Language Learning

Today, after Sunday School, Hannah told me that Ben's teacher said that Ben had been writing in Spanish on the chalkboard. I asked him what he had written. "'La mujer,' 'Las mujeres,' and 'Él come,'" he told me.

"Did you put the accent over the 'e'?" I asked him.

"Yes!" he replied. "If I didn't, it would have been 'the eats' instead of 'He eats,' and that wouldn't have made any sense." I smiled, pleased to hear that he understood at least a part of our recent language lessons.

At the school Hannah attended last year, a native Spanish speaker taught all of the elementary students Spanish several days a week. Kindergarten kids learned fun songs, colors, numbers, and other simple words and phrases. Hannah loved learning a new language and picked it up fairly easily. Because of this, Josh and I had been discussing buying Rosetta Stone software to continue the language learning from an early age.

In college, Josh took several Spanish classes, but he has not spoken the language in many years and has forgotten quite a bit. I have taken many Spanish classes as well, and I lived in Bolivia with a Spanish-speaking family for eight weeks in college, but I, too, am very rusty. Additionally, I do not always pronounce the words perfectly, especially because I cannot roll my r's correctly. I could teach the kids a good amount on my own, but I would prefer them to learn proper pronunciation and inflection from the very beginning, instead of needing to correct bad habits later on. So, we finally decided to look into the software.

Josh called Rosetta Stone's customer service before completing his purchase, because he wanted to ask about the differences between the homeschool version and the personal version. Ultimately, we chose the homeschool version, but calling the company gave us another benefit. Rosetta Stone happened to be having a special, where we could buy all five levels for about $100 cheaper than the best price we found online, and we could spread the payments out over five months without paying any interest. Of course, we jumped at the chance, and the software arrived only a few days later.

I set up the kids' profiles and allowed them to attempt the first lesson. At first, they struggled with the format a bit, but they quickly got the hang of it. I ended up printing off some of the worksheets after the first lesson and teaching them some of the concepts myself, in order to give them a foundation for learning the grammar and vocabulary. Then, they restarted the first lesson and did much better the second time through. Once they had completed all of the follow-up portions of that lesson, they understood very well. In fact, Ben's chalkboard exercise in Sunday School assures me that he has learned quite a bit. Happily, the kids beg for Spanish lessons each day, so I know they enjoy it, too!

In addition to this, in Hannah's language arts curriculum (First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind), she has just progressed from learning nouns to learning pronouns. This fits perfectly with our Spanish lessons! A few days ago, as I read the dialogue from the book, explaining how pronouns take the place of a noun, I took advantage of the opportunity to tie in some of the Spanish learning. Once we completed the practice sentences in English, I added, "Instead of saying, 'La mujer come,' you could say, 'Ella come.' Instead of saying, 'Los hombres comen,' you could say, 'Ellos comen.'" I continued with examples for all of the pronouns she had learned up to that point. Her recent Spanish lessons served to reinforce her English grammar, and her English lessons helped her comprehend her Spanish more completely. In many ways, a second language is improving her understanding of her first language as well!

Overall, I am glad that we decided to move forward with our purchase of Rosetta Stone and add a second language to our homeschool curriculum. I already have begun contemplating ways to use the language in more practical ways. I know I have an open invitation to bring my family to Bolivia to visit my Bolivian family in Cochabamba. Also, our church leads mission trips each year to a small village I once visited in the Dominican Republic. Perhaps, we can take such a trip when the kids are old enough? Until then, I am simply happy to pass on an ability that I love, a language that I once hoped to speak every day but never had the opportunity to use regularly. And, who knows - maybe the opportunities will come for our whole family, once we all speak the language well. At the very least, the kids will have a very useful skill, as they grow up in a world where more people speak Spanish than English, and in a country where Spanish could easily be the second language. I am excited to see where their love of language may take them...

A Passion for Piano

This summer, we sadly learned that our piano teacher had gotten a job with a local school district and would not offer lessons any longer. Though the kids enjoyed piano, I had to fight with them nearly every day to get them to practice, and I decided to wait a while before pursuing it again. I worried that I might kill their love for music by forcing practice before they were ready. On the other hand, I also wanted them to learn the discipline of music, a skill they would eventually appreciate, especially if they decide to pursue music as a vocation some day.

