Welcome to BLISS! What's that? Blossom Lane Institute of Spunky Sparkle. Really. That's what we decided to name our home school this year. She came up with the spunky sparkle part, because she's all about that. And I love the acronyms. I couldn't resist this one. It sums up what I want our school to be, which is anything but dull and pointless. We're happy to be together.
Every morning we point to the glittery BLISS letters on our school supply bins and chant: "Blossom Lane Institute of Spunky Sparkle!" Then we give a high five and say, "Welcome to BLISS!" That's how we start our day. It's the best. And if we hit a little rough spot and get cranky, we go back to our happy chant and start over again.
~*~*~
This year, as with the last two, I only have my youngest daughter home for school. It's been so much less complicated teaching just one than several at a time. She's in 5th grade, so I just love getting to dig in deeper with her.
She will probably go to public school next year. So that means I need to make sure she's up to speed on all of her basic skills, as well as teach her whatever content I want to make sure she gets before I send her off to middle school. Here's our plan... For math, we do flash card and oral drill to keep her multiplication facts fluent. She's finishing up a basic math workbook from last year, and then we'll move on to Spectrum 5th Grade math. She does Sum Dog and other math game web sites on-line.
For language arts, she has a Spectrum 5th grade Reading comprehension workbook, a Grammar Minutes workbook left over from last year, the Writer's Express text that I used with some of her older siblings, and a writing prompts journal. I have other resources available for later in the year, but this is enough for now. She's doing creative writing on her own a few times a week on the computer. Plus, she chooses a novel to read on her own for literature. Right now it's Mr. Popper's Penguins.
I keep her daily books and flash cards in a basket on the floor so I can reach in easily and hand her the next one when we're working together in the morning. I marked the top of each one with the subject so I can find them easily from the top at a glance. I also have a larger basket with other resources we don't use daily but want to have handy.
The real fun for me is social studies. This year we'll be in a world geography co-op on Mondays where she will learn about culture and mapping. There isn't any homework (yay!) so the other four days we get to do our own thing. Last year my goal was to cover world history from the earliest civilizations up through the Middle Ages. We didn't finish the Middle Ages, so I decided to pick up with that again and go as long as we want. Then we'll move on to the Renaissance and Reformation era, which I'm guessing will take us up to Christmas or even beyond. I want to take the scenic route through this period of history since there is so much to learn. We love art and music, and I have a bunch of great children's biographies and historical fiction with important concepts! The public schools do world history in 6th grade, so I'm not worried if we miss some of the later time periods. However far we get, I'll at least leap frog forward to World War 2 and Holocaust studies at the end of the year. One of the key resources we are using right now is What Really Happened in the Middle Ages, a collection of short biographies compiled by Terri Johnson. So far we have read chapters about Theodora and Alcuin.
This one below is from my own childhood in California. I have several in the series. I wondered as a young home school mom over 20 years ago where these had gone. Oddly enough, I found them in my grandparents' attic in Pennsylvania. I have loved using them with each of my children here in Florida. They are easy to understand with great words to learn for vocabulary.
So far with both of those books, I have started a spiral notebook for copy work. I jot down several phrases or sentences with key facts for each story and she copies them either while I read to her or later on. I encourage her to use her best handwriting, and pay attention to spelling and punctuation. She also does oral narrations of whatever we read, telling me what she remembers from the story. These are Charlotte Mason approach methods. Here is a sampling of some other books we'll be using for the Middle Ages and then the Renaissance and Reformation era.
For science, we are taking the opposite approach. In the past, we've done unit studies on various science topics but they haven't been very comprehensive. I don't know where I found this 5th grade text, but it's a thick and visually attractive book with chapters on all the major science topics to fill in whatever gaps she has. So far we've learned about cells and part of classification for living things.
Our whiteboard easel always comes in handy for science.
We also had a membership at the Orlando Science Center, which just expired, but we managed to pack in four visits in the first few weeks of school, once with two of my grandchildren.
My daughter is an enthusiastic artist. Her favorite YouTube channel is Art for Kids Hub which features drawing videos. She has hundreds of drawings in her portfolio. We organized all of her art supplies into a rolling cart which she stores in her bedroom closet. I think she spent far more on art supplies as the school year started than we did on other school materials. She has dabbled in acrylic paints. We'll do more tie dye this year, and we're both going to learn how to use a wood burning tool. She's already a pro with a hot glue gun.
