Good Day

A few years ago on some of the blogs I used to read people asked "what makes a good day of school/learning?" At the time Harry was in kindergarten or first grade and I only had three kids instead of the four I have now. (Let me tell you, adding the fourth was both fabulous and crazy.) A good day of learning was when I read to Harry and Sam from one of our 5,043 read-alouds, we did a little addition and colored a lot. A really good day of learning was when I kept Annika from eating our math manipulatives. But there was also this intangible something that you could feel--connections made and understanding achieved. It was something that you couldn't put on a list but you kind of knew it when it happened.

Now that life is more complicated with running kids hither and thither and keeping track of what they are all learning and what they've had to eat during the day and oh my goodness, everything else a mom of four does I decided to revisit the idea of what makes a good day of learning.

For me, right now, a good day of learning involves staying home more than going out. We live in a place where the kids can go outside and play pretty much any day of the year, so outside play is important. Reading to the kids is important, whether it's a "school" book or just a story book. I need to make time for Emma every day. She gets her own read-aloud time and special books, but so often it's easy to just tell her to wait and then it never happens. Of course we have our formal lessons, those are important in any day. But I'd like for the kids to take what they are learning in one subject and make the connection with another. That may be the intangible part of what makes a good learning day. The importance of connections is also why I love doing classical education the way it's set up in The Well-Trained Mind. If we study a time period and talk about a author from that period and also study an artist from that period it really cements what that time period is about.

I'm sure there's more and I'll probably think of it as soon as I hit post, but for now, this is what makes a good day of learning.

Oh Joy...

Reading at dance class.

Apparently this week was a bust too. I just graded a bunch of Harry's work (and by grade I mean looked at it) and he had a bunch wrong in Latin, math, and grammar. And when I went to find Sam's I couldn't. It's either gone or I just imagined that we worked this week. I'm actually leaning toward imagining it.


Where do I go from here? I think a couple of lessons on following directions are in order--Harry's actual Latin was pretty much okay, he just didn't fill in sections of the charts. It wasn't that he didn't know the words, he just didn't finish the chart itself--so we don't know if the are singular or plural or male or female. I'll have him fix it on Monday and stay closer to him next week.

I will do a little review of grammar and math on Monday morning before we start anything else. Math shouldn't be a problem, he started Singapore 3B this week. The first lessons are on measurements--kilometers, meters, feet, and inches. It looks like he thought that a kilometer is one hundred meters rather than a thousand. So we'll go over that on Monday morning, he'll redo what he missed and we'll go on our merry way. Grammar is going to be tougher. He has been getting the same things wrong for a week or so now. Indirect and direct objects are his nemesis. So we'll reread the part in Grammar Island that talks about objects, I'll try not to pull my hair out and we'll go on our merry way. (I hope.)

Other things were better. Harry is reading an adaptation of The Time Machine (Classical House of Learning Literature) and The Impossible Journey to go along with history. We had a long discussion of Joseph Stalin which worked well with everything we've been hearing about Libya lately (I have got to stop listening to NPR in the car.). He finished his poem for "spec" in Building Language. I'll post it later. And best of all...we did science this week!!! I decided that doing everything every day wasn't working and now we have history on Tuesday and science on Wednesday. It actually worked. As did the science topic--electrical circuits. So Harry got out his snap circuits and we played after he did his work.

Jason brought home some dry ice this week. We had a blast (literally--they put it in bottles with hot water, closed the bottles and tossed them into the backyard.) It's nice to have a scientist for a Dad.

Sam read and read and read. He also kept going in MUS Beta--lesson 23. He actually used the MUS blocks to work out how to regroup in subtraction. But by the end of the week he had it and could work without the blocks. Emma was happy to see the blocks out and decided to do some regrouping herself, usually with the blocks Sam needed. Of course. We kept going in WWE--The Pied Piper. He has really good writing but spent more time decorating the paper than doing his work. First Language Lessons is going going going. He's on linking verbs and if I could find those packages of index cards I lost we would be moving merrily along. Where, oh, where can you be index cards.

