Week 30 ~ A Hands-on High School Education

The week was an emotional one for my youngest son. There were no major reasons, just lots of little things that weren't perfect and way too many hormones. The week flowed nicely, nonetheless, due to routine and hands-on learning. We had a great hands-on learning week. Dean decided to make a banner for his live action role-playing games. He made blueprints of his design complete with tons of measurements. Then he enlarged the measurements to work with his materials, measured twice, cut once, glued, sewed and made a stick into a post using the band saw. It took him most of a day and he stayed focused even when there had to be breaks for appointments. I love self-motivated learning. 

Our second Eureka Crate also arrived this week from the KiwiCo. I just love this company and their products. Dean got right to work on the project. He set up all of the parts as directed by the directions, which is such a useful step, and in two hours he had a really cool lock box. Along the way, he learned all about pin tumbler locks, Harry Houdini who in his youth was a locksmith apprentice, unpickable locks and how keys are made.

Our oldest son's birthday was this week. They had a wonderful time at their live action role play games. We then had a "southern dinner" of fried chicken tenders from our favorite chicken restaurant plus homemade waffles. The evening was wrapped up with games.

My teens went to the spring formal at our co-op. This was the second dance for Dean and the first for Anne. Anne didn't have a date, so she invited a friend. Dean and Miss F went together and Dean brought a long-time friend, who wanted to go to the dance but didn't know anyone. They all had an absolute blast. Anne and her friend were on the dance floor the whole time (when they weren't eating brownies, that is). I was told that Dean and Miss F did dance some of the time, but they were resting by the time I got there. Dean's friend found out that he did know a few people and had a great time, too. Our homeschool community is pretty big, but you still run into the same people over and over again.

All the Rest ~ Now that English is complete for the year, Anne can concentrate on U.S. History and Math II. Hopefully, they will both be done by late June. There are just two more classes in Sign Language at co-op and a little bit more of her independent study to wrap up her Sign Language II credit. Dean did a mini-unit study on Harry Houdini that I had planned. It was exciting to see that his Eureka box had a little info on Harry Houdini. I love happy little coincidences like that. Dean is on track to complete several credits in late May.

It is a blessing to homeschool.

Blessings, Dawn

Week 29 ~ Homeschooling the Whole Child

This is the time of year when I really feel pulled to check boxes and wrap things up. It can be a time of year when I forget about what is best for the whole child and concentrate only on the student part of my kids. I have intentionally put the brakes on my box checking self and concentrated on the whole child the last few weeks. So our spring is feeling pretty peaceful.

We had a lovely nature walk this week at the botanical gardens. Dean tried telling me that we had been there before and it was going to be boring and the flowers weren't out yet -- so he intended to just sit in the car and wait for us to return from our walk. However, I had other thoughts about that and insisted he get out of the car. He immediately started having a wonderful time. Before I knew it, they were hopping from rock to rock across the river, declaring themselves to be mountain goats. Transitions are still hard for Dean and he has to be pushed along, but the results are usually positive. At the end of a lovely hour, he proclaimed that it had been worth it. I wish he would remember this for the next event.

My beautiful girl

A photo shoot

My mountain goats

That stick he is holding came home with us!

We pulled off a quick poetry tea. Sometimes I pull out the china and tea pots, and we do a really fancy tea, and sometimes I just want to get it done. This was one of those, "get it done" times. We read the entire book of Maya Angelou and listened to her reading several of her poems on YouTube.

We had a lovely art day with Grandma. Dean and his girlfriend learned about Mary Engel, whose assemblage art work they had seen in a local gallery a few weeks ago. They were really drawn to her art and decided to make some of their own. 

Dean made a blue whale...

and named it Blue Frostie!

Miss F made a bejeweled cat.

We visited an art studio and a special exhibit in the last week. First, we saw the "Who Is Afraid of Red" exhibit at the local art council. It was interesting to see how the 16 different artists created artwork using the color red.

Next we went to one of the galleries of our most famous local artist, Jonas Gerard. He was not in his studio this time, but we got to talk to his assistants and see where he works. We plan to go back for one of his painting demonstrations soon. This gallery is very different, because visitors are encouraged to touch the art. Dean and Miss F were shocked and amazed to be allowed to touch the art.

He has drums in his studio for when he needs a break from his painting.

