Week 3 ~ In Our Groove!

We had a great week. I even heard each child say that they loved learning and that learning was fun! We really are hitting our stride. I love it when everything falls into place before out of the home classes start. Our learning definitely feels better than it has in more than a year. Everyone is more eager, everything is getting done and then some, and there is general calmness when there should be. What a blessing!

Goldilocks ~ She still did school work in her room most days. Her favorite subject this week was literature. She loved listening to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and is working on a decent book report. I had a book filled with workbook pages to fill out for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but she found them too difficult. They were geared for 3rd through 5th grade. I shelved it for her siblings. She also enjoyed identifying emotions in different characters in a few Cosby Shows. This is good practice for her since she often has trouble reading facial expressions and social cues. Otherwise, she did lots of math and writing this week. She went on our family field trip this week and joined us for our poetry tea.

The other children had a busy week. One of their favorite activities this week was checking on the ducks and geese at the local lake. They did drawings, counted the ducks and geese, fed them a loaf of bread, and even managed to pet a few of them. One of them even crawled into my lap to get a piece of bread. We also saw a Great Blue Heron this time.

American Girl Doll Club ~ We had the first meeting of our American Girl Doll Club this week. It was fantastic. We are doing Rebecca 1914 this quarter. The girls made pot holders and decoupaged boxes to fill for the Meals On Wheels Christmas drive in a few months. The boxes are so nice. The other mother read aloud most of the first book while the girls worked on their projects. We will be meeting another time to make a Jewish/Russian feast with the girls. It should be fun!

History and Literature ~ We finished The Wright Brothers. Tom Sawyer and Little Red Riding Hood loved this book. We then moved on to the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919. We watched this youtube documentary. It was excellent. We then made molasses sugar cookies. Of course, we then had to recreate the great molasses flood (see photo below). The kids also watched a Netflix DVD, Unsolved History Mysteries ~ 1906 San Fransico Earthquake. This was a neat DVD because it looked at the earthquake from an engineering and structural building point of view. We finished off by adding the new info to our scrapbook timeline. Lastly, we read Sky Boys How They Built the Empire State Building.

Poetry Tea ~ Our poet this month is Carl Sandburg. The kids were really excited about this poet because he lived just a few towns from us. So this week, we visited his goat farm and fell in love with the goats. I think we may need a goat or two to maintain our yard. It is so overgrown that using goats to eat the grass and weeds indeed would be perfect. My husband thinks I'm nuts, but that's nothing new. We started the morning off with a poetry tea. I read them a few poems and then we watched this YouTube poem ~ Skyscrapers. This was excellent and a perfect connection to our architecture study. The kids then took turns filling in pages of a Carl Sandburg activity book. Then we were off to Connemara. We did not go into his house this time, since the kids were enjoying the goats too much to force them into a house tour. They worked on their Junior Ranger badges and looked through a scrapbook of the house. That was almost as good as if we had taken the tour.

Blessings, Dawn

Our Learning Spaces ~ 2013-2014

Our home has been taken over by homeschooling. This is on purpose. We want our children to know that learning occurs everywhere and all the time. It is also practical for all of us to be able to spread out at times and learn in different spaces. We moved in November of last year. It was a great move for our family. We got into a home that we had had an eye on for years in a much better neighborhood. However, it was a foreclosure and had fallen into disrepair. As so often happens when a home is foreclosed upon, the previous owner had stripped the home of kitchen cabinet doors, drawers and hardware; ceiling fans; smoke detectors, light switches, etc. There was tons of work to do! So we spent much of the remainder of the school year trying to find a quiet space to learn away from the noise and chaos of workers who were trying to make our home safe and functional. We are so relieved to have our home to ourselves and be able to spread out this year. Also, our oldest dd is working on her own in her room most of the time. She prefers the quiet and a more workbook/textbook approach than the others.

