wrote an informative paragraph on the uses and benefits of nylon, and read several chapters in The Phantom Tollbooth. He also worked, on his own, on a few drawing projects from Drawing: The Complete Course. And he did lesson one in German, from Duolingo.

I realized yesterday that next year, he will be the same age I was when I started summer art classes at the local junior college as a concurrent high school student. He is very excited about the idea of trying out college that way next fall! He figures he'll start with an art class, then maybe add in German, and then start taking placement tests for math and English. In a nutshell, that means we have another two years, more or less, to finish building a really strong language arts and math base. YIKES!

Next week I want him to continue working with Write Source 2000, to develop other types of paragraphs, and to brainstorm a writing project. And I think I might add in readings/projects/videos from The New Way Things Work, since the Conceptual Physics readings don't take him long.

I asked him point blank if he noticed I ramped up his workload this year. His response was "Yeah, I noticed, but I like it."

And a really old picture!

 TOGETHER

We did an art project (Drawing Upside Down) together that turned out to be tougher than I anticipated. We watched an episode of Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts, all about what music really means. We started our logic/arguement course, which, as it had Monty Python clips, was a huge hit. The Girl even insisted we take the quiz at the end of the section we did, so I let them answer the questions, getting 9 out of 10 right. We read about Crete in The Book of the Ancient Greeks (as well as a chapter in The Human Odyssey, but the kids and I prefer the Mills' book), learned about the origins of the English alphabet with The Word Snoop, analyzed some denotations and connotations with Figuratively Speaking, made progress through The Twenty-One Balloons, and started The Marvelous Land of the Snergs just last night (our bedtime reading), which so far is just absolutely delightful. We also started our Sunday geography studies, using DK's Geography of the World and outline maps from National Geographic.

Next week we'll add in grammar and poetry, and I plan to read from Tales of Troy and Greece, especially the stories of the Minotaur, and of Daedalus and Icarus, since those were specifically mentioned in our history readings. We'll tackle our geography reading with The Glorious Adventure, nature reading with Swampwalker's Journal, listen to some more Bach (the composer of the month)... and I am still planning our art project.

Looking at everything here, it has been a good and full first week! I am very pleased with what we're attempting, and how well it has started out. Now only 35 weeks to go!

Finding Our Groove...

I haven't been too good lately with the weekly reports, have I? Never fear though, we are keeping quite busy over here in our little corner of the world! And I'm posting this week's "review" a whole day early! Things are falling ever so nicely into place right now.... (we're almost unschooling... shhhh)

And here's what we're up to these days!

Math

On Monday, we played several rounds of Pizza Fraction Fun, and then I had The Girl work on writing down equivalent fractions while The Boy  worked in his Zaccaro Challenge Math book. The Girl loved figuring out all the combinations that could equal a whole, a half, a third, a quarter, and so on. She's been practicing verbally ever since! 

On Tuesday, we watched Donald in Mathmagic Land. It has been quite a while since we watched this, and we really enjoyed it. The kids asked if we could explore some of the ideas in it in more depth, so I'm getting a copy of String, Straight-edge & Shadow: The Story of Geometry, and we're going to have Geometry Thursdays. I may add in Janice VanCleave's Geometry for Every Kid for practical application.

On Wednesday, Life of Fred Fractions arrived in the mail, and The Boy settled right down to work in it! We read it aloud, together, and The Girl asked if she could "do some Fred too", so I've ordered Farming for her. In the meantime, she had more fun with fractions.

And today, I plan on working through a lesson or two in Waldorf geometric drawings. I have a guide a friend passed on, so we'll try that out! I think I might have the kids work in Fred and Zaccaro a little too, just one problem set apiece, or something along those lines. I'll try to remember to post some pictures if we make anything good!

Reading & Writing

On Monday, we did some work from Hot Fudge Monday, this time working with nouns. I've basically decided that we'll rotate through the chapters in the book by doing an exercise from verbs one week, nouns the next, prepositions the week after that, and so on. In this lesson, the kids each had to take three short, boring sentences with very general nouns, and make them much more specific. The Girl read out loud to me as well.

