One of the things I love about homeschooling . . .

is this ~

I assigned Laura the book “Calico Captive” by Elizabeth Speare for History reading on Thursday. She was to read one chapter each school day until it was finished. I expected this to be sometime after Thanksgiving.

Thursday afternoon she reported that she was in the middle of chapter 10. The book had caught her and she was a captive herself. Friday morning she announced that she had finished the book before she went to bed the night before.

Did I mention that there are 23 chapters in the book?

I love that homeschooling offers my children the opportunity to fall in love with a book that they never would have picked up on their own and the flexibility to read it all the way through without having to wait for the rest of the class.

Blessings,
Nancy

Autumn Haiku

One of our final assignments in our Fall lapbooks yesterday was to write a Fall haiku poem. A haiku poem consists of three lines and each line has a designated number of syllables. I only required the older children to write their own, while I had the younger ones copy the ones that were written. It turned out to be a very fun experience for all. In no time, Tommy and Sarah had turned out two wonderful poems which they added into their lapbooks. I thought I’d share them with you here ~

First Tommy’s poem ~

Leaves changing colors,
Scarecrows in the fields of wheat,
Harvest time is here.

The syllable requirement for this assignment was 5 syllables in the first line – 7 in the second – 5 in the last. A haiku poem does not have to rhyme, although Sarah chose to make her’s rhyme. Here is Sarah’s poem ~

The pumpkins are here,
And everywhere there is cheer,
Harvest time is near.

I wrote one myself to put in my lapbook (I always make one along with the kids – it’s too much fun to miss out on!). My poem centers around a kitchen theme ~

Pumpkins, apples, spice,
Cinnamon, ginger and cloves,
Autumn baking day.

This activity was so much fun and fairly simple that I think that we will try writing some more about different subjects – nature, history, Thanksgiving, etc.

Blessings,
Nancy

Our Homeschool ~ Charlotte Mason Style

Over my 14 years of homeschooling, I’ve tried a lot of different approaches and curriculums, but even from the start, I always had an idea in mind of what I wanted our schooling experience to be like. It would be Christ-centered, simple, nurturing, and would encourage a love for learning. My love for books – especially storybooks – fit in beautifully. As I read more over the years about different methods of homeschooling, I saw that I agreed with many of the ideas that Charlotte Mason wrote about in the late 1800’s. Some of these ideas included copywork for writing, reading of great ideas in living books, narration, short lessons, and nature study. I have been incorporating several of these into our homeschool for the past 5 years or so.

This year, the Lord has taken us a step further in our journey. I have added in some new studies on a regular basis that always seemed to fall through the cracks before. Some of these include artist and composer studies, Shakespeare, nature stories, and character studies. Another difference is that we are reading living books for science, history and geography that take us on wonderful journeys every week.

Here is our weekly schedule as it stands right now – I’ve been tweaking it since September 1st, but for now, this is working for us. Every day we do:

Bible & Scripture Memory
Read-aloud classic novel
History (M-Th)/Geography (F)
Copywork
Spelling
Reading (independent assigned)
Phonics (Anna)
Math

Some of these we do together, and others are done independently. Tommy and Sarah also add in a short daily grammar exercise.

In addition to the subjects we study daily, we have others that are only studied from 1-3 times a week -

Monday – Poetry
              Science (older kids)
Tuesday – Character studies
              Composer study
              Shakespeare
Wednesday - Missionary story
                  Nature Stories
                  Science (older kids)
 Thursday – Artist study
                 Drawing
Friday – Book of Centuries (Timeline)
            Map Drill
           Science (older kids)
           Nature Study (outdoors)

Along with these, I am doing the Bible/Science (fun) portion of My Father’s World Kindergarten curriculum with Anna and Michael – this includes many classic children’s stories and fun, easy crafts set up around the alphabet (A-Apple, B-Butterfly, C-Cow, etc.) four or five days a week.

Does that look like a lot? Well, it is, but remember – we do all of these in short lessons, many about 15 minutes each – some less, some more. We average around 3-4 hours for our school day, although that may not be all at once, depending on life – it may be spread throughout the day, and if we don’t get to something, I either make it up later in the week, or start there the next time we are scheduled to do that subject. Also, not all of the children do all of these studies – Anna does the least amount, being Kindergarten age this year. Michael joins us for most subjects, but isn’t doing formal grammar yet or Shakespeare. Laura (10th grade) does most of her work independently, except for a few of the family subjects. In fact, the 3-4 hour day usually refers to my time, as I work with each of the children individually and as a group.

