Easing In...

I've read about this approach, easing into the school year with a subject or two, and then adding in more week-by-week, but we've always been more of the "start with a bang" type.

This year though, we're easing in, naturally, and I think I like it! As you can read below, we've been quite busy. If we keep going like this, I would just need to add in math, language arts, and a little more reading!

This Week...

The Girl:

She watched all the episodes of Walking With Dinosaurs, Walking With Prehistoric Beasts, and Walking With Cavemen. She then asked me to print out dinosaur related coloring/information pages (most of which I got from Learning Page) so she could make a "book". We also started reading All About Dinosaurs (with The Boy listening in).

She also helped my mom make plum jam for a food drive this week, and learned a lot about canning. she's been helping cook nearly every dinner too, and, with her dad's coaching (since he's the "pro"), her knife skills are getting quite good!

She's been working, fairly steadily, on making a fairy house with craft sticks, twigs moss, and hot glue.

We finished The Garden Princess this week, and will be reading The Dragon in the Cliff next (about Mary Anning).

And finally, she wrote two stories this week, one is a continuation of her rabbit story, and the other was about a bee searching for a field of flowers. She also wrote my grocery list, and an intriguing version of this week's menu plan.

And of course she played with the guinea pigs...


The Boy:

As part of his ongoing fascination with older cars, he started watching My Classic Car this week, after being delighted to discover that our Amazon account offers us 12 seasons of the show! He has been researching Henry Ford here and there, along with other pioneers of the early automobile.

He's building a cabin, and complimentary outbuildings, with craft sticks and hot glue Right now, he's working on furniture to place in the cabin.

Leviathin is going well - he's really enjoying this book! I don't know if he'll go with the next book in the series, or The Hotel Under the Sand after this!

And photography and photo editing are still of great interest. He spends a lot of time working on getting
good angles, good light, and shots that will lend themselves to editing. He checked a couple of books on photography basics out from the library and is slowly working through them.



Together:

Through listening to Cheaper by the Dozen, the kids have gotten intrigued with learning foreign languages and Morse code. In the book, the father puts a victrola in each bathroom, along with stacks of French and German language records. Eventually, through listening to them while bathing, brushing teeth, etc., the kids start to pick up on the languages. Hmmm, I don't see buying a victrola for the bathroom per se, but perhaps we could use this approach in a more modern fashion! And Morse code would be fun.

We're going to put Harry Potter at bedtime on hold again, possibly, to read about King Arthur instead. We've been catching up on the show Merlin, and the kids thought it might be fun to compare a more original version of the story to this one. The same as they want to do for Dinotopia. I just have to decide which version of King Arthur to read! And we should actually start listening to The Peculiar, which is sitting in the car, waiting. Too much music and chatting going on for in-car stories lately! And now that we've finished (again) Downton Abbey, I think we'll try Bleak House, as it is set in an era we're all intrigued by!

We spent all yesterday afternoon swimming (sorry, no pictures because we were too busy hanging out in the water!), and today we're off to see a circus!

Have a good weekend!

I'm Doing It Again....

This is what my brain has been up too lately, seriously over-planning. You would think, after years of homeschooling, that I would know we never stick to laid-out plans! Or as Robert Burns put it, "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, Gang aft agley, An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For promis'd joy!"

So instead, I think we're going swimming at a riverside beach today, if I can drag the kids away from their myriad projects! 

There is an active discussion about relaxed homeschooling going on, on one of the forums I visit (probably too often). It's been really interesting, hearing from homeschoolers on both sides of the relaxed fence, especially those that have been working through high school and beyond. It's got me thinking, maybe I don't need to be scared of the high school years. Maybe I don't need to be so worried about what will happen if I let go a little--my kids do have interests outside lounging around and watching TV! I've been thinking about this for three years now, maybe it is time to jump off that cliff!

I had better go make sandwiches now, and find the missing pair of water shoes. And stop looking at this, and this.

