Homeschooling From a Closet

Technically, it's homeschooling from a bar, but I thought that title might get me in trouble with the law.

This closet has been evolving all summer, and I finally got some time this weekend to get in there and organize.  Really it was easy, now that it's purpose is more clear.

Our home came with a dry-bar in a closet under the main staircase.  It's located between the kitchen and the formal dinning room, which we are using for our school room this year.  I still hate all the glass and mirrors, but we are blessed to have all this space, so who am I to complain too loudly.

I used basket, magazine holders, and other organizational tools to control the clutter.  All of our new curriculum has not arrived yet, but it will all fit here.  Each child can just grab what they need, and then return it at the end of the day.  Safely away from very busy little brothers!

These pencil holders from Ikea work will to hold all those little supply items.  Love them!

Art supplies, and bigger items.

Mom's work space.

Next up is bringing the girls desks down from upstairs, and organizing the entry way closet to hold Ben's toys.

This is the fun part of homeschooling, I love organizing and getting new curriculum.  

Come February I may be turing that closet back into a bar!

We had a busy weekend around here!  Madeline's bathroom got painted, and a new exhaust fan was hung.  We have been having some moisture issues in there.  The crappy builder grade paint was melting off the walls, and we were starting to get a mold problem.  New paint and new fan to the rescue!  We are still trying really hard not to invest any money in this house, but that was one area we could not ignore.

Hope you are all well, and had a wonderful weekend. 

Vistors and a field Trip

Jim's parents and sister returned our girls!  We were so glad to see them all.   They spent a few days with us and are on their way home today.  While they were here, we did some shopping, played lot's of American Trivia, and took a trip to the local children's museum...  

She's not afraid of this tornado.

Ben banged out a few tunes.

53 inches!  He's getting so tall!

Scouting out some potential photo locations.  The architecture of this old tobacco factory was really cool.

Presidential fitness test anyone?  This girl blew the averages away, must be all that swimming. 

Oops!  Trying to sneak behind the ropes!

Hermit crabs!

One last shot.

We have been lucky to have so much family time lately even though we are so far away.  Only 16 more days until we head to MI for Christmas!

Our Week and Learning Spaces

What happens when I only have two kids for the week?  Not much!  

The girls were gone to Michigan for the week and are due home tonight, so it was just the boys and I for five days.  It's been pretty quiet around here, but we managed to have some fun anyway.

We did a little school, and lot's of playing.  Owen has been busy taking care of his hermit crab.  These are the perfect pet for our "no pets" family.  They are easy and fun, allergy and stink free!

Owen is a very attentive crab owner.

I had a little time to re-think the formal dining room layout.   We are not formal dining room people, and knew this space would be a dedicated office/learning space instead.  It's open on two sides, so it's been a challenge to get it right.  

If I knew we were going to stay here forever, I would close it in and hang these beauties on both sides!  But this is not likely to be our forever home.  We could have Carrie Underwood sing "This is Our Temporary Home" here, but I won't do that to you!  

I've been learning a little about how to integrate some Montessori principles into our education plan for Ben.  He is beginning to get to the "I want to do it myself" stage, and I want to support and empower him to do things for himself.  It's not always easy for me to do this.  I like a clean space.  I am hoping to show him how to do things himself, with self control and good habits.  i.e. do one thing at a time, clean up after yourself as you go.

We shall see!  He is a tornado! 

So, anyway, I tweaked a few things and hopefully made a more child friendly "can do" space, using things we already had on hand.   The three cheap Walmart rolling kitchen carts I bought 5 years ago have served us well, in many different capacities over the years.

I took the doors off my desk, and moved Owen's desk next to mine.  I eliminated all the loud toys from Ben's space, in hopes that we can all "work" together with fewer distractions.

I've been on a purge the plastic and electronics kick.  Back to basics here.

There are a couple storage closets off this room, they help control the clutter that comes along with homeschooling.  This house has turned out to be such a blessing for our family in this season of life.  It is so live-able, and fits our needs perfectly.  Really an answer to our prayers, right down to the smallest details.  We are grateful.

Speaking of obnoxious things, I wanted to get a Ben sized chair.  Walmart to the rescue again!  I don't usually care for character themed things, but the price was right!

He loves it!  Big stuff!

While we missed the girls very much, it was a nice change of pace for a few days.  I felt like I could finally take a deep breath and enjoy a slower pace, and I know the girls had a great time visiting in Michigan.   

