Eva March Tappan

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.

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!

Maps and More Maps!

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.

Home Geography for the Primary Grades

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?

Free Homeschool Webinar with Maureen Wittmann!!!

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!

Academic Fair

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.

Skeleton model

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.

Journey North

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.

Skin, first layer

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!

Update on Ds#1 and Starting Science

Yesterday Ds#1 had his EEG. The weather was miserable, with sleet and freezing rain. After Dh took the day off, and keeping Ds#1 up until midnight and waking him at 4 am (EEGs are done while sleep-deprived) nothing was going to keep us from this appointment.

He did well with the whole thing. It took a bit of time to measure, mark, clean, and attach the 24 electrodes. He had to close and open his eyes, breath fast, and have a strobe light flash over his closed eyes. He squirmed quite a bit because that is his nature, yet the technician said she got good readings. No news is good news and today I did not hear from my pediatrician.

I decided to start science today only because it's easier for me to wing that than Native American History. You can read more about Blood and Guts and The Body Book over on AtHomeScience. We read about the skin while I hitched up the scanner and scanned in the skin model from The Body Book.

Before the term started I ripped out every page from the binding, trimmed the edges, and put each page into a sheet protector. This makes them so much easier to photocopy (the book instructs you to make a copy of the models for each student.) Now I have a nice PDF file of the skin model sheets to print as I need them. Eventually I will have them all scanned for my personal use.

Enzyme experiment

Check out our enzyme experiment we did last week.