Fireside

First day of school 2011

2011-09-30T11:16:00.004-05:00

Well, it's almost a month late, but I had to put our traditional first day of school pics for 2011 here! I love to click on "first day fun" and look back over the years. Crazy.

The annual Diet Coke and Mentos explosion....

Back to school celebration!

Cookie from Grammy and Grandpa.

We kinda like our traditions. :)

Snowflake Bentley

2011-01-20T11:14:00.006-06:00

We just completed Five in A Row's Snowflake Bentley. It's a sweet biography about William Bentley and his quest to photograph snowflakes.

We learned about a lot about Vermont, old-time photography, Caldecott Medal winners, negative space, and hexagons. We learned about crystals, weather, perseverance, and sacrifice. We learned about the miracle of snowflakes and were overwhelmed at how incredibly creative our God is. We learned about sun dogs. Do you know about sun dogs? I had never heard of this phenomenon. It's very cool!

We used these directions to make our own crystal snowflakes.

We even got enough snow to go out with our mini microscopes and examine some close up.

And of course, we had hot chocolate when we came in.
What a great book and great memories. Two things that make learning fun and meaningful!

Catalog Math

2011-01-06T13:04:00.004-06:00

Last night when Cole was supposed to be asleep, he was in bed looking through his new Lego catalog, adding up what it would cost to buy everything listed. He is a bit obsessed with all things Lego.

This gave me a great idea today. I am going to make word problems for him to do using his Lego catalog. By doing these problems he will not only be practicing math, but he will have to use reading and problem solving skills as he looks for each item and reads through the descriptions to get information.

The options are endless, and you could even work in shipping costs and tax.

Here are some of the questions I have come up with so far.

-If you lined up the Police Helicopter, Police Boat, and Police Station, how many inches of space would you need?

-What would it cost to order 4 Ninja Training Outposts?

-If you had $35 and you ordered the Log Cabin, how much would you have left?

-What is the total number of pieces in the Tower Bridge and Fire Brigade?

-If you stacked King's Castle and Outpost Attack on top of each other, how tall would it be?

-If you had $300 and you ordered Diagon Alley and Rockefeller Center, how much would you have left?

You get the idea. I think I will do the same with the American Girl catalog for Riley.

It's an easy way to teach higher level thinking and real life application!

Little Nino's Pizzeria and The Salamander Room

2010-10-11T10:40:00.009-05:00

Riley and Cole just finished the Five in a Row book Little Nino's Pizzeria. We spent the week learning about everything from relationships, to communication, to family businesses, to the homeless, to homonyms, to symbolism, and a lot of stuff in between! At the end, Riley and Cole made their own pizzeria. They combined their names and called it RiCo's. Their pizza was delicious!

They also recently finished The Salamander Room. This was a wonderful study that really brought out our love of nature!

This week was all about science. We learned all about the classifications in the animal kingdom and the life cycles of salamanders and frogs. Riley and Cole each researched salamanders and wrote a report on them.

We enjoyed a really fun nature scavenger hunt, and we found a great environment in nature to sit and read the book. We wrapped up the week by making salamander dioramas!

I love the richness the Five in Row activities give to books!

History rocks.

2010-09-29T14:03:00.000-05:00

History. I hated it when I was in school. I never learned a thing. Dry boring facts to memorize until two seconds post-test when they vanished into thin air.

I know that wasn't everyone's experience, but that was history to me. We definitely wanted something different for our kids. I refuse to waste their time with dry, boring facts.

Garrett started American history last semester. Although we will be spending more time on it than a lot of people would, we are incorporating literature and composition as well, so it's more than just history. I am very excited about it! We are using this book.

It has each stage in history and an extensive book list to go with the time periods, or people, or events. The book lists are divided into age groups as well, so if you are studying with different ages, you can get books on the same topic for everyone's level. The books are trusted, previewed, living books.

We started with Columbus and we've worked our way up to the Civil War. This year we will work through to the present. With each stage in history, we discuss what is going on during the specific time using summaries from this book. He then reads a biography or novel about the time period. As he reads the books, he either outlines the chapters on his computer (preparing for note-taking in college level courses), or he writes a summary or an extensive paper (allowing us to work on composition and grammar).

Reading biographies takes the dry facts that textbooks present and brings them to life! It's hard to get excited about memorizing dates and event names, but when you start to read about what really happened, all the gritty, messy details, you can't help getting roped in!

This style of learning history gives us the opportunity to learn about why things happened. To learn about the character behind certain leaders and how they became who they were.

I have a choice as I teach history. I can have my kids memorize the dates of the events that transpired during, let's say, the leadership of George Washington. Or I can use the opportunity to dive into a book like "The Bulletproof George Washington". Here is a summary:

Colonial George Washington's perilous experiences in the French and Indian War are chronicled in this riveting account of God's providence and protection. The only officer on horseback to avoid being shot down, young Washington openly attributed his miraculous escape from harm to the intervention of a sovereign God.

Now that's history that won't be forgotten.

We are also incorporating English literature into our history as we read classics that go along with the time period we are studying. This year we will read The Red Badge of Courage, The Jungle, To Kill a Mockingbird, Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, and The Grapes of Wrath, to name a few. Right now we are reading Uncle Tom's Cabin since we are coming upon our Civil War study. Wow, classic literature takes on a whole new meaning when you are studying the time period alongside it.

As we read our books, we bring in quality videos whenever possible. We have been enjoying America, The Story of Us. And we will be watching Ken Burns' Civil War as we move into that event. I can't wait!

One of our educational goals is to enrich character through exposure to great literature and inspirational people.

We think history is the perfect place to put this goal into action.

Parkschooling

2010-09-27T19:17:00.001-05:00

This morning when we started school we were all talking about how happy we were that it was so cool it was outside. We kept looking out the window and making comments. And then we figured out that, duh, we should be outside. So we packed it all up, made some lunches, and headed to the park with what felt like enough bags for a week-long trip.

We found the perfect spot, put down our blankets and bags and picked up where we left off at home! There's just something more inspiring about working outside under the sun with the cool breeze.I put my coffee mug on the grass so I wouldn't spill it on the blanket, because I am brilliant.Of course.

We all need a change of scenery every once in a while. It always seems like being outside refreshes things. We always get a lot done.

Doing school outside is not without it's risks...

But who's scared of a little beetle poop?

Not us.

The Bee Tree and Septemberfest

2010-09-13T15:54:00.000-05:00

Last week Riley and Cole did Five in A Row's The Bee Tree. We learned about everything from the life cycle of bees, to the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan, to onomatopoeia, to analogies, and lots in between!

To finish off our book, I wanted to make some honey treats and go to a bee farm. I called a bee farm and found out they would be at Septemberfest. Septemberfest opened up a whole new experience for us! If you haven't been, it's free and amazing. They have all kinds of exhibits, living history actors, inflatables, and lots of other activities on the Governor's lawn. It was a great time!

Making Peanut butter honey balls

The bee exhibit at Septemberfest. They told us all about harvesting honey.

A chuck wagon!

Waiting in line to tour the Governor's mansion...

Their dining room

Their Oklahoma shaped swimming poolThe panhandle is a hot tub.

Tyler and George Washington Carver

Sawing logs
Everyone got to milk a cow!

Petting Kim Henry's dog
It was a great day!

Crime scene in my bathroom

2010-09-06T10:00:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite things about homeschooling is being able to tailor education. If a child is particularly interested in a certain topic, I can take that topic and cover a multitude of subjects and lessons with it. They stay engaged, because they are interested.

Tyler has been interested in forensics and crime scene stuff for a while. This year we are doing a huge CSI unit. It's going to be so much fun! Through it he will learn all about forensics, obviously. But he will also practice math and reasoning, do a lot of research and writing, not to mention problem solving and creative thinking. I could cover these subjects in lots of ways, but why not use an avenue he is already interested in and intrigued by?

We are going through this book of forensic labs. It teaches how to lift fingerprints, how to interpret blood splatters, how to take an impression, along with lots of other crime scene activities.

We are reading through this DK Eyewitness book. I love these books. They are so full of information and great photos.

Today we talked about securing the crime scene. Tyler read all about the importance of details and how carefully all evidence is collected. He learned about how each piece of evidence is marked, measured, sketched and recorded.
Then he opened the door to a crime scene in our bathroom *cue creepy music*. He had everything he needed to secure and record the scene.

Gasp! A movie ticket??
Ewww...a "blood" splatter...and a hair.
Zoinks! A footprint!

After collecting, measuring, sketching, and recording everything, he went to work problem-solving. He wrote about each piece of evidence and the different ways it could possibly be used to help solve the crime.It's going to be a fun study! More to come!

Annnnnnd, we're back!

2010-09-02T20:24:00.000-05:00

Here are few shots from our first day. Of course we had to explode some diet Coke. And Grammy and Grandpa sent a cookie. Some things never change!

I have plans to post some of what we have going on, some reviews on books I love to use, and some ideas we find helpful.

I also want to share some of our techniques for teaching our big kids. High School is fun! We have a great year ahead so check back!

Garrett saw a diet Coke/Mentos rocket online, so we tried it out.

It shot across the road!

See ya soon!

Hello Spring!

2010-04-06T11:45:00.001-05:00

We love spring. Who doesn't? It's all dewy and fresh and everywhere you look, God is painting pictures of renewal.

Nature walks are perfect times to combine so many important things in one fun, natural activity. Listening, writing, science, observation, drawing, discussion, appreciation of God and beauty, fun quality time...the list goes on!

Today we downloaded this Spring Nature Walk Senses Scavenger Hunt from a blog I found, and headed out to the yard to enjoy the beautiful weather and look for the things on our list. http://blissfullydomestic.com/2008/free-spring-nat

Enjoy your Spring!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

2009-11-24T12:22:00.000-06:00

Finishing up Italy

2009-10-13T17:25:00.000-05:00

We finished our study on Italy. We wrapped it up with a trip to the museum to see an exhibit that had Italian landscapes. I would show you pictures of that, but we learned that pictures were not permitted (me). Neither were cell phones (David). Or leaning against the wall (Riley). Or breathing. But I did get some pictures in the rest of the Art Museum of Oklahoma City! The glass art was definitely my favorite!

Pop art was a close second.

Riley looking at a painting of the Grand Canal in Venice. Just like in Papa Piccolo! Even the reflections were similar.

