Ben and began what I think will be a fun summer nature observation study.  The idea came from Amanda over at Hearts and Trees.  If you haven't seen Amanda's blog, you'll want to take some time to peruse.  She has so many fun nature and art studies, very Charlotte Masonish!

Anyway, we have put together tabletop garden, using root vegetables.  You'll need a few supplies, incuding several jars (we used everything from a baby food jar to salsa jars and one bowl, because the veggie was too large for any of our jars), toothpicks, veggies, water, and a tray of some sort.  You'll also need an area in your home that gets some light.  Our kitchen table works perfectly for this. 

We went to our local grocery store and bought one of each root vegetable we could find.

From left to right, we have a carrot, sweet potato, beet, turnip, parsnip, radish, and rutabaga.  Now the rutabaga had its top sliced off, so we aren't going to try and grow it (the veggies need to still have a bit of the green stem on top in order to grow).  But since we plan to roast all of the veggies and do a taste test, we thought it would be fun to try it as well.

You'll need to slice the top off of each veggie, about 2 inches down from the top stem, and then poke 3-4 toothpicks around it in order to set it on the mouth of your jar.

Then fill your jars with water to a level that will allow the bottoms of the veggies to touch the water.

 This is how the turnip looks up close.

Here's the finished tray.  We will observe the veggies daily, add water as needed and record our findings (on paper and in photos) every 1-2 weeks.  We can't wait to see what happens!  So check back in a couple of weeks, hopefully we'll have some fun pictures to share!

Ben's first observation was that the water in the beet bowl immediately turned pinkish purple.  That led to a quick discussion about natural dyes vs. artificial food coloring.  We eliminated artificial colors from our diets several months ago.  And although Ben had read the labels on things like his vitamins and favorite lollipops, which both mention being colored with beet juice, he had never put the 2 together.  Very cool.

We'll let you know how the test taste goes tonight!

ETA:  ick!  the taste test was not a hit :(

We have one more week of 2nd grade!  Wow!  I'm planning 3rd grade already! 

This will be our first year we haven't just taken the month of June off from school and then started our next grade level in July.  Instead, we're going to do "summer school."  How is that different, you ask?

Well, first of all, we're not really taking any time "off" and yet we're not really doing a full schedule of "school."  We will continue with 3R's kinds of things, mostly using Time 4 Learning and Ben will have a summer reading list.  We've already begun compiling his reading lists (yes, 2 lists...his and mine!).  Actually he's already begun reading from "his" list.  As I type this he's reading a book entitled, True Life Treaure Hunts. 

A great resource we are using for summer reading is Book Adventures.  If you are not familiar with Book Adventures, you may enjoy checking it out, especially if you have relunctant readers.  Within the website are book lists, by grade level.  Your child (or his mom) can choose a book to read from the list, complete the comprehension questions online, and earn points.  The points can be accumulated and traded in for prizes.  Using incentives such as this works well for Ben.  He LOVES being rewarded!!

Our backyard bird study will continue for the next few weeks.  It's pretty low key.  We're bird watching and learning bit and pieces about some of the birds we commonly see, adding minit books to our animal notebook.  I can see this going on most of the summer!

We'll begin 3rd grade in August.  I'll be posting those plans soon!  But we are going to have an exciting year!!

As I type this entry into my blog, Ben and I are listening to Jim Weiss tell the story of King Arthur and His Knights.  Ben is happily coloring a page of King Arthur and his sword, Excalibur, from the Dover coloring book, History of the Sword.  Ben has never been one to enjoy coloring, but I think the tide may be turning with this coloring book. 

If you haven't looked at the Dover coloring books, please do.  They are so much more than coloring books.  There's a lot of great information on each page as well.  For example, the page that Ben is coloring gives a brief synopsis of the story of King Arthur and his sword.  You can't beat the price on these books either......$3.95 each.    For our Middle Ages study, I also purchased 2 other coloring books,Life in a Medival Castle and Village and Knights and Armor.  Not a coloring book, but one other fun thing I purchased from Dover is the Easy to Make Castle.  It has cardbard cut-outs that will fit together to make a castle.  We'll have a blast with this!  I think it was $6.95.

We did another super fun activity today.  We created a family crest using the website:  Make Your Coat of Arms.  On this website you can make a coat of arms for your family and then print it off.  You can even order products with your crest if you'd like.  Ben and I each created a coat of arms.  We'll take his and make a banner with construction paper to add to our notebook.  We're also going to take the basic premise from the one he created to make a shield.  We  added a couple of minit books from the Knights Lapbook at HSS to our Medieval Times Notebook.  Pictures coming soon.

