Science of Relations

World War II

2011-09-18T20:48:00.001-04:00

This is the subject Ds#1 wanted to study this year. With Memoir '44 being his favorite board game it was hardly a surprise. Between what I already had and the recommendations in For the Love of Literature by Maureen Wittmann (which I now have on my Kindle), I was able to easily put a unit together.

For spines I have several books. World War II for Kids: A History with 21 Activities by Richard Panchyk; and America: The Last Best Hope (Volume II) by William J. Bennett. (I see that a Volume III is coming out next month covering 1988 to 2008.) I also have a couple of OOP books for younger kids: The First Book of World War II by Louis L. Snyder and America Moves Forward by Gerald W. Johnson.

The Landmark Book series has a lot of titles on the subjects. I own eleven of them, plenty to keep my kids reading. If you are not familiar with this series, they are non-fiction books told in a story format. They have too much fact to be historical fiction yet the details in the dialogs, for example, are made up. I suppose you can consider them on the factual end of historical fiction.

Bethlehem books has quite a few WWII historical fiction titles that my boys are enjoying, like Penny for a Hundred for Ds#3, The Secret War of Sergent Donkey for Ds#2, and Enemy Brothers for Ds#1. We own these.

Some of Maureen's recommendations include Twenty and Ten by Claire Hutchet Bishop. We were able to borrow Miracle at Moreaux, the film based on it. She also listed Against the Dayan out of print book by Michael Cronin that turns out to be the first in a series of three that can still be gotten cheaply through used book sellers. We're waiting for them to arrive. She recommends some great picture books that I got from the library like The Snow Goose and The Secret Seder.

I purchased Saint Maximilian Kolbe: Mary's Knight by Patricia E. Jablonski and Saint Edith Stein: Blessed by the Cross by Mary Lea Hill, both in the Encounter the Saints series. I even found a 1959 biography of Pope Pius XII by Richard Cushing in the juvenile section of a local library, though it was also in a college collection. At 180 pages maybe Ds#1 could read it, but I'll have to read through it first.

I've put my husband on the task of recommending some classic WWII movies--John Wayne comes to mind but I am sure there's many more. So far Ds#1 is reading the historical fiction faster than I can get them in, and that's a good predicament to be in.

Visit to the Seminary

2011-09-17T13:18:00.000-04:00

As you can see by the picture above, our homeschool co-op has a LOT of boys. Two families could not make the trip, one with 3 boys and the other with 3 boys and 3 girls. Our group "adopted" a seminarian when he first came to our diocese from Colombia last year, and this was our first chance to meet him in person. Our adopted seminarian is the first man on the left, and his fellow Colombian seminarians are next to him. The third man has been here only 3 weeks, yet he has done well in his struggle to master English (after already learning Latin, Greek, and Italian.) They provided the pizza while we brought the salads and desserts. They were just a delight to spend time with; our group had a wonderful time. With all the "noise" in our society, we were blessed to add this experience to all the other vocation options our children see to help them discern to what vocation God will call them. I can't wait to go back!

Constitution Day book

2011-09-17T12:58:00.001-04:00

Eva March Tappan's book, The Story of Our Constitution, would make for some great reading for today, Constitution Day. You can read the entire text online at Heritage History or download the pdf from Google Books.

Maps from Heritage History

2011-09-02T19:34:00.001-04:00

I have written about Heritage History, one of my favorite places for online history and literature books in the public domain. Besides viewing the books online for free, you can purchase an eBook for a Kindle or other reader for only $1.99 each.

Well, I just found another wonderful resource on their web sites. They have collected a whole series of large, color, historical maps onto their Heritage History Maps page so they can be downloaded. They are organized by a variety of geographic an cultural categories: African, American, Asian, British, Christian, European, Greek, Hispanic, Moslem, Norse, Roman, and World. The page lists the region, year (that that map is depicting, not when it was published), and description. It's an online historical atlas that is a wonderful addition to our history studies!

That Resource Site $50 Giveaway

2011-08-21T16:55:00.003-04:00

Have you visited That Resource Site for free printables, lapbooks, lesson plans, or articles? Their collection is large and growing! And they have quite a give-away underway: a $50 gift certificate to Amazon. You can enter up to 4 times by writing a blog post (like this), subscribing to their feed, liking their FB page, or simply leaving a comment about their site. Of course publicizing it decreases my chance, but that's O.K.--That Resource Site is worth telling people about.

Hands On Homeschool Blog Carnival

2011-08-08T00:00:00.003-04:00

It is time for the August edition of the Hands On Homeschool blog carnival! As the new school year quickly approaches, these entries are sure to inspire you.

Laura Grace Weldon presents Save Moments In A Memory Jar posted at Laura Grace Weldon.

Pamela presents Dinosaurs and Crazy Ladies at Lake Powell as well as Besides the tent posted at Blah, Blah, Blog.

Jen presents Sorting, Matching, and Pattern Fun posted at Frugal Kids.

Nikki presents Finding maths moments.... posted at Our Journey in Him.

Shirley Ann Vels presents New Planner posted at Under An English Sky

And I present Charles, Boyle, Divers, and Balloons posted at At Home Science. Be sure to check out other activities to go with the Science of the Universe middle school physics series by clicking on the Our House tab under the banner.

A great line up considering it is August. Thank you for letting me be your host this month. Enjoy!

Homeschooling with eReaders

2011-06-17T12:37:00.008-04:00

I bought a Kindle just before Christmas, and Ds#1 received one as a gift. I planned to integrate them into our homeschooling and they have been very useful. To get the most use out of an eReader you need to understand the difference between a scanned book and a digital book.

Scanned book are just pictures of each page of a book; the actual words on the page have not been "digitized." These are the books you get from Google Books and Open Library. These two sources have the most books, and they can be used on eReaders that can read pdf, but they are a bit trickier to use.

Manybooks.net

First, do not convert them to an ebook format. A program tries to "read" the picture and digitize the words but they are filled with spelling errors.

Another option I use is to put the scanned book on the Kindle, though the print is rather small in the portrait (upright) position. Because it is a scanned book you can't enlarge the font; but you can change the display to landscape (sideways) and the scanned page enlarges enough to make it easily legible. The pages are sluggish to turn, and to can't use the bookmarks, dictionary or highlighter, but you do have access to a large library of free books that you don't have to read on a computer screen.

Digital books are for what eReaders were made, and the number of free digital books is growing. Project Gutenberg and Many Books are two great sources (Many Books gets all their digital books from Project Gutenberg and audio books from Librivox but it is easier to use, IMHO.) You can download books in a variety of formats to read on whatever eReader you have. Selections from Tappan, Eggleston, Marshall (check both H.E. and Henrietta Elizabeth), Fabre, Colum, Chesterton, Belloc, and several of the titles I discuss on A Private Eye Nature are available. While not quite free, Heritage History offers their eBooks, many of which are not available elsewhere, for only $1.99 each.

If you have a Kindle you can also order free books directly from the Free eBooks Collection at the Amazon.com Kindle store. (Interestingly, Amazon lists the same sources I mention here, though I used them long before Kindles hit the market.) Some of these are formatted so badly that it is distracting. If you are thinking about buying an inexpensive older book that has been converted to the Kindle format, I suggest downloading a sample and check the formatting first.

As for eBooks for which I actually pay, I have had a mixed experience. Kindle prices are far better than any hardcover price, especially new-releases. I have purchased a number of Catholic titles that I have long wanted to read because of the cost savings, like the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament for only $9.99. As for paperbacks, sometimes the Kindle price is only marginally less, or even more expensive, so used paperbacks are often cheaper. This gives rise to the dilemma of buying cheaper, used paperbacks that don't really hold up well or an eBook that requires no storage and will not fall apart?

Buying eBooks for my pre-teen kids is even more limited. Any picture book is out of the question unless they have black-and-white line drawings. The vast majority of popular books are pure twaddle (I'll get them from the library I must) or worse if they are morally corrupting. Many of the small Catholic presses do not offer digital versions of their books. This may change soon, though, as evidenced by Bethlehem Books releasing some of their offerings as eBooks. (Note that this link goes to an eBook search for Bethlehem Books; while all the books they publish are on the list, other books not from them will also appear as you scroll through the pages.) Also Sophia Institute Press has some books available and plans to expand their Kindle offerings.

While a variety of eReaders are on the market, I prefer the e-ink technology (like a Kindle) to the backlit readers (color Nook or tabets.) Intensely reading and illuminated computer screen is hard on the eyes and the light can interfere with sleep patterns. Having to find an external lighting source at night is fine with me, and I can read in bright sunlight easily.

Ultimately, my children are the ones that have made our Kindle experience a good one. They definitely prefer digital books to scanned books, but they prefer the eReader to the computer screen (usually); they even prefer digital books to paper books, but would rather have paper than scanned. The portability is excellent, especially if you are concurrently reading multiple books; and you always have your bible with you. You can quickly check the meaning of words you don't know (so the kids may actually do this every now and again if asked). You can add notes, too, using the somewhat cumbersome but functional keyboard; I often share annotated highlights on Facebook and Twitter right from my Kindle. And I have saved a lot of money and time by not printing out books too long to read on the computer.

If you are really dedicated to your eReader, you can convert scanned images and then correct the spelling errors before converting it to an eReader format. If ever I do that I'll be sure to post them.

The War of the Vendee

2011-06-14T12:44:00.000-04:00

Navis Pictures is the genius behind St. Bernadette of Lourdes, the film with a cast of all children, most of them homeschooled. Our family is very excited about the new film with a similar cast coming this fall: The War of the Vendee.

You can read the Wikipedia article, War in the Vendee, to get a general overview of the event depicted in the film. This would make an outstanding suppliment to a study of the French Revolution, but why wait to enjoy something this good?

2011-05-19T13:45:00.000-04:00

I have put together a reading schedule for studying some Founding Fathers and the Revolutionary War. You can access the pdf schedule here on Google Documents.
Of course you can substitute your favorites on your bookshelves or available through your library for anything that I have listed. That's the beauty of a Charlotte Mason education.

US History--the Revolutionary War

2011-05-15T20:16:00.004-04:00

We finished the colonization of the United States and now we are moving into the Revolutionary War. I am focusing more on personalities rather than events, along with some great character formation. I have not planned out this unit as well as the last yet, but here is what I have put together.

I am reading American Hero Stories by Eva March Tappan to Ds#3. Eleven chapters cover inspiring people and events of the Revolution. We are also reading the shorter Jean Fritz biographies in my home library, while ds#2 is reading the longer titles, Why Not, Lafayette?, Early Thunder, and Traitor: the Case of Benedict Arnold We're also using another favorite author of ours, F. N. Monjo (5 short books for Ds#1 and one long one for Ds#2 and Ds#3.)

We are continuing to use An Elementary History of the United States (for ds#1 and #2) by Eva March Tappan, but only 4 chapters relate to the time period we're covering. This book will give the boys the basics of the events of the Revolutionary War.

Along with those chapters they will also continue reading The Catholic Pioneers of America by John O'Kane Murray. Seven biographies are relevent to our time period, from Casimir Pulaski to Lafayette. Included is the longest survivor of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll. Other signers accused him of having less courage than they did because so many other Maryland citizens had his same name, and so he added to his signature, "of Carrollton," to be sure the king knew which one. This book continues to enrich our US History studies from which Catholic accomplishments are typically excluded.

Ds#3 has started the Treegate Series by Leonard Wibberley from Bethlehem Books, starting with John Treegate's Musket Each of the three books in the series are available as a Kindle edition for only 3.95 each. The other two books are Peter Treegate's War followed by Sea Captain from Salem (Treegate)

We own and enjoy many of William Bennett's books and so I pulled Our Country's Founders: A Book of Advice for Young People. We'll skip the second chapter, "Love and Courtship," unless we have time at the end since the boys will be far more interested in the other topics at this point in their lives.

I was looking at what they needed to read for this week and I noticed at the end of Israel Putnam at Bunker Hill is the note, "Adapted from Eva March Tappan, American Hero Stories."

PandaMania Warning

2011-04-22T23:11:00.007-04:00

Our Sunday Visitor (OSV) is a wonderful Catholic publishing company that is widely respected. This year they release a Totally Catholic Summer Program (what our Protestant friends refer to as VBS) called PandaMania. This is a Catholic rendering of the highly popular VBS programs put out by the Protestant company, Group. What I am about to write does not apply to their version of the program.

