Homeschool Me!

Archive for August, 2008


Posted on August 25, 2008 - by

Year 0: Week 1

Our school days are Tuesdays and Thursdays starting at 9:15am, when we return from dropping off Ethan at Mother’s Day Out.  Each bullet point is a 5-15 minute period of time.

Let’s see how long this schedule stays intact before we start rearranging and modifying things! :)

Monday:

Holiday

Tuesday:

  • Pledge
    Weather
    Calendar: Write out schedule & reading goals, Days of the week
    Handwriting:  Upper Case A,B,Cs
  • Phonics: Short Aa Vowel Sounds – Everything for Early Learning Grade K (pgs 100-105), Barbie Phonics (pg 2)
  • Song of the Week: Welcome to School Today
    Verse of the Week: The Seven Principles
    Rhyme/Poem: Pancakes by Christina Rossetti
  • Math: Get Ready for Kindergarten (pgs 11-18)
  • Outdoors: Backyard trees
  • Natural History: Drawing and labeling backyard trees
  • Sign Language:  Review all current signs – write a list
  • Composer Study:  Camille Saint-Saens: Carnival of the Animals (The Swan)
  • History: John, Paul, George & Ben, by Lane Smith (A great little book about some of our founding father’s as kids. Very cleverly written and even more cleverly designed/illustrated. My favorite part is at the end where the author goes through some of the more absurd “facts” of the book as fact or fiction.)
  • Literature:
  • Science:  Measuring
  • Lunch (1hr)
  • Outdoor Play (1hr)
  • Literature:  Kate’s choice
  • Independent Reading/Rest Time

Wednesday:

  • Story time at the Library  (10:30 am)
  • Turn in old and check out new books (11:00 am)
  • Lunch (1hr)
  • Outdoor Play (1hr)
  • Literature:  Library Books
  • Independent Reading/Rest Time

Thursday:

  • Pledge
    Weather
    Calendar: Days of the week – The Very Hungry Catepillar
    Handwriting:  Lower Case A,B,Cs
  • Phonics: Short Ee Vowel Sounds – Everything for Early Learning Grade K (pgs 106-110), Barbie Phonics (pg 3)
  • Song of the Week: Welcome to School Today
    Verse of the Week: The Seven Principles
    Rhyme/Poem: Pancakes by Christina Rossetti
  • Math: Counting – http://www.mathsisfun.com/games/counting-bugs.html
  • Outdoors: Frontyard trees
  • Natural History: Drawing and labeling frontyard trees
  • Geography: Map of Front yard
  • Spanish:  Review current Spanish – write a list of colors and numbers
  • Artist Study: Sandro Botticelli – Fortitude
  • Literature: Uncle Wiggily’s Picture Book: Uncle Wiggily & Neddie Stubtail
  • Handicraft:  Paint frames for Kate’s room
  • Lunch (1hr)
  • Outdoor Play (1hr)
  • Literature:  Kate’s choice
  • Independent Reading/Rest Time

Friday:

  • Nature Walk: Neighborhood Gazebos (1-1.5 hrs)
  • Natural History: Name as many trees as we can
  • Lunch (1hr)
  • Outdoor Play (1hr)
  • Literature:  Kate’s choice
  • Independent Reading/Rest Time

Posted on August 22, 2008 - by

What Do I Do with ALL that Artwork??

When you live with a budding artist, you live with piles and piles of artwork.  And ALL of it is special. And NONE of it can be thrown away.  At least, that’s what my 5 year old tells me constantly.  And as gung-ho as she is about recycling, I still can’t manage to convince her that we can recycle some of her artwork, too.

