Cross Country Skiing

New Germany State Park

January 29, 2011

MOM SOS-- A Great Idea from the Mind of My Husband

Yesterday was one of those days where the kids were a bit whiny, and I was a bit irritated.  My dear husband asked me what was on the day's homeschooling agenda, then sent me on my way for a Mom's Afternoon Off.

I had a great time.   Went to the library, did a bit of shopping, went to the old house that hasn't sold and took a long bath.

While I was out my husband did the homeschool stuff, part of which was reading out loud.  My older son has some reading issues that make him not like to read.  While his reading skills are a work in progress, he IS progressing.  It still is hard to get him to sit down and read, especially when his little brother is a better reader.  So when we have read out loud time, he gets frustrated and wants to negotiate that  pages get read by his parents.  This can turn into a struggle, for "if you give an inch, he'll want a mile" and he NEEDS to practice.

So yesterday during reading time, my older son, Andy, picked Oh, the Places You'll Go! to read out loud.  He has read this book several times, but it is still a challenge for him.  But then Dr Suess can be a challenge to some adults.  My husband told Andy at the start that he (my husband) would read 5 pages of the book, and that was all.  It was up to Andy to decide what 5 pages it would be.  Apparently this worked out quite well, and there was no complaining that Andy had to finish the rest of the book once the 5 pages were through.

When I got home, my husband told me of his method for reading with Andy.  I thought this was a wonderful idea, and that it could be spread out to other parts of homeschool that the boys either have problems with or just don't like.  So before this morning's homeschool, I made up 10 "parent help" tickets.  I knew there was going to be a syllable worksheet (Oak Meadow said to talk about syllables, I printed a few non-Oak Meadow worksheets to help us) and that worksheets are not his thing.  When I presented the work to him this morning, I also presented him with 4 Parent Help tickets to help with the 20 problems.  He loved this idea, turning the tickets into MOM SOS tickets.  He didn't need the help (he ended up using 3 of them in the last 4 problems), but I could tell that giving him the option of help from the outset made him feel better.

Our Oak Meadow Week 19

• Syllables
• STILL Word Families
• Andrew Lost
• Reading
• Poetry
• Counting by 2s
• Shapes-- Sides and angles
• Economics
• Trees
• North and South Poles
• Winchester Mystery House
• Scratch
• Tux Paint
• Architecture
• Titanic
• Mom's Day Off
• MOM SOS

Next Week:

• More Economics
• Nocturnal/Diurnal
• Julian's 7th Birthday!!!

Our Oak Meadow Week 18

Lowes Field Trip with Homeschool Group

• Adverbs
• Word Families
• Andrew Lost
• Reading
• Poems Revisited
• Ordinal Numbers
• MORE Multiplication with Carrying
• Maps
• Family Tree
• Real Trees
• Stargazing (sorta, it was wicked cloudy this week)
• Scratch
• Tux Paint
• Architecture
• Titanic
• Lowes field trip with homeschool group
• Play time with Friend
• Dad's Birthday

Next Week:

• Economics
• Seasons
• North and South Poles

A Little Oak Meadow Love

As I have mentioned in my recent posts, I am a fan of the Oak Meadow curriculum.  We are in week 18, which is the half way point of the year and every day I find more ways that it works for our family.

That being said, I am not an Oak Meadow purist.  We don't have circle time every morning.  I use Internet produced printouts to help teach my sons concepts like ordinal numbers.  And I didn't buy Oak Meadow Main Lesson Books.  I went to Ollie's (one of my favorite stores) and purchased two 11"x14" sketch books.  And  it is these Oak Meadow inspired drawing books that I am currently in love with.

These sketch books contain all of their language arts work.  I have different binders for social studies and science, so the sketch books contain story inspired drawings and poems with illustrations.  Also stapled to the sheets are lined papers with sentences for spelling and parts of speech, and the occasional worksheet for a special event.