Our parish decided to use OSV's PandaMania, and we were very excited initially, that is, until we started looking into the details. The two most objectionable portions are the People of Faith cards and Connecting Kids to Justice.

The first of the People of Faith cards is Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Ever hear of him? He's a Jesiut priest that has a lot of excellent scientific writings worth reading (the pope has said so); he is also in serious disagreement with the Church when it comes to his theology. The Holy See has issued a Monitum regarding his work that includes the following:

"For this reason, the most eminent and most revered Fathers of the Holy Office exhort all Ordinaries as well as the superiors of Religious institutes, rectors of seminaries and presidents of universities, effectively to protect the minds, particularly of the youth, against the dangers presented by the works of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and of his followers.” [Emphasis added]

Call me crazy, but an elementary summer school program does not seem like the place to introduce Teilhard.

As for Connecting Kids to Justice, it focuses on the Catholic Climate Covenant put together by the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change. This coalition consists of 12 organizations affiliated with some of the most notorious Church dissenters. Here is a sampling:

Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities. This organization has failed to concern itself with the moral decline of “Catholic” colleges. See here and here.

Carmelite NGO. While the Carmelite Order is wonderful, the Carmelite NGO supports UN initiatives to advance abortion and birth control services. The Carmelite NGO fully supports the UN Millennium Goals and lists them on their web site. If you click on #5 Improve Maternal Health it brings you UN Millennium Goals website. Article 5.6 lists an unmet need for family planning. The Carmelite NGO was a co-sponsor of the standing room only side event titled Consumption and the Rights of Mother Earth held at the UN on May 11, 2010. The website mentions nothing about the rights of the unborn child.

Catholic Health Association of the United States. The president of this organization is Sister Carol Keehan, who supported ObamaCare in defiance of the USCCB, and supported St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix after Bishop Olmstead sanctioned it for performing abortions.

Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR). This organization champions major dissidents of the Church, including Sr. Jeannine Gramick who spoke at their 2010 Leadership Conference. This is the organization that led to several religious orders to ask for a different leadership organization be formed, The Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious and Conference of Major Superiors of Men (another coalition member) held a joint conference in 2004 in which the keynote speaker was abortion advocate Mary Robinson.

As part of the program, they won't recite the Creed but your children will take this evironmental pledge:

You can see the slides for all 5 days here (scroll to the bottom for the PowerPoints.) There's a lot of coaching your kids to go home and tell you how to behave. Could you imagine if we had a TCSP that told kids to go home at tell their parents that they are committing a mortal sin if they don't attend Mass on Sunday? Well, I know that might seem like a good idea, but would it be received as charity the way this environmentalism push is?

It seems to me that these organizations worship at the altar of politics dressed in Catholic social teachings. They take something that honest Catholics may be concerned about, like environmental stewardship, poverty, health care, or immigration and use it as a front to advance their political agenda that usually undermines Church teaching and authority. If anyone is going to indoctrinate my kids, I will; that's why I homeschool.

This is not the only alternative. Cat. Chat VBS has three wonderful programs, one on the Sacraments, one on the Mass, and one on The Blessed Mother. Catholic Heritage Curriculum offers 4 great Children's Retreats/VBS programs as well.

Free Computer Resources

2011-03-08T12:01:00.001-05:00

We homeschool together, all in one room. When I am working with one son I shcedule something the other two can work on independently, which can be challenging with kids in 2nd, 4th, and 6th grades. This time is split into 3 categories: reading, writing, and computer time. While I have purchased some great computer-based learning programs, like ExploreLearning and Adaptive Curriculum, I found a couple of great free websites as well.

The first is The Head of the Class. This website has activities for grades K through 5th. After I logged in I went to the control panel and clicked on "Customize Curricula" to set up the activities I wanted for Ds#2 and Ds#3. I choose only the interactive activities and not the worksheets that have to be printed out, so this website has many more resources available than what I use. They even have a book for each grade.

The second is Brain Nook. This one is more play than learning, but the kids really enjoy it. They create basic characters and travel through different regions of the globe. They can interact with other people but at the basic level they can only "say" what is on a list of responses (premium members can type whatever they want, which is one of many reason we are not premium members.) Often my kids will call their friends and log on at the same time while talking together on the telephone. To earn points they have to play math and language arts challenges. Once a week you are emailed a progress report that tells you how many challenges they played, what level they played at, and the breakdown of math to language arts.

Enjoy!

UPDATE (6/14): We dropped BrainNook because it turned out to be too much play and not enough skill building.

Year Round Homeschool

2011-02-12T23:29:00.000-05:00

We have always followed, more or less, a traditional school year. We take a break from our typical academics from Thanksgiving until New Year, though we do Advent studies. We then plough through two terms from January until the beginning of June with only Holy Week off. It's a long, hard stretch.

Now that I no longer work at the hospital, I now teach 3 more classes that I didn't before, for a total of 5, and 3 of them are online. My time is consumed correcting assessments and assignments, and blogging has taken it on the chin. At least I don't have to try to get to work in the midst of a bizzard; and I am no longer scheduled for nights, weekends, holidays, or summers!

The dilemma is that I am trying to cram in homeschooling during the same time that my demands are greatest teaching. I've thought about year-round homeschooling for awhile but I didn't really know how to approach it. If I didn't school in the winter would the boys be just running aroung the house bored anyway making it impossible for me to work? Then it just so happened (that you, Lord) that a very brief discussion occurred on one of the Yahoo groups about this very subject. Some people, I guess, school for 3 weeks and take one off while others school for 6 weeks and take 2 off. I've decided to try the latter. Those two weeks will be enough for me to get caught up and a little ahead in my teaching, as well as to plan the next section of homeschool, and maybe even to blog a little! It give my boys just enough time to relax before getting bored.

My biggest concern is if we will have the will and the discipline to sit down to school during those glorious summer days. While math will run year round, our Religion and Language Arts are not a full 36 weeks, we can stop Rosetta Stone Italian in the summer, and we won't have co-op so Friday is always free. I am dreaming of a relaxed and joyful time of learning. I'll let you know what happens when reality sets in...

Colonial History

2011-01-01T16:27:00.006-05:00

Our family will be studying Colonial History for the next eleven weeks and I put together our reading schedule based on Eva March Tappan books along with a few others. Here are the spines linked to their full text at Google Books or Open Library:

An Elementary History of Our Country by Tappan
This is a straight-forward chronological history of the United States. It's good for dates and facts.

Letters from Colonial Children by Tappan
As I mentioned in the last blog, this lovely historical fiction is a series of letters written by colonial children to their families and friends in the Old World.

American Hero Stories by Tappan
This is a book of biographical sketches that is great for younger children.

Builders of Our Country Vol. 1 by Gertrude Van Duyn Southwick. I'm not sure where I found this, but I had it in my Google library. It is also a series of biographical sketches, many of which are colony founders, so it filled in a lot of gaps I had. This will be a read aloud.

The Catholic Pioneers of America by John O'Kane Murray
This is another series of biographical sketches dedicated to American Catholics. It has over 80 biographies, written more as stories than a factual retelling, arranged by date of death. I found sorting through this book fascinating. This will also be a read aloud in preference to Builders when they both cover the same person.

I have two stories about South Carolina in Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Edward Eggleston.

You can download the entire 11-week schedule as a PDF.

Now to search through For the Love of Literature and Let the Authors Speak for some good historical fiction to go along with this reading schedule!

Eva March Tappan

2010-12-14T21:20:00.001-05:00

I have found a children's non-fiction treasure in Eva March Tappan; her books have become the center of our history education. I have read Marshall, Eggleston, and Guerber, yet we most enjoy Tappan. A Massachusetts native, making her a local favorite for us, you can read her full biography at The Baldwin Project.

Her writing engages my boys better than other similar books have. For her events-based books, she ends each chapter with a summary, which is a great narration helper for me, and then three or four creative writing suggestions. All of her books are all in the public domain and available at the usual places--Google Books, Open Library, The Baldwin Project, and Heritage History to name a few.

For World History we are reading The Story of the Roman People instead of Foster's Augustus Caesar's World. She of course has books about Greek History and English History, too, among others. Here is Open Library's list of her titles.

For American History we are focusing on the Colonial Period. We will use American Hero Stories as well as An Elementary History of Our Country. In addition, she wrote a delightful book called Letters from Colonial Children. Ten fictional children, each from a different colony, have written one or more letters to relatives back in the Old World. According to the preface, while using the modern language of her day she still strove for historically accurate details.

From a Catholic perspective, though Tappan is a Protestant Christian, she by far gives the best account of Catholic American history that I have found in these types of books. One of the children in Letters is a Catholic girl from Maryland. While not a perfect Catholic perspective, it gives a lot of Catholic detail and falls only a little short compared to Eggleston, Guerber, and especially Marshall.

With these books as a spine, the rest of my U. S. History should fall into place for the next term. I'm looking forward to incorporating more of her works into our studies.

Advent

2010-11-30T13:09:00.001-05:00

We have begun our Advent break and, yes, I am already behind in our activities! Sunday was spent relaxing--and lighting the Advent wreath--and yesterday was a whirlwind! We did see a wonderful performance of the Nutcracker in the morning, spent a couple of hours with friends in the early afternoon, brought Ds#1 to choir practice after that, and then I was off to teach for the evening.

We are catching up, though! Advent mornings begin with reading The Jesse Tree by Geraldine McCaughrean. We then read the bible passages listed on the back of the Jesse Tree ornament and place it on the tree.

Next we are following the Advent Catechesis Reading Plan 2010 from Family in Feast and Feria. The plan is based on three beautiful and instructive books written by Inos Biffi and illustrated by Franco Vignazia. All three books are available through Family-Centered Media. The plan has us read An Introduction to the Liturgical Year over two weeks, adding in The Life of Mary during the second week, and then reading The Way to Bethlehem for the third and fourth weeks. Added to this are readings from Ethel Marbach Pochocki's books Saints of the Seasons for Children and Around the Year Once Upon a Time Saints. The former is used throughout all 4 weeks; though it is OOP it is readily available used.
The latter is available through Bethlehem Books, as well as Amazon.

I also downloaded the files for My Little Advent cards and companion calendar from Family in Feast and Feria, so I better print them out very soon!

Especially, let us prepare our hearts to celebrate the Lord's coming, and prepare our souls for Him to come again. Advent blessings to you all.

This Year's Program

2010-11-04T17:01:00.000-04:00

I have been very busy over the summer and this fall such that I have not been able to blog, so now that the first term is two-thirds over I guess I will post something about what we are using this year! I am now into our sixth year of homeschooling and finally, finally have I found what works for us

Religion: We are continuing using the excellent Faith and Life series, only this year my two older boys are going through the program online. I purchased access through My Catholic Faith Delivered which not only has the text read aloud to them, it also has a lot of multimedia and interaction to reinforce what they are learning. They very much enjoy working this way.

Math: This is our third year with the Mathematics Enhancement Programme (M.E.P.), still a free download from the Centre for Innovation in Mathematics. Ds#3 is about to start Year 2, while Ds#1 and #2 will move up to Year 5 and Year 4 respectively by the start of our next term. We have a lot of living math books as well that the kids are free to read and use, but this is really our focus. The program is truly excellent for teaching math.

Language Arts: Ds#3 started Primary Language Lessons from Hillside Education. It's been a slow start for him as he gets up to speed with his reading and penmanship, but he is at the stage where he is progressing rapidly. The program is designed to be covered in a single year, 3rd grade, but I like to go more slowly and cover it in two. I really love how this program prepares my kids for writing. No, this program will not put them on "grade level" with grammar or spelling or vocabulary. But I no longer do any formal spelling since I have found that for some children it comes easily (Ds#2) and for others not so much (Ds#1), and they have best learned spelling through writing. Vocabulary, too, is best learned through reading.

Ds#2 began Intermediate Language Lessons also from Hillside Education. He brings his writing from this program to a writing class at our co-op and together they have really improved his imagination and narration. Ds#1 is on the third section of this program, and also has a co-op writing class, and he has blossomed into a talented creative writer--and this from the loudest complainer about writing! These boys, they do complain, but eventually they grow into it and this program has helped.

