Sunday, October 21, 2012
Moving on.....over
I'm a little fixated on my house blog lately, and a little too bad at blogging to maintain two blogs effectively, so I'm merging Boxy Colonial Academy with Boxy Colonial. I'm shooting for one homeschool and/or kid activity based post a week, which is pretty much what I was doing here at my best. I'm not going to do a weekly report, as those have tended, I feel, to get a little repetitive. But something! So, yeah--come on over if you're so inclined :)
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Schoolroom/Dining room
Back when we were looking at houses, I had a vision of a schoolroom/dining room/library....all the walls, or at least a couple of them, lined with built-in looking shelves. But then when we bought this house, I realized the judge's paneling in the dining room was going to make my plan impractical. Unless I wanted to rip out the judge's paneling. Which I do not.
So! New plan! We have a dining room/schoolroom and, on the opposite side of the foyer, in what is supposed to be the formal living room, we will have (after our planned Ikea trip) a library/music room. We're going to buy a bunch of Billy shelves and make them look beautiful, like this: http://www.centsationalgirl.com/2011/11/from-billys-to-built-ins/
Only I'm hoping to round the corner with ours, so there's room for MORE books. All the books! Also, the vintage ceramic skunk or squirrel or....??? that I bought at the thrift store. And some other pretty things. But mostly all the books! I think I also need a house blog. But that is for another day.
Right now, though, that room has our old shelves in it, and a piano, and books overflowing all over the place. But the schoolroom is starting to come together. It is mostly furnished. We painted a few days ago. I still need more stuff for the walls. And to get the giant pile of books on the buffet relocated into the new shelves when they are done. Those lamps are going to go live somewhere else, too. But here you go:
So there's our table and buffet--both housewarming gifts from my Mom, who has a shop that sells such things. Mostly we eat in the kitchen, but it's nice to have the dining room available when we have people over and need more space (the table has another leaf and two more chairs that we can add, and, once the leaf is in, we can pull in kitchen chairs and seat as many as 10 fairly comfortably, I think).
The buffet is very big and holds tons of stuff. On the sides, each kid has his own compartment for books that he uses most days. And then we keep current history books and stuff like markers and pencils and scissors on the shelves in the middle. I'm not taking a picture of the inside, because it's already messy. But that's the point! It can stay messy, because no one sees the inside! Yay! The paint color, which will eventually take over the whole front of the house and maybe the stairwell and upstairs hallway is Benjamin Moore's Nantucket Fog. I was a little obsessive about picking a paint color, and this one is still more blue and less gray than I really meant for it to be, but I'm still loving it so far.
Then, in the corner by the kitchen, we have this cabinet, which we call The Old Lady Cabinet, because Dave says it looks like something an old lady would have. But I think it is pretty:
and the inside of it:
I can show a picture of the inside of it, because I made it look pretty with baskets from Target. The baskets on top are library books and then various books/activities that, in theory, the kids will work on when they have some down time but it's still school time--like when I'm working with one kid and can't move on to the next thing yet. And the baskets have mostly math stuff and art supplies. The idea is supposed to be that Gus (mostly) can pull out one of those smaller baskets and work on math (pattern blocks, geoboards, etc) independently. In actually practice, usually he plays multiplication games or Stack the States on my iphone instead. Which makes all my neat little baskets seem like kind of a pretty waste of space. But we will see how things evolve.
So there you have it. I wanted a room that would be very functional as a schoolroom but still be able to pass as a regular old dining room (particularly since this room and the living room/future library are right at the front of the house--we no longer have a good extra room where we can hide away all the mess and kid stuff), and so far it's working well. We don't have lots of educational posters and kid art work on the walls, but my kids don't produce much artwork and they never really looked at the educational posters anyway. I would like to finally get my stuff together enough to do a timeline somewhere....but we might use the upstairs hallway for that.
So! New plan! We have a dining room/schoolroom and, on the opposite side of the foyer, in what is supposed to be the formal living room, we will have (after our planned Ikea trip) a library/music room. We're going to buy a bunch of Billy shelves and make them look beautiful, like this: http://www.centsationalgirl.com/2011/11/from-billys-to-built-ins/
Only I'm hoping to round the corner with ours, so there's room for MORE books. All the books! Also, the vintage ceramic skunk or squirrel or....??? that I bought at the thrift store. And some other pretty things. But mostly all the books! I think I also need a house blog. But that is for another day.
