Planning for Classical Conversations Cycle 2

I can't believe that next year will mark our third year homeschooling.  I know it seems dramatic, but being sick made me realize what a gift it is to be home with my kids.  If I'd spent the last year and a half before I died being home with them and teaching them, I would've been completely happy with that.  Since I didn't kick the bucket, however, it means I get to head into my third year knowing how special my time with them is, and what a privilege I have being able to homeschool.  It also means that since I'm still a little slower and a lot easier to tire than in the past, I'm reconsidering how we're doing things around here.

Classical Conversations has been the hinge our homeschool opens and closes on.  However, I've spent lots and lots of time expanding the memory "pegs" into a full curriculum, spending hours on Pinterest, Google, and at the library ensuring that I have enough information to fill in the blanks.  Knowing that I have good days and bad days, I'm planning to spend more money this year to provide myself with all the tools and plans I'll need so that if I have a bad day, everything is already prepared.  That seems to be the trade off in homeschooling, you can either spend more time preparing or more money preparing.  This year, I'm picking time saved over dollars saved.

I am still incredibly happy with our Singapore Math.  Savannah completed the Kindergarten A book this year on her day off from preschool (she had preschool M/W/F half days and CC on Thursdays, leaving just one day a week for homeschool). She'll start Kindergarten B this summer, and then we'll move her up and along when she's ready.  Logan is right on schedule, and will complete his 1B book in the next week or two so that he can start 2A in the fall, using a summer review book over the "break".  My first year, I purchased the teacher's guide, but I don't do that now, opting just to purchase the textbook and workbook.  I let my kids write in both, but certainly you could not allow them to write in the text and just order a new workbook each year.  I don't really feel like for the Singapore price you save much money photocopying every page--especially with our printer which eats ink like it's a contest.  Riley had a bit more of a pause this year as he struggled with multiplication facts, but with some work this summer to finish up his workbooks, he'll probably start 4A in October.  I'm not particularly concerned, because aside from mixed numbers, which is in the second portion of his 3B book, he's hit all the grade 3 SOLs and just a few of the grade 4 ones.  I always like to look, just in case there's a crisis and we have to send them back.

So....Math is staying the same.  Singapore makes me happy.

English wise, Riley will start Essentials, which is through the Institute for Excellence in Writing's Essentials of the English Language.  We'll continue all three kids with First Language Lessons and Writing with Ease for the younger two. I started these this year, so they've got plenty more to go.  Savannah will have the advantage of starting when you should actually start!

For science and history, I am going to go with Sonlight C (we'll have to circle back on world history for cycle 1 in two years) and I think I'm going to get Sonlight Science B (Animals, Astronomy, Physics), but I'm not totally sold on that one as much as I am the history. 

I feel like Riley should really start a Latin program....but I'm not sure I'm mentally there yet, but I'm trying to get a feel for what people like anyway.  I never took Latin, so I'm excited we can learn together.

What are you using next year? What's working and what's not?

Classical Conversations Cycle 1 Week 14

How are we doing out there CC folks?  Especially all you lurkers out there from HalfAHundredAcreWood's link up.  I see you in my blog views ;) Say hi so I can check out your space on the internet, too!

I was completely out of commission this week.  I have been struggling with headaches so debilitating that I was at the ER at the end of July.  I was initially told they were "just migraines" and given medicine that doesn't help at all.  This week was so bad that I could barely get out of bed, but I was tremendously blessed by my mother stepping in to help me, and of course by the knowledge that my kids would at least have their "pegs" in place thanks to their CC tutors.  I did come out to tutor on Thursday and my wonderful husband stayed home from work so he could help me in my class (and watch to make sure I didn't do anything embarrassing like faint mid-class).  God greatly blessed me with students who were eager to get back to work and were on their very very best behavior the entire day. The first week back is always my favorite since we can spend a little more time on each piece of memory work doing fun things.

Week 14 should be fun, too.  I've finished up my Latin Magnet Boards for my class to use (and my kids at home since I'm keeping them in my magical tutor box!) and you can find a link to it here if you'd like to make your own.  I'll have a substitute in my class this week as I go in to have a few tests done.  I hate to miss CC day, but when they shuffle appointments to fit you in and it's either a Thursday or a two to three week wait, you take the Thursday :( My substitute is a fantastic Christian mom and former classroom teacher, though, so my main sadness is how much better she is at tutoring than I am! I'm sure my class misses her when I come back!

