Learning All the Time

After getting a bit of a head start on our school year by starting during the hot days of July we've been able to take some time off from the more structured bits of learning. While I think we all enjoy the routine of our typical school mornings (or else we wouldn't school this way!) it is nice to have the option to call a week "off" and pursue life and projects around us.

In the last week we: 

 

Had three soccer practices

 

Had two soccer games

 

Took a trip to the ballpark for September baseball

 

Spent an afternoon at the local art museum to learn about portraits, self-portraits, still life, and landscapes

 

Made a math facts lapbook (Well, Ender did. I mostly just printed it out for him and offered advice when asked.)

 

Picked hundreds of pears (to can later in the week)

 

Went rollerskating

 

Watched Daddy complete his first 10K

And I started back to work last week, hence the "off" week. 

 

 

 

Today we are continuing our spontaneous learning by:

Making bookmarks (now that we have TWO little readers, we needed several more!)

 

Reading together- this is one part of our "regular" school day that isn't often skipped, even on our "off" days.

 

Quizzing math facts with the aid of that new lapbook

 

Prepping for some family art time this evening when I'm finished teaching in the studio.

Watching this video:

 

 

Loving this Monday morning!

The Basics

I've been stewing for the last however many months now about Kindergarten and the "official" beginning to our home school- at least as far as the state is concerned.

 

I've worked to foster a lifestyle of education and a home that reflects that philosophy, even though my boys weren't quite school-aged. Simplicity and order has been the focus of our home for the last few years, and despite a dedication to this lifestyle these little thoughts started to creep in:

 

"What if we miss something really important along the way?"

 

"What if we miss the perfect time to do something?"

 

"What if . . . "

 

My super-organized plan-ahead side went into a bit of hyper-drive there for a bit and lots of lists were made, sites and books read, and advice requested. I don't know why but excessive planning helps me see that we really don't need it all. We're totally okay with about 1/4 of the list. Thankfully I also have a rational side that starts to complain if it looks like we'll be "doing school" too much.

 

And again, it all comes down to the basics:

• Faith


• Reading


• Writing


• Number work

 

I'd like to share our plans here with an understanding of the factors for our family:

 

1. I work full time in my studio, but at odd hours compared to most full-time folks. Our kids are with me in the mornings til just after lunch, with their grandmother until dinner, then daddy in the evening. Daddy rocks the whole "feed them dinner, wrestle/ride bikes/play at the park, take a bath, read books, prayer" evening thing and Grandma gives them the space they need to make all kinds of wild artsy messes and spend 4 hours in a row with legos if that's what they desire.

 

2. I'm definitely a go-with-the-flow/spur-of-the-moment gal if left to my own devices.

 

3. My oldest son is Mr. Structure with a capital S.

 

4. We have to balance the two so neither of us go crazy.

 

5. My newly minted 3-year-old REALLY wants to be a part of everything.

 

So, we have a framework for the year built around two concepts: the alphabet and the continents. In between I have a few ideas for interests I think Ender might want to pursue, but I'm going to leave that open for whatever comes up. I could totally wing the whole thing and have a great time doing it, but Ender does a million times better if he knows exactly what to expect from the day.

 

I wrote a few "units" (I use the term very loosely), 1 for each continent, 1 for astronomy (which we're working through right now) and 1 each for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's all based on our basics- faith, reading, writing, and numbers, with a lot of room to add or subtract as we need to.

 

Our alphabet framework is nothing new, but it is a way for us to include Ezra while also giving Ender phonics work. We will be working with 1 letter per week with a theme for each day of the week, working toward making a page for each letter to put in an alphabet notebook. I'm planning to use some of the materials available through homeschoolshare, but I'm making some of my own too. I'll share more details as we complete work (provided I find out it actually seems to work for us).

The House that Ender Built

 

Can you spot him?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Knights

 

We read Knight at Dawn in April as one of our chapter books at night, which led to a LOT of knight questions!

 

On our next trip to the library Ender found the knight and castle section and he picked a few books that he thought looked interesting. His selections included:

 

Castle by Richard Platt

A Day in the Life of a Knight by Andrea Hopkins

Castle and Knight by Fleur Starr

Stephen Biesty's Castles by Meredith Hooper

Knights and Castles by Judith Hindley

Castles by Stephanie Turnbull

If You Lived in the Days of the Knights by Ann McGovern

 

There is also a Knight lapbook available at homeschool Share, and we used a few pages from the lapbook or the links listed there as coloring pages. The boys colored knights and weapons and shields while I read. :)

 

Their favorite books were Day in the Life of a Knight and the Castle Cross-sections book (the first Castle book linked above). The first had a simple story line for Ender to follow, but also shared several interesting facts. The second has amazing pictures and Ender poured over those for many hours. I thought for awhile that it might turn into a drawing project, but he told me ysterday that the castle and knight books were ready to go back to the library without going any further with the project.

 

He hasn't yet made a step toward another project though, so our next project is still a mystery!

Keeping It Simple

Spring cleaning is continuing in the mornings here, but I'm back to work in the afternoons. Only a few weeks left until blessed summer break!

