Project Fridays

This school year has been so busy that I have not taken the time to write blog posts as often as I have wanted. We have been busily working through spelling lists, learning multiple digit addition and multiplication, memorizing parts of speech, practicing the piano, learning to swim, dancing, tumbling, and so on. Most Fridays, however, we take a break from our day-to-day assignments and work on a project together.

In January, after we finished reading My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George, I gave Hannah and Ben each a box, set out the craft supplies, and told them to make a shadowbox based on the book. Both kids ended up making a model of Sam Gribley's woods and his home in the tree trunk, so I took advantage of that to teach them a little about habitats. On each side of the box, they glued a piece of card stock and labeled them with the title of the book, "Sam Gribley's Habitat," and the different aspects of his habitat: food, water, and shelter. Then, under those headings, they listed ways that Sam was able to obtain those things in the woods. For example, he drank water from a fresh spring, he hunted for animals with his falcon and ate edible plants, and he created a home in a hollow tree. The finished projects are lovely!

On the Friday before the Super Bowl, we dedicated the entire day to football-related activities. I found an amazing free resource on the website for the Pro Football Hall of Fame and combined with with another packet I got as a freebie from Currclick. I printed out a ton of pages, punched holes in them, and put them in folders for each kid. We began the day by bundling up and heading out to a nearby sports field, where we had a punt, pass, and kick contest, raced through various football drills, and performed an experiment to figure out why a football has its shape, instead of being perfectly round. Back at home, they learned about Roman Numerals (since that is how they label Super Bowls), did some football-themed math, read and wrote poems about football, learned about the first African American inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, discovered how to read nutrition labels to eat a healthy diet (like a good athlete should!), and even designed their own football team mascots, pennants, and jerseys!

Also, in February, we had the opportunity for an amazing project on the planets. Now, as a family, we enjoy listening to classical music, and one of our favorites is The Planets by Holst. Josh discovered that the Springfield Symphony would be putting on a show called "Out of This World," featuring a live performance of The Planets, lovely NASA images from space, and dramatic presentations by an astronomy professor and an acting troupe. In preparation, we listened to the music several times and talked about the names of each planet and how the origins of those names inspired the songs. I also found a free space lapbook at www.homeschoolshare.com, and I used portions of that and our Children's Atlas of the Universe to put together a wonderful project on the planets. Additionally, I used the student guide provided by the symphony and resources from our Galloping the Globe study of Italy (which includes a section on space because Galileo was from Italy). I was out of town with the youth group on the evening of the show, but despite the two-hour drive each way, Josh and his mom took the kids to the performance, and they loved it! In fact, Becca announced on the way home that it was "better than Chuck E. Cheese's!"

We have had so much fun with our "Project Fridays" so far this school year. I believe that the kids have learned more from them than anything they have learned out of a text book. Even though I have to work a little harder to fit all of their other school work into only four days each week, I am certain that we will continue with Project Fridays for a long time!

And the First Month Flies By...

As I write this blog post, I cannot believe that we have already completed more than a month and a half of school! The year has been both fun and frustrating at times, filled with lessons from life and not just lessons from books.

We have traveled quite a bit - to the zoo, the children's museum, Cedar Point, and COSI. Josh took Hannah and Ben to see a football game at Virginia Tech, and I took Becca on an autumn excursion to my parents' cabin. We even drove to Grove City College for a friend's wedding and spent some time with a wonderful family near Pittsburgh. Somehow, I still managed to squeeze in a few photo shoots as well!

During this crazy month, we lost our sweet kitty, Barky, to an illness called FIP. He was young, and his sickness and death were sudden and unexpected. We took some time off of school to love him for a couple of days and then grieve our loss. The kids made memory boxes and have learned a lot about death and loss and sadness - life lessons I never expected to teach them this year.

Through all of this, we are actually making progress with school work, too. Hannah is flying through her math again, and Ben has finally mastered his addition and subtraction facts and is moving on to more difficult problems. He spent the first few weeks making and practicing flashcards from + and - 0 through + and - 9. Now, he is doing much better with his math because he has the facts memorized and no longer needs to calculate each problem in his head. Both kids like Spelling Power, although I have to keep reassuring Ben that he is supposed to get words on the pretests wrong - otherwise, he would never learn anything new!

Social Studies and Science remain the kids' favorite subjects (I will share more of those lessons in later posts), and they love doing Spanish a couple days a week, too.

For reading and language arts, we are working our way through First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind. Ben just began Level One, and Hannah just completed that book. They love the simplicity and repetition and are learning quite a bit. They especially love memorizing the poems in the book. We have been reading longer chapter books together, too. We just finished reading The Secret Garden and then listened to the Focus on the Family Radio Theatre version and watched the movie. I ordered James and the Giant Peach yesterday and hope to begin it in a week or so. I think it will appeal a little more to my adventurous Ben, though he also appreciated the lovely story in The Secret Garden.

I love our Bible curriculum this year. We are using a book called Our 24 Family Ways. Each "family way" is a kind of rule for the family follow, though really, they are more like ways of living. Each "way" has five daily lessons, a coloring page, a brief story intro, a character quality, and a Bible verse to memorize. The lessons are short enough to hold the kids' interest, but deep enough to make them think. Even my littlest has memorized the verses, and the verses are often fairly long - 2 or 3 verses at a time. Still, with repetition, they have learned the verses and the family ways very well. I also posted the family ways on our wall where everyone can read them, and when a child needs a "break" (like a time out), he or she sits and reads through the ways and then tells me which ones were not followed. I love that they are specific and thorough and well-grounded in Scripture. We begin each day with the Bible lesson and prayer, focusing on God right from the start.

Finally, with a few exceptions, I have designated Fridays as "Project Fridays." Each Friday, we put aside our regular school work and tackle a project, either together or separately. All three kids created beautiful lapbooks on the animals of their choosing, and we have begun working on making our own movie together. Our next project will likely be a "Space" lapbook, inspired by the content of the story they wrote for our movie script. These Fridays have been the most fun and educational school days, and I hope we can continue them all year!

So, as the first months of the school year fly by, hopefully I will more faithfully update this blog and share what we are studying and experiencing. As the blog's title proclaims, "learning is life" - and we are certainly spending most of our time living and learning together!

Pi Day

Yesterday, we celebrated "Pi Day." Since the number "pi" is rounded to 3.14, Pi Day occurs on 3/14, or March 14th. Of course, my husband explained that geeks invented Pi Day, but since most of us in this family likely fit into the "geek" category, that works for us!

Even though my kids are a bit young to fully understand the concept of pi, I decided to celebrate it anyway. Early in the day, I made a big deal out of the date, relating it to the concept of pi. Because of that, Hannah and Ben now easily associate pi with the number 3.14, although we had to work on saying "three point one four" instead of "three slash one four" like the date. They also can explain that we round to 3.14 because pi goes on forever without repeating in a pattern.

For fun, I introduced the parts of a circle: circumference, diameter, and radius. I showed them my coffee mug and used a ruler to measure the diameter. Using that number and the calculator Ben requested for Christmas, we multiplied pi times the diameter to find the circumference. "Hmmm...," I wondered aloud, looking at the ruler, "How can we check our answer?" Ben jumped up and down excitedly. "I know! I know!" he exclaimed. He ran upstairs to his room, returning in a moment with his tape measure. I grinned. "Perfect!" I told him. We measured the circumference of the mug, and the kids squealed happily when they saw that the answer was correct.

Next, I showed how to calculate the circumference of a two-inch circle on paper, including explaining to Hannah how to multiply 3.14 x 2 without using the calculator. When I saw that Hannah and Ben both seemed to grasp the concepts, I decided to attempt a slightly more difficult problem. "OK," I told them, "Tonight, I am going to make quiche for dinner. Quiche is a kind of egg pie. So we will have pie for Pi Day!" After the cheers subsided, I went on, "I make my quiche in a 9-inch pie pan. Why don't we try to calculate the circumference of the pie?" I drew a diagram of the pie on a piece of paper, and I had them tell me how to find the circumference - pi x 9. Now, Hannah understands the concept of multiplication, that 4 x 9 is the same as 9+9+9+9, but she hasn't yet memorized the facts or covered multiplication in her math curriculum. Amazingly, I wrote out 3.14 x 9 and demonstrated how to multiply 4 x 9 and carry the 3, and Hannah finished the problem herself!

