End of Year Evaluation in ECC

Okay, not to brag on Rabbit, but I'm going to :) ...

I just did the end-of-year evaluation with my dd Rabbit. Remember, we finished school about 4 weeks ago and haven't done ANY geography since (just spelling, math, typing). Also, remember we came from a textbook/workbook curriculum to MFW - what a big change.

One of the evaluations is to label blank maps of each continent. We did it at the beginning of the year, and she could only label 11 countries. Well, we just did it again, and she was able to correctly label 83 things - some oceans and gulfs, and countries. So, the Geography game really works! Also, filling in the maps at the beginning of each continent works. We hardly ever discussed the Gulf of California, but she knew where it was.

We also went through each country we visited, and I had her talk about what she remembered. Most of it wasn't important stuff, but she did get something out of each country - either it was the largest (or 3rd largest), or the language(s) spoken, or the climate, or their main export (oil for Saudi Arabia), or their religion, or their animals (especially Australia). I would ask her what missionaries we read about went to that country or were from that country. She remembered some interesting little tidbits.

Finally, I asked her if we could visit any of the countries we studied for real, which would she choose? She said China or Japan. She found their cultures interesting and thought it would neat to see what she read about. Also, she loves rice, so she thought it would be neat to see how rice is grown.

Anyway, I'm so pleased with how well she did. We didn't really study the geography terms that much this year. She did them, but it was NOT her favorite thing. We'll get ECC again in 8th grade, so we'll focus on it a bit more then.

We also had to do standardized testing this year. We got her scores back last week. The area we need to work on most: language mechanics - you know, commas, periods, subject, verb. But, everything else was great. She did better than I expected in math, and reading comprehension was awesome. Writing is her weakest point. We did a lot of assignments orally, or she dictated to me, and I wrote, so use of commas and periods wasn't something we focused on a lot. I'll work on it more next year.

We really enjoyed this year, and our relationship is so much better.

2009 CHEC Christian Family Conference

I spent the last two days at the CHEC (Christian Home Educators of Colorado) Home School Conference, or as they call it the Christian Family Conference. The conference is also on Thursday, but I didn't go. I will probably be getting some MP3 files from Best Christian Conferences for a couple of Thursday talks recommended by friends.

A friend and I carpooled to get there. We were chatting, and I missed an exit (I go a really back-roads kind of way to get there). We ended up looping around the long way, but got there in time anyway. It was kind of fun to see the oil processing plants in the middle of Commerce City. We both commented that our boys would have loved it.

I had my list of what I wanted to buy ready when I got there, so I made my stops: Math-U-See, My Father's World, and Rainbow Resource. I hauled it all out to the car in our "book basket" and I was ready for being energized and encouraged.

The first talk I went to was called "Teaching Your Kids to B.L.E.S.S" by Rachael Carman. She's a very good speaker, energetic and pulls in personal life stories. I really appreciated her heart in this talk. B.L.E.S.S. stands for Beneficial, Loving, Encouraging, Sacrifical, and Serving words. And, this was not just about the kids doing it, but moms and dads as well. This is something I need to work on for me, and for my kids. I can really see this helping have kinder words to each other.

The next talk I went to was by David Hazell, called "Homeschool: 'School' at Home or Family Discipleship." The big focus on this talk was thinking about the future - to your grandkids and great grandkids. Are you raising your children so that they'll raise their children to raise Godly children. At one point he asked, "What do you wish you had known when you got married?" No one answered, "More calculus." It was mostly relational things and life skills. Yes, academics are important, but they're the means to an end, not the end. Education never ends.

"The Joys of Raising Boys" by Marsha Washburn was my next talk. Having had an energetic girl, a lot of what she talked about wasn't "new" to me, but it was a good reminder as I head into starting K with my little guys. One of the things I really liked that she said was to find heros for your boys. I liked that. Good, Godly heros to look up to.

After that I felt like going to "Teaching Your Children to Stand Alone" by Little Bear Wheeler. He was a great speaker. He would be talking, and then get into something, and about 3 sentences into it, it would be funny. You wouldn't realize it because he kept such a serious face. He was really about guiding your children, but not being a control freak. Showing them, helping them and letting them go. Yes, we want to control their lives when they are little, but we need to be gradually letting them go, not going cold turkey when they turn 18.

And finally, since I will be teaching writing next fall, I thought I would go to Andrew Pudewa's "Teaching and Evaluating Writing." First, he is an excellent speaker - engaging, funny, and to the point. I really like how he gave his example outline, and other tips on helping improve a childs writing. But, I'm still going to start with Writing Strands this fall. If Rabbit has too much trouble, then I'll consider his program. Oh, this talk was 59 minutes on Teaching Writing, and 1 minute on Evaluating. Basically, if they did the topic sentence, and 3 supporting sentences, and the "clincher," then they should get an A.

At the end of the day I was exhausted. I was glad to have someone carpooling with me. Of course, we hit rush hour traffic at the worst time - about 1/2 hour to go 2 miles at one point, but we made it.

Today my husband had a "men's meeting" with the men at church, so I couldn't make the main session, but got to the conference just in time for shopping. I wandered around, and bought a few odds and ends that I thought would complete our school year.

Diana Waring's "The Indespensable Ingredient" was my first talk of the day. Basically, you the mom (or dad) are the main teacher, and you are what makes your school possible. She used the example of Strawberry Jam. The strawberries don't pick themselves, or wash themselves, or cook themselves - you have to do the work. Same with school. However, there is a lot of responsibity with that role. It was encouraging though. Again, real life personal examples of God's grace and winning back your children when you really mess up to give you hope.

I skipped the next time session because dhudson on the MFW message boards wanted us Colorado MFW users to meet in the cafeteria. That was great. Turns out, I worked with dhudson's husband way back when I worked, before we had kids. Talk about a small world. Hopefully we'll do some field trips or other fun things together.

Over the lunch hour I listend to "Family Ministry: Training Children to Reach Out" by David Hazell. The focus of this talk was the fact that we are chosen, called By God, to do what's in front of you. I really like how he talked about doing ministry as a family, and not sending the kids off under someone else to do ministry. Feeding the homeless, visiting nursing homes, a "jar" for giving, Bibles for displaced people - all ideas of things you can do as a family.

I will be adding my boys to our school next year (not that they weren't a part of our school this year), so "Teaching Boys and Other Children Who would Rather Make Forts All Day," by Andrew Pudewa seemed a logical choice. The room was packed for this talk. He talked about how boys are girls are really different - even physiologically. Boys need to stand to do math, boys don't hear as well, and need to be "cooler" temperature-wise. He had us laughing almost the whole time. He has two secret weapons for motivating kids. The first is you have to fill up their emotional bank account so they're living off the interest. He had a rule of saying 10 nice things before saying one critical thing. The second was to smile - a lot. If you smile you will make the other person smile.

My last talk of the day was "Exposed, Isolated or Insulated: How Should We Homeschool Our Children?" Another talk about having the long-term vision for your kids and their kids. About walking life together with our children and guiding them through it. One example he gave was going to the movies - his kids can only go if he gets to go with them. He'll buy the tickets for his kids and their friends. This way he knows what they're seing and get to talk with them afterwards about it. He again talked about ministry with your kids, not just sending them off with someone else (unless they're ready, of course). Another thing I really liked aout this was the idea of we don't have teenagers, we have young adults. At age 12, you start giving them responsibilities so they can be prepared. Of course you help them and guide them and teach them, but you are helping their roots grow deep (Psalm 1) so they know how to rely on God.

The amazing thing was, at the end of the conference I wasn't exhausted, even though I didn't sleep much last night. I woke up around 2:45 and just couldn't sleep. I got up for a while and read my Bible, and about 4:30 went back to bed. My husband got up at 6:00 and I thought, "Oh, I'll sleep until 6:30.' No sooner than he gets in the shower, and Pooh is knocking at the door - his bed is wet. So, I get him changed, and the bed changed, and crawl back in the bed thinking, "Okay, I'll sleep until 7:00." I pull up the covers, and Rabbit comes in with the same problem. (This hasn't happened to her in about 2 years.) So, my husband and I change the sheets on her bed, and it's 6:30 - time for me to get ready. The boys get up at 7:00. But now, 9:50pm, I am tired and hoping to get a good night's sleep.

