Tomorrow I am going to actually try and do some formal art with my kids. While hardly blog-worthy to some, this is a big deal considering it is our 4th year of homeschooling!
My 3 dear sons think painting is putting lots of every color on your pallet, paint 5 pictures in three minutes with one color (maybe two,) quickly making mud of the rinse water, and moaning about having to clean up.
Besides, I haven't a clue how to teach art. I am very blessed that my mom is an artist and teaching classes with ds#1 in it at the co-op. Still, I probably should do art. I have lots of supplies, and even some books. I just need the will I guess.
I pulled out one of the Williamson Kids Can! books on art and we're starting at the beginning with primary colors. We'll see how this goes...
The unseasonable autumn warmth made for a wonderful afternoon and evening in Boston last week when Grandpa was in town for a day. We ate at the Union Oyster House, the oldest continuously running business establishment in the country, and the origin of the toothpick.
Last week we went to see the Spirit of America production with two other families and it was fabulous! We left early, so we got great "ring side" seats, and I was glad we went during the day along with all the school groups. The kids did the wave, did a lot of hooting and hollering in appreciation--they even waved their open cell phones during the slow songs, LOL (I remember the Bic lighters.)
The first half dramatically presented the history of the Army while the second half showcased the drilling and musical talents of our soldiers. The kids really liked the whole production but I think they were particularly impressed by the drill team.
Today begins the 40 Days For Life. Pray, fast, or participate in a community activity to bring an end to abortion. We pray for women that are suffering, and for the 45,000,000 + children and still counting...
A text document with the code is here to put the sidebar badge on your blog.
Our co-op is having a US geography bee in November, so I decided to spend this term doing a state study. I've tried to keep it pretty simple.
Here is a copy of my state sheet in Word. Uploading it means it is not formatted right--you have to move the state abbreviation to the end of the line.
The Netstate.com website has all the state information you could want as well as outline maps for each state. Download the outline and replace it in my state sheet to make sheets for all 50 states.
We are learning just the bird, flower and tree for each state, and I found a fun and easy way to do this. First, you need a wonderful little bit of freeware called MWsnap that allows you to take a snapshot of a browser window and save it as a jpg file.
Next I make the cutout sheet by doing the following:
Download the images of the bird, flower, and tree from Netstate.com for the states in one area of the country all into their own folder on the computer. Rename the file as the name of the bird or flower or tree.
Display the directory using thumbnails, so it shows all the pictures in the directory. I even line them up so the top row has birds, middle row has flowers, and bottom row has trees.
Use MWsnap to convert the folder display to a jpg image.
Print it out and you have a 8.5x11 sheet with the little pictures of each state bird, flower, and tree like the picture at the top of this page (click on it to see a larger version.)
Cut them out and paste into the space between the map and the first line of the state sheet after filling in the rest of the information.
We have finished 2 weeks of school and it is time for our first adjustment. No bad, I think!
Ds#1 is going to move from M.E.P. year 4 to year 3.
Math has been taking him a long time to complete. Math-U-See taught him well how to do multiplication and division algorithms but not much about why, or number patterns. I can see he does mental math far better than he did last year, yet he is still getting used to the new and varied ways M.E.P. presents materials.
The moderators at the MEP-homeschoolers Yahoo group posted an interesting fact; a child that has mastered the material through year 6 is prepared for U.S. high school math!
Looking through the year 3 material, I see fractions are introduced during week 3--right where we will start on Monday.
I work in an emergency department, about 20 hours a month. This morning ds#2, while sitting on the couch waiting for me to come up and start school (or at least that is what I asked him to do,) fell and hit the back of his head on the base of the banister railing. He came down and told me he was bleeding.
The wound was not very big, but it was gaping. I could not seal it with a bandage or glue it because of his hair. I knew it needed no more than 2 staples. Off to the ED went the four of us.
Trying to keep 3 highly-active boys entertained in a small ED room for 2 hours is a challenge, especially when people keep stopping in to talk to me (mom's distracted, let's touch everything we can in the room!)
Afterward we had lunch and made it home just in time to head back out to the library for me to teach biology, and then off to our homeschool catechism class afterward. Whew!
Two other families have joined us for God's Country Club, our world geography studies.
We meet each week to learn about the geography and culture of a country.
We spend several weeks on a country, depending how much material needs to be covered. Our kids sample food, do activities, and create their own projects for each country studied.
