TOG Year 1 Weeks 10-11

We have been visiting Ancient India and Ancient China the last two weeks.  It is fun to see how much the girls remember from the first time we went through this year plan.  We didn't get a chance to eat Chinese food or Indian food yet, but I plan to do that.  Chinese food is common in our house as DH likes to make it himself.  But I don't believe they have ever had Indian food.

Princess M - Pre-TOGGLER
We have finished up letters A and B.  I took photos of letter A but for some reason they aren't on my memory card.  I think some little elves - who shall remain nameless - were using my camera.  But I do have two photos from letter B.  Princess M made a bee and a bear puppet.

 

Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
IEW PAL Reading - Today we finished up lesson 74.  She started in on the Discovery Cards last Friday and is up to pack 18.  I have her do about three a day, and have her review the cards from the previous pack that she was having a hard time with.
Math-U-See - We started back up this week on lesson 8.  This is a lesson on solving for the unknown.  After a quick refresher, she remembered how to do it.  She finished level four in Calculadder, but since the MUS sequence is different, I will have to mix up the order on Calculadder from here on out. 
All About Spelling - We finished up step 18.  My frustration is that she spells very well during spelling, and during school itself.  But when she makes up one of her many books, her spelling is absolutely horrid - even on words she spelled correctly during school.  It's like all of the rules she knows just leave her brain on vacation.  Not sure how to deal with that as I didn't have that issue with the first two princesses.  But then again, they learned how to read a lot faster too.


Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
In math, Princess S is almost finished with lesson 18.  This has been a more difficult one for her.  She has this need to cross out her numbers, not sure why, and it is making it difficult for me to read her answer.  She also is forgetting about the remainders.  So it's been a bit slower of a lesson.
She is working on lesson seven in Latin.  She is doing quite well and I have decided to speed her up just a little bit. I had originally planned for her to take two years to do this course, but I think she can handle moving just a bit faster so that we'll finish about 3/4 of it this year.
Ceasar's English One - Though she complains about this course, I can definitely see some improvement in her ability to decode words by their stems. 
Science - She is working through the bird unit and is almost done.  She is looking forward to moving on as we have studied birds before.
TOG - Because I didn't get the literature book assigned for her level for our Ancient India week, she ended up reading the D level book and doing the SAPs that go with it.  She did quite well, so I'm thinking I will switch her over to the D level literature books for the third and fourth units of this year.  It will mean that both girls will have to share, but it also means less books to get from the library or purchase.
Other activities - Fix It grammar, Practice Town, Paragraph Town, and IEW Ancient History writing.


Princess E - 7th Grade - D

Princess E is working hard for her piano exam which is next weekend.  She is also Princess L's "piano buddy" as they go in for lessons at the same time and she is assigned to sit with Princess L during piano practice time to help her out. 
MathUSee - She is almost done with lesson 17.  This seemed to be a better lesson for her.
Word Within the Word vocabulary - She studied list five this week.
Magic Lens grammar -  She finished the sections on conjunctions, prepositions and adverbs.  I am now alternating vocabulary and grammar so that she will move a little bit faster with each book.
TOG - She is enjoying her online class through the Lampstand Learning Center.  We continue to work one week ahead of where her class is. 
Science - Module six has her doing a lot of lab experiments.  Since she is really struggling with this, I have decided to finish out this semester with science, and then finish the book next year.  She isn't going to be far enough in math to begin Physical Science next year anyway.  So to fill the void I'm looking at a Logic course which will probably be right up her alley since she loves to argue so much.
Other activities - Fix It grammar, Practice Town, Paragraph Town, IEW Ancient History writing.

It's been a busy two weeks and I anticipate that as we move closer to the holidays, the schedule will start filling up more and more.  I don't know who is looking forward to our one week break at Thanksgiving time more - the girls or me!

Catching Up

So - it's been a while.  I've been trying to get caught up in entering things into HST+, and figuring out why various programs aren't working.  I've got everything back to normal except I can no longer access Pandora on my computer!  This is a might bit distressing because I love having it on in the background while doing various tasks at my computer.  I'm going to breeze through the last several weeks in an effort to get caught up.  I'll start with this slide show of photos (mostly of the little two princesses) of school over the last few weeks.

As you can see, Princess M is moving along.  We finished I, O and are about halfway through U.  I am amazed at how well she is doing remembering the short sounds of the vowels.  The little stories from IEW PAL, combined with the characters from the Leap Frog movie are really helping her a lot.  She is having fun with the activities from Letter of the Week. 

