Ack! How did we get so busy?

Well, technically, we're not that busy... yet. But it seems that this spring will be a full one!

The Boy has been doing fencing for a couple of months now at a small, local studio. Yesterday, The Girl decided she should try the class too--it's a fun one, geared toward homeschoolers. And she loved it! So now I have two kids in fencing. And The Boy wants to sign  up for the in-house tournament in February, which I think is great--it shows that he is loving this activity enough to put more effort in.

Next week, roller derby starts back up one evening a week. And then, the following month, track and field starts up, two late afternoons/early evenings a week, one of which is the same day as roller derby! The Girl loves her derby (and it's good for her), and The Boy is really looking forward to all the various activities offered in track and field.

Needless to say, with only an hour between track and derby practice, I think the crockpot will be getting a lot of action this season! Time to start collecting great recipes, so if you have one, I'd really appreciate you sharing it!

And of course, one of the track practice days is the same day I have an on-campus class. I think I can work that out though--there are a couple of homeschooling families we know that also do track and field, and one of them lives maybe 5 blocks away, so I can get The Boy to practice, and maybe one of them can drop him off afterward.... maybe. I hope.

Then we'll have birthdays. And this year, my "baby" will move into double digits. Geez, it goes fast! It's funny. As a child, I always heard adults commenting that time goes by so quickly, and back then, being a kid, I didn't get it. Time moved so slowly... Halloween took so long to get here, and then the wait for Christmas, the wait for summer vacation (though not necessarily the vacation itself)... all the waiting took forever. Didn't it seem like forever when you were a kid? And now I can see how it is true, that the time does pass too quickly. And I already promised the kids we'd do "real" birthday parties this year. Hmmmmpphh. I guess cupcakes at park day just won't cut it this year!

And we have a large veggie garden to put in. And some house repairs to make. I could keep saying and this, and that, but I think you get the picture by now.

Technically, I could say, let's limit your outside activities a little more. But then, I look at the big picture, and realize that two evenings and one afternoon a week, and all the joy and healthiness that comes with activity, is worth a little juggling!

Chores?

What kind of chores do your kids do? Do you have charts, or lists, or just tell them?

We're in the midst of revamping chores around here, as I feel the kids have grown up enough to handle a heavier load, and I am tired of feeling like this...

And, it is really important to me that the kids can do housework as they grow older. I don't want them to grow up without knowing how to wash dishes, run a vacuum, fold laundry, etc. The laundry folding actually hasn't been bad lately, ever since we found... NINJA FOLDING! The Boy especially gets a kick out of folding his clothes "Ninja" or "Origami" style (yes, he is a strange child).

Of course I have to figure out how much they can actually handle, and what would be overkill. I'll probably make a chart -- it seems easier, for me, that way. I usually insert the charts, printed on cardstock, into page protectors, so that the kids can mark off what they've done with a dry-erase marker, and then at bedtime, I can easily wipe them off, fresh for the next day.

So tell me, what would you expect from a nearly 10 year old, and a nearly 12 year old?

It's Been a Wee While...

Since I last posted, that is.

What are we up to, you may ask?

Well, together we've been continuing to enjoy our journey through ancient history, with K12's Human Odyssey. We're getting ready to wrap up our time in Sumer this week, or perhaps next week, reading through the Gilgamesh trilogy by Ludmila Zemen, and finishing up The Golden Bull.

Scientifically speaking, we haven't been doing a whole lot, though the kids did watch a couple of episodes of Life (thank you, Netflix!), including "Reptiles & Amphibians", and "Mammals". It is really a beautifully made documentary, although I think the kids would have enjoyed it even more if we had been able to get hold of the David Attenborough (i.e. British) version, rather than the Oprah Winfrey version, but even so, it is very good! We're going to play around this week with something a little different...

