Back to school

We enjoyed our break but it was time to get back into school today. I think everyone was ready, but we are still keeping a day free this week for a visit from Grandma.

We are studying electricity and magnetism and yesterday I read half of a biography of Nikola Tesla and started preparing questions for the kids so that they can begin reading when they are finished with the current chapter in their science book.

What a story!

His life was characterized by both his amazing mind and his equally hard challenges socially, including not being able to assertively stand up for himself. He was a sensitive and smart person who seemed much less macabre than most stories seem to depict him. I think part of that whole persona was what partly affected him socially as well. The idea that he was a wizard made people take him even less seriously, but he was truly amazing. He predicted television and sound waves and he invented alternating current, which is what we use in homes today. Edison had invented direct current, which was more costly and less safe. The book discussed a bit about why Edison did not want to jump on the alternating current bandwagon - but not only that - it became a personal vendetta against seeing Tesla become successful. Edison created a very damaging public campaign against alternating current so that he and his direct current wouldn't become obsolete and lose $$. Ahhh, the psyche of an American tycoon.

For hands on lab, the kids have been also working with their snap circuit set and learning about that basics there, as well. They love it!

I have my oldest delving even deeper in her social studies unit by reading the biography of Sojourner Truth. I am really trying to make the hardships of slavery a reality because it's something that I believe is sort of glossed over. Once again, I'm able to stress and dig more deeply into topics I feel are very important in history. Hopefully, I can raise critical thinkers who have an accurate view of history and can make sound judgement in the present day and for the future as well.

Chill out!

Read it here

I definitely felt this from Jesus last week and this is in all total seriousness. Hormones can be serious business.  Nothing ever felt like it was enough and I was ready to give up! Then I heard it to my soul. Chill out. I realized that they are learning so much everyday but the pace needs to work for us. I don't need to outpace public school and a child can have a scholarly mind and not care for others. I need to not freak out and then fail modeling my very own values to the kids. Kindness, gentleness...direction rather than condemnation to their hearts.

Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. Colossians 3:21

Being a mom that does many of the things listed in this article...feed baby mushed up food vs jar, cloth diaper for first year, teaching kids to sew, homeschooling and baking from scratch and cooking 95% of meals, I think maybe other moms think I'm "that" mom. Goodness golly, I hope not. I say the F word, I get grumpy and I hate my existence sometimes. There. Now we are equal.

Shall I go on???

Seriously. We "homeschooling" moms don't think we put together, so don't think that about us. If anything, our frailties seem to be put on display to ourselves. We're in a bubble. We struggle with isolation. These are real struggles. Yet, it is OUR decision. Don't tell us "you'd never do that" as if the decision was stupid, our beyond ability of a sane person. Because we're already fighting that idea. Sometimes more than others.

Parenting is hard, folks. Do you ever have any idea how hard before you become one to make an educated guess either way. No. So don't judge those with kids. And don't judge those who choose not to have kids.

Seriously.

Don't judge public school, homeschool...

Don't judge yourself. Life is a continuum and no state of mind, bad habit, or anything else is eternal, nor can separate us from God's love.

Just some encouragement that I felt fit well with my experience this last month with my emotions, mistakes, and contemplation.

Fall Break!!!

We are enjoying our fall break!

Meanwhile, we ordered this: http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-SC-100-Snap-Circuits-Jr/dp/B00008BFZH/ref=pd_sim_t_1

Snap circuits should be here today and we will be ready to talk more about currents. We're also going to discuss Tesla - his life, his contributions, and how he is somehow ignored in every science book. Not sure why he is ignored, but my kids are going to learn about his genius a little bit.

I'm planning on having the kids mount some of their poetry from our poetry unit and make a fall-themed display when we start back.

We are also going to talk more about the history of our country. A Young People's History of the United States is anything but tame, but I am going to try to find some things to give the children a broad picture of how life was vastly different for the classes and how life was pre and post slavery. Being poor is not deviance, but kids are taught from a young age that you control your own destiny. This can be true, but is also a bit of myth as well. Ken Burns is also doing a special on the Dust Bowl coming up on PBS and we will talk even more about the poor farming practices of the early settlers whose only concern was the immediate bottom line. What a costly error. Again, we see history repeating itself today in energy and agriculture. ie. genetic engineering, use of pesticides, etc. This is all apart of my plan to teach them to think critically and try to be observant of patterns in behavior that societies tend towards. In this way, they can hopefully become civic minded and engaged. 

