Cycle 2- What We're Using

This year, I have changed our format DRASTICALLY.  After having to leave my mom with a laundry basket of books and a wish for "good luck", I knew this year I wanted more structure.  Previously, I've spent lots of time building out from the Classical Conversations memory work to create a well-rounded program.  This year, since I never know how I'll be from one day to the next, we spent a little more money and exchanged it for my time.

(For the record, my kids were still well over 90th percentile in their standardized testing, so the "good luck" approach seemed to work just fine, but I didn't want to risk that again!)

Here's what we purchased:
History/Bible/Geography (it all comes in one convenient package!) 
Sonlight Core B+C
Sonlight Core B=C 2nd Grade Readers
Sonlight Core B+C Kindergarten Readers
(Already have Story of the World on CD for listening/Story of the World Workbooks for supplementary activities for Riley)

Math
Singapore Math Kindergarten B/Singapore Math 1A
Singapore Math 2A and 2B
(Riley is still finishing up his math, he got a little behind in his workbooks when he focused on multiplication and division speed, but we'll get him into 4A asap, and he's still matching up on his VA SOLs for math as "on grade level" so we're okay)

Language Arts (Reading/Writing/Spelling)
Sonlight Grade 2
Sonlight K (will still use Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons)
The Essentials Program (holy heck is this program both good and INTENSE!)

Handwriting
Handwriting Without Tears K, 2, and Cursive 1

Typing/Computing
Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing for Kids
Austin is going to be teaching the boys computing one evening a week as his class (how fun!)
Savannah will work on Starfall.com for her computer time

Science
This is the one portion that I didn't buy a prepared curriculum for.  We're doing some biology, some astronomy, and some physics in CC, and the kids really like to work along with the memory work here, so I'll still put science together.


Classical Conversations (Memory Program)
Cycle 2 Science Cards
Cycle 2 CD
Cycle 2 flash cards
CC Connected (monthly subscription- the boys like reviewing their memory work this way!)
Trivium Tables for Geography (I find having these makes geography go faster for my little ones)
(Already had the guide, timeline cards)

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?

The 5 Kingdoms/Classification

Classical Conversations Cycle 1 Science Week 1 and Week 2 cover the classification of living things and the five kingdoms.  

Riley has an assignment to do a poster on Orangutans this week (which is great because it lines up with a cub scout achievement!), but in addition to that, here's what we did:

 These were our in-class projects.  We divided a paper into 5 sections, copied the words down from the board to label each of the 5 Kingdoms, and then pasted pictures from the computer and magazines to show examples.  Monerans are readily available in medicine ads- especially Neosporin :)

 Then we enjoyed our first field trip of the year with our CC group! We planned a trip to the National Zoo.  My plan had been to bring a 5 Kingdoms scavenger hunt, but I left the papers at home.  Sigh.

 When you look at the various writings on each animal, you can point out the binomial nomenclature, which gives a latin name with the genus and the species.  Similar families are grouped together, and houses are usually done by class or order, depending on the size of the zoo! God made all creatures, and using the similarities, we can group and order them.  We see evidence of God's order in the universe, even at the zoo!

I love this guy! He was cheesing for the camera and looked almost happy to see us! (I'm sure if I'd stuck my hand in his terrarium, he'd have been happy to eat it, though!) 

Here's our little crew after making it all the way to the Flamingos (our friend KM has to do her report this week on Flamingos).  It was warm, and we had a little mini-emergency when a fellow CC mom had 2 of her kids go rogue and enjoy the reptile house alone ;) but we found them, and all was well.  This was a great field trip to fill in some real-life with our memory work pegs! It's always amazing to me how diverse life is! I especially love the poison arrow frogs, they look too tiny and intricate to be real, but they are!

Idea Swap: Cycle 1 Week 2

This week's Classical Conversations Cycle 1 Week 2 Lesson Plan Ideas from our community's lesson swap book comes from Musings of a Domestic Goddess, who isn't actually with us because she was sent away by the USMC.  Boo.

