This Year's Program

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!

Killdeer At Co-op

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.

A Private Eye Nature

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!

Bird now flown

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

The Garden

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

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!

Robin outside our window

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...

More rabbit trails--where they go

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.

Rabbit Trails--Literally!

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.

Views from our nature study

We have been studying trees since the beginning of the school year with another family in our back yard. Now that we have major repairs and upkeep occurring to our house, we can no longer romp around our yard. We've moved up to their yard where trees are sparse but the views are beautiful. Here's a couple of photos from our walk today on this unseasonably warm day just past peak color here in Massachusetts.