Behind the Mess

Spring 2011

2011-10-08T00:02:00.000-06:00

Second "semester" was pretty much a continuation of what we did in the fall.

We finished the SOTW series by completing Book 4 in May. I absolutely loved these books. I learned so much and I think the kids did, too.
We finished Real Science 4 with the Physics book. Real Science 4 Kids was just OK. I liked that the kids were introduced to some good science vocabulary, but it was pretty boring and definitely not worth the $200 I spent on it. Luckily I was able to sell it for $100.
Same grammar, same spelling, same foreign language
Same math except that Sierra finished Singapore 6 and started Thinkwell PreAlgebra. There was a bit of a struggle with this at first, but once she got through the transition period, she did great and I love this program. We will continue with it for Algebra.
The girls kept reading and writing. I don't remember what... I guess I better start doing a better job of recording keeping next year when Sierra is a high schooler!

Fall 2010

2011-01-29T21:08:00.000-07:00

Oh my, yes, I have gone from daily to weekly to monthly and now to seasonal posting.

This fall went well. I feel like we have finally found a our groove. It has only taken 7 years...We have curriculum that works. I have found a schedule that works.The girls have daily to-do lists. My youngest is old enough to follow her own list. It is lovely. Yes, I still worry that I should be doing more or that my kids aren't at the level they could or should be, but for the most part I am just hoping we don't hit any bumps in the road.

One thing that helped last semester go smoothly is that, without an active homeschool group, we had very few interruptions in our schedule for field trips and park days, etc. We did have public school friends though, so there was the rush to finish our school work before the neighbor kids were home from school and ready to play.

Our daily schedule looked something like this.

7:30am - I attempt to get out of bed
8am - I go to gym to work out
8:45 - 9 - return from gym, eat breakfast, computer time (Kids are awake by this time and are eating breakfast and watching TV)
9am - school starts - girls work on independent work while I finish up on computer and do other morning chores, such as start laundry and tidying up a bit. I am often called over to answer questions.
9:30 - I take a shower, put away laundry, more tidying, more questions
10:30 - Read aloud (or, as has been happening lately because we no longer spend much time in the car, listening to book on tape)
11:00 - "mom school" time - some days history, some days poetry, some days science
12:00 - lunch
1:00 - girls finish independent work
2:00 -school's out
after school - play with friends, instrument lessons, choir. We tried a session of parks and rec gymnastics. We also participated in a homeschool science club, but my girls didn't like it because there were no other girls in it.
Here is the curriculum/books we used:

Reading: Sierra read Ella Enchanted and something else - ack, this is why I should keep more timely records, oh yeah, Hitty: Her First Hundred Years. Kali read The Lion and the Witch and the Wardrobe and...um...Book 1 of Harry Potter. Both older girls were reading Harry Potter during their free reading because I challenged them to read all 7 books by June when the last movie comes out. Arwen started reading the Magic Tree House books.

Writing: Sierra and Kali started using WritingStrands. Kali book 4 and Sierra book 5. I really liked the exercises, but felt that they needed practice with writing longer pieces, so we used our K12 books as a guide for writing newspaper articles (both) and a how-to paper (Kali) and a compare/contrast essay (Sierra). the compare/contrast essay was kind of a disaster. It makes me crazy that Sierra has such trouble with formal essays when she loves creative writing and is good at it. I read recently that that often happens with creative writers. Arwen started freewriting. All three girls did copywork.

Spelling: We started out using Sequential Spelling. I tried doing it with all three a the same time. Sierra and Kali begrudgingly cooperated and Arwen futzed around and made it take longer than it should have. It didn't seem to be helping and it was taking precious time out of our day, so I gave it up after a few weeks. We then did individual lists made from words they misspelled in their own writing. All 3 girls got email accounts, which has helped their spelling. Sierra started typing a story that she is writing and that has also improved her spelling.

Grammar: Growing with Grammar is working great for Kali (finished grade 4 and began grade 6) and Sierra (finished grade 6 and began grade 8). With so much repetition each year in the curriculum, I chose to skip a year and take 2 years to complete each grade level. Arwen worked on the 2nd grade level of First Language Lessons.

Math: Singapore Math for all three. Arwen 2a, Kali 3b and began 4b, Sierra 5b, 6a, and 6b

History: Story of the World 3

Science: Real Science 4 Kids Chemistry

Vocabulary: English from the Roots Up

Foreign Language: Live Mocha Sierra started French, Kali tried Mandarin Chinese and then switched to Italian.

2011 has started off nicely. Here's to hoping it continues to go smoothly and that I don't panic too much as a think ahead to high school for my oldest in 18 months!

April, May, June, July

2010-07-24T18:17:00.000-06:00

Sheesh, I am not very good at this record keeping. I should probably get better at it since I will have a high schooler in 2 years - ack!

In April and May, we did school on the days that my hubby was gone. He had classes to teach on Tuesdays and Thursdays and often went to his office to work on things on Mondays and Wednesdays, so most weeks we did school M-Th.

As planned, we did a Hawaiian history unit. For science we did a bunch of experiments from kits I had purchased at the beginning of last year and we hadn't gotten around to using. For math and grammar we continued working through Singapore and Growing with Grammar. Sierra and Kali did their usual did copywork, typing, and spelling. They also memorized the states and capitals using this website. For composition, we continued to use ideas from K12. Sierra did a how-to essay, an advertisement and presentation, and a book review. Kali learned about different writing types - narrative, descriptive, expository, and persuasive. She wrote short essays using each type. Sierra read Alice in Wonderland. Kali read several Magic Tree House books. She is working on reading them all and I think she is to about #32. Arwen worked on becoming a more fluent reader and read several Dr. Seuss books and other easy readers.

Also, during April and May, we had the opportunity to participate in a furlough Friday co-op with some public schooled kids. Because of lacking of money, the public schools in Hawaii had no school almost every Friday. Some of the parents were concerned and decided to hold a co-op on the Fridays with no school. The classes included reading, math games, science, poetry, sign language, music, and art history. It has been nice to be able to join the public schooled kids for activities like this since the are so few homeschoolers in our area.

We finished out the month of May with a choir and violin concert and seeing the campus play, Wizard of Oz. May 25th was the last day of school for the public school, so I decided to make that our last day of school, too. Rand's semester ended around that time also and he had the next term off, so it made sense to take a break.