But the thing that makes me love these books so much is how much the BOYS love their books.  They love to show their day's work to their dad in the the evening.  They will get the book out and show visiting friends or grandparents all of their new drawings.  Every so often they will take a look back at their work for the year.  They talk about different drawings that they created, and remind each other of different stories that were read.  Today my younger son was fascinated by a poem that my older son had written in November.  He liked it so much that he was inspired to copy it into his own sketch book.  And when I pointed out that they only had a few pages left in their books, both boys looked at me in a panic, and made sure that I was not going to throw them away.

So thank you, Oak Meadow for inspiring these lesson books.  My boys and I love them now, and I know that we will love them even more in the future when we can look back and see the journey they have made in their work and art.

And here is the poem my sons love:
The Giant Orange Cat
by Andy

There once was a giant orange cat

Who saw a big purple bat

The bat flew away, the cat wanted to stay

Oh! That giant orange cat

We had a good day

I don't want to brag or anything, but Monday we had a really good day.  A great day, in fact.  Not that we don't usually have good days, but this one stood out.  

Books were read, discussed, and pictures were drawn based on the stories 

Math was completed and understood.  

Family trees were started

Martin Luther King was discussed, and for the first time, I think my 3rd grader paid attention to, and understood the power of the "I Have a Dream" speech.  

I did all of my homeschool bookkeeping, and everything got put away, making it easier to eat dinner on the dining room table.  

YAY!

There wasn't much different about Monday, except for my feeling going into and coming out of it.  I entered the day with a sense of calm that I think spilled over on the boys.  I didn't freak out if my son spent 5 minutes studying the pictures after he read a page of "Diary of a Worm".  If a number was written the wrong way, I just pointed it out and let my son fix it.  My husband was even able to work at the dining room table with us. 

Yesterday went nearly as well, and I have high hopes, and calm feelings for today.  

Things have been so stressful during the move and changes in our life that it felt so good to have a peaceful productive day.  I hope that this is just the start, and that this new feeling can continue as we set off on this next adventurous phase of our lives.  

Our Oak Meadow Week 17

• Adjectives
• Word Families (the -ib word family?!?)
• James and the Giant Peach
• Reading
• Evens and Odds
• Multiplication with Carrying
• Maps
• Trees
• Erosion
• Secret Life of Machines
• Perspective Drawing
• Architecture
• Map of Spyro's World
• Piano at the New House

Plans For Next Week

• Adverbs
• Ordinal Numbers
• Homeschool Group Field Trip to Lowes

Spin the Wheel: Unschool to a BOUGHT CURRICULUM?!?!?!?!?

OK. So when I returned to blogging, and realized that last year's blog was about my journey from a traditional homeschool regimen to happily unschooling, I felt a little sheepish returning to the blog this year and having to admit that I bought a curriculum.

Let me begin by saying that I completely believe in unschooling. My boys learned so much last year that I would not have thought to teach them in a more conventional setting. And they didn't just learn the fluffy stuff. They know all about dinosaurs- continents, time periods, species, what is and was is not a true dinosaur. They have computer and library research skills that some college kids would be envious of. My (at the time) 5 year old son was very motivated to learn to read (yes, unschooled kids will still want to learn reading, writing, and 'rithmatic). And both boys were more complete people knowing that their daily schedule was going to be determined by them.

But last summer when it was time to start planning for the school year, we were facing a different situation. Our house was on the market, and my husband was looking for a new career path. We weren't sure what the next year was going to bring, but we did know that it was going to be different. We were considering moving to a different state with much more strict homeschool laws, and I was searching for a solution that would make it easier to homeschool in the new state, and yet stick to our more relaxed homeschool philosophy.

So in my research I came across Oak Meadow. It is Waldorf based, and wants to teach the whole child. There is a rhythm to the day, and they have their curriculum, but stresses that you should follow your child's lead on things like reading and math levels. Or maybe that is what I got out of their philosophy......

Anyway, we didn't change states (partially because I felt that the homeschool laws were too unbearable), but I decided to go ahead with using the Oak Meadow curriculum. We were still moving, and had an unpredictable year ahead. I was fitting in a bit of free lance graphic design stuff into my life as a homeschooling mom, and thought that having a curriculum to guide me through the homeschool year would take some of the stress off me. So I bought the 1st and 3rd grade curriculum books. Used. Thank goodness for Amazon and eBay.

So we have modified Oak Meadow for our uses. We don't follow their rhythms exactly. For example, though they recommend doing math 3 or so days a week, we usually do it everyday because the timing of the math lessons makes the learning time needed different for each boy. For example, this week my 3rd grader is starting multiplication with carrying, and my 1st grader is doing odd and even numbers. My older son needs all 5 school days to practice and learn this task, while my 1st grader had odds and even mastered before we were to work on it this week. So I printed out a few odd and even "mazes" and he is happy. I enjoy the Oak Meadow Social Studies and Science. And the Language Arts is the perfect fit for my family.

So far I am very happy with the Oak Meadow curriculum. I plan on buying it again next year. But you know, I still have 6 months to figure it out.

You gotta have faith

For homeschoolers in our area, the year starts out with the bi-annual review. It seems like such a harsh way to begin the new year. I know that in the 3 years I have been homeschooling, December is a month that we sorta slow down. We decorate, craft, sing carols, and read all sorts of Christmas books. And I know that the review is coming, but I still spend December enjoying the season. This year we had the added distraction of moving and rehabbing our 110 year old house. So this December we read and sang, but the boys also learned to plaster and paint, and had a crash course on budgeting and balancing what NEEDS to be done as opposed to what we WANT done. We snuck in a little bit of more traditional school-- our curriculum wanted one of the boys to map their rooms, their house, and their neighborhood-- a great way to get to know our new surroundings.

But I was distracted. Very little got logged, and I was a bit nervous going into the review. I knew that we had a new reviewer, as the wonderful woman who had always reviewed us passed away over the summer. I didn't know what the new reviewer was looking for. I knew that while we were doing wonderfully with reading, language arts, math, social studies and science, my boys' handwriting and spelling weren't necessarily what they could be looking for. My personal philosophy is that handwriting doesn't have to be perfect, just readable. And I personally use a google search to spell things. That didn't stop me from debating handwriting drills and spelling tests vs "by the time they are in college everything will be typed and you'll 'sign' your name with a thumb print or retinal scan."

In the end, common sense won out. I let them write in their normal way. There were no spelling tests, but we worked together to correct the spelling on the things they wrote.

We passed the review. The reviewer thought that our stuff was great, but she was really impressed with my older son's drawings and architecture knowledge. And the fact that my younger son was so interested in his brother's Roman numeral lesson that he decided to answer his division work in Roman numerals.

I found it interesting, that while I decided to go a more traditional route with a purchased curriculum, the things she liked best were things nurtured by our unschooling background.

Ahhh.... It's been a year

Ok, so it has been a year since my last homeschool blog post. I fell off the wagon. Since then, we have put our old house on the market, bought a new house, rehabbed that house, and moved.

We are still homeschooling, but I bought a curriculum this year because there was an odd amount of stress involved in unschooling my boys. Sure, day to day things were fun and relaxed, but when it came to bi-yearly BOE evaluations, and planning for unschooling (yes, that does occur) I decided that with all the house stuff, my life would be a bunch easier if I bought a curriculum.

I did a bunch of research, and found the Oak Meadow curriculum. It is Waldorf based, and is intended to nurture the "whole" child. My family is on week 16, and it is working for us quite well. My 3rd grader is happy to write a paragraph if he gets to discuss and draw a picture first. I like its structured flexibility. The math is a problem for some families, but I just read what they recommend and make it work for my family. I also appreciate how the 1st and 3rd grades sorta line up so that both are covering things like maps at the same time. I can easily make the lesson adapt to both boys.

I have my BOE review tomorrow, and I am feeling pretty good about it. It feels oddly appropriate that my last blog post was right after last winter's evaluation. Perhaps I can start anew with this post and evaluation.