Spring has sprung???

It is a beautiful day today. Crisp and sunny, not too cool. The perfect day to get outside, get dirty, and start our garden. But before we head outside here is a summary of this past week.

D finished hockey for the year, which he is none to happy about, but it comes at a good time as his theater rehearsals are increasing as the kids get ready to perform their play, Much Ado About Nothing. Dylan has been cast as Dogberry, the policeman. He worked on estimating and division this week, and on reviewing antonyms, synonyms, compound words, pronouns and antecedents, and homonyms. It sounds like a lot, but it was basically all review. We also discussed the book, Meet Addy, which is part of our literature curriculum. D is feeling a bit unenthusiastic about the past few literature selections he has been assigned. I think in part he has decided to complain about any and all assigned reading, and partly he is tired of reading books with female protagonists. And I have to agree - between Meet Addy, Strawberry Girl, Caddie Woodlawn, and Number the Stars, there is a whole lotta girl power going on. So we might skip a few of those books and choose something together that interests him more. He is still devouring the Guardians of G'Ahoole books and I think he is currently reading book 10. D also wrote in his journal and worked on his science project which is just about finished. He went to art and percussion lessons as well. In Keva class he and his classmates built a Roman city and staged a battle between the Romans and Visigoths.

J, K and I read lots of books about spring, hoping that would usher it's appearance along. We read Listen, Listen, An Egg is Quiet, The Spring Equinox, A New Beginning, When the Eart Wakes, and All About Frogs. She also worked on her science project and finished two books this week, Katy No Pocket, and Mouse Soup, which she checked out from the library.

J also worked with place value and number order with her Math-U-See blocks. She had a great time at skating lessons, though I'm pretty sure she spent most of the time either sitting or lying on the ice.

K has become quite the puzzle master these days and has done many of them over the past few weeks.

She also worked with scissors a lot this week, though I find myself constantly asking "What is the only thing we cut with scissors?", to which she replies "Paper" while attempting to cut her doll's hair off. Oh well. I guess dolls with crew cuts aren't the worst thing in the world.

Reflecting

I've been thinking this week about the current rhythm of our daily life. If there were a soundtrack to match our life these past few weeks, it might be something like Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee. In short, life is feeling a bit rushed, a bit frenetic, and a bit chaotic lately, which is never a great way to feel. Full to the tipping point is fine, but full to the point at which the cup runeth over and spills onto the floor so that you are standing in ankle deep muck is not so great. Am I even making sense? I am feeling so very tired tonight. Anyway, some things will need to change around here for next year if not before, like limiting the kids activities to a few things during the week, no matter how much they love their artmusictheaterskatinghockeygymnasticsviolinpercussionlessons, we need more down time at home together, more time to truly investigate and explore our interests, and more time to recharge, relax, or just be together as a family and see where the day takes us. I've also been thinking about the way in which we homeschool, the curriculum we follow, and our educational philosophy - which could sort of be summed up as relaxed classical homeschooling with a love of Waldorf and Charlotte Mason-inspired learning. And as we go through each year I find myself letting go more and more, discarding ideas that I once thought were so vital to learning - moving away from worksheets and more toward projects and unstructured learning. And I find myself taking on a different role with D and facilitating his learning, rather than actually teaching him.

So this week D worked with Math U See, focusing on word problems with division, and writing remainders as fractions. Bleh. I feel bored even writing that sentence. Next week we'll be working with estimating and rounding, which will be a welcome change as I feel math has become a bit redundant and repetitive the past few weeks. Of course, repetition is a good thing, but too much can start make one start to feel stagnant. He did some creative writing in his journal, and worked a bit in our language arts book. He finished the first part of his science project and learned about the Belgian Congo and Argentina post World War Two. Lately D has begun to really question things he's learning in history, rather than just absorbing the information. Last week he asked me why the Israelis and Palestinians couldn't find a way to share the land they both wanted. Good question buddy, good question. And why the Danish people were the only ones, by and large, to help the Jews escape the Nazis? I love to hear his deep thoughts these days. He also drew a beautiful owl picture this week in art.

J has had an explosion of reading this week. Suddenly she is reading everything she picks up, all the time. It's great. She's decoding words I never thought she would be able to read at this point. She also worked with her Math-U-See blocks quite a bit, and had fun making place value houses. We read some stories about Africa from Around the World in 80 Tales, read about amphibians, and worked on her science project on dolphins. She learned the very final notes of Suzuki Violin Book 1 today!