Like me, she is also an art museum fanatic. We have visited six of the local museums, some of them more than once. Last week, we took a spontaneous trip to one of our favorites, the Morse Museum of American Art, which claims the largest collection of stained glass work from the studio of Louis Comfort Tiffany and his colleagues.
One craft project that we did is making calming glitter jars. That's definitely a lot of spunky sparkle!
She also loves to cook, so she's done several kitchen projects like pancakes, eggs, cookies, smoothies, and other yummy treats. Of course I'm glad she gets extra hands on practice with planning, reading instructions, measuring, food safety, and other practical skills.
Wow!
It's been exactly six months since I've posted on this
blog. My youngest daughter is now two weeks into home school fourth grade. I've been home schooling for 25 years with up to 7 of my 10 kids at a time. She is the only one home with me this year, as she was last year, which makes my job things much less complicated. We were involved in co-ops for many years, but in this crazy season of life, I prefer to be at home with her every day and do what I have planned instead of what a class is doing.
This
year we're working on basic skills - especially math and writing - as
well as a heavy concentration on world history. She also has
plenty of science, literature, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, and art
to work on. Added to that, we have speech therapy twice a week.
Our history and geography unit studies this year include Early Civilizations (including Old Testament), Ancient Egypt, Asia, Ancient Greece, Winter Holidays Around the World, Africa,Ancient Rome, New Testament Stories, Dark & Middle Ages, and Latin America. Next year we'll pick up with the Renaissance & Reformation era up through modern times, as well as the continents of Europe, Australia, and Antarctica.
I did a huge book purge a few days before school started. Our dining room used to be lined with several bookcases of home school materials, but we're down to this small one with her books for this semester. It's right next to her desk. The others have all been moved to another room. You can see our dining room transformation here. (I am so proud of it! Yay me!)
Here
are just some of the materials we've used so far.
Math and language skills:
Multi-subject workbook -
we are only doing math and
language arts sections now
One set with answers marked
and one set with just the problems -
as recommended by our evaluators
Poster for her bedroom -
I like the format better than
the typical multiplication grid.
This is easy for her to recite
by fact group.
She uses this CD-ROM for both
math and language arts -
all sorts of fun lesson!
We also use a phone app called Math Fact Master
We didn't finish it last year
and it's about the same as the
4th grade workbook,
so it's good enough for now.
Excellent core text for ancient history
which I bought at our local used book store.
It's a little advanced (probably
middle school level?), so I read it with her.
Art appreciation with Bible!
Her daddy had oral surgery,
so while we waited to pick him up, we went to
the Ten Thousand Villages fair trade store
to see handcrafts from around the world.
She listened to international music, too.
Science:
This has reading comprehension
activities for several science units.
We are working on the
human body unit right now.
This is Internet linked, so you can
see videos and other cool stuff
at the web sites listed on the pages.
This is one of the web pages -
with a video of a bug being caught
by a venus flytrap.
Art projects and home ec:
Our first day of school,
we made three tie dye t-shirts
for her in the afternoon!
You can see all of the photos at
my blog post Tie Dye Radiance.
We made healthy snack balls with
oatmeal, peanut butter,
honey, flax, crushed almonds,
coconut, cocoa powder, chia seeds,
and dried cranberries -
then used them for multiplication practice
(How many snack balls? 3x5 = 15
How many cranberries? 15 x 3 = 45)
This is the daily schedule we've started...
Daily
School Schedule
9:00
math drill
9:30
math work books
10:00
world history and geography unit
study
10:30
literature
11:00
language work books
11:30
writing skills &
prompt
12:00
lunch
12:30
speech therapy appointment on two days, practice on other days
1:00
drive time from speech therapy OR interpersonal communication, health,
home skills
1:30
science workbook or textbooks
2:00
finish work or do
project
2:30
as necessary: finish
work or do project
She
is starting to work more independently, which is a very good thing for both of us,
but she still wants and needs a lot of personal input from me. She
generally gets started with her math drill on her own, though I try
to stay near by in case she has a question. Her desk is in the dining room, so I can putter in the kitchen or use my laptop at the table. I work with her on the
rest of math, all of world history, some of the language arts skills and literature, and some of
the science. When she writes, we come up with a creative topic and she writes up to a few paragraphs. Then we make basic corrections to her work. I sometimes write
on the same topic and we share and compare.
