On Lego Pouches and Useful Crafting

I try to teach the big kids handicrafts during their lessons, but I've been having a really hard time coming up with interesting projects to work on that are actually teaching some kind of skill.  Then I had an epiphany--pouches.

I think it was the women we saw at Colonial Williamsburg with their exterior pocket pouches combined with my burning desire for the children to stop stuffing random bits of life and legos in the pockets of every pair of pants that they own (with the ensuing dumping of every pair out of the drawer in a desperate attempt to find that-which-they-cannot-live-without).  Originally I thought about little knitted pouches I had seen somewhere before but once I started looking for ideas I found this tutorial for weaving pouches and I knew I had a winner.

I took the kids to the craft store and let them each pick a couple skeins of yarn from the dollar bucket.  John wanted sparkly green yarn because he "loves it so much" and David and Henry wanted camo yarn because that's who they are.  Margaret got mostly pink because her vocabulary is limited so I had to decipher the deepest wishes of her heart for her :)

I ended up making John and Margaret's (obviously) and I ended up doing most of Henry's too because he's grumpy and a bit of a quitter (poor Henry).  But David, David wove his whole pouch on his own with a bit of help on the flap and button and sewing on the cord.  He had so much fun he's been begging to make another, even longer, pouch.  He originally said he wanted it long enough to hold his baseball bat but I think I've convinced him that that is a really bad idea.  Also I don't have cardboard long enough to make him a bat sized loom.  We'll see.

I didn't put a flap on Margaret's pouch for ease of use since the flaps are a little difficult for little hands to work as there isn't a button hole--you're just supposed to push the button through the weaving.  They really liked picking out which button they were going to use from my stash though so there might have been a revolt if I hadn't made the button flaps on the boys'.

If you're looking for a handicraft I would definitely give this a go.  It may or may not help with the legos in the pocket situation at your house.  Sadly, it hasn't made much of a difference here.

What about you?  Do you have any favorite handicrafts at your house?

On Homeschooling Plans and Planning: What We're Doing this Year

I planned to start our school year the day after Labor Day this year since that's when all the neighbor kids began, but it turned out that we had doctors appointments all that morning, and then the next day was our co-op orientation all morning, so we began our homeschool year on a random Thursday with more of a fizzle than a bang.  I don't have any cute 'first day of school' pictures of the kids with chalkboard signs decrying their current passions and adorable handwriting but I do have an entirely too long post detailing our school plans with the added benefit of two weeks of actually implementing those plans so I can even tell you how they're going.  

Before we get to that though, I'd like everyone to admire my newly organized homeschool bookshelf.  Last year I had a basket that I put all of the notebooks and floppy things and too-tall-for-our-shelves books in, that sat on one of my skinnier shelves and was pulled out each morning, which meant that it was always in the way and our books were constantly being rummaged through and shoved to the bottom of the pile.  Well, no more!  This summer I took everything out of the bookcase and rearranged the height of the shelves to make more sense and repurposed these magazine coloring book holders into our school boxes instead.

They're glorious.  They keep everything so organized and non-rumpled and they've made our mornings run so much more smoothly.  I can't believe I didn't think of this solution sooner.

As you can see, this year we've added Henry to the school mix for some light Kindergarten work since the State of Virginia says that I have to.  We're continuing to use Ambleside Online with Year 0 for Henry and Year Two for David because it's both wonderful and free.  I don't like to make many changes to the book lists, but I do look to Celeste for her advice on Catholic-ing it up a bit.  She also helped me decide to switch the Y2 and Y3 natural history readings since we were going to be covering some of the Y3 readings in our co-op this year (and I was panicking that everything was completely ruined because clearly if you can't do everything exactly in order you probably shouldn't do anything at all, right?).  If you email her AO questions she will very sweetly reply even though that's probably what the message boards are for, which is good for those of us who are intimidated by message boards and have no idea if they're using them properly so they don't risk it :)

So what does all of that look like exactly?

Second Grade:  

Bible, History, Geography, Natural History/Science, Literature and Poetry readings are all straight from the Ambleside Online Y2 schedule (with the exception of the switched natural history readings from Y3 and minus Trial and Triumph which I had reservations about).  I read these aloud to David and he narrates them back to me.  Then we do mapwork or make entries in his timeline afterward depending on the subject.

For Phonics we're finishing up All About Reading Level 3 and then I think we're going to....just stop there?  I haven't quite decided if it would be worth it to continue on and do the next level or not.  I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on the subject, or what to do next once your kids are reading pretty fluently.

For Math we switched over to MEP (Year 2) after reading some good reviews on the Charlotte Mason message boards ( I do read them, I just don't do scary things like ask them questions) and again....it's free so that was really appealing to me too.  I printed everything out and organized it using folders and so far so good.

For Copywork I broke down and bought a copybook from Simply Charlotte Mason.  I always feel like I should just make my own copywork and I'm being lazy and wasteful not doing it myself, but in the end I thought it would be better to have something easy and done that I don't have to think about all the time.  Homeschooling's hard enough with babies and toddlers running around without having extra weekly decisions to make.

We're starting Spanish this year in our co-op so we'll be working on that at home as well--the author of the book (recommended by Simply Charlotte Mason) runs the co-op so I'm feeling pretty confident in my ability to do it despite my complete lack of foreign language skills.

We're also doing Picture Study (Van Eyck) and Composer Study (Chopin) with our new co-op as well so those differ from the Ambleside Online rotation too.

David's "Table of History" from Laurie Bestavater's, The Living Page except much longer and not actually a table.

The timeline idea is from Celeste and can be found here, I have a strong and irrational aversion to binders so I made this and had it spiral bound instead of using a binder.  She has lots of  excellent thoughts on time tools that can be found here as well.

David's nature notebook.  A mushroom with a spider.  We are amazing at this Charlotte Mason stuff.

Kindergarten:  

For the most part, we're using lots of good picture books from Ambleside Online's Y0 book list with an emphasis on Winnie the Pooh, Beatrix Potter and Mother Goose.    

For Math we're using MEP (the Reception Year) which he really loves so far.  And lots of playing with all our math manipulatives.  This boy is obsessed with Cuisinaire rods.

For Phonics, we're finishing up our trip down The Alphabet Path from Elizabeth Foss's site and once we complete that little adventure we'll move on to All About Reading Level 1 and just move through at his pace.

And for Copywork, again, I broke down and bought a handwriting book.  I'd also like to get him a little chalkboard to do some extra practice on.

Henry's Alphabet Book.  Very fancy.

Now I've made a few also very fancy charts and lists in order to pull all of this together.  The first is our loose schedule.  Right now we start at eight, right after the baby goes down for her morning nap and then proceed through in time chunks rather than by a set time schedule.  I'll probably tweak this a bit in the next couple of weeks once we see how everything flows.  Right now, Henry hangs out for our morning basket time for as long as he can manage and then goes to play until it's time for David's break and his one on one time.  He does a bit of copywork and then alternates with either a math or reading lesson followed by a story just for him.  

To keep organized I also made a weekly checklist that I had spiral bound.  I did this last year as well and it was wonderful.  For whatever reason, I couldn't get my mind around scheduling using Ambleside Online until I saw the checklists Celeste had made similar to these (so, I guess what I'm saying is that you really need to poke around her site if you are still having trouble envisioning how to implement all of this in your own homeschool--she's a pro).



I took the weekly schedules found on the Ambleside Online site and put them in the front of my book, along with a yearly calendar and a book list page for each of the boys and one for family read alouds to keep track of the free reads we do.

Then I made a blank checklist for each week.  Before we start school each week, I flip to the weekly schedule sheet and fill in which readings we need to do, and we just move to the next lesson in their math, phonics, Spanish and handwriting books as we complete them.  Easy.

I organized my checklist into morning basket, daily, and weekly work sections.  I really like the flexibility the checklist provides while also keeping me accountable.  It's easy to see if I'm dropping the ball on anything--like say, doing calendar work or memorizing a poem or learning a hymn for instance.....not that those boxes haven't been checked once yet in our first two weeks of school.........

This year I also left a blank page between each week to give myself more room for note taking and ideas which I hope will keep the random scrap papers and post-it notes to a minimum.

So far the year has been going much better than I had dared to hope it could.  Henry has turned out to be a delight to teach and David has been, well maybe not a delight but really very good all things considered and he never pouts when it's time to stop listening to Shakespeare and do some math.......

I think our co-op is going to be really fun and I'm glad I decided to try it out.  If nothing else, the other moms are definitely encouraging and there are days when I really need that encouragement.  Oh, are there days.  All in all though, I think it's shaping up to be a pretty good year.

I hope :)

On Being a Fun Science Mom

David has a science book that he loves, complete with lots of experiments that "can be carried out with simple, everyday materials that can be found around the home--especially in the kitchen--or acquired very easily."  I don't know whose home has all the random materials that the author's home apparently possesses but our lack of kitchen weights, spring balances, fuse wire and heatproof glass beakers usually works out to my favor.  When my little scientist gets a scathingly brilliant idea and needs to do it right.now. I can calmly ask him to check the materials list and there is generally at least one essential component missing that gets me off the science hook.

Not today though.

Today we did have everything we needed to make our own model hot air balloon.

Trust me honey, it looked just like the picture.  And it was just as easy to assemble as the instructions said it would be.  It wasn't obnoxious at all attempting to glue strips of tissue paper together to form a balloon while not letting any already glued parts touch anything else lest it become one giant gluey ball of broken dreams.  Not at all.  And those looks you were giving me in addition to your repeated cries of "we need Daddy" were also really helpful.

As if Daddy would ever agree to make this particular project.

The whole thing was pretty much a bust until we cut loose the basket which was entirely too heavy for our little tissue paper balloon to lift.  I suppose it could have worked if it was made of copy paper but that's not what the directions called for.  Once it was gone the balloon mostly just lifted up into the air and spun in circles.  But the lesson was learned:  hot air rises.  Check.

The important thing is that we did it.  I'm a fun science mom after all.

Well, maybe not fun.  Tolerant?

First Grade at the Reintjes House (and Favorite Homeschooling Reads)

With the baby and move on the way (which looks like it will be occurring in and around the November/December time frame--the move, not the baby) I decided it would be prudent to get a head start on David's schoolwork.  Since I've successfully completed one and half weeks of first grade with him I'm going to go ahead and assume that that pretty much qualifies me as an expert and therefore makes me competent enough to share my homeschool plans for this year and some of my favorite homeschooling resources with the internet......mostly for Aunt Elizabeth's benefit because she's been asking.

And also, who doesn't love a good homeschool planning post? :)

Well, after much reading and research and back-and-forthing I settled on a Charlotte Mason approach to education mostly because my main goal with all of this school-at-home stuff is to be able to provide the boys children (!) with more of a liberal arts/classical education than I received and *hopefully* inspire in them a love and appreciation of all that is true, good and beautiful in this world of ours--which I'm pretty sure is not the overarching goal of most of our current public schools.

I decided to use Ambleside Online Year 1 for my basic structure (which is a free Charlotte Mason curriculum) but I'm supplementing with some other purchased curriculum since I don't have the mental energy right now to just teach phonics and math without something a little more, shall we say......prepared.

For math I choose Abeka Arithmetic 1--with the intention of switching over to Saxon for the older years.  Right now it's super easy for David but I'm sure it will pick up and it's forcing him to practice writing his numbers so I don't want to skip ahead :)

For phonics and spelling I bought All About Reading Level 2 and All About Spelling Level 1 since it worked so well for us last year.

I also bought some Writing Can Help Penmanship books for David's handwriting practice which we are plugging through very very slowly.  I cannot begin to describe David's hatred for anything involving writing practice.  Well, really anything involving him doing something that he can't immediately do perfectly without any effort on his part.  It's such a struggle to be five :)

I love the book selections from Ableside for Literature, History, Geography and Science but I did substitute Our Island Saints for Trial and Triumph as per the suggestions here since the AO curriculum does come from a Protestant perspective and apparently when that particular book hits the reformation we don't exactly see eye to eye any longer.  Also, in addition to the Bible reading schedule on AO, we're using the Saint Joseph First Communion Catechism  and extra saint stories to round out our Religion studies--along with just attempting to live the liturgical year as a family of course!

Now that we are settling into a school routine I'm planning to add scripture and prayer memory work into our morning basket plans along with poetry recitation, and artist and composer studies--which I haven't attempted yet since I thought I'd ease into things.  Next week though, next week there will be memorizing of lots of lovely and important things!

Overall our schoolwork only takes up about two hours in the morning, four days a week.  We've been keeping lessons short, stories interesting, and motivation to finish up in a timely matter high so as to get on to even more exciting things--like the pool.  It's not a bribe so much as a natural consequence--I mean after all, if we don't do our work promptly there simply isn't time to swim, am I right?  I was really nervous to begin this year, but things have been going well so far so I am optimistic that this whole learning at home thing won't be a complete disaster  :)

And as promised:

Some Favorite Books on Education

     

I've just realized my favorite books on education are really random, but I can't help it--I checked my bookshelves and these are definitely my all-time favorites and are the ones that have had the most impact on my thoughts on educating children.  Note the complete lack of anything I read while actually training to be a teacher having made the list.

Some Favorite Articles 

Ask Auntie Leila:  How Do I Educate My Children?

Making Ambleside Work:  The Gory Details

Toward a Definition of a Living Book

Read Literature to Learn and Love the Truth

The Beginning of Science is Observation!

The Little Way to Success

Some Favorite Websites

Ambleside Online

Mater Amabilis

Charlotte Mason Help

The Circe Institute
Handbook of Nature Study:  Home of the Outdoor Nature Hour

Some Favorite Audio (Not Compiled By Me) 

~For Those Who Don't Have Time to Read~

If you don't have time to read, there is a great collection of audio lectures and podcasts on classical homeschooling and motherhood from Amongst Lovely Things (also home to the Read Aloud Revival podcasts which are wonderful too!) that you can just listen to when you have a chance instead :)

***

And (if you've managed to actually read this far down the post) my most essential homeschooling supply--besides a library card of course :)  My laminator.  I like this one--it works great and isn't pricey:

PS I'm still plugging through the Charlotte Mason series....it's kind of a lot.  Really good, but kind of a lot :)

PPS If you read the Well Trained Mind for the first time don't freak out.  It has a lot of good information in it but seriously, does anyone actually do everything she suggests?

PPS These Amazon links are affiliate links, I make cents on the dollar for anything you buy when you click through them and I've almost made $10 so clearly this blog is not a waste of my time and talents :)  

Kindergarten at Home

We decided not to send David to Kindergarten this year.

Okay, really he's got a late birthday so we wouldn't put him into an actual school this year regardless, so I guess what I'm saying is that this year is a homeschooling trial run--if it's a total failure we'll call a do-over next year and check out the schools in wherever it is we will be living by then.  Of course if that place is Guam we'll probably keep plugging away at the homeschooling even if I am a total homeschool failure.

Now, when I say I'll be teaching David at home I mostly mean that I'll start teaching him to read (using this) and we'll keep playing lots of math games....and probably work on writing (only because he's really into writing now and I don't want him to get into bad habits with the way he forms his letters)........and we'll continue reading lots of good books, painting and playing, and of course spending lots of time outside--I mean, doing nature study.

And calendar time!

I'm super proud of my calendar :)

I've seen lots of cute bulletin board calendars floating around and I took bits and pieces from several different places (weather station, temperature chart, liturgical calendar wheel) to make ours.  My plan is to have a bit of a morning basket time each day where we do the calendar, check the temperature and weather outside and then read a Bible, saint, or character/manners story or some poetry depending on the day and then break for some playful learning type activities that I'll rotate each week.  We'll see how it goes.......

I've been collecting Montessori type math materials for the boys to work with this year mostly because I won this amazing Montessori giveaway so I figured I might as well get a few more to round things out!  David's favorite so far is the hundred board although he also loves his Cuisenaire Rods--which aren't exactly Montessori but I remember working with them as a little girl so they just felt right :)

Of all the preparation I've done, I've had the most fun re-configuring our "library" into more of a homeschool room.  It's such a tiny room, I eventually just gave up on fitting adult sized furniture in aside from our bookshelves, and now it feels much larger.  The boys have a child-sized desk from my grandparents' house and another little white table and chair set from IKEA to work at and I also recovered some old brown cubes we had in a prettier blue color which gives me something to sit on besides the floor.....

There's also an easel and my sewing cabinet crammed in there as well which I apparently did not take a picture of.  Here's our nature treasure area that sits under the sewing cabinet though, so that's something.....

Right now it contains an assortment of rocks, shells, nuts and various dead bugs/scorpions/frogs that the kids have picked up and lovingly preserved.  See?  Nature study--I think I've pretty much got Kindergarten science covered :)

I'm really excited to get going.  I told David we'd start right after his birthday, once he's officially five (mostly because I need to get a few more things laminated and his reading materials prepped first).  I want to take things slowly and just have short little lessons that only last as long as David is interested.  I'm thinking an hour a day max, if that.  The last thing I want to do at this age is squash his excitement and love of learning with long, cumbersome lessons that he's not ready for or interested in.

David is pretty excited to start too........Chris told him that all the math activities I've been putting together will make him smart.  David said he doesn't want to be smart, he wants to be like his dad.

I'm sure he'll change his tune once he gets a little older and realizes my math shortcomings.  After all, his daddy did win my heart by doing my Calculus homework for me :)

Wish me luck!  I'm sure I'll let you all know how it goes!

Catch and Release......

Well our little tadpole with the ridiculously long name is officially a frog....or toad....well, he's definitely some sort of amphibian.

Let's take a minute to really enjoy this picture.....just stop and soak it in............

......no really, go back and truly admire the fact that I got a clear picture of a swimming frog/toad/amphibian that shows both his arms and his legs through the glass.  It wasn't easy.

I kept having to shoo the children away.

 "No children, you may not look at our super interesting meta....metamorpha.......ummmm......metamorphasizing frog/toad/amphibian type creature.  Mommy is trying to capture this wonderful childhood memory so we can keep it forever and also put it on the internet so that everyone will know that I teach you important sciency things and see what a good mommy I am!"

Anyway, once he crawled up onto the land I figured it was only a matter of time before he would make a break for it so we gathered ourselves together for the big release....which turned out to be rather anti-climactic.

And also, on an unrelated side note, now that it's Florida summer again, I am battling the instant lens-fog-over every time I take my camera outside.  Does anyone have any tips?

Camera fog or no camera fog, Tom, Tom the Piper's Son enjoyed his new found freedom and we witnessed his very first hop....away from us and into the grass.  I have a feeling he is just the first in a long line of tadpoles...maybe next time we will find actual frog spawn...you know....if we're really lucky.

And if you're interested here are our favorite tadpole books from the random assortment we grabbed at the library: