Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH

I just love love love this book!  I loved it as a kid and as I am reading it to Pepper and Daisy now I am enjoying it just as much as ever, and so are they!  At the end of every chapter they are begging for more.  Pepper said today, "Can't you read more?  It is SO exciting!"

 

I remember loving the magical world of the rats, knowing it was completely imaginary but believing it was entirely possible!  I applauded the courage of Mrs. Frisby and mourned the loss (or was it??) of Justin.  I disliked the shrew for her shrewiness and laughed at Jeremy for his inability to pass up anything shiny just because it was...shiny.  I marveled at the wonder that was the story of the mice and the rats.  And I smiled at how the legacy of NIMH lived on in the children of the original captives.

 

If you have never read this book before, I urge you to explore it with your children.  Pepper is going on 8 ("In 8 days, Mom, it will be only 3 months until my birthday") and Daisy is nearly 10.

 

Or if you love a great can't-put-it-down story as much as I do, just curl up in your favorite chair tonight after the kids are in bed and read it straight through.

 

You won't be sorry!

 

Here are some online links I have found for this story (but not used):

BookPunch free lesson plan (writing activities for grades 3-9)

Literature Unit made by 4th & 5th graders (typical schooly type stuff with some word searches)

Quizzes, Games and Comprehension

This blog has some interesting ideas for extensions, including using Google Earth to "experience" Mrs. Frisby's flight with Jeremy

And a nice review of Robert C. O'Brien's works

 

 

Off to the Serengeti!

We are doing an animal study, loosely based on Winter Promise's Animals and Their Worlds.  I bought the teacher's guide and a few books and doodads, but mostly we're using the public library and our own library.

 

Here's what we've got going. 

 

Last week we read from the Usborne World of Animals.  We basically whizzed through the first 32 pages which cover animal basics like carnivore/herbivore, camoflauge, hibernation, the animal kingdom, animal instincts, homes, migration...all those cool animal buzz-words one should be familiar with.  For the most part, the girls were.

 

We are reading about habitats, which is how WP's program is organized, so we read in Animal Habitats.

 

Two fun books we are using for drawing are Draw Write Now Book 8 and Ed Emberley's Drawing Book of Animals.

 

We'll also be using several books to explore the habitats in greater depth.  One is Usborne Book of World Wildlife (I'm kind of an Usborne junkie--we own a lot of Usborne!) and the other is One Small Square: African Savanna.

 

Last week we put together some notebook pages on habitats using cool pictures from Evan-Moor's Giant Science Resource Book.  (I love Evan-Moor's website.  They have a nifty viewer that lets you look at every single page in most of their books before you buy it!  And their materials are pretty neat, too!)

 

Some online habitat games

Make your own habitat to keep the animal happy and healthy

Habitats Quiz  -- a little hard!

 

This week we are beginning a study of the grasslands, particularly African Savannas.  We'll focus on the lion as our animal of the week.  Today we read about the lion from Marvels of Creation: Magnificent Mammals.

 

I've also found a bunch of fun links on the web for the African Savanna.

National Geographic Kids Creature Feature: Lions

National Geographic Kids Lion Coloring Page

National Geographic Kids African Safari Game

Solve a photo jigsaw puzzle of savanna animals

 

For Younger Kids:  Mama Mirabelle's Home Movies

Fun Safari Game (this is really CUTE!)

Watch full episode videos of this show online and a bunch more of them here

 

Oh, and I bought my kids a Toob.  They had fun getting out our other animal figures and having all the lions attack all the grass-eaters.  The lions were very full!  Our light green braided rug made a great savanna because it was a) flat and b) open.  The couch was open but not flat.  Under the couch was flat but not open.  The kids set up a water hole and a few trees and bushes for the browsers.

 

And I forgot to take pictures.

 

Happy Safari!

 

 

Pepper's New School

Did I mention Pepper is doing school online?  I thought I'd share some of the cool links I've found for her.  Really, you can teach your child everything they need to know, for free, online.

 

There is the pattern block site I already shared.  If you go to their main page, they have lots of other interactive math manipulatives.

 

One she has really enjoyed is multiplication.com.  Her especial favorites are the ice cream scoop game and the fairy game.  This is a second grader who is gifted at math, but hasn't really begun multiplying yet.  Yet, for the reward of fairies, she was doing 4x9.

Number Cracker

Practicing her states.

 

Language Arts

Grammar Gorilla

2Bee or Nottobee

Spell Check

Spelling City  -- add your own spelling words for teaching activities, games using them and a test or choose from their lists

 

Tons of really cool animal and habitat stuff here.

 

And if your kids like Highlight Magazines Hidden Pictures, they will have a field day here!

Friday Art

We are back at art with the start of a new school year.  To keep things manageable, I'm only aiming to do it once a week on Fridays. 

