Monday, September 29, 2008

Sneaking History into little minds

Do you think I am being sneaky? Here is a coloring page Ryan did today. :-)
I love his eye for color and attention to detail. I think he just might be a little perfectionist.


Library Reading fun

I am very excited about our afternoon library book reading (mentioned in a post below)! Mondays are usually our days to visit the library in the afternoon. We enjoyed it even more today because Michael was able to go with us, and because Justin was able to use his very own brand new library card and book bag.

Today I was able to consult a very helpful binder in the children's section listing the readers & chapter books written by Christian authors!

Some books we found that were on the right level for my boys:
Adventures in Odyssey Readers
Readers for children by Beverly Lewis - I love her books for adults!
Boxcar children
Henry & Mudge

Various science readers about Volcanoes, Rocks & Minerals, and Meat-eating plants (Justin loves these!)
Jonathan is enjoying whole books now (instead of 2 or 3 word sentences) on his level. It's exciting to hear him read and understand entire books.

Getting Organized

I spent a lot of time the other day trying to decide a better way to present the boys with their workbooks. I had originally planned to leave their worksheets in the original binding because I thought it would be good for record keeping. However it has not taken me very long to decide to go ahead and tear out those pages! The books are bulky and in the way!

I realized how much time we were wasting waiting for them to say "Mom, I'm done. What's next?"

To make things go more smoothly, I made an excel spreadsheet list similar to the one below for them to use to guide them each day. It goes in front of all completed worksheets and into a 3 ring binder at the end of the day. This is so helpful with my record-keeping!

It looks similar to this (beside "pages assigned" is a box for them to check when work in each subject is complete):
_____________________________________________________________________________
Jonathan's daily assignments

Today's date: ______________________________

Subject/Name of Book used Pages assigned ck box
1 Reading:Fun with Pets (read orally to Mom) ______ ______
2 Italic Writing ______ ______
3 Arithmetic I ______ ______
4 Phonics Letters and Sounds I ______ ______
5 Language I ______ ______
6 Spelling I List # (write or orally spell to Mom) _____ ______

Notes, Other subjects, Extra books read, or Learning activities: ___________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________


I found some nice folders for them to keep their daily assignment sheets. In the first pocket is the assignment and worksheets for the day, and the next pocket is the place where they transfer their completed work. When it gets on that side, it is ready for me to check for errors.

On their daily assignments, I do not mark them wrong with a big red "x". I circle the number they missed in pencil, and then they correct their errors. When the work is corrected and I have checked to make sure it is right, they are allowed to erase the circle. I have found this to be very effective in helping them to understand the lesson, and it shows me how they are doing. I have actually taken several days to re-iterate a point. For example, one of the boys was having a hard time understanding a certain mathematical issue. I was able to have him do supplemental pages (ABeka has lots of these in the very back of the workbooks),read extra books about the subject, and watch the appropriate DVDs from the library. It has really helped! He seems to truly understand now. This is a definite plus with home-schooling. You can make sure your child understands something before you move on. "No child left behind" takes on a different meaning!

When the boys complete their papers, they have a large selection of stickers to choose from to place at the top of the page. :-) This is so important! hee hee (I love stickers!)

Bible & Bible Memory, Character, Manners, Science, History, Art, Music, and anything else we study are all listed separately in my journal. We do those subjects as a unit instead of individually.

We have been using the new, more-organized method for a couple of days, and it has made a huge difference!

Friday, September 26, 2008

A Charlotte Mason education



I am currently reading a book by Catherine Levinson entitled A Charlotte Mason education. I have always been (well since I decided to home-school) interested in checking out the other styles that parents' use to home-school. Traditional schooling is based on a classroom full of kids, and is probably the best way to teach a classroom full.However with home-school, there are so many options out there. There are so many ways to learn, and I have every intention of researching the different styles to see if I can glean as many helpful ideas as I can.


Her style advocates a generous education that does not "kill" a love for learning.

"We are leading them to self education. This is done through direct contact with the best books..."

"We rely heavily on narration instead of comprehension questions or workbooks to verify knowledge"
Narration is basically an oral report. This is usually done with the younger children and as they improve orally, they are transitioned to compositions. Narration is a great way to prepare children for composition writing!