Since this portion of the lesson went so well, I also briefly touched on the area of a circle and how to calculate that as well. We used the calculator to figure out the area of the pie and learned the difference between inches and square inches. Then, I turned the kids lose with the rulers, tape measure, and calculator and let them experiment with what they had learned. Surprisingly, I think they learned a lot, even though the topic is a bit beyond their current level in math.

Finally, for dinner, I did make a delicious quiche, and the kids told Josh all about their lesson, while happily eating their Pi Day pie! Today, Ben wrote this in his journal:

"Yesterday was pi day and we ate pie for dinner"

Overall, I think Pi Day turned out to be quite a success!

A Budding Mathematician

Most people who know my children would assume that this post would be about Ben, and for good reason. Ben is currently moving through the same first-grade level math book as Hannah, slowly but surely. He understands the concept of addition and has memorized his +0, +1, +2, +8 and +9 facts, though he is still a bit shaky on the 8's and 9's. His fine motor skills and his need to wiggle out of his chair fairly regularly limit him to only a few minutes of math per day, but I am satisfied with his progress, especially for a kindergarten boy!

However, this post is not about Ben, but about Hannah. In the past, Hannah has struggled a little to grasp mathematical concepts such as place value, whereas Ben seemed to understand it almost instinctively. This year, though, everything suddenly clicked for Hannah, and she is just flying through her math book! She has memorized all of her addition facts and has moved on to subtraction. She enjoys it so much, that she often completes an entire unit in a day, including the test - and she rarely writes an incorrect answer! Actually, I have had to console her once or twice when she has missed a question on a test, because she becomes quite distraught when she does not get a perfect score. I am glad that she wants to excel, but I would hate for her to give up when the work becomes more challenging, simply because she cannot handle being less than perfect...

I must say, however, that I feel delighted that she cheers when I give her math worksheets to do in the morning, and I smile gladly when she announces, her face aglow, "I am good at math!" I think I am going to have to order the second grade curriculum soon, though. At the rate she is working, she will have completed the first grade book by the end of October...

Learning "On the Go"

Between sick kids and Josh's MBA class, I have not spent much time doing "formal" school with the kids this month. However, we have spent a great deal of time learning.

I have discovered that Ben enjoys when I read the Magic Tree House books to him, since some of the words are still a little difficult for him to decipher on his own. Plus, he likes asking me constant questions while I read so he can understand the information better. After reading the first book in the series, I skipped ahead to Thanksgiving on Thursday, in order to coordinate with the season. Ben and Becca liked the story, but I think some of it may have been a little over their heads. Additionally, Ben practiced reading The Story of Thanksgiving by Nancy Skarmeas. This is an excellent, simple book that explains clearly why we celebrate Thanksgiving. I only had to help him with a few words, like "Pilgrims" and "Plymouth," the first time through, and he read it perfectly to his preschool class a few days later. I was very proud of him. He is blossoming as a reader, and though he does not read as avidly as Hannah, he definitely enjoys it.

For fun, we have watched our Charlie Brown Thanksgiving DVD multiple times this month as well. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving mostly just makes the kids laugh, but The Mayflower Voyagers is wonderfully educational and has helped the kids understand what the Pilgrims faced in order to settle in the new world. The first time we watched it, they marveled loudly over the length of the journey and expressed sadness about how many of the original settlers died. Now, they impress me with the random facts about the Pilgrims that I often do not even remember from the film.

