It Can't Really Be April Already!

I absolutely can't believe it is April already, and that I missed March on this blog entirely.

What We've Been Up To:

The Girl turned 14!!!

The Boy is enjoying the Big History Project. This will take us through the next year as well, since I'm adding in science, and it took us a while to get off the ground with it.

I've decided to apply for a Roots & Shoots mini-grant to help The Girl and I with our front-yard-turned-wildlife-habitat project.

The weather has finally gotten much nicer, so The Boy will be returning to his truck project.

Again, since the rains have (mostly) stopped, we can get a veggie garden going! I decided we would start relatively small this year, and add to it regularly, rather than overwhelming ourselves with another giant project at the moment.

Homeschooling on the whole is good these days! Math is going well for both, we're working on writing projects, we're reading The Golden Compass, and we discuss a lot of politics/political science.

We've also been enjoying sunny park days with friends; the kids go roller skating every week; they also visit a local teen club twice a week (most weeks) for arts, crafts, and more; and The Boy is loving his figure drawing class!

So instead of rambling on and on, here are some pictures from recent days, in no particular order...

The Girl got clay for her birthday, and is making mini sculptures

The cat loves his boy

Minecraft flower mini-sculpture by The Girl

Drawing from The Boy's art class

The view from an uphill walk I try to do at least twice a week

I love seeing hot air balloons when I drive my husband to work in the morning

Another drawing from The Boy's art class

I always see such pretty flowers when I'm out walking!

Have a great weekend and week! I'll try to check back in more regularly!

Happy October!

October is my favorite month of the year. Something about the weather (we had rain today!!!), the pumpkins and squash, the leaves changing color, and of course, Halloween, all together make me feel very content.

What We're Up To...
We just started, last night, watching our Halloween-related/spooky movies, with Sleepy Hollow. Also on the list are Hocus Pocus, Practical Magic, The Addams Family, Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, and, quite likely, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, among others. Perhaps Phantom of the Opera as well this year? We watched Dracula last year, so maybe Frankenstein should be considered. We have been watching Penny Dreadful, and it has been intriguing to watch characters from classic horror films/novels unfold.

Math is going along well for both kids, and we're getting going slowly with language arts. We've begun reading The Giver, and that's been found to be very thought provoking so far. We do plan to watch the movie after we finish the book, for comparison. This is the first novel we have chosen for a plunge into dystopian society, at the request of both kids.

The Boy is doing very well in his astronomy class, with a high A average at the moment. He's also been back at work on his truck restoration project after a couple of weeks off. And he's been visiting car shows/air shows, and has made videos for both. The Girl spends a lot of time lately sculpting again, and we're working on our wildlife habitat. She reads a lot on her Kindle lately, both in games, and about games, and animals. She set up a fishbowl in her room for a Betta fish, painting the backside of the fishbowl with a tropical underwater scene, so that her new fish, named Pearl, would "not be bored in there." We do need to get going on the Big History Project though, which The Girl has decided she will participate in, albeit somewhat loosely.

Other Tidbits...
I love my jobs teaching/working with students. I am far more content these days than with all of last year's crazy hectic scheduling, even though we have a little less money.

It's also soup season, and that makes me happy! Last week, I made a giant pot of taco bean soup, and right now I'm also craving butternut squash-orange soup (I spice it up with smoked paprika, ginger, cumin, and a little chili powder), and The Girl wants this eggplant one.

I spent time today at the hardware store drooling over bulbs. My favorites are grape hyacinths, crocus, crocosmia, daffodils, and paperwhite narcissus, so I think there might be a bulb-purchase-and-planting day coming up soon! Other yard-based tasks to be done include harvesting olives in another month or so, clearing ground for raised beds at last, and strengthening the chicken hutch before winter gets here. I also really want to get/make a Halloween wreath for the front door by next weekend!

Enjoy your October!

Settling In...

Homeschooling this fall has been more about getting settled in, than it has been about starting a new academic year. I've made some more changes to my Learning page to more accurately reflect what we're up to, most noticeably, that I'm not doing formal spelling with The Girl after all, but I'll talk about that in a minute!