So, instead of living with the masses of piles everywhere, I started looking for ideas of what to do with it all to help contain it and keep it from taking over my entire house.  I came across several great suggestions like these:

(Continue reading this article…)


Posted on August 21, 2008 - by

Photography as an Art Form

My 5-year-old is an artist.  She loves to color.  She loves to draw.  She loves to paint.  She loves to cut and paste.  She loves to bead.  She loves to write cards.  She loves to stamp.  And she loves to take photos.  Not only does she have her own kid-friendly camera that she uses non-stop until the batteries run out, but she also loves to grab her daddy’s iPhone and take photos on it.  She’s gotten relatively good at it (we have several photos of family members that she took that are part of our collection), but the most recent addition to her collection is particularly interesting.  It’s obvious that she blurred whatever it was that she was shooting.  BUT, the resulting image was just too beautiful to delete.  We’ve printed out a copy and framed it to put in her room and I’ve got it set as my desktop pic on my computer, too.

Makes me wonder what other gorgeous pictures she could get by purposefully blurring the image…

I’m not sure if Charlotte Mason would consider photography a ‘handicraft’, but I’m thinking that in this day and age it’s most definitely an art form!  And one that I want to encourage in my artist-of-a-daughter, too.


Posted on August 20, 2008 - by

Crafty Ideas

Are you looking for cheap, crafty things to do with your kiddos to keep them from driving your batty? I stumbled across this blog the other day and thought it had some great and creative ideas for doing artsy types of things with kids and for repurposing all sorts of things around the house, too… Check out scrumdilly-do and have hours of fun!!!


Posted on August 20, 2008 - by

Story Time at The Rienzi

When I was skimming through all the indoor Houston activites for kiddos on NinaLoca, I ran across some information that just really excited me. There is a mansion in the River Oaks area that has been donated to the Museum of Fine Arts, complete with all of the artwork and collectibles that the Masterson family had acquired over the years. It houses other collections from time to time and you can regularly tour it. But, during the summer time, they offer Rienzi Storytime Tours, every Wednesday in June and July at 10am, for kids ages 4-8, as well as other family activities. (Continue reading this article…)


Posted on August 20, 2008 - by

Kids and the Outdoors

We all know the importance of getting our kids out-of-doors.  We’ve heard the studies about childhood obesity and ‘screen time’ in front of tvs and computers.  Of course, in Houston, it’s harder to get outside when temperatures are in high 90s.   But, we try occasionally anyways.

When I started studying Charlotte Mason’s educational philosophy a few months ago on my search for a homeschooling model that worked for me, I was surprised at her strong thoughts on nature.  She adamantly encourages children under the age of six to have no formal schooling, but to spend as much time as possible every day OUTSIDE.  And, as they get older, that portion of their ‘schooling’ is still important enough to get its own subject – Nature Study.  She promoted Nature Study not only as a way to use up some of that extra energy that all kids seem to have, but also as a way to learn about our world, science, and our creator.  And we all know how a walk in the woods or a beautiful garden can help us regain perspective in life and reconnect us to God.

It seems as though current studies have finally confirmed some of what Charlotte has been saying since the 1800s.  I was just introduced to this site, Children & Nature Network, and have been thoroughly impressed with the information found there.  Check out this video clip from The Today Show about kids and the outdoors.  Makes me wanna go on a hike.  Anybody want to go with me?

So, how do YOU get your kids out-of-doors for free play on a regular basis?  I’m looking for some more creative ideas, especially for our hot, humid city.  Share them in the comments section below.


Posted on August 20, 2008 - by

Great Book for Picture Study

At our last visit to the library Kate was disappointed to discover that they didn’t have any ‘Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?’ DVDs on the shelf. (Do you remember that geography-sleuth kids’ gameshow on TV in the late 80s with the catchy intro song by the group, Rockapella? These are the cartoons along the same story lines.) So, I told her that when we got home we would get online and request them via intralibrary loan. While I was online looking for her DVDs, I ran across this book that I thought sounded really promising.  (I’m not really sure why I felt the need to tell you all that, unless I really just wanted to share with the world what a geek I was in the late 80s and still am, apparently, since I can still sing some of that theme song to this day…)

Where in the World? Around the Globe in 13 Works of Art, by Bob Raczka, has turned out to be my newest favorite book for Kate. It’s a collection of 13 works of art from around the world (duh, you probably got all that from the title) with a page describing the geographical location of the piece as well as the artist and the time he/she lived in. It’s written for kids, so the language isn’t a stumbling block but, thankfully, it’s not sing-songy either.