We
generally follow the daily schedule, but there is some flexibility if we
have interruptions or one of us isn't feeling well. I had an extended neurologist's appointment yesterday, so I told her that it was "student's
choice day." She could do anything while I was gone as long as it was at
least somewhat educational. I think she used her time well with workbooks, web sites, reading, and videos.
We have a lot of old educational VHS videos, but did not have a working VCR anymore. I found a small TV with a built-in VCR at a thrift store for $20, which is now in her bedroom so she can watch the NEST Bible and history videos and some assorted science videos. These are great for times when I can't work with her. She says she can't wait to start our next unit on Ancient Egypt, because she wants to learn about pyramids and mummies. We already have a whole bunch of books waiting on her shelf, and I know we'll grab a lot more at the library.
That's about it for now, but here are some related posts from earlier school years:
“Gathering up bits of the world and laying them out in an order her children can understand.” What a description of a mother who chooses the eclectic approach to home schooling! My third grade daughter Melody went for a speech therapy evaluation at A.LL Therapy Connection, and I spotted this quote on a piece of wall sculpture as soon as we walked into the waiting room. It is also available as a print with a whimsical graphic design. Nearby, I found the mosaic of a woman with children; it's made up of gathered bits and pieces of color. What else can you find in the picture? Delightful!
My favorite polar bear picture
We loved the therapist and the intern, and were pleased with their thorough assessment. We'll be going back twice a week starting next month, and the appointments and daily practice will be a vital part of her education. As we walked out of the therapy room, I commented to therapist about how observant my daughter is of things around her. Just at the moment, Melody asked me, “What is Polar Bear Day?” Huh? She pointed to a calendar on the wall: February 27, Polar Bear Day. Alrighty. That's a question for Google! It's also a “bit of the world” that I want my daughter to understand. Later in the evening, we enjoyed the awesome polar bear pictures here: Polar Bear Conservation at National Geographic.
After we left the speech therapy place, we headed to the mall to find an Auntie Anne's pretzel shop. We had a BOGO coupon we'd gotten when they came to do a demonstration at our home school group. We rarely go to the mall, so we didn't know where the store was. Time for some life skills! I had Melody locate Auntie Anne's on the directory list and then on the diagram. Which way do we go? She figured it out and we got there! Yum!
Those are just
a few ways this eclectic mama lays out the bits of the world for a
little one to understand! What are some other methods we use to gather and present information?
Unit
studies: In our early years of home schooling with my older kids (now teens and adults), we
always used unit studies to cover history, geography, science,
literature, creative writing, art, music, and even a little math
enrichment. Now that we are no longer in formal academic co-op classes where curriculum was chosen by other teachers, we're
back to the original plan! Right now we are studying the Civil War and late 1800's era for
history. I didn't want to get too much into memorizing factoids or exploring the gore of war. Melody is still in the idea ~ story ~ picture
phase of home schooling, and she loves biographies. I loaded up on
both chapter books and picture books about famous people like Abraham
Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Harriet
Beecher Stowe, Mary McLeod Bethune, Booker T. Washington, George
Washington Carver, Robert E. Lee, Helen Keller, Alexander Graham
Bell, and Clara Barton. (We visited Clara's historic American Red Cross home in Maryland earlier this month.) We are also halfway through the
American Girls series about Addie, an escaped slave. We have
lots of the Cornerstones of Freedom series about specific happenings
in the time period, such as the Underground Railroad and the
transcontinental railroad.
Are we reading about the actual war? Yes, a little. We're
reading What
Was the Battle of Gettysburg? by Jim O'Connor, which starts with an excellent
overview of what issues and events led to the Civil War. Read more about unit studies here: How to Plan a Unit StudyandAmerican History Unit Studies at Our House.
YouTube
and Google: What a goldmine! Any topic we want is right there on-line. I
always have my iPod in my pocket, so sometimes when we're reading a
library book, we'll look up something related to an interesting fact
or a question she has. (Who was the president before Abraham Lincoln?
Look it up!) We
have the old NEST Animated Heroes videos that my mom gave us years
ago, but not a working VHS player. We found a treasure trove of them
on YouTube here: Animated
Hero Classics. I
have her watch these on my laptop when I need to do something else nearby.
We also use YouTube videos to explain math concepts like multi-digit
multiplication. She likes the ones produced by MathAntics. The new
YouTube Kids app for mobile iOS and Android mobile devices –
perfect for a child's tablet. I can't try it out yet because
it requires iOS 7,
but you can find it in your app store.