Nature walks and every day spent out-doors is highly suggested (I highly agree). Sketchbooks and quality art pencils are highly recommended for sketching nature during the nature walks.

Childhood is to be filled with beautiful memories.
Narration is a great way to get a child prepared for writing good compositions.

Although I don't consider myself ready or willing to chuck all of the textbooks we currently use or becoming a full-fledged "Charlotte Mason educator" right here and right now, I must say that I have gleaned a lot of helpful ideas.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Dad's involvement in homeschool

The title of this post sounds so serious, but you might chuckle a little when you read this post.

Since in our unit study, we are learning about Attentiveness, Listening, Ears, & Sound, Michael suggested that we read a great article in one of his hunting magazines.
The article is called "The Ears Have It" written by Dr. Phillip Bishop who is an avid hunter professor at University of Alabama (which, of course, gave me even more interest in the article).
I must say it was a very interesting article. It was easy to understand, and when the terminology was a little hard for the boys to grasp, I was able to stop and explain to them (terms like "frequency" and "amplitude"). The most interesting part was the fact that a deer's ears are always moving trying to catch sound. In this particular article, the author was explaining why a deer can hear the squeak of a deer stand, the breaking of a small twig, but it gets confused by the close, loud bang of a gun. And we were even able to feel a deer ear! Of course having one on the wall is a plus!

The subject of deer and how they listen fit perfectly with our attentiveness study.
If deer don't pay close attention at all times, they could get shot!

Way to go daddy!

Math concepts

After seeing how expensive ABeka's charts & flashcards cost, I decided to make my own!
It's easy to do with Microsoft word, some printer ink, and some card stock. I typed out measurement, addition, subtraction, and time concepts. As the concepts are introduced, I will make more flashcards.

Also,I saw a set of flashcards in a catalog awhile back that I thought would be nice. They are triangular-shaped, and the triangular effect helps the child learn both concepts simultaneously. For example, he would not only learn that "9 + 9 = 18", but also "18 - 9 = 9". I really wanted to order those, but decided to see if I could find any free online to print. Much to my joy, I was able to find them! Click the box below to see a sample:

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Reading Charts

We have participated in several reading contests for the library and school in the past, and we will certainly join the next reading contest that the library sponsors.
I really want the boys to get interested in extra reading. I personally have learned so much just from reading!
I assign the boys reading during the day , but I would just love to see them get really excited about it.
They don't dislike reading, and they usually look at a lot of picture books on Sunday afternoons. Yet they haven't become extremely interested in just picking up books and reading for very long.
I felt a glimmer of hope the other morning when I walked into their room and Justin was laying on his bed reading a book .
He told me that he had stayed awake reading by the light of the moon(of course I had to make sure he knew that it's not good to read without good lighting) ,and when he woke up he had started back into the book. The book was a fictional chapter book about tornadoes. He loved it.

My plan is that they get a sticker for every book (or percentage of bigger books) that they read, and they get to place a sticker on printed copies of the chart below. When they fill it up, they get a surprise. I printed one for Ryan too for the books that I read to him.

I told Michael I would like to find a treasure chest to fill with little incentives. Bribing can be a good thing sometimes ;-)
*** Update: 9/25/08 I was able to find a cardboard treasure chest at THE DOLLAR STORE! I filled it with dollar items like puzzles, rubix cube, tools (Justin loves tools), a hat, art supplies, etc. They have been reading like crazy!!!!***

Friday, September 19, 2008

Copywork

Something that I think is a really good idea is "copy-work". It is old-fashioned, and most of our fore-fathers did it.

This is a supplement I am using to go with the boys' Italic writing workbooks.

From the Donna Young website. I love this:
The handwriting lessons on this page have content from George Washington's Rules of Decent Behavior (rules of civility for short). I read a long time ago that George did not make up these rules, but as a youth, he was required to copy them in a notebook. I do not know if that is true or not; it is a good idea, and copywork is a good way to learn something!

Here is lesson one from George Washington's rules of civility:
Click the box below to see it:



Here is an example of Italic verse copywork: Click the box below:

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Sound experiments

Today we read a book called Amazing Science Amazing Sound. It discusses how sound travels through different mediums. We conducted several experiments to go with our study.

