Owl-mazing!

This year in our My Father's World studies we are learning about animals in science. Last week wrapped up our discussion about mammals and birds were our last animal we discussed.

In the teacher's manual they suggested an owl pellet as an extra activity for science. My kids were not impressed! I really doubt that when we get back around to Exploration to 1850, I'll order another one.

 

Madisyn wanted nothing to do with it an opted to take pictures instead. Ty kept telling me over and over, "He ate a mouse, can we stop now? It's a mouse, are we done?". Personally, I found it to be pretty interesting. It's amazing to me that God made an animal that could eat another animal whole and the predator's body can sort all the pieces and separate the hair and bones from the usable, edible tissue.

 

At least ragamuffin Liberty enjoyed family science time!

School Book Organization

 

Each year we order various books to "flesh out" our curriculum through My Father's World. These books are a required part of the curriculum and I have plans to reuse them.  The problem began when our children started to love reading. They wanted to read anything and everything. Unfortunately, everything that says juvenile is not appropriate. I also wanted to encourage reading of non-fiction books whenever possible.

This is our fifth year through the history cycle and finding books after the children read them was proving difficult. If it was just me, I would use the Dewey Decimal system {it must be the librarian in me}, but I knew that I would only become frustrated when the books were not placed back in proper order. So, I decided to color code them.

Each year of the cycle is assigned a color. I placed a color chart on the bookshelf and on my desk. If a book is used in two {or more} years of the cycle, it receives a dot for each year. I ordered the dots from Amazon here. For paperback books, I cover the entire spine in clear packing tape for reinforcement. For the hardbacks I ordered clear, protective labels here. We used similar labels when I was a children's librarian. I hope these are as durable as what the library had.

The books that are a required part of the curriculum are pulled at the beginning of the year and placed in our school cabinet. The children are not allowed to remove these books from the living room/ dining room. The other books labeled for each year are supplemental reading.

Each child has half a shelf in our school cabinet. Madisyn is doing additional science so her shelf has the most materials.

Ben has one of the bottom shelves and he has the least to keep up with. His flash card box is stored with the math manipulatives that I featured in my chalkboard label post.

Ty also has half a shelf. He has a few more things to store than the smaller boys but not as much as Madisyn.

Griffin shares the right side of Ben's shelf. Each child is supposed to keep their shelf neat and tidy but that rarely happens.

Our school cabinet is our old china cabinet. When we need more shelving for children the currently school year My Father's World books will have to be moved to my desk. The glass door was broken when we moved it and I decided to repurpose it into a school cabinet. I haven't decided what material to replace the glass with so it remains vacant. I'm looking forward to closing the doors and the books being out of sight.  The bottom of the cabinet houses math manipulatives, headphones, maps and any other miscellaneous supplies we may need.

My desk is where I store the teacher's manual {keeps it handy for reserving library books}. I also keep anything I use frequently. This can change from week to week as we move along in our studies.

Building Castles in the Sky

I have a feeling Castles in the sky would have lasted longer!

 

Consider this to be a tutorial on how to not make castles out of sugar cubes. We are currently using My Father's World for our history, Bible and science studies in our homeschool. Each child completes math and language arts on their own grade level but we all come together for history, science and Bible. This year we have been on the year cycle that covers Rome to the Reformation.

A few weeks ago when we were studying the dark ages, a suggested activity was to build castles from sugar cubes. I determined that one box of cubes per child would be plenty {it's not}.

We began by looking in our books to see what castles looked like, then we placed a bottom layer of sugar cubes on our lids {we used disposable foil pan lids for the ground}.

The next step is where things really began to go wrong. We used Elmer's school glue to glue the sugar cubes together. We should have made paste with powdered sugar and water.

The castles started off strong enough but began to crumble quickly. The water in the glue "melted" the sugar cubes and they dissolved. Instead of making a great project to conclude our medieval studies, I had some very disappointed and discouraged kids.

D is for Dinosaur

My little FOUR year old is starting to read! It's oh so exciting. He has sounded out several words with my help but two weeks ago, he read 4 words on his own! Maybe I can figure out how to get video on here. But that's not the point of this post - well, not entirely.

