Posted in Anchored

Last week the girls learned about weasels and hedgehogs!

The girls had to choose a mammal to do a poster/report on for their co-op class.  They were limited as to what they could choose and (smart teacher!) they could not choose cat, dog, or horse.   DD9 choose weasels and DD12 choose hedgehogs.

So, the last couple weeks we were surrounded by weasel and hedgehog books from the library, print outs from the Internet, and I even found an audio about weasels on my computer that I had downloaded some time ago from "You Need A Story."  

DD12 did a bit more than required for the project.  She and a friend (they're doing the project together) decided make a unique presentation, by being a reporter (dd12) and interviewing a hedgehog (friend).

They also made a hedgehog out of salt dough (with cocoa added to make the dough brownish) and toothpicks.  Then the night before the presentation dd12 made hedgehog cookies.  Since we have a child at co-op with peanut allergies, we could not do Jan Brett's traditional recipe.....dd12 instead frosted the back part of the cookie with chocolate frosting and added chocolate sprinkles to make it looks spikey. 

We didn't do it, but if your child is interested a  FREE lapbook about hedgehogs can be found at Homeschool Share. 


Here are the display boards that the girls did:

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(I'll leave this post on top for awhile, as a reminder.  Scroll down for other posts.)


Orion has been my favorite constellation since I was a kid, but I never knew that it was the radiant for a meteor shower!  (Don'tya just love learning right along with your kids.....gotta love homeschooling!  )

You can view the Orionids between October 15 and October 29, with the peak being the wee hours of October 21.  (The 20th and 22nd may also be good for viewing.)

There are not as many meteors as with our favorite shower, the Perseids, in August.  There are only about 20 an hour at peak for the Orionids.  But hey, we homeschoolers will look for any excuse to get outside to "do school".......even if it is 1 a.m.!!!  Yeah, we're slave drivers....

So look up to the skies the last couple weeks of October.  Find Orion in the southeastern sky and look to the left of his left shoulder (the star Betelgeuse, a fun word pronounced as "beetle jews", which when said fast sounds like "beetle juice" )


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Posted in Anchored

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OK, so National Chestnut Week is not high on my celebration list!  Didn't even know there was such a thing!

But hey, part of the fun of homeschooling is trying things new....and getting to go on field trips... or, even better, getting to do both in one shot!

Yesterday, the girls and I gathered chestnuts at a local orchard.  We spent three hours there, each of us picking enough to fill a 5 gallon bucket.  The bucket weighed about 35 lbs. when full.    We were paid $10 for each full bucket.

It was a good lesson in economics....maybe they'll be less likely to blow that $10 they earned, knowing it took 3 hours to earn it!

So, what do you think of when you hear the word chestnuts?  I think of the Christmas song......chestnuts roasting on an open fire.....   But what else can you do with chestnuts besides roast them???  Does anyone still even eat roasted chestnuts???  I can't say I ever have!

I decided to find out a few facts about chestnuts.  I was surprised.

First off, we Americans don't eat much of them.  (OK, that was no surprise...no one I know eats them!)   The U.S. per capita consumption is only 0.04 lbs, compared to 2 lbs. for China and 1 lb. for Europeans.  Big difference!

Next, I thought we were just doing old fashioned labor yesterday and gathering the nuts by hand.  Nope, worldwide this is the norm.  However, there are folks looking to mechanize this step. (My hands say.......please do!!  Even with lined leather gloves on, those burrs still can poke through....OUCH!!!)

And, I learned that most American think that chestnuts are only used for roasting (again that was not really a surprise), but did ya know that chestnuts can used in flours, main dishes, soups, and even desserts.  Taiwan even has chestnut flavored ice cream bars! 

Chestnuts are high in fiber and low in fat....sounds like Americans need to eat more of them!!  Chestnuts are gluten free, so they can be ground into chestnut flour for those sensitive to gluten.  

It takes about 2.5 lbs. of chestnuts in the shell to make one pound of dried chestnuts peeled.   So that means that each bucket that we gathered will be about 14 lbs. once they are peeled and dried.

There are quite a few recipes at Chestnuts Online, including some great sounding Italian ones!    Now I'm hungry!


OK, here are some pictures from our outing.




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Hoodies are great.  When you wear a hoodie, you feel like a kangaroo.  You've got a pouch to keep your hands warm.  And it's a handy place to put your book and some paper and a pen for taking notes while you read.   (It's a unit writing thang!)   When the weather warms up you can remove the sweatshirt and run around in the t-shirt you wear under it and throw the sweatshirt in the car.  And when your wonderful children unload the car for you and kindly remove the sweatshirt you carelessly left behind and considerately toss it in the wash bin for you and you neglect to go through the pockets before placing it in the washer.....well, let's just say it wasn't pretty!   Oh, here, see for yourself......



Thankfully, there is PaperBackSwap to rescue me.....some kind soul out there is going to send me another copy of the book.  I wonder if she would still send it knowing what happened to the last one???  Thank you, dear Flora......I'll try not to wash this one!!

The real bummer about the whole thing was losing the notes of the first three chapters!!  They didn't survive the wash.


PS.....my youngest wishes to add a public service announcement:

                       Do not try this at home.


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The Old Schoolhouse magazine has put together a compilation of encouraging words and advice from seasoned pros like Steve & Jane Lambert of Five in a Row, Amanda Bennett of UnitStudy.com, Malia Russell of Homemaking 911, Terri Johnson of Knowledge Quest/Bramley Books, Ruth Beechick, and more.

Their topics include:  cooperating with the Holy Spirit, managing a multi-level homeschool, organizing, and more.

Kick your school year off right......click below to read more and to download your free copy of The New School Year:  Planning Your Course and Letting the Lord Determine Your Steps.

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Since we're doing workboxes (see older posts) this year, I've been looking for some items that can be put in them for the girls to do independently.

I had downloaded some of the freebies from Fortunately for You some time ago, but had not used any to date or even particularly looked them over.  (You know how it goes, download it because it's free and you might need it someday, save it on the hard drive somewhere, and forget about it. )  As I was going through my computer files recently, I found those freebies and took a closer look and got the idea that their Tags of Time or their Pockets of Time could be a great workbox items. 

After determining the difference between ToT and PoT, I decided to purchase a few of each.  I decided to use ToT with my younger daughter, who is not particuarly  creative, and I would use the PoT with my older daughter, who is my artist. 

Both products test the child's comprehension of a story.  For each chapter, there are summarizing sentences about the chapter for the child to put in order to show the flow of the events in the story.  

PoT involve the child coloring a rectanglular tag with the sentence on it a particular color, cutting them out, and then, as they read the chapter, placing them in order and putting them the chapter's pocket, which is created by attaching two pieces of cardstock together to create up to 3 chapter pockets on a page.  (An answer key for mom is provided and lists the order the colors should be in.)   When completed, the child can make a cover for the pocket pages, punch, and secure with yarn/ribbon and make a book. 

The ToT involve a child decorating a tag as desired.  The child places colored strips which contain the sentence in order on the tag.  (Fortunately for You thoughtfully include non-color strips that you can print if you don't have a color printer or if your color ink is low!  Then you must tell the child what color to color each strip.)  The child must also include the chapter number, the chapter title, and a small graphic that represents the chapter.  (Again, an answer key is provided telling Mom the color order and which graphic matches each chapter.)   The ToT allow the child more creativity in the placement of the items and how the tag is to be decorated.  Once all of the chapters for a book are completed, the tags can be secured with yarn/ribbon.

In both cases, the child can also use the tags to retell the story.

This works for my younger daughter because she doesn't have to go through the effort of writing (a laborious chore for her).  It will work for my older daughter, giving her an outlet to be her creative, artistic self.

My youngest will finish her first PoT today, The Courage of Sarah Noble.  Next week, my older will find The Sign of the Beaver in her workbox and will complete her first ToT.

  Works for us!

ETA:  To use these in the workbox, each day I would just place the book to read and the print outs of the rectangular tags for 3 chapters at a time.  Then doing one chapter at a time, DD9 would color the tag according to the instructions, making sure to read the sentences as she did so to familiarize herself with what to look for in the story.  Then she cut them out (just one chapter at a time), again reading the sentences.  I also had her write the chapter number on the back.  Then she read that chapter of the book.  As she read, she'd arrange the cards in order.  After she read the chapter, she paper clipped the cards and gave them to me for grading.  Once I verified they were in the correct order, they were placed in their pocket.

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Posted in Anchored

The summer went all too fast, but it's time to get back to work now.

This year, dd11 is in 6th and dd9 is in 4th.

Our school year started with our Back-to-School Prayer service that our church has each year.  When we broke down into groups, for specific prayers, I was asked to pray for our homeschoolers, which I cheerfully excepted of course!

Then, come Monday, August 17, our school days began. The first week, we eased into the year, not doing full days or all of the curriculum.

I got our workboxes in place (see older post about Sue Patrick's Workbox System) and the girls are enjoying them.  We are getting more done, but sometimes I feel it's busy work because most of the "extra"things I have done so far have been worksheets with puzzles and other activities.  However, they seem to enjoy the breaking up of the day with these items and I know we're getting some extra learning in.   When I get my act together, I'm going to add in lapbooking components to the boxes.


Curriculum the kids are using:

DD11

• Saxon Math 76 (she'll start this next week, she just finished up Develomental Math book 15 and so we're moving on)
• LightHome Publication's Westward Ho Wagon Train writing (A themed ABC unit study type writing program.)
• A Beka Grammar & Comp I  (She hates this and wants to go back to Daily Grams, so we'll see if we stick to it.)
• A Beka History
• Building Thinking Skills, Book 2
• Unit Studies

DD9

• Teaching Textbooks 4 (she'll finish this in a couple months and then she'll move on to Saxon 54)
• Daily Grams 4
• A Beka History (she asked for a history book like DD11's, so I got it)
• LightHome Publication's Crawly Critters Cursive (intro to cursive)
• Unit Studies (currently she's enjoying a BJUP BookLinks study of The Case of the Dognapped Cat by Milly Howard)
• Maybe some Spanish, since she's asked for it.

Both

• Character Sketches  (Bible and Science)
• Ohio Dailies (short lessons for Ohio history)
• Homeschool in the Woods' Time Traveler items as they fit in with our American history studies
• Grammar Punk
• Math-It for math fact practice
• A Beka Science at our local co-op
• Real Science4Kids Physics at our local co-op
• Gym class at our local co-op
• Drama at our local co-op
• Sewing at our local co-op

Plus all the extras that get put in their workboxes.

Another busy year!
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Tell me...who gets excited about Grammar?  Not too many, I think.  But I'm excited about a program I found quite by accident that has intrigued me enough to plan on using it next year in our own homeschooling and to commit to teaching a class at our co-op using it AND I purchased two levels so I will be able to use it through high school!

It was not until after I received my order that I learned that the CEO was homeschooled for part of his education.  He's now a high school English teacher.

The name of the program is Grammar Punk.  Click here for their website. 

I've only heard of one other person using it and others were asking about it, so I thought I'd write up a bit of a review.

I ordered the Grade 4-9 and the Grades 9-12 homeschool sets, as well as the StoryCards. 

I should say here that the two main differences between the "homeschool" set and the regular set that is advertised on the website are:  1)  Cost and 2)  the homeschool set does not included printed materials.  Everything that's printed in the regular set is contained on the CDs for the homeschooling family to print out.  Oh, a third difference.....the homeschool set does not include the StoryCards but they can be ordered separately, which I did.


So, let's get on with the review. 

I'll begin with WHAT'S IN THE BOX.  

Inside the box was an acrylic storage case (which I didn't know I was going to get) to hold the curriculum set.  

Inside the case were the 6 specialized dice that are at the heart of this unique program.  5 of the dice are a bit larger than your average playing dice.  The last one, the 20 sided one, is average.

Also in the box was a multi-disc CD holder, which houses the Homeschool Family Pack, 4-9 and 9-12.  I received 4 discs.  There is one tutorial disc and one curriculum disc for each level.  My 4-9 discs were actually labelled K-9.  However, upon checking the disks, the files are labeled as 4-9.  When I first looked through the CDs, I thought I was missing the bonus CD that they are featuring for free at the moment, the Homework disc, however it was included as a file on the curriculum CD.

On the one 4-9 disc are files for:  the 4-9 Primer (a 15 page booklet for the student that lists grammar rules), the 4-9 Curriculum (164 pages), and the Homework (11 pages).  The second disk is the PowerPoint slides Tutorial.

On the one 9-12 disc are files for:  the 9-12 Primer (a 10 page booklet for the student that lists grammar rules), the 9-12 Curriculum (175 pages), and the Homework (11 pages).  The second disk is the PowerPoint slides Tutorial.

Also in the box were the StoryCards that I ordered, which homeschoolers can purchase separate from the Grammar Punk curriculum.

4 cards for Naming Names
5 cards for Character-Istics
5 cards for Occupations
11 cards for Themes
16 cards for Settings
5 cards for Sentences
9 cards for Scenes
10 cards for Stories


Included but not in the acrylic storage box (too large) is the instruction booklet (~25 pages) for the StoryCards.  The StoryCards are a basic introduction to creative story writing, helping the student to develop their character and create sentences and scenes that become stories.   (Now that I've seen the basic story writing, I'm interested in their writing program, GP Creative!  )

Also included but not in the acrylic storage box (too large) were 10 pencils, a set of 5 for each of the two levels I purchased.  They say:



Now, on to what the girls thought about playing it! 

Well, learning that involves "play" just can't help but be fun, right?  Right! 

So far, my girls have enjoyed it.  On the second day, when I brought out the Grammar Punk manual and dice, they were like "Yay!  Grammar Punk!!" 

I read over the manual's lesson plans first and I viewed the Power Point presentation.  The PP slides gives you specific instruction on the first several days of using the program, but is more intended to be viewed and implemented by a public classroom.  However, it tells you to go through the Primer (the student's 15 page booklet of the rules of grammar) first.  

The lesson plans in the manual start out with basic concepts such as capitalization, articles, etc.

We have been alternating...manual lessons one day, work on completing the Primer the next. 

The girls love to toss the dice and take turns doing so.  As they brainstorm for their dice words (a list of words they create based on the parameters of the tossed dice), I encourage them to look around, to glance through a book, etc. if they need help coming up with words.

My youngest (almost 9) is not up to grade with her writing skills, so she has the hardest time.  I don't require as much writing from her as I do my older.

I think the girls enjoy learning from their own sentences.  Not quite as boring as always reading someone else's sentences!

So, so far, so good and I'm happy with my purchase.  I think it will be even more fun in a group setting, such as our Grammar Punk co-op class this fall! 

This is definitely a program that can be used over many years and can be used by itself or used to supplement any LA program.  The program automatically grows with your child....the dice words will change according to the student's vocabulary.  The repeated practice helps cement the punctuation and grammar rules.   The addition of the special dice keeps it from becoming stale. 

Yep, I'm happy!



PS.....if you want to get a real idea about how the program works, visit the Grammar  Punk channel at YouTube.    (Try:  What is Grammar Punk, The Six GP Dice, GP's BUOF, and Writing a GP Sentence)



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Posted in Anchored

I haven't officially yet, as I decided not to start it so late in our school year.  I do however have full intentions of starting in August!

For those that have no idea what I'm talking about, Sue Patrick has a book about using a system that has built-in motivation and can help you get more done in your homeschool than you thought possible.  While I don't agree with 100% of everything Sue discusses in the book, I must say that I'm reallllly liking this idea!  I have several friends who have started it and they rave over it!

I think it will especially help motivate my younger daughter, who I suspect is ADD.  By adding in fun projects and breaking up the humdrum stuff, I think I'll she motivated to move more quickly through her work.    And for my oldest, she will no longer have to wait on me while I'm working with my younger, she can move on to the next box.   And it will hold me accountable to better planning their school day, by getting their boxes ready each night! 

I have already purchased what I will be using for the system.  I purchased two sets of Sterlite craft drawers (7 totally portable drawers in each.)   I already have my number system laminated.  And I've got lots of ideas to use!  Can't wait.

OK, on to what I'm really writing about.........


Kari (Momma Snail), a writer at The Curriculum Choice, is writing an article about Sue Patrick's Workbox System.   She's looking for input from those who have implemented (or adapted) the System.

She would like to include your blog link, links to photos of your system, a listing of what you use in your boxes, how you've adapted Sue's ideas, and links to any resources you may have created to go along with the concept.

If you don't blog, but still use the system (or an adapted version), you can still help by e-mail her and just telling her about your experiences.  You'll get credit for the info.

[url=http://docs.google.com/View?id=dwstdgn_447mphsmf8] An initial, rough draft showing how she will link things is here[/url]. 

If you are interested, please e-mail her at   thesnailstrail at gmail dot com.

So, if you're already using the System, could you help her out?  She needs your reviews by June 1.

Posted in Anchored

As I struggle to determine ways to improve our learning environment and how to best help dd8 with her ADD, I've decided to, for the rest of this year, to chuck the workbooks. 


We've signed up for a website called Time4Learning. 





We've only been using it a week.  Overall, dd8 is enjoying it very much.  I've had to sit with her and help her much of the time, as there have been several topics that's she's either never done before or done and not remembered how.   Plus she tends to skim/skip over instructions.

It has parental controls like the length of time for each lesson.  It also has reports, so I can see how long she took on lessons and what she got on quizzes and tests. 

It has a "playground" area....if she is done with her lesson (.i.e, the amount of time I set for the lessons), she can go play.....but only for the amount of time that I set for play time.   There are a multitude of games to choose from, some educational, some just fun.  

As with all software, we have had some quirks to work out.  But the folks in the Parents Forum have been very quick to respond and help. 

One of the items that the developers boast about is that the lessons are varied.  They certainly are........a great mix of reading, listening, playing a game to learn the concept, etc.  This keeps the students alert and helps them from becoming bored with repetitive screens.   However, I do wish they would at least make the way to exit the lesson uniform.   We're constantly trying to figure out how to exit the lesson "properly" so that it will be marked off as completed.

I really like how the program doesn't make some rude noise when the answer the child selects/inputs is wrong.  Instead, a window usually pops up stating that the answers incorrect (the number's too high, etc.) and gives the student another chance.  (Of course, it doesn't do that on tests and quizzes.)

The T4L program is specifically for Math and Language Arts, but most grades have lots of lessons for science and social studies as well.  This is a great plus.  We can break up the LA and Math lessons with shorter lessons  in science and social studies.

Overall, it's going well and I feel it's worth the subscription price.  I don't know that I will continue it for next school year, but for now it's a welcome break as I determine the best route for her. 

I've looked into Sue Patrick's Workbox System.  I'll admit, if not for determining that dd8 has ADD, I would not have even thought about jumping on the workbox bandwagon like so many homeschoolers are doing right now.  However, the whole idea of the system makes me think this will work for dd8!     And, I can see where my dd10 may also benefit from the system.  (Like this morning, when she finished her workbooks and I was still helping dd8!  She could have independently moved on.)

Anyway, I hope to start implementing a version of the workbox system after I return from the Midwest Homeschool Convention.  Can't wait to go!

I'll also start implementing some of the ideas in Dianne Craft's Brain Integration Therapy Manual and looking into appropriate and effective nutritional supplements and diet changes.