As for grammar, I agree wholeheartedly with the philosophy put forth by Analytical Grammar, a program we are trying, and liking, this year. They believe, as I do, that grammar is a finite subject that can be learned during the 3 middle school; no year after year of grammar. The program consists of 3 "seasons" or 10 week sessions, one for each year for grades 6th through 8th. The bulk of the grammar is taught in these sessions, one building on another; periodic worksheets keep the information fresh between seasons. I had my doubts that Ds#1 would be able to handle something this intensive and fast-moving. I made a point of giving him my attention as he learned each section. It was rocky at first; now I am quite impressed with how well he parses and diagrams sentences. If he can do it, anyone can do it!

World History: This is our second year using Connecting With History from St. George Books. We are using volume II this year, from the Birth of Christ to the Battle of Hastings (1066). Between the books and the activity suggestions, this is how history should be done. While this is a Charlotte Mason approach based on living books, the program is designed like a Classical approach such that you revisit each volume every 4 years, each time moving up another stage. The whole family worked out of the same volume, yet they each read books and so activities for their level. If only such a product was available for American History!

American History: Since we do not have something as great as CWH for this subject, I try my best to set up something similar. I have decided this year that we are going to study early America--American Indians, The Colonies, and People of the Revolution and the Constitution. Our focus will be on biographies rather than events. I used LibraryThing to figure out what books I already have relating to these topics, and then I use the library to fill in anything I may be missing.

You can see what we are doing for Science and Nature on my two other blogs, At Home Science and A Private Eye Nature. More about co-op, Charlotte Mason, and learning to come!

Twisty Noodle

2010-08-28T22:37:00.000-04:00

If you are a fan of Donna Young's Resources and Printables then you may want to check out Twisty Noodle.

Twisty Noodle has tons of coloring pages and penmanship worksheets with a picture to color, the words to copy under the picture, and under than the formatted line to write on. Just having a picture to color after writing is appealing to Ds#3. What I found really neat is that not only can you change the words on the worksheet to whatever you want, you can also set the font to be block, D'Nealian, or cursive. I've printed out a week's worth to get the school year started.

Hands On Homeschool Carnival

2010-08-09T05:00:00.003-04:00

Yes, I've learned how to make screencasts for an online class I am teaching at the college, so I thought I'd have a little fun with the carnival this month. (BTW, I am teaching my kids, too, so they can make narrated electronic presentations...but more on that if and when it ever happens!)

The carnival this month has a few good ideas to think about as the school year quickly approaches.

This Thursday look to the night skies for learning. I present Planets and Meteors August 12 posted on At Home Science.

Cheryl has moved to Blogger and her new design looks great! She presents Preparing Your Hands-On Classroom posted at Talking to Myself.

Also, I have tips for using more maps in your homeschooling and keeping them protected from less-than-gentle-handling in Maps and More Maps! on this blog.

Melissa presents baby bluebird bonanza...well, not really a bonanza...but bluebirds, for sure! posted at Bugs, Knights, and Turkeys in the Yard.

Nadene presents Practice Art In The Frame posted at Practical Pages.

Angie in Ga presents Don't leave it out posted at Live, Love, Learn,.

And finally I present Creativity posted on my hands on nature study blog, A Private Eye Nature.

Enjoy!

Maps and More Maps!

2010-08-01T14:38:00.000-04:00

Awhile back my mother-in-law gave me a pile of old National Geographic maps, and they have been sitting in the basement waiting to be used. I bought a large, black, zippered artist portfolio to store them in last year and now I've finally gotten around to doing something with them.

First I actually unfolded them all and placed them into the portfolio. Excited about using them for homeschooling and knowing how easily maps get torn, I wanted to laminate them. Dh on the other hand did not want to do anything to them in case a collector was interested in buying them some day (which also means using extreme caution when showing them to the kids). I mused about having map-sized sheet protectors, and then I realized that they must make something like that to protect nautical charts from getting damaged at sea. And I discovered they make them for blueprints, too.

I ordered them through Engineering Supplies. They are certainly too expensive to use like sheet protectors for every map, but I bought one medium and one large one in which to put whatever map I am currently using. They come with reinforced holes in the edging to hang them and a zip-lock seal on one edge. Being plastic, we could write on them with dry or wet erase markers and then wipe it away for the next map. And because these maps are double-sided I can easily make use of the information on both sides of the map.

Yesterday I cataloged the stack of maps so I knew what I had without having to sort through them. It turns out I have 105 maps dating from 1975 to 2009. There's a lot of history information in those maps, as well as earth and space science, and, of course, geography. I really could have used the Great Peoples of the Past maps last year with our ancient history study, so now I am ready to pull one out that relates to whatever we are studying. Maybe I can use them in much the same way as I do music or art study--hang them up and spend time each week just looking over the make becoming familiar with the geography and history of the world.

Interactive Notebooks with OneNote and Dropbox

2010-07-23T22:10:00.002-04:00

Around this time last year I blogged about using OneNote for lesson planning, and I still love it! In each notebook I create, I can add as many tabs and pages in that tab as I like. On each page I can put all kinds of resources, from website links to screen clippings to file links or even files, as well as create content directly. I have not even used a lot of the available features, like tags. I have found it to be a very powerful tool.

I am now incorporating it into our homeschool. They have OneNote on their computer upstairs and I created a notebook for each of them with 5 tabs--Science, Nature, Math, US History, and World History (for now). I can put reading assignments, links to Adaptive Curriculum or ExploreLearning or Discovery Streaming, and comment on their work. Each subject tab has a journal page for them to write notes about their assignments.

This is the Journal page for the Nature tab. You can add as many tabs and pages as you need.

But what a pain it is to log into their accounts and review their work, especially when I often do that after they go to bed and the computer is in Ds#1's bedroom. I found a brilliant and free solution called Dropbox that has really let this idea of an interactive notebook take off.

I created a Dropbox account from my laptop; it asks you to put a name in for your computer, so I called it Mom. (It automatically fills in any name already given to your computer, but you can erase that and fill in whatever you want.) I downloaded the desktop application onto my laptop and onto their computer. A Dropbox icon now appears in right section of the taskbar and a My Dropbox folder is created in My Documents. In the My Dropbox folder are the folders that I created online.

This is my folders list on the Dropbox website.

I then created their OneNote interactive notebooks and placed them in my Homeschool folder in the My Dropbox folder. On their computer, I logged into each of their Windows accounts and then logged into Dropbox. It asks again for a computer name and I put in a different one when I logged in under each of their Windows account--Ds#1 and Ds#2. Within seconds the OneNote notebooks I created for them appeared in their own Homeschool folders in their My Dropbox folders.

Now all any of us has to do is open the notebooks from within OneNote and make any changes we want, just like we would do before installing Dropbox; it automatically updates all the computers without having to do anything else. It is all very simple to do, and my kids don't need to have email address or logins to do it.

Of course you don't have to use this to create interactive notebooks. You could have your children's writing assignments automatically synchronize with your computer, or whatever other file you choose. Just place a file in the My Dropbox folder on your computer and the software does the rest. You can even use it for what it was intended--to keep files on your computers, laptops, and mobile devices all synchronized.

You can also make public folders that anyone can access, or shared folders that only people in your network can access. It's a great way to collaboratively work on a document should you need to (maybe a co-op, perhaps.) Feel free to join (if you go through this link I get a little extra storage space--a referral perk Dropbox gives to everyone) and connect with me, Kris AtHomeScience!

Mater Et Magistra Magazine and Giant Silkmoths

2010-06-12T20:48:00.000-04:00

Mater Et Magistra is my favorite homeschooling publication. It has an incredible mix of articles and exceptional writing, making it informative, inspiring, and enjoyable.

As you can see in the picture, the magazine has a lovely cover design. And though I don't think the designers used a Cecropia silkmoth for the color palate, the two happen to match perfectly. The moth my aunt found in her yard. I put it on the magazine to give perspective to the size of the moth in a photograph and could not help but notice the resemblance. It shows just how much all-around good sense the publishers have!

Talent Show

2010-05-22T13:39:00.001-04:00

Our homeschool enrichment group had its annual talent show. Ds#1 was the Master of Ceremonies for the evening and did a great job! He was also in a skit while Ds#2 played piano. Here's a slideshow of the fabulous evening.

Killdeer At Co-op

2010-04-24T20:47:00.000-04:00

Paula's house has some expanses of rocky areas, perfect to camouflage killdeer eggs. We have not gone hunting for the nest of the one that was running along her drive way that I was able to photograph so nicely. I was hoping to get a picture of the orange feathers hidden at the base of the tail under the wings, but not this time.

To protect their nests, killdeers will run away from it hoping that the intruder will chase them instead of finding the nest. This guy was certainly running away from the rocky areas so perhaps there is a nest in the yard somewhere. We'll have to be careful when we are out there for our co-op cloud study, or when the kids are playing.

I am still hoping to capture the image of a red wing blackbird that also likes to visit her yard.

Math, MEP, Charlotte Mason, and Mastery

2010-04-10T13:56:00.002-04:00

Sylvia posted some great food for though on her blog Homeschooling in a Bilingual Home with Mastery versus Spiral. She discussed one educator's call for math mastery and yet wondered about MEP's spiral design. These were my thoughts on the subject:

Interesting post, Sylvia. I suggest that given the definitions as presented, MEP is a program of mastery yet is not a Mastery Program.

Reading Liping Ma's book will help people understand what I mean. Ma makes the case, IMHO, that US teachers teach mastery of an algorithm, or the mechanics of doing problems without mastery of the mathematical concepts, while teachers in Asia have a better understanding of mathematical concepts and teach them to their students. IMHO, this was achieved by mastering concepts on a low level (1 or 2 digit numbers, using 10s, etc.) before advancing kids to greater complexity, like multiplying 37946 x 897.

My oldest is in Y4 of MEP; we switched from Math U See last year. He has not done any large or complex multiplications. He continues to master the regrouping and distributive property, though he does not call them that, by breaking larger numbers into smaller numbers and then multiplying or dividing those. He learned division through place value and no longer gets confused by "bringing down the next number." He can multiply and divide large numbers because he figured it out based on his mastery of small numbers. That is the genius of MEP.

Compare this to Math U See. By the end of Gamma my son was multiplying these large numbers because he learned mechanically how to do it, but he didn't really understand what he was doing or why. Englemann calls that Mastery. I call that Mastery of the Algorithms, while I call MEP Mastery of the Concepts. This difference is why Liping Ma got the results she did.

MEP is a true spiral program because it does not put forth a concept to cover until mastery and then move on to the next concept. But there are, what shall I call them, pseudo-spiral programs that are basically mastery programs in that they move from topic-to-topic only do so in shorter bursts. In fact, I think what we call spiral programs are really these mini-mastery programs, and are like Englemann's floating stairs. I can see why Miss Mason did not care for them. MEP then is something different entirely.

Sylvia followed up with Mastery versus Spiral (Part II)

This got me thinking not only about MEP but about education in general. Regarding MEP:

My first comment is regarding whether MEP is a spiral program or a mastery program. My answer is: both! I currently have children in Y1, Y3, and Y4; the older two have each completed the entire previous year. What MEP does is it introduce a big subject, like multiplication and division (started together) at its simplest level, 1 digit numbers. Once that is shown and kids are doing it, MEP then presents a wide variety of different types of math concepts to which multiplication and division is used--tables, graphs, word problems, etc. In doing so, the program also slowly advances the difficulty of the multiplication and division, but never beyond small, easy-to-grasp problems.

I blogged about this here.

By this construct, MEP is teaching mastery of multiplication and division--from early in Y3 to where we are so far in year 4. It did the same thing with addition and subtraction in Y1 through the early part of Y2. Yet MEP has a spiral construct in all the other concepts to which basic arithmetic is applied. Geometry, measurement, and fractions are all scattered throughout Y2 through Y4 (in fact during the same weeks in Y3 and Y4 as I am learning with my two older sons!)

How this will work with fractions I am unsure. I know Ds#1 is ready to learn more about fractions than he does, yet because we switched to MEP later in his school years, he is only on Y4 though in 5th grade while the younger two are in MEP years that match their grades (Ds#2 being about a half year "behind" in that sense.)

I am not one to worry about keeping up with the public school kids (more about that in a subsequent post about Englemann.) I think it will be revealing as to the real strength of MEP as we do learn more about fractions, decimals, and percentages.

More important for me was the implications Englemann's approach would have on education in general, and comparing his thought to Charlotte Mason:

Again, I can't disagree with him in terms of mastery programs compared to spiral programs, but I disagree with him on the bigger picture.

