Post-Holidays

I love the holidays, really I do. But each year it's sort of a relief to be through with the craziness.

So Colwyn is starting on subtraction in his Singapore Earlybird 2B workbook. He's done great with addition and seemed to get subtraction immediately. It reinforces my feeling that the practical, hands-on, incidental math we do daily really helps. I almost feel like the workbook is just a way of checking to see what he already knows. When he pipes up with, "Mom, you gave me seven pieces of chicken, I ate five and just have two left, can I be all done?" - do we really need a workbook? But it is nice to not have to draw up my own worksheets so he can learn the symbols, I'll admit to that. Lachlann is working on learning how to write numbers. His recognition is great, but his pencil (well, dry erase marker in our case) grip is horrible, and it makes him not enjoy writing. We've been playing with plates of flour or sugar and drawing numbers (shapes, letters, etc) with our fingers. I'd love to let him do that with shaving cream, but Doug doesn't use any.. maybe I'll have to grab some at Target. Lach observes most of Colwyn's math 'lessons' so I'd be surprised if he didn't breeze through subsequent lessons.

Colwyn's reading is coming along really well. It's wonderful to see how proud he is of himself when he reads through an Elephant and Piggiebook. The only time he really experiences difficulty is when his own impatience or irritation gets in his way.. then even an easy word can seem hard. That's when we usually take a break and come back to it later. For book club, we just finished The Five Lost Aunts of Harriet Bean. That was a big hit with Colwyn. Last month was Welcome to the Bed and Biscuit, which was very sweet. We ended up missing the actual book club meeting that month, though, as the kids were sick.

Our other work has been haphazard, at best. We're slowly working through the Early Life section of The Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History, which has included working on learning the names of the continents and oceans. We've explored some of the neat websites on arthropods, and Colwyn liked making the connection at the Museum of Science when we saw fossils of arthropods. The kids got a calendar for 2010, so we talk about that daily. In the process, I've learned that, yes, Colwyn is firm on the days of the week, and yes, he knows his cardinal numbers pretty well. The months are new to him, but no biggie. He likes knowing what day it is, and we draw little symbols or write easy words on days we have stuff planned, so he'll tell me, "Mom, we have two more days until Lego Club!"

What else? We've worked on our Secret Agent social studies sporadically. Our Earth Scouts meeting last month dealt with the water cycle (briefly) and habitats. The kids all created terrariums, which was much more fun than I expected. The mess was exactly what I expected. Thankfully all the moms are great about helping pick up. We also did caroling at a local nursing home, which was a great experience. I was surprised at how Colwyn was really into memorizing the words to the songs, he did really well. The kids were a big hit with the elderly residents as well as the staff. For science day last month, we created a diorama of a dinosaur habitat, as well as Play Dough dinosaurs. The diorama included a volcano, which we set off with baking soda and vinegar. The kids loved that part, and with some foresight on my part, it wasn't very messy at all.

We've got a bunch of stuff coming up this month, it should be exciting. Hopefully I'll get better at keeping track.

Week in Review

Our week was pretty full this week, but not nearly as full as next week's will be. We did reading lessons most days, two days of math, and three days of reading from The Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia Of World History. We did cooking math one day (brownies, yum). We had health lessons on two days, when both Lachlann and I had physicals.

Friday was our first Earth Scouts meeting, and it was a big hit. At first, I was counting myself as very smart for not inviting everyone over to my house for the meeting, but that morning as I was trying to pack everything, load it and the kids into the car, and get everything into the library, I realized that I was wrong. :) Luckily, the space at the library was just perfect for us and the staff was super nice. While we waited for everyone to arrive, the kids decorated the folders they'll use to keep their journaling pages together. Then we sat in circle and listened to the first Rosie Emery song (I was expecting earthy, hippie type music, but 'Cooperation' emulated a hip-hop, rap-ish song and was a little embarrassing). Then we talked about what Earth Scouts do - the kids enjoyed listing everything they could possibly think of that lives on the Earth. We did a few cooperation games next, with much laughing. Then the kids had a snack. Once snacktime was over, the kids made their individual pictures depicting our Earth community that we made into our Earth Scouts banner. While they did that, I demonstrated the woven belts for the moms, and that was about it. All the kids really seemed to enjoy themselves and were well behaved. Fiona, who I had forgotten to bring toys for, entertained herself quite well for over an hour and a half, with very little help from me. I was so impressed.

I think Earth Scouts will be a big hit for this year, and can't wait until our next meeting. :)

We also made two trips to the park this week.. Lynch Park with Charlotte and Sam, and Stagefort with the homeschoolers. This is my favorite time of year for park days.. the ground is dry, there are a lot of overcast days, and the temperature is almost always cool. Woohoo for fall!