Glass art in the ceiling.

Garrett pretending to be introspective.
I love love LOVE big canvases.

One of the things we learned about when studying Italy and the Renaissance was how masks were very important. It was a time of a rebirth of art and masks were used as art and in drama. We each made our own "life masks." These are masks covered with pictures and words that represent the person.

We started by putting paper mache over half of a gallon jug turned upside down.

They took forever to dry...

After the newspaper dried we put one more layer of white paper over the top. When that was dry, we painted the background, then mod podged all of the words and pictures we had found in magazines to represent our personalities.

Tyler's...

Riley's...

Garrett's...

Cole's...

Mine...

Like my sushi nose? Thank you.

This was a really fun project! On to France!

Italy

2009-10-03T20:29:00.000-05:00

We are going to be studying different countries and cultures at our house this year. For the month of September we chose Italy. We aren't quite finished, so it's going to spill into October a bit, too.

We have used the book Another Trip Around the World to learn facts about the country, Italian expressions, and culture.

We are doing a lot of Geography as we explore the different areas of the country.

Riley and Cole have done the Five In a Row books Papa Piccolo, and The Clown of God, both which take place in Italy. These books are so great for learning about the Renaissance time period and seeing clothes and scenes in Italy.

We even checked out some Italy travel books so we could look through and see all of the amazing tourist spots and different culture.

Garrett and Tyler have read biographies on Michelangelo and DaVinci and written papers.

We have really enjoyed the "Get to know the worlds greatest artists" series as we have studied Italian artists.

We learned about DaVinci's childhood and how he spent most of it roaming the land, sketching everything he could. One of the reasons his angels are so realistic is because of his extensive study and sketching of birds' wings. We spent some time outside observing and sketching.

Garrett read a biography on Michelangelo and presented it to us after writing a paper. It was so interesting learning all of the details and getting a glimpse into his life through a biography as opposed to reading facts about him in a textbook.

One thing Garrett learned is that Michelangelo possibly stood during a lot of his time as he painted the Sistine Chapel. He even wrote some poems and drew some sketches about how painful it was. We had always heard he was on his back on the scaffolding, so we did some research and found out that there are conflicting theories on this. Who knew!

We got this HUGE amazing book with close-ups of his work on the Sistine Chapel, then we tried to experience what it may have been like for him to paint upside down.

Another book we got from the library was an authentic Italian cookbook. We planned out and cooked a REAL LIVE Italian feast. We had Spaghetti Carbonara, homemade mozzerella breadsticks, and Italian Cassata. It was sooooo good!

This was the first time I had used pancetta. It's Italian bacon. Amazing.

Spaghetti Carbonara!

The Italian Cassata was fun to make too.

We set the table with all things fancy and even listened to Italian Opera while we cooked and ate. So not us, but a cool experience!

Cole and Riley singing along with the opera. Nice Italian chocolate mustache, no? (That's moo-stahsh)

Riley and Cole were so inspired by the feast and music they asked David to read The Clown of God to them at the table.

We have more Italy planned for the coming week, so stay tuned!

It happened again.

2009-09-20T22:14:00.000-05:00

We love books.

We have gazillions of them. I just believe that if we need to learn about Thomas Edison, we can do that so much better with a biography of his life than anything else. I want my kids surrounded by great literature. But last week something happened that just about put me over the edge. It has happened before, and it happened again.

I once again bought a book I already owned.

This experience sent me on a crazed organizational venture.

Yesterday Riley and I pulled hundreds of books off of their shelves. We separated them into piles according to subject. We had piles for Historical events and people, Artists, Animals, Science, Five in a Row, and Geography.

Some time ago, some brilliant homeschool mom gave me the idea of color-coding books. And that's what we did. On all of the books about geography- countries, states, etc. we stuck a yellow label at the bottom of the spine. We did a different color for each subject.

As we put the labels on, I quickly typed the title onto a list.

Now I have a list of every reference type book that we own. Every biography, every space book, every whale book, all of it.

I put each subject list in a page protector and I hung them all next to the shelf. At a glance I can see what we have! And I put extra labels in the page protector so I can easily stick them on new books.

Now whenever we finish a book, it gets stuck back on the shelf with it's coordinating color. You can easily glance at the books and notice if a book is in the wrong place because the color will not match the rest. Even if they happen to get mixed up, it will be a breeze to put them back where they belong.

So no more trying to search through a sea of book spines to see if we have any books on Helen Keller. Or weather.

No more reserving Five in a Row books at the library because I forgot I had it on my shelf.

.

Isn't it pretty?

And it's easy enough that even a preschooler could get the books back where they belong.

Ahhhhh...color-coding.

Color-coding=peace.

Lentil

2009-09-04T16:39:00.000-05:00

Riley and Cole did Lentil by Robert McCloskey for Five In A Row this week. We had fun with this book!

We learned how to whittle, like Old Sneep in the book. Garrett and Tyler joined us for that.

I surprised Riley and Cole with toy harmonicas. They had fun playing with them and we used them to learn about acoustics by comparing the sound in the room, then in the shower.

All of the illustrations in the book were done with charcoal, so we did some experimenting with charcoal and smearing.

Of course we had to have some fun with lemons, since they are a big part of the book! We had a lemon tasting. Only rule? You have to take a big bite and slurp. No wussin' out. Here's how that played out...

Again, what's with the aversion to shirts? We have them. Lots of them.

Then we made lemon slushes with our lemon juice and a LOT of sugar...

Much betta...

Man! Sideways picture. And I'm not changing it now. I'm just not.

One of the themes of this book is practicing and becoming an expert at something. Riley and Cole have wanted a recorder since last year when my niece learned to play one in school. I bought these at Walmart for $10 each. They came with a step-by-step book on how to play. They are so excited! It's going to be fun to learn.

It was a fun week of learning about geography, social studies, human relationships, elements of a story, art, music, taste buds, patriotism and sound waves and falling in love with a new book.

Our first day 2009

2009-08-31T23:12:00.001-05:00

Today was our first day of school for the year. We had a great time, and it was so much fun to get huddled back together and spend the day focused on what our year holds.

Garrett and I started American history. We are so excited about this! We are reading biographies and working our way through important events and people, starting with Columbus.

Riley and Cole are starting Astronomy, which is going to be so much fun with the Apologia book. Lots of cool experiments and projects in there! They are also doing Lentil from Five in a Row this week.

Tyler started some "How stuff works" type science and was typing away on his computer about some discoveries he made. He is also reading a George Washington Carver biography and doing a Beyond Five in a Row unit with that.

We are all going to be doing "Around the World" together this year. We are starting with Italy, and looked at some travel books today. Tomorrow we will explore the life of Leonardo Da Vinci. We will also be reading some Michelangelo and Galileo biographies, doing some authentic Italian cooking, and studying Italian art, history, and architecture. Stay tuned for more on Italy!

And, as always, we did our diet Coke/Mentos experiment. It has become tradition to do this every year on the first day. I guess it's kinda like our version of first day fireworks or something. Honestly, I don't see the getting-doused-with-Diet-Coke thing wearing out anytime soon. Being in the middle of a huge mess just never goes out of style for these particular kids. We did it 6 times.

We don't gots to wear no shirts or shoes in our homeschool. Ain't no dress code here.

Here's what Cole wrote in his journal today. He's right. We do always "Coke experiment."

Grammy and Grandpa had a cookie made to ring in the new school year...

And because clearly we are fans of the traditions, we ended our day by meeting David at Incredible Pizza. Just like our very first year. And second year. And third year.

I seriously can not even believe I get to do this with these kids. I am so very blessed.

Bat Caves!

2009-08-31T00:49:00.001-05:00

Our final Planet Earth field trip! We finished studying caves a while ago, but just last weekend were able to do our field trip. This one was great fun because we not only got to go with friends, but most of our extended family went as well.
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This was on property that is owned by friends of David's parents. David explored these caves as a child. David's dad grew up just down the road from the property and spent his childhood exploring them as well. We did a lot of wading through creeks to get to our destinations!

The caves were long and narrow in some places!

Here we are after getting all the way through the first cave.

To say this was not a clean field trip would be a huge understatement.

Grace's OU headlamp.

Deciding where to go next...

Taking a roasted hot dog and s'more break!

The water cave...

It was a perfect day! We saw only a few bats, which was ok with me. We had so much fun exploring and experiencing REAL caves.

Fresh Water!

2009-07-30T11:20:00.001-05:00

We are still wrapping up our Planet Earth studies. We wanted to wait until it was really warm to go to Turner Falls, a 70 foot natural water fall in the Arbuckle Mountains, to end our Fresh Water study. It was fun!

I never claimed to be above bribery

2009-07-03T11:01:00.001-05:00

It's just a fact. Reading makes you smart. Another fact? With all the free time in the summer, so much reading could be done that brains could start to expand to the point of oozing out of ears. That's what we are going for here. Seriously, it's really important to me that they are reading.

Everyone got off to a great start at the beginning of summer, but then things kinda started winding down and reading started tapering off a bit. So I decided to start a reward system.

For 1 chapter book or 100 pages, you can treat yourself to some delicious mini candy bars, or have a party in your mouth with these pop rocks.

For the bargain price of 2 chapter books, or 200 pages, you can be the proud owner of some adorable mini notepads, some refreshing gum, an assortment of wacky jelly bellies, or a roll of endless-potential-duct tape.

How about 3 books or 300 pages? Refresh yourself with a FUZE, or indulge in some Hazelnut Piroulines. Or how about a trendy notebook or some thrilling party poppers? Douse your friends and coworkers with this ca-RAZY silly string, or hide in a closet and eat this jumbo Symphony bar. ...oh wait, that's me.

And if you are a saver? For 5 chapter books or 500 pages, you could be the proud owner of a lovely hibiscus tote, a cuddly plush shark, a set of artist brushes, or a clip-on LED spotlight. Also in here are certificates for a one-on-one trip to starbucks or for ice cream.

Do I have to bribe my kids?

No, they like to read.

Is it worth the cost of prizes to light a fire under them and get them to voluntarily read in their free time, increasing their reading levels over the summer?

Of course.

Is it really obnoxious when people ask themselves questions and then answer them?

Absolutely.

Have a great summer.