K continues to be my wonderful, feisty red head. She wants to be outside all the time. I just want it to warm up around here!

To hear the current soundtrack of our life click here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X04jDNHFjBU

Milestones

Wrapping up the week here in homeschooling land and here is what we did this week: We went to the opera! All of us! Together! This was truly a milestone for us as a family, as K was able to sit through the entire production, which was modified for school-age children, without threats, bribes or entreaties made on my behalf to justpleasesitstillandbequietstopwigglinganduseawhispervoicepleasepleaseplease. She truly enjoyed the production and was very excited to see the witch. The opera was Boston Lyric Opera's production of Engelbert Humperdink's Hansel and Gretel. We read the story earlier in the week, being such the care-free, happy-go-lucky children's story that it is - what with witches eating children and all, so that they would be familiar with the story. Everyone enjoyed it, no one seemed traumatized by the child-eating theme, and all mutually agreed that the best part was when Hansel and Gretel tricked the witch and pushed her into the oven. She was then carried off stage by hospital workers on a stretcher. I had to agree that this was indeed the best part.

In other areas, all three munchkins continued to learn about sea life this week, focusing on seals, sea-lions, walruses, and dolphins. D worked on his science project quite a bit, so it should start to come together next week. J and K's read alouds included Mr. Seahorse, A House for Hermit Crab, Listen, Listen, Ten Little Fish, One Morning in Maine, and Leprauchaun in Late Winter. DG brought each of the girls a watch from his last trip to Taiwan, so J worked diligently at learning to tell time all week. She decided to participate in the 30 Day Challenge, a program run through the Suzuki program at South Shore Conservatory. To participate, she needs to practice for thirty days in a row! She's doing well with it so far, and is up to 11 days of practice. She's working on learning Gossec Gavotte, and reviewing her other book one pieces. We also read stories from Around the World in 80 Tales, focusing on stories from France and added several European countries to her passport. She loves to read (yay!) and is working on reading stories from her new reader.

D worked on division and some word problems this week. We reviewed possesive pronouns and learned more about David Livingstone's travels through Africa, and did some map-work. He worked on persuasive writing with an essay entitled, Why Dylan Should Be Allowed to Have a Pet Chicken. He wrapped up his unit on American history, much to his delight, and learned about Zionism and the establishment of Israel following World War Two. He's reading Anne Frank, Life in Hiding, and one of the Guardians of G'Ahoole books.

the week in review 1/17 - 1/21

This week went by in such a blur I can hardly remember what we did! I am trying to get ready for our trip to Florida, on top of all our regular commitments so I most definitely burnt the proverbial candle at both ends this week. Here's what i remember:

D
We all went to a wonderful opera preview with some singers from the Boston Lyric Opera on Monday. In a few months we will all go to see Engelbert Humperdink's opera, "Hansel and Gretel", so these singers previewed the opera and also educated the kids about opera and singing in general. They were so much fun, all the kids were laughing and having a great time, and I was very pleased to see that both D and J remembered much from the past operas they have seen, The Magic Flute and The Barber of Seville.

Here at the homefront D worked on some expository writing this week. I loved his informative and brief essay entitled, "How to Cook a Fried Egg". It made me laugh and also realize how grown up he is becoming, because he does indeed often cook himself eggs these days. We also reviewed prepositions, contractions, homonyms, and he wrote from dictation several times. He finished 'David Livingston' and is reading the third book in the 'Guardians of G'Ahoole' series. In math he worked on learning how to write trillions, billions, and millions and reviewed conversions and finding averages. He learned about the powers of the executive branch, and about the easter uprising and socialism in Russia post WWI. D continuted his marine science research project, focusing on flounder and sea clams this week. He went to hockey, art, theater, and percussion lessons this week.

J
J lost her first tooth! The tooth fairy paid her a visit, even though she swallowed the tooth in the brownie she was eating at church. She was quite upset about not being able to keep her first tooth, but I assured her there will be many more to come. J read two phonics readers this week and also read a story in her first grade reader. She reads all the time now, anything she can get her hands on, from canned goods in the pantry to menus in a restaurant. It is fun seeing everything begin to fall in to place for her. We read James and the Giant Peach, James Herriot's Treasure for Children, and many library books at our local library, which I now call our home away from home. We were there 3 times on Thursday. Three. Times. She worked on adding by 1 and 2 and also on skip counting and learning her odd and even numbers. Her social studies and science were grossly neglected this week, and I was feeling pretty guilty about it last night. We will need to get back on track after our vacation. But she did practice violin every day and she finished learning the Happy Farmer. She sounds great and all her review songs are solid. She went to gymnastics, and violin group class this week.

We are off to warmer lands in two days! It can't come soon enough as last night it was negative 8 degrees and today our thermometer is registering a balmy 5 degrees fahrenheit. Brrrrrr. More posts to come after our getaway!

the week in review 1/10 - 1/14

K
K enjoyed a typical week of blocks, play-do, coloring, and playing with her siblings. Her favorite read aloud this week was 'Python's Party', a book she checked out of the library. She is also enjoying hearing 'James and the Giant Peach' with her sister.

J
J read a story from her first grade reader, "Up and Away", this week and also read a story from her phonics reader. She wrote thank you notes to her family members who sent her Christmas gifts. We played War to work on comparing numbers 1 - 10 and worked on simple addition. After finishing up our unit study on North America we made a southern-style meal of hoppin' john, cornbread, and collard greens. The cornbread was a hit! But the kids feel they could gladly live without hoppin' john and collards. J and K both did some art with quilting squares. We read about fish this week and watched some Brainpop movies about sea life. J practiced violin every day (except Friday when she had a random low-grade fever) and is still working on the Happy Farmer and reviewing her Minuets. We read many books aloud, including 'James and the Giant Peach'. J did a lot of drawing this week and all the kids built elaborate pillow mazes and an obstacle course in the playroom. J went to gymnastics this week. At Monday Funday she took a KEVA class and gym.

D
After a month of math neglect during our uber-busy December I realized that D really needed a week to review some of the concepts that we glossed over a bit. So we reviewed division facts, how to find the area of a square, rectangle, parallelogram, trapezoid, and triangle, and coversions using ounces, pounds, pints, quarts, and gallons.

We reviewed compound sentences, using commas, conjuctions, antonyms, and the suffix -er as well as -ful. We also reviewed homonyms, the prefix mis- and positive, comparative, and superlative adjectives. It was a review-filled week here at the GB house! Our favorite find of the week are Story Cubes, a cute little game I picked up at a local toy store. There are many ways to use them, but this week D rolled the cubes and wrote a story linking the pictures on all 8 cubes together. It was a lot of fun and made for some funny stories! I like that you can interpret the pictures in many ways to make it fit your story, too. For example, a moon can mean that your story takes place on the moon, or at night. D also wrote thank you notes for his Christmas gifts, and addressed the envelopes as well. He is reading the second book in the 'Guardians of G'Ahoole' series, and is also reading 'David Livingstone, Foe of Darkness' much to his chagrin. He is not crazy about the book, but I am encouraging him to stick with it by reading one chapter a day. He rolls his eyes and grumbles under his breath every time he takes the book out, but I don't want him thinking that we just drop a book the minute it gets dull or challenging. Books are like friends - it takes time to develop a relationship with them and you never know when they might just surprise you with something wonderful.

D learned about the House of Representatives and the Senate and researched his Massachusetts state senators. We talked a bit about the shootings in Arizona. It was impossible to avoid this week, fully saturating the media as it did, and I wanted him to know the facts and have an honest discussion about it. He listened to Story of the World and learned about the Russian Revolution and the end of World War I. For geography he made a map showing the allied and central forces in Europe. D also watched part of 'The History of US' and learned more about westward expansion following the Civil War.

We decided to take a break from Physics and spend some time on D's favorite subject, biology. He wants to research several New England marine species (Atlantic cod, flounder, American lobsters, and sea clams) and make a poster outlining different facts about each one. He has taken a special interest in their conservation status and fishing requirements/restrictions, and has learned quite a bit about how much of our seafood is harvested. This has led to discussions about sustainability and environmentally friendly fishing practices (or more often than not, the lack thereof). I'm glad he decided to do this project. I can see his passion for science whenever we talk about the ocean and the creatures that live there!

This week I made the executive decision to scrap our Latin program. We have been using Prima Latina and recently began Latina Christiana, which takes Latin to a new level. They are both wonderful programs, but I'm not sure that D will really need an in-depth knowledge of Latin at this point in his education. If he were passionate about Latin that would be one thing, but he doesn't care for it all that much and frequently complains about it, though he doesn't want to drop it all together. So instead we will begin learning Latin and Greek vocabulary using root words and he will choose a different language to study. We're thinking German, because my dear friend from Germany is coming to visit this summer with her husband and children!

D played hockey several times this week, practiced his drums, went to art, and had a great time playing with friends for much of the week. We all went sledding on Monday and enjoyed an electricity-free day on Wednesday when we were hit with a blizzard. We hunkered down in front of the fireplace, read books, played games, and took naps. It was a nice week.

the week in review 1/3 - 1/7

Since it is a new year, I decided to begin a new blogging tradition of summing up our learning at the end of each week. Sometimes the weeks go by in such a blur of activity that I wonder if we did anything at all, and I hope that this might be a way to reflect back on what we've learned and enjoyed each week. I'll blog about each child, what we did, what worked, and what did not.

K
K is not quite 3 yet, so we don't do any formal work at all. I have a large assortment of art supplies readily available for her, as well as some Montessori materials, and I let her choose what she would like to do while I work with her brother and sister. Most of the time she chooses creative free play, but this week she also organized her knobless cylinders by size and color, worked with play-do and paints, and did some graphing with her sister. We read lots of stories, her favorites being two library books she picked out, "Snuggle Wuggle", and "Flip, Flap, Fly". On Wednesday she went to the South Shore Natural Science Center with our wonderful babysitter while I took D and J to their music lessons. She got to feed the turtles and she held a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach!

J
J finished another story in her first grade reader this week. She worked from her handwriting book and also drew pictures, mostly of birds and ducks. J decided she wanted to learn all about animals this year, and so far we have studied birds and mammals. We've now moved on to reptiles and have learned about turtles, snakes, lizards, and tuataras. This week we learned about the crocodilian family of reptiles. We use "Around the World in 80 Tales" to learn geography. We focus on one continent at a time, locating it on a map or globe, reading the story from a specific country, and then reading about that continent and country in our Children's Atlas. J and I made her a passport at the beginning of the year and each time we read a story from a country she puts a flag sticker from that particular country in her atlas. This week we read "The Golden Horshoe", a story from Guatemala. That wrapped up our unit study of North America. Next week we will be cooking some southern-style food and making some crafts to compliment this unit. Our math lessons included making a graph using color blocks, making an ABC pattern using pattern blocks, acting out subtraction stories using bears, and playing math computer games. She practiced violin every day and started learning "The Happy Farmer" by Schumann. At Monday Funday J took a gym class and a KEVA class. This week she went to gymnastics, violin group class, and brownies. We read lots of books out loud, but focused mainly on James and the Giant Peach, which we are reading for her book club. All three of the kids build with KEVA planks this week - a lot! J made a dinosaur and animal habitat/sanctuary that she has expanded every day. I'm going to need to get some more planks soon.

D
For language arts this week D wrote from dictation, using literature passages from "Trumpet of the Swan" by E.B White, learned about when to use commas when addressing a person, reviewed conjunctions, learned about compound sentences, worked on antonyms and learned about the suffix -ful. He did some shape analogies for enrichment.
His math this week focused on thousands, millions, and place-value notation. He also reviewed how to find the area of a square, triangle, parallelogram, and trapezoid.
D worked from his Presidents and States workbook this week, learning about the three branches of government and the system of checks and balances. The material is a bit dry, but he was a good sport about it. We watched some School House Rock episodes to relieve the tedium, specifically "I'm just a Bill" , "Three-Ringed Government", and " Conjunction Junction". We had a history lesson planned, but D had a lot of fun building a civil war camp out of KEVA planks, so I let the lesson go. We will save it for next week.
He started the next level of Latin this week, and reviewed some verbs and the first conjugation.
D read about inclined planes from "The New Way Things Work" by David MacAulay and also watched Brainpop videos about inclined planes, Sir Isaac Newton, and Newton's three laws of motion. We did an experiment with lego cars and blocks of wood to show how using an inclined plane lessens the effort needed to move an object. We used a spring scale to measure and compare the force of lifting an object, and pulling an object up an inclined plane. Good to know, I guess, in case I ever decide to build a pyramid or hoist a piano up to the second floor of my house.
At Monday Funday D built with LEGOS and made a simple motorized robot using LEGO Mindstorms. He also took a gym class. His activities this week included hockey (4 times this week, I might add!), theater, art, and drum lessons.
D is listening to "Water Street" by Patricia Reilly Giff on CD, and is reading "Over the Waves" by Marianne Olson, and the first book in the "Guardians of Ga'Hoole" series.

It was a busy week. I am exhausted, too exhausted to cook eve, which is rare for me, and am looking forward to a nice dinner out with my family. Wow, this was a long post - I may have to rethink this brilliant week in review idea, or at least learn how to condense things for next week!