2014-15 Ready to Roll!

Well here we go shoving off into the new school year! How is it that I have all 4 kids school age this year?!? Yes my little one is kindergarten so not major academics, but still this is crazy! Here is a look into this years mama's school book, things get wiggled a bit but for the most part this is the plan for the year. (Sorry some of the photos came out blurry I have no idea how that happened!)

As usual we are using Oak Meadow for the majority of the subjects, we do not do their social studies or history. It is just easier on this mama to do that together as a group. I am considering doing Fern and Jake's science together to also help with the amount of material I am teaching and time. As you can see there is also a little Waldorf, Charlotte Mason, Unschooling and TJed thrown in too! I have learned over the years that homeschool labels are generally just narrowing and constricting and so I don't label our philosophy. We take what works for our family from wherever we find it and call it good!

If you have any questions let me know! I'm happy to share!

Poem in Your Pocket!

Do you remember when you started loving poetry? Do you remember when you forgot about that love? The first poem I ever memorize was Fog by Carl Sandburg;

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on. 

I remember learning what siting on your haunches meant and then getting up from our desks and doing it. I think it was second or third grade. 

When I was 9 my dad bought me Where The Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. I loved that book! It still lives on my living room bookshelf.  Now my kids love it!

In high school I fell in love with The Bard so my kids are subjected to that too!

Well April is national poetry month and just this week I learned about a totally fun day to go along with it! April 18 is Poem in your Pocket day! So keep a few short ones in your pocket and share them!! Here is a cute printable to write your favorites on to share!!

I love the idea of a Common Place journal, I've kept one on and off for a few years for poems that strike me. 

I never saw a moor,

I never saw the sea;

Yet know I how the heather looks;

And what a wave must be. 

I never spoke with God,

Nor visited in Heaven;

Yet certain am I of the spot

As if the chart were given. 

~ Emily Dickinson 

A Day of Our Homeschooling Life!!

It's been a while since I've given a peek into our day and since Simple Homeschool put out an invitation I thought I'd join in! So welcome to our Wednesday!

Our mornings are slow, I am not one of those mamas who get up early and get things done. Too many years of sleep depravation is my reasoning but really Im just not a morning person if anyone is going to talk to me! ;)

This day is one where Dan is home, he travels frequently but when he is in town we often get days with him home all day. This was difficult for us the first few years of homeschooling, but thankfully we have found a rhythm that Dad fits into and can also slip out of.

Our morning starts with a warm breakfast, blankets, and heater vents. We also take care of animals, giving the cats attention and waking up the bunnies. Which is not so hard on this beautiful sunny morning!

Legos in the morning, Legos at night, LEGOS ALL DAY LONG in our house!! But I find it a gentle way for the kids to transition from morning time to schooling time so you'll often hear me suggest it! And yes there are legos all over my house!!!

Just before the call to come together my oldest comes to me with Cookie his rat who seems to have a mass, he also brings his rat book. So we take a timeout to check on her, read about rat ailments and call the vet to get an appointment. I love that his first go to was a book! 

Every morning I write out all that we would like to accomplish for the day, my kids like having all the information at once and I like that I don't get asked 20 times what else we are going to do! Its all right there! Our family schooling time is by far the largest chunk, but the kids do have some individual things that we do.

We have quite the mixture of homeschooling philosophies here in our home! A little Waldorf, a little Charlotte Mason, a little TJed, and a little crazy all mixed together!! Its great! I am a firm believer that your philosophy/curriculum should serve your family not that you should be a slave to your philosophy/curriculum. We start our day with a Waldorf-ish verse and a scripture we are memorizing. After everyone memorizes the scripture we go out for a fun family activity. Today our family study activities will be after our individual work because of their length. But usually it is done right after our scripture.

Jake learning how to read Fahrenheit and Celsius on a thermometer...

Fern writing numbers...

Leili acting out our story of the week with finger puppets (Little Red Ridding Hood)...

Brother and sister are drawn to the puppet theatre like magnets!!

Riley is reading Matilda and LOVING it! This is a picture that just makes my mama heart go pitter-pat. This guy, my first born threw me right into trusting in schooling. Reading just did not click for him when society says it should. But we took the leap of faith in just trusting that he would get it when he was ready as long as we did not squash his innate love of learning! Now I have to tell him to stop reading and go to bed!!

Our kitchen table turned into math central today and Dad was the central command! Whew! One day off for Mama in the math dept!!

Beautiful Fern LOVES writing notes and now she has found she LOVES writing numbers!!

Leili is being like Little Red Ridding Hood and baking muffins for the family, she chose Coconut Banana! 

Usually Fern prefers to wait for me to do her reading with her, but Little Bear just could not wait!

I have a couple volunteer responsibilities and since today dad is home I run out all by myself for a quick visit. Dad finishes up the school work for the morning while I am gone.

Leili's muffins came out great! Riley played the piano! And lunch was made! Wahoo!

After lunch we watch a great National Geographic video on volcanos, geology is our family study for science/nature study right now and we are enjoying learning about volcanos (and my family is realizing just what a geology nerd I am...)!

After our video some friends come by for a short visit then after that we head over to the nature center across the river. Today we not only enjoy the warmth of the sun and the beauty in our own back yard but we also had a winter nature scavenger hunt! We found everything except an icicle but we are NOT complaining!! 

Cub and Boy Scout meeting end our night and now it is good night!

Thanks for stoping by!!

Just Another Day!

We are still schooling because we took a couple good sized breaks this winter and spring. But we have slowed down as we are enjoying all the fun summer activities and learning as we go!
 

Science is always fun (and a favorite) around here. Jake is checking out insect parts on the microscope my Uncle Steve gave me a long while ago!
 

Dandelion the rabbit enjoyed watching the girls...
 

...play with cloud sand! It was fun and pretty easy to make.

And here is Riley working on a braided rug with the help of his rat, Cookies & Cream.

And on an exciting side note, Lindafay over at Higher Up & Further In is blogging again! Not only is she a great inspiration as a homeschooling mama but also as a Christian mama!

Well it is that time of year! I finalized my planning, printed it all out, and took it over to Staples yesterday! I am such a geek, "playing school" to me as a kid was all about the planning, class was never the highlight. :) But my kids are alot more fun to learn with then Mr. Bear, my Cabbage Patch, and assorted animals were!

So whats in it this year? The first page after my lovely cover up there is THIS fun map of Nevada I found on the Nevada Tourism website, next is our weekly schedule. I have found this helps tremendously in getting through the harder times.

Next up is our family study plans for the year, this is stuff that is what we do instead of the regular "circle time".

Riley this year will be challenges but I think he is up for it!

Jake is going to love all of this!

I teetered a bit on whether Fern was ready for this content, but I think she will really dive in. And I am looking forward to doing some of these things with her that I have enjoyed before with the boys! :)

And I like to include this as cooking and food prep is a great learning opportunity that we enjoy as a family.

After all this is my weekly sheets for planning out what we will strive to accomplish!

~

You may have noticed I have not attached grade levels, I have never felt overly comfortable with it. One of the joys of homeschooling is being able to tailor to each child. They may be "ahead" in one subject or "behind" in another and that is OK!! Anyway I found this great article just a little bit back and thought I'd share it here!

We are using Oak Meadow again this year and are really looking forward to cracking open our new books, but there is the bit of Charlotte Mason & Thomas Jefferson Education packed in too!!

Happy First Day of Schooling!!

Well we have not gotten quite back to regular schooling yet, but we have been finding a little time to do a little formal learning! Riley has grumbly been working on his cursive, yes we live in a digital age why would kids need to learn cursive?? Some schools have stopped teaching it, but sorry babes in our family your not getting out of it!! I think it is still a valuable talent and so I continue to annoy my kids! :)

Jake has been VERY interested in watches and telling time lately, so the other day when I got a lovely quiet hour with Jake we sat down and he learned how to tell time! He did AMAZING and we had tons of fun together. Today we bought the coveted first watch! It helped that he LOVES to count by 5's, now he has a reason to do it all the time!

*cool clock stamp from Lakeshore, I bought it way back before Riley learned to tell time! I TOTALLY scored at Goodwill last week in the book department! I went to get some good books to donate to a kids shelter in town, but I found a few that needed to come home with me too! :) I found this set of Beatrix Potter books, they are not all there, but there are plenty of good ones! Today we read Mr. Jeremy Fisher! I love that one!! I also found The Twits by Roald Dahl, I love his writing. The boys and I finished The Twits last night, they loved it. I also found old copies of Cricket Magazine from the 70's, I think I may go back for more! Talk about making modern kids reading look like "twaddle", "twaddle", "twaddle"!! ~ Did I type "LOVE" too much today or what!? Better than hate I guess!!