Poor Babies

This picture inspired many ideas for practical jokes I could play on my homeschooling chums and family members but in the end I wasn't witty enough to use it to it's potential.

My guys enjoyed their 2 minutes on a school bus during our city's recent "Touch a Truck" event featuring real live trucks. Big trucks, little trucks, garbage truck, ambulance, police car (not actually a truck), and of course, the aformentioned school bus (also not a truck). The favorite I think was the moving truck. What made it special was the heaps of bubble wrap inside. They were swimming in the stuff. Now that is a 6-year-old's dream come true isn't it?

But back to my precious little boys on that school bus. Our home is on the corner that also fucntions as the school bus stop. Those children are on that bus while Bug and Bear are still playing with Legos in their pajamas - and they aren't late sleepers, nor do they stay in their pajamas all day. The bus drops them off around 4:00 p.m.Kids in 1st grade are in school from 9:00 - 3:25. That is just too stinkin' long. Now, I am not afraid to make the boys work hard and put in a full day. Our schedule goes from 8:45 - 4:00. But there are meals and quiet time and read alouds and outside playtime and chores and snuggle time and mommy kissing a boo-boo time all mixed in with those hours of school work. I know the kids at the government schools have recess and lunch and all that jazz. But who kisses their boo-boos? Now I'm just ranting, so I will leave it at that. Poor babies. Mostly I wanted an excuse to post that cute photo.

Week in Review

Our first week of school actually only consisted of two days. Two "half" days if you want the whole truth. But they were a pretty good two days. We decided to start on Thursday because I thought that was the day our public schools were starting. I was misinformed - they all started Tuesday. Oh well. We started Thursday. It was a nice enough start.

I chose to start with the bare bones. Bible, Logic, Phonics and some History read alouds to bridge the gap between last years study in the Ancient and this years Middle Ages. Bear even did a little copy work. It was an encouragement to me.

Yes, little fingers need time to get back into the habit of writing, little bottoms need some help sitting in seats and little minds need to adjust to the new balance of work and play but we have time - it's still August after all.

By the look on Bug's face in this picture you'd think things were pretty grim, but rest assured, these silly guys have plenty of time to let it all hang out, whatever that means.

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Starfish Snack

No - we didn't eat the "starfish". But we did get to see a "Sea Star" eating his lunch (they were starfish when I was a kid).

That little white blob is actually this little guy's stomach. In case you didn't know ( I didn't), a Sea Star prys open a mussel or other such creature, expells his insides and goes right inside the shell to eat the insides. Then he just sucks his guts back inside.

Then the poor fellow gets picked up by a five year old, examined thoroughly and exploited here on my blog under the guise of "nature study". Don't tell the boys, this is actually schoolwork for us ... nature study, oceanography, take your pick! They thought we were on vacation. More proper vacation pictures coming soon.

A Piratey Reunion

We are enjoying a few days of vacation in beautiful Bar Harbor. When we arrived around midnight with two sleepy travelers we got a greeting from this guy...

Curricula at a glance

This is the whole deal at a glance:



I made one change last night - we decided that we didn't care so much for the "A Reason For Handwriting" books. My boys are picky about illustrations of humans that don't look "real" and I don't really care for the format. We decided to use other things for Bug and Classically Cursive for Bear. He is so ready for Cursive and I really like the look of these
books.

I also ordered this cool book to add as an optional activity for Bear - who loves to draw. This is the time period we're working on so I think it will be a great addition to our plan.

This is going to be a great year!

The Academic Calendar

This is roughly how our year will break down. I'm working on the more detailed view but for now this is how it will look. I've decided to divide my year into quarters flowing from the Tapestry of Grace Units. This gives me a few planning days here and there.

Now that was easy...

Schedule
August 28th – a Thursday – marks the beginning of our 2008/2009 school year. Bear will be in grade 2 Bug will be in K/1st.

*(Academically speaking Bear will begin 2nd grade and Bug will begin some 1st grade coursework. Age-wise Bear could be either 1st or 2nd grade and Bug would be in Kindergarten. Any standardized testing will be based on age.)

Language Arts

Phonics/Spelling
The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading by Jessie Wise and Sara Buffington to fill in any gaps we have after SSRW. It looks like I will start somewhere in the middle. Bear will work through Christian Liberty Press’ Adventures in Phonics C and Building Spelling Skills 2.

Bug is working through the Explode the Code primers: Get Ready for the Code, Get Set for the code and Go for the Code. We will also use The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. If needed we will probably also use some of the colorful worksheets and tools from SSRW since we already have it – but his primary instruction will be from TOPGTR (I wish I had found this before SSRW).

Reading
The question I most frequently ask other moms is “can you recommend any good books for the boys?”. Bear will be reading more independently in his subject work this year. We have a selection of easy readers and are adding to it. We will also use the Public Library when possible. Our home library is a work-in-progress because I am selective about what we read and money does not grow on trees. I want to provide a great selection of books and strongly encourage reading for pleasure. The boys have at least one hour per day of quiet time – during which the only activities allowed are reading and resting. We model a love for reading, avoid “twaddle” and encourage reading at, above, and below grade-level, all in our effort to help the boys become excellent readers.

Penmanship
In addition to the natural results we get from copywork in other subjects-penmanship is practiced using Classically Cursive. I will work with Bug using a variety of tools. I love Happy Scribe Copybooks as well.

Grammar
For “formal” Grammar training we are using First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind Levels 1 & 2 by Jessie Wise (Well Trained Mind). Here we get our age-appropriate grammar instruction, narration, memory work, picture study, and etc. all in a very gentle format. Bear will work on some select lessons from part 1 and move on to 2. Bug will start with 1. I’m not going to place too much emphasis on this until third grade, but FLL is a great way to round out our Language Arts and then we will move on to First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind Level 3.


