Snow Day

We got about 6 inches of snow last night, so I gave the boys the day off and they're having a blast building a fort, throwing snowballs, and sledding.

When the boys were younger, I mistakenly thought that time in my day would be freed up as they got older.  "After all," I reasoned, "they won't need me for as much direct teaching."

Boy, was I wrong.

Sure, Luke & Ezekiel don't need as much direct teaching.  They read, they write, they translate, they do their math.  Direct teaching takes up maybe an hour, then they do their work.  Much of our 1:1 time is spent in discussion about literature, history, and logic.  However, I didn't take into account that someone would need to grade (or at least check) all of the work they did on their own.  And while Jacob, Micah, and Nicholas need more direct teaching from me than the older two, they also have a fair amount of work that I need to check.

I've always got a stack of work to check.  I should check this work immediately, but it's difficult when the hours are taken up with teaching, cleaning, cooking, laundering, and chauffeuring.  All that time I dreamed of when the boys were younger is nonexistent.  I'm forever behind.

Guess what I'm spending this snow day doing?  

Do any of you have any great tips for staying caught up with grading/checking work?

Handwriting Without Tears

Handwriting Without Tears is a gentle handwriting program for children.  This program goes from Pre-K through 5th grade.  I was sent the First Grade Teacher's Guide ($9.25) and Student Workbook ($8.25) to review.  

 

I used this program with Nicholas, who is in first grade.  He's not reluctant about writing at all, and never complains about having to write anything down.  However, he taught himself how to form most of his letters. To say his letter formation is unconventional would be an understatement.  However, he's also boy #5, and while I've always got plans to fix his penmanship, it's difficult to find the time.  Handwriting Without Tears states that handwriting can be taught in 15 minutes a day.  I found that it didn't even take us that long.  

The Teacher's Guide is 182 pages long, and contains the philosophy, teaching tips, and lesson plans for the first grade student workbook (sample pages can be downloaded here).  There are suggestions for extending the handwriting lessons into other areas; for example, on the lower case "h" page, you are to encourage your student to color the horse on the page and add grass and hay, make a list of words that begin with h, and count the horse legs and try to figure out how many legs there would be if there were 2, 3, or 4 horses on the page.  The Teacher's Guide also provides a passcode so you can access online activities:  downloads, practice pages, remediation guidelines, and more.

My Printing Book is the name of the Student Workbook for first grade.  It is 94 pages long, and is printed in black and white (sample pages can be downloaded here).  The amount of writing required per page is minimal.  The student is encouraged to do their best on each and every letter.

Nicholas made it through about the first 25% of the book.  We usually did a page per day, focusing on correct and well-done letter formation.  He enjoyed the lessons, and his penmanship for the letters we covered is improving.  I didn't find the Teacher's Guide to be very helpful, but that might be because I'm working with a non-reluctant writer.  If you're nervous about teaching penmanship, or if you've got one who doesn't like handwriting, then you should check out the Teacher's Guide for ideas.  I think Handwriting Without Tears is a well done penmanship program, and I'd recommend that you check it out.

For more reviews of Handwriting Without Tears, visit the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog.







Disclaimer:  I received a free copy of this product through the Schoolhouse Reveiw Crew in exchange for my honest review.  I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated in any other way.  All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.

Week 22

Slow and steady wins the race.

It's a marathon, not a sprint.

How many times have I said this to myself?  Or someone else?

It's true.



We're making progress.  Day to day I often wonder what on earth we're doing.  How can {unnamed son} not do {task we've done a gabillion times before}?  Am I failing them?

Then I look at the long road behind us.  And I realize we are making slow and steady progress.  It's not always in the neat, tidy, and linear fashion that I would prefer, but progress is there nonetheless.

All this to say that we kept the course this week.

Most surprising of all is the repeating of Luke:  "Mom, Till We Have Faces is really good.  You need to read it."  My oldest son is telling me I should read a C.S. Lewis book.  Wow.

I also discovered Luke & Ezekiel can translate Latin faster than I can.

