Category Archives: Math

Weekly Wrap-Up X 2: August 9-13 and August 16-20

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I tried and tried to find or make time to post a wrap-up post last week, but it just didn’t happen.  We had a tragic death in my family last week–my uncle was killed in a motorcycle accident.  We spent the end of last week attending his funeral and spending time with the family.  The weekend went by in a blur, and the new week was upon us almost before I knew it.  We’re schooling Monday through Thursday now until our group meetings start next month.  I have decided that if I am going to keep up these weekly wrap-up posts (and I really want to!), I’m going to have to hit the high points of the week instead of giving a play-by-play.  This is what I’ve decided to focus on:

  • anything that we produce that is interesting visually since much of our work is oral and/or rather boring visually (i.e. narration pages produced over and over; handwriting work; etc.)
  • the books we read, both together and alone (this one shouldn’t come as a surprise!)
  • any growth I see in my girls (and the DLM, too!)
  • anything unusual we do that contributes to or illustrates our learning

This Weekly Wrap-Up post will be a mish-mash of weeks and a post that I started last week and didn’t finish and my new resolve of “less is more” (which is so hard for me, as regular readers here already know ;-) ).  Anyway, the goals above are ones I aspire to, not necessarily ones I’ve attained.  :-)   Okay, on to our weeks-in-review!

 Remember the end of our first week when I said that things went sooooooooooo smoothly?  Well, the honeymoon’s over.  :-)   All things considered, we have had a good couple of weeks, but that nice little tidy schedule that worked most of the first week simply isn’t happening anymore, mostly due to a shift in the DLM’s sleeping schedule (and I use that term loosely!).    It was bound to happen, though, right?  I have a few theories on how I might better order our day that I’ll share at the end of this post, and I’m ALWAYS open to suggestions from you veteran homeschoolers out there!

First, though, the good stuff–what we accomplished!

Bible and Devotions

We continued to read in our Children’s Bible in 365 Stories, and this week it was all about Solomon and his successors.  The girls were quite fascinated by the most famous story that showcases Solomon’s God-given wisdom.  :-)   We learned about the hymns “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and “This Is My Father’s World”.  We also continued with Leading Little Ones to God, although at this point the girls much prefer spending time with the hymns.  Much of what we’ve read so far in Leading Little Ones has been somewhat repetitive of what we’ve already done, but for now we’re continuing with it because I like how it discusses theological issues systematically.  We managed to get in a couple of days (I think–I forgot to mark it down!) of JBQ practice, too.  This past week we began memorizing Psalm 24, and in answer to my own query about a good system for keeping up with and reviewing our memory passages, I think I might give Simply Charlotte Mason’s Scripture Memory System a try.  Does anyone out there use this?  Do you like it?

Reading

Lulu finished up with the review lessons I intended for her to work on from OPGTTR this week and moved on to new material.  Right now I’m planning for Thursdays to be a free reading day on which she simply reads aloud instead of doing another phonics lesson.  (Lulu actually reads aloud to me every day, but I hope to increase the amount she reads, at least on Thursdays.)  These are the books Lulu read aloud these two weeks:

We also played a rousing game of W-I-N-G-O Set 3: Blends and Digraphs on both Thursdays.  (Those are Wingo tiles pictured above.)  Louise hasn’t officially learned about blends and digraphs yet (‘though what she hasn’t learned has yet to stop her. . . ), so she’s mostly along for the ride here. I had an epiphany this week, though, in teaching this girl to read. I am a “cover ALL the bases” kind of person, and so I had determined that it would be best to start all over in the Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading, despite the fact that Louise was well into reading CVC words last year, simply because I felt like last year I wasn’t consistent enough in my attention to her phonics lessons.  Well, on Thursday of last week, Louise surprised me by reading Rub-a-Dub from Bob Books Set 2-Advancing Beginners.  I was already beginning to feel like we were spinning our wheels by going back over all the phonemes, etc. (not to mention the fact that Louise was extremely antsy bored doing all of this!), but this absolutely confirmed it and convinced me to move ahead some twenty-five lessons in the book.  Louise also read Puppy Mudge Has a Snack aloud to us.  This is a pre-reader type of book, and it contains quite a few sight words.  This is not my preferred method of reading instruction and practice, but I thought reading a book like her big sister might boost this middle child’s confidence.  :-)   I also pulled out the magnetic letters and my old cookie sheet for Louise to practice her word-making skills.  It was a good week for reading at the House of Hope!

Math

We’re plucking right along in RightStart Math level B, and much of what we’ve done up until this week has been review.  Lulu is all about math!  She really enjoys thinking mathematically, and for this I am thankful.  I made up a Mommy Store this week so she could practice counting money, and she and Louise both got a big kick out of this.  (Louise declared it to be “hundreds of fun,” and then she amended that to be “105 cents of fun.”  ;-) )RightStart has been a great fit for her, and although I admit that I went back to it this year with a little trepidation (because of the teacher-intensive nature of it), I think this week I began to see the fruit of all those many, many hands of Go to the Dump we have played.  Lulu has pretty much mastered her math addition facts up to 10.  Yay! 

History

Story of the World volume 1 continues to be a hit around here.  Last week we learned about the earliest people and their nomadic ways and how they came to be farmers in the Fertile Crescent.  Lulu was obviously impressed by this; she announced after learning about the Fertile Crescent, “Maybe I’ll go there on my honeymoon!”  :-)   The girls got to do a little painting at the end of last week when they made their own cave paintings on crumpled up paper sacks. 

This week we’ve learned about the unification of Egypt under King Narmer and how the Nile River floods, creating a fertile delta.  The girls also heard a story from Egyptian mythology.  I had a little bit of hesitation about sharing this story with the girls, mainly because I don’t particularly like learning about mythology myself.  However, after discussing the issue with Steady Eddie (and after reading this post on Susan Wise Bauer’s education blog) we decided go ahead with it. 

Science

Here’s a confession:  I love science.  My love affair with science goes back to high school where I had two fabulous science teachers who really made it fun and interesting.  (How I came to study English and history is still something of a mystery to me.  ;-) )   Studying animal habitats with my girls last week was so much fun.  We read a lot of books, many of which were run-of-the-mill series nonfiction titles that most libraries have in abundance.  However, there are a couple that we really enjoyed on the topic which I think added a lot to our study.  The first one is an Usborne title that covers at least two of the habitats we discussed (based on our science curriculum, Biology for the Grammar Stage).  The Usborne Book of Wild Places:  Moutains, Jungles and Deserts contains lots of illustrations and snippets of information.  Although this is actually not my favorite lay-out for a book, I’ve come to appreciate this style more after discussing somewhat complex topics with my young children.

Another title that we really enjoyed last week is One Small Place in a Tree by Barbara Brenner.  We began the week by talking about forests (both deciduous and boreal, a word I had not encountered before last week), so this little story was a good introduction to the complexity of nature and how just “one small place in a tree” can be home to so many creatures.  (We read a similar title by the same author some time ago and really enjoyed it, too.)


I just have to mention one more title that relates to habitats.  The Water Hole by Graeme Base is a beautiful book that is wonderful and useful in so many different ways.  It’s the story of a water hole that is shrinking (and thus negatively affecting the animals it “serves”), so it gets across the idea of conservation, first and foremost.  However, in addition to that, this is a counting book for the numbers 1 to 10; it’s a look-and-find book, with very visually complex and interesting illustrations; and it’s a book about habitats, since each two-page spread highlights a different continent, country, or habitat.  Highly Recommended!


This week we began learning about mammals and focused primarily on lions, cheetahs, and elephants.  We read quite a few good titles to go along with this study.  By far the best title we read is Grandma Elephant’s In Charge by Martin Jenkins.  This picture book is nonfiction, but it’s written as a story, so it has great kid-appeal.  The main idea in this story is that the female elephants live together in a herd, and the most important female is the “grandma” of the herd.  Ivan Bates‘ illustrations are realistic but still playful (where appropriate).  I give this one a Highly Recommended, also!

We read all of these books in addition to our science spine, The Kingfisher First Encyclopedia of Animals .  Lulu also read an appropriate science book every day.  I wanted to mention one series of books that we’ve found particularly good, both for my reading aloud to the girls and for Lulu to read–Pebble Plus books .

The girls completed narration exercises about each of the animals we studied, and they also placed each one of these animals in the correct category–omnivore, herbivore, or carnivore.  We did a science demonstration on Wednesday, but it didn’t work out very well, so that’s all I’ll say about it.  ;-)

Language

We plugged along in Writing With Ease and First Language Lessons.  We even did our first picture study/narration in FLL!

Handwriting

As much as I want Lulu to finish her handwriting book, it’s just hard for me to make her do it when I’m requiring her to keep a book log for both the books she reads aloud for reading and for science.  Plus, she does copywork for WWE.  Will someone please tell me just to let it go?  :-)   Louise, on the other hand, did several pages in her handwriting book this week and enjoyed every minute of it. 

Art


After discovering that Barb from Harmony Art Mom and Handbook of Nature Study has divided up the lessons in Drawing with Children into a manageable form (and adapted them for nature study, too), I decided to take the plunge this week and officially call Thursday afternoons our art lesson time.  This is one study I really hope to gain something from.  This week we worked on getting accustomed to the imperfect-ness of artwork and letting that go, as well as learning how to relax and acquaint ourselves with our new markers.   I’m excited about the prospect of all of us (me included!) learning how to draw! 


During rest time, the Lulu read several books and they listened to the unabridged versions of  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Heidi in audiobook format.  We finished our last read-aloud chapter book, Betsy-Tacy and Tib, and started on Ginger Pye. 

All things considered, we’ve had a fantastic two weeks.  I think I’m enjoying it more than the girls!  That’s not to say it’s without its difficult moments, though.  My biggest challenge is, as always, how to balance it all.  The DLM threw a monkey wrench into my nice little schedule by deciding to not always take a nice, long nap in the mornings.  I know that one way to handle this is to try to keep him awake the last time he wakes up to eat (which is anywhere from 4-ish to 6-ish each morning), but most times (especially when it’s still dark outside), I’m just too sleepy.  I am working toward it, though.  If I do that, he’s awake through breakfast and then I get him back to sleep while the girls and I share our Bible story and devotion.  He then usually sleeps long enough for us to get most of our work done.  He’s quite the charmer now, though, with lots of grins and laughing out loud, so it’s hard for the girls (and me!) to focus when he’s awake.  :-)  

If you’ve read this far, thank you.  This is probably the longest post I’ve ever written, and I HOPE I can make it more manageable next week.  I’m linking this up to the Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Weekly Wrap-Up: Our First Week of School

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Well, we survived it!  :-)

I say that jokingly, but truthfully, I had anticipated much more angst and difficulty juggling the DLM’s needs and the girls’ schooling than I actually experienced.  For this, I want to give a hearty “thank you, Lord!”  (And yes, I realize that this is actually the easy time, with the DLM sleeping a good portion of the day away.  I’m trying not to think too much into the future when he’ll be an active toddler!)

I had a mild case of panic last weekend and almost decided to either a.) put school off another week due to the disorganized state of our home or b.) begin with a partial schedule this week.  I talked myself out of both of these options because a.) I doubted that the house would look much better if we did put school off for a week and b.) I had already planned out a full week of every subject, not just the basics.  Thus, on Monday morning we hit the ground running and didn’t look back.  For a detailed look at the curricula we’re using, see this post.  This is what we accomplished this week:

Bible and Devotions

We learned more about King David’s reign, particularly about the rebellion against him led by his son, Absalom.  By the end of the week, David had died and the kingdom had been turned over to Solomon.  We also learned about the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy” and shared the first two devotions from Leading Little Ones to God.  On a couple of days, we even managed to go over quite a few Junior Bible Quiz questions.  I’m hoping to choose most of our scripture memory work from these questions and Bible verses, but I’m not quite that together yet. 

Reading

Lulu, first grade:  This was a week of review, with Lulu whizzing through lessons 82-85 in OPGTTR.  She also read aloud Henry and Mudge: The First Book, Curious George Plants a Seed, and a Bob book. 

Louise, K-4:  I opted to start all over with Louise in OPGTTR this school year because our work in it last year was somewhat sporadic.  She whizzed through lessons 1-4 and can say the vowel rhyme with little help.  :-)

Language

Lulu:  Lulu completed lessons one through three in FLL and has a good handle on the memory piece “The Caterpillar” by Christinia G. Rossetti.  This was day two’s assignment, so I decided to just go with this poem rather than come up with our own memory work this time.  It turned out to be a great week to learn this particular poem, as you’ll find out if you read to the end of this post.  :-)   Lulu also completed the first week’s work in WWE.  It was surely a fortuitous decision for us when Susan Wise Bauer chose to begin volume one with selections from Little House in the Big Woods.  Regular readers here at Hope Is the Word know how much my girls love all things Laura Ingalls Wilder, so I received no push-back at all when it came to Lulu doing copywork and narration from this story.  She was positively beside herself over it!

Louise:  Louise listened in on Lulu’s lessons and just about memorized “The Caterpillar,” too.  She also did her own narrations of the passages I read aloud. 

Math

Lulu:  We started RightStart level B, but mostly I just picked one of the review lessons (lesson 8 ) and did it over three days.  We played several hands of Go to the Dump, too. 

Louise:  She has her own abacus (a.k.a. “abagus”) now, so she’s happy.  She did a little bit of work in a preschoolish math workbook, and she joined us in a few hands of Go to the Dump.

Handwriting

Lulu:  This seems to be Lulu’s least favorite subject, so I try to not push too hard on this.  This week, so completed two pages from Handwriting without Tears My Printing Book. She also did two days’ worth of copywork from WWE, which I’m also counting as handwriting practice.  She is also keeping a book log of the books she reads, so on some days, this is all the handwriting I’ll require. 

Louise:  Louise started work in Handwriting without Tears Letters and Numbers, and she was very excited to complete eight pages this week!

Science

Both girls: This is the subject I enjoyed the most this week.  Using The Kingfisher First Encyclopedia of Animals as our spine as per our science curriculum, Biology for the Grammar Student, we learned about animals’ habitats, migration, camouflage, herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, conservation, etc.  We read quite a few great books to go along with this study.  In fact, I can’t resist sharing a couple of the titles, they were so good!  ;-)   The first is The Peregrine’s Journey:  A Story of Migration by Madeleine Dunphy.  This book relates the migration of a peregrine falcon from Alaska to Argentina.  It’s an exciting story that brings the realities of nature to life.  In other words, it’s not for the highly sensitive child ;-) , but it’s good reading, nevertheless.  (My girls did get a little teary over the falcon killing and eating a dove, but this drama quickly turned into drama over the fact that Louise’s favorite cat at her grandparents’ had run away to a neighbors’ house.  There’s enough drama to go around here at the House of Hope, that’s for sure!)  What I like most about this book is that it does a great job of illustrating the concept of migration in an interesting way.  The other fabulous book we read is Ice Bear:  In the Steps of the Polar Bear by Nicola Davies.  I actually picked this one up at the library just because I knew we’d talk about the polar bear as an animal that is camouflaged, but this book turned out to match our study perfectly.  We learned so much about the polar bear and its adaptations to its white, snowy world!  Gary Blythe’s illustrations are gorgeous, too.   I would recommend this book just for the pleasure of reading it, whether there’s a specific study going on or not!  Susan E. Goodman’s Claws, Coats, And Camouflage is another book that we read that fit perfectly with our study.  In addition to these read-alouds, Lulu read aloud the following books to supplement our study: Animals on the Move, Find the Insect , and Find the Polar Animal.  This is going to be a great year for science!  :-)

History

Both:  We read the first chapter volume one of Story of the World and we listened to the history portion of this first chapter on CD.  Steady Eddie even prepared an archaeology activity for us to do, but alas, a thunderstorm blew up just as we were getting ready to go outside to do it, so we had to put it off until next week.  We also read the fabulous bookArchaeologists Dig for Clues and learned a lot about archaelogists and digs, etc.  (Random fact:  I used to want to be an archaeologist.  Once, in upper elementary school, a class I was a part of got to participate in a mock archaelogical dig similar to the one Steady Eddie put together for the girls, only on a larger scale.)

Today we took the day off and went swimming!  After all, it’s still 100 degrees here in the sultry South! 


The girls also managed to listen to a couple Alexander McCall Smith audiobooks during rest time (Max & Maddy and the Chocolate Money Mystery and The Five Lost Aunts of Harriet Bean).  After lunch we’ve been reading Betsy-Tacy and Tib and loving it. Thursday afternoon, the girls painted new canvases for our school room, but I haven’t taken a picture of them yet. 

The most exciting thing this week, though, wasn’t even in my lesson plan book.  Sometime last week, Steady Eddie brought home some caterpillars left over from a training he did for work.  We already had purchased a Butterfly Bungalow to use in a few weeks as a part of our science studies, so Steady Eddie put the caterpillars in it when he brought them home.  Within a few days, they had spun their chrysalises.  Well, lo and behold, as we were working on our lessons in the school room on Wednesday, those beautiful Painted Ladies began coming out of their chrysalises!  I cannot adequately convey how excited we all were!  :-)   It was certainly a beautiful moment for me and the girls!

We had a fantastic week, and once I’ve typed it all out, I realize just how much we accomplished.  I am so thankful to be able to teach my girls at home and be with them as I watch them unfurl their wings and begin to fly!

