Monday Musings Flyby....

I'm short on time at the moment, but thought I'd quickly post so that it doesn't seem we have fallen off the face of the earth!

What have we been up to? Well.....

This boy went and turned FIFTEEN on Saturday. FIFTEEN. We took him, along with his best buddy, to a classic car show, and out for burgers, so it was a good day! 

I am in constant disbelief that it's been that many years already. I mean, it seems like this was just yesterday...

Anyhow, here's this week's super quick agenda:

Math -- chapter four in Algebra for The Boy

Prodigy for The Girl (I adore this program!)

Some writing/spelling

More of A Wind in the Door

More Downton (we're on season 5 now!)

I have to finish grading essays

Working out

Housework

I hope you all have a great week!

 

Monday Musings.. Countdown...

image courtesy of knisha.wordpress.com

We have started the countdown!!!

Seven weeks left as a secretary

Seven weeks left in our "school year"



...Outside My Window...
The mornings have been very cool and overcast, after bouts of rain last week. Sometimes the sky clears off mid to later afternoon, sometimes it doesn't. It should stay cool, in the 70s all week!


...In Our House & Kitchen...
The family room has been seeing double duty the last week, as a bedroom, since The Boy sprained his foot and could not comfortably go up the ladder to his loft bed. The sprain itself is not bad, and should heal quickly. But, the ER xrays showed previous damage, from an ankle sprain years ago, which has left a bruised spot on the bone, also called an "osteochondral lesion of the talus", meaning that without any ankle support, if he keeps jumping about (ahem, parkour), he could have arthritis in that ankle in the next ten years. He's thinking about other sports. Anyhow, so hopefully soon he'll be back in his room at night, and I can remove all bedding, etc., from the family room.

In the kitchen, I've been better overall about prepping meals ahead of time, and planning more carefully. Tonight it's turkey burgers, tomorrow a roasted chicken, and then good use of leftover roast chicken!

And I was given this lovely orchid as a pre-Mother's Day gift! It's on the kitchen windowsill, which actually looks out into the family room (room was added on where there was a patio, sometime in the 70s).


...In Our Garden...

image courtesy of pinterest

The front yard is coming together beautifully. I removed a bunch of grass yesterday, while The Girl planted some more marigolds, and then we placed the slate stepping stones, although we might put gravel underneath them, sort of like this....

We've decided on a Santa Rosa plum to replace the recently deceased maple. I've got yarrow, sunflowers, and something blue I can't remember the name of all sprouting up in reused containers. I'll transplant them in later. The garden is sort of coming together as a flower/herb garden, and I am very happy with it so far! The Girl has been a big help with planting, and keeping things watered.

I also got an outdoor plant for Mother's Day, which I really love....

...In Our Homechooling...
Math this week, with TabletClass and Prodigy. Spelling and writing. More Downton Abbey. More pondering next year. We're keeping it simple right now, so that we actually feel like we're getting things done!

...Reading & Watching...
I just finished A Sudden Light, by Garth Stein, and very much enjoyed it! The Boy finally found The Martian, and only has about 10-15 pages left, so that'll be my next book. The Girl has been thumbing through a half dozen library books on various animals/sea creatures, and such, alongside her continued reading of Harry Potter. We haven't touched A Wind in the Door recently (lack of time), but did read about smallpox in Outbreak! Plagues that Changed History.

On Saturday, we read about Twelfth Night in Stories from Shakespeare (by Marchette Chute), and then we went to see the play as produced by the local junior college. It was very well done, and we were glad we went!

Our movie night featured the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film, which was not nearly as good as the first three. Though we're still enjoying season four of Once Upon a Time!

...Otherwise...
Next week, my office is being moved, so at work I am packing and sorting. I've just about finished school for the semester myself — just a final paper, and one more biology colloquium to go! Then, I have an all-day workshop in August for my new teaching position. Over the summer, I'll be working with the junior college program, and I hope to spend some time in the classroom observing, in order that I can learn more about teaching before I teach!