On Tuesday, the kids chose to do some free writing. The Girl wrote a story about a frog in a pond full of lily pads, and The Boy wrote some lines of dialog for two completely silly robots. The Girl read to me again too - I am so glad to see her building more confidence in this area!

On Wednesday, we played You've Been Sentenced! Then, during The Boy's fencing lesson, The Girl played Thread Words on my Kindle, and wrote a very short story in "Notes" on my phone. She's getting quite familiar with the typical keyboard layout already!

Today I plan to have The Boy work in Write With the Best, and I think I'll have The Girl work in a lesson from Emma Serl's Language Lessons.

History

We decided to backtrack a little, so we're reading through The Early Human World - I really do love this series, so am happy to read a volume aloud! I think we'll add in a re-viewing of Walking with Cavemen, and as we work through the book, I am sure other applicable documentaries will pop up. We're lucky too that there is an active archeological dig site not too far from here, and I'd love to get the kids out there to see it!

Science

The Boy is reading his way through The New Way Things Work, keeping a notebook too in which he is sketching and labeling diagrams from the book. I need to remind him that the videos are on you tube!

The Girl has been watching animal documentaries all week, mainly David Attenborough ones.

Today's plan is to watch The Greatest Places, and to start reading through The World in a Bucket of Soil with The Girl, then work on some applicable hands-on.

Literature & Everything Else

We're almost done with Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets at bedtime. I'm not sure if we'll go on to the third book in the series right away, or pick something else from my gigantic list. The Girl and I are very much enjoying The Story of Dr. Doolittle, and will probably follow that up with The Voyages of Dr. Doolittle. The Boy is really liking the Dark is Rising Sequence, and, during The Girl's derby practice this week, he read all of The Son of Sobek (which combines two of his favorite book characters!) on my Kindle. Since it is October, I plan to start working in some good Halloween literature: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Tales of Terror & Fantasy (Poe).

Our movie of the week, so far, was the classic version of The Miracle Worker. The kids were amazed that Patty Duke was not really blind or deaf, and they were impressed by the whole story. I'm slowly working on a list of movies I would like to watch with them - some happy, some sad, some musicals, some drama, historical pieces, comedies, etc. Interesting connection the kids made with this one - the terrible place that Annie Sullivan grew up has similarities to the poor houses and such that Dickens railed against in so many of his works.

And in art, The Girl spent Tuesday applying paper mache strips to an old coffee can from Trader Joe's. On Wednesday, she painted it, and now has a new pencil holder for her desk! The Boy worked on many diagrams (see Science above), and is currently working on a pen-and-ink car drawing.

Also, on Saturday, The Boy participated in another in-house fencing tournament. This one was a team tournament, which he hadn't done before. On his first round, he managed to narrow the gap between teams down to only 2 points, scoring 6 points himself. Unfortunately, they got behind again shortly thereafter, and ended up losing, but he still had a blast!

So that's what we're up to! Of course there's baking, cooking, derby and fencing, playing at the park, watching TV shows together, and more! I'm satisfied at the moment with what we're doing, and how they are learning.

Slow Down, You Move Too Fast....

Slow down, you move too fast. 

You got to make the morning last. 

Just kicking down the cobble stones. 

Looking for fun and feelin' groovy.

(Simon & Garfunkel)

I've had this song running through my head for a few days now, so I'm slowing things down. On purpose. Aiming for much more Tortoise, and much less Hare. First and foremost, The Girl and Reading Horizons. We've been doing the lessons nearly every day, and while she's making progress, I think we'd do better if we slowed down a little. My awesome friend Jessica has offered to send me some of her teaching materials for the program, which, as we're doing just the online version, I don't have. I am looking forward to seeing if we can go more in-depth with this!

Which means, yes, she'll still be working through the program in the fall. But, the further we get into it, the more okay I am with that. In addition to basic reading skills, she's learning spelling, grammar, and all that!

With both kids, I decided we're not quite ready for the Kilgallon materials I listed in this post. With further research, I realized that the Kilgallons assume a basic familiarity with the parts of speech, with clauses, and so on. I'd like to take some time to build that up a little more first, so back to my original plan of using Grammar-Land: Grammar in Fun for the Children of Schoolroom-Shire. This lovely book introduces all the parts of speech and how they work together through a humorous story. Another blogger made free worksheets for it, which we may or may not use.