My sister came to visit in June. We went to the Bishop Museum, Pearl Harbor, and Waimea Valley and, of course, the beach. Our church had a ward camp in June. The kids had a great time playing with all of the other kids.

Rand was out of town in July. We attempted to do some school. Sierra and Kali did some math and grammar and practiced their instruments. Arwen did math and reading and writing. Arwen has made a leap in her reading ability this summer, despite of, or maybe because of, our lacking of formal practice. She read an entire Magic Tree House book on her own- yahoo!!

In July, we also went to the Bishop Museum for its Super Science Saturday. The extra displays were kind of lame, but we also went to the volcano show and the planetarium show. We hadn't been able to go to either of these before, so that was fun (and educational).

School starts back up for the public school kids on August 2nd. I figure we might as well get started, too. It has been great to take a break from our formal studies. I am feeling much more motivated to start back up again now that we have had a little break. Rand only teaches Tuesdays and Thursdays again this term, so we may just do school on Tuesdays and Thursdays in August and then go back to a full schedule in September.

January, February, March

2010-04-17T20:19:00.003-06:00

Back to our own independent homeschooling - yeah!!!! I cannot believe how much happier I am than I was when we tried to do k12. We spent the last 3 months doing all of the things we would have done in the fall had we not tried k12.

We finished up SOTW 2 ( finally - it only took us 2 1/2 years..). We worked through the Real Science 4 Kids Biology book. I liked that it taught lots of scientific vocabulary, but it wasn't super exciting and as my oldest expressed, " The experiments didn't really work."

We went back to Singapore Math. Sierra was able to skip the fractions sections and is almost finished with 5B. Kali needed to get her multiplication facts down, so we worked on those and started back up where she left off. She is almost done with 3B. Arwen also picked up where she left off and is almost done with 1B.

We started using Growing with Grammar levels 4 and 6 with Sierra and Kali and are loving it. Well, I am loving it. It is pretty self teaching and doesn't take much time each day to complete. The girls kind of think it is boring, but it gets the job done. When they finish with their current levels I am going to skip Sierra to level 8 and Kali to level 6 since grammar curricula are often too repetitive. I am using First Language lessons for the Well Trained Child with Arwen and we are almost finished with the 1st grade section.

The older 2 did some spelling using Natural Speller. We began copywork again - 2 perfect lines in cursive - for both older girls. The older girls also did some writing assignments from K12. Kali did a poetry unit and a narrative essay. Sierra did a research paper on Kiwi birds complete with a bibliography. I also came up with a writing assignment for both girls to go with their literature reading -yeah me! We also returned to my girls favorite kind of writing - free writing.

Read alouds included The Number Devil and The Phantom Tollbooth. We tried The Second Mrs. Giaconda, but found it a bit boring. Sierra read Anne of Green Gables and Kali read Ballet Shoes for their independent reading.

We also worked through some of English From the Roots Up and a poetry curriculum that I have been beta testing for the last few years - ha!

Whew! It is also nice to record what we have done. Sometimes it feels like we have not done much, but when I type it all up, I realize we have accomplished quite a bit.

Originally, I had planned to continue our history and science studies (SOTW 3 and RS4k Chem) after the break we have been taking the past 2 weeks while Grandma and Grandpa visited. But then we visited the Bishop Museum and I decide we should do a unit on Hawaiian history. More on that later.

Fall 2009

2010-03-06T20:19:00.002-07:00

OK, time to catch up on this blog. If you read my other blog you know that we spent this fall trying out the K12 curriculum through Hawaii Technology Academy. For the most part it ended up being a huge disaster. I was miserable. The kids were miserable. But I am glad that we tried it because we did gain a lot of insight.

1. We now appreciate better the way we have always homeschooled

2. I have learned better what kind of work I should be expecting of my kids at their grade levels.

3. The kids learned the kind of work that would be expected of them in school.

4. I discovered areas where my kids were weak and areas where they were strong.

5. I got ideas to use on our own in certain subjects especially writing.

Things the girls learned about using K12:

Sierra - Earth Science, American History from 1865, fractions, read Island of the Blue Dolphin and a bunch of short stories, art lessons

Kali - some Hawaiian History, ecosystems, chemistry, plant and animal interactions, the human body, read Charlotte's Web, an abridged version of Robinson Crusoe, and some short stories

Arwen - Mesopatamia, ancient Egypt, states of matter, weather, animal classification, light, read aloud Mrs. Piggle Wiggle and Winnie the Pooh and other short stories

What we have been up to since June

2009-10-19T00:48:00.002-06:00

July was moving month. Even though we didn't have to pack or load our stuff, it was still a lot of work to get ready for the move. Most of the work involved getting rid of stuff and still we didn't get rid of enough to be under our weight limit- grrr... but that is a story for another time.

August was traveling month. fun educational stuff included going to the Georgia O'Keefe Museum in Santa Fe, discussing all of the state capitals that we were traveling through (Santa Fe, Austin, Tallahassee, Atlanta, Charleston, Columbus, and finally Honolulu), and the older girls writing stories in the back of the car as we drove.

September was unpacking month. I was all set to start back with school on September 21nd when we were faced with the idea of using K12 and participating in our state's online virtual school. The following week was spent talking, crying, making pros and cons lists, talking some more. Finally it was decided we would give it a try until December. Then we had to fill out paperwork, take practice assessment tests, and take the real assessment tests. and then wait.

Much to this nervous homeschool mama's delight, the girls all tested on grade level. Well, Kali tested on 3rd grade for Language Arts, but is considered a 4th grader with her October birthday. Eventually we found out that she did test high enough to be in 4th grade Language Arts and are in the process of switching her over.

For Sierra and Kali, I asked for the grade level lower in math (5th for Sierra and 3rd for Kali) because I felt that there were skills that they hadn't covered. We are moving quickly through concepts that they understand and are slowing down through the new material and hoping to get them to the next grade level sometime between December and February.

Now here we are half way through October, six days into our new curriculum - read more about how that is going here. We are getting set for another week. We are still trying to catch up since we started 2 months into the school year. Last week was pretty stressful, but Friday was a pretty good day, so I am hopeful.

