Lesson Planning 2012
It’s really hard to believe that we’re about to begin our third year of homeschooling. The past two years have just flown by (despite moments where it felt like time was creeping by at a snail’s pace). It’s been an amazing ride and I am so thankful that we get to continue learning together!
The first year we were homeschooling, I planned each 6 weeks. The second year, I planned the entire year in advance and made three posts for core subjects, extended curriculum and extra-curricular activities. I think part of that was my over-compensation for lack of confidence. Seeing what all we were going to accomplish in advance made me feel a lot better about jumping into homeschooling with both feet.
This year, I don’t really feel the need to plan everything out. We started a new grade in October of last year, and we’re basically continuing those lessons through March/May-ish (depending on which subject). We’re moving away from ‘grade level’ a little more and as we go on, I expect that distance will be even more noticeable - I’d like that; to leave behind the idea of ‘grade level’ behind entirely. Maybe not a practical goal, but one can dream, yes?
We’re pretty much continuing what we started a few months ago – I know what resources we’ll be using for the next few months, and I plan each week’s workboxes sometime between Friday – Sunday. Since I already know what we’re using, I have a fairly good idea of what material is there; most of our subjects are just a matter of covering the next chapter or lesson in the book. I supplement with videos or field trips where we can, sometimes planned, sometime spontaneously – it depends on the lesson and mood.
Our daily schedule is similar to the last few months as well. I try to keep our day ‘seat/up/seat/up’ so the boys are never in their seats too long. Our week is also staggered so that we’re home one day and out the next, then home again. We have longer/more in-depth lessons at home and either reinforce or immerse on days when we’re out (or vice-versa).
I updated our ‘current curriculum‘ page a few days ago; there were more changes than I’d expected, but it’s all up to date now. We’re continuing with workboxes and my new lesson planner (which is on the printables page) has the workbox planning sheet built-in. I’m having it printed this week, and we’re giving the kids STARS planners another shot as well.
We sat down this morning and had a pow-wow; our school year begins next Monday. I banned all griping about school work and chores and since getting back to a normal work load after a break has always been… traumatic, to put it mildly, I told them they they would be doing a few worksheets from their summer workbook this week so ease back into doing full time/regular school work. They never cease to surprise me; LBB initially started with a complaint then buckled down and got it done whereas PeaGreen started off on a good note but getting him to finish was like pulling teeth. They did both finish though, and relatively sooner than I’d expected so maybe next week’s ‘back to school’ won’t be so bad.
I can dream, right?
Hope your new year is starting off smoothly!
Warmly,
~h
Lesson Planning: Summer 2011
If you’re a long-time reader at This Adventure Life, you may have noticed that I am not doing lesson planning posts for each mod the way that I did last year. One of the reasons that I haven’t been doing them is because we’re not switching materials with the same frequency that we did last year.
2010 was our first year homeschooling with school-age kids (we’d gotten in a couple of years of home-pre-school before LBB started K), and as a newbie, I was experimenting with different styles, different methods, different schedules – basically trying out as much as we could to find what works and what doesn’t. I’m glad we did it that way; we got a look at a ton of different materials and tried on quite a few ‘homeschooling hats’ and got a feel for what we liked and didn’t, what worked and what we should change. If you’re new to homeschooling, I’d definitely recommend approaching your first year in that manner – as an experiment of sorts, to find your groove. The benefit was that going into this, our second year, I felt like a I had a much better grasp on the mechanics of homeschooling, and a better idea of the kinds of materials and lesson styles suited my kids best. For the most part, we’ve stayed pretty consistent with our materials and methods – we’re still using what we started with in January (though we’re finished with some of it already) and our 4 weeks on/1 week off schedule works well.
If you want ‘categorization’, I’m really not sure where we fall in the homeschool styles spectrum (though I did find this nifty teaching style quiz. I’m a 56 – combined parent/child directed. I think that’s pretty accurate, though I see a lot of what’s described as ’traditional’ in my style as well). I see us as fairly easy-going, but by no means do we fall into the ‘relaxed’ homeschooler category. We’re also not ‘rigorous’, though we do have a lovely schedule and manage to stick to it a goodly portion of the time – at least for the months that fall within the traditional school year. For the summer months though, since we school year-round, we’re making some adjustments to the schedule to accommodate the goings-on in our community.
I have divided our school year into ‘sessions’ to accommodate what feels like a good pattern for us. The Winter Session is January – May. Summer Session is May-August, and the Fall Session is September – December. Our heaviest session, work-wise is the Winter Session. It’s the longest (5 months), and is the beginning of the new school year, so everything is all shiny and new. During the summer, my niece Fred (y’all remember Fred, don’t you?) spends a significant amount of time with us, so it’s somewhat impossible to hold a ‘regular’ school day with a sometimes-guest. This year we’ll be coordinating her visits with our activity days, so we’ll have a bit of a better routine this year, I hope.
We’re fortunate to live in an area where there are many summer offerings to take advantage of in the community, on both a city-wide and state-wide level. With gas prices being so high, that will curb our comings and goings on longer trips, but around town, there is still plenty to keep us occupied.
Our local libraries (in our county and two neighboring ones) all offer a summer reading club. In addition to the
book/reading part, each of them host different kids’ events for several weeks; puppet shows, magic shows, local Parks & Wildlife and Rangers give presentations, our local art museum has a mobile program, the Houston Zoo’s Mobile Zoo comes, Gator Country does presentations… it’s a pretty extensive list of ‘things to do’ that offers plenty of material for a homeschooling family to use as a jumping-off point for unit studies and lessons – and that’s just from the library.
We also have the Texas Nature Challenge, with missions from all over the bayou region (all over the state, really), we have the chance to explore state parks and other educational attractions with an eye towards education and conservation. This year’s missions include destinations such as Matagorda Bay Nature Park and Natural Science Center, Sheldon Lake State Park & Environmental Learning Center, Sea Center Texas and Habitat March at Nature Discovery Center’s Russ Pitman Park, among others.
And then there are the museum programs, visits to friends’ homes and Spindletop Rollergirls games, community service projects, 4H, and whatever else piques our interest. We like to stay busy!
HomeschoolShare.com‘s extensive list of unit studies and lapbooks will come in handy, I’m sure. We’ll cater more to the boys’ interests (ages 8 and 9; in 3rd and 4th grade-ish) this summer and focus less on ‘curriculum’, though we will continue with some basics, just not as rigorously. I did buy a couple of workbooks for the summer, Math Minutes and Summer Activities for the Gifted Student (just to clarify on that one; no, I don’t think my children are ‘gifted’ – well, they’re both exceedingly bright, but we’re not talking savant-level genius or anything. That’s just the name of the workbook. Don’t get your panties in a twist over it. {wink}).
We’ve used the Math Minutes workbook before; it’s 100 lessons with 10 problems on each page, designed to be done in 1 minute. LBB took more like 10, and often did 2 pages at a time, but then we used that as a bridge between ‘OMG, we’re homeschooling!!’ and ‘proper math curriculum for properly homeschooled child’. We’re >thisclose< to being done with this ‘grade’, so the two new books will be used here and there where needed to supplement our more regular, though considerably lighter than during the Winter Session. (On a side note, when I was looking for the Amazon link to the Math Minutes workbooks, I came across this: Math Minutes by Sadlier-Oxford Publishing. It’s a website that you can use to practice math concepts. You choose the category and set the time and then go. We haven’t used it yet, but it looks interesting. Just thought I’d share…)
In addition to the already full summer plan, two of our local movie theaters also do a kids’ program; one previously-released kids movie each week for $1 per ticket. You can’t beat that and since we don’t often go to the movies, we’re planning on taking advantage of that this summer as well.
I can’t wait to get started! What’s on your calendar for the summer?
Warmly,
~h
Rabbit, Rabbit – Happy Chinese New Year!
Our homeschool group got together today for a Chinese New Year party and parade. The first day of Chinese New Year was actually last week on the 3rd, but it is celebrated for 15 days and so lasts through the 17th. We’d planned on a parade last week for our regularly scheduled park day, but the weather was being nasty so we rescheduled and combined our parade with our co-op class. We took the kids on a costumed walk through the neighborhood and got quite a few interesting looks from passers-by. I often wonder what people must be thinking when we take our kids out in a group, especially when they’re doing something ‘odd’. They had fun though, so who cares what other people think, right?
Holidays are always interesting for me; over the last couple of weeks, I’ve learned as much about CNY as the kids have. I grew up in a faith that didn’t celebrate holidays, so the whole business is a lot of fun for me. I always have to go read up on the ‘how-to’ for holidays. I did find a good ‘about CNY’ page at Kiddy House:
FIRST DAY OF CHINESE NEW YEAR
- All debts have to be repaid by this time. There should also be no lending on this day as it is believed that it will put you in debt for the whole year.
- Foul language or curse words and words that are supposed to be unlucky or sound unlucky should not be uttered.
- Children also get away with their misbehaviour on this day. Parents do not want to upset their children or make them cry as crying on New Year’s Day is considered unlucky.
- It is advisable to start the day off by consuming a bowl of sweet dessert called “tong sui” (sugary drink) in Cantonese. It symbolises starting the year off sweet and pleasant.
- The children will greet their parents and adults : Gong Hei Fatt Choy (in Cantonese)Gong Xi Fa Cai (in Mandarin)Keong Hee Huat Chai (in Hokkien) The meaning of “Gong Xi” is congratulations while “Fa Cai” means be rich or prosperous. All the above have the same meaning. They only sound different.
- New clothes and shoes are a must for Chinese New Year.
- The younger generation will go visit their elder relatives and friends too. Married couples, will have to give a red packet called “Hong Pow” containing money inside to those who are not married and also to their parents.
- The hosts will serve their guests all kinds of cookies and the Mandarin Orange. The Mandarin Orange is a symbol of prosperity.
We didn’t do much of this, but seeing what people do and why is always neat. It’s all in good fun around our house, but I find it fascinating that for some families this is serious business, especially in a historical context. The tradition of firecrackers for CNY celebrations comes from the Legend of Nian, and the Dragon Dance also has a long and complicated history. It’s been interesting to read about and see the ways that history and legend affect local customs, how they change over time and how they’re interpreted today.
When I was looking up CNY activities, I found a bunch of ideas and since we still have time left for the official celebration, we’ll probably still do a lapbook on China at some point this coming week. Here are some of the links that I’ll pull from to make our lapbook:
- ABC Teach.com’s China printables great additions for a CNY/China Lapbook
- Chinese New Year Lapbook from Squidoo
- Homeschool Helper Online’s China Lapbook
- best China Lapbook EVER
We learned that gifts of money are also traditional on CNY, presented in a red envelope. Activity Village has a template for red envelopes, or you can find a template with history and additional customs at Feng Shui Web. We substituted well wishes for the coming year and made one for all the kids that were at co-op today. Our hostess made a ribbon with feet and a tail to go on the kids’ masks to clip their red envelopes to; we hung them over the boys’ desks in the school room this evening.