History
Our history studies are based on the Classical method with the history of the world on a four year rotation. We are using Tapestry of Grace – Year Two. The schedule is:

Year One – The History of Redemption (Creation to the Fall of Rome)
Year Two – Between Ancient and Modern (From Byzantium to the US Constitution)
Year Three – The Nineteenth Century (From Napoleon to the Year 1900)
Year Four – The 20th Century +

We focus on reading living books including fiction and age-appropriate versions of some classics and some reference books on our topic. This is all accomplished through reading, narration, copywork and hands-on activities three days a week. Memory work, lap books, notebook pages, field trips will also aid us in our studies.

Church History and Geography are tied in to our history studies. We will also touch on Science and Art, Bible and other topics as they relate to our history time line in unit study fashion. The people and places of History provide us with a rich context for reading and other language arts which are our focus for the Grammar Stage.


Science - General
Our science studies are aimed at exploring the creation and developing a love for science. We hope to provide a foundation for scientific thinking, excellent observation skills and a love for the world God made. Employing Classical methodology we will study various topics in an order that makes the best use of the season and resources related to our topic. Departing from WTM here, I’ve chosen to vary our subject matter within the year to prevent boredom (theirs and mine) and to expose them to a wide variety of science topics in order to expose their “delights”.
Starting the year a little early with this subject to take advantage of our vacation near the ocean in mid-August, in the summer we will use The Scientist’s Apprentice as a spine. We will have two lessons each week. One will focus on reading and narration with notebooking. The second session will include an experiment and notebook page. As interest dictates we will make room for additional hands-on activities.

The General Science Plan starting this summer:

The General Science Plan starting this summer:

1st Quarter: Oceanography
2nd Quarter: Astronomy
3rd Quarter: Anatomy
4th Quarter: Earth Science

*I updated this after carefully reviewing The Scientist's Apprentice. The four units fit very nicely into my quarterly plan with a week or more each quarter for more in-depth study if any particular topic really captures our interest.

Science cont. Nature Study
We believe that a love of nature romances our hearts to God. Reflective of this and my appreciation of Charlotte Mason’s ideas we will also incorporate ongoing Nature Study into our repertoire. Ideas will come from spending time outdoors, using the Handbook of Nature Study, Nature Friend Magazine and other resources. This will provide us with opportunities for physical activity, drawing, reading, notebooking, etc. We have always been a hiking, beaching, bird-watching, nature-walking family with animals and the outdoors comprising much of the boys’ playtime as well as our family recreation - this is a very natural part of our homeschool.

Math
Bear will be in Saxon 2. For Bug I will use all the wonderful manipulatives we already have to enrich the workbook based lessons of Purposeful Design Book 1. There will be lots of “real life” math for both of them as we count, measure, make predictions and generally observe the world around us.

Art/Music
Tapestry of Grace includes lots of art activities as well as Art History. We will also use Drawing with Children once a week and lots of just plain fun art time.

Some Music History is a part of Tapestry of Grace. I will also use Classical Kids audio as an introduction to classical Music Appreciation. I will keep the composers in their historical context when I can but I also will just use this as an introduction to classical music.

Other Stuff

Family Read Alouds are another area where life and school blend together. We choose God honoring, interesting and exciting books to compliment our studies and to feed the interests of the boys.

We will also add some beginning Logic exercises this year using Mind Benders Warm-Up. I’m looking forward to this and I think the boys will really enjoy it. We’ll do one or two exercises during our days just for “fun”.

Over the course of the school year we will be utilizing the Internet and our Local Library to create a “The World Around Us” lapbook or notebook. This will include personal information such as address and phone number as well information about civics, state flag, regional distinctives, etc. This will be done as a week long unit study at some point in the year and include field trips.

As another “unit-study” sometime this year we will create a Family Health and Safety Handbook. This will include nutrition, hygiene, fire-safety, stranger-safety, emergency response plan, etc.

Physical Fitness takes place during daily “active-play” outside and sports participation with our homeschool support group whenever possible.


Bible and Character Training

Bible
We will be using a few different catechism style resources for our “school” Bible lessons. The Big Book of Questions and Answers (there are two different volumes, we have both) and the Christian Liberty Press book Studying God’s Word B. Using the same Classical techniques we will learn sound answers to some big important questions. There are activities and worksheets for both of these books. We will add narration, copywork, memorization and notebooking as needed to make this fun and fruitful. Bear is learning how to look up verses and will continue to progress to using his own “adult” bible this year.

In our Family Bible Time we will working through an age appropriate Bible and discussing / praying about what we’ve read. We will also read one chapter of Psalms and one or two verses from Proverbs from the ESV. Our goal is to be consistently working through “the whole Bible” as a family, graduating from story Bibles to the real thing when it is appropriate.

Character Training
In addition to life, family discipline and teaching diligence in school work, we will work through various topics from Plants Grown Up and two different literature based character studies: Teaching Character through Literature and the Five in a Row Bible and Character Supplement. The latter two will be used only when we can do so without conflicting with our other reading. All our character topics at this point will be chosen to address particular areas in the boys’ hearts.

The most important element to our homeschool is us as parents being connected to our boys and praying for them consistently while modeling a love for the Word and a living commitment to Christ. Those things are life, not school but we will choose “school” activities to reinforce the important “life” things. It’s our highest calling to teach God’s ways to our boys –

“And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7). This is the heartbeat of our family and our homeschool.