 

Today's lesson was in pointilism and the artist was Georges Seurat.  Here are a few links:

Picture of A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte to color (it's just a black and white version of the painting--a little hard to color, in my mind)

Jigsaw puzzle of the painting to put together (fun for building familiarity with famous paintings)

Did you know this?  "The painting is featured in the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Ferris' friend Cameron is shown locking eyes on the little girl in the center of the painting and being transfixed. The scene portrays Cameron observing a little girl up close whereupon he realizes that, though from a distance all seems on order, there is no shape or form to her face. " Wickipedia, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

Here's an activity (the description of pointillism is better suited for older kids) called Dot to Dot Seurat using dot stickers.

Hmm, it wasn't really pointillism.  Read this.

Here are a few more activities (the color-mixing sounds fun!) and picture book suggestions.

 

We let Sunshine paint, too.

I think Daisy made the really great circle in the top right-hand corner of his paper, lest you be too impressed.  The rest is his own original creation though!

 

Oh, so what did we do for art?  The girls took some of our Lauri puzzles (remember those?) and traced shapes onto paper.  Lauri puzzles also make great stencils!  Then they painted with paint (red, blue and yellow) and Q-tips.

 

I'm not connected to my printer right now, but I'll get those scanned in for you to see.

 9/12/08  Here are the pictures I promised last week.  Pepper's is the fish, Daisy's is the butterflies:

And here is what they made after they finished the project.  They like to keep painting since they have the art materials out.  I love that Pepper made another dot picture, even tho it doesn't consist of mixed dots.  She did mix the paint to get green.  Daisy made a self-portrait, not with dots, but I love her frame!

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.

 

First Day of Kindergarten and Ambivalence

First of all, I can't believe I have FOUR kids who have passed the kindergarten milestone!  I don't feel that old!  My friend next door put her LAST child on the bus yesterday!  She's home all alone!

 

I don't have any desire to be home alone.  I'd be lonely and I'd waste time.  I'm glad to have Daisy, Pepper and Sunshine here with me.

 

I was surprised by how sad I was to send Banana Boy.  I know we're doing the right thing for this child, this year.  He ran off with hardly a backward glance and loved his first day.  He already has a crush on his teacher!

 

But it feels so strange to hear him come home sharing rules he's already internalized that I didn't teach him (why can't he internalize MY rules?) and beaming about the pattern he made (orange, yellow, blue, orange, yellow, blue, orange (stopping there because that's all the spaces there were)) and the picture he drew of he and his teacher living in a castle.

 

He drank milk at snack time.  He made four hoops at recess.  He met a new friend in his class and found a couple of old ones.  He surmised that it's probably illegal to go to the bathroom in the weeds on the playground (although they didn't specifically say not to!)  He unpacked all the things I told him to from his backpack and delivered them where they needed to go.

 

I'm so proud of him and happy for the independence and success he's experiencing.  For this child, an institutional, structured setting is perfect for him at this time.  I'm glad we have the opportunity to homeschool the ones who need it and send to public school the ones for whom that fits.

 

But I'm finding it feels very different to send a little person to kindergarten than it did to send him to preschool.

 

And I'm finding it feels very different to send my 12 year old responsible, can-handle-things-on-her-own off to middle school where I know she can rebut the ideas that don't gel with our family morals than it does to send my innocent, impressionable 5 yo away to kindergarten.  (He said the bus was scary because the other kids were saying mean words (!!).)

 

I'm excited for both of them and it feels fun to "play school."  But the heartbeat of time it took for my boy to step onto the bus and be whisked away was all too short for me yesterday.  I was expecting the moment to last longer, the transition between baby and big boy.  And it happened in a blink of an eye.

 

He and I will still be working on math and Bible and AWANA and reading at home in the afternoons.  He'll be doing lots of playing, too.  Our days will be smoother for spending a little less time together.

 

But this morning he didn't want to wake up.  He's not a morning person.  Of course, his fighting bedtime last night (a nightly ritual) didn't help.  He climbed into bed with me to snuggle under the warm covers this morning and I wanted to just hold him there and keep him home where he could sleep longer and take his usual sweet time beginning his day.  Instead, I had to finally get him up and fed and dressed and ready and walk him, shivering, down to the bus.

 

I'm an ambivalent Kindergarten Mama.  I love it and I hate it.  I want him and I need him there.  I want him and I need him home.  I'm proud of him and I'm afraid for him.  I love to see the excitement in his eyes when he comes home to tell me about his day.  I miss seeing the excitement in his eyes when he is learning something new at home.  I feel proud for sending him.  I feel guilty for sending him.

 

I'm glad I only have to do this once!

 

 

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.

