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 We also have a hand-me-down globe that is hopelessly outdated (maybe from the 70's?), but still helpful in illustrating how the world is round, etc.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.

free helps from Handwriting without Tears

These free PDF's listed at the links below are excerpted from various workbooks and Teacher's manuals created by Handwriting without Tears. The links came in a free newsletter called Capital Start which I would recommend.

Volume 2 | Volume 3

(Volume 1's free downloads are the same as Volume 2)

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.