Not Getting Any School Done

Here Pepper is reciting her "lesson" about George Washington in their one-room (outdoor) schoolhouse.

Only problem is that we are studying ancient WORLD history.

It's beautiful outside here (about 50!) and the kids keep oozing away from the school table and slipping outside to play. After lunch they got all dressed up in their "outfits" and gathered a string full of books and went outside to play (wait for it)... School.

At their "desks"

I guess it's the least I can allow after they've been cooped up inside for 4.5 months.

Daisy is doing her recitations:

Doin' a 180 (or a 90 or a 270...I Don't Know)

Remember a couple of posts ago (which was really a couple of months ago) how I posted we'd be doing an around-the-world study and Core 5's Eastern Hemisphere?

Well, people go on and on over at  the SL Forums about how difficult this SL year is and how you shouldn't do it with kids under 10 and how kids get so much more from it when they are older, yadda, yadda.

I was pretty secure in my choice to do it anyway with Daisy (who will be 12) and Pepper (who will be 9-turning-10) and to do my own travelling-around-the-world thing with Banana Boy.  We've Sonlighted all along, which is a major factor in it being successful with a younger-than-average child (such as Pepper).  She's used to the format, the reading, the discussions.

But she's not an eager reader of books she considers too hard for her.  Or books she considers not interesting (meaning not full of puppies or ponies or kittens or child detectives solving mysteries).  And Core 5 is full of not-interesting-to-Pepper books.

So in a prime example of wishy-washy, second-guessing (and over-use of the hyphen) curriculum-hopping, we're shelving Core 5 for now.

Instead---take a deep breath----I'm abandoning Sonlight.  Sort of.

There.  I said it.

Now I've always considered myself a die-hard Sonlighter, even though in actuality, I use SL pretty LOOSELY.  I own all the SL cores up through 6.  I have all the catalogs back through 1998. (I think I even have a 1996) 

I love SL.  I love what they stand for.  I love the books they choose.  I love that it's all planned out and shipped in a box right to me.

But I'm a grass is greener kind of girl and I just can't HELP messing with it.  Er, I mean, Tweaking.

So, my plan was to do Core 6 World History and use Mystery of History instead of Story of the World (which I just can't stand.  I've tried to use it.  I've tried to like it.  It. Annoys. Me.  I don't like her style.  And then when people throw in the accuracy issues... I'm just done.  If you want to buy my SOTW collection, it's for sale.)

I have a schedule I put together when I did this same thing with Rose Bud several years ago, using MOH and Core 6.  Looking over it this summer, I realized it's not Core 6.  It's not SL.  It's MOH and many of the great books SL suggests (and many great books suggested by other curriculums).

So, reluctantly, I admitted to myself that I would not be using Core 6 this fall.  And I won't be using Core 7 next year.  In fact, I'm going to do MOH for the next 3 years with the girls.  They WON'T BE USING SONLIGHT.  (insert moment of silence)

After that, I'd like to come back to Core 5.  We'll have to see, as Daisy will be in 9th grade.  If I've learned nothing else, it's not to even bother to plan ahead.  Three years from now, I'll have all new ideas.

Anyway, I AM going to do Core 1 World History with Banana Boy as written, out of the IG, open and go.  NO TWEAKING!  I do like Hillyer's Child's History of the World.  I used that with Rose Bud long, long ago.

Ok.  I might tweak a little.  I hate the Usborne World History.  But other than that.  NO TWEAKING!

Funny, how it all works out.  I've never liked SL's science and this year we are completing Science 5.  I've always used SL's Cores and this year we'll be switching to MOH.  I feel a bit like a traitor.  It was Jimmie, who actually gave me the courage to say out loud what I was wanting to do on the inside.  Thanks, Jimmie!

Beginning to Plan for Next Year

Starting to lay out plans for next fall.  Daisy will be in 6th grade, Pepper in 4th and Banana Boy in 2nd.  Sunshine will go to public school kindergarten and Rose Bud will be a Freshman in PS.

For Daisy and Pepper:  Sonlight Core 5

I'm excited to go through this core again.  It was fun and interesting to read about so many cultures so "foreign" to us.  We'll be studying countries in the 10/40 Window such as the South Pacific, Australia, China, Japan, Korea, Russia, India, the Middle East and in Africa.

For Banana Boy, I think I'm going to use a combination of Mission Friends country packets and Voice of the Martyrs Bold Believers series.  Both sets are available as free downloads and will provide a nice framework for a simple country study from a Christian perspective.

(in case the Mission Friends link doesn't work, Google "Lutheran Church Missouri Synod Mission Friends" and you should bring the correct page right up.)

If anyone knows of any other similar resources, I'd love to know about them!

