da Vinci Advent Art Study

I was inspired to include an art and music study during our Advent break by Studeo: Marian Songs for Advent. I wanted to put together some Madonna pictures for an art study; I needed to look no further than Leonardo da Vinci.

About.com: Art History has a collection of da Vinci images that includes 9 relating to Advent. And they're large images, too. Be careful--some of the later images are not da Vinci but were influenced by him. And I love his final work, St. John the Baptist.

Shown here is The Virgin of the Rocks, ca. 1483-1486.

Advent

We took this week off from any formal studies (other than cooking!) and we interrupt our regularly schedule schoolwork for Advent. I have found a few new intriguing resources for this year.

We will have our Jesse Tree and Advent Wreath. Jennifer Miller at Family in Feast and Feria has put together a wonderful reading schedule based on three books by Inos Biffi made available through Family-Centered Press. The schedule also includes two saint books by Ethel Marboch Pochocki, Saints of the Seasons for Children and Around the Year Once Uppon a Time Saints.

Elizabeth Foss on her Serendipity blog has created an Advent Around the World collection of books, links, recipes, and crafts.

I've bookmarked a fun interactive Advent calendar from the USCCB. Roll over the calendar itself to open the doors. Will something be in there on Sunday?

I need to finalize our Advent schedule. I've decided to continue MEP in hopes of getting Ds#1 into Y4 sooner (we just started the second half of Y3) and to get Ds#2 into Y3 (he is in the sixth and last book of Y2.) Maybe we'll do some history reading, too. Most of all we are excited about preparing our hearts for the birth of our Savior.

TORCH Group

For the past several years our family has been a part of a large co-op. The first one met in someone's home, and when she moved away the co-op fell apart because no one agreed about how to run it. We were then active in a second democratic co-op that also fell apart. Lesson learned: good co-ops need leaders to make the decisions.

This year we are part of a 3-family Catholic Co-op that is part of the TORCH organization. This has been dramatically different from our previous experiences. I teach science (of course) but I can teach the topic and method that fits in to the rest of my homeschool. Though I still have 10 kids as before, we can break into groups, watch videos, do outdoor activities more easily. Overall it is much more relaxed.

The two other moms teach cooking and saints. Our final week focused on St. Jerome since Ds#1 was St. Jerome for All Saints Day, and Ds#3 was the lion from which the saint pulled a thorn. The picture shows them reenacting the scene.

Speaking of All Saints Day, we also had a party with our TORCH group. We had cupcakes instead of a cake and put a saint icon on top of each.

More On MEP Math

I continue to be amazed by MEP and my kids continue to love it. Because MEP is so different, it took a year for all 3 to be able to complete one MEP lesson each school day.

Ds#1 is on the 6th and final book of Y3. Interestingly, MEP is just now introducing vertical addition--you know, listing the numbers vertically and then adding with regrouping. Finally, his 4 years of Math U See could be used for MEP and he of course breezed through these problems.

Those of you not familiar with MEP might be scratching your heads. What is MEP doing in all the time between learning addition and learning vertical addition? MEP teaches arithmetic using small numbers and then students use these basic skills to learn a wide variety of other math concepts and applications--continuing sequences, filling in tables, logic puzzles, money and metric (which focuses on units, 10s, 100s, and 1000s,) geometry, algebra, order of operation, and of course, word problems. They use small number arithmetic so much that moving to 3 digit numbers or vertical math with regrouping is simple because they already understand the concepts. It is just another or bigger way of doing what they have already been doing.

For example Ds#2 is doing Y2. MEP introduced multiplication and division together, one being the reverse of the other. And while most of his calculations are on the multiplication chart, he sometimes has to do things like 68 ÷ 4. First he says he doesn't know that, but he knows that 68 is 40 + 28, and he can divide each of those by 4, which is 10 + 7 = 17. He learns early on to regroup numbers because it is useful, not because it is what you need to do vertical arithmetic.

It is as if typical math programs put the cart before the horse. They certainly present the concepts of place value and regrouping enough for kids to get an understanding for them. But you better pick it up quickly because you're going to be adding 5 digit numbers soon! The message is that you need these skills in order to do the algorithm without any understanding of the greater mathematical picture.

I invest 40 minutes each for Ds#1 and Ds#2, and 20 minutes for Ds#3 teaching math and it is worth every minute. And to think such a math program is free.

Mesopotamia Party

Paula is also using Connecting With History, vol. 1 for her family's ancient history studies, and while at times we are trying to reserve the same books through the library system, we do get the benefit of having parties at the end of each time period.

Our first party was Ancient Mesopotamia. Most of our kids dressed the part and we had a great spread of foods eaten at the time, including a 3,000 year old recipe for onion biscuits that ds#3 helped me make.

Next up will be Ancient Egypt at our house in a few weeks.

