as cozy as spring

Wrapping up the year

We're ending the first half of our school year which begins in July (ish) and ends on December 6th.  It's been a good, productive few months:

• We finished most of Latina Christiana I 
• Completed lessons 1-19 in Math U See Gamma
• Profiled all fifty states in a notebook
• Studied in a very thorough way the European discovery of the Americas and the colonial period (have some to wrap up there)
• Started a US history timeline
• Completed about half of Language of God and My Catholic Speller
• Read Anne of Green Gables and King Arthur by Benedict Flynn, any number of American Girl books, Squanto, and lots of other books I can't remember right now.
• Read most of Little Women.  I hope to finish that up very soon.
• Began praying the Liturgy of the Hours together, thanks to a very thoughtful gift from my sister (Ha, I saw a link for 'The Divine Office for Dodos' - I could use that.  I'm never 100% sure if we are praying the right passages, but alas, it's all prayer in the end)
• Raised and released several monarchs and other hands on science pursuits while using a text in a haphazard sort of way

There are a few loose ends to tie up.  Changes for the new year:  I'm investing in the Latina Christiana DVDs.  I think we've reached the point where we would both benefit from proper instruction.  My background in Latin (class in high school hastily dropped after the first day) isn't providing her with a good foundation.  We'll move on into the American Revolution and return to the Greeks (on audiobooks) in a supplementary way.

My son is making his way through Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  After several false starts, he is learning to blend his sounds well.  My daughter learned to read very, very easily.  My children's different learning styles has both delighted and troubled me.  Honestly, it's almost all good.  I enjoy approaching my son's education in a more creative way and success is much sweeter.

This doesn't cover everything, of course, and it has been a very rich first semester.  The biggest victory on my part was that I was able to keep track of lesson plans and all our paperwork in a binder.  I always abandon my planning system after a few weeks, but I finally found a system that works well for us. 

 

Blooming right now among the bright autumn leaves. :)

Colonial Crafts: An Autumn Dye Pot

My daughter was flipping through Colonial Days last week.  I told her to pick out a craft and she mentioned making a natural wool dye.  I was all over it.  I've wanted to try dyeing again for a while now, but couldn't justify the expense for my own recreation... but as an educational opportunity for my children?  That's a whole different (more generous) category in the budget.

We ordered some undyed merino (lace weight) and picked up some alum and cream of tartar at Target.  We decided to create a goldenrod dye because it's supposed to be easy and the roadsides are still adorned with the feathery bright yellow flowers.  And I love doing anything so quintessentially seasonal.

Can you imagine us all happily tromping through a sunlit field to gather flowers?  Picture this instead, it's just after Mass and I'm wearing my pearls, strappy heels, and a knee length dress which became decidedly not knee length when I leaned over to gather the goldenrod.  Replace the sunlit field with a bare spot behind a local bar complete with broken beer bottles and ant piles - also a cold front had blown in whilst we were in church and it was damp and chilly.

 

I would provide more details for the dyeing process, but it wasn't exact and there are plenty of ideas out there on the internet.  I personally remember green spiders crawling all over my kitchen counters, shrieks and laughter over the wasps and caterpillars we brought home with us, hauling huge pots of boiling water in and out of the kitchen, and a smell filling the house which can only be described as "funky".

 

But we got a golden skein of yarn for all of our efforts and it goes without saying that we will definitely do this again.

Ooh, I should mention that Martha does this in Lissa's Martha series using a rather repulsive substance as mordant and I was surprised and also not surprised that there are still a lot of people out there who take this route - but you know, for some additional reading on natural dyes.  

From the school room

This is mostly for me.  It's probably boring to read, but some of this needed to be noted.  Particularly concerning my baby boy!

From this week:

My baby 5yo son (not quite kindergarten ready, but slowly...):

•  Started reading!  He made his way through the first two Bob Books.  Some of it is memorization or sight recognition, but he's understood the concepts of left to right and different letters resulting in different words (Sam vs. sat).  Big step forward.  As a game, I had him spell out each word with Scrabble letters everyday.  He loved this and I think it will definitely help put it all together.  
• Switched out seasonal picture books, yay autumn
• Learned about seashores/hermit crabs in science
• played football together, sweet.
• Realized he could count to thirty after I requested 25 kisses from him, also sweet.
• puzzles, everyday

My 9 yo daughter:

• Finished lesson 10 in MUS Delta
• Reviewed Lesson 16 in Latina Christiana (need to test still but she knows the vocabulary)
• Lesson 10 CHC Spelling C (I think?)
• Possessive/Plural in Language of God - still needs work on it's/its
• Independent Reading The Secret of the Ruby Ring - a sweet surprise from a friend - My daughter is very much enjoying this story.  She narrated it to me on a walk on Wednesday.
• Rereading together - Little Women.  We started to pick up Little Men this week but I realized that we would have to go back and finish Little Women.  I can't say I'm bothered by this.  This book is wonderful to read aloud.  I caught my daughter at 10:15 last night huddled by her tiny night light reading it by herself.  I couldn't decide whether to be angry or not.
• Put together timeline sheet on Christopher Columbus with maps and copywork.  Read about Vespucci and Magellan in Story of the World II.  Continued to read about the Mayan civilization.  I got to show her photos of her daddy and I exploring the Mayan ruins in Mexico on our honeymoon. 
• First nature walk through the Botanic Gardens earlier this week - cloudy and cool, only one butterfly sighting - a black swallowtail.  Found plenty of snails and fungi which is her latest obsession.  I need to get an ID book.
• Visited art museum, discussed Renaissance
• Listen to King Arthur CD in the car
• Geography pages for - Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina
• Ballet auditions today*
• Piano every day

Me, 32:

• Worked on left side of cable cardigan, going together far more quickly than I expected.  If my thumb would stop bothering me, I could probably finish it next week.
• working on clearing stuff out - resold box of books and filed a bunch of paperwork, yay me.
• In the interest of simplifying Christmas, I caved on these ornament kits in about 30 seconds.  Oh my cute.  
• Made a sweet little Halloween party dress for Samantha with tiny spidery bows.  More importantly, I made my daughter very happy.

Goals for next week:

• Make a great tomato soup and rosemary bread
• get started on Halloween costumes for real people (my daughter wants to dress as Felicity - inspired by Diane (found the pattern on ebay) and my son wants to be a pumpkin)
• Yard work, clean up back yard, prune crepe myrtles and loropetalums, plant spinach.

OK then!  It's almost 6:00am here and I need to finish the ironing before the children wake up.  Happy weekend!

* I was trying to prepare my daughter for the possibility that she won't be cast.  I needn't have worried.  Her idea of what an audition will be like comes from (this is hilarious) American Idol.  She is totally prepared to have some Simon Cowell-like figure tell her she's absolute rubbish. I never thought I'd be grateful that she watched that show, which strikes me as just plain mean, but I can safely say that she'll be pleasantly surprised at how civil her auditions will be.

Working

• Sometime in the last year I fell out of the habit of getting up early.  We made it through the day regardless, but on my son's birthday I made a resolution to get my life together a bit more.  I've been getting up an hour or so before the children everyday this week.  I cannot believe what a difference this makes in my day.  I am so much more relaxed.  I find the time and peace to sit and read to them both in the afternoon.  And when 5:00pm rolls around, dinner is ready, the house is clean, and I have time to spare.  A strange feeling, but welcome.
• A binder for school work.  I've tried file folders etc, but the binder seems to be the perfect solution for keeping us organized.  I have blank lesson plan sheets in the front and then dividers for each subject.  Some sections hold blank quiz sheets and some hold finished work, but it's all staying very neat.  I am pleased (and ashamed) at how much more we accomplish when I'm not rifling through a big stack of papers for our Latin test sheet. 
• A crate for school books.  All of Lucy's workbooks, flash cards, and read alouds are in a standard sized crate in the dining room.  She is responsible for keeping this neat.  
• A to-do list.  I've recently had some attitude issues with my oldest.  Nothing extreme, but definitely unusual.  I started making her a daily to-do list with all of her responsibilities on it.  She puts a star beside everything she accomplishes.  Even when I was feeling sick earlier this week, she managed to finish everything on the list with no nagging (or even reminding) from me.  It makes a lot of sense too.  I know exactly what I need to do in a day, but to her, it was always a surprise based on what sort of mood I was in.  That's not something I would want and it would feel like incessant nagging to me as well. 

