Shared History...Ancient History

One of the things I LOVE about homeschooling is that we can experience learning as a family.

It makes for an interesting dynamic...and a great deal of fun!

Right now we are studying Ancient history -- the earliest civilizations -- Sumerians, Upper and Lower Egypt, King Narmer/Menes, Cuneiform, Hieroglyphics, Stone Tablets, Papyrus, Mummification, the Rosetta Stone, and Hammurabi's Code. It's an exciting time for us! Listening to the kids talk about history in excitement, with a clear understanding of what was happening in the world at that time, is amazing. But I think this time period in history has a great deal of appeal to all of us.

Ancient Egypt brings so many different thoughts to mind. The kids this month created their own Hieroglyphics, and spent time writing/speaking in each other's "codes" one Friday. They actually wrote keys for their individual languages, and passed the key along with their codes. We also made the double crown of Egypt - the crown King Narmer (Menes) wore when he united Egypt by combining the crown of the defeated king with his own, making the red & white crown that would be worn by Pharaohs for several thousand years afterward.

It really benefits the kids to hear the interpretation of what we are learning from each other. Savannah, sharing her understanding of Hammurabi's code with her sisters, gives a different insight than if I were to just share the basic information. Even more interesting, their interpretation almost always involves a discussion of if something was morally/religiously correct. Hammurabi's code really created a very unique debate about the appropriateness of the punishments.

Friday was the end of our first month of school and we celebrated with a game of Jeopardy based on our history studies. I developed questions from what we've learned about History over the last month. Since we have been learning this particular subject together, I was able to create one game for all four of the kids. It was a fun experience, and really gave us an opportunity to review what we've learned before moving on this coming week. Since it was a success, with all four kids able to answer multiple questions, we will probably make this a monthly event.

With the changing weather, we've had to curtail our walks a bit, and start incorporating Cosmic Kids Yoga, Just Dance Workouts, Jumping Jax Gym, and the like. Asher and Savannah will be studying nutrition this year in Science. Last year they each learned one "harder" dish to cook (spaghetti, chili, tacos, ect), one dessert bread (apple, pumpkin, banana), and made one simple lunch (PB&J, Deli-Turkey sandwiches, ect). This year, they will start helping design our monthly menu, and will each become responsible for 1-2 meals a week. Last year I avoided teaching them how to make breakfast foods, like pancakes, concerned they would burn themselves on the griddle, so hopefully this year we will find a few recipes they can make the night before and pop in the oven (I found a delicious peach & walnut stuffed french toast!). Rosalynne and Gabrielle are still a little young to help in the physical kitchen much, but they will be responsible for setting/clearing the table, getting cold items (yogurt, fruit, cheese...) and might help a little with the menu.

So far, school has been fairly relaxing. We have a full schedule, but we are working through it each day, and are settling into the swing of things. I'm excited to see what this next month brings!

First Week...Success!

The start of a new school year is always challenging. We've gone from a relatively free summer back to the structure of lessons and schooling. It's not the easiest transition.

Now that we've completed our first week of school, I have to say it went extremely well. This is the first year that we have combined our studies (World History). It's also the first year we've done two complete cores, including Science. Last year we forwent Science with Rosalynne and Gabrielle because they didn't really seem to be getting much from it after the first 8 weeks, so we packed it away to save for this year.

The first day, we went a bit slower and didn't complete our lessons until around 3:45pm, but by the end of the week, we were finished by around 2pm. We have also continued with our hour-long walk in the morning after breakfast, so I'm pretty content with that completion time. Gabrielle started right in with Grade 1 readers and Language Arts, and she is doing excellent! It's amazing what one year will do. Last year she wasn't reader for Kindergarten readers or LA, but it's clicking suddenly, and she is making sense of the words and doing well with her spelling.

Teaching 3 different Language Arts this year is definitely challenging, but it's one of my favorite things about homeschooling. I can make sure I am working at each child's level, and they never have to struggle so much that they lose their love of books and reading.

It has taken quite a bit of trial and error to place Asher and Savannah in the appropriate levels on Time4Learning. The 6th Grade Language Arts program was WAY too easy, and they found it extremely boring. But 6th Grade Math was pretty challenging.

Overall, we had a great first week. Friday is our "off" day. We are working with a 4-day curriculum this year, so our plan is to reserve Friday for field trips, art/crafts, appointments, make-up work, extra-curricular, electives, and an extra day to review any topic or subject that proves extra challenging.

I'm sure as our school year continues we will be adjusting our schedule and lessons as needed. But, it has been a wonderful first week! 

So -- what is curriculum and which one do we utilize?

I mention in previous posts about our curriculum choices, but saying "curriculum" really doesn't explain much of anything.

