kindergarten graduation

We had a fun time at my 6yo's kindergarten graduation. We threw a party at home and invited those families that really played a key role in his life this year. He was so excited to have both sets of grandparents in for the occasion as well. I made a video presentation highlighting his accomplishments in each area.

His dad and I presented him with a diploma and a Bible for which he had been asking.

Lots of fun! I can't believe that our first year in official homeschool is over!

Fall Term 2009

We are going to ease back into our formal "school" routine over the next few weeks/months.

Priorities of adding subjects back in:
1. Literature (still part of the routine)
2. Bible Time (Read-aloud stories, Big Picture Story Bible)
3. Reading
4. Science - Nature Journal
5. Penmanship
6. Math (table time games)
7. Bible Time (scripture memory)
8. History
9. Science (over-winter garden, seeds)
10. Culture

Reading	Finish More New Friends - Grade 3-2 Begin Building Our Lives - Grade 4
Literature	Continue with Read-Aloud list
Penmanship	Continue in Handwriting without Tears - Letters and Numbers for Me
Memorization	Begin Scripture Memory system during Bible Time Continue Poetry Memory - The Swing and The Land of Counterpane
Science	Continue with Nature Journal Over-winter garden, store seeds
Culture	Music Theory - continue with lesson list Picture Study - continue with Van Gogh Poetry Reading - continue with RLS - Child's Garden of Verses Arts & Crafts - continue with crafts list
History	Pick back up 50 Famous Stories
Bible	Read-aloud Bible Stories Vol 1-4, Scripture Memory
Math	Begin K5 Math Deliverables list

TO-DO List:

• Organize kitchen pantry and file cabinet
  
• Make needed Math games
• Check 50 Famous Stories stuff for errors
• Determine December crafts
  

Progress Report

We are coming to the end of our first scheduled "term" of the 2009-2010 school year. It is a good time for me to sit down and review how things have gone.

Reading: I had originally scheduled the Pathway readers for Grades 2 and 3. Next week he will be finished with the last 3rd grade reader. We already have the 4th grade reader, Building Our Lives, and we will probably start on that one. However, I am concerned because the type is smaller and I don't want to overstrain his eyes. He's probably already read the book on his own, so I may be concerned about nothing. My husband and I talked about getting a magnification page to put over the book, but I think that would be aggravating to my K5-son. Maybe I need to look at other publisher's grade-level readers. A friend lent me some Bob Jones and Abeka readers and he has been reading those on his own. However, I do still want him to be challenged with harder material.

As far as his reading goes, he's doing great sounding out words and getting them from context. One area he's particularly shining in is his inflection and really making the text "come alive" as he's reading.

Literature: Between both me and my husband reading aloud, we've pretty much already read through all of the Simply Charlotte Mason's Year 1 reading list - plus some. I think we're set for the next few weeks, but after that I have to come up with something else. It seems that we are blowing through what I had planned at the first of the school year. This is good though, as it is showing me how fast we are moving through stuff and how I should plan for next year. Somehow, I don't think the world will run out of books. :-)

Penmanship: I've noticed a vast improvement in his handwriting as well as his diligence and patience in going slowly so as to write the letters just right. While we are further in the Handwriting without Tears curriculum than I thought we'd be, we aren't finished with capital letters yet.

Memorization: We've not really done anything with Scripture memory since beginning the "year" in July. He's doing well with the one poem we've worked on from Robert Louis Stevenson. I'm making it my goal for this to be more of a priority come January.

Science: This part of his education is going really well. He loves observing things outside and his garden has been one of his favorite things to work in. Now we're getting ready to package some seeds we harvested and share them with friends. He doesn't think this part is "school" (and I'm glad), so if you asked him his favorite part of "school" he probably wouldn't say "nature study" or "science". However, based on his enthusiasm, I think this is probably his favorite part.

Fine Art: We were really doing well with our study of Van Gogh's work, but that has tapered off in the last weeks. Still I'm pleased with where we are and how he has grown in observation and remembering the names of the works and some of the elements.

