Last in Line...

Abraham Lincoln's WORLD ~ Notebooking Pages

2012-01-26T17:13:00.009+13:00

We've put up our notebooking pages, to use with Genevieve Foster's book Abraham Lincoln's WORLD, over at HSlaunch.

We're hoping to create outlines of various portions of some of the chapters in A.L.W using set 1 of the pages beneath, and then write from our outlines using set 2.
Abraham Lincoln's WORLD ~ Notebooking pages: Set 1 (incs timeline option)
Abraham Lincoln's WORLD ~ Notebooking pages: Set 2 (incs paper dolls)

Story of the World Vol.4 Schedule ~ 2012

2012-01-25T20:05:00.000+13:00

We're up and running with our updated, 2012, SOTW 4 schedule and are at the end of week 1A
(the initial, 2010, type up can be found here ).

I've removed some titles and made this years emphasis New Zealand history, while we read through Story of The World ~ Modern Times, by adding in the following NZ history books:
Builders of New Zealand By A.W. Reed (mentioned in previous posts & sadly, O.O.P) (Reader)

Illustrated History of New Zealand by Marcia Stenson (Read Aloud)

The Kauri & The Willow by Elsie Locke (Read Aloud)

The New Zealand Wars by Ross Calman (Read Aloud)

How Parliament Works by John Lockyer (Read Aloud)

We're not sticking, strictly, to Sonlight's cores 4/E and 7 /H this year, choosing instead to mix and match up the read alouds and reader titles from various cores to suit us. Namely a few titles from the old Core K, Core 5/F, and Core 100.

Geography will remain an ongoing study through this year.

We've added in a few good splashes of Australian literature too and will also be continuing our studies of hymns, composers, and artists.

While all the other subjects are sorted, with pdfs downloaded and printed, or books labelled and placed in work baskets, I'm still mentally juggling our grammar instruction choices.
*I* like Maxwells book, but ...

Huckleberry Finn - Audio

2012-01-24T00:09:00.007+13:00

Bobs favourite summer time audio (so far) has been Huckleberry Finn read by Elijah Wood.
Sterling job!
Huck Finn is an Ambleside on line (AOL) free reading title for Year 6 that we'd scheduled in for him to enjoy during the first few weeks of us easing back into scheduled learning.
He's now enjoying his second listen through it.

Summer Time Activities

2012-01-21T21:03:00.001+13:00

Here is a New Zealand based (yay!!) conservation pdf that your children may enjoy using over the remainder of the summer months too - Daisy will enjoy it.

Conservation: Uncle Don Knows Heaps of Wacky Stuff

And. If the weather would just *co-operate* and stay sunny we're wanting to indulge in beach visits and bush walks - technically we're back to scheduled learning, just with a relaxed summer time speed so if a lovely summers day hits we're outside!

(I do have a whole post I'm slowly typing up about our plans and schedule, et al, for this year; computer time is just rather low priority at the moment ☺).

SOTW 3, New Zealand, World History ~ Gold Rush Notebooking Pages

2012-01-04T20:14:00.010+13:00

Here are a few notebooking pages to go with the gold rush chapter in Story of the World vol 3.

I've customised the title on each set of pages, linked beneath, as we are going to use these pages as part of our New Zealand history set and not just as a SOTW set - we've included some generic World History pages. The 2 page sets include one page with guide lines for youngers and another page with standard size lines for middles and olders.NZ History Gold Rush ~ Notebooking Pages

World History Gold Rush ~ Notebooking Pages

SOTW3 Ch.42 The Gold Rush ~ Notebooking Pages

Latin Instruction for 2012

2011-12-31T20:06:00.002+13:00

For the last 18 months, in an on off fashion, we've enjoyed using Song School Latin as our teaching tool for Latin - lots of fun and such a relaxed approach to introducing our household to this language.
We are really wanting to go deeper with this language but needed someone really confident with teaching this subject, that used a "verbal & visual " format, along with written practise - time to out source... well sort of ☺

And I *try* to be realistic since I just start to feel frazzled when I imagine I need to 'teach' all the subjects.

After idea shopping around a bit I happened on some posts on T.W.T.M forums about Visual Latin.

Time to show Dn first - liquid homeschooling funds are a little interesting at this time of the year, so I'm trying to shop with research-applied firmly in place.

Since others ask why? we want to study Latin, here are some good reasons: presented by the teacher of Visual Latin no less

A.L.L Bites the Dust - Now What?

2011-12-20T09:30:00.008+13:00

ALL (Advance Language Lessons by Peace Hill Press) bites the dust… for now and I don't want to start a grammar text (free download and all) that is incomplete.

We were asked what we are going to use for grammar in 2012?
Good question I was wondering that too.

(I've pulled this post forward and tidied it up a little, so others who may be interested can browse the books too.)

We had a look back over grammar options I’d browsed through before and they all still seem to bring out that ugh-shudder action - a little like Goldilocks and the porridge tasting episode.
I did happen to find something that I think may be.. just right for Bobs logic level grammar: a few pdfs in my language arts hoarding folder by William Henry Maxwell.
For those outside the US, visiting this archive.org link takes your straight to a list of Maxwell's books online.

I'm archiving these next links for my own reference - they will take you straight to the grammar books in pdf:
Introductory lessons for intermediate grades
Advanced lessons for higher grammar grades
School grammar book

My plan is to get the introductory and advance lessons pdf's printed and spiral bound, then Bobs can work fairly independently with them.

I'll let you know how we get on, once we get to using these vintage texts.

Blog Awards - a link to good reading

2011-12-15T20:09:00.003+13:00

My homeschool blogging friend, Chareen from Every Bed of Roses, gifted us with a lovely award.
Liebster Blog Award
(I don't have time to participate properly ( or proof read this post, so please just ignore the typo's) .)

Do pop over to this link, to Chareen's blog, as the award details blogs that have less than 200 followers (Liebster is German and translated means ‘dearest’ or ‘valued’ but it can also mean ‘favourite’ ), the award is a way to show appreciation for other blogs, bring attention to their work and encourage new connections.

Happy blog hopping!

Retro Post ~ Wedgits

2011-12-09T08:16:00.012+13:00

This is not an advertising plug to sell this item, our sale is all done and dusted ... I'm just in the frame of mind to showcase another early homeschooling gadget.

WEDGiTS!

Our children used to love tinkering with this set of Wedgits (as did any other people who happened to be in our space at the time the Wedgits box was out).

When they were really little we'd do the whole (excellent) Montessori idea, I'd build a shape and they'd copy the building of it ... here's a small funny though >

During some more involved build sessions with 3 yr old Daisy, I was trying to nut out how the pieces went together so that she could "monkey see" "monkey do".

Bobs, 5yrs old, could see marmee was just not getting it, so quietly sat RIGHT in front of me with the pieces needed to make the shape and s.l.o.w.l.y built it while I watched - even then it took me at least 4 goes to get the shapes to lock in place (laugh!).

I was not doing well with following 3D instructions - which Wedgits are.

(Great early (? snort) years discovery toy. Our family built with these from ages 2-8.)

Needless to say Daisy mastered Wedgit building from watching Bobs, then they both ending up teaching marmee how to build 'involved' Wedgits.

*WEDGiTS currently can not be purchased in NZ - Australia is our closest distributor.

Alphabet Bingo - Memory Lane with Sonlight

2011-12-07T00:15:00.006+13:00

I'm currently having a rather large homeschooling items purge - ouch, who knew selling memories pinches just a little - and as I was typing the pictured item up for sale tonight .. all the fun times the children and I had playing with those very simple looking Sonlight language arts games just brought back a flood of good 'early' home educating memories .... I haven't checked to see if Sonlight still sells these, if they do snaffle a set for the elementary age learners in your home.
They are really fun!
Here are some of the ways we used these sets, all while playing bingo, mind.

Sometimes the games had to go really slowly and be played with just a few letters/blends/words at a time.
As the confidence and 'reading' ability grew the games became a counter-placing-race:
Use the alphabet bingo set to assist little ones to recognise each letter by it’s name.

Then using the same cards, the students recognise the (short) phonetic sound of each letter. (Add long phonetic, or alternate phonetic sounds at a later stage .. you know these cards go so well with All About Spelling and any reading program.)

The letter blends (groups) cards are perfect to use with an emergent readers or to re-enforce letter blends for spelling.

The word cards are excellent for practising common sight reading words.

Can also be used for spelling - the parent or teacher spells the words and the students are to find them ...

Bingo!

(sorry, ☺ just couldn't resist it )

Free audio books

2011-12-04T15:50:00.001+13:00

I haven't allowed myself time to list any titles and link up our more recent selection of free audio books so figured I'd just drop a quick post in here to remind others that Thought Audio have some rather good free audio books you might like to listen through and select out titles that suit your family - their collection is here.

Part 2: Unfounded Expectations and Completing this Year's Work

2011-12-04T15:43:00.002+13:00

continued...

The children have finished their math and language arts requirements for this year - at their request, I condensed the last part of the lessons in their math books and agreed that if they could get the set amount of math problems all right to go with each topic (no mistakes) we could continue to move at a much quicker pace.
Bobs wanted to complete the remainder of his MMM book as there are rewards that go with completing homeschool books in our home. (Computer time credits, pizza and a rental movie)
Daisy who is just as focused to collect her rewards spent the last 6 home educating days completing her MMM book ..... in her spare time ☺

I've decided we will come back in the new year to revisit the topics on New Zealand history covered in SOTW3 with more detail and a New Zealand flavoured telling of these portions of history.

Laughing a little here .... New Zealanders do NOT listen to Jim Weiss reading this chapter of SOTW3; he very inventively reconstructs the maori pronunciation!! The children thought it was really funny: me-or-e for maori and why- tan- gee for Waitangi. He very obviously made this recording before his visit to New Zealand. ☺
I had the children read set chapters out of our NZ history book : Builders of NZ, instead.

Along with the last lesson to cover in SOTW3 we have one more Sonlight book, By the Great Horn Spoon, to read - time to employ a handy dandy audio book.
For those interested there are two choices (we're listening to the first) :
By the Gread Horn Spoon, read by Kayray (free audio book)
or a paid version By The Great Horn Spoon! by Sid Fleischman, Narrated by Willard E. Lape, Jr, the Full Cast Family

Despite - what felt like - our shuffley hodge-podge working style this year we are closing out our Core 3/SOTW3 run embracing a sense of achievement rather than a sense of failure due to tasks not done as originally hoped or planned - in a nut shell, it's me just letting go of my unfounded expectations.

(It's taken me 3 weeks to get here and get this post ready for sharing - every time I come back the details have changed again ☺
It may take me a while to get back here to post again -I have a ton of links and things I'm wanting to post about, including our substitute text now that ALL has be shoved to the back burner - right now though we're decluttering, onselling and packaging-n-posting (!!!) a pile of homeschool items and attending end of the year practises and concerts, and .... getting ready for Christmas.

In the meantime though...
Praying that we may all make the time to pause and peacefully count the many blessings we are gifted with.
Blessings to each of my dear friends and fellow homeschoolings.
~Chelle~ )

Part 1: Unfounded Expectations and Completing this Year's Work

2011-12-01T07:00:00.008+13:00

It has taken me close to a complete home educating year to find my teaching footing with the following mix; Bobs needing and chomping at the bit to work at a higher level (let's just change up the gears and add in part of another core shall we), and Daisy requiring a little less time with mum 'elbow teaching' but more time with me teaching home craft topics (cooking, paper crafts, and sewing instruction do require some time and patience ☺) ... and Dn starting to work from home (who knew a grown man could create such an on going distraction to the children and I - just by being there? ☺).
As is pretty normal in most homes, life happens too as part of that continual adjustment mix.

It took me a good 10 months of learning to let go of unfounded expectations for the home schooled part of lives and realising we were being gifted with other lessons to learn from, or walk through.

The replacement lesson modules have been:
someone in our home recovering from a longer term illness;
loved ones divorcing;
death;
an on/off run of unexpected visitors and house guests;
out of our norm (!!!!) ministry responsibilities;
and, high-wants (translate that as unreasonable and demanding) clients.
Those are some of the more prominent aspects of what this year has gifted us with and are not events one can actually plan into a schedule. Yet those are the times that have gifted us with some of our deepest and best learning moments;
Moments of patience,
moments of compassion,
moments of praying through intense grief,
moments of love and hospitality,
and,
moments of being faithful and diligent.

If there were "tests" that went with each of those life moments, I'm not sure how well we would have done with "passing" on some of them - we just endeavoured to place our trust in God as we worked through each lesson. It's best to forget about passing any sort of test, as the value of those life moments just leave lasting impressions in the ongoing formation of the children's character (and ours!!) that can not be learnt solely at the dining/homeschooling table.

With the academic lessons the children have been so patient and accomodating as I/we've stretched and relaxed trying to find a good working pace around the constant life changes.

I think we've finally found our stride ... and, laughing, the end of the year is looking us right down the barrel. I thought we would be finished in 2 and 1/2 weeks ... not with the children I've been blessed with, they see the end in sight and start pushing me to get us done marmee. We have ONE week left of our history schedule to complete which feels so good.

to be continued ....