This book, one of the GEMS teacher guides from the Lawrence Hall of Science looks fantastic. It blends chemistry, some math, and physics, all hands-on, all wrapped up in the world of bubbles. If we have fun with this one, I may look into getting more of the teacher guides! We've (obviously) dropped biology as our main focus at the moment. My problems were that 1. we've already covered a lot of biology over the years; 2. we wanted more hands-on; and 3. The Boy really wants some physics! So I am relaxing our approach again, and going back to hands-on, interest-led science, heavy on documentaries and good books. I realized that we don't NEED to follow a specific path in science yet... at this stage, it is all about exposure. The Boy is well aware that I intend him to do more rigorous science courses in high school, but that is still a couple of years off. We are going to do some work from The [New] Way Things Work, in deference to his physics requests, and this idea, but we'll follow tangents as we desire.

We're still enjoying Richard Halliburton's world travels in the Complete Book of Marvels. I realized though, that my kids are not good at identifying countries, or even continents and oceans (blushing with embarrassment here), so my plan is to work in some [fun] printouts from National Geographic, who, by the way, has a fantastic teacher resource section for map work!

And, instead of jumping around in art and music, I've decided to use the Core Knowledge sequence for those topics, as kind of units or blocks of study. In art, we're learning about color, continuing the theme of our project from a few weeks back, and in music we'll be learning about the elements of music--harmony, pitch, rhythm, and more--as well as the orchestra itself.

Other than that, The Boy is on a major Star Wars kick. We re-watched A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. We're waiting on the others from Netflix (which strangely has a "long wait" for The Phantom Menace, but not the others?) He has been digging through his dad's vast Star Wars book collection, built a model of a pod racer out of Legos (I'll post a pic later), played a zillion hours of Star Wars Lego on the Wii, and so on, and so forth. He's still reading through A Series of Unfortunate Events as well, and is studying for the National Mythology Exam, as we did indeed get notice that he is officially registered!

The Girl is loving Dancing Shoes, and Samantha (American Girls) these days. She spends a lot of time lately doing intricate pen-and-ink artwork, and taking care of her new guinea pig, Emily, bought to replace the mouse Emily that unfortunately passed on. I've never been around guinea pigs much, and we all get a kick out of her funny noises, and cuddling capacity.

The semester is off to a good start for me. My writing professor approved my project for the semester--a series of personal essays/memoirs--and called my writing sample "exquisite". My Shakespeare class is all I hoped it would be. The professor is very enthusiastic about his subject matter, and the once-weekly, four-hour classes fly by!

I haven't posted much lately for a few reasons. One, we've been busy. Two, it looked like we might change directions a little on some things, but then we didn't, so I've been obsessing over my Winter/Spring 2013 page instead, and three, we didn't do a lot of "school" work last week, or the week before, in the midst of my curriculum angst. I just didn't feel that I had a lot to "report" or share, other than my wishy-washiness! We're sliding back into the groove now, so maybe I'll have more to share. I did make one bigger change, besides science, and that is that we've dropped Sundays, splitting the subjects up among Monday through Thursday. I need Sunday afternoons to get ready for the upcoming work week, and was feeling really hurried and somewhat overwrought by Sunday evenings each week. M supported this idea, and suggested we add in Nature Studies on Saturdays, which can be totally informal... the kids approved this idea--it means gardening, hiking, collecting insects and leaves, and all that. I'll be perusing the Outdoor Hour Challenges newsletters for more ideas!

I hope everyone out there is doing well too! Have a good week!

And I Head Back to School...

I am back into the swing of things, as far as grad school goes. I am taking two classes this semester, one is Advanced Shakespeare and the other is creative nonfiction writing. Plus I have to keep working through this list.

So what am I reading?

and 

I had my first Shakespeare class last night, and thankfully remain really impressed with this professor. His specialty is Renaissance-era literature, especially Shakespeare, so this class has a lot of promise! Last night, he gave us a brief background on the Bard, and then we worked with a couple of sonnets. Our goal now is to read the first act of Coriolanus by next week.I decided that I should watch this over the weekend as well as doing the reading--seeing Shakespeare performed helps me follow the flow of the play as I can better visualize what is going on.

And Emma is not a hard read (especially for a Jane Austen fan!). I also need to get 5-10 pages of "creative nonfiction" writing done prior to next week's meeting with my other professor. That won't be too much trouble as I decided to focus on memoir writing for the moment, and I already have a couple of [rough] pieces I can work with.