End of the year

2009-07-03T10:49:00.001-05:00

Every summer when we finish our school year, we have an open house for our grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. We put out some of the kids' favorite projects from the year. Everyone looks at all we've done, we have a slide show of our pictures, Cole recounts to the group every second of every detail of every day, then we eat dessert. It's a fun wrap-up to our year!

Olympic Day!

2009-07-03T10:34:00.000-05:00

If you don't do Homeschool Olympic Day, you should! It's so much fun. Put it on your plan for next year. Click here to find out more about it.

A little science on the fly

2009-05-07T22:35:00.000-05:00

On a recent long lunch at the lake with our friends, we came across some unexpected science.

Yikes.

Immediately Cole was requesting that our next study be on snakes. Gulp. So we went to the library and checked out lots of snake books. We have been learning so much about snakes (sorry Grammy)! We found books with tons of amazing photos and interesting information. Each day we have read a book or two, reviewed fun new facts, discussed new vocabulary words we find in the books, and just for fun, made crafts I found by googling "snake crafts."

These were made from a paper plate.

These were made from old ties, stuffing, and coat hangers.

Then today we came upon more unexpected science. Apparently a bird or something grabbed a perch out of our pond and lost him as he flew away. The kids found the newly dead perch on the shore and wanted to dissect it.

And because I was off my game due to the stifling humidity, I couldn't come up with a reason why we shouldn't participate in this smelly activity, so we dug in. (I know, dug in, that was good, right?)

We investigated his mouth and how it expands, we propped it open and looked at the tongue and all of the teeth. We did some in depth eye exploration *shudder*. We neatly sliced the side of him open and found his air bladder. The air bladder is the pocket that allows the fish to be buoyant (among other things). And no, I certainly did not know this until today. And we marveled once again at God's creativity.

It was definitely gross. But fun! And it ended in a big water hose fight. You can't beat that.

This is the kind of natural learning that sticks with you!

More on writing

2009-04-29T13:19:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite ways to teach writing/grammar is by letting my kids have their own blogs. We are fairly new at it and I pretty much allow them to write about whatever they want. I don’t edit or make suggestions on content because I feel like the more they own the writing, the more they will get out of it. I want this to be something they desire to do for fun. I don’t always correct spelling in the beginning, but as they mature in their writing, we discuss correct spelling more.

Yesterday with blogging we were able to discuss and practice writing directions, contractions, when to spell out number words, compound words, and capitalizing brand names. And it was all done in a natural way just from what they had chosen to write about. No worksheets that will be forgotten tomorrow, but real learning that meant something to them because it improved their creation.

The novelty of blogging encourages their writing. It’s fun to add pictures and to see the work appear on their own page instantly, knowing friends and family will be reading it soon. The feedback they receive makes it worth the effort! They love to get comments. And the thought of publishing for other people provides just enough awareness to make them a little more conscious of how they are writing. It’s a great tool! It’s fun and free and is only available to those who are invited to view the blog. I think it's also going to be a great keepsake for them.

On that scary grammar subject...

2009-04-20T22:50:00.000-05:00

I've had several questions recently about what we use to teach grammar. We don't use a formal grammar program at this point and I don't predict we ever will. We learn grammar and sentence structure through reading and writing. The more they read, the more natural it is for them to form sentences and use words correctly. This spills over into their writing as well.

Instead of having a two day lesson on, say, quotation marks, we instead point them out each time we notice them as we read. From early on we discuss when to use them and what they mean in passing conversation. This method seems to stick with them a lot better than if we sat down and had a one-time formal lesson on it.

I've found that if I will just let them write, they will present themselves with every grammar lesson in existence. Riley has been writing a story called "Meet Riley, American Girl." I let her type her little heart out with no suggestions or guidance from me. After she got all of her thoughts on the screen, I broke her story into small segments for us to edit together. We will be doing a couple of paragraphs a day, which I copy and paste into another document so it doesn't look so long and intimidating.

During this process we are naturally able to learn and review many aspects of language. She has a lot of dialogue in her story, so today we were able to review where to use quotation marks, and we learned how to use capitalization and punctuation with the quotation marks.

She had a couple of different tenses, so we discussed keeping our stories in one tense only. Same thing with writing in first person only if that is what you chose in the beginning.

Also today we learned about using commas when listing.

And we learned about when to spell out a number and when to use the numeral (I had to call David to be 100% sure on this one. You don't have to be a language arts master to be able to teach great writing, you just have to be able to find the answer).

All of these lessons presented themselves in just a couple of paragraphs of her own creative writing. And the kicker was when she later went on to work on another story, she was correctly using the new information she gained today. Score!

I do the same thing with my older kids, except more in depth. This technique may not be neatly packaged in a checklist form, but it stays with them. It works!

Samantha-American Girl History

2009-04-14T13:39:00.000-05:00

For the past several weeks Riley and I have been learning about the early 1900s through the American Girl Samantha books. We are having so much fun with this. We have been reading about all of the progress in the "age of confidence," and how it was good for the wealthy people and bad for the poor (did you know kids as young as three years old worked 12 hour days in factories???). We are learning about Theodore Roosevelt, and about suffragists. About immigrants and Ellis Island. I love these books!

In addition to our reading, we've been doing some cooking and art from the early 1900s.

We made corn oysters.

And Apple Brown Betty.

We cut out Samantha paper dolls and acted out some scenes from the books with them.

In Happy Birthday Samantha we read about Samantha making her favorite ice cream, peppermint. So we crushed some peppermints and made ice cream in ziploc bags.

Hmmm...suddenly everyone is interested in American Girl History.

Silhouettes were a popular art during that time. We traced Riley's shadow and made one for her wall. I'm going to get one of those scrapbook frames to put it in.

We are learning so much through this and making some really fun memories, too!

Practicing spelling words

2009-04-09T11:04:00.001-05:00

'Cause sometimes paper is just boring.

It's slightly reminiscent of potty training

2009-03-24T14:07:00.000-05:00

Remember back in the day when you may have given your potty apprentice a little incentive for toilet use? Perhaps an M&M, or a jelly bean? Well I had an idea to revisit that today. Except for vocabulary words.

It seems like writing new vocabulary words and their definitions just isn't cutting it. They aren't sinking in for real-life purposes like I want them to. The whole point of learning new words is to use them, not to write them and forget them a week later. That's not learning.

So starting today, in an attempt to spark a little more effort in really learning, every time someone uses one of their vocabulary words in a real, relevant, pertaining-to-the-conversation sentence, they are going to get a chocolate kiss.

And maybe a real kiss too, if I'm really impressed.

Just thought I'd share. Can't hurt. Might help. I'll let you know.

Because chocolate matters,
Deleise

Mountains

2009-03-18T15:46:00.001-05:00

We have been learning about mountains with our Planet Earth DVD. This week we wrapped up our research and papers with a trip with friends to the Wichita Mountains. We went to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. It was great! They have a museum there that we weren't even expecting, and we did a lot of exploring.

lunch on the lake.

We found a log beavers had chewed on.

Mountain exploration!

Checking out the museum.

Riley and Cole did the Five In A Row book "When I Was Young In the Mountains" by Cynthia Rylant to go along with our mountain study. In the book the little girl talks about hearing a bobwhite. At the museum they had a stuffed bobwhite and you could push a button and hear its call. Score!

The story takes place in the Appalachian Mountains, so we learned a lot about them. I got an idea from the Five In a Row message boards to make this cake, complete with tiny chocolate Appalachians. I don't think any of us will ever forget where the Appalachian Mountains are! We are moved by chocolate, we are.

We also made a mural of the mountains and animals that live there.

Good times!

Ahhhhhhhhh....

2009-03-09T13:17:00.000-05:00

I love that Spring is here. I am patiently awaiting the green. We really enjoy doing some of our work outside when the weather is oh-so-perfect, like it has been lately.

Something about the peaceful breeze and the fresh air and the sound of birds makes the backyard a perfect learning environment. If you're needing to change things up a bit, head outside! It gives you a whole new perspective! We did our "independent work" outside today.

Money fun

2009-03-05T12:42:00.000-06:00

One thing that still catches me off guard is how simple it is to teach when you are just working with one or two kids instead of a whole classroom. When it was time to teach Riley and Cole about adding money I approached it with a classroom setting method. Write the numbers, look at pictures of coins and add them together, blah, blah, blah.

Then it hit me. Hello? I want them to learn how to add money so they can, you know, add money. So we ditched the math book and dumped out a big stash of coins that David may or may not use for poker.

The difference in touching and sorting and adding real coins was no comparison to the workbook sheet we had started with. It made it real.

After playing with and adding the coins, we moved on a did the original worksheet. It was a breeze after the real life experience.

It's always better with the real thing!

A fun place to put all the art

2009-02-28T23:17:00.000-06:00

I love this idea for a rotating art display. My sister-in-law made this for their hallway to display her preschooler's work. These aren't great pictures because I couldn't get directly in front of it, but I think you will get the idea.

She painted the boards and nailed them to the wall, then attached the large clips. Or maybe she attached the clips then nailed them to the wall. Pictures can easily be changed out whenever they like.

I think it is wonderful. I plan on copying her and putting a much smaller version on Riley and Cole's walls so we can ditch the masking tape mess we have going on in there now.

How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World

2009-02-23T11:40:00.000-06:00

We just finished the Five in a Row unit, How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman. What a fun book! It's about a little girl who wants to make an apple pie, but her market is closed, so she goes all around the world collecting the ingredients where they are grown.

We learned SO much geography this week. We also spent a lot of time learning directions on the map.

We filled our notebooks with information about 6 different countries, vocabulary words, and French street art.

In the story the little girl goes to France for an egg, but decides to take a chicken instead because of the risk of breaking the egg. We did an experiment to see how long we could keep an egg whole. Riley and Cole had to carry an egg (in a ziploc) with them everywhere they went, trying to keep it from breaking. They even had to take it when they went outside to play. The first night, David layed on Cole's egg on his bed, so I gave him a new one because he was so heartbroken.

On the last day, I hid ingredients around the house in all six "countries" and gave Riley and Cole directions (North, South, East, West) to find them.

After they collected the ingredients, we made the apple pie from the recipe in the book.

Fun!

Ice Worlds

2009-02-12T12:55:00.000-06:00

We have finished up Ice Worlds from our Planet Earth DVDs. Garrett and Tyler ended up trailing off into an iceberg and shipwreck study. We went to the shipwreck exhibit at the Science museum.