Anne had a very busy weekend with three performances, each consisting of six different dances per night. As usual, she performed wonderfully. Her toenail that has been threatening to come off for the past few months is now hanging by one side and has to be carefully taped every day. Her feet and legs are covered with bruises from her very physical dances. She really looks like a dancer these days ~ LOL. I was not able to take any video or photos this time since the audience was asked not to use cameras. Boo Hoo! About two years ago I started giving Anne a rock for each of her shows on opening night. Rocks last longer than flowers and she really loves the tradition.

Our home has been filled with friends this week. We had Anne's two best friends for the entire weekend so that they could make it to all the shows. We had fun wandering around downtown and stopping at a candy shop and a game cafe with them. I feel so blessed to have such lovely ladies in my daughter's life. They are true friends to Dean, as well.

I also feel blessed for sweet Miss F (Dean's girlfriend). She is kind, funny, patient and joyful. I picked them up from the wandering swordsman games last weekend, and this is the way she was dressed...just because.

Anne completed English II this week! I will be posting this credit on the blog soon. We are so blessed to homeschool!

Blessings, Dawn

Week 28 ~ Our Favorite Books and Resources this Year

I thought I would share the books and resources that we have found to be most useful this year.  I have never been a "curriculum in a box" person and have mostly built my own lessons based on living books for the past 20 years. I generally follow the Charlotte Mason philosophy with a bit of dabbling in unit studies. However, I have used workbooks during crisis years and months and some classical education curriculum. I guess we are pretty eclectic with a strong emphasis on Charlotte Mason philosophy. I have had to streamline our books this year. I am famous in my family for using more than a hundred books a year and several dozen per subject. Not this year. Anne's dance and work life takes a tremendous amount of her time, and she needs her education clear and direct without fluff and extras. I mourned this for a while and then got with the program. The blessing of homeschooling is meeting your children's needs. Anne's life is taking off, and it is my challenge to give her an excellent quality education without suppressing her opportunities. On the other hand, Dean needs a very hands-on education with a strong emphasis on life skills because of his special needs. For these reasons, our high school years are looking much more book poor than their early education. Regardless, I make sure that every book is high quality so it can have maximum value to their education.

Our Favorites this Year ~

Memoria Press Geography Vol. 1 and 2

This program really has been useful to Dean. He likes that each country only has one or two pages of reading and a map in the student text. Then he answers the questions and does the map work in the workbook. The information is clear and interesting without lots of extraneous material. As he has grown older, he has made it more and more clear that too many words really overwhelm him.

To Kill a Mockingbird and 24 More Videos 

I wish this book had an updated version with more recent movies because some of them are really hard to find. Luckily, we have a video rental store that has lots of rare films. We have enjoyed many of the movies over the years. Each movie has several worksheets, discussion questions and a general summary of the story and characters.

Living Mathematically: Living Within Your Means

We have two books  in the Living Mathematically series. This book takes the student through the life skills of getting a job, picking out an apartment, furnishing the apartment and having lots of unexpected expenses. I like that each lesson has a hands-on activity. In this Lesson, Dean enjoyed placing his furniture in the floor plan of his selected apartment. We plan to collect all of the books in this series.

The Who Was Series 

I challenged Dean at the beginning of the school year to read one of these books a week. He has maintained that challenge and has completed 28 books in the series so far. I place sticky notes at the end of each chapter with questions that he answers about each chapter. I love that these books are loaded with information and are larger print so that they are very easy to follow and read quickly. They are interesting and well written. They have done a world of good in building Dean's reading comprehension. He has always been a good reader in the respects of being able to read any word quickly but has struggled with recall and comprehension of deeper meaning in the text for most of his life. Anne has also used a few of these books when I felt that she needed a quick overview or review of a subject. She can read one of these books in about two hours which is good since she has mild dyslexia.

Survival Math Skills 

Dean and Anne used this workbook this year. It does an excellent job of covering the math we all have to cope with every day including purchasing a car, affording vacations, reading your pay stub, paying taxes, paying bills and so much more.

Learn Math Fast System 

Dean and Anne used different volumes of this series this year. Anne really likes this series and Dean thought it was "okay for a math program".  It does move at a very fast pace and Anne needed a break from the intensity after three volumes. For example, Volume Three goes from "What I X?" to "All Things Slopes" and covers pretty much all of Pre-Algebra and a good start in Algebra (at least according to what is called Algebra in two other curriculum books we have used) in 25 lessons.

