Classical Conversations Practicum

It's time for me to try something new.  So I've enrolled my kids in a new homeschool program for next school year and Ill get to be involved in teaching in a new environment too.  I'll be spending the next few days training to be a Classical Conversations tutor.  I'm very excited to join this team of educators.  And my children are excited to attend the "student camp" while I'm in training classes.  I'm hoping our little get-away (without the Dad) will be fun and relaxing as well as very educational.  With an extra incentive of hotel swimming each evening I think the kids will have a great time.  Here's a sneak peek of what I'm getting myself into.  It's soo exciting - I can't wait to get going already!

Chrysalis Academy is in session

The school bell is ringing at our house.  We need to get an early start on our curriculum because we don't want to be stressed about getting lessons done at the same time as our international move.  So, even though it looks and feels like summer and IS summer...we're pulling out our books and binders and crafts and projects and CD's and notebooks and pencils and crayons, etc. (you get the idea, right?)  This first week went rather well for all of us.  I think I'm getting the hang of this gig because we also ate 3 meals a day and even had time for daily pool time! 

In 7th grade: For Language Arts we learned about personal pronouns:demostrative,reflective, intensive,and antecedent, wrote haiku's, finished reading and discussing the book "Around the World in Eighty Days."  For Science we learned about moss, and other nonvascular plants like liverworts and hornworts, seedless vascular plants like ferns and the functions of seeds, roots, stems and leaves.  Geography lessons were about the U.S. landforms and climates.  In history, we finished up our unit about Islam.  For Math we practiced using square centimeters/inches, A=wh and P=2(w+h).

In 4th grade: We reviewed all the cursive alphabet, upper and lowercase.  We continued at least 20 minutes of daily reading (although his choice of books to read does not have his teacher's approval so we'll be working on that detail over the coming weeks).  For Math we reviewed calendar skills and played skip counting games.

In 3rd grade: We learned about Nouns.  There is a lot to know about these kinds of words!  For Math, we continued to practice telling time and understanding clocks.  Each day is rounded out with 45 minute swim lessons!

I'm combining 3rd and 4th grade lessons for history and science.  For history we learned what history is and what archeology is.  For science we learned what anatomy is and what physiology is.

All together we learned about Greek temples, specifically the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Erechtheum and the Temple of Athena.  We read poetry from Robert Louis Stevenson.  We started each day with a bible lesson, starting in Genesis to learn about the seven days of creation.  For P.E. they are all taking Kenpo (karate) classes twice a week through the summer.

In toddlerland: We learned about transportation!  Isaac and I recently started attending a little Mommy & Me playgroup organized by his Early Intervention therapists.  There are 4-8 kids each time with all the Mommies and 3 therapists: early development specialist, speech therapist and physical therapist.  So we are in GOOD hands while we are there!  Transportation will be the theme for the next 6 weeks.  He loves it and even though he is the youngest, he's doing very good in this enviornment.  In addition to this biweekly group, he has weekly, one-on-one physical therapy for 30min. and speech therapy for 1hour, at our house.  His schedule is keeping me much busier than I ever thought a 22 month old would require.  Sometimes it's difficult to juggle but mostly, I love slowing down, getting on the floor and taking the time to play with my baby during all of these structured activities of his.

Spring Recital

Today we spent the early afternoon at Sloan's first piano recital. She memorized and played "Row, Row" and "See Saw." Camryn also played two songs making this her thrid recital to date. Camryn memorized her two songs too. Motorcycle Cop and Minuet in G. They both did a great job at the recital but I decided to delete the video footage from the actual recital and had them replay thier songs here at home for a better video. (Sloan had her hands in the wrong place on one of the songs and her teacher didn't correct her so it sounded pretty bad. + When I started the video for Camryn, someone stood up in front of me so my camera focused on this head, making the rest of the video too blurry to contine. By the time I stopped the recording and restarted it, she was half way through the song. = bad recordings!)

