More Christmas Activities

Here are a couple of things I'm going to do with my kids and something I did with the Activity Day girls a couple of years ago.

Terra Cotta Trio just looks like fun. It also looks easy enough to keep the kids attention. I like the idea of them making their own little nativity. I have another one I'd like to make, but that will be for next year, when I have time and can breathe a little.

Marshmallow Snowmen. No link, but it's easy. Just use the marshmallows as paint brushes--the big ones for the snowmen and the little ones for snow. It's another quick and easy activity.

Now for the more involved activity:

This is the song: The Nativity Song.

Here are the pictures I used with the girls:

Some Christmas Activities

This is a list of some of the activities I would like to do with the kids. There is no way I'll do them all, but that's okay. With everything that is happening in our lives right now, I think keeping Christmas fairly simple is going to be the way to go.

Religious Activities (primarily):

A Week for the Christmas Story: We did this last year when the Friend came out and it was neat. I'd like to do the same thing again this year. It condenses the Christmas story into a week and even I won't forget, I hope!

Advent Calendar: What Is Christmas?

I like this advent calendar, I remember working on it a couple of years ago with Harry. There is another one I like better though.

Christmas Countdown

It's the one above. (Because I'm importing links, the spacing is a bit off, sorry.) Annika likes this one mostly because of the Baby Jesus and the animals. I'm hoping she won't like it enough to tear pieces off of it, but we'll see.

We've already made the next two things that also came from past issues of The Friend. I can't find them in the index right now, so here are the directions. Both of them are slightly harder than they look to be. I used a glue gun for both so the kids wouldn't have to wait for them to dry too much. Also because it was easier in the long run. I also used wooden craft spoons instead of erasers because I happened to have them on hand. I'm trying really hard not to run to Michaels each time I see a neat thing I want to make.

Okay, I found the link just now. It is: Christmas Workshop

That's it for now, I need to concentrate on Harry's party that is coming up, not on things further away. I also need to find a place for us to live come the 28th (Happy Birthday Ben!). So I'll post more another time.

More Christmas Books

We went back to the library this morning to get more Christmas related books. It's okay since we read 2-3 a day. They are short picture books, although I am looking for some longer ones for Harry.

Oh yeah, before I forget, if you have taken a look at my other Christmas Book List, I would not recommend Christmas Tapestry. Parts of it are really good, but the book introduces the Holocaust. I don't think my kids are ready to know about such a horrible event yet. It also talks about the stresses of being a "preacher's kid" which my kids can't relate to. So that one is off our shelf for this year.

On with the updates:
There was no snow on Christmas Eve / by Pam Muñoz Ryan ; illustrations by Dennis Nolan.

The Christmas bird / by Sallie Ketcham ; illustrated by Stacey Schuett.

Lucia and the light / Phyllis Root ; illustrated by Mary GrandPré.

One wintry night / Ruth Bell Graham ; illustrated by Richard Jesse Watson.

The Christmas cobwebs / Odds Bodkin ; illustrated by Terry Widener.

Sing Noel : Christmas carols / selected by Jane Yolen ; musical arrangements by Adam Stemple ; illus

A December to Remember?

With all of the house chaos and birthday chaos and baby chaos, school for us is going to be pared down a bit until after Christmas. That doesn't mean we won't do anything, but the style will change somewhat. For instance, you read my big list of books. That's about half of the books we'll be reading this season. The rest are at the library waiting for me to pick them up. That'll be, to an extent our reading "curriculum" for the month. We'll read other things, but that's what I'm focusing on.

For math, we'll continue as usual. Math is a skill that needs to be repeated often or the facts get lost. However, we won't just do book work. We'll double cookies, figure prices for gifts, and do some worksheets (gasp) that are Christmas themed.

Grammar and spelling will continue also. I don't want Harry to backslide because we're having too much fun!

On the other hand, we're adding in one Christmas project a day. That is a little tricky for me because I don't want to decorate the house just to put everything away in a few days, plus we don't really decorate until after Harry's birthday. But we'll muddle along. The projects are loosely broken into categories: cooking/baking, gifts, religious, fun. That doesn't mean they can't be more than one thing, but I'm trying to pull from each of these once a week.

For geography, we're doing a Christmas Around the World Theme. We're reading books that talk about Christmas in other places and maybe doing a project about it. I don't want to do too many projects, that get tiring and the amount of "stuff" gets overwhelming, but some are fine.

Gotta go, speech classes. I'll update some specifics later. If I get a chance!

Christmas Reading List

Here is our preliminary reading list for the season:

My Little House Christmas Crafts Book
A World of Holidays: Catherine Chanbers
The Baker's Dozen: Heather Forest
The Night Before Christmas: illustrated by Tasha Tudor
The Beautiful Christmas Tree: Charlotte Zolotow
Let's Celebrate Christmas: Peter and Connie Roop
The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree: Gloria Houston
The Little Fir Tree: Margaret Wise Brown
A Christmas Celebration: Pamela Kennedy
An Early American Christmas: Tomie dePaola
The Legend of the Poinsettia: Tomie dePaola
The Christmas Camel: Nancy Winslow Parker
Hark: A Christmas Sampler: Jane Yolen
Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree: Robert Barry
Christmas in Denmark (they didn't have one for Sweden, I figured it was close enough for now)
Cranberry Christmas: Devlin
On Christmas Eve: MW Brown
Christmas Tapestry: Patricia Polacco
Silver Packages: Cynthia Rylant
Joy to the World: Saviour Pirotta

This isn't an exhaustive list of everything we're reading this season, but it's a start. We have some that I haven't typed in also, because I can't find them. Unfortunately most of our books are already packed away ready to go. But I imagine I'll update this every few days, assuming I can find some more.

Oh, here are a couple more:

Who's that Knocking on Christmas Eve: Jan Brett
The Gingerbread Baby: Jan Brett

We have a bunch from Sweden by Astrid Lindgren, so when Annika isn't sleeping in the room they are in, I'll get them and type those in too.

Back to the Grindstone

Sort of. It's hard to call anything where your six-year-old says, "Yay, we're learning about Carthage now," a grindstone. That is a direct quote. Jason's been playing a game on the computer where the Romans pretty much defeat everyone under the sun and he's fighting Carthage right now. How's that for a "real life" application of history!

Jason went back to work today after taking last week off for Thanksgiving. There was much weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth on Annika's part. She was most unhappy that Dada was leaving. I figured that we should get back to work too.

We started off the day with Happy Times in Noisy Village. We read a chapter about a sheep so the entire time Annika baaed like a sheep. It was a little distracting, but she's supposed to be working on her speech, so we didn't say too much.

We were then joined at the table by an entire army of Bionicles. After telling their commander that only one was allowed at the table at a time, they took turns sitting and watching Harry and Sam do their work. Annika's doll, perhaps wanting to keep her distance, stayed on Annika's lap! That's how we did Math (lesson 28--we're almost finished with the book!) and grammar. Grammar culminated with some copywork, which Harry is strangely compliant about. It makes me worry--have we turned a corner where he will be okay with writing from now on or is he going to regress into his "I don't want to write" mode? I try not to shake too much as I hand over the part he's to copy and just go with it, but it's harder than it might seem.

He played a while after that--actually they all did. I lured them back to the table with the promise of some clementines. As they ate the last three clementines, my mouth watered and I devised plans to steal one. Harry also did some spelling. Not very exciting, especially since he's just beginning the book. I'm trying to whip through it, but not let him miss anything. So we do a book lesson a day, but go over the rules all week.

Once he finished his clementine (no I didn't actually steal anyones) we read about the Phoenicians, glass blowing, and snail boiling. Apparently Tyre was an incredibly smelly place since that is where they made all of the purple dye for the ancient world. Boiling sea snails does nothing for your reputation as a vacation spot--it's too smelly! That's when the above comment about Carthage was made--as Harry asked if we could read another chapter of history. I actully said no. Normally I'd say yes and bask in the glory of raising a kid interested in the outside world, but today he's going to a friends for the afternoon and we needed to have lunch and some quiet time.

That's where we are right now. And despite the fact that I went to bed at 7:30 last night and work up at 7:15 the morning, I'm going to lie down before we need to get in the car.