Since I’m planning on using the Charlotte Mason approach for homeschooling, this fits in PERFECTLY with her idea of picture study (which is just studying pieces of artwork). In fact, I can even see us making a color copy of the page with the artwork and hanging it on the fridge for a week or two as we discuss it and enjoy it and describe it to one another before moving on to the next piece of artwork in the book. Oh, and here’s another idea – after studying that piece of artwork hanging on the fridge, move it into the schoolroom and tack it on the giant map on the wall onto the country it represents. One could even put it on a timeline as many of the pieces span centuries of art.

But, the best part has been Kate’s reaction to it. As soon as we sat down and started reading about the first piece of artwork by Katsushika Hokusai from late 1700s Japan, Kate was spellbound. Of course, it helps that one of the things about Hokusai was that he loved art from the age of, you guessed it, FIVE. As soon as I read that, Kate interrupted me and said with a twinkle of excitement in her eye, “Mommy! I’m five. And I like art, too!”

At the end of the reading, the author includes the last words of Hokusai:

“If heaven gives me ten more years, or an extension of even five years, I shall surely become a true artist.”

Kate looked at me and said quite seriously, “But, he IS a true artist.” To which she added, “Mommy, I’m sad that he died. Because I would like to meet him and learn more about art from him.” This. From a five year old. Wow.

Kate is excited to read tomorrow night about Little Bay, Australia and the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. And the next night about Tahiti and Paul Gauguin. And before we finish our ‘world tour’, I may have just learned a few things about art, too!

Oh, and BTW, Bob Razcka has written SEVERAL books around art.  I think I want them all!! :)


Posted on August 20, 2008 - by

Homeschooling for Me?

Our Family, Easter 2008

Our Family, Easter 2008

Those who have known me for a while, know that I used to be a school teacher.  I taught 8th grade Earth Science in the school district I grew up in, Cy-Fair ISD.  While I love teaching, I grew weary of the negative parent interactions, the lack of discipline in most students, and the inherent politics of any large organization.  So, I came home to work for my graphic designer husband, Shawn.

 

Shawn and I have debated about whether or not to homeschool children since before we even had any of our own.  While he was homeschooled for some portion of his own education, I grew up in the public school system here in Houston.  While I understand the pros and cons on both sides, I just never really wanted the responsibility of educating my own children and have felt (believe it or not) ill-equipped to do so.

But over the past year, the I’ve had a growing sense that we were going to need to homeschool Kate, at least for a few years.  (You know how the voice of God sometimes sounds like your spouse?  Yeah.  It was like that.)  And then there was just one situation that sent me on over the edge of that mountain and sealed the deal for me.  I won’t bore you with the details.  Let’s suffice it to say, I realized that Kate needed a little more attention in being confident with who she is before we throw her into any system that might try to say otherwise.

So, then the real fun began.  The oh-my-god-i’m-really-doing-this feeling hit and I started emailing and calling on friends that have been down this road and could give me good advice.  They were all very sweet and calming and encouraging, which helped tremendously.  *Lesson #1: Get a good support group.*

So, for the past few months I’ve been researching curriculums and educational models and philosophies and realizing I didn’t learn very much of this in college, surprisingly, and what DID my father spend so much money on anyways, and oh my gosh this is all so overwhelming and many other thoughts that would make this run-on of a sentence way longer. (well, at least we know I’ll be able to teach her the basics of grammar, right?)

I think I’ve found the path for me with a Charlotte Mason approach and an online curriculum called Ambleside Online.  I’ll be sure to keep you all posted on how this new chapter progresses.  And I would LOVE to hear from all of you who have homeschooled or are currently homeschooling.  I realize I have much to learn still…