Our main hub is the dining room/kitchen. This area is where we do our table work, spelling, computer math and indoor science experiments. We also use the table for cooking as well as to play board games. Sometimes Tom Sawyer and Little Red Riding Hood work at the counter that divides the dining area and kitchen and sometimes they work at the table.

We do our spelling on the floor in this cozy little corner.

This armoire in our dining room holds the most popular of our games, plus the current quarter's school books and resources.  

In our library, I do lots of reading with Little Red Riding Hood and Tom Sawyer. They enjoy curling up while I read literature, history picture books and living math books to them. Sometimes while I read, they sit on the floor to work on a puzzle or draw.

The telescope was a thrift store purchase last year. We plan to study some astronomy this year and are looking forward to enjoying the night sky. Also, we are planning on creating a bird feeding station outside this window this fall. It should provide some great nature studies right at our finger tips.

Our daughter who prefers to work in her bedroom has a shelf right outside her door holding the materials she is currently using. I use an assignment book to keep all of her studies in order and help her work on organizing skills. Sometimes a small TV/video player is on the shelf and she gets to set it up and watch educational videos. (It's getting harder to buy videos, though.) Other times there is a craft or puzzle on the shelf. She is excited to see what is waiting for her each morning.

We also are blessed with a family room in the lower level of this house. As much floor space as possible is left open, because the kids do lots of spontaneous dancing and theater performances. They also use this space for building with Wedgits, Lincoln Logs, and blocks. In addition, we watch some educational movies in this area and do many puzzles. The white cabinet is filled with our science materials and the other bookcase holds our Christmas books, library books and geography boxes.

Our stairwell is filled with posters. It goes between the family room and dining room, so it is handy when we need to look at a poster for reference.

We also have a small closet off of the kitchen which we use as our art cabinet. It is a bit of a mess because the kids use it a lot.

Lastly, we have our large yard (3/4 of an acre) to explore. We haven't really gained control of it yet since no yard care had been done to it in YEARS, so the education out there is about how to use tools, how to identify poison ivy, how to mow the grass and learning what is edible in the yard (apple tree, grapes, herbs). Then there is all of the running, jumping and cartwheels to do (physical education). Yep, homeschooling has taken over our home and we are so glad!

Thanks for popping in and visiting our homeschool.

Blessings, Dawn

Week 2 ~ And So It Begins

Time flies when the learning is fun! This second week of school flew by. We are all just loving our new learning environment. Little Red Riding Hood and Tom Sawyer really enjoy each other's company during lessons, and Goldilocks is loving the peace and quiet  in her room. She also loves the small TV/Video player being dragged into her room for educational videos a few times a week. Ha!

What Goldilocks Did Alone This Week ~

• Read the Magic Tree House book, Thanksgiving on Thursday
• Filled out a book report template
• Wrote a book report draft and then final book report
• Completed many language arts work book pages
• Attended math tutoring
• Completed math assignments each day
• Watched videos on Rosa Parks and Magic School Bus dinosaurs
• Worked on a 200 piece puzzle
• Did the first Baroque Squilt Lesson
• Did eight lessons in Draw Write Now book 2

What Little Red Riding Hood and Tom Sawyer Did This Week ~ 

• Did three lessons in Teaching Textbooks 
• Did Xtramath.org everyday
• Did two Lessons (18 pages) in Explode the Code (Little Red)
• Studied how to write a really good topic sentence
• Finished Life of Fred book, Edgewood
• Started Life of Fred book, Farming
• Did a unit study on skyscrapers using A Kaleidoscope Kids Book Skyscrapers ~ this included building with Wedgits; building a cardboard city; learning about city planning; and learning about building materials, structural strength, what an architect does, and much more.
• Continued learning about the Wright brothers and read a Landmark book about them. Warning~ if you read this book with your children, they will become mad inventors and drag every piece of metal and wood scraps you have into the yard for their laboratory! LOL
• Squilt lesson 1 ~ They loved it!
• Started exploring wood carving
• Burned our freshly built city down and talked about fire safety, how fires spread, and why cities are safer now than they were during the time of the Chicago Fire and Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
• Watched the movie, From Time to Time ~ about a boy during WWII who is able to talk to his ancestors from the 1800's and saves the family home when he finds lost treasure.

