Lisa's Logbook - November 24

What's working for us: I love starting the day with Bible lessons. We sing and pray and read the Word together. If you want to know more about how we do it, check this blog post. 

One place we visited: my friend's temporary rental house. She and her family were displaced from their home due to water damage back in September. The place they are staying is lovely and very pleasant. We had book club there Saturday night and Sunday we gathered for a write-in. 

We are reading: David and Emily have begun reading Walden by Thoreau. James is still working on The Hobbit and Suzy is reading a book about Arabian Nights. Emily will be picking up an abridged version of Les Miserables to read for book club and David will finish The Slumber of Christianity. I am now 1/5 done with the UNabridged Les Miserables and I like it!

I'm grateful for: friends that keep me sane

My favorite thing this week: Seeing my kids working so hard on their novels!

Favorite Resource this Week: Well, this was a light week for us and I let the kids sleep in. So, beds are a great resource. LOL

Homeschooling advice to share: Have your children do a LOT of writing - fiction, non-fiction, letters, lists, all kinds of writing. SO important! 

A link to share: My middle school composition class is learning to summarize fiction. Here's a helpful link for you to use with your children: Steps to Writing a Story Summary

I am inspired by: writing! The more I write, the happier I am!

Coming up next week: James will be 13. Suzy and I will be watching a performance of the Nutcracker and a friend of our family is dancing in the production. We have co-op which is always a fun day for us.

Lisa's Logbook - November 19

In our home education this last week...

What's working for us: A non-workbook-oriented approach to literature. I've tried a few of the more popular language arts curriculum but none of them fit my goals very well. So mainly I have my students read real literature (instead of lit textbooks) and write about them or discuss them with me. The writing could be journal entries, essays, or answers to comprehension questions (rarely). 

One place we visited: Lone Wolf Paintball in Metamora - David and James celebrated their birthdays (a bit early) at the oldest paintball field in Michigan on Saturday. They had a WONDERFUL time.

We were reading: Our reading is pretty much the same as last week. David continues with Ted Dekker's Slumber of Christianity and Emily continues her Jane Austen biography. They are both almost done with their American Literature reading - James Fenimore Cooper's Homeward Bound. James has begun The Hobbit, apparently the first time he's read it! Suzy is reading a selection of easy readers and doing better and better all the time. Les Miserables is my audiobook of the moment and I am just over 1/10 done yet. As far as print material, I am skimming through a ton of magazines.

I'm grateful for: David's second attempt at the ACT yielded an additional point on his score, hopefully increasing his eligibility for merit-based financial aid. He does not plan to retake the test a third time.

My favorite thing [last] week: Staying home for a whole day on Tuesday. That doesn't happen often! OK, and the free massage I had on Wednesday was a close second.

Favorite Resource this Week: Teaching Textbooks has been working really well for us this year, mainly due to the automated grading. Grading math is one thing that I was grateful to eliminate from my daily schedule. The instructional lectures on CD seem to work well for my kids, especially my senior who is doing Pre-Calculus. My struggling math learner has a harder time with this more independent method, so her dad works with her one-on-one most days. For the younger kids, the math 'worksheets' are on the computer. Pre-Calculus is not structured that way, so my senior does his math in a notebook and self-checks his work.

Homeschooling advice to share: Find other people to work with you to enrich your child's education. Especially as they move into their high school years, make them accountable to other people. Provide opportunities for other instructors to work with your children so that they get used to different teaching style and varying levels of expectation regarding performance. For us, our homeschool co-op provides many chances for my kids to work with different adults. Our karate class is another good example of this environment. As a writing instructor, my classes for homeschool students are increasingly designed to teach students study skills in addition to the writing skills parents expect.

Questions I have: I am wondering if All About Spelling will work for my struggling learner whom I suspect is dyslexic. Anyone have input?

A link to share: Here's a printable Bible reading chart that David is using this year. I set him the goal to read through the whole Bible during his senior year. 

I am inspired by: One of the karate masters addressing our class after our belt testing. He told us we had a strong test and encouraged us to keep progressing in martial arts.

Coming up next [this] week: Thanksgiving! Lots of writing! Hopefully some social time. And maybe even Black Friday shopping....

Join the Weekly Wrap-up HERE. 

Weekly Wrap-Up - Lisa's Logbook Revised

Thought I'd try a new meme format. I was getting bored with the old one. As you may have already noticed, I haven't posted it in quite a while.

In our home education this week... the focus was National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo! The goal is to write a novel (50,000 words) in a month (November). All the kids are participating for the 3rd time, except David who has one additional year under his belt. As of Friday, their word counts were David - 8300, Emily - 11,000, James - 5060, and Suzy - 516. James and Suzy are participating in the Young Writer's Program, so we set custom goals for them. I am at 7200, thus both my teens are ahead of me for once! Yes, I have been busy, but I've also been procrastinating! (Case in point: this blog entry. Ahem.)

What's working for us: the monthly lesson plan sheets we have been using for years now. I've included an old picture of these. If there is interest, I can write more about how I put those together each month.

One place we visited:
Great Harvest Bread Company - a small franchised bakery that uses whole grains and has a great business philosophy - check them out! Our group sampled the tasty bread, viewed the oven, mixer, grain grinder, and work areas, then got hands-on making dog biscuits. My two youngest kids attended and they enjoyed it a lot!