For example, he states when a child does not learn, that reflects badly on a teacher. Yes, but then, in his Sweden example, he basically is saying, "If you just teach it like this then they will understand." Well, maybe not, and that's the point. A teacher has to know a topic well enough to explain it in a variety of ways to reach a variety of students. I think that is what US parents mean by having a teacher care about their children, while Englemann advocates a master teacher.

Yet central to Charlotte Mason's homeschool philosophy is that education is the science of relations. Every child must form a relationship with some knowledge in order to learn it. Compare that with cramming for a test, or even memorizing a method. Englemann's "mastery of the method" is his definition of learning.

He is right, though, especially in math, that by knowing these methods hard a fast a child will do better in school--but that's because school assessments are designed to reward those who do! And that is why, according to Marilyn Burns, vast numbers of people have Math Phobia. For some people memorizing the algorithm simply does not work, and Englemann's answer seems to be, "Well, they just didn't master it."

This leads to the phenomenon of what I very irreverently call Stupid Human Tricks. This type of mastery creates intelligent-appearing children because they can perform all the wonderful 4 and 5 digit multiplications and divisions, spit back science and history facts, and diagram sentences with ease. They even get rewarded on tests for doing so. Yet they do not forge any relationship with the material, and so they will retain but a fraction of what they so brilliantly regurgitate. Ultimately, is that really education? Do they understand mathematical concepts? (Most do not.) Can they discuss the impact of historical event? (Most cannot.) Can they write well? (Not generally.)

Yet the science of relations should not be an excuse to avoid challenging our children, as if our child's enjoyment is the sole indicator of them forming relations. On the one hand, Miss Mason states that we should not interfere with a child's narration for they will glean what is important to them on their own terms (which is why choosing content reflecting my values is the first priority in selecting books and media.) On the other hand, she wrote the facts of a passage, say from a history text, on the board to which the children could refer while narrating. I guess there's no getting over mastering those facts, yet that should be the servant of forging a greater understanding of knowledge and not its master. In short, teach our children to think and not just to know.

A Private Eye Nature

2010-04-01T10:39:00.003-04:00

I am embarking on an expansion of our nature studies, which I admit has been lean lately. I am incorporating The Private Eye as a regular part of our study as a way of bridging the gap to science as well as improving writing and art.

I am so encouraged by this method, and I am so eager to inspire our nature studies, that I started a new blog as a result. It is called A Private Eye Nature, and so far I just have the introductory post that explains how it all works. Stay tuned more more!

Home Geography for the Primary Grades

2010-03-27T20:14:00.000-04:00

I downloaded Home Geography for the Primary Grades somewhere along the way from something related to Charlotte Mason, maybe Ambleside Online. While doing a little spring file cleaning I decided I would try it out at our TORCH co-op with the youngers, four boys ages 5 to 7.

This book is an example of what used to be thought of as geography, what today would be a mix of earth science and social studies. The lessons are short--we typically cover two or three of them in the 45 minutes we have. So far we covered direction, measurement, and mapping. The book includes the lessons, some poetry, and exercises, some hands-on, some written.

This week we learned about mapping. Here on the board the boys first looked at a picture of a classroom and then drew a plan of the room. We then went on and used a measuring tape to draw it to scale.

The book is ideal for early elementary kids to give them a nice mix of formal lessons, poetry, copywork, geography, science, and social studies. So Charlotte Mason, no?

A Few Lenten Resources

2010-02-17T22:14:00.002-05:00

In case you have procrastinated and now that Ash Wednesday is upon us you are looking for a few good Lenten resources (which is my usual state of affairs...)

The Lenten Workshop at Catholic Culture has sections for information, prayers, activities, and a personal program.

The Interactive Calendar at EWTN offers daily reflections and actions.

The Lenten Season from the USCCB also has an interactive calendar plus a lot of information and suggestions for the season.

Vivificat! has put together an extensive collection of Lenten reading free for the dowloading.

May your Lent be fruitful.

Flowchart Notes

2010-02-17T09:27:00.005-05:00

I can across this link on another list and it looked like a really neat idea for narration especially if your kids like to draw. It is simply a flowchart where you draw a picture and then write what happened below it, and when put it all together you get a story.

It is more in depth than a single picture narration and yet not as extensive as a lapbook. The idea came from this page at mrcoley.com, the web site of a fifth grade teacher. He also has a pdf available describing it. My kids' pictures won't be as nice as these but I think they will enjoy the process and improve their note-taking skills.

Christian Heritage Art Program

2010-02-14T21:51:00.008-05:00

We just started using the Christian Heritage Art Appreciation program from Catholic Heritage Curriculum. This is art appreciation and study from a Catholic perspective covering the breadth of art history. The program has eight levels, each level divided into 6 time periods. We are using the program with out TORCH co-op, the younger five kids using level 1 and the older five using level 3.

Both levels start withh prehistoric art. Level 1 focused on cave paintings. After the kids watched the video with examples and age-appropriate discussion of cave paintings, they painted on crinkled brown paper bags to simulate cave walls.

Level 3 focused on Native American art and geometric shapes. They too used crinkled brown paper bags, but they made stencils of geometric shapes which they used to make designs. The program is enjoyable, informative, and easy to use and I particularly like using it in a small co-op setting.

Hands On Homeschool Blog Carnival

2010-02-08T05:00:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the February edition of the Hands On Homeschool Blog Carnival! Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day, President's Day, and importantly the start of Lent--February is a full month, and so is our carnival!

Ritsumei presents an entry after my own heart, Vinegar! posted at Baby Steps.

Becky presents Rain, With An Occasional Cool and Cloudy Break posted at Wide Open Campus. That bottom picture is just wonderful!

Angie presents Winter Outdoor Hour:Nature Close To Home-Cattails posted at TheOneThing. What fun!

Angie also presents great skill building in #5 Handicrafts/ Life Skills Challenge also posted at TheOneThing.

Angie's been hoppin' and she also presents Fun Friday and Why I Home School posted at TheOneThing. Why do you homeschool? "Why wouldn't you," I say!

Pamela presents Not Kidding... posted at Blah, Blah, Blog. I can see why she's Not Kidding anymore!

Deana presents Make-Your-Own Word Family Review Cards posted at The Frugal Homeschooling Mom. She writes, "Here’s a simple, cheap way to practice rhyming words and word families with your preschooler. It’s also a great way to review phonics. Don’t go out and buy word family review cards at the homeschooling supply store or teacher’s store! It’s so easy to make them yourself." I agree!

On my other blog, I started Journey North Mystery Class project. It's not too late to start as we've only done the first week! Journey North Mystery Class Preparation posted on At Home Science.

Anyone who hosts blog carnivals knows you get a lot of spam. Though this next entry falls into that, it actually has a lot of fun printables for kids so I thought I would include it. Car Color-by-Number Mosaic posted at Printables for Kids. At least it's not a "Top 10 sites for..." whatever site!

Our blog carnival creator, Cherylinma, presents Spaghetti Trestle Bridge posted at Talking to Myself - Homeschool Blogger. Looks like a must try book!

Rachel presents Tips for Moms, Activities for kids by Quirky Mommas » Blog Archive » Using M&Ms to Graph with your Preschooler posted at quirkymomma.com. This is colorful and tasty. It will have your kids asking to do math, lol!

Brenda, now at her new web site, presents Creative Photography posted at Brenda. This is a really great project to do.

This next submission is from DreamBox Learning math program, but it is a homeschooling company and the blog post was about math field trips--two things you don't typically put together! Tracy Beach presents Math Learning Field Trip Ideas for Homeschoolers posted at Math Learning, Fun & Education Blog : Dreambox Learning.

Finally, I have submitted my post about our recent History Fair posted at Science Of Relations.

Enjoy the carnival--I certainly have.

F. N. Monjo History Books

2010-01-31T12:10:00.004-05:00

I love library books sales and I have been to many since adopting a Charlotte Mason educational philosophy. I am no children's literature expert so I rely on a lot of Internet sources for suggestions. I don't stick to those lists, though, especially for non-fiction. I take risks on those 25 to fifty cent books that, judging by the cover, may be good.

Recently I happen to come across several books by F. N. Monjo. I first picked up Vicksburg Veteran, but I have not read it because we have not covered the Civil War yet (later this year.) Later I picked up Me and Willie and Pa, and The One Bad Thing About Father. They all look really good, but I have yet to read them.

Now we are studying the Industrial Revolution. As I mentioned, Ds#2 researched Slater's Mill, so when I saw the book by Monjo during a library search I borrowed it--and I read it.

What a fabulous historical fiction account of Samuel Slater coming to Pawtucket to rebuild Moses Brown's mill! Into the story Monjo worked in Rhode Island's reluctance to ratify the Constitution, positive descriptions of Quakers, every day life during that time, and, of course, the building of the mill. This author is wonderful for elementary students!

His books are fairly common and several have paperback reprints, so they are easy enough to pick up on the used book market for a reasonable price. You can probably get them through your library, too.

History Fair

2010-01-30T15:36:00.002-05:00

This year we are not part of a large co-op, and it has been such a blessing for me given the fluctuations my life is going through right now. We belong to a small, 3-family, 11-child (from 7 months to 11 years) TORCH co-op that we really enjoy. I am leading the older 5 in the Journey North Mystery Class for science.

We are part of what I call a homeschooling enrichment group with many of the families from the former large co-op, and we get together for various activities and classes. The most recent was our History Fair. We reserved the large, beautiful room at the library, set up tables, put up our displays, and invited families and friends to come see what their homeschooled relations were up to.

Ds#1 has been fascinated with the Interstate Highway System so he jumped right into that project. Ds#2 really loved the recent Bales to Bolts program that our enrichment group went on in Lowell mills. He decided to compare Slater's Mill in Pawtucket, RI to the one built by Lowell in Waltham, MA and by his partners later in Lowell, MA.

We had 13 displays in all and a good amount of visitors. In two more months we'll do it again, only this time the theme will be science instead of history.

Invisible Woman

2010-01-17T20:21:00.001-05:00

This speaks for itself. Thank you, Lord, for seeing.

Bookmarking Learning Sites for the Kids

2010-01-02T20:15:00.005-05:00

I bookmark a lot of really great web sites to enhance our homeschooling. The problem is that the kids share a computer while I use my laptop, so when I find a great site on my laptop, I bookmark it in Delicious and then I forget about it. When one has computer time, I am getting another set up for something and teaching the third so I don't have time right then to hunt for sites.

I have come up with a solution using Google Bookmarks. The kids' browser's homepage is set to iGoogle, a customizable page. In iGoogle I've put the Google Bookmarks gadget in the upper left side so the kids can easily see it. I have bookmarks labeled by subject, so they can just change the drop-down list to get a set of links for a specific subject.

You can also set the browser homepage to Google Bookmarks. Sort the list by label to see them grouped by subject.

Now I can say, "For the next 20 minutes pick a Language Arts link to play." The kids are now actually using the many links I have found to help reinforce what they have learned without me having to hunt for them!

BTW, at the bottom of the Google Bookmarks page is a button you can drag to your toolbar that lets you bookmark a website you are viewing. Now that makes it really easy!

Ancient Egypt

2009-12-26T21:15:00.002-05:00

We finished up through Unit 4 of Connecting with History (well, we read a lot about ancient Egypt even if we have to catch up a bit on the other cultures of the time.

I picked up an ancient Egypt pack from a used book sale a year or two ago that looked intact and we finally put it to use. It contained all the parts to make a Tutankhamun mask. I started out using white glue but that was very slow going waiting for it to dry. Then I discovered the advantage of a hot glue gun.

I didn't quite finish the mask but I got enough of it done so the kids could wear it. Between the mask and the Jim Weiss stories, they were inspired one day.

They called me upstairs to show me the discovery of an unknown Egyptian tomb they had discovered.

da Vinci Advent Art Study

2009-11-29T22:21:00.005-05:00

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

2009-11-27T22:06:00.002-05:00

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

2009-11-22T20:18:00.006-05:00

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

2009-11-11T21:21:00.006-05:00

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

2009-10-27T13:39:00.005-04:00

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

2009-10-24T12:57:00.016-04:00

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:

Hands On Homeschool Blog Carnival #12

2009-09-14T05:00:00.001-04:00

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!