The Girl has derby, The Boy is off sports (and between them), and M is working about 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, so you can imagine how exhausted he is at the end of the day!

Have a good week!

Sundries...

...Some random notes for Wednesday...

The Boy started studying physics again, this time through Khan Academy. So, inspired, I went ahead and had him add me as a coach, then I added The Girl in there too, so I can have her work on math and science through the site.

If you haven't checked it out, Khan Academy is FANTASTIC! I use it regularly with the two girls I tutor, and am hoping to make far better use of it with my own kids.

M and I put the Duolingo app on our phones, so we can start learning Spanish. I know some, and can understand a lot more than I can speak, but there's a lot left to learn!

Learning is, and should be, a lifelong process, as far as I am concerned.

image courtesy of patheos.com

I took the CBEST yesterday. Thankfully, I never will have to take it again! Anyone in California who wants to teach has to take it at some point though. One more hurdle out of the way! I got my math and reading scores right away, and those are just fine. I'll get the essay results in another week and a half. I've applied for a few positions teaching English in the fall, but haven't heard anything back... yet. Some of our districts are notoriously slow to hire.

The Boy is teaching The Girl his newly-accomplished parkour skills. She loves spending the time with him, and they're being active. It's a win-win situation! I've also been taking both of them roller skating once a week, when the rink has its $2 days. And when they are at my mom's, the often take the basketball down to the local park to shoot some hoops.

As for my own physical activity, I've recently begun working on running. Right now, I go back and forth between a fast walk, and a relatively slow jog. But, my distance is increasing regularly, and I'm really enjoying it, much to my own surprise!

A Wind in the Door hooked both kids in right away. We're actually reading most of the books from our Afternoon Basket! And we've been doing math and language arts regularly!

M found a dead butterfly that I think we'll be checking out with our jeweler's loupes. I'm thumbing through The Private Eye, and need to get some sketchbooks!

This Saturday, The Girl and I have our last puppy petting session for a month and a half. This litter will be moving on, now that they are bigger and have mastered basic commands, and the new litter isn't due until early-mid May. We'll get to meet them around the two-three week mark.

Just for fun, here is what happens when the kids get a hold of my phone while I'm driving them around...

Hope your week is going well!

So Much for Planning...

Last week did not work out as planned. Instead, Tuesday I came home with a sore throat and a wicked headache. The Boy's two friends had missed class on Monday due to much the same complaint, and by Wednesday, The Boy was sick too. I missed work Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday... The Boy missed school Wednesday... The Girl was sick by Thursday. We spent the days sleeping as much as we could, living on soup and hot tea, with frequent doses of elderberry, vitamin C, and echinacea.

The Boy is still not fully recovered today, and so I kept him home again. His plan is to spend the morning working on his current art class project, to get caught up, and maybe even a little ahead. I returned to one job today, but am offering only online support for the other. I tried tutoring yesterday, and ended up with a massive coughing fit partway through. The Girl has a really horrendous sounding cough still. We also missed fencing class, and an in-club tournament, derby practice, and even my class.

UGH.

About the only thing we got done, when feeling better here and there, was a little homeschooling. They both worked on math. The Boy did a lesson from The Lively Art of Writing, and did it quite well. The Girl, after complaining about her reading abilities, read out loud to me from one of her Cinderella books...and she did it beautifully. I hooked her up with some spelling words this week on Spelling City, and will continue to have her practice reading aloud throughout the week.

And we watched the first episode of Human Planet (which is very good!), and read a little from The Magic of Reality. That was it for the week, besides watching Edward Scissorhands. Oh, we also watched a lot of The Worst Cook in America, and The Great Food Truck Race, both on Netflix. I can tell when The Girl has been watching a lot of foodie shows, because then she makes desserts like this one (notice the attention to plating, and the "textural contrast" of the granola)...

Coconut Greek yogurt, with sauteed bananas and a homemade caramel sauce.

Also, during a brief bout of energy, the kids built the bottle rocket from our free Tinker Crate kit...

