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.

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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!!