Spotlight: ABand3 week of 2/3-2/9

[ABand3]

It's my turn in the spotlight! I'll have time to write more tonight, but wanted to get the ball rolling with a short intro.

I'm Amy, and I have three kids - aged 7.5, 4.5 and 2.5. Our homeschooling journey began last fall ('06) when my oldest was in public school 1st grade, and we decided to pull him out to homeschool. My 4.5 year old attends preschool, and I plan to homeschool him next year (although my DH is having trouble with that idea - more on that later!). My 2.5 year old will go to preschool next year, but I plan to hs her as well for K+.

Our style is I guess electic, and somewhat child led, but I wouldn't call us unschoolers, because a small part of each day is mama-led.

In a typical week my oldest will do math (Singapore) and cursive practice on 3-4 days, for ~ 30 minutes each. We loosely follow the Core Knowledge series (What Your __ Graders Needs to Know) for literature, history/geography and science -- we read a few pages of the book each week, and have some related books around in case DS wants to learn more, or look at things from another perspective, but we don't drill or test (usually!)on the material, it's mainly a way for us to explore new topics or read things we might not ordinarily pick up at the library. My DS has recently informed me he likes quizes (who knew!) so he has done some paper and online quizes related to the topics we've read about. Most of his day is spent on whatever he's immersed himself in at the moment - right now it's exploring languages such as Czech and German (and in the recent past it's been learning the Cherokee language and about Native Americans, and building battery powered gadgets.)

DS also takes a hs gymnastics class once a week, and we go to park day and play with friends from our homeschool group every Friday.

This week will be a bit different for us b/c my son is preparing a science fair project for next Saturday, so working on that will take time from our usual routine.

[Mom4tot]

Hi there Your style sounds a little bit like ours. Your son sounds like he has some diverse interests. What is he making for the science fair project?

[Wilhemina]

Hi Amy,
I'm looking forward to reading about your week. When it's convenient, I'd like to know more about how your 7.5 year old practices cursive (curriculum? workbook? how's it going?). My 9 year old wanted to learn at the beginning of the *school year,* but has all but abandoned the project. Maybe you have an new approach to try.

[ABand3]

Originally Posted by Mom4tot

What is he making for the science fair project?

For his science fair project he's looking at whether batteries of different voltages lose power at different rates, so he's building two circuits, one with a 9v battery and one with a 1.5v battery, both powering a small light, and he'll measure the battery voltage every 10 minutes, hoping to see that one drops off more quickly than the other.

He came up with the idea himself, and I can hardly keep up! He spent the better part of the summer with a couple of 'Klutz' books on battery gadgets and a solar car, and reading every kids' book on electricity from the library. He still has two big project boxes in his closet filled with wire, foil, bent paperclips, buzzers, motors, etc. The day I first took him to Radio Shack he was in heaven. So when I asked him what topic he wanted to do for the science fair, I wasn't surprised batteries would be involved.

Tomorrow he'll finish building the circuits, and if the little ones cooperate (one is sick), we'll try to get to the data collection. I'm trying to to allow enough time for him to write the 1 page summary and put together a display board later in the week, but I have a feeling we'll be hard at work on Friday night!

[ABand3]

Originally Posted by Wilhemina

I'd like to know more about how your 7.5 year old practices cursive (curriculum? workbook? how's it going?).

When my son was in first grade he became interested in teaching himself cursive, so I bought a pack of desk strips showing the alphabet in cursive. For a while he just fiddled around with that on his own, copying the alphabet, his name, address, etc.

Last year whenever a project would require that he write, he would not try to write in cursive, but complain that his hand hurt and he hated writing. So for this year, I told him he could dictate long stuff for me to write or type if he regularly practiced cursive or typying. I think for a reluctant writer it does help to separate the physical task of forming letters and words from the creative task of putting thoughts down. So he chose to practice cursive, and we've been doing this book, because he likes geography, so the copywork and word games are interesting to him. I've also printed out a few copywork sheets of sayings that are in the What Your Third Grader Needs to Know book, such as 'one rotten apple spoils the whole barrel'.

