Finding Your Kids' Interests

As I now have a child halfway through highschool, and Tigger and Pooh are starting junior high this fall, I thought I might change the direction of this blog. I know. I haven't been that good about keeping it up anyway, so might as well change course.

This fall, my oldest (Rabbit) will be doing My Father's World U.S. History to 1877. I've read through it, and it looks like a good, challenging year. It also looks like it is going to take a good deal more of my time - especially teaching Thinking Like a Christian. It looks like great material, but with our weekly co-op, we may have to do the parent-led teaching on Saturdays. She is also doing Spanish 3 and Apologia's Anatomy and Physiology for science. We're going to try VideoText for math. I think she needs to relearn those foundational algebra concepts. 

Tigger and Pooh will be doing My Father's World Explorers to 1850. The last time through the boys were second graders, and only did the second grade supplement. It will be interesting to see how they like it. They are also doing Apologia's General Science (they will be doing the labs at our co-op), Saxon 8/7 for math, and My Father's World seventh grade English recommendations. We have already started Saxon 8/7 this summer, to get a head start.

One of the things about heading into junior high and high school is to start focusing your kids on their interests. Seeing where God might be leading them. Rabbit is pretty easy. She loves dance and music and teaching. She is thinking about perhaps a Music Education degree, some how tied into dance. We'll figure it out. 

Pooh is pretty easy. He's very much the engineer. So, we have gotten him Mindstorm Lego kits and he's learned to build cars and program the remote control. I also plan on adding in some programming somewhere. (Finding the time is the challenge.) His dream is to eventually run a car company - he wants to design and build cars. 

Tigger has been more challenging. He can build things with Legos, but it's not his number one favorite. Mostly, he has been into sports - baseball, flag football, hip hop, and basketball. But, he is also very small, and though he wants to be a professional basketball player, i'm not sure he will be big enough. Two things about Tigger caught my attention: one is that he likes doing things that get other people's attention - dressing super nice, cool hair cut, asks if he can get his ears pierced; the other is he perseveres. I also noticed he was writing lyrics to "rap" songs and other things. Then, he wrote up an "article" on a NBA team, on his own. So, I set up a blog for him. This allows him to write, and when people read it, he gets the attention. It's all about his thoughts on the NBA. I also saw an ad in our newspaper for a "Journalism Day" - they learn how to interview, photograph, etc. So, I've signed him up for that. The nice thing is, if he does this one day camp, he may decide he loves it or hates it. If he hates it, we can move on to something else. But, I'm thinking we're on the right track for his future.

Let me just say this: I'm not really worried about their futures. God has a plan for their lives. He will guide them, and use their experiences (or lack thereof) for their futures. I will give them the best foundation I can, but God's got this. 

So,that's where we're heading this next school year. I'll try to keep posting about different things. How our days are going, our co-op, and then maybe thoughts on more "general" homeschooling topics.

CTG: Week 4

The boys got tired of the shofar every day and the "Awake you that are sleepy..." reading. But we did it. We didn't fast at the end, but we did read about Yom Kippur in our Jewish Holidays book. The boys already know the books of the Old Testament from AWANA, but we sang our Old Testament song each day for fun.

The boys did fine on their first Vocabulary quiz. So far they have had no trouble remembering the meanings of the roots, and they've remember all the words we learned from the back of the cards. I've been making trees to put up on the wall with the roots and then the words on the branches. I don't know that the boys are really looking at those, but they're up.

Math is going pretty well. The boys like alternating Life of Fred and Singapore. I think it gives a good mix of activities. Life of Fred really makes them think, too.

In History we covered the unification of Egypt. Here are the crowns we made:

Then we just nested them together for the unification:

After we were done, I taped them on the wall above the timeline as a big reminder:

Science is the study of pyramids right now. We couldn't get sticky-tac to work to hold our straws together. We ended up using tape on one, and clay for the other. And of course, the boys had to build one using Legos:

Pooh wasn't satisfied with a four-sided pyramid, so he spent some time finding pieces that would allow him to build a three-sided pyramid:

The boys are taking an art class at the co-op we're going to, so that means moving stuff around on the schedule. We are listening to the music scheduled in the car on the way to co-op. And then we move the God and the History of Art to one of the other days. Foreign Language is moved too.