Response to "Unit Studies and Charlotte Mason"

2009-09-09T10:11:00.006-04:00

Jimmie's Collage has a blog entry in the current Charlotte Mason blog carnival encouraging a discussion about Miss Mason's opinion about unit studies. Here is the quote Jimmie refers to:

"The well-intentioned, clever, hard-working teachers who create these concentrated studies have no idea that each lesson is an offense to young minds. Children are eager and capable of a wide range of knowledge and literary expression. But these kinds of lessons reduce their learning to senseless trivia and insipid, pointless drivel. They develop apathy that stays with them, and the mere mention of learning makes them anticipate boredom. Thus their minds wilt and deteriorate long before their school career ends."

Let me first define "unit studies" as the integration of multiple school subjects, such as literature, history, math, and science, based on a single unifying theme. Entire curricula are designed in this manner, the most well-known being the excellent program, KONOS. Yet even KONOS has parents supply their own separate grammar and math programs, and the science portion is weak in several units.

It is one thing to integrate topics that naturally flow together, for example drawing from your literature to create copywork, or reading historical fiction and period literature along with your history studies, or assigning writing topics based on your subject of study. Trying to make other subjects integrate, however, is like putting square pegs into round holes, and those other subjects suffer because of it.

Math and science are two subjects likely to be short-changed; this is because these are rarely the central theme of a study. Activities that integrate these subjects usually are contrived as Miss Mason observed. Creating word problems based on historical subjects does nothing to increase a child's mastery of mathematics. Science involves reading biographies or science history rather than learning scientific principles.

Today I see a different notion of "unit studies" in homeschooling circles, something that is more properly called "thematic units." We are studying Westward Expansion this year, so I have collected a variety of resources--books, movies, games, web links, lesson plans--relating to this theme. I do not try to integrate grammar, math, science, art, or any other subject into this theme. I do, however, provide a variety of approaches, including hands-0n activities, for kids to learn from, though our homeschool is child-driven in this narrow area. I give the kids an activity book and they pick out the project they want to do, or something else of their choosing, so they make their own connections rather than me giving them mine.

This goes back to my own philosophy about phantom "holes" I used to worry so much about. We are learning about vast subjects, like history and science, of which we could never master all there is to learn. The notion of "core knowledge" is an illusion when we consider all that we leave out of curriculum standards. And when we forget more than we learn of trivial facts, then what our children retain through the relationships they form with a topic is as worthy as what anyone else has formed. Our task as teachers is to provide the framework that reflects our world view and the resources that instill our moral values; our children will then forge their own knowledge relationships.

This reminds me of a G. K. Chesterton quote (who married a woman that worked for the P.N.E.U. by the way) that is at the bottom of my left sidebar:

"The present collapse of this country began when education was regarded as a substitute for culture, or rather when instruction was regarded as a substitute for education, or rather when getting facts by teaching was regarded as a substitute for getting truth by tradition."

That is where KONOS has it right--by centering their themes around Christian virtues. In that sense, our entire homeschool is one continuous unit study centered on the Truth of Jesus Christ.

Westward Expansion: Corps of Discovery

2009-09-08T21:23:00.016-04:00

The first topic in Westward Expansion is the Lewis and Clark Expedition, or the Corps of Discovery. Here are the books I have found for the boys to read, and a few comments about them.

Of Courage Undaunted by James Daugherty is a classic. The Captain's Dog by Roland Smith is an interesting selection I have not read, told through the eyes of Clark's dog, Seaman. Seaman's Journal by Patti Eubank has the same premise only it is a short picture book. How We Crossed the West by Rosalyn Schanzer is done in the style of a D'Aulaire or a Holling, so I chose it for a read aloud. I have several books in the In Their Own Words series, which intersperses primary source journal entries in with the rest of the non-fiction text.

Below I put three "spines" that I found very helpful. Lewis and Clark for Kids is one in a series of books that chronicles topics and has a dozen or more activities to enrich them. The other two books are both what I call "timeline books," meaning the table of contents gives a timeline of events and each short chapter details those event. These and others in the two series will be very helpful this year.

Addendum...I forgot to list some of the web resources I found!

The digitalized archive of the actual Lewis and Clark journals from the U of Nebraska
Discovering Lewis and Clark
PBS lesson plans
Mapping the West
The Story of Pomp ebook
National Geographic Lewis and Clark
Lewis and Clark Trail (a neat tourism site, click on sidebar topics to see books and info)
National Archives
Teaching with Historic Places Lesson Plans
Nickel Lesson Plans (from the National Mint for the commemorative nickels)

Online games

Louisiana Purchase trivia game
Go West online game from National Geographics Kids
The Lewis and Clark Adventure from the US Mint

We also have The Lewis and Clark Adventure Game that has lots of information on the board, as well as the National Geographic movie.

The Gallery blog carnival

2009-09-08T20:18:00.003-04:00

Miss Julie has started a new blog carnival at her Art Projects for Kids blog to showcase kids' art work. It's called The Gallery and it is fabulous! Submit one of your projects, get some really great ideas, or just enjoy the wonderful artwork.

Our first week completed!

2009-09-04T10:42:00.011-04:00

Summer officially ended for us August 31, the day we started back to our schedule. The week got off to a great start, if not as vigorous as future weeks promise to be. The weather has been so spectacular--the best all summer--that after First Friday Mass and Reconciliation I let the kids go out and play.

I am still updating the sidebar with out spines and readings. This year I have them sorted by child, though I may sort it by subject, too. I posted my schedule on the sidebar as well.

For World History we are studying the ancient world using Connecting with History, so we are at Creation currently. This program is specifically designed to study Salvation history together with secular history, so much of our religious study is tied in with this.

For US History we are studying the 19th century through three units. First we are covering the Westward Expansion, covering topics like Lewis & Clark, the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails, The California Gold Rush, the Homestead Act, and the Transcontinental Railroad. Next we are going to cover the Industrial Revolution (there's lots of stuff in Massachusetts to explore this topic, from the Blackstone Valley Corridor to the Lowell Mills to Old Sturbridge Village.) Finally we are going to cover the Civil War, from the antebellum period through Reconstruction.

For Nature Study we are studying plants. I don't have a fun read aloud yet; I've just pulled all the science readers and picture books I have relating to plants so far. I found this interesting link to hands-on activities for learning plant classification that we will do.

We are covering some Earth Science this year, starting with rocks, minerals, and soil. Since we are doing that with our TORCH group, that won't start for a couple of weeks. I'll post more about that on AtHomeScience.

Picked up a book bag full of books from the library yesterday. No one can say they have nothing to read, that's for sure!

New! The Gallery Blog Carnival

2009-08-23T14:25:00.004-04:00

Art Lessons For Kids at Ms. Julie's Art School is starting The Gallery Blog Carnival of Art Projects for Kids. Each month the carnival will showcase wonderful how-to blog entries. The first issue will be published on September 1st and I am looking forward to reading it!

Art Camp

2009-08-23T13:41:00.005-04:00

This year, much to my joy, my mother decided to teach an Art Camp this summer for kids 8 and up, which included Ds#1 and Ds#1 and many of their friends. My aunt, who just retired in May, was her assistant. They put a lot of time and effort into five mornings of projects, and the kids really enjoyed themselves. The results were spectacular!

They worked with a lot of color and texture, working mostly with chalk pastels and various papers, though they used other mediums as well. Ds#3 was not officially in the camp, but he would bring some of his coloring pages from home to show Grammy, and she let him in on a few of the projects as well.

It was a big hit all the way around, and something I hope they do again next summer!

My Charlotte Mason

2009-08-02T21:12:00.015-04:00

I certainly consider myself a Charlotte Mason homeschooler, though I am just as certain that I do not exactly follow her methods. It appears this is not uncommon among CMers.

What I have embraced fundamentally, as the title of this blog reflects, is that "education is the science of relations." Those relations are lifelong pursuits when education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life. They are best formed through living books and materials. The rest is an eclectic mix of educational material to achieve these goals.

While Ambleside Online and Mater Amabilis are outstanding programs, I wanted to combine my children in several subjects, so the separate yearly schedules made that very difficult. I refer to and recommend them frequently. I also view books like This Country of Ours and Apologia Science as textbooks compared to the many other books available about specific aspects of history and science.

Having said that, our school is not void of all curricula; instead we have an eclectic mix of living educational material that best works for our family. Here is an overview of My Charlotte Mason educational program:

Religious Education: I spend one day a week for each child teaching Faith and Life using the teacher's manual after they have done the reading in the student book. Other days they are reading the Bible and the Saints.

Math: we all love M.E.P. I set aside 40 minutes per child to teach it 3 days a week. We do various living math 2 days a week.

Language Arts: Each child works independently. Ds#1 is on year 2 of 3 in Intermediate Language Lessons, while Ds#2 is on year 2 of 2 in Primary Language Lessons. These books have a wonderful mix of grammar, picture study, dictation, and copywork. Ds#3 needs to solidify his reading, so I will continue Hooked on Phonics with him (a program I've had for 7 years now.) He'll also be doing copywork.

Literature: Ds#1 and Ds#2 read independently while I read aloud to Ds#3; art study they read and view independently. They work on Rosetta Stone Italian separately. I may try and fit in some basic Latin, too, though I am not sure if I will do this with Ds#1 only or all 3.

Everything else I combine, starting with the Program for Achieving Character Education (P.A.C.E.) I get poetry and copywork from it; the stories from William Bennett's The Book of Virtues and The Moral Compass we read aloud together.

Shakepeare and tales we read together, and we do art projects together. I even do Writing together, though each are of course working on their own pieces.

U.S. History, World History, Science, and Nature I approach in a similar way using the CONNECT method as described in the Connecting With History program. I introduce and discuss whatever topic we are covering to all of them. Each week we have short readings from our "spine" and work on timelines, cultures, famous people, and experiments together. Beyond that I give them individual books to read (or to have read to them) at their own levels, and they narrate (written or oral) what they have read. They also each pick projects to work on throughout the weeks; these are presented at the end of each topic. Everything gets put into notebooks or lapbooks.

We start at 8 am and finish by noon, with additional time in the afternoon for them to work on their projects. It is not what Charlotte Mason described, with children reading all morning, their attention kept by the wonderful books and that they may be called upon to narrate; and then long afternoons outdoors for masterly inactivity and nature study. Yet through My Charlotte Mason I am striving to meet that fundamental principle: Education is the Science of Relations.

Day Trips Galore

2009-07-23T13:57:00.002-04:00

Last week Dh was on vacation so we went on a series of day trips. He could not have picked a better week--definitely the best of the summer so far!

One day we hiked on the grounds of Quabbin Reservoir. Several towns were completely evacuated in order to flood them to create this water management area for Boston.

The next day we visited Old Sturbridge Villiage. All the exhibits were open and active with interpreters except the saw mill, which was expected to be repaired soon. Here the boys are under the carting mill watching the water-powered gears.

Another half day we hiked through Purgatory Chasm. You can hike through the chasm (as we did), hike on the wooded trails at the top of the chasm (we did on the return) or you can scale the sides of the chasms in parts. (If you remember the old Emergency 911 series with William Shatner, one episode was about a teen male that fell while climbing the sides. I have worked with both of the paramedics that featured in that episode.)

We ended the week at the Boston Museum of Science, a perennial favorite of my kids. They are next to one of the new dinosaur skeletons the museum now has on display. We also visited the temporary exhibits on Creature Cams and Black Holes, both of which were excellent.

This week the boys are at nature camp. Our summer thus far may not have involved any textbooks but it has certainly enriched their education!

Book Sale Manager web site

2009-07-19T15:11:00.004-04:00

Because the Charlotte Mason philosophy relies on living books, and because most of us do not have an endless budget for books, we rely on library book sales for cheap, great books, especially durable hardcovers. The trouble is finding out when they are happening.

Because I have blogged about these sales before, I received an email from the folks at Book Sale Manager lettimg me know they offer a free web site that I might like. I was impressed!

I have used Book Sale Finder for a few years, but that site cannot be tailored in any way, and lists only library and "sponsored" sales on a site that shouts with advertisements. Book Sale Manager first has fewer, more subtle ads--that alone makes it easier to navigate. Next it lists all manner of books sales, including those by church and other organizations. Third, it has a great calendar feature to which I can add sales and from which are generated reminder emails. Fourth, I can search for sales by distance from my zip code rather than by state only, which is great for someone like me who is close to so many states here in New England.

It is certainly an improvement over that other site. Thank you Book Sale Manager for letting me know you are out there!

Sail Boston 2009

2009-07-12T17:19:00.002-04:00

The Tall Ships are in Boston and we enjoyed one of the first sunny days in a very long time going to view them! We took the ferry from Long Warf to Charlestown Navy Yard to look at the smaller ships in the event. The larger ships could only be boarded after 6pm.

