Nevermore

Here's another easy geography game to make. I bought a pack of party flags in a strip from Hobby Lobby on clearance for 2 dollars, cut them apart and made cards with a small picture of the flag on one side and the name of the country on the other.







We are also going to concentrate more on spelling this year, with the help of Spelling Power. If you are looking for a fun, hands on spelling program check it out.









Here are the rest of our spelling games, activities, and manipulatives.






The whole reason we went to Hobby Lobby yestarday was to buy some decent construction paper for our push-pinning, since the cheap stuff tears unevenly and fades super-quickly.

While I was there I noticed they had all their summer craft stuff and most of their furniture on clearance, the small tables, chests and shelves were only five dollars marked down from 35! So I ended up filling my cart with three small pieces of furniture, and tons of craft supplies, all for only 40 dollars.

Among all my treasures I bought a pack of long black feathers which the kids went nuts for.

"Are they raven feathers?"
"Ooh, Are they from The Raven?"

"Well, they've probably been dyed..."

Faces fall.

"Yes, they look real to me, right off the bird."

They were so excited they each took a feather and began chasing eachother all over the house, tickling eachother.

When they tired of that they began sneaking up on me at the computer and leaving their feathers.

Then they would hide and giggle maniacally to eachother, "We left our black plume as a token!"

So what could I do but scream, "Leave no black plume as a token, of that lie thy soul has spoken, leave my lonlieness unbroken/quit that bust above my door!"

And their absolute favorite part, "Take thy beaks from out my heart and take thy forms from off my door!"

You can guess what they told me...

"Nevermore".

Hands On Ideas

I just finished making all the cards for our rocks and minerals activities, which will be freely available in the afternoons after the first time I present the materials and explain how to use them.

We just finished the Hadean and are ready to start the Archaean, so we will be drenched in geology for the next few weeks.

The sorting and classification activities I made using the cards are for independant use and are all self-checking. Maria Montessori called that 'control of error'.






Here is one of our montessori puzzle maps.

The activities for these are limitless, but here is a picture showing some I've just finished preparing.










Invertebrate madness is yet to come!

Like the geology stuff above, this basket will join our shelves and be freely available once we reach the appropriate geologic era. It isn't that clear from this picture, but that basket is full of assorted shells for the classification/sorting activities.









Learning about landforms with sculpey, cards, and blue water. I've always thought that Montessori hit on a brilliant way of teaching landforms by showing their opposites, like lake/island, strait/isthmus etc.







Here's yet another use for the puzzle maps.
Push-pinning the countries/continents so they pop out and pasting them on a big blue sheet to make and label your own maps. The kids already tried this out, it was a big hit.

A new blogthing

You Are 24% Abnormal

You are at low risk for being a psychopath. It is unlikely that you have no soul. You are at low risk for having a borderline personality. It is unlikely that you are a chaotic mess. You are at low risk for having a narcissistic personality. It is unlikely that you are in love with your own reflection. You are at high risk for having a social phobia. It is very likely that you feel most comfortable in your basement. You are at low risk for obsessive compulsive disorder. It is unlikely that you are addicted to hand sanitizer.

How Abnormal Are You?

The S-word

Wondering about socialization or just plain tired of being asked?

Please read this.

A pre-reading game

Here is an easy and high-interest game to make for your emergent readers.

It is based on those basic pre-school workbook activities where you match the picture to the letter of either the inital or ending sound. I found that using real objects, ala Montessori, holds the child's interest much longer than workbook pages, and can also be used many times and in many different (and more flexible) ways.

I bought a large bag of mixed buttons from our local Hobby Lobby to use for sorting/patterning type activities and I noticed there were all sorts of tiny detailed object buttons in there, like tents, pumpkins, trees, etc., which were just perfect for this activity, but you could just get a basket and gather tiny things from all over your house like coins, toy animals, hot wheels, dollhouse accessories, whatever. If you've got older children I know you have tons of legos, marbles, math counters and the like lying around, and you could use those.

This is not just a pre-reading (phonemic awareness) activity, but also a terrific exercise for speech development.