But this is all mixed into plenty of "being a kid" time which is valued a lot around here!

We are reading through The Action Bible for devotion that I purchased last year. I really love this graphic representation. The artists did a great job!

It's a bit above my younger son's head, but he still likes the other devotions we have that are more to the point with questions and a verse to contemplate. He is full of questions and ideas but he is also still literal, which makes for some funny questions. 

non-traditional week

The public school will soon be taking two solid weeks off for fall break. I use these times as a guide to allow our little school some breaks. I definitely needed it. Some days I really don't feel I have my sanity left. It isn't school so much as it is the particular stages that each child is currently in. Baby is still clingy. We also found out she is a bit low-iron and I think it makes her tired and more grumpy than normal (I know how she feels, as I am also low iron etc, etc.)

We took Monday and Tuesday "off", even though we actually did activities. I think I am going to call it like it is, "unschooling". Unschooling weeks can be even more hectic, draining, and just more "busy" as they are *doing* things. I spent all afternoon Tuesday with ALLL the kids in the kitchen looking over shoulders as they learned to bake a cake from scratch. Measuring, pouring, stirring, and following directions is NOT something to take for granted as a skill. Making your way around a kitchen can save them thousands of dollars and their health in the process as we talk about healthy choices (I hope I am never audited on this claim because I seriously doubt we are "healthy". Maybe just not "unhealthy".).

It really is a priority for them to learn to take care of themselves and all three of them have a passion for cooking, baking, and fixing food. It's really wonderful.

So we did that.

And then today we spent houuurssss once again learning how to draft a plan, cut out a pattern, and stitch (properly).

For my eldest it was a lesson that has taken many tries to accomplish. Slowww down. Learn it. Take direction. Lose the attitude. Those are things we struggle with. But, you know what? She did it! She asked for help, she got frustrated a few times, but she kept at it and completed a project correctly.

I am proud.

My eldest son made his little creation more interesting but he was getting tired and some of it was learning even more types of stitches since he mastered the blanket stitch. It is just easy to mess up and these exercises are great for learning focus.

A really great visual resource

This morning I am looking for some videos to help the kids understand symbiosis, a concept that their science book only called "helping each other".

I think they should know the term and watching some short videos would go much better than hearing a lecture.

I came across THIS!!!!

It is organized by topic

Are you kidding? This is awesome!

http://www.watchknowlearn.org/Category.aspx?CategoryID=3091

More resources and thoughts on grading

OK, I need to some free time, so I am going to try to make this snappy. Excuse the editing if I miss a run-on sentence or something.

In a nutshell, this week was a challenge. I think it was only a challenge in my mind. I think we are all disengaging from the culture of trying to be just like public school at home and realizing that things are just different at home. A conversation that I have with an inquisitive child that only happens because he has the time and energy to even think and ask me these questions counts as learning. What grade can you put on a learner's spirit. I'm wondering about grades right now and I find myself questioning the idea of grading entirely.

I remember the program that we as parents were allowed to log on in real time and check the exact assignments our kids did and what grades they received in public school. First, I realized in a whole quarter of a year for my "high ability" student, that there were literally only a handful of things that were graded. A handful of things, people! I have no idea what he did all day, but I have a feeling that she was more like me than anything. She loves sparking curiosity and if I were to wager, the projects that they did were graded on a rubric, but a very kind rubric. I think she felt the students were successful if they were engaging and participating. She set the whole classroom up like that. No rows of students staring at a teacher gabbing all day...this is what I grew up with and it's hard to imagine what her classroom was like, I just know that it did not consist of rote memory work and classical drills all day. They were discussing, exploring, reading, researching, and doing things. She  personally developed the high-ability curriculum for the school and has I'm sure her very own philosophies on  how to make a child successful and how to engage the thinking skills in her students. But, the idea that I should have hundreds of graded worksheets assessing the smarts of my kid for all to see just kind of turns me off, and I think she got that, too. As a dear friend said of her child who was diagnosed with learning disabilities, "We like to create more successes than failures."

