A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

I'm not ready for school to start, but 2 out of 3 local school districts began yesterday, and my teens are feeling anxious about getting started, too. An appointment that was supposed to take up most of my day yesterday was canceled, so I headed downstairs to the teen lair (which is where we keep our home library) and passed out books and supplies. Here's the basic list--always subject to change as the year progresses. Everyone will participate in Morning Meeting --details on that in another post . . . probably.  Morning Meeting is our family devotional time. Symposium will happen 3 times each week and will loop through: Mystery of History III English on a Roll The Easy Spanish Music and Art Appreciation--using various library and internet resources as they strike our fancy Geography--map studies Charlotte Mason style Geography Through Art (we'll focus on Asia) A Case of Red Herrings A1 All 4 teen girls will participate in Symposium. Rose Red: 12th gr...

Easy Homeschooling Techniques: General Edition by Lorraine Curry This is another book I picked up on a whim at the library, and after skimming it, I'm returning it immediately.  There is nothing easy about what this author recommends.  It's surely full of good ideas--great ideas even--but implementing them for my big family is more labor intensive than almost any alternative I can think of. Because I am somewhat dramatic, I felt physically ill as I turned the pages, looking for anything that didn't make me want to run screaming: 1.  Read aloud--yes, good, that is easy, and we do that. 2.  Pages 129-131 had a classics booklist that I liked. 3.  Page 17 had a reprinted list from 1907 of what children should be taught. 4.  She encouraged teaching children to be independent. Yup, I can handle all of that. But the rest of the book is a manual for creating your own curriculum for every subject for every child. Nope, I'm not going to do that! ...

10-year-old Nature Angel is enjoying learning Greek via her Hey, Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek -Level 2 worktext from Greek 'n' Stuff . For review purposes, we received 3 items from this product line: 1.  Hey, Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek -Level 2 worktext 2.  The "Answers Only" Answer Key for Level 2 3.  The pronunciation CD for Levels 1 and 2 that includes The Reader. The worktext is spiral bound and the pages are simply designed in black and white.  Is is a hair over 1/2" thick, so it is not intimidating at all.  It is consumable and meant for one student. The first 24 pages of the worktext review the Greek Alphabet, two letters at a time.  The pages are not labeled as lessons, rather each two-sided page is labeled "ALPHABET REVIEW"  or "MORE ALPHABET REVIEW" on the front, and "LET'S PRACTICE" on the back.  So each front/back page feels like one lesson, but because it is not labeled as such, a child who completed t...

We play in the mud. Not as much this year as last because we've had some violations of the three parameters I've set for mud play; 1.  Swim suits = mud clothes 2.  Mud play takes place in the back yard at the edge of the patio 3.  Keep the mud out of the wading pools. I still believe in mud play for healthy child development. And I've been searching for something the kids and I could build together . . . A mud kitchen!!! Ultimately I'd like our kitchen to include cupboards and shelves and all kinds of kid-built stuff, but we started with the sinks and counter. I found an old, old, old piece of plywood in the garage that was long enough for half a dozen (or more) kids to work comfortably together. It was a family project just getting the board out of the garage because it was wedged in from floor to ceiling! I have few pictures of that first day because I had no one to man the camera while I helped kids. We sanded the board as smooth as possible. ...

I am having an interesting experience using English Grammar Teaching Method by English on a Roll. I received the Instructor's Manual and 1 Cube Set to use with my family. The Instructor's Manual has detailed instructions for how to use the program--so detailed that it even suggests hand motions to use as the instructor follows the script to visually and kinesthetically reinforce what is being taught. Because of the level of detail, and because this program is quite different from any other that I have used, I am still at the bottom of the learning curve 6 weeks into using English Grammar Teaching Method . However, I am not discouraged. For one, my kids cheer whenever I get the cubes out. And if I forget to get the cubes out (we've been using them during lunch, when I have the kids all at the table and willing to engage in anything new), they remind me to get them. At lunch, I have anywhere from 8-12 kids gathered around the table (sometimes the teens are ...

Last week I needed to find some old family stories, so I spent an hour or so looking over the very first blog I opened (now archived and private).  Rose Red and Pixie experimenting with natural dyes in our front yard It is always so fun to see the old pictures and read the old stories. L-R:  Belle, Nature Angel, Genevieve (the dog), Pixie, Rose Red, and Super Star.  There had been some serious mud play that day! I found one post about our homeschool from 2009. At that time we had 6 little girls ages 9 and under--the newest (Little Princess) being absolutely as new as possible. Little Princess--just days old I wanted to quote myself, but I've been searching for the post (and you'd think I could find it given Little Princess's birthdate) for half an hour, and I can't find it again.  I'm thinking perhaps Little Princess was a few months older than I thought. Anyway . . . It was a busy season in our home, and I wrote about how the previous...

Our homeschool group puts together a yearbook each school year.  My kids pore over the old ones day in and day out, never tiring of looking at themselves and their friends and remembering the amazing experiences our homeschool group offers us. One delightful feature we love is the opportunity to make "personal pages."  These are pages that appear only in our yearbook that hold our family's personal memories.   Each family gets 2 pages included in the price of the yearbook . . . but we opt to pay the extra fee for extra pages and see more of ourselves. :) This year Pixie made our pages--selected the photos, selected the page layouts, put them together, and hit the "print ready" button. The lack of captions keeps us talking and talking about the pictures to keep the stories alive. This year's Not-Back-to-School picnic is in late August, and we get our yearbook then. We're so excited!!!!