Week in Review

Last week, we more or less stuck with all our regular activities. We did two days of math, two days of history, and one day of social studies. Colwyn is especially interested in the books we have about ancient Egypt, specifically mummification. I'm going to look up other activities we can do relating to ancient Egypt. Colwyn did a reading lesson each day and Lachlann did about four. Colwyn's really coming on with reading.. he can read a bunch of small words quite easily, and is slowly building up his sight words.

For outings we went mini-golfing one day at Richardson's and talked a bit about dairy farming and nutrition. We also had lunch at the mall another day. It was rainy for most of the week which made it difficult to get out. Unfortunately, this week is supposed to be much of the same, which sucks.

We had our big homeschool BBQ at our house on Saturday. There were 28 people, including our family. Everyone had a great time swimming, playing, eating, and socializing. Doug said it was the best BBQ we'd ever had, in part because everyone talked positively and supportively about things we're doing - gardening, chickens, homeschooling, homebirthing, etc. I commented to Jen at one point while surveying all our guests at how great it was to see so many people doing the same things we were. All the other moms commented later about how great it was for their husbands to get to see families similar to their own - us moms see that regularly, but the dads aren't so lucky.

Week in Review

This week we've done our usual 'lessons.' I call them lessons but they're totally optional, and Colwyn gets to choose which ones he does on any given day. His motivation, other than his natural enjoyment in doing these activities, is time on the Wii. I'd been hesitant to buy a Wii because I'm worried that the kids will spend too much time playing on it. But the boys were more than willing to make a deal that in order to play video games, Colwyn has to do two 'lessons' and Lachlann has to do one. Lachlann's lesson can count as observing or helping with Colwyn's, depending on what it is. They can choose between math, reading, social studies, and history.

For math, we're still working with the Singapore workbooks in addition to real life experience. Colwyn is about halfway through 1B and Lachlann is halfway through 1A. They're not expensive workbooks, but they'll add up over time and multiple children, so we use a page protector and a dry erase marker so they'll hopefully last for all the kids. They both have been breezing through them, doing at least five or six pages at a time. They did math on Tuesday and Friday; on Friday, Colwyn was up to learning about even and odd numbers, and skip counting.

For reading, we've been using Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
. It's not the most fun, but it gets the job done and Colwyn likes that each lesson takes under 10 minutes. He's consistently able to sound out easy words. Lachlann has even showed some interested and on Thursday, I did the first lesson with him. He did the second on Friday and enjoyed it, even asking for more (though unfortunately, Fiona woke up before we could go onto the third).

We signed up for a great program through Highlights that teaches social studies. It's called Top Secret Adventures and because it's meant for kids 7-12, I have to help him with it quite a bit. Mainly, he needs help with reading.. the puzzles he can solve on his own when I give him directions. The first package was for Australia and we finished that on Thursday. Then We started the next one, which features Mexico.

We're using The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Volume 1: Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor for history, supplemented by lots of books from the library. For the prehistory section, we used Stone Age Boy and Everyday Life in Prehistory, among others. For the second chapter on early Egypt, which we just started this week, we checked Ms. Frizzle's Adventures: Ancient Egypt and How the Amazon Queen Fought the Prince of Egypt out from the library, among others.

This is all in addition to the regular stuff we do, like art, science, literature, etc, which are done more loosely as the kids feel like it and as topics come up.

Our homeschool group was comparitively inactive this week, with only a park day that we attended on Thursday. We went to Lynch and had a picnic, and the kids enjoyed playing on the playground equipment. We saw Alex and Mila, Simon and Satchel, and two new friends, Morgaine and Ronan.

The kids also spent quite a bit of time helping me in the garden, which not only makes my job easier, but teaches them about agriculture and life cycles of plants, and the niches that bugs and other critters fill in our local ecology.

Political Primer

November 4th was a day filled with anticipation, pride, and teachable moments. I've always brought the kids with me to vote because I think it's important that they see us in our roles as conscientious citizens. This is the first time that Colwyn's been old enough to really get what's going on, though. I explained, in kid terms, what a president does for our country. I explained how one man has been in charge for eight years and now it's somebody else's turn. I explained how it's everyone's responsibility to learn about the candidates and pick who they think will do the best job, and then go vote. We talked a little bit about Obama and McCain, and Colwyn said he wanted 'the white haired man' to win. I told him that was great, and it's good to have his own opinions (meanwhile, groaning over his choice, heh).

So we went to storytime at our local Borders and picked up some diapers at Target, then came home for lunch. After lunch, we all went out to vote - me with the three kiddos, my mom, and my dad (Doug had to work, so he voted in the morning.. and I made sure the kids knew that Daddy had already voted). The volunteers all made complimentary comments about how great it was to see the whole family out voting together, how important it was to vote and include our children, etc.. so the kids got an outside affirmation of what I had told them, too. Colwyn helped my mom vote while Lachlann helped me, and when they saw who we were all voting for, Colwyn switched to Obama's side. Lachlann, however, still maintains that McCain is the man for him.

They watched the news with us a bit last night and we talked about how everyone across the whole country has to vote and how it takes a long time to add it all up and find out who won. This morning when they woke up, I told them that Obama had won, and Colwyn was very excited. We watched some of the news and then later I showed them a bit of his victory speech.

It was quite a nice lesson in civics, and right at their level. I decided not to bring up the whole "First African American President" thing because I didn't think Colwyn would get it.. he still doesn't see his African American friends as looking any different from him, and I don't want to change that any sooner than it has to.

I'd really love to be able to take them to the inauguration, but it's doubtful that we will. It just seems like it would be an awful lot of work for something that probably only Colwyn will remember, and not necessarily well. The only way we'd seriously consider going is if Doug's dad could get us in somewhere cool.. he's a reporter for AP and that's a slight possibility.

Supplies & Exchanges

Eee! We got a package in the mail from Rainbow Resource and I was so thrilled. I'd only bought a few things, but boy, were they good choices.

The biggest hit, much to my surprise, was these:



The kids just love playing with them. We've used them in a lot of math-y ways.. I make a pattern and Colwyn copies, we talk about different and same (how 2-blues are the same as 3-blues for color, but 2-blues and 2-greens are the same for number), I've showed him some addition problems and some subtraction problems, and some other random stuff. But they've also had fun constructing with them, too.. which I think is half the appeal.

We also got a math curriculum. I know, I know.. strange for someone who's unschooling preschool, right? Well, Colwyn loves workbooks, and most of our workbooks are pretty lacking in math activities. So I ordered Singapore Early Bird 1A and 1B, and he loves it. I looked through 1A, and he'll easily be able to do any page in there. 1B requires that he write some numbers himself, which he's still not able to do yet, so we'll work our way through 1A as Colwyn feels like it, and hopefully when he's done, he'll be able to do 1B.

And for fun, we got a Melissa and Doug outer space puzzle. It's beautiful, and Colwyn and Lachlann both enjoyed putting it together. And the best part is that it only cost us $7.75! Normally they're about $11.

This is old news, but I don't think I actually wrote about it here. We did an exchange with another homeschooling family a few weeks ago. We put together a package of some natural treasures we'd found (stones, seashells, etc), two necklaces that Colwyn beaded, a package of clay, a dinosaur, and some bubbles. We also made a mini-scrapbook with pictures of the boys and information about Massachusetts. And in return, we got all this:




It was a great experience, and hopefully we'll get to do it again sometime soon.

And to end on a kooky note, here's a picture of the boys hanging around.

Chivalry

This is what we did yesterday:





And this is what we did today:



We had such a good time at King Richard's Faire. We go every year, and it seems that every year is more and more fun. We wanted to have the kids dress up for the faire, but it was too hot. Maybe next time.

Unpleasant Surprises and Productive Mornings

We went to the Museum of Science this weekend. The boys had a good time exploring and playing with the various exhibits. Colwyn really liked the maps, dinosaurs, and archeology exhibits. After lunch, we were sitting on the upper level of the kid play area. Lachlann was sitting on my lap playing with blocks, and we were next to a display of Bernoulli's principle--a jet of air holding an inflated ball aloft at a 45 degree angle. A woman and her child asked the interpreter what was making the ball "float." The explanation he gave was.. appalling. He said nothing about air pressure, or lift, and didn't relate it to flight. He certainly didn't mention Bernoulli at all. I couldn't believe it. I mean, honestly.. a MOS employee can't explain the few exhibits he's supposed to know about?

On the other hand, we've had a great morning so far. Colwyn drew a picture for Emily and wrote both their names on it. Then we put it in an envelope, addressed it, and stamped it. Then he helped me write a letter to the Geology Department at Salem State College, asking if there are any spots around here where we might successfully search for fossils (I also sent an email to the North Shore geology club asking for info, too). We also mailed a membership form to a local homeschooling group, and when I included a check for the dues, we had a discussion on what checks are, how they work, and why we use them.

Then we went for a nice walk around the block, found a piece of bark in the grass and figured out which tree it came from, then came inside and read The Lorax.

Not bad for a Monday morning. :)

Social Studies

In my last post, I showed pictures of the kids and the passports we made. I cut some heavy paper into rectangles and also cut some white construction paper into smaller rectangles. Folded it all in half, punched holes, and threaded yarn through. Voila, passports. Colwyn decorated his with smiley stickers while Lachlann just hugged his almost do death. The idea is that as we learn about other countries/cultures, we'll put little "stamps" (probably just pictures we draw) to represent our imagined trip there. Our first country is Ethiopia.

We've been listening to the Putamayo African Playground CD which has an Ethiopian song on it (as well as songs from other African countries). We've looked up Ethiopia on our globe and we drew an outline drawing of it. I printed out a few maps from Enchanted Learning and we've looked at those, too. We checked out a book on Ethiopia from the library, and got Ethiopian takeout this weekend. Colwyn tried injera and dabo, but wasn't too keen on any of the wots. This morning, both boys helped me paint an egg carton that we'll use as a mancala gameboard. Sometime this week we'll also play a type of hide-and-seek game called Kukulu. When that's done, we'll make a little stamp to represent Ethiopia.

I'm not positive that he'll retain any of this longterm or anything, but I'm hoping the exposure to other cultures will at least influence his longterm ability to be open and tolerant. We'll probably go easy on the next one and do Wales.. since we're of Welsh descent, it should be pretty easy. We'll listen to Hugin the Bard to start, as well as some of our other Welsh music, do some dragon crafts, and who knows what else.

One of the other things I'm trying to get set up is a penpal family (or several, ideally). The idea is to exchange small packages with other families to get an idea of what their lives are like. It'll be fun to connect with other homeschooling families, and we'll be able to mark on a map where we send/get packages to/from. Actually, I have no idea who reads this blog, but if anyone out there is interested, leave a comment and we can work something out.

Catching Up

Here's a little bit of what we've been up to:

Creating a passport for Colwyn:



And one for Lachlann:



Measuring things:


Baking a cake for Daddy's birthday:



Having lunch at the park with Paige:



Going to Salem Willows with cousin Daniel:



Measuring the length of an apatosaurus, using a chalk line to illustrate:



And drawing life-size apatosaurus, T. Rex, and Colwyn footprints:



That's not to mention all the other fun stuff we've been up to.. you can see pictures of hot air balloons and helicopter rides at this Shutterfly album.

We've also done our usual workbook pages, craft projects, library trips, and other goofy stuff.

Music Appreciation

The other day, we were sitting in a drive-thru line for an inordinate amount of time. The kids were fussy and I was searching through our huge amounts of CDs for something that might entertain them. I tried an audio book, Air Ferrets Aloft, by Richard Bach, but they weren't very interested. Then I found a CD we had bought a few months ago, African Playground, which is one of the Putamayo Kids series. I put it on and the kids were mildly entertained by it.

Then, of course, I got the bright idea that we should do a unit study on Africa. Heh. We'll see how well this turns out, but I'll at least bring the CD into the house so we can play it some more, we'll look up Africa on our globe, and hopefully I'll be able to find some good crafts. We already have two books at home (well, from the library) dealing with african wildlife: Water Hole Waiting, by Jane Kurtz, and Pinduli, by Janell Cannon.

If that goes well, I'll try to find more stuff to do, we'll see. And if all that goes well, maybe we'll do it with other cultures. We already have Celtic (specifically, Welsh) music, and even have some stories on CD from Hugan the Bard.

Of course, me planning anything like this means the kids won't be remotely interested, but we'll give it a shot. :)

Fieldtrips Galore

We've had three big fieldtrips in the past week, what fun. I already talked about our trip to the wildlife sanctuary, so that's one down.

Last Wednesday, I took the kids into Boston to the Scooper Bowl at City Hall Plaza. We went with Jen, Calvin, and Miles, and took the Blue Line in from Wonderland. The boys had a great time on the T and it was so cute seeing Colwyn and Calvin sitting next to each other, looking out the window, pointing out planes and the tracks and other trains going past. Getting out of the subway station was not fun, though, as the stop wasn't handicapped accessible and we had strollers with us. In fact, the first trip up the escalator was downright dangerous and I feel like an idiot for even trying it. Then we dragged our strollers up another flight of stairs, each carrying our youngest child while the older kids went up in front of us. Blech.

The actual event was pretty fun, though. It was packed and hot but we got to taste a lot of delicious ice cream. The kids had fun playing and running around, and we saw two young kids (I dunno, maybe about ten years old?) playing guitar and drums, and their song selection was great (I'm blanking on what it was, but it was older music that you really wouldn't expect ten year olds to know). Very cute.







On the way back, Colwyn and Calvin talked even more, and Lachlann slept in his stroller, even with all the commotion on the T. It was a lot of work, but a really fun outing.

Our other outing was on the weekend, June 10th, I think. We took the kids to the Dragon Boat Festival on the Charles River. Aside from watching the boats on the river, which Lachlann loved, they got to see a demonstration of drumming and martial arts. There were a lot of craft type activities set up, but Colwyn wasn't really interested. We did get to sample a lot of Asian food, including my favorite, Pad Thai. Mmmm. Dad came with us and we met up briefly with his friend, Peter.

Here's a link to another Shutterfly album with pictures from the Festival as well as the Scooper Bowl, Wildlife Sanctuary, and others: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8Absm7ho0bNmH7.

Co-Op Madness

Some weird things have been happening in the homeschooling co-op we joined. The short version is that everyone has left except for me and the two founders. The slightly longer version is that the people who were in the group were either not committed to homeschooling, or wanted something very different from the group. I think they're going to start advertising a bit and hopefully some new people will join. I think that as the kids get older, it'll be easier to find people who are sure that they want to homeschool (or are actively homeschooling), rather than just considering it.

We had a playdate at our house today with Dani and her sons, Thomas and Aidan (they're from the co-op). Colwyn is the type of kid to just play by himself in a large group of kids, so I wanted to set up a few one-on-one playdates so he could get to know the kids better. Colwyn and Thomas did so well playing, and didn't get into any fights. As they were leaving, Colwyn told Thomas that he loved him and that he could come back after Saturday. :) Dani and the other mom in the co-op, Jen, are bringing their kids here on Monday, so he was actually right about Thomas coming back after Saturday.

So, oddly enough, Colwyn actually enjoys doing worksheets. This is only slightly to my dismay. As much as I'd rather be doing fun, creative activities, if he's happy to do worksheets, I suppose that's fine. After all, I liked (like?) worksheet type things, too.

We played with the states puzzle for a while today. If I take out 10-15 states, he does great at putting them back, but if they're all out, he's a bit lost. He really likes pointing out where we live, where Mexico is, and where the space shuttles and dinosaurs are. We also played with some math manipulatives (a set of bears in 3 different colors and 3 different sizes), but after a bit of sorting - which he called making parades, he kept insisting that one of his bears was going to be mean and knock down my bears. So we ended that game.

I've started showing Colwyn some Magic Schoolbus episodes on TV. He really likes the one about the asteroid. I'd really like to get some of the books, though, as the TV show is just a little.. weird.

Well, Lachlann has a diaper that needs changing, so until next time!

Playgroup, Gumdrops, and Dinos

A few times lately Colwyn has asked to play with gumdrops and cups of water. At first, I had no idea what he was talking about. But I eventually figured it out.. he wanted to play with eyedroppers and cups of water. He likes it when I tint the water so he can experiment with dropping red water into clear water and so on. It's also great for his fine motor skills. And he likes making art with it, too.. he drips colored water onto white paper, and it dries quite nicely, actually.



He also got a new states puzzle and a globe. The states puzzle is a bit advanced for him, but he likes point out which states have planes or buffalos or whatever. And the globe, while small, will be great for pointing out places we read about.





We had a Heritage themed playgroup for our Pre-Homeschooling Co-op today. We all brought food that is symbolic of our heritage, and the kids played while the moms ate. ;) Well, the kids ate some, too. Colwyn and Lachlann seemed a bit more at ease this time, since they've met the other kids twice now. We're hoping to have Dani's kids, Thomas and Aidan, over next week. Hopefully that'll give Colwyn the chance to get to know Thomas a bit better. He always seems to do much better one-on-one than in large groups.

I think the Co-op will be really nice once it gets going. We'll be able to set up "classes" for the kids where if one mom is really good at math, she'll do a math project with all the kids one week, and next week, another mom who is great at science will do a science project with all the kids. That way the boys will get experience working in a group and taking direction from another adult. We're also planning on signing Lachlann up for swimming lessons (I think at the Lydon Aquatic Center) in the spring, and Colwyn will probably take a sports class at the Y where he'll learn about a few different sports.

Tomorrow we're going to our regular playgroup at Imajine That in Lawrence. We've never been, but I hear it's really good. Colwyn's looking forward to seeing his friends, and I'm looking foward to getting out of the house again. I know it won't be long before the kids are sick again, and I want to take advantage of their health while I can.