Some days he complains about writing, but when I show him how far he's progressed (in neatness and comfort) looking at the 'A' page to now (I think he's on 'L'), he's can see the difference and is motived to keep practicing. I also notice that if he does a little bit every day (like even four words), he's more willing to write at other times than if we take a break from cursive for a few days.

I'm going to start looking for another copywork book for him to do when this one is finished, like Franklinisms or sayings of Confucious.

[ABand3]

Monday is the only day of the week when we don't have something scheduled to work our routine around... which for me is good and bad. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday my 4.5 year old goes to preschool, and on Friday we do park day and playdates. Monday is sometimes a free-flowing day of everyone doing whatever they want in the house; sometimes it's filled with errands and chores; sometimes I try to lay out a schedule ahead (i.e., chores at 9, read at 9:30, art at 10:30), but whichever one we do, Monday always feels strange to me.

So far the kids have been playing on their own (sports in the house, and oldest DS looking up Portuguese sayings online) while I check email and fix & clean up from breakfast. I think we'll try to get the science project going this morning, and go for a walk this afternoon b/c the weather is unusally warm. We also are starting a new unit in history (Roman Empire) so I'll try to get that into the reading line-up, along with some stories about knights (my 4.5 y.o. newest passion, since getting a toy sword at a birthday party this weekend).

It will be interesting to see if the plan I set out it the morning actually gets done.

[ABand3]

Ok, so here's how our Monday went:

9-9:45 -- littles ones played with starfall.com, oldest kicked a soccerball around outside, while we all took turns talking with my dad (who we haven't talked to in about a month).

9:45- 10:45 -- oldest worked on math, we started Singapore Math 3A today, he did the first three exercises, which included writing numbers out in words, so I told him if he did that in cursive, we'd skip cursive. 4.5 y.o. played with a build your own castle kit, and then did a math workbook (a dollar store version), and 2.5 y.o continued with starfall. We also requested books on knights from the library online.

10:45-12:45 visit to dr. office, we all have strep throat! What a surprise, only my youngest has any symptoms. The NP asked if we homeschool, and when I said yes she said 'good, I don't have to write sick notes for school' .

12:45 lunch

1:30 2.5 y.o tried to nap, the rest of us watched a recorded episode of Time Warp Trio (gladiators) and 1/2 of a NOVA show on the Parthenon.

3:30 to pharmacy to get meds. We talked about what 'glass half full/half empty means' as my oldest heard someone say that, and my 4.5 year old was complaining about our 5 minute wait at the pharmacy drive through, while I was thinking how lucky we are to live 5 minutes away from a drive through pharmacy.

4-5:30 kids played outside & inside while I steam cleaned doorknobs, faucets, etc. and started dinner. 4.5 y.o cut shapes out of paper and 7 year old continued to look up Portuguese phrases online. Little one took a shower.

5:30-6:00 Nearly every day the kids watch Ruff Ruffman on PBS while I fix dinner and read email.

Tonight I'm hoping 7 y.o will get his circuits built for his science fair project. That was my priority for the day, yet it got pushed until last.

[ABand3]

Tuesday - normally my 4.5 y.o. goes to preschool today, and his friend would pick him up at 9-9:15, but with the strep dx he's staying home, so it's kind of like Monday all over again. When he's at school my oldest usually does his schoolwork while the littlest plays, and I bounce between the two of them.

Right now the 7.5 year old is catching up on chores on his chore chart - we're trying a chart with one chore a day as part of a scouts project, and he's a few days behind because of the weekend. So he just scrubbed the toilet (which he loves doing) and now he's loading the dishwasher.

Today my oldest has gymnastics at 1 - my 4.5 year old wants to take the class to but with preschool the schedule doesn't work out, so we told him when he's finished with school in May he can start gymnastics. What he really wants to do is football, but it doesn't start until age 6.

Last night 7.5 y.o. finished building the circuits for the sciece project, and I think today he'll run and record the experiment.

I should have said earlier, please ask questions, make comments, give advice, anything! Don't be shy. I don't want to feel like I'm talking to myself :

[homeschoolingmama]

Wow, what an inspiration you are! Look how much you accomplish in a day!
It really sounds like your children love learning and enjoy their time with you.
OK a few questions.

When and why did you decide to homeschool?

How did your family feel about the decision?

What positives have you noticed because of homeschooling?

Do you school year round?

[mom2ponygirl]

I've been enjoying reading about your days. Your kids sound great and like they are having a really good time. I like the science experiment and it is great he is doing this stuff on his own. Once he gets his data, he can think about why the batteries lose power at different rates, or the same rates, depending on what happens! LOL

We really liked the singapore math as well. Some other fun stuff for budding scientists are the Zaccaro math books - Challenge Math and a new one we've been looking at Calculus without Tears (4th grade and up). The Calculus book teaches concepts not requiring much in the way of algebra, and uses basic scientific equations to make the concepts meaningful. We're going to go through it for fun summer stuff when dd's algebra class is finished in April. It could be done by someone comfortable with singapore 4 so, not far in the future for you guys if you find it interesting!

[ABand3]

Originally Posted by homeschoolingmama

When and why did you decide to homeschool?

I have always wanted to homeschool, it seemed like a natural continuation of being a SAHM and they way we parent. DH was all for my being a SAHM, but had/has very mainstream views on school, so was against the idea - until maybe middle school years (when he started having a not so great experience). So I chose at the time not to fight that fight yet, and my oldest did preschool when he was 3 & 4, and started 1/2 day K when he was 5, at a public magnet school. Up to this point, school was not bad, although it was clear from the beginning that he was advanced academicly - he was an early, self taught reader, for example. But it didn't matter to him when school was just about play.

Half way through K we moved to another state. The second K was not great, but it was only for a few months so I just went along. 1st grade (at another new school) was a mess for him. On the meet & greet day, when we left the room and I asked him what he thought, he said the room was really boring, it looked like a preschool room and the only thing he thought he'd like was the globe. So 1st grade starts, he has a young, inexperienced teacher, she recognizes he's bored and frustrated but doesn't know what to do. He was paired for centered with someone his complete opposite in terms of behavior, academic ability, motivation, etc. He was miserable, came home from school many days nearly in tears. One day he said it was the worst day of his life, so bad he couldn't tell me about. Another day he was crying b/c school took up so much time he never had time to read . So after several conferences with his teacher, moving him up to 2nd grade for math, entering the g&t program, and bringing his own workbooks to school (with teacher's permission) he was slightly better but still stressed. The school was moving really slowly in changing anything for him. Plus, my time with him was stressful - mornings were a rush of eat, eat, eat, get dressed, get dressed hurry up! Getting off the bus he was hungry, tired and cranky, and then had an hour of homework. There was no time for anything but school, homework and getting ready for bed/getting ready for school.

My husband finally (after a big argument) decided to at least hear about/ learn about homeschooling. He talked with a guy at work whose child was homeschooled, read some articles, and finally gave in. I think he sees that it's much better for our oldest, but he's not convinced it will be the best for our 4.5 y.o. who is less of a self motivated learner, academically.

Ok, we've got to run, I'll come back to the other questions later!

I'm back, we didn't go to gymnastics or to the store for more science fair supplies (he blew out a bulb) b/c the battery in my van is dead. Again. Our days are usally not so dramatic!

How did your family feel about the decision?

DH was reluctant, as I said, and even now that he sees our oldest flourishing and having a great time (and learning), he's still not bought into the whole lifestyle or way of thinking. I think he might blow a gasket if I were to define the term 'unschooling'

My parents were a little surprised, but not against the idea. When I told my dad, he said, "oh, where's he going to do that [hs], in his room?" That became a running joke for while that we'd lock him in his room for 8 hours a day, slide some lunch under the door, and let him out for 20 minutes to run laps around the yard.

The big surprises were my MIL, who is a retired K teacher. I was expecting a lot of flack, but she was (and is) supportive and not questioning. My SIL, on the other hand, also a teacher, I thought would be supportive, but told us in an email that she was so upset she never wanted to hear about it or talk about it with us, so as to not create a huge rift in the family. Uh, ok. She since then has sent him assignments, and responded with a wow the one time we emailed her (and the whole family) a photo of a lapbook he did last year. FWIW, she's single and has no kids, so I was not terribly upset by her reaction, just surprised. The rest of the extended family has been supportive, or at least not outright unsupportive, but it has revealed that many people see homeschooling only as school at home, and might not be as supportive of what we do if they saw the ins & outs of our days.

What positives have you noticed because of homeschooling?

We are all much more relaxed without school being the driving forced behind every moment of the day. The rush to get ready in the morning, the rush to squeeze in some free play in the afternoon, hurry and go to bed early so you can get up and do it again was a huge drain on my son and on his relationships with everyone in the family. We love to be free in the evenings to do what we want, to get up in the morning and get going in a relaxed manner.

We all love the freedom to plan our days as we need to, and to work on projects or topics in great big chuncks of time. There are days when my oldest son wants to work on math all morning. A typical school (or school at home) would require that he do math for 30 minutes or whatever, then move on. If he wants to do math and only math for two hours, three days in a row, that's ok (and I think a better way to learn).

My kids are much closer, and enjoy playing with each other. They do have their arguments, but it is noticable different in how willing my oldest is to play with his siblings.

Hmm, that's all off the top of my head. When I read other threads about the joys of or reasons to homeschool, I nod my head with all of it.

Do you school year round?

Not really, or I don't know yet. We have only had one summer so far, and we didn't do 'school' except for 1 day trying out the new singapore math book. However, my oldest spent a lot of time learning about electricity. When summer started last year, I feel like we were still finding our way, deschooling, and trying methods/routines out. My state requires I keep attendence and school for 180 days, and we can do that counting days from Sept - June, so I think mentally I'm still in school year / summer break mode. I think we'll try something structured for the summer, but different, like maybe FIAR or keeping a nature journal.

[ABand3]

Originally Posted by mom2ponygirl

We really liked the singapore math as well. Some other fun stuff for budding scientists are the Zaccaro math books - Challenge Math and a new one we've been looking at Calculus without Tears (4th grade and up).

Thank you for the suggestions! Between Singapore levels 2B & 3A we took a break from math workbooks and he read Cool Math and Go Figure, so I'm always looking for something different to throw in the mix.

[homeschoolingmama]

Are you sure we don't have the same SIL?

[ABand3]

Here's how our Tuesday went:

9-9:30 oldest ds watched the rest of the NOVA he started yesterday, and the littles watched SuperWhy (and I took a shower).

9:30-10:30 oldest worked on his science project. He finished wiring the circuits last night, so today he wrote out the procedure, then started the experiment. He ran into a couple snags - first he realized there was a bad connection, so he rewired that side, then the second time the circuit worked and blew out the lightbulb. So he's on hold until we can get back to radio shack. While he was working on this the littles played upstairs.

10:30-11:30 Snack and playing outside

11:30-12:30 lunch and lounging around.

12:45 We tried to go to gymnastics, but the battery on my van died, so we were stuck at home. He can make up the class Thursday, but we also didn't get to radio shack nor the grocery store!

1:00-2:00 Play outside-- climbing a tree, kicking the soccerball, playing baseball, planting some old seeds we found in packets tucked away in a drawer.

2-2:45 Math -- the boys worked on math by themselves while I tried to get the 2.5 y.o to nap, and then I came down and helped them finish.

2:45-3:30 snack and reading from What your 3rd Grader Needs to Know on the Roman Empire and Astronomy.

3:30- The littlest finally fell asleep, the boys have been playing outside, and will probably come in at 5:30 to watch Ruff Ruffman

When DH gets home and after dinner we plan to go to the tennis court across the street to play tennis. He tosses the balls for the kids to hit, and then while they clean up all the balls, he and I hit back and forth, repeat until someone is too tired to continue.

[Wilhemina]

Originally Posted by ABand3

Tonight I'm hoping 7 y.o will get his circuits built for his science fair project. That was my priority for the day, yet it got pushed until last.

That happens here, too. LOL Where will your son present his project (maybe I missed that somewhere). Do you have a hs group that hosts a fair, or 4H, or is he welcome to enter something at your local school or...?

I've gotten a couple of good ideas from this thread already. Thanks!

[ABand3]

Originally Posted by Wilhemina

That happens here, too. LOL Where will your son present his project (maybe I missed that somewhere). Do you have a hs group that hosts a fair, or 4H, or is he welcome to enter something at your local school or...?

I've gotten a couple of good ideas from this thread already. Thanks!

The science fair he's doing the project for is sponsored jointly by the homeschool group I belong to and another group in town. He's entering as a second grader, but grades 3+ are that win a place go on to regional and state fairs competing against public and private schooled kids, so it's run as officially as one at a school would be.

[ABand3]

Wednesday - we're about to take 4.5 y.o. to preschool, then 7.5 y.o. is taking a class at the museum of natural sciences on animal life cycles. 2.5 y.o and I will hang out at the museum while's he's in the class (with kids from our homeschool group), then we'll pick up from preschool. I have my fingers crossed that we'll get the science experiement wrapped up today - I bought a replacement bulb last night, and I hope it works this time. I'm starting to get worried we'll have a late night Friday trying to get the display together.

While we drive in the car my oldest will take his Singapore math book with him and do the next exercise.

[ABand3]

Wednesday part 2 - The morning went as planned, 4.5 y.o at school, 7.5 y.o. at the museum class on animal cycles. He liked the class, but said it was boring and he didn't learn anything. It was kind of slow - it was listed as grade 2 and up, but he was one of the oldest there, many 4-5-6 year olds.

He finished a 2 exercises in Singapore Math while we drove there and back, plus fixed the problems from yesterday which he missed (I highlighted the mistakes before we left).

After lunch my littlest took a nap and the oldest ran his science experiment - and it worked! I'll post a photo of it later. He recorded data every 10 minutes, so while he was waiting he played a hand-held hangman game. After he got all the data I showed him how to put his numbers into MS Excel and turn it into a line graph. He really liked that part. While he was working on the experiment, my 4.5 year old did some dot to dots, paper cutting (making random shapes), and played with moon sand.

We try to put all projects away every day by 4, and go play outside with the school kids who come home about then. It was nice outside, but no one came over to play.

Wednesdays we go to church for dinner, and usally there's a kids story and craft afterwards, we're heading there now.

[ABand3]

Thursday -
9-10 We brough 4.5 y.o to preschool and signed 2.5 y.o for next year. Oldest did math in the car and played electronic hangman while he waited.

10-11 -- 7.5 y.o dicated the abstract for his science project and typed it. We also went over questions that the judges might ask him. PHOTO

12-1 -- Make up gymnastics class

1:30-2 -- Free time, reading, feeding the snake

2-3 - planning display for science fair

3-4 rest and watch tv (America's Funniest HOme Videos)

4-5:30 play outside

5:30 watch Ruff Ruffman

7-8 type up display (I typed, ds told me what to put where)

[ABand3]

Friday -
Today we had an unexpected trip to the circus - well, my oldest was supposed to go with a friend, but they couldn't go so we got the tickets. The kids liked it, I have mixed feelings about it.

Before we left and when we got home oldest ds continued finishing up the display for the science fair - he skimmed through the books to choose a couple to list as background resources (although he really did all the reading about batteries over the summer), and this afternoon we printed out final copies and started taping them to the display board. He also came up with a title on his own, which I thought he'd struggle with.

The boys found a Jumpstart Adventure Kindergarten CDROM in their rooms, so 4.5 ds played with that a little this afternoon. He was concerned that he wasn't old enough, but I told he should just give it a try and he did just fine.

I'll post pictures of the science fair tomorrow!