Thank You Notes

Today we are taking it light.  The children have been working on being appreciative in their study on Character Traits, so today, I had them write a thank you note to everyone they received a gift from during our Christmas celebrations, and tomorrow they will mail each person their note.  We also did our Daily Devotional today, the focus being 'listen & obey'.  We did our Bible reading; today was Matthew chapter 14.  Later on we will snuggle on the couch while I read to them from our current literature living book 'Anne of Green Gables' and they will do an oral narration after that.  But that is all that we did in our studies today, we have spent the rest of our time relaxing and enjoying one another and our friend Charlie whom I babysit.

New Year; New School Structure

I did a lot of thinking last night while I sat trying to make up my next few lesson plans, and after discussing it with my husband, I decided that since I am trying to merge the children's curriculum and lessons together like it suggests in Charlotte Mason's teachings that I have read at www.simplycharlottemason.com, I am going to teach Timothy with Tori during the SOS lessons in Bible and History & Geography and when she does her lesson reviews on SOS, I will have him do narration on the material and some questions/exercises of his own.  For Science I am switching both students to Exploring Creation with Astronomy by Jeannie K. Fulbright and I have a cd that is Live & Learn's supplemental material for the Exploring Creation with Astronomy (provided by my wonderful sister), so they will be doing some oral narration and then working through the material in Live & Learn's supplementals.  Doing the lessons together will require Tori to go back to a lesson plan involving multiple subjects in one day instead of just one main focus each day, but I feel with me no longer having to divide my time between them frequently, they both will take much more from each lesson and listening to one another's input will spark new thinking.  It will require me to come up with my own supplementals for Timothy in Bible and History and Geography, but that won't be very difficult at all.  Today we did this with the SOS lesson in Bible and it went very well.  I look forward to a full immersion into the new structure and have high hopes it will go well after we are fully adjusted.  God is with us, may he be with you as well.

December 24th present day.

Having Tori here changed things quite a bit and we had to begin finding a structure that worked with us.  We are still doing some tweaking but I have a clearer understanding of what homeschooling really entails when its done the way I would like to do it.  My sister introduced me to a methodology called the Charlotte Mason methodology.  I plan on working towards basing a lot of my curriculum and studies "loosely" on Charlotte's methods.

Current Structure of our days (will be changing after the new year):

Tori 5th grade:

Here lately we have been focusing on only one of the 5 core subjects per day then doing the rest of the studies that I have for her after that is finished up.  Following are the structures of each of the 5 subjects.

History & Geography:  I use the material provided with her SOS program and have her sit at a table facing me next to my desk, I read through the material stopping at key points to find things on the map to help her grasp where the lesson is taking place.  After each paragraph or every 2 or 3 she is to narrate back to me what was learned.  After that she goes back to the beginning and narrates the entire lesson.  Obviously she doesn't do that at the first narration since that is the entire lesson :).  Also, I have her take notes which I allow her to use her own notes for lesson reviews, quizzes and tests, but I don't always require her to take notes as it can be more of a distraction instead of a learning tool.  At the end of each lesson she does the questions in SOS that are after each lesson.  This method is currently what is working best for her, but we always seem to tweak as we go.

Language Arts: Again, I use the material provide with her SOS program and haver her sit at the table facing me at my desk.  I read through the material with her working through examples as we go.  At the end of the lesson I do a review and work some more examples (I make a lot of my own).  After that she does the questions in SOS that are after each lesson.

Bible:  I have her follow the same structure as History & Geography the only difference is we add the bible for scripture look up.

Also, she listens and narrates a Bible reading that I do later in the day with her and her brother, and this is done EVERY day.

Math:  I use the SOS material while she is sitting at the desk facing my desk.  I pull up a dry-erase easel we have and while I am reading through the lesson she has to work through every thing as we go. We sometimes do a narration back of what she has learned new that lesson, but after she is sent back to her computer for the questions in SOS, I have her work through several examples so that I am sure she is grasping what was taught.

Science:  Ah, Science.  Science has been hard for us.  Right now it is the same as History & Geography but the only visual aids we have as we go along right now, are the ones that come in the SOS lesson.

So, those are the 5 core subjects she does.  We focus on one per day of the week and do 3-7 lessons that day depending on the subject and difficulty of the material.  After she finishes up her core for the day, or sometimes squeezed in between, there are other studies I have for her.

My 2nd grader Tim and my 5th grader Tori both do these:

Literature:  I read to both children from a living book then have them narrate what I read.  Currently we are working on Anne of Green Gables.  I found a study guide/workbook free online and do give them a worksheet review of every 2 chapters.  But it takes us a  week or more to work through 2 chapters.

Physical Education:  Well since its cold and we don't have a yard for playing, they use the wii fit.  They are required to do 2 yoga exercises, 1 strength, 1 aerobic and 1 balance exercise everyday.

