I HATE SCHOOL, and How our First Few Weeks Have Been

That’s how our school year began.
We are going into our 16th year of homeschooling, and my youngest child decides to have an attitude.  Clearly it is a disorder of some sort because just the mention of said word “school” creates a strange reaction of moaning, whining, and flopping down to the ground like a slug.

SCHOOL …

How can the child not like school?  He loves learning, exploring, and frankly, learns easily.
Well, apparently it’s the word… “SCHOOL”

You see, I could of fussed back at him,
got frustrated at his lack of willingness to do school,
disciplined him for poor behavior,
but instead I looked at the pathetic behaving child
and had him cuddle up to me and we talked about the planets,
pondered some outdoor activities, and discussed his feelings.
Then I prayed.

The Answer… don’t call it “school”.
After all, LIFE is the Lesson,
and just about anything we do
is applicable to learning something.
It’s kind of why I picked L.I.F.E. Academy
as the name of our “school”.

I can easily say “hey, let’s go up and lay on my bed and you can read a book to me” and viola, 30 min of reading.  (Reading-check)
I can then say it’s time for Math, and poof he does it (math-check)

Then the real magic comes in the evenings…
tons of fun family time and no one knows it’s still “school”.

We are watching a Math-U-See video for some fun review,
but this child LOVES seeing it and then working with the manipulatives used for the lessons.
We then watch one episode of “What’s in the Bible” which is packed with facts, vocabulary, theology in a fun way.

Next we pull out these chalkboards to review our penmanship.
It’s been quite the hit.  Write the letter mom says,
then draw a word to compliment the letter, and spell it.
Dad joins in, Sissy joins in (the highschooler).
I will slowly begin doing phonics review,
and eventually spelling games with these boards.
The creativity is endless…
for the letter “i” my youngest came up with “imagination”,
not your typical ice cream or igloo answer, lol.

We end our evenings by reading our Jesus Freaks Devotional,
finding on the map the country that was the read about,
and pray for that country.

FRIDAYS are also open for some fun.
It’s the one day during the school week that I don’t do childcare,
and I take advantage of that time to spend more intentional with my kids.

Because we are entering into Medieval Times for History,
I opened the era with the Byzantine period.
We read about Constatine,
while listening to Beethoven in the background,

then we attempted Byzantine mosaic art,
each of us doing our own masterpiece.

I also threw in a science project for fun.  Used food coloring (yellow and blue), paper towels to wick the color into the empty center cup, and obviously, we made green.  The cool part was to see the water travel through the paper towels and actually begin to fill the empty cup.

All in all, that was a fun afternoon!

And then there’s my highschooler,
who has been fabulously working at her own pace independently,
while still participating in the things I want her to join us for! 

Her garden got attacked by moles; it’s a sad affair.
But she still got some harvest.  Those carrots though?

Oh, and we can’t forget the preschoolers…

The 3 yr olds are loving preschool time,
and that sweet little photo bomber in the background is just about ready to join the table at almost 15 months of age.  She loves seeing what’s going on with our Discovery Time lessons!!

And That my friends is a random look at how our school year has started so far…

It’s a bit crazy to be a homeschooler.  *smile*

L.I.F.E. Academy~ August Goals 2016

I’ll just be candid here and say that our “first” day of school was a bust.
Mistake #1 was trying to begin school the day after our fabulous 4 day camping trip.
So I put off the first day (Monday) to Tuesday, in which moods were off and we barely got our teacher-student conference cleared (you know, to explain expectations for the year) this day.  Then along comes Wednesday, and I am a huge proponent that Mom’s mood can really set the tone for the house.  Well, my mood was fine (ba ha ha), but my kids were still like in vacation hang over mode.  So, for those that don’t know, I always try to be creative and think of something fun to do on the first day, and this year wasn’t any different.  So, I came up with an Olympic theme since the Summer Olympics is under way.  I thought it was an awesome idea.  I was already to have Family Olympic games right in our backyard.  I even thought up some cool crafts and a snack idea.  However, my youngest child was on a rant.  He was NOT amused at all, thought the whole thing was “stupid”, and grumbled most the day.  Well, there ya go, homeschool reality at its finest.  So do I hang the ungrateful kid in the closet by his toes?  Or maybe just hug the child, rest together, chat about God, nature, and the planets… and ponder a new plan.

Thursday began with some camoflauge…
and then “boot camp” began!

Needless to say, moods were improved…

and Monday, August 8th, our official book work will begin!

August Goals

Bible– Genesis

Literature
Bryson (3rd grade)- Family Under the Bridge
Andrew (5th grade)- Pinocchio (RC)
Katie (Freshman)- Trixie Beldon series, Mildred Elsie series (RC)
Read Aloud- Bambi (classic 1939 version)

Language Arts
Back to basics- review sentence structure;
Capital beginnings, end marks.!?
Introduce prepositional phrases.
Boys- review penmanship skills/do copywork
Katie- daily essays

Math
The boys- review basic math facts.
focus on +, x (0-6)
Katie- review, all about fractions (+, -, x ,/)

Science
Bryson- All about Crabs
Andrew- All about Ants
Katie- All about the animal kingdom;
introduction to arthropods and crustaceans
*will also begin her seedlings for her fall garden.
Family Read aloud–
Burgess Animal Book for Children;
rats, mice, & shrews.

History
The boys- Muhammad and the early years of Islam,
and details of the Arabian days.
Katie- Life of Saint Patrick

Health
Personal safety- stranger danger

American Sign Language/Spanish
family, food, animals

Fine Arts
Composer- Beethoven, Ode to Joy (Olympic march)
Art- Byzantine Mosaics
Poetry- To Laugh Often and Much by Ralph Waldo Emerson

To laugh often and much;

to win the respect of the intelligent people

and the affection of children;

to earn the appreciation of honest critics

and endure the betrayal of false friends;

to appreciate beauty;

to find the best in others; 

to leave the world a bit better

whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch,
or a redeemed social condition;

to know that one life has breathed easier 

because you lived here.

This is to have succeeded.

Public School guests join Homeschooler’s for a Day!

We had “guest” students in class today!

Learning about Adjectives

while learning some phonics and spelling rules;
y = the long e sound
(grammar)

while enjoying a snack!

Next was history…

Where we read that the Israelites received Manna by morning,
(cooking class for all ages, yumm)

and Quail by evenings.
(arts and crafts)

We followed up the bird topic by learning all about nest parasites;
the cow birds; Thank you Wild Kratts
(nature science)

while having pizza for lunch.

And finally…

getting ready for battle;

RECESS at it’s homeschool finest!

*Childcare does not need to be an interference to homeschool
but rather an encouragement to share the FUN!!!

Our guests were a delight,  and I’m pretty sure they enjoyed the day too!

L.I.F.E. Academy~ September wrap up

In all honesty, we played around with our daily rhythm a bit for September.

With adding a preschool co op to our Monday and Wednesday mornings,
along with having after-school care kids show up mid afternoons,
we’ve had to reestablish our routine.

You may take a look at Our School Day Schedule to get a gist of how are days flow.

So my kids happen to have free time on Monday and Wednesday mornings,
in which they often find things to do together.
Katie (13) has taken to helping one of her younger brothers write a book, one chapter at a time. 
Andrew (10), who is overcoming dysgraphia (lack of hand coordination) often has endless stories to tell, but rarely could get it all out on paper, thus sister began to encourage his thoughts and creativity by being his hands for him.  I’m pretty proud of them both.

Other activities during this free time is outdoor play, board games, playing battle, and exploring self-led interests.

Fridays have been fun for adding field trips and fine art projects.

After reading about Baby Moses one week,
we did a color resist project with water colors.

Another week we explored the 10 plagues.
As I had the kids color and cut out the number (of plagues) for a craft project,
we all got sidetracked playing with the numbers.
My younger boys seem to have a slower time connecting place value in mathematical equations, but after learning how to read really big numbers (to the billions), they enjoy it much more.  I love “ah ha” moments.

History-
We began Exodus late in the month and expect to probably take the whole month of October to finish it.  Moses had quite the journey!

Science-
The changes of Autumn with a bonus early field trip to a local pumpkin patch.

Literature-
Frankly?  to finish up some books that should be done by now.
Getting ready to issue the next book for the month of October.

Language Arts-
We are working on phonetic word families;
Long A sounds such as with the ~ay, ~ey, ~eigh sounds; as in hay, whey, neigh.
The kids quickly recognize that the most common use is the ~ay.
bonus points; learning the i before e rule while learning the long a/”eigh” sound.

We wrapped up our penmanship review and will begin our writing structure for October.

I am excited for October as I see our days falling into a more peaceful (less chaotic) place…

Gotta love homeschooling!

 

 

Letter Bb week

There is fun to be had at Little Friends Discovery Place!
Yes, I named my preschool/daycare.
Admittedly, I have had several people lately ask how I can “do it all”,
with homeschooling, childcare, and doing a preschool co op in my home.
My response?  “Are you kidding?  I get to play all day!”
All kidding aside, I do believe it is a matter of attitude.
Simply said, I enjoy what I do.

BEES

Honeycomb cereal to make a honey comb;
pretty fitting, right?

Next we tossed “pollen” into the honeycomb.
Admittedly, this was a late-night, last-minute idea
that just happened to be a success.

Then we played pin-the-bee on the hive.

We completed our BEE activities by singing
“I’m bringing home a baby bumblebee”

I think the COOL (unphotographed) part was that we actually had captured a bee in a jar for our lesson time.  Of course we set it free when we were done.
Also, netflix has a fun Magic School Bus In a Bee Hive episode that complimented our lesson for this day.

BIRDS

For story time we read “Are you My Mother?” by Dr Seuss

We made paper bag bird puppets, as well as pinecone bird feeders.

Our snack was to make a bird’s nest out of pretzels,
then lay the “eggs” (grapes) on the nest.

The kids really enjoyed playing with the bird seeds…

which unintentionally became a really cool sensory bin,
bare feet and all!

Yeah, Bb week was pretty successful!

 

Week 1 Homeschool wrap up

Our backyard; a view from my room.
My room; the place where the boys like to do their reading lessons.
(Did you see my recent post about our Homeschool Classroom?)

Needless to say, the scenery seems motivating.
Can’t wait to take a snow filled picture in the future.

This past week we wrapped up our first week of this school year.

We are finding our rhythm still.

The Boys (2nd & 4th graders)

Reading- Trying to test out where the boys best fit for their reading assignments;
the right literature series for their interests.  We’ve jumped around a bit.

Math started off strong.

Writing– we are reviewing proper penmanship before truly beginning our assigned copywork.

Katie (8th grade)

Read- The Bobbsey Twins

Math- Restarting Saxon 7/6 to build a strong mathematical foundation before beginning the algebra journey.

Fine Arts- Renaissance era; history, artist, music….

Writing- working on a composition about the Renaissance era.

ALL the KIDS

History– Last week we began our walk through the Old Testament,
for preschool activities as well as our ancient history study for the kids.

Working our way through Genesis…

where we left off with Abraham, Sarah, and Baby Isaac.

Our modern version of a Daily News report for the family:

The Hollinger Highlights~

Scripture of the week is listed.
Daily notes; mostly mom reminders
The kids fill in the weather and nature notes daily,
as well as check off their assignments.
I am also hoping listing meals for the day will stop the “What’s for dinner” nightly question.  ha ha.

Slowly catching our rhythm…

It’s great to be a homeschooler!

The Homeschool Classroom

A new house for our 2015-16 school year.
Hopefully it will be our last house for a very long time. 

I’m going to share our learning areas. 
I want to first explain that it does not take a classroom to create an education.
Homeschooling can be done anywhere;
the kitchen table, the parents bed, in the car, on a picnic table even!
If you and your family homeschool, do what is best for your family.

As for me, and our homeschooling, I chose to give up our front room and formal dining area in exchange for a learning area.  It is what best fits my personality (type A, organized, planner… you get the idea).

The photo above is the angle from our stairs of our “front room”.
This is our classroom.
Mostly intended for the school aged kids;
tons of literature books available.

This photo is the very left corner.  It is our “classics” bookshelf;
Dickens, Carrol, Twain, etc…

along with our “new” Book of Knowledge set (encyclopedia, in ABC order),
and our original (old) Book of Knowledge set (in chronological order).

The drawers are my teacher stuff to keep us organized;
our phonics review, our read aloud, and our game & craft of the day.

On the other side of my desk is the kids workboxes (drawers).
This is for their independent morning work.

In that same area is our Geography corner;
maps, globes, atlas’s, etc…

Located to the right side of the school room photo (viewing actually from the big white board) is our nature and science corner.

Our Preschool and Craft section!

Notice the nature area (and the big white board) on the left.
This section is just the continued space of the front room,
technically the “formal dining” room.

I found this awesome table set at a garage sale just recently.
It is a heavy, solid, old school table, and I love it!!
Ironic that it matches my pink dresser (that never matches ANYthing, ha ha).

This is the wall on the right side of the above preschool photo.
It will be for our morning board activities and crafts.

The corner cabinet is our fine arts and foreign language corner,
as well as some craft supplies.

…and to put reality into perspective,
these are (est 400) history related books placed into our office,
which currently is a big fat mess.
(not the books, but the room itself!)

We do read alouds & circle time in our living room,
we do snack & meal time in the kitchen,
we do recess & nature walks in our backyard…

In the ebb and flow of time,
The world is our our playground.
Living life is our education.

 

 

It Begins… L.I.F.E. Academy 2015-16

Here is where the fun begins!

Our first day of school for the new school year in our new home!

Admittedly, I had zero “first day” plans up until last night.
We had family and friends over, and I winged some ideas on a whim.
It actually turned out to be a really fun day!

I opted for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle theme.

ARTS:

We began with a paper mache project, in hopes of making a pinata later this week.
Nothing like making a ooey, gooey mess first thing in the morning.  ha ha!!

LANGUAGE ARTS:

We used a Venn Diagram to explore the similarities and differences of the 4 Ninjas.

Next I had the kids read through the Sunday Paper comics (gleaning through to the decent ones only) to understand the dynamics of how comic strip writing is created.  The kids then began to make their own TMNT version.

FINE ARTS:

I thought it would be interesting for us to learn about the actual artist that the turtles are named after.  The kids were pretty excited to already recognize much of the work.  This is a fun video that we enjoyed:
Renaissance Art

MATH:

M&M’s are always a fun option, right?
We sorted colors (ok, so they have no purple m&m’s to represent Donatello, so we substituted the brown ones), and tallied it up.  Then we worked on the fractions, decimals, and percentages to warm up our math brains once again.

SCIENCE:

We whipped up some Mutagen.
Slime is always a big hit around here!

We added a little glow to ours!

CRAFTS:

Ok, so we really did this for little Adelaide (2),
but we sent her home with hers before taking a photo.

LUNCH: 

pizza;  need you ask?

PE:

Ninja Training!
We made nunchunks out of pipe insulation.
They turned out well.

Tonight we will watch a TMNT movie, and call it a great start to a new school year!!

I did spend the morning talking to the kids about our expectations for the school year.
We have 2 general rules in our home:  1.  Be kind.  2.  Have fun.

I then went into detail about Attitude & Effort.    The whole concept that we don’t have to be perfect but that we do need to give our best.  Some things in life will come easy, and other things will be difficult.  Both deserve our effort, and life is more enjoyable for ourselves (and those around us) if we can maintain a pleasant attitude.  My kids are aware that if they are having a rough day, or a particularly moody moment, that they are free to take time to themselves quietly to regroup (aka a self-assigned time out).  If I see it is a real struggle, then I will come alongside them to talk it through and pray with them.  To slow down the moment seems to mostly help. 

Tomorrow we will begin our core studies of reading, writing, and math, sprinkled with history, science, fine arts, & foreign language. 

Here’s to a new school year…. COWABUNGA!!!

End of the School Year Wrap up…

sort of…

It’s coming to a close…

our School Year AND a Homeschool Grad

I haven’t had a chance to post much this past month on our schooling because, well, I am preparing for another homeschool graduate!

I have had a public school graduate (2007)
and a public school switched to homeschool (in 4th grade) graduate (2011)
and now my next graduate will be my first child who has mainly homeschooled through the whole process.

It’s been an amazing process… all 3 of them!

Here is my crazy homeschool crew this year:

TJ, my senior student, has been my responsible, reliable, right hand man.
I have embraced and enjoyed my days with this child of mine.
No longer really a child but a man equipped to face the world.

We technically have 4 weeks of homeschool left.
I have kept things simple; read, write, do some math.
Why?  Well, because that is the core of why we do the Robinson Curriculum,
to keep our foundation strong when life ebbs and flows.
The rushing activities of preparing to wrap things up for my homeschooler
allows for us to also do some “free range” playing, in my presence of course.

Our Back Yard~ yes, it is the woods.

The Park

The River

They play, and explore, and build relationships…
that will last a life time.

Meanwhile, I am wrapping up final lessons for said senior, creating his transcripts, planning his graduation activities, guiding him on building a resume, praying alongside him on selecting his future job of choice, and honestly, absolutely treasuring these last few weeks of spending my days with him.  The calm…caring…confident…character that he is.

It’s a blessed journey to be a homeschooler!

 Train up a child in the way he should go:
and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6

 

A Homeschool Life~ “In Our Free Time”

One of the common questions I receive when people find out that my kids use the Robinson Curriculum style,
which is to do their core studies of reading, writing, and arithmetic independently,
is “Does your family do any activities together?”
Obviously, this is a question from folks who don’t know us,
but none-the-less folks are often referred to this blog.

My favorite answer… Life IS Learning.
Although we get a well-rounded education utilizing RC doesn’t mean learning stops there, right?
After all, most our hands-on activities we simply consider to be family time,
but could easily be deemed “school”.

Here is an example of just the past couple of weeks…

SCIENCE ACTIVITIES

A study on Binary Planets, as well as as doing an experiment using centripetal force vs centrifugal force.
We flung around a bucket of water, a bucket of rocks, and a bucket of carbon dioxide (baking soda and vinegar) to observe how the forces changed based on content.

We continued our Solar Physics interest by studying Mars.
The experiment this day was to observe how rust is created by using steel wool, salt, and vinegar.

P.E.

Kinect if it’s raining…

Playing outside if it’s dry out;
which includes backyard baseball, running in the woods,

going for walks in the hills, or strolling the riverside.

The last couple of topics of our Biome study:

We had this cutie over to join us for our POND study!
He is my cousin Cassandra’s boy, Eli.  I just love that sweet lil face!

Our Pond

coffee filter butterfly, handprint cattails, lots of finger painting, cut out lily pads and dragonfly stickers… not bad for a late morning of fun!

Our Ocean study:

Our 4 ft wall mural

Some Sea-Foam

This was suppose to be Sea-dough, however it was more like snot… sea snot?

and our Sea-Slime!

In Our Down Time

siblings hang out…

or

enjoy some quiet time… with nature (see the turtle?)

or

do a 2nd lesson of math while watching a old TV show,
or practicing her photography,
or writing for her blog,

or

playing board games with one another; battleship, sum swamp, and yahtzee.
enjoy active games; such as ‘ball tag’, hide-n-go-seek in the dark, and Wii Sports.
observe nature; explore the woods, bird watch, identify animal sounds and tracks

or

discussing politics; with such topics as Ferguson, ISIS, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyah
studying scripture; such as reading about lent, forgiveness, and communion.
watching documentaries; such as Planet Ocean, Men Who Built America, and Wings of Life
do read alouds; such as Up From Slavery, Lincoln’s Letter and Speeches, and Wind in the Willows.

Learning really is limitless don’t ya think?

What do you do as a family?
What hobbies do you enjoy?