We're not rushing through history now, or reading, or anything else. We're taking time to enoy the journey!

We are having great success so far though with Right Brained Multiplication & Division! The kids are easily multiplying and dividing by 0, 1, 10 and 11. I think we tackle two's next. And The Boy has finally, with the help of Khan Academy, and yours truly, paper and pencil in hand, figured out how division works. He kept trying to do all the problems in his head, so I made him sit down with me, and go through the process five or six times, on paper. And now he says he "gets how it works"!

He's also very excited about the idea of using Jousting Armadillos! We sat down together and looked through the book online. And  I have to say, they have amazing customer service, and I haven't even ordered anything yet! I did email the author with a couple of questions, and he not only got back to me very quickly, and thoroughly, but then another teacher from the private school that put these books out also emailed me, to answer another part of the questions I asked! The Boy is thinking he'll be doing a Life of Fred/Armadillos combo in the fall, which I think would work well.

So, slow down! Enjoy the journey instead of rushing for the finish line! Stepping off my soapbox now!

Yes, No, Maybe So...

They miss Fred. I miss Fred. Fred made math fun, and interesting. I think we might shift back toward Fred.

IF we were to do this, I think I would have The Girl start with Edgewood, and go forward from there. I would have The Boy start with Fractions, followed by Decimals & Percents, and then start Pre-Algebra 1 with Biology*

(*people I know who have used these books say that Elementary Physics really should come after both Pre-Algebra books, so I'm taking their word for it)

I've read many testimonials of people who swear this gives their kids a good, solid math education. And I like that the series makes kids think... it is not just page after page of rote mathematics.

Hmmmmmmmm..... that would give us more time for Family Math and Family Math: The Middle School Years, and reading living math books... after all, I really do want to read through this book (and a few others) with the kids at some point!




In the meantime, I think we'll play around with this, yet another math book I have had sitting on the shelf, unused.

Relaxing Rigorously...

Yesterday was good. The Boy got Saxon Math 6/5 in the mail, the 3rd edition of the homeschool version, and is delighted with it. I think one of the appealing points is that it is a write-in workbook, so he doesn't have to copy the problems out. I was a tad worried about him going from 5-10 "Fred" problems daily to 35 Saxon problems, but he didn't have any issues with that. The full lesson took us maybe 30 minutes, not too bad! We'll have The Girl's Saxon Math sometime during the next week, so in the meantime she's doing some Math Mammoth work. I'm not sure which she'll choose - Saxon or Math Mammoth - but either choice is good with me.

The other area I am amping up a little is language arts. The Girl will keep moving through Reading Pathways... she's been making some excellent progress in her [late] reading efforts recently, and I don't want that to stop. I may add in some word family work as well, and of course we're keeping up with Explode the Code. I'm not sure if we actually like Beyond the Code or not. The Boy will keep working through Soaring with Spelling, and he's working in The Paragraph Book three days a week now, and then he gets a day with free writing (he still adores Unjournaling). I think I'll have him do level 2 in The Paragraph series, maybe level 3 (they're short books), and then we'll move on to Writing the Five Paragraph Essay.

Right now I'm all about building a good foundation.

Now, the relaxing part... history and science.

We've decided it is okay if we take a while to get through world history. And it is okay if the kids pursue different interests in the fall, or maybe during the summer... The Boy would love to spend a while on the Greeks, and then the Romans, while Cassia is thinking about American history (she loves Sacajawea, and The American Girls), so in thinking ahead, I'm planning to wrap up our spring semester with the following (using K12's Human Odyssey still as a spine):

Ancient Egypt (we'll add in OUP's Ancient Egyptian World)
Ancient China (again, OUP has a book we can add in)
Ancient India (and the OUP book)
and finally, the Ancient Americas, focusing on the South American cultures of the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans.This last isn't in the K12 book, so we'll just be winging it with the OUP book.

We'll add in our Horrible History books that correspond as well. We really should be be making better use of these fun and gruesome books!