We saw some great artifacts recovered from shipwreck sights.We got to play with the mechanical arm they use to retrieve items when they explore shipwrecks at the bottom of the ocean.And we got to get inside the "hurricane tunnel." It simulated hurricane winds. It blew all of my kids' curly hair STRAIGHT!

We also learned a lot about different arctic animals and did some activities and crafts.

You can find the directions for these cute little guys here.

We even got a little ice and snow during our unit so we were able to look at some snowflakes through our tiny portable microscopes (these things are so great for nature walks) . Have you ever done that? Snowflakes are amazing! What a fun unit.

I smell spring

2009-02-09T00:13:00.000-06:00

It has been so warm here and the spring-like weather is supposed to continue through the week. This is making me crave some nature studies. We have done some nature stuff this winter, but it's just not quite as much fun.
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I came across these photos when I was doing some picture organizing last night. I took these last fall from Cole's bedroom window as he sat on the deck and sketched the autumn all around him. They inspired me to get out this week and enjoy our surroundings. Even if it rains.

Anyone else planning on some outside school this week?

Just go with it

2009-02-03T11:40:00.000-06:00

I like themes. I just do. It makes me feel happy when things go together.

I love unit studies and honestly think kids learn better with them. It just seems natural to learn about things that are related to one another. The downfall is I am certain that sometimes I am a little too focused and this probably causes me to miss out on learning opportunities because "we aren't studying that right this very minute." What? The president of the United States is next door? Awww...too bad we are in the middle of a volcano unit...I guess we'll pass.

Alright, I'm not that bad, but I do admit that I could use some work in the area. Following my kids' lead even if it does take us off topic, usually results in some amazing learning experiences.

Since I have been more conscious of this lately, I seized the moment when Cole excitedly brought me a magazine with a picture of a walking stick bug. I admit, there was a part of me deep down that had a little anxiety attack because BUGS? That's for spring! It's winter! Stop the anarchy! But I kept it inside and dug into the topic with him.

We read everything we could find about them. We learned that they moult and eat their skin for the protein. We learned that if they lose a leg, no worries, they grow another one. We learned that they sway like the wind when they move so they are not only looking like sticks, but acting like them. Then we spent forever online looking at different camouflaged insects. By now we had several other participants looking with us. We marveled at how amazing God is that he could be so creative and care so much for something so small.

Then we headed out for a nature hunt to find the perfect sized sticks to make our own walking stick bugs.

It was an incredible learning experience. One that would have been missed if I would have stuck to my agenda or if I only did things that I planned.

Bugs have nothing to do with Antarctica. And I'm okay with that.

My name is Deleise. I'm a recovering themoholic.

I'm scared.

2009-01-30T11:57:00.001-06:00

I didn't go to co-op with my kids today because I am getting ready to go to a homeschool conference for the weekend. I just got this picture of Garrett and his friend emailed to me from co-op.

So good to know there is some deep learning going on in my absence. His hair! Oh my word, his hair. Ouch.

UPDATE:

Apparently they saved his hair and have now added a cape.

Ahhh...the richness of a good education.

Love,

SuperG's mom

Another good one...

2009-01-23T11:46:00.000-06:00

It must be remembered that the purpose of education is not to fill the minds of students with facts... it is to teach them to think... and always to think for themselves.-- Robert Hutchins

The "trickle down" effect

2009-01-19T15:48:00.000-06:00

Have you heard this term before? Not relating to economics, but to education. I remember hearing it when I first started researching homeschooling, but I didn't give it much thought. The trickle down effect is when kids seem to learn what their older brothers and sisters are learning even if they are just kind of hanging around. You know, the information trickles down. I am definitely seeing it come into play at our house. Usually it is small stuff, but a few days ago it was a little bigger.

We are doing Ice Worlds with Planet Earth right now. Riley and Cole are doing some fun stuff on ice bergs, penguins and other arctic animals. Garrett and Tyler are taking it a bit deeper, learning pretty detailed information about ice bergs and doing an in depth study on the Titanic.

Well, the other day Cole came in and told me he wanted to write a story about the Titanic. I wondered what he could have possibly absorbed, I mean it is all kind of over his head and I hadn't directed any of the study toward his grade level, after all. We sat down and I typed as he dictated what he wanted me to write. Here is what he said.

This is the Titanic book.

It sunk because they thought it was unsinkable, but they didn’t get that right. They thought wrong. There was a big iceberg and the bottom of the ship cracked open on the iceberg and it got filled with water.

The Titanic was sinking and when one tip of it was going up, it cracked into two pieces.

They were building it really fast and they accidentally built someone inside of it.

They let the ladies and kids go on the lifeboats first. Most of the dads had to stay on the Titanic and die. Some of the men jumped off the boat to swim away, but they died when they were swimming because the water was too cold .

They wanted the kids and moms to live so they let themselves die. In the last minute they let down the life boats and some of the men wanted to get on, but they couldn’t get on them. It was too late, there was no more.

Some people who were explorers, after it sunk, went down in the ocean to look for it. They saw all the plates, and a black bag. There was a lot of money inside the black bag and some gold watches and a ton of jewelry.

The people were trying to find the very bottom and at the bottom of it was 2 stories. They had one more dive down to the sea and in the last dive they found the whole piece of the bottom of the titanic.

1517 people died and 706 people survived. (He asked me to find those numbers for him).

Isn't that crazy? Who knew he was absorbing all of that? Ok, it's not totally coherent, but it is such a great illustration of how we don't need to dumb things down for our kids. And how they learn no matter what we think they are doing.

He ended up asking for help looking for images online to go along with all of his thoughts. We printed them out and he made a great little book. I never would have dreamed of planning this activity for my kindergartener.

So teach on. And count your lessons as double if you've got little ones hanging around! (Oh, and also, be careful what you say if you've got little ones hanging around!)

Artists and authors

2009-01-15T13:01:00.001-06:00

It's no secret that encouraging our kids in what they are doing is the best way to keep them doing it. This seems especially true with kids and their work.
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One of my favorite ways to do that is by “publishing” books for them. This can be as simple and inexpensive as taking their writing and art and cutting and pasting it into a cute journal from the dollar store. Or just giving them a small, blank scrapbook to create a book. I keep a whole box of these, ready for the taking. There's not a book in here that cost more than $1.

Also in this box are inexpensive photo albums that they can slide their individual book pages into, easily making a hardbound book of their own.

Here is a book that we made just by folding some cardstock, punching two holes in the center, and tying yarn through it to bind it. So simple

This one was a scrapbook, turned into a poetry book with a little cut 'n paste.

Keep your eye open at Dollar Tree and the dollar section of Target and when you see some, stock up. Don't let them scare you off if they have a Christmas tree or something on the front, we just cover that up by gluing a paper with the title of the book and art onto the cover.

Sometimes you can catch photo websites such as shutterfly.com and snapfish.com when they are having a free book deal. I used one of these opportunities to publish a book Riley had worked really hard writing. All I had to pay was shipping.

This was fun also because I could add stuff like a "Meet the Author" page.

I also try to treat their art very seriously. If it is something really special to them, I like to frame and display it. That doesn't happen as often as they would probably like, but I try. Here are a few of ours.

Here is my new favorite. Cole made these pictures for me. He drew my favorite coffee cups. I love this so much.

I want them to know I think their art is worth a lot to me. Plus, it’s adorable! Be on the lookout at garage sales and dollar stores for frames for this, too.

Something about having your story in book form, or your painting on the wall, makes you feel like your work was worth the trouble and makes you eager to do more.

It can be cheap and doesn't take much time. It's worth the extra effort!

Keeping it tidy

2009-01-11T14:49:00.000-06:00

I don't know about you, but I need some tidiness to be at peace in my world. Thus, I am often not at peace. But I try.

When we decided to homeschool, one of my biggest concerns was that my whole house was going to start to look like an elementary school classroom. Honestly, I'd like to be one of those homeschool moms that likes when school stuff is everywhere and huge maps are hanging and monster white boards are the dining room wall art. I think it is very productive and conducive to learning. It's just not for me.

We definitely have our share of clutter. Projects that stay on the tables for way too long, our art easel that lives in the entryway, books everywhere, and I actually like those visuals of what we've got going on here. But I like to be able to put stuff away if we want it put away. Still accessible, but out of sight when we are done.
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I've talked to several people who don't have designated school rooms and struggle with the same thing, so I thought I would share how I try organize some of the chaos that naturally comes with educating kids in your home.
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First of all, everyone, including me, has one of these.

We didn't used to have separate storage for our own books. We stored math books on one shelf, journals on another, whatever chapter book they were reading got put back on the right shelf, etc. Just recently we got these and they keep everything in them that they use daily. They can take them wherever they want and have everything they need for the most part. This has simplified things tremendously. Huge time-saver. I'm sure everyone else had this figured out long ago, but I like to complicate my life and take my time discovering these things.
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Here is one of my biggest storage areas. It is in our living room and looks like this.

Except during the school day when it looks like this... I try keep storage in mind when I am buying furniture. Here is my dining room.

I like to call these "homeschool chairs", cause look! Secret hiding places!

Here is our coffee table. Looks just like a normal coffee table, right?

But it's not. It's a super-secret-undercover-amazing-self-educating-straight-from-God homeschool coffee table.

I also try to use storage containers that are a little inconspicuous. Here are shelves in our family room, where we do a lot of our work.

I like to think that the black mesh storage drawers for all of our pencils, crayons, markers, scissors and glue aren't the first thing you see here. If they are, just don't tell me, K?

Here is one of the tables where we work a lot. There are lots of tables that have these little drawers out there. They are very handy.

Please note those pieces of cereal under the table. That is very unusual. Usually they are crushed into powder.

Everyone needs large US and World maps. I don't have a place to put one on the wall, so I bought one of those science fair tri-fold foam boards. I put a US map on one side and a world map on the other with spray adhesive.

When we are finished with it, it folds right up and can slide under a couch or behind a door. It's fast and easy to get out. Let's be honest, if you have to unroll a map, you're never gonna use it.

A large majority of our stuff is in our laundry/mudroom. We lined a wall with shelves. It is kind of a pain because it cut down on our space in there, but it is worth it to have it in a room that is not the most visible one in the house. You would be amazed at how much stuff you can get on two of those bookcase shelves. And they are pretty inexpensive, too.