Hope you're having a good week! I'll try to get some good pictures today to share later!

Writing... Can I Do This?

I have owned The Writer's Jungle, and eagerly read through the Brave Writer Lifestyle pages, for years now. I am working on my MA in English Education & Rhetoric, with the goal of helping remedial college students learn to write cohesively and fluently.

Still...

I find myself looking at this writing curriculum, or that one, or yet another one. And I do this despite the fact that every writing curriculum I've bought for The Boy ends up on a shelf, coated in dust. I find myself thinking "Well, we use a text book for math, why not writing?" And today I was bright enough (ha ha) to post about this on a classical homeschooling message board. Apparently, my writing demands are nowhere near high enough. But then, Julie Bogart - Brave Writer creator and guru - says:

"A mother asked us at Brave Writer if she was doing enough writing with her child. She told us that her son wrote in his journal on Monday, wrote a poem on Tuesday, crafted a short three paragraph essay on Wednesday, sent a thank you note to his grandmother on Thursday and polished a written narration on Friday. Was that enough writing for her 11 year old? she sincerely wondered. We responded, “That’s more writing than anyone should do in a week!...As a result, we suggest that students only be asked to complete (start to finish) one writing project per month. Just one." 

And I did some reading over at Ambleside Online about a Charlotte Mason approach:

"Written Narration begun around age 10-11. (Handwritten or typed narrations are fine. You should accept most written narrations without attempting to correct all the mistakes. Becoming proficient with written narration will take a couple of years. Begin with one written narration per week, and increase to 2, then 3, as your child is ready to do more writing. Once a month, perhaps, you may want to edit and correct one narration.)"

Now I do have to say, in defense of the person who relied to my post, she suggested I look at what the end goal is, THIS YEAR, and work backwards. I can do that!

Goals for The Girl:
Her goals are mostly reading related, but I would like her, by the end of the year, to be able to write a good, solid paragraph. She's already writing short stories, almost completely on her own, so this is mainly teaching her structure. And I would like to continue working on basic dictation.

Goals for The Boy:
I actually have two writing goals for The Boy over the next year. One, is to learn basic outlining. And the other is to write a simple essay (which means he should review paragraph structure). And I want him to get back into free writing... he was doing well with it for a while, but then lost his oomph. So yeah, that makes three goals. I'm pretty sure I could come up with more, but those are the most important.

Now, how to get there?

Well, for starters, I discovered that Julie Bogart has free podcasts on her website, talking about different developmental stages of writing. [As a side-note, I am delighted to discover that despite her late reading, The Girl fits squarely in her actual age group, developmentally, as far as writing goes!]

So I am listening to those. I am re-reading The Writer's Jungle. I am looking through my copy of Write Source 2000 for clear instructional material.

And I am taking note of what seems to work, and what doesn't. What they like, and what they don't. For example, The Girl loves copywork, so I should take advantage of that. The Boy likes writing silly dialogue, so I'll should work that in.

I can do this, right? Without a program to lead us through it all step-by-step?

Monday Musings... It's Going Too Fast!

My summer break that is. Naturally, we haven't gotten half the stuff I wanted to done! Still, it's nice to get the chance to relax.

Outside My Window & In The Garden...
The sun is shining again! After being largely blanketed by fog for a while, at least until noon each day, we're back up to temperatures in the mid 80's every day. Our corn is about 4 feet tall now, and we have tons of tomatoes ripening on a near daily basis. The basil is humungous! Last night I picked a huge bunch of chard (Rainbow Lights, very pretty!), and sauteed it with some shallots. The kids weren't sure at first, but once they tasted it, they sure gobbled it down!

Around the House...
I still have lots to do in my Operation Overhaul. I had better get to it! I head back to work August 12th, and I want the house clean, tidy, and a lot less cluttered before then.

In the Kitchen...
M is grilling a lot these days, and we're eating a lot of salads and grilled veggies. I do need to start planning out menus more, and being more careful with grocery shopping on our ever tighter budget (they lowered M's unemployment).

