Grade 5/6, Fall Term, Week 1, Day 4

Academics Today:  Assigned Reading, Literature, California History, Grammar, Spelling, Free Reading

We went light on the academics today so we could do a field trip and explore ocean and coastal habitats.   It has been so hot, and since Grandma and Grandpa live at the beach we thought we could escape the heat and do some hands-on learning.  We went on a hike, swam at the beach, and played in the sand.  We also practiced singing folk songs and playing instruments.

It does feel a bit odd to not be teaching in the block format of Waldorf and Enki this year, but our math program (Life of Fred) is meant to be used daily and Papa was already reading history with the boys daily, plus J-Baby requested that we do science more often, and so I have abandoned the block format of teaching as well as using long cultural blocks throughout the year.  We will be reading one work of literature each month and will bring in some of the culture of each book, but it won't be interdisciplinary.  This month we are reading The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate so we'll explore southern culture via songs, games, and food.  We've also decided to tack on going through the Little House books again so we'll be exploring pioneer culture ~ we even have a friend who is going to demonstrate making bullets for us!

Grade 5/6, Fall Term, Week 1, Day 3

Academic Work Today: Assigned Reading, Literature, Grammar, Math, Music, Science, Spelling, Free Reading, U.S. History

We had a smooth, successful morning, which reinforces my observation that J-Baby responds best to academic work in the morning.

Just how are we managing to get so much done in the mornings?  We're waking up early, which is new for us and somewhat unusual among the homeschoolers that we know.  I don't really love getting up early but I do love how I feel when I have accomplished so much by noon, and I enjoy my afternoon quiet time more when I don't have any major tasks pulling at me.

Our Focus Lesson/Project today was introducing the boys to their Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way Quest Guides and creating a science time line for our family/learning room.  Happily the time line started to draw J-Baby into what we are doing, as yesterday he expressed his disappointment that our science book isn't full of one experiment after the other.  We made the time line out of old dot matrix continuous feed printer paper (Grandma gave us a big box when she broke up housekeeping) and will add our events using small sticky notes.

I also took a quote from our book and made a poster from it, and we talked about what it means and how we might say the same thing today:

Yes, it's Waldorfy, but it doesn't really have a pink background ~ that was the lighting.  And I cut off the picture, lol.  I should have pulled out the real camera and not used a camera phone, but hey, it's better than nothing.

Both boys misspelled yellow on their spelling tests, despite our having had color name flip books in this house for years.  Go figure.

Grade 5/6, Fall Term, Week 1, Day 2

Academic Work Today: Assigned Reading, Literature, California History, Science, Spelling, Art, Free Reading, U.S. History.

I wasn't thinking ahead when I made the syllabus for our fall term and had us begin this week.  Today was the last day of our summer movies series, so I had to shift some of our lesson work to the afternoon.  I find that this doesn't work well for J-Baby, who generally wants to do his own thing in the afternoon.  We had more friction than I wanted, but muddled through.  Last year we didn't buy tickets for the final movie of the series to avoid this situation.

Our focus lesson/project today was completing a lesson out of the book Discovering Great Artists.  We read about Giotto and looked at several of his paintings on the iPad (it's a handy little homeschool tool ~ I'll give it its own post someday).  Our project was to finely crush chalk with round stones and mix them with egg yolk (beaten with water) to create egg tempera, which is the kind of paint Giotto used.  Then we painted pictures and J-Baby also painted a rock.  It was an easy project and I had all the materials on hand, although I must say I cringed just a little at sacrificing two egg yolks from our wonderful locally and humanely-produced eggs.  I did save the whites and will toss them into a scrambled egg breakfast Thursday.

Another lesson learned?  Put the paintings where the dogs can't get to them: the Brat Dog thought my egg tempera painting was a tasty snack.

And So It Begins ~ Grade 5/6, Fall Term, Week 1, Day 1

Academic Work Today: Assigned Reading, Literature, Grammar, Math, Health, Spelling, Free Reading, U.S. History

We had a wonderful first day of lessons!  This is our morning rhythm:

Awaken early and eat breakfast
Hygiene and chores
Assigned reading
Daily Grammar
Guided lesson work
Focus lesson or project
Computer lessons

We eat breakfast together as a family; this is our gathering circle after the separation of sleep.  In general this is a meal that I prepare and serve, although there are times that it is as simple as homemade granola and milk.  Today we had toast and fruit.

We begin our "school" day with assigned reading because it allows me an extra 45 minutes to devote to homekeeping chores such as vacuuming and laundry.  I find this very important as living in a clean and tidy home is nourishing to us.  If I had younger children I would begin the day with a more structured activity such as a formal circle time or nature adventure walk and would shift the homekeeping chores later in the day.  Indeed, we'll resume talking nature walks in the morning once it cools down around here, perhaps in October (we hope!)

Today the boys read the first two chapters in The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate and also read the first two chapters in Life of Fred: Fractions.  The math reading takes very little time but I can see that we need another copy of The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate and have put one on reserve at the library.

Daily Grammar is an online resource that can be done completely free of charge, or you can order a hard copy or e-book copy.  I ordered the e-book and printed out our pages for the week.  Oddly, the answers for each lesson are right there at the bottom of the page, so I covered those with sticky notes.  Our plan is to spend 5 - 10 minutes on grammar daily.  Today the boys enjoyed it so much that we did lessons 1 - 3.

Our guided lesson time (which includes the above-mentioned grammar work) is the period of the morning that I spend working with the boys on their basic academics such as math and science.  Today we did the problems for Life of Fred: Fractions chapters 1 and 2.  We're still using grid paper lesson books from Paper Scissors Stone, which is good since we found ourselves reviewing long multiplication.  The grids really helps students keep their numbers in tidy columns.


Each day we will also have what I am referring to as a "Focus Project" or "Focus Lesson".  This could be weekly lessons such as health, music, or art, or it could be a project based on one of our academic subjects such as science or literature.  Today we began our study of human development and sexuality using It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health.  We could go through the book fairly quickly but my goal is to open a dialog about these topics and create an environment of honest communication about puberty and sexuality, free from embarrassment or shame.


This year we will be using the computer for spelling lessons and testing and also for French lessons.  I paid for a premium account at Spelling City; as a program it reminds me a lot of Phonetic Zoo except it removes the physical writing of words (spelling test answers are typed in) and it keeps records for me so I can see where the boys are excelling and where they need help.  For example, I know that today they both got 100% on their pretests and should be tested on the next list.  I can also see what games they played to help them learn their spelling words.  If they do miss words on a test I can see exactly what words they missed and whether or not they passed them on a retest.


Our goal is to spend about 3 hours homeschooling in the mornings, focusing on our state-required subjects: English/Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies/History, Health, Fine Arts, and Physical Education.  I wondered what exactly the state/school district would consider a "full time private day school" and I figured if the tutoring option requires 3 hours then that is what we would aim for.  This leaves our afternoons free for park day gatherings, free play, and other enrichments activities such as listening to audiobooks, going on field trips, etc.  U.S. History is done in the evenings with Papa.


When the boys were younger this would have been spread out more over the day, with perhaps only 90 minutes of "school" in the morning, and practice work and projects done after quiet time in the afternoon.


After eating lunch together as a family the boys and I headed over to the park for our annual Not Back to School Celebration with our homeschool friends.  It was 105°F (!) out there but supposedly only felt like 98°F.  Whatever, it was hot!  The moms sat in the shade and tried not to move while the kids created a fantastic tree limb fort.

Gearing Up For Grade 5/6

It's planning time here at the Living Oak Academy.  This year we aren't going to use any Waldorf or Enki resources (although we will still use some of their methods!) so I've been doing research, gathering materials, and making an outline for the year.  I'll be honest ~ I love the planning!  I love homeschooling and teaching and in a perfect world I'd probably open a small private school in my home.

This past year I learned a lot about my boys and myself.  T-Guy thrives on schedules, likes for me to plan what he is learning, and loves the output portion of learning.  J-Baby needs rhythm but fights against it, likes to follow his own interests, and wants nothing to do with output.  So this year the challenge is to find a middle ground where both of their needs are being met and I'm not going insane!

Things we have planned:

Literature:  Our plan is to read one Newberry Medal or Honor book each month/block, beginning with The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (which we did not manage to read over the summer, it having been abandoned for science fiction).  As always, I'll read this first book of the year to them (or we will listen on audio).  My hope is to be able to have some friends read the same books as us this year and have a book club for the children.

Language Arts:  We'll be using Daily Grammar and Spelling City (a computer website) and we will continue with expository and creative writing.

History/Social Studies: We've had a great time with A History of US so there is no need to change that.  This year our goal is to complete books 4 and 5.  If we finish those early we'll spend some time with Oh, California.  I'll also be looking for field trips and A/V materials to support our learning, and the boys are planning to listen to The Story of the World Volumes 1, 2, and 3 again.

Science:  We've loved A History of US so much that we are going to use Joy Hakim's The Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way as our science spine this year.  Add to that plenty of hands-on science led by Papa, science and nature-based field trips, numerous science books from the library, online science resources, and of course science videos such as Nature and NOVA.