I never had any trouble with my Dodo, who spoke in clear sentences pretty much out of the womb, but both my Scote and Ugha have trouble with certain sounds, and sometimes say them incorrectly. If you look in the picture above you can see Ugha turning all but blue in the face struggling to say "f-ff-fish". If she doesn't concentrate she is liable to say "wish, www-ish" instead and place it on the W, but she knows this isn't a wish, of course, but a fish, so she usually self-corrects at that point, or at least looks mightily confused until I say fff-fff. Then she easily places it on the f.

Once your child has mastered the initial/ending sounds she's ready for simple words cards to match to objects. Cat, hat, rat, log, tent etc. And then progressing into more difficult words. You could even continue with this game into sentences just by writing out a sentence like "The cat is under the tree." and having the child arrange the objects to match the sentence.

What we've been up to

We've been taking it easy on the academics this month, mostly just so I can finish up my planning and shopping. We still have daily Latin, lots of reading (but in our house that's a given), Art on fridays ,and prehistory 4 days a week for about an hour. I plan to ease back into a full schedule by August 1.

I haven't kept track, but I'd venture to say I have spent several pleasant hours a day just in researching and hunting down the perfect resources online, and perusing catalogs and placing orders. It has been like Christmas for me, opening all the packages and playing with everything and getting it organized. The kids are insane with jealousy since I won't let them mess with anything yet.

I've been able to buy so many cool things this year, especially for prehistory. In addition to tons of cool books, especially magic school bus and Lets-read-and-find-out science books, I got to buy super-cool hands-on things like fossils , seashells, and dried sea life to identify, sort and match and lay out chronologically in our timeline of life activities, rocks and minerals kits, geodes to break, owl pellets, dinosaur shrimp and dinosaur plants, coloring books , and tapes...it's been so much fun getting back into science.

I don't know how it happened, but science definately fell by the wayside last year.

That's not to say we did nothing, we spent a lot of time on ancient scientists and mathematicians like Archimedes and Pythagorus, we did a few experiments from the bubbleology science in a nutshell , did quite a bit of nature study through the spring, and used our microscope to look at everything we could get our hands on, including Scote's sea monkeys, but by making science Scote's focus for the year (as the history is for Dodo) it's given me the oppotunity to really focus and delve in deep, and spend more money on it. Prehistory is Scote's main focus this year, along with finishing up advanced phonics, spelling, and math.

The kids have been watching me plan for weeks so they were very eager to begin, so this is actually our third week doing prehistory. Of course, the term pre-history is misleading, our first two weeks were really focused on Astronomy and Physics. We covered the big bang and birth of universe, gravity and forces, a tiny bit of chemistry, stellar evolution, solar system, what causes day/night etc, and the moon cycles.

This week we began Unit two, which focuses on the birth of the earth... Geology and Earth Sciences. We are in the Hadean Time on our clock of eras and the kids are learning about volcanoes, the composition of the earth, how mountains are made, the types of mountains...and that is just this week!

I am really glad I decided to do this, the kids are really into the science and Scote's writing and narrations are improving dramatically from the daily practice. Once we are done I have no doubt he will be ready for SOTW.

Our Schoolroom

Here you can see the main chunk of our homeschool space, I've posted some better close-ups further down. This is where it all happens. We've got our magnetic markerboard, art shelves, school supply shelves, two bookcases, paper storage (the white converted closet shoe organizers stacked underneith the cardboard book display.)

Right now I am using the display to house our "prehistory" books for this unit. The doubled up black shelves hold all our art supplies, coloring books, how-to-draw books, art books, Child-sized Masterpiece cards, and my teacher supplies (like rubber cement, staples). The two red bins on top hold planning materials, stickers, and rolled up maps.

Our school table and farmhouse chairs are awesome, and rarely empty for long. You can't see it from this angle but there are storage shelves and cubbies underneith full of materials. The larger brown bookcase is the command center where I keep the books we use most often-- Latin, Medieval History, the Spelling Power books, games, and manipulatives, and teacher/homeschool books on top. The smaller black shelf is but one of many in our house and happens to house our religion, last years's history (ancients), and early modern/modern history books.