Daisy will also be doing:
Teaching Textbooks 7 for math
Sonlight LA 4 grammar and writing (yes, we're a year behind)
Spanish for Children and
Rosetta Stone Spanish
Sonlight Science 5
Piano lessons
Art class
AWANA and working through Luther's Small Catechism

Pepper will do:
Singapore Math 4
Sonlight LA 4 grammar
6-Trait Daily Writing grade 3 (or maybe 4)
Let's Learn Spanish grades 2, 3 & 4 (depending how far we get) and
KidSpeak Spanish and
Hola Amigos Spanish
AWANA
Art at home
Science....ah science.  Yuck,  I hate teaching it.  The kids love it.  Maybe will find something for Pepper and BB to do together.

Banana Boy will be in:
Singapore Math 2 and
Miquon Math (probably Blue & Green)
6-Trait Daily Writing grade 2
KidSpeak Spanish  and
Hola Amigos Spanish
AWANA
Art at home
Science--see Pepper


My goal:  Keeping it SIMPLE!  (never has happened yet!)

I Was Going to Make Them Come Down and Do School

after lunch.  Daisy has some things in her Olympic folder to work on.  I was going to read Caddie Woodlawn to them.

But when I went up find them, they were in the attic and Daisy was reading The Boxcar Children to Pepper and Banana Boy.

ah, homeschooling.....  :D

Our "First" Day

And here's our homeschool crew. They hate when I make them pose in the sun. Those flowers were just so pretty and there's not that much color in the gardens right now.

Banana Boy is mad because he's not going to public school. This from a boy who, just the other night, made me promise never, never, never to send him away for school again. Whatever. After this picture, he and his little attitude had a hiatus on his bed until he could think of three GOOD reasons to homeschool. Lesson 1 for the day: Look for the positive.


Here is Sunshine playing nicely for 5 minutes on his school mats. I have to deliniate a space or he's everywhere he's not supposed to be--like an anti-Visa.

For his school today, he chose from about 5 trays I set up for him. The first tray he chose was his snack. I let him cut open the wrapper with a scissors. Good fine-motor skills work, right? The next time I turned around, he was cutting his granola bar (one of those breakfast bar-like a giant fig newton things) into pieces with the scissors. sigh.

Next he washed and dried the tray in a sink of soapy water under strict instructions not to wash any of the other dishes on the counter. That went ok.

Next tray was the pompons you see above. This remains a popular activity with him. He was supposed to pick them all up with that scissorsy bug catcher thing, but he was lining them all up and naming them after friends. Hey, it kept him busy for about 7 min.

Next tray was a shape sorter. He wanted me to sit down with him and play, and the girls were busy with some independent work, so I did. I was surprised to see that he recognized the clover-shaped piece and knew he'd already put it in. He opened the lid to show me. We talked through the names of all the shapes. He knows circle, square, star, clover, diamond and triangle. AFter he put them all in, I gave him instructions to put them in a certain way, which made my little control freak mad. After a bit of fruitless negotiating and some firmness on my part, he finally complied. Obeying instructions was that lesson.

When BB was done with his school, I set to work with the girls on A Child's Geography, a new book we're trying out. Maybe they'll be too old for it, but the first chapter seemed a little yawn to me. I guess they were impressed by the facts, which Voskamp neatly put into understandable comparisons for a child. For example, when she talked about the enormity of the circumference of the Earth, she compared it to the child walking 10 hrs/day, covering 22 miles/day. It would take almost 3 years to walk the circumference of the Earth at the equator!

The exercise we chose to complete asked the kids to draw their house (teeny) then their street, town, state, country, continent and the Earth. The girls found two slates in a pile of stuff I was organizing and are insistent on doing all their work on slates this year. Here is Pepper's work.

Notes about what we read:

Pepper's World:

(photo hopefully to come soon. I can't get it to rotate!)

Wish List

Ooh, I love a new school year and I love to plan it out.

Implementing it---that's a whole different ball of wax.

But for now I am in the planning stage and it's all fun and games.

I've been pouring over my favorite homeschool suppliers and came across two fun new items that I would love to have.

Composers Lapbook


How cute is this folder? It's arranged like an orchestra. See the conductor there in the front? And all the instruments are tucked into their little pockets.

I'm also looking at the Civil War Time Travelers CD. I'm torn about this one. I have two of their other Time Travelers CDs and we used some of the projects from them, but not as many as I'd have liked for the price. I also already own the Civil War History Pockets and looking at the topics, I see many of the same in both sets. Granted, there is much, much more in the Time Travelers CD, but why not NOT use what I already own instead of spending more money to not use something else.

There. I talked myself out of it.

Yet, if I could find it for $5, I think I'd snap it up....

So basically, we'll be working through Sonlight Core 4 this year with the girls. Banana Boy is going to hang out and maybe listen in a little. I might read through The American Story with him. Not sure. I haven't ended up loving that book as much as I wanted to either. In story-length and illustrations it appears to be for young children, but then some of the language/vocabulary/concepts seem way up there. I guess I'll have to give it another shot to see.

For science I was all set to use Real Science 4 Kids: Chemistry. It will be too much for Banana Boy, so I ordered the updated parts of Sonlight Science K for him. This mostly consisted of the Usborne books I didn't already own. I have the old SL Science K from when Rose Bud was small.