(this post was apparently too long for certain folks to get through in one reading ... so I've cut it in half *just for them* ☺)

Nature Studies ~ Hands on Zoology

2011-10-18T19:28:00.011+13:00

We look forward to delving into a longer term nature study each year, a nature study that is very hands on. Mostly those episodes have involved 'raising' something.
Well this years 'raising' episode has created a great deal of enjoyment and excitement.
The children purchased a breeding pair of guinea pigs and there enters another round of hands on zoology for us.
Our guinea pig sow, Cookie, has finally given birth to four pups. They are just the sweetest wee things.
Here are a couple of pictures of them - at just a few days old.

We've learnt so much about guinea pigs and their whole gestation cycle. As soon as Cookie had given birth to the pups we put Max, the boar, into a seperate cage as sows come back into heat very quickly after birth - and back to back births can kill her. Not what anyone would want for their loved pet.
After Daisy read that a sow can have up to 50 pups in her life Bobs decided he'd work out the fibonacci math for a breeding pair of guinea-pigs - which was some staggering number ☺

Nature Studies ~ Spring

2011-10-18T19:20:00.000+13:00

We're well into spring here and I keep meaning to enjoy another of Barb's, from Handbook of Nature, Outdoor Hour Challenges.

I may just get Bobs and Daisy to select which one/s of Barb's topics they'd like to do. We purchased the pdf last (?) year but for others wanting to join in, the free selections are listed here: Spring: Nature, Music and Art Studies

We haven't been very faithful to record our efforts as the whole episode becomes 'adventure driven with a camera and referring to guide books later". We may start out with the best of intentions to do trees and get very distracted by birds, especially if they have young ones .... ☺. For us, this means the outing was still a success: We became enthralled by another facet of God's beautiful creation ..... and the unused sheets of paper get put quietly back in the file.

I love this kind of science!!

October 17: The Week Ahead

2011-10-17T08:43:00.006+13:00

Typing the whole week out in list form was so helpful last week that I've done the same for this week. We are still working on some of the "things' on lasts weeks list so I'll colour key them to make life visually quicker for me ☺

Continue or complete - black
New content - blue

Bible & Memory Work
Handwriting & Memory work: Ephesians 2:8-10 (continue)

Hymn
Amazing Grace: Illustrated Stories of Favourite Hymns
by K Osbeck: Abide With Me our Hymn (learn for 2 more weeks)

Classical Music
Story of Great Composers: Schubert (Unit 4 - pg 15) (continued)

Art/Artist
Artistic Pursuits Bk 2: Lesson 22 (last lesson reinvented) (Complete)
Mark Kistler - pencil sketching
Artist: Millet (for 4 more weeks)

World History
Story of the World 3 Chapter 36: The Slave Trade Ends (Tuesday)
Encyclopedia tie-ins for SOTW3
Read Alouds
The Journeyman - SL RA/3 (complete)
The Freedom Fighter by Bingham
Daisy: Who Owns the Sun? (Tuesday)
Follow the Drinking Gourd (FIAR) slavery tie-ins (Friday)
(revisit - http://www.nationalgeographic.com/features/99/railroad/ )

New Zealand History
Builders of NZ Chapt 4: How the First White People Settled in New Zealand (complete)
pg72 - Samuel Marsden, the Maoris' Friend
pg74 - The Coming of the Missionaries

Readers
Readers for Both:
The Story of the Erie Canal (SL H/3)
Louis Braille (SL R5)

Audio book for free time: (still to decide)

Language Arts
Instruction from WWE Text for both
Grammar: FLL for Bobs , conversationally for Daisy
Spelling: AAS

Math
Daisy: Making Math Meaningful (next lesson) plus 6x's table drill
Bobs: LOF - Pre Algebra 2 with Economics with MMM companion lessons (if necessary) plus math speed drill

Latin
Song School Latin: next 3 lessons & review
English From the Roots Up: (none this week)

Logic
Chess: Bobs
Logic Puzzles or books: Both

Science
Delight led (NZ Astronomy, FTDG FIAR tie-in http://www.astronomynz.org.nz/star-charts/star-charts.html )
Spring – plant out pumpkin seedlings, visit ducklings, enjoy our guinea pigs pups..

External Electives
(music lessons and swimming cancelled - public school term break)

Dolphins, Art, and New Zealand Literature

2011-10-13T21:08:00.012+13:00

Monday art time became a very simplified moment this week. The rest of our art 'class' was off enjoying a much needed term break (we've already had ours). Bobs and Daisy elected to do one pencil sketching and be done.

The instructions for sketching these dolphins can be found via an 8 minute lessons, off Mark Kistler's School of Imagination.

And. Not to miss a New Zealand tie-in moment, I pulled out two quick-to-read NZ dolphin story books. Bobs enjoyed revisiting Pelorus Jack, which Daisy also read along with Opo the Happy Dolphin. Literature doesn't always have to be at the top end of our childrens reading ability, especially when other lessons on the same day are of the heavier/intense variety. Some times a picture based book will fill the spot for us just as well. ☺

Marie Antoinette & Redoubt

2011-10-13T20:55:00.006+13:00

I've finally got around to photographing Daisy's completed SOTW3 cut-n-craft. We used the notebooking page and Redoubt book detailed in this post.

All About Spelling - A Spelling Victory!

2011-10-13T18:00:00.012+13:00

Just so you know: this is not a paid, nor an intentional advertising post for All About Spelling - it's a post about our journey to date with this spelling curriculum.
Here goes ......

Daisy has completed her All About Spelling book after a good 12 month stretch of steady go, pause, restart, go, pause, back up, pause, go, pause, etc.
Monday rolled around and she mastered all the review and nailed the last lesson down!!! No pause, or back up, or restart - just nailed it.
I was so excited, and pleased, and proud, and thankful. Our Monday was a pretty high emotional buzzy sort of day in our house.

Why such emotion over completing a spelling book?
Well, Daisy who is a very strong reader and skilled at narrations just struggled with spelling. Spelling was just flat-out hard work for her, so I went looking for a spelling guide (a good while back) to help me to teach her with tools that would encourage memory retention, was hands on, systematic, and interactive with a capital *I*.

The tools that work for her; little coloured tiles, rules with review, cards to handle and shuffle, a white board and marker, a mumma right there "helping", and a lessons completed chart to colour -those tools would have to include ones that make me struggle as a teacher to use. All those tiles and index cards and a semi scripted text (shudder).
The process used in All About Spelling is just the extreme opposite to how I learn or like to teach. But the issue at hand was not about me and my preferences. The issue was using what works for Daisy, to help her to start mastering spelling.

After going back and forth, and reading through Merry of Hope for Homeschooling's sonlight forum posts, which detailed her success with All About Spelling, I caved in on a really rough spelling week and made a desperation purchase.
♥Thanks Merry, your posts and generous advice have been such a help to us!♥

Product then in hand, I sat down to cut up and assemble all those "lovely" AAS titles and organised the cards.

AAS was my hair shirt - I did not enjoy using it - Daisy loved it! She started to make small spelling leaps forward using AAS. So I gritted my teeth and carried on.
I've slowly adjusted the way I use AAS (sipping aromatic cups of coffee also helps) and it's no longer a hair shirt, just a necessary part of my spelling journey with Daisy.

The learning area that has been the hardest for Daisy is the subject she enjoys doing with mum the most. She thinks spelling is fun - we do laugh a lot through her spelling lessons; one of *her* favourite spelling rules, she made it up, was " If in doubt try 'e' ".

Success leaves such a sweet taste in one's mouth too, and that has helped to make AAS a favourite time of her day.

For anyone wondering about the benefits of using a program that seems to have so many pieces and parts, and incorporates so much review - if your child is like Daisy, for whom spelling is a logic puzzle, All About Spelling may be an option for you to seriously consider.

We've used the same program for Bobs, our natural speller, as a rules based and overview tool. No fussing around with tiles, just the white board, the book (an occasional card), and a good deal of auditory interaction. Great program ;-)

October 10: The Week Ahead

2011-10-09T15:06:00.013+13:00

I'm praying the best laid plans of mice and (this woman) will not go awry and that we can manage to nail down a good weeks work ☺

Bible & Memory Work
Handwriting & Memory work: Ephesians 2:8-10
Hymn
Amazing Grace: Illustrated Stories of Favourite Hymns
by K Osbeck: Abide With Me our Hymn to learn for 3 weeks

Classical Music
Story of Great Composers: Schubert (Unit 4 - pg 15)

Art/Artist
Artistic Pursuits Bk 2: Lesson 22 (last lesson reinvented)
Mark Kistler - pencil sketching
Artist: Millet (for 5 weeks)

World History
Story of the World 3 Chapter 34: Freedom for South America
Reader for Both: Simon Bolivar (SL R4/E)
Encyclopedia tie-ins for SOTW3

New Zealand History
Builders of NZ Chapt 4: How the First White People Settled in New Zealand
pg65 - The Coming of the Sealers
pg67 - The Coming of the Whalers
pg68 - The Burning of the Boyd (L/A's narration and dictation)
pg69 - The Coming of the Traders
pg72 - Samuel Marsden, the Maoris' Friend
pg74 - The Coming of the Missionaries

NZ Read Aloud: (continuing with) Shadow of the Boyd
(Refer to our review about this book which includes this comment:
**I found the book an interesting and thought filled read.
Yet since I tend to err on the side of caution, I would be recommending to use Shadow of the Boyd as a read aloud to more mature pre-teens. For our family, I wouldn't give our children this book as a reader.)
DH has been editing out the swearing that the author has penned in amongst some of the retelling of this story - our choice.

Readers
Bobs Reader: (continue with) Diary of an Early American Boy (SL Sci4/E)
Bobs to Read out loud (RoL): free choice, & poetry
Daisy's Reader: Justin Morgan Had a Horse (SL RA3/D)
Daisy to RoL: 30 Hideous & Hilarious NZ ...pg 35 Whale Watching, & poetry

Language Arts
Instruction from WWE Text for both
Grammar: (next lesson in) Grammar Land
Spelling: AAS

Math
Daisy: Making Math Meaningful (next lesson) plus 6x's table drill
Bobs: LOF - Pre Algebra 2 with Economics with MMM companion lessons (if necessary) plus math speed drill

Latin
Song School Latin: 3 lessons & review
English From the Roots Up: Latin Root ~ pater, patris

Logic
Chess: Bobs
Logic Puzzles or books: Both

Science
Delight led with our science boxes
Spring gardening.

External Electives
(music lessons and swimming cancelled - public school term break)

And that's our weeks work. I just felt in the mood to type things out before Monday hits.
What are you up to this week? ☺

Tossing up Between IEW and WWS?

2011-10-06T20:50:00.004+13:00

Curricula choices can create some pretty heated debates, especially when someone else starts poking at anothers sacred cow. This post is not going to do that ☺

If you enjoy IEW as your family's choice - please, just ignore this post .... use what works in your space and count yourself so blessed that you've found a writing tool that works for you.

I've found it best to not read opinion shopping posts when I've found a program, or learning tool, that is working for the children and I. Making Math Meaningful and Writing with Ease are non-changers for us - no opinion shopping for alternate tools to use in those two learning areas.

However, for those that are wanting to opinion shop for writing programs; read on ☻
I've been quietly looking and, just of late, asking other home instructors opinions on these two writing curricula as possible writing instruction to use with Daisy, later.

I'm already sold on Writing With Skill as Bobs next writing tool.
A few days back I read Janice in NJ's succinct and persuaive post which is penned in WWS favour. For Bobs, I'm now doubly sold on Writing With Skill.

I've pored over WWS free 20-week pdf and what Janices writes about WWS is bang on.
WWS may be instrumental in teaching me how to write also. Smile

I like the children and I to read, or have read, the fiction based books we are going to be studying from in a language arts curriculum. So I'm looking for a copy of The Pepins and Their Problems and will pull out our copy Wolves of Willoughby Chase.

Anyone out there read either of those two books? Your opinion in the comments section is welcomed!

One of my dear friends will be wanting a heads up about the Fairy Tales topics, a Wizard of Oz tie-in title and an E. Nesbit - Book of Dragons excerpt in WWS, so I'll add that detail here for others too. For anyone thinking about using WWS, you'll have no trouble switching those titles out for something else if you wanted to, Susan has placed the very clearest instructions in WWS.

Mrs. Bauer has included a good range of fiction and non-fiction literature to study from, with some of the science topics being nature study. Nice!
After going through all the literature selections we'll be using as our base for writing instruction, I'm really looking forward to Bobs (& I) using Writing with Skill in February 2012.

Institute for Excellence in Writing? Other than the samples I've looked through over at christian book dot com, I have not been able to locate anyone locally, whom I know, to be able to have a thorough look through an IRL IEW set; so I'm unable to comment on that aspect of Janice's review.

Who knows, WWS may be a good writing tool for Daisy too and I can just quietly forget needing (okay, wanting to) look through IEW.

One can but hope ☺

(New Zealand Literature) Our Current Read and Review List

2011-10-06T20:01:00.010+13:00

As other living literature readers from downunder will atest to .... finding *wholesome* and well written New Zealand based literature can often be a stretch since authors currently publishing written works usually just do not seem to write with us harder-to-please readers in mind. Here are some of the titles on my current reading and request list. I'm not necessarily recommending these books, just sharing my potential NZ lit to review pile since some have made it past our good reading criteria.
We were able to source most of these books detailed in this post through our local library.

Picture books:
The Very Important Godwit
by Jenny Pattrick (incs C/D) not available at our library, yet
Read. Review at the end of this post.