We only got onto one ship because the lines were so long, but we also went through the Constitution Museum, which we will certainly plan to visit again. The kids got anchor "tattoos" there that they are showing off (and have since been scrubbed off.)

We took the ferry back to Boston and the T back to the car--another highlight for the kids especially since we had to change lines.

Anchors away!

DC Trip.

2009-07-12T16:48:00.009-04:00

We took a major summer trip to Virginia right at the beginning of the season to see my niece graduate. Of course we also did a lot of sight-seeing during our 12 day stay.

We visited the Museum of American History on a Sunday afternoon and only got through half the museum.

We spent a couple of days at Colonial Williamsburg. The kids really enjoyed Revolutionary City where you watch reenactors play out the drama of the times right on the streets of the city. We especially loved hearing about those violent Trouble Makers in Boston throwing tea overboard while disguising their identities. Shameless!

We spent an afternoon at the National Gallery. There's so much here, too, and we only saw a part of it. The kids did a great job finding some of the paintings we had studied over the last year. This picture shows them by the waterfall at the walkway between the two galleries.

We went back to visit the National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center during the Become a Pilot weekend. The kids are standing next to the Space Shuttle Enterprise. This is not a replica--the center is a place that collects actual aircraft, like the Concorde, the Enola Gay, a Blackbird, and so many more.

We also did a lot of swimming and spending time with family. What a great time!

Internet Lesson Planning Resources

2009-07-03T15:37:00.005-04:00

We just recently had our huge area used curriculum sale--people come from all over New England for it--and it has gotten me lesson planning for the upcoming year. Being a Charlotte Mason homeschooler, that means a little research.

Besides looking at Mater Amabilis and For the Love of Literature for book lists, I have a few Internet sources that I find particularly useful.

MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) is a peer-reviewed web site with outstanding recommendations. Use the advanced search to get links by grade.

GEM (Gateway to Educational Material) is a search portal for teachers with thousands of available resources.

FREE (Federal Resources for Educational Excellence) offers primary source materials, videos, animations, lessons plans and more by subject, though not sorted by grade.

Teacher's Domain, from PBS, started out with just math and science but now has offerings for Art, English, and Social Studies as well. They have web clips, lesson plans, and interactives.

Science NetLinks is a great place for science lesson planning, as well as Science Online, which is available for free through our library.

We purchased a subscription to NetTrekker through Homeschool Buyers Co-op. Not only do I find a lot of helpful site, I let my kids use it as their search engine. Everything is reviewed, and you can set the search to elementary, middle, or high school. It has a whole lot of other features as well so we find it a good investment for us.

Please comment if you have an Internet resource that you find very helpful!

Hands On Homeschool Blog Carnival #9

2009-06-08T06:00:00.002-04:00

Welcome again to another inspiring issue of the Hands On Homeschool Blog Carnival! The carnival will be coming out monthly for the summer to reflect our more relaxed pace of things.

This time around I thought I would present the submissions by writer rather than by subject to highlight all the neat blogs out there. I hope you all love these as much as I did!

Cheryl (our carnival organizer) of Talking to Myself

Studying New England

Brenda of The Tie That Binds Us

Jimmie of One Child Homeschool Policy

Jimmie's new web site Jimmie's Collage

Building a Straw Tower

*Kris* (that's me) of Science of Relations (sometimes God puts the hands on lesson right outside your window...)

*Kris* (also me) of At Home Science

Sarah of SmallWorld

Mystery Folders: Encouraging Independent Work

Mother Hen of Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

He’s Musical

Momma Snail of The Snail's Trail

What's In The [work]BOX? Handmade Word Family Game (really cool and creative!!!)

The Family of Once Upon a Family

The flower and the bees (twenty years isn't that long ago, LOL!)

Misty of Homeschool Bytes

Timez Attack! The best and FREE multiplication game ever!

Teresa of higher education

Let's be Thankful

Jenafer of Cage Free Monkeys

"I've Got A Mule And Her Name Is Sal" Biking on the Erie Canal

Enjoy the carnival as much as I did, and thank you so much to all the contributors! The next Hands On Homeschool blog carnival will be July 13th at Our Journey Westward

Bird now flown

2009-06-02T12:26:00.002-04:00

Our three baby robins have left the nest, but here are a few videos we captured before they were gone.

You Might Be A Homeschool Resource Junkie If...

2009-05-27T21:14:00.004-04:00

The title of one of Maureen's posts reminded me of this email I got early in the year. So fitting for this time of year!

20 Signs You Are a Homeschool Resource Junkie

Every wall in your house has a bookshelf and you are contemplating how to hang more from the ceiling.
You wakened groggy the morning after a curriculum fair, unable to remember how many you books you bought or how much you spent? You shake in fear at the thought of looking at the receipts.
You ordered a fourth filing cabinet because the 1-3 are overflowing with curriculum catalogs.
The local owners of used bookstores invite you to their kids birthday parties.
The flash cards fall out of your craft closet and bury your toddler and large dog.
Your night stand is toppling over and there are large tumbling stacks on the floor. with books that, yes, block the path to the bathroom but give you great comfort and inspiration.
You can't read a full curriculum review on the Internet without clicking through to see if you can afford it.
You were on the first waiting list for a Kindle.
The librarian greets you with "Oh, you again!
Your mailman ask for another route because of that homeschool mom and all those book deliveries (even after you installed the super duper humongous mailbox he still can't fit ALL the packages in).
Amazon denies you a renewal of Prime Shipping.
You schedule your family vacations around different states' homeschool conventions.
You would not think of going to the doctor or dentist, without book bag stuffed with several genre options.
When you finish a book you get this awful empty feeling, like you just pulled the plug on a loved one.
You lend out your curriculum to your homeschooling friends but don't tell them you've never used it yourself.
You made the decision to purchase your home based on the built in book shelves.
Your hubby put his photo in your curriculum catalog stack to remind you of what he looks like.
Your collection contains more books than any family with 20 children could possibly read in one lifetime
You buy what looks like the greatest curriculum ever the curriculum fair only to get home to find you bought the same one two years ago.
Your children refer to Borders and Barnes & Noble as dangerous places. They know once you go in they might not see you for days.
You visit Library Thing and Shelfari daily.

Any others you would add?

OneNote and Lesson Planning

2009-05-24T13:29:00.005-04:00

I am an organizer. In fact, I have a tendency to organize the things I am doing more than actually doing them (ugh!)

Because I create my own curriculum, lesson planning involves pulling together resources--books, files, and web links. In the past I would create Word files and school folders to get this stuff together. It was O.K.

Recently OneNote was discussed on a homeschool forum, and everyone was raving about it. I realized I already had this program installed on my computer as part of Office 2007, so I gave it a try. Now I'm raving about it!

The program is designed like a notebooks. You can have as many notebooks as you like. Within each notebook are tabs. You can insert as many tabs, or even grouped tabs as you like. In each tab there are pages, and even subpages of which you can insert as many as you like.

The pages are more dynamic than Word documents. You can put the cursor anywhere on the page and start typing, and a new text box is created. These boxes can be moved around anywhere on the page. You can insert files, links to files, web links, pictures, web clippings, tables, spreadsheets, whatever!

I have started lesson planning for next year, and this has been the most useful tool I have ever used for this because I can easily put everything in one place. For an ecclectic Charlotte Mason homeschooler, it's a great resource!

The Garden

2009-05-23T21:16:00.007-04:00

With my Dh so busy first finishing off the rebuilt room and now rebuilding the deck, we were not sure if we would put the garden in again this year. Last year was our first and we were pleased with the harvest from our little plot that only gets 4 or 5 hours of sun a day.

I decided I would see what I could do. I actually found the thyme and the chives came back--which is not too surprising as they are quite hardy.

The boys also informed me that some onions were also growing! I think they are leeks that we never harvested last year, since I doubt they are scallions being the size that they are. So I left them to grow.

After raking out all the leaves and trying to turn the soil by hand myself, Dh came over with the spade and had the plot turned over within an hour. I went out with the boys to go plant shopping!

The bottom picture is the finished garden after the boys and I got all the plants in the soil and watered them with Miracle Grow. We added 8 tomato plants (and we're planning for 4 more) 2 mounds of 5 cucumber seeds, 2 pepper plants (1 red, 1 yellow), 3 zucchini plants, a row of bush bean seeds (maybe 10), and the herb section to which I added parsley (Italian, of course) and basil.

As you can see the shade is already creeping over and it's only 3 pm. We'll see what kind of harvest we amateur gardeners get this second season of growing!

Robins Have Hatched

2009-05-22T17:43:00.003-04:00

Ds#3 called me last night to tell me the babies had hatched in the nest!

We only see two babies, though we had 3 eggs in the nest.

Momma bird is busy feeding these hungry little guys!

Lincoln Event

2009-05-17T22:34:00.004-04:00

The Asa Waters Mansion held a 200th birthday celebration weekend for President Abraham Lincoln. We went for the afternoon and had a wonderful time at the gorgeous mansion and grounds.

They had a Union army encampment, and President Lincoln himself there. Mr. Lincoln arrived by Wells Fargo, and guests could get in as well.

One of the featured events was the cake decorating contest. They had several categories: under 12, 13 to 18, adult, and professional.

Paula's daughter recreated the Lincoln Memorial using gingerbread cake and lemon frosting. (Anyone that has read d'Aulaire's book about Linclon knows how much he loved gingerbread!)

She took first place in her class--congratulations!

The event culminated with a fascinating talk based on all the portraits of Lincoln. A narrator would discuss the circumstances around the portrait and then the Lincoln actor would speak the president's words. What a wonderful history lesson!

Robin outside our window

2009-05-11T21:53:00.004-04:00

If you sit in the overstuffed chair in the living room, where we don't sit much any more since we expanded the family room, and look out the window you can see a robin in her next not two feet away in the rhododendron bush.

When she flies off you can see the beautifully constructed and sturdy nest.

And if you peek inside the nest you will see a wonderful surprise...

Hands-on Homeschool Carnival #8

2009-05-11T06:00:00.003-04:00

As we all start to think even a little about next year, here are some wonderful ideas you can sneak in for the end of this year or plan to include in the next. I am sure you will be inspired!

Jenafer presents Our First Camping Trip of the Season Completed posted at Cage Free Monkeys.

Brenda Sain presents Albrecht Durer, a German Renaissance Artist posted at The Tie That Binds Us.

Martha presents Oz Land posted at Sunrise to Sunset.

Shannon presents Wild and Wonderful Weather: Odds and Ends posted at Song of My Heart.

Cheryl, our wonderful blog manager, presents Penny Toss Game posted at Talking to Myself.

Cindy presents Science Activity Bags posted at Our Journey Westward.

~Kris~ presents Step-by-Step: Making a Castle Presentation Board posted at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

And finally I present France Projects posted at Science of Relations.

Relax and read :o)

France Projects

2009-05-10T21:16:00.003-04:00

We changed the format of our geography group study, God's Country Club, to better suit our younger learners. We have 3 families, 10 kids, the oldest two being 10 years old. Several weeks of presenting material got to be hard on the moms and the younger kids.

For our France segment, we announced the country 2 weeks before the first class. During the first class the lead mother cooks the main dish, while the other two moms bring a side dish and a snack. (I made baguettes, of course.) The kids thoroughly enjoy the food aspect of GCC!

The lead mother next presents all the geographic facts about that country. She then has the kids pick projects to present during the next class in two weeks.

Two weeks later, after another cultural lunch, the kids present their projects. Ds#1 did a report about France during WWII. Ds#2 did a report about the origins of the Tricolore, or French flag. With 8 of the 10 kids presenting projects, the group learned a lot of interesting, if focused, information about France.

We're ending for the year since one of the moms will be having her baby within the next three weeks, but we'll pick up again in September!

JourneyEd homeschool discount

2009-05-09T20:17:00.006-04:00

Did you know that many software companies offer deep discounts to teachers and college students?

JourneyEd is an academic software vendor that carries these products, though they, like most vendors, require proof of academic status. While I was looking over their purchase requirements page, I noticed that they offer their products to homeschoolers, too.

Home Schooling:
Those who are home schooling must provide a valid photo ID, and a copy of one of the following:

Letter of intent to home school addressed to local school district for current school year.
Home School Legal Defense Association membership card.
Home School Charter School membership card.
Book/curriculum receipt for the current year.

