Books for 11/12

We haven't done a whole lot of documented school work the last couple days but we did read a stack of books before bed last night. These were actually really amazing books- they covered just about every subject within a few children's books.

* Greetings from Somewhere - The Mystery of the Icy Prints by Harper Paris ( this is a cute and simple geography/ science/ a bit of history short chapter book  series that is picture loaded and easy enough they could read it on their own. This is the first book we've tried in the series and so far the girls are very slowly starting to warm up.

* Star Stuff - Carl Sagan and the Mysteries of the Universe by Stephanie Roth Sisson ( River chose this as her first "real" book to read. Proud mama!)

*Have you Thanked an Inventor Today by Patrice McLaurin ( Very cute book about the inventions we use throughout our typical day)

*We are Family by Patricia Hegearty Illustrated by Ryan Wheatcroft

*Grandmother Fish by Johnathan Tweet ( I LOVE this book about evolution!)

*Zen Socks by Jon J. Muth ( this is one of Story's favorite series or not really series, but multiple books like this.)

*Mapping Sam by Joyce Hesselberth.  THIS BOOK! I can't say enough great things about this book. It uses a cat and shows many different types of maps from graphs, to depths to the human body and more! I love this book!

*My Shape is Sam by Amanda Jackson.  For some reason River struggles with shapes, so I get all the cute shape themed books I can. This had a bonus message of not always having to be defined as one thing or another but just be yourself.

*And of course some good ol' Cobweb the Cat reader from All About Reading.

Veteran's Day Weekend

 
Happy Wednesday. It has been awhile but we had a crazy and productive weekend. I finally got a new camera and even better, David figured out how I can upload pictures. The girls spent the weekend with their dad. Friday before they left was spent with a slow lazy start of books, art and music. We lounged around in our pajamas until daddy came home and then we went swimming at Airway heights Parks and Rec pool. We love it there and try to go every other Friday. I find it freezing- always! And I'm not a big fan of hot tubs but I have come to really enjoy the sauna. Occasionally the girls and I go to this same building on Wednesday afternoons. There is a homeschool p.e. group in the gym. It's kind of hit or miss but the girls definitely run off a a lot of energy!

After the girls left Friday evening, I don't remember much because I fell dead asleep pretty early. But Saturday! Saturday was awesome. Camber spent the day in Pasco cheering on the XC team at state.
Landon worked his second weekend making apple pies with the marching band at the Windsor Grange Hall.

As for me and David we spent the day taking care of every possible little thing we always say we need to pick up and don't. We had a great day together.

Sunday we worked ( when I say we , I mainly mean David) on a surprise for the girls when they got back. David cut their bunk beds apart so they each had a twin bed. There had been some fights lately over the top bunk so we gave them both the top ( and bottom ) bunk.

  

The girls love it and so do the animals, lots of comfy beds to within reach. The beds quickly became forts thanks to the help of an older big brother / expert fort builder.

Monday was veterans day and everyone was off. Unfortunately, we didn't get much of a chance to sleep in. We started out the very cold morning by helping load my mom's stuff in a U-Haul. She is moving back to Oregon. Camber and David made fast work of it though.

The night was cozy and filled with Spirographing, room signs, pumpkin muffins and lots of fairie treats.

A lot of what we worked on is a blur. I am noticing the less I push structured school the more eager they are to learn. Reinforcing the unschool concept so strongly. If we don't work on a math worksheet for a day or two the girls will start constantly spouting of equations at all times during the day. If I say we are going to read a chapter out of the History book or the LA book there is moans and groans and fighting. If I tell them to choose any two books out of the book basket ( a huge basket full of library books that are chosen to go with whatever we are working on at the moment) then they curl up and are excited, fully attentive and asking for more as we read them together. If I say we are going to work on grammar now- no go! If I say I am writing to my grandma would anyone else like to write a letter ( that just happens to work on grammar as we write it) then it's a fun, special, meaningful activity. 

We are still slowly making the transition and may never fully be unschoolers- we like to learn. Sometimes worksheets and the school books can be fun. But nothing forced is fun!

A few of my Favorite Curriculum

** This is a continually updating post!

     I love searching out new-to-us curriculum. There are so many ways to learn. In my adventures into the deep depths of home school curriculum it is a hard wade through to find secular. But they do exist and a lot of the are very book heavy, world minded and nature immersive!

My favorites so far are: Build Your Library

Build your library:

Emily has put together a great almost full ( need to add math ) curriculum through high school. It is very doable and easily laid out. We were able to find about 50-60% of the books at our library , the rest we ordered. Although we loved Level 0 last year, we are not loving Level 1 as much. In fact I dropped all the LA, poetry and recently mythology and we are only doing part of the science / nature work. SO basically, we are only using it for partial science and social studies / history.

It's still a great curriculum we just gravitated more towards the Blossom and Root Program this year.

Speaking of Blossom and Root : Blossom and Root

This one actually took me awhile to warm up to. First off because of the heavy amount of printing. The purchase is completely digital and you have A LOT to print. I did it slowly and did very little in color and only what we needed.

We started out using the Year Two unit and we loved it! Which made me go back and look at what we missed in Year One. Now, let me say that Year One is appropriate for grades 1-4. I loved what I saw so I ordered Year One, put Year Two away for later and off we went on our journey. We are loving it so far.

This is some awesome free curriculum I just stumbled upon that is :Under the Home

It is a completely free K-4  Charlotte Mason curriculum. There is no additional books you need, everything is included. This is an awesome resource!! The lessons are simple and FREE! The lessons are mostly based out of old lesson books but they still seem to appeal to kids and not be outdated. And it includes music and art lessons which is awesome!

Another one I haven't tried yet but looks pretty cool is : Torchlight

I am eager to try this one. But it is a literature based secular homeschool curriculum. The books that they use look perfect for teaching kids through literature. 

Until I order the full curriculum I am enjoying going through their book lists and reserving the ones our library has. I love their book lists!

Nighttime Science with Dad

 

The morning was pretty chill yesterday. The girls got up late on their own and we slowly got ready and eased into schoolwork. Story is on a reading kick lately! Woohoo! She read a book to me and then chose from our stack of readers and headed into our bed to read away. While she was in there River and I cuddled up and she read to me. 

(This is the current selection of readers we have checked out)

We moved onto some math work and I brought out math-u-see worksheets. They could use the blocks or not but it was just visual review. I think this program makes basic addition and subtraction concepts really stick.

We finished up talking about the layers of the earth and drawing for our science notebook entries and then it was free time. I ordered a pack of erasable chalkboard markers for the windows. I want to use them for writing prompts- write on the window what they see outside, etc. but the girls had a blast decorating the back sliding doors. These markers looked so cool on the window when it got dark out.

The girls and I headed up to our PPP after lunch. The take two classes there on Thursdays. The first class is drama with me. And I have to say- that class is SO MUCH FUN!! The next class I teach is Backstage. Story takes yoga and River has Mammals of the Pacific Northwest. We ended up hanging out for about an hour after school, I had a lot of work to from my garden class. It was really fun hanging out in the classroom- music playing, kids coming and going and hanging out.

By the time we got home it was starting to get dark ( stupid Daylight Savings Time ) and time to start dinner. The evening was a blur of food and family and noise and smells and music and animals and the wonderfulness that is our house in the evening.

Nighttime included the usual books- 

a bit of art 

 a new world language book we are using ( the Hello Atlas by Ben Handicott )

 a story about kitchen secrets from Pooka and Elsie Book

We are going through a new book - Every Month is a New Year by Marilyn Singer and Susan L.Roth. Last night we read about the Festival of Lights in India.

 read about orcas in Ranger Rick Jr. 

* we continued with Christmas in Camelot from The Magic Treehouse 

*and Third Grade Mermaid ( I can't stand this book but the girls like it)

The best part of the night was when I caught story trying to get a reaction touching a lightbulb to a battery. I asked David if he had anything that he could do with them to show electricity or something. And he delivered!! He brought down a couple different volt meter gadgets ( not my area of expertise at all)! The girls had a blast testing all sorts of batteries . 

#science#electricity#reading#LA#soicalstudies#foreignlanguage#drama#yoga#art#math

#layersoftheearth #pookapages

A little magic- a lot of hygge!

Yesterday was a wonderful fall day. Camber stayed home and rested up. It was fun to have her around for the day. The girls slept  in , got up in great moods . We began school work with LA, finishing our work from Among the Meadow People. The girls decided they needed our Harry Potter wands today for school and we discovered they are magic for reading vocab words. You absorb the word with the wand and then send it into your brain- MAGIC!

 

After LA we did a bit of math worksheets, we are going through the Horizon Math sample sheets just for fun.  We used the Usborne Internet linked book of World History and studied some more about Hammurabi. The girls are really enjoying this little chunk of history, so we paused here for a bit longer. If you have never heard of the Code of Hammurabi. It's pretty fascinating. It's believed to be the first set of written laws and they applied to everyone ( this was unusual ). The Code was used to regulate Mesopotamian society. We are enjoying going through the laws and deciding which are fair and which aren't. They are pretty interesting.

After that we picked up the Nature Connection book and each girl chose a spot to draw that was hard to find nature. It was kind of like a Where's Waldo task for nature. Their landscape pictures are getting more and more detailed each time and they are enjoying it more it seems.

I fully embrace the hygge philosophy. I don't really know how to describe it other than embracing the coziness of winter. Not to be mistaken for staying indoors all winter!

I found this wonderful explanation, that seemed just perfect to me, from the website : Hygge House

Danes created hygge because they were trying to survive boredom, cold, dark and sameness. The undefinable feeling of hygge was a way for them to find moments to celebrate, acknowledge and break up the mundane or harsh. With so many cold, dark, days, the simple act of a lighting a candle and enjoying a cup of coffee could make a huge difference to one’s spirit.

By creating simple rituals without effort {such as brewing real tea with a little china cup every evening to stopping at the flower shop every week} the Danes see both the domestic and personal life as an art form and not every drudgery to get away from. They incorporate hygge into their daily life, so it becomes a natural extension rather than a forced and stressful event

I always find lots of books to indulge my hygge love and this is the current one! So far so good on every lovely recipe. Last night we made microwave lava mugs. AMAZING! And very easy to turn gluten free and vegan- woo hoo!

I didn't get any pics of what we did at nighttime reading. We are usually so involved I forget. But a huge chunk of our school work happens before bedtime. Last night was science time and we focused on the layers of the earth. We looked at some diagrams, watched a cool video fro SciShow Kids: the one we watched! (they love these videos and they're free), and did the old hard boiled egg demonstration for ourselves ( their room smelled horrible)!

This is what last night's bedtime reading looked like. We enjoy reading Life of Fred for fun sometimes.  

The girls love the Ranger Rick Jr. series. We get them from the library.

 The open book and the Nature Anatomy book on the bottom were our science visuals.

 The Learn to Read For Kids with Dyslexia is a pretty cool book. We don't do every activity but there are lots of fun quick ones that really help kids notice sounds in different parts of the word. 

Why Isn't Pluto a Planet book: o.k so in kindergarten at a homeschool astronomy class a teacher told Story that Pluto was no longer a planet and it was wrong. Story has been angry about this ever since and will preach to anyone that Pluto is still a planet! So, we decided to research why and decide for ourselves. She has now softened her view on the matter. 

And last is good ol' Magic Treehouse. We are reading Christmas in Camelot. Who doesn't love The Magic Treehouse?

#LA#poems#vocab #reading #socialstudies #history #geography#science #earthscience #layersoftheearth #hygge #mammals #animals #rangerrickjr #hygge#magictreehouse#art #naturedrawing#landscape#astronomy#dwarfplanet#lifeoffred#dyslexia#magicschool

Beautiful November Monday

                    

 Yesterday was a great day. We got a lot done, fighting was at a minimal, the weather was incredible and David and I even managed to squeeze in a hot date to Goodwill Outlet ( our date venue of choice!)
The morning was slow starting. We began with some independent reading and then some All About Reading Work. Then we moved on to spelling. Spelling is not a favorite subject around here. We use the All About Spelling program- the words not the lessons. But I had much less complaining by spelling with finger paint.

After that we moved on to work on our Scholastic News magazine. I love subscribing to Scholastic News. Kids love them! The topics are great, it's reading and writing practice for the girls and they don't even realize it. Plus, on their website , when you subscribe, you get an access code to lots of worksheets and games to link to the weekly topics. These worksheets are awesome!

When we finished Scholastic we made our botanical calendar for November. We began this year long project last month. The girls created the calendar templates and we copied them. Each month they fill out a calendar and a blank sheet to add things we find in nature that month. At the end of the year I will have all the pages bound together.

We FINALLY had enough sun today to finish up and test  our sundial. We made this last week but didn't have enough sun to test it. We got this project off the Generation Genius website. It's a subscription based science video site hosted by Dr. Jeff Vinokur. All their lesson videos contain a project to do as well and the projects are all pretty creative and do-able. We won't stay subscribed to this site for too long , as it's kinda pricey. But right now they are loving the cast and the energy and the topics.

We also made a trip to the library, did some math, read a chapter from Story of the World and did some time line work on it. 

At bedtime we read A LOT but two books we read last night was our weekly stories for LA from Among the Meadow People. I don't know what it is about these books but kids love the stories, they are always asking for more. There are no pictures and the writing is small and old-fashioned sounding but something about the critters and the morals in them just clicks. We also read from Pooka Pages and learned about the uses of Sage. We have some growing downstairs so they girls got to play with it while I read.

#LA #Scholasticnews #grammar #reading #math #science #socialstudies #History #calendar #sage #herbal #Sundial #spelling

Fall Fun and Candlelight Dinner

This weekend was our usual blur of craziness- kids coming and going, all night movie nights, a million outfit changes.

Ash made it back from Miami and had a great time! Camber spent Saturday in Yakima cheering on her Cross Country team at Regionals. Landon spent the whole day Saturday at the Grange Hall with the Marching Band making apple pies. I think this is the coolest fundraiser because the kids actually make the product over a course of three weekends. It is a ton of fun for them and and a great bonding experience. David and Jacob spent Saturday chopping and cutting up wood. We have a beautiful pile ready to go now.

 As for everyone else their activities change minute to minute during the weekend, There was a lively animal zoo happening, outdoor picnics, trips to the park, a lot of board games, Legos and a whole lot more that I am probably not aware of.

On Sunday Daylight Savings Time Happened. Which means one of our favorite days of the year around here: The Time Change / Candlelight Dinner. I used to get really bummed when time changed happened because it got so dark so early. So I decided to light it back up , light every candle in the house and have a spaghetti dinner. It has evolved a bit but we still light up every candle in the house and have spaghetti and Martinellis. It is still very magical and welcomes in what we like to call "hibernation season".