Shouldn't that be true with anyone?

Now, my fifth grader also had less work than expect, but her grades were tallied at the very tail end of the quarter with little to no explanation. When I looked at her work I felt that the problems did not allow for a small misunderstanding of material. In other words, there wasn't much work that was actually graded, and when it was, if you made a mistake, it was a weighty mistake because of it. I know she was kind of upset that work she would have spent a whole night on was not actually even read or graded. "OK" was marked on the top showing that the teacher recognized she did her homework - it was just that. Home work...not to be actually graded and applied to her final grade. I have a hunch that this is somehow because many students simply don't do their homework anymore and assigning it is a way to seem like you're actually doing school, when in reality, the kids that didn't do it, simply don't get a sticker that day. Dumb. And it wasn't teaching my daughter that doing your work actually matters. So she began to not take it as seriously and she would lose her work sometimes. This was simply unheard of in my day. In fact, NO ONE ever DIDN'T do their work. That would have been punishable with a detention and a bad grade.

So I'm grading work but also letting myself recognize all of these valuable moments during the day that they are learning and their simply isn't a grade you can put on it. With that said, one of the my top objectives is to get them test ready and ACT/SAT proficient. Which means reading comprehension skills, and learning math techniques that will be helpful to solve harder problems. We will also be working a little more with word problems than I think the public school does.

As promised, here is a list of more resources that we are using:

Each child has a Spectrum Math book which covers the testable core objectives for that year. In addition we are using this text for my sixth grader:



http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0967991595/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_9?ie=UTF8&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

I will also start using this for my third grader soon when I feel he is comfortable with all the things he needed to learn in his fourth grade text (jumped up for high ability last year in public school).

We use these for grammar practice:





For English we are also encouraging lots of reading and we have already done a big project in relation to science where each of the two older kids did a presentation on any living thing that they wanted to do. They had to list which kingdom and other classification information, habitat, human interaction, challenges, diet, etc.

Sis did a presentation on sharks and brother did a presentation on European Glass Lizards. It was cute and fun. They both had to use proper grammar and also learned how to research and start remembering how to organize web pages and such for works cited.

Owl Pellet Photo Journal

Today we took out the owl pellet that we had bought on a homeschool shopping trip with my friend awhile back. I wanted to wait until we had finished our chapter on ecosystems which also covers adaptations.

We will also be working on chapters coming up that have to do with anatomy, so it was a perfect linking exercise into that as well.

The owl pellet itself is an ecosystem for smaller insects like a moth - interesting! The pellet had a guaranteed entire skeleton of a starling bird inside. 

The following is a photo-journal experience of the kids opening up the pellet and finding the feathers and the bones of the starling. 

Starling skull

Brother trying to determine a bone part. 

Brother sketching the bird claw and making observations...

Piecing the skull and vertebrae together with the hip bone.

Academia and Field Study

So last week we finished off our first chapter in science. It stressed classification of living things. I created a test of a fill in the blank word box, also short answer, and just plain old fill in the blank. For my third grader, it was a little challenging and I gave him about five minutes to look in his book to get answers he just had on the "tip of his brain" *wink* They both got a B, so I feel that it was a success!

Yesterday was tough for a few reasons and I'm glad it's a new day and that by God's grace we can begin anew.



I realized I was being a little bit "all business" about school and we needed to get back into nature and get out of this house!! It was a beautiful day so we headed to the park with a nature walk, including creek walking (my kids' favorite).

Exploring near the creak

Flowers and tiny mollusk shell found near creak

They collected some items and I kept my lecture to a minimum (per Charlotte Mason's philosophy). I did sneak in some talk about erosion as we looked at the exposed tree roots. I also had the kids find a nonvascular plant and we once again talked about what makes moss different from a tree. We spotted some fungi (not a plant) and saw two different kinds growing under a very nice tree trunk perfect for resting with baby and watching the kids explore in the creek.

We followed with a picnic lunch and then drove to the playground portion.

Little Y had an utter meltdown and made a punching motion and grabbed my legs when it was time to go. He was so red and hot after playing at the park. It was a stark contrast to the cool shaded walking trail and calm appreciation of nature. How I love peace and so it was time to go home. Thankfully the screaming stopped when we got to the car (seriously, thank God).