AND since I was doing a SL order ( I had a $25 coupon) I also picked up most of the parts of Science 4. We have the microscope from years and years ago when SL offered it at an incredible price around Christmas. I never used Science 4 with Rose Bud, though, so I didn't have many of the books. It's been mostly revamped anyway, so I bought the new Usborne books that are included.

I have to say, The Story of Inventions has been a HUGE hit. Both girls have been gently spatting over who gets to read it and as soon as one puts it down, the other snaps it up. Rose Bud has read it, too. I read through a couple of the articles and it ranks up there as one of the nicest Usborne books I've ever read. The articles and text are easy to read, interesting and not as discombobulated as some Usborne books tend to be.

We're sticking with Singapore for math. Daisy will begin the 6th grade book next week. Pepper just began the 3rd grade book and BB is working through the 1st grade book.

For grammar, I'm typing up the worksheets from the old Sonlight LA 3, back when the grammar was good! Rose Bud, of course, used up the worksheets, but I still have the answer keys, so I'm retyping the worksheets and will use them with both Daisy and Pepper this year. The grammar instruction was so thorough and so wonderful and Sonlight has changed the format so much, that I want the girls to benefit from this, as well.

We are also continuing with Rod & Staff English. Daisy is skimming through the 4th grade book with the goal of working thoroughly through the grade 5 book later this year. Right now she is mostly working only the Review sections and skipping the main lessons and exercises. Pepper will begin the grade 3 book this fall.

Both girls are also continuing in Sequential Spelling. Daisy should begin book 2 sometime in September. Pepper is about half-way through book 1.

For spelling and phonics, Banana Boy will continue in Explode the Code. In 13 years of homeschooling, SL Language Arts has never done it for us before 3rd grade. I have tried, and I have tried and then I have tried some more, and we have yet to complete a full year of SL LA before 3rd. After 3rd, yes, the old LA was FABULOUS!

Language Arts-wise, my kids have done well doing just Explode the Code and (heh, I just accidentally typed "Explode the COD." snort) reading a lot. For those who have been strong readers by 2nd grade, we've also begun the R & S English book.

Anyway...this will be our main thrust and what I hope to get to every day. I'll share in another post the extras I hope to throw in.

Homeschool Grammar

Daisy was working on her R&S grammar book, practicing statements, questions and commands. The Rod & Staff books are published for Mennonite classrooms. One of the exercises was to write down 3 commands her teacher might give her.

Rose Bud pipes up matter-of-factly from the next room, "Sit down. Stop crying. Get out your books."

Homeschool at Grandma's

Every year we seem to not get any school done in July. We really ought to just take the month off. Last week, the three girls were at camp. This week, we made a road-trip to Grandma and Grandpa's.


Even so, I love to see the kids learning things, just because it's what we do. They like it.


Here are some snippets...


Banana Boy reading "Days Go By" for three hours in the car. "I think he's going to be a bookworm, too," says Daisy. Who needs a reading curriculum?

"He really IS learning him to drive out there!" says Grandma.
"Teaching," states Daisy. "You LEARN what someone TEACHES you." Who needs a grammar curriculum? Or a driving curriculum, for that matter!

We visited Heritage Hill yesterday and the three middles were thrilled to visit yet another living history site. Last week, Mr. GT took them to Stonefield Village, hoping to kill an hour before they had to pick the girls up at camp. After more than 2 hours, he couldn't get them to leave!

The kids had a great time exploring the Belgian farm, the print shop, Fort Howard and the early French settlement of La Baye where we saw the Ostensorium! "Oh! ......Ooh! ....That's the..... Pepper, what is that? Remember?"Who needs a history curriculum?

Pepper practiced map skills by navigating us through the park using the brochure map. Who needs a geography curriculum?

On the way home, we hiked the half-mile to the statue of Jean Nicolet. Who needs a PE curriculum?

Tuesday night, we played Golf (the card game) with Grandma and Grandpa. Banana Boy enjoyed counting up our points. Who needs a math curriculum?

Daisy has been continuing her bird study, finding new and different birds at Granpa's house than there are at home. Pepper has accumulated some new items for their museum--more bird eggs, a new snake skin and a stick. Who need a science curriculum?

And they've all been riding bikes like crazy. For some reason, it is more fun to ride the hodge-podge collection of old bikes at Grandma and Grandpa's house than at home. Pepper's bike has springs under the seat (remember those?) Sunshine has an old tricycle. There is even a three-wheeler adult bike (see the photo in my header). Did I mention not needing a PE curriculum?