Davy's Ducks
by Dorothy Bulter I just ♥enjoy♥ Dorothy's picture books
still to read

Mr Archimedes Bath
by Pamela Allen not available at our library, yet
still to read

Katarina
by Gavin Bishop I've flicked through this at a local bookstore, I'd just like another, slower, read
still to read

Chapter books:
Enemy at the Gate
by Philippa Werry
Read. Review at the end of this post.

Joe's Ruby
by Elsie Locke
still to read

No Simple Passage
by Jenny Robin Jones (n/f - listed for ages 15+)
still to read

Shadow of the Boyd
by Diana Menefy (story format, based on fact - 1809)
Read. Review, scroll down.

Reviews:
•Bush and High Country Birds of New Zealand
by Elaine Power
Our Review: Perfect for whetting the nature study appetite. This small book is an inspiration to pull out your own pencils and have a go at sketching some of the birds Elaine has detailed in this small book. I will be ☺

•Enemy at the Gate
by Philippa Werry (set in mid to late 1930's)
Our Review:
I think I appreciated this story line as much as I did as this topic is one our family has experienced - a sibling contracting polio. Amazing how many things remained unchanged in hospital policies between the late 1930's in this book and the early 1950's with our family.
Werry showcases the family in the Enemy at the Gate with what may have been the average New Zealand family values and attitudes of that time. (Offers some good spots to pause for discussion if used as a read aloud ☺).
As we read along Thomas' character - the central figure in the book - develops into something finer due to the events his family must navigate through when one of his siblings contracts polio.
Werry deals with the death of his sister Flo's dearest friend, Molly, with sparse and empathic word useage.
For those that like to know about "extra" content - the author injects a moment of boy-girl attraction right at the end of the book. I was left with my own end thought: just because someone we love and care for loses the ability to use, or have, the gifts God has given to us to use, hone or enjoy - it does not give us the licence to put aside or ignore those gifts we have, purely out of kindness and sympathy for our loved one.
I'm proposing to enjoy this as a read aloud with Bobs and Daisy during Our SOTW4 run.

•Shadow of the Boyd
by Diana Menefy
Our Review:
It took me a few chapters to work out that the author was jumping backwards and forwards between two different time frames; Thomas Sailing on the Boyd along with the events surrounding the massacre of those on that sailing ship, and, Thomas sailing back to England on City of Edinburgh
I am going to read this book aloud to Bobs so we can discuss some the issues outlined in the story as we go. We will be editing out the swear words the author has penned in.
•Boys stealing oranges while no-one was looking.
•The implications of utu. In this story utu becomes revenge killings to restore balance.
•Canabalism and slavery in New Zealand.
•The choices (?) many convict woman made on board convict ships (it doesn't go into detail though Anne, an ex-convict, touches on this topic once, briefly).
•A young male feeling embarrassed by the same ex-convict woman breast feeding her baby while they are held in captivity.
The story is based on fact, events in 1809, and the end notes flesh out the details of Thomas Davidson's journey to a satisfying end.
**I found the book an interesting and thought filled read.
Yet since I tend to err on the side of caution I would be recommending to use Shadow of the Boyd as a read aloud to more mature pre-teens. For our family, I wouldn't give this book to the children as a reader.

•The Very Important Godwit
by Jenny Pattrick (incs C/D)
Our Review:
The story line in this book has real potential to become the literary base for a unit study, or as a Five in A Row type read in a home educating home. The Very Important Godwit lends itself perfectly to mapping exercises and art lessons, along with an indulging in an indepth nature/science study about godwits.
The songs are understandably written with a young audience in mind and a very young child could enjoy singing along to the CD with the predictable rhythym and rhyme detailed in each song - fun when you're little!
Jez Tuya has created some lovely art work for this story.
I think the only part that detracted from the story, for us, was a stand alone sentence about a group of godwits 'teasing' the very important godwit because she had a radio transmitter sticking out of her b*m ?
Really? Shrug. Overall, Daisy and I enjoyed this picture book and our family remains fascinated by the amount of time it takes a godwit to fly non-stop back to New Zealand from Alaska. Amazing.

Book Reviews © Chelle G

(NZ Literature) The Bat's Nest ~ Notebooking & Language Arts Pages

2011-09-22T22:56:00.001+12:00

I don't know about other mums, but I find that my two children work so much better when I give them pages that look more appealing to write on.

For those that would like these pages, in pdf, you're more than welcome to them!! Just drop me a note at sldownunder dot g dot gmail dot com as I won't be putting them up on hslaunce since the book is just that little bit harder to source. For locals The Bats' Nest by Anne de Roo is available at our IRL library though, in their stack room, and also through library inter-loan.

Bobs and I will be reading aloud The Bats' Nest as the story line does have some more mature tones to it that I'd like us to discuss: a maori wife that had previously been beaten by her british "husband" (who just disappeared) and their son who struggles to find his way as a pakeha/maori in a developing country which is at war. All ends with hope for the central characters :)

The Broken Blade ~ Language Arts and Notebooking Pages

2011-09-16T23:21:00.008+12:00

I was in the frame of mind to toss together some notebooking pages to go with our scheduled Sonlight Core 7/H Reader for Bobs. I didn't make them 'pretty' - otherwise he won't want to use them.

He'll use this book and those sheets as part of his language arts instruction next week.

The pages include grammar useage, a copywork and dictation exercise, a narration page, and a map-while-you-read (as yet untested) sheet.

You can find our pdf over at hslaunch:
The Broken Blade ~ Language Art and Notebooking Pages

(& I think I'll be taking a break from any blog posting for a wee bit {smile} and use my afternoon computer time to really get into .... Spring cleaning. Oh goodie. )

The Twenty One Balloons, and, The Mysterious Island

2011-09-16T17:40:00.006+12:00

A very C.M title would have been "Education is the Science of Relations"

A few years back Bobs and Dn read aloud together The Twenty-One Balloons during our journey through Sonlight's Core 1 /B ..... Daisy and I read something else.

Dn said he just could not seem to get into that book, at the time, and Bobs say he couldn't actually remember 'exactly' what happened (I think from memory they put it aside unfinished).

There is an audio down load for those that just can not seem to find their stride with this read aloud and yet really want to cover that book.

Fast forward 2 years. Bobs loves to listen to audio books while he 'constructs' things so elected to listen to The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne. Which he assures me has a much better story line than 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (same author).

Side Comment now.. ...... since we began home educating we've continued to casually listen, or read, our way through Ambleside Online's book list and for those interested 20,000 Leagues is free reading for year 6.

Now please, just indulge me while I have a C.M moment. Listening to Bobs recount the connections his brain was making - zapping backwards and forwards - between The Twenty-one Balloons, a book he had said he can't really remember from a good 2 years prior, and to a more current audio book, The Mysterious Island , was encouraging to hear. He could recall more from Twenty-one Balloons than he thought he could.

He then proceeded to tell me - at regular intervals {small laugh} - a host of tidbits about hot air balloons, volcanic islands, and survival techniques along with relaying good chunks of information from one of his favourite, younger years, audio books: The Swiss Family Robinson .... I was tempted to set him loose on his older cousin with all that information (waving - hi Jaz).

Charlotte Mason would have just nodded sagely and referred me back to the short sypnosis in her book Philosophy of Education Vol.6

12. "Education is the Science of Relations"; that is, that a

child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts:

so we train him upon physical exercises, nature lore,handicrafts,

science and art, and upon many living books, for we

know that our business is not to teach him all about anything,

but to help him to make valid as many as may be of -

"Those first-born affinities

That fit our new existence to existing things."

In a nut shell (my own): a childs mind is very capable of making their own connections with the literature and experiences they have, or are given, joining up connections from past to present information.

My bibliovores heart just ♥loves♥ the portion... upon many living books.

I enjoy the narrations Bobs and Daisy give back during those science of relations moments .... it reconfirms that the information being processed is factual, or assumed.

So take heart, even when it doesn't seem like all, or any, of the read aloud information is going in to your young listeners - at some level it is. In our home it appears that the science of relations is happening rather well. Which is encouraging for me, after all those hours of reading aloud together, that the read aloud, readers and audio book information is all in there waiting for later connections (-:

If anyone else has a post along the lines of "Education is the Science of Relations" that they have read or written and you'd be willing to share it, please add a link in the comments section.

3 Months of our Current Homeschool Year to Go and Our list of Books Still to Enjoy, or not....

2011-09-15T16:25:00.002+12:00

I guess this post is more for myself than anything else - to help me see what I can put aside to be enjoyed as a random reader later - I do work better with a list.
Sometimes life gets a bit crunchy and it's helpful to see the books we have left to read in our learning year. Then it's time to ditch, switch, and re-sort.

The *really want to read* titles will get read, and enjoyed, along with Bobs readers and Daisy's picture books (she loves them!) plus her readers.

Currently Reading:
~ George Washington’s World H7 - Still reading
~ In Search of Honor – R7 – Great book, but we've put it aside for a bit
~ The Broken Blade – R7 (J)
~ The Story of Eli Whitney (opt: not 3/4) - both
~ Owls in the Family (a delight lead read)
What’s Left to Read:
OPTIONAL (1810) ~ The Journey Man - RA3 (opt: not 3/4)
READER ~ Usborne – Napoleon (S)READ ALOUD ~ Naya Nuki - R3+ (swapped to 3/4) * really want to read*
READER ~ Meet Thomas Jefferson R3 (S)
AUDIO 1804 ~ Streams to the River, River to the Sea -100
FIAR (S) ~ The Hat Makers Sign ~ Fleming
READ ALOUD SCIENCE ~ Diary of An Early American Boy - Sci 4
OPTIONAL READER (J) ~ The Death of Tecumseh (Canada)-Berton
OPTIONAL READER (J) ~ Napoleon and the Battle of Waterloo - Winwar

READER ~ Trailblazer 1812 ~ Abandoned on the Wild Frontier (J)
AUDIO ~ Justin Morgan Had a Horse RA3
OPTIONAL READER (opt: not 3/4) ~ Simon Bolivar -4R
READ ALOUD ~ The Story of the Erie Canal – H3
READER (both) ~ Louis Braille- Davidson - R5
READ ALOUD ~ Imprisoned in the Golden City - H3 (swpd to 3/4) *really want to read*
FIAR (S) ~ Follow the Drinking Gourd
READ ALOUD ~ The Freedom Fighter – Bingham *really want to read*
Optional AUDIO (dramatised) beneath or BOOK (England 1800's)
~ Rosalie’s Good Shepherd ~ Walton/Queen (mum's reader ... I like a book or 2 like this (-;
~ A Peep Behind the Scenes (original title - dramatised audio for Bobs & Daisy)
FIAR (S) ~ The Giraffe That Walked to Paris
READER (J) ~ Swift Rivers - R3 (opt: not 3/4)
OPTIONAL READER (S) 1883 ~ Friends ~Whelan
FIAR (S) ~ The Gullywasher
PICT BK (S) ~ Susanna of the Alamo - Jakes
OPTIONAL READ ALOUD ~ Moccasin Trail - RA4 (opt: not 3/4)
AUDIO ~ Nory Ryan’s Song – R7
NZ PICT BK (revisit with S) ~ Aoteatoa ~ Baldwin H NZ
NZ READ ALOUD ~ The Bat's Nest - de Roo *really want to read*
NZ PICT BK (S) 1830’s+ ~ The Treaty House – Orams
NZ PICT BK (S) ~ Tarore & Her Bible
NZ OPT. READ ALOUD ~ The Children of Clearwater Bay ~ Ellin (Fam. R/A )
NZ READER (J) ~ Tuppenny Brown ~ Sutton
READ ALOUD ~ Levi Straus-The Blue Jeans. Ex SL* really want to read*
READ ALOUD ~ By the Great Horn Spoon - RA4 (3/4)
NZ READER (J) 1850 (boys) ~ Traveller ~ de Roo
NZ READER (S) 1850 (girls) ~ Sergeant Sal ~ de Roo
Christmas lead in’s:
READ ALOUD ~ Bartholomew’s Passage * really want to read*
READ ALOUD ~ The Birds’ Christmas Carol (on line option) * really want to read*
NZ NATURE READ ALOUD ~ A Pocketful of Penguins * really want to read* ♥ Many of the NZ titles we read can be sourced through NZ's library interloan ♥

Sonlight Core 3 - Eli Whitney

2011-09-13T20:19:00.007+12:00

I am hoping to get the children diverted away from owls long enough to read The Story of Eli Whitney soon, maybe later this week... or next (?).
It's a book I'd really like the children to have read since a little while back Bobs and Dn enjoyed listening to JimWeiss read Carry on Mr Bowditch which is also written by Jean Lee Latham.
I had tentative plans to create a notebooking page for Eli Whitney and, fortunately for me, Nadene of Practical Pages has already created some lapnote & notebooking pages for this inventor.

Her pages also include clip art for Robert Fulton which, for us, was an earlier Sonlight Core 3/D.

If you haven't visited Nadene's blog before ... allow some time - Practical Pages is a veritable treasure trove!

Homeschool Meme

2011-09-13T17:27:00.010+12:00

Chareen from Every Bed Of Roses offered us a really nice compliment, and an opportunity for me to rabbit on a little more about homeschooling, when she tagged me for a meme. I had to go and hunt up was a meme was ?? {grin}

Here is our response to this meme:

1. One homeschooling book you have enjoyed
For the Family's Sake By Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

2. One resource you wouldn't be without
My KJV Bible..... and then a customised history schedule that I can always come back to.

3. One resource you wish you had never bought
Writing Tales ... though a near perfect fit for other families, it was just not a good longer term fit for us.