Here's what's on tap for this week, and a few notes from last week:

History: Songhai/Zanj/Zimbabwe
Again, we utilize Story of the World.  I'm really enjoying encorporating some of the Anansi stories through our literature, as well.  These fun fairy tales have some great morals.  I also want to try to show the kids as much as I can. We have a field trip coming up to the Museum of African Art, which should be fun.  I also found some great VERY QUICK introductions to African Empires on HowStuffWorks.  Being sick this week, I was also reminded of what great resources the Timeline Cards and Science Cards are.  Yes, they're wonderful to have as a ready-reference for the song or fact of the week, but have you flipped them over? There's all the basic info you need to feel like you "covered it" and on a week where you just want to put a check in the box (and we all have those weeks) they are invaluable.  We're also pretty adventurous eaters over here, and I thought that making a traditional dish from this region would be fun.  Polenta with Bolognese is one of my faves, so when I saw Sadza from Zimbabwe (a cornmeal paste served with sauce of choice) I decided we'd go with it, and on the side, I'm thinking a Chicken Stew, although I'm reading peanut butter dishes are also a staple. For the less adventurous, how about some Sweet Potato Cookies?

Science: Three Types of Rock
Momma Owl's Lab has a great instructional post on how to mimic the three types of rock with crayon shavings, which is perfect, because we have some crayons that are ready to go, anyway!

I also found a fantastic video on YouTube that uses a "chef" theme.  We might have to simulate the igneous rock at home ;)

Because chocolate sauce on ice cream just seems like a good idea. Don't hate.  If you are not a crunchy granola mom that limits all snacks to kale chips and apple slices, you could even have one kind of rock each day for snack.

Geography: More Africa
In addition to using our Trivium Tables to locate and circle each geography point, I want to really start to focus on beginning to draw the world with the kids.  Wednesday is usually my geography day, so we're going to start this format: 

Here are the steps for beginning with your family:

1. Obtain a good atlas. Ideally, your maps should include the lines of latitude and longitude, the continents, and the oceans.

2. Give everyone paper and pencil.

3. Draw and label the Great Circles: Arctic Circle, Tropic of Cancer, Equator, Tropic of Capricorn, and Antarctic Circle (younger children should use initials).

4. Draw seven “blobs” for the continents.

5. Label the four oceans: Indian, Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific.

6. Repeat the project every week until it is easy.

Math: Linear Equivalents
We always like to do a little something to "prove" our math.  Last week, we made Kool Aid in my Abecedarian class (which was a big hit- I overheard one of my students explaining at lunch that math knowledge is important so you can make kool aid for lunch!) and this week we'll probably measure a few things using inches and centimeters and then use a calculator to prove that we've done it correctly.  Neither of my children multiplies by decimals yet, so we'll pull out the calculator for a treat. 

Latin: Latin Noun Cases
We'll just be drilling on in Latin.  I hope to start an actual program with the boys next year, but for now, this works :)

English Grammar: Do, Does, Did
I'm working right now on making ships and waves (because they were what I originally found) for a file folder game with sentences for each week.  As soon as I get the file done, I'll add it :)

Have a fantastic week CC mommas!

Tell Me Some Parts of the Earth Cycle 1 Week 13

Classical Conversations Science, Cycle 1 Week 13

Tell me about some parts of the earth.

 That sounds like an open invitation for some playdoh! We created ours out of 4 colors of playdoh, one each for the inner core, outer core, mantle, and crust.  I didn't make these quite to scale because all of my tubs of playdoh were the same size, but when I did it for my abecedarian class, I made homemade dough (and added some glitter to it! yay!) and was able to scale it better so that the mantle was larger than the other sections.  I think doing the inner core in a solid ball of something (maybe a bouncey ball from a vending machine?) would be really great, too! How cool is it that the center of the earth is so incredibly hot, but yet it's solid because of the incredible pressure?  So cool!