Scary Annika

History is so fun when you are in second grade --Knights and the Crusades. I got a little worried when he kept playing Muslims vs. Christians though. The MUS blocks, the pattern blocks, the games outside were all the Crusades. But at least I knew he understood what he read. We did the maps and the coloring page too. Someday we'll get to all of the other fun activities. Science was playing with Snap Circuits with Harry and inspecting all of our batteries. He also recharged all of our rechargeable batteries.

That's about it for the week. Oh, and just for kicks, someone asked me if I'm having a boy or a girl.

I'm not.

I forgot to mention...

At least one of us was sick every day this week and aside from reading and a couple of days of math (not consecutive even), we didn't do much school work this week. I probably shouldn't post this, but in an effort to "keep it real" I'll put that out there. I eventually called off school for the week, called it Spring Break ('cause I can do that) and went around cleaning every surface in our house with lysol, bleach, and vinegar. But not at the same time, I promise. We're fine.

It'll be back to real life next week though. mwahahahaha. (aimed at the kids who think this week was just so fun.)

Books of the Week

I've posted the books that I've been reading to Emma this last little while. It's been fun to pay more attention to what I read to her and to make more of a point to read to her. It's hard when you get to be the fourth child and everyone else is so busy...sometimes you've got to remind your Mama that you may be her fourth child, but you are still her first Emma. Anyway, posting the books I read to her is a good incentive for me to read. It has me paying more attention to Emma and what she wants which is always good.

I read the book Room this week. I would love for someone who's read it to tell me so we can discuss it. Until then I'm going to keep my mouth pretty shut about the story. Having said that, it's an incredibly awful subject treated in an interesting and respectful way. Although I'm not at all sure respectful is the word I'm looking for. Someone just read the book please so we can talk freely, please.

Harry is on quite the reading spurt this week. Along with his school assignments he read The Penderwicks, The Penderwicks on Gardam Street and The Strictest School. All of those are well worth the time. In fact, there is another Penderwicks book coming out in May and Harry told me that a new Strictest School book will be out soon too. We're all excited to read them. He also read and narrated The Happy Prince by Oacar Wilde. He enjoyed the story and I enjoyed hearing him tell me about the story

Sam is in the Middle Ages right now in almost all of his reading. He's read about 8 books this week on the Crusades and Jerusalem and knights. It's perfect reading for him and Harry is right there just waiting for Sam to finish so he can have a turn too. Annika's class had a special reading day today so she took her pillow pet, blanket and three books. She took Knuffle Bunny, Each Peach Pear Plum and Panda Bear, Panda Bear What Do You See. Her teacher read Knuffle Bunny for a special treat. Other than that it's been all about Madeline Visits the White House. Not my favorite Madeline, but it's annika's and a special present from Grandma Hamilton so I'll read it whenever she wants. Mostly.

That's about it. I'm going to see if I can find the next stories in our series that we have going and find some new picture nooks for the girls. Oh and make sure I have the next set if Bob Books so that I'm ready when Annika decides she wants to become a real reader!

Other books I've seen the boys read at some point this week:
The Making of a Knight (Sam)
Crusades: The Struggle for the Holy Lands (Sam)
Castle Diary (Sam)
Harold the Herald (Sam)
Chanticleer the Fox (Sam)
The Golden City: Jerusalem's 3,000 Years (Sam)
In the Time of Knights (Sam)
The Time Machine (Harry)
The Reluctant Dragon (Harry)
The Russian People in 1914 (Harry)
Going to War in WWI (Harry)
Gandhi (Harry)

It doesn't mean that all of them are finished. It's entirely possible that they picked up the books, read a chapter and put it down thinking that they hate them. But at some point these books were in their hands. Or beds. I am always finding books in their covers. Hmmm, I wonder where that trait came from.

Homeschooling is Easier Than...

1. Getting everyone ready for school. It is so much easier to have breakfast and get dressed at a relatively easy pace than hurry, hurry, hurry everyone out the door. The kids have chores and things to do before we begin lessons but it's still easier than getting out the door.

2. Parenting. Granted that I only have ten years experience and there's a lot to come, but I feel pretty confident in saying that explaining 1+1=2 and the causes of WWI is a lot easier than trying to explain the inner workings of girls to a love-struck boy or how to put away toys for the fiftieth time.