In homeschooling news, we've decided to continue with The Human Odyssey, but to drop actual Greek history for the moment, instead focusing on mythology as deadlines for the exam are approaching--it has to be returned by March 8th, I think. I plan to read a chapter each day with The Boy in the D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths, and then we'll study the recommended section in their book on Norse myths, since The Boy decided to take that section as well. (And pssst... don't tell my kids, but I am really relieved to be down to one strand of history for a while!!! Besides, I've shown The Boy that we will be getting to Greek history shortly anyhow!)

This week, in The Human Odyssey, we came across the name Gilgamesh, and for some reason that struck the kids as a hilarious name! Seeing that they are intrigued, I think I shall read these books to them (I've read them aloud before, but it has been a long time!)

Tonight I think we shall just relax and have a family movie. I think it is high time my kids became familiar with the Marx Brothers, and I personally loved this movie as a kid (although I must add that I have never been able to listen to the music from Carmen without hearing "I want my shirt! I want my shirt. I can't be happy without my shirt!")...

A Very Wordy Wednesday...

Another beautiful sunrise on my way to work

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.
Lao Tzu

A couple of things with our new plans are not working out as well as I'd like. But, you know what? That's okay, because I have back-up plans too! And some things are better than I had hoped, so it's not all bad!

The Misses

Our science program ... :( I wanted it to work. I really did, but it just isn't resonating with my kids, and when they don't match up well with a learning tool, they don't learn. So, we're back to BFSU, with topical books from the library, and The Boy's beloved Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia (oh, and Janice VanCleave books plus all our various project books for the hands-on aspect). More documentaries too, since we love those! I took some time yesterday during The Boy's fencing class to check off all the lessons we have done and to put the rest in the order I'd like to do them, planning to finish up volume 1 this year so we can start volume 2 this fall. We're starting off with some energy studies, and I was lucky enough to find a few library books right off the bat, no holds! I think a big part of the issue here is that the kids don't want to wait another year or so before getting into physics, or even another half year before learning about geology. BFSU intertwines topics, since all of science is really related, so we get to explore all four major branches throughout the year.

Story of Ancient Greece... hmmm. Can I just say it didn't harmonize with what we want? Don't get me wrong--it is a lovely book, but something about it just doesn't appeal that much to my kids.

The Big Hits

K12's Human Odyssey... WOW! We've read just a few chapters, since I only read aloud from it once a week. It is well-written, enjoyable, easy to read aloud, and we're learning a lot about ancient Mesopotamia!

The National Art Gallery's Activity Book -- True, we've only done one activity from it so far, but it was so much fun! (I wish I had made one too... I should do that!) I personally like the balance of information and hands-on.

Brave Writer Lifestyle... I think the key here is that we do a variety of writing projects, not just pages x-x of a pre-written program every day. We've done grammar this week, and read poetry as well as some reading about poetry, done some copywork, and The Boy is scheduled to do some free-writing this week as well.

The Shoes Books... a bigger hit even than the American Girls books for The Girl! We just finished up Ballet Shoes, and we're going to get going with Dancing Shoes. I loved, loved, loved these books myself between the ages of 9-11'ish, so I am not surprised she's enjoying them too. If you haven't already, you can read her review of Ballet Shoes here.

And Truckin' Along

Explode The Code and Beyond the Code... The Girl is making real, tangible, good progress in reading! She's doing ETC by herself and then having me check the answers. She reads aloud to me every day, and she's remembering words she had trouble with before, like "the" and short words with long vowel sounds, etc. I didn't put this under Big Hits only because while she does the work willingly, it is not like she totally looks forward to it.

Soaring with Spelling...  I like this program because with the pre-tests each week, I can see where exactly he is struggling, and then we can work on that. I like that it has review units built in. Between this and Word Roots, The Boy is finally spelling a bit better!

Coming Up

And we're officially studying for the National Mythology Exam. I am only hoping that the registration paperwork made it in before the deadline--I do wish they had online registration... I almost missed the deadline, and am crossing my fingers that the snail mail form made it in on time!