Right now, though, that room has our old shelves in it, and a piano, and books overflowing all over the place. But the schoolroom is starting to come together. It is mostly furnished. We painted a few days ago. I still need more stuff for the walls. And to get the giant pile of books on the buffet relocated into the new shelves when they are done. Those lamps are going to go live somewhere else, too. But here you go:
So there's our table and buffet--both housewarming gifts from my Mom, who has a shop that sells such things. Mostly we eat in the kitchen, but it's nice to have the dining room available when we have people over and need more space (the table has another leaf and two more chairs that we can add, and, once the leaf is in, we can pull in kitchen chairs and seat as many as 10 fairly comfortably, I think).
The buffet is very big and holds tons of stuff. On the sides, each kid has his own compartment for books that he uses most days. And then we keep current history books and stuff like markers and pencils and scissors on the shelves in the middle. I'm not taking a picture of the inside, because it's already messy. But that's the point! It can stay messy, because no one sees the inside! Yay! The paint color, which will eventually take over the whole front of the house and maybe the stairwell and upstairs hallway is Benjamin Moore's Nantucket Fog. I was a little obsessive about picking a paint color, and this one is still more blue and less gray than I really meant for it to be, but I'm still loving it so far.
Then, in the corner by the kitchen, we have this cabinet, which we call The Old Lady Cabinet, because Dave says it looks like something an old lady would have. But I think it is pretty:
and the inside of it:
I can show a picture of the inside of it, because I made it look pretty with baskets from Target. The baskets on top are library books and then various books/activities that, in theory, the kids will work on when they have some down time but it's still school time--like when I'm working with one kid and can't move on to the next thing yet. And the baskets have mostly math stuff and art supplies. The idea is supposed to be that Gus (mostly) can pull out one of those smaller baskets and work on math (pattern blocks, geoboards, etc) independently. In actually practice, usually he plays multiplication games or Stack the States on my iphone instead. Which makes all my neat little baskets seem like kind of a pretty waste of space. But we will see how things evolve.
So there you have it. I wanted a room that would be very functional as a schoolroom but still be able to pass as a regular old dining room (particularly since this room and the living room/future library are right at the front of the house--we no longer have a good extra room where we can hide away all the mess and kid stuff), and so far it's working well. We don't have lots of educational posters and kid art work on the walls, but my kids don't produce much artwork and they never really looked at the educational posters anyway. I would like to finally get my stuff together enough to do a timeline somewhere....but we might use the upstairs hallway for that.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Schedules and whatnot
Scheduling is always a challenge because I have 3 kids, and lots of stuff that we want to do outside of the house, and also lots of stuff to do INSIDE of the house. So much stuff!
This year we're trying out an innovatively.....vague schedule, and it's working pretty well so far. Mornings (when we're home) we do an hour of math in the mornings, first thing (we're supposed to Bible stories plus poetry before that, but it requires starting earlier than I seem to feel comfortable with. I think maybe I can drop the poetry and do that in the car instead, and fit in 10-15 minutes for the Bible. Will work on that. I can do it!) Kids are relatively independent with math this year, so the idea is that, if I'm not busy reading message boards and e-mail, I can get some cleaning done in between questions from kids.
Then we do 2 hours of language arts. This includes reading, grammar, and writing. So far how it mostly breaks down is that I do MCT stuff with Ari while Milo reads and Gus does Brain Pop or Grammaropolis or something or other. Then Ari and Gus go read while I do MCT and Writing with Ease with Milo. Then Ari goes to work on Writing with Skill and I let Milo either do Brain Pop or read non-school stuff (which, apparently, is always going to be Harry Potter) while Gus and I do Writing with Ease and, sometimes, KISS grammar. We finish up with going through The Arrow (Milo and Gus) or Boomerang (Ari), and then there is lunch!
After lunch break, we have time for homework for various outside classes plus music practice (piano for everyone, guitar for Milo, practicing songs from his play for Gus). And then we finish up with history.
This is a highly simplified version of things, since there's only one day a week when we're actually home long enough that we can do all of this straight through in this order. But the math/language arts block happens pretty frequently, which is what I care the most about, so....so far, so good.
Note: It has been pointed out to me that we no longer live in the house with the dogwoods and the creek, so we need a new school/blog name. After some discussion, Ari and I have agreed upon Boxy Colonial Academy. Because we live in a boxy colonial. Every house built in the 80's in this part of Georgia is a boxy colonial. Well, maybe not EVERY house. But we looked at a lot of boxy colonials. Anyway....new blog header and name change coming soon!
