Homeschool

Glorious summer!

June 23, 2013 by amanda 3 Comments

This summer has been absolutely dreamy so far. We’ve been building forts, soaking up the sun and salty air, playing board games for hours at a time, reading amazing books, and crafting our hearts out. The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous, and we have finally been here long enough that we are finding our “clan” and have plenty of like-minded friends to hang out with.

Some of our current favorites are:

Bird Bingo – This game has been getting hours of play each day. My oldest is a passionate birder, and it has been great to see everyone else (including the adults) expand our bird-identification skills and have fun at the same time. I also love that reading is not required, so all of my kids can play together.

Qwirkle – Another great board game that is great for all ages. This one allows kids (and adults) to work on strategy, matching, and simple math. We all love it!

Creativebug (and their awesome summer series for kids!) – Creativebug has been a favorite site of mine for months, and we are loving it even MORE since they are offering a ton of great workshops for kids. I have the monthly subscription, and I have taken workshops on embroidery, quilting, dress making, soap making, stamping, upcycling, you name it… They are taught by some of the best teachers (Natalie (Alabama) Chanin, Anna Maria Horner, Amy Karol, Kaffe Fassett, Rebecca Ringquist, Rad Megan, and so many more.) This week the kids and I worked on a quilt, an embroidery sampler, a table runner, and a teepee all inspired by Creativebug.

The picture above is of a wholecloth quilt that I am making, based on one of Anna Maria Horner’s Creativebug classes. The long orange stitches are basting stitches which will come out when I’m all done. 🙂 On the front you can see how I’m quilting around the motif, and the back shows just my stitches in my cotton thread.

The glorious beaches! – We’ve been spending at least one day a week unplugged, feet-in-the-sand, enjoying the beautiful Pacific Ocean. We usually go with friends, and often have the beach to ourselves for at least a good part of our day. Summer camps are incredibly popular in this area, which means that there still aren’t many families out and about, even though school is out. We’re happy that it isn’t crowded, but I feel a little sad that so few people around us are getting to enjoy all of the natural beauty of our area. Soon the fog will be rolling in, and these sunny days will be few and far between on the coast.

Project Based Homeschooling – We’ve always loved project-based learning, and Lori’s book and blog have been a long-time source of inspiration. I signed up for her upcoming master class, and I can’t wait to dig deeper.

This summer, my 11-year-old has decided to focus on an astronomy project. He is reading a ton of books on astronomy, mapping the night sky, and writing about what he sees each evening, inspired by websites like earthsky. We’ve been learning so much!

My 9-year-old is working on version 3 of her dog encyclopedia project. She has worked for several years on compiling information on breeds, illustrating, and writing a book. Each version of her book has been more refined and used additional sources. This year’s book is already looking amazing! I can’t wait to see the end result.

My 5-year-old decided that her project will be learning all about sewing. We’ve been reading lots of books and getting even more time with hands-on learning. It has been great.

So what are you and your family doing this summer? I’d love to hear more. Feel free to drop me an email or comment below. I always enjoy being inspired by other families!

A month into our new school year and loving it

August 29, 2012 by amanda 2 Comments

Don’t you love the start of a new school year?

The kids and I started school about a month ago. We finished our last school year early, which worked out well since my mom was so sick. With everything that has happened, I thought it’d be nice to get back to a predictable routine earlier than the “regular” school year. The kids do well with it, and I’ve found that it is always nice to have a little extra time built in to our school year, just in case a big life event happens. I really pray that this year will be mellow, though. I think we’re overdue.

As most of you know, we’ve used Ambleside Online for most of our homeschooling adventure. I really love Ambleside, and it has been so great for us. This year I decided that I really wanted to just order a curriculum and not have to put things together. That sounds kind of lazy when I type it out, but life has just been so complicated and I wanted everything to come in a nice, neat package. I’ve also been wanting to cover American history, because we’ve done a lot of ancients and world history in the past few years.

I decided to order Sonlight Core D (5-day with the Advanced Readers). I actually bought a used, full set, rather than buying new, although I bought my 4-year-old’s core directly from Sonlight — more on that later. Anyways, the woman that I bought the Core D from even packaged it in the original Sonlight box, and the books were in amazing condition. Hooray for a good ebay score!