When we were planning our parade, the moms in our group discussed going all-out and collaborating on a big dragon, but that was clearly way more work than we were looking for. Based on previous experience, what would happen is that the moms would end up doing all the work and the kids would trash it within the first 5 minutes of having ‘fun’ with it. Still, the idea of having our own giant dragon costume is intriguing. I’d planned on making smaller papier-mache/egg carton dragon puppets, but we didn’t get to that, either. We still might make one (or two), and if you’re feeling super crafty, here are some of the links I found; the egg carton dragon and ThatArtistWoman’s Dragon Puppet.
I also found a picture of kids with streamers on their arms and a dragon mask, and that’s what we actually ended up doing today for the parade. We printed out these masks, then colored them with markers and pasted them on colored paper for added strength, then cut and put ties on them. That worked out very well; the kids looked great with their streamers flying behind them as they paraded!
A few weeks ago, I found an offer for free Chinese New Year materials from Panda Express (I think it’s over now, but you can still see most of the material here) and ordered a kit for our group. One of the nifty things about being in a homeschool group is that in some settings, our group functions as a school so we can get materials that we might not have access to as an individual homeschooling family even though in Texas, each homeschool is considered a private school. The kit had a video that had some bite-sized info-bytes about Chinese culture and some of the history and customs associated with CNY, and as you might expect, a big ole advertisement for Panda Express. However, considering that the materials kit was free and they sent coupons for free kids meals as lai see, I guess I can live with that. The narrator did talk about traditional foods and their meanings and there was an activity guide, so the kids (well, the girls) got to make couple of little craft projects. They made paper lanterns (these are pretty, too) and the boys and I made party poppers as favors to hand out.
I found a link for felt fortune cookies, which would be cute for a kids’ kitchen. I also found a recipe for them as well, but I can’t honestly say that I’m interested in making them. Cooking is so not my forte, but maybe one day we’ll get around to attempting them. We did have a lovely Chinese-themed potluck lunch buffet, and a fabulous yin-yang cake made with tinted black chocolate frosting and marshmallows. The kids all thought that the cake was awesome. If you’ve never made Chinese food at home, give it a try. Even without traditional cookware, it’s easy and so very tasty! Then, you can make dessert… good fortune cupcakes, mandarin orange muffins (which might also be good for breakfast).
According to the Chinese Zodiac, the Year of the Rabbit is supposed to be peaceful and quiet following the Year of the Tiger, so with that in mind, may your year be restful and unhurried, with good taste and refinement shining on all your endeavors!
Warmly,
~h
An Update on Latin
We’ve been using Anthony Gibbins’ (TuTubusLatinus) ‘Learning Latin with Virgil‘ series on YouTube as our main curriculum (of sorts) as an introduction to Latin. I love the videos, because they’re interesting (he uses South Park people to illustrate conversations – you can’t help but love that) and they’re flash-card-like, which makes it easy to actually make flash cards for them (which I have done – see here under ‘Latin’), which is a learning tool that is extremely effective for my kids. In short, I think the series is fantastic.
LLV is based on The Aeneid, Virgil’s is a classic epic poem about Aeneas. We found an ‘English for kids’ version of The Aeneid at the library yesterday and will be reading for ourselves this week so we’ll be more familiar with the story. The videos are quite simple and short, they’re easily followed and make a really nice introduction to Latin. We’re currently still working on lessons 1-3 and I imagine we’ll be there for a while still, reviewing and strengthening our foundation. I say ‘our’ because I am learning, too. We tried learning Spanish but the lessons, though perhaps more useful as we live so near Mexico, were boring. Latin is ever so much more interesting.
In browsing TuTubusLatinus’ YouTube channel, I came across another series that he did called Latin Lessons using Cambridge Latin I, which you can find online here, along with a host of other resources and activities to supplement the main video entry. This series is a little more complete as a curriculum in that it follows an actual text-book rather than literature, but it does still use stories to teach vocabulary and grammar. There are also several additional videos that go along with this set of lessons, like the Canis picture book, the Familia picture book (which uses the Griffin family of Family Guy fame), the Labor picture book, the Cibus picture book and the Gilbo series, which uses different characters (helpful for kids who memorize visual word patterns and then cheat), but mirrors the Cambridge lessons pretty closely (at least through the third video!).
I like both approaches, and we’ll continue using both, along with our flash cards and the picture book videos. Even early on in the lessons, the boys have picked up quite a bit of vocabulary, so the grammar is coming in handy. Another thing I like about learning this way is that I am not relying on my own pronunciation. There have been several words that I would have said incorrectly, so short of a formal ‘Latin class’, this is as good as having a tutor come into our home.
At some point, we’ll start the Ecce Romani series of books, but I imagine that is some time off yet. The LLV series has 20 or so videos, and the Cambridge lessons have quite a few as well. I don’t know how much the series covers that the ER books, so we may not need ER by the time we get done with the video series but we’ll probably go over it anyway just to reinforce what we’ve already learned.
If you’re interested, here’s some other fun stuff I’ve found:
Latin Alive – a short film that illustrates many of the words we use in English with Latin roots
Latin Monkey Match flashcard game
If you’re a LOST fan, then this becomes much more interesting: The Others speak Latin part I and part II.
And just because I find this extremely interesting and can foresee a time when it graces my personal library shelves, Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis, aka, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (or Sorcerer’s Stone in American English).
If you’ve ever thought about starting a Latin course in your homeschool, then I can definitely recommend Mr. Gibbins’ videos. They’ve been fun and engaging, and offer plenty of ‘pause and review’ opportunities that make it an interactive lesson.
Vale!
~h
Disclosure: I have not been paid or otherwise compensated to review these videos. This is my own personal opinion based on my experiences with them. I’ve found them to be educational and my kids LOVE them, so I wanted to let others know about them as a possible resource or supplemental resource for their own Latin curriculum.
Lesson Planning 2011 Part 3: The Extras
I know that from the previous posts about our 2011 school year, it looks like there isn’t much room left in the day for anything else. Let me rest your mind a bit by saying that I often over-prepare to some degree because I know that some of the things planned will end up getting scrapped in favor of something that works better. I blog as much for my own reference as to share; in several instances, I’ve planned on using two full courses of study but of course we’ll only need one. We may use bits from each or focus mainly on one or the other, but we will not complete both as full courses (unless we need to go back and remediate). Our daily schedule, while full, is flexible as is my general attitude. As we get more settled into homeschooling, I think it’s natural to step it up more.
Our extracurriculars for this year will be: Foreign Language, Physical Education, Health, Music/Arts/Drama, Triangle Homeschoolers Adventure Club, Community Service, Robotics, CurrClick’s Lego Club, Home Economics, TX Nature Challenge, Houston Wilderness Program, 4H, Science Fair, Summer Reading Club and whatever other interest the kids have that they’re motivated to look more deeply into. Some of this will be continuous and other things will be seasonal.
Many of these ECs will be in conjunction with a core lesson; TX Nature Challenge, JASET and the Lego clubs, for example, are science lessons. The TXNC may also count under ‘geography’ and ‘physical education’, depending on the activity and location as well.
Foreign Language
We started Latin a few months ago and we’ll continue with it this year. I found a great literature-based YouTube Series called Learning Latin with Virgil. It’s based on Virgil’s ‘The Aeneid’ and it’s been really fun and easy to learn. I don’t speak Latin, I was wondering how to work the pronunciation; this video series eliminates that worry. Since we’re doing this video series, I wanted flashcards for the boys to review in other places (so we’re not continually tied to the computer for Latin review) so I made flashcards for Lessons 1 – 4, and for Lessons 3 – 4. I’ll have more later on. I’m cutting them, pasting onto index cards and laminating them. I also found The Declension Song (lyrics), which we’re learning. I’m hoping that will give us a leg up when we start with more in-depth Latin lessons. I also found vocabulary flash cards at Flashcard Exchange. Eventually, we’ll move in to Ecce Romani (exercises and Teacher’s Lounge are good resources). The video series is quite long though, so it will be a while before we’re ready for ER.
Physical Education & Health
Getting exercise isn’t a problem for my kids. Having a PE curriculum is. Do we ‘need’ one? maybe not, but we’re going to put a little more structure into our PE plans this year. Our homeschool group will have a planned ‘PE class’ starting in January, but that’s only once per month. We’re going to use PE Challenge.org‘s website some, and PE Central for more game-oriented ideas. My friends and I are back on the weight-loss wagon starting now, so having to ‘teach’ PE to the kids is as much for myself as it is for them.
We’re also starting a comprehensive sex ed course this year. I found the FLASH Curriculum that is put out by the Seattle and King County Health Department. From what I’ve looked at, it seems to be exactly what I was looking for. It’s geared to 4-6th grade, and doesn’t skimp on sexual health topics. Naturally, I’ll supplement with other materials or discussions on topics that I find appropriate, but as a spine with good pacing, FLASH looks like it will work well for us. I’ve also added the Kids Health.org link to the kid’s computers so that they can look around and have questions answered. The Young Men’s Health and Young Girl’s Health are a bit ‘older’, but I like those, too. The videos, As Boys Grow and That’s a Family were also recommended.
Music, Art & Drama
The Core Knowledge books have a section on Music, presumably for all of their books. We’ll cover what is there as well as music study with Share the Music (grade 4). I also found a really fun set of mini-books on impressionist artists that we may take a week at a time and do a lapbook over the course of a few months.
The boys began formal piano lessons a few months ago with my grandmother who lives next door. She used to play in church when I was little and has really enjoyed teaching the boys. They spend about half an hour, 3 times a week with her in lessons and practice for 15-20 minutes the other 2 days. When we get a decent keyboard, then they’ll practice everyday.
I am also getting the Artistic Pursuits ( book 3) curriculum. It seems to be very highly recommended, and since I like art but know basically nothing about it, I think this will help me out a lot. We’ll also use bits from Masterpiece Art Instruction; their article, Art & ADHD was of particular interest to me, and countless crafts and art projects that tie into an academic lesson will be used, plus holiday and just for fun stuff from That Artist Woman’s Blog. I’d also like to add more theater into our lives; I found some Drama Links from A-Z Home’s Cool Homeschooling that we might be able to incorporate. Our homeschool group is talking about hosting a play in the spring, so we’ll see about that.
One of the things I am most excited about for this coming year is getting the kids more involved in community volunteering projects. We’ve found several organizations that are (HEARTS.org, 4H’s ‘Community Service Projects You Can Do!’, LU’s Cardinals C.A.R.E. Resource List) targeted towards children and homeschooling families; one of our homeschool group’s moms has volunteered to take the lead in planning on organizing events for this year.
