Some homeschool helps and more Montessori activities

This has been my best year ever, as far as planning and organizing for homeschool.  It's a shame it's taken me so long to get to this point.  (I started schooling Tabby 8 years ago.)  Though really every year I try new methods.

I spend a chunk of time on Saturdays typing out all the assignments for the next week.  This saves so much time and stress during the busy week itself.  I am using Ambleside Online's curriculum schedule for the bulk of our day, and adding in other things of our own choosing.  I print out my assignment lists and keep them in a binder.  Of course I had to embellish the cover of my binder - I used some vintage clip art:

 
I haven't figured out how to post documents in my blog, so maybe these pictures will work well enough for you to see examples the assignment pages I made.  This is Hunter's schedule for one week (I use the same method for Tabby):

 

 

After I am finished and print out the week's schedule, I load up a tote with Hunter's schoolwork for Monday:

 

I load up Tabby's work too, using the workbox method.  (see here for Sue Patrick's Workbox System. I started using workboxes years ago with Tabby, as the method really helps her.)

 
There is a separate drawer for each assignment.  A card (which I made) shows the subject:

When Tabby has completed her work for a subject, she turns the card over (they are secured by velcro dots):

If it is a subject that she will be working with me on, I add an extra card indicating that:

I have a stack of workboxes for Hunter too, though at this point, I use his for storing his curriculum.  It really saves time each evening when I am loading up the tote with his work for the next day:

Sue Patrick recommends open boxes on carts for this system, but Tabby felt it was too cluttery and overwhelming looking.  So we use two "6-drawer mobile organizers" from Staples, that are stacked and taped together.

The week before last, I introduced a new Montessori activity to Solomon each day.  For Monday, I gave him an "acorn sensory bin" (I got the idea from here).  It has popcorn kernels, acorns, and pine cones in it.  (Solomon helped me pick up acorns the day before.)  And I gave him a tray of scoops and pouring devices.  (Looking back, I probably gave him too many.)

I instructed him he was to keep the everything off the floor and in the bin.  He did pretty well with that on that day.  But another day, he was playing and suddenly started throwing and kicking the corn and acorn all over the place.  That session was ended abruptly!

Tuesday we did color matching.  I took some colored pieces of foam sheets and stapled them to make a pocket.  I used a green piece of felt because I didn't have foam in that color.  (I had seen some really nice, sewn ones on Etsy for sale which is where I got the idea.  Mine were not nearly as nice, but they worked.)  I used marker to color the popsicle sticks:

Solomon had some trouble getting the stick into the felt pocket.  The foam was so much better because it slid in easily.

When he was finished, he got the corn/acorn sensory bin back out and played with everything a long time.  He added his stacking/nesting cups to the game:

Wednesday was another color sorting activity.  I took a really neat vintage wooden silverware holder that I had gotten on Ebay, cut colored foam pieces for the slots, got out the little balls and a strawberry huller.  He used the huller to pick up the balls to match to the correct colors:

Solomon has gotten good at matching colors.  But he still doesn't usually get the names of each one right.  So we continue to point out colors of stuff throughout the day.

After he played with this color game a few times, out came the clothesline again.  I continue to be surprised at how much he likes this activity:

Thursday we practiced sorting "big" and "little."  I made signs for them on cardstock and gave Solomon a number of sets of things so he could separate them into big and little piles.  He really liked this and even when he had finished what I gave him, went around the room and gathered up more things to separate.

 

Friday was easy.  I gave Solomon a book - Montessori Number Work: 

This is such a neat book.  After counting objects on a page, you turn the page and it shows the number of those objects.  The number is a sandpaper number that is large and you trace it with your finger.  Solomon goes through this book most every day now.  Sometimes with me, but he usually likes to look at it by himself.

I haven't given Solomon any new activities since then.  He has been happy continuing to do those same activities over and over each day.  Plus his cousins gave him some train tracks and Thomas trains to play with, so he has been busy with those.

 As if I don't have enough pictures already in today's post, I am going to add a few more.  Since this is the time of year that colorful leaves on the ground are plentiful, I wanted to share a fun book that is full of ideas of leaf pictures to make.  Look What I Did With a Leaf! by Morteza E. Sohi.

Here is an example of one of the book's creative leaf designs:

 I showed this book to Hunter recently and then we went outside to gather leaves. I made some weird animal creatures:

I sort of expected Hunter to do the same.  But instead he made a leaf machine.  (What in the world was I thinking??!!)

