Sep. 30, 2009 - Wednesday, Sept 30:
We now have an official classroom. I would post pictures, but I misplaced the disk for my camera, so I can't reload the program at the moment.
I'm very happy with this classroom. The kids worked like mad with me today to clean the room out completely, and now I am taking a break as we get ready to organize. I've already moved the world map that I had in our dining room into the "new" classroom. I've picked out some posters on Allposters.com that I will order soon. There is the periodic table of elements, some great inspirational ones with quotes from Einstein, pictures of the solarsystem, etc. I also need to get a large dry-erase board for the wall, as the one I have now is insufficient for use teaching.
I think having a designated school-room makes it seem a little more "real" for me. Less slapdash. Lets us all know that we are doing something important- yes, it's still homeschool, not private or public school, but it is also a job, and jobs usually have a work place. No more working at the dining room table.
I s'pose I'd better get back to work now. After a nice glass of water...
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Sep. 26, 2009 - Update...
It has been a while since I last updated...
Our computer crashed about 3 weeks ago. We got it back last night, thankfully. It is a bit worrisome, how much we rely on it.
School has been going extremely well... for the most part. We have good days, and not so good days.
I will update more later, when I have time.
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Sep. 2, 2009 - Some rambly thoughts
There are many reasons why we decided to homeschool our children, but today I was thinking of the pleasures of having both children in one class.
By necessity, public and private schools are divided up into various age groups for learning. Children tend to hit certain educational milestones at certain times in their lives. Brain and physical development happens at certain stages and ages. When you have 20-30 children to teach, teaching all of those at one stage of development is much easier, rather than trying to form lessons for a group ranging from K-12.
But one of the beauties of homeschooling is that the class size is much, much smaller, the children already know the rules, and as parents we know them intimately. And because of this, we can more easily blend classes. The older ones may be able to help the younger children, and the younger children can express the new things they've learned in such a way that it makes it fresh for everyone else in the class- a new way of seeing things, new insights, new perspectives.
The added benefit is the flexibility of most homeschool programs. We have the very unique capability to tailor each lesson to each child. We know where the kids need mental stretching, or where they are being pushed too far. As homeschoolers we generally don't have to meet set requirements that the public schools have- our children can safely excel, and move ahead as they need, or they can, without shame, be held back until they fully grasp the educational principles that we are trying to instill in them.
It thus becomes possible to teach children of different ages from the same material- those ready for more advanced work may be directed to more advanced reading and activities outside of the curriculum, while time is spent teaching the younger or "delayed" children at a lower level.
I only have 2 children to teach, and as they are only 2 years apart, we are able to teach them on a very similar level. There are different things that each have an easier time with, and thankfully, they tend to be in different subjects. Where Josie is very strong with maths and sciences, Iain is with history and literature. But as a homeschooling mother, I can add science and math theory to the history in a way that Iain can grasp, and I can add history and language to the maths and sciences for Josie so that she can see the order and mathematic beauty in God's creation of our intellects, and how those inventions and discoveries worked through history.
And I love this. I really, really love this.
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Aug. 29, 2009 - The plan is...
Week 1- the Basics.
We will be covering the 3 most basic needs of humanity this week- Food, Shelter, and Clothing.
For food we will talk about hunting and gathering. For shelter we will discuss the most basic of houses- tents. One focus on "Shelter" will be on the hearth of the home, and the use of fire in cooking, and warming bodies, and protection against enemies. The kids will learn to build a fire using a fire bow. We will discuss clothing ranging from grass skirts to animal skins, and try some hands on projects in primitive clothing fabrication.
As we go over these subjects, the kids will be creating a sort of lapbook on posterboard to document and reinforce the things they are learning. I will post photos of their work on this blog.
I will try to update throughout the week, and will post the plan for each following week on the Saturday night before.
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Aug. 28, 2009 - And here we go again!
I couldn't figure out where our last blog was... or remember what I'd used for a user-name or password... *duhhhh*
At any rate, our new school year is starting on Monday- whoohooo! Iain and Josie are eager to get going with it, oh yeah. They are just jumping up and down and giggling- "Yay! We get to do MATH! LOTS AND LOTS OF MATH! Whooohoooo! Yippeeee! So exciting!"
Ok, so maybe that isn't quite the case...
They have really enjoyed their summer "off" though. We did some school stuff over the summer, but kept it light and fun. We did things like disecting flowers and cucumbers (which we then ate- yummmy) so they could learn about the basic structure of seed bearing plants. We had a lot of talks about the Bible, and Andrew, their dad, has been reading to them most Sundays from Pilgrim's Progress.
The kids have been learning about animal husbandry, proper feeding and watering schedules, mineral needs of animals, and hopefully in several months, they will be milking our goat, too, and making cheese, yogurt, and soaps from her milk.
Josephine and I have been making cosmetic type things in our kitchen- lotions and soaps specifically. Iain is showing a lot of interest in herbal medicine.
Throughout this year we plan to study primitive, nomadic cultures, with plenty of hands on projects, like foraging for wild foods and preparing them. We will be studying early agricultural advances, the use of irrigation, crop and pasture rotation, and the introduction of domesticated animals to the scene, as hunter-gatherers became more advanced.
We are using Saxon Math for 5th and 7th grade this year, (oh my goodness, when did they get so grown up????) Easy Grammar (although I'm looking at the "Mother Tongue" book and really like what I see there) and the Daily Warm Up logic books. They will also be continuing on for 1/2 year with their Latin, and 1/2 year on Malay.
Depending on how things go, we may take the kids on an extended camping trip (even if it is just in the back yard) so that they can learn what it is like to live like early nomads lived. We have a computer game that can give a small idea of moving from hunter-gatherer to iron age living, too. We have the expanded version of Age of Empires, which we got for $10 at Walmart. It is rated for Teens because it has violence, but it's nothing horribly graphic, and the aspect of building from stone age to iron age is valuable for the kids to see.
And, as always, there will be lots and lots and lots and lots of unstructured pleasure reading, which I feel is incredibly important for children and their brain development.
So, Monday we start. Deep breath... deep breath... deep breath...