History: We've taken a break from the 50 Famous Stories for a while. He was very excited about it at first, but here lately I have not been too involved with it and I think that has affected his interest. We will start back up next term.

Music: The last few weeks have been hit or miss, but prior to that this study was going really well. He's retaining the theory information and incorporating words like "rythym" and "beat" and other musical terms into everyday talk.

Bible: Last night we were reviewing some of the men in 1 and 2 Samuel and he shocked both my husband and I in how much detail he remembered. I could barely remember some of the names and he remembered what the person had done and how they had interacted with King David. Of course, for our Bible time/Family Worship we want much more than head knowledge, but we are trusting God with the heart and taking every opportunity to point back to heart issues in the characters we read about and in ourselves and our children.

Math: This is the biggie. We've been faithfully plugging away with Miquon Math until a few weeks ago I noticed a definite drudgery in his step when it came time to work on our Math Lab sheets. Albeit, they are getting more difficult...definitely more abstract. I put them aside for a day or two and just played some games to make sure he was getting the concepts of addition and subtraction instead of just learning how to compute and get the right answer. I don't think he has a firm grasp of the concepts. Without certain tools and things written in a certain way, he's very unsure of himself. So, we are going to change things up a bit. The materials we were using are for First Grade anyway, so I'm O.K. to just wait a year before continuing if that's what we need to do. I didn't want to take the time to figure out activities to do on my own, so I looked at Ray's Arithmetic. Their "scope and sequence" for First Grade looked very doable. Right now, I'm planning on using their suggestions as a track to run on. I'm getting rid of the worksheets and going to hands-on games with manipulatives etc. I've made a list that I plan to use in my weekly planning so that I don't have to scramble for something every day. I need to make some of the games...and I don't know if that will get done right now. It helps to have a list of "objectives" as I can incorporate what we already have in teaching that concept. We'll see how it goes.

I've also started to chill out about the whole "180 days" thing. That was really stressing me out, especially as I do not feel like doing much nowadays and our schedule is about to be turned upside-down. After much reading from the Home Life Academy site and talking with my husband, I think/hope I've come to a settled place on how I feel about the school "year". I definitely want our home to be a learning environment all the time, but I was feeling pressed to really "schedule" something on "school" days and then if we didn't get x-y-z done felt like I couldn't count it - even if we had spent 8 hours learning something that wasn't on the schedule. This year is definitely a learning experience. I hope to keep on learning. It will be interesting to me to compare next year and this year and see how I'm handling things.

arts & crafts

This is the part of our week that is hands-down both my children's favorite and the most challenging for me. I can come up with science experiments and music instruction all day long, but ask me to come up with a craft and I usually reach for some colors and a blank sheet of paper.

I'm in the process of building a list of Arts & Crafts projects that fit the season. I've found some helpful online sites as well as using magazines and catalogs that I get in the mail.

Lesson Plans from Blick Art Materials

Family Fun Arts & Crafts (good magazine too)

Oriental Trading Craft Projects (Most items have a PDF instructions link. You can use their ideas without purchasing their supplies.)

Michael's The Knack (lots of craft ideas and printables)

memorization

The Bluedorn's at Trivium Pursuit list memorization as one of the "Ten Things to do with Your Child Before the Age of Ten." We agree. We have already seen so much fruit in having our children memorize passages from the Bible - both in their lives and ours.

During Family Worship, we've been working through the book of Proverbs and memorizing passages that Daddy chooses. During morning Bible time, I am using the Truth and Grace Memory Books our church endorses as a guide. It is helpful because many times the kids are working on the same verses and catechism questions in Sunday School.

We were really moving along in the area of memorization and then something happened and we kind of got off track. I read about the Scripture Memory System explained at Simply Charlotte Mason and we're going to give that a try. We've got the index card box and the dividers, but actually making the scripture cards is still on the to-do-list.

During our weekly poetry readings, we are working on memorizing some of Robert Louis Stevenson's poems (since we are concentrating on his works this year). Right now, we are working on "The Swing". I've been mostly working with my K5-son in memorizing it, but it brought a smile to my face when I heard my K3-daughter playing alone the other day and swinging one of her dolls and quoting, "How do you like to go up in a swing? Up in the air so blue?"