PBS Kids: On TV or on-line, PBS Kids is a marvelous educational resource. On their web site, www.pbskids.org, you can find videos, games, and interactive activities. At their teacher resource site, www.pbslearningmedia.org, it is easier to find the specific subjects and grade levels.
Reading
whenever and wherever – and talking about it: We don't do all of our learning during formal school hours. The
evenings are some of Melody's favorite book times. I'll often grab a book
from our unit study pile that I think she'll enjoy, and we take turns reading aloud to each other. We read in the living room, in my bedroom, in the dining room, in waiting rooms - wherever! It is important for children to read aloud so they can practice their diction, vocal inflection, cadence, and expression - which they have picked up from listening to you read aloud. Having them read aloud helps you assess their decoding fluency. Which phonics patterns need work? Are they guessing or skipping or substituting words? I often remind her to read the words slowly, exactly as they are written. If necessary, she can track along with her finger to keep her on the right pace and in the right place. As we read, we also reinforce other language
arts skills. This year, we're taking the time to notice compound
words, homophones, synonyms, adverbs, and alliteration (adjacent
words with same beginning sounds). We've also been pointing out words
that are particularly descriptive rather than vague, such as “stagger” or "prance" instead of
“walk” and “whispered” or "shrieked" instead of “said.” The book If You Were a Writer by Joan Lowery Nixon and Bruce Degen is a great way to introduce this concept. Looking for vivid language in books will help her choose interesting words for her own creative writing projects. We also comment on styles of illustrations in picture books and how they, too, communicate information and mood.
While reading, if
there is a concept I want to emphasize, or she has a question, we
stop and talk about it. I want her to interact with the information and develop critical thinking skills. We both frequently ask why and how questions about what we see on the page. How does this concept apply to us? I was struck by something we read about how the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads competed to lay more miles of track as they worked from opposite ends toward each other. The Central Pacific got stuck on the western side of the Rocky Mountains, trying to blast tunnels through in the winter. So they sent an extra crew ahead, packing all of their supplies and equipment (including disassembled train engines and cars!) onto sleds and hauling them over the mountain. They were able to simultaneously work on both sides of the mountain, saving valuable time and getting an extra 50 miles of track laid. I drew a diagram of this for Melody so she could understand the concept. Sometimes we have to think outside the box, a valuable skill to model to our kids. There was no rule that they had to work in one unbroken stretch of track from A to B! Then I thought, how can I use this in my own life as a mom? In what ways can I be working ahead and getting more done? So I'm learning a lot from reading aloud with her, too! I wouldn't miss it! See more here: The Beauty of Reading Aloud and How to Read Aloud and Enjoy It. Home school co-ops and classes: For younger children like Melody, I prefer a relaxed co-op for enrichment rather than for core formal academics, so that's what we're doing this year. I tutor high school and middle school history students at a local co-op. While I teach, Melody goes to a video-based history class. She also takes a current events class there, so she has to come prepared to present a news story she has found on-line. The group is hosting a Geography fair next month. Melody chose North Carolina for her project,
so we checked out some books from the library and we'll put
together a display board and a speech.
Taking
notes:
North Carolina notes
Melody decided to take notes as we read about North
Carolina. I helped her. We wrote down phrases to remind us of topics
to look up again later. We're not very formal or organized about it
yet, but even starting small in this practice will help her in later
school years. We hope to take a trip to western North Carolina this summer, and we might visit some of the places we saw in the books. How about the Oconaluftee Cherokee villageor the Biltmore Estateor the Great Smoky Mountains National Park? Planning a trip adds interest to learning!
Charlotte Mason Method: I love the Charlotte Mason approach to education with her emphasis on living literature, art and music appreciation, nature study, etc. She didn't advocate busy work ("twaddle") but we still use some workbooks since Melody likes them and they get the job done. Miss Mason also believed in keeping lessons short, especially for young children. It is rare that we spend more than 15 minutes on a single paper-and-pencil activity. We don't have a schedule set in stone. She has a lot of say in what we do next, though I have the final word. For nature study, we get outside a lot and go visit parks. On the first Monday of the month, our local botanical gardens has free admission, so we're going next week. Read more here: What is the Charlotte Mason Approach to Education?
Termites!