They have Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro for 99.98 until the end of the month!

What do you want offered?

2009-05-04T11:07:00.004-04:00

Homeschool Connections is filling out its offerings of online courses, seminars, and free webinars and want to know what you homeschoolers want to see offered.

Please take the survey to let Maureen and Walter know!

Mixing up science and language arts

2009-04-27T11:23:00.003-04:00

While Ds#2 was working on his lapbook, I told him to add a colon before his bullet list. He says, "That's not a colon, a colon is your intestines."

I say, "Well, actually, your colon is your large intestines."

He asks, "So what are the small intestines, the semi-colon?"

You can see where his strengths and weaknesses are at this point, LOL!

The Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival

2009-04-14T06:00:00.009-04:00

Blessed Easter everyone!

"Education is the science of relations," is the expression at the center of Charlotte Mason's educational philosophy. Below you will find many excellent ways to make those relations in so many subjects.

Art & Artist Study relations
Lizzie presents Charlotte Mason Art Study~Van Gogh posted at A Dusty Frame.

Julie Moses presents Kids Art Projects and Lessons at Ms. Julie's Place: Oh My Gosh it's a Bosch! Part Two the Art Lesson posted at Kids Art Projects and Lessons at Ms. Julie's Place.

I present Creating an Artist Study posted on this blog, of course.

Nature Study relations
Amanda presents A Few Spring Nature Study Ideas posted at Hearts and Trees.

Molly Evert presents Empowering Kids to Run with Their Ideas posted at Counter-cultural School.

Andrea presents A handful of Chickadees and Nuthatches posted at Kids and Nature.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom presents Tulips in the Garden: Wednesday Flower Study #3=Fresh Faces posted at Handbook of Nature Study.

Literature & Shakespeare relations
Shannon presents A Great Introduction to Shakespeare posted at Mountaineer Country.

Geography relations
Jessica presents Geography and Paddle-to-the-Sea posted at Established Work - Homeschool Blogger.

Marie Watson presents A Virtual Field Trip toThe Last Best Place.... Montana posted at Teaching Charlotte Mason One Day At A Time.

Music & Composer Study relations
Makita presents But I'm Serious posted at Twinkling Stars Family School.

Angie presents Our March Composer: Vivaldi posted at THEONETHING.

Charlotte Mason
Katie Glennon presents Please Take Our Survey to help her develop more Charlotte Mason materials posted at Katie's Homeschool Cottage.

Brenda presents What % of your homeschool is inspired by Ms. Mason? posted at The Tie That Binds Us.

Beth Bellinder presents Considering Charlotte posted at Apples and Jammies.

Lisa presents Ouch! You got me there, Miss Mason! Letting her read it herself! posted at Hopewell Takes On LIFE!.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom presents Reflections on a Charlotte Mason High School posted at Harmony Art Mom.

Homeschooling Inspirations
Renae presents The Children's Hour posted at Life Nurturing Education.

Sunday presents Reason #129 to Homeschool.... posted at Pickles, Pumpkins, and Peanuts.

Now isn't that just some kind of blog carnival? What a pleasure it is to host! Thank you all for sharing your gifts. :o)

Creating an Artist Study

2009-04-11T11:54:00.001-04:00

Not being well acquainted with artists and their works, I have some difficulty putting together an artist's study. I prefer to have a new picture each week for a term, but what do I choose? Where can I find images? I found a couple of free resources from my local library that has made this much easier.

The What Make A... series by Richard Muhlberger is readily available through most library systems. These books are around 50 pages that are both biography and art appreciation by following the life and the works of great artists. The series is put out by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who has many images available online to view and download.

My library also offers free access to many online databases from home using my library card, one of which is Oxford (Grove) Art Online. This database has thousands of large images available, many of which are from the NY Met.

I decided to study Monet for this term, so I borrowed What Makes a Monet a Monet? from the library. I then logged into Oxford Art Online and downloaded the pictures, and printed them on matte paper to put in our art study notebook. I googled the few images in the book that were not available through the database; those pictures are smaller, so they don't print as well, but at least I had them. Now we can read through the book each week and study the images. Maybe we'll even make it back to the Met this summer and actually see these works!

When I Say Inspiring

2009-04-09T09:26:00.003-04:00

The boys loved the Hyperdo so much they decided to build it with the original scale Zome struts (medium and short, with a few long to get started) to compare it to the new scale (extra short and hypershort with a few medium to get started.) What a difference! The smaller scale is much easier to work with but the larger scale is so impressive.

The larger ball is 4.2358 times larger than the smaller ball, which is the Golden Ratio (1.6180) cubed. Imagine the size if it were build with long and medium struts?

MEP, Geometry, and Zome

2009-04-07T13:30:00.007-04:00

Ds#1 just started book #3 of 6 for MEP Year 3, and it began with Geometry. The picture is the student page, which he hasn't even done yet because we've been having so much fun discussing and exploring the exercises presented in the Lesson Plans.

This, of course, led to us talking about Zomes. We actually haven't build with them in awhile, so now that we are on break this week I decided to build the Hyperdo Model with them. You can read all about Zomes, see the models, and even get some discount codes from AtHomeScience: Hyperdo Kit from Zome.

Our homeschool co-op bought Zome kits when we first started. Mostly they have been used by the 6 to 8 year olds to just build whatever they wished. Ds#1, after the geometry lesson, asked if we could have a Zome co-op class where we learn more about geometry. I told him I thought it was a great idea, though I silently considered how many other kids would be excited about a geometry class. I'll offer it for the fall and see. It was a heart-warming homeschool moment.

BTW, at the Zome site you can download free lesson plans for grades 1-12 and even get low cost loaner kits for a co-op classroom.

Hands On Homeschool Carnival, 5th edition

2009-03-30T06:00:00.002-04:00

Are you relaxing with a nice cup of tea by your computer? I hope so because this Hands On Homeschool Blog Carnival is so full of fabulous ideas you will want to savor them as much as your favorite comfort drink. Please leave comments as you go, and when you try a project visit again to leave a link to your post about it!

Hands On Art and Art Appreciation:

Julie Moses presents Chinese Dragons posted at Kids Art Projects and Lessons at Ms. Julie's Place.

Brenda presents Renaissance Artists posted at The Tie That Binds Us.

Pam Barnhill presents Art Galore! posted at Everday Snapshots Explores Homeschooling.

Hands On History:

Shannon presents Colonial Days and The American Revolution posted at Song of My Heart.

~Kris~ presents Step-by-Step: Making Knights' Shields posted at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Hands On Creative Writing:

Dana presents Tall Tall Tall Tales posted at school for us.

Hands On Science:

Mouse presents Make your own solar cookies posted at The Science Mouse.

*Kris* presents Studying the Heart posted on At Home Science.

Hands On Foreign Language:

Cherylinma presents Language Lessons posted at Talking to Myself - Homeschool Blogger.

Hands On Projects That Work for Many Subjects:

Brenda presents Clown of God and the Renaissance posted at The Tie That Binds Us.

Christie presents Fabric Crayon How-to posted at Boys+ Academy.

Dana presents Homeschooling and learning things more deeply posted at Principled Discovery.

Martha presents Zoo Fun posted at Sunrise to Sunset.

How this carnival has grown after only five editions, and what outstanding bloggers are submitting. Thank you all--what gems are here! If you are interested in submitting an article, see the submission guidelines on Cherylinma's blog, Talking To Myself.

Spring!

2009-03-20T16:51:00.007-04:00

It's been a long winter, and it's still only 30 degrees. We've had several teasingly warm days but nothing lasting more than two together. The snow is almost gone and a few birds have returned. We're getting a bit of cabin fever.

Instead of our regularly scheduled school day, we spent the day making a spring project using a Klutz Window Art kit. First we made the outline with the black paint and left them to dry.

Later in the day the boys finished filling in the colors. Ds#2 picked the space ship that looks like it is breaking through the window. After he peels it off the plastic and sticks it to a window he gets to use the black paint to make the window look like its cracked even more. What fun!

We spend the rest of the school day working diligently on our Journey North Mystery Class data because today we got the clues we needed to pinpoint our longitude. Visit AtHomeScience to read about this great project.

Ancient Greece Lapbook continued

2009-03-19T22:55:00.005-04:00

We added another mini-book to our Greek lapbook, this one on How the Greeks Lived. The boys wanted to put together an accordion book, so that's what we did.

I cut an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper in half the long way, folded each into 3 sections, then taped the two together such that it formed one continuous accordion with six panels.

We took most of our information from Eva March Tappan's book with more details from Classical Kids: An Activity Guide to Life in Ancient Greece and Rome.

I am really impressed by how much my boys really enjoy this activity!

St. Patrick's Day

2009-03-17T14:23:00.004-04:00

Besides being the feast day for that great evangelist that converted an entire nation, and besides being Evacuation Day in Boston, it is also Ds#1's birthday. Happy 10th!

In anticipation of the day, we did a shamrock-related art project that teaches about shades and tints we saw at Ms Julie's Art School. She has another great project posted as well.

Lapbooks--finally, I get it!

2009-03-07T00:16:00.005-05:00

Lapbooks have always intrigued me but I never planned far enough ahead to have a lapbook laid out, and we are just not at the stage yet for taking good notes. I could not imagine how these moms did these lapbooks with young kids.

Seasoned lapbookers, are you scratching your head at my comments?

This may seem simple and obvious but I just didn't get it until this week, when I had my a-ha moment.

I realized that you could read a chapter or a section, make a mini-book about that information, and then attach it onto the lapbook; if you run out of space, you can just add an extension.

We started with our book on ancient Greece, and the kids loved it! Not only that, they learned the information better because they created mini-books about it. It's a great introduction to note-taking for elementary kids.

If you want to know more about lapbooking, see this Sqidoo lens or this blog, both by Jimmie.

Free Homeschool Webinar with Maureen Wittmann!!!

2009-03-02T17:29:00.006-05:00

A webinar is an online seminar. You can attend in your jammies with your favorite warm drink beside you! You can both see and hear the live presentation (they don't see you,) and you can type in questions for the speaker to answer. All you need is a computer and speakers!

While Maureen Wittmann is well worth paying to hear speak, she is currently offering FREE webinars at Homeschoolconnections. This Wednesday, March 4th, she's discussion using literature for art & music appreciation. On April 1st she's discussing a topic near and dear to me, using literature for math & science. I "attended" her talk on history literature, which was sold out when you did have to pay to attend.

Another upcoming webinar is for homeschooling dads--so little is available for them! It is given by Mary Kay Clark and Deacon Gene McGuirk, both from Seaton, called Homeschool Dads: Husband, Father, and Teacher.

Soon full courses will be available (for a fee) at Homeschoolconnections. Exciting stuff!

Hands On Homeschool Carnival is up!

2009-03-02T08:00:00.002-05:00

The carnival is up at Talking To Myself and it is another high quality collection. Check it out!

Academic Fair

2009-03-01T20:11:00.010-05:00

Our homeschool co-op had our academic fair this weekend, and it was wonderful! All three of my kids were excited to put projects together. They all picked science projects (surprise, surprise!)

Ds#1 still had a clam specimen left after I finished the dissection class for co-op, so he built a project around that. It's in a bag sitting on a dissection pan in front of the display. The lapbook was one he made in co-op last year based on Pagoo by Holling C. Holling.

Ds#2 did his project on volcanoes, immediately going to work drawing the graphics for his display. We had multiple books for him to get information, several of which he put on display. He really wanted to create a model volcano and have it erupt at the fair, but I didn't think we'd be able to do that in the building.

Ds#3, as soon as he heard his brothers were doing projects, insisted to me that he do a project on plants. He learned the 4 parts of a plant and the 4 things plants need to live and grow. While I printed out graphics for his display, he made the clay flower and labeled it with just a little help from Dad.

Below is a slide show of the whole fair. Only five families participated but most of us had multiple kids with projects. What was really wonderful was all the family that came through to see what their grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and cousins put together.

Lenten studies

2009-02-25T22:28:00.004-05:00

We started our Lenten season with My Path to Heaven by Geoffry Bliss, S.J. This is a beautiful program that is simple to do, yet full of depth. I am reading it with Ds#1 and Ds#2, though my older is getting much more out of it. The boys "fasted" today by skipping snacks and desserts while I fasted more rigorously. Ds#1 is passing up desserts for the season, Ds#2 is going to pray an additional time during the day, and Ds#3 will give me even more hugs ;-) We received our ashes as a family late this evening.