Geography

We do not have a formal slot for Geography, but rather incorporate it into our life flow. We purchased two large laminated wall maps from Costco (a world map and United States map) and hung them on the office wall. It is amazing how much time even my husband and I spend looking at them. (We had a service person in our home the other day and I think most of his time was spent looking at the maps, so needless to say, they definitely draw your attention!) We also have a hand-me-down globe that is hopelessly outdated (maybe from the 70's?), but still helpful in illustrating how the world is round, etc.

At least once a day some question arises as to where so-and-so lives or where is a certain place that was mentioned in reading. We take those questions "to the map." As my husband has read The Chronicles of Narnia to our K5-son this year, it is helpful to show him where "real" places "in our world" are in relation to us. From his history lessons, he often wants to know "is Rome in our world or a make-believe world?"

I'd like to to pin-point on the maps where different friends and relatives live and missionaries for whom we pray, but we haven't gotten there yet.

History

For History in this inaugural year, I've chosen to follow Ambleside Online's suggestion to use Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin. Available in a number of online formats, this work tells, you guessed it, 50 stories spanning world history from the 600's BC through the 19th century AD. It includes stories from many world powers including Rome, Greece, England and America.

Instead of purchasing a hard-copy of the book or printing out the stories from an online source, I chose to download an audio version from Librivox.org. LibriVox is an online repository of free audio books where "volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net." Each chapter of the 50 Famous Stories was in a separate MP3 file which I added to an iTunes playlist, listened to them, then copied them to an audio CD for my K5-son to use.

Using a helpful list of the stories from the Ambleside Online as a starting point, I organized the stories in chronological order (I found discrepancies with some of the Ambleside list) and found images in the public domain (no copyright) to use with each story.

I made my K5-son a "Fifty Famous Stories" timeline book using the "accordian fold format" shown at Homeschool in the Woods.

He listens to a story from the CD and narrates it back to me. He then finds the image that goes with the story, colors and cuts it out and pastes it in the appropriate place in his timeline book.

Not only is he becoming familiar with places like Rome and Greece and important historical figures, it has also opened up a helpful dialogue about the fallen nature of man. For instance, this from the story on Julius Cæsar:

At another time, Cæsar was crossing a narrow sea in a boat. Before he was halfway to the farther shore, a storm overtook him. The wind blew hard; the waves clashed high; the lightning flashed; the thunder rolled.

It seemed every minute as though the boat would sink. The captain was in great fright. He had crossed the sea many times, but never in such a storm as this. He trembled with fear; he could not guide the boat; he fell down upon his knees; he moaned, "All is lost! all is lost!"

But Cæsar was not afraid. He bade the man get up and take his oars again.

"Why should you be afraid?" he said. "The boat will not be lost; for you have Cæsar on board."

math in the elementary years

In the years prior to "officially" starting Kindergarten, we talked a lot about numbers. We concentrated on mathematical concepts in concrete form - measuring flour for making cookies, each person gets one fork at the table, counting everything, etc.

The Bluedorn's article Research on the Teaching of Math definitely gave some food for thought on whether to buy math curriculum for this year. I really waffled on the decision for a long time.

In Pre-K, I had scoured many recommended curricula as well as a few states' standards for and made a list of concepts to cover (At some point I may get around to posting those!). As I mentioned above, we incorporated these into daily living as well as playing games etc. Basically, I was coming up with my own no-worksheet, hands-on curriculum for math. When I realized in June of this year that I was required by law to report 180 days of instruction per year, I wanted to quickly get started. Time was the issue. How could I research enough to create a new hands-on math curriculum for Kindergarten? When I looked at most of the Kindergarten math materials and our state's standards, we had already covered almost all the concepts and I felt fairly confident that my K5-son had a good understanding of them.