Random life
happenings: On our way out the door to go to the library, we
discovered a swarm of insects on our old tree stump. We went to to a
pest control store and confirmed that they were reproductive
termites. I decided it would be interesting to check out a book about
termites. I had planned to study American Deserts for our next
science unit, but switched to insects on the spur of the moment. We
also checked out books on ladybugs, butterflies, bees, and ants to
supplement what we already had at home. She comes with me to the
chiropractor twice a week as I recover from back injuries I got in a
car accident a few weeks ago. Dr. Harris showed us a life size model
of a spine and explained to her how it worked with the vertebrae and
discs.
Songs
with borrowed tunes: Many years ago, I wanted to teach my kids the body parts of insects, so I came up with this ditty to the tune of “Head, Shoulders, Knees
and Toes” - “Head, thorax, abdomen, abdomen! Head, thorax,
abdomen, abdomen! Two antennae, six jointed legs! Head, thorax,
abdomen, abdomen!” Now that we're studying insects, of course I had
to teach it to Melody. She loves to get up and do all the hand motions. We have also been practicing multiplication tables with skip counting songs.
We sing the 3s the tune of “Jingle Bells” - “3, 6, 9, 12, 15,
18, 21, 24, and 27, isn't counting fun? 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24,
and 27, 30 and we're done!” We sings 4s to the tune of “Row, Row,
Row Your Boat” - “4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36, and 40.”
She was having trouble remembering the last four numbers in that sequence, so we took turns
repeating them rhythmically to each other several times before singing the song
again. We sing these in the van all the time and it's fun for her!
Mobile
apps: We can easily take along education on my iPod when we're out and
about. The main one we use is Math Fact Master. You can choose any
combination of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division
and tell which number ranges you want to use. It is very simple –
nothing flashy - but quite effective. You can find more that look
interesting here: 10
Apps for Math Fluency. You can find educational apps for all
grade levels and subjects.
Tying
it together: We hadn't finished A Pioneer Sampler during our
early pioneers unit study, so we've continued to read it. As we read the
story about pioneers finding and harvesting honey from a bee tree, I
remembered that we had library books about bees for our insect unit.
We read one of them, Brilliant Bees by Linda Glaser. Later, we watched several videos on
YouTube about how bees make honey, and how they use the fascinating
waggle dance to communicate with other bees about where food is. Here
is another one we'll watch soon: Why
Do Honey Bees Dance? and one for young children: Do
the Waggle Dance.
Weekly
worksheet packet:
Because we spend a lot of time in the van and in waiting rooms, I
like to bring schoolwork along to make the most of our time. Until
today, we would lug a heavy tote bag full of workbooks that she
wanted to use, and I worried about her leaving an important one
behind somewhere. So today I took a three-prong vinyl folder and created a worksheet packet for her. I took a week's worth of pages from
each of her workbooks – math, grammar, spelling, reading comprehension, and science – and
fastened them into the folder. If she loses it, at least it's not the whole workbook. At the end of the week, I'll take out what's she's finished
(unless it's needed as reference for a future page) and put in a
fresh batch of pages. It also gives her a goal to accomplish, and now she
doesn't have to get out several workbooks every day. Whether we are at home or away, she just needs to grab her red folder.
Art
supplies:
I recently bought a set of 36 Pentel oil pastels and a sketch book for
Melody.
Her artist sister is going to teach her how to use them properly very
soon to create more realistic art than with crayons. In the meantime, she's been having fun making her own
pictures. She likes to think of a category – fruits, things you
find at a movie theater, etc. - and then draw several items on a
page. I have been trying to teach myself chalkboard art. When I was working on a larger board that I had just purchased, I let her practice on a smaller one. She picked what she wanted to say: "Love one another with all your heart"! You can see my latest piece at Blessed Are the Peacemakers.
Role
play: Melody is really imaginative and often dresses up, gathers props, and
makes believe she is a movie director, a Chic-Fil-A worker, a
teacher, a cooking show hostess, or whatever else her heart desires.
I encourage this! It's not a waste of her educational time. She is
creating her own scenarios and dialog, and is a form of oral composition. Check out her hilarious "Cream Cheese Toast" YouTube video that she made two years ago with my iPod, when she was only seven! She ends with "Like this video, or just like me! Press the suffocate button, or I'll be watching you!" Yes, that's another way to use YouTube - make your own videos!
What are some of your favorite methods for home schooling your kids? Tell us in a comment below!
The Grand Adventure of Home Schooling in the Preschool and Elementary Years!
Welcome to Start Well! This is a team effort of two veteran home schooling moms who have a heart for equipping and encouraging others to teach and train children.
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