TX Nature Challenge is a program coordinated by the TX AgriLife Extension office and the TX Forest Service. They’ve started posting ‘missions’ each year that encourage families to ‘view native wildlife, dip your feet in creeks, rivers, and draw and write about your observations while learning more about nature and science in your neighborhood!’ We participated last year and the missions for 2010 in our area are still up. Though the competition portion is over, we’ll continue working on them in our own time. The Houston Wilderness Program ties in, but is not connected with the TXNC; we’ve been able to do many of the HWP’s activities on the same day/trip as TXNC’s missions.
4-H offers plenty of learning opportunities; everything from lessons in government and parliamentary procedure to agricultural engineering, animal husbandry, archery and photography. I’m quite sure that we’ll find plenty to do with 4H this year, as well as our usual barrage of homeschool group field trips (we have a trip to Austin planned for the summer, camping) & Co-op. We also have other clubs through our group, like the Adventure Club, which is similar to scouting, and we’ll also be involved with the FIRST Jr. Lego League (ages 6-9) & Lego League (ages 9-14) and CurrClick’s Lego Club.
Texas Regional Science Fair – the boys won’t be competing this year, but LBB will be next year. I found several really neat idea books, so between them and the boy’s natural curiosity, I’m sure they’ll find something that appeals. Our homeschool group is planning a group-wide, informal science fair for June. I think the boys will be excited about it.
Changes to the Curriculum for 2011: I know, we haven’t even started and are already tweaking… such is my life! I have omitted Spectrum Science as a possible resource for us this year. I had the chance to really look at it, and basically, it’s a reading/worksheet assignment that will simply not work for my boys. They need more hands-on, and less lecture. I am going to use the E=MC2 Life Science book (it’s a free downloadable version) and if that goes well, I’ll purchase the next set.
For history, I am going to end up using Story of the World. I found the first 3 volumes at Barnes & Noble and got to look over them. I think that the ‘story’ format will work well for us. We’re using Mosaic to start; if that works well then we won’t use the SotW Activity Guide books. If it doesn’t, then I’ll look into them.
And so, with that, our curriculum for next year is complete. I hope that you’ve found something here that you can use; if you find something that you think I might like, please feel free to link in comments below!
Warmly,
~h
Lesson Planning 2011 Part 2: The Core
I consider ‘core’ the basic three: reading, writing and math; plus language arts (which includes phonics, spelling and grammar), science and history. Our daily schedule usually has all the above daily, with science or history on alternating days.
In my last post on this topic, I wrote about using the ‘complete’ workbooks as a guide. I really liked the math sections for both 2nd and 3rd grade in the HB series, and I think we’re going to go ahead and get them. We’ll still be using MEP as our main math, but the wkbk would be nice to supplement with, especially on days where I need an easy day!
We’ve pretty much given up on Saxon Math. I know some love it, but it’s just too overwhelming for me to use. We’re still using bits and pieces from it like the morning meeting, the daily problems and warm-up, problem or concept of the day – stuff like that, but as our main squeeze, I’m ditching it. We’ll also be using Math Mammoth, Lesson Pathways and Khan Academy videos for new concepts, and plenty of manipulatives for illustration and repetition. We’re still math journaling to keep track of math work and to serve as our weekly review. If you haven’t seen Integer Jim’s math journals, then do check them out – they’re something to aspire to!
The all-in-one workbooks also have spelling and LA, but I don’t know how much of that we’ll really use. We’ll be going back to doing an individual spelling lesson this year; I’ve let it slide as a stand-alone subject in favor of working on it through writing. That’s been going well and I think that my plan for this coming year falls into line with that method rather than the ‘learn this list’. My kids both have a hard time with spelling, so we’re going to go ‘old school’… as in, to the 1960′s. I have Power 2 Spell and Dr. Spello (this is 4th ed.; mine is 2nd edition and from 1968, but the table of contents list is the same). LBB has auditory issues, so I am hoping that going through this workbook will help him with slowing down his thinking a bit and really listening. Once we’re done with Dr. Spello, we’ll move on to Power to Spell 2. It’s a second grade level book, but I think they’ve ‘dumbed down’ the spelling words over the years. I have a more recent spelling textbook for 3rd grade and the words in it are less challenging than the ones in PtS2. In any case, both books focus on ‘hearing’ sounds and connecting them with the letter that represents that sound. I haven’t been able to find a link to the Power to Spell book that I have, but this is it:
I used printouts from SuperTeacherWorksheets.com for LA concepts this past year; I’m hoping that the workbook will help provide more direction for this coming year. One of the things I liked about Charlotte Mason style and about Moving Beyond the Page’s ‘year overview’ was that LA, science and history are taught in conjunction with literature; using the reading selections to highlight, illustrate or expound upon the lesson. I’d like to work towards that more this year.
For our main LA curriculum, we’re considering using English Maven in addition to the workbook’s LA section. EM is computer-based, which appeals to my boys, esp LBB. We’ve also been using KISS grammar to some extent, but it is hard to navigate and use without an extensive read-through and exploration before use. Once you’re used to it though, it’s a good (if incomplete for all grades) program. Honestly, I think that the biggest helper for my kids in grammar and LA concepts has simply been reading. The Core Knowledge books also have a good overview of literature and skills by grade, so we’ll make sure to cover those as well.
The boys spend at least half an hour reading every day and when we started homeschooling, I was reading to them every day as well. We’ve gotten away from that, so I really want to focus back on that as well. I’ve noticed a marked improvement in both of the boys’ reading skill since we’ve been homeschooling. We started reviewing basic reading skills and they’re taken off since then. I use some of the reading assessment tools from A-Z Home’s Cool Homeschooling to check their progress. I don’t know how ‘accurate’ they are, but it gives us a starting point at least.
The writing stuff will be a challenge. Both boys are great at dictating their thoughts, not so much at writing them down. This is an age thing, I believe, and we’ll be working on developing and improving both handwriting and writing skills more this year. We started cursive with LBB in M5 last year; PG is still working on D’Nealian print. We’re using Handwriting Practice books, along with custom-printed worksheets that I make (themed relevant to something we’ve been working on or will do). The boys both have email addresses and blogs for journaling online. We haven’t been as diligent on that as we might have been, but the goal for this coming year will be at least one blog per week. (Contact me for the link to their blogs. If you have a homeschooler who is looking for a pen pal, we can chat about that, too.) Journal prompts and handwriting worksheets also come from SuperTeacherWorksheets and whatever I may think of or they come up with to write about. For 2011′s school year, we will be focusing heavily on handwriting, note-taking and constructing paragraphs and reports in addition to daily practice.
Moving on…
I find science and history to be both extremely challenging and laughably easy to ‘teach’. I find it very easy to integrate both into the curriculum just through everyday ‘stuff’ – field trips are usually science themed and the world around us presents so many opportunities for delving into both of those subjects. That said, I find it hard to measure where they are because we’re not really using a linear system of learning. Not that that’s a huge issue or anything, but I am considering moving back to a more structured model for this year. Yes, I realize that this is more for my own need to quantify rather than a real ‘need’ for structure in these areas, but that’s how I roll. {wink}
For science, I am considering getting Spectrum’s 3rd grade workbook to use as a spine. I have our ISD’s science text books for 1-3rd grade (I found them at Goodwill), but they’re SO BORING, and quite frankly… simple. My boys are way past that level, so we need something a little more in-depth. I really like Moving Beyond the Page’s idea of integration of science and history into the LA work, so my plan is to work on doing that this year. I’ve also gushed about Super Science Concoctions in the past, and continue to extol its virtues. Fast, easy and fun; we’ve never been disappointed. I also have Jr. Boom Academy, which is similar to SSC and just as fun, as well as a variety of subject specific science books by Rosemary Althouse and Cecil Main (magnets, water, air, food, as we grow, colors) that have experiments and explanations of ‘how this works’ that we can incorporate into lessons this year as needed.
History ‘worked into everyday’ is easy. History as a ‘systematic course of study’ is more challenging. I really like The Well Trained Mind’s idea of history in stages; we’re current with 3rd grade (Late Renaissance – Early Modern (1600-1850) and will continue in that vein. MacroHistory has sectioned links that are great for timeline-making; we’ll be starting our scroll version this year. Mosaic, using SWB’s Story of the World was recommended to me; but SOTW seems to be pretty faith-based and I prefer not to use it. Also, there are three volumes (and several versions) of SOTW, so it’s confusing. Mosaic can also be used with Gombrich’s A Little History of the World; I’m finding that A Short History of the World by Alex Woolfe mostly works too. Again, the Core Knowledge books and the all-in-one will have some contributions to our curriculum this year; it will be as we get started that I determine how much of what we’ll actually use on a regular basis.
Learning Tools
A word about worksheets: they really don’t work for us – not in the traditional sense, anyway. We usually do them together, aloud and on the chalkboard (we have a 5′ long school chalkboard in our schoolroom). I may write the actual problem from the worksheet on the board or re-work it into pictures or symbols, or I may get the kids to write the problem or question out. I use the sheet to record answers and take notes from the lesson, and then file the sheet.
Lapbooks: We’ve been working on lapbooks for the last few months and will continue throughout this year, supplementing almost every subject with lapbooking fun. I love HomeschoolShare.com’s lapbook templates and unit studies. They’re easy to combine and mix-and-match as needed. HomeschoolHelperOnline also has a list of lapbooks, and you can’t help but be in awe of the resource list at Eclectic Education! KickButtMama’s master list of free printables is really spiffy, too. Practical Pages Lapbook Pages and Jimmie’ s Collage Minibooks also have a bunch of nifty templates that you can print, cut and keep handy for lapbooking on the fly.
Manipulatives: we use file folder games I have this book), computer games, diagrams, lapbooks, flash cards, puzzles, math manips (like tiles, geoboards, marbles, playing cards, stones, legos, abacus, fraction tiles, math mini-office, etc.), maps, posters, crafts and projects – literally ANYTHING that I find or the boys show an interest in to make learning fun, exciting, engaging and memorable. Sometimes, we find things that we enjoy, sometimes we decide in the middle of something that this is not for us and chuck it in favor or attacking the lesson from a different perspective. It’s all about trial and error and keeping an open mind.
I’d also like to recommend Topsy’s A Few of My Favorite (Secular Homeschooling) Things article from a few weeks ago at SecularHomeschool.com. Some of the resources listed there are too old for my boys, but I’m keeping them in mind for later.
Whew! That is a LONG list of stuff! I’ve been working on this post for weeks now and I am glad it’s all lined out. I’m sure I’ll be tweaking this more, adding and shelving things as we go, and I will have an ‘M1 Lesson Planning’ post with more detailed lists for the first 4 weeks going up as well. Up next: Lesson Planning 2011: The Extras!
If you’re lesson planning for next year, feel free to link to your blog in the comments so I can poke around!