What We're Up To...
The Boy is well entrenched in another semester at the junior college. He's taking, and seriously enjoying, stellar astronomy. After each class, he comes to me with stories of his teacher, and what was learned, and I am thrilled it is going so well! In the spring, he hopes to take sculpture, and perhaps German.

As for The Girl's spelling, I am approaching it in much the same way I did with The Boy, which was correcting it as we go. Instead, I am having both of them participate in writing projects, even some collaborative pieces. The Girl is reading SO well now, and she's picking up some spelling just from reading, so I think this laid back approach could work.

Math is going well too. The Boy is continuing with TabletClass (algebra), and The Girl is zipping through the first book of Key to Fractions.

Still To Add In...
The Boy will be studying Big History this year, as we find it meshes extremely well with his science choices (astronomy this fall, biology at home in the spring). I haven't quite decided if The Girl will do this with him, but I think it is more likely she will have a year of naturalists and animal scientist biographies.

The Girl completed her first orientation at the Wildlife Rescue Center. She has two more trainings to go before she can start fostering young wild animals in the spring. She may also volunteer for some classroom visits with the education team.

And read-alouds... I have a list of dystopian literature at the request of the kids, so we just need to get to it! I'm also gathering a few books on various topics to rotate through the Afternoon Basket during fall.

Everything Else...
Roller derby is back in full session, so The Girl has practice twice a week. The Boy is still working on his truck rebuilding project once a week. I only work four days a week now, and love my jobs, despite the need for more penny pinching. I do a bootcamp workout three mornings a week, TRX once a week, and I run a couple of times a week too, so I feel better than I ever have! The Girl is going to train for her first 5k with me, one that involves chocolate, definitely a big motivation!

We lost one of our two dogs last week. She started sleeping endlessly, and stopped eating, so we knew she was going (she was 13 or 14). She died peacefully in our family room on the 12th, and we held a lovely funeral for her. We also gained a chicken, when a friend found one wandering down her street, and thought of us!

Hope everyone's fall is off to as good a start as ours, though maybe not as slow!

Wordy Wednesday... Either/Or... And a Prodigy review...

It's that time of year again, when I start thinking "well, what if we did this?" or "we could do this...". So I've basically come up with an Option A and an Option B+.

For both options, regardless:

• Math
• Language Arts
• Literature

Then, Option A would simply be to continue as is... basically unschooling all other subjects, following interests, etc.

Pros:

• The kids get to figure out what they are interested in, and explore it
• Flexibility
• Empowerment

Cons:

• They tend to jump around from subject to subject sometimes, which can make getting resources in a timely fashion hard
• Lack of follow-through
• Sometimes even they feel they're not "doing" or "learning" enough!

Option B is a little more "schooly". We would use The Big History Project for history*, and this awesome science book (biology) that I found, called Life on Earth**.

Pros:

• More organized
• Might get around to more projects in science, as they are part of the text
• Would introduce The Boy to a good study of biology (he's always been the physics guy here), and would introduce The Girl to more biology than animals
• Could develop a better understanding of history as a whole

Cons:

• Having to follow through!
• Less room for rabbit trails

*Other options for history that are under consideration would include Hakim's Story of Science series, OR K12's World History: Our Human Story, the latter of which we could read from just once a week, leaving room for rabbit trails the rest of the time.

**I think we're most likely to use the biology text mentioned if we do formal science, but I'm also considering science tied in with history, if we use The Big History Project or Hakim's Story of Science

Anyhow, I obviously need to think on this some more! In the meantime, let's talk about Prodigy, the free interactive math game I found through a message board recently. The Girl took the placement test a few days ago (which is within the framework of the game, so she didn't even realize it was a placement test!), and then she's worked with it twice since. For hours, literally. The first day after the placement test, she spent about two or three hours doing math, and yesterday, another 2 hours, roughly. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less....

She's worked on multiplication, division, mode, median, angles, addition, subtraction, perimeter, and more during those hours. Yesterday, I found I could give her assignments too, to focus on a skill area I think she needs help with! And, when I login, I can see how well she did on the assignment, and exactly which problems she struggled with. After she completes the assignment, she can move into free play, and that's where she's getting an intro to geometry, fraction work, and a lot more. She has to answer math questions to move ahead through the game, defeating various creatures with math, and collecting new "pets" along the way.