What I Might Put in the Boxes

And as long as I'm thinking about it, I'm going to brainstorm my own list of things I can put in Banana Boy's boxes

Explode the Code

Singapore Math

Flashmaster

Computer time

Snack

Jumping on Mini Tramp

Mommy, It's a Renoir folders

Take it to Your Seat Geography Folders

Science minibooks

Books for him to read to me

Books for him to read alone

Books for me to read to him

Activity he can play with Sunshine

Playdough

Handwriting Without Tears activities

Tangram Animals

Animal sorting (little animals with cards like reptile, mammal)

Puzzles, especially GeoPuzzles

Journal writing

Story starters

Measuring activities

Board game with someone

Math Wrap-Ups

Art projects

Painting

Color By Number

Dot to Dots

AWANA practice

Bible to read

Wedgit cards to complete

Cards to play War

Play outside time

Movie to watch

GeoSafari Laptop and cards

Draw Write Now

Ed Emberley Drawing book

Choretime (as a minibreak between school activities)

I bet I can think of way more....

Gonna Hop on the Workbox Bandwagon!

I was just thinking of posting to some homeschooling boards this morning about ideas for organizing Banana Boy's day next fall.  

I am terrible about accountability and it's very easy for me to lose the kids when we get off track.  The phone rings and they all wander away.  We have to leave to go pick up Sunshine and we never get back to school for the rest of the day.  Someone has something hard, begins to cry and it gets shelved until next week.  They avoid (read: "forget" ) to do something they don't really enjoy and suddenly, we haven't done Spanish or written in journals for 5 weeks.

You know just what I mean, right?  Right?

So, I was looking for a very obvious, very organized way to chart what Banana Boy has and has not done for the day/week/month.  I've made oodles of schedules and charts and I just don't check up on them to see if the kids are checking off what they've done.

Lo, and behold, I travel to my new favorite homeschool blog, 1+1+1=1, and there are workboxes.  She posted about them earlier in the week with a promise to give more details.  Got 'em.

So I can't give you any details about them yet, as I haven't tried them, but you can look for yourself as to what's involved.  All I can say is I. Am. Excited!

Sue Patrick's Workbox System or, Where to Get the Book

Walking By the Way (on the sidebar on the right, scroll to "Wonderful Workboxes"  She has several posts about them and this way you can find them all including What to Put in Workboxes.)

Joyful Mother of Six  and more posts #1 #2 #3 #4 #5

Color Me Orange An idea for doing it in a space-saving way with multiple children (I was just thinking, this would be great for the girls, too, but where to put all those bins???)  more Color Me Orange posts on workboxes  #1 #2

Our Lifesong (using workboxes in a tiny apartment and what to do with the completed boxes and materials)

Ginger Snap Shots   

15 Miles on the Erie Canal

We are almost finished with this portion of American History we'll call Core 3 (and I mean that loosely, since we've really not followed Core 3 at all)

Recently we did a little trek down the Erie Canal.

We read The Amazing, Impossible Erie Canal and i found it to be a fairly annoying book. I really thought i would like it better, but something about all the extra text in the pictures bugged me. Necessary, I suppose, to illustrate the building of a canal which takes place over time AND space, but it annoyed me nonetheless. Maybe next time we'll stick with Sonlight's Erie Canal book.

Online, we found some cool resources

The Boss singing that song we all learned in music class so many years ago. At this site, you get the lyrics, The Boss singing it (scroll down to the player on the right), and yes, you get the whole song! and you can even download a ringtone (I didn't)

If you want to do a driving tour of the Erie Canal today, go here (well, really, you need to go to New York, but if you click there, it will give you a map and directions!)

Who needs a book? This site has all the history, all the songs, all the pictures and all the information you could ever want about the Erie Canal.

And last, but not least, this site has more postcards, more music and a virtual tour of the Erie Canal throughout history (via postcards)

Really, I might just sell my whole library. The interactiveness of the internet amazes me. I think it's so cool to listen not only read about something in history, but to also then listen to music and look at photographs, play games, solve puzzles. All the work is done for me.

Me and Google, homeschooling the Buds together.

A Day in the Life-January

I wake to my usual alarm clock--Banana Boy screaming at Sunshine over something. Neither boy is dressed. Wrastle BB into his clothes and tell him 5 times to go brush his teeth and go to the bathroom. Tame his wild hair. He asks me today if he has girl-hair (he's been growing it out "to his ankles"). I say no, it is boy-hair. Well, the kids at school have been telling him it is girl-hair. Would you like to cut it, then? Yes! Now! After school, I tell him.

Wrastle Sunshine into HIS clothes and convince him it would be a good idea to p[oop on the potty and not in his diaper.

Try to convince Rose Bud that she should let me drive her to the bus stop since the wind chill is 35 below. She leaves on foot.

Get BB dressed for the outside world and into the van. Leave Daisy in charge of getting Sunshine dressed for his bus.

Pull out of the driveway and turn up the hill to the bus stop. Spin wheels on the icy road and go nowhere as the bus turns the corner and picks up RoseBud. Drive BB next door (downhill) to get on the bus with the neighbors. Back the van to the bottom of the hill so I can get back up to our driveway.

Put Sunshine happily on his little bus (the school van) He LOVES school and riding his little bus.