Princess L went in for vision therapy testing.  She is a bit of a different case than what they've seen before.  As such, they want her to try a pair of reading glasses for a few weeks to see if we see any difference.  If there is a difference, then we will get a pair for her to wear for school and close work for a year and re-test.  I haven't really determined if there is a difference yet.

With our TOG studies, we are just finishing up week 8 today.  We have been enjoying listening to the Old Testament on audio for our Bible times.  Princess S is just going to be starting lesson 17 in MUS Delta.  This lesson sets her up to learn long division in the next several lessons.  This was where Princess E slowed down, so I'm anticipating that to happen again.  Princess E is slowly moving through lesson 15 in Epsilon.  She has finished up Module 4 in General Science.  I have offered her the chance to retake the first few tests.  She did much better on the first one.  But, the offer is only good for a week, and she will not be given the chance again.  I also am taking away her option to schedule herself for this work.  We gave it a quarter and she was not doing a good job.  So now she has to follow MY schedule!  The same with Latin.  She was not making good use of her time and ended up doing a whole bunch of pages on one day.  That meant that she kept making the same mistake over and over and getting horrible scores.  No more!  She will now follow my schedule.

I am really struggling with the lack of drive in my eldest two students.  The road to excellence is one that requires a self-will to travel it.  Princess E wants to walk the road of excellence with her music - but that is all.  I cannot force my students to want to get good grades and do the best work that they possibly can.  That has to be something they want for themselves.  Apparently, this is not something they want - and it is driving me crazy!  I cannot relate to the lack of motivation in that area.  And as such, I have no idea how to bring it out of them.  If we continue this path, Princess E will be repeating 7th grade.  She has a summer birthday so it really will cause no problems to hold her back a year.  But she will be madder than a wet hornet.  A logical person would reason that this would be enough to motivate a person - but not my stronger-than-diamonds-willed child.  Princess S has different, yet equally maddening, issues. Her inability to stay organized throughout the day; her losing of assignments, books and pencil; and her consistent wasting of time throughout the day leaving her to do school ALL.WAKING.HOURS.LONG is draining me of all my energy.  But I will keep on keeping on - because that is all I know how to do.  That and cling to the promise that God will sustain me.

"Not" Back to School Blog Hop: Day in the Life

After the past week - I don't know that it's fair to say any day is much like the other.  Despite my best efforts, my crew is barely able to keep a schedule.  We are trying hard, however.  This past week really threw us off - with a funeral and with Princess L being sick all week.  But - tomorrow begins another week.  And I have high hopes!

Our schedule really isn't the same every day of the week.  Mondays we will be doing our two family IEW/TOG co-op and Princess M will have ballet.  Wednesdays, Princess E will have her LLC class and we will all have things going on at church in the evening.  Thursdays will be piano lessons for Princesses E, S and L.  Princess S has a mentor that she meets with once every two weeks, and we've not yet set a time in stone for that.  I spent lots of time working on a schedule that we count as our goal - but it is only that - a goal.  If we make half the time frames in any given day - I'd call that a good day!

Here is our general layout for Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays: (Sorry it's so small - can't get it bigger.  I think if you click the image you can get it enlarged.)

3rd 2011_2012 School Daily Schedule

"Not" Back to School Blog Hop - School Room Week

I've posted photos of our room last year, and to be honest not much has changed.  I purchased a three level book shelf to put next to my desk.  I've had to add baskets to my Ikea Billy bookshelf in order to accommodate more books.  I've moved around a few posters.  The biggest change really has been lowering our desk tables and using regular chairs instead of stools. 

Here is the front half of the room.

A close up of my desk area.

 

Another addition this year is milk crates.  Each princess has a milk crate that contains every thing that they will need for school (Princesses E & S) or that I will need to do school with them (Princesses L & M.)  The two pictured here are for Princess L and Princess M.  It is next to our library book basket.  Also in the shot is a bin with file folders and page protectors, our file bin that has all of our TOG student sheets divided out by week and level, and our Math-U-See blocks.

A close up of the book shelf and Accountable Kids boards.

 

Moving around the room, we have our couch for reading (or napping.) 

(I have no idea why the above picture won't center on the page.)  Our second book shelf is mostly for notebooks.

Next we have our desk tables.  Yes - there are only two of them.  For now, Princess L and Princess M will only be working at the kitchen table with me.  Princess E and  Princess S use these desk tables - some of the time.  In reality, they are all over the house - which is one reason for the milk crates.  I have no idea how I'm going to work this room out when we have need of four desks.

(You will notice the other two milk crates under the table.  Princess S was on a red kick - and has picked out red everything this year.  At least we'll know which stuff is hers!)  Finally we have our piano.  I got rid of the shoe rack that used to hold our workboxes.  It became badly needed as it's primary job - as a shoe rack in our coat closet.  So I moved this wheeled plastic file cabinet out of my bedroom and filled it with learning toys and activities that I can pull out and let Princess M do when she gets bored.

Truth be told, we school anywhere in the house that we can.  I've got a few princesses that have to sing while they work, a princess that cannot have any noise when she works, and all of them seem to be unable to do any work at all in their bedrooms.  So it is always a compromise for someone whether we have it quiet or have singing going on.  Thanks for taking a peak at our little slice of the world!

2011/2012 Curriculum Choices

Well, I sorta jumped the gun in order to join this blog hop.  I've been posting these plans over several weeks.  So I figured I'd just link up to my posts.

I have four girls:

Princess E is 12 and going into 7th grade.  Plans for Princess E are found here.
Princess S is 10 1/2 and going into 5th grade.  Plans for Princess S are found here.
Princess L is 6 1/2 and going into 1st grade.  Plans for Princess L are found here.
Princess M is almost 4 and going into preschool.  Plans for Princess M are found here.

For anyone who doesn't want to take the time to click through for details, you can click the Curriculum tab up at the top.

Homemade Student Planner

I searched and searched for the perfect planner. Or at least, for the planner that I had in my head. And I just couldn't find it. So I decided to create my own student planner for my eldest two princesses. Here's what I did:

 

Had to stick with a patriotic theme.  It's one of my favorites.

The first page lists her computer information for sites she needs for school.  It lists the daily meeting agenda we will follow.  I found some neat plastic dividers with folders on each side.

The first section is an annual calendar and monthly calendars that are specific to our schedule.  I got these from The Old Schoolhouse Planner.  I bought the e-book version that is editable.  Yet even with all the choices, I still had to create my own pages!

The next section has our individual lesson plans to schedule from.  I still use HST+ to schedule from.  But because my goal, which is described in the Tapestry of Grace curriculum, is that they will be able to schedule their own work, I am trying something new this first quarter.  I printed out the list of assignments that they have for the first quarter.  They can decide how much of each subject to schedule each week.  They can follow my suggestion which will give them an even amount of work each week, or they can go hog wild with one subject and finish the quarter's assignments in four weeks and have five weeks off if they so desire!  As I said, it's an experiment - so I'll let you know how that goes.

The next section has the pages they will use to fill in their schedule.  Each page is individualized to what they will be using this year.  Our week begins on Friday, and I included a column for the weekend in case they decide to schedule some work on the weekend.  (I know, I know - a homeschool mom can dream, can't she?)

The next section is for their Grammar program to check off the sentences as they complete them and correct them.

The last section is an informational section that I thought might be helpful to them.  It is again from The Old Schoolhouse Planner.

They are actually quite excited to begin using these.  This will be a second year for Princess E in having her own planner and scheduling her own work.  Princess S will be learning this skill this year.  My prayer is that it will help them both to be a bit more organized, and that I will be able to focus more time on my younger students as a result.

Plans for 2011/2012 - Princess E

Tonight, Princess S said that she wished school started on Monday!  I wish I'd been recording her, because I can guarantee you that by September 1 she will be quoting the opposite.

Here is the curriculum Princess E will use this year:


Tapestry of Grace DE Year 1:  We are using this for history, literature, church history, and some geography.  I plan to incorporate more narration this year.  Also, she will be doing her history and church history discussions through the Lampstand Learning Center.  I will be having Princess S do some of the D level literature books this year, so she will join us for discussion for those books.  I also am going to attempt to read all the literature books myself before they are assigned.  I've got the first one read already.

Math-U-See Epsilon:  She will continue where she left off, and then move on to Zeta.

Latin for Children Primer B:  I debated whether to move her on to Latin Alive.  But since I have all the other girls behind her, I decided to stick with this series for now.  She will still have time to complete Primer C and all three Latin Alive books.