June

2009-07-10T22:06:00.002-06:00

Oh my, time is really starting to fly, so much to get done before the move. We finished up school at the beginning of June, learning about Texas. Sierra is still working on Secret Garden, so I am encouraging her to read it and try to finish it up before the move, so it isn't several months before she picks it up again and forgets what is happening. I have also been encouraging Kali to practice her violin since she had a concert coming up. Other than that we are pretty much done with formal schooling until we get settled in Hawaii. I will be on the look out for lots of unschooly moments in the next few months and post them if I remember.

May

2009-06-06T13:30:00.004-06:00

We traveled a bit this month and were busy with lots of moving stuff, but I managed to stay motivated to do school mostly because we are learning about places that we are planning to visit on our way to visit family on our way to Hawaii in August.

We finished chapter 21 in SOTW and will stop there until fall.

We learned about Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Louisiana, Georgia.

Our trip to Florida was really fun. The learning highlight of the trip was going to the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. We read about Dali before the trip. It is amazing how much more interesting art is when you have a little background on the artist.

Our middle ages group when to the Crandall Historical Printing Museum for our final activity of the year. It was very fun and interesting.

In choir, the girls prepared for their Jr Seussical performance, which was last night and turned out really cute.

The final Interactive Storytelling was in May and the focus was Asian tales. Thank goodness it wasn't my turn to tell the stories.

At the end of the month went went to Grand Teton and Yellowstone, so much fun... and educational!

Some pics from our visti to the printing museum:

April

2009-05-09T09:19:00.003-06:00

Where is the time going? Sierra and Kali went to a self defense class on Mondays in April leaving us with 3 days of school since they already have choir on Thursdays. The month just seemed to fly by. I guess it didn't help that we left for a trip to LA on the 22nd and then had 3 days home before we left for Florida the first weekend in May. We actually did do school during those three days. It is so nice that the older 2 can do most of their stuff on their own (math, spelling, writing, reading, typing, instruments) and then I just do some read aloud and call school done for the day.

What else did we accomplish this month? The problem with posting monthly is that I forget what we did. Let see, we finished reading the Math and Grammar readers, worked through some SOTW2 chapters. One more chapter and we will be half way through. Then I will call it good for the year. One fun thing we did this month was read a book about and listen to Carnival of the Animals. I had bought this book at some used sale a while back and had forgotten about it. It was great. The girls loved it and continued to listen to the CD and make up dances for the songs for several days after. Sierra recently made up a song on the piano where different parts represent different animals. I wonder where she got the inspiration to do that? What else? We may have worked more on the Poetry Curriculum. We are about half way through it and I am calling that good for the year as well. With our move coming sooner and sooner, I am really losing motivation. It is so nice that we can just pick up where we left off in the Fall. We also had Math Club. The last of the year. I had planned to do one more in May, but again the motivation is gone... We also had our Middle Ages group. The focus was China this time.

Our trip to LA was fabulous. In addition to getting to visit my friends we also went to the La Brea Tar Pits and the LA Art Museum. My friend kept commenting on how impressed she was with my kids. How well behaved they were and how excited and interested they were about topics that she always felt like she had to tried hard to convince her 4th grade students to be interested in. I guess I must be doing something right :)

I still worry that I am not requiring enough of them, especially Sierra. And I worry that their "skills" are not where they should or could be, but as far as instilling a love of learning and raising children that are kind and curious, I think we are doing well.

Goals for May:

Chapter 21 of SOTW2

Learn about states we will be traveling through this summer:
Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio I am skipping the states that we will just be driving through because I don't think we will have time.

Learn about Georgia O'Keefe since we will go to the Georgia O'Keefe Museum in Santa Fe

Ideally, I would like to be done by the end of May. I leave for Girl's Camp on June 16th, so I definitely have to be done by then. After Girl's Camp, my in laws will be visiting, then my friend Ann and her kids will be here and then we will have 3 weeks until moving day. I may have the older girls do a bit of reading and math and maybe writing each morning on days we are not too busy just to keep their little brains working. And I need to keep working with Arwen on her reading. The month of August we will spend traveling which will be its own learning adventure and then we will be living in Hawaii!!!

End of the Year goals

2009-04-04T19:30:00.005-06:00

Although I'd like to do year round school it has never really worked out, I usually lose motivation by the beginning of July. I have a feeling it will be that way this year, too. And then we have our road trip and move in August. Hawaii has year round school. I am curious whether having the public schooled kids in school all year will encourage us to to the same. I am also wondering about staying motivated when the weather is summer-like all year round. I used to be opposed to year round school because I think kids should have time to run around and play outdoors when the weather is nice. But if the weather is nice all year round... Also, will I feel the same motivation to hunker down and do school in the Fall and winter when the weather is not cooling off???

Here are the things left on my list that I wanted to accomplish this year.

finish SOTW2 - ha, ha, ha, ha!!! We are halfway through. I can't believe that we have been working on this level for 2 years now I we are still not done. I am actually OK with it. We have been learning about other things and we stop by history every now and then. and the kids like history, so that is what is important.

finish poetry curriculum - maybe, we'll see.

enjoy some math and grammar readers - almost done. We read a bunch last week and will finish the rest on Monday.

start learning about the 50 states - spending time learning about all 50 states was my goal for this year, but I think it will be an ongoing process. I just really want to learn a little bit about each state that we will travel through on our road trip this summer.

preparedness unit - I got some preparedness activity books at a fair I went to and thought it might be good to learn a bit about things we can do to be prepared in an emergency. I may do this, just spend one day on it, but I also may postpone this until next year when we can learn about preparedness issues specific to Hawaii.

electricity unit - this was left over from last year... I don't know if we will get to it again. I recently bought Real Science 4 Kids and plan to do Biology next year, then Chemistry, and then Physics. So we won't get to electricity for several years. And I have an electricity kit that I bought last year that gives me a guilt trip every time I see it in the cabinet. We'll see, I may get to it and I may not.

I actually feel pretty good about where we are academically. The girls are plugging along with their skills, math, writing, spelling, reading; thanks to our wonderful new schedule. Arwen is improving with her reading. We still have a ways to go before she will be reading independently, but I see progress and spurts of understanding. And everything else is the fun stuff. We learn about history, science, music, art, etc. Sometimes I make a plan and we carry it out and sometimes we just learn things in our regular life. We don't learn everything every year. We have until they are 18 to impart knowledge to them. And really what I want is to give them a love of learning, so that they know that they can learn anything they want to if they put their mind to it.