Make coffee and listen to Daisy say her AWANA verses. Encourage Pepper to practice hers. Argue with Pepper that she should practice her review verses even though she hasn't heard back from her missionary yet.

Start rice in the rice cooker for my breakfast. Stir the chick peas I soaked last night and am cooking this morning. Decide Chana Masala would go really well with my rice.

While making the Chana Masala, check Daisy's math and help Pepper with her math. Pepper started out excited this morning since it was more measuring and using the scale, but quickly got herself frustrated by the fact that it was different today (grams) than yesterday (kilograms). Once she lets herself get frustrated, she shuts down and won't accept any new information or help. Got her through the lesson and she moved off to the couch to weep over her difficult life.

Listened to Daisy do her grammar and read her her spelling words. Got her started with her writing topic for the day. Did I already say how we do this? I have slips of paper in a cup with a topic on each. The girls pick a topic and then label their page with the topic and the date. Then we set the timer for 5 minutes and they write anything they want related to the topic. They aren't supposed to worry about spelling or penmanship or punctuation, just get the ideas out. Today they picked the topic of Banana Boy.

While Daisy wrote, I snuggled Pepper on the couch.

Rice and Chana Masala were done, so I got to have breakfast. The girls got themselves each a bowl of rice for snack. I suggested they try the chick peas and they both went wild over how good they were.

I suggested Pepper just write five sentences instead of for five minutes. She thought that was a great idea and happily went off to write about her brother.

Both girls had more rice and chickpeas.

Daisy finished up her president for the week (John Adams) and begged to begin Thomas Jefferson.

Pepper decided doing her spelling list with the Bananagrams tiles would be awesome! Hey, we have to change it up once in a while.

Now they are going to play Bananagrams while I read our latest book, The Last Safe House to them.

This is another great book. It actually includes information on all the topics we've touched on so far, including the Slave Trade, abolitionists, plantation life, etc. It doesn't go into as much depth as we have, but this book on its own would be an excellent way to just touch on the subject, espeially for a 1st or 2nd grader. One of the activities in this book was to make gingerbread cookies. The girls were all over that and except for creaming in the egg with the butter and sugar, they did it all themselves!

Lately

The past few weeks have actually been productive, if not exciting.  We've been busily plowing through math, Explode the Code, R&S Grammar and AWANA.  Spelling has completely fallen by the wayside as Daisy conveniently "forgets" to do it.  Today we did two days' worth and she thought she was going to die!  Many tears.

 

We finished Eli Whitney yesterday.   I actually dislike this book.  It has a happy ending, and I guess the theme by which Eli Whitney lives his life--to keep on keeping on--is fulfilled in the end.  But, golly, he had a hard road of it!  I kept wanting to quit reading the book, his life is so depressing!  It also throws in A LOT of "what else is going on in the world right now" information."  It might be a better book to read AFTER we've covered more of that info, sort of as a wrap up.

 

Anyway, we finished it. 

 

We also finally finished Mrs. Frisby!  The girls LOVED this book as much as I did when I was young and begged every day to read more.

 

For our next "fun" book, as they call it, I think we'll read The Ordinary Princess.  I never read this story until I read it aloud to Rose Bud when she was this age and she and I both loved it.  I think they'll enjoy this one as well.

 

We've also begun Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, another "keep on keeping on" story, also by Jean Lee Latham.  This is a much better story, though.  Very exciting.

 

Pepper has begun carrying in addition and, after the initial resistance to learning something new, has discovered she is good at it and has caught on to it quickly.  She was dismayed to look ahead in her book and discover about 12 pages of practice of this skill before she moves into what looks to her to be more of the same.  This would be borrowing in subtraction! 

 

WHY do I have to do all THIS!  It doesn't look fun! 

Well, I told her, this would be the major work of a second grader:  learning to borrow and carry. 

sigh of resignation.

Daisy, at least, is enjoying learning to round off in math.

 

And in science, we've finally finished our savanna unit and have begun to learn about the rainforest.

 

One last great resource we used for the savanna:  Wildebeest: The Great African Migration  or, as we like to call it in our house, 48 Ways to Kill a Wildebeest.  This was a GREAT movie, if your kids don't mind death and destruction.  My girls actually watched it at BEDTIME and loved it!  It told the story of the wildebeest of Africa and their great migration (in case you didn't get the gist of it from the title!).  Unfortunately for the wildebeest, they have a tough life. 

 

We saw baby wildebeest get separated from their mothers and die of dehydration, baby wildebeest (hereafter known as WB) get eaten by hyenas, baby WB cross a muddy river and bake to a hard muddy crust in the sun, baby WB born deformed and doomed.  We enjoyed watching adult WB trample each other, get eaten by lions, hyenas, giant crocodiles, vultures and wild dogs, break a leg and drown, fall and drown, get dragged under by crocodiles and drown.  The only thing we never saw was a WB get hit by lightning.  I think one even died of a heart attack over stress from the failing economy.