I can't remember now

if it's Wed, Thurs, or Fri! I had a mini panic attack a while ago because I suddenly thought it was Friday and I had all of these things to do, RIGHT NOW before going to Bunko at 6:30. (Yes, I know it's lame that I play bunko, but it's something to do occasionally). Anyway, I realized it was Thursday and I was fine, but then somehow I decided it was Wednesday a little while later. One of the problems of homeschooling maybe? Although I don't think I want to blame my inability to follow a calendar on homeschooling. Pregnancy maybe, but not homeschooling.

So what did we do today? Again, we started put with Math. Harry did two pages. Moved onto 50 Famous Stories and read about William Tell. Harry drew a picture of WT shooting the apple off of his son's head that's pretty neat. We talked about what a tyrant is and isn't and had a nice little discussion from that. I think they went to play after that for a while.

I lured them back into the kitchen with the promise of snacks and we read a couple of Thanksgiving stories. I keep meaning to post our Thanksgiving readings, but I also keep forgetting to. Maybe soon I'll get it finished. Hopefully before Thanksgiving. Harry did some spelling words and then we read some pages from D'Aulaire's George Washington. I'm not entirely sure everything is totally accurate in these biographies, but I'm willing to overlook that for now. This isn't the only biography Harry or Sam will read on Washington--it's just an introduction. Anything that needs to be cleared up will be.

During quiet time he read more of Eragon. He is really into that book. A lot more than Harry Potter. I think it's more exciting to him--there are dragons and a quest instead of a kid going to school. I got him out of quiet time early to work on his science. We are still studying rocks and fossils. Today I got out the igneous and metamorphic rock kits. We looked at them and tried to decide the colors, texture, and a bunch of other things that have slipped my mind now. We also did a sink or float experiment. He told me if he thought the rock would sink or float and we tested it. It was a lot of fun--we had a great time together looking at these rocks and talking about them. Harry's observational skills are getting better and better.

At the end we made Edible Igneous Rocks. It's basically fudge. We boiled the ingredients and then cooled them until they were hard. The only problem is that they aren't getting hard--in fact, quite the opposite. They are as runny as soup. So much for that, but he was so excited and could really grasp what we were doing.

Ahhh, what will tomorrow bring?

Tuesday

Someday I'll think of clever post titles, but it won't be tonight. I'm going to bed right after this. Today Sam and Annika both had their speech lessons and we jumped Jason's car so he could go to work. A library run was scheduled after that, but I decided that today we really needed food more than books. Tomorrow, we'll see. We got home in time for lunch, which Annika decided to fix for herself. She opened up one of my yogurts and had eaten half of it by the time I realized. All this to explain why we didn't get much done.

What we did? Math and spelling. Harry did one page of MUS quickly and well. I decided to see if I could skip Harry ahead in his spelling book by testing him on the words in his list of the week. Oddly enough, he got most of them wrong. Even the ones I know he knows--like Mom. It was a very strange moment. So he worked a bit more in his spelling book, which at this moment I'm not sure I like and am planning on trying something different. I'll check him again on Friday. After that he did another of his timed math drill. I learned something the other day--cover up the timer. When he can see it, he gets distracted thinking about the time going by. All I have to do is cover it with a sticky note and he can sit down and just get to work. Amazing what a post-it can do!

Tomorrow I don't expect us to get a whole lot done either, he has his coop classes. But I plan on getting a bit more done. The other issue with this week is Sam's birthday party on Saturday that I need to finish getting ready for--so the time that I would have extra is being used for something else. That probably doesn't make much sense. Here it is in plain English. Usually if we don't finish our work in the morning, I push it off to quiet time and finish it then. But this week I really need to use that time to get ready for Sam's party--I can't just push that off at all. So things are a little tricky in that department.

Okay, this has taken me way too long to type since I'm tired. So I'm going to bed. Good night!

Monday again

So on Saturday Jason and Harry washed the car and listened to music. I went out a few hours later and the music was still on--the battery was completely run down! The point? We took Jason to work this morning.

That threw us off a little--it's always hard to get started when something unexpected comes up. Somehow though, we got things together and really worked today. First up was math. I cannot wait to be finished with the MUS Alpha book. I honestly think Harry's ready to move up now, but there isn't any harm in waiting just a little. He's on lesson 26 of 30, so just a little while longer--by Christmas certainly.

While Harry worked on his math, I drew him a picture of a volcano to demonstrate where different igneous rocks come from. I had planned on saving it for later, but since he saw me making it, I decided to let him work on that instead of spelling. He labeled where the rocks come from, made some inferences on which were the hottest and coolest and answered some questions about igneous rocks in general. Our rock study is going well and he's learning a lot.

He finally finished his Benjamin Franklin copywork--again without complaint, even though this was the longest section with the biggest words in it.

We began some spelling work this morning as well. We haven't done spelling before because I have this feeling that there is no real reason to start this early, but after some more study, Jason and I decided that it would be a good idea. So he had ten super-easy spelling words and he breezed right through it.

After that we worked a bit on our Thanksgiving Notebooks--talking about the Pilgrims and what they found when they finally made it to the New World. We are reading a fabulous book called N. C. Wyeth's Pilgrims that has amazing pictures and just enough text to make it challenging for both boys. They have to listen while I am reading and can't just wander off to do something else.

Since we were of a historical mind then we talked about Moses and the Israelites. I'm still having a difficult time considering that history--we read the Old Testament Stories version just a couple of weeks ago, so I'm thinking I'll skip the rest of this chapter and move on to the Phoenicians.

Now we are in quiet time. Ahhh, the silence. I savor it and dream of it. Even though I'm going to get Harry soon and see which of his igneous rocks sink and which float. Then we can move onto sedimentary tomorrow. Oh yeah, one of the reasons we did so much this morning is that we're trying out a new schedule and I told Harry that if we were able to finish what we needed to, we could go to Legoland this afternoon and see if they had anything for his Bionicle birthday Party. It's amazing what a little bribery will do for a six-year-old!

Thursday already?

I love Thursdays--we only have one speech appointment and then we get to spend the rest of the day at home. I use it to catch up on all of the things that didn't get finished through the week.

So, knowing that. Today Harry did a couple of pages in MUS. He wrote some copywork from Benjamin Franklin. We finished the book earlier in the week, but it's great to have Harry write without complaints. He just really liked the book and the sayings in it. He'll spend a couple more days finishing the work, but it really is an accomplishment for him.

Everyone needed a snack about then so while they at their yogurt, I read a couple of Aesop's Fables and King Alfred and the Beggar. Harry's understanding of the true meanings of things is growing by leaps and bounds. I'm trying to figure out what I want him to do with the morals of the stories, but aside from copying them down, I haven't come up with anything. And I know that forcing him to copy these won't make them stick, it'll backfire and he won't want to read them anymore.

We took some time to create autumn leaves out of markers, coffee filters, and watered down glue. That was a lot more time-consuming and messy than I thought it would be. But it turned out kind of cool. I'm just not sure it was worth the time and mess. I'm planning to leave a review for this craft on the crayola website.

They played Bionicle people for a while after that, had lunch, and we dove into our study of rocks. We got a kit that has a whole bunch of igneous rocks in it, so we looked at each one and tried to describe them. I made a chart and everything to fill out. Sam and Annika got into the action too. The most common phrase of this part: "No, Annika, don't eat the Mt. St. Helen's ash!"
Now it's quiet time, which is nice because I'm exhausted. We have a busy evening tonight, well, the kids and I do, Jason will be home resting. He had a longer night than I did yesterday. So I'm debating between a shower and a nap. And maybe getting some lunch. We'll see. Stay tuned for the next exciting adventure!

Narrations and Stories

Benjamin Franklin:

Benjamin's friend stuffed Ben's pocket with pennies. Benjamin ran to the toy store. He gave the owner all of his pennies for a whistle. Benjamin walked through the house while his family was eating dinner blowing his whistle.

His brothers and sisters teased him and called him a spendthrift. A spendthrift is someone who doesn't pay attention to what he is buying. Benjamin bought the whistle for four times what it was worth. After that he looked at how much something cost and he gave the person he was going to buy it from that amount. He also thought about how he would spend his money after that.

The Fox and the Grapes:

A fox went walking along and he spied some grapes. He really wanted them and he tried to get them. He couldn't so he said they were sour grapes and he quit. Then he just walked off.

Horatius and the Bridge:

The Most Interesting Part:
They put out his eye and he jumped into the river and they thought he was sunk. But he wasn't because he was the best swimmer in Rome.

