Homework Assignment

(Notice the "caution work zone" sign, so funny, what a kid!)

I have a Home Schooling Mentor that checks in on me close to daily. Here and there I give a happy report and this was one of those days. She gave me a homework assignment to write the experience of today so that when I was having a bad day and wondering why in the world I was home schooling I could look back on days like this and remember why it is I home school.

One of my biggest challenges is that my kids are on different levels and I haven't felt comfortable with doing projects together, they either feel too hard for one level or too easy for the other. Today though Viv had some homework (she is still in public school) for writing her name. This was one activity they could all do together. Will worked on his signature, Ian his first name in print, Viv her whole name in print and Cadey worked on her name but focused just on the C. The kids did really well and I was praising them and they looked up with beautiful beaming smiles of pride. Will started in as well looking at all the little kids papers and exclaiming what a great job they were doing, then they all started in telling each other how good they were doing. I thought to myself, "I would never see such a thing in a public classroom!!"

We read poems today and Will and I wrote another poem together. I felt a little frustrated at this point because pulling words from Wills head are like pulling teeth but somehow we got through it. We also read Ali Baba and the 40 thieves and discussed loyalty and thinking of others. When Dennis got home I had Will retell the story to his dad to check for comprehension. He needed a few reminders that Dennis hadn't read the story and he needed to explain some details but he did a great job retelling the story. Then, it was time for him to choose what to work on. He chose to build a robot from his writing book (this book has you create some concrete object and then uses it to spur on writing topics). He spent two hours collecting materials and creating his master piece he is calling Mr. Zap and having conversations with (pretty funny). Again, I thought, when would you see this happen in a classroom. He would never be allowed 2 hours to work on a project! We also did a family cleaning project of cleaning the car which was filthy. Everyone pitched in throwing out trash, wiping windows, vacuuming and cleaning dashes. The music played and kids danced and laughed as we all worked together. Again, I thought how happy I was to have these experiences. I am grateful to be the one to teach my children not just academics but values and habits that will make them confident, hard working and capable people. It's hard to home school and sometimes I want to pull my hair out, but I have a day like today and it seems clear and sure that it is right for us.

One other change we have made lately is we added an ingredient from the Thomas Jefferson Model. We added evenings. This means we do not watch TV with the kids at night (except Sunday PCandA) or let them play randomly. This is family time. We read scriptures, write in our journals and then do a family activity (mostly reading together, but could be a game or bike ride, anything that we do together). So far this has been a lot of fun. I have enjoyed having Dennis be in charge of scriptures and taking that out of the A.M. routine which leaves me more time to read aloud from picture and story books as well as Viv's homework time. I guess the main idea is that things are good today, I am grateful for the inspiration to home school and I can see glimmers of truth through my faith that it the right thing for our family.

Kids Say the Darndest Things. . .

I use the series "What your _________ Grader Needs to Know" as my curriculum guide. In it is a section of sayings and phrases your kids should know at their grade level. I decided to see what Will knew and made this little sheet for him to fill out. A few are pretty funny, it looks like we have some learning to do. I am planning to go over what the sayings mean and then write a story together using some of the sayings and phrases. Hopefully it will be a fun activity that we can do together for mom share. For now though, here are his understanding of some common sayings and phrases.

Alice in Wonderland

Will and Song made some tarts all on a winter day.
Ian stole those tarts and ate them clean away.
Will got so mad he turned bright red
And that Ian was sick in bed
Will told Song to make more fast
And they ate them all at last!!

Will finished reading Alice in Wonderland last week so we decided to make a tart like the Queen of Hearts. We also made our own little rhyme which was pretty funny. I like to have him do some kind of report after each book so for this one he is writing an Alice in Wonderland ABC book. So far it's coming along pretty well. I think it's a good way to review and show events, characters and thoughts about what he read.

Finishing Up and Continuing On

The Wright Brothers' Plane.

See model instructions here as well as complete unit with tons of info on the Wright Brothers.

South American Rivers.

Will chose a Viking name; "Will the Fast" and wrote it in Runes.

The completed Viking Helmet! RRRRR!!

