Weeks 17-20...Back to Blogging!

I can't believe the last time I wrote, it was in 2009! Well, it's been a busy month since then. We took a lovely two weeks off of school to celebrate the Christmas holidays with family visiting for a good part of that time. We eased back into school the week of January 4th and have been plugging away for a month! Next week will be a "light week" during which my plans are to finally start a lapbooking project, so we'll see how that goes. But now for a summary of a month's work of work! I will try to be succinct!


Bible: We've been continuing our tour through the various names of Jesus, including "Immanuel", "Lamb of God", and currently "the Vine". Adventures in My Father's World continues to find clever ways to connect a variety of disciplines; for example, the week we studied the idea of Jesus being the Lamb of God, we created a lamb out of cotton, then studied Eli Whitney in history and did several other activities related to cotton. We glued tiny bits of green paper to a fluffed-up cotton ball to illustrate what cotton really looks like, with all its seeds; then, the boys had to try to remove all the "seeds" in order to comprehend how difficult a job this was, and why Whitney's cotton gin was so important.


History/Geography: In addition to Eli Whitney, we've learned about...

• The life of the pioneers who floated westward on the Ohio River
• The Louisiana Purchase (a bargain at a grand price of $15 million!)
  
• The War of 1812 and the Star Spangled Banner
• Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, and Louisiana (I never knew that "Cajun" originally referred to Canadians displaced by the British during the French and Indian War!)
  

Math: Harry is on his last unit in Singapore 1B, having spent the last couple of weeks adding and subtracting two-digit numbers. Next up: currency, which is perfectly timed with the upcoming fundraising activity at our church called "Change for Haiti", to encourage kids to find all the spare change they can to donate to Haiti earthquake relief efforts. Ron is working through Singapore EarlyBird and seems to be missing RightStart math, which I'm a little surprised about. I thought he'd enjoy the kid-friendly format of EarlyBird, but I may end up combining the two programs. I'm having him review some basic concepts in Singapore EB, and I think he's getting tired of my asking questions like, "what comes after 5? Before 5? What numbers are missing in this list?" etc. But, I just want to make sure he has the right foundation before we plow forward.

Science: The boys have been studying weather, living things/cells, animals, and plants. Some of the activities we enjoyed were creating a jello model of a cell and discovering how important water is for plants, illustrated by comparing popcorn kernels covered by a napkin soaked with water with dry popcorn kernels over five days. Although the conclusion sounds so obvious to an adult, the kids marveled at the transformation of the seeds over five days.



Language Arts: Harry continues to make progress through all our normal LA activities--spelling, handwriting, Classical Writing Primer, First Language Lessons--while Ron is continuing with his work in Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading, as well as practicing his handwriting through the use of D'Nealian practice sheets.

Crossroads and Questions: Looking ahead, now that we are already on the second half of our school year, I find myself asking a number of questions to which there are no easy answers. For example...

• Should Ron go to kindergarten at the local PS? Or should he just stay home and continue his progress? Ron is probably our most extroverted child and would probably enjoy being in a class with other kids. But after having him home for most of the week thus far, it's hard to imagine him being in a school setting five days a week.
• If Ron does stay home, I have to figure out which curriculum to use for him...not easy given the hundreds and hundreds of choices out there. I'm looking at Memoria Press's new kindergarten program, as well as My Father's World kindergarten curriculum; both look like they would have elements I'd like, if not for the phonics/reading and math, for which I'll continue what I'm already doing, then for the other activities and subjects. It feels impossibly difficult right now to have to choose...praying for wisdom to know what to do here.
  
• Similarly for Harry, I'm pretty sure we'll keep the homeschooling "experiment" going for another year. But I am asking all sorts of questions about what the best way is to teach subjects such as writing and handwriting; whether our approach is really helping Harry develop a love of learning--most days he is just happy to be done with school! Maybe all kids are like this, but I wonder if there is more that I can do to make our learning experiences memorable and fun? It's hard to find a balance between doing so and still requiring the work that needs to be done, work that perhaps is less enjoyable--reviewing math fact, learning new math concepts, practicing handwriting, etc. I also find myself asking on occasion, would Harry hold himself to a higher standard if he were in school? Perhaps being around peers would motivate him to excel in a way that doesn't happen when at home. And how can I tell if the work is giving me his best for what is to be expected at his age and ability? Questions, questions, questions!