I'm reading: The Letters of Jane Austen in preparation for my book club. And I'm actually reading it! I just finished my listening to Drums of Autumn, the 4th book in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series (my 3rd time reading that book). I'm also listening to Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Wow, it's long!

What the kids are reading: David is reading The Slumber of Christianity by Ted Dekker. Emily is reading a biography of Jane Austen. David and Emily are both reading Homeward Bound by James Fenimore Cooper; this is for their American Lit class at co-op. James just finished 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. 

My favorite thing this week: SCONES from Great Harvest Bread Company! A close second was participating in our karate testing and (hopefully) doing well!

Favorite Resource this Week: a free Android app for my phone that lets the kids practice their US Geography. U.S. Map Puzzle 

Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share… Take the ACT early in your junior year. (...or the SAT, as the case may be. Here in Michigan, it's almost always the ACT.)

Questions I have:
How do I distill everything I still want David to learn into his last six months of homeschooling? He is in the home stretch and I am panicking!

A quote to share…
“It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?“ – Henry David Thoreau

I am inspired by… National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) - I think more, I get creative (well, as creative as a left-brained practical person can get), I consider the future, I find like-minded friends, and I see my children writing and liking it!

I'm grateful for: Quiet time alone in the morning - it took a lot of years to achieve!

Coming up next week: working on memorizing the NE region of the US, Co-op on Friday, and I get a FREE massage!

Note: if you're not a homeschooler or if you just want my reports on daily life at the Wagner house, please ask for the link to my personal blog.

Kind of a Bust, or is it?

Kind of a bust is how I'd describe this week as far as academics. Between me starting the new work-at-home position, Emily's birthday on Thursday, Bob taking two of the kids to the homeless shelter to volunteer (in the middle of the night) and our horrendously long Monday, we didn't accomplish much bookwork. No Science, No History. The public schools are off today, so I don't feel too bad. (Teacher Day??? Didn't they just HAVE that? And snow days galore?)

We did, however, do a couple days of math and a couple lessons of Greek and read two chapters of The Lightning Thief. We also did a couple days of Bible study and are working on our March hymn and praise chorus now.

Once the girls get up (they were most of the night at the shelter), we'll do the 3rd Greek lesson and read more of the book, maybe 2 more chapters. I'll make the kids do math this afternoon. It's a sunny day, though cold, so they'll get some outside time today too.

They all had a Spanish lesson on Monday. Emily and James had their monthly art class on Wednesday afternoon. David had his ACT essay class on Wednesday (which I teach) and wrote an essay before class and one in class. We've been to the library a couple times. They've done a lot of free reading (mostly Garfield books, so don't get too excited! lol) and listening to audio books -Beverly Cleary for the girls, James has Diary of a Wimpy Kid on CD, and I'm not sure what David's been listening to beside horrid music that I detest, but I'd guess The Hunger Games again.

They've been cooking too, as well as doing housecleaning and chores. And making projects.

So maybe it's not such a bust after all!

I'm going to make up some kind of chart so we can all stay on our routines, when I have to be holed up in my bedroom/office working.

Better get some lunch on and then do some more work....

Weekly Highlights - Week 28

Sticking with the weekly HIGHLIGHTS plan, lesseeee....

The younger three learned about bats this week - microbats and megabats. Do YOU know the difference? My kids should be able to tell you. Did you know a mama bat can find her baby by smell even amidst thousands of other babies? We practiced identifying our "babies" by smell. (OK, so the babies were cotton balls soaked with various scents. Cut us some slack.) I am going to post a couple videos separately for your viewing pleasure.

David has been working on the physics of motion. See my earlier post for some specifics. He's also been continuing his study of the Civil War. A local storyteller visited one of "our" libraries to talk about The Underground Railroad in Michigan, so David and Emily and I went to hear her speak. (All the kids in the admittedly small audience were homeschooled!) David finished his book The Red Badge of Courage (on audio).

Emily finished her book Hero Tales. Harriet Tubman was one of the heroes, thus Em's interest in attending the Underground Railroad presentation. She is working on her new level in Math-U-See and doing very very well in Spelling! I have the movie Anne of Green Gables that I hope she'll like since she recently read that novel.

James is plugging away at Pilgrim's Progress. He remembers the movie version we saw a while back (starring Liam Neeson) and that's helping him get through it. I have a Pilgrim's Progress game that we've never played that he's asked for, so I'll drag that out. James has memorized all his multiplication facts! Go James! He also amazed me by using the art techniques he's been learning at his monthly art class. I had assigned the 3 younger children to write or draw the differences between microbats and megabats and James worked very hard on his picture, using a pencil lead "smudging" technique. That's what you see in the picture of him at the table; off to the left is the pencil scribble that he's smearing the cotton balls in.

Suzy has been reading little books that came along with her Alphabet Island phonics - practicing her short vowel sounds. She's working on long vowel sounds in Explode the Code and in Alphabet Island, she's working on beginning blends. Doing well, but she gets frustrated OH-so-easily.

Monday's weather was nice but Tuesday's was just lovely and we took some reading outside on Tuesday afternoon. I'm reading aloud from Soup and Me by Robert Newton Peck (the sequel to Soup, which I read to them just a couple weeks ago). They laugh uproariously throughout! I fear nothing else will compare!