Mommy and Baby E relaxing on a fallen tree

All said and done, it was a great day.

We will do some math time later and we do have our spelling tests today. I also wanted the kids to sketch their favorite find and write a little bit about that.

It feels laid back, but we are still learning. This is the beauty of home schooling in an eclectic style. You can exchange your schedule for a field day and enjoy life.

Cute fungi near the stream

But our schedule is working great with the blocks on normal days. The day is guided, but it's not a moment by moment thing. You can't schedule for one child needing extra help or some other problem, etc but it does help to know when we move on and how to get each subject done in the day. 

Scheduling and other early struggles.

Last week was a disaster of feeling discouraged.

We had to scrap the original schedule I made because Dad started teaching the middle schooler math. Except I am teaching math again. He is a back up but I still needed to plug in times for one on one.

My original home school schedule left me a shadow of a mom.

Not even kidding. For some reason, I tried to jam everything in the morning, and I ended up being a harried, horribly hungry, and totally overwhelmed mom. The baby sensed the frenzy and got fussy.

So last week was kind of thrown off because I thought I could just wing what we needed to do and when. Errands threw me off, my mom visiting a few times threw me off, and I just wasn't sure what to do and when.

Schedules can be comforting, I've learned - as long as they don't schedule every second.

And schedule breaks, for heaven's sake!

I definitely wanted to include my challenges and struggles in home schooling. So here is the first major one that I have had.

Scheduling for four kids, small group, church, husband, the home, the kids' other needs, writing, friends, family, never mind that I still haven't really scheduled anytime for my own creativity but I hope to change that soon!

I really don't want to be a resentful person, but I find myself in the victim role put there by myself when I don't give myself time and recognize when there is too much tension or stress.

So this week feels much better.

Here is my schedule. This is only for the main subjects that I directly lecture or have an agenda for. As with most home educated children, some other things are happening that are child led learning. And we are always looking for opportunities to show them "on the field" rather than from a text book.

Additionally, spelling lists are given and independent "for fun" books as well as books that I assign are also apart of our curriculum. Also, we do many creative projects that blend English and Science with art and those aren't on the main generic schedule.

Daily Schedule (this is adjusted if we have errands or piano lessons, etc):

9:00 -11:00 is my grammar and writing English block of time.

11:00 lunch, tidy, chore block

1:00 Science (lectured and discussed with the older two)

2:00 Coffee and Snack break

3:00 Math Block (kids tagteam watching the baby if she is awake for lecutre/learning time)

Bedtime - Books with Little Y and devotion time

With Little Y, I find myself working with him in the morning or afternoon when the kids have their work done for the day. For instance, today, we discussed the article on Chimps on his Big Backyard magazine subscription and we did a maze and made and read the little booklet.

He also made a card for his baby sister's upcoming birthday - so sweet.

We are keeping all media to a minimum for the big kids.

Little Y has game time when I am lecturing science, but sometimes he plays or does another activity.

Yesterday, I bought marshmallows and toothpicks for a learning activity and to introduce shapes, designs, and architecture. I didn't think it was as cool as I expected it to be. Mainly because the marshmallows were not co-operating. He spent over sixty minutes playing with it, so for that reason, I think it was a big success. I am sure he was learning tactile and other skills by doing this activity. Big brother also played with it some, but this was definitely more of a preschool craft.

What am I using?

I get asked this quite a bit, so I thought I would talk about what we are using.

I may break this up a bit depending on if the baby wakes up.

The first thing I should make clear is my love of science! I don't necessarily love measuring and data collection. I love the exploration, the questions it provokes, the fact that we really know so little and so there is always a sense of awe and mystery and more questions (which means more critical thinking).

Tangent alert: Did you know that critical thinking was sited as one of the biggest traits that employers of creative industries need but American students and the workforce in general are not providing? That's right. There is a need for critical and creative thinkers but there isn't a supply of them.

It's what makes people think things through and make good choices. The lack of it is what lets political talking heads get away with lies all the time. It's easy to lie with statistics...

Anyway. I digress. Tangent is over.

So back to science. Done correctly, I am going to raise - this is a goal here - kids who THINK, QUESTION, and CARE about the world around them. They will know the difference between climate and weather, yes...and they will be able to answer why it is important to conserve or why we should care about bees.

