Sunday, November 30, 2008

one of my favorite things...

... about starting our nature study for school this year, is that it has become a way of life for us now. It's just something that we automatically do, without even thinking, without even labeling it as "school".

We were in Missouri last week for Thanksgiving and on Thanksgiving Day, the kids and I took a little nature walk around my parents' place.

They found this guy...
... and named him Henry. They're determined to look him up in our field guides to find out what he is.

We saw lots of little red berries to identify...

We took a moment to appreciate just how beautiful plants can be, even if they're not green and blooming...

We gathered a few tiny acorns for Henry's (temporary) home...
And saw a bird's nest that had been hidden in the leaves on our last visit...
Alex also got a very hands-on look at seed dispersal methods after he came out of the woods with his shirt covered with little tiny burrs. :-)

I really want to put together a nature study backpack for us. I meant to use an old backpack of Alex's but he's found a new use for it. It would be really nice to have one stocked and ready to go for our random nature walks. Hmmm.... maybe that will be something that I will work on for Christmas.

Friday, November 28, 2008

HURRY!!!!

I missed this last year since we were in Missouri but I was so excited that we were going to be back in time this year to take advantage of some of the freebies...


Here are the two that I downloaded that I am the most excited about...

I had been eyeing this ebook for a while now. I had first read about it on the author's site this summer. It really seems like a well laid out plan with a good mix of skill training and learning the rules of the games.


I know I've mentioned before that we're not huge fans of lapbooks here, but I think this one will be an exception to that. I downloaded this one special for Clara since it's about her favorite American Girl Doll, Kit. I think she'll really enjoy this one.

I downloaded some other stuff, but these were my favorites of the bunch. Next I have to go through their sale stuff to see what I might "need". :-)

Anyway... hurry and check out the freebies before they end Saturday morning!!!

Friday, November 21, 2008

a morning with Ben Franklin

A couple of months ago, Alex read this book (it's part of Ambleside Online's Year 1)...

So, when I saw Historical Perspectives for Children presents Ben Franklin show up the Old Town School's field trip list... I knew we had to go.

I thought Alex would find it interesting but I wasn't sure how engaged Clara would be.  Well... I have to say that we were all three glued to the action on the stage.  The presentation was so well done!  The actor who played Ben Franklin never left the stage but went through several costume changes chronicling Ben Franklin's life from a child to his old age.

Here he is as a child learning a lesson about being wise with your money after paying too much for a tin whistle...
As a youth, working with his father making candles...
And as an old man...
There were several other stages that I didn't get good photographs of as well.  It was a good, educational show with a very good message.  It really, truly made history come alive for all of us!

I'm so glad we went (we almost didn't with all that we have going on this weekend)!  We will definitely plan on going if we ever see Historical Perspectives for Children show up on the field trip list again!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

someone needs to stop me

I've developed an addiction to CurrClick.com... sigh.

I first found them over a year ago while out looking for free lapbooks.  I have since figured out that my kids don't really enjoy lapbooks (oh... they enjoy the idea of lapbooks but the actual making of the lapbook... not so much).  

So, started poking around on their site to see what else they offered.... which, come to find out, is a lot.  

I usually love having the actual book in hand to look at.... but I'm beginning to be very fond of ebooks.  

First of all, I can just print pages as I need them versus having to photocopy them.  We do have one of those 4-in-one deals downstairs but it's slow and goes through ink rather quickly.  The printer that is hooked up to my computer is faster and the toner cartridges last longer (plus we were given several extra cartridges by a neighbor who no longer had a printer they would work in).

Second, the above makes ebooks very handy when you have more than one child.  

And third, the store is open 24/7 and you get your product immediately! That's probably the biggest perk for me (and my biggest downfall... lol).  I decide we *need* something, I look on CurrClick, order it, print and I'm using it within 15 minutes.

Here are a few of my recent purchases...

This was purchased for Clara.  We've been using it for two weeks now and she's enjoying it.  Since we're not doing a formal language arts program with her, this becomes a daily mini-lesson for her.  


I downloaded this for Alex the other day.  I am having him write more.  He's writing narrations and other small stuff weekly but occasionally I have him write longer pieces.  I print off the appropriate organizer for his project and have him use it get himself organized before he starts writing.  So far so good with this one.  I have a feeling that we'll be using it for years to come.


Total impulse buy for Alex.  It has been a HUGE hit though!  He so looks forward to doing these daily.  I'm not sure if it's doing anything earth-shattering for his spelling and/or vocabulary.... but it's fun, he enjoys it and it can't hurt, can it?