3. Climbing Mount Everest.

4. Homework. Oh my goodness. The amount of homework Harry had as a second grader was ridiculous. He was pretty good about doing it, but it was still a pain in the neck and took way too long.


Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of homeschooling that is difficult. It's hard to know if I'm doing the best thing possible for each child. I have to find outside classes to teach what I don't know and the best curriculum to use for what I am teaching. I have to be "on" all day, every day.

But overall, for us right now, homeschooling is the best, "easiest" choice.

I Love MCT

Tonight at dinner Jason told us that a scientist at his work tried to rewrite some marketing briefs and the marketing people were not happy. He said that he scientist tried to make the marketing info more concise so it just said what it needed to.

A few minutes later Harry came to me and said something like, that's what I'm doing in my writing. I'm trying to use as few words as possible to get my point across. I knew he was listening when we went over his work in Sentence Island yesterday--we joked and talked about it like usual, but this was the first time I've really bad him make the connections between what we're reading and real life. Actually ha's not entirely true. I would hope that he would make more than one connection in the last six months. And he has, this is just one of the more recent examples and one that was totally outside of "school." He's made connections between his grammar and Latin and with poetry before.

I really do love the MCT Island level materials. I was thinking last week that I could probably use First Language Lessons for grammar and the MCT for everything else. I'm sure I could and Harry would have an excellent education. But I don't want to. It's fun reading grammar wih Harry. And honestly, "fun" is not a word I ever thought I'd use for grammar. I think I'll stick with MCT long term.

The Persian Ninja Zombie Series

Yet another poem by Harry. His assignment was to write a poem of four lines, using lots of de words. It's not one of his poetry assignments, it's from his Latin roots book. The book said that it's okay if the poem is funny, so he took that as a personal challenge.

Zombie List
by Harry

Deceased Persian Ninja Zombie
descended to deposit brains,
decided to destroy decayed cranes,
found debris and defined undead.

(originally poster 2/15)

I've Created a...Zombie?

There are very few moments in a mother's life when she can pinpoint change. Kids grow gradually and seeing things change in an instant is rare. Case in point, Harry. Great kid, incredibly smart, loving, a great big brother, all of that. Not one though to relish the idea of a poetry assignment.

Until two nights ago. I was making dinner (oh, who am I kidding. I was standing in the kitchen in front of the pencil drawer trying to avoid making dinner) and Harry came up to me, "Mom, I need you to move. I need a pencil, I have to write a poem."

So of course I moved (fell over backwards) and let him write his poem:

If Zombies Made To-Do Lists (title inspired by my last blog post)

If zombies made to-do lists there would be no brains.
If zombies made to-do lists you must be insane.
If zombies made to-do lists there would be a lot of undead.
If zombies made to-do lists...watch out, Fred!


This was that moment. And actually I'm really, really proud of him. For real! He came up with this without any prompting on my part. He used what he's learned about meter and rhyme from his poetry studies, and did I mention that I didn't prompt him at all?

I wonder if they consider kids who write zombie poems for Poet Laureate?

They should.

(2/16)

Zombies Return

Ex Poem

Persian ninja zombies excavate rocks,
examine explosions, expel executioners,
expect explorers, exercise executives
in order to find Excalibur.

(2/23)

Don't worry, these zombies don't die either. He's working on one for the "spec" words. I actually love these and hope he continues writing them.

Harry's Third Poem

Originally posted January 24, 2011

This one was the trickiest by far. The assignment was way too open-ended for his liking. It basically said to use any poetic device you've learned and write a poem. But finally he came up with:

Packing
By Harry

I bring the tent to the car
We pack it in, it's going far.
Then we stuff the blankets in the back.
We're almost gone when we've started to pack.
Next comes the jackets, hats, shoes, and boots.
We put in the pancakes, stove and some fruit.
The Rocket Box goes way on top.
It holds sleeping bags and mattresses, we'd better stop.
So much stuff, we have no room to move.
Still, more comes.
Our games, nintendos and books.
We're finally done, we're leaving now.
On last question before we start.
Can we play our nintendos now, Dad?

Harry's Second Poem

Originally posted on my other blog January 2011:


Tanks
by Harry

Moving slowly, tanks are going
through the rivers into battle.
Made of metal, things bounce off.
Metal five-inch thick protects
Marines inside.