Cycle 1 Week 2

History Sentence: Tell Me About Commandments 6-10 Geography: Assyrian Empire
Math: Skip Counting 3’s and 4’s
English: First 5 Prepositions
Latin: Noun Cases Science: 5 Kingdoms

Week 2 History: Commandments 6-10 Practice writing the commandments as copywork
Have your children invent hand or body motions for the 10 commandments
Roll out salt dough and write the first word (or a key word) of each commandment (goes along with Assyrians)
Make a 10 Commandments Lapbook using the directions found on this blog: http://homeschoolblogger.com/jaminacema/238568/

Week 2 Geography: Assyrian Empire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd-j1wyPH_k
A song made up to help remember the Assyrian Empire key geography
This link explains the Assyrians and includes their connection to Old Testament Bible happenings. http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/westasia/history/assyri ans.htm

Week 2 Math: Skip Counting the 3s and 4s
Included behind this section is a fun file folder game found here: http://filefolderfun.com/Pages/ThirdGradeMath/CherryCho p.html

Week 2 English: About, Above, Across, After, Against
Give your children a box (shoe box is fine) and allow them to make a scene using plastic figures, construction paper, play doh, etc. Then, take turns placing an action figure or doll in the scenery you created using one of this week’s prepositions. You could also just use the box and the doll to keep it simple. “The doll is above the box”, etc.

Week 2 Latin: Noun Cases
This may not be appropriate for your child depending on their age, but it is helpful for parents so they understand what’s going on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fhP_fk2wNQ

Week 2 Science: 5 Kingdoms of Living Things Several powerpoint presentations:
http://science.pppst.com/5kingdoms.html
Make a poster separated into 5 portions. Pull out your old magazines and allow children to cut out and paste pictures into each kingdom. Cooking magazines can be helpful for fungi, and even your old Good Housekeepings may have pictures with close-ups of Monera or Protista (look for Clorox or Neosporin advertisements!) 

First Day of School

Since starting to home-educate, we've changed a lot of things about the rhythm of our lives.  One thing that remains, though, is my obsessive need to have first day of school pictures.  My mom always took them, and I even had my roommates take them in college so that I could mail them to her.  We use the first day of Classical Conversations for our "First Day of School" pictures.  The kids get to pick out a new outfit, which they love, and then once they're all schnazzed up, I make us spend seven extra minutes we don't have because we're running later than I'd hoped to get pictures. 

Riley has grown so much in a year.  He really looks like a "guy" now, and he really wants to be, too.  He's struggling with the balance of "big tough guy" and "decent human being" occasionally as he navigates his way to "big person", but his true nature is very compassionate and loving, and he's eager to please.  We're so proud of him and how hard he's working each day at whatever he does.  Smart as all get out, this kid is fantastic at remembering anything he wants to, including the entire Story of the World.  He turns 9 this year (Third Grade) and I can't believe he's half-way to technical adulthood.

Logan is so gentle and interesting.  He's got a vivid imagination, but we work really hard on helping him mitigate his feelings since he's easily wounded by anyone/anything.  He is snuggly and fun, and he's a fantastic reader.  It's so weird for me that he's a First Grader this year and he's never been to school.  Sometimes I worry I'm robbing him of that experience, but he's thrived under our home program and performs well above grade level in most of his subjects.  He's such a sweet boy and we adore him.

Oh my little Savannah Lynn.  I jokingly say that she's got a Napoleon Complex.  Tiny and petite, she will hurt you if you get in her way and fail to yield to her sweet cute side!  She's very much a tough cookie and wants to be the boss, and enjoys the control she has over the men in our family :) She's sassy and smart and wants to do everything her brothers do.  I'm tutoring her class this year and am enjoying already how eager and excited she is to learn.  I'm so excited to see the person she ends up becoming!

I can never get a good picture of all three of these kids!! However, one of the things I love most about homeschooling is that they really do love each other in a way that we were losing when Riley went away to school.  They love their friends and definitely whine if they don't get enough social exposure (and believe me, they get A TON), but they also play so well together and have fantastic imaginary worlds, stories, and games that are constantly happening around me.  It's above my pay grade to be in on all the stories, but they always sound fantastic!!

Here's to a great 2012-2013 year!!

Back Out of Blog Hiding!