For more Weekly Wrap-Up posts, visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

First Grade and K-4: The Curricula

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I’ve been meaning to get this post up forever, but since we started school this past Monday, I’ve been too busy actually using the curricula to write about it this week.  :-)   I hope that starting tomorrow, I can write up a School Week in Review sort of post, so I’m putting this out there so that tomorrow’s post won’t require a lot of explanation. 

Steady Eddie and I got away a couple of weeks ago to plan out the year.  Normally we would’ve chosen to actually go away–maybe to a nearby town with a Panera Bread restaurant so we could eat yummy food and have wireless internet access.  :-) (Doing this sort of task at home is completely out of the question.  At home, all I see is dust and laundry.)  However, since we would be bringing along the DLM, we opted to just go over to the church that hosts and sponsors our homeschool group so we could use the copier and spread all the goodies out on the table.  No one was at the church, so there would be no one to bother if the DLM decided to get fussy.  While we worked, the DLM was unusually good.  (We’ve since concluded that the little charmer has finally found his sense of humor.)  Thankfuly, he spent a good deal of his time doing this:

We had actually made all of the curricular decisions before this workday.   I just wanted to point out the fact that prior to this workday, I was feeling panicky about this year.  After the workday, my panic was a little more manageable.  I still had an infant who likes to cry a good bit when he’s awake (but he’s getting better–see above) and still doesn’t know that night time is for sleeping; a four year old who wants desperately to be as old and as capable as her sister, but isn’t there yet; and a six year old who loves learning but definitely has her own idea about the way this all should work.  At the end of that day, I had our first week planned (in my new homeschool planner!) and a new lease on what our year might look like.  Mostly, I was excited about what we would be learning and discovering together!

Before getting into the curricula that we’re using, I need to give a little bit of background about my middle child.  Yes, Louise.  As I mentioned above, she really wants to do everything that Lulu does, but she’s just not quite there yet.  Since she has a late fall birthday, I have been torn about whether to go ahead and “do” kindergarten with her this year, even though she won’t officially be old enough until next school year.  What I’ve decided is this:  I am going to do my best to teach this girl to read this year because she wants it so badly, but I’m not calling her a kindergartener until next year.  I mean, so far as I can tell, there’s really no advantage to graduating high school a year early.  However, how can I not teach a child who is determined to spell things out for herself?  She gave me this note which she composed during rest time one day last week.   She wrote,  ”You are my mom.  I love you because you [are] pretty.”   She did this unaided, and so I think she’s ready to tackle the finer points of phonics, don’t you?

Bible and Devotion

I mentioned earlier this year that we were working our way through The Children’s Bible in 365 Stories, and we’re continuing with this daily in the new school year.  I’m even noticing that this little children’s Bible is helping me in my own quest to read the Bible through–I am already familiar with some of the more obscure Old Testament stories that I haven’t read in a while because I just read them to my girls.
  In addition to this, we are using volume one of Hymns for a Kid’s Heart by Bobbie Wolgemuth and Joni Eareckson Tada.  Although I grew up singing hymns and “convention songs” in church, at our church now we mainly sing contemporary praise and worship songs.  However, I don’t want my girls to be ignorant of the great songs of the church, so I hope we can work our way through this series.  I love that it comes with a CD of the hymns so we don’t have to hunt for them.  Each hymn has a little story about the composer and then a devotion based on the hymn, so we spread this out over two days.  On the days we don’t read about a hymn, I share a devotion from Leading Little Ones to God by Marian M. Schoolland.   

Reading

The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading is what we started with a couple of years ago, and it has been very effective so far for Lulu, so we’re continuing on with it for first grade.  Lulu is picking up around lesson 80.  I’ve actually worked through a good bit of it with Louise, too, but it was rather hit and miss last year.  We’re starting all over at the beginning for her K-4 year.  Lulu will also read aloud to me one book (or a chapter in a longer book) per day and for ten minutes silently at the beginning of rest time.  Louise will read aloud to me as she is able.

Language

I hope this isn’t overkill, but Lulu will be working through both volume one of First Language Lessons  and volume one of Writing with Ease this year for first grade.  Louise will listen in and participate when she wants to.  :-)


Math

We’re sticking with RightStart Math again for first grade, and this year Lulu will be in level B.  I commission Steady Eddie with the task of choosing a math curriculum each year, and he likes this one.  I like it, too, but it is very teacher intensive–I really need to prepare these lessons in advance.  (I’m guessing that most math is at this age, though.)  Louise has a kindergarten math workbook that she can work in if she chooses to, and she will join us in playing the many math games that RightStart is known for. 

Science

After much deliberation and studying of the forums over at The Well-Trained Mind, we decided on Elemental Science.  We are working through Biology for the Grammar Stage for first grade, and Louise is along for the ride. 

History

This is the subject we went back and forth about this most, I think.  I had actually purchased volume one of Story of the World and its activity guide back sometime last year, but I began to panic about it when I was contemplating homeschooling and caring for an infant.  Steady Eddie really wanted me to choose something that I wouldn’t have to plan, and we seriously considered going with Sonlight.  In the end, though, I realized that simply doing history The Well-Trained Mind way would be simple enough, and I resisted buying anything else.  Of course, we’re adding plenty of picture books, etc., which I have gleaned from various threads on the forums. Again, Louise will be accompanying Lulu in her history studies.

In addition to all of this, we’ll continue our read-alouds.  I’ll also try to sneak in an art activity or two when I can.  Both girls will be taking class piano lessons as of September, as well.  The only thing we don’t have a plan for is physical activity/education (beyond our homeschool group meetings three Fridays each month beginning in September), but I’m counting on this horrid heatwave that has swept the South to end some time so we can get outdoors again.  (No one should have to be out when the heat index is 108 degrees!)  We’ve talked about putting the girls in Upward soccer again, but we might sit this season out and try basketball in the winter.  We’ll see.