All in all, not a bad week. We didn't make the reed boat. And we didn't go all out on the feast, but that's okay. I will say they are asking for Science in the Beginning already. They really like that book.

AHL: Week 9

Well, school is just flying by. This week's highlights:

Rabbit finished the Fallacy Detective. We went through a couple of magazines and identified what kind of propaganda they were using. It was really interesting going through a homeschool magazine and deciding what propaganda they were using. She is beginning to see that you need to be careful what you believe in the ads. And, when we watched the football game, we talked about it with the commercials. A good activity.

She is doing well in the Ancient Literature Supplement. Sometimes her answers are too vague or short, so I have to go back and have her tell me what she meant or more details. She seems to be keeping up just fine.

I think Spanish is her easiest subject. For her Real Life Activity this week she watched a Veggie Tales video with Spanish subtitles and took notes on a few word meanings that she could figure out. She is also still working through the verb workbook.

She is flying through All About Spelling level 7. We are already on step 10. She really tries to have fun with it. She really likes the new Writing Station Prompt Generator. She pulls out strips of paper that make a complete sentence, and then try to use the vocabulary words for that step in writing. So, she pulls out something like, "Write a post-card to a master candlestick maker who is trapped on a deserted island." She does great with these creative writing prompts. (And, when Writing Strands gets old for my boys, we use these for writing, too. Lots of fun!)

I am still way behind on the Old Testament Challenge. Rabbit is keeping up. And, she is being thoughtful in her answers. I really appreciate the effort she puts into it.

Our co-op started this week for Rabbit's biology labs. That has really forced us to adjust our days. She is going to have to do some school on the weekends to stay on top of things. It is about a 1/2 hour trip to the location, then 1 1/2 hours of class, and then a 1/2 hour home. She reads in the car. And then she only does Spanish, Logic, AWANA, Spelling, and Piano (plus 2 hours of dance classes in the evening) the rest of that day. And she can use the time to catch up on any other work. This is why we started so early with AHL - so she doesn't have to do AHL on co-op days.

Math is still her nemesis. But, she plows on. Saxon 8/7 was good preparation for Saxon Algebra 1. A lot of stuff was already covered. Sometimes I think the Algebra 1 explanations are more complicated - like some of the ratio problems. Rabbit still solves those the Saxon 8/7 way (which I am fine with). But then, there are explanations in the Algebra 1 book that make so much more sense than the 8/7 book (like range, mode, median, average).

Days are long. Sometimes we don't finish until 4:00pm or so. But, she is doing well.

CTG: Week 3; AHL Week 8

Okay, so with the boys liking pulling the paper strips out of the jar, I thought I'd make something a little more durable. I wrote all their subjects on craft sticks. (On the back side of some of them is what the other one is doing if it is a one-on-one subject.) I also lined the jar with black construction paper so they can't see the writing on the sticks. I only put in the subjects in the jar that are to be done that day.

At the beginning of the week, when I see a feast day coming up, I always get a bit nervous. But, I am determined not to let these feasts get the best of me. These are to glorify God, not stress me out.

Monday really seemed to be a long day. Then Tuesday I figured it out: we had a bunch of writing on Monday. There was a notebooking page in History, a notebooking page in Science, and writing out their Vocabulary. Tigger writes most of his stuff, but sometimes I scribe for him. And then I scribe for Pooh for most everything, so that made it take long. Plus there was the map work. 

Tuesday went much quicker, and the boys really liked the subjects on craft sticks. They worked pretty diligently and got done.

The rest of the week went smoothly. I took pictures of our timelines. Here are the ones on cardstock that we fold up and put in the front pocket of their history binders:

And then here is the start of the timeline on the wall. I am reusing our timeline figures from the first time, so some of the images are different than what is in the student packet.