Oh, and The Boy decided he needs to read through the entire set of A Series of Unfortunate Events! Thankfully I have the first several books on hand already!

And it is back to school for me! Tonight I head off for a new semester, with...

I'm taking the "advanced" Shakespeare class, with a professor whose specialty is indeed the Bard. I'm halfway really looking forward to this class, and I am halfway nervous, since I have no idea how advanced it is, or what the workload will be like. We're reading 4 of his plays over the semester-- Pericles, Coriolanus, Hamlet, and The Tempest. Out of that list, I have previously read only the last two.

I'm also nervous about my directed writing units. I meet with the professor for that class just once a month, and I have to write ten pages of nonfiction each month. What to write about first?

Anyhow, enough rambling for the moment. Hope you're having a good week!

Art Project: Shades & Tints...

Yesterday we did activity #1 in the National Art Gallery Activity Book. We studied Henri Rousseau's painting titled "Tropical Forest with Monkeys"...

What we were asked to pay special attention to were the shades and tints of green. The book also gave us definitions for shade and tint, then suggested an art project, finding shades and tints of favorite colors, and using them to create a piece of art. The Boy chose red, and The Girl blue. We were supposed to look through magazines, and fabric scraps, etc., for our art materials, but instead I headed off to the hardware store to pick up paint chips (in blues and reds of course)...

The kids spent maybe an hour on this project, flipping through their colors, cutting, gluing, rearranging, and so on, until we had these, with which I am very happy...

The Boy's work in reds

And The Girl's work in blues

This was such a fun project, and I absolutely love the results!

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!

Work Sample - Book Reports

We had our first experience this week with book reports. A local bookstore is highlighting book reviews written by homeschoolers, so of course we had to give it a go! I had them narrate the reviews to me while I typed, and then we went over them a couple of times before either child was quite satisfied.

So, without further ado, here is their work....

A Review of

Ballet Shoes

by The Girl .......

          Recently I read “Ballet Shoes” by Noel Streatfield. It is the story of three girls whose names are Pauline, Petrova, and Posy Fossil. They live in England, during the early 1900's. They are all adopted by Great Uncle Matthew, but he gets shipwrecked and goes missing for a long, long time. So the babies are left with Sylvia, who is their guardian, and their Nana. They become very poor, even though they sell their Great Uncle's fossils to museums and collectors. So they take in boarders, and even with the boarders, they still didn't have enough money. During all of that, the girls have to go off to school, but they can't afford it either. Sylvia tries to teach them at home, but she's not good at arithmetic. Two of the boarders are doctors of education, and they offer to teach the girls for free. Another boarder is a dance instructor, and she decides to train the girls in dancing so they can make money.

          Pauline is the oldest out of the three girls, and she's really talented at acting. Petrova is the middle girl, and she is not happy about being in ballet or acting, because she is not good at it. Instead she loves working on cars and flying airplanes. Posy is the youngest out of the three girls, and she loves ballet, because she is wonderful at it. The story follows their adventures in dancing and acting.

          I like the book a lot. Posy is my favorite character, but I like the other girls too. I think it is an exciting book because they get to be on the stage. I think that you should read this book so you can find out the ending!

 A Review of

 The Mark of Athena

by The Boy .......

          The “Mark of Athena” was written by Rick Riordan. It is the third book in the Heroes of Olympus series, which follows the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. It is told from the viewpoints of four different characters: Annabeth, Percy, Leo, and Piper. Annabeth is on a quest from her mother, Athena, to find a statue, which no other daughter of Athena has ever succeeded in finding. Locating the statue may help end an ongoing feud between the Greek and Roman training camps. Annabeth has to brave Arachna's underground lair to look for the statue.

          The others—Percy, Leo, Piper, and their friends Frank, Hazel, and Jason—are trying meanwhile to rescue a demigod who is trapped in a bronze jar after trying to close the doors of death. First however, they must defeat two giants who are trying to destroy Rome and reawaken Gaea to reclaim the world for herself, which will destroy the world as we know it. Spirits, called eidolons, take over machinery and people, trying to capture both a boy and a girl demigod to help Gaea awaken fully, which creates danger for the kids on the quest, who need to maintain a magical number of participants to complete their quest.