In June (I think?) I ran for a school board position and I didn't want the first thing on google that came up when people stalked me to be my observations on diaper rash, so I temporarily privatized my blog.  A lot to catch up on, and a lot to look forward to as we get ready for our 2nd year of homeschooling with Classical Conversations Cycle 1!!  I'm excited for the coming year, and I have some fun things to share, too!!

Classical Conversations Cycle 3 Week 24

What the what? We're DONE with our first year of CC after this week??

Wow.

We've been tremendously blessed this year.  I'm not going to lie, homeschooling was an adjustment- but it wasn't a bad one! The boys have done fantastic and their reading and math skills have blossomed like crazy! I'm so proud of the hard work they've done and how well they've transititioned.  I'm also thankful for our friends (both PS and HS) who have been supportive and kind in having playdates and keeping us all sane!

This week:

History: The Bill of Rights 
Our book we started last week is going really well! I've had a private laugh about the comparison of my K's writing next to my 2nd grader's writing....but that's irrelevant.  The book is serving as our copy work.  First they did the preamble, taking turns with phrase copying and illustration, and now we'll finish it this week with the Bill of Rights doing the same.  They've worked very hard, so I'm planning to laminate and bind their work for them :) It's a big deal to get something you did laminated. We're also reading a biography of George Mason, who demanded the Bill of Rights.

I  love  you  mom  from  riley.
(I left my computer and had a visitor, I'm not deleting that!)

Science: What is Good Science
I think if we weren't already doing George Mason, I'd throw in a scientist here to study, but since we are, I'm just going to cover a few short scientist biographies from What Your Kindergartner and What Your Second Grader Need to Know.  I hear there are workbooks for these!! Those sound fun! Since I'm using the 1980s editions from when I was little, maybe an upgrade is in order first....

English: Sentence Patterns
Let me be honest here.  We're gonna try to memorize these.  We're going to write some sentences with each one.  CC English has killed me this year, and I'm pretty sick of the crazy ones....this week's seems crazy.  If I come up with some genius thing, I'll let you know :)

Latin: John 1:7: ut omnes crederent per illum. 
We will be finishing our Latin Lapbooks this week, which is exciting! Next year I'll definitely start these sooner!

Presidents
We'll be finishing up our presidents song, too.  And, our presidents lap book.  All this finishing! I should write a checklist just so I can cross things off!

Geography: More Prominent Features
Over the summer, I'm hoping to do a salt dough or rice crispy model of the US with the kids and really reinforce the Geography.  We kind of lost it a little after we finished the states and capitols as far as really driving home the map locations, not just memorizing.

Math: Identity Laws of Addition and Subtraction
We're going to use the M&Ms again.  5 M&Ms plus 0 is 5, and 1 group of 5 M&Ms (in a muffin tin, my favorite multiplication math manipulative!) is 5.

I think that's it.  We'll listen to some Stravinsky, maybe throw in a Bill Nye just because we can, and then the next few weeks will be memory work review and preparation for our standardized testing! I think I'm going to do the CAT test this year for both boys because they've never had one before, and maybe do the Stanford with Riley, and then for next year do Stanford for both.  Not sure, though.

I'm already working on my lesson planning for next year.  I want to have everything ready to go by the end of summer so that I'm not ever scrambling to lesson plan.  We're also planning to implement a work box system for next year.  My friend Sherri, who is the homeschooler I want to be when I grow up, taught me about them, and they sound like a perfect answer to my organization issues.  Our notebooks have worked well, but I feel like I don't mix in enough "fun" activities that are also educational because they don't fit in the notebooks.

This week's lesson plan stinks.  I apologize for that. I think I'm just excited to wrap up our CC year!

Classical Conversations Cycle 3 Week 23

Let's just jump right into this, shall we?

History: Preamble to the US Constitution
In addition to picking up books from the library, we'll be doing a little each day as copywork and, of course, there's a CC song, but it's not as cool as:

I'm beginning to think if I just parked my kids in front of schoolhouse rock they'd have more civics knowledge than their peers.  However, parking children in front of a TV is not very classical model, so instead, we'll also read children's level biographies about Madison and Mason. For the copywork, I found a neat class book (it's a free download) and we're going to alternate pages.  It's always nice to give the kids something to illustrate while I read at lunch!

Science: Charles' Gas Law
Gas expands when it gets hotter and contracts when it gets cooler, you say? Why yes it does!

I also found a little experiment for my kids' age group, and we're going to try that, too.  I cannot tell you how frequently I wish I had access to liquid nitrogen, though, because I'd much rather deflate a balloon in sub-zero temperatures.  Sigh.

Latin: Just keep swimming.

English/Math:
We have memory work for this week, but my main focus is going to be on test prep.  We're getting ready for the Stanford, and I want to make sure that we're ready, so our big focus will be punctuation and on mixed timed review for Riley.  Logan is testing, too, but I don't have a Kindergarten sample test book yet, so we'll just work a few printed sample test pages to get used to bubbling the answer.

Happy last 2 weeks, fellow CC'ers! 

Classical Conversations Week 21 Bonus

Tutoring was really fun! I'm not sure how well I did, but the kids and the parents were very kind if I messed up :)

I wanted to share my math supplement

It's pretty easy, just a printout with the 2 laws and 3 categories.  We did addition, mainly because multiplication would have required too many M&Ms.  The Associative Law for Addition is
(a + b) + c = a + (b + c).  Before class, I put one of the sheets and the candies (2 orange, 3 blue, 5 green, but you can obviously use any color) in a ziplock baggie.  Then we took moved the candies around  to do 5 + 5 and 2 +8.  Either way it's 10!

The woman that I subbed for also left an activity.  It was a printout with the two laws in a much larger font, and then she cut out parenthesis from construction paper for the kids to glue in the appropriate places. 

For my afternoon class, I decided that we would do something that "followed" our history sentence a little.  I brought giant bags of recycling and some boxes, along with tape, glue, markers, tin foil, and whatever else I could dig up.  Then I tasked the kids with creating a rover to explore a new planet I made up.  I provided them with some printouts of the Mars Rover and some guiding questions (How will it get to the planet, how will it move on the planet, what information will it collect and how, how will it communicate with earth) and then I turned them lose in teams. 

The kids had so much fun! I actually had to stop them so that I could get them to present to each other! We spend about an hour and 40 minutes on this activity and then we did a few seconds of outside play.  The kids did a fantastic job.

Classical Conversations Cycle 3 Week 21

This week I'm substituting for a tutor, so that should be a fun experience!  I'm also going to be handling the afternoon class of 6-8 year olds for the next four weeks (We only have four weeks left! Crazy!), so I'll have a little extra planning to do!!

US Presidents: 
Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler
I'm so excited!! I have been waiting and waiting to do this game with the kids for WEEKS since I saw it on Pinterest!! Presidential Guess Who? Yes, please!!
As far as a fun song, I hear that we're using the "short" CC song for this, but we're going to throw in the Animaniacs because the kids think they're hilarious :)

And, not to hate on the Classical Conversations songs....but....I mean, would it really kill us to kick it up a notch? Because since we're already the crazy public schoolers, I feel like my kids could really bring it with the Presidential Rap.

I found a few really cute printables, including a "President's Day" word making center where you make as many words as you can using the letters in "president's day" and then write a sentence using one of them.   I also found a lap book, and oh my gravy have we loved lap books, so I feel like this one will be a hit, too! 

History Sentence: Tell me about U.S. Astronauts

This week just couldn't get any cooler, could it?? 

We've got numerous books to read, of course, and I'll come back and report on the ones we like the best. NASA has both a video of the moon landing and some basic facts.  We're going to use the plaque from the moon landing as copy work.

In addition to our history sentence basics about the moon landing, we're going to take some time to talk about the phases of the moon.  

The Children's University of Manchester has a neat interactive on the phases of the moon

NASA also has a nice introduction to the phases of the moon

Visit to the Air and Space Museum? Well, duh, that's totally got to happen.  We've been to Udvar Hazy waaaay too many times for me to think about, so we're going to schlep into DC.

Latin: Cui Nomen Erat Iohannes

I have nothing interesting to report here.  We're going to keep working on our lap books and memorize this.  It's 4 words this week, so I don't really feel a whole lot of pressure to do something fun.  