 

A few thoughts on simplicity in our homeschool from the weekend (after another interesting discussion with my husband):

 

:: Record Keeping For Interest-Led Learners.

 

:: FAQs from Starry Sky Ranch

 

:: Tidal Homeschooling

 

:: The Parent's Project Journal. 

 

:: some math ideas in a beautiful main lesson book.

 

:: The Basics at Gypsy Carnival

Learning at Our House

Ready for something educational around here?

I know. Me too.

Thanks for tolerating all the knitting and list making around here lately. I promise it's a vital part of my educational philosophy and process.

I've posted here in the last few months about my thoughts on Kindergarten and the research I was doing to figure out what might best fit our family for our first "official" year next year. There are so many great things out there and I deeply appreciate the merits of Reggio Emilia, Montessori, Charlotte Mason, and unschooling.

So I spent the end of 2009 reading and talking with my husband and praying over these decisions. But for the last 2 months I have put all the Kindergarten thoughts on hold quite purposefully and we've gone about our days. Partly because I needed to focus on this day and the things we are learning and doing now, but partly because that is how I work best. I read and research everything I can find and then I have to let it all sit in my mind for awhile.

So I knit and make other lists that help me feel productive while I let all that information stew.

I began journaling about it over the weekend for the first time since before Christmas and a lot of things that seemed so muddy in December seem very clear now. Brian and I spent part of our time this weekend talking about our goals for homeschooling and a general family philosophy since we both consider homeschooling a lifestyle rather than a portion of our day. I realized also that our current days have shifted into a really comfortable place as far as our "schooling" and that I want to hang on to it for our core.

Every day includes something with math concepts, something for Ender to use his reading skills, and something to write. We also read every day- on average a chapter from whatever read-aloud we're on, something from whatever subject Ender is interested in (outer space at the moment), and as many picture books as they'd like (always Sandra Boynton for Ezra right now. The boy LOVES those hippos!).

Our extras (science, history, geography and all the stuff you're supposed to have besides the three Rs) are by interest right now and I'm perfectly fine with keeping it that way for a long while. We've been reading the Magic Treehouse books a chapter or two at a time and several of them have non-fiction companions- we're on our second of the non-fiction books (Space) and Ender really loves them. Ender is also learning to use the non-fiction section of our library to find books he might like about different subjects and he's already figured out which publishers might have the best pictures in their books. This is the project-based/Reggio Emilia portion of our day. I take a step back during this time and we go wherever Ender wants to go. In the last two weeks it's brought us to learning about how a telescope works, who Galileo and Isaac Newton were, what gravity is, and how people dressed a few hundred years ago. I'm loving the conversations we're having lately, and he's doing a fine job directing himself.

The last two components to our days are time outside and time to make things. Of course time outside will be a bit easier when there is less ice hanging around, but even now we try to get out for at least a little bit. I look forward to being able to be out all morning or afternoon again when it warms a little bit more. Last summer we hit a great rhythm with having quiet afternoons with the making box and I hope a similar pattern will emerge again in its own way in the coming months when I will be home all day again.

So I suppose my little panic about what we "should" be doing has been quelled for now. My plan for when it bubbles up again? Reading through Ruth Beechick's books, Real Learning and looking back through our journey so far to remind myself of how much we have learned from playing checkers and card games and spending all day outside.

Ender's Guitar

Last week Ender made a rockin' guitar.

 

 

Ender has been playing on my guitar a little bit in the last few weeks and when he saw the project for this guitar in 50 Science Things to Make and Do, he announced "this is my project today!"

 

We used a shoe box, a paper towel roll, about 8 rubber bands and LOTS of duct tape. Add on a sharpie to draw strings on the guitar neck and you have a guitar! The duct tape strap was his own invention, and he made a duct tape loop on the end so it can be removed from the neck of the guitar.

 

**and a quick update on K's baby- the induction didn't work; they're trying again this morning. Maybe a nephew today? It would be a cool birthday 02/10/2010. :) We're hoping for that birthday since all the cousins so far have a double number like that in their birthdate. :)

My Father's Dragon

Ender and I read My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett last summer and enjoyed it quite a lot. When a friend told us there were 2 more books in the series they jumped into my next amazon order! We finished them last week and as we read the last words Ender sat there for a moment then said, "That's the last one?"

"Yes, son."

"Can we ask her (the author) to write some more?"

There has been an awful lot of dragon pretending around here, and the packing of backpacks "like Elmer does in the book, Mom!" Ezra is even in on the act as the "very baby baby dragon" (since Ender is the actual baby dragon, you know) and asks us all the time to ask him if he's "a nice dragon or a scary dragon" so he can roar appropriately.

That led to a dragon book search and on to reading Day of the Dragon-King by Mary Pope Osborne (which I happened to have picked up from a garage sale last summer!). I was informed this evening that it's a good book, but "not as good as the other dragon books."

Books about China also came up in the library searches and it turns out that Ender *loves* the DK book about China. This is our first time reading about a different country beyond the setting in a fiction book, and I'm a little surprised at how much interest Ender has shown. I really thought he'd only be interested in the little bits about Chinese New Year and the dragon lore,  but he keeps pulling that book out and asking about different spreads in the book.

I'm just along for the ride on this one . . .