A quick Weekly Report... 9/26-9/30...

This has been an interesting week. We did get a good amount of work done, plus we are facing a big change in the way things work around here!

Language Arts
Cyrus began keeping his journal again this week, at long last. He read a lot, from several books-- The Sign of the Beaver, a couple from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, and The Magician's Nephew; he worked in Intermediate Language Lessons, reading and analyzing poetry; and he asked me all week for spelling tips. I bought a Spectrum Spelling workbook for him to try out starting next week.

Cassia worked through 2 full lessons from Easy Lessons for Teaching Word Families. I wrote them on a white-board, using a different color of pen for the word family and beginning parts, so she could see the word family and not try to sound it out each time. She did "ap", "an", "at", and "ash" (on "ash" I also underlined the "sh" so she would remember that it was only one sound). This approach worked really, really well, and she read all four word lists with very little trouble! She also re-read a little from Hop on Pop. We're going to start using Explode the Code again on Monday. We'll also review the word families we covered (and do a few more), which I am going to have her copy down in a folded-paper booklet I made just for that purpose.

We read more in Tatterhood & Other Tales - I highly recommend this book! And we read a bit more of The Wind in the Willows.

Math
Still traveling through math with Teaching Textbooks. It did get a little more challenging this week for Cyrus, who learned about estimating, though he still scored 95-100% on each lesson. Cassia's hasn't gotten too much more challenging yet... she's working on the idea of a number plus itself, plus one more, or the whole thing as a subtraction problem. I have noticed that in the problem sets, TT seems to be more of a spiral approach than mastery, which I really think is beneficial, as it builds in constant review. We also reviewed unit prices at the grocery store, and fractions while cooking. many of Cassia's word problems have to do with cooking, which is rapidly becoming one of her favorite hobbies. I love it when the kids can see that math applies to real life!

History
Cyrus read more in The Sign of the Beaver, which has led to all kinds of interest in herbalism, Native Americans, and survival skills. Cassia and I finished All of a Kind Family and started All of a Kind Family Downtown. She's fascinated by Jewish history now, and turn-of-the-century city life.

We watched a video on Columbus this week, from Schlessinger Films, and read the first two chapters in A First Book in American History. The kids loved the tone of the book, as did I, and they loved the little black-and-white illustrations on each page. We also discussed civil rights and Rosa Parks, after a discussion on Halloween costumes (Cassia wants to be a southern belle, and so we were talking about plantations and slavery, hence the civics discussion).

Science
We started our birding project with 4H today. We made sock feeders, and smeared a peanut butter mixture on pinecones. We learned about several common species of local birds, proper feeding setups and care, migration, etc. I am waiting for The Burgess Bird Book for Children to arrive in the mail - Cassia will like it even if Cyrus doesn't - and this weekend we are hoping to set up a bird station with feeders, the birdbath, and so forth. We plan to hang a pair of binoculars by the backdoor as well. And we dug out our copy of the Peterson First Guide to North American Birds.

Other
Cyrus decided to work his way through The Everything Book of Drawing, and he's been working more on computer animation. Cassia has been adding birds and bugs to her nature journal at all hours of the day and helping cook nearly every meal.

And the big news...
I am leaving my grocery store job, effective as of two weeks from now, one of which is an already-approved vacation week! In fact, I gave notice (written) last night. Why? Because, after two interviews and a lot of nail biting, I landed a part-time secretarial job at the local Office of Education! I'll be working regular, morning hours five days a week. The pay is a tiny bit higher too. This will make it easier for me to schedule other activities, for M to schedule his work hours since he'll no longer have to rush home to take over the kids so I can dash off to another late evening at work... I'll be home to cook dinners, and read bedtime stories more than twice a week. My mom has offered to care for the kids in the mornings, and we do better with homeschooling in the afternoons anyhow. I'll probably be starting in a week and a half, after our fun family vacation.

Next week, I only have three days of schooling planned, due to the aforementioned vacation weekend. I won't be posting a weekly report either, you'll just have to wait for all the vacation photos!

Guess that wasn't that "quick" of a weekly report either!

Fun Stuff...

Cyrus is building a paper world, all with free downloads from Made by Joel.