Mathematics:  We will review and expand our knowledge of fractions with Life of Fred: Fractions and then we will study Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents.  The plan is to complete both of these in preparation for pre-algebra 1&2 next year.

Foreign Language:  We will be studying French in preparation for a trip to Belgium and France next year.  We can use a free online language program for French through the library, but we might choose to purchase the Rosetta Stone French language program.

Health:  In addition to the natural learning of health principles through family living we plan to tackle the subject of puberty using It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health.

Visual and Performing Arts:  I had thought we might use the Draw Write Now series since we already own books 1 - 8, but then I remembered how very long it took us to do even one lesson last year.  Instead I've borrowed Discovering Great Artists from the library and we're going to give it a try.  If we like the projects I'll purchase a copy.

Physical Education:  The boys will receive continuing instruction in mountain biking, baseball, basketball, yoga, and general physical fitness.

Summer

It's June, which means we are officially on summer break (although that doesn't mean that we stop learning!).  The weather has been nice so far but is heating up rapidly.  Unlike some families who can spend all day out-of-doors in the summer, we find ourselves limited by the extreme heat, so I like to plan things for us to do indoors during the hot afternoons.  I also like to keep a rhythm to our days; they're more relaxed and somewhat fluid, but having place markers helps keep the days from stretching into an endless bore.

We generally try to get outside on all but the hottest mornings.  We walk the dogs, eat breakfast outside, and tend the garden.  The boys will play basketball or paint.

One thing I like to do each summer is read a novel to the boys.  This year we've chosen The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, a 2010 Newberry Honor Winner that looks to be smashing.  I like to bring T-Guy away from his rather narrow interest in fantasy novels and I think that a novel that has a science focus will be right up J-Baby's alley.

Each summer we bring a stronger focus on arts and crafts; I'll admit that I find it far easier to have the boys paint outside and deal with the mess out there.  We already have the easel set up under the porte-cochere and jars of diluted (1:1) Liquid Watercolors stand at the ready for painting inspiration, along with our makeshift drying line and a wash station.  This summer we're going to focus on hand-sewing skills as our craft, perhaps branching out to the machines by summer's end.  I now have a Singer Featherweight 221 for each boy, although they both needs some maintenance/repair (I have a Featherweight 222 for myself ~ how lucky am I?).

The boys are old enough now to really learn about maintaining a clean home so we'll be teaching them the basics of dusting, vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms, etc.  It sounds boring but I think it is important to teach life skills to children and help them see the value of keeping a clean and tidy home.  We've decided as a family that we will no longer hire housecleaners for a job that we are capable of doing ourselves (and I am so grateful that my health has improved to a place where we can do this).

Both boys have a real interest in cooking, so once a week I'll be bringing one of them into the kitchen to learn the basics of cooking a healthy, delicious dinner.  They are definitely behind where I was at their age, as at age 10 I could put the entire meal on the table, but the way I cook now is far different than how I was taught (opening cans, boxes, and freezer containers).  Still I think they are ready for learning to cook simple meals such as baked chicken, brown rice, and sauteed zucchini.  They can also pitch in on my weekly big kitchen day.

The pool becomes a big focus for us in the summer, as we go for a couple of hours most afternoons, either before it is time to prepare dinner or after an early dinner so that Papa can come with us.

We have many activities to mark our week; farmers markets on Thursdays and Saturdays, the summer music series on Tuesdays and Fridays, weekly gathering with our homeschooled friends, play dates, a weekly kids' movie series, and our weekly library trips (including twice monthly board game days).  It sounds busy but none of these activities take long, they are spread out, and all of them are optional.

Reviewing the Year: 2009 - 2010 Edition

Long time no blog, eh?

We sort of had a learning meltdown near the end of April, and since then we have completely revamped.  We spent our final month of the "school year" back in a really relaxed manner, exploring Shakespeare and mostly just pursuing whatever interests the boys had.

2009 - 2010 was an interesting year for us.  We all learned a lot.  We did an impromptu 10 minute fraction lesson yesterday and I have no doubt that the basics of fractions have taken hold.  Common denominators and reducing fractions are no longer foreign concepts, and more importantly the boys have a strong sense of fractions being parts of wholes.

J-Baby moved from competent reader to someone who enjoys reading.  He still mostly chooses non-fiction for himself, but he does enjoy fiction.  I learned that the hardest part for him is choosing a work of fiction; it isn't as simple as knowing that you want to read about neutron stars or volcanoes.  He actually appreciates it when I am the one who does the weeding for him and find books that I think will appeal to him.  I mostly stick to the classic books for his developmental stage.