March

2009-04-04T18:44:00.004-06:00

First I was going to update this blog daily, then weekly and now it's monthly...

Is is just me or does it seem like it is almost the end of the school year when March rolls around? We took at trip to visit my family in Ohio in the middle of the month , so that kind of threw us off schedule and even though the weather hasn't really warmed up, I feel a bit of spring fever starting. Along with this, I am feeling (self imposed) pressure to get everything from this school year's list of goals done.

During the first week of March I didn't want to start anything new because of our trip to Ohio the following week, so we read some random books. This may have been the week we read about John James Audubon. I had been wanting to read The Boy who Drew birds for a while and I found it and another picture book biography at the library. We have also been continuing to work on a poetry curriculum that I am beta testing.

The second week we were in Ohio. The third week we got back on Monday evening and I had intentions of getting right back into school mode, but it didn't happen. "the best laid plans..."

On Monday of the fourth week we finally got around to the puberty/reproduction lesson that I had been planning to for a while. I had been waiting for a book from the library, but when I finally got it I decided not to use it. I ended up using Usborne's "What's Happening to Me?" girl's book. We had a lovely discussion using the book as a guide and we even went into the bathroom and checked out my tampons and pads just for fun. This lesson was mostly for my 10 year old, but the 8 year old participated, too. The 6 year old didn't seem to be paying much attention.

I can't remember what we did the rest of the week. We may have worked more on the Poetry curriculum. I didn't start it until January and we intending to use it as a unit study even though it was designed to be used a few times a week for the whole school year, but it didn't really work out. We are about halfway through the 72 lessons.

We have continued with the daily schedule. Reading, writing/copywork, math, instruments, typing, and spelling. This month the local water park had a reading incentive program. If the kids read 500 mintues in the month of March, they got a free day pass. The older 2 girls were especially motivated and I was impressed when I found out that they both read around 900 minutes in March.

We also had choir on Thursdays and that will continue until the beginning of June. Our middle ages group met and we focuses on Russia. We ate borsch, learned a Russian dance, made painted eggs, and looked at items for Russia.

2/9 - 2/27

2009-03-05T23:18:00.002-07:00

Oops, I got a little behind updating this blog. Things have been going really smoothly with the new schedule. I guess we just got chugging along and I forgot about keeping track on this blog.

Every day (that we didn't have a morning activity) the older 2 girls started their "morning school" around 10 am. They read a chapter from whatever book they are working on, did some writing (copywork or free write), 4 pages of math (Singapore), studied their spelling words, practiced typing (Typing Instructor), and practiced their instruments. Then supposedly around 11am, but usually closer to noon, we had group school time. In February we got through chapter 17 in SOTW 2 and have been working on a poetry curriculum that I am Beta testing. I also went crazy and got a bunch of French learning CD's from the library and we have been listening to those. After lunch I worked with Arwen on her math and reading and worked individually with Sierra and Kali usually working on math, spelling or grammar. I really would like to be done by 2pm, but so far it has been closer to 3pm. I really need to find a way to shorten MY morning routine. Spend less time on the computer... One nice thing about the older girls getting started with school on their own is that even if I am "running late" in the mornings I still have time to exercise. I can't use the "I need to get started with school" excuse. And I am telling you I need to exercise. I have noticed in the last year if I don't exercise I start packing on the pounds. Getting older is really a pain sometimes.

Other fun activities in February included:

Math Club
A Homeschool Valentine's Day Roller Skating Party
Storytelling - Russian Tales
Reciting at the Roney's - kids took turns reciting memorized poems.

2/2 -2/6

2009-02-12T16:06:00.002-07:00

This week was a stay at home week. This doesn't happen very often, so it was kind of nice. The car was broken down the first half of the week and all of our activities were having the week off, so it worked out well. By Friday we were ready to get out, so we did go to park day at the mall, which was really fun.

We did all of our regular school things - math, practicing instruments, writing (print and cursive copywork and freewriting), typing, reading. Our topic this week was the Middle Ages. we are finally to the part in SOTW2 that covers what you typically think of when you think of the Middle Ages - knights and such...

I finally came up with a plan for spelling. On Wednesday I went through the older girl's freewriting with them and found 10 words that they had misspelled and those were ther words for the week. Then I added "study your spelling words" to their list of morning school work. Sierra ended up making up a game and of course, Kali wanted to play it with her words, too. I haven't figured out what the game is , but they seem to enjoy it. I tested them the following Wednesday and Sierra got all of her words correct and Kali only missed 2 or 3. Then we added new words until they had ten more to study the next week. So far so good.

I am wanting to add Foreign Language back into our routine. We used to do Rosetta Stone when we got it free through our one day a week homeschool program through the public school. I was hoping to be able to continue this year using the online library version of Rosetta Stone, but they pulled it from the library a few months ago - ugh! I found a new program called Tell Me More that you can get through the Arlington Library, but I need to get motivated to set it up...

I did pick up a bunch of Cd's from the library the other day. We are trying French this year. I wanted to do Spanish because I think it would be more useful, but the girls prefer French, so... They are enjoying the Cd's so far.

And so we keep plugging along.

1/26 - 1/30

2009-02-05T16:58:00.002-07:00

New schedule is still work in great. It was a short week because the girls had choir on Thursday and Sierra was sick on Friday. Of course, when Sierra is sick she likes to lay on the couch and watch Magic School Bus for hours, so I guess we did science:) We learned about Vikings on M, T and W. I haven't figured out what we are going to do for spelling. We did fit grammar back in for Sierra and Kali during our one on one time. It was very nice to have individual time with each of the girls without interruptions.

We had our Medieval Dinner on Saturday. It turned out really well.

First week, new schedule

2009-01-25T21:53:00.002-07:00

My husband and I left on the 10th for our trip to Hawaii where he interviewed at BYU Hawaii. We had a wonderful time and feeling pretty good about the idea of moving to Hawaii next year :) We got back on the 15th from a red eye flight, so the rest of that week was pretty shot as far as any organized school work went. The girls did do some reading and math at the homeschool family's house that they were staying at. And once we got back they spent a lot of time over the weekend playing with their snap curcuit set.