English: Independent Clause

I have this idea for teaching independent clauses that involves a doll.  Since an independent clause can "stand" on its own and has both a subject and a verb, I'm thinking I should be able to have a "subject" leg and a "verb" leg.  When both are there, the clause (this doll may need to be Santa....you know, "Claus") can stand.  When they're not, he can't.  I'm still working on this concept, but it's 1am, so it's not happening now.  Riley has clause worksheets in his grammar book, and we'll do some more fun sentences mad-lib style.  We'll also do a game where we have two jars, one we'll fill with independent clauses, and one we fill with dependent clauses.  I think it'll be funny.

Science: Uniformitarianism

I'm going to be honest.  I don't really get this.  I get the definition, and I get the counterpoints, but I don't have fantastic examples.  I'm going to try to pick up a few books at the library to help....but right now I'm just wishing that I stole my technological earth science text in 9th grade.  

Also, we're studying the moon this week.  Soooo.....there.

Math: The Associative Laws

We're going to demonstrate these using M&Ms, which are, by far, the best math manipulative on earth.  If a is red m&ms and b is blue and c is green, we can show that we get the same number whether we add red and blue first or blue and green first.  Then we can eat them. Nom nom nom.  

Singapore math plugs on.  Logan is doing much better with place value and higher counting, although he consistently forgets 15.  What did 15 ever do to him?  Riley is going to be drilling multiplication facts this week in addition to his chapter on measurement.

Geography: Territories and Terrains

Coloring! Yay!  I love the giant pull-off maps that I bought at the teachers store and will probably cry next year if they don't have the same thing for our new maps.  

Leap Day Math

I'm trying to be better about "fun" things for the kids, like crafts and holiday activities.   Since today was leap day, I decided that we were going to try to do a little "leaping of our own to go along with our CC memory work for math.  This week our memory math is 1 inch equals 2.54 centimeters.  First, I made up a batch of cook play dough.  I've used this recipe before and it's never given me any trouble, but due to a lack of flour I halved it and it was SUPER sticky this time.  After cooking it, I added a ton of green glitter.  The goal was to make "Frogs" for our place value lily pad game, but the dough turned out really sticky, even though it looked fantastically glittery and fun :) 

We had a few friends come by in the afternoon, so they were subjected to our math games, too! Everyone lined up at the corner of a wall and then did their best "leap".  We marked it with a construction paper lily pad and then measured in centimeters and inches.  Logan wrote his own numbers and name.  He's doing really well with his printing and starting to feel more confident writing, especially in front of others!!

Our hypothesis was incorrect- we guessed that the person with the longest legs would leap the furthest, but Logan and Riley jumped equal distances!!

Next we did a game with place value.  I made lily pads labeled "ones", "tens" and "hundreds".  Since our play dough didn't work out, we used our Singapore math cubes in green.  The kids rolled a die to see how many "frogs" went on each lily pad.  For Logan, we just did ones and tens and then he wrote the number on the white board and told me the name.  For Katie Marie and Riley, they used all three pads (and I added a "thousands" one) and took turns rolling to add more to the pads from the roll before.  This meant they had to swap sets of 10 out for 1 of the next place value up.  Even Savannah played, rolling a number and then counting out the appropriate number of "froggies" for her ones lily pad.

Pretty fun!!

Classical Conversations Week 20!!

I can't believe that we're 4 weeks away from the end of our first year of Classical Conversations!! Crazy!! I feel like this has been a real journey, but we're finally in a great groove, and more so every week.  I have been tremendously blessed to grow in confidence and community and I'm very happy about our decision to homeschool.

This week:

Classical Conversations, Cycle 3 Week 20

History- Brown v. Board of Education
I found a website that has tons and tons of ideas about how to teach civil rights. It includes Brown V. Board as well as several other high-profile events and even has a library list! I really liked the discussion questions here, so we're going to use those for sure. Then I found DocsTeach.org from the National Archives.  This one is FANTASTIC and I'm really excited to have it for the future!!  I love using primary sources as much as possible, and this site has free registration and tons and tons of pre-made activities!! We're going to do one together called Dwight D. Eisenhower and School Integration.  Many are flash-based, which is fun for the kids.