As I wrote to a friend from whom I was requesting advice,

"(My 'problem', and I use that term loosely, seems to be that I spend 4x amount of time figuring out what to teach him and he learns it in x time. So then, I'm back to figuring out what to do next.) The reason I have been just looking at the standards and teaching him those is because I lean more to hands-on learning at this age instead of filling out a worksheet. Also, my K5-son's penmanship is definitely K or Pre-K level and when I look at most curriculums that would be challenging for him mathematically they require a lot of writing which I'm thinking I'm not ready to put on him yet."

She recommended Miquon Math. She wrote:

"I really love Miquon Math. I used it with (my oldest), and then I re-reviewed all the Math Curricula before (the next child) started and again chose Miquon. When (my youngest)'s turn came, I bought Miquon again .... For my children, who always have asked "Why?" these are great books because they help the children understand why 3x5=15, rather than stating this as a fact and then having them memorize it. (I'm not against memorizing math facts - we do that, too, but only after they understand the concepts.) ... In every case, the problems lead the child to understand the concepts (a Socratic approach - the "teacher" asks questions to help the student discover the answers rather than giving answers) Like (your son), my (children) hated to write and another benefit of Miquon was that they did not have too much on a page ... As real life comes at you..., it is nice to have a curriculum to give you a track to run on. I like Miquon for that purpose."

So, we settled on Miquon Math Grade One for this year. So far, I've been pleased. We are just now getting to end of addition and subtraction in the Orange Book. Sometimes he writes his answers on a worksheet and other times we just experiment or make up games to practice the concept.

Today, we created a Barnyard Animals game where some animals were in the pen and others in the barnyard and we made up math sentences to illustrate the scenario. For instance, we started with 10 in the barnyard and put 3 in the pen. Now how many are left in the barnyard. Using number cards, my K5-son would create the math sentence "10-3=7". I would also challenge him to create an addition sentence instead of a subtraction sentence etc. He loved it! He asked if we could play the game with Daddy tomorrow (Saturday).

We're definitely not tied to using every worksheet in the Miquon books. If he's got the concept down, why bore him with more of the same? So we move on or slow down as needed - ah, the benefits of home educating!

I feel like Miquon has provided a good balance between "giving us a track to run on" while using hands-on manipulatives and concrete objects for understanding abstract mathematical concepts.

Another plus - I found the Miquon Math workbooks at CurrClick.com for $6.50 each. This price is the going price, or a little cheaper, than most places. The added advantage, in my opinion, is that you download the workbooks in electronic format! They each come in a PDF file which you can print as many times as you need. So, instead of purchasing a workbook for each child, we'll use the PDF to print the worksheets as we need them for each one. That's a substantial savings. If you prefer the printed workbook, their are usually some available on PaperBackSwap or you can buy them from Amazon.

displaying children's art

My older two children both LOVE to draw, color, paint, etc. It has been fun to see their development in this area. I encourage them to "create" by providing them with a variety of art supplies placed on a low shelf where they can reach them. We display their artwork on a "clothesline" type string hung across the dining room wall. A visiting friend once remarked how he loved to see children encouraged in such a way.

I recently stumbled upon artsonia.com - an online art museum for children's artwork. Right now, I've uploaded some of their artwork under a parent account. Not only do they provide an online art gallery for free, but also make it easy to order "stuff" with the kids artwork on it (like T-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.)

If you'd like to become a "fan" of my children's art and view their page in the museum, please email me and I'd be happy to add you.

Bible Time & Family Worship

Each morning after breakfast the kids and I have "Bible Time". Usually we are reading through a Bible story book or some other children's book based on the Bible. We just started reading again through God's Wisdom for Little Boys and God's Wisdom for Little Girls. We love those books! They have been very helpful in training our children as we can point back to some of the character traits, like diligence, contentment, helping, etc., as we're going through the day. Other resources that I have used and will be looking to in the future can be found at Doorposts. They have wonderful products for training children.

At night, after supper, my husband leads us in Family Worship. Our time together consists of three aspects:

1. My husband reads a passage from the Bible. (We've been studying through 1 & 2 Samuel recently.) Then each person (well, at least the ones who can talk) asks him a question about the passage. Sometimes he asks us a question too.