Although I was not feeling totally ready and organized after the trip, I started school again on Monday. We started using our new schedule and it worked really well. The older girls worked on their independent work in the mornings while I exercised, showered , etc. and then we did our group school stuff, then after lunch I spent about a half an hour with each girl for their private mommy school time.

1/19

Morning school for big girls
Math
Instruments
Typing
Writing - cursive copywork
Reading on their own - K - Magic Treehouse book, S - Harry Potter bk1

Group school - we are working on a poetry curriculum that I was asked to Beta test.

Mommy school time

Kali - grammar, went over math problems that she had trouble with
Arwen - Math, Phonics/reading
Sierra - grammar, went over math problems that she had trouble with

1/20
Pretty much the same as Monday, print copywork instead of cursive

1/21
Also, like Monday except that we went to a performance at the library at 1:30, so we skipped Mommy school time. I had Arwen do math and read with Sierra and Kali. Freewriting instead of copywork

1/22 - Choir. I still need to get caught back up from being gone, so the girls played in the afternoon while I worked on getting caught up.

1/23
same as M, T, W

1/8 - 1/9

2009-01-09T17:28:00.002-07:00

1/8

The new schedule worked well today. We are still not at "full school mode." DH and I are leaving to go out of town tomorrow, so I had some packing and stuff to do this week. Sierra did her math and practiced the piano and Kali practiced her piano and violin, did her math and read a chapter in the book she is working on before I was ready for read aloud time. We finished the book we had been reading about John Muir. DH is planning to hike the John Muir Trail this summer, so I couldn't resist pick up this picture book when I saw it on display at the library. Then I had the older girls help me address the thank you note envelopes. It was so nice to be able to teach the girls and do something useful at the same time. It seems so pointless to make the kids do workbook pages for things that they can just do for real...

After lunch Sierra read a chapter from the book she is working on. And I did reading and math with Arwen. We didn't get done until 2:30pm, but I did take a long break before lunch. I came downstairs to change the laundry and ended up on the computer - oops...

1/9

We went to the University's life science museum for a presentation on reptiles. The presentation was OK, but the museum is really cool. We went there for the first time at the beginning of December with my parents. The girls wanted to do one of the museum's scavenger hunts before we left and I just couldn't say no.

Then we had to do some errands to get ready for our trip. A good day overall.

1/6 - 1/7

2009-01-07T16:17:00.003-07:00

1/6

Read Aloud
Writing - Thank You Notes
Math
Practice Instruments
Individual Reading

1/7

A Great Day! I think I have finally come up with a plan to solve our daily schedule problem. Here was the problem: I am not a morning person. Ideally, I'd like to get out of bed at 8am, but that doesn't always happen.. Then I need some checking email/drowsy, waking up time. Then I exercise, shower, eat breakfast and just get ready for the day in general. I'd like to be done with all of this and ready to start school by 10 am, but... During all of this morning stuff my kids are waking up , eating breakfast, watching TV, playing on the computer, and playing with each other. I have been feeling like they should be doing school stuff in the morning, but our routine has always been to do our readalouds and/or group activities first and then move on their individual with me or independent stuff. If we get started late, then we drag into the afternoon with the individual/independent stuff. This causes a problem if we have an afternoon activity to go to and leaves me with out any time in the afternoon to do my own stuff on the other days

So... today we had an afternoon activity, so I asked the older 2 to do their independent stuff this morning starting at 10am. Then when I was ready we would do our read aloud. If they had any problems or questions they could ask me and if I was unavailable (like in the shower) they could move on to something else and I would help them later.

This morning I woke up late ( 9am... I am still reading the last Twilight book before bed and it is hard to put down). At 10am the girls started their work - Math, Independent reading, and Practicing instruments. At 11:15, I was ready for reading aloud. While I read the girls had a late breakfast/early lunch. Then we worked on Thank you notes. At this point it was about 12:15 and I hadn't eaten lunch and I needed to shovel the snow off the car before we could leave for our activity at 1:15, so I asked Sierra and Kali to help with Arwen's school. She read a easy reader to each of them and did a page of math with each of them. It was great. We got school done for the day and were on time for our activity (our Middle ages group, the mom whose turn it was set up a Medeival Fair - fun, fun).

It worked out so well that I told the kids that we would be doing this from now on. At 10 am every morning they will start their independent stuff and then when I am ready we will do our read alouds. My kids are not morning people (especially Sierra), so a 10 am start time gives them time to lounge around and wake up and do their morning chores and be ready to face their school work. I still want to add in grammar and spelling for Kali and Sierra. I will continue to work with Arwen on her reading and math even though it was lovely to have Sierra and Kali help with Arwen today. I still need to work out the fine details of this new schedule, but I really think this will help us to get school done in a timely manner and for it not to drag on into the afternoon.

Back to School

2009-01-05T21:42:00.002-07:00

Christmas Break just flew by. I feel like I should have bunches of learning moments to share, but I can't think of them right now. Hum, let me rack my brain (and check my calender...). Sierra and Kali and I (Arwen was sick) went to a Birds of Prey presentation at a local museum on December 30th. We got a bunch of educational toys for Christmas. A frog habitat (need to figure out when to order the tadpole), a star theater (we've played around with it, but need to figure out how it really works), paper dolls from around the world (a big hit), various games (clue, frog juice, quiddler, sequence, Yahtzee, Penguin Match, Chomp). Sierra got a new fairy book that has her writing bunches of stuff in her new notebook (another gift). Mostly the girls played while I tried to get a bunch of sutff done that I never have time to do when we are in doing school mode. I got some done, but not as much as I would have liked...

OK, today

Read Aloud - a random picture book that Arwen got from the library. I never get around to reading just to her, so I included it today. And a chapter from Family under the Bridge.

Writing - Thank you notes

Reading - Sierra and Kali both started Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Kali doesn't seem to be following it... Arwen - ugh! She is giving me such a hard time. I am starting to wonder if she has vision issues or ADD... I am partly kidding and partly not. She just won't sit still and when she does she holds the book at a weird angle and can't seem to focus. I am thinking of starting over in 100 lessons and just going through it quickly. And letting her reread the first level of Bob books to give her confidence and so she can relearn some of the letter sounds that she can't seem to remember.