Note to self: The Brown V. Board historic site has 3 different videos for ages starting with Kindergarten.  Too bad I didn't look sooner!! Bad procrastinating momma!! I think I'll go ahead and order the one we'll likely need in 3 years ;)  I did find a fairly simple and straight-forward video on YouTube that includes the Brown Family.

We're also going to do a journal entry about whether why we agree (I guess or disagree, but I'd be sad if they chose that!) with Brown v. Board's decision.

John 1:6- fuit homo missus a Deo
I don't have a fun plan for this- although I'm working on a little latin review game for when we've completed the verse.  The lap books continue to go well!

English- Phrases and Clauses
So, listen.  I can't possible teach Phrases and Clauses without playing my kids Conjunction Junction. It totally gives some examples....right?

For later in the week, I want to introduce Riley to dependent and independent clauses.  In addition to our grammar workbook pages, I found this website with an online quiz.  Getting to do it online makes it 1,000x more fun. We'll also play a game with our die from Scattegories, using the letter we roll to pick words to make clauses or phrases.

Science- Theory of Evolution
Right, so.  This is one where I applaud CC for finding a memory sentence that won't offend anyone, regardless of their level of Biblical Literalism.  We have no problem with evolution in our house, in so much as we're talking about the concept that things change over time, even though we believe in a divine creator.  I don't know how God did stuff, so if he's provided us with a fossil record showing that things change over time, I'm down.  This doesn't make me a Darwinist, it just means that I appreciate that things change. We'll be reading the Biblical account of creation, watching Bill Nye episode 6 from season 3 on Evolution, and talking about whether the two ideas are mutually exclusive.  We know that God created the world and everything in it, but we also know that when he was done creating, the world was set up to run itself over time.  That's just us.  We identify with Intelligent Design, but not as Biblical Literalists.

Math- 1 inch= 2.54cm
We're going to do this on leap day and do some jumping and measuring both in inches and centimeters to make it fun.  Singapore continues to go well, and we're happy with the boys' progress.  (Especially since Logan's kicked math investigations grade 1's booty!)

Geography- Canals
Lucky us, the C&O Canal is nearby!! This calls for a hike.
This week one of the tutors made an enormous rice crispy treat map of the us with candy for features.  We might have to steal that idea!! We have a jello mold USA, too...hmmmm, ideas for review :)


Composer- Tchaikovsky Symphony Number 6

CC Science Club: Chinese New Year

Yes, yes, this happened in January.  So sue me.  We use a book I picked up at the library, but you can also get it on Amazon.  For the January lesson, we talked about phase changes.  

First, we read a few books about the Chinese New Year.  Then we made a Venn Diagram about the differences and similarities between the Chinese and the American New Years.  The kids did really well! 

Next I did a demo by making poppers that were completely unsuccessful at the library (using off-brand alka-seltzer and water in an old-school film canister, which was really hard to find!) but worked at home.  It was supposed to tie in with the "Fireworks/explosions" portion of the Venn Diagram.  Next we separated into groups and showed how a liquid (vinegar) and a solid (baking soda) can produce a reaction in the form of a gas (carbon dioxide), which we could see by inflating a balloon over a soda bottle. 

Helpful hint: Use a paper cone to pour the baking soda into the balloon.  Measure the vinegar into the soda bottle, and then attach the balloon to the top of the bottle.  When you stand the balloon up, the baking soda goes in, but you've got all the time in the world to attach your balloon, unlike if you try to mix the elements and THEN put the balloon on top. 

Then it was time for snack and crafts!! The book (and my original plan) suggests doing mini egg rolls, but since there were supposed to be too many kids to have it at my house (fully 1/2 of the people who RSVP'd didn't come), we were at the library and I wasn't sure what our kitchen options were going to be, so we did popcorn (get it, it's popping/exploding?)

Then the kids worked on a really simple craft that I based on a Pinterest find. This was also a second choice, the first choice craft involved paint, which I decided was a bad idea at the library, but the kids seemed to enjoy making puppets, and they're younger, so this was good.

