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.

Wright Brothers National Memorial

Little Miss Sunshine showing off her 5 Junior Ranger badges

One of the things we did while in the Outer Banks was go to one of the three National Parks in the area. Ok, they're not technically 'Parks', but you get the idea. There's Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the Wright Brothers National Memorial, and Fort Raleigh National Historic Site.

Each site has a different junior ranger program for the kids.

At Cape Hatteras they can be a seashore ranger,

at the Wright Brothers Memorial they can be a flight ranger,

and at Fort Raleigh they can be a Roanoke ranger.

Personally, I think they differentiate between them to keep interest up in the junior ranger programs. Not that I'm complaining or anything. I really do think they add a lot to the experience for kids, and I know we (Mr M and I) have learned a lot of stuff we wouldn't have if LMS wasn't doing the program.

Because of the road still being washed out by the hurricane we weren't able to do anything in the southern part of the Outer Banks, so we didn't go to Cape Hatteras or Fort Raleigh. Since we plan on going back again, we'll hit them up on future visits.

We did go to the Wright Brothers Memorial, which was pretty cool. I spent my junior and senior high school years not far from Dayton, Ohio, and it always confused me how Ohio could be "The Birthplace of Aviation", when everyone knew the first flights were in Kitty Hawk, NC, not Ohio, and why were they going to North Carolina, anyway? Maybe this was covered in Ohio history in elementary school? I missed that and had California history instead. After going to the memorial, I now understand. The Wright brothers experimented and built their designs in Ohio, then loaded everything on a train to North Carolina. They had made some inquiries and determined that Kitty Hawk had the ideal conditions (wind, lack of vegetation, etc) for their flight attempts.

It's visits like this that are a fun part of homeschooling. 

Isn't LMS cute?

So how's our homeschool schedule going?

We started the day after Labor Day, so we're about a month into the school year.

(LMS listening to scripture tapes before we buckle done for reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic)

After some trial and error, we've established an order for doing each subject, which has resulted in less time wasted and less pushing to get each lesson finished.

The first two weeks I didn't do any workouts, and that had to change (see this post), so I figured out a workout/training schedule (see this post), which is going pretty good so far, and only changes our school schedule a little.

Right now the subjects are time-intensive for me as I help LMS understand each new concept, especially in reading and math, but they won't always be. Three afternoons a week we're driving around town for classes, so I multitask by doing the grocery shopping and errands while we're out and about. Two evenings a week (thankfully it's going to once a week this week) and Saturday mornings we have soccer. Spare time for projects and all the household stuff is only available at certain times of the week.

Some of her work I need to sit next to her and help her, other parts she can do on her own, so I have a few minutes here and there to get stuff done around the house: bills, meals prepared, house cleaned, though it's a work in progress to see how everything fits in (and the housework has definitely suffered lately).

I've felt a bit stressed about our busy schedule, but a lot of the stress is because I haven't felt as good as I should lately- our food's been off- there's something else we need to cut out- almonds, I think. So I've felt crummy, stressed, and frustrated because I'm not getting everything done. Fun combo. I'm feeling better physically now, so I'm feeling less stressed, which makes everything better :)

This is our current curriculum (if we find something isn't working, I'll switch it for something else, though right now it all seems to be going well):

Scripture study- she listens to the tapes for the Illustrated Stories from the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Church History
Reading- Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy lessons
Writing- Zaner-Bloser Handwriting
Math- Math-U-See Primer
Music- violin and ukulele
Art- no set curriculum- just whatever strikes our fancy
Science- no set curriculum- classes at the co-op are giving her an introduction though (biology now, physics next session)
PE- soccer

Our path to homeschooling

I haven't yet talked about why we're homeschooling
(get ready for a long post).

I'll start by stating that I never intended to homeschool. LMS was going to go to preschool several mornings a week last year, then would start kindergarten this year. Kindergarten is full day here, so she would be gone the whole day, leaving me with vast amounts of time on my hands :) I could go running without the jogger or biking without the trailer, go shopping without her, have lots of time for crafts and other projects, and so on. It was going to be great :)

Shortly after we moved here last year I started getting the feeling we should homeschool. I'd already narrowed down our preschool choices before we moved, but never felt compelled to make a decision about which one to go with. I've learned from experience that when I get the prompting to do something (especially if it's difficult or something I hadn't planned on) I should pay attention and follow the prompting.

Getting my toes wet
In an effort to learn more about homeschooling I attended an LDS homeschool convention with Mr M shortly before he left on his deployment (where I met a girl I knew growing up who now lives in our state and is planning on homeschooling in a year or two when her kids are old enough) and I attended a larger homeschool convention after he left. I was able to gather lots of info and advertisements for curriculum (too much info, since it was hard to narrow down what direction we wanted to go).

Fall came and LMS stayed home with me. I joined a couple local yahoo homeschool groups and started picking up info about activities and opportunities available.

After Christmas we took the leap and signed up for a play class that I'd seen advertised on one of the yahoo groups. A month or so later we joined a co-op. She was only 4, but since I stayed in the class with her, and it's a small co-op, they didn't mind. At both activities we met local homeschoolers with kids close to LMS' age and we learned more about all that our area has to offer.

LMS exploring the meal worms at play class (they got to interact with them over a couple of weeks, seeing the changes in their life cycle).

Curriculum
During the spring I did some reading. I really liked what I read about Charlotte Mason and her methods, and then I read A Well Trained Mind. I loved it! A Well Trained Mind advocates the Classical education method, which Charlotte Mason is in a less-structured form. A Well Trained Mind discusses curriculum to use and includes lists of books to read kindergarten through twelfth grade. I'll do a post about Classical education and the classes we'll be doing another day- this post is super-long already.

image source

Activities
In addition to schoolwork there are lots of supplementary activities. Music, sports, co-op classes and so on are all available for LMS to participate in.

LMS sitting on the ground in blue, playing at the splash park with other homeschooling friends on the first day of school

One thing we really have to watch out for is over-scheduling. This fall we'll do classes in the mornings, then Monday afternoon is our co-op, Tuesday afternoon is play class, Wednesday evening is soccer, Thursday afternoon is violin lessons, and Friday is field trip day (parks, museums, etc). Yikes- that's an activity every single day. While I'm ok with not having lots and lots of free time on my hands, I do still need some time to work on projects and LMS still needs some quiet time each day. We'll see how it all works out.

Next year our Tuesday play class will be switched for a sampler class of music and dancing at the local Irish music school. She's not old enough to attend till next fall, but I'm already looking forward to participating vicariously :) I'm also looking forward to learning Irish fiddle there once I've progressed enough on the violin (I'm taking lessons with LMS).

I've also found some nature study classes she can take when she's a little older. I'd love to be able to do them with her (or even teach her myself), but I'm so allergic to so many things out here that that's not a practical plan at this point.

Benefits
Despite my inital reluctance to homeschool, I've already discovered several benefits- some education-related, some not.

LMS' food issues are still not resolved completely- they're better, but not gone, and if she eats something that doesn't agree with her she still has accidents. Preschool would not have been good, but kindergarten would be way worse. Kids can be brutal. We don't want our daughter subjected to taunts and ridicule because of something she can't control. How damaging would that be?

I recently read an article about dyslexia and realized she's at risk for it- she's got an uncle with dyslexia and another with eye tracking problems (it can be genetic), and some of her words get twisted around (which can be a sign of dyslexia). Now that I know to be on the look-out, I will be super-aware as she learns to read this year. If she does have a problem, I want to find out now, rather than 5, 10 years down the road after she's had issues for years and hates learning because it's so frustrating.

More importantly, though, I get to spend more time with her (she really is fun to have around) and we can tailor her education- spending more time on things that interest her, taking advantage of all the great historical sites out here, and so on.

Mr M comes home for lunch most days, which we all enjoy. This is especially nice since he just returned from a year-long deployment and LMS really missed her daddy (so did I, but I can handle it better :) ). Being able to spend a little more time with him each day is a really nice benefit. If she was going to public school that wouldn't be possible.
There's also a side benefit for me: I get to learn/re-learn with her. I've forgotten so many things because of so many years of untreated celiac. It's really done a number on my memory and I'm looking forward to refilling my brain :)

Logistics
I know lots of families out there with lots of kids homeschool, and from what I've read it's definitely a juggling act. Since LMS is an only child right now I don't have to worry about splitting my time- she gets all my attention. We have started our adoption application, so hopefully our family will be growing in a year or so, and then we'll just take things as they come. One benefit of the younger grades is that they aren't super time intensive, so it's easier to fit everything in and I'm sure it'll all work out when we get to that point. In the meantime, we're going to enjoy the one-on-one attention.

Anything I didn't mention that you're curious about? Leave a comment or send me an email :)