Westward Expansion: Santa Fe Trail

We finished up Lewis and Clark and began reading about the Santa Fe Trail. Of course we are reading aloud the Holling C. Holling classic book, The Tree in the Trail. Holling books are among our family's favorites. We read this a couple of years ago, but now that Ds#3 is "official" this is well worth reading again. The story is from the perspective of a cottonwood tree, so begins long before the "trail" that American settlers established.

We found several other interesting picture books about the subject. One is A Right Fine Life: Kit Carson on the Santa Fe Trail by Andrew Glass. Apparently Kit Carson struck out on his own along the Santa Fe Trail and went on to have a life intertwined with the country's westward expansion. (I'll be looking for some appropriate biographies to add on to our list.) The kids get a kick out of the vernacular; they were talking like Kit after we read it.

Another biography adapted for children is Along the Santa Fe Trail: Marion Russell's Own Story by Marion Russell, adapted by Ginger Wadsworth. The book details a lot of the difficulties and dangers of these times. James Watling's pictures are beautiful and moving, and a great part of this book's appeal.

I found a couple of historical fiction books relating to either the Santa Fe Trail specifically or Westward Expansion in general. The first is the highly recommended title Brave Buffalo Fighter by John D. Fitzgerald. Ds#1 is really enjoying this book even though, again, it shows a lot of the difficulties encountered by families migrating west. All of the fabulous historical fiction from Bethlehem Books are family favorites as well.

We also found a Dear America book about this time period called All the Stars in the Sky: The Santa Fe Trail Diary of Florrie Mack Ryder by Megan McDonald. For those of you unfamiliar with these series, Dear America has fictional young women writing diaries while My Name is America has fictional young men. Our library owns all of both series, and I even saw a few about world history though the series name escapes me. I'm interested to see if Ds#1 likes the Dear America version as much as the My Name is America one. I hope so!

Here are a few good non-fiction selections with wonderful pictures and enough text for the 8 to 14 year olds to read. The Library of Western Expansion: The Santa Fe Trail by Ryan Randolph is short yet informative, great for younger kids. (The book is OOP and very expensive used, so hopefully you can get it from your library like we did.)

David Lavender has written longer works about the Santa Fe Trail, yet also has wonderful 64 page, picture-laden, narrative-style book great for this age group. The Santa Fe Trail by David Lavender makes great reading for this period.

Finally, we also have by Melvin Bacon and Daniel Blegen. Bent's Fort: Crossroads of Cultures on the Santa Fe TrailThis 72 page book is full of details about life on the Trail, including a few references to various faith beliefs and comments, Christian and Native alike. It also contains a fair amount of photographs and drawings.

William Bicknell opened the Santa Fe Trail in 1821 and its use ended, as did many westward routes, with the 1870's completion of the transcontinental railroad. The Trail of Tears is another topic that fits well into this one, as well as the early Mission Trails.

Here are a few web resources that I found though we have not used much yet:

• The Interactive Santa Fe Trail
• The Santa Fe Trail Association
• Santa Fe trail Research Site
• Santa Fe National Historic Trail
  

Hands On Homeschool Blog Carnival #12

School is back in session for just about everyone now, and our kids are getting busy doing hands-on projects! Here is the place to get inspired.

Cheryl is starting an official mailing list for this Carnival. Please drop her an email...CherylinMa at gmail dot com...if you would like to get a email when a new edition comes out. She's looking for hosts, too!

Let's begin with the many, many ideas Jimmie gives us with Living Math with Factors, Multiples, and Primes posted at Jimmie's Collage.

Jimmie also has a neat narration tool, Puppets for Narration posted at Heart of the Matter Online, a Christian homeschooling group blog full of information.

Go out and get your hands dirty! Katie give several suggestions for Using Nature Study to Study all Areas of Science posted at Katie's Homeschool Cottage.

This science lesson is after my own heart that Teresa blogs about in Best Lesson Ever posted at higher education.

Barb shows the beautiful art her children created in Geography Through Art: Ivory Chessmen posted at Harmony Art Mom. The book recommendation looks great!

Martha gives us a different perspective of "hands on" as she describes Today's Extraordinary and Amazing Event posted at Sunrise to Sunset. She also added in a hilarious post about a sign during her family's recent visit to the zoo in Texas is a Country, really! posted at Sunrise to Sunset.

Interested in making a simple, large, timeline display? Dana describes hers in Our Timeline posted at school for us. It is really impressive!

More on history, Sarah in the woods shows her family enjoying a day in ancient Rome in To The Republic! posted at The Forest Room. The Roman bath is just precious!

Finally, Yours Truly has a wearable science, or is it art, project Solubility, Capillary Action, Math, and Art on At Home Science. I'll also be sending this one on to Miss Julie's fabulous new kids' art carnival, The Gallery. It's well worth the visit!

Thanks for visiting the back-to-school Hands On Homeschool Blog Carnival. I'm really looking forward to more wonderful ideas throughout the year!