I think we'll finish out our year with her working on this, and she can play it over the summer. In the fall.. well, we'll see!

I feel like I'm on one of these!

Where We Are, and Where We Are Headed Next...

Since we are getting closer and closer to the end of the year, I thought I would share where we are at with homeschooling, and what our next big plans are!

The Boy

He is doing so well with TabletClass Algebra as his math text/program! As he's currently on chapter 2 out of 14, I doubt he will finish by the end of June, but in September, we will just pick up where he leaves off, and move on from there.

In writing, I have sort of dropped the ball... a lot. However, I am taking steps to remedy this. I have accepted that as an English tutor/teacher-to-be, I am not good at following a pre-written curriculum. I am much better at putting together assignments myself. So I am going to just work with him on the steps of writing various types of essays, though we will continue to use books like Writing With A Thesis for examples and refining. His first essay, an expository one, will be at least 5 paragraphs, and we'll be starting that today. I plan to have him read a least one sample essay, brainstorm, work on an outline, then a rough draft, and a final draft. In between all those fun steps, he'll continue with freewriting, etc., a la the Brave Writer Lifestyle. After the expository essay, we'll move on to a persuasive or descriptive essay. 

Next year, we'll continue essay writing, with at least one research paper, and various short essays across the curriculum.

The Girl

Our current approach to math—using Math Essentials and filling in any weak spots with Math Mammoth's Blue Series—is working quite well. She likes both programs, which is a rare find here, and is making nice progress! We'll continue on with this for next year's math (pre-algebra), and then decide where to go from there. I might have her try out the free pre-algebra lessons offered by John Zimmerman, the amazing TabletClass guy. Our primary focus the rest of this year is getting her up to full speed on multiplication, division, and fractions.

She does some writing/freewriting, and I should have her doing more Brave Writer Lifestyle activities, but our main focus is spelling, since that is a major weak spot. She spells very phonetically, which can be interesting, but not necessarily easy to understand. I bought a Spelling Workout workbook at a lower level than her reading comprehension, and she's flying through it, doing an entire lesson in a day. I assume we'll slow down as she moves up through the levels. 

Next year, we'll add in written narratives, and the beginnings of essay work.

Both

Downton history, while we haven't read/watched everything on my list, has been a huge hit! That said, I think next year we'll simply aim for watching series, documentaries, and movies... a visual interest-led approach. That is because we have decided we need a year that focuses more on science, which brings me to my next point.

Science has been largely interest-led this year. The Boy is reading a couple of books on black holes, and other cosmological phenomena; The Girl has practically memorized entire animal encyclopedias. We've watched documentaries, done an occasional small experiment, but we haven't really dug too deeply into science this year. I would like to finish out the year with some anatomy and nutrition, but we'll see. 

Next year though, both kids will be doing biology, The Boy because it's a science he has not focused on previously, and The Girl in order to broaden her horizons past animals. I'm looking at either Life on Earth (which looks fascinating, but is an iBook and therefore more difficult for me to access), or something along the lines of Exploring the Way Life Works, or maybe even a (gulp) textbook (this one, or perhaps this one).

OR, we'll be doing the Big History Project with extra science, primarily biology. [Personally, this would be my number one pick]

Literature has not been great this year either, mostly because I did not put enough emphasis on it, and I failed to make it a cornerstone of our education. The kids do read a lot on their own—right now I've got one enmeshed in the world of Harry Potter, and the other one millions of miles from here with The Martian—but at read-alouds... well, I'll just say it: I've sucked this year. I am working to remedy that a bit though. We're finally wrapping up A Wrinkle in Time, and then will either read A Wind in the Door, or something entirely different.

For next year, we are toying with the idea of a lit study based off of another favorite series of ours, Once Upon a Time. We would bring in everything from Alice in Wonderland and Pinocchio, to the Grimm fairy tales, Peter Pan, the legend of Blackbeard, and so forth. 