          I enjoyed this book because it is both humorous and extremely exciting. I had a hard time putting it down—every chapter ends in suspense since the viewpoints change frequently, and there is a lot of action all going on at once. I recommend this book to anyone who has read the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.

Not bad for their first book review attempt! Well, at least I think they're pretty good!

Something is Missing...

Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones,  as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.

~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Luckily for me, I know what it is we're missing, because both children have told me. We're missing our daily dose of picture books as recommended by this book...

So this morning I dug this book back out, and put a few books on hold at the library, to be added into our Afternoon Basket. I have to say that reading the books recommended gives us all sorts of interesting topics to discuss, and rabbit trails to follow. It gives my children familiarity with famous people and famous events. Not to mention that we just love picture books in general. There is something so satisfying about stories with illustrations...

Besides the "gaping hole", homeschooling is going beautifully. I've made a couple of adjustments, not changes mind you, just adjustments. We're still using Elemental Science's Logic Stage Biology, but I've added in some things from How Nature Works, and we're not doing everything in the biology program. Yesterday, the kids got to use our microscope to sketch plant cells, and they really enjoyed that. The Boy also spent a good hour browsing through a dictionary. Granted, it is a pretty cool dictionary!

Today we're off to a playdate with friends we have not seen in a very long time, so homeschooling will be on the lighter side!

Aaaawww...

And just think, Cassia made this placard AFTER we worked through FOUR chapters in math! And worked, hard, on reading.

I feel very loved!

A Wee Update...

I know we're only two days into our new homeschooling plan, but I just have to say it is going really well! Both kids have been doing more than I ask of them, and [with some tweaking, naturally - I can't help it] all of our resources are big hits. I'll post a more detailed report when we've made it through the whole week.

Other than that, The Boy is back to fencing today, which he has been missing. The Girl also misses roller derby, but that doesn't start back up until February! Speaking of roller derby, I have to say I am proud of our local league for placing third in the National Championships! We also hope to make it back to our beloved park day this week, as we haven't been since before Christmas, due to both the holidays and the weather.

One of our main resources these days is Life of Fred math, which I have written about before. We took a leap of faith, and decided to go with it as our primary math program. The kids love it--I never have a problem getting them to sit down for math, and they each listen to me reading the other child's book aloud. One of the things I have noticed lately, and that I very much appreciate, is that Stanley Schmidt, the author, introduces the kids to algebraic concepts right from the beginning. has worked with set theory and simple variable equations, and yesterday The Boy worked out a few problems with variable equations. These are examples from the Elementary set of books. I like this because I really believe that in introducing these concepts early on, the author is working to avoid the panic I know I felt when I got into algebra and was confronted with letters in my math equations! Part of me does worry, just a little, that in taking such a different approach to math, my kids might have issues later on, but I've done my research, and it really seems that kids that have used the upper levels are well versed in mathematics, so I do feel (mostly) that we are laying a good foundation. I was also worried in moving The Boy back a few levels (at the author's suggestion until The Boy is stronger with multiplication & division), as I thought this might put us "behind" in math. I thought about this some more, and at the rate he's going, two lessons per day, I should just stop worrying.

One more quick review, and then I must be off... I'd like to recommend the book The Homeschooling Highway: How to Navigate Your Way Without Getting Carsick. This was recommended to me by a friend, and I read the entire thing in one sitting. It was a fun read! The author has a good sense of humor, AND made me feel a lot more comfortable with taking my own approach, to "hop in [my] Minivan of Awesome" and just go with it. If you are plagued by doubts, as I too often am, read this book, or read it just for fun. She had a lot of good insights into things too, like the fact that, although I'm sure they're not trying to be, homeschoolers can be judgmental, and being the odd one out isn't always fun... I live in an area where nearly every homeschooling family I meet unschools, and I can't say that doesn't influence my thinking. However, that is not the approach that best suits us, at least not right now. Anyhow, read the book. The Kindle version is under $3, or you can borrow it for free. Next up on my homeschool reading list is Our WORST Homeschool Mistakes (And How You Can Avoid Them)! Surely someone out there has made more mistakes than I have!

Anyhow, I have other work to do, so more later! Have a good week!

Narnia Lit List Revised

This is a revised version of my original list that focuses on fewer titles overall. It assumes a basic familiarity with Greek and Roman mythology, and perhaps a little Norse mythology as well.

King Lear (children's version)
Questing Knights of the Faerie Queene
The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe 
William Shakespeare's Macbeth (children's version)
William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (children's version)
The Arabian Nights 
Prince Caspian 
Rip Van Winkle (reminds me of the sleeping Lords in Voyage) 
The Wanderings of Odysseus  
King Arthur & His Knights of the Round Table
Voyage of the Dawn Treader
William Shakespeare's Hamlet (children's version)
In Search of a Homeland: The Story of the Aenid
Gulliver's Travels   
The Silver Chair
The Seven Wise Princesses: A Medieval Persian Epic
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (children's version)
The Prince and the Pauper
The Horse and His Boy
Six Great Sherlock Holmes Stories
The Story of the Treasure Seekers
The Magician's Nephew
At The Back of the North Wind 
Paradise Lost for Children
Stories From Dante
Animal Farm
The Last Battle

I also think that Our Island Story would make a nice addition to this study, perhaps ead at the rate of three (very short) chapters each week.

Ready, Set... GO!

So tomorrow (yes, Sunday) is the first day of our new semester. I wrote up a basic plan for the week, a relatively simple plan, one that can be adjusted since we seem to have a lot of "extras" on the calendar this week as well.

So here's tomorrow's "agenda"... I am really hoping all goes well, and that we enjoy as well as learn, though I readily admit I am nervous, going from more or less unschooling to much more schooly:

For The Boy (though The Girl will likely listen in): A story from D'Aulaires Greek Myths

For The Girl (while The Boy works on a brief summary of the above): Chapter 1 in Kaya's World

For both:

Chapter 1 in The Human Odyssey, Volume 1

A chapter from Breakthroughs in Science OR a chapter from The Tarantula in My Purse (OR both?)

A fun art activity from KinderArt. The kids actually did this same project back in 2007, so it'll be interesting to see the differences!

An introduction to our composer of the month - Handel

Watching another episode of Wild Africa (geography). We might also read a bit in Halliburton's Book of Marvels.

Some reading from String, Straight-edge & Shadow.

And, last but not least, we'll start The Magician's Elephant.

The kids are working on choosing books for a book review each. A local bookstore will be displaying homeschoolers' book reviews in their main window later this month, so I've asked the kids to work with me on forming one each as I think it is a great opportunity to share their enthusiasm for a good book! The Boy will be writing much of his own, and then I'll help polish it (checking grammar, spelling, etc.), while The Girl will likely narrate hers to me, which I will then type up.

I did look again at writing programs, like Writing With Ease, IEW's multitude of offerings, and so forth, but decided we'll stick with the Brave Writer Lifestyle for the most part (The Boy may do some work in Igniting Your Writing and/or Writing Strands, but I'm not positive about this yet). I am choosing a monthly "focus" to work on once or twice a week... after the book reports it will be poetry, with Pizza, Pigs & Poetry: How to Write a Poem. Another month we'll do letter writing, then another will be paragraph structure, and so forth.

New Year's Day 2013

For New Year's Day, we had a lovely afternoon trek through Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve...

 With all the recent rain, we saw mushrooms galore...

And loads of baby ferns...

The sun peeking through the trees...

Cheerful red berries...

Quite possibly a  fairy or gnome home...

And plenty of water...

The insides of hollow old redwoods are always fun to explore...

And if you're going to explore, it is best to wear the appropriate hat...

Just enjoying the trail...

This is how we do nature study. I don't schedule it anymore, because that turns it into something we don't enjoy nearly as much. We do read topical books, like those about clouds, and such, and we own a dozen field guides. We like Citizen Science projects too!

All in all, this was a fantastic start to a new year!