This years' home school plan

April 2010

I have spent the past month making a homeschooling plan for the year. It started with receiving a catalog from a well known homeschool curriculum in a box type publisher. Oooohhh Shiny! Me want! I am a sucker. Keep me away from sales presentations. Seriously.

So reading and investigating further, I realized that I would change just about every aspect of what they sent which kind of kills the whole "you don't have to do any planning" part of the sales pitch. I sulked for a bit because I had my reasons for wanting an easier way out. Pregnant and about to have my fourth child pretty much topped the list. But eventually I got over it and in less than twenty minutes had laid an outline of things I'd like to do in homeschooling this year. Then I slowly worked on expanding that outline as time allowed. I'm pretty excited about the things I have planned to try with the kids.

Of course, it is just a plan, and not a set in stone structure. I told Dinoguy we were studying ancient native Americans soon and he replied that he wanted to study Norse mythology! So that's being added in as soon as we get back to the library. As a guide to help me figure out what was age appropriate and sequencing for topics other than mathematics, (because I've got that one covered), I used the book Home Learning Year by Year by Rebecca Rupp. which I was able to get on Paperback Swap. (I LOVE Paperback swap by the way!)

It is an overwhelming book if tried to take all at once. If I was reorganizing it, I'd do it by topic instead of grade level, with suggested grade levels along the way. But anyway, it gave me ideas of what topics kids usually hear at each grade level. Overall it just reassured that we are doing great, but in some things it helped me out a lot. Besides outlining what usually comes in a grade and topic, it gives many suggestions for resources and curricula, varying from free websites, to books and curricula to buy and how to get them. Since it is ten years old, some of the links weren't working. But it was a good starting point.

Two excellent quotes from the book:

"Homeschoolers can design their own curricula, assembling resources and using approaches that best suit their own children's needs. You child is enthralled by marine biology? Invent a curriculum that builds upon this interest... When it comes to curricula, kids should always come first.  It's not what teachers teach that's important; it's what children learn - and what children learn best is what interests them, what they want and need to know." (emphasis added)

June 2010

"Our long experience in homeschooling has shown, time and again, that an intense interest in anything inevitably leads everywhere... Kids are natural learners, and each will find his or her own best way to learn. There are many roads to an educational Rome."

So here is my monthly plan outline. I have broken it down further into weeks and resources, but I'll spare you that. Anyway, it might all change. The beauty of homeschooling is that we can (and will) immediately change anything that isn't working.

	History General Topics by Month
September	Ancient Native Americans, American Indians, (Scandinavia and Norse mythology!)
October	Mayas, Aztecs, Incas
November	Columbus, Conquistadors
December	Early American Settlers
January	American Revolution
February	American West Expansion
March	World Geography
April	Asia - China, Japan, India
May	Medieval Times Survey

Create a big time line on office wall! Read interesting books related to topics 3X a week as selected at library. Investigate in other media (movies, computers) as well.

	Science General topics by month
September	Magnets
October	Human Body systems/ 5 senses
November	Life cycles of animals and plants, needs
December	Sounds - waves, light and shadow
January	Water cycle, basic composition of earth
February	Season changes for animals, living vs non living
March	Weather
April	Simple machines, basic physical characteristics of objects
May	Physics- motion, force, friction

Do simple experiments and investigations related to topics 2X a week. Discuss scientific method. Mathematics Games Themes September Numbers & place value, even/odd, rounding, estimation October Fractions November Graphing/patterns December Addition/Subtraction January Multiplication February Money March Measurement April Time/calendar May Geometry

Art Investigations September Pencils October Tempera November Collage/mosaic December Printmaking January Watercolor February Weaving/crochet/fibers March Pastels April Modeling clay/pottery May Chalks

Visit Art museum monthly or every other month. Use great works of art from historical period as inspiration for creating projects. Also use project idea books have on hand. Discuss color wheel and other topics as appropriate, checking out how to type guides at library.

Language Arts Plan
Handwriting with out tears
Penpal - write every two weeks to HS penpal, write grandparents as well.
Memorize a poem every month and present to audience

Phonics 3X a week - word study games from Words Their Way
Vocabulary 2X a week - discuss words from books we are reading, do word games (word search, crosswords, Scrabble, etc)
Reading - Read aloud 30 min. a day from list of related reading books to history topics. Have books related to history topics from list available for reading. (I created lists of 30-40 books each for reading related to topics and also for reading aloud.)
Grammar and other topics I have a weekly list of ideas that will be presented.
Short story writing sometimes, try out journaling as well.