It's gonna be great.

So here is the BASIS of what we are learning about for science:

our science book

How am I adjusting this for my third grader and my sixth grader?

Well, first, my oldest never actually worked in this. She told me they opened it twice. You can't move on if you haven't covered the basics.

We are learning about cells, classifications, life science, matter, energy. The important stuff.

I also purchased a book of experiments that will help strengthen some concepts. We watch docs and we have lots of animated discussion to encourage thinking. Big sis does the challenge questions and little brother is working on his verbal communication skills with me by simply discussing what we learn.

Remember he has speech challenges and so this is part of therapy.

His writing seems a bit weak and he gets overwhelmed with writing. Even being in his "advanced" class, public school in general is SO WEAK on writing. It is amazing to me. I want him to like writing. I am a writer, so I am passionate about keeping it a positive experience.

In another post,  I will talk about English/grammar/writing. But for now, science is more of a discussion time for the little guy. And he has some of his science words added on to his weekly spelling list.

My sixth grader will need to be challenged with extra projects because she loves that kind of stuff. So, I'll try to keep up with what she does in that regard for science.

So ends the, "What are you using for curriculum science portion..."

Maybe it's the weather or the fact that my kids were at Grandma's last night and I missed them, but today is a great day here. We have lots of joy spending time together. Big Sis took the baby outside and ran around with her as she enjoyed the misty, cool air that is such a stark contrast to the weeks of hot and dry drought we've had.

Presently Brother has his nose in his second Judy Blume book that he can't put down and Sis is practicing her faster piano notes. She really is enjoying piano and I've noticed she goes right to it when she is happy and frustrated as a way to express herself. Oh, blessed success!! She's the one who is easily overwhelmed. We all can have similar tendencies, really, but with her it is such a challenge leading her into ways of re-direction. But, it looks like this is something she is getting better and better at, and she really enjoys and has the talent to get even better.


As we went outside today I decided today we will do our final entry in our science journal. I had the kids make some final observations and make a sketch of their specific plant now that they are yielding tons of good stuff.

They are learning how to care for a garden AND enjoying the harvest!!

pickling some peppers

we are eating lots of cucs  and they are so delish!!

Enlisting my in-resident math major for help

My husband and I are working this week to hammer down our math curriculum.

I came across this map. It might as well be a political map. For further thought: Why would traditional  states also have low scores? I found out in my polisci class!

http://educationnext.org/teaching-math-to-the-talented-map/

It really is food for thought. The article discusses that although the unemployment rate is 10%, businesses can't find workers with the skills they need. We will be outsourced if we can't produce kids that can think.

I made a schedule of epic proportions!!

After about two hours of hemming and hawing I made a schedule for the fall. With TIMES even. I had to make sure that one child was doing independent work while I was working with the other child. I think this is going to work.

I also know what books I need to buy. Not many!

Super time home education GO!

The vacation of July

So the kids went on a big road trip with daddy in early July to see their first ever live baseball game!

I was home alone with one baby and lots of writing work. They came home a day early...we all missed each other.

After that, it was well...break.

They wanted a break and since we had schooled through May and June I let it go to have any sort of schedule. We did learn this past month, but we did NOT do a schedule. We did do some trash-to-art projects. And watched some docs. Played "cool math" games (www.coolmath.com) and some other awesomesauce things.

I had a weird funk of a time adjusting to writing and kids at home and schooling. I am so thankful we started school and now I know kind of in a clearer way how I am going to prepare for the year.

I promised myself that after my Sociology test was over I could think about scheduling for this year, but not before. The writing didn't come in as crazy as I thought but I still did quite a bit. I am finding out that the insurance agent I am writing for is actually editing all my stuff before it goes live. He told me he needs to catch up to my work. I guess I was going through the excel sheet of web pages faster than he thought. And here I was thinking that he was waiting on me. haha. He is a super nice person. I know this because he gives me little smiley faces in his emails.

It's the little things.

Anyway. And OF COURSE we need to post lots of awesome pics of our garden. We are eating so many good things. What a blessing to grow your own food! We are just now eating our cucumbers. We picked the first one yesterday and they are so flavorful and wonderful.

