Sunday Funny

We tried a year-round schedule this year, so we've been doing a rotation of 3 weeks of school/1 week of vacation, with a 3 week break at Christmas and another in July.

LMS and I have discussed it and agree that we really like this schedule.

However, LMS told me she'd prefer "three weeks of vacation and one week of school".

Hmmm, I don't know what kid wouldn't prefer that schedule.

But it's not going to happen :)

Raising A Cautious Child

LMS riding her bike at the park- doesn't she coordinate nicely? 

The shirt is a cute one from Crazy 8.

I've realized LMS is quite cautious. I'm not sure why it took so long for that to finally connect and make an impact in my consciousness, but it did. Once I acknowledged it, I started wandering why she's so cautious. We are always very encouraging and positive, especially when she tries new things. Shouldn't that give her the confidence she needs?

As I continued thinking about it, I sifted through memories from my childhood, and I realized that she gets it from me. As a child, I was also super-cautious.

I missed out on a trip to the corner market with my cousins while staying at the cabin at the lake because I was too scared to make the short trip (despite my mom giving me the ok). The cabin was sold not long after and I never had a similar opportunity.

I had a friend who lived a few houses down, and across the street, but I think I only went there once or twice because I was too scared to walk there.

My mom let us ride our bikes to the library, but I only went once or twice with my older brother, again because I was too scared.

Somewhere along the way I started overcoming the fear and in fourth and fifth grade I rode my bike the two miles to school every day with my sister and a couple friends we picked up along the way. (On the road- no sidewalks! but that's another post for another day- I've been working on it for awhile now.)

Junior high brought a lot of new experiences and I continued to gain confidence as I experienced new things in high school, college, on my mission, and beyond. Not to say they weren't still scary, but at least I did them instead of avoiding them like I did in elementary school.

***

There are still some things I'm cautious about (I don't love heights, for example), but I make the effort to try new things, even if they're out of my comfort zone.

LMS has shown a lot of caution when skiing, ice skating, swimming, and riding her bike.

We have pictures of her when she was about a year and a half old, being held by Mr M in the pool, and she's got a death grip around his neck. She's taken lessons every summer since she was 4, and can swim quite well, but it's taken a LOT of encouragement from her instructors and me and one-on-one time with me in the water for her to feel more confident.

She's taken ice skating lessons, but would rather hold on to one of us or a stack of buckets because  she's afraid of falling.

She's had two years of skiing lessons and has the skills, yet she just doesn't think she can do it- it's too scary and she doesn't want to fall.

She's been perfectly content to keep using her walking bike without the pedals, thankyouverymuch. We ride bikes with friends at the park and they all use pedals, but she did a pretty good job of keeping up with them and didn't think she needed the pedals.

***

I learned to ice skate as a teenager and I took ski classes in college, so I don't have a point of reference for learning those at a young age.

As I've recognized her reluctance to do things, I've tried not to push too much. We haven't done skating lessons again because she didn't truly enjoy it. She does like skiing and swimming once she gets out there, so we've continued taking lessons in those areas. And we waited till she said she was ready for pedals before putting them on (we bought her a walking bike two years ago specifically designed to be used with and without pedals). I kept asking her if she wanted them back on and she kept saying no. Then a couple weeks ago, she came to me and said she wanted to try the pedals. I asked if she was sure, because once I put them on, they weren't coming back off. She said ok, and on they went. It's taken a little practice, but now she's confident and ready for a bigger bike.

***

Are we truly encouraging her, or are we pushing her to try new things too soon? Are we causing more problems this way, or helping her overcome her cautiousness?

Thoughts?

Sunday Funny

At History Club the other week we were discussing ancient Chinese history and the kids did some related art projects. One was to paint a bookmark made of silk (they'd discussed silk worms and the process of making silk), using a special ink and Kool-Aid powder. Weird, but they turned out quite cool.

In any case, I was watching LMS as she worked on hers, and noticed she was holding her hair out of the way. It looked so funny I had to take a couple pictures :)

Ski Class

first morning of class

Today was the last day of LMS' ski class. She was just young enough to take the same class she took last year (it's for 3-6 year olds, and she doesn't turn 7 for 2 more months). {read about last year's class here and here}

last morning of class

I debated about signing her up since I needed to do that right about when I found out I was pregnant. I wasn't sure I'd have the energy. I definitely took it easier this year, and we didn't do any skiing together after her class- I was more concerned about being able to stay awake on the trip home.

out on the slopes with her class

I was taking these pics from the other side of the slope- we're not supposed to interfere with the class :)

wheeee!

I'm glad we did the class one more time. If I'd been further along, I might have been hesitant to get out and ski, but as it was, I didn't have any problems. The snow was a lot better this year- the resort put in new snow machines and the weather cooperated a lot more. We got a good snow storm just last week, and today the skiing was still pretty good and the runs were all open. Last year this time the snow was crappy, there were lots of bare patches, and several runs were closed completely.

an arial shot as I rode the lift over LMS and her class- she's the middle one in the yellow bib in the group of three

I'm not sure if we'll try for lessons next year or not. We wouldn't be able to do the same class since she'll be too old, but there are other options. The challenge would be bringing along a 4 month old. A couple weeks ago I saw a lady skiing with her baby strapped to her chest, but her baby was probably 10  months old at least. I don't feel I'm a strong enough skier to attempt that, especially if I had LMS in tow. Maybe if the baby was a bit older, but I think 4 months is too young. So we'd end up in the coffee house seating area, which is drafty and usually chilly, and not the best alternative. We'll see- there's lots of time before we need to make that decision.

I managed to ride the lift in the chair behind LMS's class and took this pic just as my turn came up

Did you do any skiing this year?

Sunday Funny

picture found on Amazon

We bought No Stress Chess for Christmas so LMS and I can learn to play chess. For some reason, I never learned when I was younger. I think keeping the rules and movements of each piece straight never made sense to me.

No Stress Chess is finally changing all that. There's several levels of play to get you familiar with the rules. In the first level, you pick a card from the stack, and it tells you which piece to move, and how to move it. Obviously, you miss a lot of opportunities to capture your opponent's pieces because you didn't get the card to move a certain piece, but it reinforces names, movements, and strategy.

In the 2nd level each player draws 3 cards to start, then another on their turn. You then play one of the cards in your hand.

The 3rd level is similar to the 2nd, except you draw 5 cards to start. I think having more and more options of pieces to play helps you consider which one would be the best to move, and where.

From there, you move on to standard chess rules.

Honestly, those cards make it so much easier to figure it all out. Having a visual aid to tell what each piece is allowed to do is just what I needed.

It's helped LMS, too. She keeps asking to play it, but she asks to play "Stress Chess"- which is exactly what it's not :)

The other day she played a game with a friend at our homeschool play group, and they were discussing the rules as they played. Too cute!

Sunday Funny

Our homeschool play group went to a children's museum awhile ago and I took this picture of them playing on the giant sand worm. It's Dune, the kids' version! 

(ignore the smiling gingerbread man in the background- he rather spoils the effect)

Cotter Tens Fractal

Looks kind of like a Christmas tree...

This is something LMS and I did in math (we're using RightStart Math Level B), and is a great way to visualize numbers.

The huge triangle is made of 10 smaller triangles.

Those triangles are in turn made of 10 smaller triangles, and those triangles are also made of 10 smaller triangles.

Confused yet?

We glued 10 small triangles onto a medium triangle and repeated for a total of 100 medium triangles. The small triangles represent ones, so if there's 10 ones in a medium triangle, a medium triangle represents 10.

We then glued 10 medium triangles onto a large triangle and repeated for a total of 10 large triangles. Since there's 10 ones in a medium triangle and 10 medium triangles in a large triangle, a large triangle represents 100.

We then glued 10 large triangles onto a giant triangle. Since there's 10 of them and each one represents 100, the giant triangle represents 1000.

