End of year Wrap-Up

We've officially ended our homeschooling year 2010-2011. Actually, we finished a few weeks ago and I have been trying to write this post forever, but a new dog and trying to pack up to move for the summer have been keeping me from most other things these days. Summer in New Enlgand is so very beautiful. When it finally arrives I inevitably say to myself 'so this is why I live here'. We put aside any formal work for the summer, and relax into a different type of learning. We will soon be moving out to our house on the beach, and I look forward to spending our days playing, swimming, searching for treasures, reading great books, and taking long walks.

We did so many fun things this year! I'm sure I won't remember everything, but here are a few things we enjoyed: D learned about physics, architecture, and biology. He had a great time building models of simple machines and reading 'The New Way Things Work'. We took nature walks, planted a garden, and photographed the birds that come to our birdfeeder throughout the year. We participated in the Cornell Ornithololgy Lab's Backyard Bird Count and entered a Science Fair. J learned all about animals and plants. We visited the Museum of Science and the New England Aquarium. D learned about world history from 1849 to the fall of the Berlin Wall. He worked on maps and learned about the 50 states, important U.S documents and amendments to the Constitution, and read some great biographies and historical fiction. J learned about the seven continents and read stories from around the world. We visited Battleship Cove and Old Sturbridge Village. We discovered our new favorite board game, The Scrambled States of America.

D read the entire Guardians of G'Ahoole series, and the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, along with many other wonderful books. Some of our favorites include Nory Ryan's Song, The Sign of the Beaver, and Number the Stars. J became a fluent reader this year! We read so many great read-alouds. Her favorites were Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, and Around the World in 80 Tales. D wrote some wonderful stories this year, and did some great non-fiction writing as well. I truly enjoy the content of his writing and it's been so much fun to watch his confidence in writing grow this year.

Both kids worked on math skills using Math-U-See. D began learning German and continued his study of Latin and Greek root-words. J practiced violin while D rocked his drum set, and both kids made some beautiful art in their art classes.

We ended the year with two performances of Much Ado About Nothing, in which D played the role of Dogberry. It was a wonderful way to end the year.

D, backstage, during the Young Shakespeare Company's performance of Much Ado About Nothing

History, Geography, and Cultural Studies: How We Learn It

We are winding down our school year and I thought I would recap what we have learned this year, and how we went about it. Last week D finished up his year-long study of world history from 1849 - present. Since he began homeschooling almost three years ago we have been using the Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer to study history and geography. We follow a classical approach, breaking world history down into four units, studying one unit per year. The summer before he began homeschooling we read Volume One, Ancient Times together and D was hooked! During second grade he learned about medieval history, in third grade he learned early modern history (from late Renaissance to the gold rush) and this year he finished up the fourth volume, from the gold rush to the fall of the Berlin Wall. D listens to a chapter or two on CD per week or reads them from the book, and does a corresponding map to go along with the learning he has done.

I think that there is no easier way to make learning history tedious than to give kids text books and to ask them to memorize dates and take tests, only to regurgitate information that they will quickly forget. I want history to come alive for my children, and I want them to always find meaning in what they are learning. So we read lots of historical fiction, take lots of field trips, and do lots of projects. This year D has read Farmer Boy, The Sign of the Beaver, David Livingstone Foe of Darkness, Number the Stars, Meet Addy, Stawberry Girl, Snow Treasure, Anne Frank, Life in Hiding, and Harriet Tubman, Go Free or Die, and has listened to the novels of Patricia Reilly Giff on CD just to name some favorites. We visited Plimoth Plantation, and yesterday went to Old Sturbridge Village for the first time! Next month we'll head to Battleship Cove to check out some WWII era subs. D was so very lucky to be able to travel to Greece and Rome with my dad and his wife last summer and to visit the ruins, museums, and cathedrals of many of the historic places he'd learned about over the past years.

Public schools seem to focus on U.S history, which makes sense in a way. It's good to know about the country where you live and ours is a very large and diverse country to be sure. But I want my children to be curious about the world around them and accepting and knowledgeable of other countries and cultures. So we focus on world history, but I also try to find creative ways to introduce U.S history each year as well. D has learned about famous presidents, important documents, the three branches of government, and the 50 states - mostly by reading books, watching movies (Brainpop and School House Rock are favorite sources)and playing stack the states on his ipod. Our new favorite book is the Scrambled States of America and we can't wait to get the board game!