Music Plan
Continue Violin lessons and daily practice. Continue piano investigations as desired. Listen to great classics in car for musical exposure. Add musicians into history studies.

Languages
We will continue ASL probably at the co-op and Dinoguy might add Spanish there. Any other language needs will be met thru our libary, which offers online language lesson access as well as CD's and DVD's. 

March 2010

So there is the plan for this year. I know that tons will be added to it by the boys interests. But having a plan helps me immensely feel more organized and ready for our new addition in two months.

How can I have a plan and still say I follow my kids interests? They have asked for more structure. They have asked for help learning to write and everything else. Learning is still the reward. There are no external motivations or bribes. History topics I view as presenting possibilities (or strewing as some call it.) Dinoguy says history is his favorite subject and he loves all the history books I bring home.We are using interesting texts and books by people passionate about the topics. Mathematics, science and music and art are things they ask to do and enjoy.

Again, I am just hoping the plan will help me be a better mom at providing options to them. I am not tied to the plan as what we have to do, but it gives me a starting point each week and each day. Last year I did weekly planning based on what interests I was seeing and it was tiring and overwhelming, and easily led to burnout. I will still be doing some planning each week to prepare and modify, but with the overarching yearly plan, I hope to save myself some of the burnout, tiredness and worry if I am providing enough.

March 2010

Little House on the Prairie

Did you love reading about Laura and Mary when you were younger? I did. I hesitated to start reading them to my boys, thinking the main characters being girls might not make it interesting. They loved it! The stories about living in the wilderness and on a farm and such captured their attention. We quickly read Little House in the Big Woods and started Little House on the Prairie. Then Dinoguy decided I was going to slow and read the whole thing himself. It became comical because he started telling us what was going to happen when I started reading. When we finished that one, I asked if they wanted to read more or stop, and they wanted to keep going. So we started on On the Banks of Plum Creek. (Yes, I skipped Farmer Boy b/c it's about a completely different set of characters, I figured we'd come back to it.) Dinoguy again read the whole thing and seemed to not care if I read it out loud after that because he'd read the whole story himself. I guess I'll have to start hiding the books I'm reading out loud if I want it to be any kind of surprise to him. :D (Really, I'm thrilled by his enthusiastic approach to reading. It's so heartwarming to see him engrossed in books.)

So when I looked up Little House on the Prairie on the internet on a whim and realized it was not that far away (in southeastern Kansas), I became excited and started planning a trip. Of course I wanted to visit all of the sites, and it quickly turned into a month long exodus that was exciting to me, but impractical for our family for a number of reasons. But the Little House on the Prairie site was so near... and I had a friend who lived even closer than me that I could visit as well! So after a lovely visit with my dear friend. (Photos eventually I hope!) we headed home with the detour thru Kansas. (I had originally planned to head to the cabin first before going to my friends' but had such a late start that day that it wasn't feasible. It turned out to be a blessing too, since tornados touched down in that area that day and we would have been possibly caught in that weather!)

So apparently you can look up the Ingalls family in the 1870 census in Missouri. I did, because I love love love looking at censuses. Fascinating glimpses into another world. Yes, if you look at the image, you might notice that Laura is only 3. She simplified all the family moves in her book series. Her memories from the first book are actually from when they moved back to Wisconsin after leaving Kansas. (And they actually went to Kansas from Missouri). Baby Carrie was actually born in Kansas, not in Wisconsin. (Which explains why she seems to stay a baby forever!) 

Anyway, some people did some research and located the actual site the cabin had been built on, and built a replica. You can see the hand dug well (though its covered up). The cabin is SMALL and had low hanging cross beams. But they were careful to build the replica pretty close to what is described in the book, down to the rope latch. This delighted both boys to try out. They also felt I should be able to identify all the old farm tools hanging on the walls. When I couldn't, it was more evidence to them that I don't know everything like I should apparently. They announced to the hostess in the gift shop that their Dad knows more than their Mom.

The site owners have added an old one room school house and post office to the site. The wind was blowing and there were prairie grasses across the street that made it easy for me to imagine Laura running around in them. The gift shop in the more modern farm house had a wonderful hostess who was glad to talk to us and provide the boys with their souvenir hand stamps.(And they had candy for 5 cents! How fun!)

It was a fun place to stop and see. We got to discuss outhouses, which are not mentioned in the series, but something that came to mind while visiting and realizing the cabin was missing that important room. We discussed the map of the family travels, and where Kansas is in relation to Texas. The boys were thrilled to pet some goats on the farm next to the site, and Munchkin was happy to run around free after being in the car. All in all, it encouraged my desire for literary travels and we may choose to go to the Fiddle festival near their Wisconsin home one of these years. How fun would that be for the boys to participate in? If Munchkin's hair doesn't stay red, and turns brown, she could enter the Laura look alike contest too!