It’s going to be a good year!

 

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton

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Who doesn’t love Virginia Lee Burton?  Really, even if her name is forgettable, her stories aren’t.  We’ve already enjoyed Katy and the Big Snow this year (Read all about it here and here), and while I haven’t shared The Little House with my girls (yet!), it certainly deserves a place on my neglected Best Picture Books list.  I’ve even discovered through our latest Virginia Lee Burton story that she wrote a book I’ve never seen:  Maybelle the Cable Car. I’d love to get my hands on that one! 


We began “rowing” Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel back a couple of weeks ago, and I’m happy to say that we finally finished putting our lapbooks together this week!  I usually have a ton of go-alongs (books that relate to the topic of the main book) for our Five in a Row books, but I didn’t have the wherewithal to plan that far in advance or get my act together once we were at the library.  This was a valuable learning experience for me:  one book offers plenty of “food for thought” for young children!

Our lapbooks were created entirely from resources from Homeschool Share.  A lot of what we did was a little over Louise’s head, but I’ve yet to be able to not include her in something Lulu is doing.  I still have an uneasy relationship with unit studies, although as I noted earlier in the week, I’m okay with it for our summertime learning.  I think it helps for me to make note of what, exactly, we accomplished with our lapbooking, so here goes:

  • We discussed steam and the girls defined it (I transcribed their definitions) and drew a picture of it.
  • We discussed various machines that are powered by steam and even looked at pictures of steam-powered machines online.
  • The girls told me something they remembered about the four main characters in the story and I transcribed.
  • The girls defined stewardship and flexibility as they each relate to the story.
  • We discussed personification and the girls drew a picture of something being personified like Mary Ann is in the story.
  • Lulu completed ten addition word problems that relate to the story.  (A couple of those might’ve been subtraction.)
  • We discussed the concept of something being square.  (This is what Louise is working on in the seemingly unrelated photo above.) 
  • The girls drew a picture of Mary Ann for the cover of their lapbooks and wrote the title of the book.

I can see how this is really no different than what we’ll be doing soon in terms of narration when we officially begin our school year.  With lapbooking, it just happens to be a little prettier.  For some children, this might be a big deal.  I”m not sure it is with mine–at least with Lulu–yet.  Louise, on the other hand, tends to enjoy artwork a little more, so she might value it more than I think Lulu does.  It’s hard to tell just yet. 

Lulu’s lapbook:

Louise’s lapbook:

I can’t resist sharing one more picture.  Louise is our artist-in-residence, and she is positively champing at the bit to learn to read properly.  Naturally, this combination yields lots of illustrations with captions that have wonderfully inventive spelling.   Here’s her “buce,” a.k.a. “buggy”:

Despite my uneasiness over “missing something” by doing unit studies, I am extremely glad that we’ve had this time together with all of these fabulous Five in a Row titles.  Nothing beats a good story, does it?

Read Aloud Thursday

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I don’t know how many of you were expecting Read Aloud Thursday today due to what I’m expecting, but as I’m writing this midmorning on Wednesday, nothing’s happening.  Since I have to fill my time with something (and honestly, I’m getting pretty antsy), what better way to fill a few minutes than to think about good books?  We’re still plugging along in The Secret Garden, so much of our read-aloud time has been spent there and on getting ready for baby brother, but we have enjoyed a few other picture books, too.


I’ve mentioned the author Joan Sweeney before, but I have to give her another plug for her book Me and the Measure of Things.  It’s a part of a little series of books, and I’m guessing each of these would be appropriate for older pre-schoolers up through early elementary.  Actually, Me and the Measure of Things would be good for almost anyone who needs the relationship between teaspoons/tablespoons/cups, pints/quarts/gallons, pints/quarts/pecks, etc. explained again, but the illustrations might be a little off-putting for high school students.  ;-)   This book is information dense, but it includes very bright illustrative pictures and has important words in bold-face, so it is easy to look at and digest, despite its density.  I picked it up because we had been working on measurements in Lulu’s math curriculum, and I thought this would make a nice bookend for it.  The girls enjoyed it.


Cynthia Rylant’s Mr. Putter and Tabby series is another I’ve mentioned before, but it bears repeating.  Always before the girls have listened to these in audiobook format, but on our last library run, I picked up one of the books with the hope that Lulu would read it herself.  And she did!  Actually, we read it aloud together, alternating pages.  This is a beginning chapter book about the gentle Mr. Putter and his cat, Tabby.  In this particular story, they (obviously) decide to paint their porch, but due to several mishaps involving animals, they have to do it again and again and again.  This one elicited lots of giggles from my girls, and it wasn’t the first time they had heard it.  Cynthia Rylant is a very prolific author (I’ve written about her here and here myself, in addition to the link above), and I doubt you could go wrong with any of her books.


The last book for today is one that likely won’t come as anything new to most of you, but we’re actually a little behind-the-times here at the House of Hope.  We had supper with my good friend Wanda and her family on Monday night, and she (of course!) had a gift for the DLM all ready (which I simply must post a picture of–later!), and because she is both a wise and kind woman, she included a gift for the girls, too.  Both of them received books, and Louise’s pick was If Only I Had a Green Nose by Max Lucado.  This is one of Lucado’s Punchinello and the Wemmicks tales, which are allegories of humankind’s relationship with God, their Father.  This particular book deals with the issue of fitting in and changing one’s appearance in order to do so.  Again, the message is completely allegorical, so it doesn’t seem heavy-handed.  I would recommend any of Lucado’s books for children.  We all enjoyed this one.  Of course, Wanda is known for her good taste in books!  :-)   (You can actually see pages from If Only I Had a Green Nose here.)

What is your family reading together these days?  I’d love to know!  Leave a link to your blog post below, or simply leave a comment.  This linky will be open until Wednesday night, June 2.