This year we're trying out an innovatively.....vague schedule, and it's working pretty well so far. Mornings (when we're home) we do an hour of math in the mornings, first thing (we're supposed to Bible stories plus poetry before that, but it requires starting earlier than I seem to feel comfortable with. I think maybe I can drop the poetry and do that in the car instead, and fit in 10-15 minutes for the Bible. Will work on that. I can do it!) Kids are relatively independent with math this year, so the idea is that, if I'm not busy reading message boards and e-mail, I can get some cleaning done in between questions from kids.
Then we do 2 hours of language arts. This includes reading, grammar, and writing. So far how it mostly breaks down is that I do MCT stuff with Ari while Milo reads and Gus does Brain Pop or Grammaropolis or something or other. Then Ari and Gus go read while I do MCT and Writing with Ease with Milo. Then Ari goes to work on Writing with Skill and I let Milo either do Brain Pop or read non-school stuff (which, apparently, is always going to be Harry Potter) while Gus and I do Writing with Ease and, sometimes, KISS grammar. We finish up with going through The Arrow (Milo and Gus) or Boomerang (Ari), and then there is lunch!
After lunch break, we have time for homework for various outside classes plus music practice (piano for everyone, guitar for Milo, practicing songs from his play for Gus). And then we finish up with history.
This is a highly simplified version of things, since there's only one day a week when we're actually home long enough that we can do all of this straight through in this order. But the math/language arts block happens pretty frequently, which is what I care the most about, so....so far, so good.
Note: It has been pointed out to me that we no longer live in the house with the dogwoods and the creek, so we need a new school/blog name. After some discussion, Ari and I have agreed upon Boxy Colonial Academy. Because we live in a boxy colonial. Every house built in the 80's in this part of Georgia is a boxy colonial. Well, maybe not EVERY house. But we looked at a lot of boxy colonials. Anyway....new blog header and name change coming soon!
Friday, August 17, 2012
Long time no blog.....
Umm, hello. Last year got away from me somehow. I can blame the second half of the year on the fact that we listed and sold our old house and moved into a new one (!), but I have no excuse for pre-January. Now the blogger interface looks completely different, it's been so long!
To sum up, last year was good and eventful. The school part went well. All the extracurricular stuff went well. We were very busy all the time. Then we decided we weren't quite busy enough, so we spent a lot of time fixing up our house to sell and then moving. Then I got pregnant. Then Dave changed jobs (well, same job, new school). Also, we're fostering dogs now.
See? This is Cocoa, our first foster dog. She's supposed to be leaving to go to her new home on Monday, though.
So NOW I feel like we have enough going on.
So! New year in a new house. The new house is much closer to friends and activities, so we spend a lot less time in the car, and this is lovely. Milo's guitar lesson today is less than 5 minutes away. For example.
I feel like we're cruising along so nicely (last year and this year) with academic stuff. I'm happy with pretty much everything we're using; the kids are mostly working hard and not complaining (and not complaining, particularly for Ari, means actively enjoying....even if he'd never admit it). I will probably need to break the what-we're-doing-these-days summary into a few posts so that it doesn't get out of control. Let's give this a try....part 1: curriculum and scheduling. part 2: the new schoolroom! part 3: all the out of the house stuff.
Part 1, then!
Ari:
Math: Jacob's algebra, along with some Brain Pop and Khan Academy. This is going so nicely. He started it last year, after AOPS Pre-algebra proved a bit too frustrating for us. He's doing really well with it, and Dave is spending time a few times a week checking his work and going over things with him. Despite our kind of scattered math year last year, he did really well on the Explore last spring, especially in math and English (brag alert! 93% percentile in math compared to 8th graders taking the test, and he was in 5th grade)...so I guess we're doing okay in spite of ourselves.
Language Arts: a lot of stuff. He's maybe 2/3 of the way through Writing With Skill. We started MCT's Voyage level last year, but didn't get too far with it, so most of that is left for this year. I bought some back issues of Bravewriter's Boomerang from Homeschool Buyer's Co-op, so we're going through that and doing some writing assignments for literature studies. We have The Creative Writer, which we'll try to get to from time to time. He's taking a King Arthur literature class elsewhere. And I have a big ol' reading list for him to work through in all his spare time.
Milo:
Math: Singapore 3B and Beast Academy 3, along with Brain Pop and apps to finally memorize the multiplication tables. Still moving along. Still slow going. I'm hoping Beast Academy will spice things up a bit, and give him more of a chance to show off his relatively good conceptual skills and give him a break from his relatively agonizingly slow computation skills.