Great resource and the book I used for the Viking activites can be found on Amazon here.

This week we have been finishing up projects. We are almost done talking about world rivers. For South America I had will use salt dough to make a shape of South America and add the rivers in and then painted it and put little flags on to mark the rivers; The Amazon, The Parana and The Ornoco.

He also built a model of one of Orville and Wilbur Wrights airplanes out of toothpick and an egg carton. He is almost done with reading the biography of the two brothers. He also has "invented" some new paper airplane models.

He has also continued to work on Vikings. We read a short Biography on Eric the Red and he watched a BBC biography on Eric's son Leif Ericcson's. He finished his Viking helmet and learned about Runes. He wants to dye a shirt with beets, but I haven't braved that one yet! I am hoping to find a fun way to create a Viking painting of a boat or something?? Don't know if that will happen but it has been in my mind.

This week Will also read a book of mine from when I was about his age called "No Home for Shannon" about a girl that finds a dog and how she works to keep the dog for her own. Together we are reading an abridged version of "Alice in Wonderland" and we have both laughed and found it strange. It's fun comparing it to the movie. I want to find another version of Alice for him to watch and do a 3-way Venn diagram. I am thinking too of discussing dreams and such to connect to the story.

Finally, Will has continued to work on his human body project. This week we did reproductive organs and I really thought I would get more questions from him, but I didn't and I sighed a breath of relief. I really want to pawn that whole discussion onto Dennis!!

For closet, Will has still jumped around from Core phase to Love of Learning and back and forth again. He is really trying to find things that are Love and Learning but he still really enjoys to just "play". I put together a book of projects from Disney's Family Fun magazine and he has done a few projects from there, such as building a match box car garage out of a cereal box, he has done some beginner sudoku puzzles, made paper airplanes, drawn pictures, completed some easy science experiments and read a lot. It's fun to watch him take directions and just go with very little help from me. One lesson learned that I had to step in for was liquid measuring cups vs. dry measuring cups and what specifically to use them for.

I often wonder is this really enough?? I worry he is behind in math, did he write today? Did I spend enough time? But then we have conversations about mistakes and life and I see that I am able to help him not just academically when he is home, but in life lessons that might get missed if he wasn't here with me and competing with 25-30 other children and just getting passed by or in trouble when he gets frustrated for making a mistake. I am grateful to have him home and hopefully to help him be a stronger and better person because I now have time and opportunity to see his needs more clearly and to guide and influence more directly and effectively.

Still to come this week, art project aka, valentines and park day valentine party with other home schoolers, math (I still need a small game or activity to choose) and his rec center science class. All in all I think it was a productive and good week to date.

Happy Home Schooling!

Latest Projects

Lately we have been working on things that spark Will's interest. I had gotten some books on Vikings because I am following "What Your 3rd Grader Should Know" for curriculum and it covers Vikings. Will found the books and has been reading and creating projects from it. He made Viking apple cider and a Viking helmet as well out of paper mache. We have plans to dye a shirt using beets and create a clay cast to make a stone object of some kind. Should be interesting. Will also watched a biography on Leif Ericson and probably knows more about Vikings than I do at this point!

Will also created his own game as a scout project that he made the rules for and then put together the pieces and we played the game as a family. It's funny, Ian keeps pulling it off the shelf and playing it, so I think it was a pretty successful game.

This week Will and I had a discussion about what types of things he should be doing in school for his age. We talked about Core phase and Love of Learning from Thomas Edison Education. We talked about the different phases and how Core phase was make believe play, playing with guys, and the like. Love of Learning is where we play but learn something academic while we play like doing experiments, reading books, playing strategy games and games that teach a concept, writing stories and acting them out, etc. We talked about how at his age he should be doing more and more love of learning things during school. I think it helped because he has been asking if things he wants to do are love of learning or core phase and then choosing the love of learning things. One of those things is making different kinds of paper airplanes. This lead to airplanes and flight in general. I was excited to have a childrens biography book on the Wright Brothers. He has been avidly reading it the last two days and asking to build little things they built, spinners and such. He is currently working on a model of one of their airplanes. Very fun and exciting watching him get excited and wanting to do such fun things.