I have really enjoyed this year so far, and feel like we are having the richest learning experience we’ve ever had. We have laughed over Shakespeare, enjoyed classical music, travelled down the river with “Paddle to the Sea”, gone into outer space as we study the planets, had fun with drawing exercises, marveled at Monet paintings, and spent a little time each day in the Big Woods with Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I hope to share more about each of our studies, and how we do them, in future posts.

Blessings,
Nancy

We saw them!

Image courtesy of Corbis

Well, we didn’t see as many as these people are seeing, but we did see some great ones! Tuesday night the clouds were too much, and we weren’t able to see anything (although Tommy thought he might have seen something once), but last night the skies were perfectly clear, so we went outside around 11 pm and watched and waited.

We were soon rewarded with some spectacular meteors shooting across the sky! It was very exciting every time we saw one, and I was glad that each of the kids was able to see one – most of them for the first time ever. David was asleep, but Anna, who was afraid of missing out on the big kid fun was allowed to stay up and watch with us, although her patience with waiting for them wore out pretty quickly.

We stayed out for about an hour, but then it was time to get them all to bed ~ plus, our necks were getting sore from looking up for so long. It would have been much better if we had been laying flat on the ground on a blanket to watch, but we were all sitting around the edge of the hot tub by the pool, due to the presence of several large spiders who had built their nightly spiral webs in very inconvenient spots ~ literally taking over the area, except for the spot where we were.

The stars were spectacular in themselves, a beautiful sight and enjoyed by all. The meteors were like bonuses on top of it all. I think that maybe next year I will try planning an overnight campout in the yard (weather permitting) and we can spend the night (more comfortably) watching the sky. That is if I can work up enough courage to face the spiders, snakes, and other nocturnal creatures that inhabit our yard at night ~ ah, life in the country ~ but the stars are amazing and worth the effort.

Did any of you get to see them this year?

Blessings,
Nancy

“Exploring” the Yard

Last week we read the book “Henry the Castaway” by Mark Taylor. In this story, Henry and his dog, Laird Angus McAngus (Angus for short), went off on an exploration to find the uncharted seas. They had quite an adventure along the way, using their imagination and survival skills to complete their journey.

As a fitting conclusion to our week, we went exploring around the yard, in areas that we don’t frequent very often. Our mission – to seek out signs of Spring (and anything else interesting). Our main destination was the penisula out at the back of our property that is surrounded on three sides by a creek, followed by the “meadow” area of the yard, and finally the pond area. Here are some pictures of what we found -

A beautiful Redbud tree in full bloom -

This interesting cocoon was hanging from one of the branches -

Sarah climbed this very old tree to get a better view -

This lovely tree was at the back of the penisula overlooking the creek. I haven’t been able to identify it yet -

The flowers were beautiful and quite fragrant -

We looked down into the creek, which is not very full at the moment, discussing currents and sources -

We made note of the different layers of soil packed together along the opposite bank of the creek -

We peeked into this animal hole – we think that it is probably the home of racoons that have been previously spotted around the creek -

On to the “meadow” – really just a large grassy area in our side yard – wildflowers are beginning to pop up there. We blew a few of these -

We found this green mossy grass growing in one section of the yard – close to a broken sprinkler head that is leaking, causing the damp environment -

We also discovered patches of clover coming out, just in time for St. Patrick’s day -

At the pond, we were intrigued by this dead vine on the side of a tree (you can also see the grass greening up in the background) -

Sarah waded down into the pond to look for frog’s eggs or tadpoles, but didn’t see anything. I didn’t go down due to the presence of mud, which I didn’t want all over my shoes , but we’ll check again in a few weeks.

Up by the house, I found flower buds on the Iris plants, so we should be enjoying their purple beauty before too long -

The last thing that I explored was my rocking chair on the front porch, while the kids played and hunted for rocks to add to their collection (Anna is the driving force behind the rock collecting) -

I took some close-ups of that old kitchen hutch on the front porch that I’ll post soon, since this one is getting way too long!

Have a wonderful day!

Blessings,
Nancy

From the Learning Room ~ Homemade Dye and “A New Coat for Anna”

One of our activities last week to go along with our study of “A New Coat for Anna” by Alfred A. Knopf was to make a homemade dye, as they did in the story. In the story, Anna and her mother picked lingonberries to “make a beautiful red dye”. This was the first time I had ever heard of lingonberries, so I didn’t expect to find any, but I did have some fresh blueberries in the freezer that would make a nice substitute.