Out and About ~  We had two play dates this week. We also spent a lovely afternoon at the pool and another at the roller skating rink. It was the first time at a roller skating rink for Tom Sawyer and Goldilocks, and they spent lots of time trying not to break their necks. Tom Sawyer and Little Red Riding Hood got the hang of it, but poor Goldilocks came home with an unfair amount of bruises. I couldn't get a single picture of Goldilocks to come out. She was embarrassed by my photo taking anyway. They can't wait to go back. Tom Sawyer also had physical therapy.

Lastly ~ The kids really wanted to earn some extra money and we had a yucky job that required little bodies. It was a perfect match. The kids cleaned out our crawl space (which is under about one-third of our house). It was filled with metal, wood and other building materials from the 1950's. They were really brave and got it done in two hours. They each earned $10 plus a trip to the pool (using the money the metal brought us at the scrapyard). I was proud of them for sticking with it and doing a good job. Goldilocks is grimacing in this photo because she didn't want to wear her dust mask, and her Daddy said she had to.

I am joining ~

Blessings, Dawn

Learning Goals ~ 2013-2014

Our family has been homeschooling for the last 15 years! Wow, that number amazes me. We have evolved from a unit study approach ~ to Charlotte Mason ~ then Charlotte Mason/Unit Study ~ a few years using the Classical approach with unit studies ~ and a year of way too many workbooks and drudgery. This year, we are going full circle back to relaxed unit study literature approach with an emphasis on the 3 R's. Our children being schooled this year are 9, 11 and 12. We also will be doing learning time differently for our 9 year old and 11 year old children than for the 12 year old. In addition, we have a grown son who is disabled and lives at home with us. He was our first homeschool student and has graduated.

Goldilocks (12) ~ I will talk about her learning goals first. Our dd who is 12 prefers to work alone in her room and do workbooks, listen to books on tape, and learn without any instruction from me. This is partly because of her personality and partly because she has attachment and adoption issues and is struggling right now with being a member of our family. It seems best to give her a bit of space so that the moments she is with us can be more nurturing. This is a huge leap of faith for me, since she also has Fetal Alcohol Effect and is very behind in grade level. However, I need to try something different with her and this is it for the first quarter, at least.

Math ~ 

• Tutoring one to two times a week
• Her Special Ed teacher/tutor will be sending her home with a few math projects for the week.
• Using www.xtramath.org
• Practice "real world" math -- shopping, cooking, measuring, gardening

Language Arts ~ 

• Writing a book report every week ~ draft and final
• Lots of workbook pages from spelling, grammar, and vocabulary workbooks
• Lap books for different mini-unit studies
• Written reports of any education videos she watches
• She is going to read one to two Magic Tree House books every week.
• She will be having a reading tutor to begin in the fall.

Fortunately, she likes to write a great deal. I just need to keep giving her the resources that will guide her to improve her spelling, grammar, and writing.

Literature ~ 

• Listen to high quality books on tape picked out by me
• She is starting with the Narnia series.
• She is going to watch worthwhile literature-based movies, using the curriculum To Kill A Mockingbird and 24 Other Movies.

Art/Music ~ 

• Doing crafts at the Arts for Life table that we visit once a week when her brother is getting physical therapy at the hospital
• Squilt Lessons with siblings
• Crafts with our American Girl Doll Club that I am organizing this year
• I will keep my eye out for other opportunities.

Physical Education ~ 

• Gymnastics with the Special Olympics
• If we have time, she will also be doing Special Olympic cheer leading and/or a running club for girls.

