Christmas School

It's once again time for Christmas School! This year we are doing a unit study on the symbols of Christmas.

I am using 2 different unit studies.

1 - http://www.easyfunschool.com/Blessed.pdf
This one is free and contains 25 days of activities - each on a different symbol of Christmas. Obviously I won't be able to use all of this, but that's ok. Since there are so many, I can pick and choose what I like.

2 - http://www.homeschoolestore.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=100
This one was a free download at homeschoolestore.com a few months ago. Right now it is about $5. This one covers 10 symbols of Christmas and ends up as a really cute "lapbook".

We are doing Christmas School as our Bible and Art. No History or Science or regular Language Arts until after New Year's. Other daily work: the kids are all doing Math, James is doing Explode the Code, David and Emily are doing Reading. We may add some other things also on an intermittent basis.

This is a tradition for us - to do Christmas School each year between Thanksgiving and New Year's. I love having the break from regular daily work and also the time to do some of the Christmas things I found I was not able to fit in along with all the regular things.

Great is Thy Faithfulness

This is our hymn for November. Very appropriate considering the things going on in our lives at present.

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.

Refrain:

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Refrain

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Refrain

How We Home-Educate, Part 2

My previous post described how we begin our learning each day with our group subjects - Bible, Art, Science, and History. Now, I'll move on to describing how my children learn Math. I'll save Language Arts for another post.

Math is done each day that we do home learning. I prefer it to be one of the first things done after our group work, since the children (especially Emily) have more brain power earlier in the day. All of my kids (except the 4yo) are using Math-U-See. My almost 12 year old is doing MUS Zeta, My 9.5 yo is doing MUS Beta, and my almost 7yo is nearly done with MUS Alpha.

I like math to be a fairly independent subject. Since Math-U-See comes with instructional DVD's, this is relatively easy for us to accomplish. For each new lesson, the child watches the DVD (usually without me, although I hover nearby) and then works on the lesson. I help if needed, especially with Emily's work, but for the most part, this is something the child does on his or her own.

There are 6 workpages for each MUS lesson, and then a test. The children must do workpages until the concept becomes easy. The first 3 workpages offer practice just on the new concept. The remaining 3 pages offer review of previous concepts along with the new concept. After showing mastery, he or she may take the test. The test must be done without the blocks or any assistance. If he or she cannot pass the test, we go back and review with more help from mom or dad.

Emily and James also work on math drills - either on the MUS website, drill cards, flashcards, audiotapes, or any other method I can find. David knows his facts very well.

Emily particularly has a hard time with math, thus her still being in Beta at age 9.5. However, I am pleased with our approach, as it is mastery-based, and I know she will actually learn the math, instead of just going through the motions. She probably could benefit from a little more instruction from me, so I am trying to add that in this year for her especially.

How We Home-Educate, Part 1

Shall I describe a typical homelearning day for you? (This will be a day that we don't have any committments until late afternoon; days with other things going on are a leetle bit confusing!)

The kids are up before me usually, as I am rather a night owl and like to sleep til the last possible second, and then some. Sometimes that's past 9, but more often it is somewhere between 8 and 8:30. (If I were doing what my ideal plan said, I would be up at 7. Not happening right now.)

We usually get to our lessons somewhere around 9:30, but it can be around 10 before we actually get to it. We begin with our Bible studies. We learn a new hymn every month. This month it is Fairest Lord Jesus. Then someone picks one of our previously learned hymns to review. Currently we are doing a character Bible study on gentleness. We alternate character quality study with a Bible survey course called Bible Study Guide for All Ages, which we have been using for years. We are on volume 3 of 4. I am also reading them the book by the Mally kids called: Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends. I highly recommend this book. Bible study usually takes around 30 minutes.

Last year we did art every day, but we finished the book and I haven't found another that works the same for us, so we have not done art consistently this year. However, they all love to draw and color so they do get plenty of that, and lots of crafts too. If we do an art lesson, it comes right after Bible.

Then we move on to Science and/or History. Science this year is Considering God's Creation, which I like. It's not a textbook, but a "notebooking" sort of curriculum. We did not begin at the beginning, but skipped to the unit on Plants and began with that. We just finished it last week. I like the fact that it is adaptable to many age levels. Next year, I imagine David will do Switched-on Schoolhouse for Science, or some other independent text, as I have decided against using Apologia, at least for now.