1. Identified sounds going on around us
2. Cup hand around ears; sound is magnified
3. Discussed vibrations. Clapped loudly & quietly. Loud sounds are made by large vibrations, whereas quieter sounds are made by small vibrations.
4. Felt the voice box while making high and low pitches
5. Sound waves travel through water. We created our own waves in a bowl of water.
6. Bounced a ball off the wall to see how an echo works. Our voice bounces back off the wall just like a ball. (When you shout in a cave, your voice bounces off the walls, and you hear an echo)
7. My favorite experiment was the sound in action experiment. You get a coffee tin can, stretch plastic wrap tightly over the top. Sprinkle coffee grounds lightly on top of the plastic wrap. As you bang another coffee can with a spoon (the open tin can pointing toward the coffee grains), the coffee grains jump. This proves that sound travels in waves because nothing but the sound is causing those grains to jump.
8. Discussed how a shorter string on a musical instrument (we used Justin's guitar) produces a higher pitch. A longer string produces a lower pitch.
9. We also watched 4 Cello performances on YouTube. We watched and discussed how the Cello players produced higher and lower pitches with their instruments as we watched their hands move on the neck of the Cello.

Here is another interesting experiment with high pitched sounds(using sand) that we watched:

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

History Time-line

Because I want the boys to have a visual idea of times in history, we are using a time-line for the wall. Pre-made time-lines are out there, but they are pretty expensive. Therefore we will use our American chronological history book as a guide, and we will to create our own! The internet, especially Wikipedia, abounds with pictures and information.

I found this website where I printed a time-line graph for free (and it also has a fabulous looking free curriculum on their home-page that I may look into when I have some extra time [insert laughter here].. just kidding!).

Below is my main time-line character. I chose this one out of all the bloody images of Him on the cross. All of history revolves around HIM:

Jesus
c. 6 BC - c. A.D. 30


Below are our first three American history time-line characters. I copied them in Word, and after printing, we will cut and paste onto the time-line graph.




??? 6, 000 B.C. plus++++?

According to the still-debated New World migration model, a migration of humans from Eurasia to the Americas took place via Beringia, a land bridge which formerly connected the two continents across what is now the Bering Strait. The minimum time depth by which this migration had taken place thousands of years ago, with the upper bound (or earliest period) remaining a matter of some unresolved contention (after the fall of the Tower of Babel).


Leif Ericson [1] (c. 970 – c. 1020) was a Norse[2] explorer who was probably the first European to land in North America (excluding Greenland).


Christopher Columbus (1451[1] – May 20, 1506) was a navigator, colonizer and explorer whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere. Though not the first to reach the Americas from Afro-Eurasia — preceded some five hundred years by Leif Ericson, and perhaps by others — Columbus initiated widespread contact between Europeans and indigenous Americans.




Thursday, September 11, 2008

Posters and Stories

Once a week, we take a day to do reinforcement activities to go with what we have been learning in our curriculum.

The verse that has been our theme verse for the character quality, "Attentiveness", is Proverbs 20:12. It says "The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the LORD hath made even both of them".

Attentiveness is something that I want my children to grasp. I think that most parents struggle with getting their children to truly listen and watch.

To go along with our "attentiveness" theme, we completed a poster project today. I took a huge stack of magazines that Grammy gave us and searched through them for pictures of people with nice eyes and ears. I tore the pages out for the boys to cut pictures of eyes and ears to paste to a dark blue poster-board.
We cut out so many eyes and ears that it just about completely covered the poster board. Then I cut out different colors of slips of construction paper and had the boys write one word of the verse on each slip. We then glued the words on top. After gluing the verses on top of the pictures/poster, I typed out words like "listen", "pay attention", "look", "don't get distracted", "concentrate" and "hear" in various fonts on the computer and cut those strips out to paste randomly on the poster. It is quite interesting looking and hangs in the dining room.

A few things we all learned:

1. Don't give up, your efforts will be rewarded: after cutting a few pictures out, they (and I) were ready to be done but I made us finish :-) It was tedious because it was so time consuming!