They launched it a number of times, trying out both the included citric acid + baking soda, as well as vinegar + baking soda. It launched well most of the time, and I think The Boy got footage on his GoPro.

My honest opinion of Tinker Crate? Well, I think they certainly serve a place in the market. If getting around to hands-on activities is hard for your family, then this is a fabulous option, as the kids can really do most, if not all, of it themselves. We've had some good fun with the one we got, but chose not to subscribe, as we aren't sure the cost is equaled in the value of the supplies/projects.

So on the agenda:
Mondays are never "school" days for us, really, as The Boy is usually gone all day, and when he gets home in the early evening, after a full day of classes, I hate to make him do more. Hopefully by tomorrow we will be getting back to normal.

More math -- this is going very well right now. I have The Girl working on various lessons in multiplication, division, and place value, from Math Mammoth. She likes that I am mixing it up a bit, so she's not doing just one thing every day. The Boy hasn't gotten anything below 96% on a lesson yet in Teaching Textbooks.

Language Arts --  The Boy will hopefully finish chapter 1 in The Lively Art of Writing. The Girl will be working on spelling, reading aloud, and maybe some work from her old Writing Skills book.

The Boy is studying for his first midterm, which he is very glad will be an open-note test.

I want to get back to having some sort of physical activity planned for each day, but right now that depends on the coughing fits.

We'll probably watch another episode of Human Planet, read some more from The Magic of Reality, get in another few chapters of The Shakespeare Stealer, and some more Cinderella.

Besides homeschooling, I am taking my dad to the doctor this week for a follow-up. I plan to return to my junior college on-campus office hours Wednesday, and I have somewhere around 60 essays to grade over the next week or so. The Boy hopes to get back to fencing by Friday, and The Girl back to derby by Thursday. We are really hoping to hang out with friends on Friday, as we haven't seen them in two+ weeks, due to one thing or another.

I had a brief burst of usefulness yesterday evening too, and made a giant bowl of pasta salad, and a big pot of butternut squash-orange-ginger soup.

We'll watch Sleepy Hollow, or maybe Beetlejuice, this week for family movie night, and at some point soon, the kids and I will be watching Sweeney Todd (M has no interest in re-watching it).

We also need to catch up on housework...again. I had a burst of energy last week, before getting sick, and cleaned the kitchen and living room, and had the kids clean the family room. Unfortunately, things fell back apart after that, but I think we'll catch up again fairly quickly.

On my way out for the day, here's a picture of our nature observation from a few days ago... spider versus bee, and the spider won:

Anyhow, have a good week!

A New Book That I Really Like...

I've been looking for a book like this for Cassia for a long time—a book that gives instruction in a clear way, while engaging her, and allowing for free writing.

Well, I think I have found it!

This book is intended for year 4 over there, as you can see from the cover, but with her dyslexia, The Girl is a bit behind. I actually think, in looking through this book, that we will get through book two in half a year, and then we can tackle book three, so she'll be "catching up". 

We got it in the mail from the UK yesterday, and she was eager to give it a try. I read the introduction out loud, and she laughed, which is a good sign, right? I then moved on to lesson one, in which we read the beginning of Snow White, and then she was to answer comprehension questions (which you can see here if you click on Sample Pages). She did very well with that, though we did the work verbally rather than writing answers. She was thrown for a bit of a loop though, when the book asked what she thought the story would be like if the beginning was set in summer! We thought perhaps the queen would have had to have asked for a daughter with hair as gold as sunshine, eyes as blue as the summer sky, and skin as white as rose petals.

The final task for the day was to use a dictionary to look up several words. I have a children's dictionary, but we decided to use our regular, though rather elderly, one. The Girl hasn't used a dictionary before—I know, I know, but we were focused on reading—but she very quickly got the hang of it, and found all the words needed, reading the definitions aloud.

Today we'll be learning some interesting facts about snow, and then next week she gets to launch into some creative writing. They have four writing prompts, out of which I have selected three, which will keep her writing all week: continuing the story either in the traditional fashion, or coming up with her own story line; writing a short description of a beautiful place; and writing an acrostic poem using the word "snowflake". She loves poetry, so I think the last especially will be a big hit.

