Linda's Homeschool WebLog
Friday, August 30, 2002
Thursday's homeschooling
On Thursday Aaron and I went to Oregon on a field trip in the afternoon. We stopped by a burl shop in Kerby to look at examples of alternative archetecture. The artist there created numerous unique pieces of furniture, a few treehouses, and so much more. There was much food for thought for Aaron who will be considering the techniques we study to build his own creations in future months.
Before that we did a few things here at home. We discussed Proverbs 27:3 and he read to me out of the 100 Easy Lessons book. We're doing lesson 83, which is a review of what he did last spring.
On Thursday Aaron and I went to Oregon on a field trip in the afternoon. We stopped by a burl shop in Kerby to look at examples of alternative archetecture. The artist there created numerous unique pieces of furniture, a few treehouses, and so much more. There was much food for thought for Aaron who will be considering the techniques we study to build his own creations in future months.
Before that we did a few things here at home. We discussed Proverbs 27:3 and he read to me out of the 100 Easy Lessons book. We're doing lesson 83, which is a review of what he did last spring.
Thursday, August 29, 2002
Wednesday's homeschooling
We had a pretty good day here. Aaron is so much more attentive to education now that he's older. I'm happy with what I see happening. Today we discussed Proverbs 27:2, looking up "brag" and "boast" at dictionary.com and thesarus.com. I asked him questions about his feelings on the verse, and wrote down his answers... he did his drawing for our Proverbs book, and then it was time for reading. We reviewed a lesson in the 100 EZ Lessons book (he's almost to the end of that and this came easy to him)... then we worked with the second part of The Phonics Game, a card game called "Silent Partners"... plus he wrote a few sentences. That took up most of our time. The last thing we did was discuss alternative archetecture - something we are both interested in - and we went on a search for unusual building materials.
***
I went to sleep at about 7pm and woke up at 3am... Aaron was still awake, alone in his bedroom... I asked him what he was doing and said he looked lonely. He agreed he was lonely and was working on a project with wire. Well, seeing as I was awake, he said he wanted to study with me some more. So... we went into the dining room at 3am and spent about an hour on social studies and science. First we read from The Story of Mankind about the Roman Empire.. then read about matter in the DK Eyewitness book... then looked up a Roman History site on the internet that showed us a farm in the UK that emulates ancient archetecture and methods. It was all very cool.. then I convinced him to go to sleep, promising to wake him by 11 tomorrow so we can get more homeschooling done before his favorite show comes on at 3pm.
Here's the books we are reading during this quarter (the plan is to read about ancient civilizations and matter from now until November 30, then re-evaluate).
We had a pretty good day here. Aaron is so much more attentive to education now that he's older. I'm happy with what I see happening. Today we discussed Proverbs 27:2, looking up "brag" and "boast" at dictionary.com and thesarus.com. I asked him questions about his feelings on the verse, and wrote down his answers... he did his drawing for our Proverbs book, and then it was time for reading. We reviewed a lesson in the 100 EZ Lessons book (he's almost to the end of that and this came easy to him)... then we worked with the second part of The Phonics Game, a card game called "Silent Partners"... plus he wrote a few sentences. That took up most of our time. The last thing we did was discuss alternative archetecture - something we are both interested in - and we went on a search for unusual building materials.
***
I went to sleep at about 7pm and woke up at 3am... Aaron was still awake, alone in his bedroom... I asked him what he was doing and said he looked lonely. He agreed he was lonely and was working on a project with wire. Well, seeing as I was awake, he said he wanted to study with me some more. So... we went into the dining room at 3am and spent about an hour on social studies and science. First we read from The Story of Mankind about the Roman Empire.. then read about matter in the DK Eyewitness book... then looked up a Roman History site on the internet that showed us a farm in the UK that emulates ancient archetecture and methods. It was all very cool.. then I convinced him to go to sleep, promising to wake him by 11 tomorrow so we can get more homeschooling done before his favorite show comes on at 3pm.
Here's the books we are reading during this quarter (the plan is to read about ancient civilizations and matter from now until November 30, then re-evaluate).
 The Story of Mankind |  Eyewitness: Matter |
Wednesday, August 28, 2002
Homeschooling on Tuesday - our second day this school year - went much better than Monday. We got a lot done, and Aaron seems more "ready" for academic learning than he has in previous years.
We started with a Bible verse - Proverbs 27:1 - that he illustrated. Rather than trying to think of a scene to match the verse, he chose to illustrate with a flower as decoration. That's fine. The point is - besides hearing the ancient proverb - to provide an activity that will encourage his artistic talents. My plan is to collect the Proverb Pictures in a book... probably a binder with the pictures in plastic pockets (what do they call those things?)... Anyhow, he did this with felt pens and oil pastels (his favorite medium these days).
I thought putting the Bible verse first would be good - and as it turned out having art first also helped. We moved from the right-brain activity to a left-brain activity: writing. Starting easy, I had him write his full name and birthdate three times. He doesn't like to write but this is the year he will have to get good at it - starting with a simple assignment each day. I have this all planned out. He complained and started slow, finishing in a flash after protesting, "You're just doing this to torture me!" LOL - well it takes pain to be beautiful, I've heard... and I need to see some beautiful writing from him. To his credit, he does have nice handwriting considering he doesn't display it very often.
Next we played another math-related game. He chose Mille-Bornes, the French car-race card game. This was his first time ever to play it, and he caught on right away! I was so happy to see that he understood the complicated rules so easily. He didn't do his own mile-addition, but we can work into that later. I just want to have some math activities available that he won't consider too terrible. We're going to move right into using that math book by the end of the week. Meanwhile I want to get the message across that using math can be fun.
We also learned something about ancient Rome. During the first quarter we're having a unit study on ancient cultures, with an emphasis on the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. We've done studies on Egypt and Greece before, but never did Rome until now. Today we found out what happened to the Roman farmers after the war with the Carthaginians was over.
The only thing I had planned and didn't get to was The Phonics Game. That can be a priority for tomorrow.
We started with a Bible verse - Proverbs 27:1 - that he illustrated. Rather than trying to think of a scene to match the verse, he chose to illustrate with a flower as decoration. That's fine. The point is - besides hearing the ancient proverb - to provide an activity that will encourage his artistic talents. My plan is to collect the Proverb Pictures in a book... probably a binder with the pictures in plastic pockets (what do they call those things?)... Anyhow, he did this with felt pens and oil pastels (his favorite medium these days).I thought putting the Bible verse first would be good - and as it turned out having art first also helped. We moved from the right-brain activity to a left-brain activity: writing. Starting easy, I had him write his full name and birthdate three times. He doesn't like to write but this is the year he will have to get good at it - starting with a simple assignment each day. I have this all planned out. He complained and started slow, finishing in a flash after protesting, "You're just doing this to torture me!" LOL - well it takes pain to be beautiful, I've heard... and I need to see some beautiful writing from him. To his credit, he does have nice handwriting considering he doesn't display it very often.
Next we played another math-related game. He chose Mille-Bornes, the French car-race card game. This was his first time ever to play it, and he caught on right away! I was so happy to see that he understood the complicated rules so easily. He didn't do his own mile-addition, but we can work into that later. I just want to have some math activities available that he won't consider too terrible. We're going to move right into using that math book by the end of the week. Meanwhile I want to get the message across that using math can be fun.
We also learned something about ancient Rome. During the first quarter we're having a unit study on ancient cultures, with an emphasis on the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. We've done studies on Egypt and Greece before, but never did Rome until now. Today we found out what happened to the Roman farmers after the war with the Carthaginians was over.
The only thing I had planned and didn't get to was The Phonics Game. That can be a priority for tomorrow.
Monday, August 26, 2002
Today was the first day of school for Cimeron. She is in a 7th/8th grade class. The first day went fine... but took up a lot of my time. I took her to school and got her registered at 8 am, then at 3 went back for a long conference with the teachers, nurse and principal. I hope we can settle down and have a nice quiet school year now... well... maybe for me but not for the teachers... they looked so tired at the end of the first day.
Anyhow, because I spent so much time on Cimeron's school adventure, I didn't get to do as much with Aaron as I had hoped. The good news is that what we did together went much better than I expected. He was enthusiastic about the unit studies I've planned and wanted to get right into studying the Klamath Forest map. We will be going over that carefully. Last night I experimented with scanning part of it into digital format and doing that, I could see more and read it more clearly. There's so much to explore! Mines, botany, roads, creeks... there's just so much out there.
Also we played Rummikub together and he was much better at it than last time we tried, which was probably about a year or more ago. He enjoyed the game and it was good for simple math, making sets, and all that good stuff. I consider it a warm-up activity for what comes next. I have lots of math materials here to choose from.
Aside from that, we didn't get much done. I'm disappointed, but maybe am expecting too much from the first day of homeschool. It is kind of neat that he and I will get so much one-on-one time and I'm glad he still wants to homeschool even though his big sister chose to do something different this year.
Anyhow, because I spent so much time on Cimeron's school adventure, I didn't get to do as much with Aaron as I had hoped. The good news is that what we did together went much better than I expected. He was enthusiastic about the unit studies I've planned and wanted to get right into studying the Klamath Forest map. We will be going over that carefully. Last night I experimented with scanning part of it into digital format and doing that, I could see more and read it more clearly. There's so much to explore! Mines, botany, roads, creeks... there's just so much out there.
Also we played Rummikub together and he was much better at it than last time we tried, which was probably about a year or more ago. He enjoyed the game and it was good for simple math, making sets, and all that good stuff. I consider it a warm-up activity for what comes next. I have lots of math materials here to choose from.
Aside from that, we didn't get much done. I'm disappointed, but maybe am expecting too much from the first day of homeschool. It is kind of neat that he and I will get so much one-on-one time and I'm glad he still wants to homeschool even though his big sister chose to do something different this year.
Sunday, August 25, 2002
Today Cimeron and I traveled into Oregon to get a card table to use for Aaron's homeschooling this year. It was a long and tiring drive... about seventy miles each way. First we stopped in Cave Junction but the card table there cost 39 dollars - more than I had to spend on one. So we went to Walmart in Grants Pass, where I got a nice table for only 23 dollars, and a lot of art supplies for homeschool. Cimeron bought some makeup... which I don't think she needs but I remember when I was a teenager I used it too. Now both kids are sitting here at the new card table drawing pictures so I think I made a good purchase on things that will help us all out.
I've never tried this Homeschool Solutions software before but I'm downloading it right now for my free 30-day trial. It is only $35 - a price I can afford - so I might get it if it proves to be useful during the coming month.
I've never tried this Homeschool Solutions software before but I'm downloading it right now for my free 30-day trial. It is only $35 - a price I can afford - so I might get it if it proves to be useful during the coming month.