We will update our science journals and post pictures this next week. Promise.

Also, I am happy. Happy to have some supportive friends here and it is going to make all the difference in the world as we embark on this journey. Isolation may have been needed mentally, physically, and spiritually for a time, but it feels so good to be around the living again!

Next week I go shopping with another mommy of four as we stock up on some (hopefully) artsy and eclectic awesomeness for this next year. My budget is low but my awesome shall be high!  

Garden Picture

Garden growth - compare with June 6th

From the left here is the jal pepper plant, huge cucumber plant, and then another pepper all right in that first row you can compare with about three weeks ago. We also have carrots, tomatoes, and lots of greens. Brother measured a pepper growth of about three inches and I think we are ready to pick that. The lettuces are over ready and we will be picking and eating.

We spent just under an hour outside recording what we saw, observing insects, recording measurements, etc...then we went inside and worked in a science text and read about photosynthesis and they learned about how parts of the cells work and they group into tissues, then organs. They answered a few questions aloud and then did the review questions in their notebooks.

Mom note - working with the three year old was a little challenge. He is at the stage of wanting something that he can't have. Someone needs the measuring tape or mag glass - whine...I did tell him he'd be on his way to a time out if he didn't stop. He did calm down and we talked about the cucumber leaf and he wrote out the 16 in 16 inches for how tall we measured it, and then he drew a sketch of the leaf and veins. It's shaped like a heart so that was a cute little leaf!!

week's goals

Last week was me at my minimum with the kids. Flexibility of starting right away is being able to take breaks if I need to...I had lots of school work and writing projects that I had to speed through all week to not feel behind! It was good to work but I am spending time this morning re-organizing.

Fae will be given her social studies book.

We are alternating between science and social studies during the week.

This article is really helpful to explain the Charlotte Mason style of learning nature (what kids really need to be learning at this age). The purpose is to build observation skills, familiarize with note-taking, labeling, etc. Note that mom keeps lectures to a minimum in nature and prompts the child to make his or her own observations with gentle questions. I love it. We will be dabbling in a science text when we are inside to learn the parts of a plant. We are going out to observe our garden outside. Some lettuces are ready for picking and our plants are getting big! We are waiting on tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, onions, and we unfortunately had tons of pigweed we had to pick and it killed our bell peppers :(

Charlotte Mason style:

http://www.squidoo.com/cmnaturestudy

and

Nature Journaling

I'm also going to be sending the kids links for math work from softschools.com and making decisions about our long term math format - online resource or textbook or both. I also found an awesome app that includes teaching, practice, and more practice that is really promising.

bones

Little Y this morning asks, "Mommy, why don't Tv's have bones?"

"Because only living things have bones."

Big brother pipes up, "Mommy, you said all living things have bones!! That's not true!"

Enter discussion on logic and listening skills. LOL.

Mid June - One Month In!

We recovered from last week's bad attitude from Sis...she turned in her draft but I sent it back and am teaching her that it's best to not rush through editing. She is going to keep it another day because she edited all the errors but then turned it in without a read through. Overall she did great with her information and I felt like she supported her claim pretty well...I will post the finished copy soon. I want to stress that last year she had less than a handful of writing assignments the whole year. She will have probably dozens and dozens each year at home.

What does writing really teach?

Not just typing or handwriting/neatness but planning, supporting your claim, finding reliable sources and citing them, critical thinking, research and development of ideas....and pretty much the only way you are going to pass college is knowing how to write a good persuasive paper.

She's still reading; she is in book 6, I believe, of Harry Potter. She is loving it. Also, I found a super cool book I will be getting at the library that tells you how to reclaim paper into usable items and art using glazes and other techniques. I'm hoping sister will love that...she is very tactile and loves to work with her hands and loves paper crafts. 

The checklist of activities everyday is going well. They are still doing chores, playing games, and doing activities that build math and or creative skills.

Every Tuesday is piano lessons!! She was intimidated at first but she is working through those feelings (yes a theme with all my kids and those feelings) and learning the piano!

Big brother is still working his social studies and we are using the writing questions to work on editing. He wasn't nearly as behind on multiplication as he felt. He knows most of his facts but is shaky. This week he needs to work on his facts for eight.

Friends - both kids spent time with their bff's this week. Brother's friend and his super nice mom met us at the splash pad and park and I got to know her a little more. Today Sis's bff picked her up and they watched a movie and hung out.

Little Y and I have been learning card games. He's really becoming a little guy! He listens and can follow the rules of a game. He's just such a sweetie. For Father's Day we played Settler's of Catan, which of course he didn't really participate in because it is a complicated game. It also lasted for about two hours. It got intense.

Natural Sciences -

Scarlet Tanager

We saw this Scarlet Tanager when we were at the park last week!! It was amazing and this red does not do it justice. Much more saturated than a cardinal.











And coming up soon - each kid is tracking a plant from our garden and measuring it and making observations. We did our initial measurements two weeks ago and this week we are going to see how much they have grown. This is going to kick off our natural sciences unit!

 Our plant that conveniently shows the stages of bud to pepper!

image: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Scarlet_Tanager/id

She said what?!?!

Today we had some familiar "negative energy" from Sister...she had a bad attitude pretty much off and on all day and was getting pretty belligerent at what was just a simple explanation. This is my challenge with her and probably will never go away. It really is a struggle she has but is getting better with age. She had some privileges removed and hopefully tomorrow her attitude is adjusted in a better way.

The part that was too bad was that she did a great job on her project. She is working on her sanitizer project and had to have the rough draft done in a few days. It sounded great, but when she added a cost comparison I asked her how many uses each cost represented...you can't compare unless you take that into account - or it shouldn't be included at all. She got really p.o.'d to the point of disrespect. This is real life. Kids give us challenges that are kind of funny, but so not funny at the same time.

******

Little Y guy is still continuing on with working in his little preschool book and learning letters. The other day big sister was playing school on the chalk board with him - but it was actually just "real" school. She was helping him learn letters. They do a lot of pretend play that ranges from ninja battles, to silly scenarios, making movies,  doing reviews - pretty random but my philosophy is that it is realllly important to their development both socially and intellectually to give them plenty of time to PLAY. To have an eleven and a half year old that still plays like THAT is pretty amazing. I sadly had gone way, way past that level by that age and was hanging out with older kids and worrying if I was cool.

I like that there is a sense of both orneriness and innocence in our kids.

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Little-big brother is working through his checklist every day, too. Last week I talked about how we are introducing a fourth grade social studies text into his learning. He has almost totally gotten over the intimidation of a big text book and I'm having him read sections and answer questions. The sections are very small, and the vocab is easily identifiable. I make sure he writes in complete sentences, and is mindful of neatness. He read the last book in his Percy Jackson series in about 24 hours and we need to get back to the library so he has a chapter book to read. For today, it was Calvin and Hobbes...we have all of them via Daddy's collection. Someday I should really sit down and read them, they are apparently totally awesome!

Garden

Sis recording in her science journal and Baby E being all cute.

Today the kids started writing and observing for their science journals.

We talked about the 5 main questions to ask and observe in science, talked about how it's always important to label, date, and describe.

We measured the perimeter of the raised garden bed and they had to sketch what they saw in the garden and date it. They will sketch again in two to three weeks any changes, and write down the changes that they observe as well.

We also saw creepy crawlies and the butterflies  were really interested in our plants!!

We planted parsley that didn't make it into the garden (whaaat!?! That was MY favorite, humph!!) into a pot and Brother wanted to plant some basil in a very tiny pot. Sis planted a white bean in the front and it is also sprouting.

I actually captured the butterfly!!!!

So...... things are growing around here!!

It was a really peaceful time outside and we were also able to relax and get fresh air. Sis was really happy and said, "We're actually doing REAL science!!" I'm telling you, I really can't believe how as she's getting older, she is finally connecting that all that crazy larger than life energy has can be used for good and not "ebil".

Really great. Really huge. Happy Mom!

My eight year old sometimes gets stuck in an anxious thought...no IDEA where he would get that from *sarcastic drip*.

This morning I decided that I didn't really think he was ready to just do an independent research project yet. Instead, I wanted to introduce him to a textbook. What to look for when you are reading, how to identify key terms and concepts...stuff like that. I think that skill comes before trying to find specific information on the wide interwebs, no?