The Fairy Forest, by Harry

The fairies use oranges for food. The peels make their beds. Big ones are for the Queen and King and small ones are for the servants and everyone else. If they are stuck together they use their fairy chainsaws to break them apart.

They also eat apples. Then they use the peels to make their pillows. They get their apples and drop them out of the tree. Then they get a big needle to put the peels in and they pick the grass with their fairy chainsaws. They put the grass in the apple peels and use the needles to make sure there aren't any holes.

Monday, Monday

So, I feel like today is a fresh start after a bad week last week. We're settling down to our lessons and such and things are planned, but not too planned. And here we go. (I'll update as we go along today.)

Friday Funday?

The fire danger has mostly passed for us and it was back to our normal days. More or less. I woke up at 3:30 this morning and didn't fall back asleep until 5:30. Those are an important two hours apparently in my world, so I'm a bit tired.

Anyway, this morning Harry did a timed math drill and got 66 correct in 5 minutes! That is the most he has ever gotten and I'm really proud of him. He just sat down and worked really hard for the entire five minutes. We're working on a goal of 100 correct in 3 minutes. This supplements the MUS work he does. He finished his lesson yesterday, so I'm waiting until Monday to introduce another one.

We also read another chapter of Children of Noisy Village and the children who live in my noisy house clamored for another. So I think later at snack time we'll do that. They are all really into it.

And we finished Midsummer! Yay! When I started this our, I was pretty nervous, not sure if Harry would follow it or understand everything, but he turned out to be really interested in the story and fascinated by the fairies. This morning he got out another version I had from the library and read that on his own. So now he really knows the story.

Still to do today: a chapter from Burgess Bird Book, writing practice, and a few pages of Benjamin Franklin. I'd better go get him from quiet time and get started!

Fire, what fire?

We don't need no stinkin' fire!

(A tribute to Sam--he memorized that and will spontaneously come out with it using whatever is nearby!)

Anyway, Jason is still home. There are still fires, but in my efforts to keep things normal, we did our normal stuff today. Of course between fielding phone calls from concerned family (thanks everyone, we're fine).

Harry managed to do his timed math drill without too much trouble. He also did some writing practice and cooler than all of this, we did an easy little experiment about water condensation. We just got a glass, filled it with ice and water and watched what happened. He also filled in his little experiment record about it.

During quiet time we read some more Benjamin Franklin and talked about some of his sayings. Then Harry had to write one of them for copywork.

That's it--it never looks like as much as it is.

Weird Day

The fires in San Diego County are all around us, and since there are 8, it's not too hard to be surrounded!

Jason's work was closed for the day, so he has been home, which is always nice, but throws off our studies a bit. I thought about just playing all day but decided that we needed to have as normal a day as possible.

So here's what we did, more or less. Read a chapter from Story of the World about Egypt's Middle Kingdom. Is it possible to be tired of Egypt? It seems as though most of what we study in history is new and totally interesting, but Egypt is cool for a while and then just is kind of done. Anyway, we read and did a map and looked it up in a couple of other books.

After that I pulled out Benjamin Franklin by the D'Aulaires. Harry has been very excited to read it so it was a big hit. We read a few pages but not too far, I want the book to last. Harry narrated the pages we read--I'll post it tomorrow.

He played for a while after that. Jason took Sam out to get batteries and Harry and I got back into the math. He did both a page in MUS and his timed drill. I need to make sure he does the drill every day, I can tell by his scores if he takes days off of it.

He also practiced his writing. And we read the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. After that we drew some wolves that actually look like fluffy turtles!

A True Adventure

I've been feeling lately as if our Family Learning Adventure is, well, lacking in adventure. So I've been looking for ways to remedy that. A hs group here in our area sent out an email that they were going to have a nature walk this morning in a place a little less than an hour away. It didn't take me long to scrap our learning plans for the morning/day, pack a picnic, and set off.

The first sign that this plan might go awry was the place where the nature walk was to be held. It wasn't in some gorgeous park with trees and good signage. It also wasn't really in a great neighborhood at all. But we were on an adventure so we persevered on, making sure to lock the car doors.

We were the first to arrive--only a bit nerve-wracking when we realized that we were in a not-great neighborhood and even the coordinator wasn't there. Still, we were up for an adventure. And we wandered around the preserve. It was billed as a native-plant preserve, so I pictured some cactus, sage, stuff like that. And it was there, kind of. There were very few signs to tell us what we were seeing and of the signs that were there, most were broken. Also, quite a few of the plants were dead.

Honestly, I was thinking, "I wasted my gas for this, I put three kids in the car to see a few half-dead plants which we can't even identify? And where is the coordinator? Was the whole thing a scam to get pregnant women and their children into a remote, not-very-nice place?"

But I sucked it up and adventured onward, trying to have a good attitude for the kids while looking around the whole time for escape routes. They, on the other hand, had a good time finding neat plants and rocks, sitting on the various benches and rating them for cleanliness. They also sat down on one of the clean benches and drew pictures of one of the things they had seen that they liked.

Even I was getting into the adventure. Until the dog came...But you can read about that below.

Lame

What kind of person sees that his large dog is terrorizing three small children while their very pregnant mom is trying to pick all three of them up so the dog doesn't jump on them, and then walk leisurely over to get the dog? And then not even put the dog back on the leash which is in said lame person's hand and allow the dog to run more through the park?

Sometimes I get REALLY annoyed with people.

Terrific Tuesday?

Today went quickly. It seems as though the days do that lately.

Harry started off in Math--he did a page in his MUS book, actually he did two. It's hard--he needs the practice on these simpler problems, but at the same time, he's kind of past it. I want to start him on the next level, but I don't know if he truly is ready or it's me pushing him.

Anyway, he did his math in record time. I had a little thing for Sam and Annika to do, gluing letters onto some paper, and Harry joined them once he was finished.

Ahh, and the bane of Harry's existence came next. He HATES copywork. Actually he hates any kind of writing. But the only way to get better at it is to do it, so...he had some copywork next. It dealt with the weather which is what we are working on for science. It took him less time to actually accomplish it than it did to whine about how much he didn't like it, a point I made sure to show him!

Since we got home from speech classes late, it was lunch time, and we read yet more of Midsummer. During quiet time he and I looked up the weather around the country and our area.

And the schooly part of our day came to a conclusion!

Monday, monday

I was all set to post and blogger was down, so here's the Monday wrap up.

We started out by reading more Midsummer. Not a whole lot, but enough to advance the story. Harry really thinks it's funny. I love it. While I was reading he painted a picture of the Fairy Forest in the story and when I was finished with our reading for the day, he told me all about it. I'll post his story in a little while when the kids aren't right here. Plus I have to go downstairs for it and I really don't want to again.

After Harry and Annika went outside to play for a few minutes while I got set up for our next thing. Which I suddenly don't remember. We read some Aesop's Fables, he narrated one. We also read Horatius at the Bridge from 50 Famous Stories Retold. He narrated that too.

Harry watched the next Math-U-See lesson on subtracting from 10 and did the page in his book for that. He also did his timed test for the day.

We picked up Sam from preschool and did some shopping. (Harry needed new church pants and a white shirt for Sunday). I ended up without a white shirt but with church pants and a couple of outfits for the new little girl that will be joining us soon. That was fun!

In the afternoon we did a neat craft that involved acrylic paints and a chrysanthemum. The boys made "Mum Prints." Annika painted herself with blue and purple kid paints. I'm not about to give her something that's going to stain.

That's about it. It was a pretty nice day.

I didn't realize

it had been quite so long.

Yikes. Well, in my defense, there has been learning happening here, I just haven't posted about it.

So without further ado, here's what we've done this morning:

Math--one page of his current lesson in MUS. I also decided that Harry really should know how to grip a pencil correctly, so we worked on that.

We read a bunch pages from Midsummer Night's Dream. The version we are reading is really interesting and fun, Harry keeps asking to read more. Sometimes I do, but most times I don't--I have to make sure he understands what is happening. (True story: Harry just saw me writing this and, I quote, said, "I wish we were reading Midsummer right now. I really like it. So, does Oberon think that Puck is funny? I don't, he plays mean tricks on people") I think he understands it pretty well!

I had them color and cut out a bunch of autumn shapes yesterday so we strung them onto a ribbon for a decoration. Today they had to match up some leaf stickers by shape and size so we could make it even prettier.