Upcoming exercises in Lesson 1 include a lesson on nouns, spelling, sentence ordering, more creative writing, copywork, and so forth. It seems to be (as I looked through the whole book last night) varied enough to really keep her interested!

I'll be updating my review later in the year, as we get a chance to go through more of it, but so far, so good!  

Wow... Just Wow...

So you know I have worked as a reader for English teachers/professors in the past, which involves lugging home stacks of essays to read and grade, paid for by said teachers out of their own pocket. But this semester, I got a new offer... I was offered, through the local junior college itself, an Instructional Facilitator position. As such, I would work in the classroom occasionally with two teachers, I would of course continue lugging papers home to read and grade, and I would have some office hours to meet with students for tutoring!

I feel so grown up... me, with OFFICE HOURS AT A COLLEGE! All teacher-like...

I have talked with the kids and M extensively before even thinking of taking this on. M has agreed to take over much of the housework on a regular basis, and cooking on my long days. The kids have agreed to help out more around the house too. This is certainly one of those moments when I am truly grateful for the flexibility that homeschooling offers us!

And truthfully, the money will be more than helpful right now.

I am both very nervous, and very excited about this whole huge thing!

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!

Happy Earth Day!

Wishing you all a Happy Earth Day! 

image courtesy of plasticstoday.com

Even my apple tree is celebrating!

...Some ideas for the day...

Go for a walk out in nature

Collect some wildflowers for pressing

Make a nesting mobile

Plant something

Read a good [picture] book -- some of our old favorites include:

The Lorax

The Great Kapok Tree

The Giving Tree

The Curious Garden

The Tree Lady

On Meadowview Street

Miss Rumphius

And, not a picture book, but a handy one all the same: The New 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth

Make some pine cone bird feeders

Write a letter to your representatives about an environmental issue that concerns you

Have a picnic at the park, or by candlelight at home

Ride a bike instead of driving

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!

Turns Out the Joke's On Me...

Okay, not a joke really, but it turns out when you expose kids to a lifestyle of learning, in which they get input into subject matter, textbooks and non-textbook choices, learning approaches, etc....

They come to expect that will continue.

image courtesy of danijohnson.com

 We had our annual planning meeting yesterday. I met with each kid, went over ideas for next fall (and the rest of this year), and yes, as always, I had a plethora of what-ifs to share!

I had choices for math, for languages, for potential history and science programs, etc., etc., etc.

And we ended up right back where we are now. Yes, we do math and language arts at least 4 times a week. Yes, the kids read daily. And yes, they both love science. But outside those, they don't want to be tied down to a particular program.

And so 2015-2016 has math (no changes there since they like their math programs), writing (just a step up), and science of their choice. Everything else will continue to be interest-led.

And The Boy will be taking his first college course starting in late August. I think he's settled on Drawing and Composition I for fall, to be followed, possibly, by sculpture the next spring, or maybe something with computer science, or engineering. The world is his oyster!

I am truly thankful at the moment that we have a local junior/community college that offers [free] concurrent enrollment, and that is very highly regarded, for a couple of reasons...

One. I know the kids can continue to build on the foundation we have given them, and explore all kinds of classes, from anthropology, to comparative mythology, world history, engineering, mechanics... and much, much more.

And two (a little more selfish), if they do undergrad/concurrent work there, I don't have to do transcripts, or a "traditional" high school sequence. So there.

Tuesday Tidbits... Laughing at Myself...

So at the beginning of the year, I had this whole, elaborate language arts line-up.

I should have known better. Really.

I've cut it back significantly, and yes, I have dropped a lot of it, as you can see below...

Poetry:
We were looking at using Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?, or Knock at a Star: A Child's Introduction to Poetry. But... well, we like reading poetry. The kids occasionally dabble in writing a little. We just don't care for dissecting it at the moment. So I simply choose a poet each month, and we read some poetry each week.

