(NOT!) The First Day of School

So today, most of the other kids in the area are headed back to school.  There have been “Back to School” sales at Target, fliers in the mail, and signs all over stating that fact.  But for our family, today is The NOT first-day-of-school!  For a couple reasons:  We’re homeschoolers, so A won’t be *going* to a school building everyday for the next several months, and we’ve already been “doing school” for a few months now.  Doing school is in quotes, because I don’t think of “school” as something we *do*.  Instead, learning is something that is woven into everyday life.  Sure, I make a point to pull out the books and do reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic everyday, and throw in some history and science in there for good measure.  Ha.  Just kidding.  I’d like to be that relaxed.  But I know my own laziness well enough that I need to have a good plan of sorts in place.  :-)  

But it does help that A begs to “do school”!  Over the past couple months, we’ve already worked on phonics & reading, a handful of science & math lessons and read lots of Bible stories.  History has been fun and we’ve learned about early nomads in the Fertile Crescent, how they farmed, early people in Sumeria and the Nile River area.  King Menes and his double crown of Egypt, hieroglyphics, cuneiform & papyrus for writing & recording things, and mummies and pyramids.  Then add to that, a bunch of read aloud stories: Paddle to the Sea, and Little House in the Big Woods, On the Banks of Plum Creek, & By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

 

So, what’s our plan?  What do I teach?  What do they learn?

First, I’ll start with my inspiration.  The books/people/methods that I identify with most include,

Educating the Wholehearted Child by Clay Clarkson

The 3 R’s by Ruth Beechick

anything by John Holt

Charlotte Mason

The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer

AmblesideOnline curriculum

Home Learning Year by Year by Rebecca Rupp

I case you did a double-take just now, yes, I am aware that John Holt and Susan Wise Bauer are pretty much at opposite ends of the spectrum in regards to educational philosophy.  But there are parts to each that seem to resonate with me (and our family).  We enjoy the freedom to follow rabbit trails, but at the same time we need a bit of structure to keep us moving. 

In my next post, I’ll plan to detail our plan for subjects taught and resources used.  Until then, Happy Learning!

A

5 yrs, 6.5 mo

Kindergarten

Favorite color: “pink and yellow”

Favorite book: “Laura Ingalls Wilder books and bible stories”

Favorite movie: “VeggieTales”

Favorite activity: “Playing store, playing outside & playing soccer”

Favorite school subject: “Science, because I get to play with water”

What I want to be when I grow up: “I don’t know”

Favorite food: "oatmeal, & mac & cheese, & bread & butter"

L

2 yrs, 10.5m

Preschool Prep / Tot-School

Favorite color: “beek (pink), rah (red) & puh-poo (purple)”

Favorite book: Ook the Book (aka. “My lookey, bOOk")

Favorite food: “lallow buh-bye, bah” (Yellow butter on bread)

(& she recently figured out the potty gig!)

(look ma! no hands!) 

Baby I

7 months later this week

Favorite activities: Crawling, chewing on anything in reach, pulling up to standing position, & smiling.

(& for the record, the possibility of him being even more mobile soon, terrifies me!)

August 2012

I haven't updated this blog in awhile.  So here are the highlights from the past 3-4 weeks.

Cuneiform activity (writing in Play-Doh) while we learned about how early people wrote things down.  (We're slowly working through Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer.)

L just played Play-Doh.

She wanted to "write" a sentence.

Part of the science lesson for the week was to make a book about Solids, Liquids and Gases.   A cut pictures from magazines and pasted them into her homemade book.  Here she is reading it to her sister & brother.

Here, A is reading one of her Bob Books to little sister, L.

We got a big wall map of the world at Target and have enjoyed finding places and pointing them out.

Handicrafts: Paper weaving.

Nature walk on a Saturday afternoon.

 We went to a real Pow-wow.

Baby I is growing so fast.
Here he is 'swimming' in his (clean) cloth diaper stash before it gets folded...

...playing with big sister...

...being soooo happy...

...playing puzzles.  More chewing the pieces than actual solving-the-puzzle though.

And just for fun...

Baby I started crawling this week.  Today he's pulled himself to a standing position using furniture a couple times.  Yikes.  Already a mover at just 6 & 1/2 months.
A is getting a little bored with Alpha-Phonics.  Lesson 14 was a bit long, I think.  So we've switched to working from the McGuffey Primer for now.  I just love the flexibility of homeschooling.  :-)



T & A 'invented' & played a game.  Involving geography, land forms, and animals.  (I think.)

Monday July 23

Today felt like a productive day, school and home-making - wise.

We read a few books before they were due back at the library today:

The girls scrubbed the floor under the dining room table.
A also scrubbed the bathroom floor after I vacuumed the icky stuff up.
I got the upstairs vacuumed.

I did a phonics lesson and 2 math lessons with A.

L worked on some fine motor skills using her Lauri toys:

"I UP!", she says!  Which translated, means, "High up!"

And baby I got a nap this morning.