T-Guy really jumped ahead in his math skills, easily memorizing his multiplication facts and quickly getting a strong grasp on long division.  It's kind of funny that both of my boys find long division far simpler than long multiplication.  He read hundreds of books and easily listened to 50 more.  He's moved into creative writing and wanting to write more in general.

Last year I did a year in review and I really enjoyed looking back later and seeing how much we had done, so I am going to do it again.  It is impossible to cover everything we did/learned so I will list the more traditionally academic learning.


History/Social Studies:  This year our focus was on American History.  Using the A History of Us series by Joy Hakim we finished Vol. 2 Making Thirteen Colonies, did Vol. 3 From Colonies to Country, and got started on Vol. 4 The New Nation.  The boys viewed the entire Liberty's Kids series.  While American history was our focus we also studies some Viking/Norse history during our Norse Mythology block, and the boys watched various PBS programs on subjects that interest, such as ancient Egypt.  T-Guy says History is his favorite subject and we really love watching him and J-Baby make connections between historical and current events.

Reading:  I stopped trying to keep up with everything T-Guy read this year.  He reread many favorites, discovered some new books such as the Children of the Lamp series by P.B. Kerr, the Hardy Boys, and the new series by Percy Jackson author Rick Riordan, The Kane Chronicles, the first book out being The Red Pyramid.  J-Baby checked out and read hundreds of science books, some aimed at children and some aimed at adults.  Both boys enjoyed their assigned reading, including The Search For Delicious, Stuart Little, The Trumpet of the Swan, The Earth Dragon Awakes, and the many books I found to support our blocks studies on Norse mythology and Beowulf.  The boys did projects for Stuart Little and The Search For Delicious.  This year the boys both participated in their first book club at the library.  Part of the club was reading out loud at each session and both boys did really well with this; Thomas in particular improved his fluency and inflection when reading out loud (J-Baby is rather dramatic and already had this down).  They also participated in book-related discussion, games, quizzes, and art projects.

Language Arts:  This year we studied grammar with an emphasis on parts of speech.  The boys learned the basics about nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs; plus prepositional phrases, interjections, conjunctions, synonyms, antonyms, homonyms and homophones.  They learned verb tenses, sentence and paragraph construction, and creative writing.  Each boy wrote his own heroic epic and a short essay.  The boys developed spelling skills as I worked with them on their phonics skills and spelling rules.  Recently the boys have been watching The Electric Company and this has also helped with developing spelling skills.

Science:  J-Baby lives and breathes science!  There isn't a day that goes by that he doesn't have his nose in a science book or that he isn't explaining some sort of scientific theory to me.  We continued with science experiments this year, some simple exploration with books and some more elaborate experiments with kits.  There was a lot of work with electricity, including parallel and series circuits.  We grew crystals and explored basic chemistry.  We continued to spend time in nature learning our local flora and fauna and went deeper into research using books.  Each boy did research on a local animal, writing an essay and drawing pictures of the animal, it's habitat, home, and food.  We started a garden again this year and revisited our learning on seeds and plants.  One thing we focused on was recording observations and the boys took notes on their experiments, making predictions and recording outcomes.

Math:  Grade 4 was focused on two main subject areas in math, long division and fractions, and we made amazing progress in both.  We also practiced skills in addition and subtracting with regrouping, long multiplication, and multiplication facts.  We informally explored numbers systems and basic algebra.  We observed geometric shapes in nature and described objects in nature with both objective and subjective adjectives.

Foreign Language:  I'd love to be able to say that we moved forward with Spanish this year, but the boys still don't have any real interest in speaking another language.  Informally we spent time talking about word origins and I still use basic Spanish with them, which they understand more and more.  We also explored the culture of Mexico and Mexican-Americans through music, food, and holiday celebrations.

Health:  This was the big year for learning the basics of human reproduction.  We also continued to focus on nutrition, exercise, food chemicals, and more.  We talked about emotions in ourselves and others, personal safety, and exercise/sports safety.

Fine Arts:  Both boys improved in their drawing skills, in part due to natural developmental progress and also our work with drawing using OM4 and Draw Write Now.  We did a basic guitar course and worked on singing in parts.  Both boys really got the hang of knitting and they also did weaving work.  We also continued to attend plays and musical performances.

Physical Education:  This was the year of baseball skills!  Both boys worked on hitting, running, and catching, and T-Guy played his first year in Pony Baseball, which brought a deeper knowledge of baseball rules and strategy.  The boys also worked on learning new mountain biking skills.  Throughout the year we walked, hiked, and swam, with the boys learning three swim strokes (freestyle, butterfly, and breast) and also egg-beater style water treading.