Our first country is Poland. We created a blog so all three moms can post information and so our kids can look back at their progress. It's a fun way to study world geography!
After rearranging the playroom, rearranging all the upstairs bookcases, gathering up all our resources (I still need to do a bit more of that) and writing up the schedules, we finally had our first day back to school yesterday. Overall, it went well!
I always find the first day of homeschooling difficult. I just never seem to have things organized right until I actually start doing what I need to do. This year went fairly well.
Math took up a lot of time, mostly because I was not as prepared as I should have been. I am still getting used to MEP and getting a better feel for how it is organized. I also decided to use the laptop for the lesson plans instead of printing them all out. I need more play dollars, dimes, and pennies to demonstrate regrouping...
So far the boys all worked well. With computer programs and "toys" restricted to certain options during school time, they found many educational ways to fill their time while I was busy working with one or another of them.
Ds#3 was the most excited of the three, always eager to be doing things.
Friday we went to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. It is a small, lovely museum that my rambunctious boys could tolerate for about two hours this time around.
In the theater we saw Sylvester and the Magic Pebble.
In the art studio the kids explored Thick and Thin (my kids' favorite spot.)
In the library, with the hundreds of hardcover picture books for all to read, we listened to two books during story hour.
The art galleries have one room dedicated to Eric Carle with a fun picture scavanger hunt fot the kids. The second room featured the Golden Age of Children's Illistration: Kate Greenway, Jessie Wilcox Smith, Ernest H. Shepard, and more. I even picked up a Kate Greenway poetry book at a used bookstore on the way home.
Ds#1 is focusing on learning about fractions this year, besides reviewing basic arithmetic operations. I've got quite a few resources gathered to make things interesting:
I also have dice, counters, Math U See Epsilon DVD and fraction overlays that I picked up at a used curriculum sale last month. It looks like a lot of fun to dig in to!
I once heard William Bennett tell about the hiring of a conservative theology professor. One of the comments by a liberal on the review committee was something like, "We can't hire this guy, he actually believes this stuff!"
The University of San Diego decided to rescind the Monsignor John R. Portman Chair in Roman Catholic Theology being held by radical feminist Rosemary Radford Ruether. She promotes the Big Three: women's ordination, gay marriage, and abortion--all against the teachings of Jesus Christ and thus also the Catholic Church.
Liberal activists immediately initiated a petition to have her reinstated and collected 4,000 signatures.
Ora et Labora is trying to top that number by September 3rd with a petition in support of USD's decision. You can join me in signing it here.
"Not 100 in the United States hate the Roman Catholic Church, but millions hate what they mistakenly think the Roman Catholic Church is." --Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.
She is abusing St. Augustine's late 4th century writings about when a fetus receives a soul.
First, St. Augustine urged that we follow the science regarding this issue. We've learned a few things about embryology in the last 1600 years.
Second, SINCE THE FIRST CENTURY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAS CONDEMNED ABORTION including St. Augustine. This is long-standing Catholic Sacred Tradition.
Hours after Speaker Pelosi's comments, Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput posed a question in his homily:
"If you're Catholic and you disagree with your Church, what do you do?"
His response?
"You change your mind."
Amen!
Also according to Pelosi catholicism, she wants to reduce the number of abortions. The Roman Catholic Church wants to eliminate all abortions.
I find it hard to believe that an ardent practicing Catholic misunderstood those positions. I pray for Speaker Pelosi that she may better understand her faith.
With summer fast coming to an end, our family has been enjoying the glorious weather. Our homeschooling friends live on a hill perfect for kite flying.
It's the first time, really, my kids have done this--they thoroughly enjoyed themselves! The moms had to spend some time untangling strings with so many kites going. (It's actually somewhat therapeutic and rewarding, LOL.)
While looking for used Vision books at abebooks, I noticed one bookseller that had a lot of them, Cox & Cox. As it turns out, they are located here in MA. This being our tax-free weekend, I made an appointment and took a ride out to see the collection to save myself shipping charges since I wanted to buy a good many of them.
Roger Cox has a wonderful collection of Catholic and secular books that he has bought from closing Catholic schools. Most of the time these books would have ended up in the trash if not for him offering to buy them.
Not only does he have a lot of books for sale, he of course has read many of them. He is better than most Children's Librarians I have spoken to in what he knows.
He explained something interesting to me: Publishing companies generally kept books in print even when the demand was low; that was until the tax laws changed in 1970. Today publishers must pay taxes on their inventory, so if a book does not sell well, publishers take them out of print rather than pay taxes on the stock. This is why all these really great books from the 1950s and 1960s are no longer available.
The many written accounts of the Assumption date back initially to the 4th century, and it is a long held belief of both the Roman and Eastern Rites. Because of the long-standing belief of this event did Pope Pius XII declare this definitive dogma of the Roman Catholic Church in 1950.
This is a wonderful example of how the Pope and Magisterium do not create new dogma, but rather continually deepen our understanding. Through the Holy Spirit they study and contemplate the Word to understand and teach the will of the Father, just as Christ had designed when He created His Church.
"And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women." St. Luke 1:28
Mary is the Immaculate Conception since she was born and is forever without sin (full of grace.) Who else could be the Mother of Our Lord? Sinless, she did not experience death; rather, she was assumed into Heaven.
"Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed." St. Luke 1:48
The Bible instructs us to venerate the Blessed Virgin, and so we do.
Assumption of the Virgin by Carracci
"And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars: And being with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered. And there was seen another sign in heaven: and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads, and ten horns: and on his head seven diadems: And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered; that, when she should be delivered, he might devour her son. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with an iron rod: and her son was taken up to God, and to his throne." Revelation 12:1-6
The woman is the Church, though allusion to the physical birth by Our Lady is evident. Hail, Holy Queen.
Though I am using Primary and Intermediate Language Lessons with ds#2 and ds#1 respectively, I have gathered several other resources to use during out Math/LA block to enhance what we have done in Language Lessons, or if we want to take a break from it.
I've ordered The Great Word Race. I also have Spelling Beez, which is a bit slow, and of course we have Scrabble, too.
I picked up the Magnetic Sight Words and Sentences board for 50 cents at a library book sale, though it had no words. I was able to pick up the sight word set from Christian Book Distributor
I also have The Writing Menu by Melissa Forney for writing ideas to get ds#1 more interested in writing. He writes in fits and starts. When it is an "assignment" his writing is very minimal and without creativity, yet when he has that spark he has the start of some pretty decent writing. Hopefully this will help us make those sparks!
Wordplay Cafe is a fun book using lots of puns, which ds#1 likes to think up. It would be something for just him and I to do together.
Hmmm, there must be some decent grammar game books out there...
Web sites
My kids have educational computer time scheduled during the day. Some of these sites we will sit and do together during block time while others they can use independently.
I found a lot of sites by going to Delicious and seeing what sites are bookmarked using search word "grammar."
Academic Skills Builders has several free math and word games with nice animation and interaction.
Here's one for diagramming sentences and has exercises using history and literature.
You can even download free sentence diagramming software from the University of Central Florida! You can then use any of your other books for practice, much like copywork or dictation. For the grammar geek in us!
Here's a Montessori page with word activities, including using colored shapes for beginning sentence diagramming. This makes a nice visual demonstration of basic sentence structure. In fact, I have to get to work getting these printed and ready. Maybe with magnetic tape to make this more interesting!
Muse...1: to become absorbed in thought; especially: to turn something over in the mind meditatively and often inconclusively
2. archaic: WONDER, MARVEL. Transitive senses: to think or say reflectively.
Our Patron SaintSt. Isidore of Seville
Doctor of the Church
Patron Saint of
Computers and the Internet
Schoolchildren and Students
Feastday: April 4th
"Heresy is from the Greek word meaning 'choice'.... But we are not permitted to believe whatever we choose, nor to choose whatever someone else has believed. We have the Apostles of God as authorities, who did not...choose what they would believe but faithfully transmitted the teachings of Christ. So, even if an angel from heaven should preach otherwise, he shall be called anathema."
St. Isidore pray for us!
Tomorrow I am going to actually try and do some formal art with my kids. While hardly blog-worthy to some, this is a big deal considering it is our 4th year of homeschooling!
After rearranging the playroom, rearranging all the upstairs bookcases, gathering up all our resources (I still need to do a bit more of that) and writing up the schedules, we finally had our first day back to school yesterday. Overall, it went well!
While looking for used Vision books at abebooks, I noticed one bookseller that had a lot of them, Cox & Cox. As it turns out, they are located here in MA. This being our tax-free weekend, I made an appointment and took a ride out to see the collection to save myself shipping charges since I wanted to buy a good many of them.
I've ordered The Great Word Race. I also have Spelling Beez, which is a bit slow, and of course we have Scrabble, too.
