Only a Boy

Tuesday, August 25, 2009 - One, Two, Three, Four...

...I declare a Math war.

We are still waiting for Cameron's math book to arrive. I thought I would take this time to reinforce his basic math skills.

A friend of mine has a math game that is played like the game of War. I thought that we could easily copy this game with the flash cards we have.

Cameron LOVES this game.

How we play.

Divide flash cards evenly between players
Each place a flash card down on the table.
Do the math problem.
High number wins.
Person with most cards at the end win.

Did I mention that Cameron loves this game?

After playing this a few times, we changed up the rules. He could "steal" my card. I keep my hand over my card and, after he answered his card, if he could get the answer to my card in less than 5 seconds, very slow seconds, he could have my card, even if it was the higher card.

Soon, he was getting ALL of the cards. He was pretty pleased with himself. But, there is a secret I'm not telling him...

I'm not telling him I to am pleased that he is getting all of the cards. It means he is improving on his math skills in both accuracy and speed.

If our math book doesn't come in tomorrow, I'm declaring another math war.

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Monday, August 24, 2009 - School Rules

Posted in Homeschooling

Today was very nice day of school. Things were accomplished, learning was done, attitudes were spectacular! I hope today was not a fluke.

I began today with pulling out the portable dry erase marker board. I told Cameron that we would be coming up with some school rules for us to follow. If we broke the rules, there would be a consequence.

He agreed with me that not following the rules would be disobedience. He came up with what he thought was a just consequence. Then I told him there would be a "grace."

Grace is NOT getting what we deserve. Basically the grace was a warning. I think that some of the time he doesn't even realize his behavior, or subtitle attitudes that can quickly escalate. Hence the warning.

So, we discussed different rules and wrote down some of his ideas. Then I tweaked them to come up with our list.

Here are our school rules:

Do your best. (one of his)
No interrupting (another of his)
No --
1. complaining
2. whining
3. moaning
4. or grumpiness
Expected behavior --
1. cheerfulness
2. pleasantness
3. cooperation
Be ye kind on to another (his)
Glorify God with my life!! (the most important of all)

It was helpful to have this list before us and sitting with us during school today. I was able to refer to it.

"Wow, Cameron. You were being pleasant even though you missed that word. Way to and not be grumpy!"

"Be careful. You are starting to complain. Don't break rule number 3."

He referred to it as well.

"Mama. I really did number 1. I did my very best and I got 5 lines done in under 20 minutes!" (I was so proud of him for that one that it actually made me tear up a bit.)

So, I'm praying that today was not a fluke. I am going to make our rules into a poster to hang on our wall so that they can be a reminder to us both.

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Saturday, August 1, 2009 - Third Grade Here We Come

Posted in Homeschooling

I use the Ambleside Online pattern for our curriculum. This follows the teaching philosophies of Charlotte Mason. So far, this has been a very good fit for us. While we are still struggling with the mechanics of reading, both Cameron and I love books and CM is very literature based.

Here is an overview of what we will be studying for third grade. This was the first year I had to write official objectives.

English

To continue the study of English through reading of literature and grammar lessons including the sentence, parts of speech, verb tenses and agreement
To improve spelling through word lists taken from weekly readings
To improve reading skills and independent reading
To improve printing through copywork
To introduce cursive handwriting

So far we really haven't formally studied grammar. We have worked on learning to read, penmanship, punctuation as it became pertinent to copywork, and narration. We will be starting formal grammar lessons with Simply Grammar by Karen Andreola.

Our selection for literature this year includes:

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. We started this book last year but were not able to finish it.
The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
Brighty of the Grand Canyon by Marguerite Henry
Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb
American Tall Tales by Adrien Stoutenburg
Parables from Nature by Margaret Gatty
as well as classic children's poem

Math: A Beka Arithmetic 3

To recognize the place value of numbers up to the 100,000s
To review and strengthen addition and subtraction facts
To learn 0-12 multiplication and division tables and be able to work
To solve story problems with up to four steps
To know fraction terminology and have a basic understanding of fractions
To work with different mathematic operations and concepts such as greater than (>) and less than (<), English and metric measurements, Roman numerals, telling time, money, average numbers, reading a thermometer, and recognize geometric shapes

Science

To study a variety of inventors and their inventions
To study zoology, focusing on flying animals: birds, bats, and insects
To perform various scientific experiments learning about physical science

I'm really excited about Science this year! We will be reading through The Story of Inventions by Michael J. McHugh and Frank P. Bachman. I think Cameron will really learning about inventors and their inventions.

We will also be doing one of Jeannie Fulbright's Exploring Creation books. We will start with Zoology 1, Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day. As I leafed through the book I got very excited about the things that we will be learning. I know Cameorn will enjoy this study very much.

I also plan to do some experiments from a few experiment books I have. Although, Exploring Creation has experiments and projects too.

We will also continue to study nature with weekly nautre walks.

Geography

To study the overall geography of Earth including but not limited to atmosphere, the continents and oceans, and the structure of Earth.
To understand how to read and use maps and an Atlas

This is another subject about which I'm very excited too. My very generous friend, LindaI, is not only lending me her Exploring Creation books, but she is also lending me a geography book. A Child's Geography: Exploring His World by Ann Voskamp is written in the same style as Fulbright's books and is very Charlotte Mason.

History

To study American and World History from Columbus to Pocahontas and Charles I (late 1400’s to 1650)
To study Pennsylvania history and geography

We will be using several books to study history.

A Child's History of the World by Hillyer
This Country of Ours by Marshall
An Island Story by Marshall.

We will also be reading several biographies:

Leonardo da Vinci
Galileo
John Wesley
Sharkespeare
Elizabeth I
and selections for Trial and Triumph.

Civics

To recognize and study the importance of government in the community, Pennsylvania and the United States of America
To study different symbols and practices of America

Civics is one of the requirements of PA law. I found an online program here.

Safety Education

To continue to discuss and practice safety inside and outside the home.
To learn kitchen safety
To review fire prevention and safety including home fire drills
To reinforce his ability to call 911 and review situations when the action would be necessary

Another PA requirement. It's funny to me because I think as a mother this is just second nature to "teach" your child safety. We have even had mock fire drills at our house so this shouldn't be hard to include.

Health

To study human body parts, systems and functions
To study and apply personal health with nutrition, fitness and hygiene
To discuss certain health problems focusing on asthma and diabetes

Another PA requirement. I found free health downloads to use as well as printouts from Enchanted Learning.

Physical Education

To study different forms of sports and games through weekly group participation
To improve on skills and knowledge of soccer by participation in the Fall and Spring seasons

We will also be using our Wii Fit.

Music Appreciation

To experience selections of music of 20^th Century British, Edvard Grieg and Jean Sibelius, and Maurice Ravel
To participate in weekly singing with a group and monthly performances in front of a mixed audience of adults and children

We follow the Ambleside Online rotation of music appreciation. I can find the music selection on YouTube and we listen to it a few times that week.

The weekly singing would be at Master Clubs on Wednesdays. We sing once a month for the church.

We do not follow the rotation at Ambleside for hymns and folk songs. Last year, I would select a hymn that I knew we would be singing on the last Sunday night of the month. This year, I decided to focus on one hymn writer all year round. I chose the hymns of Charles Wesley to go with our biography of John Wesley.

This year for folk songs, I'm going to focus on patriotic songs. This will go along with our civics and American history subjects as well.

Art

To study the works of Raphael, John Singer Sargent, and Monet and to reproduce, with colored pencil, one work of choice from each artist
To participate in different woodwork projects with grandfather and by participating in the bi-monthly Kids Clinics provided by Lowe’s ®

Again, we follow the Ambleside Online rotation for artists. Some of our projects for geography and science will also fall into the art category.

Bible

Last but definitely not least is Bible. Since Bible is not a requirement for PA law, I did not include it in our objectives.

This year we will be reading through the Gospels and Acts. I also made a map on poster board of Judea. My church did "Passport to the Promised Land" for VBS this year and the room decorations included a transparencey map. I just didn't trace all the "extas" and have a really nice map. I think as we read we will mark the different locations on our map. Right now, I think I'm way more excited about the map than Cameron is, but hopefully as we go along and are able to fill in more and more places, he will catch my enthusiasm.

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Saturday, August 1, 2009 - It's Official

Posted in Homeschooling

It is official. I turned in all my paperwork with the school district and we are officially homeschoolers. I know that we have been homeschooling from the beginning but somehow it seems different now that I had to have something notarized.

This is one of my favorite times of the year too. All the back to school sales are in full swing! My thoughtful father bought the Sunday paper just so I could have the sales flyers. I may not care about shoes but show me a great sale on Sharpie markers and folders and I get all aflutter. Strange, I know.

I made my list of what each store had to offer that I either needed, wanted, or wanted to stock up on.

Staples had 100 count 3/5 index cards on sale for $0.25. (but I was disappointed that the price was only for the first 2 packages. They didn't say that in the flyer).
Target had a 10 pack of Sharpie colored markers for $4. I also bought a geographic world map 100 piece puzzle for only $1. Cameron loved this and has put it together twice already.
Walgreens had a coupon for $0.39 for poster board. It was limit six but at least it said that on the coupon. They also had buy one get two free 10 package page protectors for only $0.99. But to my great disappointment, they were completely out of that. (I'll still have to get those for our portfolio that will be need to be done at the end of the school year.)
Wal-Mart, which I haven't visited yet) has the rest of my supplies. I will be getting some composition books for $0.50 each and pocket folders with prongs for $0.10 each. Hopefully some of the Wal-Mart prices will come down. If they do, I'll most likely get a big package of crayons and more glue sticks.

I have forbidden myself to purchase any notebooks. I shouldn't have bought any last year either but they were $0.05 a piece. I just couldn't pass up 20/$1 !!!

I still need two books before I can fully get underway. I still need a Math and cursive handwriting book. But other than these two books, I have all my books and supplies. I even rearranged some furniture and Dad's storage to give us more room for school this year. We graduated to the big table! (I also threatened my dad with tears (worst thing I could think of) if he started stacking up the table with boxes of stuff, which he has a tendency to do.)

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