1000 small triangles = 100 medium triangles = 10 large triangles = 1 giant triangle

If I'd thought about it ahead of time, I'd have used a different paper for all the small triangles, which would have made it easier to see each individual triangle.

This took a lot of time and a lot of glue sticks, but was pretty interesting. I will admit that this is the first time I'd heard of a Cotter Tens Fractal (at least that I remember), so I'm already learning new things!

Have you heard of a Cotter Tens Fractal?

Sunday Funny

having fun at the park

Earlier this week I looked over at LMS, who was quietly doing her Japanese- filling in the Hiragana chart. I noticed she'd written the characters very lightly, so I asked why she'd done that.

"Because it's invisible ink!"

Of course, why didn't I think of that?

Glass Mosaics

As I mentioned yesterday, Little Miss Sunshine had lots of fun at the Irish music day camp she attended.

One of the crafts they made was little glass mosaic tiles. Most of the kids did four leaf clovers or random designs or such, but not LMS.

She did Sleeping Beauty and Malificent.

I think the horns on Malificent's head are a great touch.

The silver things are windows.

I love the detail and how she planned out how it was going to look. The other kids used grout on theirs, but she wouldn't grout hers because it would ruin it. I couldn't figure out why she would insist on that, but once I finally saw it, I realized what she meant.

I love how she uses her imagination!

Irish Music School Day Camp

crappy lighting + not-so-great camera = less than clear photos. this was the best one I managed. I'm not sure why LMS's hand is in front of her face, but they're lined up to do a soft shoe dance.

LMS attended a day camp {her first!} two weeks ago. It was a week-long version of the Irish sampler class she'll be taking in the fall, and she loved it!

They did crafts (painted t-shirts, made mosaics, painted round cardboard boxes to use as bodhrans, and made fairy dolls), danced (soft shoe for the younger kids, soft shoe and hard shoe for the older kids), sang, played tin whistle or fiddle, played the bodhran, cooked (scones and Irish soda bread), and learned a little Irish. The last day the parents came in the afternoon and got to watch the kids show off what they'd learned.

The Little Miss chose to do tin whistle for the camp, but will probably do fiddle during the regular class. Below is a video (my first- hopefully it works!) of her group playing Hot Cross Buns on the tin whistle. It reminded me a lot of elementary school recorders, but the older kids had a lot better sound quality and didn't sound like recorders.

This was an interesting experience for me. I dropped LMS off at 9 and picked her up at 3. The hours in between were just for me- no schoolwork (we used one of our vacation weeks that week), no running off to this activity or that one, just time to do my things.

It gave me a taste of what my life would be like if she attended public school.

She'd be gone all day and I'd have the house to myself.

Initially that sounds like a nice thing, but reality sets in real quick.

It would be very quiet.

And lonely.

But I would probably have finished up all my projects a long time ago, because of all that time to myself.

Or maybe not. I actually wasted (?) a lot of time reading and not feeling guilty about it. I found out in high school that I am much better at managing my time and being efficient when I am busy (cross country season, for example) and have to budget my time.

However, I wouldn't change our decision to homeschool. It was a nice change of pace, but I like having LMS home with me- she's such a funny kid- and I still manage to get a lot of projects done (eventually).

First Grade

LMS sounding out words in one of her favorite books. She LOVES anatomy books and we have quite a few now, of varying degrees of difficulty. Do we have a future doctor on our hands?

Yesterday we started first grade.

Yes, our summer was short, but we'll be taking breaks throughout the year, so we're not missing out.

And who really wants to be outside when it's really hot and muggy? Not me. I'm all for staying inside and enjoying our air conditioning. When it cools down we'll take a break and spend some time outside.

As I've mentioned before, we're using the curriculum suggestions from A Well-Trained Mind. So what are we studying this year?

Reading, writing, spelling, grammar, math, science, history/geography, music, art, Japanese, and religion.

Yes, we will be busy, but each subject doesn't take very long when you're working one-on-one, and not all subjects are studied every day.