Apologia General Science:  I have the entire curriculum on a computer CD.  If this doesn't work to do on the computer, then I will be borrowing the book from a friend.  I'm quite nervous about this.  I think it's going to be a lot of work for my non-science minded or interested princess.  But it is important for her to have it.

Globalmania:  As mentioned in my post about Princess S's curriculum, I'm hoping for a better global mind in respect to where things are located in the world.

As I said before, I'm a language arts fiend.  So we have a lot of overlapping, multi-textured stuff going on.  With the MCT, I'm using his level 4 materials over two years, so what's listed may seem a lot, but we're going slow and only doing half the book this year.  As listed in Princess S's curriculum, she will be using Practice Town, McCall-Crabbs Book B, and Ancient History-Based Writing Lessons from IEW, and Fix-It Grammar - though she will be doing The Frog Prince instead of Tom Sawyer.
The Magic Lens Volume One: This is intense but fun grammar.  We'll do the first half of the book this year.
The Word Within the Word Volume One: This vocabulary program should put her in good form for the eventual college required standardized tests.
Essay Voyage: Instead of going with the level four writing (especially since we're doing the IEW writing besides) I am having her do level three.  This is such a rich program that we are going to take it slow and easy.  

That's it for our curriculum tour for the year.  Wouldn't you know it, I've already had to change our daily schedule that I posted earlier as I realized I forgot about piano lesson day.  So I had to make some minor changes.  I put together milk crates for each princess today with their school stuff all nicely squeezed into a crate.  Each has a different color, and they should be able to move the crates around to wherever they end up doing their schoolwork.  I'm also working on cleaning out the school room and when I have it all spruced up I'll post some photos.

Plans for 2011/2012 - Princess S

It's only eleven days until we begin our school year.  I need to finish my curriculum posts so I can get ready for the new year.  Here is what Princess S will be using for next year.

Tapestry of Grace DE Year 1:  We are using this for history, literature, church history, and some geography.  I plan to incorporate more narration and copywork for her this year.  She will be completing the UG level for most of the year, but I plan to begin the transition to D level part way through.  I will have her reading a few of the D level literature books this year and including her in our discussion times for it.  

Math-U-See Delta: She will continue on from where she ended the year.  I anticipate she will be moving on to Epsilon about halfway through the year.

Latin for Children Primer A:  This will be her first year with Latin.  I'm hoping we get through this in one year, but I am going to be flexible.  I'd rather go for mastery than finishing a book in a year.  In fact, I really think we will only get about 2/3 of the way through.  Last year, I had all the pages in page protectors for Princess E and she wrote on them with an ultra-fine permanent marker.  I used an Expo board doctor to get that off.  However, because I had waited until the end of the year it took a long time and lots of elbow grease.  I finally gave up and threw away about 40 page protectors.  This year we will use wet erase markers.   I also purchased the activity book used, so that will give some more variety in the assignments. 

God's Marvelous Works Book One:  The last two years we have done science together.  This year we are trying science separately.  So Princess S will be working on this book.  I plan to incorporate narration and notebooking with this subject.  She will do the reading and answer the questions.  I entered the vocabulary words on Quizlet so she can study them there.  I also bought the test booklet.

Globalmania: We are going to add in this program for our geography studies.  My hope with this is that they will be able to have a better grasp of where things are in the world.  We will be setting aside a little bit of time each week to work on this adventure.

Language Arts - I am a language arts fiend!  I was an English major and this is my love and comfort zone.  But finding something that works for all my princesses is difficult.  These choices below may seem like a lot, but Princess S really needs repetition as well as variety in order for concepts to sink in.  She also needs lots of hands on practice.  So I am blending a variety of programs together.  We won't be doing all these each day, but we will be working with each thing at least twice a week.  Most of these I purchased used.
Caesar's English 1:  This will be our first year using MCT for vocabulary.  This is an intense program.  We are going to take it slow, but hopefully finish in one year. 
Grammar Town:  This is the next book that follows Grammar Island, which we did this past year.  They enjoyed the story aspect of learning grammar, so I'm hoping this will be the same.  As per MCT recommendations, we will be "front loading" this program.  She will complete the book in five weeks.
Paragraph Town:  She will use this after she completes Grammar Town.  There are so many different activities to choose from with this one.  We will be choosing those that look the most fun and the most helpful.  (Yes - this might overlap some with IEW - but the approaches are different and like I said, she needs the constant review.)
Practice Town:  Last year I purchased the student books for each princess.  This year, I am going to be including this exercise during our meeting times.  I only purchased the teacher's manual and will be dictating the sentence to them.  Then they will be working through the four level analysis.
Fix It! Grammar - Tom Sawyer:  This will be an additional grammar exercise.  Princess S is a very good writer as far as creativity - but her mechanics and usage need some real work.  I am hoping that this will help her become more conscious these aspects in her own writing.
McCall Crabbs  Book B: We will be continuing this exercise this year.  They will complete it during our half hour meeting time.  They will be alternating between this and Practice Town.  We may need to double up for about three weeks spread out through the year in order to finish. 
Ancient History-Based Writing Lessons (IEW):  This will be done with a friend's sixth grader.  I will be teaching my oldest two princesses along with her third DD, and she will take my youngest two princesses with her youngest DD to do the Tapestry LG literature book and a craft.  I really like the looks of this program and am hoping that Princess D will spur my two princesses to excellence.  Princess D really enjoys writing and it's one of her favorite subjects I'm told.