And I really took a good look at the plans I made over the summer.  As I've mentioned, our fall was not good--we were seriously overbooked and didn't make the progress I'd hoped.  Because of this, I'm planning on going through June and taking July off.  It looks like our June schedule will be light if we keep on like we've been doing this semester.  That was a nice feeling for February--seeing a bit of light at the end of the tunnel.

Weeks 20 & 21

We've had two fairly productive weeks, despite the fact week 20 was spent looking for a New to Us Van after our Previa blew up.  Well, it didn't exactly blow up, but when I was out running errands a stinky steam started coming through the vents.  I pulled over, called Craig, and he was able to get it to the repair shop where we found that it wasn't worth it to repair it.  It's always stressful when deciding how to spend a larger than normal sum of money, but we really felt that God's hand was in the provision of the New to Us Van, and we're all enjoying it.

As far as school goes, we're plodding along.

Luke & Ezekiel finished The Codes of Hammurabi and Moses, and have moved on to Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis.  For writing, I started them in A Writer's Guide to Powerful Paragraphs, and they worked on writing a definition paragraph this week.  Ezekiel switched math programs, and now instead of doing Saxon 8/7 for prealgebra, he's working through Lial's Basic College Math.  I think he's enjoying the change of pace.  They're moving along in Greek, and we hit the 3rd declension in Latin this week.

Jacob is really enjoying the Science Explorer Electricity and Magnetism book, as well as the Snap Circuit experiments.  His headaches and migraines have increased, and I think that's making focus even for him more difficult than usual...that and being 10. His progress is slower than I'd like, but it's still there.  I'm trying to remember that slow and steady wins the race.

Micah took his first grammar test this week.  It was a lot of writing for him, but he did well.  He turned 9 this week and received Kingdom Lego and several books on knights.  He's declared learning about medieval times to be his new hobby.

Nicholas is such an eager student.  Not necessarily because he wants to learn what I'm teaching him, but because he knows that if he finishes quickly he can play.  He's attempting to read Redwall on his own for fun. 

We've made it through the letter L in cursive, and the four older bothers finished Prince Caspian this week.

Time to plan for next week!

Week 19 in Review

I was zapped this week with a cold bug.  It took much of my energy, so the boys were on their own more than is ideal.

Nicholas had his 2nd piano lesson, and he's loving it.  The other big news is that I'm stopping phonics with him.  I'd been debating, but when we were working on Writing with Ease he read "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" to me.  I figure if he can sound that out without issue, he's doing well and I can just address any issues that come up when they present themselves.  He'll continue with Master Reader, mostly because he likes it and it helps keep him out of trouble.  For the first time in 9 years, I won't be faced with doing a Phonics Pathways lesson.  It's bittersweet.

Jacob and Micah plugged along as best they could.  Jacob is loving learning about electricity, and Micah spent a lot of time reading and playing with Zoobs.

Luke & Ezekiel continued reading The Codes of Hammurabi and Moses.  They both really like this book.  The discussion from Omnibus today had them deciding cases according to the code of Hammurabi and according to Biblical law.  We're also discussing Biblical allusions, and they had to write two of their own.  We worked on writing a chronological paragraph as well.  Progress was made in other subjects as well.

We started cursive, and it's going better than expected.  So far everyone is forming their letters correctly, even the tricky lowercase cursive "f".

I'm looking forward to next week...hopefully I'll be healthy and well-rested!

Homeschool Humor, Monday Edition

Micah's been learning about apostrophes in grammar.  He's gone from calling them "the line that hangs in the air" to calling them "assTROphies".  Can I count that as progress?


One of the words on Nicholas's spelling list this week is "but". He doesn't understand that it is the conjunction, not the body part.  So far he's tried to use it to answer the question "What is the opposite of bottom?" and to fill in the blank in the sentence "Joseph feeds _____ dog every day."




While discussing the difference between fatalism and predestination with Luke and Ezekiel, Ezekiel piped up with "That reminds me of a Calvin & Hobbes strip."  At least we've moved on from relating these discussions  to Phineas and Ferb.


We moved along to discussing paragraph unity.  During this discussion, Ezekiel told me he had a 10 watt idea to unify his paragraph.  A bit later he told me he's going to write a book titled Thirty Watt Thoughts.  Finally, he told me that he's considered his audience and he shouldn't write using any of his 50 watt ideas if he wanted anyone to understand him.

