Homeschool Co-op

Yesterday was the first day of our homeschool co-op. It meets once a week for 5 hours not including lunch. I am teaching High School World Geography to 8 young adults 1st hour. I think it is going to be a lot of fun. I am a "floater" 2nd hour. That means that I am assigned each week to a class that needs extra helpers. This week I was in junior high drama which was very funny. 3rd and 4th hour I am grading junior high biology. One of the answers was pretty funny. The question was something asking about what are the people that participate in an experiment called. The kid wrote, "I believe the word is 'volunteers'." All of the graders got a chuckle out of that. 5th hour I am with my daughter in a drawing/handwriting class for K/1st. She is pretty upset about this because she wanted to do the whole day like a big girl by herself.

The kids had a great time and are excited to go back next week. My 1st grade daughter is taking gym games, exploring music, under the sea, art, and the draw write now class. My 3rd grade son is taking gym games with sister, bodies and bones, ancient civilizations, Real Science for Kids pre-level 1 chemistry, and beginning chess.

It is a nice splash of spice to our homeschool week. It gives us all a chance to pursue things that we would otherwise not get the opportunity to do.

Back to a Normal Routine

My kids and I have been off for our summer break for the month of July. Now we are back in the swing of things. I have given the kids more personal responsibility for their tasks and they really have stepped up and seem to be enjoying it.

Since I haven't posted anything in a month, I have all kinds of links I have been saving up.

Some are just depressing. Like the fact that Planned Parenthood can't account for 1.3 billion of our dollars. Or this one about the disconnect between teens attending church and teens actually living moral lives. Look at this quote for example.

Forty-seven percent of Protestant teens reported active involvement in their church’s youth group, compared to 38 percent of all teens. The majority of Protestant teens also reported that they attend Sunday School “a few times a month, participate in youth retreats, rallies, and conferences.”

In all, ninety percent of Protestant teens say they believe in God, compared to 85 percent of all teens; only 12 percent of all teens say they are “unsure about the existence of God.”

Clearly this generation is anything but irreligious; quite the contrary. However, further examination of the research begins to reveal the disconnect I mentioned earlier. According to the study, only 55 percent of Protestant teens believe in life after death—a belief held by 50 percent of all teens, including the nonreligious. In a further contradiction, 69 percent of Protestant teens say they have made “a personal commitment to live for God” and yet only 32 percent read the Bible once a week or more, while 19 percent report having had premarital intercourse in the last year compared to 22 percent of those who are unchurched. Additionally, 63 percent of Protestant teens report cheating in school compared to only 58 percent of all teens and 41 percent say that morals are relative—that “there are no definite rights or wrongs for everybody.”


Others made me think. Like this video about not having any kind of federal income tax.



Some made me smile. Like this one about the 2010 winners of the Stuck at the Prom contest from the makers of Duck Tape brand duct tape. The contestants design formal wear out of duct tape.

The Good, the Struggles, and the Fizzle

Friday was our last day of school. We will start up again at the beginning of August. I decided to look back on what I wanted to accomplish at the beginning of the year. Some things we did awesome. On other things I was overly ambitious and let them fizzle. Other things we are still struggling with.

The Good

My son has improved so much in reading that we are actually going to start with 3rd grade level stuff in August. I am going to try Total Language Plus. This is a program that uses 2-3 "classic" books a year to do all of the vocabulary, grammar, writing, etc. You read the book slowly (a chapter a week/a couple of pages a day). You buy the curriculum a classic at a time. If you don't like it, you haven't blown your whole budget only about $30. And there is a convenient place to shift gears if it isn't working for you. These are all pluses to me. The first book is The Courage of Sarah Noble which seems to be a very charming tale of life in the early 1700's in the Connecticut wilderness. He also did very well with spelling but I think we are ready to try something besides the Writing Road to Reading. He actually wants to take spelling at the homeschool co-op that we will be participating in next year.

My daughter finished the handmade reader and got promoted to the My Father's World reader that my son started out on. He later progressed to Day-by-Day Begin to Read Bible and made it almost through the whole thing. My daughter does a great job of reading, but her 6-year-old self doesn't like to sit still very long to do it.

We all really like the Right Start Math curriculum. They both say that math is their best subject and I think it is in large part because of this curriculum.

I think that the wisdom traits lessons and the big fat lies were a success. We did 10 of each and then reviewed them throughout the year. The kids really seemed to get a grasp of these things so I plan on weaving them throughout the next year (and maybe adding a few more big fat lies).

Texas geography was fun even though it was kind of a lot of work for me. The kids thought that some of the official things were kind of funny. For example the official vegetable of Texas is the sweet onion. We finished the whole state with plenty of time to spare. I did sort of simplify it as time went on though. I am looking forward to American geography with Cantering the Country. This is a guide that gives you hints and resource lists to do unit studies on each state. We are going to start with the states we have been to and then work our way around the country.

We also had a great time with anatomy. We did all of the experiments in the Magic School Bus body experiments. That was a great addition to reading through the DK First Human Body Encyclopedia.


The Fizzle

We kind of fizzled on the astronomy. We only got through the sun, Mercury, Venus, and the Earth. We also only fit one star party into our schedules. We will continue in the coming year though because the we did enjoy it.

The biggest fizzle was quilting. I had trouble with the machine when we got to the actual sewing part. By the time I got it going we were out of the routine of doing it.

Daily grammar worksheets were a big dud. I found it much easier just to let my son write things he was interested in and correct his grammar. I am so glad that grammar stuff is included in the Total Language Plus stuff. It is helpful to only have one thing to keep track of.


The Struggle
My kids struggle with handwriting. I had to give up on lower-case (for the time being) with my daughter and continue with capitals over and over. Now she can write all of them reasonably clearly, but I am really going to have to hunker down on handwriting next year. My son has improved a lot, but there is no way we are moving on to cursive for a while.

Timed tests is another struggle. If there is no time factor, my son can do the problems no problems. But when then instructions are to try to finish a certain number in a certain amount of time, he freezes. We have made some progress on this, but we have to keep working on it next year.

Quite a Week

We have had quite a week. Saturday and Sunday was a fundraiser for Real Choices Pregnancy Center. This is a big deal to me because I have been working for years to get my church to be more pro-active in the abortion front. And now I am one of the people in charge of the fundraiser. I am excited to see what God will do.

Tuesday we got to see John Williams conducting the Fort Worth Symphony in some of his music. This was especially cool for my husband. He is a big fan and has been saving and plotting for a long time for us to be able to do this. The kids did great and especially enjoyed the Star Wars and Indiana Jones parts of the concert.

Then yesterday we went to Camp El Tesoro for their Homeschool Adventure Day. We had a blast. We got to choose 5 activities. First we searched for and categorized fossils. We mostly found bivalves though they had some examples of larger cephalopod fossils from the area. The next activity was the nature hike. This was the best part of the day for me because I found this guy beside the path.

It is a poisonous pit viper called a copperhead. Then our guide declared that he was going to catch it and take it back to the main lodge so that the other families could see it.
Obviously, this is not something you should try at home. After this we had a picnic lunch and moved on to archery. We all really enjoyed this. The staff was very patient with us and we all got to shoot about 15-20 arrows before the session was over. Then we went to the birdwatching class and a hayride. The last thing of the day was cooking s'mores over a campfire. That was fun and a good snack to tide us over on the hour ride home.

Also, I have to mention, the bluebonnets were spectacular. I really like our state flower.

Fall Color?

The kids and I went out yesterday and gathered the "best" leaves in our neighborhood. The kids made crayon rubbings while I scanned them in. The are not as beautiful as what you would see in Maine or Michigan, but we had a great time.

Homeschool Happenings v. 5 (2nd six weeks)

We are in vacation mode having finished our second six weeks of the year a week and a half ago. I guess a better way to say it is that is my kids are in vacation mode. I, on the other hand, am working to get things done that I don't do during "school" like dental appointments, car maintenance, vacation planning, etc.

We made good progress the last six weeks, but did have to take a week out do to all of us being a bit under the weather. My son finished his first grade Bible Reader. I am hoping to get him up to grade level (he is in 2nd grade) by the end of the year. He wanted to continue doing Bible reading for the main part of his reading. I had to search far and wide to find one on his reading level that wasn't too inane. I decided on the Day-By-Day Begin to Read Bible. I am still not completely satisfied with it, but it seems to be pretty good. We have also made progress (slowly) on the quilt. The kids pin the strips in the order that they want and I sew them. These in the picture were the first four that we finished.

During this off time, the kids finished the last of the 12 Keeper of the Faith badges that they needed to get the honor badge. They were pretty proud of that, and we went out to eat to celebrate. Here is a list of the badges they completed over the last year. My son- birds, baseball, coloring, hand tools, pets, loving others, prayer warrior, art, puzzles, swimming, Bible reading, and photo albums. My daughter-birds, baseball, prayer warrior, pets, loving others, painting, puzzles, cooking, table setting, swimming, Bible reading, and singing.

We are still having a great time. Maybe next post I will tell about some of our adventures during this 2 weeks off.

And BTW, there is a good article at Caffeinated Thoughts about education and how far we have fall in that respect since the founding of this country. You should really check it out. This cartoon was part of the post.

Homeschool Happenings v. 4 (The Last Day of the 1st Six Weeks)

It seems that six weeks have gone by quickly. We have made good progress in many areas especially reading. The kids really enjoy Texas geography. The only thing that we have been slackers in is quilting. (I think that is because it is such a steep learning curve for me.) This past week we have been reviewing our elements (arsenic, iron, calcium, chromium, and potassium), our big fat lies (earth is millions of years old, church is a place, you need to be like everyone else, people get to decide what is true, and religion needs to stay private), our traits of the wise (discipline, industrious, prudent, humble, and justice) and the Panhandle Plains region of Texas. They are supposed to tell Dad this weekend what they remember as a sort of "final".

Now we will have two weeks off. As a reward to ourselves we are planning to go swimming in one of the area lakes and going to Arlington Gem and Mineral Show. We are also hopeful that at least few of the chicks will hatch. The two weeks gives me time to plan the next 6 weeks and to edit our video yearbook for last year.

Homeschool Happenings v. 3

I haven't posted several things this past week because I have been getting ready for today. It's the first day of school for us. We are going with a 6 weeks on 2 weeks off system this year. I am kind of excited. Here is a run down of the stuff we are using.

Phonics/Spelling The Writing Road to Reading
I would not necessarily recommend this to everyone, but my son really struggled to get a handle on sight words in kindergarten so we went to this system where there are extremely few sight words (like the word one) and you learn many word teams and all of their sounds.

Math Right Start Math Levels B and C
Both of my kids are in the middle of a level so we are starting out where we left off in June. I highly recommend this for anyone. The lessons use lots of games. Almost all of the stuff comes with the kits. The lessons are varied so its not 50 lessons in a row on one thing, but all of the things are covered and reviewed.

Writing Handwriting Without Tears
Both of my kids have a problem with handwriting. (One because he wants to write with his hand upside down and the other because she doesn't have the fine motor coordination yet.) I got the workbooks and the chalkboard (helps with the fine motor stuff), but not the whole shebang. We will see how it works.

Grammar Daily Language Review
I wanted something fast and simple that would reinforce grammar for my son in 2nd. I got the first grade one because I wasn't sure if it meant a review of what was learned in 1st grade or a book for first grade reviewing what you learned in kindergarten. Each day has a little exercise that he can do himself, so we'll see how it goes.

Bible My Father's World and a Bible reader of my own design
You have to call MFW if you want to order individual things instead of the whole curriculum. The reader is good (the illustrations could stand to be better). I got it for the ease of reading. I also got the workbook where the student draws a picture about what he/she read and writes a sentence. I got a little journal type thing with a space to write and a space for pictures at Wal-mart. For my daughter I am writing short (about 6 sentences) Bible stories and letting her draw the picture.

Science How to Teach Science, DK First Human Body Encyclopedia, Apologia astronomy
We are doing an element a week somewhat following the How to Teach Science e-mails. We doing one human anatomy lesson a week starting with the skeleton. My kids love bones and such. I borrowed the Apologia astronomy from a friend to do bits of because my in-laws generously gave us a telescope. We will also be attending star parties with the Fort Worth Astronomical Society. We will also be doing little weekly science experiments.

Texas Geography Lessons made by me.
This year we are learning about the various regions of Texas as described by the Texas State Parks people. Texas is such a huge state we are taking the whole year on it. We will also be playing Great States Jr. to gear up for next year's America geography.

Weekly Wisdom Lessons by me
I am doing a "wise trait" each week. This week is discipline.
Getting a better mind, body, and soul takes training.
Listen
Practice
Keep moving forward.
"Anyone who loves to be trained loves knowledge. Anyone who hates to be corrected is stupid." Proverbs 12:1 (NIrV)

Big Fat Lies Lessons by me
We are also discussing some of the Big FAT lies Satan has saturated our culture with. The first is that the earth is billions of years old.

Art Lessons by me
We are going to have one lesson a week on observing and then drawing. For example, look at a person. Do the arms come out of the head? We will also have one creative art lesson a week.

Quilting Lessons by me
The kids wanted to learn about quilting. So I found an "easy" pattern that I think I could do and my mother-in-law said we could have one of her sewing machines. We are starting with a lap size quilt so we (read me) aren't too overwhelmed. Maybe I will post some pictures of our progress.

I think that about covers it. I am excited about this six weeks.

Money Factory (Homeschool Happenings V.2 )

My kids and I went to the Money Factory here in Fort Worth. This is the actual place where our paper money is printed. It was a fascinating tour. For one thing we found out that there is a top secret change going on with the 100's. So that whole area was covered in tarps and all the windows were boarded up. There was also the press that is printing the new purple fives. But the most interesting part was the amount of money they print daily: close to 3 million.

That's right folks, 3 million dollars a day, five days a week, with some days like Christmas off. (and there is another similar facility like ours in Washington, DC) The tour guide's explanation about why we had to print so much money was that the Federal Reserve destroys old money and then orders that amount to be printed. Well I don't buy it. I don't trust the Federal Reserve . It made me think again about Ron Paul's Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009. According to the Federal Reserve, they order money to be made based on the amount they think the public will demand and also the amount destroyed. They also claim that the amount in circulation is almost 800 billion. I guess the rest of our money is all digital. If the world goes more digital and the Fed keeps producing the same amount of money, what does that do to inflation? Just wondering.

Homeschool Happenings V. 1

My kids (on the way to 1st and 2nd) are really into anatomy (or as they say "bones and innards"). I found this website with all kinds of free games for anatomy called Anatomy Arcade. The games are a little hard for my kids, but they enjoy watching me do them and whacking the bones with the little hammer. You do have to watch a commercial (the one I saw was for trash bags) before playing and there was an advertisement for a werewolf video game on the side bar. But if you don't mind those, I thought the games were great. There are games or puzzles for bones, muscles, and various other body systems. I think this site is a great resource.