Through the busyness of this season, I have also discovered the educational value of waiting in the car for Hannah's school dismissal. Just while sitting in the car in the afternoons, Ben has learned how to count by tens and Becca has learned about rhyming words and that "ck" sounds like "k" and not "sk." I often spell a simple c-v-c word, and Becca tells me what it is, or I ask her how to spell a word and she spells it for me. She has become quite good at reading short vowel words and even surprised me today by telling me that "oo" sounds like "ew." I don't even know where she learned that one!

So, in this hectic time of year, I am squeezing education into the extra spaces of my day, by reading and talking and answering an abundance of questions. Looking back, though, I am encouraged to see that my kids are indeed learning, even if that learning does not always resemble "school."

A Knack for Numbers

On Thursday, I worked with Hannah on learning to tell time. She and Ben already know how to read the time on a digital clock, but neither could read a traditional clock. In her math lessons, Hannah has mastered counting by fives and writing tally marks, so understanding the minutes on a clock came fairly easily to her. Ben, however, began begging me to do some math with him.

When we began this math book, Hannah knew her numbers and shapes, so we did a few practice pages and then skipped ahead to learning about place value. This proved to be quite difficult for her, though. The curriculum we use explains it very clearly, with hands-on activities, and she eventually understood, though not without a few tears along the way.

Anyway, because she skipped so many lessons, I could use those to work a bit with Ben. Just like Hannah, Ben knew all of the introductory lessons. Unlike her, though, he already knows numbers up to 99. I did not teach these to him. He somehow just picked them up from our daily conversations.

We got to the place value chapter and I hesitated. Did I really want to attempt such a frustrating lesson with Ben yet? "Please, mom!" he begged, so I pulled out the "Decimal Street" poster and the ten, units, and hundreds blocks from the kit. I showed him how the numbers worked and how to identify place value. And, it clicked for him... just like that! In about five to ten minutes, he figured out place value and now can read any number up to 999. Crazy, huh?

I am realizing that Ben just seems to have a knack for numbers. Like his dad, he also enjoys taking things apart and figuring out how things work. We are fortunate that he does not have access to any real tools quite yet. One of his favorite presents was a rocket we launched (and promptly lost) in a park near our house.

The kids are so different and uniquely gifted. While Hannah seems very interested in science, she enjoys life science and nature more than Ben. On the other hand, Ben seems more interested in mechanical and engineering science. I cannot wait to see how their interests blossom as they grow older!

Does Ben have "The Knack"?

Progress Report

I realize that I share a lot of the fun activities that we do, but I do not often describe our day-to-day schedule. Some may think that we do little that resembles actual school work, so today I want to give a little update on the progress we have made so far.

Hannah is about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through the Sing, Spell, Read and Write first grade curriculum. She has regular spelling and reading tests and does very well on them. I did a basic online reading assessment with her the other day and discovered that her reading level is 4.7. This means that she is reading as if she were in her seventh month of fourth grade! I am not sure about the accuracy of the online test, but I do know that she reads very well. Last night, for example, she read about half of our Bible story, easily handling many multi-syllable words and recognizing letter patterns that I have not even taught her yet.

In math, we have not done as much, but Hannah has learned to add numbers where the sum equals 1-9, and she can theoretically count up to 999, recognizing the units, tens, and hundreds places. Though she still struggles a bit with handwriting, especially with writing letters backwards, she has improved quite a bit, and all of her writing is legible and good for her age. Additionally, we have done units and activities based on books and interests that she has expressed.

Ben has also been blossoming in his work. He loves to do Sing, Spell, Read and Write, and he has finished through letter K. He actually knows almost all of his letter sounds and is beginning to understand the concept of rhyming. Ben's teacher gushes over his ability to cut with scissors and trace very neatly, and although he has trouble with the lower case e, he can just about write his name independently.

I enjoy homeschooling more each day and love pouring my energy into my kids' education. I do not often detail our daily schedule, because workbook exercises do not make for very good blog posts. But all of us learn and grow a little more every day, through all of the tasks we accomplish, and I like to think that we are closer as a family as well.

First Tests!

