Cowen's First Sewing Project

Cowen wanted to learn how to sew on a button so I taught him.  Then he wanted the buttons to be eyes and wanted a nose and mouth.  We tracked down some fabric scraps, "designed" the mouth, and Cowen got to use the sewing machine for the first time.  He did great and thought he was awesome.

I refuse to feel guilty that Miriam did her first sewing project when she was 5 and Cowen is already 7 (nearly 8).  I'm trying.  There are so many things to do and so much to teach.  He'll catch up.  The fact that I try to teach my children how to sew when I don't know how to sew is a testament to my desire to teach every needful thing OR extreme hubris.  I'm not sure which.

I am sure that I love the weird pumpkin face he made.

Unplanned Science: Inner Earth

Much of today did not go as planned.  I have been all over the creation this week with the kiddos and I have had a terrible cold and so I was looking forward to spending Friday at home.  Instead I spent the morning with five kids at the doctor's office (we were just there earlier this week for the great Ear Wax Removal Expedition that involved six kids because my sister had a babysitting emergency) because Emeline has an ear infection.

Not restful.

When we got home I stuck the three youngest children in bed and then Miriam worked on the quilt top she's sewing (more on that later) and Cowen did his first sewing project.  While we were sewing two boxes showed up at our door.  Yay!!  Nothing breaks up a rainy day like new school stuff!

I'm going to post in more detail about the contents of the boxes but in one of the boxes was this model of the earth.

It isn't as cool as I was hoping--it is made of foam and none of the pieces are removable.  Despite that, my two oldest children examined it closely and asked me about the different layers.  I explained how hot it is inside the earth and a few other things from my limited knowledge and then Cowen asked, in a very irritated voice, "How do people know all that if it is so hot?"

When I don't know the answer to something I always turn to my most trusted homeschool resource: youtube.  What else?

My children ended up watching Inside Planet Earth in its entirety (broken up into ten minute sections because it's youtube).  The movie is a Discovery Channel feature presentation and their website describes it thusly: An Inside Planet Earth DVD, uses startling special effects to give you an up-close and personal look at the Earth's fiery core. Enjoy an unimaginable view of the glowing iron ore seams, luminous diamond caverns and the magnetic field that keeps us safe from deadly radiation. The Earth DVD is an amazing view of the world split wide open, which gives us a never-before-seen view of the amazing planet we live on! 

The kiddos loved it!  I am always amazed at how curious they are about everything.  Especially science things.  And so, like so much of my life, the best laid plans went awry but in this case it turned out pretty cool.  I highly recommend Inside Planet Earth.  Good stuff.  I don't recommend the earth model even though it did lead to greater light and knowledge.

Scheduling Life

I have written several posts about scheduling over the past few years.  One is here and another is here.  I like to go back and read what I have written on the subject periodically because otherwise I forget and start making the same mistakes I have made before.

Scheduling is a huge issue for homeschoolers.  If you always go with the flow things are left undone.  If you over schedule, everyone eventually freaks out.  If you have everything going smoothly--you get pregnant.  The circle of life.   Or something like that.

This year I borrowed an idea that I saw at Chocolate on My Cranium.  You can read her post here.  Basically I organized our days into 30 minute blocks from the time we get up until we go to bed.  I then had my hubby help me put it all into excel--a program at which he excels (seriously overtired pregnant woman here who thinks she's hilarious) and I do not--and added a very basic color code.  The blue part of Monday is when the kids go to the charter school.  Yay!  I should really post about that.  Yellow is play time, green is school, and red is chores.  You can see that my hubs and Lady Harriet didn't get added to the list.  Have you tried to schedule a man or a baby?  Exactly.

All of this begs the question of how well does this type of schedule work for us.  Well . . . it doesn't really.  I still get up later than I would like because otherwise I feel queasy all day and so we never do things when they are written on the schedule.  Also, we hardly ever do chores during the week.  I've found that getting all the kids to do their chores well enough to pass them off takes too much time.  I have them tidy up before Dad gets home (when I remember) and we focus on cleaning the house on Saturday.

Inspired by Chocolate on my Cranium, I scheduled in one-on-one time with each of the children throughout the week.  That has never happened.  Neither has being dinner helper.