Music: Right now they have only been getting hymn study for music.  They learned the doxology and were required to sing it everyday.  Later I plan on doing 6 week studies on different composers.

Art:  We do so many different things, they started off working through how to draw books, then focused on painting or coloring in the lines, the past few weeks its been crafts anything from making their very own bouncy balls to sand art to clay.  Later we will get in to the 6 week studies on different artists.

Faith Development:  I read to them from a daily devotional book for kids focusing on self-control and then lead them in prayer.

Character Development:  We spend anywhere from a few days to a few weeks focusing and learning about different character traits that it is important to have.  We learn the definition and a supporting Bible verse to start we discuss examples in our own lives and what to do to better achieve displaying these character traits such as attentiveness, appreciation, fortitude, sincerity, generosity, joyfulness etc etc.  I also made my own excel sheet for them to fill in for each trait and they made their own character trait folder to use.

This brings me to my 2nd grader Tim's core lessons:

Tim does a little in every subject everyday, he does not have the attention span nor the patience to do so much in just one subject.

Math:  I have a second grade math text book like you would have found in public schools a few years back.  I teach him from this text book and have him work through it.  After he grasps a concept, I only have him do every odd, even, or third problem on a page, but I cover 2-3 pgs a day for a variety and good coverage.  Sometimes I download some worksheets to coincide with our lessons free off the internet.

Writing:  I have him write a few sentences for copywork, a few different times a day.  Lately we have been working on best effort, if he doesn't hand in a handwriting assignment that displays his best effort (or at least a good one)  it is erased and returned to him.  I used the doxology for his handwriting when we first started that in hymn study, but now he is doing a months study for handwriting.

History:  I read him a living book and then have him narrate it.  Right now we are currently working on "The Courage of Sarah Noble" 

Geography: I give him a blank map (right now the US) and have him fill in what he knows (states) after he is finished I give him a map already filled in or have him go to a map on the wall or the globe and fill in all the ones he missed.  He does this everyday with a fresh blank map.  You would be surprised how much they learn with this simple 10-20 min exercise every day, with little or no work from the teacher.

*****:  Tim also has a journal I made him with pages in it for different things.  Ones for just writing, ones for handwriting, ones for journaling, ones for drawing a picture and writing a story to go along with it.  I try to work the journal in some how everyday.

So, this is where we are at now, but I am sure when the new year starts and we are getting schooling back on track, I will be updating on lots of changes. :)  Merry Christmas everyone!!!

The first two weeks of homeschool

The first two weeks of homeschooling went marvelously well.  Timothy was excelling wonderfully and his whole attitude changed.  But his sister Tori who was still attending public school was a little jealous and wanted to be homeschooled as well.  We finally decided that even though it would set us back, we would purchase the SOS 5th grade curriculum for her and begin her homeschooling journey as well.  So, on November 13th, 2009 Tori was officially a student of The Academy of Edification, my homeschool.

The Beginning of it all

After much prayer and discussion, my husband and I decided that I would homeschool the younger 2 of our 3 children.  We left the homeschool option up to our oldest child because he had just become involved in speech and drama at his school and we didn't want to force him to drop out in the middle of a school year if he did not want to.

As the school year had already began, we debated on when a good time to start homeschooling would be.  Our children were currently enrolled in the 2nd, 5th, and 9th grades and we had no clue on where to even begin.  Our first thought was 'we need curriculum before we pull them out of school or it will be devastating to their learning process.'  Well, that's where I began seeking a lot of advice from one of my dearest most beloved friends (who happens to be my sister).  She is a homeschool mom too, and a very good one at that.  She directed me to lots (and lots and lots and lots) of websites containing helpful information.  We decided that we wanted to use Alpha Omega's Switched on Schoolhouse (SOS) curriculum.  Well that lead us to the problem of finances.  We couldn't afford the cost of two full years (2nd grade & 5th grade) worth of curriculum at that time, so we decided to wait until the following school year 2010-2011.

A few days later, I received a call from my second graders homeroom teacher telling me he was acting out in class. My straight 'A' student acting out!  Then a few days after that, the school nurse called to tell me he had gotten a bean stuck in his ear and they could not get it out.  Yes, I said a bean.  In all my years of being a mother (14 yrs), I had never experienced anything being stuck in an ear or nose. After many trips to the ear nose and throat doctor and a minor surgical procedure, the bean was finally removed.  During that whole process my sister informed me that she had some second grade curriculum prepurchased for her daughter and that I was welcome to borrow some of it if I wanted to until I could purchase the SOS curriculum.  So after prayer and discussion my husband and I decided that was the route we would go.  My sister was going to bring up her curriculum at Thanksgiving and I had found some free material online to last me until then. So, on October 28th, 2009 my youngest son Timothy started his first day at my homeschool, The Academy of Edification.