4. One resource you enjoyed last year
Writing With Ease (our way)

5. One resource you will be using next year
Making Math Meaningful

6. One resource you would like to buy
A science teacher {Big Grin}

7. One resource you wish existed
A living literature based New Zealand history curriculum. It would include lapnote & note booking pages, cover geography and come with mapping pages, there would be timeline figures, paperdolls and crafts (poi making, carving & flax weaving kits), recipes and audio books. (I know, big wish (-: )

8. One homeschool catalogue you enjoy reading
I used to enjoy Sonlight's Catalogue, but this year I've been flicking through Christian Book . com's Homeschool Catalogue instead.

9. One homeschooling website you use regularly
Hslaunch

10. Tag six other homeschoolers (+ 1 homeschooled)
If they can manage to fit a meme into their busy lives, I'm really interested to read the answering posts from:
Rachael of Homeschooling Kiwi Style
Dawn of Our Nest of 3
Susan of Wild Life in the Woods (graciously declined)
Jennifer of Adventures in Mama-Land
Eclectic Homeschooling in Canada
Desiree of Journey to the Center of My Life (updated with new blog link)

I'm also tagging Jasmine of Retrobabooshka to join in from the vantage point of retrospect as a young person who was home schooled. ( I love hearing the home educating journey from a young persons perspective!:D

For ease of copy & paste ~ meme questions
1. One homeschooling book you have enjoyed
2. One resource you wouldn't be without
3. One resource you wish you had never bought
4. One resource you enjoyed last year
5. One resource you will be using next year
6. One resource you would like to buy
7. One resource you wish existed
8. One homeschool catalogue you enjoy reading
9. One homeschooling website you use regularly
10. Tag six other homeschoolers

ETA: Though I was only 'allowed' to select 6 homeschoolers for this meme (so hard to select just 6) I'd really like to hear from y'all!!! ... if you want to jump in and play along please do ... just link up your post, with the answers, in the comments section.

Masterpiece Mondays - Artistic Pursuits: Lesson 21

2011-09-13T14:47:00.008+12:00

We customised Lesson 21: Watercolour Lift to complete our artistic study on the kereru.I wanted the pictures to include a painting lesson and an extra lesson in outlining. We're content with the end results and the children worked really diligently to complete their "masterpieces".The pictures on this page were painted by Bobs, Daisy, and me (Belle & Dan will complete their final outlining next week).

2011-09-12T20:02:00.002+12:00

Owls & Delight Led Learning

We started listening to an audio book about owls a while back (I'm a little loath to mention the title here as the rest of the series has some content in it that just does not sit well in my "gizzard" {smile} yet despite that fact the children and I have become very interested in owls!

Even though we were taking a much needed mid term break last week Bobs has been leading his own delight led study about owls … one with NO writing.

Below is some of his delight led learning list. I've streamlined the items for this post.
Owls in the Family (Canadian) by Farley Mowat (Tie-in Reader)
He's also picked up Apologia's Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day as a "sip read" (He and Daisy got quite put out at the hungry sailors eating the friendly Dodo bird!).

Reference reads:
Bird Songs from Around the World by Les Beletsky (a gift from Aunty S (-: )
DK Picturepedia Birds pgs 42-43 (though Bobs & Daisy are reading all the book)
Since we hear a ruru often in our back yard, it was time to look on line at NZ's owl, the morepork:
New Zealand Owl, Ruru (morepork)
Ruru - pictures and sound clip
Classification details
Morepork ~ Ninox novaeseelandiae Picture

Other owl photos he archived - just beautiful!
A: Barn Owl
B: Great Horned Owl
C: Burrowing Owl
D: Greater Sooty Owl
E: Whiskered Screech Owl
F: Masked Owl
G: Elf Owl
H: Snowy Owl
I: Northern Saw-whet Owl
J: Spotted Owl
K: Pygmy Owl
L: Short Earred Owl
M: Brown Fisher Owl
N: Western Screech Owl
O: Great Grey

Children Around the World Colour in Pages

2011-09-09T21:16:00.005+12:00

Even if your children don't like to colour in, the art work off the geography colour sheets from Hugo L'escargot's site would make for great cut-n-craft embellishments for lapnote, lapbook, or notebooking pages.
We don't mind that the wording is predominantly in French and we're using some of the pages that are available as 'title' page dividers in the geography portion of Bobs and Daisy's history folders.I know I've mentioned these pages before on a previous colour-in-pages-and-clip- art post, but they seemed to deserve a post of their own :)

Story of the World 4 ~ Chapt 14 & a free Russian Tales tie-in

2011-09-09T09:00:00.011+12:00

The title of chapt. 14 is The Next-to-Last Czar of Russia but we'd like to rabbit trail when we get there and allow that chapter to become a small leaping off point for Russian Fairy Tales with Russian history, and, Jewish immigration to Ellis Island.

2012 is approaching faster than I'd like and now seems like a good a time as any to start tweaking our history learning schedule into line.

To help soften some of the harsher realties in SOTW4 I'm starting to compile cushioning for Daisy. While the audio, Russian Tales by Arthur Ransome, may seem geared more to youngers, Daisy and I will enjoy listening to it together since we like other cultures select fairy tales.

We'll also pencil in another read through The Memory Coat by Elvira Woodruff because, along with the story line, the illustrations in this book are just exquisite - a perfect opportunity for us to work on sepia ink-wash illustrations of our own.

Story of the World 2 & Middle Ages Notebooking Pages

2011-09-08T22:23:00.007+12:00

We never got around to using these pages, so I've tidied them up a little and popped them over at hslaunch for anyone else that may like to use them.

The design, from memory, was suppose to be representative of medieval wall tapestries.

Middle Ages Notebooking and Lapnote Pages

Story of the World 2 Notebooking and Lapnote Pages

Audio Stories Online

2011-09-07T13:07:00.006+12:00

I think I need to place another post up to be a softer post marker ... so will share this pdf.
Here's a list of online audio stories we placed together for our own use and easy reference.

The list is geared towards younger and early elementary aged children - though Daisy, at age 9, still enjoys them too.
Includes titles for Sonlight, Five in a Row, Classic Stories, and tie-in titles.

2011-09-06T13:36:00.006+12:00

A Personal Note :-(

Thank you to those that have emailed and left comments asking where we've been etc..
I know quite a number of you follow our blog via a reader, so it seems to make sense to 'group reply' here.
(I shan't publish any comments sent prior to this post ... so private email addi's remain private. )

Our entire family is trying to navigate through an unexpected death (a total shock).
My dearest sister, S, and her sweet children, C & G, are in much need of prayer: their husband and daddy just dropped dead while in the throes of organizing a funeral for his own mum.
They are in Aust. and with our Dn committed to being in the Northern hemisphere I must remain here.
God remains our constant source of comfort and hope.

Story of the World 3 ~ Chapt 25

2011-08-30T16:59:00.006+12:00

Daisy has finished her cut-n-craft that goes with our post The French French Revolution & Marie Antoinette.

We had a 'review' reading and discussion through Chapt. 27, A Changing World. I didn't pause too long here since we had a good introduction to much of this information during our use of Beautiful Feet ~ History of Science .

Since both the children were busy reading other books of there choice right then the only set piece of history reading they will be doing is having a quick read through a Sonlight Core D/3 history book - The Story of Eli Whitney by Jean Lee Latham.

***This post has collected a little blog dust so I'll pull it forward and hit post anyway.

The French Revolution

2011-08-27T10:19:00.012+12:00

While we work our way through our 6wk study of European Rediscovery of New Zealand we're also continuing on with Story of the World, Vol. 3 (at a lighter pace - audio C/s, maps and discussion) and our Sonlight Read Alouds.
Last week our SOTW topic was The French Revolution, an era of history that seems to generate a lot of interest in our home so we've gone back through favourite audio books:

~Les Miserable (audio - FOTF Radio Theatre)
~The Reign of Terror (audio read - by Jim Weiss) (Daisy's all time favourite G.A Henty)
added in another new, to Bobs and Daisy, audio book;
~A Tale of Two Cities (audio - abridged)
read a few books;
~A Tale of Two Cities (Usborne Reader)
~Redoubt the Man Who Painted Flowers This book influence the background for Daisy's cut-n-craft to go with SOTW 3 Chapt 25, The French Revolution, & Marie Antoinette. Daisy has yet to colour the page in and glue Marie Antoinette on.
We've used pages 6 & 16 from this notebooking set And for Bobs we're continuing to read aloud a new, to us, SL title;
~In Search of Honor

ETA: For those looking for a free French Revolution Lapbook be sure to check out Have Fun -Live Life's blog spot and her daughter's fine creation: The French Revolution ~ Lapbook

Masterpiece Mondays

2011-08-25T14:40:00.015+12:00

It may seem a little ambitious to start naming our art sessions this and though I typed the title a little tongue-in-cheek , I do think the work the children (& the mums) are having a go at are stretching us all to be more confident with mastering our own pieces of art.

We only have 2 lessons left to complete inside the Artistic Pursuits, book 2, that we have been using as a leaping off point in our lessons this year. This post is not about A.P but about our sketching lessons.

Since my end goal, for Bobs and Daisy, is to put the sketching side of our art time to work in future nature studies we've selected Draw New Zealand Birds, by Heather Arnold off our shelf to learn from.We have kereru visiting our garden regularly so I chose that bird for us all to try drawing first. We used some trace, copy, then outline techniques to get the outline of our birds down on paper - then straight to shading our New Zealand wood pigeons in. Daisy asked for assistance to get the feathered detail around her kereru's breast feathers. I was content to do that for her, at this stage, as continued pencil work can, sometimes, still be 'tough going'. Bobs was keen to sketch his bird, get it drawn fast, and go play the boardgame - Risk. When he saw what Belle (pict to be captured & uploaded later) and Daisy had created, the next day he sat down and worked on his sketch a little more (grin), see below.I've yet to capture & load mumB.K and Dan's sketches and place them here ...

It seems only fair that the children see me drawing too. I haven't sketched on a regular basis since my mum passed away, over 25 years ago, so those rusty old drawing muscles are having to work pretty hard on sketching Mondays (smile).

European Explorers to New Zealand 1600 - 1800

2011-08-24T17:02:00.016+12:00

The children (and I) have been working our way through a hands on project while we look more closely at European Exlorers to New Zealand between the 1600 & 1800's.

I was wanting the exercise to be a geography based one. New Zealand geography, and so creating a map each - along with a concertina lapfold - while we read and discussed our way through this topic in history seemed like a good idea.... to me :)

Using enlarged maps of each island we blacked out the reverse side of the maps outline with a 6b sketch pencil (cellotaping the printed side of the A4 sheets to the ranchslide works as an excellent lightbox).

We then lined up each map, one after the other, with the blacked side onto the sketch paper and Bobs and Daisy proceed to 'reprint' their own maps, Bobs is working on retracing the South Island, below.Once the maps were made Bobs and Daisy have been working on detailing in key points of geography that relate to our European Explorers and New Zealand study. We are using Builders of New Zealand (OOP) as our spine - but have found some good literary sources on the internet that have made certain explorers and events surrounding them spring to life. Bobs (11 & 1/2) is able to work through this study pretty much on his own and I'm giving Daisy (9 & 1/2) the occasional hand, where needed.For anyone interested in having a look at that study you can find our pages over at hslaunch:
Hands-on-Craft & Study: European Explorers to New Zealand 1600 - 1800

And for those looking for extra NZ history books to enjoy we've listed some, in pdf format, we use and like in a link at the top of our blog.

Maori and the Settler: A Story of the New Zealand War

2011-08-11T19:11:00.008+12:00

This book title, written by G.A. Henty, is pencilled in as a read aloud on our history schedule.

For those not able to procure a copy and yet would still like to have a browse through this book try this link... Maori and the Settler.

I'm detailing this next link, on this post, for myself ... it makes it easier to find later :)

Primary source - diaried account of events in the late 1840

Bible Time & Hymns

2011-08-04T12:07:00.013+12:00

Along with exposing the children to a select number of classical composers and their music we also like to introduce Bobs and Daisy to various lyricists of hymns and their hymns.

We've used various things over the years in an on again/off again approach and so this year I decided I'd really like us to take a more disciplined approach to learning new hymns and revisiting our favourites. Adding a little extra side comment here before I go on; We're also enjoying listening to the hymns that relate to the portion of history we are study from Diana Waring's cd All Glory, Laud & Honor ~ Acapella Worship (I've notated those songs/lyricists into our history schedule).

The best way to make sure we keep incorporating something like this into our home educating day is to find a space where we can realistically fit it into the learning schedule. If it's on my schedule there is a better chance of us getting electives done.

I found the obvious space for us to slot our hymn studies was during our 45 minute bible lesson time slot which we enjoy first thing, before any of our other learning time starts, and the hymn gets played randomly at other times during the day (helps support the regular & repetitive approach that works so well for Bobs and Dasiy).

Taking a very Charlotte Mason styled approach to our studies was the obvious and very natural method for us and customised it looks like this:

1: Select a few hymns for our 6 week term and learn them, really learn them by regular and repetitive exposure.

2: Introduce other pieces by the same composer.

3: Reading some living literature about the composer.

4: Employ narration exercises from our read aloud time (orally, only for us here).

5: Add the composers timeline figure and/or details to our book of time (we do this during our 5th week of learning).

Another natural extension to the above, is for us to read through the bible passages that helped birth, or support, the theme of the hymn.

Since our learning terms are 6 weeks long selecting 1 or 2 hymns to learn by heart is very doable.
(Our 6 week learning cycle: 4 weeks of focused work then the 5th week is to tidy up projects, then 1 weeks break.)

Selecting our current hymn and it's lyricist, I'll detail a little of what a series of lessons around one hymn/composer can currently look like in our home.

If we are already familiar with the hymn and the lyricist, or musical composer, being detailed in the book we have chosen to learn from (think John Newton & Amazing Grace) we'll read the excerpt from that book of choice, listen to the hymn, either on c/d or via you-tube, and move along to another lyricist or hymn we are not so familiar with.
Sometimes the hymn/lyricist/composer we are wanting to study is often not found in the book we have been using this year: Stories of the Great Hymns, so we pick and chose from a few other books we have. Stories of the Great Hymns is informationally lite for Bobs so we've been reading other information about the lyricists on wikipedia and through various hymn websites (comparing what different sources/authors believe is fact about a person creates some interesting discussions) and if we can easily access them, for Bobs, we try to find including reading through a primary source.

This term we are learning Soldiers of the Cross Arise and introducing Jesus, Lover of My Soul or O for a Thousand Tongues. Those will then complete our study on lyricist Charles Wesley whom we started learning about the previous term. The excerpts we are reading to go with the above hymns come from this book: With Soldiers of the Cross the companion scripture reading is Ephesians 6:10-20 (putting on the full armor of God) and here's a good spot for me to share one of our family's personal preferences :) ......... We like to use The King James Version for bible study and devotion time. The children have been exposed to the beautiful language in The King James bible since they were very little so it's not 'difficult' language for them. And for those interested, one of the WTM moms shared a link to this interesting article which extolls some of the literary benefits of reading the KJV.

Right, back to the topic of Soldiers & Armour - there are a good number of copywork sheets available to use with Ephesians 6 dotted around the internet .... if you don't feel like creating your own.

Along with with copywork sheets there are also some rather nice colour in pages and sunday school crafts, like this one ,that one can find using g.oo.gle and if you're looking for a Full Armor of God page for a girl don't forget to visit Nadene of Practical Pages page here.

Captain Cook, New Zealand, and Australia

2011-08-02T12:17:00.011+12:00

We've just started our SOTW3 Chapt:24 related study on Captain Cook and his travels south to downunder :☺

I've purposely only allowed us 2 weeks to pause here, that should be enough time to stop us (me) from getting so lost in rabbit trails that trying to get back to our SOTW schedule becomes a herculean effort.

We're nearing the end of the first week and the children have already sorted out what they personally would like to read from the books below and we've starting employing a few of our notebooking pages made a while ago and can be found over at hslaunch. (If you type Captain Cook notebooking into the search feature on our blog you'll find the posts that detail those links).
We put the DvD, shown above, away since some of the content on it would be too graphic, or disturbing, for Bobs and Daisy. Bar those few scenes, Dn & I found it to be an informative, if rather an emotionally sad, portrayal of Captain Cook.

I'm still entertaining the idea of using Kotuku ~ The Flight of the White Heron as our nature/science study book for a few weeks. Daisy enjoyed it as a reader and I like that sort of science ..... smile.

I'm also taking the opportunity to refresh our geography skills with New Zealand, The Pacific Islands, and Australia. The audio memory geography songs that relate to the southern 'islands/continent' are totally inadequate for those of us that actually live down here ☺

At a very basic level, those songs needed the names of all the pacific islands, the territories and states of Australia, and the capitals of Aust and N.Z ... which would have made the songs about 7 mins long each (laughing) - not an option right!

It's also time to refresh the national anthems: The national anthem for Australia is Advance Australia Fair. Up until 1974 God Save the Queen was Australia's recognised national anthem - that song is now it's royal anthem.
Our two national anthems for New Zealand are God Defend New Zealand - sung in Maori & English, and God Save the Queen. For those outside NZ - yes, we do have two "national" anthems though the first one is the anthem more commonly sung and embraced as our national anthem.

Classical Composer Study for Haydn, Mozart, & Beethoven

2011-07-26T22:58:00.005+12:00

Dawn of Our Nest of 3 blog has crafted, and then generously shared, a really nice study on Haydn, Mozart, & Beethoven. She has spent hours of work inserting lots of helpful links - I'm seriously impressed!

You can find her post with the links to her pdf, here.

Dawn's study is a perfect composer tie-in to go with where we are in our SOTW3 readings.

Haydn is slight review and Mozart is up for study next.

A Heart Strangely Warmed By L. Vernon (alternate option ahead)

2011-07-24T22:54:00.008+12:00

A little while back we read through A Heart Strangely Warmed, a Sonlight scheduled Core 7/H history read aloud.John Wesley's life/ministry has always interested me so I was pretty keen to dive into that book. Hold the "keen" Chelle. We ended up manfully (or womanfully in my case) plodding our way through the entire book.

I knew I'd read a John Wesley biography for children some years earlier that I'd enjoyed much more than the book SL recommends so I went scouting through our church library, found it, and came home with Horseman of the King: The Story of John Wesley by Cyril Davey.

Great book! The story line flows more smoothly, the writing style is just that much better to read out aloud, the book does not contain typos (like many of my posts do, grin, & AHSW does ) and the bonus ...... it's written to the same reading level as AHSW, ages 9-12 years.

If you're looking for a copy of Horseman of the King I found bookdepository has a really reasonably priced paperback copy, with free postage. Christianbook . com sadly don't stock it at all - yet.

Artistic Pursuits Bk2 ~ Project 21 (well, sort of)

2011-07-14T20:30:00.009+12:00

It seems like it's time for us to put up another post that relates to our shared art time.

We're blessed to be able to explore art, co-op style, with another home educating family and as a group have just about completed the rest of Artistic Pursuits k-3, Bk 2 and I've included some pictures that we've birthed out of that book.

Watercolour - Primary colours and silhouettes, above.

I sort of, totally actually (smile), reinvented the lesson - Project 21: Watercolor Lift and we ended up creating the above works of art ..... Some of the techniques we ended up trying were pretty advanced for a younger art class, yet they all did so well.

New Zealand Stories or History Reader and Date Order Schedule

2011-07-13T13:31:00.012+12:00

30 Hideous & Hilarious New Zealand Historical Stories
Edited By Barbara Else

We are using this book as a complimentary reader/read aloud during our ongoing study of New Zealand History.

(The book appears to currently be unavailable for purchase, new, but is still easily sourced for loan through a local, New Zealand, library.)

With the stories we've selected to use out of this book, the children are taking turns to read them out aloud to the rest of us. I've placed our date order reading schedule over here, at hslaunch.

It's a general schedule for Barbara Else's book and we're referring to it as we go through each era of NZ history with our history spines, SOTW and Builders of NZ.

We won’t be reading Story 18 and for others that like to have a 'heads up' about a book someone else is using, you might like to know these extra details about the book:
Story 19 - Deals with the spiritual beliefs of the Maori.
Story 28 - Has a 'grandad's generation' curse word in it.
Stories 20 & 30 - Pre-read before handing to a sensitive younger child to read on their own.

I've received some rather eye popping suprises with a few of the books Sonlight chooses, so it's nice to know about content in a book before hand, means one can make a quicker choice to discuss, modify or skip some of the content, or, just toss a book and choose something else.

As a closing comment - the book has an informative set of historical notes to go with each story and a time line with accompanying illustrations that can be copied and pasted into a time line book :-) .

Betsy Ross Notebooking Pages

2011-07-10T16:40:00.007+12:00

I tossed together some rather basic notebooking pages for Betsy Ross that we ended up not using since Daisy decided she'd rather just read the book, Betsy Ross: Designer of Our Flag , give an oral narration and move right along.
Someone else may find a use for these pages though, so we've placed them over at hslaunch: Betsy Ross Notebooking, Craft, and Colour in Pages

New Zealand History Spines

2011-07-09T12:39:00.012+12:00

I guess you may have to be an NZ -er to be interested in this post :) .... I've posted a pdf over at HSlaunch that shows samples of the 2 history spines we have used, and like, for our New Zealand based history texts.

We're getting ready, again, to go though Captain Cook's voyages to New Zealand using Story of the World Vol.3 and Builders of New Zealand as our spines.

I few years back I picked up an NZ history audio series to use and just couldn't stand listening to the narrator's voice so after searching, collecting, reviewing and comparing possible other options I elected to use Builders of NZ over other books currently in print. BoNZ has a narrative tone to it that isn't penned in sarcastic humour and is more than just being a deliverer of dates and facts as some other texts are.

ETA: We often get asked about Awesome Aotearoa. For those wanting an informative review on AA, pop over to Michelle's blog, the owner of Downunder lit . I share her sentiments on that NZ history book.
My view point comes from the perspective of a mum whose family reads and enjoys the humour in various books out of the Horrible History and Murderous Math series,
Ms. Mahy is a gifted wordsmith yet AA, in my opinion, is not a "fun" book; but one that appears to be totally lacking in respect to any group of people, especially the Maori.

So we choose to enjoy a more old fashioned toned, wholesome text, Builders of New Zealand. Others may dislike BoNZ, but it suits our family rather well.

For those that may be looking for other New Zealand based literature here is a link to an older post listing the New Zealand influenced books we use in our home educating studies, since they just happen to already be on our shelves :-) Or just can just jump straight to the link at the top of our blog.

2011-07-04T22:22:00.012+12:00

Grammar-Land by M.L. Nesbit
I really enjoy being the last-in-line with an idea, topic or book since I then get to use the skilled work of other home educating moms/mums. A perfect example of me benefiting from being last-in-line is with our current use of Grammar-Land by M.L. Nesbitt. We purchased our copy through Learnex, but for those wanting other options: a free on line, or downloadable edition , or for a more economical printed copy go here.
For others, like us, hoping to do some written review with this book beneath are two options for free Grammar-Land worksheets:
These FREE grammer worksheets and games were created by Karen of God's Gem 4 Life. Nice job!
And these FREE grammar worksheets were created by Jessica of We Don't Need No Education. Really helpful and nicely crafted! Jessica has very thoughtfully placed her pages up on google documents since not everyone has success using scribd.
It's great being last-in-line :)

2011-06-29T11:01:00.021+12:00

Notebooking Pages for George Washington's WORLD

I've been trawling the internet for some notebooking pages that have been created specifically to go with Genevieve Foster's book, George Washington's World.

Nothing found, so far, though I was able find some lapbooks and a few generic notebooking pages for George Washington. A couple of those notebooking options can be found at Activity Village and Notebooking Nook , copywork for Washington's Civility Rules ....... and this squidoo lense lists other options for George Washington go alongs.

If you have found, or made George Washington notebooking pages that you'd like to share - please leave a link in the comments sections.

Asking on the Sonlight Forums didn't seem to pull anything to light, so I guess I'll have to carry on tossing together pages for the remainder of the book. We're using the images out of the book for our completed G.W.W's notebooking pages which means those pages can only be for our family's personal use.

I've popped our basic/generic notebookings pages that go with G.W.W over at hslauch, here are the links:
George Washington's WORLD - option 1~ Notebooking Pages and for students requiring more space to write or draw,
George Washington's WORLD - option 2 ~ Notebooking Pages. Beneath are some visuals for how we're using the first set of those notebooking pages:Out of the 3 options for written work Bobs and Daisy both preferred the booklet. We scanned and resized the images by inserted them into microsoft publishers so the cover picture and both pages would match up for the booklet.
Along with writing about G.W, Bobs will be also be selecting one of the other people in this time period to write a brief overview about and Daisy will give a narration for me to play scribe to.

The world map that relates to each chapter in the book, sourced from Sonlight's Core 7/H instructors guides, once completed, is then trimmed and glued to the back of one of the above pages that the children elected to use for their copywork or written narration.
Above: We've cut out the time line figures, prescanned and resized in microsoft publisher, then placed them on our premade time line sheet.

The children presorted the figures into associated piles and then colour coded them accordingly; red-religion, purple-world leaders/royalty, yellow-music/arts, brown-inventors, green-explorers, blue-(future) US government.

All done - next chapter :0))

2011-06-26T20:01:00.006+12:00

Accelerating Writing With Ease?

We're doing a more intensive writing program for 6th grade Bobs and we often get asked *how* we are going about accelerating WWE level 3 and level 4, so that we are covering the content in a year.

Maybe sharing here what we're doing may be of some help to others too.

Using the hardcover WWE text saves the day - I only pull out the teacher/student workbook if we need to 'pause for reflection' with an element that may require more coverage. Since we are practicing identifying the central elements continually, within our history spine and read alouds, I haven't concerned myself about using the WWE workbooks regularly, this year, for that with Bobs.
Story of the World allows that particular language arts muscle to be exercised regularly.

With the teacher's text I like to take note of the elements Susan lists to be covered in subsequent lessons, these are the elements listed after the ones she has laid out as prescribed lessons.
ie: pg 134, year three - weeks 12-19
proper nouns
helping verbs
direct objects following action verbs
state of being verbs and linking verbs, and etc....
We then select our own reading passages that cover, or reviews, as many of those elements as possible. Some of the WWE style pages we create are stored over at hslaunch and show working examples of this.

I like Bobs to have a go at the passages and elements Susan has selected in the text so we cover those complete lesson, days 1-4, unless it is too easy for him, then I'll beef the selected dictation pieces up to match the level of work I know he should be able to do.

