Category Archives: Homeschool

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

Homeschool

Welcome to winter break

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home/schoolFriday was our last day of school before our two-week winter break. I’m still trying to work out the best schedule for us, and I think we’ve taken breaks too frequently this year. We’ll have fewer of them when we start back up in January, but I’m still liking the idea of having two weeks off around Christmas. (We’ll see if I’m still thinking that come January.)

Most of our week was dedicated to wrapping things up. Poppy did the review-level tests for the first unit of Rosetta Stone Spanish, we finished reading “Betsy-Tacy and Tib,” and she read the last 40 pages of her December BookIt challenge. Her final total was 217 pages, and that doesn’t even count the books she was reading on her own in her room on Friday! (I’m pretty proud of her sudden interest in solo reading.) She also did a lot of playing at Dreambox Learning this week. I signed up for their two-week free trial, and she loved it. So now I guess we’re going to have to discuss ponying up the money for a subscription!

We did what may well be our last “Five in a Row” book this week. It was “Warm As Wool,” about a pioneer family in Ohio. We talked about covered wagons, and we recreated the story with Lincoln Logs and cotton-ball sheep. Poppy and I have really enjoyed the “FIAR” curriculum, and I’ll be using it again with Pete when he’s old enough. I’m thinking about getting “Before Five in a Row” to use with him next year.

Homeschool

Homeschooling in the infirmary

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home/schoolMy little guys have been sick since Monday, so this week’s theme was Things That Didn’t Require Much Energy. Our “Five in a Row” book was “The Salamander Room,” and it was the first in quite awhile that Poppy was really enthusiastic about. It isn’t that she doesn’t enjoy the FIAR books anymore, but this one? She asked for it every day, several times a day. Since she was under the weather, though, we didn’t do many of the suggested activities.

(PS: A downside to homeschooling? No sick days unless you’re way sick.)

Poppy did a little bit of copy work this week — a line from the “Wonderpets” theme song, and the first stanza of Robert Frost’s “Dust of Snow,” which was also her memorization piece this week. We finished reading “Betsy-Tacy” (and Poppy immediately asked for the next book in the series, so I guess she liked it!), and Poppy read several books for her December BookIt challenge. I upped her page-number target to 200 this month, since she knocked out 100 pages so easily last month, and she’s about 60 pages away from the goal.

We finally got our DSL line up and running again, so Poppy was able to play some games at NickJr.com and PBSKids.com. (We switched to a Verizon MiFi last year, and it was woefully inadequate in terms of bandwidth availability. But the cancellation fee was astronomical, so we had to stick with it.) I also signed up for a free trial of Dreambox Learning, which is a web-based math curriculum. Poppy tried it yesterday and thought it was a blast. I don’t know that I’d use it exclusively, but it would be a nice supplement. It’s kind of expensive, though, and homeschools don’t qualify for their school discount unless there are 24 students. (To which I say: Why didn’t you just say “no discount for you, homeschoolers”? Well, I guess you could sign up as a co-op. But still.)

Anyway, I’d appreciate your prayers regarding this “viral crud” — that was the doctor’s diagnosis — that’s taken up residence in my house. Poppy is supposed to dance in “The Nutcracker” this week, and I’m not sure they’ll want a sick, hacking angel in their ranks. She’d be devastated. Petey hasn’t been able to fully shake the fever that accompanied his “crud,” and I’m coming down with it now, too. So far mine is just the stuffy/runny nose and the sore throat, but I’d really like it if that went away or at the very least didn’t get any worse.

What to know what other homeschoolers are doing? Here’s the Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. I’m linking up there, and lots of other homeschoolers have, too.

Homeschool

A wooden duck, a weepy Mommy and some pachyderm communication

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Our “Five in a Row” book this week was “Daniel’s Duck” by Clyde Robert Bulla. It’s a nice little story about a little boy who lives in the mountains and wants to learn woodcarving. It ends sort of abruptly, and Poppy wasn’t thrilled about that. She wanted to know what happened next, so we spent a little time on Monday imagining what might have happened after the book’s end.home/school In other “FIAR” news, we talked about how artists do what they do and about why the days are shorter in winter.

Poppy finished her handwriting book before Thanksgiving, so we’ve started doing copywork. I made several sheets for her to work on at the Zaner-Bloser web site. This week, I used lines from “Autumn Fires,” a list of our family members’ names, a quote from “Toy Story” and a line from one of her favorite songs. So far, she’s been excited in the mornings to see what the copywork sheet will be. She also memorized “Eletelphony” by Laura E. Richards this week (it’s a silly little poem), and we started reading “Betsy-Tacy” by Maud Hart Lovelace. I’d never read it before — in fact, I hadn’t ever heard of it until I was looking for chapter books for Poppy and I to read together. We read Chapter 8 on Friday, and I don’t want to hand out any spoilers here, but: I cried. On the bright side, I’ve now steeled myself against any more surprises in Lovelace’s cruel world.

What to know what other homeschoolers are doing? Here’s the Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. I’m linking up there, and lots of other homeschoolers have, too.