I think you get the idea, but now I'm starting to feel artsy with my shelf pictures...Sorry, just one more...Ok.

So that's pretty much where everything goes in our house. If you sit and think, you will probably be surprised at how many places you can come up with to store stuff. Especially if you invest in some plastic containers.

Oh plastic containers, you are the love of my life.

Anyone else have a great storage idea to share?

The big picture...

2009-01-03T17:38:00.000-06:00

The principle goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done - men who are creative, inventive and discoverers. -Jean Piaget

Our Candy House

2008-12-20T21:35:00.000-06:00

We started making these our first year of homeschooling. We used to call it a gingerbread house, but in the interest of complete honesty and full disclosure, we now call it the Candy House.

You see, while I think the smell of fresh gingerbread would be delightful, and the challenge of constructing a house made of large, frail cookies would be rewarding if successful, the stress that may accompany such a project is just not what I'm looking for during my holidays.

So we just buy a ton of candy, some graham crackers and 4 or 5 cans of white frosting.

We hot glue the graham crackers to a box to make a house, then the fun begins! No need to be perfect with your graham crackers, you can fill in any spaces with icing or candy. We listen to Christmas music and plan and coordinate and decorate. And before you know it, our candy house is complete.

See the peppermint stick with a whopper on top? That's a security camera courtesy of Garrett.

Because you just never know when some thug gingerbread men may come around looking for trouble. Man, remember the days when you could just leave your chocolate door unlocked?

I'm a pretty big fan of the Nestle Crunch door and the skittle garden.

It's low maintenance, a great decoration, and a ton of fun!

Hey Jesus! It's your birthday!

2008-12-15T14:55:00.000-06:00

Today we celebrated the birth of Jesus with a party.

We used a chocolate cake mix (dark, to represent our sins), and frosted it with vanilla frosting (white representing the purity of Jesus covering our sins).

We put one large candle in the middle representing the light of Jesus, then we each lit a small candle from the large one and put it in the cake to represent how we can be a light through Jesus.

For gifts for Jesus each kid thought of one act of kindness to do for each one of their siblings today.

You can google "birthday party for Jesus" and find lots of good ideas and more elaborate, symbolic cakes to make. Simplicity was the key for me this year. Actually it was more like simplicity was extremely necessary for me this year. And nobody wants mama to cry, right? Right. Simple it is.

Also today I sent the kids off on their own for a while to work together to create a presentation of the birth of Jesus. I'm quite certain it will be entertaining.

We finished the day by watching The Very First Noel. We found this DVD last year and love it! It is a sweet story told by one of the wise men about the journey to find baby Jesus.

Jotham's Journey

2008-12-13T16:00:00.000-06:00

This book is the most amazing advent book I have ever read. It is a story about a little boy, Jotham, and how his life intertwines with the birth of Jesus. It is designed to be read a chapter a day, but we often read ahead because it is incredibly hard to put down! It is pretty intense, so if you have a child that gets scared easily you may want to preview it. But my kids have loved it as young as 5 years old. Before then they weren't afraid of it, just not interested.

It is a great family read-aloud and I wish everyone would get it! You won't regret it. Even though we are several days into advent, you could sit down and read several chapters at once and get caught up.

There are two sequels to the book that I can't wait to get my hands on. Tabitha's Travels and Barthalomew's Passage are supposed to be re-issued next year.

This book is one I know my family will still be reading each year, even when my kids are older.

Get it!

The Legend of the Candy Cane

2008-12-10T15:06:00.000-06:00

Today's Christmas activity was learning about the meaning behind the candy cane. We read the book The Legend of the Candy Cane.

After we were finished we made peppermint bark! Yum.

Chop up a package of almond bark and melt it in the microwave in a large bowl.

Unwrap candy canes...

And throw them in the blender. You can also chop them or smash them with a hammer, but the blender makes it into a powder that really mixes in with the white chocolate. I actually think it looks prettier if they are chopped, but yummier if they are blended. Got it?

Then mix it all together.

And spread it out on foil.

After it is hardened, break it apart. It's the easiest Christmas candy in existence.

Polar Express Day

2008-12-09T12:31:00.000-06:00

Today we are having our annual Polar Express Day. It's the perfect dreary, freezing day for it! We are even expecting some snow.

The kids slept in a little this morning and were awakened with a ticket to Polar Express Day and a snowball breakfast.
The snowballs are powdered sugar donuts. And those don't happen often around here for breakfast, so there was much happiness and joy at the breakfast table this morning.

PJs are a requirement for Polar Express Day.

As are all the blankets and pillows we can find, to pile up on the couch and floor and watch one of our favorite Christmas movies, The Polar Express.

Garrett is faking. I hadn't even turned on the movie yet.

After the movie, we made homemade hot chocolate. We used the recipe on the side of the Hershey Cocoa box. It will make you want to weep with joy.

For the rest of the afternoon we will be staying in our PJs and blankets and playing board games. We'll also be reading some books from our Christmas book basket.

And we may be doing it by candlelight because the lights keep flickering. I'm scared. I'm very scared. I like my electricity.

Happy Polar Express Day everyone!

Christmas school!

2008-12-08T11:29:00.000-06:00

During the few weeks before Christmas, we spend a good part of our days having fun doing Christmas activities. I don't feel bad at all for going a little light on the academics in the name of making Christmas memories with my kids. Don't worry, they are still doing math and writing, and I feel confident they ain't gonna lose all them smarts they been a learnin', kay?

Every day I plan to post about a Christmas activity we did that day. You guys let me know if you have any great ideas, too. That way we can all share and have a grand ol' time.

Today I'm showing how we made Kiss Countdowns.

These are fun because you get to eat a chocolate every day. And you don't have to answer the question "How many days till Christmas? I'm not asking because I want presents, Mommy, I know Christmas is about Jesus, but how many more days till we open presents?" I am certain you know the drill.

You need some paper, a hot glue gun, and a bunch of kisses.

Cut the paper into 2 inch wide strips and tape them together to make a long strip. Write the numbers 1-25 on the strip.

Now put a small dot of hot glue above each number and stick a kiss to it.

Hang your strip and remove a kiss each day to reveal how many days till Christmas!

Oh, barf.

2008-11-21T18:12:00.000-06:00

We have moved into studying Seasonal Forests with our Planet Earth unit. We have been learning a lot about animals that live in the forests and we are focusing on owls this week. Also,Riley and Cole are doing the Five in a Row book Owl Moon.

One of the most interesting things about owls is how they digest their food. First, they swallow their prey whole. Their stomachs digest everything except the fur and the bones of the animal they swallowed. After digestion, their stomach compresses the bones and fur into a pellet and the owl throws up this dry fur ball of a pellet.

You see where this is going, don't ya? Gulp.

There are companies out there that make a living off of collecting these owl pellets and sterilizing them and selling them to people for science lessons.

I know.

So we had to do it. We just had to. It's like a treasure hunt. If you happen to consider rodent skeletons to be treasure. And it was sterilized, after all.

But don't think for a second that didn't stop me from boiling my children's hands in water and then soaking them in alcohol when we were done.

You just break apart the pellet...

And start pulling away fur...see, it's not so scary...

Look! a tibia!

And a tiny mouse skull!

You can download all kinds of sheets to use with this activity, like this bone identification sheet.

Come on, you know you want to do it. You can order them at http://www.pelletsinc.com/

Learning the States

2008-11-19T16:09:00.000-06:00

Tyler is learning all of the states and their locations. Here is an idea for mixing it up a bit when you grow weary of the states song and filling in a blank map.

Put post-it notes over the state names on a large map.

Using a marker, put a state name on each post-it note. It's even self-correcting when you are done.

Learning "Hullabaloo" style

2008-11-13T13:05:00.001-06:00

Have your kids played the Cranium game Hullabaloo? It's a game where you spread out little pads with pictures all over the floor and then listen to the directions of the voice...skip to the picture of the elephant...hop to a picture of food...sneak to a red pad...etc.

Today we played Word Hullabaloo. I wrote words on pieces of paper and we spread them out on the floor, then I gave directions like, "spin to a word that rhymes with hat...walk backward to a word with the same beginning sound as tap...tiptoe to a word with the same vowel sound as dog..." You get the idea. It was fun! It is great for kids who like to be moving while they are learning.

Thank goodness Cole remembered to put on his safety goggles. Good grief, can you imagine the consequences if the eyes weren't protected in a dangerous game like this? Makes me shudder.

Also, please be certain to take time to precisely cut your squares like I did here. Veeery important.

Cole asked if we could do the worm to a word. Absolutely. Break dancing is encouraged as always. Stop. Hammertime.

And of course, Riley requested cartwheels. They are, after all, her reason for living.You could use this game for learning anything that can be written on a piece of paper. Have fun!

Hitty

2008-11-12T13:02:00.000-06:00

I feel like I don't post very often about work that only Garrett is doing. It is just hard for me to fashion an interesting post out of symbiosis and pseudopods. And I just don't think that discussing the Diatoms in the Phylum Chrysophyta would grab your attention and make you want to read more. Oh, those diatoms. They are a crazy bunch.

But I wanted to post something he does on a regular basis that you might like to use also, if you have a 12-14ish year old. It is called Above and Beyond Five in A Row. He is reading the Newberry award winning book Hitty, Her First Hundred Years. And following the book of activities. It is pretty much self-guided and picks what he wants to learn about and do with each chapter. He keeps a notebook of what he has done. It covers art, cooking, history, science, language arts, and other things. We have both learned a lot from it!

He made gingerbread from the book

There is plenty of vocabulary and art

Learning the history of a quill pen and and how to use it

Science

Learning about what causes sea-sickness

And other ocean discoveriesIf you have an older child, this might be something he or she would really enjoy. It's a relaxed, interesting way of learning that they can be in charge of. And you know how they like to be in charge. Check it out!

Need a pick me up?

2008-11-11T08:50:00.000-06:00

If you live in the OKC area please please please go to the EFL meeting tonight! You will not regret it. Cheryl Lange is speaking on Authentic Education. You know, ditching the one-size-fits-all, fill-in-the-blanks, study-for-the-test-then-forget, tedious type of learning for real, meaningful, last-a-lifetime education. You will leave refreshed, renewed and excited!

We meet at 6:30 at Memorial Road Church of Christ in Edmond. (In the building behind the main building. Enter under the covered overhang.)

I love this.

