Education Is An Atmosphere - Homeschool Blogger

A new, new blogspot...

Mon, 5 Feb 2007 17:33:00 -0600

I think I've settled on here for a new blog home

http://educationisanatmosphere.blogspot.com/

Samantha

I'm moving!

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 21:48:00 -0600

I'm trying out a few new things. I have a new blog http://www.geocities.com/mom2aejs and we are even trying a website educationisanatmosphere.com . The website is still heavily under construction and I only have one blog on the blog site, nothing exciting but I am just spreading my wings a bit and we shall see what happens.

A quiet cold weekend

Sat, 9 Dec 2006 16:16:00 -0600

Eric had meetings in Montgomery this weekend so the kids & I are spending a nice quiet weekend working on organizing, rearranging, and some minor decorating. There really isn't too much to report right now but I just noticed that I haven't blogged this month so here it is.

We have watched just about every Christmas movie out there, heard every Christmas Carol, decorated trees, decorated stockings, wrapped presents, booked hotel rooms for our annual trek to Philadelphia to visit Uncle Rob, been to local parades & festivals for Christmas, and it has even gotten very cold here. There is not much else to do until the big day arrives so we are taking it slow. I am decorating my room, it's supposed to be a surprise/Christmas gift for my husband but I had to let him in on some of it because I wanted to make sure it was going to be the colors & such that he would enjoy. I was hoping to have it all finished this weekend so when he came home on Sunday then it would be ready but no such luck. Some of the things I ordered will not be here until next week. So I just rearranged & I will put all the new stuff in when everything arrives probably on Wed or Thursday.

I received a book from Paperback Swap called Irish Stories for Christmas by John Keane. Eric & I love Ireland and we both have a bit of Irish in us. He is 1/2, I am much less but we really would love to go one day....Anyway, we have been reading these stories, a fun twist on the run of the mill holiday stories, it's fun to mix it up a bit.

Oh, I forgot to mention my dog...she has been peeing in the house the past 3 days. She doesn't even act like she has to go, she just goes. So yesterday when I am in the throws of rearranging my room, I had ALL of my bedcovers on the floor in the hallway (including pillows) and she proceeded to pee all over everything so I spent last night & this morning slowly washing pillows & comforters. I finally got caught up & she pee'd on Erin's bed!!!! I am so frustrated. So I am cleaning more bedsheets. And of course she didn't have a mattress cover on. That is so gross, I want to just throw out the mattress but I will try to soak it in bleach water first. She just might be getting a new mattress. I hope this will encourage Daddy to hurry up & make her loft bed!

OK, I'm off to address Christmas cards, the one thing I haven't finished. I love getting cards but I don't like sending them, well, addressing them anyway.

The Cashen Crew

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 19:27:00 -0600

JOYFULL Christmas Tree and a Day at the Beach

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 18:06:00 -0600

This is the tree our homeschool group put together to

display in our downtown Christmas Village. Isn't it beautiful!

These are all of our cutie pies sitting in front of the finished

product.

We have already done our Christmas pictures but I wanted

to take pictures of the kids in matching shirts at the beach.

Erin took this picture of me & the rest of the crew.

Aren't they cute? This one should have been the Christmas card.

I'm thinking about putting this in black & white & framing for

myself.

An Early Christmas Blessing

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 06:02:00 -0600

Eric and I have been married 12 years this year (Ann 12/28). Our entire marriage we have moved frequently and he has always worked LONG hours & travelled. I am used to being alone with the kids and truly enjoy the time I do get to spend with him. I have friends but have rarely made a friend that just clicks and that all my kids get along with their kids also. I have dear friends but many are in different seasons of their lives or have chosen to follow a completely different path, this is not a bad thing it just keeps us from being very close. Anyway, this year we made yet another move, this time to Alabama. The last place on earth I ever thought I would live (actually, Alaska is the last place I thought I would ever end up but I am learning to never say never!) Before I even moved here, through the blogs sites, I met a friend that ended up being my neighbor. We both homeschool, have 3 girls (I also have boys that LOVE her girls), both use Charlotte Mason, both of our husbands are always working and we all get along so well. She is heading up our homeschool groups Christmas Tree to be displayed in the center of town w/ the Christmas Village so yesterday we decided to get together to work on decorations for the tree. We made Christmasy snacks (Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie, Christmas cookies, Cheesecake, Hot cocoa), rented Christmas movies and just spent the afternoon together. Other than a few spats between my boys the kids all got along wonderfully, they truly enjoy each others company which allows me to enjoy the company of another mom. I have never been able to do the "Mom's night out" thing b/c hubby is always working. I never thought I was missing anything but an afternoon with a friend is so refreshing. I think she went home exhausted, I talk WAY too much but I had a great time. The timing of this friendship is just perfect and truly a blessing. This was one of those needs that I didn't know I had until it was met. God knew what I needed before I did, always. He is so generous and giving and he is just like a parent, sometimes you just can't wait until Christmas to give that gift that you know they would really enjoy now!

Holidays and Schedules

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 08:53:00 -0600

It's almost Thanksgiving, which means Christmas is coming, I am so excited about the holidays this year. Last year they were a bit of a drag because we were not together for Christmas. We go to visit Eric's brother in Philadelphia every Christmas. He is handicapped and unable to travel so we go to him. It is not what I had invisioned our Christmas's would be like when we had kids. I had visions of a big tree in our Living Room, lots of toys, everyone racing to the tree Christmas morning, Roast in the oven, family on their way over sort of thing. But Christmas in Philly has become a tradition for us now & traditions are fun no matter what shape they take. So now our Christmas morning is in a hotel room. We turn on the fake fireplace, make hot cocoa, get our breakfast from the lobby, open stockings and a few little presents, get dressed for the day, go pick up the best chinese food in town (I'm not kidding, it is so good, we look forward to it all year) & head over to visit with Uncle Rob. Spend as long as the kids can stand with Uncle Rob (they LOVE Uncle Rob so this is usually most of the day!) they also love to play outside in the sometimes snow, sometimes just VERY cold weather. We open presents with Uncle Rob, usually talk to the family in CA and then we head back to the hotel to veg in front of the tube (we don't get tv at home so this is a big treat for the kids), there are usually great documentaries on the birth of Christ and some Christmas cartoons & such on. Last year, Eric just took Abby & left the rest of us at home, finances, new baby, and short on time led to this decision & I will NEVER do that again. We missed Eric & Abby so much but we also really missed our special time with Uncle Rob. Anyway, this year I have planned early, I am going to book the hotel today and the rest is taken care of. The day after Christmas we always take Rob to Anthony's, this great Italian restuarant, another treat we look forward to all year. I'm drooling on my keyboard, next topic....

I am taking the holidays to revamp our school schedule. I want to combine more of the girls schoolwork. The juggling act is getting tough. Even without that, Abby has found a few of the books on the Ambleside list just don't work for her. I think I thought this was some sort of failure on my part but after some consideration I realized that she is a child, a person, and she is not going to click with everything I set in front of her. She also started AO in Y4 and has thus not read all the material for Y1-Y3. She has read a lot of Y1 while I was working with Erin but I want to give her time to read some of the great books Erin is taking advantage of. So, we have dropped Madame how & Lady Why from Natural History and It Couldn't Just Happen from Science. I have replaced MH&LW with The Burgess Flower Book For Children as well as letting her join Erin in reading The Burgess Animal Book these are favorites in our house. I am adding in a Business Math course to our Math rotation, we found this at the Simply Charlotte Mason site, she will be starting and running her own pet store, it looks fun & she is really excited about it. For Science we are continuing with Physics Lab in the Home and letting Erin join in. We are also spending more time on the Exploring Creation through Astronomy book with both girls. We are combining history using both Y2 & Y4 (one focuses more on the history of England while the other is more American history). We are going to stick with Plutarch but keep to the Young Folks version for the next year or so, this way Erin can join in and maybe their comprehension will increase when we go back to the original. I am using literature from both Y2 & Y4 because Abby loves Kidnapped so she should finish it but I also want her to read Pilgrims' Progress with us as well as Parables from Nature and Understood Betsy. They are both deep into separate books for geography so I will leave that alone and bring them together 2 days a week to work on Elementary Geography. I am also trying to implement KISS grammar, it is free and very Charlotte Mason. I am still trying to sort through all of the information on this site to get started and hopefully will have it all figured out by the New Year (target start date). I am in the process of scheduling subjects on a daily basis and I still want our days to be under 4 hrs of "schoolwork", it seems very doable. Eric put together a very cool program for our budget this weekend so I hope he can show me how he did it so I can do something like that for our school schedule. I'm still tweaking but I think we're off to a good start, I hope this will make the days more manageable with a lot less time wasted. They can work together if I need to work with the younger ones or deal with other things.

I am off to make pies for Thanksgiving, Chocolate Pecan today, Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake tomorrow, and Sour Cream Apple Pie on Wednesday. Jack did request the raw Apple Pie I made a while ago, I might make that just for him & eat it one night this week before Thanksgiving. He always knows how to make me smile.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Look Dad, Pictures!

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 23:09:00 -0600

This is the whole crew, all 9 cousins from 11yrs (tomorrow 11-11) all the way down to 6 mo (almost 7 mo). They had a blast at the beach! I love that we can still enjoy the beach in October, now November!

This is Esther, isn't she beautiful? I might be a little biased though!

Ever since Katy learned to walk/run this is how most of her pictures have turned out. She was chasing a gull, he did not want to be caught!

Happy Birthday Ruby & Locksley! This was our trip to the Gulfarium, the kids were all amazed at how close they were to the dolphins. For most of their trip they feigned slight boredom but when they were next to the dolphins you could see how their eyes lit up with excitement. Worth every penny!

Another shot of Katy running away from me!

Isn't this a great picture? Abby took this (9yr) and the trainer does have a raw fish in her mouth that the dolphin took without a hitch. I love sushi but this is kind-of gross, cool but gross!

More dolphin shots, I think Abby took this one also.

The end of the day, tired, excited, and dolphin'd out (well not really but they were closing so we had to leave). I love homeschooling, these cousins would have never had this visit if either family had been in school and also an extra bonus, we almost had the whole Gulfarium to ourselves. I just realized the babies are missing from this picture because Christina had Esther in her wrap and I had Katy in the backpack.

1,2,3,4,5 Once I Caught A Hare Alive

Thu, 9 Nov 2006 07:07:00 -0600

Abby is in Ambleside Year 4, basically grade 4. She is scores ahead in literature & vocabulary, this comes easy and naturally to her. On the other hand, math has been a constant struggle. I mostly blame myself for not finding and sticking to a math program. We have tried most of the big name programs and nothing seemed to fit with her. She has always dreaded math. So I have been searching and researching the Living Math concept. I love the idea but have struggled with how to implement it into a true schedule that I can allow her to enjoy math but at the same time still be able to gauge her progress. I took a break from looking through the programs and the books, spent some time in prayer, thought about our goals and objectives with math and looked at what worked in our other subjects and this is what I have come up with:

First of all, we use Charlotte Mason methods so keeping in the spirit of journaling and narration I put together a Math Journal for each school age child. It is separated into 4 sections: Books read, Game scores, Narrations, and worksheets. Then I looked at the resources I wanted to implement: Family Math, Free reading, Math History, Games, and worksheets/book work.

So I have all of these resources used on a rotation during the week, currently set up like this:

Monday: Family Math & Free Reading

Tuesday: Math History & Games

Wednesday: Worksheets/book work & Family Math

Thursday: Free Reading & Math History

Friday: Games & worksheets/book work

We have used this so far this week with wonderful results. Abby has started reading Murderous Maths for free reading and has done wonderful narrations. Erin has been reading shorter books in one sitting The Doorbell Rang , etc. In Family Math we have been working on Palindromes, filling in a chart based on color for each different step Palindrome. This includes a lot of multi-step addition. We have also discussed the origin of our number system, the value of skip counting when counting money, adding money (decimal point), fractions (baking cookies & doubling recipes), addition/subtraction(Erin) & multiplication (Abby) worksheets. The girls have both given me wonderful narrations for their books, which I have written down & placed in their journals. Last night, Abby actually said that she used to think she was really bad at numbers but now she realizes she is good at them and she really likes them. That is the very thing I wanted to hear!

For resources I have been using the book & games list from the Living Math site. This is also where I got the Living Math History course. Worksheets were purchased at Walmart, no huge expense, it's just to put my mind at ease that they can recognize a problem in it's written form & solve it, there will come a time that this is necessary (testing, etc.)

I should throw in what I am using for Jack (Kindergarten). I did make a Math Journal for him but it is empty right now. He is all hands on for the time being but will eventually have wonderful goodies to fill his journal. We worked on money this week, the difference and value of pennies & nickels. I also am using Simply Numbers with him, it's a lot of games & rhyming songs (see title of this post!). He was an Indian yesterday so he built a campfire (minus the fire) in the corner of the Living Room and we did "school" on the floor around his campfire which included singing "Ten Little Indian Boys", of course! When we were finishing up with the money work I asked him if someone offered him a piece of candy for .05 and he had a nickel would he have enough money, he answered "yes". Same question but with 5 pennies, again, he answered "yes". Then he was quite for a minute before asking, "Will someone really ask me that? Can I have a nickel!" Always prepared, my little guy, he is so funny!

Aren't they funny!

Mon, 6 Nov 2006 17:55:00 -0600

I asked the girls which language they would like to learn...

Erin: English (in other word, NONE)

Abby: Elvish (too much Lord of the Rings!)

so we settled on...

5 words each week

M: French

T: Spanish

W: Hebrew

Th: Seminole (Creek) Erin's final choice

F: Italian Abby's final choice

I am hoping something peaks their interest and we will narrow in on one language of their choice next year. For now we are doing Latin everyday & 5 new words in each of the above languages. This week's words are Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, & Dog. It's French day so here is today's lesson: de mere, de pere, de soeur, de frere, chien on flash cards studied over snacks.

I have been on the computer for over an hour trying to find translations for the Creek words, if anyone knows where I can get them free online please let me know. In the meantime, I ordered a Creek-English dictionary & I found a translation for dog: efv, pronounced ef-fa.

I finally got my 2 missing issues of The Home Educators Tutor! Yeah, they are so fun. They have the verses written in English, French, Spanish, Greek, and Latin. I have Abby write the corresponding translation w/ the corresponding language on the day we study it. So for today she wrote her verse in English and French, tomorrow will be English and Spanish, the days we do not have a matching language she will write in Latin and English.