Play and snack time.

I got out the play dough and everyone joined in. We read a chapter from Story of the World about ancient China--farming, pictograms, and dynasties. We used play dough to make up our own pictograms and talked about how life was different back then. Harry and I used the SOTW activity book directions to begin making our "Ming Bowl." Once it dries, he'll paint it blue and white.

Lunch time and Child's History of the World. We read a chapter on the Egyptians. This led to another chapter also on the Egyptians and a discussion about if these people were alive at the same time as people in the Bible and Book of Mormon. I really need to get started on some kind of a Book of Centuries or time line. Things will make way more sense.

It's quiet time and Annika is asleep. Sam and I are going to play a game he got from speech (I'll have to write about that soon) and then I'll get both boys up to paint with acrylics. Not something I'm willing to do when Annika is around!

After that is an early dinner and soccer practice.

Thursday is our "day off," we only have Sam's speech class which ends at 8:25. Then we get to go home and do fun learning things. I love Thursdays!

The Day Before

Annika's 2nd Birthday!

I decided not to plan much school-type stuff on Thursdays. Harry will do math and copywork, but that's all that's on the schedule. Instead, it's our "day out." It's the only day that we don't have preschool or later speech appointments. So we go play.

Although, after saying that, today we are home. It's just too hot right now for me to have any desire to do anything. I know that we could head to the beach, but even the beach is too warm. Also with Annika's birthday tomorrow, I wanted to get some stuff done around the house--make her cake, clean, make some banners, clean. Stuff like that.

Today we did tomorrow's learning work. We read some of This Country of Ours, looked at pictures of the earth, inside and out, talked about the atmosphere, played a math game, and did some copywork. All-in-all, it took about an hour, maybe an hour and a half. First grade at home is wonderful.

I have to say though, that part of why it's working so well is that I'm organized and I'm using a curriculum that I believe in. There are parts that I've changed--we are doing more organized science and I've cut out a book that doesn't work for us for religious reasons, but more or less we are following it. And it's wonderful. Harry is asking interesting questions, making connections between things, and in general learning a lot. I'm learning to be a little hands-off and let him make the connections and be responsible for his own learning.

We're Back!

I am continually amazed at how much Harry is getting from Story of the World. I know I wrote about the change in my last post, but I kind of wondered if he was just interested because he knew some of the story already. Today we read a little about Hammurabi and his law code, which I know none of my kids have any prior knowledge of. It was amazing. Harry was really into the story. Even though some of it was dry, he was still interested in it.

The best part is that he's asking questions--good questions about why and who. I asked him if he thought the examples of the laws were fair and he thought for a minute, said no, and then told me why. It was interesting to see his mind work. He's still so little and in his mind it is fair to pretty much do what you want, even if no one else thinks it it. I truly expect that to change in the next few months--the egocentrism that is. Hopefully not the thinking about things part.

We spent about an hour doing our academic-type stuff. He did some math; how come subtraction makes way more sense to him than addition? Then we read SOTW and did some of the sheets for this chapter. I really wanted to get some copywork/grammar done, but that will have to wait until later. We had a snack at 10 and read a bit about Henri Matisse, our painter of the month. Then we did a painting project of our own. I'll take pictures of the paintings later when they dry.

Now the kids are playing Monopoly together while Annika does her King Kong impression and walks over the board with her hands behind her back! I have to get a crown put on this afternoon, so we are picking up our babysitter after lunch.

In the Beginning...

We've gotten our books, I've begun to plan, and in my enthusiasm, couldn't ignore that copy of Story of the World just sitting on the table. We did some from it last year, but it seemed like drudgery. I ordered it again this year because I wanted it to work so badly and I'm pretty sure that it was only drudgery because I made it like that. I planned and planned and thought about how wonderful it would be to do the projects in the activity book, and then when they didn't go exactly like I thought they should, I got discouraged.

Wow, look at all of those "I"s in that sentence. See it was me, not the boys.

Anyway. I pulled it out and decided to start roughly where we left off last year (Ch. 6 if you're keeping score), and proceeded to tell the boys the story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. It went amazingly well! Probably partly because Harry has heard of all of these prophets before. He has some prior knowledge to hang the new information on. Whatever the reason though, both boys were really into the stories.

It did seem wierd to me to tell a Bible story out of a history text and have that be a lesson (and not in the way of "let this be a lesson to you, boys"). But I got over it when they both could discuss what I had read. As the culminating part of this lesson, I cut out robe shapes and the boys glued colors to them, making Joseph's Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoats!

Starting Back

We did a little math on Monday. Just got everything put away from breakfast and grabbed the math book. It wasn't so bad--I gave Harry a couple of review pages to work on just to get him started. I think we'll try to do some review every day for a week or so and then get back into the new info.

It wasn't my intention to take such a long break, it kind of just happened and I think I need to get back into the swing of things kind of slowly.

20 July

Harry says he doesn't like picture books anymore--he's too old. Sure, little boy hanging on my knee engrossed in the pictures. Much too old.

Read Picasso and the Girl with the Ponytail to H&S. Mostly to Harry while Sam sat at the other side of the table drawing great white sharks. Annika also there--eating crayons. I'm aghast--not the crayons, you just don't do that to perfectly innocent crayolas. When I get the good crayons, I'm hiding them from her.

Looked up Picasso in another art book we have. Funny picture of him with bread hands--Harry was a bit disturbed by it. Went to the computer, but we'll have to finish in a while. Remember Usborne Quicklinks, Children's Book of Art, pages 44-45. All about Picasso.

Must get Annika dressed and get to the library before she is too tired and will fall asleep in the car. I need a nap today too!

under construction

Pardon me while I mess around a bit with this template. Hopefully I'll finish soon, before I have anything real to say!

A Morning Spent in Scotland

We are reading Little House in the Highlands by Melissa Wiley. It is historical fiction written about Laura Ingalls Wilder's Great Grandmother who grew up in Scotland. At first I thought it blasphemy to try to write novels about LIW's family, but I love the books. They are incredibly descriptive as far as life in Scotland at the end of the 18th century and just fun to read. Plus the boys really like them.

So this morning we had porridge and cream because that is what Martha had for breakfast every morning in her nursery with her brothers and sister. Harry pretended to be Martha's brother Robbie and Sam Duncan, another of her brothers. Annika got to be Martha, although I'm pretty sure Martha never dropped most of her porridge down her dress--maybe she did at almost two. While they ate their breakfasts I read a chapter that described the tenant farmers' cottages, so now I'm trying to find a picture of what one might have looked like. Not that easy, really.

I have this sneaking feeling that we will be incorporating more and more Scotland into our summer--mostly food, probably. But we'll do more than that as the little people in our home want to. It's just fun.

This morning

We're reading Pagoo--a really wonderful book about a hermit crab growing up in a tide pool. It's full of a lot of information about tide pools and the animals that live there. What's more is that the kids really like the book and it's sparking an interest in tide pools. Which, for where we live is pretty good.

This led to looking at other animals in tide pools, trying to figure out how the tides work (I knew it had something to do with the moon, just not exactly how), and inexplicably, looking up how fireworks work.

All in about 30 minutes. (this was actually yesterday morning)

Why Preschool?

The short answer--because Sam needs it.

He doesn't really know how to deal with people his own age, or around his own age. And nothing I was doing was solving this problem. Everyone his age that I know is already in preschool. I also wanted him to have a place where Harry isn't. Although, Harry did go to the same preschool and they all know Sam as "Harry's Little Brother." So there's a slight flaw in the system. Sam's teacher is new to us and didn't know Harry though.

All-in-all it's been a good thing for him, even after only two days. Sam tells me a lot about his day. Tonight he sat on my lap and ticked off the things he remembers from the day. He had snack, rode a bike, made his project. There were about five or six things that he told me about. His teacher said he didn't say much but he did talk a little. Which, frankly for me, was amazing.

I don't know if I truly underestimate Sam or if I just worry too much about him. I know he is incredibly smart and loving and funny and oh-so-stubborn. But I didn't think he'd take to preschool as well as he has. I thought he'd have a harder time relating with the other kids--instead tonight he told me that he played with a "nice boy in a red shirt!" I didn't think he'd talk for a while, if ever.

I am just so incredibly proud of Sam. He has worked so hard just to speak clearly and here he is off in the world by himself, proving me to be the overprotective mom that I am!