Language Arts: MCT's Town Level, Writing With Ease (we're halfway through level 3, and then we'll move on to 4), a daily language practice workbook that his ITBS scores suggested would be a good idea, Bravewriter's The Arrow, and lots of books.
August:
Math: Singapore 2A and lots of games and Brain Pop. Poor Gus' education depends more heavily on Brain Pop than I would like this year....but he has developed a fascination with and love for exponents as a result (he refuses to use Brain Pop, Jr.), so I guess it's not a total waste.
Language Arts: Writing With Ease (halfway or so through level 1 right now). We're trying KISS grammar, too, since he wants MORE. I'm trying giving him the same books as Milo this year and having him follow along with The Arrow, too. We'll see how that goes. He's not really any slower at reading than Milo, but his endurance is not nearly as good, so I'm not sure he can keep up. But Milo will probably usually finish the month's Arrow book in less than 2 weeks, so Gus can just keep going for the rest of the month while Milo moves on.
And then....
History: We're doing Story of the World 3. Last year we mostly just did lots of reading; I'd like to keep up with the mapwork and questions from the activity guide and even the occasional project this year. We'll see how that goes.
We're reading Bible stories and working on poetry memorization, too. There is bunches more, but I think the rest of it farmed out.
Maybe FOUR parts! Because I'm tired now and would like to postpone the talk of how we schedule all of this stuff for another time.
To sum up, last year was good and eventful. The school part went well. All the extracurricular stuff went well. We were very busy all the time. Then we decided we weren't quite busy enough, so we spent a lot of time fixing up our house to sell and then moving. Then I got pregnant. Then Dave changed jobs (well, same job, new school). Also, we're fostering dogs now.
So NOW I feel like we have enough going on.
So! New year in a new house. The new house is much closer to friends and activities, so we spend a lot less time in the car, and this is lovely. Milo's guitar lesson today is less than 5 minutes away. For example.
I feel like we're cruising along so nicely (last year and this year) with academic stuff. I'm happy with pretty much everything we're using; the kids are mostly working hard and not complaining (and not complaining, particularly for Ari, means actively enjoying....even if he'd never admit it). I will probably need to break the what-we're-doing-these-days summary into a few posts so that it doesn't get out of control. Let's give this a try....part 1: curriculum and scheduling. part 2: the new schoolroom! part 3: all the out of the house stuff.
Part 1, then!
Ari:
Math: Jacob's algebra, along with some Brain Pop and Khan Academy. This is going so nicely. He started it last year, after AOPS Pre-algebra proved a bit too frustrating for us. He's doing really well with it, and Dave is spending time a few times a week checking his work and going over things with him. Despite our kind of scattered math year last year, he did really well on the Explore last spring, especially in math and English (brag alert! 93% percentile in math compared to 8th graders taking the test, and he was in 5th grade)...so I guess we're doing okay in spite of ourselves.
Language Arts: a lot of stuff. He's maybe 2/3 of the way through Writing With Skill. We started MCT's Voyage level last year, but didn't get too far with it, so most of that is left for this year. I bought some back issues of Bravewriter's Boomerang from Homeschool Buyer's Co-op, so we're going through that and doing some writing assignments for literature studies. We have The Creative Writer, which we'll try to get to from time to time. He's taking a King Arthur literature class elsewhere. And I have a big ol' reading list for him to work through in all his spare time.
Milo:
Math: Singapore 3B and Beast Academy 3, along with Brain Pop and apps to finally memorize the multiplication tables. Still moving along. Still slow going. I'm hoping Beast Academy will spice things up a bit, and give him more of a chance to show off his relatively good conceptual skills and give him a break from his relatively agonizingly slow computation skills.
Language Arts: MCT's Town Level, Writing With Ease (we're halfway through level 3, and then we'll move on to 4), a daily language practice workbook that his ITBS scores suggested would be a good idea, Bravewriter's The Arrow, and lots of books.
August:
Math: Singapore 2A and lots of games and Brain Pop. Poor Gus' education depends more heavily on Brain Pop than I would like this year....but he has developed a fascination with and love for exponents as a result (he refuses to use Brain Pop, Jr.), so I guess it's not a total waste.
Language Arts: Writing With Ease (halfway or so through level 1 right now). We're trying KISS grammar, too, since he wants MORE. I'm trying giving him the same books as Milo this year and having him follow along with The Arrow, too. We'll see how that goes. He's not really any slower at reading than Milo, but his endurance is not nearly as good, so I'm not sure he can keep up. But Milo will probably usually finish the month's Arrow book in less than 2 weeks, so Gus can just keep going for the rest of the month while Milo moves on.