2008-11-07T19:56:00.000-06:00

You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.-- Clay P. Bedford

Sweet school

2008-11-03T10:09:00.000-06:00

I may have just been suckered. I'm not sure. I was ready to start school this morning and everyone was messing with their Halloween candy and exchanging and bargaining.

I said "Come on guys, let's start school."

And Garrett said, "This is school. It's marketing and trading."

Then Tyler asked if they could go through their candy and we could research the history of different candies. And eat some.

Hmmm...well, one of our goals in education is for our kids to be interested and inquisitive about everything around them. For them to want to learn about the things that they encounter. For them to know how to find out anything they want to know.

"Um...OK."

I ended up giving in and changing the morning plans. This resulted in us learning some pretty cool things, like that M&Ms started during the Spanish civil war when soldiers coated their chocolate pellets with hard sugar to keep them from melting. And Tootsie Rolls were named after the daughter of a small candy shop owner in the 1800s. We also watched a video on how Lemonheads are made.

For the rest of "Candy school," Riley and Cole are going to do some graphing and counting.

Tyler is going to make a timeline of when several candies were introduced along with a summary of the history of each.

Garrett is going to do some stock market research on candy companies and when their stock rises and falls throughout the year.

A huge part of learning is learning how to learn. What they are learning about isn't always as important as the process. Because once you know how to learn, you can learn whatever your heart desires.

We may also do some research on nutrition and hopefully I can come up with some episodes of "Unwrapped" on the food network today!

Haha! Now who's the sucker?

Planet Earth- Plains and jungles

2008-10-27T23:57:00.000-05:00

We are still doing some science with the Planet Earth DVDs. They are so incredible. We have worked through the oceans, the plains, and are now on Jungles. We took a trip to the zoo with our friends to observe plains and jungle animals and their habitats.

We are making murals for each of the sections of Planet Earth.

This week Garrett and Tyler will finish up some research and Riley and Cole will be reading books about Koko the gorilla who does sign language. We will probably wrap up jungles this week and then decide what section to do next! If you haven't seen these DVDs, you really should try to get your hands on them. You won't be disappointed!

More American Girl fun

2008-10-20T23:50:00.000-05:00

We are still learning about Colonial Williamsburg with Felicity. I thought we would be moving a bit quicker through these books, but we are taking our time and enjoying them, which is fine with me. I'm not going anywhere. We have learned so much about the late 1700s!

We are loving learning about the Boston Tea Party right now. Riley was definitely surprised to learn what kind of tea party it was.

We made quill pens, just like the ones the girls during Felicity's time used for their school work. It really put some perspective on how much work everything was back then.

We also made Felicity's baked pumpkin pudding, a popular dessert made by the colonists after the Indians introduced them to pumpkins. It was from Felicity's Cookbook.

There is no sugar in this pudding, only molasses. It is really spicy.

Riley is becoming a pro at the egg-cracking business!

This is such a fun way to learn about history, we are loving it!

Expanding vocabulary with I SPY

2008-10-20T10:37:00.001-05:00

Do you use the I Spy books with your elementary kids? I forgot how wonderful they are until this morning.

We pulled out an I Spy big book that I have had for years. In the 30 minutes or so that we looked through it, I was amazed at how many new words were added to Riley and Cole's vocabulary.

There are literally thousands of items in the book to spy, so you are likely to find words that your kids haven't been introduced to.

I had no idea they didn't know the word "nut" (the kind that goes with a bolt. Hello?). There were a couple of other words like that I had just assumed they knew, but they didn't until today. They also learned the word abacus, dreidel, some new vegetables, and several others.

Building vocabulary is so important, so I just wanted to share a simple and fun way to add some new words!

So true

2008-10-17T00:47:00.000-05:00

I learned most, not from those who taught me but from those who talked with me. - St. Augustine

Yipppeeee!

2008-10-13T00:02:00.000-05:00

I get so excited when a big box is on my porch! Last week I placed an order with Homeschool Library Builder. They are so cheap! I got several great condition books for one or two dollars. Some I paid a little more for, but all of them were great prices.

We love these Childhood of Famous American biographies. Exposing our children to greatness through reading biographies about amazing people is one of our educational goals.

I got some Five In A Row books.

I got some science and social studies books that go along with units we will be doing.

Some Henry and Mudge, just cause we like 'em,

Two for our Planet Earth studies (one looks a little old, but I think I paid a dollar for it),

And a couple of classics.

I'm very happy. Does anyone have another favorite cheap used book site?

Japan

2008-10-10T22:07:00.000-05:00

We just finished up a five in a row unit on the book Grandfather's Journey.

We learned a lot about Japan. Riley and Cole were so interested in it that we ended up spending an extra week on it. They wanted to check out more books and dvds from the library, so of course we did.

For art we used oil pastels (thank you GAR!) to try to recreate one of the pictures in the book of the sun reflecting on the water.

We learned about origami and tried a few ourselves. They liked it so much that we ended up checking out a dvd with step-by-step instructions and making more. It was a lot of fun.

We read the book Yoko, about a Japanese cat who takes sushi to school for lunch and eventually gets a friend to try it. We had a special Japanese lunch. It was nothing new for my kids to eat sushi and edamame, but I taught them how to roll it themselves this time.

Ingredients from the Asian market.

Cole rolling sushi.

Garrett whippin' up some edamame.

Don't you love how savvy he is with the chopsticks?

Riley's thoughts...

After the meal Tyler remembered that he still had some Japanese candy his aunt had brought back from her trip. Perfection.

This unit had a lot of geography.

We learned about Tokyo, Mount Fuji, Japan's fishing industry, architecture, and much more. We even tried our hand at painting Japanese symbols. I'm glad I followed their lead and spent an extra week on it. It was well worth it!

Another great one to live by

2008-10-06T17:47:00.000-05:00

They may forget what you said but they will never forget how you made them feel.-- Anonymous

The power of learning by teaching

2008-10-01T23:09:00.000-05:00

You know how you feel like you have learned so much since you started teaching? Of course it is because you really have to know what you are talking about to be able to relay the information to others. You have no choice but to learn!

I've found this to be a very valuable tool for getting my kids to own what they are learning. I have them teach me.

For example, today Tyler began a Ben Franklin biography. It is full of a lot of information beginning with Franklin's childhood. Tyler's assignment was to read the first 30 pages, and then teach me what he had learned about Ben Franklin so far. He did a great job of explaining details and trying to get me interested in what he had read. He even referred back to the book several times to check facts and remember something that had slipped his mind as he "taught" me. It was a great reiteration of facts for him and really helped reinforce what he had learned.

Having them actually teach you or their siblings puts a more interesting and fun spin on comprehension and review.

Try it!

Ocean Deep

2008-09-12T23:39:00.000-05:00

We finished our ocean unit and we are getting ready for a 2 week break for vacation. We learned about the deep ocean from Planet Earth this week. It was interesting and kinda creepy! Here is a link to some amazing deep ocean photography and creature identification.
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Garrett did some research on submarines and wrote a great paper on them. I learned a lot from him!
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Tyler took on learning to draw sea urchins and finding out some facts about them.

When we get back, we'll be starting Plains from the Planet Earth. I'm looking forward to it, but I'll miss the ocean stuff!

Gramma's Walk

2008-09-12T23:01:00.000-05:00

We just finished our unit on the Five in a Row book Gramma's Walk.

It is a story about a grandmother and her grandson going on a walk. The grandma is in a wheelchair and they go on walks in their imagination. It is very sweet! Their imaginary walk takes them to the beach, so it was the perfect ending to our ocean unit.

We talked a lot about our imaginations and went on a walk ourselves. It was definitely the most relaxing hike up a mountain with wild animals that I have ever taken.

We read several "go along" books. We really enjoyed reading Different, Just Like Me and talked about disabilities and how we are all alike in some ways, even if we are different.

We researched lighthouses and learned so much about them. We also learned how to draw them. This was a great book for learning about compound words, it is full of them! We played a matching game and also came up with as many compound words as we could think of.

We discussed our five senses and used this book Hello Ocean. It is a gorgeous book about experiencing the senses at the beach. Look at these paintings, they are like photos!

After we read it we did some testing of our senses. We did a blindfolded taste test with lemon juice, soy sauce, watermelon, mustard, and cinnamon. Then Riley and Cole took turns filling a bag with items for the other to touch and try to figure out what they were. They also did this with sounds. Fun!

We ended with making some seashell critters. Aren't they cute? Everyone in the family got in on this project, it was so much fun!

What a great book!

History fun with American Girls

2008-09-10T13:16:00.000-05:00

We have been learning about Colonial America by reading the American Girl books about Felicity. This is such a fun way to learn history!

We are reading all six Felicity books, but we are also using this book.

It is a picture book full of information about the late 1700s presented in a fun and interesting way. I love this book! We have learned about everything from how they cooked their food, to politics of the time, to crafts that the little girls did in that day, lifestyles, and lots of stuff in between.

We made breakfast puffs from the Felicity cookbook, just like the little girls in the 1700s used to help their moms make!

They were so yummy!

Today we had some friends that are also studying Colonial America with Felicity over for a Colonial garden tea.

Last night Riley and I made Raspberry Flummery, a dessert served in the 1700s after an elegant meal, for our tea party.

The girls came over and we made a craft. We talked about the hot clothes and corsets the girls had to wear and we made fans for them to take to their garden tea.

I bought some music online from the 17oos for us to listen to as we did our activities. The girls figured out what instruments were used and we talked about how different it was from what we listen to.Check out the pinky.

Felicity! The guest of honor!

We had a great time with our friends!

You're gonna love this!

2008-09-08T12:45:00.000-05:00

We love nature over here. We really enjoy exploring and learning through it. Like I've said before, with nature studies you can knock out science, language arts, art, and appreciating God's amazing creations all at one time. You can't beat that.

We love to find a spot outside in parks or our yard to observe, sketch or paint. Sometimes gathering supplies and keeping them together is a bit of a problem.

Well, look what my sister and her family got Cole for his birthday! We are very excited. It is a backpack that stores all kinds of art supplies.

It has spots for paints, brushes, colored pencils, markers, sketch pads, and any other supply you would ever need. There are so many different compartments you won't even believe it. Even pockets where you could store binoculars and magnifying glasses. Everything has a spot. And it all stays organized! WoooHoooo!!!!

Here is what the box looks like. You can get them at Hobby Lobby.