On the flip side, it works brilliantly with Miriam.  She gets up, I get her started and she can look at what subjects she has to do that day and then she does them.  They don't get done during the designated time, necessarily, but she likes the independence of reading the schedule instead of asking me what she should be doing.  So do I.

Which brings me to the best part of my new balancing act--the designated hours with each child.  This is not on the schedule and happened rather by accident but it is the best thing ever.  I realized that MOST of my frustration came from a litany of voices asking me for help all at the same time as we sat around the table and worked on school together.  I used to go bananas trying to keep up with everyone at the same time.

I don't do that anymore.  Miriam works independently on almost everything.  While she is working I take first Cowen and then Emeline and work with them individually.  First we do spelling, reading, and sight words and then we do piano.  While I'm working with Cowen, Emeline does xtramath.org and Rosetta Stone spanish on the computer.  When I'm done with Cowen he does computer work while I work with Emeline.  Then I take both of them to the table and help them with their math work.

Then I go over all of Miriam's work with her--without the problem of trying to help the younger kids at the same time.

In the afternoon we do science or history together.

This has made such a huge difference in my emotional stability.  We have our together times, the kids have lots of built in rest periods as I move from child to child for individual work, and I don't feel like I'm being pecked to death by a bunch of noisy ducks.  Well . . . less often anyway.

As for the whole scheduling thing--I really love the idea of 30 minute increment planning and I'm not tossing it out, but during the pregnancy and first year with baby #6, I'm pretty sure it will mostly be on the wall for Miriam's benefit and as "inspirational literature" for me.

Ancient History: Greece and Maps

 We have gotten to a very late start with Greece.  This was due to lots of factors, including our taking off all of last week for me to put together Flex courses for Harmony.  However, I have all that under control now so we started off strong--again.

Yesterday we read Wings by Jane Yolen.  Like many Greek myths, this is fairly depressing reading, but my kids loved how the illustrator put the faces of the gods into the clouds in all the illustrations.  They also quite liked the idea of a minotaur.  While not my favorite, it is still a good read.

 This book, Ancient Greece!: 40 Hands-On Activities to Experience this Wondrous Age by Avery Hart and Paul Mantell, is my new favorite book on ancient Greece.  I hadn't read it until Sunday night when I was putting together the week's activities as I had checked it out for Miriam to get ideas for her special project.  It is a great history book.  All the major events and time periods of ancient Greece are summarized in this book.  Fabulous!!  (It's a good thing I like it so much because I have to purchase it from the library as we managed to spill a bunch of the Aegean Sea on it.  Grr.)

 After reading the first 17 pages of Ancient Greece! and Wings we started mapping.  I printed off a map of Ancient Greece, a map of modern day Greece, and a map of Europe so the kids could get a perspective on where Greece is located and how much it has shrunk.  I used this for the map of Europe.    This for the ancient Greece map and this for the close-up of modern Greece.

 We also added some dates to our Century Book.  I can't remember if I've talked about Century Books on this blog--I'm pretty sure I have--but I am really loving the format of ours.  Miriam, above, is adding a little labyrinth to her Century Book and Cowen, below, is adding a much larger one.

 Above is the minotaur in the labyrinth.

 We made Greece in a plastic container.  I sent the children out to find the right shaped rocks and they couldn't find anything long and skinny for Crete.  Cowen improvised and found us a mostly dead pepper left over in the garden.  Awesome.  We had a lot of fun making the blue Aegean Sea and hopefully the basic geography of Greece is cemented in my children's brains.

 A completed map.  The kids were super neat and did awesome until they got bored adding all the water.  I can't blame them--my own map went a little downhill when I got to the water too.

 Miriam's still turned out really nice.

 Here's a sample of the back of a page of our Century Books.  The page is divided into six sections: Middle East, Europe, Greece, Rome, Asia, and the Americas.  So far we've talked about the Middle East and a little bit of Greece.  I'm excited to see the finished Century Book at the end of the year.

 Cowen's final picture of the Greek kid (Theseus) defeating the Minotaur.  I like the minotaur's horns and Theseus's armor.  Nice job, Cowen!

 Here's Cowen's Gilgamesh.  Seriously love his artwork.

 Miriam's Century Book is pretty sweet too.

And there you have it--an actual real day of history at this little homeschool.  Unfortunately my lesson plans for today were tabled when I freaked out on my kids for taking so long to be obedient every time I asked them to do something.  I fed them an early supper at 4:30 (lettuce wraps--every time I make them I wonder why I ever make anything else), put all of them to bed at 5:30 (except Cowen--he's still doing dishes) and didn't even feel bad that Cowen is missing one of his last football games.  You want privileges, bucko, do your work one of the first 16 times I ask you.  Glad I got that off my chest.  

Happy homeschooling . . . or something like that!

Christmas Excitement: Miriam

I am a Christmas fanatic.  I need half a year to celebrate adequately and get my fill of Christmas music, and then the other half of the year to plan the presents.  I like to have everything purchased and/or made by the end of October.  That allows me to throw myself into celebrating in November and December.  For those of you who are tsking--I'm Canadian.  Thanksgiving is over for me by the middle of October.  ON TO CHRISTMAS!!!  Yee-haw!!!  I mean, ho ho ho!!!

As the children age I find it harder and harder to pick presents for the oldest kids, while simultaneously finding it almost impossible to get anything for the youngest of the kids because we already have enough toys around the place for little hands.

To encourage you to send me ideas and to help kickstart your own Christmas shopping brainstorming, I'm going to post what we've picked for our kids as we finalize their lists.  We don't get many presents (well, compared to some people--maybe we're exorbitant and just don't know it) but we do give our kids a stocking stuffer, a book(s), a sibling present that they make for each other in November, and one Santa present.  Then I also get to pick a present for each child that is from their great-grandma that they get at her Christmas party that is usually held the first weekend in December.  

A little about Miriam.  She is 9, is in the 4th grade, has red hair and a VIVID imagination who sometimes condescends to visit us in reality, wants to be a detective when she grows up, is addicted to Hardy Boys books, is a beautiful pianist, makes up hilarious songs while washing the dishes, and loves people of all varieties.  She loves to create art--more crafty stuff than drawing--and she is wonderful at entertaining her siblings with all of her delightful made-up games.  She's also ridiculously bright.

Without further ado: Miriam's 2012 Christmas list.

The boxed set of Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery.  I've been waiting forever (it feels like) to introduce Miriam to Anne.  They are clearly kindred spirits.  Miriam wishes she was an orphan because it would make her life much more dramatic.

Dress Up Days doll panel.  All of my girls are getting these fabric dolls as their stocking stuffers.  I am going to make Harriet's because she's too little and so I'll know how to put one together.  One panel includes two outfits plus a headband thing and the doll.  For Miriam I am going to cut out the pieces, add the necessary batting, put it all in a ziploc and put it in her stocking that way.  She'll be way more excited about sewing it together than she would be about an already put together doll.

 Crime Scene Investigator Kit.  This kit requires you to be a detective.  It comes with a booklet explaining the crime that was committed and the suspects.  You have to conduct 7 forensic type experiments to figure out the perpetrator of the crime.  We're pretty positive Miriam is going to love it.  This is her Santa present.

Pressed Flowers Collection Kit.    This is not a Christmas present--it is what we are getting her for her 10th birthday.  We had a hard time deciding between this and the detective set but decided to save the pressed flower kit for June when there would actually be flowers.  Miriam has been trying to dry flowers and leaves in books for years without success.  We've even called her brilliant Aunt Kami, artist extraordinaire, for tips but still failed.  I'm positive Miriam will wow me with all the creative things she thinks up to do with her pressed foliage.

Lego Hagrid's Hut.    This is what Miriam is getting from her great-grandma.  All the children except Harriet are getting Lego things from great-grandma because they all love Legos and we have very few.  I thought Legos were lame when I was a kid (still can't work up much excitement) but I LOVE how much time my children spend playing quietly with them.  Excellent.

And there you have it--the first of 5 Christmas present posts.  I would love to hear what is on your Christmas lists as I can always use good ideas and we are still searching for the perfect present for Emeline and Harriet.  Suggestions welcome!

PS  I only have one thing on my list--a really nice bamboo cutting board.  I've already hinted to my hubby that Ross might be the place to shop for me this year.  :)  Anything you are hoping for?

Our History Units and Books

I recently received an email from Maria (a blog friend) about my ancient history units--the structure and timing and whatnot.  I thought I would write a response on here in case it benefits anyone else.  Warning: information overload to follow.

In putting together Ancient History by geographical areas, I had to make sure there was information for the areas I wanted to study and also that I would have time to cover the most significant (to general world history) areas.  After I got started I decided that trying to do science and history at the same time didn't work for me so I switched to a 4 week history 4 week science model.  Here's how it looks on paper:  Remember I switched to the 4 week plan AFTER I already started.

April 23-May 11: Mesopotamia (3 weeks, twice a week--or approx. 6 hours)

May 14-May 25: Bible Lands - or Middle East (2 weeks or 4 hours)

May 28-June 8: Persian Empire (2 weeks or 4 hours)

July 16-Aug. 10: Egypt (5 weeks or 10 hours--my children LOVE studying Egypt and there is so much information that spending extra time is fun and justified)

Sept. 10-Oct. 19: Greece (lots of weeks but not really because I have been so busy that we haven't done anything for Greece yet except read a few books.  Because of that, I added on two extra weeks for Greece to catch up.  I think you need 5 weeks or 10 hours to really cover Greece well and set things up for Rome.)

Nov. 26-Dec. 21: Britain/Scandinavia  (4 weeks or 8 hours.  You could cover this area in a much shorter amount of time but there are quite a few fun books at the library and there is Thor, not to mention some really great battles with Rome--therefore, I added two extra weeks because I knew my 7 year old son would want to spend more time on it.)

Feb. 4-March 1: Rome (4 weeks or 8 hours.  Yes, you could spend WAY more time here, but I just don't think Rome is as interesting as some other places so I decided 4 weeks was enough for us.)

We are taking off a month whenever baby arrives--either the end of Feb or beginning of March.

April 29-May 3: India (1 week or 2 hours)

May 6-10: North America (1 week or 2 hours)

May 13-17: Japan (1 week or 2 hours)

May 20-24: China (1 week or 2 hours)

I realize that the hours we spent on these areas are rather arbitrary but I did allot time in part due to the materials available for each area.

To recap, I broke up the world in this way:

Mesopotamia
Bible Lands/Middle East
Persia
Greece
Egypt
Britain/Scandinavia
India
North America
Japan
China

I already posted the books I used for Mesopotamia, Bible Lands/Middle East, Persia, and Egypt.  For those interested I'll post the book list I have for the rest of the areas but promise, pretty please, to remember that this is my un-kid-tested list.  When I post books on this blog it is AFTER I've used them and gauged my children's reaction.  I'll post again after each unit with the list of books my children liked the most.  The books come from either Davis or Weber County libraries.

India:
Souhami, Jessica.  Rama and the Demon King: An Ancient Tale from India.

Alexander, Lloyd.  The Iron Ring.  (The book is based loosely on Indian mythology.)

Clements, Gillian.  Building History: Indus Valley City.

Ali, Daud and Fiona MacDonald, Lorna Oakes, and Philip Steele.  The Illustrated History Encyclopedia: Great Civilizations of the East.  This book covers Mesopotamia, Ancient India, The Chinese Empire, and Ancient Japan.

North America:
Quigley, Mary.  Excavating the Past: Mesa Verde

National Geographic: Ancient Pueblo: Archeology Unlocks the Secrets of America's Past.

Scholl, Elizabeth.  How'd They Do That in the Mayan Civilization?

Harris, Nathaniel.  National Geographic Investigates: Ancient Maya

Noble, William.  How'd They Do That in the Aztec Empire?

Millard, Anne.  Pyramids.

Galvin, Irene Flum.  The Ancient Maya.


Rome:
Dahl, Roald.  The Mildenhall Treasure.

Macaulay, David.  City: A Story of Roman Planning and Construction.

Windrow, Martin.  The Roman Legionary.

Osborne, Mary Pope.  Ancient Rome and Pompeii.

Osborne, Mary Pope.  Vacation Under the Volcano.

Macdonald, Fiona.  How to be a Roman Soldier.

Roberts, Paul C.  Ancient Rome.

Biesty, Stephen.  Rome: In Spectacular Cross-Section.

Murrel, Deborah.  The Best Book of Ancient Rome.

James, Simon.  Ancient Rome.

Morley, Jacqueline.  Inside Story: A Roman Villa.

Rutland, Jonathan.  See Inside a Roman Town.

Osborne, Mary Pope.  Pompeii: Lost and Found.

DiPrimio, Pete.  How'd They Do That in Ancient Rome?

Ballard, Robert D.  The Lost Wreck of the Isis.

Sutcliff, Rosemary.  Frontier Wolf.  I haven't read this yet.

Stefoff, Rebecca.  The Ancient Mediterranean.


Britain/Scandinavia
Green, Jen.  Ancient Celts: Archaeology Unlocks the Secrets of the Celts' Past.

Climo, Shirley.  Stolen Thunder: A Norse Myth.

Martell, Hazel Mary.  Myths and Civilizations of the Celts.

Martell, Hazel Mary.  What Do We Know About the Celts?

Colum, Padraic.  The Children of Odin: The Book of Northern Myths.

Shofner, Shawndra.  Stonehenge.

Lunge-Larsen, Lise.  The Adventures of Thor: The Thunder God.

Harrison, Michael.  The Doom of the Gods.

Muller, Robin.  The Nightwood.  This is a shorter version of one of my very favorite books ever, The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope.  Miriam will be reading Pope's version.  Sigh.  I love it when my kids read my favorites!

Yolen, Jane.  Sister Bear: A Norse Tale.  This is a shorter version of Jessica Day George's Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow that Miriam saw sitting on my pile of books and is currently reading.  It was okay--definitely not George's best, but not bad either.

Sutcliff, Rosemary. The High Deeds of Finn Mac Cool.  I haven't read this one yet.

Gaiman, Neil.  Odd and the Frost Giants.  I haven't read this one yet either.

Keary, A.  The Heroes of Asgard.  Really long--I'm going to have it around for Miriam to thumb through.

Fisher, Leonard Everett.  Gods and Goddesses of the Ancient Norse.

Osborne, Mary Pope.  Favorite Norse Myths.

Hinds, Kathryn.  Barbarians! Ancient Celts.  

Place, Robin.  The Celts.

Green, Roger Lancelyn.  Myths of the Norsemen.  I own this book so I don't know if it is available at the library.

Tannen, Mary.  The Wizard Children of Finn.  I haven't read this yet.

Arnold, Caroline.  Stone Age Farmers Beside the Sea: Scotland's Prehistoric Village of Skara Brae.

Hague, Kathleen and Michael Hague.  The Man Who Kept House and East of the Sun and West of the Moon.

Curren, Polly.  Folk Tales of Scandinavia.  


Japan/Other Asian Spots
Richardson, Hazel.  Life in Ancient Japan.

James, Alison J. The Drums of Noto Hanto

Sierra, Judy.  The Dancing Pig.  Set in Bali.

Ali, Daud.  The Illustrated History Encyclopedia: Great Civilizations of the East. 


China
Cotterell, Arthur.  Eyewitness: Ancient China.

Beshore, George.  Science in Ancient China.

Friedman, Mel.  Ancient China: A True Book.

Michaelson, Carol ed.  The Nature Company Discoveries Library: Ancient China.

Alexander, Lloyd.  The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen.  Set in the Tang Dynasty.

O'Connor, Jane.  The Emperor's Silent Army: Terracotta Warriors of Ancient China.

Terzi, Marinella.  The World Heritage: The Chinese Empire.

Ali, Daud.  The Illustrated History Encyclopedia: Great Civilizations of the East.


Other Random Ancient History Books that Looked Interesting
Woods, Michael.  Ancient Warfare: From Clubs to Catapults.

Atkinson, Mary.  Pills and Potions: A History of Remedies.


I hope some of that was helpful to someone!!

Miriam's New Subject: Reading Comprehension

I added a few new subjects to Miriam's day this year as she is a big 4th grader and all.  One of the subjects is reading comprehension.  At first glance that seems silly as Miriam reads well above her reading level and has no problem comprehending what she reads.  However, I wanted to address two issues with this new subject: test preparedness and critical thinking skills.

Miriam has been doing critical thinking work since Kindergarten, but solving logic puzzles has gotten pretty simple for her.  We continue to bump up the challenge but she understands the process of reading the clues and marking a grid.  (I'm talking here about logic puzzles that have you find a solution based on a few clues.  For example, find 4 people's last names using a grid and clues such as "no person has a last name that is longer than their first name.")  Miriam adores logic puzzles and I think they are valuable so we continue to do them. (We use the Critical Thinking Co's Mind Benders for our logic puzzles.)

However, while that type of logic study is useful it isn't the best way to prepare for the English section of the ACT or multiple choice tests in general.  Well, I guess it is if a person knows to transfer the information.  Never mind everything I just said.  Instead, we'll just say that I wanted more specific practice for the English and science portions of the ACT.  I realize that is many years in Miriam's future, but the sooner you start practicing the better you get and the better scholarship you get.  I used to practice test taking with my public school students and the kids who understood the process, format, and strategies for test taking had such an advantage.

Enter The Critical Thinking Company.  Some days I feel like they should give me a kickback for all the nice things I say about their company.  They don't.  But they should.  :)  I bought Science Detective for 3rd and 4th grade because Miriam hadn't done anything like it before so I wanted her to feel successful and build up to harder problems.  While she reads and comprehends at a much higher level, she doesn't evaluate charts at a higher level or find the sentence that best answers the question at a higher level.  What I'm saying is, I'm glad we didn't buy the 5th and 6th grade book although I debated between the two for quite some time.

Clearly I'm tired because this post feels like it is all over the place.  I apologize.

Let me wrap up.  This workbook contains short passages of non-fiction based on science principles.  The sentences are numbered and the paragraphs are assigned a letter.  Following the passage are a series of questions about the information in the passage.  Most of the questions come in two parts: what is the answer to this question and which sentence best answers the question.  I really like that part because it forces Miriam to evaluate the passage even when she knows the answer already.

So far the passages have all included graphs of various types.  In the question section there are questions that can only be answered by evaluating the graph and for one passage Miriam was required to fill out 3 graphs similar to the one found in the passage.

This book really is a stellar reading comprehension workbook.  It forces Miriam to read carefully, to read the questions carefully and evaluate exactly what is being asked and how and where to find the answers.  It forces her to learn to decipher the purpose and information presented in a variety of graphs.

In short, it does everything I wanted it to do and does it very well.  Plus the passages and number of questions are a perfect and appropriate length for her age--it takes her 15 minutes to complete one passage with questions.  She is assigned two sections per week so she does reading comprehension on Tuesdays and Fridays.  I think it is just the right amount.  As she gets better at it I will probably start having her skip every other passage to get her through the book in one year so she can move to the next book in the series next year.  Then Cowen can use the book and do the passages Miriam skipped when he gets to 4th grade.  :)  I don't see any reason a child would need to do every single page in a book that size unless you did start the child in 3rd grade and expected him to take 2 years to complete the book, or the child really struggled with this type of work and needed the extra practice.

The only other thing I think I should mention is that the Critical Thinking Co markets this as a "core" textbook for science.  Yes, conceivably you could use this book as your science textbook but I wouldn't recommend it.  It doesn't build on itself well and the concepts are not delved into or layered enough to be a stand-alone science curriculum.  Plus, it would be boring.  No experiments.  But that's my opinion, for what it's worth.

Here's the link if you want to "look inside" the book on the Critical Thinking Co's website: http://www.criticalthinking.com/getProductDetails.do?code=c&id=05001

Happy homeschooling!

PS  I'm feeling better.  More stable, happier, less nauseated.  Blessed second trimester.  Thank you so much for all your kind words via emails and comments and for your long-distance hugs.  It really made a difference in my outlook.  I'm so glad I have friends like you.