 

 

More Thoughts About Fall

I think I've settled on what we'll do for Bible, at least to start out.  Last year, I had purchased My First Catechism: An Illustrated Version of Luther's Small Catechism.  A few weeks ago, I was browsing the Concordia Publishing site and found a workbook to go along with it.  I've decided to have Daisy and Pepper work through the exercises together.  I think discussing the answers and taking turns filling them in will be more valuable than having them each fill in a workbook.  Plus Pepper is just a little young for this.  Working with Daisy, however, I think she'll be able to do it.

 

For Banana Boy, I'm going to continue with ABC Bible Verses and a new book I found for him at the half-price bookstore:  His Mighty Warrior: A Treasure Map from Your King by Sheri Rose Shepherd.  I love this little book!  It is written as letters to a little boy from God, includes a bible verse and a prayer.  It is very sweet and very empowering.  You can see an exerpt from the book on the CBD website at the link above.  BB and I are also reading through  The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name.  I also LOVE this book.  It is a fairly typical children's story Bible (except that there is some really funny parents-only-are-going-to-catch-it humor) but every story points out how every part of the Bible points to God's plan for salvation.

 

For science, I found a little book at Concordia Publishing called Even the Sound Waves Obey Him.  The subtitle is "Bible Stories Brought to Life with Science."  It is for grades PreK-2, but I think the object lessons are well-done and perhaps the Bible point is even more valuable than the science concept in each lesson.  For example, the first lesson is Genesis 1-2, God creates everything in his own image.  The science activity is to look at your reflection in a metal spoon.  You talk about reflections and the concave/convex concept.  The upside down concave image reminds us that sin distorts our image and we no longer resemble God.  Plus, as Science Losers, I'm sure there will be lessons we haven't done!  There are only 44 in the book, so we should be able to finish this in one semester and then tackle something else.

 

Banana Boy is all signed up for Kindergarten.  His class eats lunch at 11:40, so he'll get dropped off at the office on their way to lunch and I'll pick him up.  This way, he won't be leaving in the middle of an activity and won't stand out so much as being different.  Plus his best friend will be attending half-days, too, (yay!  We can carpool!) so there will be two of them leaving before lunch.

 

Here is what he is missing in the afternoon:

Lunch

Recess

Rest time

Math

Recess

Free/Play time

 

Instead, he'll be at home, bonding with me! 

 

 

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.

And One More

Unedited (because I think their spellings are cute). By Pepper.

Hi! I'm Spider and this is My Adventure.

Last night I found an open window with no sceen so I jumped out. After I got out I started to wander around. First I explored the woods and then I went to the front yard. I was walking along then I saw catnip and I started to walk towards it. I was trotting across the lawn when suddenly I heard Dad calling my name. I ignored him. But then I remembered: the love, my food, Pepper's Bed. And I went to the door and said, "meow."

More Adventures of Spider

Yeah, I promised I'd post these after we edited them. Well, we never edited them, so except for spelling and punctuation, here is the raw adventure.

By Rose Bud

Spider's Great Adventure

Hello, my name is Spider and I'm a black cat. I'm going to tell you about my adventure last night. I was walking through the laundry room around 5:00 and smelled fresh air. It smelled too fresh to be a screen, so I went to investigate. Guess what? The window was open! Tonight I would escape. I would have to act casual so no one would guess. It was hard, but I finally made it to the kids' bedtime. I went to sleep in Pepper's bunkbed. Suddenly, I woke up. It was already midnight so I had to hurry downstairs to the window. I jumped on the washer and out the window. I was free! Free from that annoying little cat they got. I hate him! He follows me around and bats my tail. I walked off into the night. I walked down the trail into the woods. As I walked past the creek, I realized I was thirsty, so I stopped to get a drink. Blehh! That water tasted really bad. I kept walking and then I smelled chicken. Chicken is third on my list of favorites. First venison, then beef and then chicken. I sniffed around but no signs of chicken. Who knew these people had chickens? I had no idea. I walked past that green building and suddenly I smelled the most tasty, delicious smell ever. Catnip. There was a huge clump of it. Yummy! I had just started to feast when: drip, drop, right on my back. I looked around for shelter and saw the kids' playhouse. I ran over there to check it out. It looked great. A roof on top and a huge litter box underneath! I settled down to wait till the rain was over. Somehow, I fell asleep and when I woke up, it was morning. I had to get back to the catnip patch. I was trotting across the lawn when suddenly I heard Dad calling my name. I ignored him. I wanted that catnip! Then I remembered the love, the food, Pepper's bed. So I ran to the door and said, "Meow, Mrrrrrrooooowwwwwww!" They heard me and I got let inside right away. I went to my food and ate, then I drank. I ran upstairs and jumped in Pepper's bed. Soon I fell fast asleep. My adventure was fun, but I'm glad to be home.

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