This Week...
I thought I might try piggybacking on the current dinosaur craze in the house! The Girl and I have just about finished The Garden Princess, and I think we'll read The Dragon in the Cliff next. The kids are interested in a comparison between the Dinotopia book and miniseries. I did reserve Dinosaur Bone War: Cope & March's Fossil Feud, but am not sure yet if we'll actually read it, since that might make summer "school" too much!

I also want to finish Cheaper by the Dozen in the next week or two, and then try out Gone Away Lake.

We really want to go swimming this week, at the coast, or the river,while the weather is so nice! I need to deadhead the front yard too. The fog/sun combo did a number on my poor hydrangeas, and they look dreadful.

Miscellaneous Notes...
M finishes up his summer classes in another two weeks, then has (I think) two weeks off before the fall semester begins. I head back to school myself in late August. I still haven't decided if I am taking a language this fall, and if I do, whether it will be French or Spanish. I am making my midget list of things to be purchased for homeschooling, and thankfully, I can buy in increments, though I do want some Main Lesson Books! There are a few other must-haves on the list to get before September, but not much... maybe some watercolor supplies (we really want to try wet-on-wet watercolors!), and some new crayons. Oh, and we will need some woodworking/carpentry supplies, mainly some project wood. Although it might help if we decided first what it is they want to build! Hmm, maybe I should get this book, or this one, from the library!

Hope you all have a good week!

Relaxation in the Redwoods...

Yesterday we took a much needed break, and headed way out to a favorite park... Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve.We hiked probably about 3 miles, half of it uphill of course!

Enjoying the interior of a tree

Beautiful redwoods (Coast variety, if you are wondering)

A redwood with a nose!

A brief break along the way. Notice the cute headband she made for herself out of the neck section of an outgrown turtleneck shirt!

Hiking is thirsty work!

I love the sunlight coming through the trees! This is in the higher elevations, where the redwoods give way to oak, manzanita, and madrone.

It was an afternoon of much-needed outdoor beauty, away from everything. Next time though, we need to head out earlier so we can make it all the way to the Bullfrog Pond and back!

Around the House...
The Girl has been re-watching the Walking With series, and so we're breaking out some Landmark and All About books for the next couple of weeks, namely Prehistoric America and All About Dinosaurs. She's written two more stories in the last two days, and she's been doing some self-guided crafts (see the headband picture above!).

The Boy and a friend are running a "who can spot the ugliest car" contest through email, so The Boy is working on his photography skills. I'm also actually looking at a couple of lapbooking automobile studies for him (such as this one), since he loves the idea of lapbooking -- all those fold-out bits and pieces, etc., which remind him of his favorite Ologies books.

Right now, as I waver, forever apparently, back and forth in how to approach homeschooling this fall, I am simply trying to find productive/creative outlets for what the kids are interested in.

Chugging along....

We're delighting in Cheaper by the Dozen. The kids are fascinated with the time saving ideas posited in the book, and so they spent some puppy-sitting money they had earned on new watches, watches that have stopwatch capacities. And they are timing everything! The Girl informed me that it took us (her and I) 13 minutes and 49 seconds to make breakfast, and that it then took her 17 minutes and 54 seconds to eat it.

And naturally, The Boy chose a big, burly looking watch...









The weather has been strangely cool lately. We had temperatures in the upper nineties, and yes, up into the low one hundreds, for a week or so, and then  the fog started rolling in every morning. Most days now we hit the low eighties, though looking ahead, it might be hotter again next week. I'd like that, so we can enjoy the beach a few more times before my summer break is over! I also really want to get out to the redwoods for a day, maybe next week, or even over the weekend.