So I opened up a social studies book we had and assigned him to read the first section. Now, mind you, the kids are EXCITED to do work -- they WANT things to do. But at the same time, I saw his face get all grumbly and he was really getting worked up internally.

Long story short, he finally "let it out" that he felt like he needed to get the reading and questions done like right away, like YESTERDAY pretty much. So we were able to talk him down from the anxiety of getting it done too fast.

Confession time...pretty much all my crappy moods come from not thinking I can get everything done that I need to, so that stinks that I passed that on to him, but hopefully we can work through those bad feelings. He did end up working through it and just got done with the goal for the day. He now knows what geography is and he got an introduction to social studies and started learning how to read and answer questions from a textbook!!! So, good day.

Even better was when he brought a game to play with me. I felt like he could have taken my talking to either way, but he still wanted to hang out and play Shut the Box (which is great for mental math haha)...gotta work all this in somehow!! 

Crafting

Three posts in one day is a little much but I wanted to establish here... just a few pictures of craft and free time from a few weeks ago for the kids and a link to an article about crafting.

For my birthday I got a few books about making felt creatures from my dad. :)

I feel like I am way too serious and this will help - that and my husband and kids being able to crack me up (this balances out the infuriating effect that they can also have ha ha) - anyhoo, I found this article about how important crafting is for kids.  Here is an amazing quote:

"It [crafting] has been shown to increase intelligence in seemingly unrelated areas."

There have been studies on the effects of say, knitting on the mind of the knitter and how it is pretty much the same as meditation!! I simply love hand sewing but have never really found myself too crafty, despite my genetics. I have some really crafty and artsy relatives. Aside from painting a few times a year, I really don't find myself wanting to craft and haven't passed that on to my kids.

But the simple creatures in the aranzo aranzi books are really fun. There are some pretty funny little descriptions in the book and it really ends up cheering us up and is super fun. I'm almost done with a robot panda for Little Y but Sissy made these creatures completely uniquely...there are no limes or pirates in the book and the faces were completely unique and funny that she made:

pirate lime couple. respect it.

Brother is still into lego building and is realllly into his Percy Jackson book series currently, so that takes his free time (does he even have free time because Little Y always wants to wrastle?)...he also loves making little comics and he has started his sketch book again. He really isn't as into lego as he was a couple years ago, but he did this one the other day - just a little vehicle contraption -  but takes patience nonetheless and I'm always happy to see what comes from my little guy.

So yeah, free time, projects, structured learning, independent projects --- Roots and Wings Academy is in business. 

First project

Sis was begging me for a project...this is part of her high energy stuff that can turn toxic if she doesn't have something to put her energy into. I really thought I was giving her enough but she says to me today, "I need a project, like pile on the stuff for me to do...I want a project to work on!"

We're flying by the seat of our pants here folks, but this is how we work, I suppose.

I say, "What project are you thinking? What would you like to research?"

Randomly she blurts out, "Hand sanitizer!"

ha ha ha

Without skipping a beat, I'm assigning her to tell me the history of when it was invented, who invented, when it hit the market, are there any warnings/drawbacks, etc

She is to write notes, an outline, find some pictures and be able to share all her sources. She has due dates for her draft/notes/outline/finished project.

Ahh, homeschooling sweet nerds is fun!

So fun. 

Summer begins

Goodbye, school year!!

The new journey starts now. This blog is a place for me to record what they do...part of what they do. The part that I need to recognize as apart of their education and to hopefully catch any gaps as well as recognize our achievements...and maybe discuss some struggles.

I may post educational articles and insights...I am not sure who my audience is and what I'll be comfortable sharing. Am I just recording what I do or sharing what I'm learning? It may be both.

I need to catch up from last week:

Everyone started on their summer/early fall workbooks through this line of books:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1609963326/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

*edited to fix link

Little Y is going through about a letter a week

He learned to cut with scissors

The older two have assignment checklists each day:

Three pages of workbook
Mental math practice on softschools.com
draw a sketch
read for about an hour
one hour of Skyrim
1/2 of free internet time
chores for each (for age level)
devotion time

Today Sis made bread independently which is a great skill!

Tuesday was library day and Sissy spent the day with her b/f/f

Our first garden is live --- learning first hand about life sciences and developing a love of nature/environment