 

In any case, it was a well-done video (although I think all the WB were eaten raw) and if you don't have squeamish kids, it's worth a watch if you can find it.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

New School Year

Well, our homeschool year is off to a rolicking start!  I managed to get two kids off to public school, make our homeschooling schedule and actually stick to it, all with a wild 3 year old under foot.

 

Let's start with the three year old.

 

He is SO much easier to work with this year.  First of all, he is beginning to be able to do little activities for more than 30 seconds at a time.  I've started having rug time with him.  We have a big oval rug in the living room and I set out 4 different preschool activities for him.  I set the timer for 15 minutes and if he gets off the rug, I patiently steer him back "until the timer beeps."  So far so good.

 

He loves puzzles and is quite good with these:  Lauri Construction Puzzles  and Lauri Perception Puzzles.  He also played quite a long time one day with the Lauri Pegs.  Can you tell we're Lauri fans??

 

The girls are taking turns playing with him while I work one-on-one with the other.  Here he is making dinosaur tracks with Daisy.

 

As for Daisy & Pepper, their first day began with wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Both started out with bad attitudes and cries of "too much work!!  Too hard!"  Apparently they've gotten rusty over the summer.  After a little chat with Mr. GT (who was home because it was Labor Day) their attitudes improved and we had no more trouble the rest of the week.

 

As usual, their favorite subject is history and they can't wait for me to read to them each day.  We are reading Toliver's Secret and they really are enjoying this exciting story of the Revolutionary War.  Daisy is reading through our Sonlight Core 3 shelf.  She just finished The Corn Grows Ripe and is reading Vostaas.

 

Daisy is finishing up Singapore 3B in math and was inspired to fly through the section on capacity and completed about 8 lessons in 4 days.

 

She also learned this useful skill (the trick is to do it with your eyes OPEN!

 

 

Pepper reluctantly did math, Explode the Code and her states.  As I've mentioned before, she's a really good unschooler.  Workbooks give her hives.  Unfortunately, for the time being she is stuck with them.  Eventually I'd like to be able to give her more hands-on, activity-based learning.  The math games we did this summer worked really well for her.

 

Ramping Up!

I worked on the girls' schedules today and got their binders organized.  They organized their school benches a few weeks ago and cleaned them out.

 

I am having serious thoughts of simplicity.  I am such a curriculum junkie.  Every time I read about something, it sounds so good and I think I have to have it.  But seriously, the only thing I've ever been really happy with and have worked consistently with, is Sonlight.

 

I always feel just a little disloyal when I am using something else.  Thinking about just sticking with the SL IG makes me feel like I am coming home. 

 

I was reading some threads on the SL Forums today comparing SL with other curriculums, particularly those that are hands-on.  The opinion that most struck a chord with me was that it is easy to add in a few hands-on things to Sonlight.  I have plenty of activity books, there are ideas all over the internet.  To choose a different curriculum just for the hands-on and then supplement with SL seems overkill.

 

I think Pepper will do just fine with Core 3 this year if we go straight Sonlight.  That she was so young was the major reason I was looking at other things.

 

So I'm thinking of going at the regular pace with Core 3 until we're finished, then jumping into Core 4.  I think we must be about at Week 15 in Core 3, so that leaves us with 22 to go.  That would be into about February and we should be able to finish Core 4 by that same time the following year. 

 

That would put Pepper at just-turned 9 when we begin Core 5 and that will be all right for her, I think.

 

Does anyone know if we can list and sell books on our blog?  My guess would be that it is not allowed--I've never seen it done.  But when I read the fine print, I couldn't decipher whether that was a rule or not.  Please let me know in the comments, if you know.

 

 

Summertime and the Homeschool is Nonexistent

The reason I haven't been posting about our homeschool is that what you see is what you get.  There hasn't been much of it lately.

 

We went on vacation and that was educational and fun.  You can read all about it here.

 

I think a bunch of us played a math game one day.  Daisy and Rose Bud have been having fun getting in on the math games.

 

All three girls have become even more staunch bookworms than before.  Most afternoons you'll find two on the couch and one in the recliner with their noses in the books.  Daisy is re-reading The Year of Miss Agnes and has Understood Betsy on deck.  Rose Bud will read anything and everything she can get her hands on (unless it is medieval--ewww!  Bleh!) or boring or that she's read too many times already or one she has read but didn't like (she is narrating over my shoulder here, can you tell?)  Her latest forays have included Fox Trot cartoons, Henry Reed, and her Brio magazines.  Pepper is pretty much still into short chapter books, but she lately really enjoyed the Boxcar Children and is on about the tenth one.  She also loves Garfield cartoons and the Family Circus.

 

Banana Boy worked through an entire Grade 1 addition workbook I got for $1 at Target (RUN to your local One Spot!  They had lots of cute schooly things for only a dollar each)  I'm not saying it was rocket science, but for $1, he became familiar with the notation used for addition and practiced some simple addition facts.  And I couldn't tear him away from it.  He worked 5 or 6 pages every night on vacation.  I also bought a phonics book he practiced in.