The assignment was to "pick a foot, pick a meter, write a poem!"

It's not a topic I would have chosen necessarily, but hey, I'm not a ten-year-old boy. Maybe we do need to get out into nature more.

Harry's First Poem

I just realized that I should have posted these poems on this blog since they really are Harry's school work. So, this is from November 2010.


Harry is learning about poetry and the different ways words and sounds are used to create images. The book we are using is great, but the assignment at the end of each chapter is to use what he's learned and write a poem. This is not easy for Harry who can talk 'till the cows come home, but has a really hard time coming up with something original.

The assignment for this chapter was to pick a sound or a couple of sounds and use them throughout his poem. He chose the hard 'c' and 't.' The poem was originally about playing with legos, but it quickly became about the bear that lived in the lego forest.

Bear's Kingdom
by Harry

Pick green like grass,
A brown tree trunk.
Click green brick to brown brick.
Bear tosses rocks,
trees creak and fall.
Salmon tricked bear into
picking soft illusion.
Back to the bricks
creating the bear's cave.

Well, that didn't work

Maybe this will:

Harry Term 2

Sam Term 2

Term 2: Starting Jan 2011

I think this might work. I have planned the work out for both boys for the second term of "school." I'm trying to post it on the sidebar, so go there if you are really, really interested in what we're planning to do.

The Week that Wasn't

Sometimes despite any planning on your own part, any good thoughts, and any attempts to "do lessons" as we call it, the world has it out for you. And at some point you just have to accept that things aren't going to go the way you planned and salvage what you can.

This was a week like that. My car tried to kill me, Jason woke up one day in excruciating pain, and one of my good friends went through something amazingly hard and all I could do was pray for her and her family. Plus we were just really busy. We've spent hours at doctor's offices, had several playdates and other things just kind of happen.

So this week we packed up the work we could into bags and backpacks, tried not to lose too many papers, and soldiered on.

Harry worked on his math--it's still review, so that was good. He started Heidi but didn't get too far with it. I know he read Story of the World about Paraguay and Canada, but we haven't done the maps or other work that went with it. As for science, he did the book work, but we haven't had a chance to do the experiments that go with it. He's had ample time to read The Fellowship of the Rings while sitting and waiting in offices and we started Music of the Hemispheres. That was fun. Really. We sat yesterday waiting for Jason to finish at the doctor's office and made "whooshing" and "ssssss" sounds. That may be the best thing I take away from the week.

Sam read and read. He started Little House on the Prairie and Pippi Longstocking. I only assigned the first, he found Pippi and started to read. He worked on his math--skip counting by 10s. I know he read his history, but again we haven't done any of the activities for it. Sam did some science at the beginning of the week, but nothing since then. He also finished some grammar and writing lessons.

Both boys read a book from the library about the gross things through history. Now they keep coming up to me asking me if I know things like where people went to the bathroom throughout history. Yay. Harry and I have had some good discussions about slavery. We've talked about slavery throughout history and how it lead to slavery in the US. We talked about the time after the Civil War and how things didn't just become happy and good for everyone the moment the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. It's interesting to see him realizing that there are gray areas--slave owners weren't universally evil and northerners universally good. Again, I feel privileged that I get to be the one having these discussions with him and introducing these topics to him.

So, if I'm keeping score do I count this week as a failure or a success or something in between? We didn't get close to all of the work I had scheduled for the week finished and I there were a lot of frustrations. On the other hand, we did have some good discussions about slavery and the Civil War and the kids read a bunch of books on their own. I don't know. I know I like our weeks better when things are organized and things go smoothly, but I am pretty proud of what we did do.

But I won't mind at all if next week gets back to normal.

Week Five?

I think I lost a week in there somewhere. It may have been while we were traveling because I know I didn't skip any chapters in their books. Oh well.

So, back to work. I think I'm going to do this like a Top 10 list, rather than going into a lot of detail about everything. You're welcome!

10. Learning everywhere:


Harry doing his math while hanging out at Emma's dance class. Some subjects, like math, are more "portable" than others. Art, for instance and piano are not good lessons to take places.

9. Studying hard things together.

Harry's history program this year covers the 19th and 20th centuries. Those are years full of examples of man's inhumanity toward other men. I love that I can be the one to introduce those things to the kids. Right now we are all learning about the Civil War. Sam is enjoying the maps we color and the facts. Harry is trying to really understand slavery and what it meant for people. They are both studying the same thing, but they aren't learning it the same way. And that's cool, I don't expect them to. Sam will ask the same questions Harry is when he's ready.

I can say that now, but the Holocaust is going to be really, really hard on all of us.

8. Books, books, and more books.

Our homeschool is based on books. For the most part we don't use texts, we read real books. You can go back and tell me that Singapore Math is a text and even Story of the World is. And you would be right. But the basis of our homeschool is reading books. Harry just finished Little Princess and is still reading The Fellowship of the Ring. On Monday he'll start Heidi. Sam reads faster than any other second grader that I know, so it's hard to keep him in books. He reads a variety of books--from picture books to novels. He recently finished Beowulf (and loved it). One of his assignments this week was Owl Moon and he's reading Emil by Astrid Lindgren. At bedtime we are reading Little Men. Those are our major, assigned books, but there are others popping up here and there.

I love that the kids have time to read. It also helps, though, that the kids all really like to read.

7. Trying New Things.

Harry and Sam just started piano lessons this week with the son of a friend from Church. He's been taking piano for a long time and is great with the kids. Harry also started tennis lessons from his Uncle Adam and discovered a love of the game. I'm sure the Jamba Juice Adam got him afterward helped too.

6. Finding the "perfect" Curriculum.

Harry and Sam get lumped together a lot. They aren't quite two years apart and they are both boys. So it seems pretty easy to teach them together. But they aren't the same at all. Sam loves stories and making things up. He loves drawing and creating and seems to have a natural eye for that kind of thing. Harry likes stories too, but he prefers for them to be either fantasy or completely grounded in reality.

Sam likes to get his work over and done with so he can go back to playing with his Pokemon or creating something with Playmobil. I don't spend a lot of time trying to make it super-fun, but just get him through what he needs to do and back to his "real life." That's also a function of his age--he's not going to sit and work for a long time. We do short lessons that get a lot of info into him. Writing with Ease and First Language Lessons work really well for him.

We tried WWE and FLL with Harry and it was a complete bust. He hated them and it made both of us miserable. This year I got smart and started using Michael Clay Thompson's Language Arts program. So far, it's a huge hit. We all love it. Sam perks up when he's in the room and we are reading it, Harry thinks it's just a lot of fun, and he's actually remembering what he needs to.

5. Fun Stuff.


Harry's Literature book mentioned making buns. So he did.


4. Math.

I never thought I'd say that. Ever. But when you start giggling over place value notation and estimation it gets a mention in the Top Ten.

3. Brothers and Sisters.

She's not a true student of our "school" yet, but she really likes to do what her brothers and sister do. In fact, they all kind of run as a pack. It can be a little frightening, but overall it's good.

2. Art.

The school my kids would go to doesn't offer art. There isn't enough money for it. Fortunately we do have art in our school. This week Sam read Owl Moon and did an art project to go along with it. The best part is that I got some paints out and worked right along with him. But I'm not going to show you mine. That's the difference between a seven-year-old and a thirty...-year-old.


1. Looking out the back window at our bird feeder, noticing the birds and having the kids identify them by their calls. Something you learned together several years ago.

Cool...

For today's coolest thing, you don't actually have to homeschool, but it's a nice perk.

Sam's assignment was to paint and draw in the same manner as the book Owl Moon. It's one of my favorites. The kids think it's okay, probably because it's such a calm, quiet book. Sam read the book and we have a few things to do that mirror what's in it.

I sat down and painted with both Annika and Sam. It's just a nice thing to do sometimes. Sam really gets into it though. He knows how to make things look like he wants them to. In that way he really takes after Jason.

But it's always fun to take a while in the middle of the day to paint.

Pictures to follow when I have a chance to take them and the camera batteries are charged. In other words, maybe never.

Today's Coolest Thing

So, not every homeschool day is perfect and some of them just need to be gotten through, but today... today has been a good day.

