Art co-op and some interesting statistics...

This past Thursday was a big day for Rachael - her first day of her new art class!

I found out earlier this year about the Danville School of Arts and Science - a very professionally run co-op for homeschoolers. They meet three Thursdays per month, and Rachael informed me after her first class that she doesn't want to miss a single class, ever!

I thought that she would have been more torn over which class to take - DSAS offers art, science, Latin, drama, and even a personal finance class for high school students. She IS very interested in the drama class as well, and I would love for her to start Latin at a young age, so maybe she'll take an additional class next year. As for this year, her education in art history and technique is being funded by a generous grant from the Gramma Foundation. ;)

With her big box o' art supplies at the ready, we headed into the church that hosts the co-op on Thursday afternoon and headed for her classroom. She was the first one in, so she chose her seat, said hello to the teacher, and spent some time checking out the orange newt living in a terrarium on the table. As other students started pouring in, Milly and I eased toward the door. Of course, Rachael has been in other classroom-y settings with actual teachers other than me - Sunday School, dance, gymnastics, our previous co-op, Girl Scouts, etc. But somehow, this felt more like a "real" school to me, and the mommy part of me was a little reluctant to go...but I should have known that (Rachael being Rachael) she would be perfectly fine, and she was. She made fast friends with a little girl sitting beside her, and had a great time sketching for the next hour.

Meanwhile, Milly and I settled down in the room across the hall, and had fun chatting with some of the other parents. Even Milly was a little more social than usual, after the necessary checking-out of the restroom and water fountain. She was a little upset that there were no cupcakes to be found (they did have some at the open house a few weeks ago, and one of the moms overheard her complaints and promised to bring her some soon!)

Rachael bounded into the room with her sketch pad when the class was over, to show off her drawings before storing her supplies away for next week. She absolutely can't wait to go back, and I can't wait to see what she learns next!

* * * * *

Now, how 'bout those interesting statistics?

We received a flyer from Henry County Public Schools in the mail on Friday afternoon containing the 2009-2010 Annual Report. They were thrilled to report that all of the county schools are fully accredited - which is awesome for our area and the students that attend those schools. I'm a little confused that only "93% of our schools made Adequate Yearly Progress", but okay. They're accredited.

Then they proceeded to show a graph for each school in the county showing percentages of students that made "Adequate Yearly Progress" (I haven't bothered doing the research to find out why that it is capitalized!) in each subject.

There are eleven elementary schools in our area...two middle schools...two high schools. Does this seem a little strange to anyone else? I shudder to think what class sizes are like in middle and high school now - especially since the high schools switched to the block system (four classes per day, as opposed to seven) back when I was in high school, aaaaaall those years ago. On the bright side, it seems as though class sizes may be reasonable in elementary schools, at least.

Anywho...out of all of the elementary schools, the one that Rachael would be attending ranks 9th place in English, 10th in writing and history, and is in dead LAST place in both math and science.

The middle school that she would eventually attend had lower ratings across the board than did the other middle school, and her would-be high school rated higher in science, history, and math - but only by tiny percentages.

WOW. Add this to my list of reasons for homeschooling. I can absolutely do better than that!

Week #3

Today began week three of our school year...yes, I was a nice teacher and gave them Labor Day off. :) With the exception of only one subject (science), we've finished our review from last year and are moving onward to new things.

Milly is loving pre-preschool, although she insists that it is, in fact, "pretty pretty school." We're focusing on one letter and one number per week, so she now recognizes A, B and C and the sounds that they make...although she does think that C should say "ssss", and I don't blame her one bit. Coloring pages were an absolute Godsend today, and I tried to reinforce the C sound by teaching her that C is for...

CUPCAKE, of course! (What else?!) A slightly gothic/moldy cupcake, perhaps, but a cupcake nonetheless. And yes, Milly is quite seriously considering being a lefty. This stresses me out just a little since I have no idea how to teach a lefty to write, but then, some of the prettiest handwriting I've seen was produced by a lefty. Good thing it's not up to me to decide, huh?

Rachael had a wonderful morning, even though she was stuck doing copy work in her language arts book while her sister colored. As a general rule, Rachael and copy work do not get along well. She tends to rush through it, insert random capitals, omit capitals that actually should be there, and forego a lot of punctuation. This leads to much nagging on my part to just pay attention to what you're copying, because it's right there in front of you, and really, there's just no excuse for getting it wrong. *ahem* Look at what my girl did today!


I hope you'll notice that big A+ at the top too! I'm not sure exactly why, but she wants a letter grade on everything these days, and is happiest if there's a + or a - to follow it. She doesn't even care if it's a C- (not that she gets many of those), as long as there's a letter grade on her paper. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this - for the most part, I want her to learn to do her best and take pride in her work, not do it solely to be rewarded with a letter. So I'll grade things sometimes - usually written work, so I can explain to her that the grade is based on neatness, attention to detail, creativity, etc. I refuse to assign a grade without an explanation to go along with it.

There are two things that are always graded. The first is her weekly book report. She's done two so far - I let her choose the book for her first report, and she chose Green Eggs and Ham. I learned my lesson and assigned her second book, which was Sarah, Plain and Tall. This being a short week, I just chose a book from her shelf that I liked when I was a kid, and we'll be writing the report together to focus on content.

The second thing that's always graded is her Friday spelling test. I'm so proud of this child and her affinity for language arts. Check out her spelling list for this week:

I was a little nervous when her spelling book first arrived and I found that the weekly lists were written in cursive...but she can read them, even though she can't write in cursive yet. (I won't even be attempting to teach her cursive for a while yet. Refer to the copy work picture for my reasoning. I'd love for her printing to improve first!)

One last picture for tonight...the dreaded math. It boggles my mind that she detests math so much, even though she's really pretty good at it. Here are two pages she did this morning, with no help whatsoever from yours truly.

The color is a little funky, so here's a quick recap...solving for unknown (6+X=8), adding two-digit numbers (13+66), adding two-digit numbers with regrouping (44+46), money/counting by tens (which would you rather have, 95 pennies or 9 dimes?) and adding three-digit numbers (244+234). I absolutely adore this math curriculum...and while she's not a big fan, it's obviously teaching her the concepts.

We are eagerly awaiting Thursday's arrival, when Rachael will attend her very first art class at a homeschool co-op in Danville. The last of her supplies were purchased today (who knew it would be so hard to find a black felt-tip pen?!) and I can't wait to see what she learns first!

Day #1 = Success!

Well, the big day came and went - and we had a fantastic first day of school! The girls were up absurdly early this morning because they were so excited to get started. Each of them found a sign at her place on the kitchen table this morning, and they got right to work coloring them while I made breakfast. Afterward, we went outside for our annual first day of school pictures. I still just can't believe that my Rachael is a second grader now! She's pretty proud of the fact, though:


And then there's my BABY, who somehow has gotten big enough (despite my demands to the contrary) to want to "do school" as well. I'm wondering if it's significant at all that she didn't color the letters on her sign at all, but rather the spaces in the center of the letters. Hmmm.


Of course I got one of the two girls together! I got about a dozen, actually. I like this one best. :)


After pictures, we went inside and got to work. Each girl has an age-appropriate devotional book that we'll begin our mornings with. Rachael's book asked her today to make a list of her family and friends that she wants to remember to pray for. She made a pretty lengthy list and didn't forget many people - immediate family, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, even some friends' parents made the list! My thoughtful little girl.

She was a little apprehensive when I took out three books for language arts, but quickly came to the conclusion that this was "eeeeeeeeasy!" Princess Smartypants missed one word out of twenty on her fourth grade spelling list. Not that I'm proud of her or anything.

While Rachael worked on her language arts stuff, I moved over to Milly. We talked about the letter A and the sound it makes, and she took very seriously the task of coloring a big letter A:


We also read books, went on a scavenger hunt for different colors around the house, talked about the number one, and read the Bible story of Adam and Eve. (Her thoughts? "Ewwww, snakes!") And we sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" no fewer than ten times, although I'm not even sure now how that even came up.