Mystery of History Volume 1 is our history curriculum and I love it. The lessons are just the right length. I love the mix of activities - some hands-on, some quizzes (which we often do orally or as a game), some review. Very strong program and from the point of view I believe in. I am hoping to get through the second half of this book rather quickly this year and begin Volume 2 before the "year ends". Currently we are at about 500 BC and just recently learned about Confucious, Buddha, and Daniel.

Once we have finished with these subjects, the kids begin their separate work. I'll write about that in a separate post, since I am, quite frankly, itching to move on to other things! LOL

Homeschooling?

An instant message conversation with a friend, based upon the fact that I mentioned on my other blog that I am educating my children at home, instead of the default word "homeschooling" them. (Oh, by the way, I do not often punctuate or capitalize in instant message, even though I know how to do so perfectly well. -grin-)

LisaQuing: i just got tired of saying homeschool and "doing school"
LisaQuing: since i am trying NOT to do "school"
Friend: we're not a school
Friend: we're a family
LisaQuing: i am going to try to remember to say "we home educate our children" or "we teach our children at home"
LisaQuing: instead of we homeschool
LisaQuing: not sure if i can move to "we have our children at home with us"
LisaQuing: our children learn at home? hmmmm
Friend: ever since the little girl on the corner said my kids aren't in 'real school' I've been thinking about what that means to me lol
Friend: just at home?
Friend: -g-
Friend: not at the zoo?
Friend: museum?
Friend: park?
Friend: aquarium?
Friend: ROFL
LisaQuing: right, true
LisaQuing: our children learn everywhere except in school
LisaQuing: lol
Friend: lol
Friend: I like that!
LisaQuing: Homeschooled kids - learning everywhere
Friend: except school

My new motto - Learning everywhere except school!

I am going to stop calling the kids down for "school" and start calling them down for "learning". Let's see if I can make this switch.

Co-op

Today was the second day of our fall homeschool co-op session. We meet twice a month. I thought I'd post our schedules.

David
Lego Robotics, Physical Education, Digging into Ancient Egypt, Dynamic Discoveries (a research/report class), Basic Life Support (CPR)

Emily

Dynamic Discoveries, Laura Ingalls Wilder: Her Early Years, Choir, Recorder, Physical Education

James

Open Gym, What's Under My Skin?, PE, Chess, Let's Draw

Suzy

Five Senses, Learning With Crafts, Move it - Be It! (A creative movement class), Open Gym, I've Got Rhythm

They love all their classes! We have worked very hard to make this semester successful. (I am the coordinator of the co-op) and I am so pleased at the results!

Our First Day

Our first day of school was this past Wednesday. This is the first moment I have had to write about it! The past week was one of the most hectic in recent memory, although it could have been worse, I suppose.

So, we started a day later than I had originally planned. We had camped the week before and all came home sick. So, I didn't get as much ready during the weekend as I had wanted, plus there were a couple other committments on Tuesday.

So, Wednesday morning dawned and the kids arose bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to begin their new grades. David entered 6th grade, Emily is in 4th grade now, and James is sort of in 2nd grade. Suzy is officially a preschooler!

First I introduced the kids' new chore charts and reintroduced the concept of chores at certain times during the day. Most of the daily jobs were reassigned, which I do about twice a year.

Then after the first set of morning jobs were completed, we had a dual treasure hunt. David and Emily paired up for a word scramble treasure hunt and James and Suzy did a color treasure hunt. The prize at the end was their new school supplies! Who doesn't love new school supplies?

Once they had ooh-ed and ahhh-ed enough over their new notebooks and crayons, we did a short drawing assignment. Ice cream sundaes is a new tradition we started last year for the first day of school, so that was our snack.

David and Emily did a history review of last year's information in preparation for their end-of-year test (yes, that should have been done before we went camping, but that's the beauty of homeschooling! lol).

Lunch fit in there someplace and then we had our new afternoon chores. At 4:00 I had a staff meeting at work, and so I trooped off for that and then went to the grocery store.

And thus ended the first day of school this year!

Science is All Planned!

Whew! My science curriculum is all planned for fall. This is Planning Week here and I was starting to get a little antsy since I hadn't accomplished anything and it was already Wednesday! But I plugged away at it all afternoon and evening, and I got 120 lessons of Considering God's Creation planned.

I am not doing the book in the order it is written; I've rearranged the lessons a little to fit our cold/warm seasons and my own preferences. I don't see any trouble getting it all done this year, which is my goal. I know some people take longer to do it, but I want David to begin Apologia science next year, either General Science (which would be my preference) or Physical Science (which would be easier, since our co-op would be doing it next year).