Warmly,
~h
Lesson Planning 2011 Part 1: The Overview
So… it’s that time again… planning for next year! I’ve been working on this for weeks now and I think I am finally ready to start getting it all on paper. I’m breaking this post into parts; this is likely to be quite long and I want to cover each section separately. I’m starting with the overview.
Our calendar for this year will run from January 3 through December 9. We have 40 weeks of school, M-F, in four-week sections with a week’s break between each. That will give us 200 school days. Of course, we’ll have scheduled holidays off (birthdays – no one should have to go to school or work on their birthday) and major (and bank) holidays, so we’ll even out at around 190 or so, which is about average.
I’ve looked at a couple of new things lately, both method and resources. We’ll actually be buying some curricula and other things for this upcoming year, which will be fun. Over and over this past year, I’ve come across pages from Enchanted Learning, so a subscription to their site for this year is on my wish list.
Something I’ve been considering for this year is a better ‘spine’ to keep us grounded a bit better. I know some aren’t concerned with keeping up with the grade level that they’d be at in school, but I am – not so much that we overlook what they’re interested in, but enough so that we have a guide and path from A to Z for the year’s arc. To that end, I consulted a couple of different resources. I ordered the “What Yours X Grader Needs to Know‘ from the Core knowledge series for 2nd and 3rd grade and will probably get the 4th grade book towards the summer. I don’t know how much we’ll use them or need them, but it will be nice to have.
I also looked through the Moving Beyond the Page site, which is a literature-based study program. Using their book lists and outlines, we’ll work on some of the stuff they suggest. Obviously, without paying for the full curriculum, we won’t be doing quite the same things, but I love the literature aspect of this site and if the boys like it then we may consider using their full paid curriculum for Year 3. I’m also still consulting The Well Trained Mind on occasion, though we’ve deviated from their path more than a little at this point. I do like referring to it when I feel like we’re getting too far off track though. We’ve gotten away from CM style in recent months, so I think a shift back towards literature as a base will be beneficial for us.
As for a basic overview, I was considering getting a big workbook; one of the ‘everything for 3rd grade’ kind, and I still may. I spent some time looking through a couple, and I really liked Harcourt’s Complete Curriculum series. I don’t know that we ‘need’ it, but one thing we will be working on this year is ‘working independently’. A friend recommended the workbox system, and I’m considering modifying it to a folder system so the boys can work on certain days or for certain subjects (or reviews) on their own. We’re going to be using the STARS planner for them to help encourage good work/study habits as well. I think the workboxes will fit nicely into that system.
In a slight change from last year, 2011′s school year is broken into five 10-week sections, called ‘mods’ (short for module), and which include 2 ‘off’ weeks. Each mod is one grading period. To some degree, each 4 week section has a theme that we work in; 4 weeks=4 seasons is a natural rhythm, so the first week is discovery (beginnings, spring), the second week is growth (summer), the third week is mastery (harvest, fall) and the fourth week is review and preview for the next section (winter). I like Moving Beyond the Page’s ‘concepts’ but their 3 week set up doesn’t fit our calendar, so I took that idea and tinkered with it to fit.
I have the first mod pretty much planned, and themes set for the year. I’ll be working on the rest, and a couple more posts (one with ‘core‘ and one with ‘extras’) to go up soon. If you’re starting in January, how’s your year’s planning coming along?
Warmly,
~h
Lesson Planning for M7 (Oct-Nov 2010)
Naturally, I’ve actually begun planning for next year and some of the groundwork for 2011′s school year is being laid in M7′s lesson planning.
One of the new things we’ll start in January is a formal Latin program. We’ve already begun forming a base for that with this really cool YouTube series:
Learning Latin with Virgil - Since we’re doing this video series, I wanted flashcards for the boys to review in other places (so we’re not continually tied to the computer for Latin review) so I made flashcards for Lessons 1 – 4. I’ll have more later on. I’m cutting them, pasting onto index cards and laminating them.
FlashcardsLLV1_2_AGibbins_byTAL
Flashcards_LLVLess3_4_AGibbins_byTAL
The Declension Song (lyrics)
Flashcard Exchange (for vocabulary building)
If you’re considering Latin for your homeschool, here’s a comparison chart with the introductory and intensive programs. I have a copy of Ecce Romani book II that I found secondhand; I’m not sure if we” start with that or go with something a little more basic to begin just yet; look for more on that towards the end of December, though ER seems to be a good course, so we’ll probably stick with that. It will depend on how far Virgil takes us. We actually started this a few weeks ago (we’re still on lesson 1) and the boys seem to like it. Since it crosses over with Literature, I’m really quite impressed.
Science:
Along with some of the stuff we’ve already been doing, we’ll begin The Lab of Mr. Q – Classic Science – an almost comic-book style science curriculum that looks like a lot of fun. Our Project Wild course should be soon, so we’ll have a full curriculum from that, which will come in handy with our field trips since we do so many at the local state parks.
History:
History is definitely an area that I’ve struggled with this year as a ‘teacher’. Mosaic, using SWB’s Story of the World (or optional, Gombrich’s A Little History of the World) was recommended to me; but SOTW is very faith-based, IMO and I prefer not to use it. MacroHistory was recommended on SecularHomeschooling.com, so I think we’ll use that and see where it takes us. I did like the timeline pages on Mosaic, so we’ll do a 2011 THE Academy Time Line – we’re going to do some prep-work this mod so that we can begin a timeline of our school year next year. I am thinking that we’ll do a scroll version, simply because we lack space to lay out a wall timeline.
We’ll also wrap up the outstanding lapbooks we’ve started (hurricanes and The Constitution – that one was way more intensive that I thought it would be and thus have I been completely unmotivated to finish it). This time of year has many opportunities for history lessons that are outside of academia, so we’ll be taking advantage of that as well.
History and Science seem to be the two main areas that our field trips coincide with; this mod is no different – plans include 2 history-themed museums, a children’s museum and a working farm.
Math:
We’re still going strong with MEP math, using Kahn Academy videos to supplement, as well as a hot of other resources from all over (AAAMath, multiplication.com).
Language Arts:
Language Arts is an area that I don’t really use a full curriculum in. We’ve been using Lesson Pathways, and I really like that, but we’re using it as a spine and adding/skipping/re-arranging things to suit what we’re doing rather than a by-the-week guided lesson planner. We read quite a bit, both individually and together. I think that at this age, they’re more interested in hearing a story or reading one than picking it apart to learn what the bits and pieces are, though LBB is going to be getting more and more into that this next year.
PeaGreen is still using MES-English quite a bit; we printed the FunFonix workbook and are still working on that. He’s a flashcard king, so we’ve printed and laminated several sets from there as well. I can definitely see an improvement in his reading ability since we started flashcard drills and doing the reading cards.
We’ve been doing books reports using Story Mapping and Book Report Sandwich. Right now, they’re dictating and I type their thoughts out; hopefully they’ll get better at creative writing as we settle in this year. I also found English Maven that we might use for supplementation.
AAASpell is back on just for fun this mod; they have cute little holiday-oriented lessons for tis time of year, so though we’re not going to be faithfully working on a spelling curriculum, we will have fun with what’s available!
So there you have it.. a somewhat disjointed look at what we’ll be working on for the next 6 weeks or so. I’ll update the ‘our curriculum’ page at some point… I’ve been so lax about keeping that updated! {slaps wrist} This is out last 6 weeks for this school year; we’ll end at the beginning of December and then start fresh with year 2 in January. I can’t believe that we’re almost done with our first YEAR of homeschooling!
Warmly,
~h
Lesson Planning for M6 (Sept-Oct 2010)
Wow – we’re really starting to wind down into the end of our school year! Just in time for ‘back to school’ madness, we’re ready to start fresh on Monday.
If you’re just finding TAL, welcome! Let me explain a bit about this post. We are year-round schooling. Our school year begins in January and ends at the end of November. We school for 6 weeks (modules, or ‘mods’), then take a week-long break. I plan the kids lessons 6 weeks at a time, and usually post a ‘lesson planning’ post at some point before the new mod starts.
I find that planning incrementally lets me make adjustments as-needed during the year. I’m not planning so far ahead that if we stop on a subject and linger for a while, we haven’t thrown off the rest of the year. I use this post to remind myself of (and share with ya’ll) the links I’ve collected that I thought were so neat – this is to keep myself from coming across them 6 months after we’re done with that lesson and going, ‘Darn it!! I wanted to use that!!”.
Before we get into the good stuff, I wanted to mention a couple of things. I found this article – it’s only relevant in the ‘learning about lesson planning’ sense, but if you’re like me, the you might find it interesting. I liked the diagram – that first column of goals is quite helpful in knowing what ‘my’ goals as a teacher need to be in planning lessons for the boys.
I was recently asked if I use a lesson planner – I do. In fact, I consider it an essential part of keeping myself on track. What ‘on track’ means may be different from day-to-day, but I rely on my planner quite heavily. I keep it in my purse and use it to make notes (like I’ve said before, homeschooling isn’t something we do, it’s how we live) when we’re out and about, or to record notes for myself about the kids’ achievements or areas that might need addressing later on. I looked into the kind meant for classroom teachers and found that they weren’t really suited to homeschooling use. I tried the homeschooling ones on sites like CurrClick.com, but most are religious-y and as a secular homeschooler, that also doesn’t work for me, so I ended up making my own. I’ve added them here for you to see; feel free to print and fill them out for your own use. I take mine to a local printing shop and have the pages copied into however many I’ll need (and print them so that they’re front&back printed), then separate them into 7-six-week sections and add a colored page of paper to mark each mod. I put an evaluation sheet at the beginning of the school year, end of each mod and end of the year, print out a cover with our homeschool crest and put plastic on the front and back to protect it from wear and tear.
LessonPlanP1_ThisAdventureLife
LessonPLanP@_ThisAdventureLife
EvaluationPage_ThisAdventureLife
CurricRefSheet_ThisAdventureLife
Donna Young also has a page with a ton of printable planning forms for homeschoolers that I love looking through. Here are a couple of other pages that I didn’t make that I may add to next year’s book:
- Student Goals Worksheet (or something similar – I really like the idea of the kids having goals for themselves and outlining a strategy to reach them.)
- I am going to add a 2-page month-view calendar to the beginning of the planner – I frequently need one for planning non-school events.
I always put a school year calendar and a page for the kids to tell me about themselves (fun to look back on later – plus it’s a good place to add their picture for this year), and I add a page to list all of the books and resources we’re using this year and the code that I am using for that books (for example, ‘Saxon Math 3′ is ‘S3′) and any pertinent info (like reordering info for workbooks and such).
Once I have all my pages printed and copied and in the correct order (check once, twice, thrice!!), I have the book spiral bound with sturdy plastic covers. In all, the last one I printed cost around $15-$20, which is comparable to what I would pay for a commercial one, so I think that’s reasonable, especially when I have the features that I want in it – and no pages that I don’t!