I have mentioned before that we made a curriculum switch to My Father's World . Griffin begged to do school so he started Kindergarten this year. In the past we have used Saxon Math and Phonics for K and 1st grade and I'm not completely sold on MFW K and 1st but I *heart* MFW Adventures and I'm curious to see how they will all mesh together. I really think Saxon is a great program and plan to stick with their math throughout all our homeschooling days. The phonics worked really well and Madisyn has a good grasp of the "whys" behind reading which is my only fault with MFW. Since Griffin is/was studying Dinos we went on a dino hunt. The last time we went to the Pink Palace was about 2 years ago. He didn't remember anything about it and was a little concerned that the dinos might try to get him. I have never been to the actual "Pink Palace" portioned of the museum but I would love to go tour it some time. The museum part is free on Tuesday afternoons and touring it as the solo adult w/ 5 little ones (mainly 2 certain boys ;) ) is about all I can handle. :)

The triceratops in the background used to move around and growl. There is a little sign up about how he's in "retirement". I believe he's been that way for over 20 years. I do realize that their are budget cuts but I so wish the dino could be repaired or replaced so that future generations could experience a "living" dino.

Believe it or not, that was the best I could do. No one was interested in having their picture taken. Griffin wanted to hurry up to see if he could find a living dino.

Griffin with another dino so he could show daddy. LOL Once he realized that dinos were dead (except for lizards, etc) he had a much better time.

This is a leg bone from a brontosaurus (I think, can't remember exactly). It's the equivalent of our femur (thigh bone).

I had to go up the stairs a pretty good way to get the entire woolly mammoth. I think Griffin grasped what a four year old could. His favorite part of the trip was visiting the model of the first Piggly Wiggly. Sadly, I didn't take any pictures there.

Since Christmas is a coming, the Enchanted Forest is set up in the mezzanine of the museum. Madisyn took this picture as proof that both Henry and I were in attendance. I think I might have a budding photographer on my hands.

This blog post was brought to you by the letter D and the number 8.

Pioneer Days

A few days ago, we travelled to Parker Pioneer Homestead in Whitehall to see how the settlers lived. We are currently studying early American History in My Father's World so the timing was perfect.

The first activity of the day was cross cut sawing.

There were several school groups there and some of the things said by the other children confirmed my decision to homeschool my own. I couldn't believe how disrespectful they were to the volunteers who donated time and skills to give them a glimpse into the past. It really made me very sad. *stepping off soap box*

Griffin needed a little help, but he and Madisyn made a great team.

I think the clothes washing was the highlight of the day. The kids went on and on about how much fun it was! LOL I might hang the clothes on the line to dry but I'm NOT up for handwashing. They would all have to get used to wearing much less in a week if that happened.

In addition to the demonstrations, they also had several furnished cabins the kids could look at. It was really neat to go in different ones and imagine how the families were different based on their homes.

We purchased some homemade suckers and they were very good. They could have been a bit smaller though - Ben made a horrible mess.


In the one-room school house.

The kids were looking for the queen in the bee hive. We had a great time and didn't even get stuck in the mud ;) . The tractor and Kawasaki Mule served as the "Homestead Tow Truck" - two days before we came through, 2 school buses got stuck!

First Days of School

One of the few "down" sides to homeschooling is that there is no official start date. We can start whenever we want. We tend to ease back into school by starting with one or two subjects and then adding more each week until we are up to the full load. This makes the official first day of school a little fuzzy.

All last year Griffin begged to do school. He wasn't satisfied with those little preschool workbooks. He wanted real school. So at barely 4 he's doing Kindergarten. We may have to repeat part of it next year (he's doing beginning phonics) but he is so happy to be doing school. I'm trying a new curriculum this year called My Father's World. Griffin is using the kindergarten program and 4 weeks in we really like it. It's just enough hands on to make him happy and enough structure to make me happy. :) My Father's World is a combination of classical eduction and Charlotte Mason philosophy, with a Biblical Worldview.

We do the main part of My Father's World Adventure together. It's an overview of American History for 2nd or 3rd graders who are the oldest in the family. Once two children can read well they share the same curriculum so mom doesn't have to teach on multiple levels. Right now, I do kindy with Griffin, the reading, writing, Bible and math portion of My Father's World First Grade with Ty, and Adventures with everyone for more Bible, History, Art, Read Alouds and Science. If we could do school uninterrupted (what's that- with a 2 yo and a baby HAHAHA) I could be done in less than 3 hours. Considering I have children on three different levels and music instruction, I think that's pretty good. :)

We have used Saxon Phonics in the past and while I think it's an excellent program that works well, we're trying MFW for Phonics. It seems to have a more "fun" approach that Ty really likes. There also seems to be less review in the beginning which I was a little concerned about but Ty hasn't missed a lick.

In addition to MFW, Madisyn is using Saxon Math 3, and First Language Lessons Level 3(grammar) and Writing with Ease Level 2 (we didn't do a formal writing program last year and year 3 isn't out yet so we started with level 2) from The Well Trained Mind. We used their grammar program last year and I really enjoyed the literature selections used for copywork and dictation. My Father's World takes the parts of The Well Trained Mind philosophy on education that I like and implements them in the curriculum. Plus what's not to like about the Bible being woven into all of your studies. :)