Throughout the fall, the kids continued to practice their old songs and pick out new songs, so this winter, I decided to attempt lessons for both kids again. This time, a friend of ours agreed to provide lessons in our home for a reasonable price, which worked out much better for us with nap schedules and schoolwork and my broken leg.

Initially, the kids still resisted practicing, but I built regular practice time into our school schedule, and they enjoyed taking a break from normal school work to practice for a while. Plus, the piano teacher allowed the kids to choose prizes from her prize box whenever they practiced consistently that week, which provided some extra motivation. Ultimately, however, making lovely music on the piano became their motivation.

First, the piano teacher introduced a new curriculum, one that focuses on recognizing intervals and training the ear, rather than simply learning the notes. Ben definitely excels in this area. He can sing, "This is middle C," and actually hit the correct note from memory most of the time. Like Ben, Hannah can also pick many songs out by ear, but cannot yet find middle C without playing the note on the piano first. Of course, even I cannot do that well...

I think their greatest motivation, however, came when I began taking piano lessons, too. Both kids enjoy picking out songs from my piano book, because many of them are "real" songs and not just made-up songs for kids. Hannah especially likes my piano book, because her hands are big enough to play the full chords correctly. She practices and practices, playing each hand separately and then putting them together, and she can now play nearly all of the songs that I can play. In fact, she is probably only a lesson or two behind me. At this point, I would guess that she plays the piano for an hour or two each day, instead of the 15-20 minutes required by her teacher. My biggest challenge is getting her to stop playing and allow anyone else to have a turn!

As I have written previously, I love having a house filled with music. We often have music playing in the background while we do school work, and the kids love listening to music in the car. Some days, Josh pulls out his guitar, and we all sing praise songs, while the kids dance around the room. I have often considered Ben my musical child, but, more accurately, we are a musical family. Ben may have an amazing voice, but Hannah excels at piano, and Becca lives to dance. At the very least, all of our lives would be much less wonderful without music providing a lovely soundtrack to our days.

Toucans and Animal Art

My parents subscribe to Ranger Rick and Your Big Backyard for the kids, and we always look forward to the new magazines each month. Last month, one of the issues included a section about toucans. We read through the article together, learning all about their beaks and how they work. To Hannah's delight, the issue included a page about drawing toucans. Since Ben struggles a bit with drawing and Hannah sometimes struggles with following directions, I went through the page step by step, pointing out how to look at small portion of the image and draw what they see, and not just what they expect to see. Hannah's toucan ended up looking quite nice:

I expressed to Hannah how much I loved her drawing, and she told me that she had learned how to draw a toucan in her "How to Draw Animals" book. She proceeded to draw another picture.

In fact, drawing animals has become one of her new pastimes, and she is becoming better and better with all of her practice. I will share a few of her animal drawings.

An armadillo:

A wombat:

A komodo dragon:

I love watching her artistic ability develop and improve, and I look forward to seeing what she does with it someday - whether it becomes a vocation or simply a hobby she enjoys. Either way, I will always remain her biggest fan!

An Outing At Last

Last weekend, I finally felt like I could get around well enough to venture out to Malabar Farm for the Maple Sugar Festival. We actually arrived very late this year, about an hour before closing. Fortunately, this meant that we could park very close to the wagon pick-up, so I did not have to hobble far through the mud in my walking boot.


The weather was perfect, warm and sunny, with lovely clouds scattered through a blue spring sky. We admired the rural countryside as we rode the horse-drawn wagons into the maple sugar area.


Ben especially enjoyed the ride:


Once we disembarked from the wagon, we walked along the path, where volunteers demonstrated the different ways people in this region used maple sugar throughout history, beginning with the Native Americans.


The kids enjoyed smelling the sweet aroma of the steam emanating from the log trough.


At the next stop, the early settlers had just finished making some maple sugar. The woman carefully cleaned the pot to boil down a new batch of syrup.


The man explained how they created maple sugar by heating the syrup to a "hard ball" stage and then cooling it across a clean, shallow log trough until it formed sugar.


He gave each guest a sample of the fresh sugar. Becca carefully studied hers before happily licking it off of her hand.