I think the conference was great. I got something good out of every talk. And I did feel refreshed and energized at the end. I'm glad I went.

Week 33, Day 1 in ECC: Antarctica

Okay, I thought I would blog today, since it went so well.

We started with reading about Samoa, which was so interesting. I love the fact that they ring the church bells at dusk to remind people to read their Bibles and pray.

Then we worked on Geography. I didn't dig out their passports. We looked at the globe and saw how it is at the bottom of the world. We also compared to how the Arctic is mostly ocean and the Antarctic is mostly land. Then I had Rabbit do the map work as assigned.

After that we read our science pages and did our science experiments/demonstrations. The first one was to look at what an iceberg looks like in the ocean. I remembered to read through the manual last night, and "froze and iceberg" in the freezer overnight. Then we floated it in a clear bowl. I asked the kids what was most interesting, and Rabbit noticed how most of it was under the water. (Good job Rabbit! You got the point.) We also talked a little bit about the Titanic - I thought that might be an interesting tidbit of history. Here is our picture:

Then I demonstrated how the north and south poles are in the dark all of their winters. I used a flashlight and the globe in the bathroom (so we could really see it). Even the boys enjoyed looking at the iceberg and seeing how the sun hit the globe.

After snack, it was time for preschool with the boys. Tigger was having an attitude problem, so he spent the time in his room, and Pooh got an individual preschool. Rabbit worked on her copy work and science page.

Next up, All About Spelling. Rabbit was bummed because she hasn't had a chance to write spelling words in her new spelling book. All of it is review right now, but I felt like we should start from the beginning. We've gone through 5 steps in 3 days. Tomorrow we'll do some spelling.

In English she was suppose to copy all these "Proverbs and Maxims." Instead we just discussed them, since I knew copying would have produced a meltdown. Rabbit read from the book basket while I made lunch.

After lunch, she finished up her copy work and science page, and then we did reading together. I wanted to give her a break from writing before doing math. She's getting better about really thinking about whether she's reversing numbers, but still does it a little. She is now writing all the numbers in the right places, so that's a major improvement.

Lastly, we did another lesson in Scoring High. It was picking "Topic Sentences" for paragraphs. It was hard for her, and for a couple of them I thought the choices were too close to each other to pick one over another. Oh well. It is probably something we need to work on.

Besides Tigger's bad attitude, it seemed like a great day, and we were done by 2:15! I love it when that happens.

Memorial Day Field Trip

A group of people from our church were going to see the professional baseball team of our city, and we got tickets too. Because baseball is a national past time, and the kids don't really know much, our Principle said we could count it as a field trip. Because it was Memorial Day, there was a special presentation for Veterans. Here are some pictures.

The stadium:

Here are the service men and women who presented colors:

And finally, the flag out in center field:

Thank you, all you who have served our country!

Week 31-32 in ECC: Australia

Welcome to the world Down Under! We learned some fascinating things these last two weeks.

For Bible, we read about Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, and continued on through Matthew. Rabbit is getting much better at summarizing her narrations. The boys also listened in quite a bit more these last couple of weeks.

For Geography we read about the many different foods and animals of Australia. We tried Kiwi fruit, but ours was a bit sour. Since we only added 3 new countries to our Geography Game, we didn't have to learn that much new. Rabbit and I did our favorite pages from the Geography Packet together. Everyday Pooh asked if it was "Flag Day" - the day we make the flag of our country. He was so excited when it was finally Flag Day. So, he colored the copy of the flag and cut it out. It was also fun to learn what the different Australian expressions mean. We didn't do any Australian cooking, as Rabbit looked through the Cooking the Australian Way book and didn't see anything she liked, but we did light up the barbie and grill steaks.