So,  biology/Big History  interest-led science and literature would be the main focal points for family studies, bolstered with math and writing as individual activities. Plus, The Boy may well take another junior college class.

So yes, we're still aiming high, and falling a bit short. 

Monday Musings...A Meeting of Minds...

Sorry for the lower quality of the picture, but here is The Boy meeting Richard Dawkins! We attended a lecture and book signing on the beautiful Dominican University campus yesterday, taking my dad, a long-time Dawkins fan, with us. We listened to about an hour of anecdotes and side notes, then lined up to get our books signed. Unfortunately, my dad, due to mobility issues, could not go up on stage to get his book signed...so Richard Dawkins came to him! (He's sitting behind The Boy in this picture) We got to chat for a couple of minutes, and then Dawkins was off to an evening engagement. Still, it isn't every day that we get to meet a great scientific mind and Nobel Peace Prize winner!

Outside My Window...
Temperatures are moving into the seventies more often, though we are expecting some higher eighties late in the week. We had tremendous wind over Saturday night, and saw dry (sheet) lightning miles away. The winds blew almost all the leaves off the cherry and maple trees, though the olive tree is still looking quite good, and the olives are almost ready for picking.

In Our Kitchen...
Both M and The Girl requested a "vegetarian experiment", so I've happily been re-exploring favorite vegetarian recipes (I was a vegetarian for 6 years, then vegan for two). My mom gave me a plenitude of zucchini, eggplants, bell peppers, and onions, so over the weekend, I made a favorite roasted eggplant and tomato soup, and a giant pot of ratatouille. I then made a ratatouille lasagna as well, which was a big hit! Also on the menu this week are a vegetarian pot-pie (with mushrooms, peas, carrots, celery, onion, red potatoes, and a homemade onion-mushroom-veg broth gravy), and my own version of Japanese noodle bowls, with miso broth.

Around the House...
Our cleaning routine needs work. Enough said.

In Our Homeschooling...
I know we're doing math and writing/language arts. The Boy will be doing at least 4 lessons from Teaching Textbooks, and 1-2 sections in the Lively Art of Writing. The Girl will be working on spelling, and will do at least 4 lessons from Math Mammoth. I know I wrote a glowing review here about the language arts book I had gotten for her, but the writing prompts actually frustrated her to tears, so I have set it aside for the moment. Not sure where we're going with writing for her from here. She wants to focus on reading more fluently -- she can read fairly well now, but still on the slower side, and it worries and frustrates her, so we're going to buzz through a review of Reading Pathways, from which I will also be pulling her spelling words.

As for history, science, etc., I'm leaving those looser this week (though please see reading and watching below). I know the kids want to complete at least another project or two from the free Tinker Crate we had gotten.

Reading and Watching...
We'll be reading more of The Shakespeare Stealer. We may start re-reading The Magic of Reality this week, and I have put the first volume of Howard Zinn's A Young People's History of the United States on hold at the library. The Boy is reading Douglas Adams and Richard Dawkins on his own, and The Girl is still working through Ballet Shoes. I'm cramming my way through Bleak House for my class, and am eager to read the Dawkins biography I got yesterday. The Girl and I are reading various Cinderella books together, and that's lots of fun!

As for watching, we viewed Sahara on Saturday (which led to a discussion on refugees and the current Syrian crisis), and I'm going to try to talk the kids into watching the first episode of Human Planet tonight. Or we'll watch an episode of Once Upon a Time! Movie night this week will be something from my growing October list...maybe Sleepy Hollow, Edward Scissorhands, or Beetlejuice.

Also on the Agenda...
Both kids are (temporarily) down to one practice session a week (fencing, derby), though The Girl says that this Sunday's practice might be the only missed one. I have on-campus hours, school, and work, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. We plan to get in some physical activity every day, and make some time for cuddled-up-on-couch read alouds.