Critter control

Today I officially declared war on the ants.
Aside from one incident last March, we haven't had any issues with bugs so far in the townhouse we've been renting since December.  In March, some corn chip crumbs were scattered all over the basement play-room area when we had folks over for my birthday celebration.  Later that evening we noticed itty bitty ants all over the place, so T attacked them with the vacuum cleaner and we haven't heard from them since.
Until a little over a week ago when some crumbs were left under the dining room table after lunch and I noticed later in the day that little ants were congregating around their new find.  Ugh.  So I sucked the little buggers up with the vacuum, hoping that's all that would be needed this time too.  But they keep coming back, either randomly finding a lone ant wandering, or a few congregating on a crumb.
So I've been continuing with the vacuum when I see them.  It seems to be first thing in the morning that they're most active.  But maybe that's just because they've had some time where it's quiet or maybe that's their more active time.
So the routine for the past 7 - 10 days or so, is, upon waking, to attack them all with the vacuum while the kids hide upstairs, and do 'maintenance checks' throughout the day, sucking up stragglers as needed.
The girls have been sent outside to eat many meals on the porch so I don't have to gripe about them dropping crumbs of food on the floor.
Friday, T moved the fridge and cleaned thoroughly under there but there were still some ants this morning.
So today, we did a clean sweep and scrub of the entire area using a 50/50 vinegar/water solution with about 15 drops of lemongrass essential oil that I found in my secret stash.  ;-)
We also stuffed some used coffee grounds in a small crack outside the back door that seemed like it may be where the buggers are coming from.  I found that idea in a google search for 'natural ant deterrent' or something similar.  If it helps, great.  If not, oh well.  They would've gone in the trash anyways.
For the next couple days after each meal, we'll vacuum/sweep, clear dining table and kitchen counters and wipe down table & counter with the vinegar/lemongrass solution.  Daily, i'll clean the floors with the solution.
We'll also try and observe where the ants like to hang out outside.
It rained some today.  But before this morning, it had been quite dry, so maybe they were also trying to find water.
In general, I don't mind ants.  As long as they stay outside.  :-)

mid July update

We've started to make our way through The Story of the World Vol 1: Ancient Times by Susan Wise Bauer.  I didn't purchase the additional activity book, figuring I'd just come up with those extra reinforcement activities on my own.
Earlier this month, we started in the Intro chapter and after reading it, made a small sketch of a family tree showing mostly just people that A knew.  (Our family's history)  I'd run across what was said to be a 'montessori-inspired' timeline activity which we also did.  I liked how it gave more of a hands-on view of history and the passage of time.

Today, we read more in chapter 1, colored a map of the Fertile Crescent area, and built a shaduf out of tinker toys.

Once dad got home, she explained to him what it was used for.

A is also going through Alpha-Phonics by Blumenfeld and (an old, now public domain math book originally published in 1897) Graded Work in Arithemetic by S W Baird.
In addition to Nature Study, we'll also work through Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding by Bernard Nebel, for science.

L is starting week 3 of the Preparatory Curriculum at letteroftheweek.com.  So far, we're averaging 2 weeks to complete 1 lesson week.  I don't really do many of the recommended activities, but just post the theme, vocab word, number, color or shape, and nursery rhyme; and touch on those things as we go about our day and also pick up books from the library related to those topics.  Once I sense mastery, or as-good-as-we're-going-to-get-for-now, I switch to the next week.

This week's CSA cucumber.  Too bad this week's letter wasn't "J".



Baby I is growing so fast!  It's hard to believe he's 5 and a half months old already.  He's quickly mastering sitting unassisted and gaining some mobility by rolling around.

He gets mad when he sees us eating and don't give him any, so we've caved and let him 'taste' (but not injest!) a few fruits and veggies.  Watermelon was a definite favorite and raw organic carrots make great teethers.

Last week I took advantage of Target's failed attempt at turning cloth-diapering mainstream and snagged this originally $20 Charlie Banana pocket diaper for just over $6.  Cute, huh?

The girls and dad have been playing their own version of Clue quite a bit lately.  In 'Their Version', the object is to figure out who stole the cookies, cards are laid out facing up so all can see, and dice aren't used to move.  Each turn, the player just jumps to their desired room.  Oh, and the highlight is when dad (he was an english major), comes up with and tells a story worthy of literary acclaim.  Or so he'd like to think, but it definitely takes some talent to come up with a believable story about how cookies were stolen with a rope or revolver.  Ha!

A couple weeks ago, we worked on getting our notebooks organized.  Office Depot had a sale on a box of 12 binders for $15, so I decided I wouldn't need to wait for back-to-school sales to make that purchase.  For "family" notebooks, I made a Nature Notebook and Book of Centuries.  Once A gets a little older she can create her own nature and timeline notebooks, but for now, we'll let mom & dad set an example for neatness.  We also created a "Field Trip" notebook to document places we go and trips we take plus keep a list of places we'd like to visit.

We made A notebooks for history, science, "words", and "numbers".  Basically, a place to put her papers as they're created over the next year.  And L has a notebook for all her coloring pages that she just scribbles on.  I'll have to take and post a pic of the notebooks next time.  :-)

Reboot

T took the kids to a park with a lake near his work this morning while I gave the house a good 're-boot'.  Things had gotten into serious disarray due to, well, life.  The adults in our family are outnumbered now, so it doesn't take long for chaos to ensue.