2. We sing hymns and songs. I pick out the hymn of the month and any other songs we sing.

3. We pray. My husband generally asks each person to pray for a specific request.

One of our goals is to put a picture of what we're studying during Family Worship in our Family's Book of History to get an idea of chronology, but we have not done that yet. That's a goal for next year!

a day in the life of Home Ed @ the Roseberry's

It might seem like we've got a lot going on and truth be told, it took a few weeks to get into the hang of things. Definitely the most time-consuming part was figuring out what we were going to do this year. Now that we've kind of got a groove, the scheduled "schooling" part of our days is really easy. (Yes, I did say "easy" knowing that I could be shooting myself in the foot come tomorrow.)

From the time my K5-son was a wee babe, I've been encouraged to establish a routine for our days. We are not strict, set-the-timer schedule followers, but I have seen so many good things come out of having a general routine - both for my children and me. And now, five years after our first "routine" was established we have cherished "times" in each day including Bible Time, Table Time, Story Time etc.

When I started planning to "officially" educate K5-son, I wanted our days to flow in the same way they had been. I did not want him to feel a "jerk" into "schooling" and have a big schedule change. Therefore, I fit our "schooling" times into his normal routine, with just a few tweaks.

Our schedule for Term 1 of Kindergarten reflects how I would like things to go. This is our general flow - sometimes the times correspond to the schedule and most times they do not. Having this list printed and on the fridge helps me get back on track if the out of the ordinary happens - which does happen most days. (The highlighted parts of the schedule reflect the "official" 4 hours per day of "schooling".)

When I make up a new routine, it takes a week or two before it becomes habit, so I mostly look at the "schedule" for the first couple of weeks and then after that, the kids generally remind me what we do next.

I found the the book "Managers of their Homes" to be a good tool to learn how to make schedules and fit everything in that you want to fit in (like time for playing and exploration and reading aloud). I borrowed this book from a friend and learned their method of making a schedule. I don't use the book or forms for making my schedules now. I just use Excel or a spreadsheet in Google Docs. In my opinion, the content of the book is not worth the expense, unless you want pre-made paper forms.

My kids don't know that the schedule exists. They do know the pattern in which we do things. It makes life easier for me and more predictable for them - and they thrive.

music theory & hymn study

Monday's are Music Days. After lunch, we generally have time for some kind of "culture" time (as I call it). On Monday we take about 10-15 minutes to discuss music. The kids really enjoy imitating rythyms and getting a chance to play low or high notes on the piano. Once again, it is amazing to me that with such little time investment, they can learn and retain so much. I've created a list of music lessons based on suggestions from some of the following sites:

Theory Time - I didn't purchase these workbooks, though they look pretty good. I am using the concepts listed as jumping board for our gentle theory lessons.

Making Music Fun



During nightly Family Worship we work on learning one hymn per month. At the beginning of the year, I came up with a list of hymns (both old and new) and printed all of the lyrics and sheet music from the internet.

This is our list for 2009:

January	Be Thou my Vision
February	What Wondrous Love is This
March	I will Glory in my Redeemer
April	Crown Him with Many Crowns
May	Not What my Hands Have Done
June
July	Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
August
September	Great God of Wonders
October	And Can it Be
November	Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
December

the arts

My goals for my children's learning in the area of "fine art" include appreciation and familiarity of fine art and classical music. I don't really care if they know the exact name of the piece of music or exactly who wrote it, but are familiar with the tune and familiar with the composer's name. As I always enjoy a piece at the symphony more if I am familiar with it, I figure this exposure will increase their enjoyment of the arts in subsequent years as well.

Combining both famous art and classical music, Disney's Little Einsteins provides a story-line that my children enjoy and fits nicely into our morning "movie time". I don't allow the kids to watch much TV, but after Table Time while I'm getting lunch ready the 30 minutes of entertainment is much appreciated by everyone. I've found the cheapest place to purchase episodes is through iTunes for $1.99 per show.