Friday night we did our Rosh Hashanah feast. It was lovely. Here is our table setting:

The boys made the crown and we made 4 shofar horns - one for me, and one for each of the kids. We just put the one on the table. I just used packing paper because I didn't have a grocery bag to use. The ladder on the bread is a Lego ladder from the boys. Dad has been great this year in reading his parts for the feasts. It is really neat how they all point us to Christ. I missed lighting the candles, but that was okay because the crown kept falling off. The boys wouldn't try the apples dipped in honey, but the rest of us did. And the loaf of bread is just from our local Kroger store - it is called a sheepherder's loaf. It was very tasty.

With AHL, I started the week behind in the Old Testament Challenge and ended behind. But, I love how what we're doing in AHL can tie into CTG.  We're in Leviticus where Aaron's sons are killed for offering a foreign fire to the Lord. And the note in my study Bible compares it to Ananias and Saphira being killed for lying about the money they offered. Anyway, the conclusion of the note said that the people needed to know that the community existed for God, not vice versa. And that got me to thinking about the feasts. I often look at them as burdens. But God did not intend for them to be looked on that way. They are to bring Him glory. To remind us that we exist for Him. And it reminded me of a line from The West Wing (a TV show about the president of the U.S.): "I serve at the pleasure of the President." Just change "President" to Lord, God, Jesus Christ, or Holy Spirit and I think that is to be our attitude. Now, I'm not saying I have to do 100% of what the TM prescribes to do for these feasts, but I do think I need to have an attitude check and make sure I'm serving at the pleasure of God.

Adding in Biology made Monday go until 5:00pm. Whew, a little long. It has made for very long days all this week.

Rabbit is getting the literature subjects, but I've told her she needs to give more detailed answers in the Ancient History and Literature Supplement. Sometimes she just barely describes a person or situation instead of naming it. 

We've been going over her work daily. I skim through the books and ask questions of things I see, and then go over her answers to questions if she has any. She's doing pretty well.

CTG: Week 2; AHL: Week 7

This week we continued drawing subjects out of the jar. The boys really like it. It really mixes up the days.

This week I decided to add in Life of Fred Fractions and alternate it with Singapore 4A. The boys love Life of Fred. Fractions in Singapore have been a big challenge for them. I think they will get it, but it is going to take time.

We are pretty well enjoying Bible and History. I keep on forgetting to read the Victor Journey Through the Bible pages. My remedy is to put the book out on the coffee table as a reminder. They like the Dinosaurs of Eden book, too. Much of it repeats what we are reading in Bible time, but that's okay. I didn't read any other creation myths. I did tell them that there are several books in the book basket that have other creation stories, and that they should think about how the compare to what the Bible says. One of our projects for history was to go outside and measure the length of the ark. I remember when we did this with Rabbit. Here's our picture from this time:

Now, you can see our street is quite curved, so you'd have to follow the curve of the street to get 450 feet. I circled where Pooh is standing. You can't see it in this reduced-size picture, but there was also a hazard cone right next to him. The 450 feet went all the way to where Tigger is standing up close here. We are only about 10 to 15 yards from the other end of the street. That would be huge!

We started The Easy Spanish this week. We are doing it together, which I think they like better than doing it with Rabbit. I'm keeping it light - my main goal is for them to hear it pronounced and get comfortable with some of the words. I know they'll start to get the hang of it soon.

Art was not a favorite this week. Tigger really got frustrated with drawing ellipses. I told him it didn't have to be perfect, but he still wasn't happy about it.

And, of course, our number one subject is Science. They love Science in the beginning. We did lessons 3-5 this week. We were able to get lessons 3 and 4 experiments to work fine. For lesson 4, we just placed the plastic out on the patio since we don't have any south-facing windows. We were not able to get lesson 5 to work. Someone on the Facebook Creation to the Greeks group said she couldn't get it to work with printer paper, but she did with newsprint. I will have to try that. My guess is our magnifying glass doesn't make a small enough pinlight. The glass is kind of warped in the middle - it's some cheap magnifying glass that came with some toy kit or another.

The read aloud is a great book and we even read one day ahead on Friday.