Grammar:
I like The Giggly Guide to Grammar, but it is actually a wee bit advanced at the moment, though I think The Boy may use it off and on, along with Hot Fudge Mondays (and I'll keep both books around for future use as well). Instead, we're actually reading Grammar-Land: Grammar in Fun for the Children of Schoolroom-shire, and yes, we're doing the free worksheets for practice. We like the storyline, and it is not too juvenile or too advanced for both kids to follow and enjoy. We also like that it really takes very little time!

Literary Elements:
We were planning to use Figuratively Speaking but it flopped. Discussing each literary element in isolation didn't and doesn't appeal so much. So what I've done is take the book, make a list of the terms, and I'm just bringing them up, and then checking them off, as we read good books. For example, yesterday I was reading The Hobbit aloud, and there was some foreshadowing, so we talked about that.

Writing:
After The Girl really started reading, I decided she could use some solid writing instruction. I debated a lot about what to use with her, but finally settled on Writing Skills from EPS. It is simple and straightforward enough that she still has plenty of time (and energy) for free writing.

And yes, after a brief -re-dabbling in Writing With Skill, The Boy is back to using Thinking in Threes most days, which I plan to follow up (in ninth grade) with The Lively Art of Writing (there's even a free workbook for this out there!).

Brave Writer:
I adore this lifestyle approach to writing/language arts. With the resources we are now using, we have a little more time for some of the more fun elements, like language arts games, poetry teatimes, and more. I get the Daily Writing Tips in my email too, which gives me a plethora of nifty ideas for writing projects, and then there are those that come up as we go, such as the complaint letter The Boy wants to write to the company that made his most recent car model (quality control was not very good).

So what have you changed this year? Did you drop something? Add something? Just shift things around? Please tell me I am not the only one that frequently over-plans!

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!

Language Arts Lineup...

We're getting ready to start a new academic year at the end of the month, and are taking a mishmash approach to language arts. It blends the Brave Writer Lifestyle with some great tools I have compiled, and I think it will work well for us.

So, here's the WRITING plan...


Each day (Monday through Thursday anyway), we'll start with a rotating focus, with both kids and I working together (a lot of this will be oral work, a little more so than written).

Mondays (our short day due to my college schedule) will be for poetry. Now, I have not quite decided yet if I want to use a poetry teaching resource (Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?, or Knock at a Star: A Child's Introduction to Poetry, or ???) OR if I simply want to introduce the kids to poets and go for the full poetry teatime experience. Hmmm. This will be followed by free writing for both (just 10-15 minutes). The Boy will be using Unjournaling for ideas when needed, while The Girl and I are embarking on a year-long adventure (see below).

Tuesdays will have a grammar focus. We're going to try out The Giggly Guide to Grammar, which is described as "Shel Silverstein meets Strunk and White and the results are both hilarious and instructive." Then the kids will split up for other work (see below).

Wednesdays will be all about literary elements, with Figuratively Speaking, again followed by independent work.

And on Thursdays, we'll explore the history of our language, and its oddities, word roots, and more, with The Word Snoop. This will also be another day of more independent work for each, though sometimes I am sure we'll take a break from the "work" of writing to play language games.

As far as independent work, The Boy will be working on more academic writing -- essays and the like. We've decided that he will finish working through Thinking in Threes, which is really thorough for basic essay writing. After that, he'll move into BWL writing projects and written history/science narrations, creative writing, etc.

For The Girl, we (she and I together) decided to really foster creativity and just get her more at ease with writing. So on Mondays and Tuesdays, she'll be working on free writing -- short stories, or longer ones if she chooses. Tuesday evenings, I can correct spelling, etc., and then on Wednesday and Thursday, she can work on copying (copywork!) the story out and illustrating it. Sometimes we may work in other ideas/activities, and leave the "rough drafts" as is. At the end of the year though, the hope is her spelling will improve in context, AND she'll have a whole book of her own illustrated writings!