 We had a great time! The science club idea seems to work well for us and for our CC friends! I didn't take any pictures from our February club, which we had this week on Monday, but we did polymers using Teflon Tape and plastic bags.  We had fun learning we could stretch vertically and distort the images and then pull horizontally and realign the molecules! Our crafts were just fun heart-shaped foam activities from Michaels.  I had a bunch of events that all happened on the same day, so a CC friend greatly blessed me by saying she'd bring a craft.  I really didn't feel like I fit in our community at the beginning of the year (I still don't) but I've been very supported by

Classical Conversations Cycle 3 Week 6

Oh my gosh! We've made it 6 weeks! I was worried about my sanity, but I am really enjoying homeschooling and feel like God is really working on my heart and my patience for the process.  We're settling into a routine with our school that has allowed me to add in extra activities for each of the kids.  This was a process, and kind of an explosive one, since Austin's chief concern is the kids getting "socialized" enough and my chief concern is me not having a nervous breakdown.  He's been working pretty much non-stop for the last month and a half, including long nights (well past midnight) and weekends, so it's been all-mama-all-the-time.  I know my military friends do this for months on end, but I didn't sign up for single parenting because I know my limits :)

Anyhow, as I'm becoming more confident with our schedule we've added in Football and Art and Scouts (for Riley), Ice Hockey (for Logan, who will start a kid's science class this week and is asking for art lessons also), and Gymnastics and Preschool (for Savannah Lynn).  The picture below is one of Riley's pictures from art class.  I've included the "before" the lesson picture, too.  His art teacher is an awesome Christian lady and she does fantastic work.  I know it's hard setting up a business in this economy, but I hope she succeeds because we love her!

This week we really enjoyed our lessons- I think we've finally got the hang of the memory work.  Leigh Bortins says you have to "train to retain" and I think it's finally taking for everyone.  One change that I made this week that finally made Latin click was that I added in the (real) sign language for the Bible Memory verses (John 1:1-7). 

You wouldn't think that making something MORE complicated would make it easier- but this really did.  Since our Latin words are all being learned with the intention of translating John 1:1-7 into Latin from English, learning the sign for each word has helped with cuing the kids, and for some reason, helped them realize the connection, even though I'd told it to them 100 times. 

For our history this week, we've been working on the Louisiana Purchase.  In addition to reading from our What Your Child Needs to Know books, we also used several websites, including this one which has an interactive trail map with excerpts of journals from Lewis and Clark and this one which has a kind of "follow the adventure" game.  We also got to go meet up with some of our Classical Conversations friends for a history craft day.  We made trail journals by coloring a picture of Lewis and Clark (actually Sacagewea and Charbonneau with Lewis and Clark in the background) and then bound several pieces of paper inside with string.  Most of the kids were much younger than Riley, but he loves to draw and we added some difficulty to the activity together by having him copy pictures of actual discoveries Lewis and Clark made along their trek rather than just drawing random objects like the younger kids were doing.  We found a great list on Wikipedia here.

Math is still skip counting for CC, we're on 11 and 12 and Riley is kicking butt at it, finally! In our Singapore math, Riley blew through intro fractions and intro time (he's done them before with me) and did a review chapter today, which he was great at.  His approach to some word problems cracks me up because he sets them up like algebra problems __ +9 = 15 and then fills in the blank.  Logan is still struggling with ordering numbers in sequences that don't start with 1.  Counting should start with 1.  It's just that he needs the natural order of things to be followed.  We're getting there. 

For English we're trucking along with our Insitute for Writing Excellence, Teach Your Child to Read, and All About Spelling.  Riley has finally hit a point in his reading where he's excited to do it.  Yesterday we ended a chapter of his current Magic Treehouse book in a particularly exciting place and he looked ahead at how many pages the next chapter was- it was 8- and trucked ahead anyway.  Usually 8 pages would elicit a groan, but he was finally hitting a good stride and was too excited to see what happened to care about the length of the page.  He also read a book to me about the growth of apples since we're going to pick apples on Friday after preschool.  I couldn't let fall go by without some of my favorites. Also, Logan has some great, meticulous handwriting going.  It's very exciting since Riley writes like a doctor.

