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
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Monday, October 19, 2009
What we have been up to since June
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.
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.
Friday, July 10, 2009
June
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.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
May
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:
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:
Saturday, May 9, 2009
April
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!!!
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!!!
Saturday, April 4, 2009
End of the Year goals
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.
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
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.
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.
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