Book Review - The Door To Time

As part of my endeavor to stock the bookshelves with books I really love, rather than the twaddle so readily available for children these days, I've begun reading my way through books that are written for the 4th-8th grade set. I've decided to include my reviews here - for the benefit of others seeking great reading for their children (homeschooled or not).

So, to begin, I read...ok, I didn't finish...The Door to Time...on Tuesday this week. This is what I said about it over at my goodreads account:

"Flat characters, very predictable story line. I got halfway through the book and put it down. I have no attachment to the characters and do not care what happens to them. I guess that says it all."

I found that other goodreads users also found it lacking in substance. Some loved it, but very few give it 5 of 5 stars.  

Studying the Declaration of Independence...

Around the dinner table...

Over the month of June, we'll be rowing Paul Revere's Ride. I wanted to do this last year, but summer got busy, and we didn't have a plan. This year I have a plan, and we'll be covering some early history of America up through the Revolutionary War just in time for the 4th of July!

New website to check out!

I just found this today, and I thought it was worthy of sharing!

Lesson Pathways has free K-5 curriculum & resources for all kinds of subjects - science, math, language arts, and reading. They have structured plans that you can follow in sequence or you can pick and choose your own particular areas of interest and organize them into a planner for your child(ren). I don't know much else about the site, but I've already found some great ideas and on-line resources for our current history studies.

Go check it out!

The Ugly Duckling

Yesterday we began "rowing" The Ugly Duckling.  This story is not part of our Five in a Row  curriculum, but I happened to find a unit study at the thrift store for The Ugly Duckling, and since it's spring, it seems like a good time to row a book about ducklings! We started by reading The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Anderson in A Treasury of Children's Literature. I have to say that I find this version of the story very compelling. It is beautifully written, and the theme is many-layered and rich. I got to thinking about how important the lesson of this story is for children (and grown-ups) - both that people are more than what we see on the outside, and that we are more than what people say about us. The Ugly Duckling had been teased so much about being ugly that he believed it, and it took the love and care of other swans to convince him that he wasn't ugly at all. I think we'll be spending some time on this story just to let it simmer, to talk about how the things we say affect other people, but also, how we can be secure enough in ourselves to let hurtful things go. And we'll be talking about how to bring healing to others and how to repair our own mistakes when we've said destructive things to others.

Today we read another version of the story and compared it to the one we read yesterday. Then we talked about swans, what baby swans are called, where swans live, etc... Mane had already looked them up in her North American Wildlife: Birds Field Guide book. She has declared swans to be her favorite birds (though we've been through this with cardinals, whooping cranes, eagles, and owls already)! Mane learned to make a simple sketch of a swan by beginning with the number 2, and she followed instructions for making a swan hat out of paper!

One on One

Mane has been learning multiplication. And what I've realized is that if she was in a regular school classroom with lots of other kids per teacher, she wouldn't really, REALLY learn this. I have learned that I can set her loose with her math worksheets, and she will return with them finished and correct...but she'll have done all the problems the long way. I want her to learn the "tricks of the trade," so to speak, and that means I have to sit with her while she's doing math and have her talk me through the problem...so the so-called shortcuts actually become shortcuts. Sitting with me helps her to focus, and verbalizing the process helps her to learn.

This is one of the first times I've really stopped and realized that she wouldn't be getting this kind of attention in school, and she needs it if she's going to really learn. She'd be one of those kids who gets by and doesn't cause a lot of fuss, but she would only get to mediocre. I read in the blog of a teacher recently how much she (the teacher) is frustrated with previously homeschooled students because they won't do anything on their own. They require so much attention. And she implored homeschool parents to teach their kids independent study. While I agree that being able to learn independently at some point is important, I think it's entirely possible that homeschooled students are asking for more attention because they really want to understand the process and they aren't accustomed to settling for "good enough." They come to expect themselves to really learn something instead of just getting by.

At least, that's what I hope. I hope that all the time and attention I'm pouring into this means that Mane won't settle for being able to do the work without really understanding. That's what I did through most of school. I was so excited when I got to college and really began to understand how things fit together and why they worked the way they did.

In any case, I'm not going to try to teach Mane to work independently right now at the expense of true learning...no matter what the school administrators complain about homeschooled students. I'm going to take advantage of the opportunity to have her one on one, to provide her with her greatest tool for learning success...my presence.

Apricot Tree

In August we ate apricots, and we looked up how to save the seeds over the winter to plant them in the spring. (See pictures here.) This is our apricot tree today:

A Walk/Bike Ride in the City

This is Take 3 of "A Walk in the City." (In case you're interested, here's Take 1 and Take 2.) We're doing less walking and more biking now, but it's still the urban version of the nature walks & hikes & bike rides of our rural and country counterparts.

Goals, Deadlines, and Planning

I once read that the single biggest problem that college professors see with homeschooled students was their inability to meet deadlines. They tend to honestly believe that the rules can and should be bent for them because they've been schooling in such a flexible environment. As this seldom works in college classrooms or in real life, I think it's a worthy cause to develop some goal-setting, deadline-meeting, planning-ahead skills in homeschooled children.

I've been mulling over this dilemma for some time, coming to very few conclusions. One of the benefits of homeschooling is the flexibility, the ability to drop "school" for the day and go to the orchestra or visit friends. I think this helps homeschooled children become well-rounded individuals, involved and informed in their communities and able to develop deeper and more meaningful relationships with their friends.

A friend of mine introduced me to the idea of setting out a series of goals for homeschooling at the beginning of the month and checking them off as they get done. Her daughter is a little older than Mane, and they have been using this system. It allows them to have some change and variation in their schedule, as not everything needs to be done every single day, but it also creates a system for being sure that the things that get done that need to be done. A valuable side benefit: the child learns to set goals, meet deadlines and plan ahead!

At the beginning of March, Mane and I set out to implement this plan. We're using 2-week time blocks, rather than a whole month, though, since she's new to this process and younger than my friend's daughter. I have to say that I'm absolutely pleased with this plan. Mane can be self-directed within the structure. She's able to take some responsibility for her own planning and schedule. I don't have to cajole her to get things done. I just remind her of what there's left to do and how many days she has remaining. We finished our first 2-week plan on Sunday. On Friday Mane looked at what she still needed to do and made herself a chart for how she was going to get it all done. I sat back and marveled a this skill-building process!

So, what did she/we do?

* 4 chapters in Story of the World
* Completed Math U See Beta!! (Yes, she's done with 2nd grade math!)
* Completed 15 pages of an on-line math curriculum (more on that later).
* Read 2 early reader books from the library
* 2 Hooked on Phonics spelling lessons
* Followed the Iditarod (Mane kept a musher data sheet for Jessie Royer and DeeDee Jonrowe. She filled out times, dates, positions, and number of dogs herself. This included some learning about writing dates and "a.m." and "p.m." times.
* 2 Lego projects following instructions from a booklet
* 10 "real life" math problems
* 2 pages of free writing (corrected for grammar & spelling)

Aside from those things, we also went to the orchestra, visited grandparents, volunteered at the Go Fish concert, did a puzzle with grandma, went to visit friends in Cambridge, had friends come to visit us twice, went to Bible Study, and attended several soccer games (where Mane runs around & plays with friends).

I know it sounds like a lot, but Mane has also had plenty of time to go outside, work on art projects, watch Ponyo, and hang out with her dollies!

I'm feeling great knowing that we're still progressing through some goals. Mane is feeling great knowing what the goals are and having some control over them. Today we wrote up our second set of goals. (Yesterday, true to flexible homeschooling form, we spent the day with the grandparents and drove them to the airport, picked Mango up from school, went to the book store for some books I need for Bible study, and got me a new cell phone!)

Iditarod XXXVIII

The Olympics just finished up, but we still have Olympic fever at our house! So, it's a good thing the 38th annual Iditarod sled dog race begins on Saturday, right on the heels of the 2010 Olympics, and just in time to keep feeding our hunger for great sports action and stories.

This will be our 4th year following the Iditarod, both for fun and for education. Over the years we've been drawn to the stories of the mushers (the individuals who "drive" the sleds), and we have learned much about character, strength, generosity, and endurance. I'll never forget the story of the musher who lost one of her dogs during the race. She was so heartbroken that another musher offered to stay with her and keep pace with her for the rest of the race, just for company, thereby giving up an possible competitive finish for himself. And then there's the Red Lantern - the prize and trophy awarded to the last competitor to finish the race, a tribute to that musher's determination and an acknowledgment that any finish in this race is a prize-worthy accomplishment. I've found that the race and the stories that happen on the trail are so often analogous to the rest of life and faith.

This year we'll be following more that a few mushers. Of course, we'll have to keep tabs on some of our favorites: Martin Buser, DeeDee Jonrowe, Jessie Royer, Aliy Zirkle (in alphabetical order so as not to pick favorites).

We'll also be watching the 7 female rookies this year (Jane Faulkner, Kathleen Frederick, Tamara Rose , Michelle Phillips, Kristy Berington, Celeste Davis, and Colleen Robertia - listed in the order they're listed on the Iditarod website, also so as not to pick favorites). That's SEVEN women who have never run the Iditarod before this year!! I find that pretty amazing.

Finally, we'll be following Sam Deltour of Belgium, who was the first Belgian to finish the Iditarod (2008) AND the first person ever to finish with all 16 sled dogs (also 2008), Wattie McDonald, who is from Mango's country of ancestry, Scotland, and Newton Marshall, who is interesting just by virtue of being from JAMAICA!

That covers 14 of the 71 current entrants! Every year we seem to accumulate a few more names of interest. ;) We look forward to seeing what new projects we can build around the race this year and, of course, to a great party to celebrate the finish!

Slow Blog

It's a bit difficult to stay on top of the blog these days. Mane & I have been busy, and I seldom keep track of every little thing we do anymore. We've been reading about and watching the Olympics, reading more of The Hobbit, and continuing to plod along in math and reading (finishing lesson 22 of MUS this week & beginning the Blue Book in 2nd grade Hooked on Phonics).

On the subject of the Olympics, we've been reading athlete profiles from Great Skates by Laura Hilgers, and we've been closely following the snowboard halfpipe competitions and the pairs figure skating.

Mane has been having regular playdates on Fridays with another girl close to her age, who is also homeschooled, we've been attending a homeschool group twice a month and Bible Study once a week. We've also been getting back into weekly visits to the library. On the weekends we attend Vespera's soccer games, where Mane has gotten to know several other children. This has been serving as both social time and phy. ed.! Our lives are once again feeling rhythmic and settled...thanks be to God.

I'm also proud that Mane has finished memorizing The Lord's Prayer! I'm trying to settle on what to have her memorize next. It has worked well to find scripture for which we also have music. She listened to Psalm 23 by Temple & Brent and to As It Is in Heaven by Michael W. Smith, as she was learning the corresponding passages of scripture.