Have a blessed Read Aloud Thursday!  Maybe by next Read Aloud Thursday I’ll have a new little one to read to!  :-)

Kindergarten Retrospective

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I’ve been meaning to do write up this post for a while now because I have stamped a big “DONE” on kindergarten here at the House of Hope.  We’ve finished up our required number of days, and I am to the point in this pregnancy that I need some time to just relax and try to get a few non-schoolish things done around the house. For a while this made me nervous–the idea of quitting while everyone else in our neck of the woods is still plugging away at it, but I’ve gotten over it and have come to realize that in order to take advantage of good weather, perhaps finishing earlier in May is a good idea.  We can always start back in July when it’s too hot to do anything outdoors! 

When I look back at my kindergarten plans, I see that I have stayed pretty true to course, at least in the fundamentals.  Here’s where we stand right now:

Reading

Lulu has finished through lesson 88 in The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading.  I’m not sure where this gets her skill-wise in terms of conventional schooling (i.e. grade level), but I am pleased.  She reads almost everything she sees now, including newspaper headlines (sometimes I think I need to hide the paper from her since those headlines are not always what I want her to read at her tender age) and billboards.  If her interest is strong enough in a subject, she will persevere and read things that are probably above her skill level.  For example, she was really enthralled with Helen Keller, especially after our homeschool group took a field trip to Ivy Green, which was our second trip there of the school year.  About that same time, she read a level 3 Scholastic easy reader about Helen Keller with some frustration but a more than adequate amount of determination.  I plan to continue with the reading lessons in OPGTTR this summer if I can find my brain once the baby is born.  ;-)  

 

Math

We’ve finished all but three lessons in RightStart level A, and I’d say that math has been Lulu’s favorite subject this year.  RightStart has been a good fit for her.  I’ll admit that I grew a little weary of it in the last few weeks of schooling, but that was mainly due to pregnancy fatigue.  It is a very teacher-intensive program (which may be true of all programs at this level–I’m not sure), but I feel like Lulu made a lot of progress in terms of thinking mathematically.  The lack of lots of worksheets makes me a little bit nervous (and I might just be ignorant about what young students should be doing at this age), but in the future we plan to continue with this program and supplement with some other approaches. 

Handwriting 

This is the subject for which I’d probably give myself a big fat F just because I wasn’t consistent enough with it.  Lulu did finish Handwriting Without Tears Letters and Numbers for Me and begin My Printing Book, but after Christmas she began keeping a reading log and I pretty much let her drop doing the workbook.  She’s not much of a workbook-y girl, and she doesn’t like writing, so I thought at least the reading log would make it seem like she was doing something worthwhile and meaningful.  This is also an area in which I feel the least amount of confidence in terms of what her writing “should” look like.  Part of this is because I kind of see handwriting as something that is very personal (and mine gets worse the older I get).  That’s not exactly the way I should see it, probably, but it is.  We’ll pick up with copywork next year and ditch the workbook altogether, I think.

Science, Social Studies (History), Geography, Art, Etc.

Of everything we’ve done this year, this is what the girls (Louise has been along for the K ride this year) will remember.  What we’ve done for these subjects has been rather scattered, really, but I think that’s okay at this age.  Much of what we did early in the year was based on one Five in a Row title or another.  For science, we did deliberately do a unit on the human body, and this was a huge hit with both girls.  As far as history goes, we spent a good bit of time on Helen Keller also, and Laura and Mary were never far from our minds (or our CD player).  I tried to be deliberate about doing artwork with the girls, and sometimes I succeeded and others I didn’t. 

Ivy Green, Birthplace of Helen Keller

Outside the Home

If our days are full of learning at home, our afternoons are often full of learning and playing outside the home.  Lulu played Upward soccer in the fall, and she and Louise both played in the spring.  They both took two fairly intensive weeks of swimming lessons just last month.  They’ve both been involved in weekly music lessons since they were toddlers, and Lulu has actually progressed to a weekly piano class that is quickly getting beyond my level of experience.  :-)   Lulu also began practicing with our church’s Bible quiz team this spring. 

We’ve also had numerous opportunities to go places and do things, both as a family and with our homeschool group.  This year we’ve been to

To Sum It Up

I think we’ve had a great year, but this doesn’t prevent me from feeling the old familiar angst.  That’s why I included that picture at the very beginning of the post.  The moment I saw it at the Georgia Aquarium, I thought of us and this journey we’re on.  Although we belong to a homeschool group, outside of the group we only know one other family that homeschools.  I feel most of the time like I’m doing something very counterculutral, especially given my previous and Steady Eddie’s current profession. 

This time, I think I can attribute most of my appprehension to working out yet another schedule/routine/way of doing things with a new baby in the house.  My biggest challenge this year as a teacher of my children was figuring out what to do with Louise while I worked one-on-one with Lulu.  (This really deserves a post of its own.)  Sometimes I can’t even begin to fathom doing it with an infant, and even more, I can’t imagine doing it with a toddler, etc.  Then I think, if others can do it successfully, why can’t I? 

The other problem I’ve had is figuring out how “to do it all”–housework, meal preparation, blogging ;-) , attention to my spiritual life, etc.  I console myself with the fact that my girls and I have read an awful lot of good books together this year, we’ve made a lot of sweet memories, and Lulu is reading!  I did that!  (I know I didn’t really do it, but please allow me the pleasure of a little self-congratulation.)  I just have to remind myself that everyone makes choices, and choosing one thing (in this case, home education) necessarily disqualifies other choices (public or private school), but that each choice will have its pros and cons.  I love this quote from Wendell Berry’s Hannah Coulter, and I try to remind myself of it when I’m feeling particularly uncertain:

The big idea of education, from first to last, is the idea of a better place.  Not a better place where you are, because you want it to be better and have been to school and learned to make it better, but a better place somewhere else.  In order to move up, you have got to move on.  I didn’t see this at first.  And for a while after I knew it, I pretended I didn’t.  I didn’t want it to be true.