The great news is that the kids and I have been absolutely loving everything about the curriculum. As I speak, they are both lying on a couch, reading ahead in their independent readers because they like them so much. (For those who are interested, they are reading Pocahontas and the Strangers and A Lion to Guard Us.) This curriculum has been a really good fit so far, and it has been fantastic to be able to just open the instructor’s guide and go. Last night my oldest asked if we could double-up on the assignments, because he’s enjoying them so much. That’s a nice thing to hear. 🙂

Other than that, we’re just plugging along. For those who don’t know, we use Singapore Math for both big kids, and have from the beginning. I went ahead and ordered some of the Life of Fred books for them as well, because they read the samples and thought they were hilarious. We’ve also used Handwriting Without Tears from the beginning, and we’re continuing on with that. I must admit that I’m really pleased with the way that the kids’ handwriting has developed, and I think my son’s cursive is probably better than mine, LOL.

For Science, my daughter is doing Sonlight Science D and my son is doing Science E. The picture at the top of this post is my son doing one of the experiments from Science E, where he made his own wires and created circuits. Again, I was able to score the Science E on ebay, although I bought the Science D new. The books that come with both science cores are great. We were surprised by how much we loved the first book in Science E — Diary of an Early American Boy. It was fascinating. I learned so many things while reading it!

My 4yo is right on the cusp of the Kindergarten cutoff here. Our district has a fairly late cutoff. Last year it was December 1st. This year it is November 1st. She has an October birthday, so she’d be a Kindergartener here if she went to school in our district, but she might not make the cutoff date if we sent her to a charter school or a school in another district.

Taking all of that into consideration, we decided to let her start working through My Father’s World K, which my now-8yo loved so much when she was 4 that she asked if she could do it again with her little sister, LOL. The phonics part is good, but their literature is kind of “meh”, so we are also doing Sonlight P4/5 with her for everything else.

My older kids have really enjoyed all of the fairy tales, fables and world stories in the P4/5 books, so that’s been fun. My 8yo has read a few of the anthologies in there 2 or 3 times on her own in the past few weeks. My 4yo and 2yo think the stories are the funniest things ever. They’ve been retelling them and laughing hysterically every time. Awesome. That’s one sign of a good day of Kindergarten.

We’re using Teach a Child to Read with Children’s Books once again, because it has been a wonderful method for teaching reading to all of my kids. My 4yo is so proud of the books that she is reading, and my 2yo has even gotten in on the action and read a few of them. So cute. Check out my review of this book from back in 2007, if you’re interested.

Well, that’s the “brief” description of what we’re doing this year. I guess I should also mention that anyone who wants to order through Sonlight can get a $5 discount on your first order if you use this referral code – AH20357105. Even if you don’t use their curriculum, they have really cool summer reading packages that make great gifts. My kids have read several of the recommended books and they’ve all been winners so far. 🙂

I’d love to hear what everyone else is doing for this year. Please feel free to email or comment or post a link to any blog posts that you have about your homeschooling year. I love getting inspiration from other home schoolers. <3

The Biggest Bear and other picture books for older children

January 12, 2012 by amanda 4 Comments

The kids and I have been working our ways through both the Newbery and Caldecott medal and honors lists as part of the #nerdbery and #nerdcott challenges. We’ve already found dozens of new books to love. Sometimes we all agree, and sometimes our reviews are mixed.

Today I’d like to share our opinions on The Biggest Bear, Snow White, and Baboushka and the Three Kings. Each of these books had strong points and weaknesses. My 7-year-old and I had different opinions about The Biggest Bear, so I’ve also included her review here.

The Biggest Bear

My review:
I was really excited when I first picked up The Biggest Bear. The illustrations are beautiful and instantly caught my eye. Despite this first impression, I was a little disappointed once I started reading. The story really shows it’s age. There are many parts of the book that could seem shocking to young kids, particularly those who live a suburban or urban life.

The story follows a young boy who wishes to shoot and kill the biggest bear. He goes into the woods with his gun, but he finds a cub rather than a large bear. Instead of killing the cub, he feeds it and brings home. As the bear grows, he starts to cause mischief, and the boy tries unsuccessfully to lose the bear. The point comes when he must kill the bear. Right before the bear is shot, the bear becomes afraid and runs into a trap. This trap was set by men at the zoo, who are thrilled to welcome the bear into their exhibit. The story ends with everyone happy about the bear going to the zoo.

This book is so gorgeous, but the content is probably a bit above the level of the average picture book reader. Parents who wish to avoid images of children with guns will want to skip this book. I was very disappointed that the consequences of the boy’s choice to feed the bear are never explored. I think this was a missed opportunity. It seems to end on a happy note and the boy’s actions are not questioned.

On a positive note: This book fueled good conversation with my older kids. I initially started reading it with my 1 1/2 year-old (who was drawn to the beautiful illustrations of the boy and the bear), but I decided to bail and distract her once we came to the part where the boy was taking the bear out to be shot.

My 7-year-old daughter’s review:
I like this book. It is a story of a boy who adopts a bear. The pictures are very realistic. I wish that I could draw that well! I thought it was really funny when the bear swam for 2 miles and didn’t get very wet. I like that the bear doesn’t get shot and gets put in the zoo.

Snow White
Also as part of the Nerdcott challenge, we recently read Snow White and the Seven Dwarves by the Brother’s Grimm. There are many editions of this book, and several have won awards. We decided to poke through a few of them and see what we thought.

One edition particularly caught my eye. It was illustrated by Tina Schart Hyman. She won the Caldecott Medal for Saint George and the Dragon, which is another family favorite and an Ambleside Year 1 selection. This particular retelling of Snow White is darker than most, and I wouldn’t recommend it for younger children. If your kids are a bit older and enjoy classical tales, I think this is a great book.

Baboushka and the Three Kings

And, finally, a book that differs in pretty much every way from the previous two. Baboushka and the Three Kings is a story with very simple illustrations, but it would be appropriate for any age. It is far shorter than the previous two books, and toddlers should have no problem sitting through it. It would be a great read-along with young kids around Christmastime when you are discussing traditions in different parts of the world.

I’d love to hear your opinion on these picture books or any others that you’ve read. Some of the other books that we’ve all recently enjoyed include Sam, Bangs and Moonshine, The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle, Hide and Seek Fog and Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. How about you?

12 12s in 2012

December 31, 2011 by amanda 3 Comments

As I said in my last post, I love the clean start of a new year!

Last year I set a few annual goals, and I had so much fun working at them. My first mission was to knit 52 items, and I totally blew that number out of the water. I completed about 25% more than my goal. Yay!

I also committed to reading 52 books in 52 weeks. I only had to count a few knitting books to hit my goal (…and, to be fair, I spend a lot of time with my nose in a knitting book, LOL.) Considering what a doozy 2011 was, I’m considering this to be a huge accomplishment.

I was reading on ravelry and saw this idea for making 12 lists of 12 things to complete in 2012. I decided to come up with my own list. 🙂 I’m going to try to find a widget that I can use to keep track of them in my sidebar.

So, on top of my goal to read another 52 books this year, I also hope to complete:

12 items knit from my pattern library
12 items knit for charity
12 gifts knit
12,000 yards knit
12 of my oldest skeins of yarn used up (I’m looking at you, Handspun Bulky)
12 weeks of “cold sheeping” (a.k.a. no buying new yarn – ACK!)
12 classic read-alouds with the kids (in addition to bedtime reading and school reading)
12 books on midwifery or herbalism read cover-to-cover
12 books that have been in my queue or are partially read
12,000 minutes of exercise
12 new homeopathic remedies or herbs that I’ll become familiar with and use
120 green smoothies consumed

Happy 2012!

Multi-Generational Learning

December 14, 2011 by amanda 1 Comment

One of the things that I really love about homeschooling is that my kids (and I!) spend the majority of our time learning without the typical hierarchy of age. One important value in our family is that everyone has wisdom to share, regardless of their title or age. This isn’t something that is exclusive to homeschoolers, but I do think (hope?) that the way that our family lives helps to foster this belief.

Our area offers free hikes for anyone in the community (go socialism! :P) and it makes me smile to see that my kids enjoy it so much. Of course, this is not something restricted to homeschoolers either, but a number of the hikes are held during the school day. We usually see a lot of homeschooling families there, but there are also people from every possible age range in attendance. It is so cool to see my 8-year-old gasp along with the 80-year-olds when a spotted towhee flies overhead. It makes for an instant bond, and they go on to discuss the sounds that the towhee makes. It is beautiful and it enriches both lives for that brief moment.