So far, we're having a great time in the Middle Ages!  And we've only just begun to scratch the surface.

Today, we began what will probably be a 3 month long unit on the Middle Ages.  We'll be using several literature-based unit studies from Homeschool Share and one from Five in a Row.  Today, we began with Saint George and the Dragon. 

This book is a Caldecott medal winner, and we immediately could see why.  In fact in the midst of reading it, Ben asked, "Momma, did this book win a Caldecott because the illustrations are beautiful!"  Using FIAR for 4 years has taught him well.

We also read several pages from an Usborne book entitled, Medieval World.  I'm a lover of Usborne books in general, and this book did not disappoint.  We read a bit about the timeline of the Middle Ages, what part of the world we would learning more about, and a little about knights.  Then we read another picture book, written by Jane Yolen, entitled, Merlin and the Dragons.  Ben really enjoyed this story about King Arthur.  We're awaiting a Jim Weiss CD from the library entitled, King Arthur and His Knights.  One other book I'll be using for these units is the DK book, Medieval Life.

We usually have 2 read-alouds going at once.   Ben reads one of them aloud to me during our school time, I read from the other at bedtime.  During this unit, Ben's read-aloud is My Father's Dragon and my read-aloud is The Dragon's Boy: A Tale of Young King Arthur.

We'll be making a lap-n-notebook, using my favorite spiral bound book from Bare Books once again.  Homeschool Share has a Knights Lapbook and a Plague Lapbook that we'll use parts of, plus several of the units have lapbooking or notebooking components to go along.  I don't think I'll have to create many minit books myself at all, which is so nice.  We put together about 6 minits today, so  a very good start to the study I think.  Ben will also be memorizing Ephesians 6:11-17 about putting on the Armor of God.  He began today by learning the first 2 verses.  As we get things glued down into our notebook, I'll add some pictures to the blog for you to see.

Curious about what other HSS and FIAR units we'll be using?  Well, here's a list:

Castle Diary (HSS)

The Duchess Bakes a Cake (FIAR)

The Valentine Cat (HSS)

Robin Hood (HSS)

Crossing the New Bridge (HSS)

Marguerite Makes a Book (HSS)

The Sir Cumference Series (HSS-math lessons only)

We'll be in lots of hands on activities to our lessons as well.  Some of those include:  creating a coat of arms, making a shield, building a castle, illuminated letter writing, and at the end cooking a medieval feast and attending a Renaissance festival.  I hope Ben enjoys this study as much as I think he will.  I know I will!

I just spent about 2 hours organizing our plans for our Thanksgiving Unit.  I thought I would share what books, videos, websites, and lapbooking ideas we'll be using this year.  Our primary focus will be on the history of Thanksgiving, Pilgrims and Native Americans, with other fun thrown in (what's Thanksgiving without a turkey craft, right?).  We'll be spending almost 2 weeks on this unit, so as not to feel rushed.   I think it's going to be a blast!

Living Books:  all of our studies begin with Living books.  Here's our book list for this study:

The Story of the Pilgrims by H.L. Ross

The Thanksgiving Story by Alice Dalgliesh

The First Thanksgiving by Jean Craighead George 

Cranberry Thanksgiving by Harry Devlin

If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620 by Ann McGovern 

A Thanksgiving Wish by Michael Rosen

Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims by Clyde Robert Bulla (this will be our read aloud)

Videos: Ben loves videos, so they often really bring home the ideas in a fun way for him.  Here are 3 videos we were able to find at our library:

Colonial Life for Children: Plimouth Plantation

American History for Children: Early Settlers  

American History for Children: Native American Life

Lapbooking/Notebooking:  we are using mostly lapbooking components this year to create notebooks.  So it's sort of a combination of lapbooking and notebooking.  There are several resources here that we'll pick and choose from to add to our notebook:

Thanksgiving Lapbook from Knowledge Box Central

Thanksgiving Lapbook from Live and Learn Press (you can receive this lapbook for FREE by joining their yahoo group)

Thanksgiving Interactive Notebook from Lilliput Station (another FREE lapbook, just a few things, but very cute!)

Cranberry Thanksgiving Lapbook from Homeschool Share (everything is always FREE at HSS!)

History Pockets: Life in Plymouth Colony by Evan Moor 

History Pockets: Colonial America by Evan Moor 

Colonial America by Scholastic

Crafts and Cooking:  Handprint turkeys, Pilgrim Hat cookies, and Fishbowl Pumpkin luminary, not to mention yummy Cranberry Bread!