History/Science ~ 

• She will be learning science and history through field trips, easy readers, books on tape and lap books. We are focusing on the 1900's this year for both history and science. I know my plans for her seem weak, but she really is not interested in learning in general. Academic learning is not the most critical goal for her this year.

Tom Sawyer (11) and Little Red Riding Hood (9) ~ These two are often two peas in a pod. They both love science and math. They love hands-on activities and lots of field trips. Tom Sawyer is a strong reader, but doesn't adore reading. Little Red Riding Hood needs to become a stronger reader. They both dislike writing and need to become better at expressing themselves through the written word. We will be focusing heavily on language arts this year because they need it and on science/math because they love it.

Math ~ 

• Teaching Textbooks 4 and 5
• Using www.xtramath.org
• Life of Fred ~ We are on Edgewood and plan to do as many books as we can this year.
• Lots of living books and hands-on activities

Language Arts ~ 

• All About Spelling levels 2 and 3
• Explode the Code a new level each quarter for Little Red Riding Hood
• Beyond Explode the Code for Tom Sawyer
• Lots of book reports
• They will read at least one chapter book a week.
• Vocabulary workbooks
• Many writing projects
• A research paper with presentation to friends and family

Literature ~ 

• Unit Studies with Beyond Five In A Row (FIAR)
• Thomas Edison Young Inventor Beyond FIAR
• Helen Keller Beyond FIAR
• Marie Curie Beyond FIAR
• The Saturdays Beyond FIAR
• Cricket In Times Square Beyond FIAR
• Homer Price Beyond FIAR
• Number the Stars
• Snow Treasures
• Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
• Neil Armstrong
• The Watsons Go to Birmingham 1963
• Great books on tape found at the library

Art ~ I love art all the time, but the kids go through phases of loving art and then getting tired of it. This is my plan if they enjoy art this year. If they are not enjoying it this year, we will do fewer artists.

• Unit study on Architecture
• Frank Lloyd Wright
• Harlem Rennaissance
• Jacob Lawrence (Meet The Masters)
• Dorothea Lange
• Jackson Pollock
• Georgia O'Keefe (Meet the Masters)
• Frida Kahlo (Meet the Masters)
• Joan Miro (Meet The Masters)
• Alexander Calder (Meet the Masters)

Music ~ 

• Squilt lessons Baroque Period
• Jazz unit study ~ Duke Ellington, Josephine Baker, Bessie Smith, Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong
• Rodger and Hammerstein Musicals unit study
• Rock and Roll unit study ~ Elvis and The Beatles
• Folk Music ~ Simon and Garfunkel, Peter Paul and Mary

History ~ I am not going to list everything here. However, we are doing the time period of 1900 to the 1960's (I hope). There will be tons of hands-on activities and field trips. Here is a list of our resources.

• Living picture books
• The Story of Us DVD series
• The Century book on tape by Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster
• The Century for Kids by Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster
• Chapter books from our literature unit studies
• American Girl Doll Club ~ We will be using Rebecca 1914, Kit 1934, Molly 1944 and Julie 1974 as study guides.
• Tom Sawyer will be learning about a famous man for each of the same general time periods as the dolls we'll be studying in the American Girl Doll club ~ Teddy Roosevelt, Jackie Robinson, Neil Armstrong, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Science ~ 

• Thomas Edison
• Marie Curie
• Snap Circuits
• Robotics ~ We are buying the next generation of Lego Mindstorm when it is released this fall. This will be our first Mindstorm set. Tom Sawyer is so excited, he is ready to burst.
• Astronomy Real Science 4 Kids middle school
• If we need more ~ Einstein and Physics with Toys

Out of the Home Classes ~

• Little Red Riding Hood has been accepted into Tween Company at our dance studio. This is a big step for her. She loves to dance and would like to do something with dance as a career. She will be in dance classes 4 hours a week and at least two different theater performances with multiple shows.
• Tom Sawyer will be taking a class in boy theater and dance again this year. He will also be in two theater performances with multiple shows.
• Tom Sawyer has a few more months of physical therapy.
• Both will be taking classes in gymnastics.