I love how being around kids can encourage us to explore ideas outside of our normal scope of interest. We can learn so much from them! This week I learned that rhinos have such a strong sense of smell and such a poor sense of sight that they will charge a butterfly. Seriously… How else would I ever have learned this? It is so fun to be learning together!

On the other hand, my kids have been hearing a lot about both China during World War 2 and astronomy, since those have been my most recent topics of interest. They’ve found those things interesting when I’ve shared about them. I checked books out from the library on both subjects and we’ve been learning together during the school day.

I’m often asked how long we’ll homeschool, and I really have no idea. We decide each year whether or not everyone wants to continue forward. However, one thing that I do know is that I am so grateful for the time spent together and the things that we are able to teach one another. Every day is a gift. 🙂

Note: This article was initially written almost 2 years ago. I just found it in my drafts folder. I’m not sure why I never posted it. The picture at the top of the page is from this past weekend, when my son attended a local free event like the one from my initial post. Two years have passed, but we still love the opportunities just as much!

What a difference 5 years makes…

April 20, 2009 by amanda 7 Comments

Today I had one of those moments at the park that just made me thankful for my life and for the decisions that we’ve made.

Five years ago, when my oldest was 2, homeschooling was not on the horizon. As a matter of fact, we picked our house for the schools. My husband and I had a lot of conversations on the topic, and I really feared that my kids would be irreparably socially harmed if we homeschooled. I feared that they wouldn’t learn the social nuances that come from school, and I didn’t want to make their lives harder.

Today as we sat at the park, I realized that: Yes, my kids are different. There’s no denying it. There was a group of public-schooled kids there. (I saw them get off of the labeled bus and listened to them talk about it.) They weren’t vandals or thugs. They were just normal kids, doing normal kid stuff on the playground. One of the parents was there, and he seemed like a great dad. I did notice differences in the way that the kids played. It wasn’t good or bad. It just was. My son was playing down at the stream, and none of the other boys were interested in playing down there. My daughter was laying in the grass, reading a book. She’s working on Charlotte’s Web right now, and it has really sparked a love of reading in her. The other kids were playing in ways related to school and tv, and their play was just… different.

As I sat there (and helped my 1-year-old up and down the slide a million times, lol) I realized that the thing that I feared the most has happened. But, you know what? Its not the big deal that I thought it would be. I was fearing a great big social monster that doesn’t really exist. Are my kids more into nature and reading than the average kid that we see when we’re out? Yes. Is it a big deal? Nope. My son’s love of nature meant that he was the only kid who could identify the birds and snakes that appeared on the t-ball field during his games. It made him the hero for the day, LOL. When we go to homeschool park day, there is a huge group of kids who are already wading in the streams, catching crawdads, and pretending to be fairies and gnomes. He may be different, but he’s far from alone. When my kids go to church, they play with all of the other kids. They fit in fine and they have a lot of friends.

What I realized as I sat there was that we made the right choice for our family, and it felt good to know. It was a peace with certainty. I honestly think my kids would’ve been fine either way, and I don’t fear the “monster” of the other side – the public school monster. Yes, my kids probably would’ve played a little differently, but I know that I would feel just as much peace with that decision if it was right for our life at that time.

Three years ago when we moved here, we picked our house in hopes that it would give our kids a life rich in nature and low in television 😉 Unlike our previous houses, this house was built in a way that opened up the natural world much better. We are in the city and our lot is small, but we back to open space. My kids see coyotes, mallards, foxes, red-winged black birds, and red-tailed hawks during breakfast. This house has no obvious place for a tv on the main level, so we only have a tv in the basement. We recently got rid of our satellite, and it was a great decision. Our life before was filled with a lot of Dora and Blues Clues. It wasn’t all bad – I’ve been riding those free Spanish lessons from Dora for a while, LOL. It was just time for a change. It felt good today to watch my kids play in such a natural way and to know that we were achieving some of our goals for moving where we did and being intentional about our lives.

We still have a long way to go, but I just really enjoyed the little piece of peace that came from watching my kids and knowing that we have been able to give them some of that more natural life that we wanted for them. It also felt nice to realize that the things that I feared the most weren’t really as scary as I thought. 😉