I also made Student Planners for the boys for next year. found several online, but all were faith-based, so I made secular versions that are similar. Most of the clip art is ‘boy’ related; I may work on a girl version in the future:
STARSPlannerReadLog_ThisAdventureLife
STARSPlannerPg2_ThisAdventureLife
STARSPlannerPg1_ThisAdventureLife
Now, on to the links!! {fanfare}
One of the links I am SUPER excited about is this one from NASA, Virtual Skies. LittleBoyBlue has his heart set on being a jet pilot (on the days where he doesn’t want to own a grocery store or run an orphanage). Even though many of the concepts are clearly above his level of understanding, he’s interested in the subject and wants to explore it. Far be it from me to deny him access! We recently had the chance to preview ‘Legends of Flight’ at IMAX, so I’m sure that will come up in discussion as we work on the concepts in Virtual Skies.
We’re always looking for fun ways to work on grammar and parts of speech; Teachers Pay Teachers Open Marketplace has a free download of Grammar Comics volume 1 that looks fun. We found printable comic strips a while back and have been meaning to make use of them – maybe we can work on that this mod.
Grade Two Word Wall (Math words) – love this list!
The Homeschool Mom.com – How to Make a Time Line We’ve been using HyperHistory’s timeline online, but I think that the boys would benefit more from having one they can touch. That’s the only drawback to finding cool stuff online when you have (or are) a tactile learner!
Most of our resources will actually not change all that much for this mod. We’re still using LessonPathways for many of our lessons and augmenting with different websites and workbooks/sheets (listed on the ‘Our Current Curriculum‘ page). We’re planning field trips with our local group about once per week, most science or history based, so we’ll use those as the backbone to our lessons for those subjects. We started working on a lapbook for the US Constitution, so we’ll be continuing that as well. Overall, I want to add more lapbooking to our lessons; I think that’s a good way to cover and review individual units or specific topics – we’re going to give it a try, anyway!
I’ll be updating the curriculum page over the weekend, but as I said, much of it will stay the same. If you’re local and interested in the specific lesson plans associated with the field trips our group is doing, you might consider joining Triangle Homeschoolers’ Yahoo Group. We’ll be discussing lesson plans onlist there.
Warmly,
~h
New This Week
We have a few new additions to our curriculum that I think are pretty cool that I’d like to share.
MES-English , FunFonix and Sight Words with Sampson
PeaGreen is having the worst time with self-confidence and reading. We’re over halfway through with 100EL, and he’s reading the stories in there just fine. We have Dolch flash cards, and he zips through those with only a few misses – but you give him a book or a sheet with more than a couple of lines to read and he’s absolutely overwhelmed.
He also reads backwards – with the ending sound first a lot of the time. I think that’s an age thing since he usually corrects himself. In any case, we’re working on building confidence and recognizing letter combinations and I think that these two sites will help that.
MES-English is a site for English as a second or foreign language, but it’s phonics section has a bunch of printable flash cards and handouts. We’re using the handouts as posters on the wall, and the flash cards I printed and cut to do drills. I had to re-size them to fit (2 per page) and it made nice-sized cards – about the size of a playing card. They’re easy for him to hold and flip through. I may get them laminated and put on a binder ring.
FunFonix has printable workbooks that are probably similar to other phonics workbooks, but you can print all or some of the pages. I printed out all of the first one, but may not for the others; it just depends on how quickly he moves through it. That’s part of the charm though – I want him to breeze through it to build confidence. We’re also still using Lesson Pathways and KISS Grammar for both boys, so this workbook is just a little extra for PeaGreen.
Sight words with Sampson is a flash site that I’m going to try out starting tomorrow. It uses 8 word lists and I think we’re going to use them as spelling words for now. Both of the boys find spelling to be a challenge, so maybe this will help since it’s more visual. I’ll let you know how that goes.
As usual, my additions are free to use - I am all about the free resources. I found FreeHomeschooling101 a while back and LOVE their collection of links, and I also found Frugal Homeschooling ‘s article, Spending Time to Save Money. In comparing what she had to work with, I realize that we have many of the same resources here. Our library is great, we have more museums per square mile than any other US county (or something like that – there’s a TON of them!) and a relatively large homeschooling community (even if they’re not particularly open to ‘outsiders’ coming into their little groups) – but to give credit where credit is due, those homeschooling groups have done a lot to make homeschooling ‘normal’ in our community – no one bats an eye if we’re out and about on a school day during school hours because they figure we’re homeschooling.
I was reading somewhere that homeschoolers who want free resources are distasteful, but I disagree. I don’t expect companies to make their resources that others have to pay for free for homeschoolers, but there are plenty of resources – great resources – out there for homeschoolers to make use of without shelling out a fortune in curriculum. I also think of it as if I were wanting to learn something. Practically anything that I want to know more about, I can learn for free – all it requires is a little effort!
A couple more things I’ve found to be of interest, recommended by the lovely ladies over at Secular Homeschooling are Waymarking (similar to Letterboxing and GeoCaching, only different) and a really neat poster that talks about Forecasting the Weather.
Warmly,
~h
Lesson Planing for M4 (June-July 2010)
Welcome back!
If you’re just joining me, then be warned – this post might get a tad overwhelming. Every 6 weeks, my kids and I take a break from school and relax… well, they relax; I plan our next 6 weeks! This is the time when I go back through all the websites and homeschool materials I have to refresh my memory on all the cool things I wanted to try and lessons I wanted to do with the kids. I usually post a lot of links and reference a lot of materials, so if you’re starting out this might be a good place to look to get ideas or to find spiffy little homeschooling gems that you might not have come across yet.
If you’re joining me again as I plan this next module, then I’d love to hear if my posts have helped you. I’d also love to hear from you about how you plan or what some of your favorite materials and resources are.
In scanning some of my earlier posts, I just realized that my previous “lesson planning” post had a huge mistake in it – the title is “LPing for M2″ and it was actually M3 that was being planned – so if you noticed that, then you get a gold star for having a keen eye.
So – we’re going into M4 – that’s our 4th six-weeks grading period. Our school schedule is year-round. We do 6 weeks on and a one-week break throughout the year, then take all of December off and start our new school year in January. We end up with a total to 7 grading periods, which comes out to about 165-ish days (we school M-Th). We’re going into our 6th month of homeschooling – I can’t believe how FAST the months have passed! It seems like we have just gotten started. Looking back at how much we’ve accomplished, I’m simply amazed. I didn’t really suffer with self-doubt about homeschooling (overly much, anyway), but it’s really nice to be able to look back and see just how much we really have covered. Last week, for example, we were discussing a friend who recently moved back to Michigan and how far away that is. We haven’t done a whole lot of geography on the map, but we have discussed in great detail the Great Lakes area in one of our lesson series. I was trying to tell the kids how far away Michigan was in relation to Texas, and I brought up the Lakes… and they totally got it! They had a whole discussion that reviewed much of the material we discussed months ago – on their own! That was such a gratifying “homeschool mommy moment”.
With summer coming up, we’ll have a unique addition to our family’s school days. My niece, Fred, will be joining us several days a week. She’s a “school-a-holic” – she loves school, and has requested to be allowed to participate. So I’m going to be planning some things for her to do as well. Since she and my oldest, LittleBoyBlue, are in the same grade (going into 3rd), it won’t really be any problem to add in lessons for her. PeaGreen is going into 2nd now (wow – my baby is in second grade!).
So, without further adieu… planning! {fanfare}
Okay, so… one of the main things we’re going to work into our summer is letterboxing. If you’ve read previous posts, you’ve probably seen it mentioned before. Basically, letterboxing is a treasure hunt. You have a notebook and a stamp (hand-carved or bought, your choice. It’s your personal stamp – your mark), and ink pad and the list of clues to find the box (and there are literally thousands of them, all over the world). Then you go out and find the box. In it, you’ll find a notebook and a stamp. You stamp your book with the box’s stamp, and mark your stamp into the box’s book and then hide the box back exactly where you found it so it can be found again. And that’s it! Unless you want to start making and hiding boxes (in which case you have a whole new level of fun to enjoy). Learn all you want about it at Letterboxing North America’s website.
The other thing that will be taking up a lot of the next 2 mods is the Texas Nature Challenge. It’s a 12 week, 24 state park “how many can you visit” challenge with a mission for you (the kids?) to complete. We snagged a nifty poster from the Big Thicket Visitor’s Center a couple of weeks ago. We stopped in by chance and learned about it by accident. It’s such a cool concept though that we’re really looking forward to sinking our teeth into it. The neat thing about these two projects is that they can be done in conjunction with each other. We’ve already completed 2.5 missions and are really looking forward to doing more of them!
Now, as for what subjects those things fall into, I’m filing them under science, geography, critical thinking, history, art… pretty much all of them! Different missions and different clues and locations for letterbox hunting contain different aspects of “school”. Sometimes we’re drawing, following a map, learning about the history of an area or object – the list is endless and i LOVE being able to have school be a living, breathing thing.
Of course, we’ll still be doing ‘real’ schoolwork as well. I still haven’t had time to delve into Lesson Pathways site yet, so that’s high on my list for planning this mod. I’m planning on using their Year 3 Math for LittleBoyBlue and Year 2 Math for PeaGreen starting at some point this mod. I have Saxon 3, but not all of the consumables, so I will be supplementing LP’s stuff with that. We were supposed to get into multiplication tables this past mod with LBB, but haven’t really sunk into them yet, so we’re going to start off next week (week 3 of M4 – already!!) hitting them hard and heavy.
Something else we’re starting is mock-scouting. I love the concept of scouting, but the dogma of organized scouting programs just don’t work for our family. So, we’re doing an ‘adventure kids’ type thing that mimics scouting in some ways. I started buying patches from the State Parks we’ve visited and am going to make a sash for them to showcase their achievements. I also found a bunch of merit badges (demerit badges, in some cases) that are fun and amusing that we’ll use as well – I want this to be fun and interesting – not plain ole’ Boy Scouts stuff. So I’m going to choose the badges that I like and come up with a worksheet/accomplishment/task/skill set for the boys to complete to earn them. I’m still working on this, so when I get it together better in my head, I’ll do a new post about it with links and such so you can see.
Another really cool thing that is going on this summer is our library’s Summer Reading Club. Their theme this summer is ‘The Reading Express”. In addition to encouraging the kids to read (20 books), they can log their time and compete for prizes from the mayor’s office and get an award for reading. There are also a TON of nifty classes, presentations and projects that they’re offering in connection with the club – and the best part about it is that it’s all FREE! If you’re not local, then check your library – they may have something similar that you can take advantage of. Our library also has a room (or shelf, depending on the branch we’re at that day) with books for sale – either donated or withdrawn. Usually, they’re super cheap. If you’re book hunting, you can usually pick up a text-book or two, and almost always find a handful of kids books to supplement your personal library for very little dough. Other places, like Barnes & Noble and Scholastic also offer Summer Reading Programs that might be worth checking out.