We didn't do anything remotely homeschooly yesterday, since I worked from 6 am to 1 pm, then took a nap, then tried to go to class. Thankfully the class was cancelled for the day, so I ended up with a lovely evening at home. So now we're gearing up for the week... I thought we'd just have fun with homeschooling for a while, so I put a bunch of books on hold for Cassia at the library (and Cyrus can listen in) that have to do with apples, pumpkins, etc. Kind of autumn things. This will obviously be an apple week!

Additionally, all the books I put on hold about Columbus are ready for pick-up, so I thought we would start on those.

It should be a good week, full of stories, oh and this science kit, which we are finally going to use...

Week Four, 9/19-9/23...

First....

HAPPY FALL!

This is my favorite season of the year. The crunchy, colorful leaves; clear, cool blue skies after the morning fog lifts; anticipation of all the family holidays; yummy soups and stews; apples and pears....

It has been a good week. I wrote yesterday about some of what we've been up to, and here's a little more.

Language Arts
Cyrus worked mainly in Intermediate Language Lessons this week. He also worked on spelling, using a printable resource I downloaded from Scholastic's Teacher Express (they have great dollar deals on e-books a few times a year). He worked a little more on the book he is writing, and he's thinking about doing a NaNoWriMo challenge in November. He started reading The Magician's Nephew for fun. Oh, and he's reading a book of Shel Silverstein's poetry.

Cassia worked on memorizing more phonogram sounds from All About Spelling this week - we are getting ready to wrap up this part. She read to me from a Nora Gaydos book, and did a couple of lessons in Primary Language Lessons. I read a couple more chapters from All of a Kind Family to her. She is really enjoying this book, so I am glad I have the sequels on hand. It was one of my favorite series when I was a kid. We also read another story or two from Tatterhood & Other Tales, which Cyrus is enjoying too!

We read another chapter from The Wind in the Willows, and listened to a bit more of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in the car. We're debating which audio book(s) to listen to on our upcoming Disneyland trip.

Math
Teaching Textbooks again this week, in addition to Sum Swamp (an addition/subtraction board game). Both kids had chapter tests and scored 100%. Cyrus said he does notice it is getting more challenging, but he is still doing very well. TT3 is helping Cassia finally memorize the months of the year, since it asks a lot of "what month comes before/after x".

History
Cassia and I are reading from The Birchbark House. She is anxious for the American Girl books to come in at the library - I have discovered that this may be the best way to get her interested in history! We're starting with a few books on Kaya, and then we'll go to whichever strikes her fancy next (I am thinking it will be Kirsten, the pioneer one).

Cyrus is reading The Sign of the Beaver. When he finishes it, he plans to watch the film to see what differences there are.

Science
We read from The Story Book of Science, starting a section on trees. To complement that, we looked at pictures in this gorgeous book...


We also spent some time outside with the telescope this week, star-gazing. I checked out from the library the book Once Upon a Starry Night: A Book of Constellations for further gazing pleasure and education.

Other
Cyrus is teaching himself artistic techniques using Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. And he's teaching himself computer animation through a series of online tutorials for a program called "Blender".

Cassia decided she wanted to learn more about cooking, so she learned how to make turkey-3-bean-chili from scratch this week, even chopping onions up with our huge chef's knife!

Today we get to spend the afternoon celebrating autumn with friends. I had better give Cyrus his spelling test so we can get going!

ETA: Cyrus got 100% on his first spelling test!

Right now...

Since abandoning, again, our history plans, and incidentally science plans, oh and artist and composer studies, the kids are showing more interest in things. I have noticed this before, and then somehow I forget.

So, right now, what are they interested in?

Well, Cyrus is interested in computer animation, Native Americans, mythology, cars, aircraft, robotics, and drawing.

Cassia is interested in Native Americans, sculpture, butterflies/insects, frogs, fairy & folk tales, and stars.

So what have we been doing this week?

Teaching Textbooks
Primary and Intermediate Language Lessons
All About Spelling
A printable spelling program from scholastic (for Cyrus)
Reading. Cassia and I are really enjoying Tatterhood & Other Tales, and Cyrus has started The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, as well as The Sign of the Beaver.
We've started reading about trees in The Story Book of Science, and to go along with it, we looked through Meetings with Remarkable Trees.

It has been a good week so far!

Making changes...

Making changes is part of what homeschooling is all about, at least in my mind. Changes allow us to pursue things differently, to take new paths and explore new rabbit trails.