But it was true.  After they [her children] were all gone, I was mourning over them to Nathan.  I said, “I just wanted them to have a better chance than I had.”

Nathan said, “Don’t complain about the chance you had,” in the same way exactly that he used to tell the boys, “Don’t cuss the weather.”  Sometimes you can say dreadful things without knowing it.  Nathan understood this better than I did [. . . ]

And so Nathan required me to think a thought that has stayed with me a long time and has traveled a long way.  It passed through everything I know and changed it all.  The chance you had is the life you’ve got.  You can make complaints about what people, including you, make of their lives after they have got them, and about what people make of other people’s lives, even about yoru children being gone, but you mustn’t wish for another life.  You mustn’t want to be somebody else.  What you must do is this:  “Rejoice evermore.  Pray without ceasing.  In every thing give thanks.”  I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.  (112-13)

I know this quote might not make too much sense completely out of context, as I’ve used it here, but can anyone else see the truth of it? 

Well.  This post started out as a purely academic exercise and ended philosophically.  If you’re still reading, I thank you.  :-)   We’re still in the process of hammering out what next year will look like, but I’ll be sure to post about it as soon as I can.

Q Is for Quilt::Quilting Books and Resources

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A couple of years ago now, I had the privilege of taking a quilting class taught by my good friend, Wanda.  In addition to being a talented writer, a college instructor, and an avid reader, Wanda is a quilter.  She is active in the Alabama Folklife Association, and as a part of this, she has been a community scholar.  I, along with several other women and girls, benefited from her involvement through the string quilting class she taught.  Wanda chose this particular quilting method because this is the way her own grandmoter taught her to quilt.  It uses up leftover fabric in a very efficient way, and we even recycled old newspapers for our blocks.  I found this website which provides both written and visual instructions, if you’re interested in learning more about string quilting.  Anyway, that’s my quilt you see up there, and I’m very proud of it.

Wanda is really great at a whole lot of things, and one of them is being a very generous friend.  She presented me with a couple of books with a common theme of quilts and quilting to share with my girls, and when I realized that one of the Five in a Row books is about sewing and quilting, too, I saw the makings of a thematic unit.  :-)   The FIAR title is The Rag Coat.  Written and illustrated by Lauren Mills, it is the story of a poor Appalachian girl named Minna whose father dies of “miner’s cough” and leaves her, her mother, and her little brother all but destitute.  The desire of Minna’s heart is to go to school, but after her father’s death, she must stay home and help her mother.  When she finally does have a chance to attend school, she has no coat to keep her warm as she walks to and from school.  The Quilting Mothers of the community come to her rescue and make her her own “coat of many colors” out of their scraps.  The children at school make fun of her, of course, until she teaches them a lesson in kindness and community.  My girls enjoyed this story a lot, although they tend to have a morbid fascination with any story that involves death in any way.  Still, it’s a good story with beautiful illustrations and a not-too-heavy-handed moral.

The Rag Coat made me think of Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors, of course.  I am not a fan of country music, but I knew this book would be a perfect companion to The Rag Coat, and I was right.  Coat of Many Colors is just a book of illustrated song lyrics , really, so The Rag Coat fleshes the very similar story out better.  Still, it’s a nice pairing.

 

One of the books Wanda gave us is The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco, one of our favorite author/illustrators.  (I’ve written about her here and here.)  The Keeping Quilt is all about traditions and the passing down of heirlooms.  Of course, in this case, the heirloom is a quilt.  The quilt is  constructed from the narrator’s great grandmother’s dress and babushka (shawl) and bits of other family member’s clothing from back home in Russia.  The quilt serves as a tablecloth, a picnic blanket, a wedding huppa, and a baby blanket for several generations.  Of course, the beautiful illustrations make this book a feast for the eyes, as well.  This book would make a great supplement for so many different studies:  Jewish traditions, the immigrant experience, etc. 

The girls’ favorite quilt book by far, though, is The Quiltmaker’s Gift, another gift from dear Wanda.  We’ve enjoyed Jeff Brumbeau’s work before, thanks to a recommendation by Wanda, and The Quiltmaker’s Gift is every bit as delightful.  It’s the story of an old woman, a  quiltmaker, who ”kept a house in the blue misty mountains up high.”  Her quilts are extraordinary; the colors in them rival those found in nature.  She will not take money for her quilts; she only gives them to the poor and homeless.  A greedy king wants one of her quilts for his own, since one of her quilts is one of the few things he doesn’t possess.  Of course, the quiltmaker won’t just give him one–he has to “earn” it by fulfilling some tasks which require him to put others before himself.  The king slowly begins to change, thanks to the quiltmaker’s demands.  By the end of the story, the king has learned what has true value.  My girls really like this one, and I think part of the reason is because of its gorgeous illustrations.  Gail deMarcken’s watercolor illustrations are bright and so very detailed.  I love the fact that the text box on every page of the story is adorned with a unique quilt square.  The inside covers of the book are covered with different quilt squares, too.  This is another book that is a feast for the eyes!

As far as what we actually did with these books (besides read them, I mean), I started out at Homeschool Share, looking for activities for the FIAR title, The Rag Coat.  However, after realizing that The Quiltmaker’s Gift was more of a hit than The Rag Coat, I decided to go in that direction.  Homeschool Share offers an abundance of resources for this book, but in the end, I ended up utilizing EQuiltBlocks.com a lot and calling it done with a few math activities and an art project or two.  Lulu, my child who really doesn’t like to color very much (who knew?), requested different quilt blocks on several occasions simply to color.  I’m still somewhat torn between simply reading the stories to the girls and talking about them and actually doing something with them.  I can definitely see our homeschool moving more in that direction as the girls get older, but right now, I think I like to take things easy and just do the reading and talking, and maybe a little bit of art.    In that vein, we did a hastily-prepared art activity in which I allowed the girls to pick out a quilt pattern from The Quiltmaker’s Gift.  I then drew the pattern on a piece of watercolor paper with a Sharpie, and we got out our watercolors and went to work.  