Finally, we walked over to the "Sugar Shack" where they still produce maple syrup today. The kids enjoyed hearing about the process and tasting a tiny sample of fresh syrup.


I am excited to finally do more field trips like this again. Honestly, I am glad that I broke my leg in the winter, when the snow and ice would have kept us housebound quite a bit anyway. And, now we have even more to look forward to with the coming of spring. The day turned out to be a wonderful mix of fun and learning, a perfect first outing now that my leg is healing. We could not have asked for a more beautiful day.

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!

Beginning a Co-op

This year, some homeschooling women from my church and MOPS group banded together to form a homeschooling co-op. The group meets at the same time as MOPS, so younger kids can attend the MOPPETS kids program, and the homeschooling moms take turns teaching the school age children. I decided to participate, partly so Becca could attend MOPPETS, and partly so my kids could experience learning in a small-scale classroom setting for more than just Sunday School.

We divide the children into two age groups: kindergarten through second grade and third through fifth grade. Each meeting lasts for two hours, and the kids have two lessons, with a brief break in the middle. Both age groups study Ohio history, which makes me happy because I know little about Ohio history. Additionally, each group has a different age-specific lesson - subjects such as creative writing, poetry, photography, seasons, etiquette, and first aid. The younger kids often have arts and crafts components, and all of the kids seem to have fun!

At first, I was scheduled to teach a few of the first lessons, but my broken leg prevented me from attending. As disappointed as I felt about missing out on teaching, I felt worse for the kids, because I knew they needed a chance to get out and be with other kids. This winter has been much different than I anticipated, and we have been cooped up in the house more than I like. However, a wonderful woman in the co-op called and volunteered to drive Hannah and Ben to co-op for me! They had such a wonderful time, returning home afterward bubbling over with excitement about the lessons and the activities. Even Ben willingly sat and did the writing assignment for the next class!

In February, the other mom also drove me to co-op, and I got to teach my first lesson, helping third through fifth graders learn about photography. I am excited that I get to teach a class again, since that was my major in college and my original career plan before I had kids. I also appreciate that my children have the opportunity to learn from other teachers, spend time with other kids, and even create messy art projects that I cannot attempt at home, especially with a broken leg...

Though many of my plans have changed this winter, co-op has been a blessing for both me and the kids, giving us a bit of extra enthusiasm at a time when cabin fever threatens to become overwhelming.

***The picture of Ben working on some co-op assignments is courtesy of Hannah, who loves the digital camera she received for Christmas and takes pictures of EVERYTHING she sees... just like her mom!***

From Blanket House to Mongolian Ger

A few weeks ago, Josh built the kids a blanket house in our living room on a Saturday morning, as he has done many times in the past. This time, however, he made a huge house, using our larger dining room chairs, a sleeping bag, and several blankets. The large, roundish house fit all three kids comfortably, and sometimes both cats as well!

In this past year's World Vision Gift Catalog, I had seen a special kind of round house, built by Mongolian nomads, called a "ger" or a "yurt." The blanket house very much reminded me of these houses, and that gave me an idea. Instead of moving to the next Asian country in Galloping the Globe, I would piece together my own unit on Mongolia. Using sites like the CIA World Factbook, we researched information about the country of Mongolia and its people and began adding pages to the kids' geography notebooks.

Later in the day, I visited National Geographic's website, looking for more information or photos, and I stumbled across the opportunity to participate in a real expedition in Mongolia, by simply labeling satellite images from home. After a period of training, I could identify roads, rivers, modern structures, ancient structures, and points of interest with a reasonable amount of accuracy. I then included Hannah, allowing her to make suggestions and guiding her to understand the images better. She absolutely loved helping out as a real researcher for an actual project, and she found the satellite images quite interesting as well.

Eventually, when we wrap up the unit, we may even have a "Mongolia party," just as we had a "China party" in the fall. I had a difficult time finding Mongolian recipes easy enough for kids to prepare, but we might try making some non-lamb version of Steamed Buuz . I decided to pass on preparing fermented mare's milk however...

I love that homeschooling allows me to turn Saturday play into school day learning, to harness the kids' experiences and games and use them to teach about a country many kids have never studied. And, I enjoy seeing the kids' faces glow with excitement when I say, "Hey, let's do some geography today! What do you think?" Typically, they respond with cheers.