Back in the kitchen, Rachael and I did some math review...she had been dreading math all morning, but was relieved to find that she hadn't forgotten place values or how to add after all. Read some from her history book, and read the first lesson in her health book, about how people are unique. One of the activities was to talk about the student's wishes for the future...so I grabbed the video camera. Whew, this kid is a wildcard - I never in a million years would have guessed that first answer! (Never mind the Milly background noise...)

As soon as her book work was done, Rachael rushed upstairs with a piece of paper and her new pink sparkly pencil to tackle her first ever book report. I had explained the concept to her this morning, and even jotted down a sample (title, tell about the plot, did you like it and why) to make it easier for her. And I told her that she had to do one book report per week, in her own free time and without being reminded, to be turned in on Friday. This, rather than reading a particular number of books (because the girl always has her nose in a book) is how she'll earn her Book It! rewards this year, and she wasn't taking chances on forgetting about it this week! Granted, it was a less than thorough review of Green Eggs and Ham, but I'll let it slide this week. It was a wonderful first attempt. Next week, I'll request that she review something a little more meaty. ;)

I also need to take a closer look at BookAdventure.com, which offers quizzes on lots and lots of children's books and allows them to "earn points and prizes for their literary successes." Sounds like something she'd love!

Finally, after her newly-mandated daily piano practice (not too much, mind you - she doesn't have but so many pages to practice), school was over for the day. We cleaned up and the girls went outside to play while I started on supper. I thought something special and fun was in order for two little girls who had done so very well on their first day of school, so I made pizza and...

...strawberry milkshakes. :)

One last special thing wrapped up our day - the iCarly doll that Rachael had ordered online with the gift card she won from the library finally came today. I picked her up at Walmart on my way home from a Girl Scout leader's meeting, and the girls got to play with her just before bed.

Inexplicably, Rachael insisted that Carly sleep with me tonight. I'm still not sure why. She said it was because I got it for her, and I reminded her that she had actually bought it. She said it was because she wanted me to be happy, and I told her that the smile on her face made me happier than anything else. But still...she insisted. So now Carly and I are going to bed, so we'll be ready for another beautiful day tomorrow at Regalia Academy. <3

'Twas the night before homeschool...

...and all through the house, not a creature was stirring...except for the mommy, who was printing coloring pages, browsing preschool curriculum sites and mentally gearing up to get back to work first thing in the morning. :)

My girls are both crazy excited to "go back to school" tomorrow. Milly thinks she's grown since she'll be "doing school" too - even if it is only pre-pre-school. She's mostly looking forward to playing with her new pink V-Tech laptop from Gramma! She already has a great handle on basic shapes and colors, so we'll be going over those this year, as well as learning letters and letter sounds, numbers, etc. Lots of books and songs and rhymes and art projects. I'll be piecing together a very loose "curriculum" for her from ideas on two websites - Letter of the Week (which focuses mostly on letters and numbers) and Hubbard's Cupboard (which focuses primarily on the Bible.) Both of these sites are just amazing - they have fully planned out, year-long preschool curriculums for several age groups, and there are a ton of fun ideas. If you have a little one at home, check them out!

Rachael was a little more apprehensive about the first day of school. She had it in her mind that she'd forgotten everything we'd done last year, and that she would have a test and not know any of the answers. I have no idea where she got that idea, but I assured her that there would be no tests on the first day of school! In fact, most of our first week will be spent on refresher material. But then, she's a lot like me - just having new books, even if they're school books, automatically equals fun. :)

One big change may occur at Regalia Academy this year...I'm contemplating a switch from the traditional August/September through May/June schedule to a more year-round schedule. Six weeks or so on, one week off, repeat repeat repeat. The regular breaks would keep us from getting burnt out on schoolwork, and the lack of a huge break during the summer would help us maintain a sense of normalcy. All three of us girls went a little crazy this summer with no sense of routine at all. The only big problem I have with a year-round schedule is my own little touch of OCD that requires clear-cut beginnings and endings! More about that when I reach a hard and fast decision...

For now, I'm finishing up my plans for tomorrow morning and looking forward to a fresh new school year!

Way to go, Erica!

While I'm taking my time typing up the curriculum post...a little food for thought via YouTube. This speech was delivered by Erica Goldson, valedictorian of her class at Coxsackie-Athens High School, on June 25, 2010.

Valedictorian Speaks Out Against (Public) Schooling

It's a little long, and she's (justifiably) a little nervous, but it's worth a listen. I especially enjoyed the part where she admitted, "I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told."

She also reminds her classmates that "we are anything we want to be - but only if we have an educational system that supports us rather than holds us down. A tree can grow, but only if its roots are given a healthy foundation."

This young lady has wonderful insight - from someone so young and so much a part of the system - as to what's wrong with the public education system. And I don't mean to imply that every public school out there is inadequate. But even the best schools aren't without their problems.

Anyway. Just loved Ms. Goldson's speech and wanted to a) share and b) preserve it for future reference.

Thanks to my fellow homeschooler Amanda for sharing the link! :)

Here's what RACHAEL has to look forward to!

Things are coming together for the 2010-11 school year and, as usual, I thought I'd share our curriculum choices...in case anyone is interested. :)

One of my favorite aspects of homeschooling is the ability to tailor our curriculum to Rachael's level, and it's all over the place this year! Here's what we'll be studying, in no particular order.

• Learning Language Arts Through Literature - this is a comprehensive language arts series that covers grammar, reading, spelling, vocabulary, writing mechanics, creative writing, thinking skills, etc. I love that it's laid out for me, day-by-day, and in the 3rd grade book that Rachael will be using this year, it's really geared toward independent work by the student with very little help from the teacher. I have a feeling she'll be working on this one while I'm working with Milly!

• Grammar, Usage & Mechanics - even though grammar is covered in LLATL, a little extra practice won't hurt anything. I've read wonderful reviews of the GUM series, and it's another subject that she'll be able to do independently. It's a smallish workbook, so it won't be an every day thing. I went with a 3rd grade level here too, so it should compliment her larger language arts course nicely.
  

• Spelling Workout - we used the Natural Speller last year, and I liked the word lists, but Rachael breezed right through it. She's very fortunate to (apparently) have gotten my knack for spelling. So again, I've read great things about Spelling Workout, and after looking at sample pages online, bought the 4th grade book for her. Maybe it'll challenge her a little! Again, this one is meant mostly for independent work. I'm loving that theme. Language arts is the area in which Rachael excels most, so I'm fine with her doing most of it on her own. I'll have to be much more involved in the other subjects.

• Math-U-See (Beta) - dreaded, dreaded math. Again with following in my footsteps, Rachael isn't a huge math fan. I'm not sure why this is, as she hasn't had any trouble understanding the concepts...she just doesn't like it. I was tempted to explore other curriculum choices because of that, but MUS just looks like more fun than the other, drier options. We actually started on the Beta (2nd grade) book back in the spring, so we'll be working through it this school year - multiple-digit addition and subtraction, etc. We're not going to be in a big hurry to get through it, but IF she finishes it before spring, we'll move on to Gamma (single and multiple digit multiplication, which I can't imagine her being ready for...but I've been wrong before.)

• The Story of the World I: Ancient Times - okay, we slacked off on history last year. We got about halfway through the book, so we'll be reviewing and then moving on. I'm really looking forward to SOTW II, which covers the Middle Ages. I'll be more in my element teaching from that one!

• Apologia - Exploring Creation Through Botany - so, I'll admit, I'm not terribly excited about this one. Maybe it's because I've never been terribly excited about science, maybe it's because we still have a couple of chapters of last year's Exploring Creation Through Astronomy to wrap up first. I'm sure it'll be more fun than I'm anticipating - classifying plants, making slides and checking them out under the microscope, making our own "light hut" and growing plants, etc. Rachael will love it, and I'll try to! At any rate, I'm a big fan of Apologia in general, so I'm sure it'll be a great book.