 For my abecedarians, I also wanted to reinforce the hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere, so we printed out a coloring page of the beach:

And I let the kids color their picture and then glue on labels.  The beach theme was nice because it had life (bio), water (hydro) and air (atmo).  They had so much fun doing some projects during class, which I really enjoy doing with them when I get time.  Typically our classes are so quick and tight there's not time for anything fun, and I know Leah Bortin's vision is "stick in the sand" but teaching is more fun for me when I get to be creative, so our "first day" of each 12 weeks is my favorite because we can have fun :)

Week 13- Back To School

I absolutely loathe our CC break.  I think that next year, I'm going to invite people to come over each Thursday for review days.  I do CC for accountability and I'm never pleased with the way that our December goes without it. I should be able to self-regulate better, but I fall short (in this and so many other ways).

That being said, we're overjoyed to be back to our regular schedule this week! Yay CC!

Here's what I have for this week:

History: Tell me about the Kush
There's a site called "Mr. Don" that has information about the Kush including religion, exports, land type, etc.
We use Story of the World, so we'll be doing Chapter 12 (Middle Kingdom of Egypt) which goes along with the Usborne Book of World History (16-23), Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia 114-117, Kingisher Illustrated History 26/27, and Kingfisher Encyclopedia 10-11. I think that in addition to the review questions, narration, and map work, we're going to do the monkey doll and bracelets, and I'm going to try to find Rimonah of the Flashing Sword.


Science: What are some parts of the earth?
There's a Bill Nye Video for this week- Episode #2 "Earth's Crust"

Here's a site that talks about how we can know what's in the center of the Earth since we're unable to physically study that far down.
Teaching in Flip Flops has a fun idea for the Core/Mantle/Crust.  Most of the sites I'm finding use inner core/outer core, and while that's not in the CC approved response, we're going to learn it that way.  I'm becoming increasingly disappointed with some of the CC responses, especially in science, because they leave out a portion that is considered vital in our state's SOLs, which I always keep an eye on.
Loving this site- a brief explanation of each portion of the inner/outer core, crust, mantle, including a worksheet with answer key.
Here's a great resource by grade level.  The material we should be covering is Grade 4, but you could certainly benefit by using all of the resources! There's an online reading and questions for older children that I'll have my 9 year old do here. We're going to take some time to learn landforms throughout the next few weeks of science, too.
We'll also be making a play-doh model of the layers of the earth.  I think that we'll use toothpicks with strips of paper to label the layers.

English Grammar: Helping Verbs
I'm working on making sentences that will work with each week of helping verbs.  I was inspired by a sentence sort on Teachers Pay Teachers where there were "waves" made of sentences and 3 boats with helping verbs on them that filled in the blanks in the sentences.  I'm going to make the same concept into a file folder game and will add more verbs each week and laminate it when we're done.
Here's a worksheet:

Latin: Noun Cases 
With my abecedarians, I want to have a "project" for us to use as our review for Latin.  I found cookie sheets at the dollar store, and I'm going to put magnets on the back of their words or endings each week.  After the first week of review (since we do 2 weeks of the same material) we'll glue down the Nominative/Genitive/Dative/Accusative/Ablative along with ribbons to make a "chart" for them to put their magnets in each week.  I'll put up a picture next week (assuming this works!)

Math- Liquid Equivalents
Well, if you're talking about pints, quarts, and gallons, you're obviously talking about ice cream, right? I think a field trip to the grocery store freezer section is in order.  Beyond that, we'll use a pitcher to "prove" the math equivalents by making kook-aid.  I think I'm going to do that with my CC class, too, and plan it for right before snack time.

Science: Van Cleave 121/124
Art: Giotto
Our CC campus is doing egg yolk and chalk painting, which a large amount of God's grace.  One of my wonderful class moms is going to sketch out a paintable object so the kids aren't tempted to spend 20 minutes drawing something too small to paint.

Hope you have a great week!!

Classical Conversations Cycle 1 Week 12

Week 12 History Sentence: Tell Me About the Muslim Empire 

HISTORY SENTENCE

1.    Print memory work slide (see file).

2.    Practice song with hand motions (see file).

3.    Parent reviews “history highlights” (see file) for background.

4.    Glance through “Muslim Empire Activities (see file) for activities your children would find interesting; note especially the activity with food coloring-in-water and the ability to connect it with the geography map, below. 

