What's That Bug?

One of our difficulties with Nature Study on this part of the planet is, identification.  There is some serious diversity here in Peru! (and I'm not complaining!) It was said by Theodore Parker III, famous American field ornithologist, “Peru offers ‘bird-enthusiasts’ more than any other country in the world… Being here is like being a child visiting a huge store filled with new and fascinating toys”.  While the resources are vast for identification of wildlife native to North America, I have yet to find any comprehensive online resources for South America.  Lots of animals, birds and insects are similar but with variations, so it is difficult to nail any one specimen down, even with the best of sources.  So while we do have a couple of books as helps, I still many times am at a total loss.

Today for example, after several hours spent on Whatsthatbug.com looking to pinpoint several of our local bugs found on recent nature walks, this one stumped me, so I decided to submit a question.  Here it is:

My son spotted this bug while we were out on a nature walk.  It is a bright blue.  While I've spent several hours searching your site for something similar, all I've found is the masked hunter (but I doubt it is this because there was absolutely nothing this color anywhere near where we were... no blue carpet :).  It is similar in color to the blue-green citrus weevil, but it's body doesn't look like it as it's rather bumpy.  Just thought it'd be fun to identify it, though I didn't imagine it would be this hard... :)


He was about 2cm in length and was crossing a dirt road near a farm of coconut trees.  We live in 'ceja de selva' (which is on the eastern slopes of the Andes, above true rainforest level).

my images are here:

and here:

Any ideas?

All I know is, that it's possible that I've found a species that hasn't been discovered... and I want to name it if that is the case!  The Turquoise Blue Tuttle Beetle.  of course.

My Recommended Resources:
While we're on the subject of identification guides, here are the books we have:
(only one is specific to Peru, or South America for that matter)

Here are the books we'd like to have... someday: (why on earth are they so expensive?!)

My Helpful Links: (I will be adding to these as I find them... )
Birds of Peru - Tarapoto - page one, page two, page three
Rainforest Insects

Are you missing something?!

Here's the official site for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.  I'm sure we'll find some helpful information there!  Speaking of information... can somebody tell me what curling is?!  Is this a NEW event?  I'm pretty sure I've never ever heard of it!

I feel totally deprived not having watched a SINGLE event in this year's winter Olympics in Vancouver... I mean it's practically in my old backyard (I'm from Oregon!).

I bought a unit study on the Olympics thinking that my kids cannot possibly go their whole childhood never having watched an Olympics... but unless we have cable, we couldn't hope to see any action.  We definitely don't want cable... I won't go into details, but believe it or not the smut on the screen, in terms of smut-i-ness, beats what you'd see stateside one hundred to one.

Now that the games are all but over, I'm feeling withdrawals as I hear how all the teams have done.  Memory is bringing to mind how totally into the whole thing I was when I was younger and how much of an influence the Olympics had on my interest in sports and physical activity!  Oh me. Oh my.

Never fear, all is not lost!  I just found out that NBC.com has event replays online!!!  woohoo!  I am SO excited!  You can probably guess what we'll be doing this evening, and tomorrow, and every free minute until they take them down!!

Oh yeah.

Oh no.

I just clicked on the link above and you'll NEVER guess what I found...

Due to Olympic broadcasting regulations, NBC is only allowed to show Olympic competition video on the internet to users in the United States and U.S. Territories (including Puerto Rico). Users outside of those locations will still have access to an extensive set of non-event video content on NBCOlympics.com including the video listed below. 

Oh my.  NON-EVENT VIDEO CONTENT... Did you catch that part?!  NBC's the best!!  Not.
So, did anyone record them?!  Does anyone want to make us a 200 DVD collection from their recordings??  Sad.  I found the official broadcast for Peru here.  It's pretty much a disaster... can't understand it at all as it seems to have several video streams going simultaneously.  Junk.

Oh well.  Life goes on.  Someday, I'm going to get the whole experience with my kids.  As of today it's going on my bucket list!  So did you make a big deal of the Olympics in your family?  Did you even watch them? 

PS.  Okay, I know it's a little late for most of you, as the Olympics are officially over in TWO days :(  [sniff. sniff.]  ...but I just found a fellow CMer's blog with a post with lots of helpful links and Olympiad activity ideas.   Have a look here.  I know that I'm going to be doing a little theme on it in a couple weeks on our vacation week... so I'll be able to have the benefit of everyone's accumulative efforts!!  oh yeah.

PPS. I've been made aware of several sites that have post-olympic information, including videos of actual events!!  I am saved!  ;)  Thanks Erin!!

http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-videos/ 

and

http://www.olympic.org/en/Multimedia-Player/

Nature Walk... cont'd

We normally do our Nature Studies on Mondays... but it was raining.  hard.  which in Tarapoto, means mud.  LOTS of mud.  So, we went on Tuesday.  Even a day after the rains, we still had to turn back to take little miss sunshine to get cleaned up, she slipped in the mud not ten feet from our house.  Since we were late getting out, we didn't go far.  But we did go.  Here are some things we talked about...

"The aim in Nature study is to develop a realisation of God the Creator, and to infuse a sense of the beauty of Nature."

Lord Baden-Powell

It was HOT already at 10am! That's why my face is RED!
but the tree shot was too good to pass up... bent perfectly to make a seat :)


I love these little fingers.




This is SO sad!!! Garbage. This is a very bad habit here,
to just dump trash EVERYWHERE. It really ruins a beautiful view.




A few of the above pictures were taken of our local gas station's landscaping!
Hah! You CAN do nature study ANYwhere :)


And one of my favorites, right outside my door...


This guy is always waiting for us outside the window :)

So, did you go for a walk this week?

What's keeping you?

Composer Study: Edvard Grieg

Activities:

Read Grieg's  Biography: (see links in left side bar for background, childhood, etc)

Listen to Classic For Kid's audio shows on Edvard Grieg HERE (you can also read the transcripts there).

Print this off for a timeline figure!!

Edvard Grieg
June 15, 1843 - Sept. 4, 1907

Image courtesy of Bergen Off. Library

Edvard Grieg Music to buy:

I am thinking about downloading this mp3 album from amazon.com - $9.49 for TONS of music (38 tracks to be exact!):

This CD has several of the AO selections on one disc:  (Peer Gynt No.1&2, Finlandia, Norwegian Dances) $6.49 w/ prime shipping

And last but not least, here's the album I would totally buy if the cover art were the only consideration :)

Free downloads of AO term selections:
(I have downloaded and actually listened to all 3 - all perfectly suitable for a basic intro!)

Peer Gynt - look for 'McKeeverDuoGriegPeerGynt' - this is very nicely done!
Norwegian Dance No.2 - scroll 1/3 of the way down the page, look for 'Pianoteq Grieg' / Grieg Norwegian Dance 2 
Piano Concerto in A - Op.16, I,II, III - download links at the bottom of the page
  
Some helpful links:

Ambleside Online's Composer Schedule page - lists the composers to be studied each term
How we do Composer Study - A how-to by Fisher Academy, yay!  


And still more links (maybe helpful):
A teacher's lesson plan for an activity based on Grieg's Peer Gynt - The Tale of the Mountain King.  Looks fairly interesting.  

A wordsearch (pdf) with important words from Edvard Grieg's bio on the makingmusicfun.com site (left click to save file as).
A unit study (pdf) from jaysilveira.com for your perusal... seems a bit technical/band class/ music lesson-ish to me, but heh, I know that someone could find it useful :)

A downloadable biography of Edvard Grieg, by Henry T. Finck - from archive.org (I have NO idea of it's literary quality...)
A lesson plan/activities from BBC's Parents' Music Room - Motivate your Child with Music, using Peer Gynt - Tale of the Mountain King including a how-to for teaching your kids how to compose some music themselves.



Enjoy!

PS. Please leave a comment if you've found any other helpful resources online or from your library!  It would be helpful to everyone else who comes along!! 

 

Thanks everyone for pointing this one out!! We LOVED it!

Yay, for the Lego orchestra!

A Day on Venus - an assignment

Astronomy

{An assignment.}

Draw a comic book strip called, "A Day on Venus".

{spelling has been corrected to aid understanding ;)}

The text:
* The unmanned space [craft] daring an exploding-proof robot to Venus.
** "Hello, I am sending this robot to find out what it's like on Venus and if we could live on it. The robot's name is R3D3.
*** "Here we go!"
**** "Ahhhhhh!"  CRASH.
*****Well, there goes the space ship, and I'm still in one piece!  Now, let's start with that..."
****** "Ahhh!  Run for the cave!"
******* "Huh?!"
******* As shown in the picture, not even robots can live on Venus.  "Help!"

But that's not all.  Maybe there's more.  There is some life...  [to be continued.]

*  *  *

They've decided to make a series about some robot-like creatures that live on Venus... may the fun begin.  I foresee an impending comic art tangent.

Science Junkie?

Have I ever mentioned that I REALLY like Jeannie Fulbright's Exploring Creation books?

Well, you might even say I have become an Exploring Creation junkie :)  A while back, I went ahead and bought about 4 from the series because I liked them that much... (well, that and they were on sale!)  I like them so much that apparently, I have gone completely hog wild with science reading requirements!  I'll have to do an honest to goodness review of the books themselves on another post.  The point of this post is to confess that, as of before working on this post, I was unaware that I have been requiring a double portion of science for two whole years in a row!  Oh my.  My poor over-schooled children.

Here's how it happened...

Since one of the options for AO science in y4 & y5 is out of print (and the library is not an option in Peru), I decided that meant I needed a substitution.  Obvious.  So, I subbed Astronomy in the missing book's place.  The problem is, I still have the boys reading the other two books, Fairy Land of Science & Nature Reader.  Not only that but I found an experiment book to replace the out-of-print book, that I also have them reading.  Yikes.  That's 4 science books. (*Note* It should be Exploring Creation OR the three other books; an either/or sort of thing)  I guess I just didn't want them to miss anything good!  I'm OUT of control! Well, for the last two years, it seems to have been perfectly fine and the boys certainly aren't any worse off :)  They didn't even notice!  hahahah!

Here's what the AO Advisory recommends:

Christian Liberty Nature Reader, Book 5 by Worthington Hooker, edited by Michael J. McHugh
The Fairy-land of Science by Arabella Buckley
Physics Lab in a Housewares Store by Robert Friedhoffer (another Friedhoffer book, or even another book of science experiments can be substitued if the book is hard to find - this book isn't worth paying inflated prices!)
OR   (somehow, I missed this ridiculously KEY word. perhaps I'd have actually noticed it if they'd at least emboldened the font. maybe.)
if you prefer, you can use any of the Exploring Creation With . . . series by Jeannie Fulbright for science in Years 3-6.

Unknowingly, I made the same double-up-fumble by using Botany alongside the other recommended books for AOy4, last year.  Again, the boys didn't realize it and though they would have been more delighted if we had had time to complete ALL the experiments, they still learned a LOT.

At the beginning of this year, we were still finishing up Jack's Insects from the previous year (it's yet ANOTHER added in science book... not an AO book, but a book that CM used. we LOVED it as a read aloud with everybody).  We finished that up by the end of the first term and again for some crazy reason, even though it wasn't even a scheduled book, I thought we needed something to replace it. 

Anyway, so there you have my confession.  Here's what science looks like this year.  We read all science related books and do Nature Study on Mondays.  We are using Astronomy as a read-aloud with everybody, the AOy1ers and the AOy5ers. 

Week 12 & 13: What is Astronomy? Week 14 & 15: The Sun Week 16 & 17: Mercury Week 18 & 19: Venus Week 20 & 21: Earth Week 22: The Moon Week 23 & 24: Mars	Week 25 & 26: Space Rocks Week 27: Jupiter Week28: Saturn Week 29 & 30: Uranus and Neptune Week 31 & 32: Pluto and the Kuiper Belt Week 33 & 34: Stars and Galaxies Week 35 & 36: Space Travel

My AOy5ers are also reading independently:

The Nature Reader
The Backyard Scientist - substitute for the Physics in Houseware's store
Fairy Land of Science - from which they really seem to be picking up some great ideas for thought.  I'm glad we stuck with this one.

So, we're crazy.  I'm crazy.  4 science texts?  oh my.  I can't believe I didn't get it 'til now.  Do I recommend it?  Probably not.  Next time around I'll know better :) 

Practice makes perfect, right? 

Nature Walk... call it 'study' if you will :)

Today's Discoveries...



"We are all meant to be naturalists, each in his own degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things."  - Charlotte Mason


"The Magic Plant" that shrivels when you touch it.

Now, why do you think it would do that? It's leaves fold up when you touch them!
Amazing.


It is rather shy, I guess.


This comes from the same plant when it's as big as a tree...


This is the 'full-blown' version


...the seed pod?


(close-up of the supposed seed pod)


Here they are ALL on the one branch.

weird.

Some other sights:

"The man who is blind to the beauties of Nature has missed half the pleasure of life." 
- Lord Baden-Powell 


Can you find the grasshopper? It's pretty small and camouflaged.


Pretty flower.


Another flower.


Fungus.


Ant house


Looking up... ;)


Footprints... or hoof prints I should say.


wildlife.

"An animal has been made by God just as you have been. He is therefore a fellow creature. He has not the power of speaking our language, but can feel pleasure or pain just as we can, and he can feel grateful to anyone who is kind to him. A Scout is always helpful to people who are crippled or blind or deaf and dumb; so he is good also to these dumb fellow-creatures of ours."  - Lord Baden-Powell

Land of the Silver Birch

This Term's Folksong:

Land of the Silver Birch

This is a different version than we learned from the Homestead Picker Folksong CDs. But the guy's voice is beautiful, and the quality sound of the guitar is rich and deep. We noted the differences in lyrics and then because there are word prompts and chord prompts for the guitar, we were able to follow along quite nicely.  He has an online guitar tutorial here (careful of unlovely image/ads on the same page). There's a page of printable lyrics HERE.

Michael Mitchell - Land of the Silver Birch Sing-a-long!  This is my kids first pick because it has fun sound effects and word prompts.  I liked that it was kid-safe with no inappropriate images.  The first verses were new to us, but that's the way with folksongs as oral tradition... everyone passes them on a little differently. 

See a mom-with-a-beautiful-accent's hand motions, watch her video here. I'm thinking that even though my kids laughed at the moose motions, the hands-on aspect would probably help my littlest littles learn it more quickly.

Free download - downloadable mp3 of a children's choir version at the bottom of the wiki page. I personally can't stand the choir version, but it is interesting to contrast the difference of music style.

Here is the emusic download link where you can listen to a sample first for free. You can also get a certain amount of free downloads but I don't know the details of that. (I used to have a membership, but got annoyed at the constant e-mails they sent and having search and figure out which music to download, but that was years ago, maybe it's better now).

Raising Real Men Book Release... with Write Shop prizes

An all new book about rearing boys is about to be released! There being 3 boys in our brood, it looks like it'd be something I'd be interested in reading! It's called Raising Real Men. 

Read a sample chapter from the new book, Raising Real Men here.

Plus there are freebies and prizes!!  You could win your choice of WriteShop Primary Teacher’s Guide w/Activity Set Worksheet Pack – worth up to $37.90!  Kim is also giving away a $35 gift certificate!  

There are several free downloads from Motherboard books as well.  So click on over there...

To be honest, I'm in it for the prizes!  But surely I am interested in checking out the new book as well ;)

We've just started using WriteShop and so far, I really like it... I'll have to give you my boy's opinions someday in the future... they're not generally very keen on any 'new' schoolwork in the beginning regardless of type or quality :)

Artist Study: John Singer Sargent

This term's artist is...

John Singer Sargent

A painting depicting nature study...

...living books

(image courtesy of picturing america)

...and MORE nature study :)

(Click the images to see them larger)

I've already posted about how we do Artist Study... so this is not a how-to post.  This is just me getting excited as we are looking at a new term's artist!  :)  I've listed some activities we plan to enjoy over the next term.  Please refer to this post if you are looking for an Artist Study Tutorial, or for links to grab your own copies of this term's selections.

Can you believe we JUST missed his birthday?  It was January 12, 1856!

Activity: Which is the imposter?! 

Compare two versions of the same painting... Look at one print for 3 min. Try to memorize it. When the 3 minutes are up, look at the other print and point out as many differences as you can.  Look at the two pictures side by side.  Why do you think there are differences?  Read here to find out the real reason why there are two different paintings.

1. First look at this one:

• Oyster Gatherers of Cancale - John Singer Sargent's Virtual Gallery

2. Compare it to this version:

• Fishing for Oysters at Cancale - CGFA

Look up the artist in the index of A Child's History of Art, and read the corresponding chapter, which is usually pretty brief.  This case is no exception, there are all of three paragraphs... but we found out some details about Sargent which led to an interesting activity:

"When the Boston Public Library was built, Sargent was asked to decorate the walls on the third floor.  He painted religious pictures for these walls."  - VM Hillyer, A Child's History of Art, chapter 30

Activity:  Take a tour of Sargent's paintings at the Boston Public Library -

Take the tour by following this link, then right click the different links along the left side bar to open in new tabs or windows.

Activity: Look at this painting by Sargent, while listening to a short commentary on it HERE

Activity: Print this pdf file from picturingamerica.neh.gov and do the activities on Sargent's The Portrait of a Boy

Activity: Drive to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - oh, this is on my list of someday must-see places!  They have lots of exhibits that perhaps you could double up on (Ancient Egypt, Albrecht Dürer, Harry Callahan).  They also have a cool family activity program, see details here.

Hands-on Activities - Since John Singer Sargent was famous for his portrait pictures, several of the following links are along that line:

Coloring Page - Portrait of Madame X

Imitating the Masters

Cut paper portraits
Portrait Pictures - Use John Singer Sargent's painting of Theodore Roosevelt instead of suggested art.

A list of a whole bunch of portrait activities on Primary School

Links:

Squidoo on the man - John Singer Sargent

Here's an Online Gallery (I only saw one thumbnail picture with the back of a lady in the buff... please be careful!)  Here's a link to his complete works... parents will want to select specific paintings only.

*(please don't let your kids alone with any of these links, I didn't preview every single thing on these pages!)

General art study links:

Online games at the J. Paul Getty Museum website

More Online games at National Gallery of Art kids site - Interactive art that you can make online

How do you FEEL about it?! - Use the term artist's prints on this activity.

Resources for the Classroom also at Getty Museum website.

Step One and Step Two for advanced art study, by Dr. Robert Belton in Art History, A Preliminary Handbook (this would be GREAT for HEO level)

Art Speak - Eyes on Art Activity

Habits - the good, the bad and the ugly

When I started thinking of habit training in some semblance of seriousness, the first thing I became aware of were my own habits and how they teach my children without my even knowing it.  Unfortunately by nature, children absorb and imitate it all. The good, the bad AND the ugly.  This is a scary thought.  

"Curious things, habits.  People themselves never know they had them." 

~Agatha Christie

A few habits we can teach or fail to teach pretty much solely by example:

Cheerfulness

Self discipline

Attention

Praise

Prayer

Self control

Thoroughness

Use of time

Reverence

These are just a few that I'm either currently working on, or have worked on recently.  My friend Jeanne brought up one area of weakness in her painfully transparent post that I am sure many of us resonate with.  She made me think about my own habits anew.  This whole area can seem overwhelming... or challenging at best.  I think the study of habits, is a lifelong study that requires acknowledgment of and dependence on the Holy Spirit's role.  For practical purposes, it is in essence the study of a life of holiness.  

When thinking about habit training, I really like the book by Sonya Shafer, Laying Down the Rails.  She consolidates quotes from all 6 of CM's Original Homeschool Series into one book, organized by topic, along with practical illustrations and quotes from other sources including Scripture.  It is available in print or as an e-book, HERE.  It is an excellent resource to continually refer back to.

I like to concentrate on only a few habits at a time, but I still sometimes get overwhelmed by having myself to deal with as well as five children to keep up with. How about you?

What are your thoughts about habit training?  


Are you currently working on any specific habits; your own or your children's?

Some of my other posts on habits...

Habits and the Sinful Nature

Notes on Habit Training

How we met Mozart and Carroll

H a P p y  B i R t h D A y ! !

Today is Mozart's birthday (1756-1791). I just happen to have learned somewhat recently to truly appreciate classical kinds of music... (thank you Charlotte Mason and Ambleside Online for teaching us a love for great music!  I'm just sorry that I haven't always listened to this music since early in childhood)

Mozart is on the AO rotation for Composer Study coming up in 2011, and I can't wait!         Here are the selections: (the following information is taken from this page, click here for more links)

2011-2012 TERM 1 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (early classical)
Listening selections for this term:
Eine Kleine Nacht Musik
Requiem [A Vocal work]
Symphony no. 41 in C major (Jupiter)
Sinfonia Concertante
Piano Concerto no. 21 in C major (K.467) Mozart-Archiv has free mp3 downloads of all Mozart's works; the main page is in German and offers eight identical servers, but I can only get 4 and 5 to work.

It's Lewis Carroll's birthday too! He lived from 1832-1898. Our favorite books by him are Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (AOy3). Reading the book was WAY better than watching the Disney film, which is all the exposure I had had previous to AO ;)  This one in particular, Hammy read aloud to the boys a couple of years back.  We had a lot of laughs!  Like at this part:

Which road do I take?"

"Where do you want to go?"

"I don't know," Alice answered.

"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter.”

If it hadn't been for homeschooling, we may never have had an intimate acquaintance with either of these two men. I'm so glad that we have. I'm very much loving learning right alongside my kiddos!  Yay, for lifelong learners!

Other Helpful Links:

Composer Study - Our Method

The Mozart Project

Poets.org - Lewis Carroll page

Image borrowed from fromoldbooks.org

Then and now

photo by: bjearwicke
 

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. Public domain.

I totally remember loving this poem as a little girl in school. I loved it then. I love it now.

We're going to read it today, that's for sure! Yay.  Take a moment and read it with your kids!  What is your favorite poem?

Homeschool Planning - part two

3 ways to plan for order in YOUR homeschool:
a 3-part series :) 
{part two}

photo by typofi

For our family, and for me as their teacher planning ahead makes all the difference in how smoothly our school days go.  When we all know what is happening and what is about to happen, everything goes MUCH better.

In the last post I wrote about how having a regular HPD (Homeschool Planning Day) throughout the year seriously eases the amount of brain strain on mom.  The yearly planning days are like getting your plates up and spinning.  The weekly preview planning is what you do to keep those plates spinning!

For me, the whole weekly planning is really just a preview.  To have a preview, I have to have a plan already worked out to view!  So, this is very dependent on having my schedule and all the assignments already worked out during my regular HPDs.  Many however, don't have really detailed plans, that's okay too!  A weekly plan ahead time can still avail much! It will just involve more time each week to plan out assignments and gather materials.  (See notes below)

After you've had your homeschool planning day:
In order to have a really productive WPD, you'll need to have the following:

1. A plan of some sort of what you're kids will be learning the coming week.  (AO has all the readings for each year broken up into weekly reading assignments - HERE is the schedule for Year 5.  This is what I base my plans on.)  I print off a weekly sheet that has all the kids' assignments for the week plotted out. See a sample of this here.

Once you have a plan broken up into weekly segments, WPD is a breeze: only 15-30 minutes a week.

1. Look over the subjects that need some extra help, or supplies to be used...  For me this includes:

• MEP math (make sure I have all the pages printed and manipulatives gathered)... in this case when one of my kids is struggling, it really helps to look over the lesson ahead and figure out how I'm going to explain something.
  
• Astronomy (check to make sure I have all the project materials within easy reach)
• Backyard Scientist (gather this week's experiment stuff)
• Book of Centuries (make sure all the timeline figures are printed off and ready)

2. Gather up the materials (or make a list to be bought the next day).
3. Pray about the coming week (this is an excellent moment to put this on your schedule)  Pray for character issues, academic struggle areas and for your own attitude.

If you haven't had an opportunity to have a homeschool planning day, but you still want to have a weekly plan, here are a few suggestions that might help you:

1. Make a list of all the subjects you'd like to have your kids cover in a week.  Include everything you can think of, starting with the main subjects.
   
2. Determine how much time each thing should take & then break each subject into daily bite-size chunks keeping in mind the age of your kids.  
3. OR determine first how much time each day you will spend on a subject and THEN plot out how much you expect you can cover...
4. Print off a checklist so your kids can check off their daily assignments.

Now, as is normal, we have days when things do NOT go according to plan or schedule no matter how much we'd like them to.  That's OKAY!  There are actually weeks that we are off schedule sometimes.  If we get all down or stressed about it, we'll never get back to an orderly state.  The schedule is there to serve us.  Not for us to serve the schedule.  For helter-skelter days (or weeks), I've put together a daily list of things that I want to accomplish each day.  See the sample HERE.  That way, I can see which things I most want to accomplish in the time available quite apart from the disrupted schedule.

So, did any of this strike a chord with you?  How do you plan?  Did you learn anything helpful?  Do you have any tips I ought to add in here?  Please leave a comment!


Posts in this series:

1. Yearly Homeschool Planning Day(s) - part one
2. Weekly Planning - part two... You are here :)
3. Yearly Book Ordering - last post

(photo of spinning plates courtesy of thecolor.com, online coloring sheet site)

The writing begins

A 7 year old non-writer turns writer in a matter of moments.

This is how it happened...

She was inspired as she watched Daddy, Javen and Cullen putting down on paper their still fresh memories experiences of last week's river trip.  They were journaling.

Previously she would sound out and write her own name plus other three word combinations like, mat, cat, sat, rat, dad, mom. Well, that and she copied words from everywhere... from Christmas cards to picture Bibles.  Her language study has consisted of being read aloud to and over the last several months we've been working on reading practice using Blend Phonics materials.  For some time we've been working on Spell to Write and Read's phonograms, of which she now knows all the basic phonograms and has a good grasp of many of the multi-lettered phonograms as well as many of the spelling rules.

But she didn't write until yesterday :)

Oh, girls are different than boys! She would attempt her first journal entry with a word like 'electricity'.  She sounded it out and then asked, is there a K after ele, or a /K-S/ (c),  and then again, /K-S/ (c) or just /s/ here at the end?  She had it all except the tricky /k/ and /s/ sounds.  Wow!

So, yesterday she decided to write her own journal.
So, yesterday we began to be writers :)

I use these word cards for reading practice found at donpotter.net: Download your own pdf copy of the Blend Phonics Decoding Cards. One of these days I'll write a post on our early reading practice... :)

Free e-books of interest

As for that Weekly Planning post that is pending, I have it all written up, I promise, but it's pretty late now tonight, and my beloved awaits, so I'm off to bed.  I'll get it up here in the next few days.  I've really been enjoying blogging daily at my personal blog A Pilgrim's Project.  This weekend I put together a whopper of a post about the kids' trip with Micah up the river.  It was a nature study enthusiast's dream.  Pop over there to see some of the pictures.  I'll be posting some of the pictures of things they found in the next weeks.

But for today, I've found a couple of AWESOME links today for freebies that I just have to share...

HomeschoolFreebieOfTheDay.com is offering the following e-book divided up over the next week (you have to go there each day in order to get the whole book):

THE GIANT HANDBOOK OF NATURE STUDY

This is Anna Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study - THE book for Nature study!

This is a HUGE (940 pages) and absolutely wonderful
teaching guide full of hundreds of nature study lessons, 
activities and discussion questions. It is a complete
multi-year nature study curriculum that you can use
for years to come. It is so big (over 100 megs in size)
we had to divide it into six manageable ebooks for you.

And I found through a link my friend Jimmie had put up, these cool web books FREE ONLINE!  There is a whole series of these "You Wouldn't Want to be a..." books by David Salariya.  I saw this series of books in a bookstore here in Peru in Spanish and ALMOST bought the one called, You Wouldn't Want to Be an Inca Mummy!: A One-Way Journey You'd Rather Not Make because it looked like so much fun.  I may have to go back and see if they're still there when we get back to civilization in March.  Until then, I'm thinking we're going to explore the FREE ones online!  I'm excited. I don't even care if they are TWADDLE!  So there.  :)

Here's the one I found in Spanish. I thought would make a fun one to have around the house here for guests and such.

Oh and just for fun, I found an article that is great support of homeschooling and socialization...

Despite what many might believe, a vast majority of home-schooled children say they have plenty of opportunities for socialization with other children and, as adults, come to excel in all measured areas of adult life, according to a new study.

READ MORE

I wholeheartedly agree...

"Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and
supreme experience if only one had a coloured pencil
long enough to draw on the ceiling."

--G.K. Chesterton

I found this quote on Dewey's Treehouse 
Image courtesy of Dragon Art.

Homeschool Planning - Part one

3 ways to plan for order in YOUR homeschool:
a 3-part series :) 

original photo by typofi

1. Yearly Homeschool Planning Day(s) - part one... You are here :)

2. Weekly Planning - next post

3. Yearly Book Ordering - last post

Peace and order are some of my key words for 2010! In that mindset let's talk about planning for peace and order in the homeschool. Making time to schedule the above occasions to plan, has made planning not only a breeze but a real JOY instead of a constant sense of worry or guilt.  Surely you know what I mean by worry and guilt?  The worry that I'm not doing enough and the guilt of knowing that I haven't done things as well as I could have?

Taking at least one day a year to really plan has totally revolutionized my feeling about homeschool (If I can, I'll gladly use 3 days! 1 HPD per term*).  It helps SO much to get the majority of things worked out ahead of time so that I don't have a huge list of unfinished and undefined tasks hanging over my head.  Separate time a couple of weeks before the new school year will begin (or whenever it happens to be best for you) to complete the following steps or obviously adjust them to fit your personal needs.

Step One:  Brainstorm a list of all the homeschooling areas that need attention.

1. Subjects I'd like to introduce into our homeschool that we've never done before
   
2. Areas that I want to improve
   
3. Curriculum that has got to go and will need a replacement.
4. Behavior issues
5. Plan for Preschoolers
6. Scheduling issues
7. Etc, etc.
   

Step Two: The hard part.

Figure out how to make a homeschool planning day a reality.  Things do not run well without you, but you can let things slide for a day or two while you get things oiled and primed for the year.  When can you get away and who can help?  A weekend when dad's home?  A babysitter?  Grandma?  Plan for a WHOLE day out.  Either that, or 2-3 mornings in a row... You'll need it!  Whether it's the coffee or the actual planning time... :)

Step Three: Gather your materials.
For instance one HPD, I needed to hash out my home schedule, so I needed my brainstorm sheets and my laptop.  This last HPD, I actually needed to plot out the weekly readings from the books on the booklist and for a couple substitutions I'd made, so I took the actual books with me (it was a big and heavy bag!).  I also needed to work out this term's composer study so I took a couple CDs to browse through... but, you get the point.

Step Four: Go
Decide ahead of time to be ultra-efficient.  Don't get distracted!  Do the things on your list in order of priority.  Don't call home, and if you have to sneak back for something, do NOT get caught! (I recommend eating out even though it costs more... it is more efficient use of time and in future years you can budget this meal into the yearly homeschool budget.)  Don't go home unless absolutely necessary!

photo by lusi

Some planning forms: These help me immensely, and are just to give you an idea of perhaps where you'd like to begin

Teacher Planning (pdf) - This is basically an outline of planning steps I take for each school year.
Daily List (pdf) - This list outlines what subjects are covered each day.  This is vital for those days that we are totally running helter-skelter and can't get back to the schedule.  This helps me reorientate in order to get everything done.
Week 15 (pdf) - This is last week's schedule/list of individual assignments for each day.  Each boy now gets a copy of this as they are becoming more responsible for their own studies.  This is my big task on my homeschool planning days to get this detailed schedule worked out.  One day a term of planning and it's pretty much ALL done for 3 months.  This is my homeschool brain... I've finally gotten it down to a fine science**.

*Ambleside Online is a FREE online curriculum guide, based on Charlotte Mason's methods and philosophy as outlined in her Original Homeschooling Series.  Learning is based on a balanced view of education, using hands-on life experience and observation, living books when a real-life experience can't be provided and including such enriching subjects as nature study, artist & composer studies, foreign language (learned to actually be spoken). Download an informational brochure here.

The AO schoolyear is separated into 3 terms, Term 1: Sept-Nov, Term 2: Jan-March, Term 3 April-June.  However, this information is to be taken as a loose guide as many have differing starting dates or as in our case, school year round.  However, the Artist & Composer, Nature, Folksong, and Hymn studies are all scheduled according to the terms, for those of us who enjoy the camaraderie of learning along with other AOers and sharing resources.  Also, handy-dandy schedules are available that split up the booklist readings into terms of 12 weeks, for a grand total of 36 weeks/school year.  This is what I refer to as 'Term' in my blog, materials, etc.

**If a post on how to schedule would be helpful, please let me know.  I'm assuming anyone who reads this blog (anyone?) already would have some idea of scheduling.  But, I didn't know anything before I knew it... so you never know ;)

Some helpful links:

Basic Intro to AO

An AO Start-up Guide

Charlotte Mason's List of Attainments for a child of 6 and of 12 years old

Posts in this series:

1. Yearly Homeschool Planning Day(s) - part one... You are here :)
2. Weekly Planning - next post
3. Yearly Book Ordering - last post