Curriculum is basically the subjects and material comprising a course of study in a school, college, or educational program. It is, simply, what we study. When discussing homeschooling, however, often it is so much more than what we study: it includes the methods of study. Methods of homeschooling vary widely, from complete unschooling, to relaxed homeschooling, to a Charlotte Mason approach, to a school at home philosophy, to unit studies, and so many more than I could mention here. 

Sonlight Box Day! Our curriculum came in!

Personally, unschooling is not for us. We need some amount of structure, and though I do like to let the kids pick different electives to study, I am uncomfortable with the idea of completely student-led learning. So, I might let the kids help choose what area of Science we will study (Earth, Physical, Biology, Chemistry, ect), but then I will select the appropriate materials. 

If I had to describe our homeschooling method I would say it's a rather eclectic mix of relaxed homeschooling, Charlotte Mason (Nature studies, yay!), with just a touch of school at home. Yes, we have desks, tables, and a designated learning area, though often our lessons move around the house, inside and out. 

In general, we have a schedule, but we keep it relaxed. We have an overall plan for the week, month, semester, and year. If we complete more in one term than we do in the next, it's not a big deal. Our main goal is to have fun while we complete our studies. If we work a little faster some weeks, and slower others, then so be it. With homeschooling, we are blessed not to have a designated end of the school year. We can finish earlier or later than initially planned, or we can extend our studies throughout the summer and go year round. 

The Core Asher & Savannah are using

This will be our third year using Sonlight Curriculum. It's an amazing program, which uses living books to teach History, Social Studies, Language Arts, and Science. Throughout the year we do what are called "Read Alouds" which are books that I read to the kids and then we discuss them. The kids also have what are called "Readers" which are assigned independent reading. We also study History and Geography through reading. This year, Asher and Savannah will be doing Core G, World History Part 1 (seen above, though we purchased an older version that has more books and materials) and will be reading approximately 40 books. 

By an odd stroke of luck, the girls will be starting Core B this year, Intro to World History Part 1 (seen below), so for the next two years or more, they will be on the same cycle as Asher and Savannah, so we can actually combine some of our read alouds!

The Core Rosalynne and Gabrielle are using

Because the kids are separated in age, we can't use just one Core for them. It would either be way too challenging for Rosalynne and Gabrielle, or way too easy for Asher and Savannah. So we will be using two Cores (B & G), one for the older kids, and one for the younger girls. I will combine the read alouds, somewhat, since the kids will be studying the same time period and locations at approximately the same time. The kids all listened to several of our read alouds last year and still talk about their favorites. In fact, they've asked us to reread some of them. 

The biggest difficulty in using Sonlight with four children of different ages and abilities is that I need to use multiple Language Arts programs, so Asher and Savannah will study 6th/7th grade language arts with Core G. Rosalynne and Gabrielle, however, are at drastically different levels. Rosalynne will be working through a 2nd Grade LA program, and Gabrielle will be starting at a K/1st Grade level. Rosalynne is reading fairly well for a 6 year old, and easily worked through Grade 1 LA last year. Gabrielle wasn't quite ready for Kindergarten LA last year, so we switched to The Reading Lesson and just worked on writing and letter sounds, getting to basic reading towards the end of the year. At the start of the school year, I will assess Gabrielle's reading before making a final determination of where to begin. 

With Sonlight, the Core program covers History, Bible, and Literature, so I am easily able to pick readers/LA that are a perfect fit for each student. Similarly, Science is separate from the Core, and will adapt for multiple ages. The girls are starting Science A (we decided not to use it last year) and Asher and Savannah will start Science F, but I will detail our LA and Science studies a bit later.

A New Year, A New Newsletter

Welcome back, everyone! 

We stopped blogging for a while, thinking that a better way to reach our family and friends would be to mail our newsletters (not everyone has internet access, right?) but, after a year and a half of writing our newsletter, and often forgetting to go to the post office to mail it, or running out of stamps and only sending them to half of our list, we decided to give this medium another try. 

This school year we are doing something quite different! We will be integrating our literature-based curriculum (Sonlight) with online programs (Time4Learning, ABCmouse). In our technologically advanced world, we know it's important that our children know and understand how to utilize computers and similar systems, and what better way than to mix this integration with necessary core material? Asher and Savannah will be focusing on Math material this year, while Rosalynne and Gabrielle will focus on Math and Reading. All four of the kids will have access to core material in other subjects, but for our purposes this year, those subjects will be purely for fun.

As we did in our Newsletters, the kids will be responsible for some of the information in the blog, though I intend to post regular updates about our progress. I'm still not certain how frequently I will post, or just how much of a contribution the kids will have (we have an extremely rich and full curriculum this year). 