Week 18 in Review

This is our first week back.  Re-entry is always painful, but all in all this week went really, really well.

I changed our schedule up over Christmas break.  Last semester, I had time with Luke & Ezekiel scheduled first thing, followed by Jacob, and then Micah and Nicholas in the afternoon.  This didn't work for a couple of reasons, most notably:  Micah & Nicholas wouldn't be very focused by the afternoon, especially if they'd spent the morning playing and Luke & Ezekiel wouldn't make progress if for some reason I wasn't available to teach them or if we had an interruption, which seems to happen mostly in the mornings.

This semester, I basically flipped the schedule.  I work with Micah first, and while I work with him Nicholas works on hands on logic puzzles (like Color Code or Q-Bitz, Master Reader, and Miquon).  Then I work with Nicholas while Micah reads, does his independent work, and finishes up anything from our teaching time.  After I finish with Nicholas, I move along to Jacob.  He's got enough independent work to keep him busy while I work with Micah & Nicholas, and then he's got work to finish from our teaching time in the afternoon.

I teach Luke & Ezekiel in the afternoon.  The big change, though, is that I teach the next day's lesson.  On Monday, I'm teaching the material for Tuesday, on Tuesday, I'm teaching the material for Wednesday, and so on.  This way they have a full day's work to do before we have our teaching time.  Our days are feeling shorter, it seems like the boys are working faster, and I feel more engaged and on top of things.  It's funny how a little switch can make such a large impact.  Of course, I've been at this long enough to know that in a couple of weeks something will change, and I'll have to adjust what we do, but for now I'm going to be happy.


As far as what we accomplished:

Luke and Ezekiel:

• Finished The Ancient Near Eastern World and started on The Ancient Egyptian World
• Finished Chosen by God and started on The Codes of Hammurabi and Moses
• Discussed ad hominem circumstantial and tu quoque fallacies
• Learned about predicate nouns and the 3rd declension in Latin
• Started lesson 6 in Elementary Greek 2
• Took the chapter 2 test in Rod & Staff's English 7, and started chapter 3 (on nouns)
• Finished lesson 10 in spelling
• Learned about magnetism, nuclear force, and how atoms can be different
• Read through chapter 8 of Prince Caspian
• Began the annotating lesson in Windows to the World
• They both made progress in math

Jacob:

• Finally started his Spanish program
• Started lesson 7 in spelling
• Began The Creative Writer and worked a few more lessons in Sentence Composing for Elementary Students
• Finished chapter 1 in Rod & Staff's English 5
• Started reading Super Grammar
• Read through chapter 8 in Prince Caspian
• Started chapter 6 (masculine 2nd declension nouns) in Latin for Children A
• Learned about the Old Kingdom in Egypt (with Micah and Nicholas)
• Worked through a bit more of Soaring into Flight with Micah & Nicholas (he's teaching this)
• Read The Nature of Magnetism (Prentice Hall's Science Explorer Electricity and Magnetism)
• Made progress in math (fractions, place value, and Roman numerals, among other things)

Micah:

• Started week 8 in Writing With Ease 2
• Learned about "the lines that hang in the air", otherwise known as apostrophes, in Rod & Staff English 3
• Finished lesson 8 in spelling
• Read through chapter 8 in Prince Caspian
• Started reading Super Grammar
• Learned about the Old Kingdom in Egypt
• Worked through a bit more of Soaring into Flight
• Read through chapter 3 in Henry and Ribsy
• Completed chapters 5-8 in Life of Fred Butterflies
• Made progress in math (including learning about perfect squares)

Nicholas

• Finished week 5 in Writing with Ease 1
• Read Owl at Home
• Started Rod & Staff Spelling 2
• Nearly completed Plaid Phonics A
• Worked on Master Reader, logic puzzles, and Miquon
• Learned about the Old Kingdom in Egypt
• Worked through a bit more of Soaring into Flight
• Made progress in math

Over the weekend I'm going to figure out where to go with teaching Luke & Ezekiel writing; I need to firm up a plan and get it entered in Homeschool Tracker.  I'm kind of lost with my plans for Classical Writing Aesop and Homer for Older Beginners--they've gotten out of whack over the last semester.  Since fixing it will mean rewriting the plans, I might as well evaluate whether or not it's still suiting our needs or if I should switch them to something else.

I also need to get our New American Cursive worksheets printed and ready, and get Jacob's Snap Circuit science plans entered in.

All in all, I was pleased with how this week went.  Hopefully it's a harbinger of things to come.

If You Give a Homeschool Mom a Bookshelf

The holidays are over and Craig is back to work.  This week I'm supposed to be working on school plans for this semester, finding spots for the new Christmas toys by packing up and purging the toys that the boys have outgrown, catching up on laundry...you know, all the things that are needed to recover from December so that we can hit the ground running when we start back to school.

We have this desktop computer on our old kitchen island in the school room.  It rarely gets used and takes up a lot of space.  The shelves are used to hold laptops, but it's cumbersome.  Inside the drawer and cabinet are lots of computer things that are outdated.

Then there is the loveseat.  Craig & I bought this and the sofa on our honeymoon (side note:  if you're getting married, I'd recommend against going shopping for major furniture on your honeymoon--it might lead to bickering about whether or not sofas need arms or what kind of fabric is best or other minor details).  I decided awhile back that I'd like to get rid of the loveseat and replace it with an IKEA chair or two (the boys sit on the loveseat to read and end up kicking each other or wrestling).

I was on the treadmill the other day and realized that if I could get rid of the computer/island, I could put in 2-3 more bookshelves.  I ran the idea by Craig, and he said okay.

Then, it exploded.

To get the loveseat and island out of the schoolroom, two cabinets in the hallway had to be emptied and moved.  One holds movies; the other craft supplies.  The boys were able to unload them and they helped me move them.

I purged the old CD Roms and computer stuff in the island, and the boys helped me get the loveseat and island out of the schoolroom.  They helped me get the cabinets moved back, and they were able to load the movie cabinet back up.  I want to go through the craft items and purge instead of just loading it back into the cabinet, so it's all piled in the playroom--on top of the new Christmas toys & kits that I'm supposed to be finding homes for.

Did I mention that Craig decided to fix the severely slanted floor in the basement bathroom over Christmas break?  So there is a toilet and sink in the playroom while the floor cures.

Back to the school room.

The next step was moving my desk.  I should've measured, because it didn't fit how I wanted.  I still didn't get a tape measure; instead I moved the treadmill and then moved my desk.  That was even worse, so I put the treadmill back and moved my desk to a third and then a fourth spot before I decided it would do.

I sat down at my desk and surveyed the damage, and realized that the two fully loaded 5 shelf bookcases should be moved down the wall about 3 feet to make room for the two chairs.  I unloaded the shelves, piling the books where ever I could, and got the bookshelves moved.

  

Next came the assembly of the 3 new bookshelves, which was actually pretty painless.  I got them easily moved into place.

And then it was time to load the bookshelves up.  And of course, when you load them up, you need to reorganize the books.  And when you're reorganizing books, you should look for any you don't need anymore.  This part took forever.

Finally, I finished.

Did I mention I was supposed to spend this week getting Homeschool Tracker Plus updated and ready to go for the semester?  And that I was supposed to get the boys' binders ready for this semester?

Of course, I still need to deal with the Christmas toys and craft supplies in the playroom.

And while I was moving everything around, I realized how much the whole basement needs a fresh coat of paint.  I think that will be my summer project...

Life: Check

Another year is drawing to a close.  Time goes by way too fast.  I know, all parents tend to say this.  It's become somewhat of a cliche, but it is so true.  My first baby is starting his last semester of junior high; my last baby is 7 and I remember holding them and smelling their sweet baby heads like it was yesterday. Now the hugs often include a bit of rough housing or a tiny bit of force and let's face it...the boys are more likely to smell like wet puppy dogs than sweet babies.  I remember thinking we all wouldn't survive the days of insanity (having 5 boys ages 0-6 is kind of crazy making), but we did.  I've been so blessed by these boys and the time we have had together.