We are also loosely following the picture study module 2 organized by Simply Charlotte Mason. I've printed on our color printer pictures by Van Gogh that were linked from Ambleside Online's Art Schedule (Van Gogh was on their list for 2008-2009 Term 3). I place these pictures on the inside door of our kitchen closet so that when we are having Table Time and throughout the day the kids can see the picture we are currently studying. Once a week we concentrate on studying the picture. I say the name and the artist and then we'll either play a game where I let them study the picture and then cover it up and ask them questions about it like "What color was the floor? Were there any flowers in the painting?" etc. or we will attempt to copy the painting with colors or paints. Last week I printed an additional copy of the picture and cut it into pieces to make a puzzle. We study each picture about a month to 6 weeks.

We are not doing anything formal in the area of composer study. I have several classical pieces from various CD's organized into playlists on my iPod by composer and sometimes while we're doing arts and crafts or eating lunch, I'll start it playing and just tell the kids, "This music was written by Vivaldi", for instance. If I'm near the iPod and can see the title I'll tell them the title of the piece. It's amazing how much they can pick up just by that simple "background music." Sometimes we play games where I will hum a little bit of a tune and let them finish it.

hands-on learning @ museums

In a previous post, I mentioned that for science this year (and probably throughout the elementary years) we've opted to do nature study, gardening, cooking, reading living books about science and visiting science museums.

We believe that in providing our children hands-on learning experiences they not only learn better, but they become excited and interested about the subject. We've also seen how this helps in reading because when they encounter a new word they can often figure it out from context because they have seen what they are reading in real life.

Many museums have free days or times and those have been helpful. We opted to purchase a contributing membership to the Museum of Discovery ($110 per year) that included free admission to museums that are members of Children's Museum Assocation as well as Association of Science and Technology Center.

We haven't used the membership as much as I would have liked, but in a different season I think we definitely would have. Still, I feel like it was good deal financially speaking.

We have visited:

The Magic House in St. Louis, MO - If you are ever in St. Louis and have children this is a must-see! Plan to spend at least a whole day! It is really awesome and well worth the admission fee (though one admission for a family would pay half of a yearly membership fee to MoD)


The St. Louis Science Center - Again, well worth the money and time invested. They treated us like first-class members with free planetarium shows, free Discovery Room entry and I think we could have watched the IMAX movie for free (but it was a little intense for our children's ages.)


Children's Museum of Memphis - While it was a nice visit, it certainly does not compare to The Magic House. One other disadvantage is that they only allow 4 people to enter free with the reciprocal admission program (The Museum of Discovery membership allows up to 7 people) and everyone age 1-100 pays the full $9 admission price. If we did not have the yearly membership, I do not think it would be worth the admission price for a whole family to go.


The Pink Palace - Nice visit, especially since it was included in our membership. We only gained admission to the museum and extra exhibits and not the IMAX or planetarium. It will be nice to go back and view the traveling exhibits. We went when there were life-like dinosaurs that moved and growled and they were kind of scary for our kids.


Though not part of our MoD membership, we also visited the Museum of Westward Expansion located underneath the St. Louis Gateway Arch. This was perfect timing as the exhibits about pioneers and such fit right into our reading of the Little House on the Prarie series.

living science books

In a previous post, I mentioned that for science this year (and probably throughout the elementary years) we've opted to do nature study, gardening, cooking, reading living books about science and visiting science museums.

The best index I've seen of recommended living science books was put together by the North Houston Charlotte Mason support group. If you can get past the page design (that's the web-developer in me talking) it seems to be a good source of information. NOTE: Turn down your speakers!

Simply Charlotte Mason provides a set of lesson plans entitled 106 Days of Creation that looks interesting, though it was a bit much for me this year. We might use it in later years. They list the supplemental living books to use on their science page.

My sister sent me this link to several books online about animals by Arthur Scott Bailey.

Here are some of the books about nature and science that we have enjoyed so far this year.

cooking together

In a previous post, I mentioned that for science this year
(and probably throughout the elementary years) we've opted to do nature study, gardening, cooking, reading living books about science and visiting science museums.

Most of the time I am baking something the kids help me. They love to measure, mix, cut out cookies, knead dough, etc. We get a chance to talk about how yeast works and our sourdough starter and the different tastes of salt and sugar though they look the same. We mix food colorings together to see what color will result. We experiment with adding ingredients and leaving them out.