Well, there you have it.  Princess S's school year in a nutshell.  I'm actually getting quite excited for it.

Entrepreneurship

What can we do to teach this to our kids?  Wait until you have a day that is 95 degrees with a heat index reading of 105.  Then let them have a lemonade stand with the neighbor kid.

 

 

Planning for 2011/2012

While most of my planning for next year has been done, there are still a few things remaining.  One of those has been a daily schedule.  Schedules have been the bane of my homeschool existence.  My princesses just don't function well with schedules.  But I remain convinced that if we can stick to one, the rest of life will flow a lot better.  So I have spent much time over the last week thinking about how to make things work for us.  I will be adding Princess M in to our homeschool next year as a preschooler.  Princess L will be a first grader.  But she will still require me to work with her for almost the entire time.  Princess S will be a fifth grader.  I need to begin to mover her toward the dialectic level.  However, I'm not sure yet how to get her there.  Princess E will be a seventh grader.  She will be a second year dialectic student, but last year was very difficult as she fought the work load tooth and nail.  Despite the training I did to help her, she is my strong willed child who has to do everything her way - even if she can see without a shadow of doubt that her way will take longer, be more difficult and result in inaccurate results.  So, I still have much work to do with her.  Needless to say, it is going to require a strict schedule in order for everyone to get the piece of my time that they will need.


I decided that Princess S needs a very strict schedule.  I filled in for her when she is to do each subject.  I haven't done that before.  There were certain times for group work, but I generally let her decide what order to do her assignments in.  She can make school last a lifetime, with both ADD and SPD playing their parts to keep her distracted as well as being a distraction.  I decided to give her a finite amount of time for each subject, and to list in what order she will do each subject.  I'm going to set my alarm on my wrist watch to make sure that all transitions happen as scheduled.  My prayer is that by mid-year, she would be beginning to finish subjects early and either use the time as quiet free time (reading a book or drawing) or else working ahead.  Any assignments for the day that are not finished will be considered "homework" and she will have to complete them before being allowed free time.  For Princess E, I took all her blocks of time that she wasn't doing something with the rest of us and called them "independent work" times.  She will continue to schedule out her week as she did last year, and will be able to decide what order to do things in each day.  However, I told her that I reserved the right to make changes to her schedule if it is causing problems.  One problem she had last year is that she scheduled her reading assignments very light the first day, and then didn't do her outlines the way she was instructed, and therefore would have to re-read everything the day she tried to do her AQ/TQ's.  She would get behind and not have them done, and everything would get pushed back.  This year I told her that she will be assigning all of her TOG reading assignments the first two days and will be doing KWO's a la IEW with her History Core and History In-Depth reading.  She will be working each day until 3:15pm, and if she finished what she had assigned for herself early, she is to work ahead on the next day's work.  If she didn't finish all the work assigned for the day by then, she too will have "homework".

Another thing I did was to schedule in two 15 minute quick clean sessions - one in the morning and one in the afternoon.  The morning one will hopefully allow them to catch up on any morning chores that weren't completed or do some other cleaning that they can potentially earn commission for.  The morning cleaning will be followed by a 15 minute snack time.  The afternoon snack will be at 3:15 with a fifteen minute cleaning following it.

For Princess L, I have assigned her a play time with Princess M, as well as a time for her to read to Princess M.  She will have some scheduled free times.  I have decided to break up her time with me into three half hour slots.  We will spend 45 minutes on language arts, 30 minutes on math, and 15 minutes on TOG related activities.  Princess L and Princess M will also be assigned to help with lunch prep.  Yep - I'm crazy!

Princess M will have a one hour preschool time with me broken up into a 45 minute time slot and a 15 minute time slot.  These will be early in the morning.  One of the seminars I attended at our homeschool convention years ago was by David Hazell of My Father's World.  He talked about the importance of giving the youngest students the first time.  Once they get their time with mom, they are usually more willing and able to play by themselves for a while.  So, after her preschool time she will have a half hour learning video (one of many I have on hand) and then after our snack time she will have a 45 minute room time.  This will be challenging to begin with, but I plan to keep her Leapster away at other times and let her have it during her room time.  For now, I am scheduling a nap time in the afternoon.  It is a shorter time than she usually takes right now.  But generally when they turn 4, I am less concerned that the nap happens.  It will probably turn into an extended afternoon room time by the end of the year - but who knows.  Princess S would have continued taking naps at 4 if she wasn't sharing a room with Princess E at the time.  Finally, the youngest two princesses will have a half hour TV time at the end of our scheduled time so that I can work on dinner.

I have schedule myself a half hour meeting time with both of the older princesses each day.  This time will be to go over the previous day's work, doing some narrations (which will be new to us,) and going over any new questions that come up.  I also have some assigned some "office hours" for myself.  These will be specific times that the older two princesses can count on me to be willing and able to interrupt what I'm doing to answer questions or help.  This has been one of their complaints - that I'm not available when they need help.  (I would counter that by saying that neither of them generally asks for help - just do the work and cross it off and worry about corrections later - and when they do it is after having wasted a lot of time and right before I need to be doing something important.)

So without further ado, here is our daily schedule goal for next year:

2011_2012 Daily Schedule

The Ice Cream Volcano

Since we learned about volcanoes in our last weeks of school, we decided that this suggested activity would be a fun one.  We choose to wait until Nanny was visiting.  We allowed some ice cream to soften and then formed it into a volcano shape.  We set it back into the freezer for several hours.  Then I poured some cupcake flavored Magic Shell over the top.  It went back into the freezer for another two hours.  Finally, we took it out and added chocolate syrup and crushed cookies.  We talked about how a volcano is formed, and what the land could look like before and after the volcano erupted.  Of course, eating it was the most fun part of the project!

What I've Learned From 3 Years of Tapestry of Grace

I just finished my third year of TOG.  I did year one during the 2008/2009 school year.  Princess E was UG, Princess S was LG (though she did read many things on her own), Princess L was three turning four and Princess M was one year old.  I only glanced at the Teacher's Notes most week, preferring to get what I needed to know from reading many of the girls books a week before they did.  It was just more interesting and easier that way.  We did maps the easy way - I gave them the teacher map and they copied in the answers.  They didn't color the maps unless it was necessary for understanding.  We did several cookie dough maps, several hands on projects and that was all I could handle.  During the 2009/2010 year, I started Princess L in preschool (which was really MFW K done over two weeks per lesson) and that made me busier.  We did year two.  The big changes were few.  We added in The Story of the World, which I purchased the audio CDs for and we listened to them over lunch.  Because I was busier with Princess L, Princess S did the LG reading on her own.  Princess E did three units at the UG level and then transitioned to some D level work that last unit.  We did a few hands on projects, not as many as I would have liked, and called it good.  I began to see how unprepared Princess E was for the D level.  I began to see some skills that needed to be built up. 

For the 2010/2011 year, I decided to skip year three in order to join a TOG co-op that was a half hour away.  Princess E did full time D level, Princess S did UG level work, and though I intended to do some LG with Princess L, I just didn't have time.  Princess L did MFW 1st Grade.   Princess E and I struggled, all year long, with the Socratic Discussions that are done at the D level.  She fought the work load - whining that she couldn't find the answers in her reading and not reading for understanding but reading to get Mom off my back and have her free time.  I grew weary of the argument. Needless to say, I realize that I've got some more work to do in order to get Princess S ready to transition to D in another year.

Next year we will again be doing year one.  Both Princess E and Princess S seem to remember many of the facts they learned the first year.  Actually, I'm kind of surprised by that.  It tells me that they were probably reading and understanding more than they let on.  One thing I did then, that I am planning to continue now, is something I learned from MFW.  That is the concept of the book basket.  When I went to the library to pick up the books I had reserved, I would look at the call numbers and go to those sections.   I would pick up other books in those sections that looked interesting.  Then I kept them in the library basket.  I didn't assign those books, but inevitably, the girls would pick them up and read them.  I think the majority of their learning came from the reading they didn't have to do.  But, since the books had the facts that were deemed important on the Threads pages, I was fine with that.

