Where has the time gone?

Yeah, it's been over a year and a half since I posted anything to our homeschool blog. Now, that doesn't mean we've neglected the lessons of a formal schooling. No way. We've been busy living life in and around the reading and lessons of Beyond Five in a Row. We've gone through the whole volume of Apologia's Exploring Creation through Astronomy. I guess we've just been busy doing what needs to be done and less talking about it.

I hope to get back into the swing of it here though. It's a fun way to keep track of what we're doing.

Isn't this appropriate?

Many of you know how I spent time and energy making our small bedroom into a school room. You know how proud I am of our little school room.

Here's what happened though. During our Christmas break from all things 3R, the little school room became a storage area for the stuff that accumulated during the frenzy of the holidays.I bought a desk apprentice and stuck it in there (unopened ) and books from PBS were tossed in from the door only to land haphazardly on my teacher's counter.Christmas crafts and paints were kind of shoved in and stacked up.In short the school room is a bit of a mess.

So, I trudged in a couple weeks ago to retrieve the desk apprentice and pick through the piles gathering some books so we could get back on track.I took the fully loaded desk apprentice into the kitchen and since then, we have been doing our school work at the kitchen table.

Would you believe I have had more cooperation, more meaningful discussion, more creative writing, more interest in reading, more of eVeRyThInG good since we started schooling back at the kitchen table?Our table is a 100+ year old round oak table. My little acorns just do so much better when they're near the oak tree. There has to be a lesson somewhere in this.

Today's Accomplishments

Reading: Ethan continued reading silently in Vostasse and Eli read more adventures about Pocahontas. I just ask questions to check their comprehension. The boys add any important information or interesting fact to their personal Book of Centuries. TO/WITH/BY will begin again on Monday.

Math: Math U See lesson 10 in the Delta book. The boys learned a super way to memorize the 9's times facts.

Geography/History: We read about the early Egyptians in lesson 11 of Mystery of History. We discussed Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt and all admitted that it sounded backwards to have the southern part of Egypt called "Upper Egypt." We began an exciting story called The Death of a Princess which is set in ancient Egypt. The boys have added quite a few words to their vocabulary books: harem, pharaoh, and intrigue being the most recent. We also have been putting dates, facts, pictures, and tidbits of information in the Book of Centuries that each boy is compiling. To finish out our lesson on ancient Egypt the boys will each choose a project out of Step Into Ancient Egypt. We have a couple more books to read (either aloud of silently) for our ancient Egypt lesson: Tut's Mummy Lost...and Found and Pharoah's Daughter: A Novel of Ancient Egypt.

Language Arts: I have been taking sentences from the boys' reading books and printing them on paper. I read the selection to them as they follow along and explain any words that need clarification. The boys take a few minutes to study the passages noting special punctuation (contractions, quotations, etc.) and focusing on words they know or suspect will be a challenge to spell. They practice those words then and there. Then, I dictate the sentence as the boys take their time to write the passage. After they are satisfied with what they've written I take their papers and mark in red any corrections. Any misspelled words become the spelling words for the week. A traditional 'spelling test' is given at the end of the week. Any words still misspelled go on the following week's list. This method has worked very well for Ethan and Eli.

No Science today.

UUUGGGGGG..........

We're backing up. Sonlight is great. However, we'll save it for next year. We're going to keep working with our Mystery of History volume 1 lessons, Math U See, and Apologia Astronomy. Language Arts will come from the copy work, dictation (spelling), and narration from the living books we use to enhance Mystery of History. Throw in a picture study from famous artists and a little bit of composer study and we're calling it good.

The Academy (no pun intended) Award goes to...

ME! Yesterday I had the most uncooperative young hooligans in our homeschool that I have ever seen. And the nerve! They acted this way in front of their dad! Brave little creatures arent' they?