Science this week was the digestive system.  We enjoyed a Bill Nye as well as using this website.  Logan drew a most excellent picture of the digestive system, including a butt.  I am so scared to leave him alone in his class tomorrow for fear he'll end his memory work "small intestine, large intestine AND THEN YOU POOP!!!!!!!"

Sigh.  He can't be the only one with a mastery of that component of digestion, right?

Geography was more states and capitals.  We're to the middle of the US now, which is exciting! 

I think that's it...oh, we finally got our history timeline cards.  For next week I'm going to get some banner paper and make a giant timeline on our wall for us to add events to as we've memorized them in order.  They've got the first 16 down cold, and the 8 we're on this week.  The middle, well, it's a little fuzzy- they can do it with the pictures on the cards, but not just from memory. I blame that on my inability to get the flashcards in until now.

I also splurged and purchased the rest of History of the World on CD.  We still love it and the kids love finding the week's history (and then the timeline history) on the CDs during lunch.  They're retaining the information and I get to STOP TALKING for half an hour....well worth every penny.

Whew.  I think that's it. 

In Which We Wonder If We Care...

Logan and Riley have been doing a little bit of complaining lately.  Riley feels like the work we do at home is grossly unfair because "I know it's more work than my friends are doing at school".  I know it is, too, but that's why we're doing this.  We believe that they're capable of more.

Today, driving Savannah Lynn to preschool, Logan bellowed that he wanted to go to preschool, too, and he wanted to go to Kindergarten at Riley's old school because he doesn't like being home.

I was totally crushed.

But then I got it together and asked him why.  Apparently he's been taking in a few mentoring lessons from his brother.  "School is easier and all you have to do is sit with your friends and then you go to recess and sometimes you do math.  It's just easy.  I like easy things."

Well.....I've thought about it, and your complaints have been registered.  But, I don't care.  Hopefully your future therapists will understand.

I really am working to make sure I include provisions for (especially Riley) the kids.  When Riley wanted to be in a cub scout den with 2 of his former classmates, for example, I moved him.  I'm trying to make sure we have adequate social interaction and that the kids get time away from me.  I really am.  But sometimes, I guess I need to know what's best for them, and let them vent without absorbing it :)

In Which We Figure It Out

Our CC Materials (well, most of them since some were on backorder) arrived this week which meant we could start CC! I started on Tuesday morning since we got the stuff on Monday :)

So far, it's going awesome.  All of one day ;) Riley loves Story of the World, which I bought on CD so it reads to them and I can rest my voice! I need to find a used copy of the book, though, because he asked if there was one for him to follow along in, and I make a rule of not denying my children words!! The memory work seems really easy and fun for them, and Savannah plays along, too.

We're on Cycle 3 Week 1, and that's Columbus, 4 types of tissue, Latin Prepositions, definition of an infinitive, 5 states and capitals, tracing the US Map, and skip counting by 1s and 2s.  The Columbus song is stuck in my head on repeat a la "It's a Small World", but hey, I definitely know that Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin 1492 Columbus took the first of 4 trips to the Carribbean on 3 Spanish ships, the Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria.

Riley even memorized epithelial tissue.  I need to buy us a good kid's anatomy book- the resources I found online aren't cutting it for me.  Today at the library we'll pick up some reinforcements for the time being for history and science.  Our real math continues to plug along and Singapore materials should arrive on the 9th.

I drafted my NOI (Notice of Intent to Homeschool) letter and I'm a little frustrated by the process.  I went to PWC Schools so I don't see why I need to pay them to mail them a copy of my high school transcript- they should really just be able to look it up!! And, I don't see why I need to turn in a copy of Riley's records, because I feel like they should have those, too.  Oh well, I guess I should get good at jumping through hoops- it's not going to stop :)

I did writing samples with the boys for the beginning of the year so we'll have something for comparison in addition to their test scores and I'm in the process of finding someone to test their reading levels so that I can compare those, too.  Annnnnnnd.....well, and that's it.  It's going well, still, we've added in our real curriculum (mostly) and I'm still really excited.  Crazy.

Oh, and it probably didn't hurt that I supplemented our learning with a little blast from my past where memorizing the states and capitals are concerned....I believe in QUALITY educational materials people.  (Logan almost peed himself he thought this was so funny)