We are just going to store everything we need in the backpack so it is ready at a moment's notice. Cole and I are taking it on it's first nature walk today. It belongs to Cole, but it's going to benefit everyone! My sister rocks the house.

Cole also got a ton of cool art supplies from his grandparents.

Ahhhhh...organization. Be still my heart.

Night of the Moonjellies

2008-09-04T11:07:00.000-05:00

We just finished our Night of the Moonjellies unit from Five in a Row for Riley and Cole. We had so much fun! This book is so sweet and warm. I could read it over and over.

A few of the things we learned about are moonjellies, New England States, sea glass, art terms, and new vocabulary words. We discussed character traits like responsibility. We also learned a lot about Maine! We decided to use spiral scrapbooks for our FIAR notebooking this year, as recommended by Sheri and Heather. I am loving using these!

Comparing piers and marinas

We went to see real live moonjellies. Very cool!

Sea glass artwork

The highlight of the week was when we recreated Mar-Gra's restaurant.

We made menus with the items we would be offering and the prices.

We used these cute Mar-Gra's guest checks that I found online to write down everyone's orders and add up their bill.

And we cooked and served! Of course we said as many lines as we could from the book.

What a fun unit!

A science flop!

2008-09-03T11:19:00.000-05:00

Sometimes your amazing lessons just don't work out! Today we were learning about venom and venomous sea animals. We did an experiment that I found here to learn about denaturing venom. Venom is a protein and can be coagulated so that it does not absorb. This is done with heat treatment. Here is the experiment and what I learned!

First you crack an egg into a bowl.

Remove the yolk. This leaves you with the white which is a protein, similar to the protein found in venom.

Put a little egg white on the back of someone's hand. Place a hot compress on top of it.

What was supposed to happen: The egg white was supposed to become a solid that could be peeled off, demonstrating how they denature venom.

What happened: Garrett ended up with a really hot, red hand covered in liquid egg whites!

We still got the idea of the experiment, and because of all the trial and error we used the word coagulate so much that I know at least they are familiar with that! If you want to try an experiment like this just cook your egg white a different way. Not as cool as it solidifying on your hand, but they'll get the point. Oh, and if you are going to put a lot of heat on someone's hand, don't use your high-pain-tolerate-kid, you may end up with second degree burns!

A little oceanography

2008-08-30T16:30:00.000-05:00

This week we kicked off our Planet Earth study. We are going to be watching these amazing DVDs and following up with research, reading and activities.

We started with Shallow Seas. It was incredible. If you haven't seen any of these DVDs, check them out!

Here are some of the books we are using as we go through our ocean study.

I can't get this picture to turn, and I'm done trying. Oh, and everyone, meet my toes.

Since we are nowhere near an ocean, we took a trip with friends to an aquarium this week. We got to see some amazing things we have never seen before. I think everyone's favorite part of the aquarium was the stingray and shark petting tank.Most of the kids at the tank were able to use their hands only, and walk away dry...yeah, most...

Hey, look! Cole went with theme clothing. We totally did that on purpose.

Watching the shark feeding.

It was Homeschool Day and they had classes for the kids. The younger ones had a shark class and the older ones a pirate class. I got some pictures in the classes they attended, also. A really great one of Riley and Cole looking through a real shark's jaw, and one of Cole holding a shark tooth as big as his hand. And then my camera said "formatting error" and I fell on the floor and sobbed like a baby. Not really, but kinda, and now my pictures are gone, anyone know how to get them back?

Garrett, Tyler, and Riley's wrap-ups after the field trip.

A little "stained glass" ocean art.

That's what I'm tryin' to say

2008-08-29T12:24:00.000-05:00

"Education is not the answer to the question. Education is the means to the answer to all questions." -- William Allin

Our first day 2008

2008-08-26T22:48:00.000-05:00

Today was our first day of school. We spent the day looking at our new stuff and discussing what we would be doing. It was fun just hanging out and talking and getting back into a routine.

We looked through a book about nature journaling, and then went on a nature walk. I love nature walks because they help everyone appreciate the beauty that is around us and they always naturally lead to other lessons.

Does anyone else find this funny? We are in the middle of nature finding all kinds of cool nature things and what do you know, we find a cherry. From our Hi-Ho-Cherrio game.

Riley sketched a couple of things she found. These things led us into a conversation where I introduced her to compound words as she labeled her mushroom. We also talked about past tense and writing -ed when she wrote uprooted. I love the natural progression of learning this way.

Garrett and Tyler were looking at something with a magnifying glass which led to
melting chocolate with a magnifying glass in the sun...

And that led to…you guessed it, lighting leaves on fire with a magnifying glass, which led to a lovely lesson in fire safety and why burning our house down in the name of a science experiment could possibly lead to regret…and how we must try to avoid regret. Anyone feelin' an "If You give a Mouse a Cookie" book comin' on?

We also did our traditional diet coke and mentos experiment that we always do on the first day.

And then we took a break for showers.

We ended our day by meeting David at Incredible Pizza to celebrate the beginning of our school year.

I can not tell you how thankful I feel today that I get to do this with my kids. Sure it is challenging sometimes, but we are smack in the middle of each other’s lives, and I couldn’t be happier. It is truly a blessing.

As we get started on some of our units this week I will be posting what we are doing so stay tuned!

Think about this one...

2008-08-21T14:07:00.000-05:00

Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.-- Plato

Read it again. Makes sense, huh?

Wecome to our homeschool blog

2008-08-19T10:54:00.000-05:00

We are so excited about our new year beginning next week. We have lots of fun planned so stay tuned. Feel free to browse around until then and read about how we do things. We know every family is different, and what you will read here is what works for our specific family.

Riley will be doing History with American Girl books. We'll be starting with Felicity. We are going to have tons of fun learning about Colonial times and doing all kinds of activities from that time period.

We are going to be using the amazing Planet Earth dvds for some science this year. We'll be sharing some of our activities and field trips that go along with that.

We'll also be using three different levels of Five in a Row, some Mystery of History, and Math-U-See for everyone. We'll throw in some nature studies, some co-op classes (Garrett will be dissecting in Biology), and probably some stuff we don't even know about yet! It's going to be a great year.

Why we chose this path

2008-08-17T19:11:00.000-05:00

Our oldest two children started in public school. We had six years of a pretty enjoyable public school experience. We don’t have any horror stories. We were very involved in the school and always had sweet, caring teachers that we thought highly of.

During Garrett’s 5th grade and Tyler’s 2nd grade year, God started placing the home schooling idea on our hearts. We had always struggled with the fact that we didn’t’ have time to do what we wanted to do with our kids. We didn’t feel like we were getting to pour into them the things that we felt were important because we were tied to such strict schedules with school and the commitments that came with it, not to mention the homework.

After a small period of denial:),we started doing some research on home schooling. We saw the successes. We saw the hard statistics. We were impressed. We started observing other families that chose this, and we loved what we saw in them. We loved the relationship aspect. We loved the freedom it provided. We loved the high quality of education we were seeing in others who made this choice.

Although the fear of change and the unknown loomed over us, we knew it was ideal for our family. We were learning that education is not just limited to academics.

We were sold.

That decision set us on a path that would be the beginning of an amazing, life-enriching journey that keeps getting better with every step.

Our Educational Goals

2008-08-17T19:07:00.000-05:00

These are the current goals David and I have laid out for our family. All of our educational plans are filtered through these goals. If what we are doing doesn’t line up with at least one of them, it gets tossed out. We see no point in wasting anyone‘s time!

We take academics extremely seriously, but we realize it is only part of a great education. Above all we want to pour love into our kids and help them grow spiritually and learn to follow God’s lead in their lives. We know he has amazing plans for them and we don‘t want them to miss a second of it. After that we want to…

-Provide a well-rounded liberal arts education

-Develop leadership skills

-Teach strong communication skills, both written and oral

-Incorporate art in every area we can

-Establish a desire to be life-long learners

-Create self-educated students who are able to find anything they need to know

-Teach social etiquette and respect for others

-Create skills for strong interpersonal relationships

-Develop personal finance skills

-Cultivate a passion for helping those in need

-Develop an appreciation of beauty: in art, people, literature, and nature

-Instill strong character traits

-Develop a Biblical-based world view

-Enrich character through exposure to great literature and inspirational people

-Provide an environment that encourages keeping family a top priority, our family and their future families

-Mentor our children to become exactly what God wants them to be

-Enjoy the moments, they are gone too fast!

Frequently asked questions

2008-08-17T18:58:00.000-05:00

Here are some questions I have been asked. And some that I just made up. I can do that. It’s my blog.

Q-Do you do school in your pajamas all the time?
A-We almost always get up and get completely ready before we start our day. We are usually going somewhere at some point in the day, so it’s just easier that way. We do occasionally have PJ days though, especially in the winter, and we love them.

Q-Do you have to be smart to be able to provide your kids with an education?
A- You just have to be smart enough to be able to distract them while you secretly Google their question. Oh, I’m kidding. I think not knowing the answer is a great learning experience for them. When I don’t know something they want to know, we research it together and find the answer. It teaches them that they can find the answer to pretty much whatever they want to know.

Q-How do you teach the stuff that you don’t understand or that requires labs or other equipment?
A- We are involved in a co-op where a various classes and labs are offered. We are also involved in programs that offer a variety of sports and activities. We have found that there are extra classes for pretty much everything you can think of. Later on, in high school, we will take concurrent classes in college that will count for high school and college credits.

Q-Are you going to keep teaching them all the way through high school?
A- That’s the plan. Unless God directs us otherwise.

Q-Do you teach in a school room?
A- We keep most of our supplies in our mudroom, but we do not have a school room. We do our learning all over the place. I’d say we are in our family room or dining room most of the time, but we also love to be out on the deck, at the park, the library, or in the playroom or bedrooms. Tyler wrote part of his novel last year in the laundry chute. Veeee-ry few distractions in the laundry chute. Other than laundry. Which apparently isn’t distracting to Tyler.

Q- What curriculum do you use?
A- We do not use one specific curriculum. We use whatever fits our needs in each subject. That changes as we do. We base most everything off of really good books. I use parts of curriculum for enhancement. Our math curriculum is Math-U-See. We also love Five in a Row, Mystery of History, and Apologia science.