Thanksgiving Crafts Video from Expert Village--this is a wonderful resource with video instructions for making a Thanksgiving placemat, pinecone turkey, Pilgrim place holder, and table centerpiece!

All New Crafts for Thanksgiving by Kathy Ross 

Paper Handprint Turkey from Kaboose

Fishbowl Pumpkin Luminary  I think this will be a cute centerpiece for our Thanksgiving table.  We'll do a design that doesn't look so much like Halloween though.

Cranberry Bread (from the book, Cranberry Thanksgiving) we read this book and make this bread every Thanksgiving.

Pilgrim Hat Cookies these are soooo cute and sound really yummy!

I almost forgot to mention, we'll be starting our unit with a field trip to a local nature preserve.  There we will be learning about Native Americans, including language, culture, music, dance, games, hunting and tracking.  Doesn't that sound incredible?!!?

Using Amanda Bennett's unit study on Elections, we have begun to learn the process of how our President is elected.  We're also reading about a handful of Presidents along the way.

 I wanted share with you all a list of resources to help you learn more about our presidential history and elections.  Even if you aren't doing Amanda's unit, you'll enjoy these books, videos, lapbooks and websites with your kids.

Book List

A Picture Book of George Washington

George Washington's Breakfast

If You Grew Up with George Washington

A Picture Book of Thomas Jefferson

A Picture Book of Abraham Lincoln

If You Grew Up with Abraham Lincoln

A Picture Book of John F. Kennedy

Bully for you Teddy Roosevelt

Scholastic Encyclopedia of the Presidents and Their Times

So You Want To Be President

America Votes: How Our President Is Elected

Presidential Elections and Other Cool Facts

If I Ran for President

Duck for President

Vote!

A More Perfect Union: The Story of Our Constitution

We the Kids: The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States

Videos

Schlessinger media has a series of videos you'll want to look for in your library.  Our library has most of them.  The series is entitled American Government for Children and titles include:

The History of American Government

A History of the Presidency

What Is Government?

The Three Branches of Government

Fereral, State, and Local Government

American Citizenship

There are Teacher's Guides available for all of these videos as well.  You can find them here.

Schlessinger also has videos about Presidents Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln as a part of their Great Americans for Children series.  Our library carries all of these videos as well.

Websites

There are lots of websites out there, but a few kid-friendly sites that will give you and your students a good overview of our government and elections include:

Ben's Guide to US Government for Kids

White House Kids

Electing a President

Time for Kids Election Connection

Finally, if you're looking for a FREE or cheap Unit Study or Lapbook on Elections, here are a few to choose from:

Amanda Bennett's Elections Unit Study (notebooking pages available)

Presidents and Elections Unit from Oklahoma Homeschool

Elections Lapbook FREE from Homeschool Share

Presidential Elections Lapbook FREE from Notebook Learning

Presidential Elections Process Lapbook from Knowledge Box Central (50% off, use code CONST50

Presidential Election 2008 Lapbook from Hands of a Child (currently on sale $3 off)

I've written before about some health issues I've been dealing with this year.  Well, add another to the list.  While we were in Miami I began having abdominal pain and nausea.  As soon as we returned home, I saw my Dr.  A few days later, an u/s revealed a large mass in my pelvis, presumably on my left ovary.  A visit to a gyn oncologist later, and I am scheduled to have that removed along with a total abdominal hysterectomy.  I'll be admitted to the hospital for sugery this Thursday.

Which brings me to our homeschool.  Between the health issues, and a stop along the way for studies on the Olympics, the Everglades, and now the Election, we have fallen way behind with My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures.  Weeks and weeks behind.  Which makes me crazy!  I love ECC, I love having a schedule to follow, if nothing happens to interfere with the following of the schedule.  Obviously, that's not been the case for us.  And now having surgery and the resulting recovery period will make it even more difficult to keep up.

So, some adjustments need to be made.  Isn't that the beauty of homeschooling?  When our plans backfire for whatever reason, we are able to readjust to a schedule or curriculum that will work best for us.  So I'm simplifying things greatly for the rest of the year.  I need things to be easy, easy for me, easy for Ben to work independently more, and easy for my Mom who will be helping a lot.

Change #1 obviously is that we'll be shelving ECC for now.  My first love has always been unit studies, so we'll be going back to using those.  Once we finish Amanda Bennett's Elections Unit, we'll move on to literature-based units from Homeschool Share and Five in a Row, volume 4.

