Grade 4, Lesson 1, Day 4 ~ The Weather Gets in the Way

I like to picture of all the people who write homeschool curricula, especially Waldorf or Waldorf-inspired curricula, sitting under the trees in their New England yards, enjoying the fall weather and having no frigging idea what August is like in California! Our leaves are still green and won't drop for several months. There is no chill in the air, no sense of crispness. Any smoke we smell is from the nearby forest fire, not from people burning wood in their fireplaces to stave off the cold. There is no cold.

When we used Enki none of the nature stories worked with our climate. Today Oak Meadow suggests that we head out for a field adventure ~ only it's already 88 degrees (before 10 am) and the mercury is rising swiftly. We aren't about to risk heatstroke, and honestly, the boys are already cranky from playing outside earlier. I've decided we'll do an early morning topography study after it cools down somewhat. Plus various Waldorf and Enki curricula expect that we can go to a park or natural place and collect samples. Excuse me, it doesn't work that way here! We leave rocks so that the next person can see them; heck, at some beaches we aren't allowed to collect shells. There are just too many people living here to let everyone take something home. We have to content ourselves with pine cones from the city parks (we can pick those up, as they just go over them with huge riding mowers anyway) and maple leaves and acorns from the sidewalk. We had to steal mulberry leaves from the local school when we raised silkworms.

As you may have guessed, I'm blogging live today. Currently the boys are on their second box (we started late so that they could get in a little outdoor play before it gets unbearable hot), which is math. They are playing math war with dominoes; it works just like war with cards except they have to add together both sides of the domino.

Truthfully, we are all a little cranky today. Papa most definitely has the flu, although he refuses to entertain the idea that it might be H1N1. T-Guy started coughing this morning and is really grumpy, which is usually a sign that he is sick. I already experienced fatigue and sore throat and now I have the headache that won't quick. J-Baby? Well, he's always a little cranky ~ it's in his nature.

Today is also our wedding anniversary. 21 years ~ our marriage is of legal drinking age. Most of the time I am really glad that we waited to have children, but when the anniversary numbers started getting pretty large I realized that if we had gotten started right away we could have had 2 young adult children by now, off to college. Which means I could be eating bon-bons right now instead of stopping every fifth word to help the boys (they've moved on to writing their spelling words in sentences). Don't get me wrong ~ I really love being with my boys everyday. The desire to have the boys grown and gone to college, or even off to public school, is only the headache typing.

(Ooh, I have a hummingbird flitting around my hummingbird wind chime. How cool is that?)

Today's art lesson is taking a lot longer than planned; they are enjoying their work. I need to do a better job of calculating how long each lesson will take for any given day. Yesterday the boys were done with everything in under two hours, today they've been at it for more than two hours and we haven't even started social studies.

Part of the social studies lesson for today is drawing a big, old tree. The boys really got into it; J-Baby's is gnarled and completely leafless (he said it is a winter tree). We definitely ran out of time this morning so we'll finish today's lesson tomorrow during "catch-up" time.

Oh, the final temperature check before I post this ~ 105 degrees.

Grade 4, Lesson 1, Day 3 ~ The Post That is Practically an Infomercial

I'm just going to start by saying that workboxes are awesome! I am definitely using a very simplified version, but it is working for us. I fill the boxes the night before and the boys can dig into them as soon as they are ready in the morning. They are easily accomplishing their journal writing, math practice, penmanship, spelling, and independent ready, all before we sit down and work our main lesson, art, and music together.

I think it works because of its ease, organization, and accountability. I am responsible for filling the boxes (or in many cases simply changing the page markers or slipping in new instructions) ~ the boys hold me accountable. If I don't do my part it falls apart; they count on me to be organized, and with this system it's easy. They are responsible for working through the boxes each morning. They move the card that shows which box they are working on and flip the cards on all completed boxes to show the word "Finished". (I know this is worthless without pictures ~ I will take some soon.) I hold them accountable for finishing their work and it is easy for me to visually see which boxes have been completed, which box they are working on, and how many boxes they have to go. As I update the boxes at night I can quickly check their work.

