Dipping in a toe. . .

We made a start with homeschooling this week, but it was a gentle beginning with fun activities and/or visits with friends happening most afternoons, once the basics were were covered in the (yawn! eyes open yet?) morning.

First thing (while kids are eating breakfast or just after--quick, snag them before they run off!): we light a candle and read aloud either, from Michael Clay Thompson's Language Arts (MCTLA), Music of the Hemispheres, or, from Sonlight Core 5, All the Small Poems (and Fourteen More), and then the day's portion of our Core 5 read-aloud book.  This week: Seabird, by Holling C. Holling.  I usually have the older two write down the "words to know" from the Sonlight read-aloud guide.  J.J. likes to join in and tends to illustrate his words.

After reading together, Jazz and Jane are off to their workboxes, and J.J. is off to Legoland-in-the-Living-Room.  His workboxes are filled with Montessori activities and Five-in-a-Row (FIAR) books, but right now we get to those when the spirit moves one or the other of us.

Workbox #1: Both of the older two are doing another round of Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting, with a focus on cursive. In the past, Jazz learned the serifs that go with the cursive italic letters, but somehow never got in the habit of connecting the letters, so his handwriting is spiky, and since he writes quite small, it can be difficult to decipher.  Soon I'm hoping to alternate handwriting and copywork.

Workbox #2: Sonlight Core 5's Eastern Hemisphere Explorer.  I had debated about using this part of the curriculum, but am very glad I went ahead and bought it.  Used in conjunction with World Book Encyclopedia 2010 software (which has a fun Mussorgsky intro. that sent us down a rabbit trail for a bit), the guide challenges students to find out a little bit of information each day about the region they are studying.  For instance, yesterday's task was to compare and contrast three regions of islands in the Pacific (Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia).  They also get to "choose an adventure," to be completed by the end of that region's study, which can take the form of a detailed drawing, a mini-report, the preparation of a meal, a mock journal entry, or another out-of-the-ordinary task to tie up what they've learned.

This workbox also contains a Book of Time for each kid.  More on this later. . .

Workbox #3: Jane is continuing with Writing with Ease, while right now Jazz has Sonlight's How to Do a Research Project to read while we wait for Grammar Town to get here (should be arriving on the Big Brown Truck any day now).  I was going to split the levels and go with Grammar Voyage, since Jazz already has a pretty solid background in grammar, thanks to First Language Lessons, levels 3 and 4, but decided to keep everything in the same level and use Grammar Town as a refresher course.  There's nothing like coming at a subject from a different angle to help make things stick in the ol' noggin.

Workbox #4: Jazz is loving Caesar's English so far.  Michael Clay Thompson's word roots curriculum is far, far different than traditional vocabulary programs like Wordly Wise, or even Vocabulary from Classical Roots, which we also really liked last year.  Thompson's love for language resonates on every page, inspiring students to love it, too.  Jane has her Sonlight reader in box #4--this week it's Henry Reed, Inc.

Workbox #5: I've given Jane the Writing Skills book by Diana Hanbury King that Jazz used for a bit, but am not sure this is a great match for her.  I'm sorely tempted by the Island level of MCTLA, but feel like I have already donated a kidney to Royal Fireworks Press and need to wait until it grows back before I can order from that company again.  She probably gets enough (for now) from Writing with Ease (narration, copywork, dictation, and narration, in four-day cycles), so this box will probably become the First Language Lessons box.

Jazz has his pseudo-Sonlight reader in this box.  Pseudo because a) he reads at a much higher level than most of the Core 5 books, but mostly because b) he and his sister would find something to fight about if they were reading the same book at the same time.  This week, instead of Henry Reed, Inc, he's reading Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, which we somehow missed in the past, to go with the seafaring theme of both Seabird and the Pacific Island region of Core 5's first couple of weeks.  Jazz also has a few pages of Ships, Sailors, and the Sea to read each day, and that book is kept here, too.  ("Why do I have to read two books in this box?" said in his best petulant twelve-year-old voice.  I immediately pictured him curled up in the box, reading.  Somehow, the humor didn't translate.)