I was going to hold off on the Japanese for a few more years and start Latin next year, but a lady who's originally from Japan recently moved into our ward and I want to be able to take advantage of a native speaker to practice with (I'm super rusty), and figured it would be a good opportunity for LMS as well.

We've already decided on some extra-curricular and enrichment activities, the rest will be decided on as time passes.

We're continuing violin lessons, and after Labor Day LMS will start soccer again and an Irish sampler class that includes instruction in Irish language, dance, music (bodrhan and fiddle or tin whistle), and singing. Yes, I wish I could take this class, but it's only for kids, unfortunately.

After soccer is over, we might do some ice skating lessons or some skiing (I'd like to do both), but we'll have to see how our schedule is.

I don't think we'll be doing any co-ops this year because our schedule is already too full. Maybe next year.

When do your kids start school?

Betsy-Tacy

source

Not too long ago I was in a homeschool book store, looking for next year's books. I didn't find any of them, but I did find Betsy-Tacy and Tib, and Betsy and Tacy go over the Big Hill. I remembered hearing them mentioned in "You've Got Mail", so I bought them. A buck a piece, I think?

I started reading Betsy-Tacy and Tib to LMS (we finished the Little House books), then realized it was actually the second book in the series. So I requested the first one (Betsy-Tacy) from the library and started over. We're now on the third book (Betsy and Tacy go over the Big Hill) and we're enjoying them.

LMS likes to pretend that she's playing with the girls as I read about their adventures. She even reminds me to add her name to theirs: Betsy, Tacy and Tib and LMS walked to school. Too cute :)

Have you read the Betsy-Tacy books?

School year evaluation

exploring a local river with friends

So how did the past school year go?

Reading
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons worked well, but didn't teach reasons for why some e's are long and some are short, along with other rules. I've read that criticism elsewhere and plan on using The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading in first grade to compensate.

Writing
We zipped through the Zaner-Bloser workbook in less than two months. We'll continue using ZB, but will take it slower and will do additional practice activities, like we did this year.

Math
I really liked the Math-U-See curriculum, but it wasn't working for LMS. Unfortunately I didn't realize this till February. We did a quick switch to RightStart Math and then did some catching up so we could still finish on time. That wasn't necessary, but I wanted to try to make up for confusing her earlier in the year :)

Music
LMS started violin lessons in the fall. We occasionally listen to classical  and Irish music. We finally bought a piano in the fall and she plays her violin lessons on the piano. We'll start formal piano lessons in another year or so.

PE/Sports
We did fall and spring soccer, ski lessons, three kids fun runs, and four weeks of swimming lessons. We also have weekly park days with friends (I'm not always the best at getting out and going to parks, so having a scheduled time works well for us).

Art
Nothing formal- just fun with paints and crayons and glue and the sewing class at the co-op in the fall.

Science
Physics class at the co-op in the fall, farm animal class at the co-op in the fall, nothing too extensive this year.

We took a pretty relaxed approach to school this year and learned a lot from it. In the coming year we'll be changing how we do some things as well as adding more structure to the subjects that we didn't pay much attention to this year. My main goal for LMS in her kindergarten year was for her to learn to read and to make good progress in her math skills, which she did. I didn't want kindergarten to be high stress, and I think we did a pretty good job of keeping things low key.

The Well Trained Mind Seminar

source

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to a homeschool conference that included a seminar presented by Susan Wise Bauer. Since we're using the Well Trained Mind curriculum recommendations, I jumped at the chance to hear her speak.

The topics were:

* A Plan for Teaching Writing: Grades K-12
* A Plan for Teaching Writing: Focus on the Middle Grades
* A Plan for Teaching Writing: Focus on the High School Years
* Homeschooling the Real (Distractible, Impatient, Argumentative, Unenthusiastic, Non-Book-Loving, Inattentive, Poky, Vague) Child
* The Well Prepared Student (High School): How to Get Ready for College
* Teaching Students to Work Independently

Some points I took from each talk:

I was mostly interested in the first Plan for Teaching Writing talk, Homeschooling the Real Child, and Teaching Students to Work Independently, but the talks about middle and high school ages were also helpful. I was able to get a good long range view of what to aim for over the next 12 years.