The Outside; inside and stuffed

Today we headed out to a local nature center to see what we could see. It was a taxidermists dream. Fortunately my kids all seem to be future taxidermists. They had all of the birds we've seen in our back yard, plus their nests and in some cases their eggs. There were also stuffed gulls, a Great Horned Owl and lots of other things that should normally be flying or creeping.

Along with all of the things the kids couldn't touch, there was plenty they could. Apparently when animals die, people bring them to the nature center. So there were bird wings, feathers, dead lizards (ewww) and all kinds of things to discover.

Since the nature center is by a lagoon, there is also a path partway around where you can see pretty much nothing! The reeds are so high it's a little like being in a corn maze. We were able to watch a little bird jumping around in some mud eating some "most delicious bugs. Yum, yum." That was fun. And the kids saw a couple of ducks as we were driving out.

We had a good, low-key time. The kids did like seeing all of the animals and feeling what they could, but they also had a lot of fun squeezing all of the stuffed birds so they could hear the sounds they make. This doesn't really explain it. Maybe this will help: http://www.seattleaudubon.org/natureshop.cfm?catID=366 . They were toys, not the real birds--we got a mourning dove because they were the first birds we identified when we got the feeder.

This post is getting long. It was just a fun, easy time. There was no pressure to have fun and they could all enjoy themselves at what ever level they are at. Next time you visit, we'll take you there. (All of you. I promise. If you visit, I'll take you all over the place!)

today...

was a very good day.

Harry had his art class and "Kids' Club" over at his little school. He loves his art class and is learning to do so much. He also likes Kids' Club and hanging out with his friends. He needs this outlet too.

Sam had speech where he didn't just talk to his therapist, he talked with her aides as well. I see big changes in store for my reticent little--sorry--"medium small" boy!

And Annika napped for more than an hour. I love it. I used the time to tuck Sam into bed for a nap and do lessons with Harry. We got so much accomplished. I love days like this.

I'm going to bed, but I'll write about Sam's first week at preschool tomorrow. Such a big kid!

Why won't she talk?

As I stated in my last post, Annika will be starting speech therapy soon. I'm not entirely sure when, but it will be in the next couple of months. (It would be sooner, but we won't be available for a while.)

After all that we've been through with Sam's speech and confidence, we kept an eye (or ear) out for anything similar in Annika. And sure enough, she isn't talking yet. Which in and of itself is probably not much to worry about, but with our family history, for Annika it is. She isn't trying to talk--she grunts here and there and has a couple of baby signs that she uses, but overall, she is quiet.

So I took her in to be evaluated by the people at Early Intervention (EI). EI is for families who's children are delayed in any way or have an issue that could affect their development. Going in I really wanted them to say, "no problem here, she'll catch up soon." But they didn't. Instead she is at a 7-9 month level for speech. I can't tell you how disheartening this is. I really wanted them to send me home and laugh at me for being such an overprotective mom. I also know that a speech issue that will be "fixed" fairly easily is nothing compared to what most of the other families at EI go through. But, like every other mom, I want my children to move easily through life. I don't want any of my children to struggle--especially not with something as basic as communicating.

In any case, Annika will be getting services soon. She goes in for a hearing test next month and for an actual speech evaluation then too. After that we'll know exactly what we have to do to get her at age level.

On the other hand, she tests at 36 months for fine motor skills!

The Decision--New and Improved

After writing my last post here the other day, I thought and thought about sending Harry to school. It just bothered me that there were so many reasons I could see to keep homeschooling and doing what we are doing and so few for sending him back. I also kept thinking that I should keep him home--you know the good old feeling that something isn't right about the decision.

So, I decided to follow that feeling. We are keeping him home next year. It just doesn't work to send him back. Sure, the class size is only 20, but here there's only one child in first grade. Here we can set out a bird buffet, pretend to be Jenny Wren, talk more about Erik the Red, do all of the subtraction we can take in one day. All of those things that make learning at home fun and joyous.

It's still going to require some juggling. Sam will have speech and he will still go to preschool--that'll be the hardest thing to deal with, schedule-wise. Annika will also start speech therapy, so there will be another thing to worry about.

But really, the benefits far, far outweigh the negatives. Like, I can't even see the negatives in the rear-view mirror!

yes, we really have done stuff...

really.

But between me being sick every other week and Easter...well, I just haven't been on here much at all. Obviously.

Also, there is that one little issue of Jason coming to me one night and asking me if I was planning to send Harry to school next year. I looked at him, completely shocked, and said, no...why?

So that started me thinking again about school and if I should send him next year. All of my being screamed NOOOOOOOOO. But I still decided to think about why not and also why it might be a good thing.

Reasons why not:

1. I don't want to. I don't want to lose the closeness that we have developed. I like what we are doing and I'm comfortable with our little home-based existence.
   
2. I can do a better job teaching him than a teacher with 20-30 kids.
3. It's a lot of fun opening up a book and exploring it with him.
4. We can do what we want when we want.
5. I don't have to worry about being late for school, packing a lunch (ugg) or getting him dressed.
6. He's really interesting to be with and getting more so the older he gets--why would I want to miss any of this?
7. I discovered that he has a talent and interest in creating art--something that wouldn't have been discovered in ps.
   

Reasons to send him:

1. He wants to go. He is very social and misses his friends.
2. In first grade the classes are limited to 20 kids.
3. It will be nice to have some more one-on-one time with Sam and Annika. And specifically for Sam to get out of Harry's very long shadow.
4. It'll be easier to get stuff done in the middle of the day--it's full day school and I won't feel quite so scattered. (Hopefully)

And the decision is...

Tentatively, Harry is going to First Grade and Sam to Preschool.

The decision was really driven by Sam's need for friends. He's been going to speech for over a year now, but that's just 30 minutes twice a week. I honestly don't know anyone who has a child Sam's age that we can get together with easily. Also, with Sam's personality quirks, he needs to get together with children more.

The preschool Harry went to and that Sam is going to is a coop, meaning that I have to bring snack once a month and "volunteer" twice a month. In order to be able to do that, Harry needs to be in school. Or I need a nanny.

In a very long blog post, my thought process and my decision. I'm okay with it some days and not others. But this is long enough for now, so good night.

A Quickie

Because it's kind of funny...

We've started reading The Burgess Bird Book, a wonderful old book that introduces kids to birds through stories. So instead of having a bunch of dry facts about a wren, the author (Burgess) wrote a story about a wren that just migrated back to her home in the north. She tells all kinds of information in the story, but it is just in there and not something that will hit you over the head.

Anyway. We read the first story this morning, about Jenny Wren. So all day long Harry has run around the house saying, "Tut, tut, tut, I'm Jenny Wren." When I suggested that maybe, he might want to be Mr. Wren, he said "no way, he doesn't get to talk. He only sings." And honestly, if you have ever heard Harry sing, that's probably for the best.

Charlotte Mason

You probably have never heard of her. I hadn't until just a couple of months ago. However, now I'm in the process of rethinking all of my homeschooling plans.

I had planned to follow the Well-Trained Mind. I bought the book, decided that this is how I want my children educated. They would be smart, able to think, and well-read. I also liked the focus on history and phonics.

Unfortunately this hasn't seemed to go as well as I had hoped. The cornerstone of the history studies--a four-year rotation beginning with the Ancient World and ending with the Modern seems really forced. It gives the same weight to Sumeria as the US. While I do think we are incredibly ethnocentric in studying only the US for many years, I do think my kids would enjoy studying the history of the US more than the ancients right now.

So I hunted around some more and stumbled upon this 19th century educator, Charlotte Mason. She is known for short lessons (approx. 15 min in length), copywork, narration, nature studies every afternoon, and a "twaddle"-free life. I can't go into depth right now everything that attracts me to CM, but I will say that I am making some changes in our routines and plans. I am so very happy about this. Things are going swimmingly right now. We don't do all of the big projects we might've, but Harry and Sam are learning so much from just telling me back what they've heard or read.

I'll post more later, but if you are curious, here is a sight with an overview of Charlotte Mason's ideas: http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/methods/CharlotteMason.htm

too much information!

While I put Annika to bed at night, I use the internet. Not for her, but for me. I write my posts, look up library books, and search for helpful information. One thing I think is helpful for homeschoolers is the wealth of information out there. It's nice to find a review of a resource you think you might like or people who have the same philosophy as you.