• Map Skills For Today, Grade 2 - throwing a little geography into the mix this year! She's already somewhat familiar with maps thanks to our history book, but this will give her a more thorough lesson in directions, symbols, etc. (I also bought a huge wall map of the world that I'm pretty excited about using this year!) This is another small-ish workbook that won't be an everyday activity.

• Horizons Health 2 - focusing on safety, hygiene, nutrition and fitness. We used Horizons last year too and found it a little dry, but it does cover the topics that need to be covered. Fellow homeschoolers, if you have any health curriculum suggestions for next year, I'd love to hear them!

• God and Me! Devotions for Girls 6-9 - I had to spend a while browsing in the Lifeway store for just the right book for our Bible study this year, and I'm really excited about this one! This is SUCH a cute book - full color, with a devotion for each day and an activity to go along with it (questions to answer, a picture to draw or a puzzle to work - things that I know Rachael will enjoy.) There are three God and Me! books for girls ages 6-9, and I'll probably be going back to pick those up before the end of the school year. This will definitely be an everyday activity - probably the first subject of the day, to get us off to a good start. This is going to be so much more fun (for us both) than the Bible studies we used last year!

Those are all of the big/important/book-based curriculums we'll be using this year...although I have a few more things in mind as well.

• Muzzy French - a "sometimes" and "mostly for fun" thing, for now. Rachael is already a little fascinated with French vocabulary thanks to Fancy Nancy (who is currently the top contender for this year's Halloween costume, by the way.) I may even be able to help a little, having taken four years of French myself. Of course, that was a long time ago, and off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure I remember how to find a restroom, an airport, and some green beans. Maybe I'll just leave it all to Muzzy.

• Art - something else we're really excited about this year! Rachael will be taking an hour-long art class on Thursday afternoons at the Danville School of Arts and Science, a homeschool co-op. We just visited yesterday for their open house, and Rachael met her art teacher and got to check out some of the projects they'll be doing this year. They'll learn some art history and practice methods used by great artists, they'll sketch and sculpt and paint gourds that are grown by the teacher. They'll also get to help create backgrounds and props for the drama class's annual production - and they're hoping that it'll be Charlie & the Chocolate Factory this year. I can't wait to see what she creates! (THANKS to Gramma for Rachael's "scholarship" to DSAS!)

• Piano lessons - Rachael and I will both continue piano lessons with a wonderful friend-of-a-friend this fall. Rachael can already play a couple of simple tunes with her fingers on the correct keys, and she can't wait to learn more!

• Girl Scouts - my big girl completed her two years of Daisies and bridged up to Brownies in June! We're looking forward to a great first year of Brownies...we since I will be her new troop leader. :) I've completed a portion of my training already, with another session next week, and one more to go before our first meeting on September 13th. I have a wonderful co-leader who will be working with Daisies in the same troop, and I'm sure we're going to have a great bunch of girls this year too.

Now that all of that is out of the way...I just need to put together some "school" activities for Milly, and we'll be good to go. She insists that she wants to "do school" too, and I'm looking forward to it being much easier to keep her happy this year than it was last year. Homeschooling with a toddler under foot was, I'm sorry to say, just not much fun. This year will be different...details on her "curriculum" are coming soon!

It's almost that time...

My girls have both reached that point again where it's just too dreadfully boring to go on existing. Which means...it's nearly BACK TO SCHOOL time! (It also means that I'm going to consider a shorter "summer break" next year. But that's a later post.)

It has been a rather boring summer, actually, with no real vacation to speak of. The girls have been camping twice - once with just their daddy (while I escaped for a much-needed girl's weekend) and once with not only our family, but another family of six as well! Still, those were just weekend ventures, and the rest of the summer has been filled with a dreadful lack of structure and excess of nothing-to-write-home-about.

Rachael did take gymnastics this summer, although we missed about half of the classes thanks to her having the chicken pox, my having a cold, etc.

She went to a four-day Green Thumb Gardening camp at the Spencer-Penn Centre, and she loved every minute of it. She was really looking forward to a creative writing camp last month that was geared toward 5-8 year olds...unfortunately, they didn't have enough people sign up to have the camp. :(

Rachael and I both started piano lessons this summer, and we're both loving it, for the most part. I started several weeks before she did, so I'd know enough to help her out. Let me tell you, after years of playing the saxophone and reading one measly little line of notes at a time, this two-staff both-hands-doing-something-different mess is blowing my mind! But I'm trying. And Rachael is catching on very quickly, as she'll gladly demonstrate to anyone who comes to visit.

And finally, I have to brag on my girl...she ROCKED the summer reading program at our local library! When it first started, she was allowed to choose from two options. One, she could set a goal for how many books she'd read during the program, and if she met that goal, she'd receive a free book. Or two, she could enter the big kid/adult contest, where you received one entry into a drawing for every hundred pages you read. No free book, but a CHANCE to win one of several donated gift cards. Rachael noticed that there was a $25 gift card to Walmart on the list, and that was the end of it - she wanted to win THAT. I explained and explained that there were no guarantees, etc. and she said that she got it. Well. After two months of writing down every single book that she read...after many trips back and forth to the library (because only books checked out of the library counted)...after counting down the days till the contest ended because I was SICK of writing down all those books (!!!), the contest finally ended. Rachael turned in four pages of books, with a total of 7, 126 pages.

That's right. SEVEN THOUSAND PAGES. Granted, a few of those were "Easy" books that she read to Milly and counted on her own list too. But most of those were books on a 3rd, 4th or 5th grade level - American Girl books, children's poetry, lots of novels. Most of the books she read ran around 200 pages, and she knocked them out in no time.

I'm still in awe. Girlfriend topped me by 3,000 pages.

Finally, the day of the drawing rolled around. The drawing box was so saturated with our entries that I knew there was a good chance that one of us would win something (and of course, if *I* had won, I would have passed it off as hers!) Sure enough, the phone rang shortly after the library opened...and Miss Cecil, her favorite librarian, told me that Rachael had won the $25 Walmart gift card. :) Milly got to pick out a free book. I won nada.

So, I guess we've had a little excitement after all.

BUT. I'm ready for some routine, and I think the girls are too. Our Notice of Intent to homeschool for the 2010-11 school year has been filed, and we have about half of our curriculum already. The rest is on the way and should be here any time. Time to start making lesson plans!

I'll tell you all about our curriculum choices soon...and the extracurriculars we have planned for this fall. I still need to sort out something for Milly too, as she's quite insistent that she wants to "do school like Sissy."

Milly Logic

Okay, I confess...I may rely more often than I'd like on the electronic babysitter while I'm doing school with Rachael. But the fact is, I can turn on Milly's favorite show (Team Umizoomi) and have a quiet, uninterrupted twenty minutes to focus on schoolwork with Rachael. Alternatively, I can leave the TV off, set Milly up with a pile of books, paper, crayons, what have you, and she's climbing my leg and screaming bloody murder within ten seconds because she wants all of the attention, and she wants it now.

Tonight, I was talking with Gene and mentioned that I'd be starting preschool* with Milly this fall. She was standing nearby and obviously overheard our conversation, and pondered it for a bit... About ten minutes later, she came to find me in the kitchen while I was making supper.


Milly: Me do school now?
Me: Yes, you can start doing preschool soon.
Milly: And Sissy watch Teamy Ah-zoomi?


:)


Got another clever one on my hands! School with her is going to be fun!



* Preschool, of course, not meaning any sort of rigid, structured curriculum - just more focused play on learning letters, counting, etc. She already has her colors down pat.

Update time!