They were building with Legos after breakfast and get this: They were getting along! Shhhh! Don't say it too loud! But they were. No arguing. Lots of laughing. Creating awesome characters and vehicles with the little plastic pieces I usually cuss as I hobble over them. So, I let them play. I let them be little boys.

Lunch time comes around, dad is here, we eat some lunch and after things are put away I say to the boys, let's get to the couch and do your reading aloud for the day.

Stomp. Pout. Slam. Stomp. Holler. Stomp. Pout. Grumble. Holler. Stomp. Slam. Well, you get the idea.

So, I start to go into my usual, "I guess you boys just don't realize....blah, blah, blah...drone on, blah,.... privilege of homeschooling.... blah, blah, .....respect...blah, blah....." And then I stop. I realize no one is really listening to me.

I go to the phone quietly, pick up the reciever push a few buttons, cut the connection and say, "Hi, Mrs. Reed? Yeah, it's Oney. Oh, I'm fine thanks. And you? Great. Hey, I need you to send me the enrollment forms for 4th and 5th grades. Well, yeah. They just don't really see the benefit of homeschooling and don't respect the time. I'm getting all kinds of grief today. Oh, I know, they certainly wouldn't behave that way for Mrs. Wollert. Exactly. Well, this is our 4th year and things have been pretty good for the most part, I'm just tired of the attitude I've been getting lately. Today has been the worst. Sure. Okay. Thanks. I'll send them tomorrow."\

Now, here is where the red carpet treatment comes in: Rick thought I was really talking to the secretary at the public school.

Needless to say, the boys have shaped up.

Happy New Year

I have been so bad about keeping our homeschool blog updated. We've just been plugging along with lessons. During the Christmas break I did some reviewing, recollecting, revising, & re-vamping our homeschool.

I think we've outgrown Five In A Row. That's really hard for me to admit. There are still some Beyond FIAR books that we've not delved into but I just don't grasp the method for Beyond. I came to the couch too many times unprepared and unmotivated and the boys could read that a room away.

I studied Sonlight's website and really looked at the 27 reasons not to buy Sonlight. I bought Sonlight. I was ready for a chronological, literature rich history. I was ready for some work-book-ish assignments and more independent work from the boys. I was ready for some more solid grammar lessons. I was ready for a change.

So far, the boys have been troopers and have enjoyed the lessons. Right now we're reading Walk the World's Rim for our Read-Aloud. They each have a historical book to read on their own and we're doing "To With By" reading practice with those.

We're starting Apologia's Astronomy book tomorrow for our science and continuing with Math U See.

September Update

Things are going very well here at Acorns to Oaks Boys' Academy. We've had a busy and enlightening month of studies during September. Our favorite subject is of course, Five In A Row. We are "rowing" Tom Edison: Young Inventor from the Childhood of Famous Americans series. I found a set of notebooking pages for Thomas Edison from the Homeschool EStore.
If you click on the link at the left and purchase your own notebooking pages for a Thomas Edison unit study I'll get credit at The Homeschool EStore and can save some money on my next purchase. *Big Grin*

Lapbooking/Notebooking/Scrapbooking Your Homeschool Adventures

Have you ever attempted something that looked easy and found that you were, at the very least, inept at it? Have you ever tried folding and making "minute books" or "minit books" for lapbooks? It seems to be a new craze in homeschooling this lapbooking thing. I'm thinking, sure, why not, looks fun! WRONG! Folding the little booklets that will hold all the information in cute folded designes is not for the weak. If they would have asked me to name them "minute book" would not have been in my top 5! Now, to be honest, I've never done well on the spatial relations portions of standardized tests. However, I was just about ready to throw in the towel-er-um-paper until I got a message from one sweet ami* of Homeschool Share who, true to her site's name, shared with me templates for minute books. The boys and I sat down and made several of these little dudes so that we are ready for lapbooking, notebooking, or scrapbooking---whichever suits our fancy at the time!

More Nature Study

With all the tweaking and revising of our lesson schedule I forgot to mention that the nature study afternoons have been a favorite of ours. Here are pictures from our last outing.