Unfortunately, there is also a downside to all of that information. For two reasons. First it's easy to get caught up reading about how to homeschool and forget to actually homeschool. Second, there is always the tendency to compare myself to these women who have been homeschooling for years and seem to have it down.

The first issue is where I have to make myself leave the computer, stop looking up books, and trust all of the work I've done to make things work actually will. I don't need that one more, really great book that will tie everything together and make Harry and Sam super smart. I just need the five other, pretty great books that will do what I need them to--help Harry and Sam want to know more so they can find the books they like by themselves.

I love information and the fact that there is a fact out there that I'm not aware of kills me. But I need to leave the computer and actually teach my children something. (Not now really, it's bed time, but tomorrow I will--both leave the computer and teach them something.)

As far as the comparisons go. It's a lot less clear-cut than just turning off the computer. I do get valuable information from these women. I just need to remember that I am me. My kids are not their kids. My life is not theirs. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

I do believe that I am doing the right thing for my family. But I think I need to spend less time reading about other people. So if I'm scarce, that's why. Just a little more information for you.

Snow Day

Yesterday we went to the snow. When we got there we went on a bus to the super tram to go to the snow. Once we got out on the super tram we went up, up, and away! Then we went inside to get some food. Daddy wanted a hamburger, but it would take twenty minutes. So instead he got some chicken and rice. I got some food and lemonade. Sam and Mommy got rootbeer.
Then we went to the snow. We had snowball fights. Everyone got Mommy, then everyone got Sam and he was all white. We made a snowman. We rolled snow down a hill and then we put them on top of each other. Then we made snow angels. We laid down and wiggled our arms and legs we went "swish, swish."
Then my hands were freezing and Daddy put his gloves on my hands. When we were going up to the restaurant Mommy put her gloves on my hands and they were warmer. We went up to get hot cocoa. Sam wanted chocolate milk but they didn't have any. But we had hot cocoa.
Then we went down the tram. Once we got down we were going to walk down to the car, but I saw the bus. So we got back in line and we got back on the bus. Then we went and got in the car. And we went home. We watched Baby Einstein and I played some games. A race game and some war games.
We got to Panera Bread and that's where we had our dinner, then we went home and fell fast asleep.

By Harry

The Plan for March

at least the first half. (Roughly 13 March)

Math:
Finish MUS Alpha through lesson 18
Recite his addition facts up to 10 with no errors

Reading/Language Arts:
Beatrix Potter Unit--covers many of her little books, also has copywork and geography components (and lots of crafts)

History:
We are not going to continue with our Ancient World studies right now. Instead we will work on the history of the United States. I'm reserving books from the library right now to use. We'll start with the landing at Plymouth Rock
Also we will create a "Book of Centuries"--sort of a time line in a book

Science:
Move away from just leaves to plants themselves
Keep watching their bean plants and seeing what they do

Art:
Van Gogh--we're having fun with him

Music:
Beethoven--right now a little about his live (birth and death dates) and recognition

Poetry:
We'll all memorize something that I haven't decided on yet

That's it so far, but I think it'll work for now. Check back to see what we're using for resources another time.

The Scientific Method of Madness

I think if there is anything that is being neglected that shouldn't be is science. We've done a lot of half-hearted things so far.

1. Looked at leaves and discussed their structure.
2. Soaked beans to see which would open up fastest (don't do that, it just gets messy and icky)
3. Grown a lima bean in a cup in the kitchen window. So far that's been pretty successful, but we need to plant them tomorrow.
4. Taken a walk around a pond to see what's there. We saw a duck. Yep, one lone living thing. It was fun, but I was really hoping for more. Who knows, maybe the next time we go.
5. Annika walks and collecting. That's pretty cool, but I don't always follow up like I should.

Yesterday Jason had the boys looking at different things under the microscope. I kept wanting to say, "wait, let me get a pencil and a paper, you can write down what you see," but I held my tongue and they had fun with Jason.

I just realized that Harry goes to a science class at the coop, so I'm technically off the hook for that. Yay! Even if he does think it's boring. But that's okay, he's just committed for the month.

Ancient History, Modern Boy

Like I've said already, we started off our history studies at the beginning of time. We use Story of the World--the book and the activity guide. Which is good because I don't have to do a lot of searching for things to do or maps to color.

In the beginning...people were nomads and ate lizards. We talked about different foods they may have eaten (there is a quiz online that Harry had fun with). We looked at cave paintings and made our own. Decided we wouldn't necessarily want to be nomads and moved into the agricultural revolution. We have our own garden so planting seeds is a normal part of Harry's life and I think that helped make sense of what we were reading. We read quite a few books about Early People and their tools and weapons. Harry now can point out a flint in any book he reads.

Now we have moved onto Ancient Egypt. We've located the Nile Delta and talked about the Double Crown King--Narmer. The boys pretend to be Egyptians now when they play. I constantly have to remind them to play nice since neither wants to be the losing king! We made crowns and collars to wear when being Pharaohs. We even made one for Annika. And then of course we've now moved into the gods and goddess portion of our studies. We will be finishing that and moving onto hieroglyphics this week.

That's as far as we've gotten not because we don't like what we're doing, but because we do. It's all interesting and there are so many books to read. Also, since Jason and I have been to Egypt, it's fun to look at the books and pictures and tell Harry what it's really like.

The one thing I wish I'd done a better job in is listing all of the books we've used to supplement SOTW. Our main book is the Kingfisher World History Encyclopedia. But we also use the Usborne First History Encyclopedia. If anyone has a source for cheap Usborne books, let me know. I love most all of them.

Reading: First Month

Reading is a little, okay a lot, trickier to document than math. I think everyone should just rest assured right now that we spend a couple of hours reading a day. It may not be with everyone at all times and they may not be sitting next to me the whole time, but even while they play trains, I'm probably reading to them.

In January we focused a lot on Owl Moon. We read it, Harry narrated it. (I didn't write it down and now I could kick myself). We checked out owl books from the library and decided that while big owls are pretty, baby owls are "pretty gross." We looked at what they eat and when they fly. We talked about where they live and what it would be like to go owling. But we didn't actually go owling. We also tried to make paintings that "looked cold" using some of the techniques in the book. Finally, at the end of this we made paper bag owls.

When we finished that we read A New Coat for Anna. Harry narrated and I did write it down. It was a lot more detailed than I thought it would be. We decided the book probably took place in Germany right after WWII (that caught his interest). We talked about weaving and shearing and all of the steps that go into making a new coat. I attempted to have Harry make a lapbook for it, but it didn't quite go anywhere. Harry wove paper in an attempt to talk about weaving. We check out a bunch of books on weaving, shearing, dying--all things wool. It was a lot of fun. We also read a couple of other books that describe the time period in different places in Europe. The one I liked best was Boxes for Katje. It made me want to plant tulips!

The last January book was Stopping By Woods on A Snowy Evening. This is obviously the poem by Robert Frost and the hardest one for Harry to get into. But was talked about cold and how it made us feel. I think I should have tried to have Harry memorize some, but next poem I will.

And now in February we have Allen Say. I've already talked a lot about what I am going to do, but what have I done? We've read these books already: Grandfather's Journey, Emma's Rug, and How My Parents Learned to Eat. Harry has done narration on all of them. So far his favorite is How my Parents... which isn't written by Say, but illustrated by him. I think Harry likes that one because we have it as a book on tape. And to him cassette tapes are a marvel of modern technology. He had no idea what it was or what it did when I first handed it to him. I thought that was hilarious. He spent the entire day on Friday playing the tape over and over again. He also has been telling me about some of the details in the pictures and the story since then. With Grandfather's Journey we labeled a map with the journey from Japan to California. I want to do one for the journey through the US, but I think that will have to be tomorrow. We also wrote a letter to Harry's grandparents asking for information on our ancestors--where they came from, why, who they were, etc. We'll mail it soon, really. We have a few more books to read and I have a bunch more on Japan itself to read. So we're still in the middle of Japan. Emma's Rug wasn't too interesting to Harry, although he did narrate it.

And that's the "official" reading. Harry reads a lot. He's read a couple of Henry and Mudge books, but he isn't really interested in them. He and Jason are still reading Eragon. I'm reading him Little House in the Big Woods and Poppy and Rye. Harry also reads to Sam a lot. Which may be my favorite thing about homeschooling.