Since I'm currently being screamed at by an angry toddler who wants absolutely nothing that I have to offer, I figured it was as good a time as any to update the homeschool blog - since we're between lessons until the tantrum subsides anyway. :)

Rachael took an early spring break this year, while we worked toward sorting out some attitude issues that were making school more difficult...if not downright impossible, some days. Now that things are going more smoothly on that front, it's back to business as usual.

We've finished the first ten lessons already in her new Bible study, Choosing Obedience. I was really hoping that it would focus on a real-life application, but instead it focuses on obedience to God...which is, of course, more important in the long run!

She's moving right along through her English/grammar book as well - the lessons are so short and simple that we quite often do two per day. Although I really love the layout of this curriculum (Learning Language Arts Through Literature), I think I'm going to have to consider something different before long. Maybe not next year...but this year she's been working on the second grade book, and it's not been much of a challenge. She's learning lots of new things, but the concepts aren't difficult for her. We may continue with the third grade book for next year, but it certainly won't take her all the way through her elementary school years.

She's still plugging along with math, too. We're working in the Math-U-See Beta book now (their equivalent of second grade.) She's doing quite well with it, but just plain doesn't like math. Thank goodness for so many online resources - we've been supplementing with quite a few "fun" printable worksheets, and that seems to make it more bearable for her.

With spring finally here - and hopefully warmer days than today to come soon - we'll be moving the "classroom" outside a lot more. We've all had a bit of the "blahs" lately, so maybe the change of scenery will help. :)

Happy New Year!

Originally posted on January 4, 2010

As promised when I first began this blog, I have been spectacularly craptastic about keeping it updated. New year, new attempt at keeping it at least somewhat regularly updated...

The first quarter of our 2009 school year couldn't have been more perfect. We were met with a bit of a challenge in the second quarter, which led to us only covering the basics (reading, math and Bible) on most days. Fortunately, reading and math are the big ones that the county requires us to do every day, so we're still in good shape. As of December 22, we had completed 90 out of the required 180 days of instruction for the 2009-10 school year. Halfway there!

After a week and half off for Christmas and New Year's, we're back at the kitchen table for school this morning. Quite a bit of what we're doing today is review, especially in the subjects that have been somewhat neglected (science, history, health) in the past months.

We'll be starting all new things before long, as Rachael is just two lessons away from finishing her math book - the one that we only started in September! Granted, we didn't do all of the review pages - I let her work on each lesson until she was ready to take the test, and then let her go for it. (As long as she has a good grasp on each concept, I see no reason to make her repeat, repeat, repeat.) So, she made short work of Math-U-See Alpha, which covered more skip counting, telling time on an analog clock, addition, subtraction, solving for unknown, word problems, etc. I'm very impressed (and, I admit, a little surprised) at just how well she's done with this math book, especially since she claims that it's her least favorite subject. Oddly, she complains about adding but has no qualms whatsoever about subtracting. We'll be finishing this book on Friday and then working on review pages until the next book (Beta) arrives.

We'll also be starting a new Bible study at the end of January, when we finish reading through her God's Little Princess Devotional Bible. As sweet and meaningful as the devotionals are for a girl her age, I'm looking forward to beginning something more in-depth with her soon. Train Up A Child Publishing has a series of "Choosing..." books that have gotten excellent reviews - I'm leaning toward Choosing Obedience or Choosing Self-Control to begin with, which will hopefully help nip some behavioral issues before they escalate. Other titles include Choosing Kindness, Thankfulness, Humility, Responsibility...all geared at children in K-5. There are more titles for teens that I think will be interesting to study with her later on, assuming that the reviews are correct and we love this series just as much!

Rachael still isn't a big fan of handwriting, although she doesn't fight me on it as much these days. She only takes offense when I erase a word for having capital letters randomly inserted in the middle...

She's still taking gymnastics lessons, and doing well with them. I love watching her flip over the uneven bars! She's also beginning her last year (sniffle) as a Daisy Girl Scout. I can't believe she'll be a Brownie this fall! The first meeting of the new year is tonight, and we'll be kicking off the COOKIE DRIVE! (No, I'm not at all excited about that!)

So, there's our new year update - hopefully it won't take me three months to post another one. :)  It's my intent to ease into a more classical method of education over the next few months, which focuses very highly on history (as well as math and language arts, of course.) If you're a homeschooling parent and have never read The Well-Trained Mind, I would highly recommend it. Lots of wonderful food for thought!

Happy 2010, everyone! I'm very much looking forward to making some changes in our home this year, and to a fun and insightful school year!

It's not pink; it's a cupcake.

Originally posted on October 6, 2009

I'm starting to wonder, already, if homeschooling Milly may not be more of a challenge than it is with Rachael. She's already exhibiting signs of being an abstract thinker, and I'm not sure my brain twists in her direction...

We were all sitting in the floor together this afternoon, when I decided that it was as good a time as any to start teaching Milly her colors. (Already later than I started with Rachael, but oh well...Second Child Syndrome (SCS) is unfortunately alive and well in our home.) The prevalent color in our home being PINK, that seemed the natural choice to begin with. And here is the conversation that ensued...

Me: Milly, what color is your nightgown? (Yes, she's still in her pajamas. Why get dressed when we're not going anywhere?)
 Milly (looking down at the big picture of Dora on her belly): DORA!
Me (holding up her pink sneaker): It's PINK. What color is your shoe?
Milly: Mine!
Me (holding up a toy cupcake with pink icing): It's a PINK shoe! What color is the cupcake?
Milly: Yummmmmy!
Me (grabbing one of Rachael's dolls, dressed in a pink dress): Yes, yummy PINK cupcake. What color is the baby's dress?
Milly: Sissy's baby.
Me: Sissy's baby is wearing a PINK dress. PINK. See this? It's PINK!
Milly: PINK!
Me: Yes! Pink!
(Rachael retrieves a pink doll trunk from the toybox.) Rachael: What color is this, Milly?
Milly: A box.
Rachael: NO, it's a TRUNK.
Milly: PINK trunk!
(wild applause)
Me: Good job, Milly! It IS pink! (picks up cupcake again)  Now, what color is this?
Milly: A cupcake.

*sigh*

It's BRAG TIME!

Originally posted on October 5, 2009

Here we go on week #8...it's amazing how quickly the time is flying by. In filling in my lesson plan book last night, I marked off two days for Thanksgiving already. Yes, only two days...but you know that the rest of that week is going to mostly be Pilgrim stories and fall crafts, right?  :)

Rachael is still doing great with her schoolwork. I've had to let go of a few of my OCD tendencies where math was concerned. Each lesson in the Math-U-See Alpha consists of six pages - three that focus on that lesson and three more that review previous concepts - plus a test booklet with a test for each lesson. I was dividing each lesson into two days in order to do all of the pages...and it was taking forever. Did she really need six pages of practicing writing numbers up to 100? I think not. So, my new easier/faster rule is that she does the first page of the lesson and decides for herself if she needs more practice before taking the test. If she's struggling, of course I recommend that she does one more page. But if not...it's test time, and help is unavailable during the test. Once she finishes, we'll discuss any answers she might have gotten wrong - but those are pretty few and far between. She has much less issue with math now that it doesn't take soooo long! This book, so far, has focused on addition and subtraction of single digits, and solving for unknown. (Algebra at age five!)

We nixed our Book of Virtues unit study last week in favor of reading a chapter of her new Girl Scouts handbook each day. We finished it up on Friday, and that earns her one more patch for her uniform!

And now, on to today's brag... I pull her spelling words each week from a book called Natural Speller. There are several pages of words for "Grades 1-2", broken into columns of 7 or 8. To begin with, I was going in order and giving her one column each week. In week seven, her spelling words included such perplexities as in, if, it and sit. What utter nonsense! She could spell in she was two. So I devised a brilliant new plan. Rather than giving her spelling words on Monday, having her copy them all week, and then testing her on them on Friday...I would give her a test on Monday. That's right - I'd just start reading through the words and having her do her best to sound them out - and when she got up to eight that she had spelled incorrectly, I'd stop and those would be her eight spelling words for the week. That way, she would be working on eight words that actually presented a little bit of a challenge.