The first Plan for Teaching Writing talk gave me a good idea of how to integrate grammar, spelling, writing into our schoolwork. The next two talks were good things to keep in mind for the future.

Homeschooling the Real Child was quite interesting. Susan gave several descriptors of different types of children- purposeful, immature, single-minded, multi-talented, independent, and creative. At this point, the one that most applies to Little Miss Sunshine is "single-minded", which didn't really come as a surprise, since Mr M and I have frequently commented on her one-track mind :) Susan then gave several strategies to use in dealing with our children. This was very enlightening, and gave me some great ideas to try with LMS.

Despite high school being years in the future, I actually took a lot of notes during the next talk about the well prepared high school student. Great things to keep in mind as we press forward- how to prepare for standardized tests, how to prepare a transcript showing coursework completed, and so on. She divided this talk into three sections: the practically well prepared student, the academically well prepared student, and the emotionally well prepared student- all things that need to be addressed over the coming years.

We're very much in the "Parent at Elbow" stage of schooling , but we will be working towards teaching LMS to work independently, so the last talk was of a lot of interest to me. In a few more years, we'll start moving into "Hovering Parent" stage, and then gradually become more and more hands-off. Susan gave some great ideas for teaching children to eventually be independent self-starters, starting in the elementary school years, and I can't wait to start using them! Of course, that will be just in time to start over with the next kiddo (hopefully- this isn't an announcement or anything), but it will make it easier to only have one parent-intensive kiddo in school at a time.

All-in-all, the time and money spent to attend this seminar were very well spent, and I'm glad I was able to attend.

Have you ever had the chance to hear Susan speak?

Co-op sewing class

Last fall I taught a sewing class for the kids in our co-op, and I'm just barely getting the pictures together for this post :) There was two classes- the younger kids (4-7) and the older kids (8-12) and we ended up doing three projects- plastic canvas bracelets, fabric stuffies, and felt ornaments.

The kids sewed the bracelets in whatever design they wanted with yarn, then sewed a button and a yarn loop to close it. The younger kids did need a bit of parental help, but they picked the colors they wanted and did most of the work. The older kids were able to do all the work themselves.

The sample bracelet I made.

Some of the bracelets being modeled.

The next project was some stuffies. I searched far and wide for an easy project the kids could do, and finally came across these, which looked super cute and fairly simple. After looking over the designs, I drew some patterns on paper and sewed a couple samples. I used a velour-ish sheet from IKEA, leftover from LMS's Finding Nemo room. I incorporated a green strap from the sheet into the back of the doggy and used some scraps of fleece for the spikes on the dragon. The dragon was a bit more involved because of the tail and spikes, but the rest of the patterns I drew up were fairly easy.

Top: doggy, Bottom: dragon

I didn't take pics of the other kids' stuffies, but here's LMS's kitty cat that she sewed by hand. She picked out the buttons herself, too. Isn't it cute?

The last project was some felt Christmas ornaments. The kids sewed buttons and had help gluing trim to pieces of felt. They then sewed a second piece to the back, as well as a loop for hanging.

Some of the kids chose to do plastic canvas and yarn ornaments, using shapes I picked up at JoAnns.

(I didn't get pics of those, though)

The ornaments I made to show the kids.

Again, I didn't get pics of the other kids' ornaments, but here's the one LMS made. Pretty good sewing for a 5 year old :)

The class was a lot of work, and didn't quite go as I had hoped (I intended to do some machine sewing with the older class), but in the end, I think the kids learned a little bit, at least. Lots of parental involvement made the whole thing possible, especially with the younger kids. I'm not sure that I'll attempt another sewing class at the co-op, but I will be doing some sewing with LMS. She's been asking me to make clothes for her Nanny, so I'll use the opportunity to give her some practice with my sewing machine (with my help, of course).

Have you done any sewing with your kids, and how did it go?

Butterfly Adventures

Lately we've all been going to the park after play class. The nice weather allows the kids to run around and play together outside after playing together inside. This past week the kids came running over with a butterfly. I'm not sure where they found it, but it was content to sit on their fingers.

They took turns carefully passing it around to each other. They were very careful not to touch the wings or otherwise harm the butterfly.

The butterfly patiently walked from hand to hand, finger to finger, not flying off till each of the children had had a chance to hold it. They were all so excited that they had been able to hold a butterfly. Experiences like this highlight the joys of homeschooling- learning opportunities are everywhere!

Have you ever held a butterfly?

Homeschool schedules

Using rubberbands to make patterns on the RightStart Math geoboards.

Recently I've been thinking about when to end this school year.

Initially I wanted to be done with kindergarten by Memorial Day so we could have the whole summer off. But then I reconsidered what our school schedule should be.

A traditional 9 months on, 3 months off?
I like the idea of not doing schoolwork for 3 months, but didn't like the idea of wasting time doing review in the fall.

Year round?
That would mitigate the need for lots of review, and maybe be a bit more flexible. This post on The Pioneer Woman gave me lots to consider.

If we did year round, what kind of schedule would we use?
There are many variations that people use, and after considering them, I looked at the calendar and some of the things we have planned for the next year or two and then tried out a couple options. This post was a good starting point, even though it doesn't quite work for our schedule.

In the end, this is what I came up with for the next school year:

   4 weeks vacation    (June 24 to July 21)

6 weeks school          (July 22 to September 1)

   2 weeks off             (September 2 to September 15)

6 weeks school          (September 16 to October 27)

   2 weeks off             (October 28 to November 10)

6 weeks school          (November 11 to December 22)

   4 weeks vacation    (December 23 to January 19)

6 weeks school          (January 20 to March 2)

   2 weeks off             (March 3 to March 16)

6 weeks school          (March 17 to April 27)

   2 weeks off             (April 28 to May 11)

6 weeks school          (May 12 to June 22)

   4 weeks vacation    (June 23 to July 20 )

We get 36 weeks of school, with frequent, shorter vacations. The vacation schedule is flexible, allowing for illness, adoption (hopefully!), and other happenings that we can't schedule. If we start to burn out (there will be a lot more schoolwork and structure in first grade than we did in kindergarten), we can even do 3 weeks on/1 week off/3 weeks on/1 week off.
Have you tried a year-round schedule? Did you like it? What worked? What didn't?

Ski class

There is a ski resort about an hour or so away from us, and I found a class for LMS that includes lessons and equipment for her and lift tickets and equipment rentals for me, all for a very reasonable price. Last week was her first lesson, and while I didn't get on skis myself, I will this week. It's marketed to parents of preschoolers, but the age limit is 3-6, so if she likes it, we can do a repeat next year. Making the deal even better is that there were two kids and two teachers for her class- can't beat a one-to-one ratio!

Riding the magic carpet to the top of the bunny slope- so much easier to use than the old rope tows that jerk your arms out of their sockets.

Skiing down the slope.

Taking a break to build a snowman.

Letting the snowman try out her skis.

LMS had lots of fun and can't wait for her next class!

Fire Station Field Trip

A couple weeks ago Little Miss Sunshine and I went to the local fire station with some other homeschoolers for a tour.

First up- trying on a real fire helmet.

The fireman showed the equipment that's on the trucks (this cabinet held the jaws of life).

The kiddos got to climb in the cab of the truck and try on the headphones.

Then they headed outside where they got a chance to use the hose- they all thought that was the coolest thing ever!

 

Just before they drained the hose, all the kids balanced on it- it was hard as a rock. Then they turned off the water pressure and the water drained out and the house flattened, which the kids thought was hilarious.

It was a fun trip, and a good reminder that we still need to decide on an emergency evacuation plan and make sure we all know what to do if there's a fire.