Christmas 2012

Looking back, I've wasted so much of this fleeting time.  Not only have I wasted time in the predictable ways by simply not using it wisely, but I've wasted so much time succumbing to perfectionism.  I've spent too many hours internally beating myself up because X, Y, and/or Z didn't happen as planned instead of enjoying what actually occurred.  I print out neat assignment sheets for the boys, but I call myself a failure when all the boxes don't get checked off, even if there is a perfectly good reason for it.  Like the fact we spent extra time on mastering long division, so we didn't get to writing.  Or if we spent extra time drinking hot chocolate and reading aloud, so we didn't get science done for the day.

This isn't okay.

This robs me of the joy that God intended.

I'm not perfect.  If I was, I wouldn't need Jesus.  Why am I so quick to forget this?  Why do I set unattainable goals and beat myself up when I'm not perfect?  Oh, yeah...because I'm a sinner.

So this year, looking forward, I'm going to focus on finding joy in the moment.  Not the moments I'd perfectly planned in my head, but the moments that occur when my ideas intersect with those of 5 (6, counting Craig) other living, breathing, wonderful human beings who are created in the image of their Creator.  God gave the boys to Craig and myself and created this family, knowing the flaws and strengths of each person.  Reducing life to a series of boxes to be checked off is joy-robbing and it's not God-glorifying.  

Does this mean I'll never turn a critical eye to our homeschool?  No.  Evaluating where we are and what we're doing is very important.  You can't achieve goals if you don't evaluate your course.  But day to day, I'm going to focus on what we do accomplish, and I'm not going to evaluate our days by the standard of perfection.  I'm going to fail, I'm going to be less than perfect, and I am going to trust that Jesus is there, standing in the gap for me.





On January 1st, check out other posts from the Crew:  2012: A Look Back

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

Since I posted last, we've completed weeks 12-17.  They were crazy weeks, with Grandma and Grandpa visiting for Thanksgiving, Christmas preparations, regular life, and the fitting in of all doctor and dentist appointments before the end of the year.  We're on break this week (and were mostly on break last week, and kind of on break the week before that), and will be on break next week, too.

There are some changes in the works (here is my post from the beginning of the year).  The major change is that Luke & Ezekiel won't be going back to their  enrichment program.  They loved it, and have loved it for the past couple of years, but we need the time at home.  Jacob, Micah, and Nicholas will stay in for the rest of the year.

I'm looking at adding Windows to the World for Luke & Ezekiel.  It arrived on Christmas Eve, so I haven't had time to look at it yet.  I'm mostly happy with how our year has been going, but we're just not making the progress I'd hoped for with literature and writing.  I'm not sure exactly how this will fit in with Omnibus and Classical Writing, but I figure that will become clear as I look it over this next week.

I'll be adding New American Cursive for Micah & Nicholas (and will do a refresher with Ezekiel and Jacob).  I bought Book 1, and ordered the StartWrite software, but it hasn't arrived yet.  I'm hoping to combine New American Cursive with Draw Write Now.  Micah still hates to pick up a pencil, but he'd like to learn cursive and he likes to draw.  I really think writing will become easier as he practices more and builds up his endurance, and I hope this will make it less painful for both of us.

Jacob's writing will be changing.  We've had to spend more time than planned in math filling in some gaps, and we just haven't had time to do Writing with Skill, so I'm shelving that until next year.  He's been working on Sentence Composing for Elementary School, and he's going to do the first part of The Creative Writer this semester.  I was doing the Magic School Bus kits with Jacob, Micah, and Nicholas, knowing they were below Jacob's level.  I'm now having Jacob teach science to Micah & Nicholas, and I just ordered this Student Guide to go with our Snap Circuits set.  If I like it when it arrives, I'll have Jacob work through it.

I'll be adding Rod & Staff Spelling 2 for Nicholas, and I'm going to have Micah read Super Grammar.  I also hope to add poetry memorization back in for all of us.

Overall, I'm excited to start the new semester.  We took on too many outside commitments this fall, and I think eliminating the enrichment program for Luke & Ezekiel will help our weeks go a lot smoother.