We reached a good point today to assess progress and see how much Hannah has learned from what we have been studying together. Her reading program had its first test today, so I decided to put together a short math test (25 questions) and a longer unit test (30 questions plus a bonus) to give at the same time. Because she has never taken a test before, I sat with her, talked her through the directions and encouraged her to think carefully about her responses and stay on task. I also administered the unit test orally, because it would have been too much writing for her to handle.

Even though I knew Hannah understood the material, I still felt astonished at how well she did today! She only missed one question on the unit test, but she got the bonus question, which required her to put together two concepts in a way we had not discussed previously. She got every single question correct on her math and reading tests, as well!

The following concepts were covered on the math and reading assessments: reading and writing three digit numbers, adding numbers up to 9, vocabulary word recognition and comprehension, matching words to pictures, reading comprehension, and filling in missing letters (for example, a picture of a flag with "fla___" written underneath, and she writes in the missing "g").

Our unit study so far has involved basic global geography (oceans and continents) and where we live. This unit focuses on North America, and we have specifically talked about the Grand Canyon and about some North American animals. We read and discussed five excellent children's books: I See Something Grand by Mitzi Chandler, Condor's Egg by Jonathan London, All about Rattlesnakes, All About Owls, and All About Turkeys, all by Jim Arnosky.

I have to share her unit test with you, because even I was impressed. I will write the question and her answers to each question, as dictated to me.

1) What continent do we live on? North America
2) What country do we live in? United States of America
3) What state do we live in? Ohio
4) What city do we live in? Mansfield
5) What is erosion? When the water goes down and washes rocks and dirt away.
6) Name 3 animals that live in the Grand Canyon: Collared lizards, big horned sheep, and pink rattlesnakes
7) Do condors always have to flap their wings when they fly? No
8) What do condors ride on when they fly? Warm air
9) What do condors eat? Dead animals
10) What do condors use to make a nest for their egg? Pebbles
11) What do rattlesnakes have on their tails? Rattles
12) Why do rattlesnakes shake their rattles? To tell you to get away or they will bite.
13) What covers a rattlesnake's skin? Scales
14) What are rattlesnakes' long front teeth called, that they use to inject poison into food and enemies? Fangs
15) Name one thing that a rattlesnake eats: Mice
16) What is an animal that eats rattlesnakes? Roadrunners
17) Are owls awake at night or day? Night
18) Name one type of owl: Snowy owls
19) How many toes do owls have on each foot? 4
20) Can owls move their eyes? No
21) What do owls move in order to look around? Their heads
22) What does "nocturnal" mean? Awake at night
23) Are owls' feathers noisy or quiet when they fly? Quiet
24) Name one thing an owl eats? Frogs
25) What bird hates and chases away owls? Crows
26) What is a "boy" turkey called? Tom
27) What is a "girl" turkey called? Hen
28) Name one thing a turkey eats: Seeds and nuts
29) What colors does a turkey's head turn when it is excited? Red, white and blue
30) Name one animal that eats turkeys: Rattlesnakes (this one is incorrect)
31) Where do turkeys sleep at night? In a tree
BONUS: Are turkeys nocturnal? No - they sleep at night.

Isn't she amazing?! Sorry for the bragging... but she did really well today and I just had to share!

And it begins...

We officially began our school year this year on August 3rd. I cannot believe how well Hannah is doing so far! I'll give just a brief overview today and then share more details later.

We started right in on the first grade reading curriculum this year. Hannah can read most of her books on her own now, with limited help from me. I think her preschool teacher will be shocked when she realizes how well she can read this year.

Her teacher will also be surprised when she sees Hannah's handwriting. This is another area in which Hannah has grown tremendously over the summer. Her letters are all recognizable now, with no help from me. She is still working on keeping the letters on the lines and making them face the right direction, but she is doing so much better!

In math, we just started basic addition. She completely gets the concept, but she is still counting to get her answers. Memorization is something that will have to come with time, though.

Finally, we are having a blast with the unit studies. I really don't think Hannah even realizes she is "working" when we do these. We began this year by looking at a globe and talking about water and continents and how the earth rotates on its axis. Then, we identified North America, the United States, and Ohio. Our first major unit is North America, and we are going to be reading books and learning geography and science based on those books.