I've mentioned this one before.  Alex has been doing these since the beginning of the school year and loving them.  We had been just doing the daily paragraph editing from the book four days a week.  The fifth day is a little writing assignment.  I had been ignoring that because... well... just because.  Lately we've been adding it in and it's been really nice.  The assignments are quick and relate to the paragraphs Alex had been editing all week.  Just an easy way to add more writing to our school.

I also downloaded a spellling program for Clara the other day.  However, there were some issues with the download so I won't mention it here until they get the kinks worked out.  CurrClick's customer service was quick and efficient with dealing with the issue... now we're just waiting on the manufacturer to figure it out.

Now, today I was on their site and saw this...

It has intrigued me.  Does anyone have any experience with it?  I'm thinking about getting it to use with this...

...that I have sitting around on my "math" shelf downstairs.  The price is right so I might have to go for it.  I'll let you know what I think of it if I do and I would love to hear from any of you who might have used it!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

and we're off!

I know, I've been talking about it for nearly a year now... but we're finally off and running with Story of the World!



The biggest reason I hadn't started was that I wasn't sure how to fit it in to our schedule.  There are so many cool books out there and so many great ideas in the corresponding activity book...

I was a bit overwhelmed... I wasn't sure how to do it justice without reading aloud ALL DAY LONG.  

So, I held off on starting Story of the World in favor of Ambleside Online for Alex.  I organized it for Alex in the form of weekly reading lists.  He really enjoyed it and would go through multiple weeks' worth of reading each week.  Clara wanted a book list too so I started rounding up books at the library to make a list for her.

I still loved Ambleside but I didn't have that feeling of actually "studying something"... you know... that question that random people ask your kids... "so what are you studying in school" (btw... the question makes me crazy at times).  We really didn't have an answer part of the time.  So... I decided to take Alex down to one week's worth of Ambleside a week and supplement with other books relating to Story of the World.  Clara's book list has the same basic formula that I gave a week or so ago, but I've added in reading level appropriate SOTW books too.  Oh... and I'll be adding audio books for those that are a bit above her reading level.

So far, so good.  We're all very happy this week with the new arrangement.  We had toyed with SOTW a bit off and on so we were ready to start Ancient Egypt this week.  I grabbed a big stack of books from the library and then sorted them.... some for Alex, some for Clara and some that just needed to go back to the library.  The fun part is that Alex usually reads all of the books on Clara's list as well as his own.  

Here are some that we've enjoyed this week...

Ms. Frizzle's Adventures: Ancient Egypt
The Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt
Egyptian gods & goddesses (All Aboard Reading)
Croco'nile
Bill and Pete Go Down the Nile
Egypt: In Spectacular Cross-section

Alex is also reading this book...


And they are both listening to...
They are both thoroughly enjoying this CD.  Clara is especially enjoying it.  She got completely caught up in the story of Osiris and Set.  I'm glad a I bought this one and I'm excited that I had bought several other of Jim Weiss's CDs to go with other sections in SOTW.

We also watched this....


The subject of this movie (we got it from Netflix) was a little ahead of where we are in SOTW but it did give great views of the Nile (which was a current topic).  HOWEVER, I cannot watch an Imax movie without getting a bit of motion sickness!  My goodness!  The views of the Nile were amazing but did we really need to fly down the river and over waterfalls?  :-)

I had been dreading adding more writing into our school.... but the kids really seem to enjoy doing their narrations to go along with each section of SOTW.  Alex writes his own and they can sometimes be quite.... ummmm.... interesting.  One he wrote the other day was written entirely as dialog between a nomad and a farmer using a shaduf.  We've been studying quotation marks in grammar and decided to put them to use.  Clara dictates her narrations to me and I type them up in StartWrite for her.

Anyway... we're off to a good start with what I feel is a reasonable and manageable plan.  And the kids are loving that we're actually "studying something"!  :-)

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

mealtime mental math

Who knew it would be this fun?  :-)

Seriously, so many things that work well with our homeschooling were really not my idea at all.  Okay... maybe at first it was my idea.... or at least my excuse to buy yet another book.... but how some of these things have been used (successfully) rarely comes directly from me.

For example... mental math.  I liked the sound of it when reading the posts to the living math yahoo group.  A special book that people buy to use for mental math?  Sure... let me add one to my cart.  Ohhh... it's a little vintage looking book with a copyright date of 1877?  Let me hit "buy" right now!

Then it came... I looked at it... it was adorable (still is actually)... but what to do with it.  So, I added it to my shelf labeled "math" back in August and never touched it again until this week.

