Fall 2012

In some way our homeschool is taking a wildly different direction this year and in many ways it is very much the same.

The main differences for this year are:

First, Austin and Nyah are enrolled with My Tech High, an online charter school. They are both required to take 4 courses through My Tech High & it's affiliates. We were able to choose classes based on their interests and abilities, and based on what MyTech High offers.

Austin is doing ALEKS for math, Computer Literacy through e2020, Intro to Robotics through My Tech High, and Beautiful Feet's Medieval History.

Nyah is doing Teaching Textbooks & DreamBox for math (I love love LOVE Teaching Textbooks - first year EVER Nyah and I are not fighting about math), Digital Media Foundations & Brainpop through My Tech High, art classes through our local rec center, and Beautiful Feet's History of the Horse.

Second, our family has joined a new commonwealth school in our area which is in it's first year - Southwest Commonwealth. Our kids are involved in the junior clubs - these are clubs we've previously done in our homeschool community, but are now doing through the commonwealth.  I'm also a co-advisor for one of the clubs, and Kurt & I are participating in a monthly book club for the parents. 

Austin is in Knights of Freedom and will be reading biographies of John Smith, Squanto, and William Bradford. Nyah is in Young Stateswoman and will be reading biographies of Pocahontas and Sacajawea, and Indian Captive: The story of Mary Jemison. Olivia is in Liberty Girls and I will be reading the American Girl Kaya books with her.

Third, I have 2 new students! Olivia is Kindergarten age and Jolie can't stand to be left out. They have been asking for demanding school work of their own. So, we have a circle time where we sing children's songs & do fingerplays, go through the calendar, and record the weather. 

I have them making Alphabet books so I can make sure they recognize all their letters - they are using journals which are half-blank and half-lined. They put letter stickers on the top, practice writing the letters below, and then we look through magazines for the letter, cut & glue them onto the page. We'll move on to using Alpha-Phonics (and maybe Reading the Easy Way) when we finish the alphabet.

For math we are using Progress in Mathematics Kindergarten teacher's guide and workbook - a friend gave it to me and it's easy, with lots of games and hands-on activities. We also do some speech activities, mostly for Olivia, but its good for Jolie, too.

We are learning fairy tales - Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Jack and the Beanstalk, etc. Each week I check out 3 or 4 versions of the same story to read together. Then we do an activity- acting it out, making puppets, etc. When we're done working together (and I need to work with Austin & Nyah) they spend time with busy-bags and other activities I have set aside for them to do during school time.

However, overall our homeschool looks very much the same as it always has- we get up, have breakfast, have devotional, and get started with school work. Monday through Thursday are spent working on the subjects I've listed above. On Fridays we have devotional, go over grammar, play madlibs, go over Scouts & Faith in God, do our composer study and nature study lessons, have end of the week meetings, email our weekly reports to MyTech High, and end with a picnic lunch at the park with homeschool friends.

Other resources for this year:

Devotional- We are using this Book of Mormon study guide, The 21 Rules of this House, and Prudence & the Millers (which I'm having to pre-read and edit this more than the other Miller books we've used).  

Poetry - The Random House Book of Poetry for Children

Grammar - Simply Grammar and MadLibs

Composer Study - A coloring book of Great Composers: Bach to Berlioz. In the past we've used & loved Harmony Fine Arts art & music plans, but Austin & Nyah both have art tied in with their beautiful feet history guides, so we're trying something different this year. We focus on one composer each month - the coloring book include a short biography of the composers which we read together, we listen to cd's of the composer's music from the library, and that's it.

Nature Study - We are doing the challenges on the Handbook of Nature Study Blog. I'm hopeful I'll be better at posting the challenges on the blog this year.

And that's an over view of our school this year. If you have questions about anything - how we do something or whatever - ask away!

We are studying the art of Ancient Rome right now with our Harmony Fine Art plans. This week the link for Trajan's column didn't take us to a very good picture. I was a little annoyed because searching the web for pictures with my kids standing over my shoulder is always a little risky- who knows what will come up! Then Austin remembered we already had some pictures from one of Kurt's trips last year. After a quick search through my inbox we found these:

Later Kurt showed the kids a video he had taken of the whole column. The kids are fascinated by the different scenes and all the details. To learn more visit here.

Winter Hike

More Nature Study - Book 2

Winter Weather Walk

Winter Bird - Chickadee

We did two challenges this week (and I'm so excited I'm able to blog about them!).  We spent some time learning about the Black Capped Chickadee and had fun doing the Chickadee pastel tutorial at Hodgepodge. 

I only took A and N on our nature walk - O and J had a cold, S was napping. 

Signs of winter - cold! cold! cold! We haven't had much snow, but the temperatures were below freezing on this day.  There were also patches of snow even though it hadn't snowed for over a week.

The wind was really strong and loud- we were in a couple places where the wind was howling and we wondered if there was an animal or vehicle of some kind making the noise, but I think it was only the wind.

We saw crows, robins, and mourning doves, but not any of the smaller birds - everyone else must have been hiding from the wind. We also saw several deer heading over a hill and decided to climb up, hoping we would see them again. We found a deer trail and used this time for a "silent nature walk." Unfortunately, we didn't catch up with the deer.

N was excited to find this heart shaped moss. 

We've been watching our bird feeder for chickadees, but I don't think we've ever seen any in our area. We've seen sparrows, house finches, and a few other birds we are working on identifying.

S *loves* watching the birds come to our bird feeders. She gets excited, demands we all come look, and then knocks on the window so the birds will all fly away at the same time. She also likes the watch the cats that are attracted to the feeders. Anyone else feel guilty about offering a buffet for the cats? So far I'm not aware of any casualties.