Lulu chose the King’s Crown pattern:

 

Louise chose the Spool pattern:

 

I chose the Log Cabin pattern:

I think these brighten up our school room quite a bit!

I can’t close this post without mentioning again a fabulous book with quilting as its theme that I read a few months back.  Leaving Gee’s Bend is a beautifully written juvenile fiction selection.  I won’t rehash my review of it again here, but I will say that it’s worth a look if you enjoy well-written juvenile literature!

I had fun with this theme, and so did my girls!

Read Aloud Thursday

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Welcome to the first official Read Aloud Thursday  at my new place!  I’m so glad you found Read Aloud Thursday and I hope you’ll come back each week for this great opportunity to share what you’ve been reading together as a family.  All of the archived Read Aloud Thursdays are here at my new address, and I’m looking forward to many, many more Read Aloud Thursdays with all of you!

Here’s how it works:  each Thursday, I post a little sampling of what we’ve been enjoying together here at the House of Hope.  Sometimes it’s themed; sometimes it’s a random sampling of good picture books we’ve borrowed from the library; sometimes it’s the latest chapter book we’ve finished.  I provide a MckLinky list, and you simply leave a link to your blog entry about your own read-aloud(s).  Don’t have a blog?  That’s okay, too.  Just leave a comment giving us the details! I even have a Read Aloud Thursday button or banner I’d love for you to use on your blog! 

Okay, now on to the real business at hand!  I’ve been saving these for several weeks, and I’m excited to finally share them!

365 Penguins is a large-format picture book by Jean-Luc Fromental that is the hilarious story of a family that receives, over the course of a year, 365 penguins from some anonymous benefactor.  All of the problems and craziness that could possibly follow the arrival of so many penguins ensues, and the family does all sorts of mathematical calculations to keep track of their new charges.  Joelle Jolivet‘s illustrations are large, graphic, and eye-catching.  As is obvious from the cover of the book, the primary colors used are black, white, and orange, with a little bit of blue thrown in for fun.  Reading this book is a math lesson in itself.  This is one I’d love to own a copy of to pull out and re-read from time to time.  Highly Recommended!

Of course, we couldn’t help but think of Mr. Popper’s Penguins while reading 365 Penguins.  The similarities are just too great.  I’ve yet to actually read Mr. Popper’s Penguins to my children, but we have listened to the audiobook multiple times.  (I wrote about it here.)  In fact, after reading 365 Penguins, we were inspired to check out Mr. Popper’s Penguins in audio yet again.  I hardly see how Mr. Popper could be avoided after reading 365 Penguins, really.  And who would want to avoid Mr. Popper’s Penguins, anyway?  It truly is one of the most delightful children’s books I’ve read, and my girls love it as much as I do.  This one gets another Highly Recommended!

Please share what you’ve been reading together as a family by leaving a blog link to the actual blog post below, or just leave a comment.

Have a terrific Read Aloud Thursday!

Balance Benders by The Critical Thinking Co.

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PhotobucketI received a copy of the beginning volume of Balance Benders:  Logic and Algebraic Reasoning Puzzles by Robert Femiano to review for TOS HomeschoolCrew.  This book is published by The Critical Thinking Company, and it is but one of a boatload of resources produced by this compnay.  The volume of Balance Benders we used is marked for grades 2-6, so I was not very optimistic that my kindergartener would be able to complete any of the puzzles.  However, as so often happens, I was pleasantly surprised that she was able to complete the first exercise with little trouble.  In fact, she enjoyed it!  The whole concept behind this book is that of recognizing equal statements that are based on a balance or scale that contain symbol(s) that are equal .  I will be the first to admit that I’m not as knowledgeable about “logic and algebraic reasoning” as I should be will be one day, but I sincerely want this to be a part of my children’s education.  This is definitely a resource that I plan to hold onto for future use, and at $10 a volume, I would definitely consider purchasing the more advanced volumes in the future.
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For more reviews of this and other Critical Thinking Company products, check out TOS Homeschool Crew blog!

This product was sent to me free of charge for review purposes.

Math Mammoth

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I scarcely know how to write this review because I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of this curriculum.  I received it as a member of TOS HomeschoolCrew, and since we are in the middle of using a curriculum for Lulu’s kindergarten that seems to be working extremely well, I used Math Mammoth as a supplemental resource.  I incorporated worksheets from the Blue Series, which I received electronically.  Specifically, Lulu worked on pages from the Math Mammoth Addition 1 worktext, since that is as far as she has gotten skill-wise.  I used it as an open-and-go resource; I did not do any extra instruction, which is exactly how the Blue Series books are designed to be used:  as supplemental, remedial, or review material.  The worksheets Lulu completed served the purpose for which we used them very well.  I was also pleased to find in the introductory material of the worktext a list math websites that could be used for practice.  Lulu and Louise have both played a few math games on some of the recommended websites, and I appreciate the fact that these resources were gathered for me and I didn’t have to go looking for them.

 

Although the Blue Series worktexts are arrange topically (as opposed to by grade level), Math Mammoth does publish complete leveled curricula for grades first through fifth.  I have not seen these materials, but I would guess based on our experience thus far with Math Mammoth that they would be an excellent choice for a complete curriculum. 

I give Math Mammoth a Highly Recommended.  It is very affordable and can be purchased in a variety of combinations determined by the students’ needs.  The website offers a wealth of helpful information, as well.  I am glad to have Math Mammoth in our homeschooling arsenal, and I am sure we will continue to use this resource as the girls make progress in their mathematics education.

For more reviews of Math Mammoth, check out TOS HomeschoolCrew blog.

I received this product free of charge for review purposes.