I've successfully uploaded Sloan playing but Camryn's is not working. Don't know why and I'm getting tired of trying so I'll just finish this post and maybe try to get it here another day. (I'm feeling too technically challenged today!)

Blueford for a day

I am Guion Blueford,

the 1st African American man in space!

(for a day)

Ethan prepared for this living museum project by memorizing an entire page of information and facts about Mr. Blueford. To listen to it, we had to push the button in front of his feet and he would "come to life" and recite his museum speech. He did such a good job and by the end of the day, he must have said it nearly 100 times as parents and kids from each grade came in to learn about all of these successfull and famous African American people.

Bravo, Bravo!

Dia-en-la-Vida

Day-in-the-Life
For the last couple of weeks, I've been enjoying the blog hop hosted over here. I've had the very best of intentions to jump in but just haven't been on top of things enough to "do it right." We started including schoolwork into our days, two weeks ago and it's been taking all my energy and focus each day to be consistent and productive with the daily priorities. Which is especially difficult to do when summer is still surrounding us in weather...pool time...drama practice...end of summer play dates, etc. I'm up late tonight and enjoying some peace and quiet so I've decided to just do the best I can right now with this weeks theme.

I've spent lots of time this summer working through curriculum choices, schedules, routines, priorities and to be truely honest, even wavering a little on whether or not homeschooling is worth all this effort on my part. It seems like I have a lot of challenges to work through. However, for the most part, I'm really looking forward to this year. It has the potential to be one our best years so far. We're not moving, pregnant or having a new baby. We're settled and have a perfectly full house!
My baby will become a toddler in the coming months and needs his own daily schedule and routine that we'll all have to work around. He also has his own busy schedule of audiology appointments, and regular speech therapy to weave into each week.
In addition to that, I've enrolled my 3rd grader in the public school for one more year so I'll have his school schedule and deadlines to juggle. I'm not convinced this is the best place for him this year but we're going to start out this way and see how it goes. ('nuff said) This won't start until next week though.
That leaves me home with my 6th and 2nd graders. 6th grade will become more and more independently, self-managed. I sit with her for daily math lessons (RightStart) and help her through her writing program (IEW) but I also see my part shifting more into staying a couple steps ahead of her to help her set weekly goals and then following up with each subject on a weekly basis. (Beautiful Feet history, Apologia science, Calvert spelling, GWG grammar) The trickiest part will be to keep her motivated and on task. Over the years, she's learned to escape into her never ending pile of books to be read. She can fade into the background for hours on end if I don't interrupt her to keep her focused on her other responsibilities. At least I know how to motivate her with the promise of new books for the weekends. :-)
One of the things I love about homeschooling is being able to work one-on-one with my kids. Much of our 2nd grade curriculum needs me to sit along side her and work together through the lessons. (RightStart math, FLL grammar, Read Aloud SOTW and Apologia science, SWR spelling/writing) I just can't get excited about assigning workbooks and textbook reading in the early elementary grades. This is where having a wiggly, demanding, short attention span, wants to put everything in his mouth, nursing baby makes homeschooling stressful for a Mommy. With my first homeschooling child, it was much easier. This time around, there is so much more to juggle so I'll have to be flexible and realistic with daily expectations.
Keeping all of that in mind, I think we need another month to get a better grasp on what our daily routine actually is. But as for now, I'm working on consistency and attitudes to get through our daily checklists. Ideally, this is what I'm shooting for (basically).
7:00 - Wake up with hubby, walk on the treadmill, quick yoga stretches, shower... E. wake up and get moving
8:00 - I. wake up, nurse, breakfast (available from 7:30-8:30), walk E. to the bus stop, C. S. up and moving
9:00 - finish up morning chores of bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom needs and start school with circle time activities: bible lesson, Latin roots, Spanish review/practice, review today's tasks/goals
10:00 - math, writing, reading, spelling, grammar: I'm allowing 1hr/child for me to focus on
12:30-1:30 lunch, kids outside, laundry or cleaning f/u, baby time to eat/nurse/nap
1:00 - independent work, reading time
2:00 - together for history, science, or art/crafts
3:00 - finish up "homework" and wrap it up for the day, clean up, piano practice
4:00 - walk to the bus stop to get E., play outside
5:00 - prep, eat and clean up dinner, help with E. homework
7:00 - Daddytime and general evening craziness
9:00- kids in bed, baby time
10:00 - wind down with t.v., book, blog, etc. or just crash and call it a day at this point!
REALITY CHECK: Reality isn't this pretty or predictable because on any given day, we throw in dr. appts., sports practice, scouting, and various after school programs and then things from this routine need to be shifted around. Oh and laundry takes considerable time each week as does a weekly grocery shopping spree and the daily meal planning and prepping. However, I persevere and am always tweaking checklists and trying out new ideas to make this real life part of my life run as smoothly as possible...it's definitely a work in progress for me... Any tried and true tips?