Today we...

laughed our way through Grammar Island. I never, ever thought that might happen.

giggled while talking about place values up to the ten thousands

read book after book to a boy about to get a cast on.

It's a chilly, rainy day and we're about to make buns for dinner, ala Sara Crewe in A Little Princess.

Weeks Two and Three

I won't bore you with pictures of their math work this time, but I do want to remember at least a little of what we worked on in the past couple of weeks.

The kids started their enrichment classes the week of the 13th. So we now have a much busier schedule and things are a lot crazier than the week before. On various days and at various times the boys have a sports class, an art class, Greek and Latin Roots class, and chess club. We started the week off south of our house on a fun field trip that the kids loved. I even took Annika out of school for it, thank goodness she liked it or I would never have heard the end of it.

Anyway, that about covers the fun stuff that we do, let's get down to business.

Literature/Reading:

Harry is reading Little Princess and doing some work on it. I think I've said before that Harry hates all books I recommend until he actually begins reading it. I'm trying not to let the work he's doing on the book ruin the experience of reading it so I'm having him do about half the work required.

I also let him choose his other reading. I wasn't at all sure what he'd pick, but I was willing to consider whatever it was. Actually, I wasn't. But he didn't know that. And in the end he picked The Fellowship of the Rings. Go Harry. I pretended to think it over and told him, "okay, I guess."

Sam finished Children of Noisy Village and I had to scramble to find something else for him. One downside to using the library for a lot of our literature is that it sometimes doesn't come when I expect it to. Anyway, I got an adaptation of Beowulf for him. He really loved it. I like having him read books that tie into his history lessons. I think it's so cool that he likes stories and can recount them almost verbatim. He also read Jumanji and spent some time drawing pictures of animals in his house. I asked Sam to narrate Jumanji and he spent about seven minutes on the first three pages of it. I tried to write as he narrated, but it was really hard to keep up.

Math:

Harry finished his Singapore Math book. It was 2B, so I knew he'd fly through it once we got started. The best part is that he really likes doing his work again. Math-U-See was one of the first curriculum decisions I made and it really didn't occur to me that it might be a problem. I'm so glad that eventually I was willing to reevaluate it and find something better. Harry finished the book on Wednesday, but since I didn't want to start 3A on Thursday, I printed some division worksheets off and gave them to him to work on. We'll start the new book on Monday.

Math-U-See is still working for Sam, though. I do kind of wonder if I'm going to have to switch him too and if I should do it now or wait until there is a problem. I'm leaning toward later. Last week he worked on estimation and this week skip counting by two's. He breezes through pretty much everything he does and it seems to stick, so that's good.

Grammar & Spelling:

I'll talk about Sam first. He's doing fine. He's using First Language Lessons. I went through and selected certain lessons in year one and then we'll move onto the second year. Sam has memorized a couple of poems and we've gone over our address a few times. Spelling Workout isn't exciting and it's probably a bit too easy for him, but we'll finish it and move on.

Now, for Harry. I finally got Harry's grammar books. They are part of the Michael Clay Thompson language arts program. Harry is on Grammar Island and we've read the first few pages. So far, so good. Harry likes goofiness in his lessons and likes lessons that we talk though, so it seems like a good fit. But, we're only on page 17, so I hesitate to give it a "this-is-the-best-program-ever" review. Give it time. Harry's spelling program is called Working Words in Spelling. For some reason he hated Spelling Workout and really likes this. So, we're doing this instead.

History:

Let's see. Harry has read about Japan opening to trade, the Crimean War, Italy becoming a country and The Taiping Revolution. Seriously, SOTW 4 is all over the place. But Harry likes it. He's making connections all over the place and I like that. I almost forget sometimes what he's already read about and he'll ask me questions and it'll throw me a bit. Clearly there are worst things to worry about.

Sam read Beowulf, he's learning about Justinian and Theodora, St. Augustine and the Celts. SOTW 2 at least stays somewhat the same. I still really like both programs. The biggest problem Sam has is that his teacher keeps forgetting to do the fun projects in his book. But I'm working on it. He also read Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady. I made the big mistake of asking him to write about the book. Remember when I told you that he gives these amazing narrations? He only does that if I write it. Writing is not his favorite thing. But that's okay, he's only seven.