Math

Practice instruments

Typing

Kali's violin lesson

12/12 - 12/19

2008-12-22T12:09:00.005-07:00

12/12 - Read aloud - I have had some random books from the library that I have been wanting to read to the kids, so we read those today.
Math - Sierra is working on long division and is getting it easily now. I first introduced it when it showed up in her 3rd grade math book and she was not at all ready for it. One more point for homeschooling, we can wait until our kid is ready for concepts and they come easily instead of forcing them to struggle with ideas earlier.
Instruments
Independent Reading - I am having Sierra read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. I read it aloud 2 years ago, but I thought it would be a great December book. Chalk another one up for homeschooling, my kid can read a book with religious ideas for school without the separation of church and state police hunting me down...

12/15 - Read Aloud - We finally got all of our Charlemagne books that I had put on hold at the library, so we did Chapter 13 of SOTW2. We have only been working on SOTW2 for a year and a half...
Math
Instruments
Independent Reading

12/16 - Read aloud - more random stuff
Math
Instruments
Independent Reading
Copywork

12/17 - Read aloud -random
Math
Instruments
Independent Reading
Freewriting

12/18 - first day of Christmas Break!

I love that I can decide when our break starts. I did struggle to keep doing school that last week and a half. It was especially difficult since my parents had been visiting the first week of December, but I pushed myself to get back into (sort of) school mode for 5 more days before finally gave in and proclaimed it "Christmas Break."

A couple of schooly moments to share. My oldest has been begging me to let her write at bedtime. The girls are allowed to read in their beds for 45 minutes at bedtime. For a while I would also let them write, but then my oldest would just end up drawing and she would never read. She doesn't read on her own during the day unless I make her for school, so bedtime is her reading for pleasure time. We ended up having to make the rule that the 45 minutes before lights out had to be used for reading. It is exciting to see her so motivated to write. We don't do a lot of writing for school at least compared to public school, so it is encouraging to see her have a desire to write.

My youngest is a trip. She would be in kindergarten this year. Some days, I feel guilty that I don't do enough school with her and other days I think, "Hey, it's only kindergarten." It's just that the public schools have started doing more and more academic stuff earlier and earlier. It is hard not to feel like she is somehow behind if she is not reading fluently and doing multiplication by the end of kindergarten... Anyway, the other day she was playing with these magnets that she had gotten for her birthday. She was going around the house finding things that were magnetic. I was like, science, check! I mean I have set up that experiment with my older girls and here she is doing it on her own. Also, she got a science kit for her birthday that she and her sisters have been begging me to do with them. Man, homeschooled kids are such nerds :)
Then on another day we were having read aloud time and Arwen gets out her math book and starts working on it. Just for fun. alright I think I will stop feeling guilty about my poor educationally neglected kindergartner.

So now we are on break. I plan to start back with school on January 5th. We'll see though. Who knows? We're homeschoolers we can start back up whenever we want. And we don't really stop learning during the break. We have been making goodies, doubling recipes, and reading aloud a Christmas book (The Family Under the Bridge). The girls are planning Christmas Eve festivities including a play, a parade, and stories. All of the activities are on schedule that is hanging on our wall. And I snuck some educational toys into the Christmas gifts. I will post any exciting educational moment we have during the break or I will post when we start back January 5th or whenever. We can do whatever we want. We're homeschoolers!

The Last Three Weeks

2008-12-12T10:45:00.002-07:00

When I last posted it was the week before Thanksgiving.

11/24 - Choir rehearsal all afternoon.
11/25 - I think we did school this day... a short day - read aloud, math, worked on books the older 2 are writing for Christmas presents.
11/26 - Arwen's birthday

12/1 -read aloud, reading, math, instruments...
12/2 - read aloud, reading, math, instruments...
12/3 - read aloud, reading, math, instruments... Picked up grandma and grandpa from airport
12/4 - choir
12/5 - choir performance at Festival of the Trees

12/9 - visited museums on campus - earth science, life science, and peoples and cultures
12/10 - art class
12/11 - math club

Played with state and capitals cards with grandma and grandpa were visiting.

11/17-11/21

2008-11-23T16:47:00.002-07:00

Weekly posts seems more realistic than daily posts, so I will most likely post our accomplishments weekly instead of daily O.K.? O.K

Here is what we did last week...
Oh curd, I can't remember what we did. I could go upstairs and look, but I am too lazy for that. We FINALLY got back to SOTW2 I believe we did chapters 10, 11 and 12. Australia, The Franks, and Islamic empires expansion into Spain. We did some math, writing, and reading. I decided that our schedule needs some tweaking and grammar and spelling got skipped most of the week. I will post our new schedule on my regular blog soon. Kali had violin practice, the girls went to choir and we did storytelling theater at the library.

I am feeling less than motivated to do any school next week. I was thinking of doing school on Monday. Then taking a "teacher in service"day on Tuesday and then Wednesday is Arwen's birthday, but then I remembered that the girl's have a special choir practice on Monday at 1:30 which I will need to leave at 12:30 to get to because it is in Salt Lake City... we may just take all of Thanksgiving week off.

Of course, then the following week my parent's are coming on Wednesday, so I wonder if I will be up for doing any school Monday and Tuesday... By the time my parent's leave it will be the 11th of December... Shall we just call the next month Holiday Break Month? We shall see...

Last week 11/10 -11/14

2008-11-17T08:56:00.002-07:00

Monday - Middle East picture books, spelling, math, copywork, reading, Kali's violin lesson

Tuesday - Visited Art Museum to see Japanese wood block prints, errands

Wednesday - ME books, grammar, math, reading, art class

Thursday - Choir, Sierra goes to Space Program, Kali and Arwen go to Math club

Friday - ME books, grammar, writing, math, reading

Practices instruments at various times, not every day...

Catching up - 10/31,11/3,11/4,11/5,11/6,11/7

2008-11-08T09:52:00.004-07:00

Yikes, I have forgotten to post in a while. I have probably forgotten exactly what we did.

10/30 - Halloween - we did a short school day today. I am sure we started late because I have been feeling lazy lately. We were getting to the end of our government/presidents books. Both Kali and Sierra had gotten to the review pages in their math books. They both cried because their were SO MANY PAGES... there were 5. They are so spoiled and I told them so. If they went to school they would have 5 pages just for homework and several pages during school. Sierra eventually bucked up and did it without complaining. Kali cried almost the whole time complaining that she didn't know how to to do it. She did fine after I explained some of it to her. Sierra and Kali also practiced their presentations. Practiced instruments

11/3 - Last of the government books, Math, practicing presentations, Government class, did presentations, had friends over that evening - girls did presentations again, daddy gave a mini government lessons. Practiced instruments

11/4 - Election day. Practiced instruments, Sierra is still working on Caddie Woodlawn. Took the kids voting with us. Watch election results and colored a map blue and red.