I am working on some fun plans for Beyond Five in a Row for January.  We will be rowing Thomas Edison Young Inventor by Sue Guthridge.  I will be posting weekly wrap ups for that, including resources used.  Can't wait!

Also in the January plans are working on the girls learning space upstairs, I will post picks after that is done.   Have a great weekend!

Our Explosive Week

This week we took a break from the book work, and explored this amazing globe we call home.  It's been a while since we did a unit study, and some real hands on learning.  Owen has been a little bored with his current routine, so I thought we should spice things up with something a little more exciting.  We used this:

Amanda Bennett's Volatile Volcanoes Unit Study

We really enjoyed our week.  Our days were full.  We cleaned out the library on everything volcano related and had lot's activities to choose from in this down load and go packet.

To wrap up our week, the kids woke up to Volcano pancakes.  We opted for the syrup, vanilla, and cinnamon vs. cheese option, yum!

The fun continued after Jim got home, with a volcano model.

Owen had been waiting for this all week!

Our dinner menu consisted of:

Buffalo chicken Wraps

something spicy seemed appropriate.

and, 

Volcano cake for dessert!  We rarely have dessert, so this was a real treat.

In honor of Marney's announcement that she wants to be an oceanographer (I'm sure this has something to do with her current obsession with mermaids and the fact that she is spending roughly half her life in the pool with her swim team these days) our next unit study will be "Oceans."  Owen suggested a huge wave cake at the end on that week, yikes!  What have I started?  

We have a busy weekend planned.  The fall foliage is in full bloom and the weather has been beautiful.  Perfect setting for a family photo, I think!  First one in forever, I can't wait.  Also scheduled is acolyte training at church for the girls, quite a long "honey-do" list for Jim, and some fun preparations for some very special guests coming in just over a week.   A productive and fun weekend ahead, hope yours is wonderful too!

madeline, this ones for you...

All Things Peanut

Part of the fun of moving to a new location, especially a different region of the country,  is trying to identify just what is in all those fields.  My Dad trained me well, on corn and soybeans, but moving here has stumped me a little bit.  The cotton was easy, tobacco too.  But the difference between peanuts and sweet potatoes?  A little more challenging.  It wasn't until to peanut fields were turned over, were our guesses confirmed.

Do other people spend this much time discussing fields?  I've even been known to chase down a tractor or two, just to see where they are headed!

Some fun peanut farming videos.  Lots of tractor action!









So interesting.  Now we understand the symbiotic relationship between peanuts and cotton, never would have guessed that!


George Washington Carver activities

Peanut Butter Bird Feeder

Yummy and cute Peanut Butter Buttons

20 Great Reasons You Homeschool

How a Kindle Can Simplify Your Homeschool

Great article on the many benefits and cost savings of owning an e-reader here. Especially true if your curriculum is heavy on hard to find books.

I just noticed that the cost for a Kindle is now down to $114. Happy e-reading!

Wrapping Up Our Week - 12/10/2010

No pictures this week, I guess we've been busy!

Busy and productive, I should say.  We've gone completely back to basics as far as school goes, and it has made all the difference.  We stripped away all the extra, "busy" work that was clogging up our day. 

 We have for some time, been following the Robinson Curriculum (RC), but adding in a few extras out of worry that it wasn't enough on it's own.  

My sister, Jen,  is considering making some curriculum changes at her house, and asking questions about RC.   Nothing like questions and research to rekindle a flame!  Discussing things with her, has helped me to remember why I loved this curriculum to begin with.   By adding in the extras along the way, based on my own insecurities, I have watered down my childrens' education. 

Simplifying their day, actually allows them a more in depth study of the basics.  It also allows them to self-teach, a skill that builds confidence, independence, and a true, lasting understanding of their subject.  I'm not spoon feeding them the information, they are taking responsibility for their own education, with my supervision and leadership, of course.   

So, what does an RC day look like in our home?

The girls begin their day with 1 lesson of Saxon math, this includes reading/referencing the daily lesson, then working all the problems in the lesson practice.  They also correct their own work, keeping track of their accuracy rate for the day.  We are going to start graphing this, in hopes of continuous improvement of focus.  Typically they are getting 2-3 problems wrong the first time through.  Not bad out of 30 problems.  Usually they are careless mistakes.  

We discuss their results.  What went well, what was difficult, etc.  It's fun to see them invested in and excited about their work.