The first change is just for Cassia, from Modern Curriculum Press' "Plaid" Phonics and Spelling Workout to All About Spelling. Why the change? Well, while we like the looks of the MCP books, they just didn't keep Cassia's attention long enough to learn anything from. When she is asked to basically just read and write, she gets bored quickly. Yes, chances are she has some learning issues, but since I am not having her diagnosed at this point, it is really only a suspicion (very high functioning Asperger's seems most likely). All About Spelling offers a multisensory approach... kinesthetic, visual, and auditory. I like how easy the program is to implement. Even though we have just started, I have read the whole teacher's manual, and it is all very clearly laid out.

I plan to have her keep using Primary Language Lessons as well, two to three times a week. We do this primarily as oral exercises, although I have her do copywork as well.

Our other change is, once again, history. While we are really enjoying reading A Little History of the World, our overall history seems a bit... well, lackluster. I have been thinking about the fact that we didn't really do much last year (basically unschooling that didn't work for us), and I had really wanted to cover American history. I reviewed the Core Knowledge sequence I had downloaded some time back, and my extensive notes on it, and thought we'd switch gears for a while, covering American history from pre-Columbus through colonial times between now and Christmas break. After Christmas break, we'll switch back to world history, covering ancient Mesopotamia through ancient Greece, and including units on ancient India and China, unless the kids want to stick with American history. I have a ton of resources for American history, from 3D map printouts to craft books, and much, much more. To make it appeal to Cassia, I am using the American Girls books, and to appeal to Cyrus, select titles from the My Name is America series, and homemade lapbooks. I'll continue to read good books aloud to both kids as we go. I'm thinking we'll approach it as literature-based unit studies... starting with The Birchbark House, then a good book each on Columbus, and Pilgrims/colonialism.

For science right now, we're going to continue with The Story Book of Science, with occasional other books added in, and some hands-on stuff. We also have 4H projects like Flight Dynamics, a biweekly kitchen chemistry lesson at a friend's house, and starting this week, monthly experiments from Totally Irresponsible Science. And wherever I can tie science into our history studies, I will.

In other news, I have been having a hard time deciding on my path through graduate school. After much discussion with M, I have decided to take some time off from formal academics after this semester. I may take a pottery class, or painting, but nothing that requires numerous essays and papers. I need to refocus, and decide where I want to go. And speaking of changing my path, I have a job interview on Tuesday for a job I would really like to do in place of the job I have now. We'll see how it all turns out!

Week Three... 9/12-9/16...

Another busy week! I swear, I don't know where all the time is going. Anyhow, we got a decent amount done, though as always I am aiming for more next week.

Language Arts

Cyrus has started writing a book. It has something to do with robots, cats, transformations, etc. He is writing it on the computer. He also worked in both Intermediate Language Lessons and Igniting Your Writing, and did a couple of pages in Word Roots. He read through a few library books, including the book behind one of his favorite movies, Zathura. And of course his beloved Calvin and Hobbes.

Cassia worked on reading from Hop on Pop. She also started her first lesson in All About Spelling! After reading through much of the teacher's guide in the last two days, I think this program will be amazing for us. She nailed 15 of the phonogram cards, including all the sounds of "a", so I will be working with her through next week on the rest. We also worked on a couple of lessons from Primary Language Lessons. I read a couple of folk tales to her this week as well, our favorite for the week being Doña Flor: A Tall Tale about a Giant Woman with a Great Big Heart.

As a family, we read from Tales of Ancient Egypt and more from The Wind in the Willows. We also listened to another chapter of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in the car.


Math

Teaching Textbooks is fantastic - I simply cannot say enough good about this program! The kids are doing math independently, and getting 95-100% on every lesson! Cassia had her first quiz this week, and got 100%. They each did three lessons this week - next week we'll aim for four or even five!


History

We continued reading from A Little History of the World this week, starting the first chapter on Egypt. We are really enjoying this book! The writing is friendly and informative without being condescending, an issue we have had with other books. Cyrus read in his Egyptology books and shared some facts about pyramids/tombs with us. We also worked on a map of that region from Knowledge Quest.


Science

No formal science this week, although I may read to them today from The Story Book of Science. Cyrus is, at this moment, checking out a great new science website, put together by National Geographic, NASA, NOAA, and more. You should definitely check it out! JASON. You can register as a teacher too, and add students, etc. Oh, and it is free. Cyrus is looking at the anatomy section, and it is pretty awesome.


