Homeschool Around Here Lately

The last few weeks in our homeschool…

• We just completed week 26.  We’ve schooled 130 days and have 50 more to go.
• We are still loving Sonlight and will use it next year and hopefully the next and the next, etc.  Sonlight is a homeschooler’s and homeschool mama’s dream!
• The two little boys have recently started joining Joe and I in our Sonlight readings each day.  All of them.  Even the chapter read alouds.  Jesse may wander off after a bit, but Jack is all ears for the entire time.  This is wonderful!  Makes me so happy!
• Hanna is halfway through her computer course and I like seeing all that she’s learned with different programs.
• Hanna just completed her art course at our local homeschool academy and made some extraordinary things!  I plan to share them soon.
• Joe still loves to learn and is never happier than when he has a huge daily workload of school assignments.  He’s having a great school year.
• Joe started taking piano in January and has found something he adores and is learning FAST.  He loves his sweet teacher, loves lessons and enjoys playing.  He practices off and on all day.  I love listening to him play.  I am impressed and feel that he’s found one of his talents.  I’m excited for him.
• Jesse is into everything while we school and is a busy, cuddly, chubby legged, snuggly three year old.  His favorite things are puzzles, singing and being read to.
• We made a weather station and it works!  Joe spent a week recording the weather each day.
• Jack started to write!  On his own!  All of a sudden one day he was writing on the dry erase board and Hanna noticed he had written Joe’s name.  We all looked and he had!  He knew what he’d written and I can’t tell you how proud and excited I was.  He wants to learn to read—he informed me of this week before last.
• Firefly Phonics (ordered from Amazon, suggested in Happy Phonics) is the best thing ever!  Jack went from knowing only several letters of the alphabet by recognition to knowing all but several in less than two weeks using it!  I am starting Happy Phonics with him on Monday along with the ETC books and I cannot wait!!!! 
• Joe has learned a lot in Singapore Math…division, multiplication, renaming and carrying and he’s about to start on fractions.  Math is still his favorite subject and he learns so quickly.
• Hanna is working hard this year.  She is learning a lot in the way of writing—research papers, essays, creative writing, poetry.  She’s doing so good and I love seeing her grow.

Here are pictures of all mentioned above.  These pictures of Jack writing, doing his Happy Phonics—they make my heart so happy.  Jack has grown emotionally, intellectually and in maturity by leaps and bounds the last couple months.  To see him doing these things is the best ever!  I am so excited to start teaching him how to read and write. What a blessing to know what my kids are learning, how they are learning it and the fact that we are learning together.  Some of the days are challenging, but aren’t they for all of us?  My homeschooling has nothing to do with my days being hard sometimes.  We all have hard days no matter what we are doing.  What matters most and what determines our happiness is within our hearts, how we think about what we are doing, our attitudes and our decision to change our mindset from “I have to do”, to “I am blessed to do”.  And, I am blessed to homeschool my four healthy, intelligent, creative, sweet, fun children every.single.day. 

Our New School Room

We are moved, settling in and have been back at school for two weeks in our new home.  I wanted to share our new school room because I am just so excited about it!

Jamie and I went to Ikea back near the end of February to get the furniture I’d picked out for it.  We measured the room, made a list online, printed it, dropped the kids off and set out for Ikea!  Many hours later and with a totally loaded down mini van we headed back with our goods. 

Over the next couple weeks Jamie put it all together for me—and he had the blisters to show for it :). Hanna still prefers to work in her room a lot of the time.  It gets a little too loud in the school room sometimes for things like Algebra and higher level science :).  When she does join us she sits at the big table in the middle. 

We love schooling in this room!  It is bright and happy.  Everything has a place and that makes school time much more efficient.  Spreading the boys out in different work spaces instead of around one large table helps so much with teasing, snatching papers, supplies, etc.  I am just so grateful for this space and blessed to spend time schooling my children in it each day.

When I Was Young in the Mountains, FIAR

We rowed this book several weeks ago, but I am just getting around to sharing it.  Once again, another Five in a Row selection that we all enjoyed reading and one that will always have a special place in my heart because of the fun we had learning together.

When I Was Young in the Mountains, by Cynthia Rylant is set in the Appalachian Mountains.  It is about a young boy and girl living with their grandparents (from what I gather) in the mountain country.  They live such a simple life, but it is so full of love, a close knit family, pure happiness and contentment—what matters most.  It is a sweet book and a beautiful story.

We talked about what contentment means and how we can be more content in our own daily lives individually and as a family. 

We looked through the book specifically at the illustrations after one of our readings.  I asked the boys what was different about the way they lived versus our life.  They were quick to point out the old timey things like bathing in a washtub, hauling water from a well, the stove, etc. 

In one illustration of the store you can see a set of scales. Joe was learning about weight in his Singapore math at the time of this row so I thought it would be fun to tie his math in with our FIAR study.  I got out our bucket balance and food scale and had the boys do some weighing and balance activities that were age appropriate for each of them.  There’s some mention of snakes in the book, so I decided we’d focus on snakes a bit in Science (as suggested in the FIAR manual).  We read about different types of snakes in an Apologia Elementary book, read several other snake books and had a hands-on activity about snake eggs.  We talked about their soft, leathery feel versus the hard, smooth feel of a bird’s egg.   We made our own snake egg using vinegar and a chicken egg.  We submerged the egg in vinegar overnight and the next day we had a ‘snake egg’.  The boys thought it was really neat.  After we looked at it and felt it, I cracked it and took the yolk out to show them how a snake egg looks after the baby hatches out.  This was fun. We combined Science and Art and did a fun color palette and mixing activity using M&M’s.  This was such a hit for my chocolate lovin’ Jesse.  He was grinning from ear to ear and pretty much shaking with excitement when he saw me pull out chocolate :).

I used a printable, laminated color wheel with primary and secondary colors, cups, warm water and M&M’s.  We talked about how artists sometimes use only a few main colors and mix them to get many other colors in their illustrations.  Joe was able to tell me what colors we would get as we put our M&M’s in warm water and watched them mix to form new colors.  This was different and really fun.

Joe narrated his own brief version of the story to me:

When I Was Young In South Carolina, by Joe, age 7:

When I was young in South Carolina, I played outside in the treehouse.

When I was young in South Carolina, I liked to read funny books.

When I was young in South Carolina, we slept together in Mom’s room on Friday’s for stay up late night.

When I was young in South Carolina, I liked to go to the beach and swim in the ocean.

When I was young in South Carolina, I liked to eat chicken fingers.

When I was young in South Carolina, I could hear dogs barking, birds singing, my brothers yelling and cars driving.

When I was young in South Carolina, I felt happy.

This was a simple, but fun and meaningful row.  We all enjoyed it…together.  We are taking a short break from rowing and school as we MOVE!  No where far, but still a move and we have lots to do to prepare for it.  When we are all settled in I’ll be back to share our new school room—I am SO excited about it!—and Mr. Gumpy’s Motor Car.

Ideas and Inspiration for When I Was Young in the Mountains:

• Five in a Row Volume 2 Manual
• Mama Jenn’s Color Wheel Candy Experiment
• Delightful Learning’s “When I Was Young In…” story narration

Valentine’s Day Fun

The week of Valentine’s Day I planned a few things for the boys that were Valentine’s themed and fun.  I thought I’d share the highlights of what they did.

For Joe I used a unit from Teachers Pay Teachers.  It consisted of math and literacy centers.  He enjoyed all of it and looked forward to it each day.

For the two little boys I printed a preschool pack and let them work on it throughout the week.  Jack LOVED it!  He did so good!  He is making lots of progress and I can tell he is definitely ready to start more academic learning.  Jesse wasn’t as interested, but that’s ok, I knew he wouldn’t be.  He enjoyed some of the matching games and had fun with play doh, learning toys and arts and crafts. Each of the kids worked on a Valentine’s Day art project.  Hanna and Joe made a collage from That Artist Woman that involved painting with different tools, colors and textures, then cutting their papers apart to form a heart bouquet collage.  They are so pretty. I made a handprint heart picture with Jack. With Jesse, I made a footprint dump truck.   All four kids’ projects are just adorable. It was a fun week!  Next up is our row of When I Was Young in the Mountains.

Lentil, Part Two, FIAR

(January 14-18)  We had just as much fun rowing Lentil the second week as we did our first.  This was a very fun book and provided for lots of learning along the way. 

Week two we studied about patriotism and the history of the US flag.  We learned about the origin of it, Betsy Ross, George Washington and what the stars and stripes represent.  I used lessons from I Love America for this.

Jack and Jesse made watercolor tape resist flags.  Here is Jack’s: Jesse’s: Now, I had this awesome art lesson picked out for Joe using charcoals and still life, but we ended up having such a busy week that ended with sick kids so it didn’t happen.  We will definitely have to do it in the future.  Joe loves to draw and does so often—here is a picture from the week that he drew.  He calls it (for what reason I have no idea!) “The Exterminator”.We went to the State House to see historical monuments just like in the book.  Hanna and Joe read all of the inscriptions and plaques around the grounds.  Hanna learned a few new things, but Joe was in heaven reading and learning all the new facts about the history of our state.  He was especially fascinated with the bronze stars placed on the state house walls where cannon balls struck during the Civil War.  He was SO excited to find one low enough to actually touch. I’m glad we were able to get this little trip in before the kids got sick.  They had such a good time and learned so much.  It was a fun.  The rest of the week we spent doing our Sonlight lessons and reading lots and lots of books about our state, the flag and America.Next up—When I was Young in the Mountains, Five in a Row, Volume 2.

Our Homeschool Fun’s Inspiration for Rowing Lentil:

Five in a Row Volume 1 manual

The Crafty Classroom