Lent is a wonderful season for growing our love for Jesus. It's not as busy as Advent, yet culminates in our holiest of days. Fasting, praying, and giving charity as a Church unifies us and supports each individual. These end days of winter are good for meditation, at least here in the NE. The cyclic nature further focuses our family. It's a good time to include praying and meditating about homeschool, too.

U S History regroup

2009-02-20T21:17:00.003-05:00

We are studying American Indians but instead of just studying the various tribes, I wanted to cover a tribe as they were encountered by Europeans, covering the major events involving American Indians. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the subject, and could find to good reference source similarly designed, so we floundered.

I've chosen The Book of Indians by Holling C. Holling to read each week, and I can come up with activities relating to the book. After finishing the book I can then cover the major events in brief.

Holling's book is a little different in that tribes are covered by terrain rather than region, though there are parallels of course. This week we read about wickiups (wigwam) and the garb of the forest tribes, and my kids drew their own version of them. Ds#1 drew a large x-ray machine around the wickiup and then drew the details of what was inside, as revealed by the x-ray machine.

Hands On Homeschooling #2

2009-02-16T08:00:00.005-05:00

Here is the second edition of Hands On Homeschool Blog Carnival. What a great place to find inspiration!

Hands On Science:

Cheryl has a fabulous lung capacity experiment on her Talking to Myself blog. If you get wet you've done something wrong.

Dana does some Shadow Watching for Journey North at her School for Us blog.

Hands On Art: (with science and geography, too!)

Erica shows a beautiful Ocean Mural at her One Busy Mama blog.

Yours Truly shows our Color Wheel in Clay, a great tactile art project.

Michelle shows how to make paper lanterns to celebrate Lantern (Yuan Xiao) Festival at Practice Makes Perfect.

Hands On Foreign Language:

Suzanne shows her iFlipr Prima Latina flashcards and has them available for downloading for your iPhone or iTouch on her Aventures in Daily Living blog.

Jena helped her daughter make Spanish flashcards and worksheets and has them available to print through Scribd on her Yarns of the Heart blog.

Hands On Reading Encouragement:

Kris has an inspiring Works for Me Wednesday: Reading Bingo idea at her Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers blog you should check out.

Visit and please leave comments, and revisit to comment when you have tried them out yourself!

Blessings, Kris

Color Wheel in Clay

2009-02-13T15:20:00.002-05:00

This project is a variation on a theme as our art book moves into color wheels. I thought an interesting tactile approach would be to using modeling clay as a medium.

We used RoseArt clay that costs $1 per box at Michael's. This clay is not the most pliable but that actually made it fun. When blending colors we had to knead the clay, just like bread, with a pushing and sliding motion to smear one color into the other. Just squeezing the ball didn't work as well.

Ds#1 started a green blend but was so impressed with the swirl pattern he made that he decided to save that and make another green ball. He keeps it on his desk.

This of course led to further clay sculpting...

Living Math--Life of Fred

2009-02-07T21:07:00.005-05:00

Thursdays, and Tuesdays when co-op is not in session, are our alternative approach days, as I like to call them, when we set aside our regular curriculum for some other way of learning subjects. For math, Ds#1 really enjoys Life of Fred: Fractions.

This book is about the life of a 5-1/2 year old math professor, and through his story Ds#1 is learning about fractions. This story is so quirky and funny, yet instructive, that Ds#1 finds it a joy to work through. And for only $19 including shipping, it is a very affordable math supplement.

Fractions is the first level, and you child should have mastered the four basic arithmetic functions. Next is Decimals & Percentages, followed by all the math a child needs for high school: Beginning Algebra, Advanced Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Calculus, and Statistics. These books are not meant to take an entire year to complete, yet they cover the core of what is taught in upper grades.

The Life of Fred books make a great middle and high school living math core.

Skeleton model

2009-02-04T21:48:00.002-05:00

Today we began our skeleton models from The Body Book as we read the chapter about bones in Blood and Guts.

I had them complete the axial skeleton only; we'll add on the appendicular skeleton next week. I used all card stock because the digestive and respiratory systems will eventually be added on to them. I cut all these pieces out--this model is not for the beginner cutter.

We also learned about the 4 types of bones (long, short, flat, irregular) and how bones mineralize with calcium and phosphate.

Charlotte Mason blog carnival #35

2009-02-03T21:50:00.003-05:00

A new edition of the wonderful Charlotte Mason blog carnival is posted at A Peaceful Day. There's close to 30 entries for this one, including a couple from here :o) This is a great carnival if you are interested in learning more about Charlotte Mason homeschooling or if your in a February funk and looking for something to enliven your program.

Hands On Homeschool Blog Carnival--First Edition

2009-02-02T13:00:00.002-05:00

The first edition of the Hands On Homeschool Carnival is posted on Cheryl's blog, Talking to Myself.

The carnival has had a wonderful response; it has over a dozen great homeschooling projects. I can't wait to read through them. Be sure to leave comments for the contributors.

I pray the Hands On Homeschool Blog Carnival is a blessing to your homeschool.

Journey North

2009-01-31T21:40:00.002-05:00

Journey North is a site with a number of project in which your "classroom" can participate. The projects are free, though the "teacher" needs to register. I decided to participate in the project relating to photoperiod (sunlight) called Mystery Class and open it up to our homeschool co-op. The project starts this Monday, February 2.

Concrete Math

2009-01-28T21:21:00.005-05:00

Ds#2 started multiplication, and division, this week in MEP. Each year is broken up into 6 books, and he is somewhere in the 4th one. At first he was intimidated. "I don't know division," he said.

MEP introduces both concepts simultaneously and demonstrates that they are opposites of each other. It shows how to find the answer to division problems using his multiplication tables. It gives pictures and has him write addition, multiplication and division problems for each one. Ds#2 thought that was great.

One activity asked that he use blocks to represent a simple problem like 5 x 2 = 10. He knew the answer readily and did his work on paper easily. I almost skipped the blocks thinking he had a good understanding, but since the MUS blocks were right by us, and they were not getting as much use these days, I grabbed them.

To represent 5 x 2 = 10, Ds#2 took out a 5, 2, and 10 block and got immediately frustrated because he did not know how to make an equal sign. After asking him to put the 2 block back, and asking how many "times" did he add the 5, he took out another 5 block. He then put them together next to the 10 block, and I saw his light bulb go on.

The experience reinforced for me the importance not just of the hands-on aspect of manipulatives, but also of their concrete nature, which is so important for young learners. Blocks, number lines, rulers, containers, whatever demonstrates the concepts concretely will help them better understand what they are doing in their books. I will make a point of doing that with Ds#1 whenever possible as he continues (with wonderful success I might add) to overcome his dependency on the standard algorithms and actually *think* about the numbers and concepts.

Grammar-land

2009-01-26T21:48:00.006-05:00

Today the boys finished ILL and PLL early so I started reading from Grammar Land by M. L. Nesbitt. The book is in the public domain so if you live in the US you can download it free from Google Books. I printed and comb bound it at home (listed as Home bound in my LibraryThing, lol!)

The boys really enjoyed Chapter 1. Judge Grammar divided his kingdom amongst 9 different Parts of Speech, and they are quarrelling over some words about where they belong. So Judge Grammar, with his assistants Serjeant Parsing and Dr. Syntax, have summoned his parts of speech to present their cases to him. First up is noun, but that is chapter 2.

Parsing a sentence...now I have not heard that term in a really long time.

More rabbit trails--where they go

2009-01-23T18:30:00.006-05:00

We had what is to be considered a mild day around here with temperatures in the high 30's. After the kids were sledding in the yard for awhile I put on my boots and took them into the woods.

We didn't need to go but a few steps when we saw rabbit trails around the edge of the yard.

They were only in the area close to the yard, not further back in the wood. And they all stopped at various holes.

I don't know if the kids expected to see creatures in the holes, but they certainly wanted to see what was down them. Some of them were just leaves, as if the rabbits had dug there and moved on. The ones at the tree bases were deep holes where we could not see the bottom.

We only went a little further back today, enough to see again our grove of bent birches. Looking closely you can see that all of them bent together such that their crowns are entangled preventing them from returning upright like most of the others have.

I think Mrs. Gatty could have made a parable of the scene.

Building towers

2009-01-21T21:54:00.001-05:00

What is it about kids and towers? Ds#3 entertained himself building a tower taller than himself--and his brothers, much to their excitement.

What do you do when the tower is complete?

Connecting With History

2009-01-19T09:45:00.010-05:00

History for a Catholic Charlotte Mason educator is difficult. The popular Story of the World and the old books favored by Ambleside Online are comprehensive histories, so they are textbooks, after all, regardless of their packaging and writing style. They are also biased against Catholics so they are not really a good fit for our family.

World History is block time for us, meaning I want to have both living books and hands-on activities. My boys just will not sit and let me read to them for more than fifteen or twenty minutes at a shot. I was going to pick a time period and try to put together some resources, but nothing in the popular or out-of-copyright material incorporates any Catholic perspective whatsoever.

I remembered RC History came out with some sort of world history program last summer. I was wrong, however, in thinking that it was something along the lines of Story of the World only from a Catholic perspective. It has a classical design, and it uses a variety of living books available through the library. I read the review at Love2Learn. Yes, this is a Charlotte Mason style program.

I ordered a copy of volume I today. Volume II is just coming out and will be available next month. St. George Catholic Books has free shipping, so I am trying the program without the extras for now. I guess it is meant to be done in one year, with 4 volumes planned in all to match the 4 year cycle of a Classical education. We of course will do things at our own pace.

With Connecting with History, and Maureen Wittmann's book For the Love of Literature I am ready to put together our World History studies.

Primary Secondary Overlapping Art

2009-01-16T18:19:00.000-05:00

This week we used both primary and secondary colors for our creations.

We drew overlapping shapes onto our 11x14 wet media paper. You can make a template out of cardboard or cardstock as the book suggests, but we had some PlayDo cutters that worked just fine.

The boys painted the shapes, except the overlapping areas, in primary colors. They then mixed their own secondary colors and painted the appropriate overlaps with them.

I found some $1 tablecloths at Walmart to cover our homeschool table--so much easier than newspaper, even if it is not very durable. I should be able to get a few uses out of each one.

Schedule Tweak

2009-01-15T21:02:00.005-05:00

'Tis the time of the year to make adjustments. I am happy to say that for the first time I am just adjusting the schedule to reflect how learning has been occurring rather than trashing the thing because nothing has gone as I planned! :o)

Basically on Thursday I took out the regular stuff we do for Math and Language Arts and replaced them with other stuff in order to ward off the drudgery of repetition. Copywork is from Quotable Saints. Math for Ds#1 is Life of Fred Fractions, while for Ds#2 it will be any of the many living math books we have. I added in Poetry, a sorely missed omission. I have no place for Shakespeare right now so he will remain shelved for the time being (or maybe alternating with Poetry?) We are reading stories from The Book Of Virtues and The Moral Compass with the P.A.C.E. program.

The Monday block time used to be for living Math and Language Arts, now it is for World History as of last night. I have to figure our what we're actually going to do for that!

I found a fabulous web site to upload documents that you can then embed into you blog. Here is my current schedule, viewed through Scribd (click two-toned button on upper right to view full screen):
Our Schedule 2008

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Academic Work Other Homeschool

Skin, first layer

2009-01-14T14:33:00.003-05:00

We continued with our study of skin today by completing the first layer of our skin model. Ds#1 read a few pages in Blood and Guts and then we got to work. They each colored n their own subcutaneous (hypodermic) layer complete with fat cells, and parts of vessels, nerves, and glands.

I printed this layer on card stock; to this we will tape two more layers that will fit just above the contour shown. And of course the boys love to ham it up for the photo of their great work!

Rabbit Trails--Literally!

2009-01-12T20:01:00.013-05:00

With a lot of inspiration from In The Sparrow's Nest I decided to actually go out with the kids and not just send them out to play. We explored the snow-covered woods in our back for a full hour!

We found lots of rabbit trails in the snow, both large and small. We also looked over some of the residual damage from the ice storm. Some of the birches, mostly, are forever bowed over. A few large trees were uprooted because they were sitting in wetlands created by an underground spring.

Here is a slide show of our adventure.

I found this photograph particularly interesting. Though the tracks are imprints into the snow, the lighting makes them appear as if they are embossed onto it. It even looked that way through the view finder.