Last week and this week is our "soft start" which is my way of saying we are taking two partial weeks to become acclimated with our online programs so we can work out any bugs well before our official "start" date of September 4th. This is as much for me as it is for the kids, since I am learning two completely new parent 'portals' and reviewing the lessons and objectives along with the overall scope/sequence of the programs. Since we already have a "complete" curriculum with Sonlight, we will likely spend a few weeks adjusting our schedules to achieve the correct balance. Feel free to check in and see how that adjustment is going.

As many of our family and friends know, we have welcomed two new children into the family since this blog was regularly active. Rosalynne and Gabrielle will move to be featured here, in Adventures in Homeschooling, and our two youngest kiddos will be featured in Nursery News. 

Well, in a nut shell, that's where we are at right now as we approach the official start of the new school year! We look forward to sharing our adventures with you this coming year. If you know a family member or friend that might enjoy following along, please feel free to share a link to the blog with them, or send me a message with their email, and I can email them a link to new posts as the come out! 

Shrinking our Schedule

As our school year winds down in the next few weeks, it's nice to look back and see what we've managed to accomplish, not so much in terms of scope and sequence, but in terms of overall growth.

This year, Asher went from hardly reading to reading graphic novels and has finished the year off with completing a unit study in Where the Red Fern Grows. That's an impressive amount of progress. He also advanced from reading basic stories at the beginning of the year and writing very brief summaries to reading a chapter book each week and writing a book report. 

Savannah has gone from reading moderate chapter books to reading full-fledged novels this year. She has read Harry Potter novels, Nancy Drew, Monster High, and towards the end of the year we've thrown in the classics in varying degrees of difficulty. Right now she is reading Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea. Her book reports have advanced from simple one to two paragraphs to one to two pages. I continue to be impressed with her ability to read, but even more so, her true love and appreciation for reading.

Math, which has been one of the few subjects that the kids struggled with in the last few years started as one of the easiest and favorite subjects this year, but as we wind down, it is again one of the most difficult. Fortunately, Teaching Textbooks really has made a difference, and the kids seem to be excelling even while they are not particularly fond of the subject just yet. 

Science this year has been an amazing journey into the deep blue sea. We have learned about all manner of sea creatures and their classes. We have done a number of interesting experiments and projects. The Ocean is a topic that has enthralled Asher since he watched Finding Nemo at three years old. He has been drawn to all sorts of marine creatures and books about sharks, jelly fish, and octopus, taking Savannah along with him, so it has been really fun to study these creatures in depth.

At the beginning of the school year we were completing a move. In the middle, Jeremiah joined our family, Trevor started a new job, and we both earned college degrees. You can just imagine how much our schedule has changed with so many events happening within this year. Some of the changes were easy (not having coursework to complete has certainly given me more time!) and other changes have required us to adjust (like Trev's schedule). Overall, this has been our best year homeschooling yet! 

As we prepare for our year to end, I will be scheduling some assessments, ordering curriculum for next year, and planning summer activities and review. Though we don't like to admit it, we really need a schedule to keep us on track, even in the summer. 

Teaching Littles and Cosmic Yoga

Last week we started doing something different in school. Normally, I spend the morning teaching Asher and Savannah and then when they move on to their Independent Work, I work with Rosalynne and Gabrielle before making lunch. Last week we officially started "Teaching Littles" which all the kids seem to enjoy. Once or twice a week, I let Asher and Savannah pair up with one of their younger sisters and teach things that they have mastered.

This is something entirely new to our homeschool. Asher and Savannah have naturally taught their sisters things, but now they are actively working to teach skills or information. One day Asher might work with Gabrielle on colors and shapes, while Savannah works with Rosalynne on the alphabet and phonics. Then the next time the kids pair up, they switch partners and teach different things. Asher works with Rosalynne while Savannah works with Gabrielle.

Each lesson lasts about thirty minutes and the topic varies. I make sure to include something "hands-on" during the pairings, too. So far, the favorite activity has been a sink/float experiment in the kitchen sink. I also have the "littles" pick two books each lesson. This is nice because reading out loud is not something we practice every day, but it is beneficial for all the kids, and encourages reading across the board.

In the hustle and bustle of family life, it's easy to miss how influential children can be on one another, so this new pairing is truly a delight to see. Asher brings his active personality, going from one activity to another with a selection of sound effects, while Savannah brings her cheerful, singsong personality humming a tune or creating a song as she encourages her sisters.

We have a pretty full day until around lunch, by which time I am typically done "teaching" for the day. Once Asher and Savannah complete their independent work (Teaching textbooks, copywork, worksheets, activities, reading/writing), then the kids spend the day playing together, going outside, and doing crafts or on the fly experiments. With homeschooling, it would be pretty easy to let them have a lot of screen time, so I try to avoid it whenever possible. Normally, that means that I entirely forget our television exists during the week.