Happy Friday friends!   

 

  

Curricula

For my eight (soon to be nine year old daughter)

Math-U-See Delta

Latina Christiana (cont. - we are about halfway through)

New American cursive (cont)

My Catholic Speller - Level C

Language of God - Level C

Catholic Geography Bee

Behold and See

This is heavy on CHC materials.  I like them.  They are easy to use and pleasant for her without taking up an extraordinary amount of time.  The anxious part of me likes to have workbooks to make sure we are crossing those Ts etc.  I wouldn't say these constitute a big part of our day, but they keep us focused.  I mean, seriously now, Behold and See could never take the place of the rich discussion about seed dispersal we have while walking through the woods.  The Catholic Geography Bee is something we are working through this summer.  She is completing a state profile page every day.  We are focusing on American geography just before moving into American History in a more intensive way with the Sonlight Program.  I haven't used or even purchased it yet, but have seen good reviews and I'm very excited about trying it.

We are studying A Midsummer Night's Dream this summer and will be studying (in a less thorough way) Romeo and Juliet in the winter.  We have the opportunity to see the ballet, so that dovetails nicely.

I'm not talking about read alounds or literature because that's undecided.  She is reading Anne of Green Gables right now by herself.  I'm also not addressing faith just yet.  And my spacing is messed up again here.  What's up Typepad?

For my four (soon to be five) year old son:

Bob Books - Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons worked very well for my daughter, but has been less successful with my son.  I read Lissa's review of the Bob Books a few weeks ago and thought I'd give them a try. 

An Easy Start in Arithmetic - I looked through this when I was starting with Lucy and so much of it didn't apply because she was past all of that.  I think this will be better used on my son.  I'm not starting any program yet.  We're sticking with manipulatives, number recognition, and games for now.

In a thematic sort of way, we are working on learning more about time, specifically the seasons.  I always start with time (ht: God).  We are doing this mainly through picture books.

I may start in with some handwriting practice, but I'm not going to press it.  I don't think he's ready.

OK, that's all, but not really.  This is just the foundation and probably not even all of it.  

I want to teach them everything.

I'm a bit anxious right now.  I am having trouble narrowing down our focus areas for the next year.  There's so much to learn and I want to do it all and I want to do it right now.  I want to add in French and Greek.  I want to study Roman, British, and American history right now.  I'm feeling a bit panicked at how much we haven't covered.  The responsibility of their education just feels really heavy right now.  I wish I didn't care so much.  

Long time home schoolers - or just involved parents - how do you stay focused?  How do you choose?  How do you just accept the fact that you can't cover everything?  What do you cut?  I'm stuck in this awful indecisive fog.  help!

And on a lighter note:  Do y'all remember the They Might Be Giants CD 'Flood'?  Wasn't it so good?  I'm craving 'Birdhouse in Your Soul'.  In non-related news I cannot stop listening to that Commodores song from a few posts back.  

Reflection of my inability to focus.

I missed this in April but Math-U-See has changed the binding and look on their books.  Our spiral bound books did get a little beat up towards the end of the year so I'm happy to see the new binding - especially with perforated pages which would allow us to file lesson by week in a file folder (something I toy with frequently).  However!  I didn't notice all of this prior to my purchase because I was lured in by the idea of a Math-U-See Clearance area.  Ahhhh, clearance!  So I ordered a copy of the older Delta set which was discounted.  I do look forward to the trying out the new binding with Epsilon, but for now I'm happy to have a saved a few dollars in the book budget.

Coneflowers, just because.  Oh but that reminds me!  I've been avoiding Lissa's bee links because 1) I don't need anything else to worry about and 2) I don't need a new gardening related obsession.  But I stumbled upon an article in Martha Stewart yesterday about honey bee decline and followed the listed link to The Xerces Society.  I'm cautiously curious and casually asked my husband if we were allowed to have honey bee hives in our city.  I knew this would happen.

Also, just a quick note that my little brother deploys again today.  If you would remember him in your prayers I would very much appreciate it.  

School Today

We're in some odd, undefined part of the year having finished the majority of our texts but wanting to tie up loose ends.  I occasionally will write up what we did here, not because I think you would find it interesting but because it is easy to reference here and looks more concrete all typed up like this.  But if you find it interesting, that's fine too.  Here is what we did today:

• Looked over atlas during breakfast
• We probably spent an hour or so catching up on the Journey North Mystery Class.  I wish I had thought ahead to print out all the data as each week came along because I hate sitting in front of the computer for lessons.  We were both having so much this morning as we narrowed down our locations, high five-ing as we figured out each class.  I'm really trying to be patient as she sorts out the clues for herself because I want to sharpen her thinking skills.  
• Latina Christiana - Review II (through Lesson 10).  Fun review - quite in harmony with the clue mentality from earlier. 
• Grammar - Me/I - Language of God 
• Activities from the Catechism - ID items used in Mass.  I think.  She did this on her own.   
• Cursive - Letter L and review 
• Started Pandora in A Wonder Book - love this.
• Independent Reading: Voyage of the Dawn Treader  
• Math quiz right now, behind me.  There may have been a pencil thrown by a sweet little someone.  It seems she has inherited her mother's tried and true way of reacting to frustration (oh cordless phones I have shattered...) 
• Read Pelle's New Suit with my son, You Tubed 'shearing sheep' and wondered about some local farm we could visit. 
• We'll listen to the LC CD whilst running errands this afternoon and read Understood Betsy tonight.  I get why so many home schoolers have recommended this book.  Here is a passage we read last night:

  Although she had received a high score on an examination over American history in school, Elizabeth Ann had never dreamed that there had ever been any Declaration of Independence at all.  It had been like the ounce, living exclusively inside her schoolbooks for children to be examined about.  And now Aunt Abigail, talking about a butter pat, had brought it to life.

Greek?

Andrew Campbell has Greek starting in about the third grade which is where we are.  My husband and I are currently debating whether to add this in to our rather Latin centered approach.  

Him: She should learn Spanish.  We live in Texas.  No one will hire her because she knows Greek.

Me: I've lived in Texas for 32 years and never once (not once, I say) have I needed to speak or understand Spanish.  

Him: But Greek?  (This wasn't actually his response.  He made a smart remark insinuating that I was perhaps not the most exciting person in the world.)

Me: I know!  I'd be the one to have to teach it.  That's a whole 'nother alphabet!

Alas, it was a hilariously heated debate over languages during which we decided nothing.  I fully understand and appreciate the necessity of learning Latin (and yes, I consider it that important).  But Greek?  Any personal stories out there connecting Greek to fame and fortune, great SAT scores or sainthood? 

mornings

overseeing grammar and knitting socks

overseeing math and matching socks

wrapping up the CHC workbooks and MUS Gamma before the first of spring

clearing the vegetable garden (curse you henbit), planting tomatoes and peppers

clearing the last of the anemones and planting onions

Reading:

(me) Deus Caritas Est

(Lucy) On the Banks of Plum Creek (rereading together) independently : Prince Caspian, The Little Flower

(baby) Smithsonian Backyard books - any and all - have I mentioned I love these books - a hundred times or so?  I do.  I love them.

In the queue:

Finishing The Narnia series just so I can say we did.  We're not enjoying it all that much.

Understood Betsy (thanks Lissa)

Secret Garden, which I've never read, can you believe it?

Nature Lover's Book, (thanks Nina)  Hurry up Amazon.

Thinking about Redwall for next year.

I had a big thoughtful post planned on education but we're too busy with all of the above to write it. Happy Tuesday!