Week 1, Day in CTG

We did it! Hooray! We made it through the first day of school, teaching 3 kids. Here are Pooh, Rabbit, and Tigger:

I started off doing Bible, History, and Science together. I think it might have been a little over the boys' heads, but it was good. I bought a notebook just for writing down "What does this passage tell us about God?" Today's answers: "God is all powerful. God has always been here." In History we read from Dinosaurs in Eden. The pictures of the dinosaurs were a big hit. It didn't take too long to read it. Then, we read the introduction in our science book. The kids loved the silly puns and fun discussion. They were ready for it to be done, though.

Rabbit worked on her handwriting page, addition math windows, history notebook page, and book basket while I taught the boys. We did lesson 1 in Abeka's K program. Then we did the first lesson in Math-U-See's Primer. Next we did some exercises from Handwriting Without Tears. One of the exercises was a trick to show the kids how to hold their pencil properly. It was funny watching Pooh do that the rest of the day, every time he picked up a writing utensil. Tigger already has a good pencil grip. I think the boys were a little disappointed that their time was over (we spend an hour together), but they had no problem running off to play.

Next, Rabbit and I worked on her Singapore Math. This was a number pattern lesson, and she was really struggling with it. Finally, she got to the last problem, which was a big puzzle to fill in. (It looked like a crossword, but there were patterns of numbers with blanks, and she had to fill in the blanks.) I didn't think she could do it. She was getting frustrated, so she took her book and ran off to her room. About 20 minutes later, I went in and checked on her, and she had figured out all but 4 blanks on the puzzle! I was amazed. I helped her think through how to fill in the last 4.

Then we did the first lesson in Intermediate Language Lessons. I let her do it orally. Then we read from her Pathway Reader and she filled in the workbook pages for it. She didn't answer any of the questions that required a long answer. I was fine with that. She just did the fill-in-the-blank types. I'm letting her use a pen for some of her writing, and she really likes that.

After lunch, they had recess, and then I did the "Lesson on Frustration" from God and the History of Art. None of kids could make any marks on their papers with their pencils in their mouths.

Rabbit trying:

Pooh trying:

Tigger trying:

So, then they tried with their "non-writing hand" and that was hated as well. After that, they just colored their copy of the butterfly.

The boys had their quiet time, and Rabbit needed about 15 minutes more of school to get in our requred 4 hours. So, we did spelling. Things took a turn for the worse on attitude about then. We got through the lesson, but she lost computer priviledges for the day. In talking to my husband about that, he suggested we go back to the attitude chip cups we did last year. Last year we had paper clips, this year I have the pretty decorative marbles from Michael's Craft Store that are flat on one side. I made a cup for each child and will begin implementing immediately. I need to come up with a chart of consequences. Last year if she lost 5 chips, she lost computer time. I also made it so she could earn chips back by doing extra chores. I need to come up with consequences for losing more than 5 chips. I need to find un-fun stuff.

I feel pretty good about our first day, in spite of the attitude issues. We got it all done, and I didn't end up in tears!

Getting Ready

I have been spending the summer basically getting ready for school. I've been researching curriculum, trying some things with Rabbit, and entering lesson plans into Homeschool Tracker Plus (HST+). We are actually going to start next Monday! The kids are really excited about it.

This summer, Rabbit and I have been doing All About Spelling. We finished Level 1 in about a month. It was a good review of the basic phonics rules. I really like the hands-on aspect of the letter tiles and the built-in review. We started level 2 a couple of weeks ago, but there have been a bunch of last minute doctor's appointments and a camping trip that have cut into getting to spelling.

We also started working on Singapore 3A. What?!?! You may ask. Well, I think Math-U-See is great, but I feel it is lacking in some aspects. I managed to pick up the Singapore 3A and 3B textbooks used at a used curriculum fair this summer, and then I bought lesson plans and the workbooks from MFW at the CHEC Conference. The textbooks are color, but the workbooks are black and white. I think the Singapore books really work on the concepts of math in a more concrete way. One of the things about MUS that has been bothering me is the order. In the Alpha book, they teach both addition and subtraction. Then, in the Beta book, they teach carrying and borrowing, gradually building to bigger and bigger numbers. In Gamma they teach multiplication, including big numbers. Then, in Delta they teach division, including long division. I think it would be better if they taught the basic multiplication and division concepts in Gamma, and then in Delta teach the carrying and long division, similar to the way they did additon and subtraction in Alpha and Beta.