Other

We had our first 4H club meeting where Cyrus got to fill his Vice Presidential role.

Before the meeting

Speaking from his notes. He did quite well!

We also signed up for our projects for the year, among them: birding, book club, flight dynamics, intermediate cooking, art, a two-day kite workshop, historical crafts, and a couple of other things I can't remember offhand. Keep in mind that most of these projects meet at most once a month!

We haven't done anything lately for Spiral Scouts. I am not sure what is going on with this, except that the other family in our group has been very busy with a major project due by late September. Maybe after that we'll get back into the swing of things! I hope next week to start work on individual life timelines.

Other than that, we're gearing up for a big Disneyland trip... our first! And we're enjoying slightly cooler, almost fall-like weather. The evenings are cool enough now for soups and stews, so my crockpot is back in full use. I have been reading Nourishing Traditions (on my Kindle for PC), so I've been making a lot of broths and freezing them for future use. This is my favorite time of year, so I am happy to see leaves changing color, geese flying overhead at dusk, haybales dotting the fields... is it turning into fall where you live?

Week Two, 9/2/11-9/5/11...

We had plumbing issues this week. The kitchen sink (a lovely big double one) starting backing up. M took everything apart, we plunged, and so forth and so on, with no success. Then we noticed that the sink next to the washing machine and through which the washing machine drains, was also backing up. So M took the sink out, and snaked the exit pipe from that. Finally, some success!

Why am I talking about plumbing instead of homeschooling? Well, two days of washing dishes in the bathtub, and the displeasure of thinking about the local laundromat, and we had some interruptions in homeschooling! Still, we managed a few things...

Cyrus
Did another couple of lessons in Teaching Textbooks. He is loving this program! Nothing lower than 95% yet, which happened when he clicked the wrong button. He doesn't used the hints much and hasn't needed, yet, to have the program go over any problems with him. Still mainly review work, and I have noticed that his understanding of place value is far better.

He also worked a bit in Igniting Your Writing, combing short choppy sentences into longer ones. I think I might use a bit of the approach I used with Cassia with Cyrus. Type up the sentence bits in large, clear font, cut it apart, and let him re-sequence, then write from there. Not that he didn't do a good job - on the contrary, he did quite well, but I think this would tap into his creativity a bit more. At the moment, he is also working on writing a story about robots. I found it funny that he couldn't spell "person" correctly, but knew how to spell "simulation"!

Cassia
Also did a couple of lessons in Teaching Textbooks, and is doing quite well. She loves the helper animals and all the cheering on she gets. She also hasn't yet scored under 95%, and secretly... I think the program is helping her reading too!

She read from Dr. Suess this week, starting with Hop on Pop. She loved the sheer silliness of it. I may have her focus a lot on this next week, doing some copy work, rearranging rhymes, etc., while we wait for All About Spelling (AAS). She also spent some time with an old favorite, Starfall, to review sounds in preparation for AAS. She is asking about words more frequently, and can spell many things from dictation now. I am starting to breathe a little easier in regards to her lack of reading... phew!

Both kids...
On Monday, we took it easy, as it was, after all, a holiday. So we read about Labor Day, thanks to Living Books Curriculum, which was as educating for me as it was for the children! We also read Melisande, a mathematical fairy tale from one of our favorite authors, E. Nesbit. Cyrus saw the problem with the princess's wish immediately - he remembered reading One Grain of Rice - and Cassia caught all the allusions to other fairy tales.

Tuesday, we headed out for the first Executive Board meeting for 4H. Cyrus, being Vice President of our club, needed to be present to learn more about his duties. He took some notes, and participated in the conversation, while Cassia played with another little girl.

Besides that, all the days have kind of blurred together. Wednesday evening, we noticed the plumbing issues cropping up. Thursday we were in the midst of that, so much so that we postponed our first piano lessons, and Friday we missed Park Day. Oh, we did go to the library on Wednesday, for the first time in ages (library fines), and we were glad to see our favorite librarians still at the helm. We started listening to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland on audio disc, and the kids are thrilled it is read by Jim Dale. He is an awesome story teller/narrator!

Next week we hope to be "back on task" with history and science, as well as the basics. We have decided that perhaps we'll start on a unit of American history when we finish up with the Egyptians, and at the same time we'll switch from anatomy to oceanography/marine science. That's a while in the future, so I am not stressing about it right now, although I am getting impatient to see our new American history book! Or, we may do both histories concurrently. I'm thinking one day a week for American history, two for Ancient, and one for cultural studies - I'll let the kids choose a country a month to learn about and then use this list.

Before I go, we also found a neat resource this week, SpanishDict dot com. The kids and I are going through the free Spanish lessons! I like the clearness of the speaker, and the way the program is put together. Go check it out!

Week One... 8/29-9/2

I never managed to get around to updating my post yesterday, but don't worry -- I will elaborate here. Overall, it has been a great week! We started out the week following basically a classical education outline. You can read about Monday in more detail here. It was a good day, yet by midweek, we found ourselves shifting again!

Math...
Each of the kids did lessons 1-3 in Teaching Textbooks (3 and 5.) I love, love, love this program. It is simple, clear, straightforward, and easy for the kids to follow.

Besides, shouldn't every child look this happy when doing math?

Language Arts...
Cyrus did the first part of the first lesson in Igniting Your Writing, which he really likes. He did 3 pages in Word Roots Beginnings, a few Mad Libs, and Lesson 1 in Intermediate Language Lessons, as well as a poem in cursive (copywork.) We decided that in future weeks, he can alternate Igniting Your Writing and Intermediate Language Lessons.

Cassia worked in MCP's Spelling Workout, and on Starfall. She read a reader from the Nora Gaydos series, listened to several stories, and on Thursday (by which point we were veering from our original plans), she worked on sequencing the poem she had done the day before for handwriting.

Yes, she is wearing headphones in this picture! Listening to (classical) music seemed to help her focus. This project took her about 20 minutes, at the end of which, she glued the individual words to a piece of construction paper to keep. I think this is something we can do again, and that will help with her reading.

Science...
We had a good variety in science this week. Monday, they drew pictures of magnified cells. Tuesday... well, I don't think we did anything! Wednesday, we went to a friend's house for a kitchen chemistry lesson and learned about macro-nutrients while tenderizing meat with various substances--tenderizer, mashed papaya, a mallet, a fork stabbed into the meat many times, vinegar, and salt. Of course there was a control piece of meat too, with nothing done to it. Thursday, we went on our first nature walk and sketched. We plan to finish up the sketches, label and color them, and add them to our nature journals. Friday (today), we read about plant lice and the way in which ants milk them in The Story Book of Science by Jean-Henri Fabre.

Cyrus also read a bit in The Story of Science, by Joy Hakim. (Yes, he is wearing a fedora and a vampire cape)

History...
On Monday we read a page from the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia. Cyrus entered dates on a timeline and did a couple of summary sentences, while Cassia gave a narration. Both kids started making History Pockets. Thursday, we read from A Little History of the World by E. H. Gombrich. We read the first chapter, about what history is, and a chapter about Neanderthals, the Stone Age, first farmers, and the Bronze Age. The kids want to copy their narrations from this into blank books and add illustrations. They also want to make brown paper bag "cave paintings". I think we might stick with this form of history rather than the outlining and summarizing! Add in a few hands on projects and living books, and history is a delight. We're also going to read one chapter a week from a book called A First Book of American History by Edward Eggleston.

Other...
Check out this painting by Cyrus! It is one of my favorites so far.


We also played with friends; played in the pool; went to Park Day; read stories (The Wind in the Willows, Little Grey Rabbit stories, and The Adventures of Molly Whuppie); watched Mars Needs Moms (which we really enjoyed); and found out that Cyrus will be the new vice president for our 4H club! Very exciting news for him.

And that is our week. We're looking forward to the next one!

Experimenting...

We've been going with a classical style of education overall this week, but today I am going to approach some of our lessons a little differently. For example, in history, instead of reading from the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, I think we'll read from The Book of the Ancient World (D. Mills) , the kids will narrate (while I take really fast notes), then enter the narrations into their binders along with illustrations... sort of a take on Waldorf Main Lesson Books meets Charlotte Mason. For science today, instead of defining words and outlining from a science encyclopedia, I think we'll head out to the local wetlands and the kids will have a chance to try out nature journaling.

I'll update later, and let you know how the shift goes!