Well. We sat down today and I started reading through the words. She wrote...and wrote...and wrote...and finally started complaining, asking why she was having to write ALL of these spelling words? The child wrote 56 words and only missed FIVE. So much for my goal of eight! The words she missed were: block (bloke), start (sart), third (thrid), stir (str) and shirt (sirt). I chalk the last four up to the fact that they were so near the end, and she was sick of writing by then! So, those are our spelling words for the week. All five of them.

In case anyone is interested, here are the words she didn't miss: got, hop, drop, shop, top, not, hot, on, dog, fog, box, stop, mop, sun, cut, us, fun, run, up, but, such, club, much, cup, rub, jump, running, arm, farm, car, far, hard, harm, are, card, cart, star, dark, part, apart, bird, first, girl, birth, born, more, for, or, fort, corn and horn.

Yep! Still proud of her. :)

Wow, week six already?!

Originally posted on September 22, 2009

I missed two weeks of updates - which included the one month mark of this school year. How did that happen?! Now we're into the sixth week - already! It seems like we just started! I'm taking this as a very, very good sign. If things weren't going well, I would most likely be slashing the days off of the calendar in red marker and keeping a running total in my head...only X more days until my goal is met! But no - we have our routine now and, even though Milly is still irritated sometimes that all the attention isn't focused solely on her, it's mostly a smooth process.

A few things that have happened since my last update...

• We finished Math-U-See Primer (kindergarten). Rachael was terribly excited that we wrapped it up on a Friday afternoon and that the next book in the series hadn't yet arrived. Just as she began rejoicing the fact that she wouldn't have any math to do on the following Monday...the UPS truck arrived with the Alpha book. Them's the breaks, kiddo! (I gave her Monday off from math anyway, just because.) The first few lessons in the new book have been review, but new material (word problems) will commence next week.
• Handwriting is going better - she doesn't mind doing the lessons any more - but we still butt heads on a pretty regular basis. She has apparently decided that she only cares for capital letters, and would be quite happy using nothing but. In what must be a half-hearted attempt to please me, she'll occasionally throw in a lowercase letter or two, so her English workbook is filled with lines such as "THe cAT rAN AWAy FrOM THe DOG." I'm sure most everyone has encountered the teenager who randomly capitalizes things that way online, and how annoying it is. I refuse to let Rachael become one of them! She gets pretty mad at me when I erase the whole thing and demand a re-do, but darnit, lowercase letters are our friends. (Incidentally, we seem to be going through an inordinate number of erasers.)
• Rachael has a spelling test, consisting of eight words, each Friday. She missed one word each on the first three tests, but hasn't missed any on the last two!
• We're still loving our Book of Virtues unit study, although the section on compassion that we just finished up was hard for my soft-hearted girly. It took a good half hour to stop the tears after reading The Little Match Girl. The Gift of the Magi was better received, although Rachael maintains that she's going to grow her hair all the way to the floor and will never cut it all off to buy a gift for any man.  ;)
• Girl Scouts is back in full swing, with the first fundraiser of the 2009-2010 school year starting next week. Expect her to be hitting you up for orders of nuts, toffee popcorn and choclate-covered everything. Thankfully, it's not terribly expensive. We got to sample everything at this week's meeting too, and it's all really, really good.
• Gymnastics is still going well. Rachael flipped over the top bar on the uneven bars this week, without so much as a teacher standing there to spot her. I was so proud!

I asked Rachael what she would like to say on her blog, and here's what I got out of her:
"Homeschool is really cool. The funnest part about homeschool is that Mommy gets to teach me. I like the books that we read for English."

And now, being that it is Tuesday afternoon, we're off to the library for craft time and to re-stock on chapter books. We've begun reading about Kirsten, the pioneer American Girl that Rachael will be for Halloween. She's discovered Cam Jansen books and absolutely loves them, and she's always on the lookout for more, more, more things to read. I have to shove books out of the way to make room for her to sleep at night, but I'm not complaining. If genetics are to be blamed, it's all my fault anyway. :)

Week three is over!

Originally posted on September 4, 2009

It's hard to believe that we're three weeks into first grade already. Things are almost going too well - I keep waiting for a big problem to pop up somewhere, and keep praying that it doesn't!

We didn't have co-op this week, since all of us have had colds, and one of the other mom/teachers wasn't feeling so hot either. Rachael missed it, but had a nice, restful day with not much in the way of schoolwork. She did go to gymnastics that evening - her first class of the new school year. It's a large class, being in the evening rather than midday, but she liked all of her new teachers, which is more than we can say for the last class. Plus, her best friend is in this class - so it's going to be a good year for her.

With the arrival of a bit of cooler weather, we're starting to look forward to fall and all the fun things that go along with it. Apple picking is high on my list this year, followed by learning to make apple crisp. Rachael received her very own set of purple measuring cups and spoons for "back to school", so she'll be helping me more and more in the kitchen. Her math curriculum hasn't gotten to fractions yet, but she'll be learning a little about them anyway by measuring out ingredients. Talk about a practical application for math! Yummy too. :)

As we wrap our school week, I'm thrilled to note (and report) that Rachael has mastered the art of telling time on an analog clock! I devoted the whole week's math lessons to it, and it paid off. Next step: replace batteries in her pink Cinderella clock so she can start (really) using it! We will be working on subtraction next week, and finishing up the Math-U-See Primer (kindergarten) book. I ordered Alpha (first grade) today and can't wait to see what she'll be learning for the rest of the year.

Have a great Labor Day weekend, everyone!

Halfway through week three...

 Originally posted on September 1, 2009

...and things are going pretty well! Milly is getting used to the idea of doing something on her own for a few minutes here and there while Rachael and I do schoolwork, and that's a tremendous help. Rachael is learning so much - Bible verses, common and proper nouns, pronouns, syllables, alphabetizing, telling time on an analog clock (she finally got that pesky skip counting by fives thing down pat!), planets, gravity... It's a good thing she loves to learn!

The only thing she isn't enjoying so much is handwriting. She seems to have a generous amount of "don't want to" combined with a dash of "don't care", and that makes it a bit of a struggle some days. We've started the first grade Handwriting Without Tears book, and that's a little easier for her. She still has a tendency to make sloppy letters in an effort to rush through the lesson, continues to mix up her b's and d's, and makes several of her numbers (2, 3, 7 and 9) backward. What to do with her? Everything else is so easy for her - maybe this will just "click" one day as well.

It's been a while since my last update - would you like to see pictures of what we've been up to?

 

Well, we have school outside in our pajamas sometimes. Just another perk of living in the middle of nowhere! Rachael has a nature journal that she draws in every day - anything interesting that she finds outside. In this picture, she's sketching her beloved tomato plant. Going to need quite a few more of those next year, I think.

 

We still have our "pet" turtles in a makeshift pond outside, and Rachael and Milly love to go out and watch them every day. They're in charge of feeding them, and once in a while we get a good action shot of them fighting over their breakfast. In this picture, Ruby is snapping at Felicity. Ruby is quite a bit larger and tends to be a bit of a bully, but Felicity gets her licks in too. We've added one more turtle since this picture was snapped - as with the others, Gene rescued Lilly from the middle of the road. Rachael knows that, with fall approaching, we'll have to set the turtles free soon, and she isn't terribly thrilled at the idea.
 

We play a lot of games, and Math Bingo is one of her favorites. She uses the manipulative blocks from our Math-U-See curriculum to help her add the big numbers, but she's starting to remember a lot of the smaller sums now. The pink card is always, always hers.

Coloring (okay, scribbling) is one of Milly's favorite schooltime activities. Anything with Dora's face on it is a BIG hit with her right now.
 

