MORE Field Trips?!!

There has GOT to be a word for this...homeschoolers, who never stay home. We're not Unschoolers. Maybe we're out-of-school-schoolers? World Schooler sounds too presumptuous. Nontraditional schoolers? Maybe just schoolers? Scholars? ...got any suggestions?

In any case, my good friend took us on a tour of the Joseph Wolf Brewery Cave this past weekend in Stillwater, MN. Mane learned that the temperature stays the same in this cave all year round, that it was marketed as a bomb shelter during World War 2 (she also learned why it would have made a really poor bomb shelter, especially with a fireplace and a thousand people inside), and that beer brewing had to stop in 1920 due to prohibition. We saw the underground spring and talked about why cave tunnels shouldn't be dug one on top of the other. That's a good bit of science, history, and social studies right there in one half hour tour!! She gave the full report to Mango when we got home. So, I know she enjoyed and retained quite a lot from our little field trip!

On Monday, Mane had her first art lesson at Rum River Art Center in Anoka. We stopped in at the Lifetime Fitness in Champlin, where she played in the Play Maze. We picked up Mango from work. Then, Mane went to choir practice! It was a full and active day! 

Tuesday morning we caught the bus and headed to the park! 

Mane at the bus stop (yep, right here on a city street corner):

The View From the Bus Stop:

Tuesday afternoon we finally stayed home! Mane added to the history timeline on the wall, listened to some Story of the World audio and read from the Usborne History Encyclopedia, read books, practiced handwriting, did math, talked about Harry Potter, and helped make dinner! Life is full to the tippy top!

Harry Potter

Some friends of Mane are hosting a Harry Potter themed birthday party in October. So, our plan to read the first book this school year got promoted to the top of the list. Mane has turned into a Harry Potter groupie, and I'm capitalizing on the obsession!

Drawing for the homeschool notebook:


A page of King's Cross Station, also for the school notebook:


Finding England on the map:


In the coming week, we'll be using some passages from the book for handwriting practice and learning about other things in the book that are true reflections of English culture (food, clothing, idioms, etc...)!

Field Trippin'

A photo journey (three field trips in 8 days!!)...

Last weekend we went on a boat tour in Taylor's Falls:

We stopped in Stillwater for a picnic and saw a gondola going under the lift bridge:

On Friday Mane attended a class on plantable paper (papermaking with seeds in the paper) at Silverwood Park:

The kids learned about all the things that are made from paper and how paper is made:

And they made seed necklaces (bean seeds sandwiched in wet cotton balls in a plastic bag to make a living necklace that should sprout within the week):

Today we took the historical train ride from Osceola, Wisconsin to Marine on the St. Croix, Minnesota:

The best part, of course, seemed to be the train-riding dog:

 On Monday Mane returns to choir! Next week will see the beginning of art lessons and the following week Scottish Folk Dancing! I think "home"schooling is a misnomer.

This is Just to Say...

I had one of those unforgettable moments recently when I felt the real, pure joy of homeschooling and witnessing my Mane's unfolding thought processes...

Many of you are familiar with the poem by William Carlos Williams that goes like this:

This is just to say

I have eaten 
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Well, Mane learned this poem last year, and we read it again this year in A Family of Poems collected by Caroline Kennedy. It's one of my favorites, and, since it's one of my favorites, we spent some time talking about it. Mane memorized it. We repeat it often.

So, several nights ago, Mane finished the container of peanut butter. Mango came out in the kitchen in search of a snack and couldn't find any peanut butter. Mane launched into a parody of the poem by William Carlos Williams. We were all laughing so hysterically that she decided it was worth writing down. Here are the results:

NOT back to school

We officially started our school year (without GOing back to school, thank you very much)! This is the end of week 4. We did 3 weeks of relatively "academic" work, and week 4 was a camping trip!

We're using Sonlight this year, though I've made up my own hybrid version. The only things I actually bought from Sonlight were the Instructor Guide and the reading schedule. I have the Instructor Guide for core B/C, which is the World History core. Next year I hope to do core D/E, which is the American History core. I bought many of the readers & read-alouds at thrift stores and garage sales. The rest we're checking out from the library. We're using Saxon math 54, which was given to us. For now, I'm going to keep teaching Language Arts  & handwriting without a curriculum, and I'm working out a science schedule with Mango. 

It's been good so far...very good. The Instructor Guide includes Bible reading and memorization, a schedule for reading the world history books and the read-alouds, discussion questions, suggested poetry reading, and a schedule for reading Aesop's Fables. I love having a schedule mostly worked out for me!

(And did you know you can read Aesop's Fables on-line? They're kind of weird, though. Don't say I didn't warn you.)

And did you know that homeschool means we never stay home? In our first months of school we went to the Peace Games:

We spent some time at Silverwood Park in NE Minneapolis:

We went to birthday parties, parks, libraries, coffee shops, and to DULUTH (where Mane danced at the amphitheater in Leif Erikson Park with her little friend):

So, we're back to school, though not AT school because we homeschool, and not at home because we're almost never home. Peace!