As fa as the READING plan, The Girl will continue to work through the Reading Horizons program, then I'm hoping she'll move into active reading. After reading my friend Jessica's posts on this series, I think The Girl may enjoy many of the titles. And she's been talking about wanting to read the original Oz series, which we are lucky enough to own in its entirety. And of course, I will continue reading aloud to her -- you can see the list of hopefuls here.

I also plan on actually assigning some reading to The Boy, just one book per "block" of scheduled study. He's interested mainly in dystopian/Steampunk/sci-fi literature right now, so his list of assigned books (bottom of the post) reflects that. I will re-read/skim them alongside him, so we can discuss the books, something we enjoyed doing with The Hunger Games trilogy. I am certain he will continue his fairly heavy load of free reading as well!

Can't wait to see how it all works! And if you have any recommendations on the poetry bit, I would love to hear them!

Week 1, 2014... A Light But Good Week

We're easing back in after having December off from formal homeschooling, and I have to say that for a whole month (plus) off, it seemed to disappear in the twinkle of an eye! Regardless, we got back to work this week, and it was good!

We started out the week with a trip to the coast. The weather was so warm, we were down to t-shirts and tank tops for over an hour before it began to cool off again!

There was some splashing around...

Lovely views...

Wet sand to play with... 

Shells and shell bits to collect...

Some general watching of the waves...

 Some good father-daughter time...

A glorious sunset...

 

Then tranquility...

And finally, time to say goodbye to the ocean...

In math, we have set Saxon aside, at least for the moment. The Boy picked back up with Life of Fred Fractions, and tried out some Zaccaro Challenge Math, which being about astronomy/light years/etc., required calculator use, something he is not used to. It is a skill I think he should learn, so we worked on that together. The Girl tried out Zaccaro Primary Challenge Math, going through levels one and two for the first couple of chapters. We started on division (with 10s) as part of this, and so we'll be working on that skill more next week. Next week I would like to work in a day of math games/activities, perhaps something from the Family Math books I have, or from The Book of Perfectly Perilous Math!

In language arts, The Girl worked through a review of short vowel words in Reading Pathways. Truthfully, much of the book is review work at this point, but she needs the work in fluency. She did some free writing on her own. The Boy read a couple of passages from A Christmas Carol in Write With the Best, and then used Write Source 2000 to review parts of speech. Next week, I'll add back in Hot Fudge Monday and perhaps some Brave Writer exercises.

From the Afternoon Basket, we started learning about philosophy with Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery, and a lot about Pompeii with The Complete Book of Marvels. We also read about the periodic table, atomic weight, and more, in The Magic of Reality. The kids were so fascinated with Pompeii that we ended up watching a documentary -- Pompeii, Back From the Dead -- as well (I recommend it!), and then last night discussion about atomic weight led to a great conversation about early alchemists! Hopefully, next week we'll add in mathematical reading, with The Man Who Counted.

For our Block Study, we read a couple of chapters from The Ancient Greek World, and started reading through the D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths. Next week, we'll add in Black Ships Before Troy, which is waiting for me at the library! We might add in some documentaries, and maybe a movie or two as well. I'd like to do some art, and a project or two during the next few weeks. And, I would like to get through more of The Ancient Greek World next week.

As for art, I did post a couple of Matisse's pieces on the fridge, but we didn't do any art projects, so that is a definite "must" for the upcoming Sunday. I did put a copy of the sound recording of Peter and the Wolf on hold at the library, for our music studies. Naturally, the kids have heard it before, and seen the film version, but it is always fun to listen to!