Language Arts: Mad Libs! Or, if you’re interested in playing online, you can use Wacky Web Tales, which is similar – and still fun! Of course, we’re still going to be doing more traditional LA work – I’ve been using EnglishGrammar101 for LittleBoyBlue, but I am thinking that it’s a bit too far ahead of where he is at. We’re into Unit 1, Lesson 14-ish, and he’s having trouble with a lot of it. Whether that’s due to inattention or inability, I am just not sure. I’m thinking of starting with Lesson Pathways Language Arts (which starts with Boxcar Children lessons, which I like) and trying some of the ProTeacher resources.
For History and Geography, we’re still using ‘A Short History of the World’ by Alex Woolf, and also using worksheets from SuperTeacherWorksheets – I use that site quite a bit, especially when we’re going to be schooling on-the-go. It’s easy to snag and print a couple of worksheets that coordinate with something we’re doing “in-class”. The library’s summer reading club has some history-based activities (like the Pioneer Lady’ mentioned in my previous post).
Science is going to be spent outdoors a lot this summer. In addition to the above-mentioned Texas Nature Challenge, we’re planning a trip to the Houston Museum of Natural Science and to several additional state parks. We’re also doing the Houston Wilderness Passport, which focuses on specific ecosystems in our area.
Other than that, we’re kinds going lite this mod. We’ve scaled back history and science to only 1 day per week each, and art and music are each 1 day. Handwriting is M, T, W and journal is at least 2 days per week. Math, spelling, reading, phonics - those are everyday. We’re trying to fit lessons at home with lessons out-and-about; since we have such a busy summer planned, it will be a challenge to get all our lessons in. So far, so good though. Tomorrow marks the last day of week 2 – Only 4 more weeks left in this mod!
I hope you found something useful in this post! As always, I’d love to hear what you think, or what you’re using.
Warmly,
~h
Lesson Planning for M2 (April/May 2010)
It’s been a while since I posted anything. Sorry about that! If you’re waiting to see what we’re doing for the next 6 weeks (well, 5, almost 4, now that the first week and a half of M2 is over!!), we have some new things that we’re working on that we started this week.
One of the new sites I found (courtesy of FreeHomeschooling101′s blog – link in sidebar) is EnglishGrammar101.com. It’s a fully lessoned-out plan of attack that your kidlet can do online, or you can print lessons out and. The site will score the lessons, and you can keep track. Neat-o! You know me; I’m all about record-keeping, lol. LittleBoyBlue is breezing through 100 Easy Lessons – I knew he would; he’s reading very well (surprisingly well sometimes – he recently finished the Halo graphic novel and a Zelda GN, and started on The Fall of Reach (which is a full-length Halo novel) and 100 EL is very, very basic. We started EnglishGrammar101 this week with Unit 1, Lesson 1 (and have completed Lesson 2). It’s good. I like it, at any rate. Since the first part is verbs, I found the Grammar Rock YouTube video of “Verbs” and we watched that. Fun, and it brings back good Saturday-morning-cartoon memories for me. When you click on the link, look in the left hand menu and choose “homeschooling”, then you can click the plus signs to expand the menu and you can choose a unit and lesson from the drop-down box. I let LittleBoyBlue do the lesson, then click “score” at the top (though you can click the question mark boxes at each line as you go if you’re reviewing or learning) and then write down the percentage (grade) and then print. We’re using the printed work as a review and reference to reinforce what we learned in the lesson.
Another is AAAKnow.com – it’s a math site that is divided into grade levels and subject areas. Again – it’s all online, fully planned out lessons and worksheets. PeaGreen has completed his other workbooks, so I was scraping the bottom of the barrel to find him something (I was about to go buy a workbook!!) when I found this site. He’s actually quite good in math, and we’re coming up on May where he would have ‘graduated’ to 2nd grade, so I think we’re going to finish out this mod and the next and start him in “2nd grade” in M5, which will come up starting in July. LittleBoyBlue is also very good in math (though he lacks discipline as evidenced by the 2 hours he spent on 20 problems today; some of that was my fault for not paying him enough attention) and as soon as he finishes the Math Minutes book, he’ll start on Saxon 3, but we’ll supplement with AAAKnow’s lesson plans as well. One thing I will mention is that the ‘practice’ portions will go on indefinitely – at least past 50, so count as your child does them as you go and limit it to whatever number you want to work with. We did 50, but could have stopped after 25 or so, once he demonstrated that he clearly has grasped the concept. I do like that there’s a printable progress report form so you can keep track of which lessons as you go.
We’re also using Multiplication.com quite a bit this mod. LittleBoyBlue is getting into multiplication tables and they have a nice little video that uses “cookie math” to explain the concept. It must work; he’s up to the 3′s already, and can figure out most of the problems I give him. They also have worksheets, pre- and post- tests to print and use.
I also found (again, thanks to FreeHomeschooling101) is a flash sight words site. It’s based on the Dolch sight words and many other resources use that as well – we actually had flash cards and sticky-notes with these words on them already, which makes it super easy to supplement with hands-on materials. I haven’t looked through the flash site fully, but what I saw, I liked. PeaGreen is having some difficulty with reading – I don’t know why. It seems like he was doing quite well in his classroom with the leveled readers that his former teacher was sending home, but for some reason he seems to have lost that confidence. He’s doing very well with the phonics lessons in 100 EL, but when it comes to spelling work (not the spelling itself, but the reading of directions or spelling sentences) or independent reading, he’s stumbling more than I am thinking he should be. I am hoping that drills of sight words will help reinforce his skills.
Another new development in our school is a return to handwriting as a subject all its own, independent of journaling and copywork. Both boys still have their handwriting books from school (McDougal, Littell’s Handwriting Connections for grades 1 and 2)
so we’ll continue to use them until they’re done, then we’ll have to find something to supplement that. LittleBoyBlue will be moving on to cursive writing soon!
Let’s see… I also bought A Short History of the World by Alex Woolf to use for History/Geography. It’s not comprehensive, but it does cover a heck of a lot – skims the surface of history, which I think is enough to get us to an area that one (or both) of the boys finds interesting – at which point we can dig in a little deeper. we’re still chronologically in pre-history and ancient history (here on the timeline – and can I just reiterate how much I LOVE the online timeline at HyperHistory?!) and the book is not strictly chronological, but we can supplement as needed.
I also have been looking for a way to assess where the boys are in reading – are they “on track”? Ahead? Lagging behind? I found several assessment tests – some more for “Language Arts” and reading speed/level, and some to give you a ‘grade/month’ number. I think the first one is probably more ‘accurate’, but the second one is fast and easy to use. According to it, PeaGreen is reading at 1st grade, 6th month (which is on-target for him) and LittleBoyBlue is reading at 3th grade, 6rd month level, which is ahead of his actual grade (2nd)… and I read at 12th grade, 8th month and beyond, in case you were wondering. {smile}
I’m planning on doing the other test at some point during this mod as well, which will give us an idea of which “level” books to give them when we’re choosing leveled readers. Right now I’m giving LittleBoyBlue level 3 books, which are chapter books, and PeaGreen is getting between level 1 and level 2 books, depending on the series. He’s harder to choose for; I want him to be challenged, but not frustrated. we’re reinforcing his skills with 100 EL as I said, so I am seeing small improvements – I think that will improve as we continue through this mod’s reading, phonics and grammar lessons.
Here’s something fun: BOOK IT – Pizza Hut’s reading incentives program for 2010-2011 school year (deadline June 30, 2010) http://www.bookitprogram.com/Enrollment/homeschool.asp Your kidlet can get free pizzas for reading. How awesome is that?!
Another freebie (thanks, yet again to FreeHomeschooling101′s blog – if you’re not on their FaceBook page, you REALLY need to check them out.) History Lesson plans - August 2010 DVD http://www.history.com/images/media/pdf/TDIH_Guide.pdf
If you’re looking for Earth Day lesson plans, check this out: http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/earthday/index.php There are lots of options, depending on your grade level and how involved you want to get. Of course, if you’re local to Southeast Texas, then you’re going to want to come out to The Barking Dog to support the Farmer’s Market that opens this May!
And one more thing… Lesson Pathways website is now FREE!! http://www.lessonpathways.com/Home They have TONS of info, including COMPLETE curriculum outlines by grade. You can pick and choose lessons, units or use their entire plan. So cool! I haven’t explored it fully, but there are some things I am pretty sure we’ll be using in the math section – I am sure I’ll find more awesomeness as I browse.
Overall, I’m feeling very good about this mod’s beginning. It always takes a few days to get back into the routine after a break, but now that we’re back, it’s going pretty smoothly. I think the boys are excited to have some new things to work on, and I know they both like doing computer work. Having the option to print is good, but paperless is definitely cheaper, and between the Homeschool Tracker program I use and online lessons, I’m using less paper and ink than I thought I would be. That’s a good thing!
On another note (for those of you who have been keeping up with the progress of out garden), we have definite PLANTS now – not just seedlings. From seed, we have tomatoes, onions, pumpkins, radishes, watermelons, avocados, jalapeños, basil, coriander, tarragon, radishes and cantaloupes coming up. It’s SO NEAT to watch! I’ll post pictures soon.
I hope that you find some of this useful when planning your own lessons and activities!
Warmly,
~h
A Matter of Motivation
One of the biggest challenges that I am finding in homeschooling is keeping my kids motivated. I know, I know, true motivation comes from within – but let’s face it. Who is ever going to be motivated to do 2 pages of a math workbook?
Ideally, the (I’m searching for an appropriate adjective here) thing to do would be to help my son learn the math concepts that the workbook is teaching without resorting to using the dreaded workbook, which would be fine… however. One of the things I am trying to do here is encourage working independently. I have a smart kid – I know that. I also know that I have a lazy kid; one who will always take the easy way out and if there isn’t an easy way, who will procrastinate until so much time has passed that it would be ridiculous to continue. Why can I identify these less-than-stellar traits so quickly? Because he gets it from yours truly. That’s right – good ol’ Mom handed them down – maybe those kinds of things pass through breastmilk or something – however he got them, I recognize them as faults of my own.
Am I slightly more harsh on my kiddo because I identify how those traits have negatively impacted me? Ummm… maybe. I think that’s a problem for most moms; we see exactly how whatever we used to do has hurt us in the long run and are determined that our children will benefit from our superior insight. Unfortunately, I think that a lot of those lessons are ones that people have to figure out for themselves, even our beloved offspring. It’s like learning about fire. Fire burns. It’s always hot (unless you have access to some space-age, NASA fire that for some reason burns cold, in which case STFU – I’m not talking to you) But EVERY kid will, at some point, touch the flame. Why? Even though Mom and Dad and the neighbors and his best friend have all said countless times, “Don’t touch! HOT!”, he will still reach out and try it for himself because he must. Because no amount of telling is worth the doing. And some lessons have to be learned a couple of times before they sink in.