 

Sunshine is once again in Potty Training school and doing fairly well.  He's taking himself to the potty about twice as often as he is forgetting, so I count that success.    How come nobody opens a publically funded, no-child-left-behind school for getting out of diapers?  How come we're EXPECTED to homeschool our kids into underwear?  In my mind, this is way harder than teaching kids to read or borrow and carry!  I'd gladly pack him on a bus every morning and let someone else remind him every 3 minutes to go potty and shake the poop out of his underwear!

 

I know.  I'm supposed to cherish every moment, and I do!  I just wish there weren't so many of them.

 

Anyway, that's been our summer!  School starts in a month and then we'll be hard back at it.  Banana Boy got his teacher assignment in the mail today and found out he's in the same class with his best buddy, Little Hey, which is great, since they'll both be attending only half-day.

Thinking Out Loud About This Fall's Plan...

I'm feeling led to get rid of some of my books. I buy things because other people rave about them and then we never use them. I'm trying to scrape up the courage to get rid of some and not regret it. I'm pretty certain of our style by now (although I can always justify keeping things because "maybe the boys will use this when they get older!"). At least I'm fairly certain what I do and don't like. I am finding that the girls (Pepper and Daisy) enjoy many different things than Rose Bud did, and vice versa.

Anyway, I thought I'd ponder what I want to have them do this fall.

For sure:

Rose Bud in public school 7th grade

Banana Boy in public school K, half day

Hopefully:

Sunshine in Christian preschool two mornings a week. He has to be potty-trained. He's also SO distractable. I'm on the fence as to whether preschool will help him to focus or whether he's just not ready and will be a distraction to the rest of the class. He was in an informal preschool class for an hour or so a day at the orphanage, so maybe....

Daisy:

Singapore Math 4 A & B. She is finishing up 3B this summer and should be ready for 4 by fall.

Rod & Staff English 3. We'll take the rest of next year to go through this book (I think we're on chapter 3 or 4) and then we'll move into R & S English 5 (skipping 4).

Sonlight LA 3 Advanced (2004 version) Probably illegal, but I'm going to reuse the sheets I had from Rose Bud. I SO loved this program and they've revised it so it is much less meaty. Rose Bud learned SOOO much from this about grammar and good writing (and so did I!) and I really want Daisy to benefit from it, too. So I'm retyping the worksheets from the answer keys that I have.

Trail Guide to U.S. Geography Finish our study of the 50 states and begin the presidents. I think I'll just make up some biography sheets for them to fill out about each president.

American History Not sure if I'm going to follow the Winter Promise American Story I guide that I bought, or continue to strike out on my own. I'm finding that I'm not that fond of The American Story BOOK, although it is used as a spine in WP AS I.

Sequential Spelling We are loving this and it is perfect for Daisy. Her spelling has really improved with this method.

Piano lessons

AWANA

Bible Not sure what yet

Pepper:

Singapore Math 2 A & B

R & S English 2 (we're in chapter 2 of this now)

Trail Guide to U.S. Geography (see above)

American History (see above)

Explode the Code All my kids work through this when they are first learning to read. She burned out on it at the beginning of first grade, but I'm going to have her pick up where she left off and keep working through it. She's such a good speller, I think if I have her work through these books, up to book 6, we might be able to hold off on a spelling program for quite a while.

AWANA

Bible Not sure what yet

Things I'd love to work in somehow:

Latin for Children or Spanish of some sort

Science --aack! I am such a science loser. I totally get that whole, "You can do science informally when they're little" thing, but I still feel like we should work through a program. Science programs are something I could so sell, I think! I have NEVER completed a science program with any kid! I take that back. Rose Bud worked through most of Christian Kids Explore Biology. Of course, we didn't do most of the projects (she hates projects) none of the notebooking (she hates notebooking) and none of the vocabulary (she hates vocabulary). I might just sent them all to public school for 6th grade. The sixth grade science teacher is fabulous and did a great job. Rose Bud loved it! This is the mark of a good teacher: She said to me one time, "Each time I get ready to start a new unit, I think, 'Oh, this is my favorite unit to teach!' but then when the next one comes along, I like that one even better!"

A Child's Geography Another program I just bought that looks so good. We'll see if we get around to this.

Things we should do but never will:

Music study

Nature walks & a nature notebook

More art

Poetry

Banana Boy:

I think I'm going to aim low, since he'll be doing PS Kindergarten. I'm going to shoot for Bible with him and some math. I'd love it if he could start listening to some chapter books read aloud. He's not very auditory, except with music.

Piano Lessons

AWANA

A Peaceful Day

Generally, homeschooling at our house is chaotic. The baby is getting into something. Someone needs wiping. Someone needs help with math. Another one is in tears because the same thing she did yesterday, today is too hard. The baby needs changing. Everybody is hungry. No one has any pencils. I need more coffee and then the phone rings.