After math, they move on to writing or reading.  They are just beginning to move through the RC reading list.  I love this list, but the books are tough. It's mostly, out of print, oldies, but goodies.  No twaddle here!  It's been a little hard for them to get into, because they are just more difficult to read than they are used to.  Proof positive that the educational standards have dropped considerably in this country.  

Reading consists of  a chapter or two a day, and memorizing vocabulary words from a pre-determined list for each book.   

The goal for writing is an essay a day.  We are not there yet.  This week the girls did some creative writing, then IEW'd a paragraph from their current reading.  We are still working on getting a good structured paragraph before they are let loose on essay's.  

The end result was a more productive, more calm week.  The girls spent more time on less work, and felt more challenged.  

With Owen, who is 6, we have been concentrating solely on reading, handwriting, and math basics.  Skip counting, memorizing math facts, reading skills, and copy work,  fill his time right now.  This is all in preparation for his first RC year.   I'm not sure if he will be ready in the fall for that or not, we will see.

So, what is Ben up too?

Exploring, babbling, and eating fill his day.  He continues to do really well. 

 The spitting up has improved tremendously!  I'm not sure if this is a result of his metabolism being regulated by correcting his thyroid issue, or because we have removed gluten from his diet.  We did both at about the same time, so who knows.  Whatever the reason, we are loving the results.  

We also had our first post-placement visit with our social worker this week.

Also re-kindled this week, knitting!  The girls picked up their needles again, and have been obsessed ever since.   Fun!  And something we all love. 

Have a great weekend!

Wrapping up our Week

This week was a bit of a slow school wise, pretty much we stuck to the three R's.  Dr. Robinson would be proud, but I still worry that it's not enough.  

I'm slowly learning that some weeks are just like that, we all get into funks now and then.  The other weeks that we really dive in, make up for the so-so weeks.

I've been thinking more and more about scheduling in short breaks throughout the year.  Might just be what we need. 

Thursday turned out to be a pretty special day, we received great news that we may have court in 10 days!   We should hopefully hear on Monday when exactly our court date is, and we can book our tickets.

Yipee!

Also, on Thursday Jim took the day off to get our fingerprints updated.  That means a trip to the big city. Poor Detroit, all the stress is showing, I hope it can make a come back soon.

Later in the afternoon we took the kids to lunch, and to the apple orchard to pick out pumpkins.  The weather was perfect.

We spent the evening getting organized and packing.

I'm looking forward to finally having a weekend off work.  We are staying close to home, and having some very special overnight guests.   I'm sure I'll have some cute pictures to share next week!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Wrapping up our Week

Since this blog originally began as a home education journal, I never had any intentions of going public, we are going back to our roots.  I need a more formal way of tracking our progress.  We are linking up with Jen and making this a weekly tradition.

This week we began our nature study and nature journals.

I've been wanting to add in a more formal nature study to our agenda, and Barb at Handbook of Nature Study has created just the curriculum.

We studied Geese, and found out that they are very intelligent birds, who knew?  We did some sketching, and a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting geese and ducks.  The kids made some really great observations.  We now enjoy these critters more than we have in the past.  This study made them more interesting and less of a nuisance.

Exploring the little stream behind our house.  In costume of course.  

Also, spent some time at a local park observing Geese.

We made little caterpillar pals out of felt and beads. 

Owen's pretty good with a needle and thread.

The 3 R's this week:

Madeline:

Saxon Math 4 lessons - accuracy improving!

IEW

Reading: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Phonics

Spelling - Phonetic Zoo

HWT

Marney:

Saxon Math 4 Lessons

IEW

Reading: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Phonics

Spelling - Phonetic Zoo

HWT

Owen:

Calendar Math - Began memorizing the addition tables.  1's this week.

Reading - McGuffy Reader Primer

HWT

Listening to:  Mr. Poppers Penguins on the Kindle, and to Daddy read "The happy Hollisters and the Haunted House Mystery" 

Loving Lego's these days, lots of construction going on around here.  

Resources we used:

Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Comstock

Genesis through Deuteronomy & ancient Egypt: A Family Study Handbook  for History, Geography, and Bible

Things They Said:

Owen:  "If I was a leaf, I would not fall off my tree."  (I believe that!  He won't get out of our bed!)

Great quote:

‘Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you ought to set up a life you don’t need to escape from.’ - Seth Godin

Have a Great Weekend!