Wednesday is our science day; today we combined science with our art lesson as we drew pictures of fruit from two perspectives. Observation is key in OM4 science, so we worked with real pieces of fruit. After we drew our pictures we wrote two sentences; one that described the fruit in terms of the physical, and one that described our impressions of the fruit in a subjective way. For example, a lime was green and oval, and it smelled bright and tasted tart.

I struggled less with the non-Waldorf aspects of Oak Meadow today. I knew OM wasn't truly Waldorf and that we wouldn't be doing main lesson blocks. The boys are actually excited to approach a different subject each day ~ it stays fresh for them. Working on each subject once a week we still have some amount of sleep/digestion before we come back to it.

Tomorrow requires field work. It's supposed to be 106 degrees ~ yikes! I'll post about that tomorrow.

Grade 4, Lesson 1, Day 2 ~ The First Wrench

We got up earlier today. There is nothing like waking up because the dogs are barking like maniacs, only to have your spouse tell you that he feels like he has the flu and your child tell you that he wet the bed. Seriously, I wasn't even out of my bed yet and I was behind. I got Papa a glass of water and some ibuprofen, sent the child to take a shower, and stripped the bed. Oh, and I brought in the barking dogs.

By 8:30 the boys were bored; they had already eaten breakfast, dressed, and finished a few chores. I told them there was no reason to wait until 9 am ~ they could get started on their lesson work. Last night I rearranged the workboxes so that the first 5 had independent work (journal writing, math practice, penmanship, spelling practice, and independent reading). The boys actually breezed through the boxes fairly quickly and needed very little instruction from me; this is a big change from before and I already like it! I spent my time updating our school records. Other than needing to file our Private School Affidavit (can't be done until 10/1) we are set.

For now Tuesday is our day for language arts. Some language arts work is done everyday, such as journal writing, independent reading, and spelling work. Today we reviewed the parts of speech and the boys wrote simple sentences then circled the nouns in blue and the verbs in red. Can I just say that I geek out on grammar? They wanted to know what kind of word "the" is and since the Oak Meadow definition of "the" as a "helping" word wasn't good enough I explained to them that it is a definite article.

We are working on drawing and music daily. Today we practiced holding colored pencils and sketching shapes without making outlines, and then we practiced holding and strumming our guitars.

I think we get an "A" for effort today ~ it is hard enough to focus when Papa is home without him being ill and requiring that we be quieter than usual.

Grade 4, Lesson 1, Day 1 ~ Let the School Year Begin!

Recap: we are using Oak Meadow 4th Grade this year. We are tweaking the music, adding in physical education, and augmenting subjects as the boys express interest.

We woke up bright and early enough, ate breakfast, dressed, and did a few simple chores. The boys were eager to get into the "classroom" aka an area of the family room that is set up with a large desk and bookcases. All week they had been making school references which was actually starting to drive me crazy. J-Baby in particular was talking about his "long" walk to school and the "cafeteria" lunches, and when Papa asked if "the teacher" was going to ring a bell to start the day T-Guy told him that "the teacher" wouldn't even wake up until the bell rang. Yeah, they've got me pegged.

In addition to using Oak Meadow I am loosely adapting Sue Patrick's Workbox System to help the boys work independently on certain tasks and to stay organized, so I was introducing both the Oak Meadow program and the workbox system to the boys. We got through the main portion of our first day in about 3 hours. Of course, there was little independent work as I had to explain each box to the boys.

I had read that we might want to divide the main OM subjects and work on one per day, so Monday was math day. While I suppose it works in theory, for now it feels clumsy. The lesson itself mentions working on several days. The lesson seems to be cut short if we work on it one day and leave it for a week. On the other hand, working every subject everyday might seem tedious and very like traditional school. I'm not exactly sure what to do; I am still accustomed to the Waldorf method's main lesson blocks. Other ways of organizing the material feels alien to me.