The skinny metal shelves (under the clock of the eras board and globe) are where I keep a bin of craft supplies and all the workbooks/teacher guides that aren't in the command center.

The black board way on top of my command center is our flannel board, right now we've got our phases of the moon felts and a sorting activity, but pretty soon it will have volcano nomenclature and layers of the earth. One trick I just discovered was to glue some sand on the back of the cards (pictures, whatever you wanted to use) and it sticks perfectly to the flannel. This is much easier than my old felt cutting/gluing routine or running out to buy sandpaper or velcro. We might not have much here in the desert, but we got sand.

Here is our "kinder" room, which is really the back half of a tiny dining area. The pocket chart is great if you've got an emergent/early reader (prek-3rd).

I hate having things spread into two rooms like this but this house is tiny. I can't wait to move and get it all together in one room. What you can't see in this picture is a plastic set of drawers with the lentil science stuff in it, a red leatherette basket with all our music books and small instruments, and our big schoolhouse wall calendar which is affixed to an old markerboard and leaning against the drawers.
The other half of the kinder room, with an old table and usual clutter of early learning stuff, mostly for Ugha but some of the workbooks are Scote's. The posters come in a two pack at the dollar tree, otherwise I'd have done without them.
Below you can see our manipulatives shelves which hold everything from pegboards, the leap pad, and cuisinaire rods to wooden blocks, geoboards, magnets, play money, car games, reading rods and marble tracks.




The weird green yarn/blue star wall display is something new I am trying this year for history, a very basic timeline for keeping track of important people. If you look closely you can see the girl and boy patterns(for male and female biographies as we encounter them) are the only thngs hung up yet, since we are not starting History again until August 1. It should look really cute once the Dodo starts making the costumes.

Thoughts

"Education is not the filling of a bucket,

but the lighting of a fire."

--W.B. Yeats

This is an interesting quote, and one that I have seen interpreted to fit (or belittle) just about any educational method. The unschoolers are fond of this, and interpret it to disparage "rote" learning, which is seen as a teacher pouring knowledge into a student.

This is an interesting interpretation to me, this contempt for formal education in the classical sense, one that on the surface seems completely true, but once you scratch the surface it reeks of nonsense. This point of view assumes that "rote" (ie "memorized, measurable knowledge of come fact or concept") is useless and that children can and will not be able to use or apply this knowledge. So they basically threw out the baby with the bucketwater.

How does one light a fire, albeit a metaphorical one?

Well, I don't know about you, but I would start with something fluffy and soft, something that will catch fire fast and burn hot, in other words, tinder. If all you did for 12 years was amass a huge random pile of this fluff, and lit it with a match your fire might look impressive for a short while, but then it would fizzle down to nothing, with not even enough smoldering embers left to light a new fire. This, to me, is what comes of a completely feel-good, wishy-washy, child-driven education. There is a time for gathering tinder (the early years, say before age 7 or 8), and a time to move on.

So what next?

Kindling, of course.

Our budding little fires are not ready for whole logs yet, so what do we do? We gather small twigs of just the right size, and dried enough to burn easily, although not as easily as the tinder. These have the benefit of burning longer and stronger than our tinder, but our fire is still not complete. In other words, we collect for them stories and ideas, facts and people, and help them absorb these into themselves.

If this fire is for an important purpose, we know we must take care and build a structure of solid hardwoods around it next. We use the best quality we have available, and we don't just throw it on top and smother the tender flames, but strategically place each chunk. At this stage we must watch ever so carefully to see that our fire has a solid start, protected from rain and the elements until it becomes strong enough to devour the wood on its own. This is a step almost completely lacking in modern education, a structure, a pattern, and a solid mass of knowledge.

At this point if the surrounding areas are dry and fire-friendly, our fire can now spread out in ways we never imagined, swallowing whole forests and fields that we might have never even seen ourselves.

So this brings me back to my original point, how can we presume to build a fire out of nothing?