Science

Both boys did some science last week, but somehow we skipped this week. That's okay, Singapore Science is challenging and I'm okay with taking it slow. I would however like to make more of an effort to make those all important connections between what they are reading in their books and real life.

Anyway, that's the basics. My goal for the next few weeks is to add all of the fun things in, including making pizza, illuminated letters and mosaics. Those I will take pictures of.

Today's Coolest Thing

About Homeschooling:

Talking to Harry about The Little Princess and why Captain Crewe went to India. He wanted to know why Crewe would leave his daughter behind and go into the army. Then, on his own, he made the connection between what he read in The Little Princess and his history book that talked about the Sepoy Revolt.

I did have to attempt to explain the entire social structure of 19th century Great Britain to him, but the discussion we were able to have that encompassed both his history and literature studies was pretty cool.

Why should the "real" teachers have all the fun?

Back to Second Grade

So, Sam does not have the same amount of work that Harry does, for one very good reason. He's in Second Grade, not Fourth. Although, if you are Harry you'd probably assume that it has something to do with Mom being really mean.

Overall Sam is following in Harry's footsteps, or at least he would be if Harry had stayed home for Second Grade. I pulled out the plans I had in place and changed the name. Actually, that's not entirely true. I changed a few things because even though people have a tendency to treat them as interchangeable, the really aren't. This is a brief overview of Sam's first week of Second Grade:

Math: Math-U-See Beta. I'm letting Sam zip through the first few chapters as a review. He did the first two pages of lessons one through three and took the tests in order to prove to me that he knew what he was talking about. He did and we're moving on to lesson four. I have no idea right now what it's about, but it's safe to say it'll have something to do with multiple digit addition or subtraction, just like the rest of the 30 lessons in the book.

Here's some proof that Sam knows his math:



History: I'm separating the boys for history this year. They've always done the same time period, but I want Sam to have the joy of discovering the Middle Ages when he's actually interested in them. This time period was just made for a seven-year-old to discover. This week he read about the fall of the Roman Empire. I'm definitely going to have to get our Romans out of the attic. It'll be hilarious to listen to the stories Sam comes up with.


Science: I chose to buy an actual science curriculum this year. After trying and absolutely hating NOEO Science last year, it seemed like a good idea. Sam is working on Singapore Science 3/4. The first book in the series is called Diversity. The actual textbook and activity books are pretty basic. The homework and test books require more thought and will be challenging.

This is a page from the activity book:

I'm excited about science for the first time in a couple of years. Harry is using the same program, just a different level.

Reading and Language Arts:

Sam didn't start spelling this week, he will next week. He read Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say for his literature book. It's one of my favorite picture books ever and I was excited for him to read it. Unfortunately I don't think a 7yo can really get everything this book has to offer. There are themes of family, war, fitting in and others all in this little picture book. Allen Say has just done such a good job with it. Anyway. I talked to him about these themes and he grasped that the grandfather moved and missed things from both places and that's what I was going for. Here's his response page:


He's also reading Children of Noisy Village which makes him laugh hysterically. It's so fun. Like I said, I love introducing the kids to books I love and this is no exception. Sam just sits there giggling and then spends more words than Astrid Lindgren herself describing just what was so funny.

Sam started Writing with Ease, Level Two with a narration of an Aesop's Fable. I of course didn't take a picture of it (be glad). He does well checking off lists and having a predictable routine, so I think for this year WWE will work for him.

So, there we have the basics for Sam. There are a few things he hasn't started yet. I mentioned spelling, but we'll start grammar in the next few weeks too. Sam like stories, so I'd like to read him 50 Famous Stories and a few other collections I have. He's combining with Harry for art and the other "Specials." He'll start piano and sports again. I'd like to be able to keep as much time as I can free for him to play. I'm past making the early grades time-consuming. That doesn't mean that we skimp on his education at all, but I try to have him work "efficiently." Each year gets a little harder, just ask Harry. But second grade is still a lot of drawing, coloring, and playing. At least for Sam.

See you next week.

Back to School (Harry)

So, we all started school this week. On Monday Annika got all dressed up, put on her new kindergarten shoes and backpack and headed off to regular school.