As for everything else, the kids continue to enjoy their Christmas gifts of bicycles and scooters. They biked down to the local park this week, and rode around for a while (I walked). Today, they are off to their park day with friends, and scooters. The Boy returned to fencing this week, and has his first "senior" in-house tournament tomorrow. The Girl is on the fence about an activity at the moment... she's not sure if she wants to return to roller derby right now, nor is she sure about karate, so we've put that on the back burner for the moment. I start back to school on Monday Thursday evening, with a class in British American lit/feminist theory, and M has a job interview next week as well (keep your fingers crossed!), so we have a lot going on! As far as independent studies, The Girl and I read about life in Siberia in Faces Magazine, and she watched a documentary on sea creatures. The Boy read a bit about aircraft history in Flight, and I've "assigned" him the task of watching one episode of Carl Sagan's Cosmos each week. There was quite a lot of building with Keva planks this week (one of last year's Christmas gifts!), plenty of drawing, and a good bit of Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban, as well as the last bit of Percy Jackson & the Battle of the Labyrinth, which reminds me, I need to put the next [audio] book in that series on hold. Next week, I hope to get in some more of A Wrinkle in Time as well.

I hope you all had a good week, and that you have a great weekend!

Thursday Thoughts... A Shift in Writing...

A little while back, I signed up for Julie's Daily Writing Tips, from the Brave Writer website, and wow! I think that it has been one of the best free daily emails I have ever signed up for! Still though, I keep plowing ahead with Emma Serl's Language Lessons (The Girl), and Write With the Best (The Boy).

Then yesterday, The Girl balked at her copywork, something she does not normally do. And this was after she balked at her picture study the day before, another first. The Boy seems happy enough with his program, but since I only plan on going through one ["semester-length"] book this year and the other next year, I need to fill in gaps. And while I love, love, love the concept of the Brave Writer Lifestyle, I am always a little unsure as to how to actually implement it.

Daily Writing Tips to the rescue! Here's an example of what I think is a fantastic activity...

Five words in a letter to someone.

We've done the "five word" freewrite. Now try the same thing, only this time put the words in a letter. The letter can be to a fictional character from a book, it can be a letter to the editor for a newspaper or online magazine, it can be a letter in the form of a comment online, it can be a text or email to someone.

For high schoolers: Use these five words.

• Fanciful
• Emphatic
• Purge
• Clarify
• Sprightly

For junior high:

• Chilled
• Spunky
• Invest
• Effortless
• Mystery

For littler kids:

• Aqua
• Dip
• Careful
• Spider
• Secret

So this looks both fun and challenging! I think I could have The Girl try to write her own, or dictate and copy. And it is a great way to get the kids to practice writing letters. I am saving the writing tips in their own folder for easy reference, and planning out a couple of days a week that we can use them.

Other than that, homeschooling is going well this week. Today I knew we'd be spending part of the afternoon--our schooling time--driving my dad to his eye doctor appointment and pharmacy, so I assembled a collection of books,  to take with us for "car schooling", and then we'll do math and writing at home. I am trying to be more organized ahead of time these days, rather than potentially losing out on 2 or so hours of school time!

Tuesday Tidbits... Planning & A Book...

Homeschooling Agenda This Week...

History

Read aloud another chapter or two from Our Island Story
Listen to 2-4 chapters from The Story of the World

Sciences

The Girl: nature observation & journal entry; a chapter from Life in a Bucket of Soil; 2-3 chapters from The Story of Dr. Doolittle; and she'll choose a documentary, probably something on animals, to watch on Thursday
The Boy: a project from Stop Faking It! Force & Motion; 2-3 sections from The New Way Things Work, along with entries in his science MLB; documentary of his choice

Literature

I'd like to start reading The Story of Siegfried, by James Baldwin (from this list I made), and we should finish up The Princess Bride.
As far as rotational literature, we'll be reading from The Complete Book of Marvels; Nonsense & Common Sense: A Child's Book of Victorian Verse; and A Really Short History of Nearly Everything. Next week, I'll add back in mathematical stories, and philosophy.

Of course, we're doing math, reading, spelling, writing, and Latin.

Then there's my sort of writing project. The idea came from a homeschooling message board... someone said they wished there was a book on using Charlotte Mason's methods with MODERN books and the like.

I feel very inspired! So I am drafting a rough outline in my "spare" time. It will be secular, and will address many of the ideas CM wrote about, but updated for the modern family. IF I get it written, and then published... well, we'll see. This means too that I am re-reading much of the original series, and making copious notes. This may take me a while!

Hope your week is off to a good start!