If we like CGC, and I think we will, I'll do it again at some point, with James and Suzy. Maybe even Emily will do it again, as I doubt she'll be inclined to do heavy science in the junior high years.

:::glances over at nice neat stack of lesson pages and beams::: Now I need to go find a nice clean new binder for my lesson plans!

Summer School?

Yes, we are doing school through the summer - not every day, not even every week, but often enough. Some days the kids just do reading and math, and some days we do Bible, Science and History as well.

I had hoped to do a leaf study this summer, but that hasn't happened yet. There's still time! Unlike some southern homeschoolers, we won't begin our new school year until after Labor Day. :-)

For Bible this summer, we have switched gears and are taking a break from the Bible Study Guide for All Ages. I found a cool book that illustrates Biblical concepts using science information. It's called Our Place in Space and 59 More Ways to See God Through His Creation. For instance, yesterday's lesson was about concave & convex mirrors and how the shape affects the light. The Bible lesson was about how we should not depend on what we look like in a mirror, but rely on the fact that God loves us just as we are.

Additionally, I am reading aloud to the kids Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends: How to Fight the Good Fight at Home by Sarah, Stephen and Grace Mally. This is part of our Bible study also. This book is obviously about sibling relationships, but more widely also about family relationships in general. There is lots of good Bible teaching mixed in with clever anecdotes about the Mally family.

The kids are continuing in Math-U-See through the summer. David is working in Zeta, learning decimals and percents. Emily continues working hard in Beta. She now knows how to CARRY without any problem! Man, that was a struggle back in the spring. James is working on subtraction in Alpha. He's only 9 lessons from the end of the book, so good thing I bought Beta for him to begin.

Reading is the other thing we are focusing on. They read every day. I am not much for formal reading instruction. I love to read, and I didn't learn THAT at school. But plenty of kids learn to HATE reading at school. So why would I do it the way they do it in public schools? Or Christian schools for that matter? My kids just read, sometimes what they want and sometimes something I have chosen for them. We talk about the reading, and that's that. David has moved into the realm of book reports this past year, but we aren't doing that this summer.

James is working in Explode the Code book 2 off and on. He is doing well with that. I am also signing out short vowel phonics readers from the library, so he can read those for the library program and get reading practice at the same time.

Emily is reading chapter books, short ones and longer ones. She also likes to read American Girl magazine, which she gets from the library. David is reading almost exclusively Star Wars novels and comic books like Calvin and Hobbes and Foxtrot. Some of the SW novels are juvenile level and some are from the regular fiction section at the library.

His reading level tests at 8th grade level when I gave him an informal evaluation this spring. Emily tested at a 7th grade reading level on the same evaluation. I don't put a lot of stock in tests. I already knew they were good readers. They are also quite good at comprehension, although the test didn't cover that aspect.

Some days we do Mystery of History, but not very often, as I want to just be about halfway through the book when we start our formal school year on Sept 5th. We are nearly there now.

James and Suzy had Field School at the Nature Center. David had his Star Wars field trip to the Columbus COSI science museum. I plan swimming lessons for the 3 youngest starting August 7, if I can gather up enough cash AND if there is still room in their lessons. I dare not call and reserve a spot until I have the money. Hopefully after our yard sale this weekend.

So, anyway, that's our summer schooling!

Read a Zillion Books with Jerry Pallotta

Oh wow! My kids and I were BLOWN AWAY by the presentation by author Jerry Pallotta today at the local library. 4th graders from the local elementary school and a preschool class attended, as well as at least 4 homeschool families.

My kids react:
"I thought he was funny. Everything he told us was funny! I like his books because they give you facts - a bunch of facts about the thing in the picture. I bought the Jet Alphabet book because I really like drawing jets and stuff like that. The thing that made me buy the book was a picture of a jet engine that is cut in half so you can see how it works." David, age 11

"I liked the part when he showed us all his books, especially Dory Story. I like that book because it's funny. The little boy was standing on a rock and he had his mouth open." Emily, age 9

"He put those fang things on that kid. That was funny! He put a kid in front of the screen and then the shark was going to eat him. That was
the funniest. I learned that he made all of those books!" James, age 6

Mr. Pallotta is an author of fact-filled, fun to read children's books such as Icky Bug Alphabet Book, The Dinosaur Alphabet Book and The Hershey's Kiss Addition Book. Visit his website at www.alphabetman.com.

If you have the opportunity to hear him speak, TAKE IT!  He is doing a "Read a Zillion Books" tour right now.