Change #2 is that we've added Time4Learning to our day.  If you are not familiar with Time4Learning, you'll want to check out their website.  It is a web-based curriculum for Pre-K to 8th grade.  We'll be using it mostly for Math and Language Arts, but they also have Science and Social Studies.  We started using it last week and Ben absolutely loves it!  There are many benefits to it.  I can set timers for each subject, they have lesson plans and printable worksheets for added practice, it keeps a record of what Ben has completed and his quiz scores, and the most fun part for Ben is the Playground.  The Playground has tons of fun games to play.  You can even set up a schedule of schoolwork followed by Playground time.  Ben's scheduled is set so that he does 30 minutes of math lessons, then 15 minutes of Playground time, 30 minutes of Language Arts, followed by 15 minutes of Playground time.  It's a great incentive to complete the schoolwork, knowing he'll have some play time as a reward.

We'll continue our Singapore math as well, a couple of times a week.  We'll also continue our animal studies and notebooking with our friends once a week, along with copywork using our Manners book.  And certainly our unit studies will cover science and social studies well.  But for now, this will be it.  I think it's plenty for the next couple of months, and will make it easy for Nana or Dad to step in to help out.

So we'll finish up Elections, and move on to Pirates (per Ben's request).  I'm hoping to talk him into a Thanksgiving unit first, but if not, oh well.  I think some time of child-directed learning may be just what the Dr. orders.

And I mean that literally.  We are in south FL for 12 days.  Before leaving I put together a unit study, complete with lapbook/notebook components.  So once again we are taking a deter from MFW for a quick unit study.  I need a bumper sticker that reads, "I break for unit studies!"

Once we get back and I can get everything in a more organized form, the unit will go up at Homeschool Share for anyone who would want to use this unit study.  In the meantime, I'll share some of the resources I'm using (and pictures should it ever stop raining so we can take our Everglades tour!!).

Picture books we are using include:

Welcome to the River of Grass by Jane Yolen

Everglades by Jean Craighead George

Everglades Forever: Restoring America's Great Wetland by Trish Marx

Welcome to Everglades National Park by Nadia Higgins

Our read alouds are:

The Missing Gator of Gumbo Limbo by Jean Craighead George                                                                          

The Wonderful Sky Boat: And Other Native American Tales from the Southeast by Jane Louise Curry

The Moon of the Alligators by Jean Craighead George

Some helpful websites include:

Everglades National Park

The Journey to Restore America's Everglades Educator Resources

I never knew how wonderful and fascinating The Everglades were until I started planning this unit.  It's just an alligator-filled swamp, right?  Wrong!  There are 5 different habitats with hundreds of different animals and plants living there.  Mammals, reptiles, birds, insects, amphibians, fish, amazing trees and flowers.  And there is no place like it in the entire world!  We are learning so much!

I have fibromyalgia.  In fact, I'm in the midst of a flair right now and have barely been out of bed for 2 days.  I don't tell you that for sympathy or pity (though I do cherish your prayers), I tell you that because somewhere out there is another homeschooling mom with a chronic illness or pain wondering if she can homeschool.  And my answer to that is an unequivocal, YES!

So now that you know it can be done, the question becomes, how?  I wanted to share  a few tips I've learned along the way, tips that work for me.  Bare in mind that I am homeschooling only one child.  I'm sure the modifications would be a bit different for a larger family.

#1  Buy one of those breakfast tables with legs.  Ben has spent quite a bit of time in bed with me for the past couple of days.  He can do all of his seatwork on the  breakfast table, and I'm right there to offer instruction or answer questions.

#2  Keep a library basket full of books and videos pertaining to the subject you're learning about.  We're currently studying about Mexico and the desert habitat.  We've been able to learn so much just from a few videos I had picked up from the library last week.  And Ben has been reading to me, which kills 2 birds with one stone....he's reading aloud, and learning!

#3  Don't forget to take advantage educational programming as well.  Reading Rainbow has been a Godsend for us on more than one occasion.  There are also computer games that can fill in. 

#4  Don't overextend yourself. Now I'll be honest and say that this is the toughest one for me.  I like to stay busy and so does Ben.  It will work out fine as long as you always have a back-up plan, someone to fill in for you if you can't keep a commitment.  Letting people know that this could happen is also a good idea.  I plan field trips for local homeschoolers and there has been a time or two that I was not able to attend.  Bringing on a co-coordinator was the best thing I've ever done.  We missed a playdate today too.  I didn't tell Ben about it ahead of time, thankfully, so he's not disappointed, though I am.

#5 Make room in your schedule for days that you simply can't do anything.  We begin our school year in July and end in May.  That way we have plenty of wiggle room.

#6 Ask for help when you need it.  I'm blessed that this week my hubby happens to be home on vacation.  Most weeks he's traveling.  If I'm having a day or 2 when I just cannot function on any level, I'm sure to call on someone, mostly my mom, sometimes a friend.  I can always count on my mom to come pick up Ben and take him to spend the night with her, and to bring me whatever I may need.  None of us wish to be an imposition on anyone, but sometimes you just have to buck up and ask for help. 

#7  Take advantage of current events.  This year we have both the Olympics and Presidential Election to learn about.  Add a few books or videos to your basket about subjects such as these.  Magazines like God's World News may give you some topics to discuss as well.

#8 Know that sending them to school is not the best option.  You want to homeschool your children, you feel called to do that.  Trust me, whatever time they have at home with you is better quality than they'll get there.  I honestly couldn't imagine the last couple of day, getting up at the crack of dawn and getting Ben ready for and off to school.  That would have been a much more difficult chore than keeping him home.

I'm not saying it's easy.  It's not.  Many things in life aren't easy.  But they're worth the challenges, sacrifices and hard work it takes to make them work.  Homeschooling is like that for all of us, isn't it? Challenging, sacrificial, hard work.  Having a chronic illness may make it a bit more difficult, but the rewards are great.

For the 3rd year in a row, I have a goal to spend some time doing artist and composer studies.  I absolutely love art and music and wish to encourage that appreciation in Ben.  But I think in the past, I've tried to make it too academic and not nearly enough fun.  I have to remember, it's all about exposure to wonderful and beautiful things.

We enjoy listening to classical music, especially our CDs from The Classical Kids Collection and Fun with Music.  Ben also absolutely loves books like Art Fraud Detective.  So this year, I've decided to approach art and composer studies with a more fun, less academic, attitude.  To that end, I have decided that for music, we'll spend some time each week on the Classics for Kids radio show website.  If you are not familiar with Classics for Kids, you'll want to click over there and check them out.  You can listen to past and current radio shows, read facts about composers and listen to their music, as well as hear the sounds of most instruments.  Ben loves any excuse to spend time on my new laptop, so this should work well.  Of course, we'll also continue listening to our CDs.

As far as artist study goes, I think we'll mostly just use books like Art Fraud Detective and Can You Find It.  These books are so fun and a great introduction to art.  We also really enjoy the Metropolitan Museum of Art website.  They have a section called Museum Kids with fun, educational, interactive activities.  And hey, that's more time spent on my laptop!

It's good for me to let go of the idea that everything has to be totally planned out.  We don't have to study Degas and Dvorak in September, Cassatt and Handel in October, etc. in order to have quality time spent learning about music and art.  It can simply be listening to music and stories, reading through fun interactive books and websites and visiting our local art museum or attending a concert or two.  Our local orchestra has a program for children that I think we'll check out this year as well.  Sounds like a fun way to learn, doesn't it? 

After a 2 week break  to learn about the Olympics, we're back into ECC this week, learning about Mexico.  We have already completed our additions to our Animal Notebook (desert animals and ants), so we'll be concentrating more on the geography and culture of Mexico.

Unfortunately, the teacher isnt' feeling well today.  But there is always a back-up plan for that!  We were able to cuddle up on the sofa today to watch 2 videos from the library (which we will undoubtedly watch many more times over the next 2 weeks--they were that good!).  Both videos are from a series entitled Mexico for Children.  Today we saw The Geography of Mexico and The Culture of Mexico.

From the website description:

"Help! Laura needs assistance completing her “muy grande” school report about Mexico! With the help of her younger brother, Mike, she recounts her visit to Mexico where her aunt and uncle show Laura the strong heritage and pride of the Mexican people and her ancestry. Through her recollections, photographs, and memorabilia, we learn of Mexico’s history and its heroes - from the greatest ancient civilizations of the Aztec and Maya, through the Spanish conquest, and to Mexico’s fight for independence and freedom. We travel through the regions and states of Mexico and we see its unique landforms like the massive Barranca de Cobre, the fragile ecosystems of Baja California, and visit its capital, Mexico City. Laura shows us the proud culture and everyday life of the Mexican people through its folklore, fiestas, crafts, and arts."

Ben has now moved on to beginning his Top Secret Adventure in Mexico.  If you are not familiar with Top Secret Adventures from Highlights, you'll want to check them out. 

"In this book club, children are introduced to exciting countries, one at a time, through a mystery and adventure series.  Starting with a jigsaw puzzle that reveals a mystery, kids become young puzzle detectives. They learn about the people, culture, terrain, history, and geography of the featured country while searching for clues to solve the who, what, and where of the mystery. Top Secret Adventures will help expand knowledge and stimulate curiosity in children as they gain understanding of other cultures."

He is having a blast figuring out the whodunnit mystery and learning so much about Mexico along the way!  You can even try the subscription for free with an Adventure in Japan.  After that it's like a book club where you receive regular shipments.  If you are lucky, you may also find folks selling unsued sets on ebay (like I did!).  I wish I had a set for every country we'll be studying this year!  Ben really really enjoys them. 

Tomorrow, we'll resume our ECC lessons and I'll be posting more along the way.

At least I think it was today.....I was computerless there for a few days.  Anyway, here is the award, and I'll be giving it away myself to these lovely ladies:

Valerie at Life in the Creek for always being a great friend.

Ami at Walking By the Way for contributing more to the world of unit studies/lapbooks than anyone will ever understand (and also being a great friend).

Shanna at Learning at His Feet for starting our local Creation Club, which I know we are going to love!  And being my new friend:)

Dana at One Day at a Time for finally taking the plunge into the blogging world.  And ditto that friend thing.

Leslie at Joyful Mother of Six who is the sweetest lady and always an encourager!

Here are the rules:

1. The recipient must link back to the awards creator (it's right on the award)
2. You must post these rules if you receive the award.
3. You must choose 5 people to receive the award after receiving it yourself.
4. You must fit the characteristics of the recipient of the award (see below.)
5. You must post the characteristics of a recipient.
6. You must create a post sharing your win with others.
7. You must thank your giver.

Characteristics for the Smile Award:
1. Must display a cheerful attitude. (not necessarily at all times--we are all human).
2. Must love one another.
3. Must make mistakes.
4. Must learn from others.
5. Must be a positive contributor to blog world.
6. Must love life.
7. Must love kids.

I'm at the library right now, catching up on emails and message boards, and I thought I'd write a quick blog entry as well.

My computer died.  It's been dying a slow death for months, so I'm not terribly suprised.  The good news is that my hubby has been talking about buying a laptop for me all summer, so I'm thinking it's time to go shopping!

We have mostly finished up our Olympics Lapbook and next week will be doing some catch-up with our first 2 units in MFW (Intro and USA, weeks 1-4).  As soon as I get the new computer going, I promise to post lots of pictures and updates on what we're learning!

If you're a mom of a boy like this, whether there is a diagnosis of ADHD or not, I hope you'll find the encouragement I did from this NY Times article, about Michael Phelps, from his mom's perspective.

Phelps’s Mother Recalls Helping Her Son Find Gold-Medal Focus

One of the reasons we decided to homeschool was for this very reason.  I could just hear the teacher in my head, "Ben sit down,", "Ben stop talking," "Ben...FOCUS!!"  And I've always found that the more active he is, the more focused he can be.  Which is why a normal week for us has often included soccer and TaeKwonDo and swimming, not to mention lots of bike-riding, skate-boarding and afternoons at the playground!

I especially love the closing line in the article.  It reads:

"More to the point, I think, is the moral of her story, which offers hope for parents of any child with a challenge like A.D.H.D.: Too many adults looked at Ms. Phelps’s boy and saw what he couldn’t do. This week, the world will be tuned to the Beijing Olympics to see what he can do."

Amen to that!

And I can't help but wonder what those teachers are thinking today.

Since putting on the full armor of God and modern day knighthood seems to have become the "theme" of our homeschool, and thus our daily lives, I thought it would be a good idea for Ben to understand more fully what that means exactly.  I'm sure there is plenty for me to learn as well (isn't that always the case with homeschool moms?).

So, I've decided to do a weekly study, maybe on Wednesday evenings, since we are not attending a church with a Wednesday program currently.  In my head, this would be a solid study in character, what it truly means to put on the full armor of God as well as what it means to be a modern day knight.  I found several things at Christian Books (CBD) that I thought would work well, such as this lamintated wall chart:

 There are few books on my list to read aloud as well.  Of course we have already read Little Sir Galahad (but I think we'll reread it soon) and are currently reading The White Knights.   Another book on my list to read this year includes Teddy's Button.  All 3 of these books are published by Lamplighter Publishing, a phenomenal ministry headed by Mark Hamby.  If you are not familiar with Lamplighter, you'll want to spend some time perusing their website.

So now I'm off to place my CBD order.  Hopefully we can get started with this study within a couple of weeks!

I sat down last night and chose books for Ben's 2nd grade reading list for the year.  With MFW, we use a "book basket," which basically means that for each unit we study, library books (picture books, geography and science books, etc.) are place in a basket.  For 15 minutes a day, he can read anything from that basket he chooses.  He doesn't have to read aloud or complete an entire book, it's more about the exposure to different books and spending some designated quiet time with them.  I love it.  But......

I also want to make sure he's really really reading.  And in the past few months his attention span has caught up somewhat with his reading level and is allowing the reading of chapter books.  Also that love of reading for pleasure if finally kicking in with him.  So for about 15 minutes a day (the equivlalent of about 1 chapter), I'm having Ben read aloud to me.

So here is the list of chapter books I've selected for him to read aloud this year.  The list came from read aloud or reader selections from MFW-ECC,  Sonlight and Heart of Dakota.  If you're wondering, I would say most of these books are an average of 3rd-4th grade reading level.  They should be fine for your advanced 2nd grade reader or average 3rd or 4th grade reader.

Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner

Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol

Capyboppy by Bill Peet

A Llama in the Family by Johanna Hurwitz

The Apple and the Arrow by Conrad Buff

The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman

Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat

Dolphin Adventure by Wayne Grover

Little Pear by Eleanor Frances Lattimore

Mieko and the Fifth Treasure by Eleanor Coerr

My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett

Dr. Doolittle by Hugh Lofting

A Mouse Called Wolf by Dick King-Smith

Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater

The Lighthouse Family Series by Cynthia Rylant

~The Storm

~The Turtle

~The Eagle

There is a minit book in the Homeschool Share Olympics lapbook for biographies of athletes.  So today, when I went searching for that type of information I found a page on the Beijing 2008 website with biographies of all the athletes, from every country!  We plan to choose several USA athletes, and a couple from Mexico to learn more about.  Ben has chosen Mexico has his country to track medals and cheer for, since we'll be learning about Mexico for the next couple of weeks anyway. 

Also, I can't believe I left out Amanda Bennett's Summer Olympics 2008 unit study from my first list of resources.  It's not free (but it's cheap!).  If you love unit studies and have never checked out Amanda's stuff, you need to do that.  She has wonderful unit studies on various topics, and you can use them for all of your children at once.  The beauty of unit studies at it's finest.

For a few more items that are not free, but reasonably priced, take a look at the Summer 2008 Olympics Lapbook at Hands of a Child, and from  Grace Bound Books, The Olympics unit study/lapbook at Currclick.

The opening ceremonies have begun and it may be midnight before Ben gets to sleep.  He is loving watching the Parade of Nations.  I'm working right now (I work from our home office) and he keeps coming in to report how many athletes are representing a given country.  He's also really enjoying the flags for some reason.  Comments like "that one's cool" or "look at thsoe colors" or "I bet they're under British control" keep spewing from his mouth. (Canada has 450 athletes, in case you are wondering)

We checked out a few books from the library about the Olympics, for our book basket time.  Here are a few titles for you to enjoy:

Olympics!

The Complete Book of the Olympics

Olympics (DK Eyewitness book)

Hour of the Olympics (Magic Tree House)

Ancient Greece and the Olympics (Magic Tree House Research Guide)

Also you'll find a free Olympics Unit Study with Lapbook from HomeschoolShare.  And here is another free Olympics unit with some fun activities,  from SchoolExpress.  You can also find lots of printable resources at Enchanted Learning as well.

And lastly if you really would like to see the Women's Sabre Fencing competition, but it's on at 3am, you should be excited to know that you can watch the Olympics online, at your convenience, here.

That should be enough to get you started.  Check back in a few days and I will have added a few more resources as we delve deeper into the 2008 Summer Olympics ourselves!

I suppose this is probably a more often asked question than the schedule question.....especially for new homeschoolers.  I know that it's one of the first questions I ask a homeschooler I've just met for the first time, and I'm completely comfortable with everything I've already chosen, purchased, and begun using.  Isn't it fun though, to find out what moms are excited about?  I always find it interesting, hearing about this curriculum or that method.  Maybe I'm just nosey.   So for those of you who are also nosey........I mean...ahem.....curious, here's what we'll use this year, for 2nd grade. 

We have switched to My Father's World this year.  The program we are using is called Exploring Countries and Cultures.  For MFW, this is the first year of their 5-year history cycle.  MFW begins with a year of geography, really getting to know the continents and countries on them, before beginning the in-depth study of all the history.  ECC includes, of course, geography and also science in the form of learning the habitats of different countries.  There is a strong foundation in the Bible, particularly the book of Matthew, as well as missionary stories, and art and music around the world.    I think we'll have a wonderful year learning about our world and it's cultures.

 The countries we'll be studying in depth are:

North America:  USA, Mexico, Canada

South America:  Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador/Galapagos Islands (we are adding Argentina and Ecuador)

Europe:  Norway, Germany, France

Africa:  Kenya, South Africa (we are adding South Africa)

Asia:  China, India, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia

Australia and Antarctica

 For language arts, we will be using some new items as well.  For English, it's Language Lessons for the Very Young and Lessons in Manners for Copywork by Queen Homeschool.  We'll add in Worldy Wise 3000, book 2, Sequential Spelling, and Getty Dubay Italic Handwriting to round things out.  For math, we are switching to Singapore math,  and also using Calculadders for drill and Right Start's Math Card Games.

 We'll also be adding in Spanish this year with The Easy Spanish, Jr. and The Fun Spanish.  If you are looking for a Charlotte Masonish way to do foreign langauge, you'll want to check out both of these.

 Of course, I can never just do a curriculum exactly as it is designed, so I'm adding in a few things to go along with our world culture studies.  The main thing we'll be adding is study of the Animal Kingdom.  I've ordered the God's Design for Life: The Animal Kingdom book from Answers in Genesis.  Since we'll be looking at habitats it seemed natural to focus some on animal classification and maybe even some units on specific animals.  Homeschool Share has several wonderful units on animals, so Ben and I looked through those and chose 2-3 animals (or classes of animals) to study for each continent.  We are creating a lapbook/notebook for our animal studies as well.  The animals we've chosen are:

North America:  desert animals, ants, salmon

South America:  butterflies, sea turtles

Europe:  birds of prey, frogs

Africa:  zebras, meerkats

Asia:  pandas, camels, dolphins

Australia:  marsupials, coral reef

Antarctica: polar animals

Then we deciced that if we're going to study the fauna around the world, maybe we should at least hit on the flora too.  So I also ordered God's Design for Life: The World of Plants, from Answers in Genesis.  Both of the God's Design books have about 15 lessons each, so it shouldn't tax us much to complete them both this year.  We decided to go ahead and do a seperate notebook for these 2 books as well.  Both have lots of great activities that go along with the lessons.  We'll want to keep those, and a notebook is the perfect way to do that.

 Ben will also be attending an enrichment program  once a week, taking 4 classes:  General Music, Choir/Drama, Science:  Rocks and Minerals, and Art.  We are also planning to get together with another family once a week to work on our Animal Study Notebooks.  Add in scouting, fall soccer, spring basketball, and swimming lessons and we're going to have another full and fun-filled year!

We're already into week 4 and things are going well.  We are easing into our year, so we have not started Spanish, Spelling, or Wordly Wise.  We'll begin those next week.  Ben is really enjoying the animal studies and putting together the notebook.  He also really likes the geography games we're using.  In just 3 weeks, he can already find almost every state and most of the countries of North America on an outline map. And as always, I'm learning a lot too!  I had no idea how little I knew about the desert and the animals that live there!

~*~*~*~*~*~*I'm adding this excerpt of this entry into my old blog to my new blog, since it is a record of our first day of school this year.  The actual date was July 15, 2008.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I guess technically we started yesterday.  We always begin our first day by looking through our curriculum (this year we have lots of new stuff!) and then going to brunch at Waffle House.  This year was no exception.  So yesterday that's what we did.  I got out all of the main books we will be using (which I'll list here in a minute), had brunch at Waffle House, and then met some friends for an afternoon of bowling. 

There is a local bowling alley that has $1 day on Mondays during the summer.  This was Ben's first time to bowl and he did quite well, scoring an 80 his first game!  I hadn't bowled in many years, probably 15, and scored a 148, so I was pretty proud of both of us.

Then today, we had our actual first day of school.  We are beginning slowly.  I won't begin a few things for a couple of weeks.  Things like vocabulary, spelling, and Spanish.  For the first few weeks, I think we need to concentrate on handwriting (that's never been a favorite), math, and of course, getting used to our new MFW curriculum. 

All in all, today went quite well.  I think Ben was happy to get back to a bit of structure in our day and he very much enjoyed our first day.