I guess my dilemma in writing this is because it’s hard to figure out at exactly what point to stop ‘babying’ him. Sure, we could sit together on the floor all day and work on math or spelling and it would be great – but at some point, he’s got to learn how to study something or complete a task all on his own, without Mom sweeping in with reminders and cheerleading to help him complete his assignment – whatever that may be.
For now, setting a timer is working. We had a discussion yesterday (when it took 3 hours to do 40 math problems – different math problems even; it wasn’t like it was 40 subtraction with borrowing – which as you can tell is my worst nightmare) about why it took so long to finish. He came to the conclusion that knowing in advance that he had FOUR PAGES ahead of him made it seem like a mountain the he could never climb. In effect, he was mentally defeating himself before he ever got started. Knowing that he is expected to do both a spelling word search-a-word AND have to write words in his spelling list that rhyme with ‘spent’ was just too much to think about. So we agreed that in addition to the timer (which we have used to keep us on-task from the beginning), I would only assign him part of the work and when he was finished with that part, I would tell him what the next part would be, and that he would say things to himself that were encouraging, like “This is easy. I know how to do this”. Breaking his work up into smaller ‘bites’ today, and using positive affirmations has helped. He doesn’t get overwhelmed in thinking about how much there is to do.
In a way, I can relate to that. When I was younger, I remember sitting at the beginning of a math worksheet and seeing a whole page full of blank problems that I was supposed to figure out and it just seemed like SO MUCH and SO HARD. As an adult, I have learned that the only way to get through such things is to start working. Cover half the page (or all but the one I’m working on) so I don’t get distracted by the rest and do them one step at a time. As a kid though, I lacked that knowledge - that problem-solving ability and no one really helped me work through that. And I admit it – it’s hard to put myself back into the child-like frame of mind when math was the biggest problem in my life, even knowing how much it would have helped to have someone not get frustrated with me for not ‘just DOING it’ and showing me strategies to get through it… I still have trouble scaling back to that mindset.
Upon further reflection (because it takes a while to write these posts, and I’m often distracted by kids and the need to refill my coffee mug), I can liken his terror at facing an insurmountable mountain of math or spelling with planning for homeschool. I’ve heard lots of moms talk about how they ‘would’, but it’s just so overwhelming. There’s so much to consider, and so much to keep track of and so many options – where do you start? For me, it’s just like getting through math – one step at a time. Just START – start somewhere! Pick up a book and start with page 1, chapter 1. If the method is wrong, you can change it later; and who is to say it’s “wrong” anyway? It’s almost always going to be DIFFERENT, but if we’ve learned anything in the evolution of history, it is that ‘different’ does NOT equate “wrong”! Homeschooling is most definitely different from institutionalized schooling (and thank goodness for that, right?!). Your kids will learn different things, at different times – the time that is right for you and for them. Some things will be learned in ways that make more sense to your kids – I know for us, history along the timeline, in chronological order makes much more sense than learning about your city, your state, your country and then working history backwards. Your mileage may vary, but that’s the beauty of it. You can take your trip however is right for YOU.
Back to my super special little boy… his solution wouldn’t work for me. Even as a child, I don’t think that would have worked for me. I would have gotten annoyed at thinking I was done and then finding out that there’s still another page to do. But it was his solution; one that he thought of himself. The affirmations might have helped. I’m bad about psyching myself out of (or into) a problem. Maybe I should take his advice, yeah? As for long-term effectiveness, we’ll see. If we get into a few days and he starts getting frustrated, we may have to brainstorm ideas again, but still. I’m so proud of him for thinking up a solution to a problem that we’re having and being willing to implement his ideas. I’m proud of myself for slowing down and letting him thing through the problem and come up with a way to help the situation.
Now, I’m off to mix up salt dough and gather materials to complete our history/art lesson at a friend’s house and make lunch to bring with us.
Warmly,
~h
Final Lesson Plans for M2
If you read my post about planning, then you’ve seen how much information I’ve processed in the last week to come up with the final lesson plan for the next 6 weeks (our “M2″). So here are our final choices, arranged by subject:
History/Geography/Social Studies:
- Earliest Man to the Creation of Early Civilizations I’m using this almost as-is. It’s 8 lessons, and we’ll probably do 1 lesson each week, but we’ll probably work all 8 into this mod.
- I found this book, Early Humans, that is a thematic unit study book with tons of cool ideas that I will pull from while we’re working on early history.
- I am also making use of the online timeline and we’ll be working on making our own paper version as well.
- Everything from the lesson plan will be mapped in an atlas, and there are great ‘real’ maps at Perry-Castaneda Library Online and I will print out map worksheets as needed for the kids to work on. These are not “kiddie” maps, and I like that.
Spelling
- We’re continuing spelling in their workbooks for M2. PeaGreen will have plenty of spelling lessons left in his book to last a couple more mods, and LittleBoyBlue will most likely start Power to Spell in M3. I will probably start PeaGreen in Power to Spell when he is done with his current book. I wish I had a link on PtS, but it’s OLD old… 1967, published by Houghton Mifflin Company. We’ll supplement that with spelling lists from SuperTeacherWorksheets.com’s spelling lists as needed.
Copywork/Handwriting/Journal/Narration
- My boys start the morning with copywork from the board. I write a few lines of a poem (whichever one we’re working on) and they copy. Most of that is coming from Ambleside Online’s poetry list or one of the books recommended. I did find this notebook – RediSpace from Mead “training” notebook to help kids learn proper spacing when writing. I’m going to start the boys in this notebook for copywork this week.
- They both still have their handwriting books from their former school, so we’ll probably add in a page or two per week in that. My friend compiled a few links for kids who hate to write in her blog, so I’m going to look more into them to see if we can use any of that.
- Journal is something we need to work more on this mod. I write a prompt on the whiteboard and they will do that after copywork and Morning Meeting (which is calendar, weather, and we go over our charts (math, clock, character traits, alphabet, days of week, months, seasons, etc).
- Narration – we’re going to work more of this as well in every subject that requires literature or that we do orally. I’ll read and let them tell me what they learned, and then write a couple of lines in a notebook.
Math
- PeaGreen has plenty of work in his workbooks to keep him occupied for this mod. Once we finish basic math, we’ll start working on money. I bought some place value flats, rods and units to help him with those concepts. (Mine are for an overhead projector, so they’re clear yellow, and didn’t come with the cube, but they’ll work just fine.)
- LittleBoyBlue is going to be working on fractions and I bought some manipulatives to help illustrate those concepts to him. (not exactly the picture, but close. Mine are for an overhead projector and only go to 1/8 – but, they were much cheaper and illustrate the same concept.)
- I also bought a Math Minutes workbook for LittleBoyBlue to start in; we’ll begin Saxon 3 in Mod 3 or 4, I think.
- We’ll use game sites like Mad Math Minutes to brush up on skills or possibly for Friday tests just to change things up a bit.
- We’ll also use IXL.com to make sure we’re on-task with Texas testing requirements for their grade levels. (There’s a commentary about standardized testing coming soon, too.)
Phonics/Grammar/Language Arts, Literature & Reading
- My boys are both pretty good at reading and writing, but they’ve learned with “whole language” style (sight words). We’re going to go back and re-lay a good phonetic foundation with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.
- We’ll still work on their word banks and our word wall, and use the pocket chart more to create sentences and to work on punctuation. I know LittleBoyBlue was working on basic punctuation correction in his former school, so we may start that this mod as well, but probably on the board or the pocket chart.
- For Literature & Reading, we’ll continue with Shakespeare and some additional stories from the Blue, Red or Green Fairy books.
- The boys will both have leveled readers that they’ll read from every day for 20-30 minutes. I’ll make more of an effort to catalog the books they’re reading for this mod, too so we can have a lovely printed report at the end of the mod.
Science
- We’re using a couple of school textbooks, so we’ll continue with that. We’re studying plant life/life cycle, so a trip to the local botanical garden will be a field trip this mod, and also boxed planters and we’ll plant some herbs and maybe tomatoes or something to watch grow and keep a log about it.
Art/Music
- We’ll continue to have Mozart during math and our composer study will go along with our art lesson (music playing while we do art).
Life Skills/Home Economics/Etiquette/ Social Skills/Volunteering
- This will continue to be chores, learning about how our household works, Tuesday Tea, playgroup and good citizenship activities (like picking up litter and such). We’ll also plan a volunteer activity for sometime this mod.
I think that’s pretty much everything! I have most of their lessons added to the computer (Homeschool Tracker) and what’s not will be added as we do it.
Warmly,
~h
Planning for the Next 6 Weeks
One of the things I am always interested in is the planning process. I’m curious how other homeschooling moms go about planning their lessons – where they start, how they make choices, how long it takes them, etc. So I thought I would share a bit about how I plan my lessons. For me, planning is possibly the most important step in homeschooling (if you’re not unschooling). An organized method of presenting information is key to making things “flow”. I think there is a logical way to present information, especially in the core subjects. Each new thing builds upon the foundation previously laid, and so I want to ensure that my kids’ foundation is strong. That means good planning is essential so that nothing is left out … and so, I plan.
As I mentioned in previous posts, this week is our “off” week. We do school for 6 weeks, then take a one-week break. We follow that schedule all through the calendar year. I use the week off to plan the next 6 week lesson period (what we call a learning module, or “mod”), which leaves us with 7 mods for the year. If you’re new to lesson planning, I recommend getting a good lesson planner. You can buy them in office/school supplies stores, online (Donna Young has a good selection of printables. Here’s her homeschool lesson planner) or you can make your own, which I recommend once you know what you want to do. I also use Homeschool Tracker, a free downloadable program that lets to plan and/or keep records on your computer. Helpful because you can generate reports on everything and I am a fan of good record keeping.
Now, for the actual planning process, I begin by browsing. Today, I am just surfing the web, reading homeschool blogs and checking out websites that other moms like and making notes. I’m also reviewing my bookmarked sites because I tend to forget what all I have saved. I often will bookmark something with the intent of using it for a certain lesson and forget that I have it, so this review helps me use the resources I have gathered. I am using Ambleside Online (link in sidebar) as a basis for our year with heavy influence by The Well Trained Mind (link below). I also want to incorporate more Waldorf style into this mod, so I will be working on meshing that this week. I’m using these two articles about Waldorf curriculum to draw from: 1st grade & 2nd grade. You can search that site for Waldorf curriculum overviews for other grades.