After our afternoon in the woods we drove back to town and had a Taco John's taco for tea! LOL

Doing Some Tweaking

Bible-Proverbs---no
Hymn---no
Burgess Animal Adventures---haven't read from this yet
Christian Liberty Press Nature Readers---no
Parables from Nature---no
Burgess Bird Book---haven't read from this yet
James Herriott's Treasury for Children---yes
Apologia Zoology---yes
Apologia Astronomy---yes
Blue Fairy Tales Book---no
A Midsummer Night's Dream---haven't read from this yet
Just So Stories---yes
Aesop's Fables---yes
Children's Garden of Verses---haven't read from this yet
Paddle to the Sea---yes
Mary Poppins---haven't read from this yet
Our Island Story---no
The Mystery of History---yes
The Story of the World---no
Composer Study---yes
Artist Study/Picture Study---yes

To replace reading the proverbs each day we are reading from a vintage book I found at my mom's. It's called Best Stories From the Best Book c. MCM (1900) It's definitely not watered down! Instead of a hymn right now we're going to focus on songs to learn with our church's youth choir. My friend Marla suggested downloading Our Island Story from librovox.com and listening to it as we do other things throughout the day. Mystery of History is much better than The Story of the World in my opinion. There is no need to make myself crazy and try to do both so one must go and SOTW-you are it. As for the rest of the roster that didn't make the cut we'll pick up here and there.

We are going to focus on these things:
Beyond FIAR- Starting with Thomas Edison we'll begin our FIAR lessons and I'll just ask for help on the FIAR boards. :)
Apologia Zoology - Ethan enjoys this. It's reading, narration, notebooking, and experiments and projects complete with an insect collection.
Apologia Astronomy-Eli and Rick are doing these lessons together. On the horizon is a model of the solar system.
Reading Rescue 1-2-3-This is a wonderful resource for helping children increase their fluency and comprehension in reading. I'm using the suggestions for both boys and we are using stories that interest each one individually.
We are almost finished with the Best Stories from the Best Book and when that is done I do believe we'll just read from Egermeier's Bible Story Book. I found a chart which links those stories with Mystery of History lessons.
Mystery of History-This is so amazing. I love the way the author weaves secular world history in with biblical world history.
So, we have: Reading, Science, History covered and our dear FIAR lessons provide more of that plus language arts.
Our art and music is covered with picture study/artist study and composer study and we can always throw in some piano or guitar or drum lessons!

Ahhh... feeling much more balanced!

Poetry? Are You Kidding?

Just in case you were thinking to yourself or even saying outlout, "Will boys give a hoot about poetry?" (because I sure was!!) I'll set your mind at ease.

Yes. They enjoy it. We have a snack about 3 o'clock most days. (See my other blog called Tea at Three) and yes, we call it "tea." No snickering! We have a snack: sometimes it's storebought donuts and milk, sometimes it's homemade cookies, sometimes it's quick bread and hot tea. (Friday it was a softshell taco from Taco John's!!) Anyway, we have 'tea' and we listen to poetry on a tape or cd, or I'll read to them poems from some of our collections.

When I read about Christopher Robin going to Buckingham Palace with someone named Alice, Eli said, "So just how's this guy related to Winnie the Pooh?"

Our First Few Days

We've not had an entire week of school yet but have had lessons off and on the last two weeks. I love the fact that my mom and dad can say, "Can the boys come to the farm for a few days?" and I can let them go and get some real life education.

The Double E Team say they enjoy the stories and activities from our list of Ambleside books. In this picture we are finishing up the 'picture study' of The Boating Party by Mary Cassatt. They are coloring a black & white copy of this particular piece from a Dover coloring book.

My aunt is a professional artist and absolutely detests coloring books but I think even she would have a good time coloring in our Mary Cassatt coloring book! I'll balance this picture study with having the boys (and me!!) try to re-create Cassatt's "The Boating Party" on our own. I may or may not post pictures of that activity! While we are coloring we have The Best of Handel on the CD player. I'm sure some people will think this is a b-o-r-i-n-g and that boys would not stand for listening to classical music and looking at fine art and coloring a baby in a sailboat. They haven't complained yet...and it does my heart good when Eli can open an art book and recognize a copy of Cassatt's work and ask, "Wow, Mom, are all of these by Mary Cassatt?"

More School Room Pictures

School Room Pictures

Does this resonate with you?

The Little Boy

by Helen Buckley

Once a little boy went to school.

He was quite a little boy

And it was quite a big school.

But when the little boy

Found that he could go to his room

By walking right in from the door outside

He was happy;

And the school did not seem

Quite so big anymore.

One morning

When the little boy had been in school awhile,

The teacher said:

"Today we are going to make a picture."

"Good!" thought the little boy.

He liked to make all kinds;

Lions and tigers,

Chickens and cows,

Trains and boats;

And he took out his box of crayons

And began to draw.

But the teacher said,

"Wait!""It is not time to begin!"

And she waited until everyone looked ready.

"Now," said the teacher,

"We are going to make flowers."

"Good!" thought the little boy,

He liked to make beautiful ones

With his pink and orange and blue crayons.

But the teacher said

"Wait!""And I will show you how."

And it was red, with a green stem.

"There," said the teacher,

"Now you may begin."

The little boy looked at his teacher's flower

Then he looked at his own flower.

He liked his flower better than the teacher's

But he did not say this.

He just turned his paper over,

And made a flower like the teacher's.

It was red, with a green stem.

On another day

When the little boy had opened

The door from the outside all by himself,

The teacher said:

"Today we are going to make something with clay."

"Good!" thought the little boy;

He liked clay.

He could make all kinds of things with clay:

Snakes and snowmen,

Elephants and mice,

Cars and trucks

And he began to pull and pinch

His ball of clay.

But the teacher said, "Wait!"

"It is not time to begin!"

And she waited until everyone looked ready.

"Now," said the teacher,"We are going to make a dish."

"Good!" thought the little boy,

He liked to make dishes.

And he began to make some

That were all shapes and sizes.

But the teacher said "Wait!"

"And I will show you how."

And she showed everyone how to make

One deep dish.

"There," said the teacher,

"Now you may begin."T

he little boy looked at the teacher's dish;

Then he looked at his own.

He liked his better than the teacher's

But he did not say this.

He just rolled his clay into a big ball again

And made a dish like the teacher's.

It was a deep dish.

And pretty soon

The little boy learned to wait,

And to watch

And to make things just like the teacher.

And pretty soon

He didn't make things of his own anymore.

Then it happened

That the little boy and his family

Moved to another house,

In another city,

And the little boy

Had to go to another school.

This school was even bigger

Than the other one.

And there was no door from the outside

Into his room.

He had to go up some big steps

And walk down a long hall

To get to his room.

And the very first day

He was there,

The teacher said:

"Today we are going to make a picture."

"Good!" thought the little boy.

And he waited for the teacher

To tell what to do.

But the teacher didn't say anything.

She just walked around the room.

When she came to the little boyShe asked,

"Don't you want to make a picture?"

"Yes," said the lttle boy

."What are we going to make?"

"I don't know until you make it," said the teacher.

"How shall I make it?" asked the little boy.

"Why, anyway you like," said the teacher.

"And any color?" asked the little boy.

"Any color," said the teacher.

"If everyone made the same picture,

And used the same colors,

How would I know who made what,

And which was which?"

"I don't know," said the little boy.

And he began to make a

Red flower with a green stem.

More Giant Grasshopper Fun!

A "cattle guard" is a what, not a who.

Little Picnic on the Prairie

After our great grasshopper hunt, we tossed an old quilt in between the cow patties and cactus and had a picnic.

Hunting Grasshoppers

We set out for an evening nature study complete with quilt, picnic supper, fruit jars of cold sweet tea, camera, and a B.B. gun. Don't ask me what the B.B. gun was for, I am just the mom. We headed north of town several miles on the winding dirt roads, up through the big bend in the irrigation canal and ended up on the prairie grassland and found several of these

Plains Lubber Grasshoppers.

Have you ever in your life seen a grasshopper this big? I haven't either. The grassland north of us is just teeming with these humongous hoppers. These are Brachystola magna according to our research. We gathered up about 8 of these guys to watch them for a few days. The wings are very small on this "brand" of grasshopper making it impossible for the creature to fly. (Easier to catch that way!)

A School Room for Acorns to Oaks?

For the last three years we've been doing lessons at the kitchen table, on the sofa, in the yard, on the bed...basically anywhere there isn't a pile of laundry or dirty dishes. I like the relaxed atmosphere of having lessons this way; however, I wonder if it wouldn't be prudent to at least have all of our materials in one room and perhaps a couple child-sized desks.

Last night I had a fine discussion with my older son. He told me he likes it quiet when he does his work. We were talking about math and he is a tad upset that he doesn't yet do division like his public school friends. "Well," I said, "you have to take some responsibility for that too, you know. I can teach you how to do the division but you have to take some initiative and practice and study and commit the facts to memory." He said, "I know but I need it quiet to do that." Do you think a room dedicated to lessons would help with that?

I keep thinking about Charlotte Mason's affinity to "atmosphere." I don't want to create a "school at home" atmosphere but I do want to create an atmosphere conducive to learning.

We do have a "spare" room that would lend itself nicely to being made over into a school room. It has room for our two bulging bookshelves, wallspace for our USA map and our world map, wallspace for displying our artist, poet, and composer of the term and a piece for each. There is floor room for two student desks and the plastic stoage bins holding our art, nature study and science supplies.

I would love to paint above the doorway: "Something to Love. Something to Do. Something to Think About."

I also have a vintage children's chalk board that I can see displayed on a wall where I would write this quote from Mark Twain : "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."

I don't know. I guess I'd like to try having a school room this year and see how it goes. If we decide to go ahead with it, I'll post "Before & After" photos.

My Lesson Planner: Part Three

I just love this portrait of Charlotte Mason. She looks so wise, yet approachable. She looks so soft, yet sturdy. I printed this portrait making it the back cover of my planner. Under her portrait is another one of her profound quotes. "A child has not begun his education until he has acquired the habit of reading to himself, with interest and pleasure, books fully on a level with his intelligence."

My Lesson Planner: Part Two

These are the next pages in my planner. These are the actual planning pages. I used Open Office. I made a table with 4 columns on one page for Monday-Thursday. The cells of each are divided labeled with the time of day in 20-minute increments. Charlotte Mason suggests short lessons of intense material. On the second page I made 4 columns for Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Notes. This is our "weekend" page. On Friday afternoons, I'm planning on an outing of some kind and hope to put a picnic together or at least hit the drive through of Taco Johns and make it a Nature Study--regardless of the weather. Saturday is totally blank--this will be for recording chores and "house blessing" (aka: Saturday cleaning) On Sunday's column I can record the character trait/virtue we're learning about, the Scripture to memorize, and the biography of a missionary or other well-known Christian. At the top of the first page I have a place to jot down the name of the Artist for the term and the artist's piece we are doing Picture Study with each week. On the other page there is a place to record the Composer of the term and the Poet of the term. I'm happy with it. If you'd like me to adjust the times for your use please let me know. I am happy to share my creation with you.

My Lesson Planner: Part One

This is the cover of my 2007-2008 lesson planner for our homeschool. I've figured out that if you don't simply LOVE a planner and if it just doesn't fit your needs you are not going to use the thing.

So....I created one that fills my needs perfectly.

The cover sports my two little acorns in a photo that fills my heart with smiles. The "motto" for our school was "borrowed" from one of Charlotte Mason's writings. She said humans need something to love, something to do and something to think about in order to be content and fulfilled. So that's what we are striving for in Acorns to Oaks Boys' Academy. The next few pages are actually a free e-book that I downloaded and printed from Simply Charlotte Mason called "Education Is." I wanted this information handy and what better place for it than right in my planner! It explains Miss Mason's philosphy in a consise manner. "Education is an atmosphere, adiscipline, a life." I had my husband read this e-book and he agrees with Mason's educational philosophy. After that, I have placed a "year-at-a-glance" page for 2007-2008 that I printed from Donna Young. If you have not had the pleasure of perusing her site you are in for a treat when you do.

Affirmation!

I snapped this photo a few months ago (notice the snow?) and kind of forgot about it. I was in the process of creating a new cover for my homeschool lesson plans and was looking through the pictures in my files. I saw this one and it immediately reminded me of my ultimate goal in academics for my kids. I want them to love reading. This picture keeps me motivated and assures me of my reason to homeschool my sons.

"The Robinhood"

My friend Jill was over for a visit this morning and told me she saw a baby robin hopping around our yard. I am assuming it was Mamma Robin making such a rukus...chirping and swooping, flying and lighting on a nearby branch. There were actually two adult robins doing this. An aunt maybe? EDIT: After doing some more reading in Comstock, I find that the 2 robins are actaully the parents of this young bird.

Our Comstock book says, "It is an anxious time for the old robins when the young ones leave the nest, and they flutter about and scold at anyone who comes in sight, so afraid are they that injury will come to their inexperienced young ones..."

This certainly proves true! I know I am causing these two adult robins some stress, and undoubtedly scaring the feathers off the baby, so I'll go in now and let the lessons in the "Robinhood" continue peacefully. Besides, the mosquitos are about to eat me alive this muggy Friday morning.

What a list!

Looking over the list of reading selections it seems like a lot. I think what we will do is do all of our history reading on Monday. We'll do our geography readings on Tuesday; fine arts on Wednesday (poetry, Shakespeare, composer, and artist/picture study); zoology and astronomy on Thursday; natural science and nature study on Friday. Of course our daily work will be comprised of math, language arts (reading comprehension through narration activities) and spelling. Sounds rather FIAR-ish to me, and that's a good thing! Some books will be read every other week rather than weekly so that is another way we can have a broad

First Post for A2O Academy's Blog

We're beginning our fourth year of home education and our first year with Ambleside Online. We've had a delicious three years of Five In A Row and will not completely abandon our FIAR lessons; however, it's time to move on. We still have some great stories to "row" (Cowboy Charlie, Hannah's Cold Winter, The Raft, and a couple more) so we'll pick up a week of FIAR here and there. We will also complete some of Becky Jane's awesome FOLD & LEARNS! We still have some Beyond Five In A Row titles to "row" but we'll probably just use those books as read-a-louds because for some reason, I cannot get a grip on the how to of those lessons and they are great lessons.

Anyway, I've read through the reading selections of Ambleside Online and know that my little acorns will love the stories. Neither of them are thrilled with writing yet so the narration exercises will be perfect and I've been able to find a plethora of creative narration ideas.

We are beginning year one even though my guys are eleven and nine. I don't want them to miss out on the beginning of the history rotation. Here is the book list for Year 1.

I have been reading and studying Charlotte Mason's philosophy, ideas, and methods and have found that I've been teaching her way for three years now because of the way FIAR is set up.

Melissa Wiley, home educator and author, put it like this: "I trust that my kids, all kids, will "learn a lot" from devouring the books strewn in their path during our low tide times. But Charlotte Mason convinced me that a slow and steady diet of carefully chosen literature, narrated back leads to something more than an encyclopedic colletion of facts. The Charlotte Mason method promises a relationship with knowledge--not just the memorization of it."

That's what I want.