"May the beauty of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us—    yes, establish the work of our hands." - Psalm 90:17

The Book List - October

I was very excited to find pansies and mums on clearance at Walmart last Friday.  They were dirt cheap so I didn't feel guilty buying some.  I wanted to plant them in Lilly's garden.  It has been looking so dismal lately - full of dead leaves and dead lily flower stalks.  For some reason I had had it in my head that I could only plant LILY flowers in Lilly's garden.  Of course that would mean only blossoms in the spring and early summer.  Since I buried Blueberry in Lilly's garden, that helped wake up my thinking that it should be a pretty garden - ALL year - since it honored two children.  I know that pansies grow well all winter here, so that is why I bought them.  And how could I resist pink mums?  Solomon helped me clear out all the leaves and I got busy planting.

 

I read five books last month and what a variety:

Girl Sleuth:  Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak - This book caught my eye at the library and I just had to check it out.  I was a huge Nancy Drew fan growing up.  And I still am.  This is a scholarly book with plenty of footnotes and it took me forever to get through.   Even though I enjoy details - I thought there were way too many unnecessary details in this book.  Still though, I am glad to have read it as I learned so much.  In case you did not know - there is no real "Carolyn Keene."  Just like for you Hardy Boy fans - there is no "Franklin W. Dixon."  Same for Bobbsey Twins, Dana Girls, Tom Swift, etc.  These books all had ghostwriters and were part of the Stratemeyer Syndicate.  The first Nancy Drew book was published in 1930.  Many books followed.  However, they were revised beginning in 1959.  (I read the revised books when I was growing up.)  I have been enjoying going back and reading the ORIGINAL versions.  They can be very expensive but you can find cheap copies for sale on Ebay, usually from thrift shops like Goodwill.  I must point out one gross error in the book.  The author described Nancy's boyfriend Ned Nickerson as having BLOND hair.  Gasp!  Horror!  Every Nancy Drew fan knows Ned had DARK hair.  You can read that for yourself in The Clue in the Diary, the first book we meet Ned in.  (And yes he has dark hair in the original version too.) 

I still have my Nancy Drew book collection

An Easy Start in Arithmetic by Ruth Beechick - Hunter's one request for his first grade school year was "no more math workbooks!"  So we have been learning math in all sorts of other ways.  And that is fine as I am using Rays Arithmetic Series for his math curriculum which uses a lot of mental math.  (This series is from 1870!)  Not using workbooks of course means more planning on my part.  So I have been getting ideas from the Parent-Teacher Guide for Ray's New Arithmetic, also by Ruth Beechick.  I found An Easy Start in Arithmetic at my library and checked out this little book and found lots of ideas to use in it.  This book is for grades K-3.  The book was useful enough that I  bought my own used copy.  By the way, Donna Young's website also is very helpful if you are teaching math without modern workbooks and curriculum. 

Playing store to teach money value and adding.  Hunter put out the items to "buy" which is why there are motors and lights!

Your Real Food Journey: A Gentle Guide to Steady Progress by Trina Holden - This is an encouraging and informative book on continuing the real food journey.  Even though we have been eating mostly this way for several years, I still learned things and definitely appreciated the encouragement and new ideas.  Chapters range on topics such as menu planning, good fats, dairy, wise preparation of grains, natural sweets, fermented foods, bulk food preparation, and lots of yummy recipes and helpful advice.  Usually when I am looking at recipes in a cook book, I just jot down the ones that sound good on a piece of paper and leave it tucked in the book.  However, when I started to do that with the recipes in this book, I found I was writing them all down!  So I threw away the paper and am just consulting the index instead.  I really enjoyed Trina's first food book:  Real {Fast} Food (see my post here) and her new book has also quickly become a favorite. 

Solomon wearing Tabby's boots

Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover - Several months ago we watched the Star Wars movies together as a family, for the first time.  I've always loved the movies and remember collecting Star Wars bubble gum cards and playing with the action figures with my brother when I was little.  Then the new set of movies came out in the early 2000s.  And - a new movie is coming out December 2015 - The Force Awakens.  So the Star Wars saga will continue to pick up new generations of fans.  It was interesting watching the movies at this time in my life.  Frank talked to the kids a lot about good verses evil and pantheism.  Tabby checked out Revenge of the Sith from the library and I decided to read it too so we could talk about it.  I was happily surprised at how well written the book was.  But the story was also very sad, as this is where Anakin turns to the dark side.  Sad sad ending.  I do not like reading sad books very much anymore.  Makes so much sense why George Lucas named the next episode in the series A New Hope.  "Hope" is truly one of my favorite words.

Tabby made this card game - it's "Old Palpatine" (based on "Old Maid")

With Lee in Virginia by G. A. Henty - I've heard a lot of praise for the Henty books in homeschool circles.  Henty wrote a huge number of historical adventure stories in the 1800s.  This book was the first I read.  (It was an assignment for Tabby's history course.)  This book was written from the perspective of Vincent, a Southern teen during the American Civil War.  Vincent was a spirited and brave young man and definitely had a lot of adventures.  I really enjoyed the book.  (I have always loved learning about the War Between the States.)  Tabby didn't really care for the book overall.  She thought there were too many battle details.  I found one really funny typo in the paperback copy we had.  Instead of the Battle of "Bull Run" it said "Bull Buns" in one place.  Ha!  One thing I like about reading books written about events that happened close to when the author was writing them is that there is less chance of revisionist history!

sign I painted to hang on our chicken coop

So - what have you read lately?

October's Montessori activities and Reformation Day

I have to admit, my miscarriage last month knocked the creative side out of me.  I felt flat about everything and therefore we just did the basics.  Even the "basics" felt overwhelming at times though as there are an awful lot of "basics" around here.  One thing I just did not do was to introduce any new Montessori activities to Solomon.  I felt sort of bad about that but of course he was just fine without them.

Last week though, I got it together better, and made a list up of 5 new activities.  I only ended up putting together 3 though, because Solomon enjoyed working with them so much and wanted to repeat them every day.

First was a color matching activity.  Solomon can match colors pretty well, but he still gets all the names of colors confused much of the time.  I painted 4 of those Styrofoam blocks that are for artificial flower arranging.  I also painted several toothpicks to match each one.  Solomon pushed the toothpicks into the matching blocks:

Solomon did this activity many times in a row.  Then he added his own twist.  He got out his cars and matched them to the blocks:

A bit later, I was deeply engrossed with schooling Hunter.  I suddenly became conscious of a strange noise coming from where Solomon was working.  Oh no!  He had been using his fingers to dig deeply into the Styrofoam.  Pieces of all sizes were gouged out and all over Solomon, the tray, and his mat.  What a mess!  We "played" clean up next.  And I threw the activity into the garbage.  Bummer.  I wonder if those white Styrofoam blocks would work better - they seem to be a bit stronger than the plant type ones.

The next day, I gave Solomon an object-picture matching game I had made.  I had bought a little farm set and then took a picture of each piece.  I printed out the pictures, laminated them, and cut them into cards. 

I gave the activity to Solomon and helped him spread out the cards and then showed him how to match a farm animal to the appropriate card.  He loves matching games and so he quickly went to work.  Even Hunter was interested:

It is cute how little kids think out loud.  For each piece he would say "Let's see ..."  Then when he put the animal on the card to match it he said "There!"  When he finished everything he's say "Do it again!"  This activity was a big hit. And ... did not make a mess.  At some point I'd like to re-print the pictures and write the words on each.  That way he will be exposed to words more.

For the third day, I took some scrap fabric and cut it into squares.  Then I got some of the old style of clothespins:

 

 

This activity proved to be much more challenging than I would have thought.  I also gave him the kind of clothespins you pinch to open, but after trying them, he went back to the other kind to continue to work with them.

The next day, Solomon made up his own activity.  He got out some plastic cups, plastic utensils, and some plastic bears we use as math manipulatives.  He kept busy pouring, scooping, and stirring:

 

Solomon played with the farm animal cards and clothesline activities every day, so I decided not to do anything new for Friday.

Friday was Reformation Day!  I wasn't up to getting together all the activities we did last Reformation Day, but we still celebrated the day.  I read a little bit about Martin Luther to the kids. I used several quotes by Luther for Tabby's dictation work.  Tabby made a "Diet of Worms" cake.  (Worms was the city in Germany where Martin Luther was told to recant his writings by the Catholic church.)  And we watched our favorite movie about Martin Luther (the 2004 version starring Joseph Fiennes).

Tabby covered the cake with gummy worms

Finally, here are two projects that Hunter did last month.  One of the many benefits to homeschooling is that there is time for this kind of exploration and experimenting.  My hair dryer died, and of course Hunter took it apart.  He then turned it into a flashlight:

He also received a hard drive in the mail from his Uncle Dennis.  Dennis included several pages, explaining how everything in it worked and how to take it apart.  Hunter was thrilled with this activity:

I'm armed with a fresh list of activities for Solomon this week.  I will share what we actually do.  I like getting ideas from other blogs, and maybe you will get an idea or two from this one.  :)

"A man’s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps." - Proverbs 16:9

The Book List - September

Here it is almost October and I still haven't written my books read post for last month.  How did that happen?!  Can I have some time back?  If only!  I write my book list in a pretty blue sparkly composition book and right now, as I look over what I wrote for September, it looks like sort of an odd list. 

Hunter reading to Solomon

The Haunted Lagoon by Carolyn Keene - Last month I read Once Upon an Island: The History of Chincoteague by Kirk Mariner.  In it I learned that Harriet Adams, one of the authors of the Dana Girl Mystery books (and Nancy Drew books), had once visited Chincoteague Island to do research for a Dana Girl's mystery story called The Haunted Lagoon.  I was so surprised to see that, as The Haunted Lagoon was the very first Dana Girl mystery I ever read.  And I still have the book!  When I was young I didn't know about Chincoteague Island so even though I liked the book, it didn't mean the same thing it does to me know.  So I re-read it and enjoyed all the factual information in the book. There were even a few real people from the Island that appeared in the book. Both in the dedication and as characters in the story.

state Farmer's Market in Raleigh

 How to Raise an Amazing Child the Montessori Way by Tim Seldin -This book is full of Montessori based ideas to help parents guide their children's physical and intellectual growth, from birth to six years.  It is a nicely laid out book with full color pictures.  The contents are divided into 6 sections:  Why Montessori?, Discovery Through the Senses, Let Me Do It, Keeping the Peace, Exploring the Wider World, and The Best Time to Learn.  Though there are still some aspects of the Montessori methods that I remain skeptical about, I found much of this book to be very helpful and it gave me many ideas for Solomon.  (I hope to put up a post with Solomon's latest Montessori activities within the next week.)

I recently made my first bunting, a fall theme

The rest of the books below, were all assignments from Tabby's Veritas Press self-paced history course, 1815 to Present.  I really like historical fiction, and I like to read whatever my kids are reading for school myself, so I always read these assignments.

The Boy in the Alamo by Margaret Cousins - This was a very engaging story of the siege at the Alamo, told from  a 12 year old boy's point of view.  It gave me all new respect for the men that gave their lives defending the Alamo, fighting for independence from Mexico.  Men such as Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and William Travis.  The story reminded me that I want to visit the Alamo some day.

Children of the Covered Wagon by Mary Jane Carr -This book was an account of families heading West on the Oregon Trial in the mid-1800s.  The book focused on one family in particular, who were part of a wagon train.  What a journey!  Crossing rivers, Indian attacks, lack of food and water, dying animals, sickness and exhaustion, etc.  This book was the first that I have read that had so much detail, and presented such a clear picture of what it must have been like to go on this dangerous adventure.

Bound for Oregon by Jean Van Leeuwen -This was another book about the Westward expansion and the Oregon Trail.  It was based on the true story of Mary Ellen Todd and her family's 2,000 mile journey from Arkansas to Oregon in 1852.  Like the book above, it chronicled all the dangers and hardships, and joys, of the very difficult trek.  For much of their journey, this family traveled alone.  In a GoogleMaps and GPS dependent age, I marveled at how they could follow a little guidebook that told them how to make the journey.  Across rivers and mountains.  (They had to push hard to cross mountains before it began to snow.)  Surviving encounters with Indians.  Walking, walking, and more walking.  They didn't just sit in the wagon all day, but walked much of the way.  Every day for about 6 months! 

I found myself thinking about that time in history a lot.  I am drawn to the adventure and freedom and even challenges these people had.  The extreme difficulties of the journey are something I will probably never experience.  I would like to think I had enough courage to undertake a journey like that, but I don't know if I would have embraced it willingly. 

Trisomy Tea's light for Lilly - 2014 International Wave of Light

God made people remarkably able to adapt though, to all sorts of horrendous and difficult circumstances.  He is faithful through everything.

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." - Deuteronomy 31:6