What else are we up to? The Girl is working on a fairy house in the backyard. She's been writing more little stories, and insists on making my grocery lists. She's been playing Thread Words a lot on my Kindle, though she never gets much past the first couple of levels... yet. The Boy is still reading Leviathin, and he makes sketches of potential Steampunk projects, and he's doing research for a story/book he wants to write. I'm thinning out my homechooling related books - we have so many that I'll never use! Still getting rid of stuff, purging. Oh, and today we need to clean out the guinea pig cages - what fun! We're through the first season of Once Upon a Time (really good show!), and into the second season of Eureka. We started watching Merlin again too. M is loving his cooking classes, and is looking forward to the fall semester. I'm trying to decide if I want to take French or Spanish for my MA. I like French (took a couple of years of it in high school many years ago), but I know Spanish would be more useful.

Nature Walk...

We went for a lovely evening nature walk a couple of day ago, at a local wetlands preserve.

We saw butterfly bush in bloom....

Explored an area that in the winter is 6-10 feet under water (it's a retention basin)...

Enjoyed a view of the river/creek...

Admired some wildflowers and blackberries....

The trail on the way out...

The kids also tried an activity from Keepers of the Earth. Each found a quiet spot, a little out of the way, and simply sat in peace for a while. I stayed on a bench not too far away, and enjoyed my moments of peace! Just what I needed. And we'll be repeating this activity a few times... the kids said it was "lovely", "refreshing", and "marvelous".

Hmmmm....

Truthfully, I've been feeling a bit blah about homeschooling lately, not looking forward to fall nearly as much as I have in the past, hence all my flip-flopping and indecision.

I think a big part of it is that I allowed my "oh my god, The Boy hits high school in two years and I'm worried about being behind" fears to overwhelm me. I forgot about enjoying the journey, and focused only on the potential goals. For a few minutes, I even considered going all textbook-y! Which, by the way, is the exact opposite of how my kids enjoy learning.

I read this bit on Kim's Our Enchanted Place blog not long ago, and it really struck a chord with me: "I always get a little worked up at the beginning of our year and think I need to get everything done by some certain time. Well, you know what? I really don't! Our focus is math, and then doing whatever we can get to from the Sonlight cores. After all, it really does not matter if we finish a Core in a year or two years! We are still learning a ton. I am also realizing that I need to be careful about adding too much to the Cores." Of course, I'm not using Sonlight, but the gist of this really applies. We are still learning a ton, even when we slow down to enjoy what we're learning!

Then I worried myself that using vintage books, and living books, wouldn't be "enough", even though we love the language of older books (like Builders of the Old World versus some of the newer texts). I'm still wrestling a little with history for next year, but I'm starting to look at it from a different angle. What would we enjoy and learn from? I also need to think, instead of "oh my god, The Boy hits high school in two years and I'm worried about being behind" that I have SIX more years to give The Boy the education he needs and EIGHT more for The Girl. Isn't that enough time to fill in some gaps without getting so worried? Plus, since both my kids plan on transitioning through the local junior/community college, not going straight off to a four year college, I can ease up on those graduation requirements... a little.

So now, I am looking at adding more beauty and enjoyment to our schooling in the fall. I'm researching a lot of Waldorf stuff, and a little more Charlotte Mason. I'm thinking about a lovely progression of [vintage] history (Read up through the Romans in Builders of the Old World, and then read Our Island Story alongside bits of Builders, and then, when we finish Builders, we could read through Makers of the Americas) rather than a more "structured" approach. Still not absolutely sure, but I feel like I am getting somewhere!

In the meantime, I would like to highly recommend this book...

I really like the balance in it between stories and (environmental) activities. I think today we might try one where we go out into a wild place and each child finds a special spot to simply sit, be quiet, and really appreciate nature.

And The Boy is really enjoying this Steampunk-inspired book...

The Girl and I are having fun reading The Garden Princess together (a strange tale), and we're hooked on Downton Abbey. I am anxiously awaiting Below Stairs at the library, and The Girl is really into fashion from the 1910's-1920's. And we're all loving Cheaper by the Dozen, one of my favorite childhood books! We finally finished the third Percy Jackson audio book, and will be listening to The Peculiar next, before returning to Percy Jackson.