I'm really not sure what made me get this book out... oh, I know.  The other night the kids (wait, it was just Alex the night Clara had dinner at her friend's house... I think... sad that I can't remember two days ago) wanted to show off their math around dinner time.  My brain was shutting down (much like now apparently) and I couldn't think up questions fast enough.  So, I ran down and picked up this book...

Ray's new primary arithmetic

Alex and I did a few and then I got busy doing something else.  Last night they wanted to show off for their dad at dinner so I got out the book again.  They wouldn't let me put it down!  We had such a good time at dinner last night doing problems from this book.  The book is not difficult math... honestly, Alex is doing harder stuff in his regular curriculum BUT it was a challenge to him because he had to do it mentally.  The first thing he did was grab a pencil and start writing on his napkin.  But I asked him to try doing it in his head instead.  They both really got into it and kept begging for more.  To stay sane, we went back and forth between the two so one wasn't yelling over the other one (I did this for Clara's sake, but I was surprised how she was getting some of the addition ones faster than Alex before we started taking turns).  Eventually I ended up asking Clara questions from the addition section and Alex from the multiplication (with addition and subtraction thrown in occasionally  for fun).

A lot of the book is words problems... but they're pretty uncomplicated word problems that are easy to keep track of in your head.  The book was written in 1877 so the problems have to do with marbles, carriages, spools of thread and buying yards of calico.  

It's shocking to me how much they enjoyed this.  They grumbled at breakfast and lunch today because I told them that we would wait to do the book again at dinner.  Clara has been bouncing around saying that she can't wait until dinner because she's hungry AND because we get to do math again.  

It's really crazy.... but a very good crazy!  :-)

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

continuing our tree study - fall

This afternoon we decided that we needed to do our fall entry for our continuing tree study before all of the leaves were gone!  :-)

So, even thought it was a cold rainy day, we decided to brave the elements and take a walk outside.

Here is a shot of the leaves that are still hanging on...
Alex managed to find another leaf as big as his head...
A pretty tree we passed on our walk...
Alex's favorite leaf...
Clara's favorite...
A shot of some of the leaves on the ground...
They look so sad in the photo above... last week they were still bright and cheery.  Now they've been on the ground a while, they've been trampled on and they're wet... sigh.

Clara inspecting her leaf collection...
One last shot of the tree we're studying for the year....
And then it was back inside to work in our nature journals.  I read aloud from the Handbook of Nature Studywhile they worked on their drawings.  I read the section on pages 620-622 about The Way a Tree Grows.  I love how it compares the leaves to factories, that mental image worked well with my two.  

The autumn leaf which is so beautiful has completed its work.

Here is Alex's entry....
and Clara's...
The labeling was still to be done when I took these, but I loved how hard they worked on capturing the bright colors of the leaves.  However, I noticed that even though we were supposed to be studying "our tree", neither one of them used leaves from "our tree" for their journal entry.  Oh well!  :-)

Monday, November 10, 2008

a small experiment...

I know I've mentioned here before that I'm totally in love with the concept of living math.  Well... I've decided to try to do the same with language arts.  See... I'm not a huge fan of language arts (which I'm sure you all can tell from my writing on my blog... lol).  I was a math and science girl in school... I did my language arts stuff... but it never really "clicked".  So, it goes without saying that grammar/language arts has been my hardest subject to wrap my head around with homeschooling.  It's hard teaching something or even just encouraging your child to do something that you, personally, do not like to do.  So, we've done just what we've had to (and sometimes a little less).  

After really getting into living math, I wondered about a living language arts program.  Some way to make grammar more fun and accessible for us.  We're still doing our formal program (albeit slowly) but I wanted more.

Enter my attempt at putting together a living language arts program for Alex.  For the spine of our experiment this year, I'm using this book...


Woe is I Jr.: The Younger Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English

I pre-read it this summer and enjoyed it.  It was fun and it made sense to me.  I also liked that it had cute little poems in each section to help you remember what you had learned.

I started assigning Alex sections out of this book a week or so ago.  Right now he is currently still in the beginning section on pronouns.

Also this summer I went through Amazon and the library's online catalog to find as many grammar related story books as I could.  I have a big huge list, but I hesitate to post it before I actually see the books in person to see if they really apply.

I checked out a couple of pronoun story books for Alex to read....

I will say that my favorite of the two was the second one... Mine, All Mine.  The first one may have had good content... but the crazy fonts and page filling illustrations were too much for me.  Mine, All Mine is a great, straight forward book on  the different types of pronouns and how to use them.

This approach has also given me the excuse to get out...

I love Schoolhouse Rock!  To go along with what we we're reading in Woe is I, we watched this...


You've just got to love Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla!  :-)

We're just beginning our little experiment here, so I'm not sure how it will all go... but so far, we're having fun doing it!