For AHL, well, we didn't follow the lesson plans exactly (shhh! don't tell!). The lesson plans suggested that for the Exploring World History project we pick one of the two writing assignments. Well, Rabbit didn't understand that when she read the assignment, and so she picked one of the other projects: make an electronic display of pictures (like a PowerPoint slide show) that shows the influence of ancient mathematicians on today's world. (I knew by her expressions that she would be really, really upset if she had to do one of the writing assignments - she was already getting ideas for doing the other one.) So, I let her do it. But, I told her she had to do the presentation for Dad - since he has to give PowerPoint presentations all the time, I thought he should be the one to grade it. He gave her an A. Anyway, from now on I am going to read the lesson plans ahead on Friday to make sure we don't run into something like this again.

She is doing great with Spanish, and keeping up with Logic, so not much to report there. She got a couple of Spanish books from the library and is trying to read them. 

Math is her biggest challenge. She needs me to do it with her, but we can't work on it until after lunch since I am working with the boys in the morning. We're trying to do it right after Spelling - and Spelling isn't usually happening until after lunch, so it is 2:30 or 3:00 before we tackle it. 

Next week I'm going to have her start reading the Biology book. Our co-op starts the week after that. I haven't received any e-mails from the teacher, but I don't want her to be behind.

CTG Week 1 with Sabbath; AHL Week 6

So, for Week 1, Days 3 and 4 we continued with the drawing of subjects out of a jar. Tigger really likes doing school that way. They don't like it when they draw the Spelling cycle, though. And our days went great with this method. Finishing by noon both days.

On Friday it was Sabbath preparation day. We did do a little bit of academics: Math, book basket, and memory verse review (verses I am having them memorize until AWANA starts). The boys helped make the bread. We didn't make the official challah from the book. I made my usual Italian bread, and we braided it to look like challah.

The boys also made a spice box. The Book of Jewish Holidays said most spice boxes were made like a castle, and they had a craft you could do to make a castle-like spice box. I had also saved our tin Altoids box from the last time we did CTG. We never did the closing of Sabbath last time, so we never used it. The boys chose the option to decorate the Altoids box. They kept it simple:

Once the had the paper glued on and it dried, I took a small nail and a hammer and punched the holes. It was really easy. Then we just put in some cloves and a couple of broken-up cinnamon sticks.

It was a pretty intense afternoon y of cleaning, shopping, and meal preparation. The boys helped a little, but not much. And Rabbit had a dance class in the late afternoon that I had to run her over to. And Dad got home later than usual. But, the table was ready when he got home:

So once Dad was here, we grilled fish (we don't like to bake fish as it smells up the house), had a salad, and also sweet potato fries and waffle fries. Not very traditional, but a meal we all enjoyed.

It was different doing the Sabbath with older children this time. The last time there were a little more "oh's" and "ah's." This time it was a bit lighter. We didn't do everything in the book, but we did the essentials. But it was special. We talked about the good from the week. We laughed and enjoyed each other's company.

Saturday evening we concluded the Sabbath. We went out for dinner (I know, not the recommended course of action). When we got home it was pretty close to the end of the day, so we lit the Havdalah candle (just a regular candle), said the prayers, and then the boys dipped the candle in the overflow of the grape juice. Rabbit was in charge of the spice box (she is just a little pyrophobic). 

I think, if we were to do a Sabbath again, I would do it Saturday night through Sunday night. It seems to me that fits better with what we already do. From reading in our Jewish Holidays books, we learn that the Jewish people usually go to synagogue on Saturday mornings, and then spend the day with family, friends and God. That sounds just like our Sunday.

Overall, I think the first week of "full" school went really well. Next week we add in Foreign Language and the Read Aloud...

*****

As far as AHL with Rabbit goes. . . She finished up her Exploring World History project. She wrote about how life would be different if we were nomads. I really like how she concluded with reminding us that God says we should live as if this earth is not our home.

We finally finished up her Math lesson and did the next test. She got a B on her test. There is one thing she struggles on that I need to go back and review with her. It has to do with exponents on variables when you have a substitution for the variable. She'll get it eventually, but we need to go back and review.

