Tag Archives: homeschooling

Homeschool, National Blog Posting Month

The study of cakes, cats and composers

NaBloPoMo 2010This week’s “Five in a Row” book was “The Duchess Bakes a Cake,” about a bored duchess who bakes a ridiculous cake that’s so full of yeast it carries her up into the sky. Ridiculous, but Poppy thought it was pretty funny. We talked about feudal society (while Pete wore the knight costume he got for his birthday), alliteration and baking. We tried to make a tres leche cake, but something went amiss. It didn’t home/schoolabsorb all the milk and ended up looking like a cake that someone had spilled a cup of milk on. Rockford says he’ll eat it anyway, so I’m going to pour off the excess later today and let him try it for dessert.

In that-which-we-do-every-week news:

  • Poppy is pages away from the end of her handwriting book. Happily, Zaner-Bloser has a great tool available for making your own copywork pages. I’m using lines from the poems she’s memorized, songs she likes and movies she loves.
  • Speaking of poems, this week’s was “The Cat of Cats” by William Brighty Rands, which naturally became “The Marsha of Marshas” or some such derivation.
  • We read chapters three through seven of “The Water-Horse,” and I still haven’t decided whether or not to put the movie on the Netflix queue. I’ll be googling at some point to find out how it stacks up to the book. Have you seen it? What do you think?
  • Once again, Poppy finished her BookIt challenge this month with weeks to spare. Her assignment for November was to read 100 pages. It’ll be 200 next month. I don’t want it to be insurmountable, but I’d like to find a number or a book that will actually take her through the whole month.

    • We did start something new this week. I’ve been thinking about doing composer studies for awhile now, but I don’t have much classical music on hand. But I was given an iTunes gift card for my birthday (thanks Chloe!), so I downloaded a Mozart compilation. On Monday we listened to the Classics for Kids “About Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart” podcast and then spent a little while actively listening to some of his works. We usually have music on in the background as we go about our day. This week, it was mostly Mozart. Pete enjoyed it even more than his sister did, even if he was disturbingly fixated on the composer’s fate. Nearly every time I turned it on, he’d walk into the room and say, “Is this Mozart? Mozart is dead.” At least it’s proof that he was paying attention to the podcast.

    Homeschool

    Our three Rs are a bit unbalanced

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    home/schoolWhen we were first planning our kindergarten year, I suspected that I’d need some kind of curriculum to keep me on task on science and math. That has most definitely proved to be the case. We’ve been heavy on the reading, writing and arts lately, but we haven’t done much formal study on math or science at all. That’s not to say we’re not doing anything, but it’s definitely been more casual and kind of “Hey look! It’s a math application!” than I’d hoped to do.

    So that’s what we haven’t been doing. Here’s what we have done lately. (As in this week.)

    Our “Five in a Row” book this week was “The Finest Horse in Town.” It’s about a pair of sisters at the turn of the century who own (you guessed it) a really fabulous horse. The narrator is the great-niece of the sisters, and the story is a combination of the memories of someone who knew the sisters and the narrator’s imaginings of what might have happened. We talked a bit about life at the turn of the century, watercolor paintings and how the leaves change color in autumn. We’re also working on writing and illustrating a similar story based on a story Rockford’s grandfather has told us of his childhood.

    In Health, we’ve finally gotten to the interior. Poppy learned about the circulation system and the heart this week, and we also talked a little bit about the lungs. This is the stuff she wanted to learn about, so she was pretty excited. She’s been talking about her veins all week.

    We’ve been reading “The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter” for the last few weeks, and we’ll finally finish it this afternoon. Poppy also finished her first BookIt challenge last week; she read “Mercy Watson: Princess in Disguise” out loud to me. I was surprised by how easily she got through it, but I’m thinking she may have memorized part of it. She’s listened to the story on CD before, and she memorizes things really easily. Next month’s book will be something she hasn’t heard before, so that’ll give me a better idea of how well she’s reading.

    Speaking of memorization: Poppy has been memorizing poems like nobody’s business. I started with some pretty short poems so she wouldn’t get discouraged and want to quit if she had a hard time with it. But I think she could memorize “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” with little problem. This week was the first one she didn’t have down cold after the first day, and it still only took her until Wednesday to recite it without help. I’m so glad she inherited Rockford’s memory instead of mine! Here’s what she’s memorized thus far:

  • “Fly Away, Fly Away Over the Sea” by Christina Rosetti
  • “The Purple Cow” by Gellett Burgess
  • “There Was a Little Girl” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
  • “A Leaf” by Aileen Fisher
  • “Autumn Fires” by Robert Louis Stevenson

    About that science/math thing: I’m looking at Nancy Larson for science and RightStart for math. They’re both pricey, though, so it’ll be January at the very earliest before we can get either one. Have you used either program? Or is there another math/science curriculum you’ve loved?

    • Homeschool

    A hectic start to a simple week

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    home/schoolThe kids and I were lounging on my bed reading this week’s Five in a Row title (“Gramma’s Walk”) on Monday when our once-leisurely morning took a turn for the chaotic. Rockford was leaving for a business trip, and we’d planned to drop him off at the airport in the afternoon. Except that once he checked his itinerary, he realized he’d been wrong about when his plane was leaving. A good deal of rushing around later, and we got him to the airport on time. Then we went home, made a picnic lunch, drove to the park, discovered there was some sort of festival going on at the park, tried to go to a different park, got lost, finally got there, had lunch, played, encountered a pack of wild rude girls, had tantrums and came back home. Phew.

    This, friends, is not my idea of a Good Way to Start One’s Week. Happily, things did improve and settle down a bit. My mom came over on Tuesday to stay for a few days, and that’s pretty much like having an in-house nanny. And that’s a big win in my book!

    Monday

    I’m trying to do some cooking lessons with Poppy, and this week we decided to talk about eggs. We talked about their nutritional value and all of the great things you can do with them, then we made some fried eggs for Poppy and omelets for me and Pete.

    Additional work: Handwriting, Spanish, “Doctor Dolittle.”

    Tuesday

    Health, handwriting, Spanish and “Doctor Dolittle.”

    Wednesday

    Handwriting, Spanish, ballet and “Doctor Dolittle.”

    Thursday

    Spanish, and we finished “Doctor Dolittle.” Poppy was pretty upset that the book had ended.

    Friday

    We talked about simplicity and realism in art, and I helped Poppy make a sketch of a rose in a vase to paint. And when I say “help,” I mean I flipped the paper over and sketched it for her after she’d drawn a giant black squiggle. I usually let her do her own interpretation of whatever we’re doing, art-wise, but I wanted to emphasize the “realism” part of the effort.

    Additional work: Spanish, handwriting and a new read-aloud: “My Father’s Dragon.”

    I’m experimenting with a nearly year-round schedule this year. We’re doing three weeks of school followed by a week off from August through June. Next week is our first break, during which I’m going to be gathering materials and putting things together for our second three-week session.