Because Nana and Bubba traveled to the Grand Canyon this summer, we started by focusing on that. We read a beautifully illustrated kids book called "I See Something Grand," found the Grand Canyon on a map, talked about the animals in the canyon, discussed erosion and how it works, and looked at the pictures from Nana and Bubba's trip. Both kids loved it!

Today, we began one of our major ongoing projects for the year, as well. With lots of help, Hannah covered a large Styrofoam ball with paper mache. Once it dries, she's going to paint it blue, and then we will glue each continent onto the globe she has made as we discuss that continent. Because the core is Styrofoam, we can use straight pins to label the specific locations we focus on. Hannah had a blast getting so messy today! I'll have to take some pictures once the painting begins to demonstrate the work in progress...

Poor Ben... he wants so badly to be involved in whatever Hannah is doing, but he doesn't have the patience for any worksheets quite yet. I am hoping that preschool helps with that a little. He always reads with us, and then, he'll sometimes draw on blank paper or use his safety scissors to cut the paper into a hundred tiny pieces. I know that's good practice for him, since Hannah couldn't use scissors until she was at least 4. He's also become obsessed with his letters. He loves taking a set of laminated cards with letters on them and tracing the letters again and again with a dry erase marker. He actually does a very good job staying on the lines, too!

The poor little guy is such a perfectionist, though! He cries and wants to give up if he's tracing a rectangle and the line is a little wobbly instead of perfectly straight. And he gets mad if his letters don't look exactly right! I keep telling him that he's doing exceptionally well for a 3 year old, and that it takes lots of practice to draw straight lines and perfect letters, but he still gets very distraught. I don't know where he could have gotten that trait... ha, ha.

I'll finish with Hannah's first unassisted journal entry (well... except for adding one apostrophe and having her turn a few of her a's and p's around):


Translation: "I didn't like the roller coaster, but I did like all the other rides at the fair."

Begging to Learn?

"Please, Mama! Please can we do Kindergarten today!" Hannah begged as I finished typing an email this morning. She even voluntarily cleaned up the living room to make space for our school table! I am so glad that my children love to learn. Hannah, especially, gets so excited when she discovers something new.

Today, we spent about an hour on reading and 30 minutes on math. Hannah read an entire book with no help today, and she easily answered comprehension questions as well. She also practiced reading and writing three-digit numbers and recognizing number words up to ten. I cannot believe that she has nearly finished our Kindergarten reading curriculum already. By fall, she should be ready to begin first grade!

Though we focused mostly on the basics today, Hannah still didn't want to stop. I had to convince her to help me clean up so she could eat lunch before naptime. I hope that she always has such a burning desire to learn! Today, she reminded me why homeschooling is such a rewarding "job."

Kindergarten, here we come!

We finally got our curriculum in the mail last week, and I am so excited. We got Sing, Spell, Read, and Write, Math-U-See, and A Reason for Handwriting. I also picked up a secondhand K-3 Science book at a great price, so we can use some of those activities too.

Hannah loves the lessons already. I pulled out one of the kindergarten level story books the day we received the reading curriculum, and she read through the whole first book without any help! I knew she could sound out words a bit, but I had no idea how much she already understood. She's also starting about 9 lessons into the math book as well.

Sweet, stubborn Hannah... She wants to tackle the whole curriculum at once! I have to watch her closely and limit the amount of time we spend on lessons, because she never wants to quit! Persistently forging ahead, she completes page after page, activity after activity, all while rubbing her eyes and yawning. But, if I suggest stopping for the day, she responds with screams and wails as if I am punishing her! Fortunately, the lessons involve songs and games too, so I can break up the workbook time, and I only attempt 1-2 hours of formal learning per day. She reminds me so much of myself at her age... I only hope I can teach her to relax and have fun instead of making school as all-consuming as I did. I almost feel like I have to de-motivate her so she won't push herself until she burns out. But, I'm also thrilled that she has such a love for learning!

So, at Hannah's request, Kindergarten, here we come!