Besides incorporating teaching their younger sisters information, we have started incorporating a much more consistent PE "program" into our day. Whenever possible, the kids would play outside for at least thirty minutes to an hour each day. Sometimes the weather is too cold or blustery to warrant that kind of activity, so we would run around the house. Certainly the kids get exercise, but finding activities they can all do has become difficult. Fortunately, Trevor found Cosmic Kids Yoga on YouTube, and the kids absolutely LOVE it! Asher prefers to do the Darbee Hiit's exercises first thing in the morning, then listens to the story while the girls do Yoga.

I have to say, I am truly enjoying this addition to our day. Jeremiah loves watching his siblings while they exercise (or sometimes he is even still asleep in the cradle), and by the time they have all finished exercising, usually around 7:30, I have breakfast done and ready to plate. Cooking while they are all in the kitchen/dining room can be a difficult and slow process, and this has proven to be an accidental solution to that problem as well as a PE element they all enjoy!

Overview of Materials and Where the Red Fern Grows Unit Study

Hey Everyone! I know, it's been quite a while. We have had a very busy year, and unfortunately, keeping up with the blog fell by the wayside for a time. BUT, hopefully I will be able to get it back up to date....and keep it that way! I have had a LOT of people ask me what we are doing this year for school and how we are doing it, so this post is devoted to briefly talking about the various materials we are using and what we are doing with them.

This year our curriculum is from Timberdoodle, a Christian Homeschool company. They don't sell lesson plans, at least not in the same way that other companies do. They select some pretty fantastic homeschool materials (that come with their own plans) and form them into grade packages. We LOVE Timberdoodle materials, but we have found that depending on how we plan our year, we are doing a LOT more writing and worksheets than the average student. That's not a bad thing, but it is something we will likely change for next year.

For Spelling we've been using a program called Spelling You See. I have noticed progress, but next year we will probably try Sequential Spelling, a program that might fit just a little better with our homeschool. For Geography, which we have just completed, we used Exploring God's World which dealt much less with people of the world and community (like our last few programs) than it did about the Earth itself. We took an in-depth look at Volcanoes, the Atmosphere, Plate Tectonics, Oceans (and currents), and the Earth's Core.

We have been doing intense grammar studies using First Language Lessons for Grade 4. It is a really involved program, and the kids have learned so much more than basic grammar. They are diagramming rather long, elaborate sentences (stuff I didn't learn until college!) and the activities are broken down in such a way that I know the kids are learning the material. They have also been studying poetry, the breakdown of syllables, parts of a sentence, punctuation...pretty soon we will be starting our unit on letter writing, too.

Asher finally convinced Savannah that
Comic books are cool!

For Reading the kids have been doing a multifaceted program. They have been using Pilgrim's Progress, Pathway Readers New Friends and More New Friends, and they have been picking chapter books and novels each week to read independently and write a book report each week about their reading. These books are their own selections and range from Children's Classics to modern literature. Savannah is quite taken with Nancy Drew, Monster High, Babysitter's Club, and Harry Potter while Asher leans towards books like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Bernstein Bears.This means by the end of the year, they will have completed nearly 40 book reports! Next week we are preparing to begin a Unit Study using the novel Where the Red Fern Grows. Once we start this unit study, the kids will be taking a break from their weekly book report.

This semester we have also started a family Read-Aloud series. We read from the Chronicles of Narnia daily and are in the fourth book of the series. The girls typically play with mega blocks or color while we read Narnia together. Right now we are reading The Silver Chair and should be finishing it shortly. Our Unit Study will include assigned independent reading, chapter questions, section quizzes, and a variety of activities, whereas our read-aloud series is much more relaxed. I will read a chapter or two aloud to the kids and then I will either ask questions about the chapters or we will just discuss the reading and what we think will happen next.

Lego creations are a favorite
pastime in our home.

The kids are working through Teaching Textbooks Grade 4 this year. Math is definitely not their favorite subject, but they are doing very well. It is a computer based program, so other than checking their grades and answering the few questions they have, their Math is independent work. We are still working through Life of Fred. We are finishing the tenth book in the elementary series. LOF is fun, and the kids really enjoy it. I don't think of it as Math, as much as it is Logic, and I'm on the fence if we will continue it next year. We may use it at a slower pace next year, just because the kids enjoy it so much.

For Science we are using the Apologia text Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day. The kids are really enjoying this text, which, as you might imagine, focuses on Ocean animals. We are beginning the last section next week, and then we will complete our Ocean Box Project (with all the creatures we've learned about) and doing more of the experiments that just weren't feasible in the winter. The kids LOVE Science, so it is never a chore to get them to do extra reading or activities for it.

We are about twenty-five weeks into our school year at this point. The year has gone very smoothly despite the move and unexpectedly taking over a month off to welcome Jeremiah into our family. We have about ten weeks left of school so we will be done around the same time Public school students complete their year.

So - in a nutshell, that's what we've been using this school year.