This Blog has Moved…

Homeschooling is tough work.  I didn’t expect it to be this hard!  =)

So, in an effort to be more efficient, I have decided to combine this blog with our family farm blog. 

Please come join us at the Good Old Days Farm:

http://GoodOldDaysFarm.blogspot.com

Where these ARE the “Good Old Days!”

I’m a Kindergarten Drop-Out…

This is how the first week of homeschooling went for us:  My little duckling sat at the kitchen table (because I don’t have the classroom quite finished yet!) and I would give her something to do then I would go cook for the family.  She would finish and wait for me to come back and I would give her something else to do and then I would go do some laundry.  She would finish and wait for me to come back and then I would give her something to do and go take care of the baby.  She would finish and wait for me to come back and I would give her something to do and clean the kitchen…  I had excellent pre-school activities prepared for her little brother, only to realize on the first day of school that they are way above his level.  They might be good for him next year, but not this year!  So he was left to entertain himself…  which he did… with a permanent marker… on the walls… and the doors… and the floor…  and the kitchen table… and the kitchen chairs…  and the couch…  So cleaning that up became just one more thing on my “to-do” list.  I couldn’t really be upset with him though… He was practicing his letters and “doing school” just like his sister!  But we did have to repaint…

So, I became a kindergarten drop out.

I’ve taken a couple of weeks to re-think what I am going to do.  I have a new plan now that I hope will be easier to handle.  I have gotten my household system set up better and am working to get our schooling more organized.  I have age-appropriate activities for the 3 yr old and the permanent markers are hidden.

I’ve also taken some time to sew.  Sewing is a creative outlet for me.  I like it because it’s fast.  “zzzzzzz” and a whole seam is finished!  I can finish a project in an hour… unlike knitting (which I also love!) but it takes me a year (or more!) to finish a project!

So, in anticipation of many field trips, I have sewn car organizers for our mini van.  Being nature lovers, our mini van is full of “treasures”….  rocks, sticks, grass... all precious treasures that must not be thrown out.  Not to mention all our “gear” that pre-schoolers must not leave home without:  sunglasses, water bottles, little cars, dolls… 

Not that I’m blaming the children entirely for the state of our mini-van.  We parents contribute too…

I heard it said once that the state of your vehicle is a reflection of the state of your life.  I don’t want to be judged by the state of my mini van!  So, I got a little bit creative with a striped bedsheet, some old blue jeans and some scrap fabric.  Here is my attempt to tame the clutter-beast!

 

 

Notice they’re all different?

They are very simple to make… Just measure the van seats, mark where the headrest attaches to the seat and make buttonholes there, then add whatever pockets suit your fancy.  The bulging pockets on the left side of the denim strip are actually cup holders.  The pockets immediately below that hold a full size coloring book.  The red pockets in the lower right corner close with an elastic and will hold a number of large items (which I added at the request that I make a pocket large enough for a certain somebody’s doll!) 

Now we just need to take a road trip!

Honey!

One of the things we do at our farm is keep bees.  It’s a bit late in the season but yesterday was the day to extract honey!
We are definitely amateurs, so this is not a post about how to extract honey.  It’s just the story of what we did.  Consider it a “don’t try this at home” post.  =)
We began our “lesson” by reading a book about bees.  It was an old book that I picked up for 5 cents at a thrift store last week, but it was a nice introduction.  Then we got busy!
It was 105 degrees here yesterday, so the first thing we did was set the extractor up in the living room.  The last time we extracted we did it outside, but it was a lot easier to deal with ooey gooey honey in air conditioning!

Then we went out to the hives. 

That metal gadget you see in Papa the Farmer’s hand is a smoker.  You stick a bunch of leaves and branches in there and burn it.  You can pump the smoke out the spout.  It is stinky and the bees think so too!  It makes them sort of drowsy and less inclined to sting big intruders in strange white clothes!

Did you know that all the bees in a beehive have different jobs?  Here is the picture of the guard bees.  Their job is to make sure no intruders get in:

Would you like to peek inside a beehive?
  What you see here are called frames.  We put a thin piece of wax as a foundation and the bees build it up with hexagon cells.  They use those cells to lay eggs or store honey.  All that white you see is the cells capped in wax to hold the honey in.  Here’s a closer view:

You can see the bees really built up these cells, far past the frames:

Here’s something else that is amazing.  Bees actually build those cells at a slight angle.  If they built them perpendicular to the foundation the honey would ooze out, so they build them at a slight angle.  I tried to capture this in this photo:

All this wax makes the frames stick together, so it was some work to get the frames free!  Once we did, we brought them inside where we used a heated electric knife to melt the wax caps off the frames.
The first glimpse of honey!  Isn’t it beautiful?  To get the honey out we place the frames in the extractor.

We have a very old, manual extractor.  (But hey!  The price was right and it works!)  So we all took turns cranking, turning the frames around and cranking some more:

Our extractor only holds 4 frames, so we had to repeat this process several times.  Eventually enough honey collected for us to drain the honey out of the extractor into a 5 gallon bucket.  We strain it through two strainers (one on top of the other) as we drain to remove any imperfections (like dirt or a bee wing or something like that).

For the more inquisitive blog readers, here is a close up of what you never see:  The stuff that gets strained out!

You see?  It’s really not too bad.

With all this honey inside the house, it’s inevitable to have a bee visitor or two.  Here was our little visitor:

He was too full of honey to be a concern!

Night School!

I’ve discovered a marvelous set of books at the library called “Let’s Read and Find Out Science” Level 1 and Level 2.  They look wonderful! 

I have been a bit apprehensive (ok, very apprehensive) about teaching nature study.  Usually the teacher is supposed to know something about her topic!  But I am discovering that learning alongside my children is perfectly ok.  Tonight we read this book called “The Big Dipper.”  The big dipper is one constellation that I CAN spot without help!  This book took that basic skill a step further.  It showed how the big dipper looks one way during the summer, but looks different during the other seasons.  It taught the names of each of the stars in the big dipper (Alkaid, Mizar, Alioth, Megrez, Phecda, Merak and Dubhe… in case you’re wondering!)  It showed how to how to identify the North Star using the Big Dipper as a point of reference and then showed that the North Star is one of the stars that make up the small dipper!  It also showed that the big and little dippers are part of larger constellations.  Two days ago I had no idea how to identify the north star and the Little Dipper.  Now I will never forget!  Look how clearly the illustrations explain this:

                    

Now here’s the neat part.  Last night was the night of the Perseid Meteor shower so of course we went outside for a star gazing party!  Immediately, after having read “The Big Dipper” only once, my Little Duckling spotted the Big Dipper in the sky! 

We saw several meteors… one in particular that was too big to miss!!!  Most were fast and burnt out quickly.  If you blinked you might miss it!  But one streaked straight across the sky, right in front of us!  How cool is that?!

This morning we followed-up by making pages for our nature journals.  This is just star stickers on black construction paper, labeled with a white crayon:

               

(The white dotted line shows how to identify the North Star using the Big Dipper as a point of reference.  It was in the book, so of course the children wanted it on their paper, too!)

Our Maze Book

My Little Duckling (as she likes to be called) loves mazes.  In fact, I’ve been surprised at how good she is at them!  And it turns out, that mazes are not just a time-filler that the teacher hands out at school.  They actually have educational benefits!  They help to develop hand-eye coordination and teach the child to develop problem solving strategies.  So there you go! But for some reason you don’t see maze books very often so today I took a few minutes before breakfast and made our own maze book.

First, I went to this website which gives a list of links to 56 mazes of varying difficulty.  With a few exceptions, the mazes have  wholesome themes and decent illustrations. I printed several off and then slid them into old page protectors.  Now the children can fill them in using a dry erase marker, wipe the page protector off and come back and do the maze again!

Some of the mazes we chose were simple:

Some had particularly interesting outlines and designs:

 

The shapes of the lines varied from maze to maze, which is good for visual discrimination:

And some of the mazes were increasingly difficult:

So there you have it… Our maze book!  I haven’t done many pre-reading exercises with my Little Duckling and notice that she does have some trouble telling the difference between letters that look similar:  p and b, e and c, f and t… So hopefully our new maze book will help with that!

 

She loves it!  I can see this being  a big hit in long car-trips…

What To Teach?

I have tried to teach nature study to my children before.  When my oldest was a toddler I took her outside and showed her, “There’s a tree.”  But then what?  After I had told her it was a tree, I really didn’t have anything else to say and I sure couldn’t think of any activities to make that tree interesting.
I need help.  Lots of help.  Fortunately, there are some really good products on the market to help parents just like me!  I thought I would take a few minutes to share the resources I am using with my children…

If there was one book I would recommend for every beginning homeschooler, “100 Top Picks For Homeschool Curriculum” by Cathy Duffy would be it!

The problem with buying curriculum is that you are often buying it “sight-unseen” and it scares me to invest a lot of money into what is going to shape my children when I don’t really know what I’m buying!  Cathy Duffy eliminates that risk.  I started by getting her book from the library.  (I checked it out so many times that I finally just bought my own copy!)  This book is so helpful because in addition to reviews of top-of-the-line curriculum, the first FIVE chapters bring you through the process of expressing your personal Philosophy of Education in words.  Whereas I was completely overwhelmed by all the “good stuff” out there, Cathy Duffy helped me to zone in on exactly what I want to teach my children and how I want to teach it.  That process in itself eliminates so many options that are good, but not the best for our situation.  She also has quizzes to help you figure out your teaching style and your child’s learning style.  That’s a really important step.  For example, my little Miss-Perfectly-Organized Daughter loves to sit and do workbooks by the hour, but if I try that approach with my little Wiggle-Worm son, it will drive him around the bend in no time flat.  And I confess, I am more like my son than my daughter.  (She might have been switched at birth!)  These programs that involve intense teacher preparation followed by a lot of seatwork, well, I’m just not going to be very motivated to teach something like that.  And what’s the point of purchasing a curriculum – no matter how wonderful it is -  if I personally find it burdensome to teach?  “100 Top Picks” has helped me zero in on some great choices that not only meet my children’s learning styles, but also my own personal teaching style.  So we are all happy!

 So what am I teaching?

Bible:  We are using some lovely little devotional books called “A Family Devotional Guide:  Read the Bible By Its Stories.”  I found them on this website.   Each day gives you a rather long passage to read directly from the Bible.  So the bulk of the day’s devotional comes directly from the Bible.  The little booklet contains 5 follow up questions about that day’s reading.  There are 12 booklets in the set, each booklet covering one month.  By the end of the year the children and I will have read all of the major stories in the Bible, directly from the Word of God rather than from a devotional or a storybook.  This set is exactly what it claims to be:  a guide.

Nature Study:  Our main “textbook” will be nature itself, of course, but I need some help knowing what to observe and when, so I am turning to “The Kids Nature Book” by Susan Milord.  It has a different nature activity for each day of the year!  Not all of the activities are age appropriate for little ones, but I’d say 3 or 4 activities each week are appropriate for them.  This is a book I expect to be referring to for several years to come!  And the best part is, it’s really not an expensive book at all and its widely available used on Amazon or Paperback Swap!

We will also be using The "Outdoor Hour Challenge" and the corresponding book “Handbook of Nature Study” (which is totally reference!!!  Full of great information, but don’t expect to be reading this one to your kindergarten student for hours on end!) by Anna Botsford Comstock.  The handbook can be purchased here:  Handbook of Nature Study twenty-fourth Edition or here.

Phonics:  The Rod and Staff phonics program is a good fit for my workbook-loving daughter and her “I want something different every day” mother/teacher.  The workbooks are thorough and predictable but have enough variety and are enjoyable enough to keep me happy too.  Surprisingly, I like the teacher guide.  It is well enough illustrated that I don’t necessarily have to read every word and there are suggestions for little games or activities to go along with the lesson.   (Well, so far… But we’re only on week #1)  Written and published by Mennonites, it is constantly drawing the children’s attention to nature, which is nice.  The only drawback is that it does have those bland black and what phonics cards, so I just substituted the alphabet wall cards and phonics cards from Christ Centered Curriculum.

Math:  We are using Math U See.  It’s not nature oriented, but I want my children to have a very strong foundation in math.  I don’t have one and I don’t feel able to teach math in a way that excites the children.  Math U See is a mastery program (meaning you have to MEMORIZE your addition, subtraction, multiplication tables and any other mathematical concepts before moving on to the next stage.  My daughter will love that.  But, they also have these great little manipulative blocks that make the purpose to math clear and obvious.  I mean, I’ve done a thousand quadratic equations and I never understood what they were accomplishing until I watched the demonstration video for Math U See.  Mr. Demme makes math make sense!  I am looking forward to learning a lot through this program with my children (and yes, I bought enough blocks for us to share!)

 

I must insert a word to the frugal here…  Getting started with Math U See is expensive.  The blocks are expensive and the container to put them in is expensive.  (And let’s face it, who really wants hundreds of little math blocks scattered around the house?  They really need a home!)  So I put a wanted ad up on Craigslist.  It took a couple of months, but a lady contacted me and sold me her entire Primer set for $50.  That included the complete set of blocks, the student book, the teacher book, the DVD, and the skip counting songs CD.  Great deal!  Then another lady on Craigslist was selling an incomplete set of blocks for $5.  I picked those up in case we lost any and needed replacements.. and also so that eventually both children can do math at the same time without running out of blocks.  That probably wasn’t necessary… We have more than enough blocks now!  Then I got a great carrying container from the Container Store that houses the blocks perfectly:  The regular price is $14 and I got it on sale for $9.  Great deal, all around!

When I was choosing a math program I was torn between “Math U See” and “RightStart Mathematics.”  Rightstart has a great abacus and abacus activities that I think will really help solidify the concepts of math.  It probably isn’t necessary with Math U See, but I have decided to supplement with the book “Activities for the  AL Abacus.” Rightstart has a lot of card games and I don’t believe that teaching my children to play cards is a good idea if I am trying to raise Christ-centered adults.  But their abacus is fantastic!  So I’m hoping their abacus book will be as good as it promises.  It hasn’t arrived yet, so stay tuned….

Music:  I play the piano and flute, so naturally my children are interested in those two instruments.  I didn’t start piano until I was 12 years old, so I don’t feel like children must be playing an instrument by the time they are 6 or else…  But they want to play, so I want to encourage that!  I am using “Alfred’s All In One Sacred Course for Children” with my daughter.  It's really just Alfred's regular program with the illustrations and the words to the songs  and an old program with my son called “The Very Young Pianist” by Jane Smisor Bastien.

                         

I was in the flute store one day and the sales lady there talked me into purchasing little Fifes made by Yamaha.  I hate the sound of recorders, but these were so cute, so I purchased them against my better judgment!  But look how adorable a little fife player is!

It turns out that they sound much better than a recorder and the children are both able to get a fairly decent sound out of it.  We will be using “The Fife Book” by Liz Goodwin to learn to play Fife (which is a precursor to flute, if we choose to move on.).  This is one of those “Don’t judge a book by its cover…” books.   A really neat teaching tool to help the children develop their embouchures (the way they hold their lips to get the best tone possible) is the “Pneumo Pro”…  I haven’t purchased it yet, but plan to soon.

Art:  We will be using the preschool book by Brenda Ellis (who wrote the “Artistic Pursuits” series) called “The Way They See It,”  That book arrived yesterday and it looks wonderful!  It uses art (reproduced in the book for the children to look at) and nature to teach the children to observe the world through the eyes of an artist.  Lots of information in this book for the non-artist parent trying to teach art (that would be me!)  =)  Right now they are on sale at Lamppost Publishing.

Miscellaneous Preschool Activities:  While my older daughter is “doing school” there will be times when my son wants to “do school” with her, but is really too young for some of her activities.  “Preschool Activities in a Bag” from www.activitybags.com to the rescue!  I will be converting several of the activities into file folders so that he can easily pick and choose his activities from our hanging file folder holder.

We have Decided…

…to educate our children at home.  I suppose the matter was never really in question.  My husband was home schooled and just naturally expected that I would want to home school our children.  The first time he brought it up (before we were married)…. Big Fight!  I thought he was crazy.  I thought homeschooled children really just amounted to truant children.  I mean, all normal children go to school, right?

Well, the Lord has changed my heart.  He has convicted me that some of my previous ideas about traditional education are just flat-out wrong.  After all, my husband was homeschooled and he is a smart guy.  I was one of the “smart kids” in public school, but I still struggle with basic multiplication.  I am intrigued by the possibility that there is something better out there for our children!

I went to my first Home School Curriculum Fair when I was pregnant with our first baby.  I just wanted to look around, see what’s out there, get a feel for this whole “home education thing.”  So I went and I saw.  And I left feeling so overwhelmed that I wanted to throw up.

If I was ever going to pick a curriculum from all the wonderful material that is available out there, I would have to develop criteria to help narrow down my options.  I’ve had 5 years now to think about my personal philosophies of education and the fact is, my philosophies aren’t conducive to a traditional classroom environment where one teacher is monitoring 30 students.  This is what I believe about education:

-The Bible is a gift from God for our instruction.

-Nature is the other book God has given us.  There’s a lot we can learn about Him in nature.

-Children should be free to run like little lambs and explore the great outdoors while they are still young, not stuck in a classroom somewhere longingly gazing out the window and waiting for recess time.

-Our world is an amazing place!  Every skill that is traditionally taught in a classroom setting can be taught in nature. 

-God has done a great job creating our world!  Give children access to good-quality non-fiction and they will be enthralled far more than if you hand them a silly storybook that will amuse them for a few minutes, but not expand their minds.  (“Amuse” is Latin after all, for “to not think.")

 

So, I invite you to make yourself a cup of herbal tea and join us through this blog on our adventure!