06-07 Master Plan: Part One

Dodo-- 3rd Grade

Our main focuses this year will be Math, Latin, and Spelling.

Reading/Writing/Language Arts are her trump card, and I don't really have to do too much in that department, since she already voraciously reads and comprehends at an late middle school/ early highschool level.

Math is also a strong suit, but I do have to work to give her daily practice and keep her on track and challenged.

Latin is her latest passion, she finished the first 1/3 of Rosetta Stone Latin last year, some of Learning Latin through Mythology and then devoured the Prima Latina in 3 weeks this summer, and she has it all down pat. We've already started (and are enjoying) the LfC.

Spelling is her weakest subject, we did it very casually last year but I decided she needed something more. I chose Spelling Power, hopefully it will do the trick.


Math (daily 30-60 minutes)

*Mastering Mathematics: Finishing Fractions
*Mastering Mathematics: Perfecting the Point
Key to Measurement & Key to Metric System series
Finish Challenge Math Primary
Get a Grip workstation (TOPS)
Hands on Equations
Exploring Geometry and Fractions with Tangrams
Occasional timer test reviews and fact games
No Problem! (problem solving course from Prufrock)
*Saxon 7/6 (if she finishes MM. She already tested into it but I prefer the MM approach first and then the Saxon as a review/test prep)

Social Studies (4x a week, 1 hour)

*Story of the World 2:Middle Ages with AG and (too numerous to list here) supplementary books and kits recommended for the grammar and logic stages, Kingfisher and Usborne History Encyclopedias, some timeline work
Review States/Capitals and US geography periodically
Audio Memory: World Geography w/workbook


Foriegn Languages (5x per week, 30-60 minutes)

*Latin for Children Primer A &B w/DVDs, Activity Book and History Reader
Latina Christiana 1, Activity Book, Book of Roots
the 2nd 1/3 of Rosetta Stone Latin
Hey Andrew! Teach me some Greek Primer & workbook 1
Learning Latin Through Mythology

Language Arts (5x week, 30-90 minutes not including reading)

*Rod and Staff Grammar 4 (mostly oral except diagramming)
*Writing Lab (from Prufrock)
last 1/2 of Writing Strands 3
Writing Like Writers (once in a while)
Writing Blaster /independent free writing
Poetry a'la Carte (Prufrock)
*Spelling Power (Daily)
Descriptive Mysteries

Handwriting Without Tears Cursive Success (4x per week, 10 minutes)

Sciences (4x per week, 30-90 minutes)

*my homemade "Prehistory" cosmic Curriculum
Story of Science 2: Newton at the Center
Biographies of medieval/renaissance scientists and mathematicians


Literature (daily 2-3 hours)

modern literature family study in evenings
medieval literature (continued concentration on world mythology and fairy/folk tales)
daily free reading (at least 1 hour)
Classic & Modern Poetry

Memory Work (daily 15-20 minutes)

poetry selections from the Poetry for Young People Series (Poe, Stevenson, Tennyson, Lear, Carroll, Animals, Seasons)
and subject-related work (Latin, Science, History, Geography)

Religion (TBD)
Story of Religion
Children's Story Bible
KJV Bible
Tankh
My Friends' Beliefs
Buddhist/Hindu stories

Arts & Music (art-- 1x per week, 30-90 minutes, music--daily, 15 minutes)
*Artistic Persuits
Phonics for Piano , misc piano books and music
Child-sized Masterpieces
Drawing With Children

Misc. (TBD)
SpongeBob Typing 2007
Logical Journey of Zoombinis
Mindbenders A3 and A4
Analogies B series software
Dr Funster's Thinkaminutes
Fritz and Chesster 2
assorted enrichment books from Prufrock in all subjects

So we are basically looking at a flexible 4-5 hour day, 8-12, and sometimes an hour or so in the afternoon, which is pretty much the same as we followed this past year. Afternoons are for park days, nature study, hiking, shopping, field trips, swim lessons, gymnastics, library, sand/water table, trampoline, educational videos, self-directed activities, more reading, games, and other big family projects.

Scote's 1st Grade master plan still to come.

~EH