2011-06-24T16:43:00.008+12:00

Wondering What to Use After FLL/WWE?

For those interested to see samples of Susan Bauer's Gr5+ L/A's curric, she has samples for viewing up on her Well Trained Mind blog now.
Once there, scroll down her post looking for the pdf links titled:
WWS Student SmallSampleToPage95 (Writing With Skill)
WWS.InstructorSmallSample
Then further down:
ALL-Grade 5-finalsampleproof (Advanced Language Lessons ... Grammar)
Mrs. Bauer has provided some very generous samples which allows us to have an indepth look into the program - I'm going to enjoy looking through all the pdf's more analytically, when I can, and then see what Bobs thinks of these 'potential' new language arts arrows.

I'll keep you posted :)

2011-06-23T22:19:00.005+12:00

Johnny Tremain - Language Arts Pages
Since we like to try to combine, or review, as many topics as we can in our language arts time, this week our current sonlight read-aloud (audio c/d in our case), Johnny Tremain became the epi-centre for history, grammar, spelling and dictation, narration, and cursive handwriting.
Bobs and Daisy love it when mum gets seriously organised to nail the subjects down neatly all into one short, did I mention short :), written piece.
Our language arts sheets, in the Writing With Ease style, can be found over at hslaunch.

2011-06-16T22:37:00.018+12:00

On Line Extras for SOTW 3 & Core 3

We're currently enjoying a 6 week run through the American Revolution and for those interested here is the hslaunch link to our notebooking pages for Story of the World Vol.3, Chapt. 22 .

For others that like online extras, Usborne Quick Links have a good line up of sites to compliment Story of the World Vol.3, starting from the "George" Kings up to Queen Victoria (the Victorian era is covered in SOTW4).

With the Usborne Quick Links, it was time for us to revisit their easy access to paper dolls (website 17) and artist/art links for the 1700's, as well as this Liberty! Road to Revolution game which will be a nice something for Bobs to go through following our week in SOTW3 Chapt:22 ~ Revolution.
Daisy enjoys studying how the woman & children are dressed in each era. Men's clothing, apparently, is just not that fun to look at, well.........apart from a few of the kings decked out in their finest, that is. smile .

With her interest in clothing styles in each era, I think she may enjoy this very introductory style side trip to a dress the person in historic clothing site .

That site will also compliment the 'complete-the-picture' notebooking art page * Daisy will putter away over while we listen to the audio mp3 of Johnny Tremain. (*Notebooking Art age can be found in the hslaunch link at beginning of this post.)

2011-06-10T22:04:00.021+12:00

Home Educating Conference with Dr. Jay Wile

Or, should that be titled: What On Earth Is Chelle Doing At A Traditional- Approach- to- Science Conference?

Freebie First - Dr. Wile is offering the first book in his new series, Science in the Creation Week, a creation based elementary science curriculum, for free to those that live outside the USA. That test pilot offer is especially good for Australian & New Zealand home educators with the download being ready for field testing in August 2012 .

Here's the web link for those interesting in following this curriculums development.

Now back to the more current happenings in my small world: I couldn't really believe that I was willingly electing to go to a science conference - shudder - all those topics that just seem to delight only the males in our home and here I was driving, about an hour up the road, to sit through topics like echo-hysteria (which was actually very interesting) and science from the bible. I must admit that during the last lecture I quietly slipped out and headed for home - I think I was starting to shut down from 'science' overload.

Dr. Wile, author of Apologia Science is a very engaging and eloquent speaker - if you get the chance to attend one of his conferences, even from my slightly, ha, resistant to traditional science view point, go! You'll come away the better for it. Maybe not a convert to the traditional science approach, but like me - the better for listening to Dr. Wile expound on a subject he is gifted in and passionate about, and hopefully learn more about this wonderful creation we live in.... as well as come away encouraged by just being around other home educators for a day (without the washing to switch).

The hand out notes for the conference sessions held in New Zealand can be found here . I enjoyed two sessions more than the others: What are They Doing Now? (revisiting previous homeschoolers and seeing where they are now) and the second session was Teaching Critical Thinking.

Dr. Wile waved the "in favour" flag during his critical thinking talk for the math curriculum we use and like so much: Making Math Meaningful.

Makes one feel good about the choices they've made, though we'd still like & use it regardless of that comment (smile).

For the interested, before you ask (smile)... yes, I am still thinking about, and going through, the upper levels of Apologia for Bobs to start using midway through 2012, as I think, with a few adjustments, he may enjoy going through that.

2011-06-05T21:56:00.011+12:00

Our History Plan So Far

Using Story of the World as our main spine we basically took about three and a half , nearly four, years to do the first two books in the series adding in extra side trips, many audio books, DvD's & picture books, along with hands-on things for one DC (and sanity restoring stops for mother ).

I'd take the same length of time again, with our DC at those ages - it worked well for our DFam even though it means we will only be doing 2 complete cycles through Hist.
And since we get asked what we have actually done with our children and at what ages .....here's that list, which also includes our current year, 2011, and next years, 2012, plans:History Cycle for Bobs:
2005 & 2006 Prek & Core K (SL) & FIAR (Geography & Cultures) (ages 5&6)

2007 & 2008 SL Core 1 & SOTW1 (Ancients) (ages 7&8)

2009 & 2010 SL Core 2 & SOTW 2 (Middle Ages) (ages 9&10)

2011 Customised SL Core 3, 1/2 of SL Core 7, & SOTW3, with some geography (Early Modern Times) (age 11)

2012 Customised SL Core 4, other 1/2 of SL Core 7, & SOTW4, with some geography (Modern Age) (age 12) History Cycle for DD:
2006 FIAR & Listening in to part of Core K (Geography & Cultures) (age 4)

2007 & 2008 Some of SL Core 1 & SOTW1 (Ancients) – LOTS of picture based books (ages 5&6)

2009 & 2010 Some of Core 2 & SOTW 2 (Middle Ages) - LOTS of picture based books (ages 7&8)

2011 Customised Core 3, & SOTW3, with some geography (Early Modern Times) – some pict based books (age 9)

2012 Customised Core 4, & SOTW4, with some geography (Modern Age) (age 10)

I should also add that we've intentionally added in extra time to pause during certain chapters in SOTW and take extra time to look more indepth at: New Zealand, Australia, Scottish, and British history - because those countries in history are important to our family history.

And then the next question usually seems to be, "So what are you going to use after that?".
Well ...........I have quite a few potential plans floating around on scraps of paper, and in my head (grin) are lists of possibilities, of what we could do in 2013.
I'm waiting until we get closer to having to nail things down as children, well ours seem to, can just take an absolute mammoth leap forward in a particular area of learning.
Sometimes that can frustrate the best laid plans, sigh!
This year was a classic example with Bobs and Core 3: the books are just not a good fit for him, when I imagined, back then (when?) that it would be such a good fit for our lad.....when we got to the proposed spot to start using Core 3.

Bobs is really enjoying the books we've selected out from Core (half of) 7. And Daisy, who I thought might not be so interested in the Core 3 books, is really enjoying them.
ETA: Here is the schedule we've adjusted (adding in 1/2 of core 7/H) and are now working from.

SOTW3, Sonlight Core 3, Sonlight Core 7, Schedule with an NZ flavour
If they take a quantum leap out of next years intended history plan, arrrh - perish the thought, I may have to create a hair tearing post ..... to garner some sympathy :) and then scramble to pull one of the potential options out of the thinking pile really fast.

2011-05-16T15:20:00.007+12:00

Peter the Great Lapnote & Notebooking Pages

We've finally got around to reading Peter the Great by Diane Stanley as a reader for both children and matching that into Story of the World Vol.3 , Chapter 17.Since this is the week that the focus for L/A's is all switched to our history topic we've pulled in the WWE style language arts pages we created (& never used) to go with our SL Core 2 book, Peter the Great.

I've created a few cut and create lapnote options to go with Tsar Peter, so for those that are not using SOTW3 I've also tossed in 2 generic options for history writing, as well as an option for an older student.

The pages are pretty self explanatory and can be found over at:
HSlaunch Peter the Great - Lapnote and Notebooking Pages

2011-05-12T23:01:00.001+12:00

French-Americans, and Slavery in the late 1600’s

I started out using the bones of this post as our weekly Core 3(D) check in, but it’s not very core 3-ish, it smacks of Core 7, so I decided to pop it up here instead.

We’ve just started our next Sonlight Read Aloud, Escape Across the Wide Sea by Katherine Kirkpatric, which is a Core 7 (H) book, and we’re all enjoying it – even though Dn is *butchering* all those the French words :)
I decided to throw together a few French history colour in sheet for Daisy, along with a mapping page (scanned out of the SL read aloud) and some notebooking pages for Bobs to use during language arts time. You can find them over at:
HSlaunch - French-Americans, Escape Across the Sea Notebooking Pages

We’ve also listened through Prince Caspian, and The Silver Chair again, since both have a tie-in theme of slave trading or slavery, and any excuse is a good enough one to pull out the Narnia audio books for a re-listen .

2011-05-08T16:37:00.016+12:00

The Witch of Blackbird Pond - Notebooking Pages
We all enjoyed this Sonlight scheduled read aloud, though I have to say Dn and I saved our voices and enjoyed it via the audio book with the children. On our customised, Story of the World 3 & Sonlight Core 3, schedule you'll find The Witch of Blackbird Pond slotted in on page 1c, SOTW3 chapter: 15.
(We've edited our schedule a few times since we placed that one up on hslaunch, I may have to upload the schedule we are using now).

We appreciated the character lessons and history detailed in The Witch of Blackbird Pond and so I went ahead and created a few (very plain) pages for Daisy to use to go with this book, namely: a copywork page and a colour in page.
HSlaunch: Witch of Blackbird Pond Notebooking Pages

2011-05-07T22:29:00.008+12:00

Poetry Copywork
Since me & mine are keen poetry 'appreciators' I thought I'd create this random post.

We like to have poetry copywork sheets, which include optional colour in themes for Daisy, to go with some of the recitation pieces we are working on.
Seems a waste to create these pages just for us and then leave them languishing in our files so I thought I'd share some of our past efforts that others may like to use too.

Poems include pages for:

The Caterpillar by Christina G. Rossetti

A Wise Old Owl by Edwards H. Richards

The Little Plant by Kate L. Brown

God is Like This by Rowena Bennet

I've detailed how we use them, should that interest anyone too, on the first page of the following pdf .

HSlaunch Poetry copywork pages.

2011-04-26T16:41:00.012+12:00

Life of Fred and Making Math Meaningful

Bobs is enjoying the Life of Fred books (he's encountered so far very much) and the first 2 books tie in so well with M.M.M level 6.

L.O.F is a wonderful incentive to make sure other, less palatable, learning tasks are done.
See these samples if you'd like to see inside L.O.F books.

Daisy gets enthralled by what Fred is up to next and wants Bobs to 'work' the math part out so they can move on with the story.

They valiantly plowed through the first book far quicker than I wanted Bobs (them) to so I quietly put the second book "out of reach" for a while since I wanted us to use it for study now - using portions of our M.M.M text for further practice where, or as, needed.

L.O.F books are a hit in our home .... I like reading them too - wish math had been this much fun when I went to school :-)

2011-04-23T11:24:00.010+12:00

Science
Seems like many of our posts lately are about this topic ..... odd really, with me so science orientated (laugh).

Daisy has completed her Exploration Education box and is strongly encouraging Bobs to 'get done' so that they can enjoy their next choice for science (Yes, it will still be part of our science boxes approach).

After comparing the various options available and since the children have enjoyed building "Billy Bones" (only seven weeks to go and Billy, picture above, is all built!!) we decided they might like to have a go with:

Apologia's Exploring Creation With Human Anatomy,

Complete with a notebook each, regular level and junior level,

And the wonderful experiments supply box.

The items are not all loose like this they have been efficiently packaged together into plastic lock bags which relate to each lesson's experiment and labelled accordingly.

Daisy wanted to get started as soon as the box arrived - since it comes complete with quite a few American sweets, (smile) such a novelty and a book you can colour in, cut, paste and create lapnotes for! I think the junior level notebook is lovely and bar the line spacing for writing (too large), this notebook is a perfect fit for Daisy to complete on her own.

We've also selected a few books to go in the children's book basket; a notable reading mention for Bobs is Tiners, Exploring the History of Medicine.

I noticed that Lilliput Station have some really nice free notebooking pages to go with Exploring the History of Medicine.

I'll keep you 'posted' as we go along, how well we're all doing with this :-)

2011-04-09T23:21:00.007+12:00

Time Line - Sonlight Book of Time

Since it's our last week of scheduled learning, you know the 5 weeks on - 1 week off run we do, I've got the next week set up to be our tidy-up-and-complete-various-things week.

One thing we like to do during week 5 on our schedule is to work some more on our Sonlight Book(s) of Time.

We've got all the timeline figures, that match up with the previous 5 weeks of our SOTW 3 readings, cut out and stored in a snap lock bag - then we'll go through a quick verbal review of each figure as we place them in our books.

2011-04-08T18:31:00.022+12:00

Science Boxes

I actually typed most of this in reply to a query from a SL friend, Annie, and thought I'd reshare it here since we get quite a few homeschooling mums/moms asking about our science boxes.

I'd rather not do science, while my children seem to love it - perhaps because it's always been delight led (?). So with those 2 factors in mind I'm continually looking for ways to create a compromise to suit us all.