Then, in the fall, The Boy can dive right into the Ancient Greeks. The Girl can tag along, OR I'm thinking of "secularizing" something like this for her... maybe. Of course, this means putting off the Middle Ages for a while longer, but by the time we get there, The Boy will be more prepared for reading more advanced versions of King Arthur, and so forth. And we don't want to hurry through history--there's too much fun stuff there! Too many potential rabbit trails to just "get through it". We might read the entire Rainbow Book of American History, and/or the books from this, over the summer, and for The Girl, more American Girl books, etc., so that by fall she might be ready for the Greeks instead (truthfully, it IS easier to keep them both on one path!), and this may satisfy her interests while giving the kids a stronger background in American history!

As for science, after reading/flipping through The Magic of Reality myself, I'm setting it aside until fall because you know what? There are so many rabbit trails in it that I think we could use it over a whole year. Seriously. For example, in the first chapter alone, Dawkins discusses evolution (yes, I am one of those), DNA, Watson and Crick, Mendel, Darwin, scientific models, stars and galaxies, dinosaurs, and much more. So if we add in trade books and projects, it could be very full. This means that I should just accept the inevitable, and actually buy the book rather than repeatedly checking it out from the library.

And what will we do in the meantime?

We're hatching mantises, ladybugs, and butterflies. I want to get ahold of some tadpoles. We're drying out a possum skeleton that we think the dog may have killed. We have everything for worm, frog, owl pellet, and sheep's heart dissections on hand. And we're getting our garden ready for spring. We're finishing up a wonderful book about wild "pets". I have Real Science 4 Kids Level 1 Biology, and the Physics book is on it's way to my house. We have Dr. Art's Guide to Science on hand as well. And, we're starting to read The Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way. A lovely lady on a homeschooling forum put together a list that correlates the Story of Science books with Milestones in Science, so we'll be working with that once a week.

All this means that while we're learning a lot of science, we're not stressed about it. This week, science has been mainly setting up habitats, and watching documentaries. And I'm good with that!

Hope you're all having a good week!

Books, Clouds, & Igloos...

We had a very good week. We managed to hit the books 5 days this week, and we got nearly everything done that I wanted done!

Not only all that, but we had excellent fun with a couple of building kits I got (from Kohl's on clearance, less than half the price of the Amazon link)

The Girl hard at work on her igloo-fort

The Boy's completed igloo-fort

The Girl inside her igloo-fort

And now on to the actual homeschooling part...

Language Arts

This week, I introduced both children to book reports, which they happily narrated to me for typing. We went over them a couple of times before either child was quite satisfied. I've posted them in a separate post.

We actually got around to some poetry this week! The Boy read and did his copywork from Shel Silverstein's "Whatif" poem, and The Girl enjoyed hearing and copying out Monica Shannon's "How to Tell Goblins from Elves". We also read "Hiawatha's Childhood". Next week, I'd like to introduce them to Robert Frost. Two things came to me this week in regards to poetry, both through another mom at The Boy's fencing class... one - the idea of reading aloud a poem every day, and then at the end of the week, choosing the favorite to copy; and two - I wasn't aware that AmblesideOnline has poetry anthologies for Kindle over at Amazon! I promptly bought a couple. More on AO to follow (under History)...

Besides that, The Boy worked on a lesson in Soaring with Spelling. He'll have his spelling test later today. He did some work in Word Roots as well. He also finished reading The Mark of Athena and may start The Adventures of Robin Hood soon, or perhaps Dragon Rider, which I think he would really like.

The Girl worked through a lesson in Explode the Code, and started with Beyond the Code. I always assumed, from the name, that Beyond the Code was a follow-up to the other books, but no. Instead it is a reading book that seems to correlate with the ETC books. She read, out loud, a multi-paragraph story about a dog and did some comprehension activities to go with it. She also read to M, from a Little Bear book, so she got in some good practice this week. She and I did have a minor tiff regarding reading, when she stated "I can't read", and I told her I never wanted to hear that again, because it is not true. She may not read extremely well, or fluently yet, but she does read! The conversation ended with her saying "I guess I do!"