Reading until you drop

Right before I took this photo, he had the book held perfectly upright. Bless his heart. I regularly help him clean out stacks of books from his bed. Reminds me of when I was a kid and had to hide with a flashlight.

This & that

Munchkin just loves to play outside. She asks to go out whenever anyone goes near the door. She likes to walk on the trampoline and swing for short periods of time but also loves to drive her little cars, play in the little house and just wander around the yard. So we've been playing outside a lot lately. The weather has been quite pleasant.

Dinoguy read a chapter book from cover to cover one morning this week. It was called The Dragon in the Sock Drawer. He picked it out at the library. Trainboy is reading several words by sight and asking what things say and then repeating them like he's memorizing.

Trainboy and Dinoguy build lovely intricate lego things every day.

Munchkin can pull out a chair at the table and climb on top of the table in about 10 seconds. She has demonstrated this ability many times. This morning she climbed up and unscrewed the lid of the syrup on the table and dumped on herself and everywhere else. She was quite pleased.

Trainboy and Dinoguy collect sticks whenever we walk around the block for their stick collection. There is some sort of game involved as well, probably a battle.

So Spring is almost here, we have one last freeze this weekend and then hopefully warm temperatures! We're ready to grow our garden and a sunflower play house.

A tale of two books

About 10 days ago, I was struck down with another bout of the flu. My throat had hurt a bit that morning, but by dinner time, I was slightly delirious, having a hard time staying upright and hurt all over. Fixitman came home from Scouts reporting similar symptoms.

The next morning when I attempted to get up, the room spun. I lay back down and made peace with having a "sick" day and picked up the book I'd been slowly reading. Pilgrim's Inn by Elizabeth Goudge. Dinoguy happily brought me some toast and water when asked and he & Trainboy spent the day watching movies (they were not sick). Fixitman lay on the couch with the boys and I kept Munchkin with me, for napping & nursing.

The next day I was able to stumble around the house some, but was still quite ill. I'd finished Pilgrim's Inn, so I started on another book I'd been given to read, The Choice by Nicholas Sparks.

Perhaps if I had not read The Choice right after reading Pilgrim's Inn, my reaction would not have been so intense. But then, I am a person of strong opinions (according to my dear sister), so maybe not. But the contrast between them was strong.

Both are love stories. One is uplifting, inspiring and discussed selfless giving and making loving choices for the better of others. The other is crass, sensual, glories in selfishness and being unable to control ones' impulses - really about lust, not love.

It was the stark contrast between them that brought to mind counsel to search out the best books. Even in books read primarily for entertainment. There are so many good books out there, and I usually am surrounded by excellent reading choices. I really think we learn and absorb information from all things, even those things we choose for entertainment. If our chosen entertainment is degrading, it will drag us down. In contrast, if our chosen entertainment is uplifting, it will inspire us to be better people.

I feel I physically experienced this in strong contrasts while being sick and reading these books. When I was reading Pilgrim's Inn, I was in an happy peaceful state of mind, and felt inspired to be better in my daily life. When it was over, I was so happy for all the characters who had worked out their problems in noble and inspiring ways and had the ultra happy ending. I felt inspired.

In contrast, while reading The Choice, I was upset and irritated by the poor choices made by the characters and felt irritable as I thought about the negative fall out their choices would have on others that was glazed over and ignored in the book. My overall feeling during reading the book was irritation and depression. I was left with an empty pit in my stomach when the book was over and had to talk to someone about how awful I felt. For a bit, I was unable to do anything but stew about the annoying things the characters had done and how better choices could have been made in their situations.

In summary, if you haven't read the Choice, don't bother. If you have already and liked it and can't believe I hated it so, well don't take my recommendations on literature, we obviously have different taste! If you would like a lovely old fashioned story with real characters who are strongly developed and would like to be inspired by your book, check out Pilgrim's Inn. I think you'll really enjoy it.

Saturday

Today I went for a 5 mile run with Sarge and then Fixitman took the boys to Lowes to build paddle boats.

A little bit later we went to the library to turn in final summer reading lists and of course, get more books. Trainboy wandered around picking up books that had appealing covers while Dinoguy pretty much cleared out new dinosaur books he found. We also picked up some tickets for the Zooniversity show later that afternoon and went home for lunch and to read/water the garden.

Dinoguy had found a Transformers graphic novel that was a big hit with the boys. Trainboy has a toy Bumblebee car/transformer he won at Earth day and they loved hearing some of the stories associated with the cool toy. (None of us have seen the recent movie.) Trainboy also expressed interest in reading a book with me that he'd picked out that only had occasional pictures.

