Category Archives: Homeschool

Learning at home with a second-grader and a fifth-grader.

There’s no “snow day” in homeschooling

01/22/2016 Nichole 2 Comments

The non-homeschooled kids in our town had Monday of for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Tuesday was a teacher work day. They went to school on Wednesday, but they went back home by 10am because the side roads were icy. They went to school yesterday, and last night it snowed six inches so school’s canceled again today.

My homeschool kids, meanwhile, had school every day this week. This week was one of the few times they envied the public school kids’ schedules.

It wasn’t all protractors and sentence-diagramming this week, though. They finished school by 1pm every day this week and spent their afternoons as they wished, and they’ve already had a snowball fight and a mug of hot chocolate today.

US Geography

This week we studied Tennessee, and today we made Dollywood cinnamon bread. The recipe calls for an unbaked, frozen loaf of bread, and Rockford grabbed pre-baked mini-loaves when he braved the pre-snow-ravaged grocery store yesterday. The bread still came out delicious, though. We also read a biography of Davy Crockett over the course of the week, and we watched a short documentary called “For the Love of Music: The Story of Nashville.” I had hoped it would focus on Nashville’s history a bit more, but it wasn’t bad.

Language Arts

Reading

We finally finished “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” this week, and the kids started the movie almost as soon as I’d closed the book. They were not pleased with the differences between page and film. We started “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” yesterday, so we’ll be reading that for the foreseeable future.

Grammar

We’re reading and working through the exercises in “The Giggly Guide to Grammar” together. This week we talked about pronounces and action verbs.

Math

Poppy is doing a lot of work with fractions these days, and she’s also examining three-dimensional shapes. I wish the McRuffy manipulatives kit came with 3D models of the shapes, because I have a hard time visualizing all of the faces and edges. A hands-on model would be helpful. She’s doing pretty well with it, though.

UPDATE: I want to draw everyone’s attention to the brilliant comment my brilliant friend Rachel left.

It’s good to have smart friends.

END UPDATE

Pete has been doing division. He wasn’t having a problem with it until this week, when he got to dividing by 8. I think we need to do some work on his multiplication tables above 7.

Do your kids get days off for bad weather? What’s your favorite snow-day memory?

Wanna read more about homeschooling? Check out the Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers weekly linky thing!

Homeschool

This week in homeschooling: I need to buy some peanut butter

01/15/2016 Nichole

In retrospect we had a fine week, but it felt like a slog while we were in it. The kids seemed to be struggling to focus, and they asked for lots of breaks every day. In the spirit of trying to be less stressed (and less stressful), I acquiesced. They did get most of their work done, but drawing the school day out far into the afternoon wasn’t terribly enjoyable for any of us. Poppy missed out on an impromptu playdate because of it, and I felt like I was on a treadmill all week. I’m sure it didn’t help matters that I stayed up at least an hour too late every night this week.

US Geography

Did you know that Atlanta is the most densely forested city in the United States? I’d noticed that there were a lot of trees around the city, but I didn’t know it was the most tree-filled until we studied Georgia this week. We also read a picture-book biography of Martin Luther King Jr. this week. I wanted to read about Eli Whitney and President Jimmy Carter, too, but it didn’t happen. I may need to spend more than a week on each state if I want to get through more than one biography.

Our state-specific recipe this week is the simple and delightful peanut butter cookie, which we have not yet made because I don’t have my act together today.

Language Arts

Reading

Pete and I started taking turns reading “The Jungle Book” to one another this week, and Poppy is reading yet another “Warriors” book. We’re also still reading “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.”

Grammar

The kids finished “Grammar Island” this week. While I continue to hem and haw over whether to buy “Grammar Town,” the kids and I will be reading and doing exercises from “The Giggly Guide to Grammar.” The first exercise we did had us liven up some sentences to give the reader a more vivid mental picture. Here’s what the kids came up with:

My weird neighbor has a house full of strange stuff.
My weird neighbors Joe has a shack spilling over with expired snacks, ceramic kitten plates, mismatched treehouse materials and empty Keurig pods.

My crazy relative talks to inanimate objects.
My crazy cousin Sam has long conversations about financial planning with his cigarette.

The athlete demonstrated his strength by tossing a huge object.
Odell Beckham Jr. demonstrated his strength by launching a 2015 Ford Explorer across Nottingham.

The “Giggly Guide” exercise was, in my opinion, the most enjoyable thing we did all week.

I’ll be working to rediscover a happy medium next week, both in my sleep routine and the kids’ school schedule.

How was your week?

Wanna read more about homeschooling? Check out the Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers weekly linky thing!

Homeschool

This week in homeschooling: We get back to work

01/08/2016 Nichole

I was expected something between light gnashing-of-teeth and complete anarchy when the holidays ended and it was time to get back to work, and I was very pleasantly surprised to be wrong. Maybe the kids are maturing, or perhaps we were all just well-rested and ready to get back to normal, or maybe it’s the yoga I’ve been doing every morning. Whatever the reason, this year’s Return from Christmas Break was the smoothest transition we’ve ever had, and I’m grateful for it.

Social Studies

The kids finished Volume 3 of “Story of the World” before the holidays, and I decided to hold off on starting Volume 4 until next school year. We’re going to focus on US Geography for the rest of this year. I have several geography textbooks, teaching guides and notebooking resources, and I’m using a little bit of each of them to cobble together our own curriculum. We’re going to try to cover one state every week.

We kicked things off this week with a South Carolina study. We did some map work, filled out a fact sheet and started a biography of civil rights activist and educator Mary McLeod Bethune. We were going to try some basket weaving, but the yarn I thought I had in the basement had at some point been unraveled to serve as a cat toy and was subsequently trashed. So it goes. This afternoon we made sweet tea, which we’ll be sipping as we snack on the homemade cheese straws we’re going to make once the butter softens.

Language Arts

Reading

We didn’t read it at all over our break, so we’re still working through “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.” It’s beginning to feel like we’ll be reading it for the rest of our lives.

Pete has been reading his assigned books suspiciously quickly. I know he’s a fast reader, but I’m concerned that he isn’t taking the time to absorb what he’s reading. So we’re changing things up a bit. He started reading an adaptation of “The Jungle Book” out loud to me. I’m not sure how he feels about it, but I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I haven’t been read to in a long time.

Writing

Poppy asked repeatedly over the holidays if I’d ordered Level 4 of Writing Strands for her yet. I had, and she very happily started it this week. The kids are also working independently on mystery stories featuring our cats.

Grammar

We’ll be finishing “Grammar Island” early next week, and I still haven’t bought “Grammar Town” yet. The series has really clicked with both kids, so I’d love to continue with it. It’s $300 for the full package, though, and that’s a very big slice of my homeschool-budget pie.

Memorization

I was expecting to review Washington through Cleveland for awhile, since we didn’t do it at all over Christmas break, but both kids recited it with no problem on Monday to we moved on to McKinley through Harding.

Math

Poppy started factoring and Pete started division this week. They both picked up the new concepts pretty quickly.

Wanna read more about homeschooling? Check out the Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers weekly linky thing!