In which our homeschool takes a hike.

What a fantastic end to our first week of homeschooling!  Today was our best day yet.

Sprout's reading Charlotte's Web now, and was picking at his lunch while I worked at the table.  Suddenly he asked if it was okay to eat his hot dog - you see, he was worried that it wasn't very nice to animals to eat them.  What a great teachable moment... we ended up having a long conversation about what "stewardship" is, about how there are animals who aren't wild and aren't pets, animals who provide for us, and how we have a responsibility to care for them even as we use them.  We talked about how I'd been a  vegetarian for four years while I pondered the same question.  We talked about why domestic animals couldn't hack it in the wild, and how wild animals wouldn't be happy as pets.  We talked about how what's important to an animal might not be what's important to us.  We talked about how stewardship is about more than just loving animals, but about sometimes making difficult, painful, and uncomfortable decisions about them.  It was such a good conversation, all started by a hot dog with mustard.  It's one I'm not sure we would have had if his reading had been followed by recess, then math, then music, and only several hours and many thoughts later by family time.

Most of the kids' "academic" work fits into four days, leaving the fifth day of each week mostly free for FUN.  Sprout and SweetPea raced through their little bit of studying this morning, with Sprout newly organized and motivated by our Amazing Sticky Note Time Management System (more on that to come later)!  When Doodle woke up from her nap and when PonyMommy had a lunchtime break from work, we piled into the car and headed for a park just five minutes away.

The kids had the job of collecting leaves from all sorts of trees they found.  Super-Smart Hunky Husband (SSHH) was the tree-pointer-outer and SweetPotato-chaser; PonyMommy carried Doodle and held on to Frannie the dog, who came along for the trip.  They learned about milkweed and lichens...

...met a black rat snake traveling on the path...

...and explored a fallen tree whose roots had been torn right out of the ground.

 

They ran along the old road through the park, and Sprout found out that George Washington, John Adams, and the Marquis de Lafayette had all used that same road!  We talked about what it would have been like to travel on the road back then, and wondered what Washington thought about as he rode or walked along.  The Big Evil Road that leads PonyMommy to the office replaced this little road in 1825, and we talked about what a traffic jam must have been like in the early 19th century.

 

When we got home with our leaf collection, Sprout and SweetPea set to work using the internet (supervised, of course) to find out what kinds of trees we'd encountered.  We used a great website that let them click through various options for classifying their leaves until they'd narrowed it down to the right tree.

 

They made a poster of the trees they'd found, and used the extras to do leaf rubbings.  Next week they'll study Henri Rousseau's painting "The Merry Jesters" and try their hand at drawing a scene from all the leaves they've studied, just like Rousseau did.

 

 



So - while barely cracking a book today, and with smiles all along - the kids learned about science and computers and history, art and ethics.  They got outside and got dirty.  This "fifth day," I think, is going to be a super chance for us to grow together, recharge our family batteries, and keep everyone upbeat and enjoying homeschooling.

 



On Science Experiments and Miley Cyrus

Day two, check.  We had our share of good moments and challenges.  We took a couple of hours this morning for Sprout to do some fun lil'-kid-sized science experiments in the park with other local homeschool kids.  An experienced homeschool mom led the group, and there were about fifteen kids there exploring surface tension and conductivity.  They had a lot of fun, and even Doodle enjoyed watching from her perch in the sling!

 

 

 

It was wonderful to watch the comaraderie among the kids.  Boys helped girls, older kids and younger kids worked together, and everyone pitched in with no one feeling left out.

 

When we got home, Sprout had to return to his book learnin', and found it hard to concentrate after the fun of the morning.  He did eventually settle down and got everything done, but it took some cajoling.  We talked about it, though, and he knows that in homeschool, the reward for a job well and quickly done is free time to play - so he's motivated to do better tomorrow.

 

SweetPea, on the other hand, likes to race through her worksheets at warp speed, so she sat with me this morning while she did them so I could remind her to do a good job, and not just a speedy job.

 

We're discovering the strengths and weaknesses of our curriculum.  For the most part, we're very happy with it, but there are some areas where we'll be making adjustments.  After spending for-ev-er with Sprout and his history this morning, all of us frustrated, we decided that there's too much busy work in the history curriculum as recommended.  But - we can change it!  Our school, our child, and we're the ones who decide how best to teach the material.  Kolbe Academy gets that parents are often fine-tuning things through the first weeks of school, and so they don't ask for a completed curriculum form listing all the books we're using until the end of the first quarter.  So nice to be in the driver's seat!

 

 

 

The favorite part of today for the kids was decorating the signs they held up yesterday morning, drawing pictures of all the things they want to learn about this year.  Sprout's requested lots of computers and art; SweetPea wants to learn about dogs and cats.  We'll do our best to oblige!

 

On a more philosophical note, it's a good feeling to be truly involved, hands-on, in our children's lives.  There are so many things that we outsource - for us, at this age, education isn't one of them.  The interwebz have been blowing up over Miley Cyrus' "performance" earlier this week.  Things like that make me grateful that we're the primary educators of our children - not their friends, not a teacher (amazing and wonderful as many of them are!), us. 