The little bit of Singapore we have done has been challenging to Rabbit. She has really struggled, but I think it has been good to show her new ways of looking at math and numbers.

Rabbit still struggles with writing, but we did a year of Brain Integration Therapy, and have only seen minor improvements. My husband thinks it may be partly a maturity issue. We have done some typing this summer, but I haven't been consistent with it. I found an online game that will at least let her do it by herself. Maybe as a part of her "independent" time each day.

I love using Homeschool Tracker Plus to plan out my weeks. It took quite a bit of work to get the Creation to the Greeks (CtG) material entered. For History I just made the Lesson field say "Week X, Day Y" and then in the notes it says, "See T.M. for details. This may include reading, notebooking, and timeline work." I did something similar for the Bible subject. For Science, Art/Music, and Read Alouds I went ahead and entered the book and pages.

In English we will be using Intermediate Language Lessons. Again, a lot of this can be done orally. I have some ideas from my friend mfwrocks that will really help.

We'll be finishing MUS Gamma, and then possibly alternating between Delta and Singapore for Math. Rabbit really hasn't had division yet, so I feel like she needs some exposure to it before we get too far into our Singapore book.

Since Rabbit has struggled with printing (her cursive is beautiful), I got Handwriting Without Tears' (HWT) 5th grade printing workbook. We'll do the 3 weeks of handwriting review from the Creation to the Greeks manual, and then I'll have her do 10 to 15 minutes from the HWT every day. She has looked through the workbook and is excited about it.

For Reading we will be using the 4th grade level Pathway Reader and the Abeka 4th grade level readers. The stories will be good, and I know they should be just the right level for her to read to me. I'm going to start with having her read aloud to me every day. If she shows signs she is doing well with it on her own, then I may cut that back 2 to 3 times a week.

For Spanish we will be using The Easy Spanish. It is very Charlotte Mason and Christian, and Rabbit will love the stories. Creation to the Greeks only schedules Foreign Language 3 days a week, so it will be interesting to see if that is enough or if we need to do it every day.

Tigger and Pooh will start Kindergarten. I am using Abeka's Phonics and Manuscript Handwriting. But, I will be modifying the handwriting to follow the way HWT teaches to form the letters. I really think the ball/stick methods of Abeka confused Rabbit somewhat and contributed to her handwriting problems. I really like that HWT teaches a single stroke for all the lowercase letters. We'll be using the Abeka handwriting worksheets. A friend of mine (thanks Marla!) gave me her HWT teacher's manuals and wood pieces and slates, so I'll be using those to help teach writing. I've got it all into HST+ as lesson plans. I will use MUS's Primer this year with the boys to just get them started.

I was really starting to panic about how I was going to teach all the kids. But, I read through everything we're going to do with Creation to the Greeks this coming Monday, got all the copies together, and all that, and I realized it is going to be okay. We're going to do Bible, History, and Science all together first. Then, Rabbit can do her History notebook page, handwriting, math drill, vocabulary card, and book basket while I'm working with the boys. The first week isn't too intense, and I don't think it will take more than 1 hour to work with the boys each day. Then, when I'm done with the boys, I'll do English, Math, Spelling, Reading, and Art/Music with Rabbit. Science is really only 2 days a week, sometimes 3. We don't add in any Read Alouds or Foreign Language until the second week. The Read Alouds I'll try to do at lunch, or just after. Spanish can wait until after lunch. Math may have to come after lunch while the boys are having a "quiet time" so Rabbit can focus.

Dance class starts mid-September, but it doesn't start until 2:00 in the afternoon! Hooray! I will probably move Wedneday's art classes to Thursday, or maybe even the lighter Friday so I don't feel stress about having everything done before 1:30.

Anyway, after going through everything today, I'm feeling much better about starting school next week. Thanks to all of you who have helped me get going this year. It is going to be a great year.

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.