For science, we read about coral reefs, how islands form, and the dry forests. All the kids did "science pages" every day. We actually got in a Nature Walk over at the reservoir this week, since dance is finally over for the year. We ate lunch there, and then went on a walk that was not around the lake.

We missed art the first week because my mom was hospitalized, and so we had to take care of that. Then we tried making the koala bear treats this week, but those were a flop - I couldn't get the confectioners sugar to mix into the peanut butter. So, instead we spread peanut butter on Ritz crackers and used raisins to make the eyes and nose of a koala bear. Here is our picture of those:

We're repeating lesson 24 in Gamma. Rabbit is really trying, but she is having reversal problems again. If it is 7 x 4, she is writing the 2 and carrying the 8. However, when she adds, she doesn't do this any more. So, we're going to do all the pages again in the lesson and see if we can get her to stop reversing, and remembering where to write the numbers. I'm copying all the problems onto graph paper for her so it is easier to line things up.

For spelling, we decided to try something new. I ordered All About Spelling Level One. I felt like I should start there as Rabbit is not familiar with the Orton-Gillingham (or Spalding, too) method of phonics. I figure we'll finish the first book really quick, maybe even before summer is out and go from there. She is excited to be using the letter tiles. I also got her a pink "composition notebook" for her to write spelling words in. We're having to learn all the sounds each letter can make, so we're having to relearn the vowels, c, g, s and y.

English has still been going through Primary Language Lessons. We only have 3 lessons left, and one week of "official school" so it worked out perfectly. Still doing most of it orally. I think Emma Serl must have really liked birds, because she had this whole conversation lesson about birds. Then I got Intermediate Language Lessons used, and noticed it had at least one lesson in the 4th grade section on birds. I don't know much about birds. We might need to get a bird book just for English. I'm a little concerned about how much ILL steps up compared to PLL. I hope Rabbit is up for it next year.

For reading we're continuing in our Abeka reader. We finished Power Glide Level 3 Spanish for the 3rd time, so we're done with that. For Math Drill this week we used the wrap-ups.

So, next week we head off to the cold land of Antarctica.

Week 29-30 in ECC: Russia

The last two weeks have been interesting.

Bible time was good. We've had more discussions. There were lots of end times passages that we didn't totally understand, but we discussed them. AWANA is over for the year. So, that speeds up our morning time.

For Geography, we read about Russia, made a Russian flag, tried to pronounce some Russian words, and played the Geography Game. Pooh was disappointed every day that we didn't make the Russian flag. He really enjoys doing the flags as a craft. Rabbit enjoyed the Russian Ballerina page. We didn't learn how to play chess, as suggested in the manual. Dad has taught her a little, but I don't think she gets it yet. Maybe next time.

In Science, it was mostly reading about the Arctic. The second week, we just picked books from the book basket to read about science. Rabbit did a couple of science pages. Even Pooh wanted to make science pages.

For Music, we listened to the one Russian song, but we've pretty much been skipping it. For the Art projects, though, we've done those. I found nesting boxes at Michaels, but only 3 deep. I let her decorate those however. Then we did the Jeweled Egg project the next week. It was really hard to empty the eggs without breaking them. But, once I did, I remembered that I was given a box of stuff that my grandfather's 4th wife had used to decorate eggs. (She was really into it, and cut them open and put scenes inside them and everything.) So, we used the beads and ric-rac to create an egg. We each did one. I'll post pictures later.

We keep plowing trough Math. Rabbit only got an 83 on her last quiz, but they were mistakes from not lining up numbers correctly and such. She is pretty well enjoying Quarter Mile Math, but she is getting frustrated that she doesn't always beat her best time.

We keep going through Sequential Spelling. I keep asking her if she wants to change. I don't think she is really "getting" the rules. And I thought about switching to All About Spelling. So, I show her the web-site and an example lesson, and she asks, "Does it have a spelling workbook?" So I say, "What do you mean?" She says, "You know, a special book to write the words in." So this is the whole issue with spelling - she wants a bound notebook/workbook to write in. ARRGGH! I showed her some of her dad's composition notebooks, wondering if she would accept that as a spelling notebook, but I'm not sure. Grrr.