I'll detail next what we've been doing since Sep 2010: Bobs and Daisy enjoy the freedom of choosing their own box and I'm happy since I don't have to 'take' science.

Funny thing is I get so interested in what they are doing that I usually end up asking 'can I have a turn" - so we're all happy.

With our "science boxes" - I am using a mix of Exploration Education's boxes and some of our previously purchased, and unused, Sonlight's science supply kit boxes all set up 'to go'. The children choose which ever box they feel like using, on the day. Pictured beneath are the the SL science supply kit boxes boxes, filled with all the bits n pieces, along with the appropriate DvDs (no IG's). Since we do science Monday afternoon's (think relaxed start to the week!!!!!!)& Friday afternoons, Bobs and Daisy watch a DvD , if they wish, then try an experiment and for their reader that day they *must* pick a science based book out of their basket (I place various SL & other science books in there). For those not familiar with the Exploration Education boxes we are using see this blog post: science for 2010-2011.

Again, the children just do whatever they feel like completing (such a bad science mummy). Daisy, in Elemenatary Level, has just completed her science buddy and the scales and Bobs started working on his "electric car".

(Our cheeky little Bichon found Daisy's science buddy when no-one was around. He had a wonderful chew on it and swallowed one of the eyes - science buddy now looks like a cyclops!)

With the Intermediate Level, Bobs uses the teachers book - makes the computer side of the lessons so much more enjoyable and less "hunt for the answer". Not very high tech I know, but there you have it.

2011-04-03T22:04:00.009+12:00

Bible Colour in Pages.

Really nice (extra) colour in pages can sometimes be a stretch to find.

Pages that have more realistic pictures but are not so heavily detailed that Daisy gets dispondent with ALL the tiny lines - and pages that are different than the ones she's coloured in before.

I've been eyeing these for a little while: The student pages for Telling God's Story , they sure do have some wonderful art work for colouring in.

We are not using the course that goes with these page, we have our own preferred approach to teaching bible .

We just want to use the colour in sheets in the pdf (and perhaps a few of the craft/game ideas), those will suit us just fine.

Samples of the art work can be viewed here.

And, a great bonus for internationals wanting to purchase their downloads: Peace Hill Press now have payment available via paypal. So convenient.

2011-04-03T18:11:00.015+12:00

Artistic Pursuits - Lesson 14: Project 14

I wanted our small art group to have more than one go with blending tempera paint for backgrounds.

So for the first run through we worked with blending just 2 colours, blue & white for the base for a collage type picture.

The children (& the mums) also had a go at practising basic shading with lead pencil.

We used 2 of Mark Kistler's 3d Drawing Lessons off his paid subscription web site, School of Imagination. For those interested in having a free go with quick 3d drawings, you a can find some interesting freebies on Mark's You Tube spot.

I think the children did a great job and each piece expresses their individuality (smile).Belle got the fish's eyes, above, just right - making sure those jelly fish knew who to listen to!Bobs wanted to be sure his fish had s.i.z.e, he really enjoyed drawing the jellyfish The picture above was a great achievement for Daisy who often struggles with pencil controlDan's picture, above, has a wonderful textured finished - unplanned but so effective!

And, one of the marmee's decided to 'have a go at all that' too!

2011-03-31T19:18:00.014+13:00

Artistic Pursuits - Project 12

Some lovely homeschooling friends have allowed us to drag them into our Monday art sessions - we're enjoying a nice relaxed start to each week, while we draw and paint together.

Our focus is to practice learning to wield a pencil with more confidence(referring to Drawing with Children loosely as my guide) and to have a go working with different mediums, using Artistic Pursuits GrK-3 Book 2 as our spring board as well as for some Art History intro.

I got Dn to help me set up the first round of plaster on cardboard and went to painting it very late one Sunday evening: I had fun at midnight and decided we all surely must enjoy our first project together the next day.

Painting in wet plaster was a delight filled experience and I'm sure we'll be working with that medium again!!

Here are the Monday Masterpieces to go with Lesson 12: Fresco.

BK (one of the marmees) went for design with a touch of kiwi

Dan invested his piece, below, with symbology -

Belle became inspired by BK's picture and created a garden scene, below

Daisy decided she'd paint a flower garden, below, in the style of Van gogh

Bobs wanted to portray his l.o.v.e of kiwi ice-cream.

And, seeing them all having such fun, I just had to have another go, below

2011-03-31T18:55:00.011+13:00

Notebooking Pages for History - Early Modern Times

When asked, Daisy was quite keen for us to put up a few visuals of the history craft / notebooking pages that she's completed while we read Story of the Word Vol.3.

Bobs was not interested in sharing his finished results (laughing), he completes his history pages because handwriting exercises are mandatory sometimes.

(The blank pages can be found over at HSlaunch: SOTW3 Lapnote & Notebooking Pages )

2011-03-30T08:37:00.019+13:00

Fine Tuning our 2011 Learning Year.

After using our current line up, Story of the World 3 with many of the SL Core 3 books, we've found our literary history time is just too light for Bobs - time to fine tune as a slightly disinterested Bobs is not what I'm aiming for for the rest of our 2011 learning year (Feb - Dec).

I've looked at a few options of how to change that and started with looking at different complimentary history spines and/or pulling in extra reading material.

Since we already own a few (15) of the books in Core 7 I pulled out our old 2010 catalogue (if you've been on the SL forums lately you'll either nod in understanding, or roll your eyes) and selected out a few more books from Core 7. I've chosen those books that match in well with SOTW3 and along with ordering the IG, for the notes, we're ready to ramp the level up for Bobs after our term break which is in 3 or so weeks.

Many of the remaining books from Core 7 I hope to eventually purchase and use with SOTW 4, in 2012.

I really like doing history and geography (complimentary) together and SOTW & SL's books are a great mix to achieve that seamlessly.

We're planning to use something other than the SL6 or SL7 approach for Bob's with his rhetoric level/course of history. (Still thinking about that though).

So our current schedule will remain in place for Daisy, it's a perfect fit for her.

Our new course of action for history/geography will look like this:

For Both;

SOTW 3

Geography Songs for Daisy (Review for Bobs)

Evan-Moor The World Reference Maps & Forms (select pages)

For Bobs;

Kingfisher Encyc 1/2 of SL Core 7 (Readers & Read Alouds) inc's Foster books

New Zealand history enrichment

Writing exercises appropriate for Logic Level

For Daisy;

Usborne Book of World History

Core 3/4 (first part) Readers and Read Alouds

New Zealand history enrichment

Writing exercises appropriate for Grammar Level.

2011-03-28T15:32:00.011+13:00

Math with Money #2

Just to save (me) some time I'll pop the pictures of our NZ money review in this spot. The pictures actually go with this post, which also includes the link to the blank sheets.

2011-03-15T22:39:00.016+13:00

Math with Money - NZ Currency.

Daisy’s math for a few weeks has been money, and time, and since our text (Making Math Meaningful) is American - the dollars and cents work in there is just not going to cut it for us – no need to reinvent the wheel I’ve just taken a side step to work with our currency.

Here are the few sheets we threw together for review and placed over at HSlaunch:

Pages for Math using New Zealand Money . (We've included pictures in our next post.)

For those wanting to generate their own worksheets online you can do that at on line math.

Then just because we could: I pulled out the play money, drafted up a sheet in pencil with pictures for shopping time while Daisy got out the play cash registar ..... and math becomes “play” time; which is very distracting for Bobs :-)

It’s a little hard to computate la.oooooooooooooooooong division when your little sister is ka-chinging and rattling around with plastic money. It is to be noted however that they went on to make rather purchases well into the thousands, once Bobs abandoned his division drill.

The sheets we hand drew included basic money skills:

1: A dress cost $32.50. You gave the cashier $40.00, how much change did she give you?

(And Daisy would work the amount of change out with the play money - no writing involved here just all practical application).

Here's another: 2: You purchased an ice-cream for $2.30 and a bottle of water for $2.70. How much did you spend in total?

And etc… She enjoyed herself.

A link we used that may interest other kiwi’s too, was The Reserve Bank website .

If you start clicking around under the schools tab, located on the left hand side of their web page, you’ll find some extras that make good ‘go alongs’ for a unit on NZ money.

For those pressed for time: The direct link to the school projects page is here . And for teachers items, try here.

From their site we ordered some free booklets to read through about the history of NZ currency (very interesting) and a smaller wall size chart with details about our current currency.

Those items can be found on this page under Currency.

2011-03-12T15:02:00.011+13:00

Organising & Schedules for 2011 ~ Part 2

This post focuses on the Language Arts portion of our schedule (the schedule can be found at the end of this post) since I find that area of homeschooling seems to get top heavy with extra, or busy, work if I'm not careful.

Since we just use CM methods and language arts skills the way it seems to suit us, I grab the texts I'm going to use (if any :-) ) and browse through the line up the authors have given for the teaching week along with the language arts skills covered , then I jot down an outline of how many times I'm hoping to get each method taught and what will we be using to do that - no point having copywork in bible, language arts, handwriting, science or history all in one day.
Or a day loaded fill with dictation exercises.
Often we can incorporate many language arts skills in one area - other times it's best to leave them seperated out.

You can find our schedules over at hslaunch for the proposed weekly lessons in our language arts line up for 11 year old Bob's (J's Language arts) and for 9 year old Daisy:

HSlaunch Language Arts Schedule for 2011 (incs a blank schedule for others to use).

2011-01-31T22:31:00.012+13:00

Free Notepages - Prominent Figures in History

I keep meaning to re-share this link:
Famous People Notebooking Pages from Activity Village.

It just saves a ton of time :-) to have pages "ready made" and easy to access on line when doing written dictation, written narration or copywork during SOTW, and Daisy is happy with alternate options to colour in during history read aloud time.

Actually... Jim Weiss has been doing all the SOTW reading for us so far, (smile) he's about to read us chapter 4.

2011-01-23T22:32:00.027+13:00

Organising & Schedules for 2011 Part 1

I've been slowly working at getting everything into some sort of working order so we can start 'scheduled' learning again.

We started with reinventing our chore 'helps' ... it's time for us to move on from the chore board (Family Pegs) though the children still like it up to hang their privilege tags on.

I've reinvented the Kids Work template/idea sourced from here and customised it to suit each child - we use a two week rotation: Each child does a different set of helping tasks in the second week than they would do in the first week.

Bobby & Daisy are old enough now that they can take full responsibility to get the next task done, tick things off on the sheet and let me know to come check.

We call it our recall sheet, not a chore sheet - it may be a case of semantics, but it works :-)

For us this is a good way to ensure force of habit is happening with mum being a support, with gentle questioning from me on how are they getting on with their recall sheet ... a bit like the example Charlotte Mason recounts in the story of a young boy as he masters the habit of 'learning' to close the door properly - gentle reminders on the part of his mother were initially given to help bring the habit into force.

I'll mention more about Homeschool Tracker at the end of this post.

We've had our outline schedules typed up for a while that correspond to SOTW3 & the first part of Core alt 3/4 etc.... those can be found over at hslaunch.

It took me a while longer to get our folders organised.
I wanted a more C.M feel to my planning so we downloaded Sonya's ebook planner, over at Simply Charlotte Mason .

I've pick the pages of encouragement to use to help us along with our planning, printed them out - prayed, pondered and prayed some more - then got to work setting things down to spring board from.

One of the ideas in Sonya's planning pdf that I had not got around to typing up 'officially' before was the long term/end goal of what Dn (my husband) and I we're aiming for.
I'd sorted through why we wanted to homeschool right back at the beginning - that long term goal write up is a totally different exercise for us.

Creating those sheets of paper (yes, sheets - only two of them though) has helped to iron out some of the curriculum choices I'd been entertaining for use at a later date.

I've tucked those handy little sheets inside my homeshooling folder for easy reference when we need to make educating choices.

Another blessing, and it really shouldn't have come as a suprise, that process re-enforced for Dn & I that our family is more interested in studying nature and natural sicences, as opposed to chemistry and physics. Though Bob will tamper around with those topics when the mood strikes. It will be interesting to see if that focus changes for the children as they get older.

We'll carry on with 'delight led' science in the chemistry & physics arena, should the children choose to. Bobs & Daisy enjoy using the science boxes from Exploration Education in their delight led approach.

And with science other right now: Dn assembled the digitalised weather station so we're all set up to go much further with our ongoing interest and enjoyment with weather: he's a gadgets man :)

I digress - back to planning:
We also are using some of the pages out of ebook version of the New Zealand Homeschool Planner and Diary (there is a USA one available too).
The diary pages were exactly what I was wanting for my folder - time to create things lately has become rather scarce, so any help from pages others have created is a real bonus.

Using Stepanie's calender and term timetable idea's, we've got all our terms,holdiays,and 'weeks off' sorted out. Now just to start with the important task of actually using these things as guides.

And yes, we are still using portions of Homeschool Tracker to set up the individual schedules I need for math, and for our daily time plan. I'm using my own schedules for readers etc..

edit that>In our next post, I'll detail with pictures the way we've set up our folders.

I thnk I'll leave the detailing with pictures (unless someone asks for visuals) since our folders haven't changed so much from our first set up ... just developed into a more stream lined system with a greater volume of work contained behind each tab for Bob & Daisy.

& I have a smaller working folder also, to toss around during the week which contains 6 weeks work all tucked behind tabs and 'important' to marmee things.

2010-12-22T16:15:00.004+13:00

Free Gift Tags or Cards

Someone else may be interested in using these small gift cards we've tossed together.