Hand Motions W12:     Tell me about the Muslim Empire

Muslim    use two hands to make a dome over your head (like a mosque)

Muhammad sign language “M”

worshipped  bow down

Ottoman  sign language “O”

expanded hands together, palms touching.  Spread out as in expanding

weakness    make your whole body wither as if growing weak

westernization make sign language “w” with both hands.  “Do the twist” with hands holding out “w”s in time to the music

Week 12 Geography: Muslim Empire

GEOGRAPHY

1.    Print geography slide (see file).

2.    Use graphic in following link (http://jfortunato.weebly.com/whi8-study-resources.html) with above-mentioned activity in history. (Coloring in water, spread of Islam.)

Week 12 Math: Teaspoons and Tablespoons 

MATH

1.    Post visual teaspoon/tablespoon chart (see file).

2.    Consider this song: “Totally 3^rd grade” liquid conversion song, http://www.totally3rdgrade.com/lemonade_stand.html

3.    Have fun playing with actual conversions (tablespoons, teaspoons, etc.)

Name _____________________________

Date ___________________

Prepositions:Weeks 7-12

W A A T D U N D E R S U D S I A 
R M E W Q I G R K C I I L E T E 
J E I I H J N O N T O N I B K S 
O S N T J X L E U E O A K S B E 
N L I F S K F O N C G W E R R H 
N W P N E A H O D O F F A I M N 
T U A K S G O P E Q P E M R R Q 
G O S R U I O N R H N T T P D T 
I N T O P T D V N S G D S D F G 
Y I R U O H Q E E A H W I S O A 
P H R T N R E G A R D I N G T L 
T O E S Z O Z I T L E T C E I T 
A Y E I P U F T H L T H E T M G 
E R I D U G E A L Z V O N B A W 
D J B E O H H P E T E U S N I T 
S Y Y E L E I R T A L T T R A U




Find the following hidden PREPOSITIONS:

Week 7: in, inside, into, like, near,

Week 8: of, off, on, onto, out,

Week 9: outside, over, past, regarding, since,

Week 10:through, throughout, to, toward,

Week 11: under, underneath, until, up, upon,

Week 12: with, within, without,

SCIENCE/PROJECT

1.    Post science memory work (see file) as well as plant diagram/photosynthesis slide (see file).

2.    Consider adding hand motions (see file).

3.    Parent reviews “science snippets” info (see file).

4.    Read chapter containing info about photosynthesis (see file) by http://eequalsmcq.com/ClassicScienceLife.htm, mostly to be able to do fun activity related to photosynthesis (see file).

5.    Read “classifying animals/plants” files—two for the student, two for the parent (see file).

Week 12 – What are the plant systems?

Hand motions:       

Photosynthesis – hands reaching toward sun and pulling it in

Respiration – hands by your lungs squeezing/kneading motion

Transpiration – hands pushing down and out toward feet

Cycle 1 Week 4 Art

We have a tutor in our community who is just so gifted with her art teaching that it amazes me.  Talking with her at lunch today, she shared that her kids incorporated two variants of abstract art that I have never even heard of, which is especially impressive because she's got our very youngest abecedarians.

Art is a struggle for me.  I don't really like art (gasp!) and have a hard time appreciating most non-classical pieces.  In college, I had to take a fine art class and I took 3D art since I like crafts, so I thought working with materials would make the class more bearable.

The only A I received in that class was for an assignment where we had to make a tower for our imagination to live in out of balsa wood sticks and string (and no, I'm not making that assignment up).  The night before our projects were due, mine was knocked out of my cubbie and shattered on the floor.  Figuring there was nothing I could do to impress the teacher anyway, I just turned the assignment in broken.  When I presented it, I said that it represented my complete and utter lack of imagination, and the professor ate it up.  True story.

So, teaching art is not my favorite part of tutoring.  This week, though, we actually had a great success in class with marble painting.  The process is super easy, and it is perfect if you have students who struggle with not having enough time to complete their projects and become frustrated.

Step 1: Find an old cookie sheet.  Set a piece of paper on top
Step 2: Roll marbles in paint.  I recommend using red, yellow, and blue, since they mix happily with each other.
Step 3: Allow the children to roll the marbles by shaking the cookie sheet.  When the paint is gone, they're done!

This process took about 20 seconds per child, and the others in class played a duck-duck-goose review game while they waited their turn.  I felt like it went really well.

I mounted the pieces on larger construction paper, here's an example: