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We always say a prayer for our day, for our families, and for Daddy at work before we begin our academics every day. DS holds my hand and closes his eyes and is so respectful. He is really starting to understand the importance of having a prayer life and has started saying more in depth prayers at bedtime. He is such a blessing!
And I feel so blessed that God has given me this ministry, to be at home with my children and teach them to put God first in their lives. The moments I share with them during the day could never be replaced, and it saddens me to think of the millions of children that are away from their mothers during the day, learning and being influenced by teachers and peers who probably don't share their families' values.
I'm reading a devotional book called Seasons Of A Mother's Heart by Sally Clarkson. I wanted to share something I read today:
"A seed is useless until it is cast into the soil where it will die in order to become something greater - a plant, a flower, a tree. My dedication to life at home as a mother is a seed of sacrifice. I give up my own desires and sacrifice my gifts and talents so that new life will come from me. I am buried in the rich soil of housework, homeschooling, character training, disciplining and all the myriad responsiblilities of making a home. To many in my generation, my decision to stay at home is a fruitless sacrifice, a waste of feminine intelligence and abilities. To me, though, it is a small sacrifice if by it I can send my children into the next generation bursting with spiritual life, ready to change their world for Christ. Fruitless? Only by the world's standards. By God's it is a fruitful sacrifice that will yield a harvest of righteousness." pg.27
"The decision to homeschool will, by its nature, create division. To those who choose to put their children in public school, your decision to homeschool is a passive condemnation of their lifestyle. Since homeschooling rejects the educational status quo, it invites criticism and rejection, not just for us as adults but also for our children. Family members, church members, friends, and even strangers will question your decision and scrutinize your life. I am finding that only heart-deep dedication and sacrifice enables me to confidently say, "This is right...this is what God wants me to do...this is worth it." Because I know that doing God's will is worth whatever the cost may be." pg. 28
I have never felt more in the center of God's will than I do right now, being home with my children, being a full-time mom, wife, and homeschooler! I see my children growing in grace and truth, being unaffected by the outside world, and it brings me such joy. My family thrives on this lifestyle and we are bringing glory to God, by being "in this world, but not of it"!
No one in our life has said outright, "We are against homeschooling!". However, we have had people elude to this fact through other round-about ways. I have been "reminded" time and time again, by well-meaning loved ones and friends, that I should make sure my kids have proper socialization. I find this funny, as if I have not considered this myself and desire to keep my children "cooped up" in the house with no interaction with the outside world. I actually consider this an insult to my parenting skills more than an insult to homeschooling. As a mother, I desire nothing more than to prepare my children for "real life". I consider homeschooling to be the absolute best lesson in socialization. My children have the opportunity to live real life! I find it humorous that the general population believes public school is proper socialization! The last thing a child needs is to be stuck in a room with 30 other children of the same age, being forced to "conform", walk quietly in straight lines, control their bladders until the scheduled "bathroom break", and never ask genuine questions of interest because their teacher has no time to answer them! Is this how "real life" works? Not outside the public school system! How is this a preparation for life after school? It's not!
It's even been suggested to me that a stay-at-home mom's life must be so boring! Boring?! Anyone who thinks this has never been a stay-at-home mom! I think some people even think I must resent my life and envy those women who have an outside career and get a break from their children each day. Children are God's greatest blessings! I can think of no better place in this world than right here with these children! God gave them to me with this command:
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." Deuteronomy 6:5-9
God gave these children to me and my husband, to train up in His teachings! He did not say, "I am giving these children to you so that at the age of 5 you can send them into the hands of the government to spend each day in a place where they will not allow My Name, to learn hundreds of things that go directly against My Word! I want them to learn about life from other kids their age, who have learned that it's okay to be vulgar, violent, and disrespectful because 'kids will be kids'."
No, he did not give them to us so that we could pass the responsibility of raising them onto "the world", so we could give them over to teachers and peers who care nothing about their hearts or their spirit. He gave them to us for a reason! We love them, just as He loves us! We know them heart and soul! We truly have their best interest in mind. We want to develop a whole person...mind, body, and soul...not just a student who can rattle off the correct answers on a standardized test, only to forget them the next day, in the name of "education".
This is why we homeschool. This is why my children will never go to a public school. Never. We will carry this lifestyle through high school. And my children will be well-adjusted, well-educated, and excellent citizens of this world as a result.
I thank God every day for calling me to homeschool!!!
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Well, we took the week of October 16th off from FIAR and we concentrated on other endeavors...including organizing and de-cluttering our house! A great lesson for DS in how to keep things neat and tidy and giving everything its own home for quick clean up! He actually enjoyed having a part in this process and now I don't have to remind him to put things away or where they go!
Here is a quick summary of what we worked on this week academically:
Bible Leading Little Ones To God by Marian M. Schoolland
Language Arts Nouns Verbs Adjectives Penmanship
Math Pictographs Money (Pennies and Nickels) Addition Subtraction
Science Healthy Foods Exercise
Geography Utah
Back to FIAR next week! |
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October 11-13
I lost my entries for the rest of this story, so in the interest of time, I am going to briefly summarize each day. We only did 4 days for this book, since we had Columbus Day on Monday
A brief summary of things that we did each day, supplementing our FIAR curriculum:
Bible Leading Little Ones To God by Marian M. Schoolland Lesson 12: "God Is Almighty" Lesson 13: "God Is Faithful" No lesson on Friday
Math Several lessons in Saxon K (we skip lessons that are too easy, so we're cruising through this book and will be beginning Sazon 1 in January)
Reading Practice Friends Old And New Dick and Jane reader
Read-Aloud Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Story Review We found these matching cards for How To Make An Apple Pie and See The World here. We did them each day to review the story. Each match included the country card with flag, the transportation used in the book to get there, and which ingredient was picked up in that place.
DAY 2
Bible Application Wheat/Harvest John 4:35-38
Language Arts Repetition "But if the store is closed..." Brings the story full circle, making us think we're going on another journey, then the book abruptly ends!
Penmanship/Art Draw Write Now, Book 1 Chickens pgs. 10 & 11
Geography Sri Lanka and England Maps Flags
Science Evaporation This experiment didn't work because it wasn't warm enough for the water to evaporate. We filled a shallow pan with salt and water. The water was supposed to evaporate, leaving the salt behind, just like the girl in the book got salt from the ocean by evaporating the water. Oh well, at least he learned a new word!
DAY 3
Bible Application Hospitality Romans 12:13 2 Kings 4
Language Arts Vocabulary Words: ingredients superb locate elegant coax, persuade native plantation I made flashcards for these words, we discussed the meaning of each one, then he played a matching game with them, pairing the word with the definition. These were hard words, so I was lenient! But he did a good job anyway, and learned some new words in the process.
Penmanship/Art Draw Write Now, Book 1 Cows
Geography Jamaica and Vermont Maps Flags
DAY 4
Bible Application God is the God of EVERY nation! He created all things, everywhere! Psalm 113:4 Genesis 1:1 Colossians 1:16
Penmanship Write vocab words from Day 3
Geography Matching game: Match country name to its flag
Social Studies My MIL was visiting, so she and DS made apple pies and we delivered them to all of our neighbors! This developed our hospitality lesson from earlier in the week and gave him some wonderful quality time with his Nan. Plus, the neighbors loved the pies!
Math My MIL helped me out by creating some math flashcards, cutting apple- shaped cards out of construction paper and putting addition and subtraction problems on them. DS is moving into double-digit addition and is still working on simple subtraction.
We will be taking next week off from FIAR to have a "workbook week". There are some things I feel like we need to concentrate on that will best be learned by focused "book work". Although I prefer to not do this type of schooling with him, it serves a purpose from time to time.
Then, we will be starting Mike Mulligan And His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton.
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We're really having fun with this book so far...and it's only the first day!
We started with lesson 11 in Leading Little Ones To God, God Is Holy. We learned about Isaiah and his vision of the seraphim.
We read How To Make An Apple Pie and See The World by Marjorie Priceman for the first time. After reading it, we went page by page and discussed what was happening. I like to do this with each new book so that I know he understands what the book is about.
For Language Arts today, we took a look at the book and discussed how the author used humor to make it more interesting. We then tied our Art lesson into this by looking at the illustrations and pointing out the funny things she included to add humor to the pages. We looked especially at the pie-eating scene at the end, there were many humorous elements on that page.
Our Bible application for today was "the fruits of the spirit" from Galatians 5:22-23. We discussed each "fruit" in detail, giving examples of how we could exemplify each one.
For Penmanship, DS wrote each of "the fruits of the spirit". He did a real nice job. He's learning to take his time and use correct placement of the letters.
For Social Studies we had a Geography lesson. We reviewed France (studied during Madeline) and then found Italy on the map. I told DS that they are both in Europe, not very far from one another. Then, we made a map of Italy and compared it to the map of France. I asked DS what was different and he thought it was neat that they were so similar and could both be called a "tricolor".
We did Saxon K for math and for reading practice, DS read out of Friends Old And New, our Dick and Jane reader. For read-aloud, I am still reading Charlie And The Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.
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Five In A Row does not have Columbus Day in their holiday supplement, so we found some things to do on our own today!
We began our day as usual with a lesson from Leading Little Ones To God.
Then, we decided to learn a little bit about Christopher Columbus and his journey. We went to this website to learn the basics. This was fun because DS could "flip" through the pages, and some of the pages had "clickable" pictures for further learning!
Then, we took the quiz at the end. He got them all right!
Then, DS did a Columbus Day word find that we found here.
We made the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria out of apples, cheese, and cucumbers (crow's nest), then ate them for a snack! This idea came from here.
We made these "sailor hats" out of newspaper, very easy! Directions were found here.
For penmanship, I found a coloring sheet with an open scroll on it where DS wrote:
"In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue."
We also did math today, although it didn't have anything to do with Columbus Day. We did a couple of lessons from our Saxon K book. We are starting to learn about the value of money, starting with pennies, so I set up a "store" in our living room with items marked up to 10 cents. DS got to shop with his 10 pennies to see which combinations of items he could "buy" from the store. Then, I had him order them in value from lowest to highest. He had so much fun, I couldn't get him to stop "shopping"!
DS also did his practice reading out of Friends Old And New and I read a chapter to him at bedtime out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
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Posted in Madeline
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Today we started with lesson 10 in Leading Little Ones To God called God Is Three Persons. Wow, this was a difficult one. We spent a lot of time discussing this. I won't detail our discussion here, because I could probably write a book about it, but I think he understood to the best extent that a 6-year old can! This concept is even difficult for me to understand, and there are things that we will not fully understand until we are brought home to be with our Heavenly Father. But it has blessed my heart to see how much he is learning about who God is and about His love from this book. He asks some amazing questions, and I am so excited to answer them to the best of my ability!
We then read Madeline one last time and I expanded on our rhyming lesson from yesterday, explaining that the book is written in the form of a poem. I pulled out Where The Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein for more examples of poems. These poems are really silly, so we had some good laughs. We discussed how different they all were, how they didn't all rhyme, but they all had a rhythm. Then, we made up some simple 2 line "poems", to practice rhyming the lines:
"Kittens and cats Don't wear hats"
"Cats and kittens Don't wear mittens."
"We sweep the floor, then we mop some more!"
He started to get pretty silly with these short "poems", but this was a good introductory to the writing style and now he's been looking for poems everywhere!
We got out our Saxon K math book and did a couple of lessons in it. They were review of the last few that we have done. We moved from ABB color patterns into AABB color patterns.
DS read another story out of the Dick and Jane Basic Reader Friends Old And New called Fun For The Painter for reading practice.
Then, we did something fun! We went to a gym class with our local homeschool co-op! We haven't taken any of the co-op classes yet, so we are very excited about this! It's only once a month, but he met about 30 other homeschooled kids, plus I got to meet their moms! What a treat!
This is a great gym. It has all the colored mats, all shapes and sizes, trampolines, beams, rings, a huge floor mat, a climbing wall, a vault, too much to list! DS had so much fun that he wants to start doing gymnastics! I talked to DH about it and he said he thought that would be a really good thing for him, so we're going to enroll him in Beginner Boys Gymnastics! It will be every Tuesday for 1 hour. What a great physical outlet this will be for him! We are all very excited!
Then, we went to the store and purchase some ingredients for our French dinner. At home, DS helped me prepare the dinner and set the table. We learned how to properly set a table and we made it look all fancy. Then we had a wonderful time eating it!
Cracking Eggs
Putting together the quiches
Setting the table
Bacon and Ham Quiche
Yeast Rolls
Fruit Plate
Finished set table, complete with candles and wine glasses (filled with cranberry juice!)
As we ate, we discussed proper table manners: no elbows on the table, chewing with mouth closed, no talking with food in our mouth, no clinking the silverware or playing with our food, asking nicely for food to be passed, etc.
This was a fun, special meal...not to mention delicious! We actually made 2 quiches and extra rolls so we could have leftovers!
We finished the day by reviewing our week with DH and then reading another chapter of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Next week, we will celebrate Columbus Day on Monday, and then we will spend the rest of the week on How To Make An Apple Pie and See The World by Marjorie Priceman.
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Posted in Madeline
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We sort of had a half day today so we could get caught up on some things around the house. Here's what we accomplished schoolwise:
We began today as usual with our Bible lesson in Leading Little Ones To God. The lesson was entitled "God Knows All Things". We talked about how God even knows the things we think in our mind and the things we do when we think no one else can see us. We talked about the importance of honesty and always doing what's right, even if we think no one would find out if we did something wrong. I also told him that God knows so much that he even knows how many hairs are on our head and how many stars are in the sky! And, not only does he know what has happened, but he also knows what will happen.
We read Madeline again, but this time DS read it to me. He loves to use intonation when reading, imitating the way that I read to him. In preparation for our study of poetry that we will be doing tomorrow, we located all the rhyming words and discussed how the story flows, line to line, with the use of these rhymes. We also talked about how the rhyming words are always at the end of a phrase or sentence, so that they match up with the next rhyming word, which is also at the end of a phrase or sentence.
Our Bible application today dealt with appreciating those things that are right and good and turning away from those things that are wrong and evil. This was a good review of "discernment", which we learned about during our The Story About Ping study. We looked at the part in the book where the girls "smile at the good and frown at the bad..."
We looked up the following verses in our family Bible:
"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things." Philippians 4:8
"My son, if sinners entice you, do not give in to them." Proverbs 1:1
"But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil." Hebrews 5:14
Then, we had a brief history lesson, discussing certain items in the book and comparing them to modern day devices:
1. The crank on the bed vs. the buttons that were on Mom's hospital bed when I had the baby
2. The steam radiator heater vs. our electric baseboards
3. The old ambulance vs. a modern one
We did a few math lessons in our Saxon K book. We are working through this book pretty quickly and hope to be finished with it by Christmas so that we can start Saxon 1. A few lessons a day only takes about 20 minutes...unless we start having fun and decide to spend more time with it! DS is currently learning about graphs, money, and telling time.
Plus, he does some work book pages now and then for addition and subraction of single and double digit numbers.
While I got caught up on some cleaning and record-keeping, DS watched Madeline on video - what a cute movie!
DS read out loud from Friends Old And New and I read the next chapter to him from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at bedtime. This read-aloud is really helping to develop his listening skills since he is enjoying it so much and can't wait to see what happens next!
Day 5 will be fun...French food!
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Posted in Madeline
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We decided to start today with some quick, fun exercises. I told DS to do exactly what I did...and then the silliness began. We stretched, touched our toes, did front rolls, side bends, tried to stand on our heads, jumping jacks, push ups and crab walks! Fun!
We did Lesson 8 in Leading Little Ones To God entitled God Is Everywhere. We talked about how God could be with us at home and with Daddy at work at the same time! In fact, God can be thousands of places all at once! This is a difficult concept for children to understand, in fact I think it's a difficult concept for even adults to understand, but he was pretty amazed by it all the same!
DS is really into superheroes: Batman, Superman, Spiderman, The Incredibles...etc. One day, I told him that God has all the powers of all the superheroes! Now, DS says that God is the ultimate Superhero! Isn't that great?
We read Madeline again and discussed the concept of compassion. The book says "and sometimes they were very sad", referencing the 12 girls. On that page, they are looking at a man with a broken leg. We discussed ways that we can have compassion for other people by doing nice things for them when they are hurt, sick, or sad. We made a list: pray for them, visit them, take them flowers or food, get their mail for them, call them on the phone, invite them over for dinner, babysit their children to give them a break, etc. We talked about how Jesus had compassion for other people and we should too. We should always consider the feelings of others.
In our Bible application today, we discussed how Madeline was different than the other girls, "unique in a world of order". She wasn't afraid of mice or lions and she walked on top of the bridge wall, instead of safely on the walkway like the other girls. We referenced the following verses in the Bible:
"If the Lord delights in a man's way, he makes his steps firm." Psalm 37:32
"Teach me, O Lord, to follow your decrees; then I will keep them to the end." Psalm 119:33
We talked about how sometimes, as Christians who love God, we make decisions and do things that the world does not understand. We follow God's will, even if it's "different" than what everyone else is doing. As an example, I used homeschooling. I told DS that Dad and Mom have felt God calling us to homeschool him and his sister (and future babies) for a long time. Some people may not understand or agree with that choice, but we will continue to do it because we know that is what God wants for our family. And we know that God will always bless that decision because we are following his plan for us.
We did some fun stuff after this. DS started a Madeline Word Find, found 6 of them, and then got frustrated...so we'll do more of that tomorrow.
Then, I let him do a couple of coloring pages. One was of Madeline herself that we will use for the front of our lapbook. The other was of the Eiffel Tower. We've been talking about the architecture of the Eiffel Tower and looking at lots of pictures, so this was fun for him. It's neat to see him recognize different buildings on TV and in magazines that we read and know where they are located (i.e. the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, and now the Eiffel Tower)
For Science today, we talked about how the 12 girls in the book go for a daily walk and how important it is for us to get enough fresh air and sunshine to help our bones grow strong.
We also talked about getting enough rest. We read pages 14-17 in Health, Safety and Manners 1. We learned that a child should get between 10 and 12 hours of sleep. We filled in 2 clock diagrams, one with his bedtime (9:00) and the other with the time he usually wakes up (8:00). Then, we counted the hours in between to make sure he was getting enough sleep. He was pleased to see that he gets about 11 hours of sleep every night, exactly what he needs!
Then we played an online game, Time For Bed. This game shows an animal and a child and the student has to choose which one needs more sleep. This game was fun for him...and me! Did you know that a giraffe only gets 30 minutes of sleep a day...broken into six 5 minute naps!? I could actually finish my "to-do" list if my body ran like that!
Then DS played a matching game with these Sleep Cards. I laminated them for durability. The game matches a bad sleep habit with an opposite good sleep habit. When he would make a match, we would discuss which one was what and why.
For penmanship, DS copied the following verse out of the health book:
Good night, Sleep tight. Wake up bright In the morning light, To do what's right With all your might.
In Math, we did several lessons in our Saxon K book. We did alot with our pattern blocks and tangrams. Then we did two introductory lessons, one on money and one on telling time.
For practice reading, DS read the next story in Friends Old And New, our Dick and Jane basic reader. We both love these stories.
DS did a couple of pages in one of his Hidden Pictures books, published by Highlights Magazine. This is good brain work and develops thinking and problem-solving skills.
Then, we finished our day with me reading the next chapter in Charlie and The Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.
Wow! I can see how much we really did when I write it all down! Until tomorrow...
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Posted in Madeline
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We had a great second day today. DS is really enjoying this book and we are really getting into a good rhythm with Five In A Row. It's exciting to find something that fits his learning style so well!
We began today with Lesson 7 in Leading Little Ones To God entitled God is One God. This lesson taught us that Jesus and God are one and the same. Because there are examples in the Bible of Jesus being kind and compassionate, we can know that God is also kind and compassionate, since they are the same. We also talked a little bit about idols, how anything that we put before God in our life is considered an idol. We should always place God first and foremost above all else!
We then read Madeline for the second time. I think he must have memorized it yesterday when we read it, because he was practically reciting it back to me! His memory is astounding, sometimes I think its photographic! He picks things up so quickly, especially books. When DS was 2 years old, he had all of his favorite books memorized, including Dr. Seuss books, and could recite them word for word!
We talked about how the author, Ludwig Bemelmans, uses "repetition" in this book, just like Marjorie Flack did in The Story About Ping. The repetition in Madeline occurs twice. The first was describing the activities of the girls: "they broke their bread and brushed their teeth and went to bed". The second was Miss Clavel's nighttime reactions: "In the middle of the night, Miss Clavel turned on her light and said, 'Something is not right!". We discussed how this repetition brings the reader full circle and it makes us say, "Aha! We've heard that before!"
Our Bible application today was a continuance of yesterday's lesson. We again discussed God being a God of Order and referenced the following verses:
"(About five thousand men were there.) But he said to his disciples, "Have them sit down in groups of about 50 each.'" Luke 9:14
"But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way." 1 Corinthians 14:40
I snuck in a little math lesson here, as well. We took the first verse and I showed DS how we could break 5,000 men into 100 groups of 50. Then, we got out his linking cubes and placed them into 4 different groupings of 12, to represent the 12 girls in the book: 2 groups of 6, 3 groups of 4, 4 groups of 3, and 6 groups of 2. After setting up the groups, I had DS count the cubes in each group. You should have seen his face light up when he realized each group had 12 in it! It was like a lightbulb clicked!
Yeah! I LOVE moments like this! It makes homeschooling so rewarding, to see your child "get" something and know that he is excited about it!
We also did a couple of lessons in our Saxon K book, reviewing ABB color patterns and making sure he understands "small, smaller, smallest" and "big, bigger, biggest" - he did, so there was no need for further work in this area.
I've decided to skip some lessons in Saxon K, since a lot of them focus on shapes, size, color, sorting, etc. - things that DS has been proficient in for several years and certainly does not need review in. We are using K this year just so DS can get a good basis in learning about money and telling time before we move into the 1st grade book. I'm hoping to finish K by Christmas and move into 1 by January.
In Social Studies, we talked about how "the car with a red light" was an ambulance and what these vehicles are used for. DS "did" a maze where he had to get the ambulance from Madeline's house to the hospital. I put "did" in quotes because (I admit) it was a difficult maze, so he "jumped" walls and drew bridges over the water to create a shortcut! It was pretty funny...and creative...so I couldn't even say anything about it! Oh well, it was supposed to just be fun, and he certainly acheived that!
We also reviewed Geography from yesterday, re-locating France, Paris, and the Seine River on a map. We will be placing our story disc on the World Map later this week. I'm excited about the story discs, because at the end of our FIAR year, DS will know where so many different places are in this world, without any "formal" geography lessons!
For reading practice, DS read another story out of Friends Old And New. He's been having a hard time concentrating on his reading, so I watched him very closely today. I figured out that he was trying to read ahead to see what was going to happen, so it was distracting him from the current sentence. I showed him how he could place his bookmark right under the sentence he's reading and then move it as he progresses. His improvement since doing this is remarkable! He is reading three times faster, finishing the stories in no time, and even comprehending them better because he's not getting confused! He even wants me to do it now when I'm reading aloud to him, I guess he's following along!
We finished the day with me reading aloud the next chapter in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He's getting so excited because we're getting closer to the part where the kids go to the factory. I love seeing him this excited about a book!
On to Day 3...
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What a cute book! Can you believe I've never read this one until today? We had a good start to our unit today, and I especially like this one because we get to study Paris!
We started the day with lesson 6 in Leading Little Ones To God called God Sent His Son. In this lesson, we were introduced to the concept of God and Jesus being one and the same. We also learned a little bit about Jesus' ministry here on earth and how he was sent to die for us. I love how this book is written in a conversational tone on a child's level of understanding.
Then we read Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans for the first time. DS was enthralled from the first page. I have noticed that he really likes books that use a poetic style. This is probably true for most children, as it adds an extra element of interest to the book and it sounds so nice when it's being read. Later in the week, we'll be learning about poetry. After reading the book, we went back through and discussed what was happening on each page. I always find this to be helpful for him after we read a story for the first time so that he can pick up on everything.
After that, we did our Bible application. We looked at Creation in Genesis 1 & 2 and discussed how God is a God of Order. When creating the heavens and the earth, there was an order that was necessary. For example, he had to create the seas before he could create the fish. We also looked at how God organized the 12 tribes in Numbers 2. DS was so excited to see that one of the tribes was named after him! We compared these lessons to how the girls were always orderly in the book. I even snuck in a little math lesson by showing DS an illustration in my Bible of the 12 tribes situated around the tabernacle, 3 on each side. We looked at the 2 lines of 6 girls and the 4 groups of 3 tribes and saw how each of those combinations added up to 12. Beginning multiplication and division!
We decided at this point that we should learn about France and Paris. We got out a map and located France. Then, we compared France to the United States. France is much smaller, about the size of Texas, but I showed DS how it is divided into states, just like America is. Then, I pointed out how there are cities within those states and we located Paris, inside Ile-De-France. We labeled a blank map that I had printed out for him and this will go into our lapbook.
Then, we found a picture of the French flag and made one of our own. We discussed how it has the same colors as the American flag and we discovered that it is sometimes called the Tricolor. I studied French in school for 6 years and I didn't even know that!
We cuddled up on the couch with the baby and started looking at a couple of books we got from the library, one about France and one about Paris. Our art lesson for the day was architecture, so we really looked at some of the buildings that we found: the Eiffel tower, the Louvre museum, the Arc de Triomphe, Versailles, and the Notre Dame. Then, I got out my photo album from 12 years ago when I went to Europe and spent a few days in Paris. It was amazing how similar some of my photos were to those in the book. DS thought it was so neat that I had been there and I had real photos of these places!
For Language Arts, we studied 3 new vocabulary words: appendix, solemn, and disaster. We found each one within the book and then I had DS tell me what he thought they meant. His answers are always funny when we do this. For disaster, I asked him to give an example and he said "Like when a T-Rex stomps on your house and breaks it into pieces!" Yes, I would say that constitutes as a disaster!
Then we looked up the definitions of these words and then put them into simple sentences so that he would better understand them. For appendix, I had found a color illustration on the web of the digestive system and was able to show him how the appendix is attached to the intestine. We had a little anatomy lesson with this one, showing the path of our food, from beginning to end - as you can probably guess, this ended with a "Ewwww!" from my DS! Plus, he was horrified that Madeline had to be cut on her stomach for the doctor to remove the appendix. I had to ensure him that she didn't feel a thing because she was asleep. He felt a little better about it after this, but later in the evening, that's all he could talk about with DH. I could tell he had been thinking about it all day!
We used the vocab words for penmanship and DS did a good job copying the words into a list, using proper placement on the lines.
We took a break for lunch and playtime. There was a break in the rain, so we were able to get a little fresh air, and even a peek of sunshine!
For Science this week, we are going to be talking about taking care of ourselves to prevent sickness and injury and avoid hospital visits like Madeline's. We will be learning about healthy eating and exercise, cleanliness and hand-washing, taking care of our teeth, and getting plenty of fresh air, sunshine, and rest. Today was just an introduction to these concepts (don't worry, we've taught him these things all along, this is just the first time we've sat down "formally" and discussed why these things are important for our health!), so we talked about what a "habit" is and how we can develop good habits or bad ones. We used pages 4 & 5 in Health, Safety and Manners 1. There were sets of pictures, one showing a good habit and the other showing the corresponding bad habit. DS got all of these right on the first try - that's a good sign!
Then, we looked at pages 32 & 33 in the same book. We called this our "Path to Good Health" and we briefly discussed each step along the way.
We finished the day with DS reading a story called Easy To Find out of Friends Old And New. This is an old Dick and Jane reading book that we are working our way through. It is excellent practice for DS and he has enjoyed each story so far.
Later in the evening, while DH and I were watching Monday Night Football, DS asked if he could build a model of the Eiffel Tower with his Legos! Absolutely! I love when he carries his school lessons over into his play time, it shows me that he is listening, learning, and is interested! This is what he came up with:
He proceeded to create an entire city around it. Then, he destroyed it playing "superhero" with some of his toys. Don't you just love boys!?
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Posted in The Story About Ping
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Today was our last day of studying The Story About Ping. We've enjoyed it so much, I'll be sad to set it aside and move on! I wonder if all the books will be this way?
We did a lot of fun things today: crafts, made a great dinner, played a board game, etc. I thought it would be a good way to end the unit, and DS had a blast!
We started the day as usual with our Bible study, lesson 5 in Leading Little Ones To God. It was called God Talks To Us and it answered a lot of his questions from yesterday. The lesson taught us that God talks to us a lot through the reading of His Word, the Bible. He also talks to us sometimes through His Spirit whispering in our hearts, telling us what is right and wrong and revealing His will for us.
After our Bible study, we sat down with our books that we found at the library and learned a whole lot about China. We found pictures of houses, traditional clothing, a family eating dinner, a farm with ducks, fishing boats, Chinese lanterns, calligraphy and other things related to our study. We learned how to say "Wo jiao ____" which means "My name is ____" and "Ni hao" which means "How are you?" and we decided that we wanted to learn how to write our names in Chinese, so we got online to find a Chinese language website. We discovered that the Chinese do not use "letters" like we do in our alphabet, but instead they use "characters" that stand for a whole word.
Did you know that an adult in China needs to know at least 3,000 characters in order to read a newspaper? Makes our 26 letters and accompanying sounds seem like a cinch!
We found a name generator where you can plug in the approximate sounds of the syllables in your name to get a Chinese name, complete with corresponding Chinese characters. Here's what we came up with:
DS: Bei Bao nuo
DD: Bi Ai de
DH: Bai Ren yi
Me: Bei Bao ren We found another map of China and located the Yangtze River for review. It was easier to see how long the river is in this map and DS said "You mean the river goes this far!? Wow!" and then he took it upon himself to find every other river in China and compare them to the Yangtze!
After we did this, we decided it was probably a good time to start setting up for our dinner. We hung the lanterns that we made all over the ceiling, put a blanket down on the floor, and put a tray in the middle, and some pillows on either side. We set out a plate, bowl and chopsticks for each of us.
When it was time to make our Chinese dinner, we put on our aprons and started our prep work. In China, they use a concept called mise en place, which means "everything in its place". So we did the same! We prepped everything and had it in bowls ready to put into our recipes when the time came. We boiled the chicken and diced it up, chopped carrots, water chestnuts, and garlic, and set out our bean sprouts, peas, salt, sugar, soy sauce, oil, cooking spray and cornstarch. We pre-made white rice, beat eggs, and laid out our egg roll wrappers with a moist paper towel on top to keep them from drying out. Here is DS chopping carrots:
Then, we got to work putting it all together. We made egg rolls, egg drop soup, and fried rice. We served it with green tea, Chinese coconut cookies, and fortune cookies:
Everything was delicious!
We discussed Chinese table manners and traditions and learned how to use chopsticks. DS tried everything, but I don't think he liked much of anything except the cookies! I was so proud of him for trying!
After dinner, we read Ping one last time so DH could hear it and played a board game that we made. I found the game here if you would like to print it out and make it for your own study. You have to answer questions about the book to move forward, so it was wonderful review! DH joined us for this and it ended up being a wonderful family evening!
Our 5th day bled into a 6th as we finished up some things that we didn't get to do during the week. DS got up and watched Disney's Mulan so he could see more about the culture in China. This is one of his favorites and he's seen it a million times, but he saw it through new eyes and picked up a lot that he hasn't in the past.
Then, we made ducks out of paper plates.
I wanted to make sure we studied buoyancy for this unit since the little boat boy had a barrel on his back. I explained to DS that this kept him floating, kind of like the water wings he uses when we go to the pool. We decided to play around with this concept a bit, so we got out a bowl and filled it with waters and put different objects in it to see if they would float.
(picture to come)
Well, that concludes our study of The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wiese.
Next week: Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
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Posted in The Story About Ping
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Today was field trip day! We had so much fun!
We started out with Lesson 4 in Leading Little Ones To God. It was called God Talked To People Long Ago and told the story of Samuel, a little boy in the Bible whom talked to audibly. DS thought it was pretty neat that people could actually hear God and wanted to know why we can't hear him. I love that he is really thinking about things and asking good questions!
Then, we started out for our day. We had a one hour drive, so on the way we listened to Ping on tape - twice! One side of the tape had some additional educational info, so we enjoyed listening to that as well. We learned more about the fishing birds with the rings on their necks so, we heard some Chinese songs, and we learned that ducks say "guaw, guaw, guaw" in China!
Our first stop was the library to find some books about China. We found a great one that was on his level called A Family in China by Nance Lui Fyson and Richard Greenhill. The girl on the front cover is even holding a duck! Then we found a few more that were a little above his grade level, but I figured it would be a good thing to see the pictures and talk about them. I also got some books for our unit on Madeline that we will be starting next week.
Then, we had lunch with DH which was a real treat since we don't normally get to see him during the day.
After that, we picked up a friend of mine who often accompanies us on field trips. I get to enjoy a social visit with a good friend while we go on our learning adventures and she enjoys tagging along and learning new things! So, it works out nicely.
Our first stop was the Wonder Bread thrift store for a 46 cent loaf of bread. Then, we headed to the duck pond! The pond is part of a city park and is fed by a stream that runs the length of the park (and beyond). There is a nice walking path along the stream, beautiful gardens, and a huge playground for the kids. It's one of our favorite places to go. We started out at the playground so DS could burn off some energy and get in some P.E. time. Then, we headed to the pond to feed the ducks.
There are plaques all along the trail with information about the different species of ducks that live there. We stopped at each one to read about them and see if we could find that type in the water. There were about 10 different types of duck right there in that pond, plus swans, geese, seagulls, and something that looked like a turkey vulture, but we're not sure if that's what it was or not.
We even found one that looked like the adults in Ping's family!
We saw a huge white swan going "bottoms up" like Ping does in the book. I wish I would have gotten a picture of that!
Then, we headed to a local Thai market. Unfortunately, there isn't a Chinese market around, but I figured this would be close enough! DS got to see all the different foods that are in an Asian diet and he got to see the Chinese writing firsthand. He even got to hold a king mackerel! It was frozen, but it still had its head, eyes and everything! EW! He really got a kick out of that!
We ended up purchasing some chopsticks, some egg roll wrappers, and some Chinese cookies for our dinner that we will be making to finish up our unit.
That evening, after dinner, we learned how to make Chinese lanterns. We were having so much fun we couldn't stop! I think we made one for every color of construction paper we had! We will use these to decorate for our dinner tomorrow night.
At bedtime, I read aloud the next chapter in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Tomorrow we'll catch up a bit with math, science, and reading practice.
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Posted in The Story About Ping
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Today we started with the third lesson in Leading Little Ones To God entitled We See God's Works. DS learned that even though we can't see God, we can see all of the things he has given us and we can see evidence of our blessings in the world around us.
We read Ping once again and he doesn't seem to mind that this is the 3rd day in a row that we have read the same book! We looked up 1 Peter 2:13-20 and talked about the importance of obeying authority. We discussed how God is our ultimate authority and we always have to do His will. We can find His will for our life by praying, studying His Word, and always being ready to do what He tells us is best.
For math today, we cut used little pictures of ducks to represent Ping's family. We grouped them according to the book: Ping, his mother, his father, his 2 sisters, 3 brothers, 11 aunts, 7 uncles, and 42 cousins. Then, we added them all up for a grand total of 68 family members! Here's a picture of the chart we made:
Sorry it's sideways, but you get the idea!
We then moved onto Literature and learned about "repetition" as a literary device. We found that Marjorie Flack listed Ping's family 6 times in the book!
In Art, we learned that illustrators can sometimes have use a "unifying theme" in their artwork. Kurt Wiese included the Yangtze River in all but 3 of the illustrations, showing that the river is very important and central to the lives of those living there.
In Science today, we learned about ducks! Fun! We learned that they sometimes sleep while standing on one leg with their bill tucked under their feathers. We learned that they "waddle" when they walk and they have webbed feet to help them swim faster. We learned that after a mama duck lays eggs, she loses all of her feathers and her ability to fly, so she has to hide in the grasses with her nest to stay out of sight of predators. We looked at pictures of about 20 different species of ducks - did you know there were that many different kinds of ducks? We do now!
For Reading practice, DS read A Funny Way To Help in Friends Old And New. His comprehension is excellent!
I also read Chapter 7 of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at bedtime. DS is so funny because he has seen the movie enough times to know what will happen, but he is on the edge of his bed every night waiting to see if Charlie is going to get one of the golden tickets!
Tomorrow is field trip day! Stay tuned!
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Posted in The Story About Ping
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It was a very cold and lazy morning, so we all snuggled in bed until about 9:15, just talking and laughing. Isn't that one of the best things about homeschooling? We can just go with the flow, playing and snuggling when our kids need it the most!
We started school around 11:00 after eating breakfast and finishing chores. We began with Lesson Two of Leading Little Ones To God, entitled We Cannot See God. This was a great lesson and explained very well that God is all spirit, with no body like we have. It referenced the story about Moses where God hid him between two rocks and passed by to give him a very small glimpse of His glory. DS was amazed when we read the part about Moses' face shining as bright as the sun when he came down from the mountain!
Then, we read The Story About Ping for the second time, and I think he liked it even more this time! He shouted out the master's call every time we got to that part...so funny! We read the story of Jonah from another children's book we found in our home library. It was neat to find the parrallels between Ping and Jonah. Like Ping, Jonah tried to run away and hide from his Master, but because of his disobedience, he faced fear, loneliness, and danger. In the end, they both ended up having to still do the very thing that they were running from and face the consequences of disobedience. This opened up a good discussion about doing what is right and facing up to the punishments of our wrong actions.
Then we had a short literature lesson in "fiction" vs. "non-fiction". We focused on what a fiction book is (a story out of the author's imagination) and how a lot of fiction books start with "Once upon a time", just like Ping and the short story DS wrote yesterday. So, back we went to our home library on a quest to find "fiction" books! Believe it or not, we could only find one other one that started with "Once upon a time" and we have a lot of books! This was good, though, because it forced DS to think about each book to determine if it was fiction or not. He did a good job and I think he understands this terminology now. He's also learned "author" and "illustrator" this week.
We decided to move onto a geography lesson. We looked up where China is on a world map and I showed him how it's all the way across a large ocean. Then, we looked at a smaller country map of China. We found the Yangtze river and DS traced it with a yellow marker, since Ping tells us that the water in the river is yellow. We talked about how the river is the 3rd largest in the whole world, with 350 million people living on it, and in some places it is so wide that you can't see the opposite shore. Since we just got home from the beach, he was able to use that as a comparison. We also looked up an American flag and a Chinese flag online and talked about how every country has a flag to represent it. DS colored a flag of China printout for our lapbook that we will put together over the weekend.
We moved onto penmanship after this and DS finished what he started on Day One. The two sentences he had to write were:
"They play in it." "They have webbed feet."
He did a really good job and he's getting better at letter placement and spacing in between his words when he is copying from another source. He added the picture in the frame above the writing. It's upside down, but it's 3 ducks in a pond with a yellow sky and a tree at the top. We are really enjoying using Draw Write Now for handwriting and learning to draw.
For math, we got out our Saxon K book and manipulatives. We used linking cubes to create ABB color patterns and to review one-to-one correspondence. Then, with the teddy bear counters, we worked on ordinal placement from first to fourth. Here's a picture of him using the teddy bear counters:
For reading practice, DS read the second story in Friends Old And New entitled Tim's Haircut.
For Art, we looked through Ping and studied the different ways that the illustrator gave the illusion of water: reflections, ripples, and movement lines. Then, using the book as a reference, DS tried his hand at drawing water. He used colored pencils and did a great job imitating the work of Kurt Wiese:
In Science, we learned about reflecting light, to tie in with the reflections on the water in the book. We filled the sink with water and looked at our own reflections in the water. Then, we laid a large mirror on the floor and put objects on top to see their reflections. We talked about how a reflection is light bouncing off of a shiny surface. We demonstrated this by placing a hand mirror into the sun and watching the light bounce off onto the wall. DS thought this was great fun and played with the mirror for about 15 minutes! Isn't it great that we can have so much fun as homeschoolers? In a public school, he would never have the opportunity to just play around with a science experiment in order to learn more about it. I love to see him enjoying learning!
We have been reading Charlie and The Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl as a read-aloud, so we finished our day with Chapter 6. DS loves this book and it's helping with his listening skills, since I ask him questions when the chapter is over.
Click here to see a fun "Chocolate" mini-unit I did with DS last week!
That's it for Day 2, can't wait for Day 3!
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Posted in The Story About Ping
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I think we had a good start today!
We got started right at 10:00 and did the first lesson in Leading Little Ones To God by Marian M. Schoolland. The lesson was about "faith" and how that means believing in something we can't see.
Then, we moved into reading The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack for the first time. DS loved it! He kept asking, "And what happened next!?"
After we read the story, we talked about how sometimes things look like a good thing, but really they're not. Just like Ping went after the rice cake crumb trail, but got snatched up by a boy whose family wanted to eat him for dinner! We talked about "Stranger Danger" and how sometimes bad people try to give little kids things that look good so that they can grab them and take them away from their parents. How do you teach this without scaring your children to death?
Then, we read about Solomon in 1 Kings 3:9 and we said a prayer asking God for a discerning heart, the wisdom to know what is right and what is wrong.
We decided after this "hefty" discussion to move onto something a little more light hearted, so we delved into art. We talked about how colored pencils were the medium used to draw the illustrations in the book. We examined the pictures carefully to see how the illustrator, Kurt Wiese, used combinations of colors to create different colors and shades. We made a fun discovery through our observations: It looks like he only used red, blue, and yellow pencils throughout the whole book, but with different combinations of these colors, he created green, orange, and even different shades of brown! Fun!
We took this a step further and got out our own colored pencils. Just using red, blue, and yellow, DS drew a picture of SpongeBob Squarepants, and was so excited when he figured out how to make brown!
For language arts, I had DS write his own short story that began with "Once Upon A Time". He decided to make his story correspond with his picture, so he wrote about...what else?...SpongeBob Squarepants! Ha! Can you tell he's 6?
His story went like this:
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: THE HASH-SIGHING SLASHER
"Once upon a time there was a little sponge name SpongeBob and he works at the Krusty Krab and Squidworth told a story about the Hash-Sighing Slasher. It was about the light was turning on and off. The End"
Okay, so when I said "short" story, he took that very literally! It was supposed to be "hash-slinging", not "hash-sighing", but at least he knew what he meant. He took this straight from a SpongeBob episode, so you may recognize where he was coming from if you happen to have a son this age!
When he writes, he still doesn't leave spaces between his words (although we've been working on this for months) and he wants to write in all capital letters (because that's easier), so I let him get away with it when he writes a story (for now), but we're working on these things in Penmanship.
Actually, that moves us into Penmanship. I was so excited because we just happened to get our Draw Write Now: Book 1 by Marie Hablitzel and Kim Stitzer in the mail right before it was time to move onto handwriting practice! I love these books and have been wanting to order one for some time, so I finally just bit the bullet and did it! I wasn't disappointed and DS loved his first lesson (well, half of it!)
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