We started school as planned on July 24th, and I have been busy, busy ever since. I always think I have prepared enough during our summer break, but for some reason the start of school catches me off guard. But now, two weeks into our new year, I've settled into our schedule, and I have a little bit of time to add to my blog.

    The start of first grade with our younger son, Ben, has been quite a bit easier than last year. Although his work is a good deal more difficult this year, he has adjusted quickly to being "required" to do school. He still has to move around a lot and even stand on his head at times, but he seems to be learning new things each day. I am proud of what he is retaining even if he is a monkey-boy!

    Jake, our fourth grader, has had no problems getting back in the swing of school. When it is 99 degrees outside day in and day out, even a nine year old boy looks for things to do inside, and school helps with that problem!

    I always take a picture of the boys on the first day of school. We like to compare the pictures with those taken during  previous years to see how the boys are growing.
    Yes, our nine year old does have a stuffed animal in the picture...he has had it in his first-day-of-school picture every year. The lion's name is Happy, and he is Jake's best friend (long story).
    And Ben's bear is....Beary. Ben has more stuffed animals than should be legal, but he loves them all. Beary just happens to be his most recent addition from our July Smoky Mountains trip.

    I look forward to another wonderful year with these fellows!

    This coming school year will mark our third year in a five year plan for studying world history chronologically. The first year of this plan primarily covered Biblical Old Testament history with an emphasis on early civilizations such as Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon. The second year we studied Persia, Greece, Rome, New Testament history, and very early church history until the fall of the Western Roman Empire. So now we are ready for the Dark Ages, the Vikings, and the Holy Roman Empire. I hope that we can make it all the way through the Reformation this year. We shall see!

    We use a variety of sources for history. Our “spine” has been Linda Lacour Hobar's Mystery of History  series (see review in this post). We are one-fourth of the way through Volume II. It took us over a year and a half to complete Volume I because we were only studying history three days a week. But halfway into last year, we decided that history was worth five days a week and since then, we have been covering time more rapidly.

    We also add in some historical information books like Usborne’s Time Traveler and Diane Stanley’s Cleopatra or Joan of Arc.  And we read as much corresponding historical fiction such as Detectives in Togas or Adam of the Road as we can manage!

    With all of the timeline, mapwork, and activities in Mystery of History, I really don’t feel the need to add in any other hands-on activities. But I was not able to resist doing Evan-Moor’s History Pockets: Ancient Civilizations. When we begin studying the corresponding civilization in Mystery of History, we take a week off to make the pocket for that civilization. We have completed six of the seven pockets with just Ancient Aztecs remaining. For more information, see review in this post.

    This year I am also including the 4th grade Veritas Press history cards along with Mystery of HIstory. I am considering using VP’s card series as our spine for American History, so I wanted the boys to get used to the different format. The Veritas cards cover some subjects that aren’t in Mystery of History because they tend to focus on Western Civilization. Mrs. Hobar’s book covers other civilizations like China and Japan and India, as well. The two programs work well together.

    And because my boys love knights and castles so much, I have planned a few special activities for our study of the medieval period. For example, I purchased this Coat of Arms book to help us design individual shields. I’ll let you know how it works out!

   

History Pockets: Ancient Civilizations
Evan-Moor

    Evan-Moor offers several lines of reproducible, instructive books for making “pocket books” from construction paper. These lines include the Literature Pockets which cover topics from Nursery Rhymes to Tall Tales to Caldecott Winners and Theme Pockets which cover various holidays and science/social studies themes. This review will highlight the line of History Pockets particularly the one on Ancient Civilizations. We have used some of the other lines and I plan to eventually review those as well.
   
    The History Pockets books are available in a hard copy from most teacher supply stores or for download from Evan-Moor or Homeschool eStore. We purchased the hard copies before we knew about the download option. In the future, I will purchase Evan-Moor’s pocket books and other reproducible books in an e-book format. We do not live close enough to a place that makes quality copies, so I have to really plan ahead (at least a semester at a time) before I make a trip to the copy store. I look forward to just printing the necessary copies from my computer!

    The History Pocket on Ancient Civilizations is geared toward grades 1-3 (although I adapted it for my kindergartener) and is designed to make seven different pockets. These include a pocket on “What is History?” and then pockets on the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, and the Aztecs. I suggest making the actual book with all the pockets before beginning a specific pocket. It has made storing all of the projects extremely easy.