We finally made the balloon model of the solar system today. They're lined up in order from the sun - the big orange balloon - and even though it was officially stripped of planet status, she wanted Pluto to be included. (That's the little purple speck behind Neptune.) I thought that it would be appropriate to hang her solar system over her WALL-E poster, and she agreed. However, I'm not very happy with the whole thing. Her astronomy book actually outlined this project, using the balloons, and the diameter of several of them were so small that you couldn't even put air into them. Not to mention that NONE of the planets are actually ROUND. It's odd...I feel styrofoam balls and paint in our future.

This little monkey likes to steal the teacher's chair every chance she gets - and if she can grab a pen and scribble in the lesson book, so much the better.
 

We've had two Thursday morning co-ops now, and both have gone well. Rachael loves going to learn with her friends - and play in between lessons, of course. So far, she's made her own personal timeline in history...

...sorted shoes to learn about taxonomy and classification (this was a drawing of the process afterward)...

...and done leaf rubbings while examining the symmetry of several leaves' veins.
 

Naturally, Milly also works very hard while Rachael is in class.
 

After history, science, Bible and art comes lunch - where Rachael can be found at the end of the table with her "boy best friend", Patrick...who she will marry and have a hundred little girls with someday (the first two being named Genevieve and Lacey), but for now, they're just friends. Daddy is only moderately displeased, having seen for himself that Patrick is a very polite young man. :)

Then comes P.E. before heading home. Needless to say, we don't do a lot of other schoolwork at home on co-op days - just reading and math.

So, there's our week three update! We had two weeks to get into a routine without worrying much about outside activities. This week, Girl Scout meetings and craft time at the library resumed, as will gymnastics on Thursday. Thankfully, those are all late afternoon and evening activities, so we can still knock out schoolwork (and Milly's nap - very important) before rushing off to those.

More to come soon...!
 

What would have been...

Originally posted on August 19, 2009

Today was the first day of school in our county. This morning, I would have set an alarm to wake us all up early, gotten Rachael dressed and fed and driven her a couple of miles to the absurdly large elementary school - the same building where I attended middle school and my mom graduated from high school. I would have dropped her off at the door of a kindergarten classroom and (undoubtedly) cried like a big ol' baby all the way back to the van. Then I would have had a fun day playing one-on-one with Milly, who would probably have adored having the spotlight solely on herself. All day long, I would wonder...what is Rachael doing now? And eventually, I would cut Milly's nap short to jump back in the van and go retrieve my *sniffle* big kindergartener from her first day of school.

Instead, we all slept until about 8:00. We didn't rush through breakfast. We started school in our pajamas. We even went outside in them. We did our schoolwork at the kitchen table, drew pictures, played Math Bingo, and stopped for hugs and tickles as needed. She learned new things, and she had fun doing it. Rather than being her first day of kindergarten, it was her third day of first grade - because that is the level where she belongs, where is competent yet challenged. We had a great day of school together.

However, knowing what would have happened today has made me remember the discussion that first slung us haphazardly onto the road to homeschooling. Gene and I were sitting at the kitchen table one Sunday afternoon when Rachael was about a year - maybe a year and a half old, reading the newspaper. There was a feature story that week about an area homeschooling family, but I hadn't seen it yet. So I was caught completely off-guard when he told me, "I think you should homeschool Rachael." I was speechless. Homeschool? Homeschool?! But but but...homeschooling was for hippies and zealots and weirdos, and *gasp* what about socialization?! I told him that I would think about it.

And I did think about it. Every time I read about the merger of the county schools that was happening then, and wondered what the more crowded conditions would mean for my child, I thought about it. When I read about the below average test scores in our area schools, I thought about it. When I read about a little guy being caught in one of our schools with a knife in kindergarten - kindergarten! - oh yes, I thought about it.

Eventually I started thinking...I could do better than that. I could keep her safe, give her one-on-one attention, customize her curriculum to her needs, abilities and interests, and very likely provide better socialization than she would receive in a classroom anyway. I started thinking that, no matter what we taught her about God at home and at church, she wouldn't be hearing about Him at school. And as she got a little older, I realized what a bright little girl she was, and thought that just maybe, she would be bored to tears in elementary school the way that I was as a child.

While I was thinking and reading and researching, I was also praying. Was homeschooling really right for us? Was it consistent with God's plan for our family? I had always assumed that, once my children were in school, I would go back to work to help supplement the family income. Children are, after all, expensive little things. It didn't take long to find peace in the conclusion that one can't put a price on the well-being of her family. This time spent with my children is costing us a bundle in terms of lost income, but the benefits are priceless. The more I learned, the more I prayed, the more confident I became in the decision to educate my children at home.

In June 2007, we attended the Home Educators of Virginia (HEAV) conference in Richmond. I was amazed and inspired by the speakers at the workshops (especially Joy from Daughters 4 God - I want to be like her!) and could hardly wait to "do school" with my own daughter. We started exploring curriculums and quickly settled on a few things for preschool. We started that fall, when she was about 3 1/2, and preschool was lax at best - as it should be, I think, for such a little one. "School" was largely interrupted in December anyway, with the arrival of her baby sister, and then Christmas. Still, she read her first words on her own in January 2008, just before her fourth birthday. She progressed so well and loved learning so much that we made the decision to go ahead with a kindergarten curriculum in fall of 2008. And that is how we've come to be starting first grade at the same time that she would have been put into kindergarten in our county school system.

I started school last year with the affirmation that it would be a "year-to-year basis", that we would reassess at the end of each school year to see if it was working out well for all of us. By the end of kindergarten...well, I honestly don't recall pausing to reflect on whether or not it was working. I was already too busy deciding which curriculum to use for first grade. :)

With each passing year since that initial, shocking suggestion, I've learned more about homeschooling and become more comfortable with the idea - not just of homeschooling for the first few years, but indefinitely. Of course, if circumstances arose that would mean her learning better in a different environment...well, we won't muddle through just on principle. We'll do what's best for our children. Right now, homeschooling is undoubtedly what is best for them. I've also met more homeschooling families...and found that they're not hippies or zealots (or just plain weird) at all. What they are is dedicated and helpful. Their children are sociable, friendly, and smart. And I love being one of them.

First Grade - Day One: SUCCESS!

 

Originally posted on August 17, 2009

 

Rachael officially started first grade on August 17! Even though I thought I had planned too much for our first day...it was an absolute success.

We started out with a breakfast of blueberry waffles. Absolutely essential to the learning process, you know. Then she decorated her "first day" sign and posed for a picture before getting down to business.

I'm organizing our daily lessons with "workboxes" - an idea stolen borrowed from a homeschooling mommy friend's blog. Someday, I'll actually read the book on how workboxes are supposed to work...but for now, a very simple version worked out quite well today.
 

Ignore the junk in the background. That room is a work in progress, after all. Anyway...each box has a permanent number (on the left) and a removable number, stuck on with velcro. Inside each drawer is one subject that we'll cover that day - everything that we need for that lesson is inside the drawer, down to pencils, crayons, etc.
 

As we finish the lesson in a drawer, she removes the velcro number and sticks it to these handy little holders. There are actually ten spots, so she gets two "extra" activities thrown into the mix. Computer time is shown here - she also has the option to watch one show on TV. I need to come up with more ideas. Want to see what was inside the drawers today?
 

Drawer #1 will always be her devotional Bible, along with the day's memory verse and words to whatever song she's learning that week. (Yes, she already knows "Jesus Loves Me", but this week she's learning the second verse. I'm also hoping Milly will pick it up from hearing her sister sing - goodness knows she's picked up every song that Dora sings quite well, so I'm sure she's capable.)

Drawer #2 held our math book today - only the teacher's manual, as we only did review of place values and addition. She did a full worksheet of addition problems and had no trouble with the adding - only remembering which direction to write her 2s, 5s and 9s. She thinks it's absolutely hilarious to write her 9 backward - making it look like a P - and then informing me that "OOPS, she just P'ed in her book again!" We'll be doing more adding tomorrow, only in columns instead of horizontally. And of course, more working on that pesky skip counting by fives.

Drawer #3 was Language Arts. LLATL is awesome in that it's broken down into daily lessons already - no planning needed. Today's lesson consisted of reading a poem, talking about it, underlining the nouns in the poem, deciding which sentence went with a picture, reading several short words, writing a sentence, etc. It didn't take long at all, and I'm really looking forward to doing more tomorrow!

Drawer #4 is a great example of what workboxes can be for bigger kids - a completely "do it yourself" drawer! Love this little lined white board we found in the $1 bin at Target. Stuck to it are a list of her eight spelling words for this week, with instructions to write them on the board. I'm loving the things she can do by herself and have me look at later!

Drawer #5 contains another stolen borrowed idea - the Nature Journal. The first item of business was decorating the cover. Then, she took her binder and colored pencils outside with instructions to "find something in nature and draw it." She chose to draw her pet box turtles, Ruby and Felicity. Wonder what she'll choose tomorrow?
 

Hmm, this drawer looks suspiciously like the last one. This binder, however, is for her unit study on The Book of Virtues. Once again, she decorated the cover first, and reviewed the vocabulary words (philosophy, development, disciple, passion, appetite and reason) that we started on last week.

Believe it or not, I was trying to start slow today...so drawer #7 was kind of filler. I finally printed out the information for her Girl Scout Shape Up! patch and started documenting her physical activity time. We got off to a good start by having a big ol' dance party in the living room for half an hour this afternoon. Gotta love the 90s music channel!
 

Finally, drawer #8 - which will always be the last drawer of the day and will always contain this little black and white journal. This is Rachael's "end of the day" journal. I'll start a few questions in it for her each day, and it will be up to her to finish them. Unlike in her workbooks, I won't be offering spelling help in her journal - I want her to write her answers the way she thinks they should be. Mostly, I just want to have these years from now to go back and see how cute her answers were. :)  Today's entry was as follows (my words beginning, the bolded words at the end are hers, spelling errors included):

"My first day of first grade was FUN.My favorite part of the day was drawing in my journal.
Tomorrow, I hope we do ART.
I am proud of myself for doeng it."

Okay, okay, I did help her with the word journal. She asked and said she really wanted it to be right. Besides, it was written right on the cover if she had thought to look. ;)

Once school was over for the day, us girls headed off to let my mom thoroughly spoil the grandbabies. Rachael got her choice of restaurants for dinner (pizza buffet at Cici's) and Gramma picked up all of the still needed school supplies from Target - down to a pink baseball and pink tennis balls to use as part of upcoming science projects. She also got a new movie (Barbie and the Diamond Castle) and book (Fancy Nancy - The Show Must Go On) from Gramma, who tends to go a little overboard but mostly justified it this time. In the interest of fairness, Milly also came home with a new book (DORA) and coloring pad (DORA) to help keep her busy during school time. :)

All in all, we had a great first day. We got so much work done in so little time, and Rachael absolutely loved the freedom of deciding which box/drawer would be opened next. The only big kink I still need to work out is finding more things for Milly to do during school time - sure, I could print out DORA coloring pages all day long, but come on. Even that will get old eventually. I assume. I recently exhumed Rachael's old PowerTouch Baby (the Fisher-Price version of the LeapPad) with all its books and cartridges from a tub of outgrown baby toys, and have it ready to go for tomorrow - maybe that will keep her entertained for a while. If anyone has ideas on how to keep a 1-1/2-year-old happy during school time, please share your insight with me

'Twas the Night Before First Grade...

Originally posted on August 16, 2009

...and I'm still putting the finishing touches on everything we'll need for tomorrow. My lesson plan is done, now it's all organizational. Pictures will be forthcoming. :)

I'm so excited to start school with Rachael tomorrow - and she's excited too. She watched me getting everything together tonight and asked to do some right then and there, but I told her to wait till morning. How I hope she'll always love learning this much! Maybe if I play my cards right...

For my fellow homeschoolers, homeschool-curious and interested friends and family, I thought I'd recap our final curriculum choices for the 2009-10 school year.

BIBLE: Rachael absolutely adores her God's Little Princess Devotional Bible, so we'll be reading it for our daily devotions. She's outgrown our old devotion book, God and Me, but I may let her read a daily devotion to Milly from that. We'll be going back through the A Beka Bible curriculum from last year, to brush up on our memory verses and the doctrinal drills. We'll need something else later in the school year, and I'm open to suggestions.

MATH: Doing a bit of review and the last few lessons in Math-U-See Primer before moving on to Alpha. Must find a way to make skip counting by fives make sense to her...

LANGUAGE ARTS: I read so many awesome things about Learning Language Arts Through Literature that I just had to go with it this year, and I can't wait to dig in. We went with the red books this year, which is geared toward second grade, but I think it'll be just right for Rachael. I also have a reading list for the year typed up and ready to go, and I'll probably add to it - as will she. She's moving steadily through the American Girl books, and loves several other "chapter book" series as well (Judy Moody, Junie B. Jones, Amber Brown, etc.) so there will be some solo reading time each afternoon during which she can read whatever she wants (and give me a break - hopefully during Milly's naptime!) But I digress. LLATL covers reading, grammar, spelling, handwriting, phonics...it's pretty all-inclusive, but we're adding to it anyway. We'll be learning spelling words from The Natural Speller (this little book has spelling lessons for kindergarten through high school - check it out, homeschooling moms!) and I'm hoping that Handwriting Without Tears will live up to its name...whenever it shows up. Not terribly impressed with shipping time from the company, but I've heard good things about the curriculum

SCIENCE: We'll be learning all about the planets, sun, moon and stars using Apologia's Exploring Creation Through Astronomy. This one is going to be fun! Our weekly homeschool co-op is also using an Apologia book, Exploring Creation Through Botany - which we will likely use full-time and explore more deeply next school year. I'm also borrowing an idea from another homeschool mom and having her make a nature journal - she'll have to go outside and find something to draw in it every day. Or most every day. We'll see how it goes.

HEALTH: I may have underestimated her by ordering the first grade book from Horizons Health. But it'll be a quick, easy once a week (or so) lesson for her.

HISTORY: Brushing off The Story of the World: Ancient Times. This will most likely be another once a week topic, as I'll be teaching from this book in our co-op. We may expand on it at home, though, as there are so many wonderful activities that go along with each chapter.

THE BOOK OF VIRTUES: This is a free (although thorough!) unit study available online at Shiver Academy. It is a 20-week unit study on the book by the same name, focusing on self-discipline, compassion, responsibility, friendship, work, courage, perseverance, honesty, loyalty and faith. I have a feeling we're going to be going through a loooooooot of printer ink with all the great pages included in this study, but it will be well worth it.

OTHER: Rachael is a little fascinated by all things French (thanks, Fancy Nancy!) so we'll be dabbling in Muzzy French this year. Obviously, not pushing the foreign language at age 5 1/2! Art will be covered at our co-op, although she'll have plenty of opportunity to create her own masterpieces at home. The kids will be doing P.E. at co-op as well - the older girls especially are aiming toward next spring's Presidential Fitness Challenge, and we'll be working toward the Shape Up! Girl Scout patch as well. I'm still not sure what we'll do about music - Kindermusik is just SO expensive, as are piano lessons and, well, nearly everything musical. Worst case scenario, I guess we'll just listen to the radio and dance, a lot.  ;)

Needless to say, we won't be doing ALL of that EVERY day.

Wish us luck tomorrow as we dive into the new school year...and check back for an update soon!

Gearing up and sharing an article!

Originally posted on August 14, 2009

We're almost ready for the start of our 2009-10 school year! A bit more organizing and planning and we'll be good to go on Monday morning. Look for a long post on Monday evening about Rachael's first day of first grade!

Meanwhile, thought I'd share a great article that a friend passed on to me. One of many reasons that we choose to homeschool. :)

Study: Homeschoolers Scoring 'Well Above' Public School Peers
By Aaron J. Leichman
Christian Post Reporter
August 11, 2009
The most comprehensive survey of homeschoolers in America in more than a decade found a large gap between students educated at home and those educated in public institutions.

In the nationwide study conducted by Dr. Brian D. Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute, homeschoolers were found to have scored 34-39 percentile points higher than the norm on standardized achievement tests. The homeschool national average ranged from the 84th percentile for language, math, and social studies to the 89th percentile for reading, reported the Home School Legal Defense Association, which commissioned Ray to conduct the survey in 2007.

According to HSLDA, anecdotal evidence of homeschooling’s success has been backed by multiple research studies. However, it has been at least 10 years since any major nationwide study of homeschooling was done.

During that time, the number of homeschooled children has grown from about 850,000 to approximately 1.5 million, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

"Homeschooling is a rapidly growing, thriving education movement that is challenging the conventional wisdom about the best way to raise and educate the next generation," commented HSLDA president Michael Smith in his group’s announcement of the study Monday.

For the new study, touted as “the most comprehensive study of homeschool academic achievement ever completed,” Ray surveyed 11,739 homeschooled students from all 50 states, Guam, and Puerto Rico, and drew from 15 independent testing services.

Aside from the academic results, the study found that the achievement gaps common to public schools were not found in the homeschool community.

Homeschooled boys (87th percentile) and girls (88th percentile) scored equally well; the income level of parents did not appreciably affect the results (household income under $35,000: 85th percentile – household income over $70,000: 89th percentile); and while parent education level did have some impact, even children whose parents did not have college degrees scored in the 83rd percentile, which is well above the national average for public school students.

Homeschooled children whose parents both had college degrees scored in the 90th percentile.

"These results validate the dedication of hundreds of thousands of homeschool parents who are giving their children the best education possible," commented Smith.

"Because of the one-on-one instruction homeschoolers receive, we are prepared academically to be productive and contributing members of today's society," he added.

According to the study, 82.4 percent of homeschooling parents identified themselves as Protestant Christian, 12.4 Roman Catholic, 1.1 percent atheist/agnostic, 0.8 percent Mormon, 0.4 percent Jewish, 0.2 percent Eastern Orthodox Christian, and 0.1 percent Muslim.

The vast majority (97.9 percent) of parents in the study was also married and had an average of 3.5 children compared to the general population’s average of 2.0 children.

The title of the study is “Progress Report 2009: Homeschool Academic Achievement and Demographics.”

RAWR!

Originally posted on August 3, 2009

Lessons are taking a backseat to camp this week, as Rachael will be gone every morning learning about...DINOSAURS! I probably think this is way more cool than she does, as I was dino-obsessed as a little kid - but her best friend Sophie is in the same camp, so she's pretty thrilled with it anyway. I can't wait to hear what she learns! Here's what the VMNH brochure had to say about her camp:

iDig Dinosaurs!
Age 5 – 7
August 3 – 7, 9 a.m. – 12 p.m.
A fun-filled camp designed especially for future paleontologists interested in dinosaurs and fossils. Participants will explore various prehistoric creatures through games and activities, and even make their own fossils to take home!
$55 non-members, $50 members

Yeah, the price is pretty miserable...but luckily, Sophie's mom works at the museum and offered to cover the cost for Rachael in exchange for babysitting services. Her younger daughter is only three months older than Milly, and they get along wonderfully - so what a great deal!

Our only other recent adventure involved FOOD. We're currently reading about the newest American Girl, Rebecca Rubin, who is a Jewish immigrant from Russia living in New York City in 1914. Her family speaks a lot of Yiddish at home, so Rachael is learning a word here and there (mazel tov, Shabbos, etc.) as well as learning about Jewish traditions. One of them mentioned in the book was the baking of hallah bread for the Sabbath - it was a treat for Rebecca's family, as eggs were expensive at the time. Rachael latched right onto the mention of hallah bread when Rebecca got to knock on the top of it to see if sounded hollow - meaning it was done. She immediately asked if we could bake some too. Google to the rescue!

HALLAH BREAD
1 pkg. active dry yeast
2 tbsp. sugar
5 c. flour
2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 egg yolk, slightly beaten
Poppy seed

Sprinkle yeast and sugar into 1/4 cup very warm water. Let stand 5 minutes, then stir. Mix flour and salt in large bowl. Make a well in center and drop in whole eggs, oil, 1 1/4 cups very warm water and the yeast mixture. Work liquids into the flour. Turn out on lightly floured board and knead until smooth and elastic. Put in greased bowl and turn to grease top. Cover. Let stand in warm place 1 hour. Punch down. Cover and let rise 35 minutes or until double in bulk.
Divide dough into 3 equal parts. Between lightly floured hands roll dough in 3 ropes of even length. Braid and put on greased baking sheet. Cover. Let rise 20 minutes or until light. Brush with egg yolks and sprinkle poppy seed. Bake in moderate oven 375 degrees about 45 minutes. Check after 15 minutes, if braid is very brown cover with a piece of foil.

I'm not sure how accurate this recipe is in terms of being considered "real" hallah bread...but it was easy enough to make. Rachael thoroughly enjoyed kneading and punching down the dough. The task of braiding it fell to me, and let me tell ya...braiding dough isn't the easiest thing I've tried! It ended up looking pretty good in spite of my efforts, and tasted even better. In fact, the entire loaf lasted about 24 hours.

 

Shopping for the last of our textbooks for this year - more coming soon!

Testing the waters.

Originally posted on July 28, 2009

Although we still haven't chosen an *official* first day of school for this year, we're slowly easing back into the swing of the school day - starting today! Just from this morning, I can already tell that Milly is going to be a challenge for us this year, as she wants a) to be included in everything we do and b) for Rachael to not be included in anything. Hmm. Coloring pages are only going to get us so far. Time to break out my copy of The Toddler's Busy Book and put together a few things for her.

As for Rachael, we're not starting with the usual subjects just yet. Truth is, we've been having some...well...behavioral issues of late. The attitude, the sassiness, the "convenient hearing" when asked to do something - it all adds up to two aggravated, frustrated parents. Luckily, I stumbled across a great little unit study on William J. Bennett's The Book of Virtues - so that's where we're starting today. The first two weeks of the study focus on self-discipline, which is perfect for us right now. We're working on the vocabulary words (disciple, philosophy, development, reason, passion and appetite) this morning, as well as handwriting. There's a good bit of writing involved in this study - writing out definitions, copying Bible verses and famous quotes, etc., so we really need to brush up on her lowercase letters. Right now, she's busy writing the alphabet on a lined white board, and is none too happy about it. She hates to write and says she wants to type everything the way that Daddy does...oops. Unfortunately for her, part of self-discipline is making yourself sit down and do what needs to be done, even if it's not really what you want to be doing.

(Homeschool mamas - the unit study is free and can be found at Shiver Academy. It's a huge PDF file, but it's worth the download!)

Countdown to OFFICIAL...

Originally posted on July 24, 2009

 

Milly and I went to the post office today (while Rachael was elsewhere with Gene) and mailed our Notice of Intent to homeschool for the 2009-2010 school year. I forked over a little extra for a delivery receipt, which will be filed with copies of everything mailed. Yes, I see myself being very cautious about maintaining files, just in case anything is ever called into question.

So long as the post office manages to get the letter from Ridgeway to Collinsville sometime in the next 22 days, we're all cleared to homeschool this year. It was oddly exciting - and liberating - to mail that letter. You all know me, I just love flying in the face of convention. ;)