Update:

We took 2 days off school this week just to have some breather time. I needed to catch up on some housework, and the boys enjoyed just playing and relaxing. SCCA is having their fall break this week too, except they are starting with half a day Wednesday and taking Thursday & Friday off. But I felt like we needed it at the beginning of the week, so we took it then.

Believe it or not, that little "break" was just what I needed. I woke up today ready for school to start back again! One of my favorite things about "doing school" is taking each child aside and cuddling him while we study "facts" together. I love seeing that light of understanding dawn on his face after I explain something. I love watching his profile as he reads. It is hard to explain, but it's something I wouldn't want to trade.

We are still studying the character trait "attentiveness" in the morning before we start seat-work and the 3 R's.
I know I am spending a lot of time on it, but I think it's important!

The other day, I did google search on the word "attentiveness", and I found a lot of interesting things. One website, called "Character First" had a definition page, a story page, an analogy page and then a poem. Interestingly, they used a deer for the analogy. I think it's pretty funny because Michael picked up on the deer analogy and we used it a long time ago. They also had a story about Abraham Lincoln (my boys love reading about him).
I liked following the poem well enough to print out, and I am teaching it to the boys:

Attentiveness:

I will look at someone speaking
And I'll listen all I can.
I will sit or stand up straight
Like a soldier on command.
I will not draw attention;
I will guard against distraction.
I will learn to ask the questions
That will help me understand.

There is more to the poem, but I thought the rest of the poem was silly/unnecessary so I am just
teaching the part above.

I bought a book awhile back called Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends. I copied this picture and the one of the other book from Amazon.com so that's why it says "click to look inside". If you really want to look inside you will have to go to Amazon.com and click their picture. :-)



I believe I mentioned it in a post before.
I had started reading it in the mornings to the boys, but laid it aside for awhile. I started it again today. It's cute since it is written by siblings for siblings. There are all types of cute cartoons through the book. The first cartoon is of a cat and dog fighting over dinner. The boys really like it so far. From the reviews I have read it tackles the subject in the light of having a servants' heart. That is what I hope to accomplish through the reading it to them.

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!

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:

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!