"Teacher" Prep Week

I've always loved this week in homeschooling ~ it's the week that I finish my lesson planning, gather any supplies that are still needed, and get our learning space organized. I geek out on office supplies and lesson plans, LOL!

Tonight I ordered the readers that I wasn't able to find used this summer. My order came to $32 and I had an Amazon voucher for $35 from turning in coin a couple of weeks ago. Woot! We've decided to use what we have as much as possible this year and to economize where we can. With that in mind I have purchased one copy of each reader; if a second copy isn't available from the library we will share. The library has 1 -2 copies of each book but we can't guarantee that they will be available to borrow when we actually need them, hence owning one copy of each book will be insurance that we can stay on track.

I had read about Sue Patrick's Workbox System on several blogs and message boards and even know a few people in my area who are giving it a try this year. I bought the book and am adapting it (very loosely) to work for my boys. We have 8 shoe boxes per child on nice bookcases in the family room. I'll use them to organize the boys' daily lesson work. My goal is for them to take on some responsibility for the work they can do independently and also to give them visual information about what we will be doing. I am sure that the rhythm of what we are doing will become integrated very quickly and at that point the boxes will mostly serve as organizers for our work.

Another project I am working on in preparation for the beginning of our "school" year is creating a chore system. I have made charts in the past but they always failed because I would forget to print new charts each week. Jennifer at Tree of Life Homeschool posted awhile back about a magnetic chore chart she made and it looked like something that could work for us, so we bought the magnets and I will be printing out images and/or cue words and will make our chart this week.

Where We Are Going

I made the decision to use Oak Meadow this fall. We will use the 4th grade syllabus. Per public school guidelines J-Baby would be entering 4th grade this fall, and T-Guy would be starting 5th. According to Waldorf guidelines J-Baby would be starting 3rd or 4th grade, and T-Guy would have been in a grey area where it could have been 4th or 5th grade depending on whether we had chose to start 1st grade at age 6 years 7 months or 7 years 7 months. OM 4 will be a good place to meet in the middle, and we can always add more challenging reading for T-Guy. Even if a family chooses to use a curriculum there is no reason to think they are stuck in the box.

I had been torn between Christopherus 4th grade and Oak Meadow. One deciding factor was that a few friends will also be using Oak Meadow 4 this fall, which gives is the opportunity to work together for projects. We are really excited about this! I am uncertain as to whether we will create a formal co-op or if we will keep it loose, but either way I am sure the children will enjoy working together.

(I was also disappointed with the number of typographical errors in the Christopherus Old Testament Stories booklet. It is more and more common; I think companies need to realize that spell check doesn't replace copy editing.)

I was able to purchase the syllabus and teacher's guide used (in great condition from 2008) and purchased the math book directly from OM during the May 10% off sale. (Update: I purchased a second math book in July to save the hassle of copying pages ~ we're using the books as consumables.) We'll be looking for the readers at used book stores all summer and then I will place an Amazon order to fill in anything we don't find used.

Here is the general outline:

Language Arts: We will expand our study of grammar and the parts of speech. We will introduce writing at a more formal level including sentence and paragraph formation. Journalling will become a daily activity. We will write poetry and short stories. In addition to use OM 4 we might use the Storyboard from Lively Lessons. We'll also do spelling in a more formal manner this year, using the OM lists.

The boys need more handwriting practice ~ we're not even remotely ready to start cursive. After trying several programs I found that a simple penmanship book (ours are from Paper Scissors Stone) works best for us. I now simply show the boys how I write.

Oak Meadow leaves out the Norse mythology that is traditional to the Waldorf grade 4 year; we'll definitely put it back in in terms of reading, possibly replacing one or two of the assigned readers that my boys know inside out and backwards. My boy have been interested in mythology for years and we have explored myths from a variety of cultures.

History/Social Studies: OM 4 covers Native American history, Colonial history and the westward expansion, and state geography. These are all subjects we have begun in the past few months, so I think it will work well for us. We will continue to supplement history; Papa tackles history and science subjects in the evenings and on weekends and many of our family "field trips" fall under these subjects.