We covered “Paddle to the Sea” for history/geography in the first 6 weeks (M1), so I need something new for M2. I am thinking of buying History of the World, but since we covered “history” in M1, we might work on more “social studies” in M2 and then switch back to history in M3 and just alternate for the rest of the year. If we do social studies, we can still work in concepts like mapping (drawing our neighborhood, a local park, finding routes to locales around town), visiting a local fire dept and police department, the courthouse; even things like paying bills can become a discussion and lesson on how our society works. If we do stick with History, I am considering using the history section of The Well Trained Mind’s strategy and starting on a timeline. I have read that kids under 3rd grade don’t benefit from a timeline, but I am not so sure about that. It seems like such a logical way to show history in relation to a little kid’s lifetime. That will require some thought over the next week or so. I did find this online timeline, which is way cool. We’ll still make our own, but this will be a good one to start with and to help me know what to add and when. I also found a set of lesson plans at Core Knowledge (link below) that we may use for history as well.
I found a recommendation for Sequential Spelling while reading through this blog’s list of resources. The workbook we’re using for PeaGreen is one from his former school (though oddly, not the one they were using for spelling lessons) and so we’re going to continue using that for now. For LittleBoyBlue, the book I am using is just a workbook I picked up from somewhere and it’s short (only 8 lessons) so we’re doing that for M2, but it will run out in week 5, so we’ll do a review of the words form the book and I will probably pick up Sequential Spelling to begin in M3. I also found some spelling lists here, and if you scroll down, there are holiday and special occasion lists, too. I also have a book called Power to Spell 2, which is a teacher’s edition (it’s so old that it doesn’t have an ISBN number…), and one called Dr. Spello 2nd edition that I may use if we don’t get Sequential Spelling. (Wow – I looked that up and maybe it’s worth something??) One thing I am noticing is that the older spelling books seem more advanced in grade 2 than the newer ones I am finding. Proof that schools are dumbing our kids down?
For math, the boys are almost done with the workbooks we started in, so I need to come up with something to carry us through. Actually, when I looked, LittleBoyBlue is done with his. I have Saxon Math 3, but I am not sure if we’re ‘there’ yet. I will be looking over the skills they need for their grade on the IXL website, and planning quite a bit from there for this mod. I found a list of lesson plans at HotChalk that offers some neat games to plan that are math related using cards, dice, spinners and other manipulatives, which my kids love. We’ll add in a bunch of those, too. I am looking over Math programs and am considering going with Math-U-See, but am not committing to it just yet. I am going to get some of the block/place value manipulatives, but probably from Manning’s since I’ve seen sets there cheaper than $30.00. I may check and see if Manning’s has a 2nd grade workbook to finish out the year since “technically”, LittleBoyBlue will begin “3rd grade” in the fall.
I have Learning Phonics and Spelling in a Whole Language Classroom but we’ve never used it. I also have Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, and we have used that before, so I think we’re going to use that more completely during M2. We’re using a couple of readers that I found at Goodwill (always good to pick up lost and older versions of text books…) for Reading and Language Arts. We didn’t focus a whole lot on reading last mod, so it’s going to be stepped up now. The kids read books, but not aloud, so I need to make sure they’re doing that more this mod. We’ll probably just use the readers (Bookworm for PeaGreen and Rainbow Bridge for LittleBoyBlue) chapter by chapter until we’re done with them, then look for something else.
Field Trips – we didn’t do many (only 1, not counting the library and playgroup) of these in M1, so I definitely want to plan several for this mod. I really want to go to the Botanical Garden in Orange, and since we’re studying plants is Science, and it’s getting closer to Spring, this will be a good time to go, I think. I’ll probably call or email them at some point this week to get their recommendation and see if they offer a lesson plan based on a trip there. I’d love to hit some of the museums around town, too. I’ll have to see what’s out there and how it can fit into our lessons for this mod.
For art, we’re going to continue with our study of Raphael. We’ve only covered 3 of the paintings recommended by Ambleside for the first term, so we’ll stick with that, and then move on to the next artist. Music will continue with AO’s recommendation as well. I’m also going to buy some silk scarves from Dharma Trading Co. and we’ll kool-aid dye them for playsilks. I’ll get several 35×35 and a couple of the larger sized for tent-making. Handicraft-wise, I think we may work on some needlecrafts this mod. I remember learning how to crochet when I was about 7, so the boys might enjoy that. I have a beginner’s kit, so this might be a good time to re-learn, myself! I also will plan holiday-oriented crafts for St. Patrick’s Day and Easter/Ostara /Spring Equinox will fall in this mod on March 20, so we’ll have some activity corresponding with that as well. Spiritually speaking, I don’t profess to claim any one religion; I think there is value in almost all kinds and want to present my kids with a well-rounded, open-minded view of things and so we’ll learn about the Christian holidays and the Pagan ones that influenced them.
Here are some of the sites I have bookmarked:
Big IQ Kids – spelling lists grades 1-7, math lessons and US Geography – This site is pretty neat. It features a “tutor” that speaks to your child. Downside is that all of the lessons are done online, so if you don’t like that (I prefer not to do lessons online) then this might not work for you. However, the geography one seems pretty cool.
Books available in whole online:
Main Lesson – LOTS of books here, many from Ambleside’s curriculum including Milo Winter’s Aesop for Children, The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang and Elementary Readers by Treadway.
The Rosetta Project – Vintage picture books and lots of classics
Handbook of Nature Study – Anna B. Comstock’s 1911 version online.
And videos we like:
50 States and Capitals and worksheets
The Colors in Spanish, Numbers 1-30 in Spanish, The Alphabet Song in Spanish
You can also search story books, circle time or the name of a book and it may be read by someone and published on YouTube. Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes, The Carrot Seed (from FIAR) and many others can be found there.
There are also lots of kids’ TV series and videos, like The Magic Schoolbus and Grammar Rock (and School House Rock, too) videos!
So… that’s where I begin. I have a lot of information; now comes the part where it gets put together into coherent lessons. Basically, I take the information I want to cover and break it down into 6 “bites” – or more, depending on how many days per week we do that subject. For example, with copywork, math, spelling, phonics & reading – those are done every day so I need 24 lessons to cover the whole 6 weeks. With art, music and drama, I only need one per week, so 6 lessons will suffice. With history, geography and science, I can get away with only 12 lessons, or 2 per week for each. There are other lessons, too, like character education (Aesop and other resources), etiquette (Tuesday Tea and I’m using a book called White Gloves and Party Manners that I picked up a long time ago) that may happen daily or weekly, depending on our schedule.
I am going to go ahead and publish this now, but I may edit it later and add to it, so check back! If you have resources that you’d like to share, please comment. Any additions will be noted. Thanks for reading!
Warmly,
~h
Day 2
I am unsure how the posts on this blog will evolve, so if you’re subscribing and are expecting to see “Day 3″ tomorrow and so on, then let me disabuse you of that notion. I am neither consistent enough nor obsessive enough to commit to keeping a daily log every single day, however, I can promise to periodically review what we’re doing and how my methods are working and how we’re evolving as a homeschooling family.
That said, today, Day 2, went quite well – better than yesterday, even. We got up a little bit earlier because we had plans for this morning and I knew we would be leaving soon. The boys had breakfast and we sat down with handwriting/copywork and journal. That seems to be the most challenging for both of my boys, so we knocked that out when they were still fresh and well-rested. That was one of my complaints about public school – that the mornings when the kids were refreshed and better able to commit to desk work were being wasted on activities and lessons like music, art and PE that would have them up and moving about – better suited for afternoons when they’re restless. Yesterday, I forgot that lesson and ended the day with copywork – bad move! So today, we finished up with art appreciation (Raphael and “A Night’s Dream” discussion and rendering on paper). That worked out much better. We didn’t have a full science lesson today; I got a book from the library on building structures from popsicle sticks, so that is on the agenda for tomorrow.
Again, that is one of the reasons that I am excited, more convinced that homeschooling is right for us, and happy overall – I CAN tailor our science study to what PeaGreen (and to a lesser extent LittleBoyBlue) is interested in. PeaGreen is ALL about Lego’s right now, so anything to do with building and structural principles seems like the perfect way to incorporate learning into our day. Otherwise, I think 1st grade is learning about plants or mammals – something we’re covering only once a week right now in Nature Studies (mammals now, plants in the months to come).
This was our first trip to the library “officially” as a homeschooling family. I played the mean momma and made each of the boys pick out 2 chapter books that were at their reading level in addition to whatever else they chose. I think they’re enjoying reading more in the last few days – they’re more willing and eager to grab a book when I say no TV, at least, which makes me happy. I also found books that coordinated with our lessons – books on Canada, The Great Lakes Indians (for history/geography) and Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes (which we have, but I cannot locate and we need it for a unit study for next week).
All in all, I am very pleased with the progression of today’s events. I don’t think today was a clean example of our daily routine, but it did help reinforce the idea of being flexible – and of being able to be flexible. We still didn’t end lessons until nearly 3PM, but that was with a nearly five-hour break between morning lessons and finishing up this afternoon. Though that won’t happen every day, it is nice to have it happen and not wreck the day.
Warmly,
~h
Workboxes, Week 1
I haven’t decided exactly how I feel about them yet. I’m thinking that we’ll give it another week and see how it goes. I am almost sure that the actual ‘box’ part is just adding an extra/unnecessary step; I’ve seen several versions of workboxing mods that use a single box or bin with manilla mailing envelopes to hold the work, and others that use hanging files, covered cereal boxes, and lots of other methods. Since we’re so limited on space, I am wondering if something like that might be better.
I am also going to have to figure out something else to do with the ‘done’ cards or tags… the process we have now feels like a bunch of extra steps that might be eliminated. I saw several people using velcro dots on the fronts of boxes (or on a sheet of paper inside the front of the box) to hold all the tags; I’m thinking that I might want to try that instead. I do like the chore cards though, so I may play around with that and see if I can come up with a better way to manage them. We have a chore chart in the hallway that I made months ago; we may go back to that style for a while.
Overall, I’m not sold on the system for us, but there are some things I like about it, so I’m not ready to scrap it just yet. I thought I’d do a pros and cons list this week and then re-evaluate next week. In the interests of disclosure, I will say that I have not read Sue Patrick’s book (creator of the workbox system), or attended any kind of lecture or class on them. I’ve just been reading about them since last year and checking out all the different mods and tweaks that I’ve seen in blogs and put my system together from what I’ve read. That may very well do Ms. Patrick a huge disservice, so please take my two cents on the matter with a spoonful of salt. {wink} I like the idea of the workboxes system. Ideally, it seems like allowing the kids to be completely responsible for their work makes me happy. I just don’t know how that will work out practically speaking with my kids.
Pros:
August 25, 2011 | Categories: Daily Review, Homeschooling Resources, Homeschooling Tips and Tricks, Lessons Learned, NVC, Product Review | Tags: commentary, homeschooling, homeschooling challenges, lesson planning, NVC, record keeping, schedule, SuperMom Complex, time spent in school, workboxes | 4 Comments »