Books & Mud Puddles

Monday, November 30, 2009

Autumn Series: Winter Jumpstart

Outdoor Hour Challenge- Autumn Series: Winter Nature Study Jumpstart

For those who aren't aware, we have been going through a crazy time, well, more crazy than normal. My daughter (almost 3) fell out of a shopping cart and ended up with a skull fracture, spending a couple days in the hospital, and needing close supervision the last couple weeks. She is doing wonderful, though not 100% yet- she does get occasional headaches and tires out quicker than before, but she is up and playing, fighting with her siblings, and asserting her personality, so her recovery looks great. School has been down to the bare minimum, and we are slowly getting back into the swing of things. My older kids and I have been able to go for a few walks, and we were able to do the last Autumn Series challenge over the weekend.

I made our list in the form of questions my kids asked as we went along:

1. What do the deer do in winter (mule deer in our area)?

2. Do mourning doves migrate?

3. What are the horned owl's nesting habits? Do horned owls migrate? They especially want to know if we will be able to find and watch the nestlings again this year.

4. How was this ditch made? (water/erosion)

5. What are the predators in our area?

6. What birds are in our area during the winter?

7. What happens to cactus during the winter?

This gives us plenty to learn about when we are inside on cold winter days!!!

More details/info on O can be found at our family blog: Our Days

Monday, November 9, 2009

Devotional

We are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (also known as LDS or mormons) and so our devotional materials reflect this.

Each year the church puts out an outline for the Primary (kids age 3 - 11) to use in weekly Sunday meetings and for a Primary program in the Fall. I use the suggested monthly themes, scriptures, and songs for the opening of our devotional, and we work on memorizing them as well. Here are the links for 2009 and 2010.

Then we read the scriptures together. We are currently reading the Book of Mormon using The Book of Mormon for Latter-Day Saint Families (I found it on clearance for $20-did not pay full price!!) using Penny Gardner's Scripture Highlights. Once we finish this we will be using this Book of Mormon Study Guide together, but that may be for our family scripture study and we would start the Bible for devotional using Penny's other scripture highlights.

We read from Gospel Principles, a manual covering the basics of our beliefs. We cover about one chapter each week.

I also think church history is very important, so I try to find ones that are kid appropriate. In the spring we read Stories from the Life of Joseph Smith, and now we are reading The Lord Needed a Prophet.

Then we alternate reading a few other resources:
A Story to Tell
LDS magazine for kids- The Friend
A Hive of Busy Bees
Wisdom and the Millers
(The last two are Menonite, but are great moral stories)

We try to do our devotional each morning, even non-school days. It takes about 30 minutes and really sets the tone for our day.

UPDATE (11-10-09): I forgot to mention some other links-

LDS Resources
Milestone's Academy devotional page. There are many wonderful ideas and plans- some I have used, some I haven't, some we will, and some we won't!

School of Abraham- Many wonderful links to check out.

Other Religious Resources
Ambleside Online addresses church history in each individual year, and has a hymn rotation schedule for memorization.

Simply Charlotte Mason has bible study in their history module, scripture memory packs, personal development, and hymn study as well.

School Motto

We are using the motto Charlotte Mason gave her own students for our school motto.

Here is a link to the motto explanation at Ambelside Online.

Here is the link to the poster I have made for our school room wall. It hangs above our schedule so we can review it every day as part of our Opening Exercises.

Here is where I found the information for our poster:

The first part of each section is from the author of the Milestone's Academy curriculum (I couldn't find it on her website so I may have gotten it from the milsteonesacademy yahoo group).

Here is a link to Donna's Journey for some of the scripture references. Some of them aren't the same, but I know I found my list of scriptures from Donna through the LDS-CMers yahoo group. Update (11-10-09): I found a list of the scriptures at the Moor House Academy site, which Donna founded- scroll down to The Moor House Academy Affirmation.

Organization

Our current schedule (yellow paper) is on the wall. In the totes below the schedule I have all the school books we are using divided by day, with each day separated by a colored sheet of cardstock. Each day I pull out the books we will need and then put them back as we complete each subject. For example, on Moday I pull out Famous Men, Backyard Scientist, and the American Tall Tales book. I know from the schedule that we will need to listen to Beethoven during lunch, get out supplies for our science project, and see if there are any people or events from the past week which we need to add to our timeline. We have been listening to the Redwall series in the car, but sometimes we bring the discs inside as well.

My school age kids each have their own tote which holds their individual books and notebooks, such as math workbooks, books they are reading, and their notebooks for copywork, history, science, etc.

In our school area we have 4 small bookshelves and they are all covered with books, mostly books the kids can read or look at any time they want, though I have a couple shelves for my notebooks, library books, future books for school, and other totes for several subjects. For example, one tote holds our nature guide books, compasses, flower presses, and anything we might need for nature studies.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Toddler Class/Preschool

I prefer being really flexible for anything I do with my toddlers so I don't follow a specific program and we are constantly changing and adjusting. I'm sure that anything I've posted in the past we finished or stopped doing a looong time ago.

But O, my almost 3 year old, wants her own "class" and it is really helpful to devote 20-30 minutes to my two little girls before starting school work with my older kids.

We start by reading books together. They will usually pick a few that they are currently interested in, and I pick a few as well. The ones I pick we usually read for 2-4 weeks at a time, and have more of a learning aspect to them. Sometimes we read the books and sometimes we look at the pictures.

Books I've picked for November:

A book from My First Bob Books Pre-Reader Collection which includes the Alphabet set and Pre-Reading set -- I don't read these to teach my girls to read, but because they are simple and have a lot of familiar pictures for them to identify. They also like them because my older kids have used the other collections as they were learning to read, so my girls think they are using "big kid" stuff. And there are stickers.

First Rhymes: A Day of Rhymes with a Different Twist by Lucy Coats -- Author has re-written favorite nursery rhymes: "Humpty Dumpty stood on his head, Humpty Dumpty fell out of bed . . . "

Go, Dog. Go! by P.D. Eastman -- has colors, opposites, and lots of DOGS, my girls' favorite animal.

Before Five in a Row books -- The Five in a Row books are wonderful, but I prefer to just use the book lists for wonderful picture book ideas. Jesse Bear is very well-loved and O is always asking for it!!

Books girls picked today: The Bugliest Bug, I am Not Going to Get Up Today, and Oops-A-Daisy.

After we've read for a little while we play games. Right now they like laying the memory cards face up and making matches. In the past we've done puzzles, played with babies or other toys, and sometimes we also do activities like Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes or Ring around the Rosies. We also sometimes sing songs together - they are really getting into a song we are learning in anticipation of Christmas called Christmas Bells.

After about 30 minutes I let them pick some toys from the closet that are just for school time -- we have a house set, barn set, Noah's ark set, space ship set, blocks, puzzles, and quiet books. They also will join in when we are doing something they can participate in such as coloring, nature walks, listening to stories, etc.