Simply print on a lite weight stock card, cut out each card with a stanley knife, fold, write (or get the childre to) inside & voila - all done.

We've put Peelcraft "Merry Christmas" word stickers inside each card.

2010-12-17T22:46:00.010+13:00

Free Notebooking Pages for Story of the World Vol.3
Oliver Cromwell & Pre- French Revolution, or France ~ 1700's

We've just posted up some more free notebooking pages over at HSlaunch.

One of our children will use the pages as is; just purely for notebooking.
The other child will colour in to their hearts delight, on the pages detailing the bigger pictures.

With the Oliver Cromwell pages I've placed in various line size options and a title page .... for those that like to colour in (smile).
Notebooking & Colour in Pages for Oliver Cromwell 1600's
Only 2 options here ... I just wasn't feeling that inspired to create anything more than these few pages ... it's too close to christmas (smile).
Notebooking & Colour in Pages for France ~ 1700's

2010-12-13T20:49:00.017+13:00

End of Year Learning ~ Part 2

or,

Billy Bones Science and Gift Giving Math

With Bobbi: for his personal end of the year learning he's been very casually doing a few lessons in Teaching Textbooks & reading a good mix of math, science & history related books.

Along with listening to the dramatised audio bible he's been faithfully crafting his skeleton (Billy Bones) and just doing, well, boy sorts of things.... and counting the days, hours & minutes until Christmas day :)

Daisy: math became a gift-giving baking episode.
We sat down with the recipes for Daisy to work out on jotter paper the sums needed to double each recipe.
Then we set to baking ... Daisy had a wonderful time and the recipients of her math time we're rather pleased :-)

She's (& her marmee) enjoying listening to What Katie Did and What Katie Did at School and is continuing to read a mountain of books (!!) along with creating some lovely-mess-making crafts. Fun!

One of Daisy's delight directed projects was to create a piece of bone - to test the strength of our bones.
Here are the pictures - should anyone else want to have a go.

2010-12-12T14:35:00.017+13:00

End of Year Learning ~ Part 1

We had such good intentions to make a jump start on Core 3/SOTW3 ... however life-would-just-get-in-the-way and the reality looks a little different to our intentions.

Together: we've been learning our bible verses and creating 'beautiful' pieces of copywork (smile) as well as reading through Jotham's Journey which is a very interesting, thought provoking advent story (we are not doing the whole 'light XYZ candle' thing though).

I didn't think I was going to appreciate it very much, the book starts out with Jotham's total lack of character on full display ... read on marmee dear, the child is going to develop character with some hard earned lessons.
**For those with sensitive children "pre-reading is adviseable".

Both children have been practising for their end of the year music concerts and playing 'beat the bag scrabble' and listening to audio books while they play: the audio books of current choice have been the dramatised audio bible, The Treasure Seekers, The Wouldbe Goods and, Ivanhoe. They do like variety.

I'll detail more about their individual pockets of learning, complete with pictures, next time.
To be continued ....

2010-12-09T16:32:00.004+13:00

Beautiful Christmas Music

Our family loves christmas music, beautiful christmas music, that we can listen to again & again. Well, today I found a really lovely CD produced by La Lumiere titled Bethlehem Morning.

The entire CD can be purchased as a digital download from here for $6.23 USD, that translates to $8.56 NZ using paypal. Great buying. And, if you'd like to go in a draw for a free give away CD of this wonderful collection of christmas music, you could pop over to Susan's blog, Wild Life in The Woods.

2010-11-29T23:01:00.007+13:00

Memorisation and Copywork Sheets.

We're throwing some sheets together, like the one above, for Daisy at the moment.

It's gorgeous spring weather and it's a little tough to knuckle down and get handwriting done, so I'm making some pages that will kill a few subject areas with one sheet.

I've place our sample sheet over at HSlaunch for any that may like to use it.

2010-11-01T18:54:00.013+13:00

Dictation

I wondered how we'd go with dictation that included complete, longer and more involved, sentences.

Thanks to Christie, author of Just Us blog, and her post here, I went tripping and traipsing around through the Peace Hill Press site, then over to you tube, read back through what Charlotte Mason had to say about dictation (found from pg 241 on - or in Home Education Volume 1 - the physical book , refer to pg 24o) and came away encouraged and fortified with a few key ideas to make that next gear shift up with WWE a smoother journey - that was 4 months ago and our dictation times feel natural, not forced or stressful for either Bobbi or I.

(Bobbi's not overly fussed on being 'featured' on a blog - so I ask each time before I post. He's said "no thank you!" a time or two, so those posts don't happen. But this time we've got the green light to publish it.)

Remember we're not CM or classical purists, yet our eclectic- CM.ish-sort-of-classical blend seems to be the approach to dictation for Bobbi.
My mantra has long been teach for my child not to the phylosophy and it just makes it easier for me to stop second guessing myself so much (she says rolling her eyes).

Our warm up pieces to dictation were short n sweet and easy on purpose. I didn't want Bobbi giving me the possum in the head lights look.

We're working steadily through portions of WWE 2 and the accompanying text (that book just makes my l/a's teaching and planning life so much easier).
Adding in spelling rules we're learning with AAS, and any grammar topics Bobbi is covering, to the dictation piece seems to be an obvious move to make, so I try to 'aim' at including those 2 aspects.

When we're learning a new, or extended, skill I like to have a crack at it myself first - doing dictation on longer pieces was not really that easy, well for me! It's like teaching this 'older' dog new tricks (smile)
Bobbi is looking at the longer dictation pieces first, as suggested in the work book, and then we discuss anything of difference or importance before we start breaking down the piece auditorialy for him.

We're currently working through pieces like this:
Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort.

Having a try at writing that from dictation is not as easy as it may seem, yet Mrs. Bauer's methodology which is shown in 'doing dictation with Dan' gives some good pointers - I'm so glad she made this particular video clip.

And to add some variety, and memorisation practice to our dictation, I'm giving Bobbi his scripture copywork from the week (detailed in this post) as dictation at the end of the week. Works great!

2010-10-22T20:14:00.006+13:00

Bible Verses for Language Arts & Italics Handwriting Copywork

For the next wee while we are going to enjoy using Copycat Books KJV Proverbs as our language arts, handwriting sheets and memory verse provider.

Rhonda Roso details an easy approach in each e-book of how to go about achieving a 3 day study with each piece, should you need it.

There are more titles available than just KJV Proverbs, pop over to her site to take a look and download some free samples .

Albright News also offers some free, primary level, Proverbs copywork pages , too and each page contain some nice clip art.

2010-10-21T15:17:00.037+13:00

George Washington Carver

Sonlight Core 4 Reader, and, Beyond Five in A Row

This book is actually one of our read alouds for Beautiful Feet History of Science , we read nearly all of the literature based books that go with that curriculum, coloured and created our time line, did 2 experiments, and crafted a few active scrapbooking pages to go with some of the scientists.

But, we saved a few books, George Washington Carver and the one about Marie Curie, to enjoy with Daisy at a later date.

Nicole Tadgell has some lovely colour in go alongs on her blog for the book she crafted the art work for, be sure to stop over and take a look.

Now that's one book that interests me, I really like picture books!

For NZ-ers bookdepository stocks this, free postage too.

I think we'll probably use some of the ideas out of our Beyond Five in a Row Manual and utilise a few of the pages I 'refound' amongst our list of links detailing a George Washington Carver Color in Book

Here and here are two other George Washington Carver colour in pages.

Edit this again ... I just found these G.W.C extras over at Garden of Praise .... and I think I may 'need' to make a lapnote page to attach this printable booklet to

And thanks to Nadene from Practical Pages she's let me know that she has these lovely copywork pages of George Washington Carvers quotes we can use.

2010-10-20T23:09:00.012+13:00

One Lovely Blog Award

Nadene from Practical Pages has very kindly gifted us with 'One Lovely Blog Award'.

Totally unexpected ~ Thanks Nadene.

Nadene's site is one I love to meander my way through - it's FULL of lovely extras & thoughts, this post about recycled toys for a birthday party is a great idea .. for those that know us in real life, be prepared (smile)

Here are the rules for the awards presentation:
1. Post a thank you from the person who awarded you and include their blog link.
2. Pay it forward to several other bloggers.
3. Comment the blog owners and award them.

A lovely blog, to me, can be many things but one of the main ingredients is that it has appealing reading, gifting me with thoughts and ideas to ponder on. Lovely!

There are many blogs that I could list but I'll just stick with these few, listed in no particular preference.

This blog from Japan is one I enjoy reading through google reader http://yokosukahomeschooling.blogspot.com/ .
It always interests me to see how homeschoolers in ‘other’ countries are doing things.

Just because we fudge on science doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate others that can & do do science and I admire what Paige from elemental science does – her science is amazing and her blog details more than just science {edited as she was just way too busy to respond ☺}.

Christie from Just Us writes blog posts about their life in general which also includes their homeschool journey. That makes for interesting and thought filled reading, you can find one such post here

I've just found Shona's wordpress site and will be visiting more - I like what she's started there . Her posts make for easy reading, this one is about avoiding the computer .... in the morning. An action most of us can relate to :-)

To all the writers of the blogs we visit and read - your inspiration is necessary and so refreshing. Thanks!

2010-10-20T16:58:00.005+13:00

Sonlight Core 2 & Story of the World Vol.2 - Fini, and Break Time

We're reading our last read aloud, Kildee House , that goes with Sonlight Core 2: It feels so good to be at the end of another core!!!

The mix of SL Core 2 and SOTW2 has taken us about 18months to meander our way through.

The children and I are having a nice break for a few weeks ( 3 or so) to declutter the house .. which seems to be an onging every year event with homeschooling, plant our spring garden, do a little spring cleaning, visit with friends, and just relax for a while.

Then we'll start up with 'relaxed' schooling for a bit.

The only 'formal' learning we tend to do during breaks like this is compulsory daily reading time for the children - that never stops.

They can read whatever they like, but read they must. Reading for pleasure is easy for Daisy, but Bobbi gets distracted by projects :-) even though he enjoys reading too, and so we need that set space.
Week 1 is just reading.

Then after the first weeks break, from everything, we click the music practice back on.
So Week 2 is just reading and music practice.

On about the third week we start alternating math one day, language arts the next.
(Week 3 started this week, much to Daisy's disappointment ..small laugh)
Week 3 (& Week 4) is reading, music practice, and language arts one day/math the next .

While the children have a rest from their regular schedule, so do I. No read alouds from mum unless I really feel like it. And I enjoy at least an hours leisure reading time most days too - so refreshing! And Dad is currently reading to us in the evenings.

We listen to a ton of audio books during this break time, watch educational Dvd's (our family enjoy them, so they are a pleasure - not a chore), we play a pile of board games, craft/paint/build lego, cook together, play outside and take field trips.
(Mum doesn't spend all her time cleaning, sortin' & decluttering - I like to change my pace and focus too).

And break time seems to be moving more quickly than I'd like this time around, this year has been a bit of a 'dumpy dazzler' for us ... we may just have to extend the relaxed pace for a wee while more.

2010-10-18T21:48:00.024+13:00

Artists, Masterpieces, Composers and Classical Music

I’ve got a small collection of potential blog posts just sitting there unfinished and figured I‘d best just start dragging them out of ‘draft form oblivion’ and just share them.

This one seems to have been sitting there the longest, other than the one with the rest of our Core K extras (opps, laughing) – and seems to be collecting a pile of blog dust around it (if there is such a thing) so I’ve dragged it forward, updated it a little-some and will just post the thing. It may be of interest to someone.

Be warned: This is a long post!! And for some reason the fonts seem to be having a small fit.

Our journey in wanting to introduce the children to fine art & artists, classical music & composers, has been done with intent from my side yet the approach appeared to be a casual & relaxed if-we-felt-like-it sort of journey from the children’s perspective.

For my piece of mind we have a set space scheduled out, time wise, in our week for when we would browse/discuss art & artists – and we’d listen to musical pieces as we went along.

Predominately we didn’t schedule out the pieces, artists or composers to all match in with the era of history we were learning about. Keeping it casual, more informal and enjoyable like this has worked well in our home.

(We also make regular visits to the museum and art gallery, and, attend local music shows or concerts. Nothing like a live performance or ‘real’ painting to make fine arts & classical music spring to life.)

Keeping it casual and more informal with an emphasis on enjoyable has been, & still is, the approach to these topics in our home – it works for us.

For those interested I’ll list some of the tools we’ve used to date:

For Art:

We looked through this book during the early years ages 4-6, it still got pulled out during cores 1 & 2

A few of the many story based books we've enjoyed.

We rabbit trailed off to have a look at the art and the artist featured in these next series of books:

The Katie series

Laurence Anholt’s books

(Through Sonlight) Come Look With Me

We just discussed pictures randomly out of the Come Look With Me books, and are still using them. In Core K (C) we scheduled in certain paintings to go with the theme we were meandering our way through at the time.

Art Fraud Detective Bobby likes this book

Discovering Great Artists Hands on crafts & Artists

How to Teach Art Art technics & some art history - we’ve used this off & on the last 3 years.

Art History Sticker Book

Artistic Pursuits K-3 (used books 1 & 2 - we’ll use book 3 for Daisy with SOTW3)

(The above set of books is our ‘really preferred’ set of books for hands-on & art history go-alongs with our SL/SOTW history journey to date, we scheduled out some of the art history lessons to go with cores 1 & 2.)