And then....
History: We're doing Story of the World 3. Last year we mostly just did lots of reading; I'd like to keep up with the mapwork and questions from the activity guide and even the occasional project this year. We'll see how that goes.
We're reading Bible stories and working on poetry memorization, too. There is bunches more, but I think the rest of it farmed out.
Maybe FOUR parts! Because I'm tired now and would like to postpone the talk of how we schedule all of this stuff for another time.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Week 2
I haven't sent in my declaration of intent yet. Must do that. Okay, dust settling, time to think about places that need tweaking. I need to be more on top of getting ready the night before. Dave and I are both trying to keep up with Ari in Greek. So far this is all about the alphabet and diphthongs and whatnot, and Dave is much better at that than I am. The code aspect maybe. I think my brain isn't as good as it used to be. I took Russian for a year in college and don't remember having any trouble with that alphabet. Of course, Dave wasn't taking Russian with me; maybe he would have been better at that, too. And, since we're driving all over the place this year, I need to make better use of car time. We already listen to SOTW in the car, but I need to get all the poetry we're working on in a central place (like my ipod) so we can work on that without me fumbling around trying to change discs and killing us all. Also, it wouldn't hurt to do a little more lesson planning for history and science on the weekends. So far I'm very, very pleased with pretty much all of our curricula. No one's complaining about anything, and, in fact, everyone's enjoying most everything. Ari sighed deeply yesterday and told me that weekends are boring. Of course, he hasn't started Art of Problem Solving yet. There's still plenty of potential for complaining this year!
Random stuff about the week:
*Gus added drama and swimming in this week, on top of tap. He told me he likes drama class even more than drama camp so far, which I didn't really think was possible. Milo's taking swimming, too (it's just a 5 lesson thing right now, unless we sign them up for another session, which we probably won't until spring. Gus isn't swimming at all. Milo swims great until he needs to come up for air. There are no swim team aspirations--just get across the pool without drowning ones). Gus said swimming was "awesome" and Milo said it was "okay."
*Milo had his first guitar lesson. He has one chord to practice this week, and it's really hard. I tried it. So far he is still very excited instead of frustrated, though. Dave's plan is that Milo will teach him everything he learns in his lessons and they'll practice together. I think this is a very motivating plan.
*We're actually doing piano lessons and practice regularly so far this year! Last year I felt like we didn't have enough of an arts emphasis around here, and now, between piano, guitar, tap, and drama, we've tilted a long way in the other direction. I am pretty hopeless when it comes to music, but Dave is not, and all the kids seem to have inherited his competence. And height. I am pleased with this. Maybe I should learn piano, too. I could probably do it. Not guitar, though. That hurts my fingers.
*Ari finished Alice in Wonderland this week. I was counting on it taking a little longer, since Michael Clay Thompson tells me that I'm supposed to read it, too. I haven't read it all the way through since high school, so I guess I'd better do it. I also need to pull the teacher book for MCT lit out and refresh my memory on all of that.
*Our first Science in a Nutshell kit for the year is about fossils, and it seems like mostly what we're going to do is...make fossils. Over and over again with various messy substances. Sigh. Science is messy.
Random stuff about the week:
*Gus added drama and swimming in this week, on top of tap. He told me he likes drama class even more than drama camp so far, which I didn't really think was possible. Milo's taking swimming, too (it's just a 5 lesson thing right now, unless we sign them up for another session, which we probably won't until spring. Gus isn't swimming at all. Milo swims great until he needs to come up for air. There are no swim team aspirations--just get across the pool without drowning ones). Gus said swimming was "awesome" and Milo said it was "okay."
*Milo had his first guitar lesson. He has one chord to practice this week, and it's really hard. I tried it. So far he is still very excited instead of frustrated, though. Dave's plan is that Milo will teach him everything he learns in his lessons and they'll practice together. I think this is a very motivating plan.
*We're actually doing piano lessons and practice regularly so far this year! Last year I felt like we didn't have enough of an arts emphasis around here, and now, between piano, guitar, tap, and drama, we've tilted a long way in the other direction. I am pretty hopeless when it comes to music, but Dave is not, and all the kids seem to have inherited his competence. And height. I am pleased with this. Maybe I should learn piano, too. I could probably do it. Not guitar, though. That hurts my fingers.