Update on the Meltdown from Last Week...
So we had the almost meltdown last week. The Boy has agreed to come with me to campus on Thursday afternoons, for two solid and quiet hours of study time. We are making an effort to start out our Monday mornings (he has classes at the junior college, I have work) with breakfast together, which was really nice today. He's chosen one day of the week for fencing - one that generally has a high attendance rate, so lots of people to fence. We talked about setting aside some time every day to study or work on his art projects as well, and maybe heading to bed half an hour earlier for some relaxed reading time. He has not decided yet of he wants to move forward with the Big History Project. He says he's very interested in it, but wants to get in a better routine for math, and writing, and homework first.

Have a good week!

Overload...

I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that don't work. ~ Thomas Edison

That's my mantra for the moment.

Yesterday, The Boy had a two hour fencing class on his schedule. He came to me and said "Mom, I don't want to go today. I feel like we never have any time. We have fencing, and derby, and school, and we're barely homeschooling, and I have homework. We don't have any time." His face (none of us are good at hiding emotions) was pinched and upset.

So we emailed his fencing coach, and asked about drop-ins for the time being. His coach was delighted to hear that he wanted to come even with everything else going on, and understood too why we need to back off from two classes a week. He offered us a great drop-in rate too. Then The Boy and I talked about his school load, and scheduling homework time more effectively. I explained that the Big History Project, etc., could be done when he has time... at his discretion. That all he needs to do for me is math, and writing, and I want to see him pursue interests. We can squeeze in more story reading, or lunch time documentaries, and time out in nature.

His face relaxed, and he smiled!

He built an intricate Keva plank structure, chatted on the phone with his best buddy. We ordered pizza, and watched an episode of Chopped, with teen chefs, as a family. We played a few rounds of You've Been Sentenced. Totally the right move at the time.

Yes, college has been a learning curve for him, definitely. Being accountable to a teacher, following a syllabus -- all new territory, but he's navigating it very well overall. I don' want him feeling overloaded at home, so I am absolutely fine backing off on some of the academics (just not math and writing), and the fencing classes. I don't want him to feel like this...

Any words of advice on balancing the busy life of a teen?

Happy Autumn!

My favorite season of the year! Now if only the weather would reflect the season, instead of tricking me by being cool for a day or two, and then jumping right back up into the 90s....

What We've Been Up To...

The Boy has decided he wants to go ahead and try the Big History Project with some added science, so for the time being, his homeschooling consists of math, writing, reading, and Big History/Science. Nice and simple.

So The Girl says if he gets The Big History Project, it's high time we get going with the Big Fairy Tale Project. Math, writing/spelling, reading, and fairy tales. Check. By the way, we are really enjoying The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making! It is a little bizarre, but in an appealing way.

She also really wants to stick with reading through a bunch of the Scientists in the Field series, which are excellent books. For both kids, we're actually going to have a science day once a week for hands-on explorations, using BFSU 2 and 3 as general guidelines.

The Afternoon Basket is therefore being set aside for the time being, which is okay.

The Boy loves his classes at the junior college. He was very proud this week when, after trying for the last two weeks and not quite getting it, he finally got all the measurements correct on a worksheet for Machine Tools Technology. His teacher says they need 100% on everything before they can move on to the next step. He says both his teachers are great—enthusiastic, helpful... just what one wants in a teacher! Here's a link to his art teacher's work, currently on display at the on-campus art gallery.

The Girl is getting quite proficient with dictionary use, which is nice to see. She told me yesterday though, after all the great work she's been doing with time telling worksheets, that she still doesn't really get it. Grrrr. Somewhere I have a practice clock we can try working with, or I'll just pull the clock off the family room wall, as it is one of the few I have seen that marks the minutes in 5 minute increments around the edge of the clock.

We've watched an odd assortment of movies lately, among them Dirty Dancing (enjoyed by all), and Carrie (the remake, which is pretty accurate to the original). M and The Boy watched The Ring—The Boy has definitely inherited his dad's love of horror films—and The Girl and I watched The Craft. She and I plan to watch the new Cinderella movie on the weekend, while is at the local airshow with his best buddy. I'm thinking ahead now to October/Halloween movies!

The Girl built a fairy house out of an abalone shell, shoebox, and various odds and ends. She hand-sewed the mattress and pillow herself!

So all in all, a little beginning of the year tweaking still to be done, but I am sure it will all come together!

How is your year going so far?