Class is in session

Taking Homeschooling Out of Your Home
By Mary Pride

Names are funny things. Take the word "homeschooling." What does that make you think of?
If you said, "School at home," I'm not surprised. Home + school seems to equal school at home.

Only two things are wrong with this definition:
(1) Homeschooling isn't "school." It's a whole different approach to education.
(2) Homeschooling does not have to all take place at home.

If Homeschooling is Not School, Then What Is It?
Homeschooling, properly understood, is education designed by parents. This automatically makes it a whole different animal from "public" education, which is education designed by government bureaucrats. It also differs sharply from "private" schooling. Regardless of their talk about parental authority, in practice private schools reserve curriculum design for teachers, administrators, and textbook designers.
Even those who think the child should direct his own education must admit this type of "un" schooling is only possible if the parent has the authority to let the child choose his own educational pursuits and projects.

So, homeschool is not "school" when it comes to who is in charge of curriculum design. Having parents choose or design the curriculum is radically different from what happens in any school.
Amazing as it may seem, parent-designed and parent-chosen curriculum yields better results than school-designed-and-chosen curriculum, as many research studies have shown. Then again, how amazing is it that curriculum chosen from the entire universe of options (rather than the small list "approved" by the state or school board) and targeted to the exact child for which it is intended, should result in more learning taking place faster? Especially when the parents in question have the ability to hobnob with other parents and find out what's working for them . . . and when they can easily obtain detailed reviews of all their curriculum options through homeschool magazines and books.

Homeschool also is not "school" when it comes to scheduling and priorities. We do not have "announcements," ringing bells to mark the end of a class period, football teams that soak up the budget that would otherwise go to art and music lessons, or endless classes geared to the latest politically correct fads. Unless we want to, that is!

This means that homeschooled children in general have a much greater attention span and ability to "focus" than children who attend school, where they are continually interrupted in the middle of their projects, math papers, writing assignments, and so forth.

Most Parents Homeschool
But man does not live by focusing power alone. This is why our neighbors keep asking us that old question, "What about socialization?" What they really mean is, "Can your child grow into a strong adult just sitting around your house doing lessons and projects?"
Alas for our poor neighbors. They are mistaking homeschooling for schooling that happens at home, when it's really education under the authority of the home.
What a wild thought: all those parents who pay for art, music, and ballet lessons . . . who chauffeur their kids to soccer team and karate class . . . who sign them up for a YMCA course or who join the local Jewish community center . . . are homeschoolers, too! To the extent that they provide educational opportunities for their children solely because they want to, not because any authority "makes" them, these are homeschool parents. All that we "real" homeschoolers do in addition to what most parents do, is add academic lessons at home. Or via a tutor. Or an online academy. We just exercise that additional dollop of choice.

Homeschool Away from Home
Since we now realize that homeschool is not "school at home," this leaves us free to look for educational adventures anywhere in the real world that we can find them.
With summer just around the corner, now is the time to plan some out-of-the-ordinary family excursions and some independent learning adventures for your older children.

The world is our home. And class is in session.