Category Archives: Homeschool

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

In which the children resume their studies (a.k.a. It’s back-to-school week!)

08/12/2016 Nichole 2 Comments

For a few hours this week, it seemed as though we might start our year as a one-student homeschool. Poppy had expressed an interest in trying out public schooling for her sixth-grade year, so last year we put in applications at a couple of local charter schools. She was wait-listed for both of them, and she was OK with it. And then early last week one of the schools emailed me to say “We have a spot open for Poppy! We need to know if she wants it ASAP!”

She basically had 24 hours to make a decision. We went over to the school for a quick tour and to meet some of the teachers. They were all nice, but the school was in school-starts-next-week chaos so for a kid who has never been to school before I’d imagine it was a little hard to envision what it would look like on a day when there weren’t boxes piled up everywhere.

I was conflicted about the whole situation. If she decided to go, we’d lose our flexible schedule and our ability to cater her curriculum to her needs. But she’d also get to have a new experience and make new friends, and I was excited about that part of it for her. As I tucked her into bed that night, I realized that I emphatically did not want her to go. As much as we butt heads over schoolwork sometimes, I love spending my days with her. I would’ve missed her tremendously.

Had we gotten the email a week or even a few days earlier, I think Poppy might have given it a shot. But having to make the decision in such a short amount of time overwhelmed her, I think, and she decided to stick to homeschool this year. I was relieved. She says she wants to apply again next year, which gives me a full year to prepare myself for her to get in and spend her days elsewhere.

We started our school year this week, and it’s gone alright. We’ve let the kids stay up late to watch the Olympics most nights, so we had a few grumpy beginnings. But we also finished school before noon every day and then watched the Olympics, played outside or played video games, which Poppy most certainly wouldn’t have been able to do had she chosen to enroll in the charter school.

Here’s a little of what Pete and Poppy worked on this week:

Reading

Our history book is starting us out in Victorian England this year, so I picked a complementary read-aloud to kick things off. We’re reading “The Secret Garden,” which Poppy and I read way back in 2011. I’m having a hard time nailing that Yorkshire accent.

Vocabulary

The kids picked up where they left off last year with Wordly Wise 3000. They’re only scheduled to do it a couple days a week, but they both misread their assignment sheet this week and did extra lessons. I’m not complaining. (They did, though.)

Memorization

I thought we’d start the year by revisiting the list of US presidents, and Poppy recited them all without hesitation. Steel trap, just like her father. Pete had a bit more difficulty with it, but he nearly has it all down already.

Math

Both kids are still working through the same curriculum they were doing last year, because at some point we switched things up mid-year. They’ve been on a weird schedule with their math ever since. Poppy jumped right back into her curriculum, but Pete is doing some multiplication review to make sure he’s solid there before we start his math book again.

Science

Pete and I started Mr. Q’s Earth Science this week, and he loves it. I loaded the student text onto the Kindle app on the iPad, and he read it to me from there. Our experiment this week was dropping asteroids (marbles) onto the surface of a planet (a pan of flour and cocoa) from various heights and measuring the impact craters. Today we’re going to make a DIY planetarium using a cereal box, a big nail and some constellation templates.

History

We’ve reached Volume Four of “Story of the World,” which begins with Queen Victoria and her Crystal Palace and the East India Company’s involvement in India. Today we’ll be building our own Crystal Palace, but it’ll be made from paper rather than glass.

Extracurricular

Poppy’s soccer practice started a few weeks ago, and we’re finally getting back to our regular schedule with guitar, tae kwon do and piano.

It’s felt like we aren’t doing quite as much as usual this week, but that’s because some of our outsourced classes haven’t started yet. It’ll be busy enough once those start up, so I’m trying to remind myself to enjoy our laid-back days while I can.

Have your kids gone back to school yet?

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

Homeschool

What third grade looks like at our house (version Pete.0)

07/29/2016 Nichole 3 Comments

Mabel's Labels Giveaway Before we get into this curriculum talk, I need to tell you this: Mabel’s Labels has given me an Ultimate Back to School Combo to give away. And I want you to win it. So at the end of this post, you need to dot the I’s and cross the T’s and drop your name into this giveaway. I have been labeling everything since I bought a set of labels from Mabel when the kids went to camp. And the things that have gone off on playdates and to soccer practice and everywhere else have actually made it back home. It’s magical.

… and now back to our regularly scheduled programming …

Somewhere along the line we’ve dropped into a wormhole and accelerated through time and space, because my calendar is telling me that this wee, bee-driving gent

tinypete

will be in the third grade when we start school in a few weeks.

While Poppy was somewhat interested in going to school this year, Pete has zero interest in such a thing. He enjoys doing his schoolwork on his schedule, which generally means getting it out of the way early and leaving the rest of his day to spend as he pleases. Here’s what he’ll be rushing to complete this year:

Social Studies

We’ll all be listening to “Story of the World: Volume 4“ together as we drive around to various activities. Hopefully we’ll do some of the projects this year, too. Pete will also continue working through the “Map Skills” book he started last year. It’s a book of worksheets on cardinal directions, map reading and state facts.

Math

Pete should finish McRuffy Math 3 by the end of 2016, and he’ll start the fourth level of the program after that.

Language Arts

I’m hoping to get the next level of Michael Clay Thompson’s grammar curriculum this year, but it’s pretty expensive so I’m still not sure it’ll happen. Pete will continue doing the WordlyWise 3000 vocabulary program. And for spelling…

Spelling has been an ongoing challenge for Pete and I, and this year we’re going to try to remove the potential for Mama & Pete conflict from the equation. Pete will have a couple of lessons each week with a tutor.

Science

Poppy is taking an Earth Science course elsewhere this year, and I thought it would be nice if Pete was working on the same subject at home since we’ll be doing some experiments when she’s home. We’ll be using “Classic Science: Elementary Earth Science” from Mr. Q’s. The texts are ebooks. I loaded Pete’s copy onto the family iPad and the teacher copy onto my Kindle, and I’m going to have all of the worksheets, lab reports and tests printed and bound. That’s going to cost about $30, but it’ll be good to have them all in one place and not be at the mercy of my printer.

Art & Music

Pete is still taking guitar lessons, and I’m thinking about having him do Kahn Academy’s art history lessons for art.

Extracurriculars

Pete is a green belt in tae kwon do now, and he’s going to be starting a chess class in the fall.

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. I just like Mabel’s Labels a lot, and they asked if I wanted to give away a set of labels.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Homeschool

What sixth grade looks like at our house

07/27/2016 Nichole 1 Comment

Way back when Poppy started kindergarten, I couldn’t believe she was already 5 years old. Now she’s about to turn 11, and the more things change the more things stay the same because when we start school in a few weeks she’ll be a middle schooler and I am once again in awe at how quickly the years go by.

Poppy was interested in trying public school out this year, but I was hesitant to drop my always-homeschooled kid into a 700-student middle school. We put her name in the hat for a couple of charter schools, but she didn’t get in to either of them. She was perfectly fine with that. She’s still going to get a very small going-to-school experience this year, though, as we’ve signed her up to spend three hours every week taking classes at a place downtown.

Social Studies

Poppy and Pete will be doing “Story of the World: Volume 4“ together. Last year I bought the audiobook, and the kids enjoyed listening to it in the car on the way to co-op. We’ll do the same this year. I’m sure I’ll also lament the number of hands-on projects that we actually do this year, too.

One of Poppy’s outsourced classes is Civilization and Culture. They’re going to spend the first semester focused on Community and Recreation — the description says they’ll talk about things like the Library of Alexandria and how baseball was invented. It sounds like it’ll be a fun class.

I bought the kids a couple of ginormous “Map Skills” workbooks last year. We’ll continue working through a couple of those each week.

Math

Poppy will be finishing up McRuffy Math 5 for the first part of the school year, and I’m not sure what she’s going to do after that because there is no McRuffy Math 6. I’ve looked at more traditional programs (Horizons, the web-based Monarch curriculum) as well as more fanciful options (Beast Academy, “Life of Fred”), but I haven’t settled on anything yet. The good news is that I have a few months to continue mulling it over.

Language Arts

I’m still trying to get myself to pull the trigger on the next level of Michael Clay Thompson books. The kids enjoyed them and they retained a lot of information, but it’s a very expensive curriculum.

Poppy will most likely do a few Reed Novel Studies books again this year. She doesn’t love it, but they help her to slow down and pay attention to what she’s reading.

We’re outsourcing Poppy’s writing this year with an Institute for Excellence in Writing class. It looks like she’ll have a good bit of homework from this one, which will be a new experience for both of us.

Science

Poppy’s other outsourced class this year is Earth Science.

Art & Music

The piano lessons shall continue. For art, I’m thinking about using Kahn Academy’s art history lessons.

P.E.

Poppy is going into the school year as a red belt, and she’s aiming to test for her next belt before 2017. She’s playing soccer again this year, too, and the league she’s playing in this year includes a few tournaments and away games.