Today was not one of those days. For a few blissful minutes, all was peaceful. All was calm. Everyone found something constructive and even educational to do and I found myself just sitting there, sipping coffee and remembering why I do this.

Pepper busy with magnets

Sunshine playing school bus with his truck (he sets the Little People around the room and drives by to pick each one up)

Banana Boy explored symmetry (except for the broom) with the Cuisenaire rods

Daisy worked on math (and didn't WANT her picture taken working on math)

Summer Schedule

Well, I have grand hopes for our summer.  Of course, we're busy like crazy, so i don't know how much school will get done.  Rose Bud is going to earn $20 a week watching Sunshine two mornings a week.  And I think I'll pay Daisy something to watch him for an hour the other two mornings

 

My plan is to do some school with Banana Boy on a regular basis, mainly some reading.  He's never been much into books and so I haven't read to him as I should have.  He's interested in science, so I think we'll read through some sciencey books together.

 

I've been meaning to blog about a great resource on the net that I'm going to loosely use with Sunshine.  Many of you who already homeschool, probably know about it, but I wanted to share it for my adoption friends. 

 

It's a homeschool curriculum for preschoolers called Letter of the Week.  It's fairly rigorous academically, which is not popular in all preschool circles.  But if you are able to be flexible  and to pick and choose, there are some great ideas and suggestions here and it's very well organized for you.

 

Now, Sunshine is 3, but in looking through this curriculum I realized that in some areas he is no where NEAR age level in this curriculum.  So what I am doing with him is to go all the way back in her Brightly Beaming Babies and Brightly Beaming Toddler curriculum, which is for newborn to 2, and I will be "catching him up."  I figure he missed a lot of things as an infant that he would have gotten having one-on-one with a mommy.  So we'll be doing little snippets, maybe at a more advanced pace than on the schedule.  Part of this I will be having Rose Bud and Daisy do with him during their playtime with him.

 

I have to sit down with the printouts and pick out some specific activities.  I'll try to post the schedule here as I get to it.

 

As for the rest, the plan for Daisy is to continue with grammar, spelling and math as well as state geography (we're about half-way done) and American history.

 

Pepper will be doing grammar, state geography and American history, plus math games.

 

Banana Boy will be reading with me, working on HIS reading, and playing math games.

 

And I told Rose Bud she should pick out something to study for the summer.  Being Rose Bud, she immediately got out her Key to Fractions book and started working through it.  She was bound and determined to finish the whole book that night.  I finally made her go to bed at 9 pm with 4 pages to go in the book.  She's in Book 3, so that project should keep her busy another week or so (there are 10 books total).  Actually, she and Jay Bud, next door, are interested in WWII, so I may steer them in that direction.  Probably I'll just get her a bunch of books to read.  I remember being absolutely obsessed with the Holocaust when I was that age and reading tons of historical fiction about kids who lived through it (like Anne Frank).  edited to add:  actually Anne Frank did not live through it, as she died.  But she lived it.

 

In addition to all that, we have swimming lessons (Pepper, BB and Sunshine), gymnastics (Pepper), T-Ball (BB),  Bible Camp (Rose Bud and Daisy), VBS (everyone) and 3 vacations (a 4-day church campout, a week in a cabin in Missouri and 4 days at Family Camp)  A special end-of-summer event will be Pepper's tonsilectomy.  Oh, and RoseBud has 3 days of band camp.

 

Happy Summer!!!!

 

 

Siblings and Homeschooling

I looked out the window this afternoon to check on the kids and saw this sweet picture:

They certainly are not always like this.  In fact, they spend as much time shouting at each other as they do playing together.  In fact, Pepper kicked Banana Boy this morning.

 

 I watched Jon & Kate Plus 8 last night for the first time.  We don't have cable and we were at my mom's.  There was apparently a JK+8 marathon on.  Anyway, those kids kept whacking each other over the head with whatever weapon was handy.  If no weapon was handy, they just used their handies!  She seemed fairly great at discipline and seemed to have good ideas about structure, yet these kids kept slapping each other!  Except for the very littlest ones (and obviously Pepper!) my kids seldom hurt each other physically.  We just don't allow it.

 

I do believe that having only each other to play with for most of the day promotes bonding.  I don't usually see all three of them hanging together.  Banana Boy has his best friend next door available all day and the girls are joined at the hip.   But two of them will often pair off and play for a long time.

 

I also believe that homeschooling (or living in a culture of all-the-time learning) really encourages them to play things that require intense participation with and by others.  When they play, they are playing Indian or pirate or house or adoption or school or some other imaginative thing.  The best friend neighbor kids are a part of this too.

 

I just thought it was so sweet to see the three of them out there together, heads together involved in something intense.  I had no idea when I took the picture what it was.

 

I did find out.

 

Do you want to know?

 

They were making their own knives.  More specifically, they were making one for their brother, who didn't yet have one.

 

Isn't that sweet?

 

I love homeschooling!