First I boiled a pan of water -

Next I added the blueberries (thawed) and let them boil for about 1/2 hour – until it looked like the water had turned a nice deep color -

I took them off of the heat and let them set for awhile to steep as much color out of the berries as possible. I then strained them through cheesecloth into another pan. I gave each child a swatch of white fabric and they each placed their swatch into the pan of dye. We pressed the fabric down into the dye with a wooden spoon and left it for awhile, while we watched our nightly “Little House” episode. -

When we came back to it, the white fabric swatches had turned a lovely shade of purple! We squeezed them out and laid them on waxed paper to dry.

Tommy’s finger here is pointing to the white swatch (hard to see) we started with, which shows the transformation -

I will be ironing these and then cutting them into the shape of a coat(s). We will then mount them on a piece of cardstock with the title of the book and they will be placed into the children’s notebooks.

Another short project that I did with the littles last week was to make these cotton ball sheep -

The olders and I read about sheep in the encyclopedia and we all took a short drive down the road to take a look at a neighboring farmer’s flock of sheep.

I shared these pictures earlier of the children weaving placemats to complement our study -

We haven’t played that game of “Made for Trade” yet, as I did end up taking Anna in to the doctor for an infected ear, but we did spend some time discussing bartering and, hopefully, we’ll be able to get that game in today.

If you’d like to see what other topics we discussed in relation to this story, click here.

Have a wonderful day!

Blessings,
Nancy

Just a Few Evening Notes. . .

This day is winding down to eveningtime. My chicken is cooked and waiting in the crockpot for me to mix up the sauce and “smother” it. A salad is chilling in the refrigerator, as is a large bowl of orange Jell-O. This was supposed to have been the meal for yesterday, but a few unexpected errands turned dinner into tacos instead, so the chicken was moved to tonight. I love using my crockpot, because I feel so ahead of the game all day – it’s nice to smell dinner cooking while I go about the rest of the day.

Today we finally got around to one of our long overdue school projects. We have been reading “A New Coat for Anna” for going on the third week now, and have not had time to get to the projects that I had planned. Normally I might have just decided to move on, but I’ve been so looking forward to doing these activities, that I just kept moving them back a week. Today’s project was weaving placemats from construction paper, while discussing the weaving of fabric on a loom. Here we are at it -

And our results -

We discussed loving our enemies in our Bible lesson today, and agreed that it was something that we all need to be reminded of often -

” ‘You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?’ “

Matthew 5: 43-48

I hung a new bird feeder right outside (on!) the kitchen window – it will give us a good, up-close look at our feathered visitors. I then proceeded to fill all of the feeders except the new one! One bag of seed is just the right size to fill the existing three feeders, so I don’t have any left over. I guess we will have to wait until I get to the store to pick up some more to enjoy the new one!

The children did their chores early so that they could watch the new High School Musical dvd, which is what they are doing right now ( and yes, I even took a picture of the screen) -

They will be heading out to basketball practice (the last one) right after dinner. And speaking of dinner, I better head to the kitchen and get that sauce made, so we can eat before they have to leave.

I hope to be back soon with those pictures from our antique shopping this weekend, including the new hutch.

Have a wonderful, warm and relaxing evening!

Blessings,
Nancy

From the Learning Room – “Stopping By Woods…”

Last week our study was on the poem/book “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost with illustrations by Susan Jeffers.

This is a lovely poem to study in January, especially in Texas where we don’t get to experience snow very often. I thought that this would be a wonderful poem for us to memorize. When I mentioned this to the children, they insisted that they could never do that! However, by the end of the week, without even trying, they had it down, just from reading it, studying it, and living with it all week. They had such fun reciting it over and over, and were pleased that they were able to do it after all. One of our activities for the week included cutting out snowflakes to tape on the dining room windows.

We discussed Robert Frost, which led us into a discussion of John F. Kennedy, as Frost recited poetry at JFK’s inauguration, and then died two years later, along with the President. We discussed taking a field trip to downtown Dallas to visit the museum there sometime.

We also discussed rhyme and rhyme scheme and were easily able to decipher the rhyme scheme of Frost’s poem (A-A-B-A, B-B-C-B . . .)

As Mom read about how snowflakes are formed and why snow is important to us (besides the fun!), the children created these snow pictures using pencil erasers dipped in paint and a snowflake punch.

We looked for the artist’s hidden animals throughout the book and discussed her use of black and white with only small touches of color. We also discussed hibernation of animals – why, when, how, where, and who.