Math

Math was awesome this week! I wrote more extensively about the Life of Fred books here. The Girl finished a book, and moved on to the next one this week. She worked on addition, subtraction, set theory, geometry, and telling time, while The Boy tackled set theory, more advanced addition and subtraction, matrices, and unions between sets.

We also read a bit from String, Straight-edge & Shadow: The Story of Geometry, which led to a great exploration of geometric shapes in nature (we dug out our seashell collection, looked at flowers, etc.).

Science

Cell Experiment Pages from Elemental Science - The Girl: left, The Boy: right

We started Logic Stage Biology for real this week! The kids looked at both onion and celery cells under the microscope, we did some reading about cells, and The Boy wrote definitions for "cell" and "mitosis". They colored and labeled plant and animal cell sketches as well.

As far as nature study, we read from The Tarantula in My Purse (great book!), and we read about clouds...

The Boy also read through parts of The Cloud Collector's Handbook, and started making a cloud guide of his own.

History

We started of the week reading about ancient Sumerians in The Human Odyssey (from K12). We really enjoyed the chapter, and are looking forward to reading more! I need to get prepared again for our Book of Centuries work, which essentially means I need to google images and print them. We also started reading The Golden Bull, a fictitious tale set in ancient Mesopotamia.

I read to The Girl from a couple of American Girl books...

And The Boy and I read about Greek mythology in the D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths, as well as the first few chapters in The Story of Greece. I signed him up for the National Mythology Exam, and went ahead and ordered The Book of the Ancient Greeks for more actual Greek history. I also just want to get a better feeling for Dorothy Mills' books, since I think we'll be using her Middle Ages book in the fall.

More about Ambleside Online...
Over the years, I have gone back and forth over history cycles. The Well Trained Mind recommends 4 year cycles, starting with the ancients and ending with modern times, so each period is covered 3 times during the average school years of 1st - 12th grades. Obviously, we haven't been following this well, or The Boy would have finished up Ancients last year, and would be studying the Middle Ages through the Renaissance/Reformation this year! I was browsing around, looking at AO's literature suggestions, when I realized I really like their history cycle, starting with where we are now. The Boy is essentially doing terms 2 and 3 of year 6, though with our own materials, and The Girl is sort of in year 4, studying early American history. If we continue with their cycle, The Boy can spend an entire year on the Middle Ages (one of my favorite time periods), and an entire year on Renaissance/Reformation, rather than cramming both into a single year. I like the fact too that they don't have a definitive history plan for 12th grade, because I would like The Boy to do a semester or so of political science.

We also read about Aristotle in Breakthroughs in Science, and the kids giggled almost hysterically at the idea of him running down the streets of the ancient city, dripping wet and naked (from the baths), yelling "Eureka!" (which by the way is our state motto!), and we started watching The Incredible Human Journey.

And Everything Else This Week

The Boy

The Girl

In art, we completed this project. It was fun because afterwards I was able to show them samples from the same project 5 years ago! Here's what they did this time... I know the pictures aren't the best quality, but my scanner doesn't seem to be working properly, so I had to photograph them.

We read a brief biography of Handel, and listened to his Water Music.

We had a playdate with friends we hadn't seen in quite a long time. At first the kids were a little awkward around each other, but thankfully that wore off quite quickly, and their friendships were nicely renewed!

We watched an episode of Wild Africa, all about the savannah. The cinematography in these shows - Wild Africa, Wild China - is amazing, and we love watching them.

We read the first chapter of The Magician's Elephant, listened to a few chapters of The Sea of Monsters, and finished Dorothy & the Wizard in Oz. We started incorporating some selections from A Picture Perfect Childhood back into our Afternoon Basket, so we read a book about Louis Braille, in addition to the cloud books mentioned above. I can easily see working in more of David Adler's "A Picture Book of ..." books into our Afternoon Basket, as this one was well written, informative, and interesting! I have more books from the January recommendations in A Picture Perfect Childhood on hold at the library.

The Boy started back at fencing this week, and was all smiles throughout the entire class, so I am guessing he's glad to be back at it! 

I'm sure there were other things we did that are escaping my mind at the moment. But, it was a very good week, and I am excited about another one starting tomorrow!