PS, I don't know what's going on with the font, but it's getting late and I'll try to figure it out tomorrow.

First Month Math

Like I said before, we were to do lessons 7-12 in MUS Alpha. Instead Harry has done lessons 1-9. We started at the beginning because it's easier to understand how the lessons sound and are presented starting at the beginning.

We've also done a bunch of math computer games and practices. The best one is Math Compass. It's a no-frills program of drills that Harry just loves! It's hilarious how into he gets.

We also made a great big cube with stickers on each side from 1-6. (Think great big die.) We throw it twice and add the numbers together. Low-tech, but a lot of fun (at least until someone loses an eye).

So that's math for the month. I actually think Harry's got his addition facts down pretty well, I just want to cement them into him a little more before we go onto subtraction.

Documentation, Schmocumentation!

I have our monthly meeting in the morning, so I've been trying to think of what we've done lately. I've realized that I don't have a lot of paperwork to take in, we've done only a couple of worksheets, I haven't typed out many narrations, and a lot of what we have done is just what we do.

For instance today we:

1. Got up and went to speech. Harry helped me get everyone ready to go--he was a big help. That is something we've been working on; seeing what needs to be done and doing it.
2. First Language Lessons: One of the few things that we can show the consultant. However, even that isn't written daily. However, I think today's lesson is perfect for "showing off." Harry wrote common and proper nouns for some examples I gave him (ie: I gave him the word store, he had to decide if it was common or proper and give an example of the opposite). So we have writing practice as well as grammar practice.
3. Math U See: The goal was to do lessons 7-12. We didn't get to lesson 12, but that's because I had Harry start in lesson 1. It's not easy to come to a new math program and start in the middle (or lesson 7 in this case). So he's actually made more progress than I first thought and it is pretty easy to show that with math.
4. Ancient Egypt and Story of the World: I read Cry of the Benu Bird to Harry and Sam--it is a picture book about the Ancient Egyptian creation myth. I also read from SOTW--the section on gods and goddesses in Egyptian society. It's actually a difficult thing for him to understand so we'll be spending more time on this subject. Also partly because it's Egypt and I've planned to spend the month on Egypt. I don't have any written work from this though so it's hard to "show" that it happened.
5. Lincoln's Birthday: I printed a little book about Lincoln so we read through that. There were comprehension questions, so I had him do a couple of those, but not all of them because I know he understood what we were talking about. We did penny rubs and looked for the little statue on the back of the penny. We discovered that crayons work better than pencils for getting details. We also made a "log cabin" out of pretzels and a milk carton. That was fun. I took a picture.
6. Harry read to Sam after we went to the park. Obviously aside from the mental picture I have of that, I don't have any documentation.
7. I read Little House in the Big Woods to both boys. It's interesting to me how into it Harry gets.

Anyway, that was the learning portion of the day. At least the planned portion. We all know that there is much learning in just living and growing each day.

Exactly the Same!

Harry: "The Vikings were just like Little House in the Big Woods!"

Me: "Really?!"

Harry: "Yea, they both had food storage in the outside!"

Me: "Yep, I think you're right!"

Hmmm...methinks something is working!

Coming Up in February

This is a short month, so I'm going to try to cram all of this into it.

1. History: Ancient Egypt. We plan to do projects, read history books, fiction books, look at maps. All kinds of things about Egypt. It's fun for me because I get to show Harry our pictures and for Harry because really, what kid doesn't get into Egypt?!

2. Reading: Allen Say. I'm really excited about this. I love his books--he has a wonderful style of writing, sort of calm and collected but it makes you want more. Also he is an amazing artist. Even though his books are in the childrens' section, I firmly believe everyone should read them. Along with this we'll talk about and study Japan. Adam also sent Harry and Sam beautiful calligraphy sets from Japan so we'll use those too.

3. Math: We'll just continue along how we've been going.

4. Science: We'll continue talking about leaves and plants. The boys have lima beans (yay) growing in our windowsill so we've been talking about beans and growing things too. Also, this is a big month for the garden. Jason and Harry have already planted the our peas so he'll check on those too.

5. Art and Music: We'll mostly try to get into a good rhythm with those.

I think next I'll try to post what we will be using for our Allen Say and Egypt studies.

So, how's it going?

Okay, I'm getting my thinking together about what works and what doesn't.

1. Reading: We love the picture books. I love snuggling and reading to the kids. It's not easy with Annika , but it's fun. The Charlotte Mason idea of Narration is great, it really does work. The only issue I have is what should Harry be reading on his own? He's past the easy readers except for content. He read the Henry and Mudge book in 30 minutes and understood it well (see below). Maybe he should be reading Stuart Little to me...I need to think (even more) on that.

2. Math: Math U See is great. Harry loves it. He can finish a lesson in only 15 minutes. I'm becoming a big believer in the 15-minute lessons Charlotte Mason advocated. It's enough time for him to do what he needs to do without getting bored or antsy. The plan is for him to work steadily for that 15 minutes and not dawdle so we can move on.

3. History: Love it. We are having fun. We did the cave paintings the other day which was a big hit. I also checked out the gross food book called: It was Gross and We Ate It. We have several big fans here.

4. Science/Nature Studies: mmmm...This one seems to be the hardest to do consistently. It's been raining and coldish here this week, so no one has wanted to go out and do anything. Including me. Next week, back on track. I have some ideas, I just need to implement them. (Ai, there's the rub.) (I promise to never do that again.)

5. Music/Art: I got a new book for art the other day and we looked through it yesterday. Harry really liked it, so I think we'll kind of go through the artists in there and supplement a little. I don't really know. Music--I've been turning classical on in the morning, but I tend to get a bit tired of it on all day, so we're working on that too.

Overall we're getting into a rhythm I think. Although it's so tenuous almost anything messes with it. It's a process...yeah that's the ticket.

More tomorrow. I'll also try to add some pictures of our cave paintings so it's not all just text.

What, and How, We Read

I put a bunch of new books into the "Harry's Readings" column just now and it occurred to me that most of them could have been put in the "Family Read-alouds" too because we read them together. I do not send Harry off to his room to read a book and then come back and report on it! I don't particularly want to kill his desire to read.

Most likely when we read the books Harry's column, we were sitting on the red couch, Harry on one side, Sam on the other, both of them trying to get more space on my lap than the other. Annika was probably either on my lap trying to get off to play or playing and suddenly realizing that she wasn't on my lap and needed to be! Our read-alouds are family affairs because they have to be. We are all together, we all like snuggling, and hey, I'm pretty good at reading books out loud. We enjoy it.

The main difference between the Harry column and the Family column is why we read the book. If it was for a lesson I put the books in Harry's column. If we were just reading, it goes into the Family column.

Also, if Harry picked the book out at the library for himself, then it goes in his column (ie, Hush, Little Alien--definitely not for a lesson). Sam's column is shortest because he's almost always involved anyway in both the lesson and the fun read-alouds. I only put the books that I read specifically to him in his column.

How's that for long-winded?!

Henry and Mudge

and Annie's Good Move

by Harry

Henry is a boy who was a cousin with a girl named Annie and she was going to move. Her cousin helped he pack. Then she was nervous and she went under the blankets with Henry's dog Mudge. She got some spots because she was nervous. Then they were all ready to go to the new house. Some of her spots went away. Then Henry's Dad lit a candle and all of her spots went away.

The End!

Thursday already?!

Well, after the excitement of Pie Day everything is all downhill.

We've had a busy couple of days. Sam's follow-up IEP meeting for speech therapy was yesterday, along with the migraine from hell. So I don't remember much about what we did, but I know we did something.

Today though, we've been busy working. Although it hasn't felt like that too much. So far I've read to all of the kids. We read another chapter of Story of the World, talked about and looked up pictures of cave paintings, painted our very own cave paintings. We've discussed why people would live in villages instead of always been nomads. HArry and I tried to answer the question, "what if we were the ones making the cave paintings in the books?" That would have been easier if I believed in reincarnation.

Harry did some math, but it took a long time since it required him to write the numbers 1-100. No small feat when you are six.

We did a lesson on aunts and uncles from First Language Lessons.

We took an Annika Walk. I really think we need to do that every day. Today we brought a little box with us too collect things that we saw. We ended up with a bunch of leaves and sticks. When we got home, we got out our nature notebooks and pasted the leaves into it. Then we made lines to the different parts of the leaves. For instance, the big line up the middle is called the "midrib." Who knew?

And that was before lunch. While we were doing something earlier, Annika grabbed the bag of beans for 15 bean soup and put some into a cup with water. We decided that we would see which one opened up first, so we got our notebooks out and glued dry beans into it. Then we predicted which we thought would open first and last. We'll keep checking on them and put the results in our chart.

This afternoon we'll talk some more about shearing sheep and A New Coat for Anna and be done with the schooling portion of the day! I love this.

Happy Pie Day

We did things other than make and think about pie. Really. I swear.

For instance, Harry amazed everyone (especially himself) with his stunning intelligence. He did four math lessons in one day. At this point it's all review, but the faster he can get through some of this, the faster we can move on to the hardest of all hard math concepts when you are six--Subtraction. (I think he just shuttered in his sleep.)

Anyway, today was his first day of co-op classes. He was signed up for an art class and something called "Kid's Club." He also had the option of staying for lunch. Once we got there he decided that there was no way in the world he was staying. It took a lot of doing, but he stayed for art and once he got halfway through that he thought maybe Kid's Club might be okay. So he stayed for both of those, but that was enough for one day and he came home for lunch.

He did great and really enjoyed himself. I liked going to the store with only two kids and actually getting complimented on how well-behaved they are/were, whatever. Anyway, at the time, they were very well behaved and it was quite nice. I think I bought more than I meant to since I was totally enjoying the quiet.

We picked Harry up, had lunch and the Pie Day Festivities began!

Now they are over and I'm tired, so good night.

monday, so far

Okay, I'm feeling pretty good today. So far we've...

Read A New Coat for Anna. Harry narrated it with amazing detail. I loved listening to him tell me of the "delicious" cake or the "beautiful" yarn. He then drew a picture of Anna wearing her new coat. Right now he is really into drawing the sky and clouds, so he spent about 20 minutes on that. Of course it's sea green. As apparently everything in the world should be!

He played with Sam after that for a while and I introduced some Story of the World. I read about archaeology while he played and then I asked him some questions. He got every single one. I also left a book on the table called Early Humans for him to find. He did and was completely amazed that it was "exactly what we've been talking about!" We looked through the book for a while and found a page on food, so I got some of the spices out that were in the book and we smelled them and wondered what the Stone Age people would use them for. We also spent a good amount of time looking a the weaponry. It's hard for him to grasp that the weapons weren't for fun or just interesting, but a part of a very dangerous life. He also wants to know why the people are all hairy.

We then went for an "Annika Walk." We go at her pace and all try to find things to show her that she would like. We found leaves and different types of grass and sticks and flowers. We tried to teach her to pat the flowers and not pick them, we'll see if the lesson sticks.

On the way home we picked a couple of leaves from our kumquat and tangerine plants to compare and contrast. This was actually the trickiest part of the day. Harry wants everything to look exactly right, so he has little confidence in his drawing. So we broke it up into very small pieces and got him to draw the tangerine leaf. He'll work on the kumquat later. He also wrote 3 things that were the same and one that was different.

Then lunch. Oh yeah, we had put some brownies in the oven before our walk, so we each had small pieces when we got back.

Now I have to do a little math with him and maybe First Language Lessons. But I'm not holding my breath. We did a lot this morning already.

quickie

Jason is going under the laser today, so I have a couple of minutes before we leave to say I'm okay. We have the rest of the curriculum and I have to say that I think I was right about spelling and handwriting. Adding another workbook/curriculum to what we are already doing would be too much. I don't want to have workbooks all over the house for every subject.

So, things are back on track. I will never be one of the Amazing Homeschool Moms. Right now I'm shooting for Pretty to Very Good.

major doubts

This is strange. Last week I was all fired up and ready to go! We were off on an adventure and nothing could stop us.

Right now, though, I'm at a standstill. I'm, to put it bluntly, freaking out. There are so many good things and important things to do, how do I do them? How do I fit them into my day while taking care of my home, my other two children, everything? How in the world can I "get outside as much as humanly possible" and still teach Harry what he needs and we want him to know? How do I get past this paralyzing fear I'm feeling?

I read blogs from these Amazing Homeschooling Moms and I want to move in with them! It's exactly the family life I want for my kids, just apparently impossible for me to duplicate in my own home. Maybe blogs from Amazing Homeschool Moms should have warning labels--"Professional Mom, Do Not Try at Home"?

I highly doubt anyone is reading this, and considering that I know all seven of you who know this site, I know none of you are homeschooling, but if you know anyone who does, or have any advice for me at all, let me know? Please. I need to get past this--for Harry's sake as well as my own.

Whooo Whooo

Owl Moon is a fantastic book. It's lovely that I get to read these books to my kids. We don't just read them though, we use them. Harry wasn't so into the book the first time we went through it. It's a slow, 'soft' book and it just didn't catch his eye. But I persevered. I had him tell me the story back (narrate) which he did. I had to get him started a little with some questions, but once he started going, he really knew what he was talking about.

One if the questions I asked him was, "are there lots of people in the story or just a few?" I expected him to say a few--a dad and daughter. But he told me there were lots. I wasn't real sure we had read the same book, so I had him tell me more. He told me that there were two in the woods--a grandpa and his granddaughter and the rest of the family was in the house.

We also talked about similies and metaphors. In the book Jane Yolen uses several similies, including one that says something like "the snow was as white as milk in a cereal bowl." We tried to come up with how we would tell someone about the ocean if they had never seen it. It didn't go perfectly, but it did plant a seed.

(This is getting long, I know, but bear with me, please.)

Finally I brought home a couple of owl books from the library and we figured out that the owl in the book is a Great Horned Owl. So we looked up where they live and what they eat and all of that stuff. We ended this by being Great Horned Owls hopping from branch to branch and eating mice off of the ground.

We got a lot in, but didn't beat the story into the ground.

Looking ahead

This week Jason is having the surgeries, so we'll be spending hours with him at the eye doctors. However, they've seen the one kids movie playing there, so we'll be using the time to do work. (I can already hear the "aww, Moms.")

Anyway, we'll be starting our composer and artist study this week. I'm going with Monet for art and Mozart for music. Somewhat trite choices I realize, but I already have what I need for those. I've realized that I tend to overthink things and have too much to actually do, so I'm trying to work on that. Also the Getty Museum is only a couple of hours away and we can go see some of the artwork we'll be studying. I'm not sure there is a great Mozart concert happening anytime soon, but oh well.

I should be getting the rest of the curriculum I want (keep your fingers crossed) and I'll start on those as soon as I can.

The rest is going okay. We do need to get out more. But honestly, it's been cold here the last couple of days and no one likes to go out. Before you start laughing, it's been in the 30's and 40's. So there. I can't take a baby out in that for any length of time.

I'm pretty pleased at how things are going so far. The libraries might ban me from checking anymore books out for a while, but that's okay. I have a stack to return so I'll do some trading. Other than that, I must go...

The First Week...

We were going to Start Homeschooling this week--get out all of the books, have amazing lessons and really get into all of it...then life happened. The kitchen and fireplace tile work that was supposed to be last week was this week. Add that to my eye surgeries and the week took on a decidedly "unschooly" flavor. I am also still waiting on the MathUSee curriculum, so our math has been with books I already had. I'm also waiting for Story of the World, so history is what we've always done--read books about history (novel idea, eh?). But I'm tired of waiting and want to get on with life.

So, in our abbreviated, crazy week, what did we do?

Wild Animal Park. Harry wrote the names of the animals we saw and was supposed to draw one, but it became a power struggle and he won. I didn't want the whole process to start with a grumpy "me against Harry" attitude. We've done a couple of lessons in First Language Lessons, read Owl Moon (a really great book), done a couple of pages of a math workbook, listened to Little House in the Big Woods, started a nature journal, cooked some stuff (pancakes), and played a lot.

With Owl Moon, we talked about the illustrations--how the illustrator used blue to make it look cold and still. Harry narrated the story for me. We talked about metaphors and repeating text and how the story is really a poem. We also talked about how the author used things that we are familiar with to help us see what she was talking about.

It's amazing what you can get from one picture book.

So that's the official stuff from the week. It's been good, but next week will be better. I'll keep adding to our learning until I feel we are where we need to be as far as information and rhythm. Also I'll post a picture of a painting Harry did showing his interpretation of Owl Moon.