2. We must use our ears & eyes to pay attention.

3. Use art to glorify the Lord!

4. Everyone's eyes and ears are different


We are still reading a biography about Helen Keller. I think I have one or two chapters left. I was able to find braille and sign language books at our library. Of course the boys loved that.

Another project that the boys are doing (we started today) is writing their own story books. I bought some of those 3-brad paper folders to put their stories in. They love writing the stories and drawing a picture to go with it. It helps with their penmanship, writing logic, spelling, grammar/phonics, & creativity. After having them write their story, I had considered erasing mistakes and have them re-write the story. After trying that, I decided to take a more gentle approach and allow them to put their story into the folder the way it is. Then I can see what needs work without destroying their efforts, and assign those misspelled words on workbook days to improve their writing. I am giving a folder to Ryan too so that he can included his artwork.

Last night after church, I bought an inexpensive analog/digital clock resource to help me teach the time concept. I remember struggling as a child to grasp the differences of late p.m. & early a.m. Well, it IS dark early a.m....why would that be?
I think that it is so confusing for an young children to grasp (especially since they are always in bed in the late p.m. & early a.m. hours). I found this game on the internet to help us, and then I am using the clock from Wal-mart to reinforce the idea.

Has anyone ever heard of "buddy school?". I saw a home-schooling blogger that talked about buddy school in larger families. I thought it was a great idea to help children get along with each other and work together as a team. Before I had even introduced this idea to my kids, they did it anyway! Justin has been showing Ryan how to write his letters! Ryan thinks it's just great. I love the sweet voice Justin uses to teach. It is so important to me that my children build strong relationships with one another. At this point, they are teetering daily between fighting and hugging. It's like a roller coaster some days. The Lord is helping us though!

I love it!

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Quick Report

I just wanted to report that our first school day went VERY well. I actually felt the prayers... so thank you to anyone who prayed! The Lord really helped and gave me a patient spirit (with which I was rewarded with a lot of hugs and kisses).

I didn't get the boys out of bed until 8, so after breakfast and getting ready we started our day close to 9.
We were able to have devotions, character study and game, and most of the ABeka teaching and workbooks by 10:30. After a huge break (eating & playing outside) until 12:30, we finished up workbooks and built our giant crawl through ear. I think we stayed in the playroom with the ear until 2:30, so I guess when we left the playroom we technically ended our "school day" at 2:30 p.m. But like I have said in my last posts, I consider that life is learning so learning never ends. :-)

We did get to go to the library and I was able to find all of the books I needed about the ear (hearing, sound, listening, & Helen Keller). I was also able to find the DVD, The Miracle Worker, which is about Helen Keller's life. I also found several CD's with violin music since I chose that as our first instrument to study.

Well that's all for now. Hopefully I will get pictures on here before too long.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Plan for First Day of School

Today is the first day of school! It's 7:30 and I have been up since 4:20 -ish (only because Michael had to be at work by 6!!!).
I have been able to get a lot done this morning, thank the Lord! The dining room is decorated and I am about to shower, and after that I will wake up the boys and start our day! I am not sure if I will have time today to post how our day went until maybe tomorrow morning. Michael said not to overdo it on the first day. :-)

But here is my plan for our day:

Boys up, breakfast, morning chores (whenever Ryan wakes up- he will be getting to sleep in)
Devotions & KONOS Character study (Attentiveness- will play a game where I blindfold the boys and have them identify different sounds)
ABeka Math
ABeka Phonics
ABekaLanguage
Getty Dubay Italic Writing
ABeka Reading
Konos Activities - Study the parts of the ear. Build a "crawl through" ear in the playroom including the parts of the ear inside.
Go to the library and check out a huge stack of books that have to do with ears, listening, & attentiveness, and a biography about Helen Keller. Check out Several CDs that have to do with the violin.

I am hoping to be able to get an appointment for a field trip to a hearing aid clinic here in town. I have emailed the one on X street, and I am hoping they will cooperate.

My camera, for some reason, isn't transferring the pictures onto the computer. I don't know if it is software or the camera but I am hoping to get that fixed soon so I can take lots of pictures of our projects.