We have a standing tradition around our house that every time it rains, we make cookies. (Since it's been raining for the past 14 days around here, we have not honored that tradition upon each occasion!) It's still fun to get to try different cookie recipes.

Each child has their own recipe book. When they help make something, I print off the recipe and they put it in their book. Often they draw a picture of the final product on the recipe page.

gardening

In a previous post, I mentioned that for science this year (and probably throughout the elementary years) we've opted to do nature study, gardening, cooking, reading living books about science and visiting science museums.

My K5-son and K3-daughter have a small garden that they are responsible for maintaining...and harvesting! We opted for no-till square-foot gardens for easy start-up and maintenance. We marked off the plot, put down layers of wet newspaper and added compost and cow manure on top. Then the kids looked through our seed stash (which we had received at a city-sponsored "Going Green" event last fall) and chose what they wished to plant. I helped them determine where each seed should be planted based on size and recommended spacing. They drew pictures on a garden plot sheet to help us remember where to plant as well as what was planted. After first planting the seeds my K5-son and K3-daughter would go out each day to see if any of the seeds had sprouted. What excitement when the first seedlings broke through the soil!

They also got a first-hand introduction to pests. My K5-son 's zucchini and pumpkin plants were decimated by the dreaded squash vine borer. We had seen those guys last year, so we knew what they were. So far, my K3-daughter's pumpkin is still growing (it's about 30 feet long now), but alas, no pumpkins. We also have had opportunity to learn about hornworms, cucumber beetles and harlequin bugs and many good insects as well.

Right now we don't have a good desk reference for garden pests, so we look of most of them up online. This year, we just let the pests eat what they wanted except for a few vine borers that we gladly dissected and the hornworms that my K3-daughter enjoyed "squishing the green blood out of." Maybe next year we can do a better job at pest control. We'll also look into better companion planting.

The kids planted their gardens that first week of school in July. With the length of our growing season it is more than enough time. Really, in the South, you can plant a garden almost any time - just research what zone you live in and know what to plant. Most of the seed packets give you the information on when to plant based on your zone.

It has truly been a fun and educational experience for us. Another plus is that my K5-son and K3-daughter have eaten more cucumbers, corn and tomatoes than they would have otherwise - because they grew and picked them.

This fall and winter we'll concentrate our gardening efforts on harvesting and storing seed from some of our plants and herbs (making our own seed packets) as well as getting our garden plots ready for next spring.

Useful gardening links:
Journey to Forever Gardening Resources
Garden Guides
Organic Gardening Magazine

(Somehow I got a free subscription to this printed magazine and it's nice with great photos. They also have a free e-newsletter that contains good articles and helpful tips.)

nature study

For science this year (and probably throughout the elementary years) we've opted to do nature study, gardening, cooking, reading living books about science and visiting science museums.

Nature study assumes actually giving them time outside to study God's world. Generally I let them go out in the mornings for a period of time, they check their gardens and find interesting bugs and birds and then when it is Table Time they have something to draw in their Nature Journals. Mostly my K5-son is the only one maintaining a Nature Journal now as he understands the concept to draw something he saw outside. My K3-daughter was often drawing spaceships and elephants climbing the crepe myrtle trees. They especially enjoy it when I give them a clipboard and they can go outside and draw while looking at their subject.

Nature study doesn't just happen in our backyard either. In fact, their observation of the God's awesome creation happens every time we go outside whether to the grocery store or church or special trips to see the buffalo at a nearby park. When possible, we also take time to encourage their exploration and ask them questions that get them thinking. Like, what is that on the buffalo's back? A bird? Why do you think a bird is riding on the buffalo's back? And we can talk to them about how God created the birds to help eat the bugs bothering the buffalo.

Often they ask questions for which we don't know the answers. That's when our "field guides" come in handy. So far, we have a rock/mineral identification book (though it is kind of lame) and a wonderful North American bird book that I got from a garage sale. We keep our eyes open for good, colorful reference material. Sometimes if we can't find the answer in one of our books, we'll look it up together on the internet. At this age especially, computer time is not something I usually allow. I want them to play with concrete objects and not in a cyber world. However, the internet has been helpful if we are reading about bird, for instance, to go and hear the bird's call.