Hope you've all had a good week!

The Fourth...

We spent most of our Fourth at the beach, specifically Heart's Desire on Tomales Bay. It was lovely - just hot enough to swim a lot, but not so hot it was overwhelming. We knew it was going to be a good day when we got there, around 11 am, to see a long line of cars ahead of us, waiting to pay the parking fee. We whipped out our parks pass, and the ranger very kindly directed us around the traffic, toward the parking lot... I've never seen so many dirty looks from other drivers before! We also hiked around a little bit--we followed the shoreline up the coast for maybe half a mile or so to another beach, then took the trail over the top of the cliffs back. We visited Indian Beach as well, and talked about how the Miwok Indians would have lived hundreds of years ago.

In the evening, we headed to a friend's house for dinner and then downtown to watch the fireworks show. Unfortunately, this was the least exciting show we've seen in years, too short, and not nearly as extravagant as in past years. We're wondering if perhaps we should check out the San Francisco fireworks display next year? If it isn't foggy, we could even watch it from the Golden Gate Bridge. We have a year to figure it out though, so we'll see!

Besides all that, it has been a good week. We took this week officially off from schooling, just reading a little in a few of our current books. Next week, we'll add back in a little Khan Academy and Reading Horizons. We'll also be launching "Operation Overhaul" on the house!

The Girl and I also started a free boot camp fitness class this week! It meets three times a week, for four weeks. As we both struggle with weight at the moment (and I really don't want her growing up bearing that burden), I thought this would be a good launching point for getting her more aware of her activity level and nutrition. She's been very excited about it, even though I'll be the first to say it can get really hard! Add that to swimming twice this week, light hiking, and her roller derby, and she's had a very active week!

Hope everyone had a good week, and a happy and safe Fourth!

Monday Musings...

 

Outside My Window...

Hot here lately, in the upper 90's to low 100's. And very sunny! I've taken to soaking the garden twice a day, once early in the morning, and again in the early evening. I love the smell of a freshly watered garden, especially when I get the lavender, rosemary and lemon balm damp.

Things I'm Thinking About...

Getting through deep cleaning; fantasizing about a day at the beach; getting through the free four week bootcamp fitness I signed up for; and writing programs, or the lack thereof. I'm re-reading The Writer's Jungle, and really thinking that it is the way we should go, since we never seem to get far with any program that is all outlined for us!

In My Garden...

One of my artichoke plants is making artichokes! I am super excited about this--they are one of my all-time favorite vegetables! Our tomatoes are ripening quickly now, nothing like cherry tomatoes fresh off the plant, still warm from the sun. My basil is going crazy, so I think a batch of pesto is in order. I read about a fennel pesto somewhere too, and might try that, as my bronze fennel plant is around 6 feet tall now!

Around the House...

This wee's cleaning focus is one of the bedrooms, The Girl's, to be specific. Top to bottom cleaning, a little bit each day. That also means clothing, book, and toy donations to be made!

In Our Homeschool...

A light week on the agenda. The Girl will work a little in Reading Horizons, and The Boy will do some exercises on Khan Academy. We'll read a little more about ancient China, learning about Confucius, and we'll start Cheaper by the Dozen or Gone Away Lake.

Creating...

Ummmm

Reading & Watching...

We like watching Once Upon a Time and Eureka. I just started watching Call the Midwife... very interesting show! The Girl and I are enjoying reading The Garden Princess, and we're all still having fun reading through The Thirteen Clocks. I liked The Kashmir Shawl a lot, and really recommend it! Movie wise, we've recently watched Crocodile Dundee, Dinotopia, and School of Rock.

Plans for the Week Ahead...

A trip to the beach for swimming and relaxation, three bootcamp fitness workouts, fencing for The Boy (The Girl had derby yesterday), taking in a fireworks show, and we need to get to the library!

Have a good week! (And thank you again Kim, for the Monday Musings inspiration!)