Science: OM 4 covers nutrition, cells, and astronomy, plus longitude and latitude. It sounds like a fun year. I'm sure our own science studies will take us all over the place but that always works out well for us when we do cover a subject formally. I definitely see the science topics being a great area to work as a group.

Mathematics: We'll start out with a thorough review and more work in regrouping. Grade 4 math is so much fun ~ fractions! We also work with geometric patterns, rounding and estimating, math games, and more. This sounds a lot like what I did in 4th grade (but I took math with the 6th graders). This will be our first year using a full math program since we did 1st grade; for the past couple of years we've done a lot of real life math, game playing, mental math, and math exploration.

Fine Arts/Music: OM works fine arts right into the curriculum, with drawing, painting, and modeling taking an integral role. This year we work on dimension and perspective in our drawings. Art appreciation is also part of the program. OM teaches recorder; I'm not sure we'll do that. T-Guy will continue learning the guitar and J-Baby has expressed an interest in learning to play the drums. As always, we'll continue to sing.

Physical Education: We're on our own for P.E., but we have never had a problem staying active or learning about various sports. Mountain biking will continue, and we will look for a basketball program if the one at our community center is discontinued. We walk daily and hike once a week. The boys have expressed an interest in strength training and will be learning about calisthenics. They are too young for weights but can learn to use their own body weight in developing strength (push ups, pull ups, etc.). At home we play basketball and baseball and the boys are learning the rules for both.

Health: The state of California requires that we teach health, something I think most parents do whether or not they homeschool. We'll put most of our focus this year into nutrition, tying in with OM 4 science.

I need to find a planner I like; I might wait until the free Lakershore Learning planner is available, although I am itching to plan now (and have it out of the way so I can relax and enjoy summer). I don't need anything fancy, however, and it may work best to incorporate our planning right into our family calendar. I have a familytime.mine planner that only sees light use and I think it might work. I am loving the new button cover available on the 2009-2010 planner.

I put in an art supply order with Dick Blick. We're going to do things a little differently this year, including using loose drawing paper and putting it into binders rather than using main lesson books. (Update: I had 8 unused 9X12 Strathmore Drawing Pads so we are going to use those.) I'm not a Waldorf purist and we have to many half-used main lesson books cluttering up our bookshelves. I just have to admit that I am not the type to bind everything into one year-end book (Enki style), and I hate the clutter of lots of little books. I ordered the huge set of Prismacolor pencils and a lovely set of 48 Lyra Aquacolor crayons.

Learning Log Week of 5/31 - 6/6/09

Sunday:  We drove to Los Rios Rancho in Oak Glen to see the traveling "Journey of a Pioneer Family" exhibit on loan from Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home and Museum.  I walked through with T-Guy and we both enjoyed it.  Outside he had a chance to churn butter, use a feather quill pen, play with period toys, and more.  J-Baby tried his hand at washing clothes on a wash board and putting them through a ringer.

Monday:  We had a quiet day, but the boys did practice their penmanship.  The also played several games, including Star Wars Monopoly.  There was KEVA plank play, basketball, and practicing baseball with Papa.

Tuesday:  More penmanship practice.  Mountain biking for T-Guy (J-Baby is nursing a back injury).  Basketball.  Walked.

Wednesday:  Silent reading.  Practiced baseball skills with Papa.  Nice long evening walk with the dogs.

Thursday:  Story of the World 3.  We went to the library and comic book store; both boys have new reading material.  Watching game 1 of the NBA finals was an opportunity to go over basketball strategy and rules as well as cheer on the Lakers!  Walked.

Friday:  The boys practiced throwing and catching a baseball.  We walked 3 miles (to and from the park).  Discussed money and value with J-Baby before allowing him to place an order for a toy he wants.

Saturday:  T-Guy and Papa worked on new guitar chords as well as singing on pitch.  More Story of the World 3.  We attended a train convention.  Math practice on a Didj (geometry).