The Story of the World 

I read the first two books in this series to my crew when they were in elementary school, while I was in my all things classical phase. I loved it as well as the accompanying activity book. I am sure they only got a little bit of knowledge from each book since these are incredibly rich with information.  However, they did enjoy listening, narrating and doing their map work pages. We used the third volume together in middle school when they were much more ready to store away the huge amount of information. This year Anne did Volume 4 on her own and narrated to me after each chapter. I love this program and have found that, with tweaking, it is useful for many grade levels.

Story Starters by Karen Andreola

We have just begun our enjoyment of this wonderful book. It comes with nearly 70 beautifully written and illustrated beginnings to stories that the student can then complete. There is also a section on polishing your writing and a section just of illustrations to encourage one's imagination into writing a story. Anne has taken nicely to this program and prefers it to my standard writing prompts. Dean struggles with using his imagination so doesn't care for this program as much as my "real world or everyday" writing prompts, but he will be doing a few each school year for the rest of his high school career. 

Poetry for Young People Series 

We have only pulled off a few poetry teas so far this year, but they are always a hit. I have about ten books from this series and we always enjoy them. They have a nice biography of the poet and many of the poet's most famous poems. We often read the poems and then listen to them a second time on YouTube.

National Geographic Documentaries
Dean just loves National Geographic and wants to be assigned at least one show a week if not more. He especially likes ones that are about nature, geography and foreign places.

We also enjoyed many classics this year. I think Anne ended up enjoying Jane Eye, Pride and Prejudice and The Midwife's Apprentice most. Dean really liked Treasure Island  and A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musahi. We have a few more books to cover before the end of the year. I look forward to seeing which one's capture their interest.

I am sure I am missing something that we loved, and there were several other workbooks for math and language arts which we did not love, but did complete. I didn't cover the books we used for our introduction to physics, because that course never really got off the ground for us. I have put it away for the year. There was nothing wrong with what we were using, but our lives were just too crazy to give that course the attention and time it needed to be solid in my kids. We will revisit it next year and I may be changing it to Physical Science which is all that the local high school provides to the typical student. Since my crew is not bound for science careers, Physical Science would be enough science and allow for more Chemistry, which they love.

Blessings, Dawn

Week 27 ~ Blessings Abound

We had a pretty good week. Anne is gearing up for a show next weekend, and rehearsals are keeping her busy. The video clip below is of an adult class that has nothing to do with a show. It is just a fun class to work on skills. One thing I love about our main dance studio is the way they encourage everyone to dance regardless of skill, age or body type. A prime example is this adult class. There are professionals, motivated teens and adults who are just starting out in their love of dance. They all love and support each other.

I took Dean and his homeschooled girlfriend on a field trip to a glass making studio. It was fascinating and the products they made were gorgeous. Check the link to see the finished products. Taking these two on art field trips is a wonderful way to finish up Dean's Visual Arts III credit and we live in the perfect town for field trips.

A real blessing to our family is games. I know I have said it before, but it really is true. Our family has started playing Dungeons and Dragons once a week as a family. This was a strong interest of our adult son, and as things go in our family, everyone tends to get into an activity in one way or another to support the interested party. We play this game in a very family-friendly style, so we all have fun. We are enjoying painting little figurines together and creating an imaginary world in which to search for treasure. It has proven to be educational, too, since it takes lots of research to figure out what each character can do. The kids are also working on teamwork, negotiations, pragmatic language skills, strategy, math skills and expanding their imaginations (my kids have always been much more on the side of logic and rules than imaginary play).

We also played Snake Oil, Say Anything and Munchkin this week. All are great games that expand imagination and encourage debate, teamwork and pragmatic language skills.

This week a blessing came in the way of a check. When my father died, he left me a small portion of his life insurance. I would rather have him, of course, but I will use this windfall to help our family as much as possible. My husband's car was really getting to be a danger to him and others. It was 19 years old. Most of its electrical system had failed and it apparently had become invisible, since he had been hit three times in the last 18 months. So the first order of business was to buy a "new to him" car. After much research and looking on the Internet, we saw one that looked perfect and went out to see if all our family would fit in it. It was perfect and beyond what we had hoped to be able to purchase. So now he has a 2014 Chevrolet Impala with low mileage! I am so happy that he is in a safe car again. We plan to take a trip and replace our roof with the remaining funds.

Next week, I hope to talk about where we are in our school year. We did get lots of academics done this week, and I can see the end in sight for a few credits. That is exciting!

Blessings, Dawn