J has been learning all about world culture this year. We use the book Around the World in 80 Tales by Saviour Pirotta and Richard Johnson as a jumping off point to learn about the world we live in. It's a book of folk tales from around the world. So we read several stories each week, and then put a flag sticker of the country we've been reading about from her Flags of the World book into a passport that we made in the beginning of the year. We also use globes and puzzles to learn geography. So far she's 'traveled' to countries in North America, South America, Africa, and Europe and this month we'll be reading and learning about Asia. We try to do a project for each continent - for example, we made clay beads last week when we were reading about Africa. When we learned about North America we did some crafts with quilting squares and made a southern-style meal. We also read lots of historical picture books and early chapter books for young learners. J loves the Little House books and some other favorites are the D'Aulaire's books of famous people (we love Abe Lincoln and Columbus), Follow the Dream, the Story of Christopher Columbus, Farmer George Plants a Nation, Martin's Big Words, Paths to Peace, Squanto's Journey, and Across a Dark and Wild Sea.

Happy history learning!

fiesta masks

The kids made some paper mache fiesta masks to wrap up our study of South America. This was a fun, messy project that they enjoyed very much - the mixing, smearing, and painting were all very toddler-friendly and K jumped right in. J was a bit grossed out by the slimy paper mache feeling and refused to touch it, but she was able to use a paint stick to spread hers around. D tried to make his mask as ridiculous looking as possible and I love how it turned out. They are a colorful addition to our school/play room!

clay creations

D and J made some lovely clay creations at the MFA this month. They toured the ancient Egypt exhibit and saw sculptures, jewelry, and objects found in tombs and even saw a mummified head. I'm always amazed that art, jewelry, sculpture, and yes, even heads, can survive for such an incredibly long time. It's amazing. It makes me wonder what we will leave behind for people to discover thousands of years from now. Sadly, I'm guessing it will mostly be plastic. After touring the Egypt galleries and exhibits the children made their own creations. J made a cat, inspired by some of the Egyptian sculptures she had seen, and of course her love of our new kitten, Lewis. D made a . . . tank. What, you didn't know the ancient Egyptians actually invented the tank? It's true. In their spare time, after they were done with those silly pyramids and sphyxes and all that nonsense, they moved on to tank warfare.

I'm actually not sure where the tank idea came from, but at least he had fun, and came up with an original idea.

Geography Fair

We had a great time at the Geography Fair and Closing Ceremony hosted by our HS co-op. D chose to create a project about the Galapagos Islands. Due to the events of the previous week he had very little time to prepare his project, so I was very pleased to see the dedication with which he applied himself in order to finish it on time. Although we weren't able to do all that we had planned, he did make a clay habitat using FIMO clay, and a poster showing various types of landscapes and vegetation on some of the islands. Watching him create his tiny creatures using FIMO brought me back to my childhood, when I used to spend hours rolling tiny FIMO clay beads to make jewelry.

All of the kids who participated were given a passport and as they traveled to other projects, trying different foods or learning about the culture of that country, they received a stamp for their passport. We enjoyed seeing all the projects that the kids created and learning new things about different places. There are some truly talented artists, poets, cooks, and all-around geography buffs in our group!

All things Russian...

We use the Story of the World audio books, written by Jessie Wise and narrated by Jim Weiss, to learn about history. D loves the way she presents history as a series of interesting stories and is an avid fan of world history. We try to cover one volume per year, and this year we are using Volume 3, which covers history from the late Renaissance to Early Modern times. The great thing about stretching one volume out over the year is that it gives us lots of time to jump off, research, and explore the stories of different countries, religions, and cultures.

We've been learning about Russian history since last year and have loved learning about the 2 Ivans (the 'great' and the 'terrible', aka as Ivan the Awesome to us after watching Night at the Museum 2) and most recently about Catherine the Great and her achievments in modernizing and westernizing Russia. To explore Russian culture a bit more this week we read 'The tale of the Firebird', by Gennady Spirin, a beautifully illustrated book and lovely Russian folk tale. After reading the book, the kids made their own clay firebirds, and decorated/painted them while listening to the Firebird Suite by Stravinsky.

Next we made some yummy Russian food. I've decided that cooking something sweet is always a plus if you can add it into your unit study! D is turning into quite the chef and he made blini, which are Russian pancakes that taste a lot like crepes. (Also, it's really fun to say 'blini'!) We filled them with powdered sugar and cinammon, folded them up and ate them with our fingers. We all agreed that they were delicious. Then we moved on to borscht (another fun word), which is a Russian beet and vegetable soup. Our finished product looked a bit like pale pepto bismal with vegetables floating in it, but tasted pretty good despite it's pallid hue - although the kids might disagree with that statement! I think we probably didn't use enough beets, so it didn't have the vibrant red color one would would expect borscht to have. Borscht will forever be known as pink soup in our house.