Home Economics ~ We will be doing lots of cooking for everyone this year. I am planning on letting them plan the menu and prepare the meals several times a month.

Wow! Thanks for hanging in there. We may not get to all of this, but these are our goals.

Blessings, Dawn

Week 1 ~ Back to School

Well, we started back to school on Monday. We never completely stopped this year, but we are now officially recording all that we do for our 2013-2014 school year. We will be increasing our workload until we are doing our full load over the next week. I just wasn't organized enough to pull off any fanfare for the first day of school. We didn't have box day ~ since I haven't ordered our new loot yet. Also, we skipped getting any back-to-school photos (no fresh haircuts) or buying back-to-school shoes (because there are more pressing things to spend money on). Also, I just want to change the kids feelings about "school". I want them to think about life being a learning experience ... not school time being the only time when we learn. I think we lost sight of that fact with all of the medical/emotional issues among my special needs kids. In the last two or three years, there has been way too much of a push to get school time done. I spent a bit of time this summer reading my young adult Timothy's homeschool lesson plans from his childhood and found them refreshing. I also found reading the book, Weapons of Mass Instruction, to be a timely reminder and very encouraging. I would really like to get back to a more relaxed approach. That doesn't mean less education, but it does mean more hands on, taking advantage of opportunities, and taking into account what is important to the children versus relying on what I think they need to learn. To my surprise, no one seemed to even notice that there was a lack of fanfare. They are just excited about having learning time centered more around their specific desires.

Vacation Bible Camp ~ Goldilocks attended an all day Musical Bible Camp this week. It was a unique camp because some of the staff knew about her special issues and she had a few younger friends who were attending. One of the most amazing things about this camp was the staff/camper ratio. They had 57 teen and adult volunteers and 61 campers. Yes, you read that right. She was very motivated to behave herself since it gave her a break from us. She was really relieved to be out in the world without family around her. We really enjoyed a calm week of school without the chaos that often occurs when she has had enough of family/sibling relationships (she has sometimes had enough within an hour of being awake). She finds it so much easier to deal with superficial relationships that just require a bit of casual conversation. I had her do math every day before she went to camp and 20 minutes of reading in the evening. With all of the great activities they did at camp, she completed a full day of "school" each day. This is what they did:

• many hours of choir practice
• practiced her two spoken sentences to be performed in the play tonight
• a science project each day
• a craft each day
• Bible stories and verse memorization
• set design and set up

Tom Sawyer and Little Red Riding Hood's Learning Time ~ We got off to a great start this week. We started building a city out of food boxes for our study of architecture. We are specifically learning about skyscrapers and city planning during this week and next. There will be lots of photos of our city and the experiments we are doing with it next week. Here is the rest of what we did.

• 10 chapters of The Life of Fred Edgewood
• The Story of Us DVD episodes "Cities" and "Boom" (1895 -1930)
• Reading every day
• www.Xtramath.org
• Teaching Textbooks three times
• Read six chapters of Landmark book, The Wright Brothers
• Built and flew a styrofoam plane
• Lesson one of Explode the Code 4 1/2  (9 pages) Little Red Riding Hood
• Five pages in a vocabulary building book ~ Tom Sawyer
• Building our city
• Physical therapy ~ Tom Sawyer
• Craft time at the hospital ~ Little Red Riding Hood
• Nature study of geese and ducks (we hope to study these same geese and ducks throughout the year)
• Making Pizza from scratch and setting up a pizza parlor for the family

Here they are testing out their plane. It does more loops than flying straight. We hope Daddy can help us out with it this weekend (not that loops aren't really cool as long as it doesn't happen in a real plane). This Mom is very afraid of flying.

Blessings, Dawn