I finally figured out what was bothering her about The Fallacy Detective and  Exploring World History  with regards to checking her own answers: she doesn't like having to figure out why she was wrong. She doesn't mind discussing her answers with me, but I think she just doesn't like doing it by herself. That's fine. We'll continue meeting daily, anyway, for Math, so I can check those other things too.

Rabbit is doing great with Rosetta Stone. She's been working through a verb workbook I got from Barnes and Noble in order to get more time in. We haven't figured out our "real life" activities. But, we got an e-mail that the Spanish version of the You Version Kid's Bible app is available. So maybe we'll do something with that - listen to it and try to use it.

CTG: Week 1, Day 2 and AHL Week 6, Day 2

Okay, well, today was better because we finished at 4:00, rather than 4:30.

I tried something a little different today. I printed all our subjects from Creation to the Greeks onto strips of paper, folded the paper strips up, and stuck them into a jar. Then I had the boys take turn pulling strips to decide what to do next. That didn't work very well because they didn't want to do spelling. I thought it might be fun, but they didn't buy into it. Tonight I talked to them about what order they would like to do things. Of course, they didn't agree. I think I will come up with an order that considers what they want a little, though.

The boys are loving the Science in the Beginning, even if I am making them do notebook pages. I had to hunt down colored pencils so they could draw their rainbows, and help them with the wording for the explanation. But, I do think it will be very memorable and they will retain what they learn from doing the notebooks. We will do science first on the days I have it scheduled, since they love it so much.

Math was a long Review in the workbook, so I decided to break that up over two days. They are more than halfway through the Singapore 4A book, so it's not a big deal if we do this every now and then.

The Bible and History really go together quite a bit this year, so I really think we will do those two subject together. The boys think it is funny that I'm taking notes on what they say when I ask, "What do we learn about God in this passage?" 

I still haven't heard from either library on my book basket books. A friend of my husbands from his work gave us a book called The Book of Jewish Holidays by Ruthe Lurie Kozodoy. I read a section of it to the boys about the Sabbath. It is interesting reading about the holiday from a more Jewish perspective. I really liked this line from the book, "Our tradition teaches us to stop working on the seventh day too. As God did, we look at what we have done to see if it is good." I really like that idea: looking back at your week honestly and just seeing if what you did was good.

Of course we did the other subjects too: English, Reading, Vocabulary, Handwriting, and Spelling. In Spelling, Pooh finished the All About Spelling Level 2 book! Has he mastered it? Not perfectly. But I just don't feel like I can keep him at the same level any longer. He has to move forward. We've been through the material twice. I will continue drilling him and pray he makes progress.

As we were finishing up school after lunch, Rabbit started on her Spanish. While she was working on that, I assigned the boys to work on making the challah covering. I had bought a blank handkerchief and fabric paints last week. Then we looked at the design in the Celebrating the Biblical Feast books and did a google search of images of challah coverings. I told them to design one that would be nice and honor God. They did a terrific job all by themselves.

Rabbit is having a pretty easy time in Spanish. She's done the Rosetta Stone level 1 enough that she is pretty familiar with it. So, I had her listen to the Spanish phonograms tracks from The Easy Spanish CD to start learning those. And, I had her read the introduction to a chapter on Spanish verbs in a workbook I picked up from Barnes and Noble. I am truly amazed that she has been able to learn Spanish, given her dyslexia. But, we did start when she was 5 with Power Glide, so she's been exposed to it for a long time.

Next, I went over her AHL work - checked her answers, skimmed her books. She has been doing a good job getting it done. Then we did math for an hour. We still didn't complete the lesson, but she did a good job on the problems with the new concept. She needed a little refresher on one of the previous lessons, though. Hopefully we finish it tomorrow. 

She typed up her Exploring World History project this morning, so I looked that over. When we ran the spell check, it said she had a 9.3 grade level. After a little editing, it went down to an 8.6 grade level. I think it was because we took some of her long-worded sentences that were a little confusing and made them two sentences. The shorter sentences knocked down the grade level. I told her for tomorrow, she needs to work on eliminating the word "probably" - she used it too much. She definitely has the word count, and seems to have thought through her essay.