*Ari finished Alice in Wonderland this week. I was counting on it taking a little longer, since Michael Clay Thompson tells me that I'm supposed to read it, too. I haven't read it all the way through since high school, so I guess I'd better do it. I also need to pull the teacher book for MCT lit out and refresh my memory on all of that.
*Our first Science in a Nutshell kit for the year is about fossils, and it seems like mostly what we're going to do is...make fossils. Over and over again with various messy substances. Sigh. Science is messy.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
The very crowded week in action: Week 1!
We finally managed to string a few days together last week--all five of them, in fact! Things went really well; I'm simultaneously surprised by how much we're managing to get done and how long it's all taking us. Which seems incongruous, but there you have it. That's just how I feel. So let's see:
Gus: I'll start with Gus for once. Poor kid.
*started tap class! As usual with any sort of class that he takes, he reported that, "my class was awesome," in a monotone that didn't really go with what he was saying. There were three kids in the class, which seemed really small until we went again today, and he was the only one there this time. So at the moment we're getting a really good deal on private tap lessons for Gus. I peeked through the windows at him some. Tap dancing looks hard. Better him than me.
*working on some book Dave's aunt sent us a long time ago that seems to be extra practice for Singapore 1. He'd kind of a hit a wall with adding past 10 in Singapore last spring, so I'm having him go through this to kind of stall him until he seems ready to pick back up with it.
*reading The Littles. Gets headaches whenever he reads. He's going to the eye doctor tomorrow. I don't know if it's really something with his vision or just his allergies/asthma stuff. I'm hoping for vision because it's more easily fixable.
*still loving those RWP Aesop books. I was kind of hoping the last 3 books would last him 2 years until he's ready to start MCT. But it's not looking good. WWE is going well, too.
*starts drama class tomorrow
Milo:
*cannot think of any part of school that he doesn't enjoy. That seems like a good way to start the year.
*started Charlotte's Web last week and is on the last chapter now, I think. The Indian in the Cupboard is up next. This year the plan is to hit all the must reads he hasn't read yet (I did read Charlotte's Web to him when he was younger, of course, but he doesn't remember much of it) and do the MCT literature.
*working on mental addition in Singapore (he finally made it to 2B). It's going really well. His speed is increasing, and his frustration-induced meltdowns are very rare. I'm hoping to go through 2B quickly and start on 3...by Thanksgiving, maybe? So he'll have more of 3 under his belt before he takes the ITBS in spring. Not that it really matters, since I'm the only one who sees the scores. But he does have to take it, so he might as well be as prepared as possible for it.
*really loving Grammar Island so far and doesn't seem to be having any trouble understanding or retaining anything. I was/am curious to see how this would go, since by the time Ari did Grammar Island he'd had 3 1/2 years of First Language Lessons. Milo hasn't really had much formal grammar; we've talked about stuff as we've done Writing with Ease, but that's about it (we did start First Language Lessons with him, but it was awhile ago, and I don't think we made it too far).
*Writing With Ease going well; he still writes very s-l-o-w-l-y, though. But pretty neatly and without complaining, so I'll take it.
*starts guitar tomorrow. He's doing guitar because we insisted he pick something (in addition to homeschool soccer, which they're all doing again). But once he picked it, he got very excited about it. We bought him a guitar last night. We'd been thinking acoustic at first, but several people told us that electric was easier to start on for kids and that he'd be more likely to stick with it that way, so that's what we got.
Ari:
*really liking (both of us are) Writing With Skill so far. It's very systematic, and Ari likes systematic. I have a 45 minute block of time set aside for writing/logic, so so far he's doing WWS and then filling in any extra time with Mindbenders. I think we'll do another year of various logic puzzles instead of a more official curriculum. Because we have no time! I'd rather have a very writing-intensive year for him than try to fit in a critical thinking course.
*alternating Greek and Spanish, and doing well with/enjoying both. His Spanish classes start up the first week of September. I ordered the DVDs for Spanish with Children, so I'm having him catch up on watching the lessons before he moves on in the book (I think he's on lesson 6 or somewhere thereabouts; he's watched through lesson 4 as of today, I believe).
*started Grammar Voyage and Caesar's English II. I let him drop Killgallon, since he's doing so much other writing, but we're also working through Figuratively Speaking, and he's enjoying that.
*read My Side of the Mountain last week, which ended up being lovely timing as his friend Lula had a wilderness survival themed birthday party on Saturday. He's reading the second book from the Hunger Games series at bedtime. I hesitated to let him read it, as it sounded pretty intense, but most of his friends have read it, so I relented.
*started Math Olympiad on Sunday.
Defying easy categorization:
*I toyed with the idea of having Milo do Spanish for Children along with Ari this year, but halfway through the first chapter I decided it would be better to wait another year. So he and Gus are watching Discovery Streaming lessons plus doing this website: https://www.foreignlanguagefriends.com/
*started Song School Greek with Milo and Gus
*history! We're still feeling things out with this. Ari's also doing Mapping the World with Art. He did the first lesson of that the other day while Milo, Gus, and I played around with some Usborne Quicklink stuff. What we're trying for now is listening to SOTW in the car, then half an hour on history days reading aloud and doing the review questions. Then we split up for independent reading (me to Gus, Ari and Milo on their own). And then there's the map stuff for Ari and computer stuff for Milo and Gus. I think we're just doing that once a week, though that will probably mean taking a couple of years to go through MTWWA.
*Science! I'm planning to sign Ari up for PLATO maybe next month, but for now we're all working on a Science in a Nutshell kit about fossils. And watching documentaries about dinosaurs.
Phew! I suspect my weekly reports could get long this year. Or, you know, less thorough.
Gus: I'll start with Gus for once. Poor kid.
*started tap class! As usual with any sort of class that he takes, he reported that, "my class was awesome," in a monotone that didn't really go with what he was saying. There were three kids in the class, which seemed really small until we went again today, and he was the only one there this time. So at the moment we're getting a really good deal on private tap lessons for Gus. I peeked through the windows at him some. Tap dancing looks hard. Better him than me.
*working on some book Dave's aunt sent us a long time ago that seems to be extra practice for Singapore 1. He'd kind of a hit a wall with adding past 10 in Singapore last spring, so I'm having him go through this to kind of stall him until he seems ready to pick back up with it.
*reading The Littles. Gets headaches whenever he reads. He's going to the eye doctor tomorrow. I don't know if it's really something with his vision or just his allergies/asthma stuff. I'm hoping for vision because it's more easily fixable.
*still loving those RWP Aesop books. I was kind of hoping the last 3 books would last him 2 years until he's ready to start MCT. But it's not looking good. WWE is going well, too.
*starts drama class tomorrow
Milo:
*cannot think of any part of school that he doesn't enjoy. That seems like a good way to start the year.
*started Charlotte's Web last week and is on the last chapter now, I think. The Indian in the Cupboard is up next. This year the plan is to hit all the must reads he hasn't read yet (I did read Charlotte's Web to him when he was younger, of course, but he doesn't remember much of it) and do the MCT literature.
*working on mental addition in Singapore (he finally made it to 2B). It's going really well. His speed is increasing, and his frustration-induced meltdowns are very rare. I'm hoping to go through 2B quickly and start on 3...by Thanksgiving, maybe? So he'll have more of 3 under his belt before he takes the ITBS in spring. Not that it really matters, since I'm the only one who sees the scores. But he does have to take it, so he might as well be as prepared as possible for it.
*really loving Grammar Island so far and doesn't seem to be having any trouble understanding or retaining anything. I was/am curious to see how this would go, since by the time Ari did Grammar Island he'd had 3 1/2 years of First Language Lessons. Milo hasn't really had much formal grammar; we've talked about stuff as we've done Writing with Ease, but that's about it (we did start First Language Lessons with him, but it was awhile ago, and I don't think we made it too far).
*Writing With Ease going well; he still writes very s-l-o-w-l-y, though. But pretty neatly and without complaining, so I'll take it.
*starts guitar tomorrow. He's doing guitar because we insisted he pick something (in addition to homeschool soccer, which they're all doing again). But once he picked it, he got very excited about it. We bought him a guitar last night. We'd been thinking acoustic at first, but several people told us that electric was easier to start on for kids and that he'd be more likely to stick with it that way, so that's what we got.
Ari:
*really liking (both of us are) Writing With Skill so far. It's very systematic, and Ari likes systematic. I have a 45 minute block of time set aside for writing/logic, so so far he's doing WWS and then filling in any extra time with Mindbenders. I think we'll do another year of various logic puzzles instead of a more official curriculum. Because we have no time! I'd rather have a very writing-intensive year for him than try to fit in a critical thinking course.
*alternating Greek and Spanish, and doing well with/enjoying both. His Spanish classes start up the first week of September. I ordered the DVDs for Spanish with Children, so I'm having him catch up on watching the lessons before he moves on in the book (I think he's on lesson 6 or somewhere thereabouts; he's watched through lesson 4 as of today, I believe).
*started Grammar Voyage and Caesar's English II. I let him drop Killgallon, since he's doing so much other writing, but we're also working through Figuratively Speaking, and he's enjoying that.
*read My Side of the Mountain last week, which ended up being lovely timing as his friend Lula had a wilderness survival themed birthday party on Saturday. He's reading the second book from the Hunger Games series at bedtime. I hesitated to let him read it, as it sounded pretty intense, but most of his friends have read it, so I relented.
*started Math Olympiad on Sunday.
Defying easy categorization:
*I toyed with the idea of having Milo do Spanish for Children along with Ari this year, but halfway through the first chapter I decided it would be better to wait another year. So he and Gus are watching Discovery Streaming lessons plus doing this website: https://www.foreignlanguagefriends.com/
*started Song School Greek with Milo and Gus
*history! We're still feeling things out with this. Ari's also doing Mapping the World with Art. He did the first lesson of that the other day while Milo, Gus, and I played around with some Usborne Quicklink stuff. What we're trying for now is listening to SOTW in the car, then half an hour on history days reading aloud and doing the review questions. Then we split up for independent reading (me to Gus, Ari and Milo on their own). And then there's the map stuff for Ari and computer stuff for Milo and Gus. I think we're just doing that once a week, though that will probably mean taking a couple of years to go through MTWWA.
*Science! I'm planning to sign Ari up for PLATO maybe next month, but for now we're all working on a Science in a Nutshell kit about fossils. And watching documentaries about dinosaurs.
Phew! I suspect my weekly reports could get long this year. Or, you know, less thorough.
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
The very crowded week.
That's what we will have every week this fall, it seems. I'm kind of looking forward to it, actually. But ask me again in October. Nothing scheduled out of the house any weekday mornings, though, so we should be able to get school finished pretty easily with some minor tweaks to the schedule.
Monday:
Ari--Spanish from 1:30-2:30
Gus--tap dance from 3-4
Tuesday:
nothing!
Wednesday:
Gus-- drama from 4:30-5:30
Milo-- guitar, probably, TBD
Thursday:
Everyone--soccer from 1-3
Friday:
park day in the afternoon
Saturday:
Gus and Milo--swimming from 10-11
Sunday:
Ari--Math Olympiad at 3
Gus was supposed to be doing a baseball class on Friday afternoons, but then he wanted to sign up for tap and I realized he'd be missing two of the eight classes when we go to Disney, so I talked him into dropping it. Of course, I have to actually go to the place to cancel it; they won't let you do it over the phone or online. This annoys me. I have procured (expensive) tap shoes for Gus, and his class starts next week. I'm waiting to hear back from the guitar teacher about scheduling Milo's lesson. We took him to a music store last night to look at guitars, and the guy there suggested we might just want to do a full size guitar because he thinks Milo will outgrow a smaller one in a few months. I dunno, though--Dave has a full size guitar and it looks HUGE when Milo holds it. I guess we'll wait and see what his teacher says. Tap and maybe guitar start next week, drama, math olympiad, and swimming the week after, and then the other stuff at the end of the month. Exciting!
Monday:
Ari--Spanish from 1:30-2:30
Gus--tap dance from 3-4
Tuesday:
nothing!
Wednesday:
Gus-- drama from 4:30-5:30
Milo-- guitar, probably, TBD
Thursday:
Everyone--soccer from 1-3
Friday:
park day in the afternoon
Saturday:
Gus and Milo--swimming from 10-11
Sunday:
Ari--Math Olympiad at 3
Gus was supposed to be doing a baseball class on Friday afternoons, but then he wanted to sign up for tap and I realized he'd be missing two of the eight classes when we go to Disney, so I talked him into dropping it. Of course, I have to actually go to the place to cancel it; they won't let you do it over the phone or online. This annoys me. I have procured (expensive) tap shoes for Gus, and his class starts next week. I'm waiting to hear back from the guitar teacher about scheduling Milo's lesson. We took him to a music store last night to look at guitars, and the guy there suggested we might just want to do a full size guitar because he thinks Milo will outgrow a smaller one in a few months. I dunno, though--Dave has a full size guitar and it looks HUGE when Milo holds it. I guess we'll wait and see what his teacher says. Tap and maybe guitar start next week, drama, math olympiad, and swimming the week after, and then the other stuff at the end of the month. Exciting!
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