    Each pocket includes a student booklet that describes the location, culture, beliefs, lifestyles, etc. of the civilization. The student has the option of coloring the booklet, but since I have boys who don’t relish extensive coloring (unless they are allowed to use Mom’s Prismacolor pencils), we just staple the booklet together and then read it out loud and discuss it. Each pocket also includes a “Words to Know” activity that highlights four vocabulary words specific to that civilization. The student has to match the word to a picture and then write a definition for it.  And each pocket also includes stick puppets to color and glue to craft sticks. I do make my boys color these. And my younger son, Ben, enjoys getting his puppets out and playing with them. It is interesting to see the Mesopotamia puppets in a battle with the Roman ones!

    Then each pocket has several additional activities related directly to that civilization. For example, in the Mesopotamia pocket, we made pop-up ziggurats. In the Greece pocket, we made a shape book of the Parthenon. And in the Aztec pocket, we will make a feather fan.

    When we complete an activity, we just put it in the appropriate pocket in our books. It usually takes us 3 to 4 days to complete one pocket. We are studying history chronologically, so we take some time when we cover a particular civilization to complete its History Pocket activities. We have completed six of the seven, and I plan to get to the Aztec World some time this school year.

    We have thoroughly enjoyed using Evan-Moor’s History Pockets of Ancient Civilizations, and I plan to use some of the other History Pockets in our study of history. I am particularly interested in “Explorers of North America” and “Moving West”. Although there are different grade levels on these pockets, I think that they are easily adapted for a wider age range. The ones for grades 4-6 do require more writing than those for grades 1-3.

The Mystery of History
Linda Lacour Hobar
Bright Ideas Press
Volume I: Creation to the Resurrection
Volume II: The Early Church and the Middle Ages

    I wholeheartedly recommend the Mystery of History series. The first two volumes have been written and published with others to follow, and we have used both volumes. They each follow the same format although the second volume covers a shorter time span in a little bit deeper fashion. The first volume covers Creation to the the Resurrection in 108 lessons. The second volume covers the early church to the Middle Ages in 84 lessons. The series can serve as a complete history program in and of itself, or it can easily be supplemented with historical literature (which we have done).

    Mrs. Hobar writes each lesson with an engaging tone that speaks directly to the students. I read the lessons out loud to our boys, but to tell the truth, my oldest has read both volumes on his own as well.

    Each lesson has suggested activities that correspond to it; these activities are ranked according to difficulty (younger, middle, older students). We have done many of these along the way and include the project or at least a picture of it in our Mystery of History notebook.

    Some of the activities are extremely easy and require no extra materials. For example, in lesson 21 of Volume 1 on Joshua, Jericho, and Rahab, one of the activities suggests that we read Joshua 3:13-15 about the Commander of the Army of the Lord and discuss the passage. All that required of us was our Bible, and we (Mom included) learned more about Joshua from the activity. 

    Mrs. Hobar includes lots of paper-folding or bookmaking activities that just require paper or construction paper, markers or crayons, and sometimes glue. We have completed most of those types of activities. For example, in Lesson 24 of Volume 1 on Ramses the Great, we made a “kingdom folder” that categorized the four major kingdom periods of Ancient Egypt.

    A few of the suggested activities are more complicated, but well worth the effort. For example, after Lesson 17 in Volume 1 on the Israelites in Slavery, we made sun-dried “bricks” from straw and salt dough.

    After every third lesson, Mrs. Hobar gives both timeline and mapwork exercises as well as a review exercise or quiz. We complete all of the timeline work, most of the mapwork, and most of the review exercises.

    For our timeline work, we have made two types of timelines. The first is a large wall timeline using pre-drawn figures from Homeschool in the Woods’ “History through the Ages” CD (also highly recommended; the CD is expensive, but well worth the money). We followed Mrs. Hobar’s instructions for setting up this timeline on the wall. 

When we began Volume II, we followed her idea for using a sewing board for the large timeline. Now it hangs on top of the BC timeline. When we first began, I colored in the timeline figures, but after about a year and a half, I realized I was not going to be able to keep up with our pace. So now I print out the figures on nice parchment paper. Although I miss the personalized color, it is much easier on me!

    Jake also makes his own small timeline book (Ben will start one when he is in 2nd grade). He has really enjoyed making these books. His first timeline book covered the BC years and his second will cover AD to the Reformation. I bought artists’ drawing pads from Walmart, drew a basic male and female figure on the computer, and he embellishes them and glues them in his book. Mrs. Hobar gives ideas for decorating the homemade figures like this one of Cleopatra.

    The mapwork exercises are probably Jake’s favorite part of Mystery of History. After every third lesson, Mrs. Hobar gives instructions for mapwork that corresponds to the previous three lessons. Sometimes the mapwork is very easy (like tracing a route on a globe), and sometimes it requires different colored markers and various atlases. Mystery of History provides blank maps in the back for us to copy and use for the mapwork. For example, on this map Jake marked the routes of Paul’s three missionary journeys.

We file all of his mapwork in his Mystery of History notebook under the appropriate continents. But sometimes we can just include a picture because the mapwork takes a creative turn like forming a salt-dough map of Israel or this “cake map” of Egypt.

    Jake’s least favorite part of Mystery of History is making “memory cards”, but I think they are worthwhile, so we continue to make them. After every three lessons, Mrs. Hobar recommends writing 2-3 sentences about each of those lessons on individual index cards with the titles and the dates. After filing them chronologically in an index card binder, we can go back over them periodically to review. Jake finds it difficult to narrow the lessons down to 2-3 sentences, but I tell him that it is good practice for note taking in the future! Here is his notecard from Lesson 71 on the Battle of Marathon.

    Finally, Mrs. Hobar includes review exercises and quizzes after every third lesson as well as longer comprehensive reviews at the end of “quarters” and “semesters”. Because we are required to turn grades in quarterly to our umbrella school, I grade some of these to help me determine a grade for Jake’s work.

    Overall, the Mystery of History program is thorough, well-written, and appeals to a wide range of ages and learning styles. We look forward to Volume III!

    I really don’t like to think of Bible as business.  But when I’m making plans and spending money, the teaching of God’s Word in our homeschool does tend to take on a business nature.

    When we first started homeschooling, we just read straight through Hurlbut’s Story of the Bible. And that was Bible. It was simple, but interesting and profitable.
 
    For the past three years, we have been using Bob Jones Bible Truths.  I have been very pleased with it for the most part.  The curriculum has introduced deep topics like atonement and big words like omniscience and higher-level Bible skills such as cross-referencing at a remarkably early level.  But its organization is too haphazard for me.  I have no doubt that over time the course will cover all the major stories and themes in the Bible.  But it doesn’t do it in order.  And “order” is important to me.  Why have I insisted on going through history chronologically and just letting our Bible study jump from the New to the Old Testament and then to a missionary study and then back to the Old and then the New and on and on?  I was in desperate need of a plan... a chronological plan for studying the Bible.  You know...starting with Genesis.  And years down the road, ending up with Revelation.

    When I happened upon a Veritas Press catalog, my interest was piqued.  Was this what I was looking for? Of course, I had to ask lots of people about the cards. Responses varied from “it was way too dry for us” to “it has been perfect for us”.  So in the end, I took the plunge and ordered the Genesis through Joshua card set with the teacher’s manual on enhanced CD.  And I have spent a bit of time figuring out how I’m going to use it.  But I have a plan (of course).

    We will cover approximately one card a week.  We will do 1 or 2 of the activities provided in the VP teacher’s manual. And we will read aloud appropriate sections from the ESV Bible (just select passages-we are already reading through the Bible at night with Pa), Egermeier’s Bible Story Book, and The Victor Journey Through the Bible.  Most of this “out-loud” Bible time is for Ben’s benefit.  I think he will enjoy the varied sources, the pictures, and the projects.

    At the same time, Jake is going to start a 5-year “read through the Bible” plan that will coincide with our VP 5-year plan.  I will assign his daily Bible reading, and then once he completes his reading, he will answer the questions on that chapter in Volume 1 of Balancing the Sword.  I am very impressed with this book.  Take a look at the samples on the website.  The book is beautiful, and once Jake has completed his reading of the whole Bible, he will have a gorgeous keepsake of what he has gleaned from God’s Word over a five year period from 4th to 8th grade.  Then I hope he will want to do it again with Volume 2 during his high school years.  Both Volume 1 and Volume 2 are sold together, but I think it would be way too much for him to answer questions in both books at the same time.

We will see how well this goes.  I have branched out and become quite eclectic in other subjects.  It is time to branch out with our Bible “class”, too.

    Although I have been homeschooling five years, this past school year was the first time that I have participated in a local homeschool support group. I’m a little bit shy, and every time I checked into attending a support group meeting, I would eventually back out. Once I realized that I would have to walk into a stranger’s home or another unfamiliar place...alone...and meet people I did not know...well, there was just no way.

    But then my usual excuses flew out the window.  A couple of homeschooling ladies at my church had the nerve to hold an “interest” meeting to see if there was enough interest in our church to start a homeschool support group. And several moms whom I knew very well were going. Uh-oh. My church. My friends. It looked like all my usual ploys and lame excuses were null and void. It was time for me to check out this side of homeschooling.

    I did some internet searching and reading before hand to get a feel for the ins and outs of homeschool support groups (you know...never go anywhere unprepared). I was surprised to find that there was a good deal of negativity surrounding support groups in the homeschooling world. It seems that there are countless cases of misunderstandings, differences of opinions, lack of leadership, etc. Ooohh...I didn’t want to come out of my safe cocoon only to find myself involved in something like that. But then I knew of at least two local groups who had been together successfully for almost 20 years. Obviously it can be done.

    We held that first interest meeting in April 2006. And more than 15 ladies came. Definitely enough to get us started. We decided to hold a new homeschoolers meeting in July and have our kickoff meeting in August of 2006. One of the ladies who had started the meeting agreed to be the leader. Other jobs were identified and quickly filled such as activities coordinator, treasurer, hostess, etc. And then our fearless leader said those fated words, “I really need a co-leader, someone who will help me behind the scenes with organization and records and such.” No volunteers. A few more words of encouragement about this position. Still no volunteers. Later, emails were sent out about the position. And still no takers.

    And this went on until into June. Co-leader? Does it have a bad sound or a bad connotation or something? It sure sounded better to me than “activity coordinator” and we had not one but two ladies jump at that job! Dear fearless leader, what would I have to do if I were to be your co-leader? Well those were more fated words and before I really knew what had happened, I was the co-leader of this fledgling support group. Me...the one who had never stepped foot in a support group meeting before!

    It has been a whirlwind ever since and a very, very rewarding experience. This post is solely to help me remember how my life as a homeschool support group leader began. And it does answer the how. But not the why. That has been answered slowly over the past year. That is for another post...

Sometime during summer break, the boys and I put together their portfolios for the past school year. We go back through all the papers and projects that we have saved, and we select the best examples of their work in Bible, art, math, reading, writing, etc. Some subjects such as history and science require their own notebook, so work from those subjects usually doesn’t make it into the portfolios.

We organize the work by subject and date, hole-punch it, and place it in a sturdy three-ring binder.  That is the hard part. Then comes the fun part. I have designed a cover template for them to fill in with a listing of all the books they used in each subject and space to answer several questions like the ubiquitous “What was your favorite subject this year?” I don’t know why I put that question on the portfolio cover each year because the answer from both boys is always “science!!!”. Then there is a large space in which they can list what they like to do at this particular stage of their lives. They love naming all the stuff they like to do. And I enjoy looking back at the previous portfolio covers to see how their modes of play and entertainment have changed over the years. Actually this is only Ben’s second portfolio, so I don’t have that much to look back on...but I can with Jake.  And finally, we browse back through all our photographs from the past year, and I let them select (with some guidance) a favorite picture of themselves to put on the portfolio cover. This usually takes some time; it is hard to choose just one!

Here are some pictures of their portfolios for the school year 2006-07.

Jake is our third-grader. He likes his picture because he is wearing his “Lion of Judah” shirt which has an Aslan look about it and because he is standing in front of a gorgeous waterfall in the Smokey Mountains. Ben is our kindergartner. He likes his picture because he is holding up a mushroom he found that was the size of his head. This poor mushroom met a terrible fate; a few minutes after this picture was taken, Ben set it on the driveway, got a running start on his bike, and CRUSHED the shroom. Of course, it was big enough to make him wreck and skin his knee, but in his mind it was all worth it! Especially since Pa got the whole thing on video. If we ever need a big laugh, we will take a look at Ben crushing the mushroom with his bike. Hysterical!

    I am a nauseatingly organized homeschooler. My house is usually a wreck, but believe you me, I’ve got our homeschool planned to the tiniest detail and our school room perfectly arranged. It all comes from my days teaching in a public high school.  Organization = Survival.

    To tell the truth, I have softened over the past five years.  Poor Jake...his preschool experience was more akin to basic training than play-to-learn.  But now as he enters fourth grade, he is a model student...an independent learner who follows written directions easily and is eager to stick to a schedule.

    Then there is Ben...he will enter first grade this year.  And the fact that the word “schedule” doesn’t appear in his vocabulary is honestly what has softened me.  Our home and school would be a miserable experience if I didn’t loosen up the routine a bit for him.  He has even been known to want to do reading before math.  Oh dear!  That is a tough row to hoe for this old math teacher; doesn’t he realize that the mind is more adaptable to problem-solving when it is fresh?  Or was that just something I learned in the College of Education that fit someone’s agenda somewhere?

    Regardless, our umbrella school expects us to complete 180 days of school per school year.  Now I have friends who use a boxed curriculum and don’t keep up with the # of days at all.  They figure that once they have completed the curriculum, they have done enough school work for one year.  I should say so!  And I have friends that follow the public school calendar to the day.  They are satisfied that they have done enough school.  I should say so!  And then I have friends who don’t follow any kind of calendar (they probably don’t have one in their house).  School is always happening in their homes and in their yards and in their cars, etc.  There is no start and finish.  I wish I could be like that (they are so much fun to be around).

    But I can’t.  I have that number...180...drilled into my teacher head.  At least with homeschooling I don’t have to worry about working in snow days!  In that spirit, here are my plans for achieving those magic 180 days for the 2007-2008 school year:

  3 days:    Periodic Math Reviews and Summer Reading done in June & July
51 days:    First Quarter (July 24th - October 5th with 3 vacation days)
        Fall Break:  October 8th - October 12th
40 days:    Second Quarter (October 15th - Dec. 14th with 1 week off for Thanksgiving)
        Christmas Break:  December 17th - January 2nd
48 days:    Third Quarter (January 3rd - March 14th with 4 vacation days)
38 days:    Fourth Quarter (March 17th - May 16th with 7 vacation days which includes spring break)

Does that add up to 180 days?  Whew, I sure hope so.  And by May 16th, I will be satisfied that we have done enough school for one year. (I should say so!)

    Yesterday, my mom-in-law and I took the boys and my precious niece Haley to downtown Memphis. Our plans were to see a Redbirds baseball game, walk around downtown, ride the trolley, see the Peabody ducks, and then meet "Pa" (my dear husband) at The Big Foot Lodge for dinner.

    When we were making these big plans about a month ago, we somehow forgot what Memphis is like on June 26th. As we were leaving the house, I glanced at our thermometer. 93 degrees. And that is on the screen porch in the shade and under a ceiling fan. Just what would it be like in the sun at the baseball stadium? You guessed it! It was unbelievable. Hot. Hot. Hot. I think I have only been hotter one other time in my life and that was scouting cotton in August in a field of hundreds of acres of cotton with no shade in sight. Very hot.

    The kids were troopers. With the help of a $3.50 sno-cone for each of us, we survived to the top of the 8th inning. And I realized that it was a sin that we have not taken our boys to more ballgames. They were fascinated. Jake called every pitch and even towards the end of the game, he began to disagree with the umpire. I told him that he was just like his father (who later chided me for putting that idea in Jake's head...but it was an idea that Jake was very proud of). When we sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" in the 7th inning stretch, Jake changed the words from "1...2...3 strikes...you're out!" to "1...2...3...4 balls...you walk!".

    We caught the trolley for a joyride and rode it until the driver said we had to get off...we were at the end of the line. So we just caught the next one going in the opposite direction. I never realized how many questions my kids ask and how loud they could be until we were on that trolley with several sleeping people who apparently were just riding to catch a breeze (kind of like us). Jake and Haley were just awestruck by the buildings and the interesting people and the signs and on and on. And they had a question about every detail. My dear Ben was very, very quiet. He snuggled up against me (mama bear) and tried to feel as safe as he could.

    When we finally made it to the Peabody Hotel, I had to tell them that this was a very expensive hotel and that we needed to use our inside voices. My mom-in-law said she felt like she was just back at VBS. I think Jake was the only one who actually noticed and maybe even appreciated the exquisite detail in that hotel. He was pointing things out to me left and right ("the ceiling, Mama, look at the ceiling!"). We rode the elevator up to the Skyway and looked at all of Memphis from a dizzying height. That was just the icing on the cake for those country kids in the big city.

    We really should get out more...nahh...then they would lose their wonder, their joy, their excitement. And that was what our day was all about!

    I never thought I would be doing this. Blogging. When my dear husband first started telling me about blogs that he was reading, I thought it was just another source of information for him. He is, after all, an information-junkie.

    Then he introduced me to a few well-selected blogs, and I started reading. Every morning. I loved reading what these interesting people had to say about God and theology and the state of the church and the news and books and then...homeschooling. And to tell the truth, the time I was spending just reading blogs was becoming an issue. So I never thought that I would take the time to write one myself.

    After a while, I made myself take a break from the blogosphere. I took about 6 months completely off from reading blogs. It wasn't that difficult. I started doing other things with my early morning hours like reading the Word and other books and working on school stuff. But recently a dear friend told me that she had started a blog. I was interested. And when I read what she was writing, it occured to me that a personal blog would be a wonderful way to document what is going on in our home and school and in the lives of our boys. A keepsake, if you will.

    So I plan to write what we are doing. Some of it might be interesting to others. A lot of it will be just useful to me. And maybe every once in a while, something that happens in our home will encourage and uplift and motivate someone else.