11/5 - My turn to host our Middle ages group. Spent most of the morning getting ready for that. I had the girls practice their instruments. Do some reading. We may have skipped math. For the middle ages group we focused on Japan and wrote Haikus, play a shell game, made and ate onigiri, and made pretend wood block prints out of foan meat trays.

11/6 - choir, called our friends in Colorado, Kali went to a Space Center and did a simulated space ship thing with aliens and everything - fun, fun.

11/7 - Back to a real school day. I was highly unmotivated since it was Friday, but I pushed on anyway, but we didn't start until 11:30am. Started our new unit. Finishing up our trip around the world via picture books - the Middle East. Grammar - articles. Kali cried the whole time because she said figuring out whether to use a or an was too hard... Luckily I have had a crying 8 year old before and I know that this will pass. Copywork, Math, Reading, Instruments.

Sierra FINALLY did her multiplication test in under 3 minutes, so now we can stop doing it every day. I am now going to focus on simple division with her, not timed, but just have her do a page each day until she becomes more confortable with it, so we can do long division soon.

9/27, 9/28, 9/29

2008-10-29T22:56:00.003-06:00

I should know better by now than to plan stuff for the week of Halloween. I used to think that Halloween week felt busy because I was always getting back from visiting my parents and trying to get settled back into real life and then suddenly it was a holiday, but it has been just as busy this year and we didn't go to Ohio this year (we went in August instead).

Monday - I didn't go to the grocery store on Saturday, so I needed to go today... So no time for a regular school day. I had the older girls work on their multiplication tables and the presentations that they are doing for our mini government class. Sierra is doing hers on Eleanor Roosevelt and Kali is doing hers on Abraham Lincoln. I also "made" them practice their instruments. Government class in the afternoon. Then Kali's violin lesson. Sierra and Arwen and I stopped at the library to get a few things. Busy, Busy, day

Tuesday - Still working through the government and president books. I thought we would be done by now, but the girls are really enjoying it. We are learning the presidents in order with a song I found on You Tube. I think we did math this day. I think the older 2 just worked on multiplication. I also encouraged them to work on their presentations and practice their instruments. Did weekly chores, Went to a Physics demonstration at the University in the afternoon, came home and went to our church Halloween party. Thank goodness there was a dinner. Another busy day, I was definitely not up for cooking.

Wednesday - Read about women in political positions, math - still working on multiplication. Ran out of time to do anything else before running off to Art Class. My turn to teach the younger class. Stopped to get fabric and patterns for the choir outfit I have to make for Sierra (ugh! I have never sewn clothes before...), Some time before bedtime the older girls practiced their instruments and worked on their presentations.

Whew, only 2 more days until Halloween. There is a party for homeschooled tweens on Thursday and a Healthy Trunk or Treat on Friday - I am skipping them both... what my kids don't know won't hurt them. Between the church Halloween party and Friday night's trick or treating, I think that will be plenty of Halloween for one year. Then I will catch my breath for a few weeks and then it will be Christmas time. Luckily most of our regular activities will be on break in December. Next year I will remind everyone that we should also take Halloween week off, too.

Last Week, etc.

2008-10-25T17:59:00.003-06:00

OK, so I guess I am not going to be posting daily. Hum... where did I leave off.

Wed the 15th - We've been learning about presidents and the US government, so we must have read more books this day. Kali has been working on thank you notes for her birthday gifts - practical and writing practice.

Thurs the 16th - Choir. I probably made the girls do some stuff in the afternoon - practice instruments, multiplication test for Sierra, etc.

Friday the 17th - more presidents books, park day

Monday the 20th - presidents, cont. math, writing, grammar.

Tuesday - Government Class, Poetry in the Park

Wednesday - presidents, cont. math, writing, art class

Thursday - Choir, came home and organized play room

Friday - meant to do school, but hubby is out of town, so I worked on projects and gave the older girls a list of things to do before we could go to park day - practice instruments, multiplication test, etc.

Monday and Tuesday

2008-10-15T00:25:00.002-06:00

Monday - Morning -Read books about US presidents, Math, spelling
Afternoon - Government "class" with another homeschool family. Really we just read the book, Woodrow for President, and discussed a few things before the kids got restless and we let them go off and play while the other mom and I chatted.
Kali's Violin lesson
Girls played around on the keyboard. One of the friends that came over loves to play the piano and taught Kali a few songs. Kali played the songs over and over. Sierra play around with the different tones the keyboard can make. This may have happened on Tuesday. I have lost track of time already...

Tuesday - went to Pumpkin patch, kids painting pumpkins when we got home. Did weekly chores.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

2008-10-15T00:12:00.002-06:00

My in laws flew home on Wednesday. The girls had art class in the afternoon.

Thursday - Choir in the morning, Watched Magic School Bus videos when we got home. Math club in the afternoon and more Magic School bus after that.

Math club was mostly a success this month. Last month - the first month - only one other family showed up. This month there were about 8! It was a little crazy and disorganized at first because I wasn't expecting so many families, but I think it turned out well. For next month another mom offered to host and I asked moms to volunteer to facilitate the different age groups. Yea, delegation! Next month I won't be hosting and I will only have to plan games for one age group.

Friday - We hadn't done "school" since the previous Tuesday due to Grandparents visiting, but it was Friday so I wasn't feeling very motivated. so I made the girls a list of thing I wanted them to do before Park Day in the afternoon. For the older girls this included:

Doing their timed multiplication tests - all facts for Sierra - still... and the "2's" for Kali

Picking out and working on memorizing a poem for our Poetry in the Park event next week.

Taking Baths

Reading

and Practicing their parts for our church's children program.

Monday, Tuesday...

2008-10-02T10:51:00.003-06:00

Monday

Read Alouds - still Russia

We combined writing and spelling today and I had the older 2 write a story using their spelling words, but then we couldn't find Kali's list. Usually I make them write the words they missed on the spelling quiz in their spelling notebook right after the quiz, but Kali wanted to wait until later and of course later never came. We tried to put together the list and by that time she was frustrated and didn't want to write a story, so I just had her copy her words in to her notebook again.

Math

Reading - Arwen is getting better with her reading and is starting to read some words the "fast way." It is still a struggle with her because she is so active ( ie wiggly). The other day I played a game with her where I attached a letter or phoneme to a balloon with a post it note and threw the balloon to her and she would say the sound. She loved it. Now only if I had the energy to do that with her all of the time...

Tuesday

Read Alouds - finished our Russia books
Grammar - adverbs
No Writing
Math
Reading

Field Trip - Da Vinci exhibit - Leonardo's inventions from his notebooks. Some were hands on. Copies of paintings. Kali was super excited to see the Mona Lisa even after I pointed out that it was just a copy.

Grandparent arrived at 10pm. Girls stayed up late to hang out with them.

Wednesday - Kali's birthday, Middle Ages group in the afternoon.

Thursday - Watched a panda video that Kali got for her birthday and several Magic School Bus videos before I made them turn off the TV. Grandparents are out touring the campus and I am doing random things. With Grandma and Grandpa here we are on Fall Break...

Thursday, Friday, Saturday

2008-09-27T19:59:00.002-06:00

Thursday - We normally have choir in the morning and the do stations in the afternoon because I am too lazy to really do school, but no choir this day, so we just had a regular day.

Read Aloud - Russia - stories about Baba Yaga, fin
Writing, etc. - wrote letters to the girls' friend in Colorado using proper letter writing format and addressing the envelope
Math
Reading

Friday

Read Aloud topic - Russia - more Russian legends, Snow Princess, Sea King's Daughter
Spelling - quizzed on week's words
Writing - freewriting
Math
Reading

Saturday

Kali's birthday party - We went to a trampoline place called Jump On It (PE?)

Went to see Shakespeare's Pericles on campus. The library's summer interactive theater program did this play and Kali got to be in it, so it was fun to go see a production of it. This was meant for kids and was condensed to an hour, but used mostly Shakespeare's language. It was very good.

Wednesday, 9/24

2008-09-24T23:58:00.002-06:00

Read Aloud Topic - Russia, Talked about why so many Jews immigrated from Russia and read 2 picture books about Jews in/from Russia. we had read a bunch of books about immigrants this summer after going to an Ellis Island reenactment on the 4th of July and many of the books were about Jews from Russia. I had my genius husband explain why so many Jews left Russia and then talked about it with the girls this morning before reading the books

Grammar - abbreviations and types of sentences

Writing - cursive copywork. Kali is using Handwriting without Tears and Sierra is copying from a regular book, but transferring it into cursive.

Math

No time for reading time. We had art class from 1 - 2:30pm.

Piano and Violin practice. No Typing today.

Tuesday, September 24th

2008-09-24T00:01:00.002-06:00

Ok, it's not technically Tuesday anymore, but this is what we accomplished today (yesterday?):

Read Aloud Topic - Russia continued. Today was books about matroishka dolls

Spelling - made the older 3 girls study their words and quiz each other. They did not enjoy this... I am going through Rebecca Sitton's "no excuse" list before moving on to individualized lists.

Writing - dictation for Siera and copy work for Kali. I am just starting to do dictation with Sierra she is doing pretty well. Kali did not want to do dictation. She thought it would be too hard. She is not quite 8, so I will let her do copywork instead for a while longer.

Math

Reading - silent reading for the older 2 and phonics for my youngest. Teaching Arwen to read is proving to be a huge test of my paitence. "No, look at the sound. Don't randomly guess while looking around the room..."

Piano practice for Sierra, Lesson for Kali

Violin practice for Kali

Made cards for great -grandma who has been in the hospital

Weekly chores

Activity Day at Church for Sierra

Monday, September 22nd

2008-09-22T15:33:00.002-06:00

Read Aloud/ Topic - We are doing a mini geography unit on Russia. Last year we spent a lot of time studying the cultures of the world via picture books. We didn't get to Russia or the Middle East, so we are finish that up this year before we start our United States studies.
We had a good time this morning reading about and discussing Russia . I got to find out all that my children know about Russia thanks to watching Time Warp Trio. And we had an especially good time looking through a book about The last Russian czar's youngest daughter, Anastasia. We have the Disney movie, Anastasia, but I had no idea that the movie was (very loosely) based on a true story. It was fun discussing how Disney took real facts and changed them around to make their movie.

Grammar - Quotation Marks
Writing - typing stories that they already wrote and edited
Math - Kali - multiplication
Sierra - decimals
Reading time/Phonics for Arwen

Now I am off to take Kali to her violin lessons. While Kali is at her lesson I will be giving Sierra her piano lesson. I am not a skilled teacher, but since we couldn't afford lessons this year, I decided to just help Sierra and Kali continue on in their books from last year.

Catching up - the first 3 weeks

2008-09-22T15:23:00.004-06:00

We started school the Tuesday after Labor Day. At first it made sense to start that day because my husband started back teaching at the University that day and also it gave us a full week to recover from our trip to Ohio to visit my family. But really it was kind of a busy week to get focused on school. Monday being Labor day gave us a 4 day week. Wednesday we had a Homeschool group meeting in the afternoon, so we had to scramble to get school done that day. Our Thursday morning choir started that week and a homeschool picnic was held on Friday starting at 10:30, so Friday was a no school day. For our read aloud/topic time I just read some books for our own collection that I had been meaning to read and we did math and copywork both Tuesday and Wednesday and grammar and spelling one day each.

The following week we started our Weather Unit, which included bunches of books from the library and an experiment kit. It took us 2 weeks to get through everything. Most days we did math and some kind of writing and we alternated days of grammar and spelling.

Other activities of the first 3 weeks of school included art class, storytelling theater, math club, tamale making, and of course, park day.

Oh, I should mention that the week before we "officially" started school, we went to the $2 day at the Dinosaur Museum and Botanical Gardens and also the local Storytelling festival.

Welcome to Behind the Mess

2008-09-18T15:34:00.001-06:00

I have created this blog as a way for me to keep records of our daily homeschool activities. I figured this might be boring for any "regular" people reading my blog, so I set up this new blog. Any homeschool blog junkies like myself can feel free to read about our daily activities here and steal any ideas you like.