So, light week comes at a good time for us. I'm feeling the need for a little break to ponder some of these questions! But overall, we are continuing to forge ahead and make progress, and even if there are gaps in some areas, we trust that the Lord who has led us down this path will not forsake either our efforts or our kids. Thank goodness! =)

Weeks 15 and 16! Christmas Break Begins!

Technically, we aren't quite halfway through the year, as we have a 34-week curriculum, but it still feels monumental to have made it this far in our first year of homeschooling. I remember back to this past spring when I let the principal of our local elementary school know about our decision, and his initial response was, "It's your choice, of course, but most of the people who try it send their kids back to us within a week." Well, we have made it past a week and now to nearly a semester of studying together. We've had our challenges, but one thing I can say for certain is that I've enjoyed the overall experiences much more than I was expecting!

Parenting, especially motherhood, is so full of the mundane experiences of life (cooking, cleaning, laundry, laundry, laundry!) and I am not one who particularly enjoys the drudgery of housekeeping. But homeschooling engages my mind and soul in ways that has previously been missing in my parenting experience. It has stretched me and my faith, as I have had to trust that God is in this process and is ultimately in control of the education of my children, even as he has asked me to participate. It has been humbling on so many levels, and it feels as though my flaws as a teacher and parent are even more pronounced, given that I'm surrounded by my kids all throughout the day. But yet, I feel as though the Lord has given much grace to us all, as we have stumbled together in getting used to this new lifestyle. So I'm quite thankful for all we've learned as a family through this experience.

OK, onto the summary of the past two weeks! Here are some highlights:

• Harry finished his brief units on division and telling time; nearing the end of Singapore Math 1B! We are working on a brief unit on numbers within 100 and should be moving on to book 2A in January.
  
• Ron started Singapore Earlybird, which we have begun to use in lieu of RightStart A. I felt as though RS was jumping quickly into operations without setting the a foundation of understanding numeracy, so I am glad to back up a little bit and use Earlybird. With its colorful books and more age-appropriate approach, I think Ron will be better off in the long run.
• We continued our state studies and also touched upon Daniel Boone in history; I never quite understood this man's significance in American history until now, I'm ashamed to say! Never even heard about the Wilderness Road before, sadly, or if I did, I completely forgot about it. (I don't know that my kids will remember Daniel Boone's significance, but hopefully they will remember that I was excited to learn about him and one day reflect a similar passion for learning.)
  
• We also did a unit on air in science; the boys enjoyed learning that warm air expands and rises, and cold air contracts. They did a couple of simple experiments demonstrating these concepts: 1) putting a dented plastic golf ball in warm water (the warmed air in the ball pushes the dent back out); 2) shaking a plastic bottle with ice in it and watching the sides contract, and 3) floating a feather in warmed air (like magic, they thought!)

• Both boys have been working on their handwriting, with Harry having started cursive this fall. He is getting better at forming words and wanted to share a recent sample.
  

A challenge of homeschooling is that I don't have any experience in knowing what is appropriate for this age! But I am thankful to have a neighbor whose daughter was in 2nd grade last year and who has lent me her materials to help give me a point of reference. Her penmanship was quite lovely and gives Harry a measure to shoot for as well.

• We also have continued to track birds at our feeder and see a good number of our summer and fall feathered friends still with us. One of our recent visitors, the downy woodpecker:

We've also had our share of musical celebrations this year, with both Harry and Ron performing in winter concerts. Unfortunately, our camera wasn't functioning for Sean's concert, but Harry poses here with his wonderful teacher, Cheryl Lim of the Betty Haag Academy and Wheaton Community School of the Arts:


And of course we continued with our usual subjects such as First Language Lessons, Classical Writing Primer, spelling, Latin, and Mandarin. Slow and steady progress on all fronts. =) Ron also has made great strides in his reading, and we are onto long-vowel E sounds in all their different forms. I never learned phonetic reading so I feel like I'm learning the basics alongside Ron!

Lastly, although this has nothing to do with school, we are trying to put less emphasis on receiving gifts this Christmas and putting more focus on giving to others. To that end, we took the boys to Toys 'R Us to select gifts for needy children, which was initially a little difficult for them--what child finds it easy to enter a toy store and not think about things they might want? But, they were troopers by the end and as we affirmed them for doing a wonderful thing for other kids this Christmas, their spirits lifted significantly. We hope to make an annual tradition of this activity in the future!


Thanks for visiting our blog; we'll be back to school in January! We wish you and yours a wonderful Christmastime! May it be full of love, laughter, and Glee!!!