The Nature Journal template that we use has space for them to record weather observations and the current date. (We mark off the days on our wall calendar and each day practice saying the entire date - Friday, September 25th, 2009). For recording the weather, we first were using some weather stickers I printed, but now I just let them draw the weather - whether sunny, rainy, cloudy, etc.

Sometimes my K5-son collects leaves and flowers that we press and then tape to the back of a Nature Journal page. We're not labeling and identifying these yet, but just using the leaves to make different shapes and pictures.

Each day a blank Nature Journal sheet goes into my K5-son's folder for the day and when he is done drawing he puts it a 3-ring binder for safe keeping.

penmanship

Around the first of this year - when my K5-son was just five - I started teaching him how to write his capital letters. Though I had planned to use the Handwriting without Tears strokes because I had heard so many good things about the program, we kind of got off-base. He developed some really bad handwriting habits and then life happened and we totally set aside any kind of handwriting practice.

Because he had already written his capital and lowercase letters a few times, I thought that when we began Kindergarten we would go straight into copywork. However, once we started the year, it was evident he needed more training in how to form the letters. So, I took the plunge and purchase the Handwriting without Tears curriculum.

He has really enjoyed doing handwriting and his penmanship has improved. We are taking things slow - only 1 or 2 letters/numbers per week. We spend about 15 minutes per day on handwriting. My K3-daughter joins us for most days and is doing well with writing letters on a slate with chalk.

At first, I thought I could teach him myself just using the free resources that Handwriting without Tears provides, but then I realized it would be so much easier just to buy the workbooks and learning aids than to recreate them myself. (Time vs. Money decision)

You can see what we bought on the 2009-2010 Cost sheet.

poetry & "living" books

What are "living" books? Simply Charlotte Mason gives a good, concise definition:

Probably the most well known of Charlotte’s methods is her use of living books instead of dry, factual textbooks. Living books are usually written by one person who has a passion for the subject and writes in conversational or narrative style. The books pull you into the subject and involve your emotions, so it’s easy to remember the events and facts. Living books make the subject “come alive.”

So we are using "living" books instead of textbooks for the subjects we are studying. Many times I'm finding you can't fit a "living" book into just one subject. Take for instance, the Little House on the Prairie series. There's science, history, math...a whole lot of good stuff in there.

In their article, Ten Things to Do with Your Child Before Age Ten, Trivium Pursuit recommends reading aloud to your children at least two hours a day. Two hours a day!? At first I was thinking, "There is no way that could happen." But, we've set up our routine where we are reading to them about that much. Early on we established reading together as a daily before-sleep ritual and that has carried over. Right now, I am reading through the Little House series before afternoon naps (or "quiet time" for those who don't take naps anymore) and Don is reading through Stuart Little before bedtime at night. Don also reads aloud to the whole family during our daily Family Worship time.

During Family Worship, everyone must sit quietly and listen - Daddy will be asking questions at the end of the reading! This is also practice for sitting still in worship service at church. During the other reading times, however, we've taken the Bluedorn's advice:

Do not require your children to sit beside you on the couch perfectly still while you read. As long as they stayed in the room and were not distracting or interrupting, we allowed our children to play quietly with their toys or to work on cross-stitching or to draw or some similar quiet project, while we read aloud.

Just a note: Art projects during "story time" usually go much better when Corban (almost 2) is already in bed for naps. I usually read simpler stories with him before his morning quiet time and afternoon nap time.

We also have time one day a week dedicated to reading poetry. This year we are focusing on the works of Robert Louis Stevenson using A Child's Garden of Verses. This is an area of our home education that I particularly enjoy. The kids seem to like it as well and enjoy figuring out the imagery in his poems. We are working on memorizing "The Swing". I think the exposure to good poetry has increased my K5-son's creativity. Generally he's a very logical thinker, but he is beginning to talk about nature and other things with more poetic descriptions. I tell them a poem is like a painting made with words.


The books we are reading aloud this year: