I think I am getting this homeschool thing

First of all, I have to say, I decided to blog when I read that I could turn it into a book. That sounds fantastic! That is why I am here. So here is my first post on our new homeschool and the beginning of what I hope to be a long, fruitful chronicle of our journey.

Welcome to Oma and Opa, Mimi and Poppy and all friends and family who peruse our adventures!

Now, some rules. 1.) To protect my little ones since this blog is internet searchable, my oldest will be referred to as G5, my middle as W2 and my wee one, T1. The letter refers to the first letters in their first names and the number is their age by year. I am T and my cancer warrior is M. 2.) Please click on my links. You will get a broader picture of what feeds my interests and my philosophies on things. Here we go....


The photo below is of a thing (school/art/animal science/bible history...) we did the week before we officially began homeschooling with the traditional school year. The book, 'The Great Wall' is an African book about the great wall of Sin. The different animals try to break it down...the snake tries to go under it, the elephant tries to knock it down, the hyena tries to go around it, etc. and so forth....in the end, the only thing that can tear it down is, as a believer, name your sins to God the Father.
So for a way to help remember it and to be fun (and because I happened to have this around!) G5 used the 'peanuts' from the last Frontier order to make a wall as well as the jungle on the other side...note the palm trees in front of his arms? The pile at the front center is the animals. So..I have been schooling for a long time actually..I just did not really know it or appreciate it until this week.

So when we began two weeks ago now, we used a new curriculum called Five In A Row. It is a unit study using great literature and studying one thing or unit per day that relates to the book for that week. So here are some photos and things of note from the week.

This is the first day and as you see, W2 gets in on this too...he loves to work with G5. G5 gets frustrated because W2 does not 'do it (school) right'. I tell him that W2 is not yet in school and he says, okay...but still gets upset that he just doesn't do things 'right'! Oh dear, my perfectionist nature has definitely been passed on...for better or for worse. The challenge of the two of them working seperately but together is going to be an interesting dymanic for times to come again and again. It is the wonderful and challenging part of developing tolerance, focus and concentration and not developing peer dependency that can happen in a large school environment.

These photos are from our Chinese dinner at the end of the week studying 'The Story About Ping' by Marjorie Flack. Those are chopsticks and a funky bean paste cracker we picked up at the Hong Kong market. (Note: G5 is wearing an authentic Chinese mandarin collar silk top he received from his cousin who is from China...he wore this on and off all week long.) We played with chopsticks which was fun and loved eating our homemade egg rolls. I even made a sweet and soury type dipping sauce..yum!

This was all good and fine..until this week, when I realized that this curriculum, if I follow it verbatim, is far too schoolish for my new little school age boy...too much cutting, pasting and, worksheets if I let it be that way. So, I got back into my roots. Began re-reading things Charlotte Mason (her philosophies here) and found us doing a real nature study by Thursday. I let the boys collect snails from the yard following a big rain that afternoon. We counted 40 of them..they were thrilled. The boys herded them on the kitchen table..allowed them to make slime trails as they scooted over their arms to their delight with the coolness of the slime, etc. We also pulled up a diagram online of the anatomy of a snail and learned about what they eat (plants) and why they make slime (to protect their bodies and give them something to glide their foot on)...all we needed to do was make observation drawings..but that will come. ;-)

So getting my Charlotte back on..so to speak..felt really good, natural and sincere for learning new things. So I am feeling upbeat again and the boys seem much more content. I feel like I was homeschooling on the side of homeschooling before I had this epiphany about how to go about this thing called homeschool. I have also realized that I am learning along the way..tweaking as I go and it is okay. You see, I thought I already knew how to do this but what I realized is that I know my philosophy but did not yet have a clear idea of what direction to acutally take it.

Last week we studied the book, Lentil. A story about a boy who could not follow the crowd in school and sing with his teacher so...he finds a different way to make music, a harmonica. We talked about the state of Ohio, and for a couple of days, Patriotism. I played patriotic music, we watched a dvd of The Patriot Guard Riders at a memorial service that took place at our church. We colored an American flag (well, began coloring..that is a little too confining for a 5 yo boy perfectionist to color all those little stripes and stars!) and talked of its symbolism. I also introduced the Pledge of Allegiance and explained its meaning. We watched a memorial on YouTube about the 9/11 attacks and again, the sacrifice and service of so many that day. For Art, I introduced vine charcoal, a kneadable art eraser and real charcoal paper. G5 drew his idea of Old Sneep, the jealous one in Lentil whose expressions went from jealous/angry to happy and content as Lentil turned the day around by playing his harmonica. (You have to read the story to get the full idea you know ;-) For Math, we used a cucumber and G5 cut it up from whole to half to quarters and talked about notes that are depicted in the book as Lentil plays his harmonica. For our last day, we conducted a Scientific experiment in the bathtub! G5 thought this was school??? Huh? (perfect ;-) He played the harmonica in the bathtub, as Lentil did, and we noted the tone improvement because of the hard tiles and porcelain and the reflection of the notes from them. That night, I made Lemon Chicken and Lemon bars for dessert..it was fun...Sorry, no pictures...I was studying CM when not 'doing' school.

This week, we will introduce an old book in a new way called Madeleine. We have read about her many times but now we get to study her a little closer. Wish T1 could understand..I think she would love it!