And that's it for this week.  I'm currently gathering ideas for next week's "fun" learning, which will hopefully include some Polynesian cooking (using Sam Choy's Polynesian Kitchen and Kids Around the World Cook) the making of tissue paper flowers, and very likely the viewing of a surfing DVD or two.  Workboxes #6 through #9 will be added eventually, and will have science, Latin, art, music, and hopefully foreign language in them at some point.

Book Sharing Monday - Eggs!

Our part of New England has been fortunate (in my eyes) to have both a mild winter and an early spring this year.  Though it may be 38 degrees and rainy today, in two days it's supposed to be 59 and sunny, which sounds like heaven.  

Nature study is a big part of a Charlotte Mason education, and while we may not get outdoors quite as much as I would like, the type of science my kids gravitate toward lends itself very well to the study of nature.  Recently, I've been putting books about birds, eggs, and life cycles in their workboxes, and they've been a big hit.   Here are a couple of our favorites, with a more exhaustive list at the end.

An Egg is Quiet, by Dianna Aston (author) and Sylvia Long (illustrator)

From the same team that brought us A Seed is Sleepy, this beautiful book is short on words, but long on enjoyment.  The pictures, from endpapers to endpapers and everything in between, are meticulously drawn and softly tinted.  And while there isn't a ton of information presented, what is here is apt to provoke some interesting observations and discussions.

Eggs, by Marilyn Singer (author) and Emma Stevenson (illustrator)

This book about eggs has much more written text than the one above, and was enjoyed by my eight- and twelve-year-olds.  Published in 2008, it is the illustrator's first book.  I hope we see more by her!

Other books and resources we used in this unit: 

Ducks Don't Get Wet (Goldin & Davie; a Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science book)
Falcons Nest on Skyscrapers (Jenkins & Lloyd; a Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science book)
A Nest Full of Eggs (Jenkins & Rockwell; a Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science book)
How Do Birds Find Their Way? (Gans & Mirocha; a Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science book)
Lemon the Duck (Backman & Cleyet-Merle; for a teacher's guide for this book, go here)
From Egg to Chicken (Ganeri)
Animals in Flight (Jenkins & Page)
How Animals Grow (Llewellyn)
The Egg (Jeunesse, de Bourgoing, & Mettler)
Bird Songs (Franco & Jenkins)
What Bluebirds Do (Kirby)
A Duckling is Born (Isenbart & Baumli)
The Life Cycle of a Duck (Hipp & Kuhn)
From Egg to Bird (Reidel)
Duckling (Magloff)

DVDs:
Bill Nye the Science Guy: Birds
Birds of a Feather (Reading Rainbow)
All about Birds
All about Animal Life Cycles
Life of Birds





Book Sharing Monday is hosted by Serendipity Home School.

Workbox Wednesday, Columbus Day edition

They're not all related to Columbus Day, but here are some highlights from last week's workboxes:

Kumon Let's Cut Paper pages

Melissa & Doug World Map Floor Puzzle

Three ships coloring page

Asterix the Gladiator (soon to be followed by others in the series)

The Discovery of the Americas tells more than just the story of Columbus (authors: Betsy and Giulio Maestro)

Draw Write Now, Volume 2

Animals Christopher Columbus Saw by Sandra Markle

Latin worksheet and flash cards

What serves for logic these days: Mind Benders from Critical Thinking Press

Workboxes are still making our days run pretty darn smoothly, though the almost-five-year-old has lost a bit of interest, unless there's play-dough or Playmobil in his boxes. But he did come running when he heard Jim Weiss reading Story of the World this afternoon (Rome finally fell today, YEAH!), and his conversations are still full of words like "illustration" and "adjective," so I think we're okay.

Workbox Wednesday, Pt. 2

More highlights from this week:

The book is A Pocket Dictionary of Greek and Roman Gods and Goddesses, by Richard Woff. The idea was for O (11) to thumb through, pick a couple of favorites, read & write about them and then draw a picture of them as he sees them. Everything but the drawing happened. Sigh. Kid has major issues when it comes to artistic confidence.

Geography flash cards by region and a worksheet to reinforce the information learned.

A consistent favorite: an audiobook of Rosemary Sutcliff's Eagle of the Ninth.

E (8) loved reading about the contrast between light and dark in Looking at Pictures, by Joy Richardson. Revised edition due out October 1st, though already in stock at Amazon. We currently have it checked out of the library, but will be buying our own copy.

Review of telling time to the quarter hour with Time & Money.

Interesting experiment--I'd never asked E to do anything like this. I think she'll like it better the second time, now that she knows what she's aiming to do. It was surprisingly difficult for her to draw a mirror image of the pictures shown.

Workbox Wednesday, Pt. 1

Week three with workboxes is going pretty well, though I am still up way too late at night (or early in the morning). We've tweaked a bit here and there to get some more group time, and I split up the older two on a couple of subjects with which E (8) was getting frustrated working at her older brother's level, which basically means I am sitting down with someone (or several someones) at all points of the day. Good thing I enjoy my job.

Here are some highlights from this week:

corn meal, a small cookie sheet, and a chart of patterns to make

M (4) loved this activity. I did not like the clean-up, though, so I'm thinking it will make a good on-the-deck activity until it gets too cold. Maybe then we'll try something that doesn't resemble beach sand quite so much.

Clip the clothespins to the tongue depressors craft sticks. Each stick has a number and the corresponding number of spots to clip (except nine--that one was an oops as a result of late night workbox-filling).

Someone in the workboxes yahoo group gave me this idea, so I made up a card (it's laminated now--have I mentioned how much I ♥ my laminator?), and showed M. what I meant. The result is below.

More after I've slept a little and had a lot of caffeine.

Good finds of the week and Book Sharing Monday

Since my good finds are all books, I thought I might kill two birds with one stone.

1. The Roman Army--the Legendary Soldiers Who Created an Empire, by Dyan Blacklock with illustrations by David Kennett. DS (11.5) loved this award-winning book--snatched it from his workbox and ran to the sofa with it, in fact. The illustrations have a refined graphic novel appeal, and the information about a specific part of Ancient Rome was a perfect focus in what can be an massive unit study. Another book by this team is Olympia--Warrior Athletes of Ancient Greece, which appears to be OOP.

2. National Geographic's Photography Guide for Kids by Neil Johnson. From "All about Cameras" to "How a Camera Sees," and from the composition of photographs to the choosing of subjects, this guide was enjoyed by both DS (11.5) and myself. DS had the book (with pages marked to read), our camera, and his nature journal in a workbox, with the idea that he would take photos of nature, pick his favorite, and tuck it into his nature journal, since getting him to draw in it has not been successful at all. The book doesn't have an overwhelming amount of information--just enough to catch the bug. Shutterbug, that is. ☺

3. Geography through Art--International Art Projects for Kids, by Sharon Jeffus and Jamie Aramini. I must admit we are in the early stages of investigating this book, but I like what I've seen so far. I've had the two older kids reading about chiaroscuro (the contrast of light and dark--such a fun word to say) in art in preparation for our first project (on deck for tomorrow), which is to create a representation of the Earth in shadow on black construction paper. Art-happy DD (8) will likely love this undertaking, and I'm hoping at the very least for cooperation from DS (11.5). I love that it ties in with our Earth Science studies, as well.

Book Sharing Monday is hosted at Serendipity.

Week 1, part 3

And finally, the four-year-old's boxes. Trickle-down homeschooling is not this kid's only choice these days, thank goodness.

Feel and Find by Guidecraft, a classic Montessori-style preschool activity.

The letter of the week, with a printable book from Enchanted Learning.

We've had these sorting bears and pattern cards since O was in preschool. So glad M is getting use from them now!

Another classic Montessori-style preschool activity. I printed and laminated a twelve-part color wheel on cardstock, colored in one side each of twelve clothespins with Prismacolor markers, et voila! a great sorting activity that strengthens the oh-so-important pincer grasp.

Reading time with Mom: Our Earth, by Anne Rockwell.

Did I mention the letter of the week was A? ☺ This activity required some help, as each sticker has a very specific spot on which to, ehm, land.

I wasn't as ready with the camera during group time as I would have liked this week, but here is one I thought to catch (as we didn't save the bisected spheres), a science activity from Earth Logic: Our Dynamic Earth, plus the control cards from a Montessori card set, which is just a small sample of the many free resources at Montessori Materials.

I've got tomorrow's boxes all ready to go--hopefully I'll remember to take some photos as the week rolls on.

Have fun!