 

Our goal is not to shield the kids from the world.  They're going to see someone do something as inappropriate as lil' Hannah Montana did someday.  But when they do, I want us to be the ones they talk to about it.  Someday SweetPea will know what twerking is, and before she talks about it with her friends, I want her to talk about it with us - why someone would do that, how it's disrespectful to your body, the repercussions of behaving like that.  Our goal is to have the kids be smart, conscientious citizens of the world with a good moral compass.  That means that when they see a Miley-esque-blunder - and they will - we talk with them openly about it.  Being there for their education greatly increases the chance that we'll get to have those conversations.

 



First Day of School!

We did it!  While public school kids were getting on the bus and Catholic school kids were gathering in the parking lot for morning prayers, we kicked off our school year at home.  The kids had fun, we had fun, and the day was an unqualified success!

We're trying hard to make it clear to the kids that this is *real* school.  They're learning as much, doing as much, and will be involved in as much as they would be in public or private school; we're just doing much of our learning at home.  To that end, we tried to make the first day of school special.  We're having a celebratory dinner tonight, and the kids had spiffy fun first-day signs that they'll decorate tomorrow.

We started the day, like we will do every school day, with prayer.  We had a book with a special prayer for the beginning of the school year, so we used that today. 

 

 

Then they kicked off their work.  The binders worked really well - we went through the "rules" at the beginning of the day, and Sprout knew just what he was supposed to do and was able to work independently for most of the day.  He and SweetPea did their textbook work and worksheets...



 

 

And Sprout had some furry company while he did his computer work!

 

 

Sprout read and wrote and went for a run with mom.  We finished up with a science experiment in the kitchen where the kids practiced formulating a hypothesis and designing a fair test by testing the strength of paper towels (and yes, dirty dishes are a constitutive part of any science lab). 





The school day wrapped up at around lunchtime.  Some days may be a bit longer, some a bit shorter, but we'll enjoy allowing the kids to have more energy for being kids - playing outside, doing sports, spending time as a family often take a backseat when school runs until 3:45 and then there's homework, too. 

Tomorrow we'll have more standard academic fare, and we'll also be joining some other homeschool families for science in a nearby park.  We've joined a very active group of local Catholic homeschoolers - they have frequent parties, get-togethers, book clubs, and learning opportunities and are a great resource.  Tomorrow's science lab will be led by an experienced homeschool mom, a member of that group. 

The best part of today?  Everyone had fun, everyone learned.  We've got a few hiccups to work out of our routine, but I'd call it a resounding success.  At the end of every day, Sprout writes a few sentences in his journal.  This was today's entry:

Goodbye, Summer

We finished off summer yesterday with a fantastic trip to the beach and dinner with family.  This fall promises even more fun than the summer held, though, and we're ready to start the new school year in the morning!  We've got everything ready, and I'll try to give a little peek into how we've gotten organized.

Some homeschool families have amazing, fully equipped schoolrooms.  Some do all of their school around the kitchen table and at the public library.  For this year, we have the school shelf.

On top are the kids' supply boxes and binders.  This is the main thing they'll be working with each day.  Sprout's binder is much more structured and involved than SweetPea's, of course, but they're similar in how they're set up.

Inside the binders, the kids have a calendar for our school year that shows when each schoolday is and when our holidays are.  Sprout can see exactly where we are in the year and in each quarter; SweetPea can see whether we are doing schoolwork that day or not and what number day we're on in our 180-day school year.  Sprout has a weekly calendar, too, where he can see what subjects we'll be doing each day, since some of them aren't done every day.

There's a section for prayers.  We'll be starting every day with a prayer that the kids choose, and there's a selection to get them started - we'll add to it throughout the year.

Then comes the work for that day.  For Sprout, each day has a lesson plan that he can work from.  On top is a list of books he'll need that day - those are on the middle shelf.  Then there's a list of what he needs to do for each subject.  The day's worksheets are behind the lesson plan in his binder, and for subjects where he needs to write, there are notebooks on the shelf, too.  The lesson plans tell him which subjects he should be able to do on his own (spelling), which he needs to do with mommy or daddy (science experiments), and which he might need help with (new math concepts).  Most of his work he'll be able to do on his own, though, and at his own pace.

SweetPea's work for the day is primarily fun, colorful worksheets, although she'll be doing some art projects, music, science, and field trips with Sprout, too.  Sprout's school work might take a few hours each day, SweetPea's will probably take less than an hour.

The bottom shelf has extra worksheets and mom and dad's binders, where we have copies of the lesson plans and where we'll store Sprout's finished and graded work.  We'll be sending work samples in to Kolbe Academy each quarter with our grades, so we'll need to keep everything organized.

There are a ton of things on our school "wish list," but I'm trying to remember that we're just getting started and have all the time in the world to let this adventure grow!  For now, we're just incredibly grateful to have the ability and circumstances to be able to educate our children at home.  Look for pictures and a run-down of our very first day tomorrow!

Countdown...

We're starting school next week and we're almost ready!  We have textbooks and workbooks and notebooks and lesson plans.  We're ready for science experiments in the kitchen and hikes in the woods and reading on the couch. 

Best of all?  Sprout and SweetPea are really, truly excited to start this adventure.  What could be better than that?