The boys and Emma, on the other hand, got dressed in their regular clothes, probably forgot to comb their hair, and sat down at the desk in the loft. I'm pretty sure Annika was much happier than the boys were about starting school. Emma was pretty devastated to have Annika gone for three hours. Fortunately Grandma was here to help Emma get through it.

You may ask: "What is a homeschool day like?" And I'll answer, "it depends." Then you'll ask, "on what." And then I'll answer, "it depends on so many things you'll get bored of seeing quotation marks way before I finish."

Then I'll just give you a brief rundown of our week, complete with pictures. But I want to warn you, pictures of the boys' work is not that exciting. Don't tell me you weren't warned.

Harry: Harry is in 4th grade this year. He is studying the modern age starting with Queen Victoria, in History, right now he's reading Little House on the Prairie, and he's just started a new math program. He's also starting a new literature program and for that he's read an adaptation of a couple of Sherlock Holmes stories, he does spelling, and some other stuff I can't think of right now and that we haven't started yet.

Would you like to see? Ok...

Math: I switched Harry from Math U See to Singapore Math. The programs are completely different and SM starts fractions much earlier than MUS does, so when I gave Harry the placement test, he tested into book 2B. So most of it's easy review, but he really likes the fraction parts. I have to say, I loooove SM. MUS is great and both boys have learned their math facts well using it, but SM is better. Harry and I were talking about math this morning. We were looking at the books and joking about the different shapes and fractions. How often does that happen? I love SM. Here are pictures of some of his work.



Literature: This is the first time I've ever used a real literature program with Harry. It was written by another homeschool Mom who used it with her children. So far we like it. My only problem is that it uses adaptations rather than the actual books. Harry reads well enough that he could read the real Little Princess, but I'm not sure if it would match up with the work we have for the book so I'm hesitant to substitute it. Harry's favorite part of the program are the Story Charts. He uses the chart to decide which part of the story is the setting, the exposition, the climax, everything. I like that he's getting used to these terms. Again, it's been really fun to talk to Harry about his work and have real discussions over whether this part is the rising action or the climax and why. Here's a picture of his completed Story Chart for the Blue Carbuncle:


History: Like I said, he's starting the Modern Age. This week he read about Queen Victoria and the Sepoy Mutiny. This is the first year he's had to read his history book to himself, in years past, I've read it out loud. He's learning how to outline the chapters and his mapwork is more difficult than in years past.



Science: Well, we didn't get Harry's science books until today, so we're going with the nature is good theory of science. Get the kid outside and have him observe for a while. Ask him what he saw and expound on that a little. There, nature studies.

And a whole bunch of miscellaneous notes:

Harry's required reading this week is Little House on the Prairie. He has an interesting way with books. If I choose it, he automatically assumes that he'll hate it. If I force him to read, by the second chapter he almost always get into the book and begin to like it. I've shown him the pattern and we laugh and he agrees that it's kind of silly and then it starts over again each and every time.

So now I just tell him to suck it up, deal, and read. So he's enjoying LHOP and it's really fun for me to hear his observations. One of the best parts of homeschooling is picking the books you liked as a child and introducing them to your kids. I know that you don't have to homeschool in order to do that, but hey I do, it's my blog and I'm saying it's cool to be a homeschool mom. Once or twice a week I have Harry write about what he read.



We do spelling, but it's not real interesting, so I'm not going to post any pictures. Although, you probably could debate whether any of the pictures were interesting, so here is a picture of Harry's spelling work:


We haven't started everything yet. Latin will come next week and once Harry's other Language Arts books get here, we'll add those in. Fourth grade is a big deal around here. There's a lot more work and more responsibility but I'm trying to balance that out with some freedom. Harry and I will talk about which books he'd like to read through the year. He'll get to pick from a list of books I've approved. (Of course, his non-school reading is his choice.) And I'm planning to do more projects with him. I also have one fun thing each day planned. At least I think it's fun. It's kind of like Specials. We'll do Shakespeare on Monday, Art on Tuesday, etc. Ending up with Beach Day Friday.

This is really long. I can promise you that future weekly posts won't be this long.

Now, off to Sam.