Later on we went to the Zooniversity show which was pretty interesting, though Dinoguy really wanted to touch one of the animals and wasn't chosen while Trainboy was terrified she'd pick him as he fiercely whispered "I don't want to touch that!" each time she chose 4 kids to touch an animal. Seeing a porcupine up close was very cool to me. We also saw a king snake, prairie dog and the lizard native to Texas that regrows its own arms & legs. Dinoguy really enjoyed the show and I'm considering having him go to some of their homeschool programs.

Afterward we went to the spray park for a bit before coming home for dinner. Our visiting friends made a delicious lime coconut chicken soup that is Thai in origin and the boys had homemade pizza from Fixitman as well. (Fixitman makes a delicious pizza!)

It's time for sleep and the boys are picking out new interests. Dinoguy declares he's learned everything there is about reading in English and is ready to read another language. I find this out when he's carrying around a German translation of the book Jesus the Christ. He expresses interest/fascination with all the different language scriptures he's found on the bookshelf and I tell him a bit about them. He decides he wants to read the Arabic Book of Mormon so I pull out the old Alif-Baa textbooks from college and start teaching him the Arabic alphabet. Trainboy meanwhile has pulled out the cuisenaire rods to make colored trains.

Finally Fixitman reads the Transformers novel to the boys again before bed. What a lovely full day.

Reading

Trainboy knows his letters well, and is starting to remember some short words when he sees them. Overall he still focuses on the pictures when he is reading or being read to. He does ask what things say, so he has word awareness. I didn't catch a photo of him listening to his train book on CD but this is a bit later - when he was reading the body books. He is so intent!

Dinoguy can read pretty well now. He loves his Dinosaur book on CD from his Grandparents. I thought this was such a cute moment, I grabbed the camera while he was unaware. His confidence level with reading has increased in the past few months and he'll read in front of me. It has come naturally from wanting to be independent at video and computer games as well as being able to read books to himself. We haven't done any specific reading practice. Just read a lot of books. As far as learning to read books, the best for us has been the Berenstain bears. The boys love the stories, they are cute and catchy and use great repetition. "Big bear, small bear" is genius in my humble opinion.

I keep a box of books in the car between their car seats for them to read while we're driving. Recently I heard Trainboy trying to remember the words that went with the pictures to "Big Bear Small Bear" and then I heard Dinoguy say "Here let me read it to you". What a moment! I was grinning big in the front seat.

Reading practice

Lately Dinoguy has been making an outward effort to read. He has started verbally reading signs, cereal boxes, books when I am around...

This past week he read almost completely on his own the book "This Car" by Paul Collicutt to me. It's a favorite pick from the library lately, both boys seem to almost have it memorized.

When he was younger (age 2-3) I used to try and get him to sound out words and practice reading and such with sites such as starfall.com and I think I overwhlemed him. When I backed off and stopped pressuring him, he didn't try and if I ask him to try reading something his response was "I can't read!" We've always read books to him and he's taken them and read them to himself but not in front of me.

So him practicing his reading skills openly in front of me is a big deal to me because I feel like he trusts me now not to criticize him or tell him how to do it. I talked with a friend about it - when he doesn't get something right I feel compelled to correct him but she said not to unless he ask or it flowed naturally in the conversation. She compared it to me getting a math paper back covered in red ink and how negative that feels and that made sense to me. Doesn't make it easier, but I now consider how I would feel if my mistakes were constantly being pointed out in things I was trying to master when the correcting urge hits.

Where has he learned his words? Reading the show guide on the TV, from computer games, from books, board games, road signs, cereal boxes... from living life and feeling the need to read. Since deciding to unschool, we haven't done a single worksheet, set of flashcards or anything that was only for teaching and learning reading. We have read hundreds of books and played games and lived life and life is full of words.

Though his Sunday School teacher today mentioned that he probably felt some pressure there as all the other kids were reading and writing now (they are in public school Kindergartens) and he had said something about how he couldn't read as well as them and she said "but you can multiply!" which cheered him up. (I'm glad for the positive comment from her in his time of need!)

He has some competitiveness in him already, most things turn into a competition with his brother, I hope he won't be drawn into competition over school things with his friends who go to public schools.