Weeks 10-14! Has it been that long?

I cannot believe how the weeks have flown by. After our Toronto trip, it felt as though we were in catch-up mode and then preparations for Thanksgiving began! I feel like we've also hit a few bumps in our homeschooling journey, nothing too drastic, but it's required some flexibility on my part to manage. I assume this is all completely normal for veteran homeschoolers, but I'm still feeling my way around! But as a result, it's been harder to find time to do the weekly catch-ups. So here is a long overdue summary of the weeks past.

Math: We've made some changes all around. As the material began to become more challenging and unfamiliar, I discovered how hard it is to teach math with distractions. So as much as I like to get more done before lunch, I've decided that Harry's math has to be saved for after lunch, when the little brothers are napping. It's made a big difference to my sanity, and hopefully to Harry's understanding of the material. We're working through multiplication in Singapore Math 1B, and getting ready to start division. I do love how Singapore Math focuses on having the student understand the concepts; it's been eye-opening to see how they cover the basic math operations, very different from how I learned it. I just hope I'm doing the curriculum justice! I'm also finding myself dissatisfied with Right Start A, which I'd been using with Ron, so I'm looking to do a math curriculum switch for him, too, probably to Singapore Earlybird since we're having a good experience with Singapore thus far with Harry.

History/Geography: We've continued through our overview of American history; over the past few weeks we've covered subjects such as the the Revolutionary War, Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, and the Constitution (at a 2nd grade level, of course!). The boys enjoyed making berry ink and using feathers to approximate the quill pens of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, as well as their own versions of Liberty Bells. We also began our study of the fifty states, which began with the first four states to enter the union--Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Georgia--and continues chronologically from there. I thought the boys might start getting tired of the state studies, but they really enjoy learning what the state birds and flowers are, coloring the state sheets that My Father's World provides, and locating the states in the U.S. map. Harry also had a chance to try his hand at some baking in conjunction with our study of Georgia, and made his first peach cobbler.

Science: Speaking of birds, we finally officially began our study of birds and our boys' familiarity with all the backyard breeds we've attracted these past few months has really helped to make the material come to life. The ironic thing is that now that the cold has come, we've seen a dramatic decrease in the number and variety of feathered friends who visit. But the goldfinches (that are no longer bright yellow, but gray for the colder months) and chickadees still visit often--our goldfinch feeder often hosts several at a time! To continue attracting winter birds, the boys decorated pine cones with peanut butter, raisins and birdseed for any lucky fowl that discover them before the squirrels do! Our backyard now features two hanging feeders, a mesh bag filled with free beef suet from the local butcher, all those aforementioned peanut butter-pine cones, and even some orange halves affixed to one of our trees in hopes of attracting any orioles that might be around. I've been completely surprised at how much fun it is to watch for birds and learn about their behaviors. Birds are one of the most oft-mentioned animals in Scripture, and my fellow writing friend Anita Lustrea tells me that renowned theologian John Stott is a lifelong birdwatcher and has done some writing about the importance of birds, so that will be another book I will have to read...someday!

Other Topics: Harry continues to work through his daily lessons in language arts--spelling, handwriting, Classical Writing Primer, First Language Lessons--he can rattle off the list of "state of being" and helping verbs, the definitions of nouns and verbs , and the four types of sentences without much trouble. The contention that classical Christian advocates make, that the "grammar" stage is perfect for memorization, seems to be true for Harry. He is much better than I am at remembering everything from his Latin prayers to his Chinese characters to his growing list of poetry; this week, he finished "The Wind" by Robert Louis Stevenson. Meanwhile, Ron is continuing his work through Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading and becoming better at printing his letters and numbers. He has already expressed his preference not to attend kindergarten at the local elementary school next year; we'll see if that ends up being the way we go! It's still hard to imagine that we may be homeschooling for years into the future, just as much as it now seems hard to imagine a lifestyle back in public school.

Harry's Friday homeschooling co-op is done for the semester, so we'll fill in the time with learning some practical skills, such as typing and Powerpoint. From what I understand, his fellow classmates at his old school begin learning these skills this year, and I'd love for him to do the same. We try to do occasional summary reports for DH, during which Harry gives a presentation on what he has learned and shows his dad the evidence of his work. It's a good way for Jason to get some oral communication experience and keep DH in the loop about what we're doing. My hope is that by the end of the year, Harry will be able to create his own simple Powerpoint slides to accompany the presentations...stay tuned!

Lastly, we spent a number of days on the topic of water (in conjunction with the topic of Jesus, the Giver of Living Water); we've been getting familiar with Tchaikovsky and especially with The Nutcracker Suite, perfect timing for Christmas, and the boys have been continuing with their own music studies. I'll end with this little duet of "Silent Night" they created on their own initiative...a nice way to get into the Christmas spirit!

(The boys are really getting into Harry Potter and now even refer to one another as Harry and Ron. I'm still amazed at how quickly the Jedi have been displaced!)

Week 8, Toronto trip, Week 9!

It's been a while since my last post because we took a week off in mid-October for a road trip to visit my in-laws in Toronto, something we have never done in the fall due to conflicts with my kids' school schedules. No longer an issue! My husband usually has some sort of fall break period so we took advantage of it and of our flexible schedule. So our week 8 was split into two, with two days occurring before we left for Toronto and the remainder completed after we returned. Just a couple of photos with highlights of our trip which included an apple-picking outing (brr! chilly day! but yummy apples...can't beat that fresh-off-the-tree taste!) and a visit to the Ontario Science Center. Thanks to Uncle Mike and Auntie Esther for taking all the photos since our camera is currently in disrepair!

The downside of returning mid-week was that I felt the need to jump back into school while trying to dig out of travel clutter, no easy task. As such, it was a somewhat disjointed week and probably not one of our better ones in terms of retention and creative activities. But we were back to normal by week 9. So I'll just combine our week 8 and week 9 updates!

• Harry completed Singapore Math 1A and did well on the placement test I used to gauge his progress. He only had a little trouble with the ordinals and once I explained them to him, he was good to go. It feels great to have that foundation under our belts and now on to 1B! So far he is cruising through the new book, which I think is reflective of all the work we did starting this summer on firming up his math facts. He is still not perfect at them, but he's so much better than where he was at the end of 1st grade, which has been very gratifying to see.

• We've kept up with our usual mix of Classical Writing Primer, First Language Lessons, handwriting and spelling...nothing particularly exciting to report here, except that I'm seeing much nicer printing from Harry when he tries his best. He has also started cursive and that's been going slowly but steadily.

• In Adventures, we learned about Benjamin Franklin, including a number of facts that I never knew outside of his experiments with kites and lightning (he was the founder of the academy that became the University of Pennsylvania; he founded the first public library; he founded the first fire department, etc.) Quite the remarkable inventor, not to mention statesman and ambassador! Now I better understand why he is one of only two people depicted on U.S. currency who was not a sitting president (Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill being the other).

• George Washington was our focus for week 9, and as I speak the older two boys are enjoying a Nest Entertainment video on Washington, who is crossing the Delaware at this very moment. I usually let the boys watch an educational history video on Fridays if the Adventures curriculum recommends one. It's a fun way for them to end the week after reading and hearing so much about the main characters. They also made their own version of tricorn hats to emulate those that were in style in Washington's day.

• We also did a brief study of rocks and the composition of the earth. This was the topic that first introduced me to the complexities of talking about the age of the earth. I've discovered that there is a strong contingent of homeschoolers who believe the earth is only about 5,000 years old. I can't say that I agree, but this is not an area that I have done much research in to find out what those in the "Young Earth" camp have to say. I'm sure I'll write more about this in future posts. For now, I just explain to my kids that there is a wide range of beliefs about the age of the earth and none of really know for certain--aside from God, that is--how old the Earth really is. I know that will not be a sufficient explanation for very long so I better get reading up on this topic myself!
  
• Lastly, this week we broke out the watercolors to paint trees and leaves, a perfect activity for the season, which is something we haven't done in quite a while. Even Dobby wanted to get into the act! This is Harry's depiction of our neighbor's tree, then Ron's depiction of I'm-not-sure-what! =)

Meanwhile, Dobby is just having fun being a part of it all!

As always, we continued in our other subjects as well--Bible, Latin, Mandarin--as well as getting acquainted with Tchaikovsky (Harry is captivated by the 1st piano concerto and says he wants to play it someday. Wouldn't that be wonderful?) and learning what that word "macaroni" in the song "Yankee Doodle Dandy" is all about ("macaroni"= fancy hat worn in England at that time). Who knew? As I have discovered, it's never too late to learn new facts! =)

Week 7: Details!

Usually I paint the picture of how the week went in fairly broad strokes. This week I'll try to put more details to what the boys are learning and doing on a daily basis. We are not a fast-moving family in the morning, so we are usually up and ready to eat breakfast by 8 a.m. The boys know that after they wake up and get ready for the day, they are to tidy their rooms and the basement/playroom/schoolroom for the day, and our aim is to have all this done by breakfast.

After breakfast, Harry starts his piano time while I clean up the kitchen and the younger boys play. After I'm done, I will attempt to fit Ron's violin time in. We aim for 45 minutes for Harry, sometimes a little more, and 30 minutes for Ron. If Harry is done before I'm finished with Ron, he'll start working on assignments that don't require much supervision from me, usually cursive handwriting practice or an online math drill to practice addition and subtraction within 20. He's really gotten much stronger in this area over the past 4-5 months, although his subtraction is the weaker of the two. My friends with children in 2nd grade in public school tell me that subtraction is definitely harder for kids than addition and Harry's classmates haven't yet mastered subtraction within 20 either, so I think we're in good shape!

Then we officially begin together with Bible, using the My Father's World curriculum; this year, we are studying the names of Jesus and last week as well as this week, the focus was on John 6:35, the "I am the bread of life" verse which also served as the memory verse for the past two weeks. MFW does a nice job of trying to align Bible topics with history and/or science, so last week we did a number of activities with yeast, and this week the focus was on bread. Yesterday for our Bible activity, we made two loaves of bread, one for ourselves and one to share with a neighbor. It had been a LONG time since I'd made bread from scratch at home. We used a very simple recipe that hardly took much time at all to prepare and the aroma of fresh-baked bread cannot be beat!

After Bible, Harry has the following subjects to work through in addition to the aforementioned cursive program, and we try to get as much done as we can before lunchtime:

• Math: Harry is using Singapore Math 1A; although some of this was review, I wanted to start from the very beginning to make sure he had a good foundation of the content in this program. We are just about finished and will start 1B possibly next week or after our fall trip is over. Looking ahead, he will be introduced to addition and subtraction within 100, as well as multiplication and division as well. Fun, fun, fun!
  
• Spelling: We use a book recommended by MFW called Spelling by Sound and Structure, published by Rod and Staff. The words are pretty simple for Harry to spell right now, but along the way he is also getting basic phonics instruction, which he has never had in any official capacity and which I think will hamper him in the future spelling efforts if he doesn't learn those basic rules now.
  
• Classical Writing Primer: This book has been a lovely, gentle introduction to standard classical education activities for young children such as narration, copywork, and dictation. It also includes a weekly nature study, weekly picture study, and some basic grammar/spelling rules as well. Harry has been enjoying it!
• First Language Lessons: Although this might be a little bit of overkill, I wanted to also do FLL along with CWP because I wanted to introduce more grammar at a young age with Harry because his language arts skills are generally strong so I thought he could handle it. Where FLL overlaps with CWP in activities such as copywork and narration, I usually just opt for CWP, and use FLL for the grammar lessons as well as the occasional poetry memorization activity. These lessons are usually short so it is easy to add it on with CWP.
• History/Geography/Science from Adventures in My Father's World: We do whatever activities and readings are assigned in this curriculum. Most of the creative ideas and activities we do come from this curriculum, and I've very much appreciated not having to come up with these activities on my own! In addition to breadmaking, this week the kids also made their own version of canoes in conjuction with learning about the French pioneers who made their way up the Mississippi River and ultimately to Detroit.
  

Meanwhile, when Harry is working on an assignment, I work with Ron on either Right Start Math A or on Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading. Now that Ron is no longer at preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have more time to work with him on these subjects, which I'm glad about! Having just gone through Singapore Math 1A with Harry, I knew that Ron was not quite ready to jump into those kinds of activities. Right Start A, though, seemed to fit both his personality and his age better; it's more tactile and eases him into mathematical operations more gently than Singapore does. I think after he does Right Start A, he will be much better prepared to move to Singapore 1A, so that is the current plan. As for OPGTR, we have slowly and systematically been working through the lessons, and we are currently on Lesson 60. This program has really helped Ron significantly improve his reading skills. And because there is a strong phonetic component to the curriculum, he actually understands short vowel sounds better than Harry! It takes about 15 minutes for each subject, which I can usually fit in while Ron is working. I also add in handwriting practice for Ron and he participates with us in the other activities if he is awake and interested. And if Harry and Ron are both working on schoolwork, Dobby has to be a part of the fun!

(Speaking of Dobby, the poor guy gets the short shrift right now...I don't do very many intentional activities with him aside from pointing out letters to him when I can. But, he does start Musikgarten this Saturday, as preparation for his future music lessons in cello! THAT will be quite an interesting addition to our daily routine!)

I used to have a mid-morning break, but I've found that just throws us off and makes it very difficult to get our work done in the morning, especially since we aren't starting our academic work until 9:30 a.m., typically. So now, we just work until about 11:45 a.m. or so, after which we take our break/lunch all together.

After lunch, the younger boys take their naps. I clean up from lunch while Harry does his reading time, a combination of books recommended by MFW that fit what we are studying, and good-quality children's literature--I don't let him read Star Wars books at this time although I know that would be his preference if he had the choice! He has been stuck in a bit of a rut of only reading Beverly Cleary books during his reading time, and as much as I love the fact that he is enjoying books I read voraciously as a child, I thought it would be good to expand his horizons a little bit more. So, this week I learned the power of hooking him onto a story and to get him past judging books by the cover. I had brought home all these recommended books from the library that he wasn't reading because the first glances at the books had not captured his interest. So, I picked one such book (A Lion to Guard Us by Clyde Bulla), a historical novel about a family of three children who made their way from England to Jamestown on their own, and read about ten minutes aloud to him. He was captivated by it enough at that point to choose to continue reading it on his own. I have a feeling this is technique I will be using many times in the future!

After reading time, Harry does either his Prima Latina (he has finished Lesson 5 and can now recite the Latin prayer The Sanctus by memory--"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts/Heaven and earth are filled with his glory...") or Chinese (we are on Lesson 9: "What Day Is It Today?") and we wrap up anything we haven't finished during the day. Although I generally like for us to be done by 2:30 p.m., if Harry is really enjoying his book or some other activity that we are in the middle of, I'll just let him keep going with it. I'm still learning where I can flex and where I need to hold firm with the school day; my tendency is generally to be too firm about the schedule and so I'm trying to loosen up to keep things fun while still getting what we need to get done, done!

Three days a week, the boys get to play with our wonderful sitter, a college student who spends a couple of hours playing with them; this is supposed to be my time to work on my upcoming book with Moody Publishers on being a missional mom. More details on this in the future, hopefully...once I make more progress on it!

So that was the week that was! Next week we will have a couple of days of school then go to visit family in Toronto--a nice homeschooling benefit, being able to align our schedule with my husband's teaching schedule for once! I will post Week 8 in a couple of weeks when we come back and finish. Thanks for visiting and reading our update!

Week 6: Chugging Along, but Questions Arising

Thursdays are my "breathe a sigh of relief" day. I don't have to plan for school tomorrow, as it is co-op day and perhaps we'll do a little bit of catch-up from the week, but typically it doesn't require any preparation. Thursdays are also a long day as DH works late, so I'm usually pretty spent by the time Thursday evening rolls around and the kids are in bed. It's the night I gather all the unfolded laundry that has been languishing around the house and fold away while indulging in some "Gray's Anatomy" and whatever else might be on. And, if I'm really motivated, or if I want to delay the laundry-folding for a bit, it's the day I can start posting about the week that was at Rowan Court. So here goes!

Topics and activities of the week: Jesus is the Bread of Life; the beginnings of New Amsterdam (which became New York City...yet another basic fact from my own history education that I forgot or never learned); science experiments with yeast, and making butter! I do enjoy how MFW/Adventures likes to group related topics and themes together. The yeast experiment--combining yeast, warm water, and some sugar in a glass bottle with a balloon stretched across the top-- was great fun for the boys, especially when they began to understand that what the yeast was doing was consuming the sugar and releasing gas. Boys and comments about "passing gas" go hand in hand and guarantee laughs.

And we had a great time making butter today, in an attempt to recreate the experience of the early pioneers of New Amsterdam, who had managed to transport farm animals across the ocean from Holland all the way to the New World. Our process was simple but made quite an impression on the boys: take whipping cream, put it into a container with a tight lid, and shake away! I took the advice of some fellow Adventurers and used an electric mixer for the first few seconds to get things started, then it was all manual labor from that point. We just used about a half a pint of whipping cream, poured into a clean Snapple bottle (yes, we do like our Snapple around here!), and Harry and Ron took turns shaking for two minutes each. Fourteen minutes later, we had a thick substance coating the sides of the bottle. I wasn't sure what this was; it was too loose to be butter so I shook the bottle for just another 20 seconds or so then became aware that suddenly the previously thick substance had turned into liquid again, which was utterly confusing at first. Then I realized that something was floating in that liquid, and there was our butter! (The remaining liquid, buttermilk. All things that perhaps other normal, educated people are aware of, but it all was wondrously new and fun for us all.) The kids were amazed to see what had emerged and excited to taste it. I added a little salt for taste and we all had some with bread as part of our lunch. The boys said that it was the best butter they'd ever had. =)

Lest I give the wrong impression that homeschooling is all fun and games, let me correct that erroneous impression. Along with the fun parts of homeschooling come, at least for me, tons of questions. I wonder constantly if we're working hard enough or too much. I wonder if my expectations of Harry in particular are too high or too low. I wonder if he is working to his fullest potential or if being home gives him the impression that he can do the opposite. I wonder if being away from other children will lessen his self-motivation to do his best and to excel. I wonder, I wonder, I wonder! These are the kinds of questions that his potential teacher in 2nd grade would likely not have asked; he or she would have the benefit of experience and perspective to know what is generally acceptable or excellent work by a 7 year old. Without that kind of experience and training, I just have to trust my instincts and hope they are good enough. This is the scary part of homeschooling, the knowledge that my son's education is in my hands! But then I correct and remind myself that my son's education is actually not in my hands, but in God's hands, and that I just have to be faithful to do what He has called me to do. Homeschooling has been one big of leap of faith and continues to be so. But so far, the benefits have far outweighed any negatives. We'll hope and see if this continues to be true!

Week 5: Stars and Wonders

I didn't take any photos this week, unfortunately, to document some of the things we did in Week 5. I can say that I think I learned as much as the kids did! Our topics of the week included: Jesus is the Light of the World; Stars and Constellations; Mayflower and the Pilgrims, and the usual assortment of math, spelling, Classical Writing Primer, First Language Lessons, Latin, Mandarin, and reading time. From our study of the Pilgrims, we created our own version of an oiled window to mimic what the Pilgrims did in their own log houses, and we planted two small pots of corn kernels; we added bits of raw fish to one pot just like Squanto instructed the Pilgrims to do, and over the next few days and weeks the kids will watch to see what happens. History and science all rolled into one!

One of my fellow MFW Adventures moms on my Yahoo Groups list suggested the following site as a way to visualize the relative size of the Earth, the sun, and the largest star we can see without a telescope (Betelgeuse). Here is one of the photos from the site which is a great way to see the Earth and the sun in relation to one another.

We made constellation viewers out of Pringles cans and learned a few things I never knew, such as the fact that the Big Dipper is part of Ursa Major (Great Bear), and that the two end stars of the Big Dipper point straight towards the North Star, which is the last star on the end of the Little Dipper. Perhaps this is common knowledge to most folks, but it was completely new to me! (OK, true confessions, it shouldn't be new to me--I took Astronomy 101 in college! But, I cannot remember learning any of these basic facts and if I did, they never went into my long-term memory.) This is the part of homeschooling I enjoy--the chance to learn alongside the kids, and to be inspired alongside them with new ideas and concepts.

(Of course, sometimes it feels like the kids aren't nearly as excited as I am about the things we are learning! Not sure what I can do about that except trust that if they see that I am excited about learning new things, over time they will similarly embrace and adopt a similar attitude. That's the hope, anyway!)

Lastly, I mentioned last post or so about my unexpected struggles having Ron in preschool. The other thing that resulted when he started going back to school was that although I had one less child at home, 2 year old Dobby would become more fussy and needy because he wouldn't have another brother to play with or be around when I was working with Harry. That plus the fact that Ron's class is focusing tasks such as helping the kids learn to recognize their own name and learning the alphabet, when I could be using that time at home with him to help him continue developing his reading, math and writing skills, made the decision easy: we have withdrawn Ron from his Tuesday/Thursday preschool class. He'll still go once a week on Fridays to his "Learning Through Literature" class while Harry is at his weekly co-op, so he'll still have a chance to experience preschool life, but this seems the best of all options and also saves us some money (to help pay for the homeschooling expenses!) Tomorrow is his last day in his Tuesday/Thursday class, and he seems not one bit sad about that, thankfully!

We have begun week 6, and will post on that next week. New Netherland and bread!