The man in the poem left a gift of seeds and grasses for the wild animals to enjoy in the forest, which led to our final activity of the week – the making and hanging of birdseed pinecones.

The supplies – pinecones, peanut butter, birdseed, and ribbon -

I tied a length of ribbon on each pinecone and then the children spread peanut butter all over the pinecones -

Next, they rolled their pinecone in the bird seed, coating it well -

We hung these in the trees by the bird feeders, so that they birds would see them when they came to the feeders, and so that we could watch them through the kitchen window!

I think these went up just in time, as an ice storm is due today and now the birds will have an extra treat to ease the icy days.

Our Five In A Row meal for the week was one of comfort and warmth after coming in on a snowy evening – Tater Tot Casserole, with Peach Crisp for dessert -

It was a very nice week, and we did manage to fit in that trip to the ice rink for 3 of the children -

I’m hoping to write up a post about the skating and post more pictures soon.

I especially loved this book because of the emphasis on the enjoyment of nature and taking time out of our daily busyness to stop and marvel at the glorious creation of our Lord – a reminder that we all need from time to time.

Stay warm and enjoy a nice cup of hot cocoa – we’ll certainly be indulging a bit today!

Blessings,
Nancy

From the Learning Room . . .

Our Five in A Row book last week was “How to Bake an Apple Pie and See the World” by Marjorie Priceman. It was a fun book, in which a girl goes to the market to buy ingredients to make an apple pie. Finding the market closed, she packs a suitcase and heads off on a trip around the world, acquiring all of her ingredients from their various native locations.

We made Lapbooks to go along with what we were learning. This involved much cutting and pasting times five (Anna and I each made one, too). We didn’t finish them completely until yesterday, but we are all pleased with the results, and will definitely make more Lapbooks in the future.

Some of our activities for the week included:

-Tasting various types of apples and charting descriptions of each.

-Making collage apples out of red pictures cut out of magazines.

-Evaporating the water out of salt water, leaving salt alone, and discussing the water cycle.

-Mapping all of the locations visited in the book.

-Drawing street scenes.

-Discussing different modes of transportation presented in the book.

-Briefly learning about each location – England, Italy, France, Jamaica, Sri Lanka, and Vermont.

Of course, we included a number of apple dishes from the kitchen into our week. These included:

-Apple Tarts
-Apple Dumplings
-Applesauce
-Apple Juice
-and finally, Apple Pies – a given, considering the book we were studying!

We read several other apple books during our apple unit – “Apple-Picking Time” by Michele Benoit Slawson and “Johnny Appleseed” by Reeve Lindbergh to name a few.

It was all lots of fun, but I think we’re ready to move onto other Harvest studies. Next week is Pumpkin Week around here – my mouth is already watering just thinking about all of the pumpkin goodies that will be coming out of the kitchen!

Blessings,
Nancy

A Visit to the Duck Pond

Our Five in a Row book last week was “Make Way For Ducklings”, by Robert McCloskey. We spent the week in various studies related to the book, some of which included: Boston, the Boston Tea Party, the Boston Massacre, the midnight ride of Paul Revere, map-making, and a study of ducks. (Can you believe all of that out of a story about a duck family?) We ended our week with a visit to the duck pond where we all enjoyed watching, sketching, and feeding the ducks. It was a beautiful day, and the park was lovely. Here are some of the pictures I snapped -

We were greeted by a group of friendly and hungry ducks -

We were prepared with bread to quench their little appetites -

The ducks weren’t the only ones who were hungry – this turtle swam over to get in on the act and snatched as much bread as he could from his pondmates -

Here is Tommy throwing bread as Sarah is busy sketching -

The ducks were joined by some noisy geese, as soon as word got out that there was food to be had – they were really beautiful . . . and noisy . . . -

Here was an interesting duck – he (she?) looked like he had been to the salon for a new hairstyle! -

We thought about riding on these paddle-boats, reminiscent of the swan boat in McCloskey’s book, but decided to save it for another day -

We were really hoping that we would see some Mallards, since our story was about Mr. and Mrs. Mallard and we had been learning about them specifically, so we were happy to see a few in the mix -

The pond was so lovely with the sun shining on it and the geese swimming around gracefully -

It was an outing enjoyed by all -

Including Jack, who was allowed to come, and who behaved very well and didn’t scare all of the ducks away (as I feared he would), but simply watched them with interest -

This was David’s favorite part of the outing -

Finally it was time to go, so we said our fond farewells to our feathered friends, with a promise to return another day.

Blessings,
Nancy