Eating breakfast & Learning to read

What do you eat for breakfast most of the time? Cereal? Breakfast is a great meal, it's interesting to me to see family preferences at breakfast. Fixitman loves sugary cereal by the mixing bowl. He'll eat an entire box in one sitting. Trainboy enjoys cereal and milk as well. Dinoguy only likes cereal as a snack, right out of the box. I stopped eating cereal a while ago. I'm lactose intolerant to some degree, so I don't use milk, and orange juice on cereal only works with some kinds. I stopped drinking soy milk because large quantities of soy are now bad for you. And I read about cereal being bad for you in Nourishing Traditions. So we started eating porridge, the longer cooked version of oatmeal. It's good. Dinoguy loves his "oatmeal" for breakfast with fresh fruit or jam mixed in it, Fixitman & I enjoy it a lot with apple butter mixed in, but Trainboy only eats it sometimes. He prefers cold cereal! Fascinating stuff to me. See my porridge post on my food blog if you want the recipe...

But I digress. The point of this post is remembering breakfast as I kid for me. We mostly had cereal, (I wasn't intolerant of milk at the time), and usually healthier varieties. But I loved to read the cereal box each morning, absorbing all the words on it. It was as important to me as reading the comics each morning.

Dinoguy is learning to read. It's a fascinating process to me, though not at all like I remember my journey. I remember deciding to learn to read and memorizing books to tell my mom I could read. She knew I was memorizing and said it didn't count, but somewhere along the way, I went from just knowing what words were on the page to being able to recognize them and read them. Reminds me of that email forward where all the words are mixed up except the first and last letters of each word, but you can still read it.

Yeah phonics help, but when you know how to read, you don't sound out words. You just know them and read them. Dinoguy recognizes and knows a lot of words, though I'm not sure even he realizes this. He's learning them from the TV, the computer games & the board games we play. From the signs he sees off the road when we are driving around. He's become aware of words and the information contained in them.

He asks me what things say on signs and repeats it to himself and then starts saying it when he sees the same sign again (or asks me again if he doesn't remember). In the car we play the "how do you spell" game. He asks me how to spell words and repeats it to himself. Sometimes they are words he already knows I think and sometimes they are new words. Trainboy likes this game too. A variation of the game is he tells me some letters and asks me what it spells.

One evening we had a disagreement about how to spell the word "dough". He asked, I spelled it, and he told me I was wrong and said it had a "w" in it, asking me to listen to the sound. I tried to explain that -ough is a special sounding part of some words, but he was firm that I was wrong. I let it go. It was a fun moment. :)

He won't perform and read on command. He's overwhelmed by unfamiliar words in books, and tells me he can't read them. As a result, I stopped asking him to read things, but allow him to do it when he wants.

He migrates towards shows about reading like Word World and Super Why?. After we've read a book a few times, he starts reading it to himself, but he's becoming much more accurate and looks at the words some, not just the pictures. At the library, he picks out the graphic novel type books, a la Captain Underpants, which we have some of thanks to gifts I gave his dad when Dinoguy was a baby.

I studied mathematical learning in college, and know all the little parts of numerical literacy he's developing. But the reading literacy is fascinating to watch him develop, since I don't have any checklists in my head and just get to enjoy watching his journey.

Learning to write!

Well, we are in the middle of packing up the last of our amazingly large pile of belongings. The boys have been doing well overall with the unusual schedule and all.

L decided to make a list today of things we needed to pack. He ask me how to spell lots of words and wrote them, letter by letter, on his list. It was a cool moment for me, to have confirmed all the things he knows. He knows words have letters, and that he knows how to write those letters! His list was things like: Furniture, Toys, Notebooks. It was awesome.

See the important thing to me is that he is demonstrating what he knows, as opposed to me or someone else testing him on what he doesn't know. Asking him to read words out of a book just doesn't interest him yet. (Or maybe it overwhelms him.) He loves to have me read books to him, and he memorizes his favorites so he can "read" them over and over again. However, point to a word and ask him what it says and he won't answer, or he looks away and says "I don't know." Ask him about letters and he still won't look. He's just not ready for that yet. But he is WRITING!

Just a few months ago, (maybe March or April), he wrote some letters to Santa, (he loves mail) but it wasn't recognizable words, but cute scribbles that kind of resembled Sanskrit or something else. But there were examples of things he knew in that too. The scribbles were small & tight and in groups - like words and he said words as he made the scribbles.

I am SO excited about this. But I am also excited about the fact that I didn't make a big deal about it, and that I am recognizing the things he is learning and showing me in his own way. See - I am making progress too! I didn't even realize that the Santa letters showed any sort of writing skill, but now I can look back and see those things and say WOW!

Happy Father's Day yesterday to my wonderful Dad and my amazing husband. :) The Triple Citrus Cheesecake was delicious! (Visit Cooks Illustrated to find the recipe!)