Keeping It Simple

I am inspired by an art teacher who posted not only what worked, but what did not. Very brave! I was comforted to know that even for an experienced teacher, miscalculations can be made on how well a project is going to work for a class. ONE THAT WORKED AND DID NOT WORK: Beautiful Feet Geography - I have used two of the books, Paddle to the Sea and Tree in the Trail , that are included in this study years ago with my daughter. This time I repeated Paddle to the Sea and also did Minn of the Mississippi . There was so much information packed into each page of Minn of the Mississippi that it made it difficult to use in a co op setting. If I were to read this book with just my own children, I would read one page at a time. I would also try to read every day so that the previous information was still fresh. Meeting once a week (sometimes less), I read as many as six pages in a sitting. Paddle to the Sea was more manageable. It also packed a lot of inform...

I am linking this pond study post from the fall  to Wildnerness Wednesday  at "Homeschooling Newbie". I aspire to do more Nature Studies and am inspired by those who make it a priority. Hopefully summer will persent many opportunties for new explorations! These are some of the drawings from our day of pond exploration.

One of the first "made for homeschoolers" curriculum that I came across was Beautiful Feet Books . Back in the day (1993 or so), I purchased their CA history study guide. In my second year of homeschooling, just having had a baby, and still not completely sure what in the world we were doing, this study guide helped make our homeschool successful. A few years later, I purchased a geography study guide from Beautiful Feet Books to use with my now 24 year old daughter. She was a very "hands-on" kid, so I thought creating a map with our study would be perfect for her. And it was! Fast forward to today. I have wanted to use this study guide again for a long time. I also wanted to try it in a group setting. This year I took the plunge and asked two families to join us- making for 9 children between the ages of 7 and 13 years old. About the study guide: Using 4 Holling Clancy Holling books- Paddle-to-the-Sea , Minn of the Mississippi , Tree in the Trail , and Seab...

Legos:    We missed the official " Lego Quest Challenge " this week, but the boys were game to do their own when we had some time on Thursday. The challenge- scoop two cups of Legos out of the bucket and create! No picking certain Legos. I suspect Mark (above) picked from the bucket that he knew had rock monsters in it. I have to confess to not remembering what he told me about his creation on the left (I'll try to remedy that). The one on the right is a rock monster playground complete with rock monster parents "sitting and visiting at the table". James was equally enthusiastic- he created a Batcave battle scene. Neither of them used all of the Legos, but they had a great time with this challenge.                    Seasons/Art: As fall is well on the way to winter, I am trying to savor these last few weeks before the holidays begin in earnest. I have a fondness for fall decorati...

After another crazy week, I enlisted the boys to help with our highlights. They were more than happy to assist. From Paul and Mark: On Spanish: All of our friends come over to do Spanish on Thursdays. We take turns going to class in groups. We got some homework- we don't like that. Senorita Joyce read us a really fun story about "el raton" (the mouse). At the end, she asked us questions in Spanish from the story and we answered them in Spanish- like how old the mouse is- "diez"- and how old is his friend. We are going to get our own copy of the book so that we can read along with her. On Geography Class: For our geography class, we went to a nearby park ; we saw a monstrous frog, 2 damsel flies, fish, several ducks, and a bird trying to steal a fish from another bird. We read Paddle-to-the-Sea, and we made our own Paddles-to-the-Sea and set them sailing in the pond. From James: On Reading: I read my book with Grandma. This story was much harder, so...

Down the street from our house, just a stones throw from the freeway, is a little pond paradise. We visited it today for our "pond study" that we are doing with Paddle-to-the-Sea .  We arrived at the pond and the kids were impressed immediately with two things- the size of the leaves (no picture but there were huge maple type leaves) and the swans. We were also interested to see pond water plants that we had read about.  Our mission to was to "look and listen".  One of our first hidden finds were some spiders.  We sat for a while and drew some of the things we saw.  The kids who finished their drawings each chose a quiet spot to sit by themselves and observe. I was impressed by all they were able to tell me about what they heard and saw- dragonflies, bird calls, ducks,...  The turtle were quick on their feet, so we thought we were not going to get a picture, but MeLei caught these two near the end of our trip. To the right, the ki...