Q-Isn’t providing an education at home really expensive?
A- Homeschooling can be done with as little or as much money as you want. You can provide an above the boards education with just a library card and the Internet. You can also go berserk and buy tons of materials and books and subscriptions and memberships and pretty boxes of flashcards and manipulatives (oh…uh…at least that’s what I’ve heard). I am learning to resist the temptation to buy unnecessary things that I may not use. But sometimes the packaging is just so pretty! I am learning.

Q-Are your kids around other kids?
A- Frequently. We are involved in different groups. The myth that home schooled kids don’t spend time with other kids is such a…that's right...it's a myth. You can be involved in as many or as few groups as fits your family’s or individual child’s needs.

Q-I understand that the government compensates you generously with a large salary and amazing perks in exchange for your teaching of these children, is this true?
A-Of course

Ok. That one I made up.

On textbooks...

2008-08-17T18:52:00.000-05:00

The first time I heard Cheryl Lange explain why she usually doesn’t use textbooks for more than just a resource, I was hooked. She pointed out the simple fact that all of the good, active learning was already done by the textbook writers.

Consider how a textbook is created. It starts with a group of people who go out and gather information and do research. They talk to experts in the field, test out theories, and learn everything they can on the subject.

Then they all get back together and they organize their findings. They discuss and write and debate and connect their thoughts until it is all clear, concise and easily understood. At that point they put it in a book and send it to the publisher.

When you open the book, you have dry, often boring facts. Leftovers from someone else’s learning experience.

This is not interesting! The process they went through to make the book is the learning we want! We want to be the ones to gather and discover and analyze and organize. That is where the meaningful, exciting learning takes place. Not in memorizing facts from a textbook.

Textbooks can be wonderful resources for learning. But alone, most of them are pretty uninteresting and uninspiring. However you can find a few textbooks that are like living books. We have used Apologia science books as a resource and have loved them. For our family, being involved in the process is an important part of our learning.

How we go about it

2008-08-17T18:47:00.000-05:00

We live our learning. This is what works best for our family. We don’t do a lot of fill in the blank worksheets or any busywork. We prefer a more active, advanced level of learning at all ages.

We don't rely too heavily on textbooks. Whatever we want to learn, we do so by researching and reading living books on the subject. We read biographies, and lively informative books written by experts on our topics. We do Internet searches and dig up whatever we can find. We also find ways to experience what we are learning. This can be through field trips, experiments, interviews, observations and projects. We do a lot of discussing, documenting, exploring, researching, and writing. We have notebooks full of data, sketches, and research papers.

Everyone is actively involved in the process, not sitting back just listening to someone spoon-feed information to them. We have found that this higher level of thinking makes our learning meaningful and interesting and much easier to retain.

This method helps us own what we are learning. We cannot just sit passively by because we are right in the middle of figuring it all out.

We do occasionally use quality textbooks as resources. Don’t get me wrong, our kids are quite capable of learning textbook-style, and they do so when they take outside classes that require textbooks. Obviously we use workbooks for math. Math is math. But as a general rule, we prefer to take it a level beyond that. We just get more out of it that way!

Why I'm nuts about it

2008-08-17T18:43:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite things about home schooling is the sheer freedom that our family feels.

Freedom to teach what I want my kids to learn

Freedom to take more time to develop deep family relationships

Freedom for my kids to spend more quality time with friends

Freedom to let my kids spend as long as they want on a topic they love

Freedom to enjoy chatting over coffee in the mid-mornings with my kids

Freedom to do family activities late at night if we want to because we can start school a little later the next day

Freedom to ingrain morals, good character traits, and faith into my kids all day

Freedom to do our learning wherever we want. Inside, outside, friends’ house, or, whatever works

Freedom to be my kids’ main mentor all day

Freedom to allow my kids to spend plenty of time on their passions and hobbies

Freedom to give my kids an appropriate amount of work so they can still have time to play and act like kids

Freedom to go on vacation whenever is best for us

Freedom to allow my kids to work above their grade level and not get bored

Freedom to incorporate Biblical principles into our lessons

Freedom to set the standards instead of follow them

Some of my favorite resources

2008-08-15T23:29:00.000-05:00

Lodestar Cheryl Lange's homeschooling and ministry website

Five In A Row message boards There is so much wisdom and you can find great ideas here!

The Library (Oh how I love you, online search and reservation)

Usborne books (especially the internet-linked ones)

Google Did people seriously home school before Google?

Seasoned home educators who have already walked this path, like Cheryl Lange and Robin Meadows.

Cheryl Lange's EFL (Educating For Life) meetings. I love to sit and listen to the truth ooze from her. I always leave feeling revived and excited. I’m a Cheryl groupie.

Cole's first writing- pre-kindergarten

2008-07-24T13:10:00.001-05:00

This is the first sentence Cole ever wrote by himselfMy frog has spots. :)

Creative writing sample-Tyler

2008-07-24T13:03:00.000-05:00

This is an unedited writing sample from a story Tyler is writing (4th grade)

“Sir, you may come in.” the nurse said to a man. The man walked into the delivery room.

Another nurse was standing by a bed in the room, on the bed was a woman covered in a blanket. In her hands there laid a messy, silent baby also wrapped in a blanket. The woman was smiling, looking at the man. The man smiled and walked over to the baby. Then he touched the newborn baby’s head softly.

Then the nurse said, “Let’s clean the blood off the baby and I’ll run some tests on him. And I’m curious about the way he acts. He’s not crying… a-and his, left leg… isn’t moving.

There was a long pause by every one in the room. “Um, I’ll go run some tests on him.” the nurse said smiling and trying not to get the others to worried.

“Yes, just stay here and we’ll be back soon.” the other nurse said gently grabbing the baby from the woman. The two nurses walked out of the room quickly.

Outside the room, the two nurses stopped walking and a nurse said “You know what? I’m not sure but I think he’s paralyzed… the baby I mean.”

“That is just what I was thinking that too” said the nurse holding the baby. “Because he hasn’t moved his left leg. And he has moved his right leg a lot.

Humorous Writing sample-Tyler

2008-07-24T12:56:00.000-05:00

Tyler loves to do humorous creative writing. Here is a sample from one of his stories (4th grade).

“Wake up Jason! Today they are starting to build the house!” said Jason’s sister Amy.

Jason and Amy are ants… uh, yeah, talking, ants. And they have a huge ant family of two hundred eighty s-. Um, I was going to say 287 but a few of the ants just got stepped on. So now there are 284 ants.

You are probably thinking who’s gonna plan the funeral, and stuff like that. Well, just in case you MIGHT NOT BE AN ANT! The ant family has relatives die every day. Actually about twenty to thirty ants die a day. It’s normal, not that they don’t care about the ants, it’s just that they don’t have the time for funerals and stuff like that. But yes, they do get sad… of course.

Riding Rocky

2008-07-23T21:33:00.001-05:00

During the Cowboy section of our Oklahoma History Unit we learned about horses. A sweet friend invited us out to learn more about them and to ride. We learned so much about horses and got to prepare Rocky for riding. It was so much fun! Rocky really made me want a horse.

Getting snowcones after a hot afternoon of riding.

When Life is School

2008-07-23T21:21:00.000-05:00

Written January 2008

Some days life is just more educational than academics. Last week one of those days happened to us.

Our life group has befriended a family that needs occasional help and we got a call from them. They had nothing to eat. Literally. As in they had just fed their children the last package of Ramen noodles. When I say “We have nothing to eat” what I mean is “We don’t have the right brand of Romano cheese to top our chicken Ceasar salads, now everything is ruined and I am ticked so let’s order a pizza.” They had nothing to eat.

So, thanks to the leadership of my compassionate friend, we scrapped history and math for the afternoon and headed out with our buddies to shop for the family and deliver it to their house.

Although I don ’t know the extent of the effect the day had on my kids, the things they learned showed on their faces. And their giving humbled me.

Not much was accomplished academically. Lessons were more along the lines of empathy, generosity, gratefulness, and all that is associated with the humbleness brought on when joining with someone in desperate need.

Lessons like what a blessing it is to never have to worry about necessities.

And how for some reason, food looks completely different when you are packing it into the empty fridge of someone who has nothing.

And how we are so incredibly spoiled.

At least that‘s what I learned.

Some days I get smacked in the face with an education.

Those days are good.

4 Him Ministries

2008-07-23T21:12:00.000-05:00

We went with some friends to the 4 Him Ministries office to help sort medical supplies for an African mission trip to an orphanage. We watched some videos and learned about the orphanage and village our friend was going to visit, then we got the supplies ready to go.

Tyler was a little afraid of the skin stapler.

Morning breaks of happiness

2008-07-23T21:08:00.000-05:00

Decaf+sugar+flavored creamer=HAPPINESS 2008

Oklahoma's first capitol

2008-07-22T14:03:00.000-05:00

We went to Guthrie, Oklahoma's first capitol with some friends. We saw where the people in the Land Run went to get their deeds. We ate in a restaurant that was in a building built the year of the land run. We took a tour of the city on a trolley. We went to a museum, and we just walked around the and had a fun time exploring this cute, historic town.

Harn Homestead Land Run 2008

2008-07-22T13:20:00.000-05:00

We spent a couple of weeks learning about the Oklahoma Land Run, then ended with a trip to the Harn Homestead Land Run Day.

Learning how to set up camp.

Trying out the Old Fashioned Games

Everyone was supposed to be looking mean in this picture.

Runnin' for land!

Olympic night for Co-op 2008

2008-07-22T11:48:00.000-05:00

I loved these action shots my friend took of Riley and Cole.

Eating bugs

2008-07-22T11:44:00.000-05:00

At co-op in Insect Class Riley and Cole ate a chocolate-covered cricket and a chocolate-covered larva. Cole actually ate about 5 of them. Ew.
This is not a real insect. Yuck! It's a giant chocolate in the shape of a bug. That was Cole's dessert after he ate the real insects.

Cowboy posters

2008-07-22T11:41:00.000-05:00

Eating a rainbow 2008

2008-07-22T11:34:00.000-05:00

In Healthy Snacks class at co-op we learned how to make fruit rainbows on a stick, granola, zucchini brownies, smoothies and lots of other great snacks that are good for you.

Edmond History Museum

2008-07-21T19:45:00.000-05:00

This museum is full of hands on activities and lots of history about Edmond and Oklahoma.

Riley was so excited about seeing all of the Shannon Miller stuff.