We did 6 more lessons in Primary Language Lessons. One of them I made into a fill in the blank. Some of them were writing letters, and since we had thank you notes to write for a recent birthday, we've been doing those for some of the PLL lessons and the Writing lessons.

Since AWANA is over, we've added in a little bit of keyboarding. I keep forgetting, so we haven't done much, but she is excited to start, and we will work on it over the summer.

We have to do 15 more days of school by state law, but I have 20 more days of curriculum - at least Bible, Geography, and Science. I think at the end of the 15 days, we'll do our 3rd grade testing as required. Then we'll just do Bible, Geography, and Science of those last 5 days - taking a break from everything else, and then switch over to "school lite" - which will be Math, Spelling, Typing, and Reading.

Week 27-28 in ECC: Japan

Japan was great. It helped that my husband had taken several business trips over there and his employer gave him a bunch of information and fliers about Japan. He also took pictures when he was over there, so we had those, too.

For Geography, we read in the Atlas about Japan and read the interesting facts pages. The day came to make the Japanese flag, and originally, I was just going to have them color the copy from the book, but Pooh wanted to "make the flag." So, I drew circles on red paper, and let them cut them out and glue them on. Instant craft! Pooh loves doing crafts for some reason. Then, on the "colors" page, where we colored the fish, I just so happened to have eyelets left over from my paper scrapbooking life, so the kids cut out the fish, and I put the eyelets on so they could easily string them up.

In science, we had a couple of experiments to do. The first set involved salt water. I didn't have enough salt, so we skipped those. I think I might try to remember to do them this summer or something. The second set involved showing how cold water sinks. Ours didn't work to well. I think an aquarium would have been better. Most of our readings were about oceans, and the boys joined in and made science pages, too, a couple of days. Also, it was warm enough for us to do nature walks this week. We got to go just after the snow melted, and our "stream" through our park was really rushing, so that was neat for the kids to see how the water really moves, but it made me nervous walking over those bridges with no railings!

I just realized I haven't been doing a good job of explaining to Rabbit about why we're studying the biomes. I haven't been explicitly tying in the region. I think it was pretty obvious when we studied Brazil, Mexico, and Africa. But, I think Japan may be more subtle. I'll have to remember to go over that with her.

Rabbit did okay with her copy work, and writing. And, for the vocabulary words, she again wrote several sentences each week. I think having only one to do each week really motivates her to write more for that one.

We keep marching on with Sequential Spelling. I think she loves that she is spelling big words and getting them right (at least during spelling time), but I know she still doesn't like how long the lists are. We often break it up still, doing 13 words, then reading time, and then 12 words.

We've been doing most of English orally. One day I was able to make a fill-in-the-blank worksheet for her out of the lesson. I realize now, after going through the manual, I forgot to do the Haiku lesson with Rabbit. Maybe I'll catch it next time.

For math, we finished off lesson 21, and lesson 22, except the quiz for lesson 22.

For art, we've been doing the Origami - I didn't have the stuff for the art projects. The kids like the origami, and Pooh has done one "dog," too.

We finished up one Abeka 3rd grade reader and moved on to the next one. We really enjoyed Secret in the Maple Tree. It was like a chapter book. This next reader is a bunch of stories in one book. It is kind of funny, because we read some of these stories through the book basket list in ECC. Rabbit gets kind of bummed when I skip the ones we have already read.

We finished Gladys Aylward's book. What a great life, and I love how she lived out her passion. She was the third missionary who really focused on helping children.

We haven't done Spanish everyday, thanks to dance class, but we're progressing. We probably only have 15 lessons or so left. I'll probably stop doing an Spanish when we finish.

We also got two, "Families of Japan" type videos from the library. They were great. We also got "Big Bird Goes to Japan," kind of for fun. It was okay, but there was a scary scene where they show the "guards" of a temple (basically statues that look like goblins). If you have sensitive kids, I wouldn't get it.

Even though they believe in lots of gods, Japan felt a lot "lighter" than China. Perhaps because it is not a communist country.