Here are some of my learned strategies.  First, the LG level is all about the fun.  I'm planning to make sure I get to the History Core book each week.  I plan to read it with Princess L and have her narrate back to me - a la Charlotte Mason - and do one of the LG Response Pages for the book.  I have the History Scribe books, and I will pick out one or two that go with the threads for the week to have her copy and draw a picture for.  If I have the History In Depth book, or if it looks interesting to me and our library has it, I may add that in if we have a lighter week.  I want to make sure to get in at least one hands on project every other week with Princess L and Princess M.  And instead of doing the paper maps at this stage, we're going to do one cookie dough map per unit.  I also have a map skills workbook that I purchased from Sam's Club years ago that I will be using with Princess L. 

Second, for Princess S, this will be her last year at the UG level.  I have identified some skills that I want to build up so that she is able to transition to the D level by the end of the year.  I plan to have her do a KWO - a la IEW - for her History Core book each week.  She is going to fight this - but I think that it is a skill that will help her to find the important facts in her reading.  She has had great trouble with that this past year.  She will narrate from her KWO what she has learned.  For the History In Depth books, I will not require the KWO, but I will require her to narrate the book to me, and complete some type of response page.  I will be using the History Scribe pages for her as well, more for the fact that she needs the handwriting practice, but she might as well practice on something that has meaning.  I am considering having her do some of the D level literature books.  She certainly can read at that level, and I think she would have an easier time transitioning in this area than learning to do the AQ/TQ questions and discussions.  That would give us less to have to deal with next year.  I won't have her do all of them, but I will have her do at least two D level books per unit. 

For Princess E, this will be her second full year at the D level.  Next year, she will be doing the LLC for her history discussion.  For the moment, I am planning on being one week ahead of the LLC for our reading.  That way she is assured of getting her reading done.  We run our TOG week from Friday to Thursday.  Her online discussion day will be Wednesday.  So she will have time on the weekend to catch up on anything that she is missing.  If that proves to difficult for her, we can switch things up easily.  I will be requiring her to do a KWO for her History Core as well.    She will have to read the History In Depth, as there are often AQ/TQ  questions from those as well.  I'm debating whether to require the KWO for that as well, or just to have her narrate them to me.  I will have her turn in her written AQ/TQs to me and look them over.  She usually does these on her netbook as she can type much faster than she can handwrite.  She won't have to do any copywork, but I will be adding in some dictation for both my elder princesses, as I have determined that their ability to listen and put down what they heard on paper is sorely lacking.

I have come to the conclusion that Charlotte Mason's idea of Reading, Narrating, Copywork and Dictation are all skills that my eldest two have been lacking.  We are going to use her ideas at a much higher level next year.  And I know how to focus my efforts with my little two in the future.

I've come to embrace the idea that TOG is a smorgasbord.  There is so much there, but I just don't have time to do it all.  I need to use the TOG materials as a springboard to build up the skills that my kids need, and how I use it will be determined by what skills they need.  I also will worry a lot less about getting every thing in at the early years, and even with my older two, and instead focus on the Threads pages.  If they can understand the two or three concepts I think are most important, I'll call it good.  I'll worry less about whether we've completed all the SAPs we can, or whether we've read every book.  Instead, I'm going to focus on their listening skills, and their ability to comprehend what they read and communicate it back to others.

Ending the 2010/2011 Year

Today is our last day for this school year.  Princess L finished up on Monday.  We finished the Old Testament in her MFW Bible Reader.  We will probably read this once or twice a week over the summer break and do the notebooking. 

For Princess E and Princess S, it has been a very busy week.  We spent last week and this week focusing on our science and IEW.  We completed our science book - Our Planet Earth - from the God's Design for Heaven and Earth series.  We skipped many of the lengthier experiments but will be building a life-size volcano out of ice cream, crushed oreos and chocolate syrup.  Okay - maybe not life-size - but we will be building a small volcano yet.  It will be an activity we decided to wait to do when Nanny comes to visit sometime next week.  They also finished their IEW writing course - Student Writing Intensive Level A.  It was a lot of writing in a short amount of time, but we got through it.  I debated doing the SICC-A next year.  I decided it was just two pricey for us right now.  So we're going to be doing the Ancient History Writing Lessons to go along with Tapestry of Grace Year One.

Today we are doing our last school activity for the year - our CAT testing.  Princesses L & M are over at a friend's house and we are doing all six tests in one sitting.  Then they are officially on summer break.  More on how we will spend our summer later.

A Day in the Life of the School 4 Princesses

I attempted to take pictures of our day for several days last week.  Unfortunately, they aren't that great.  But hopefully it will give you some small picture of the craziness of our day.

First are some shots of Princess L doing her new chore.  She has to rinse the breakfast dishes and load them in the dishwasher.  Then she puts in the soap and starts it.  Finally, she has to wipe down the counters, rinse out the sink and run the disposal.  She is doing fairly well, though I dare say our water bill will go up for a while.

Next we have a shot of Princess E during her piano practice.  Generally, while she is practicing, Princess S is doing preschool with Princess M and I am doing school with Princess L.  So the next two shots are of Princess S reading to Princess M (though Princess L had to jump in while I was looking for the camera) and doing an activity from here.  She has to match up the colored halves of caterpillars and Princess S helps her to say the right color.  When the half hour is up and they switch who practices and who does preschool.

The next four shots are of Princess L doing her school.  (Notice the day she put on a Piglet costume which is about three sizes too small but she had to wear it anyway.)  The one with her head on the table was because she had just finished putting the words from the -ill family in alphabetical order.  There is also an example of copy work I made with her Awana verses.

Finally, there is a shot of Princess E doing her individual work.  The last shot is an example of what you get when you have a kid with ADD and SPD who cannot remember to turn in her work to Mom's "IN" bin and leaves it on her desk along with markers for her little sister to decorate for her.  Every. Single. Day.

New Schedule

My goodness, we're already done with five weeks of school!  This was a shake-up week.  After our fourth week, I did an assessment of sorts - a shift in our morning itinerary meant a bunch of changes.  I came up with a two stage implementation plan.  The first stage was this week, the second will occur after we return from a weekend jaunt to ND to visit my Grandmother and Aunt & Uncle.  Because of various times we have to be out of the house (co-op for everyone, piano lessons for the older two princesses, ballet for Princess L, speech therapy for Princess L, Awana, etc.) I have had a hard time figuring out a schedule.  I finally came upon the revelation that we have one of three different types of days.  So I figured out a schedule for each type of day and gave each one a color.  We now have either a red day, a blue day or a green day.  Each day's schedule is posted and that gives us a ballpark to work with.  Also, I've really felt the need to move science back into our regular school year.  My plans for the last two years have had us doing science during school breaks.  But the reality is that stuff comes up over breaks, and only about one third of my plans get completed.  Therefore, we didn't finish our curriculum for either of the last two years.  Well, God used this blog entry to help me figure out what to do.  Since DH decided he wanted to be a part of our Bible time and we moved it to the evenings after he gets home and eats, I have an extra half hour in the mornings to work with.  So here is what came of it.

2010_2011 School Daily Schedule 2

The oldest two princesses and I have a two hour group time three times a week.  We have a looping schedule with IEW (writing), science, spelling, MCT (language arts), and a memory work section.  For science we are continuing where we left off in God's Design For Heaven & Earth: Our Universe.  Our memory work will include the longer passages that our co-op is doing this year, learning all the states and capitols, and learning the presidents in order.  I have a list of the assignments we need to accomplish in each area and we work at one until we finish that assignment.  Then we move to the next subject in the loop.  I figure most weeks we should get through the loop about one and a half times.  Sometimes it will be more, and sometimes less, but I won't sweat it.  Since we will be finishing our non-looped subjects the second week of May, I figure we can use the other four weeks until the public schools are done to work on the looped subjects and finish them up. 

The other thing that I switched pertains to our TOG schedule.  Up to now, our first day has been Monday and our finish up day on Friday.  Princess E and I have tried to do our discussion times on Fridays.  But last year she never finished her AQ/TQ questions by Friday afternoons and discussion would get pushed off to Saturdays or even Sundays.  And then we were in a time crunch, and neither of us really wanted to do it then so we had bad attitudes.  It was getting to be too much.  Once again, God showed me what to do through another TOG blog.  Our week will now begin on Fridays.  I will sit with Princess E and go through the AQ/TQ questions and underline the key words.   We have started going through some of her reading assignments together and leaving post it notes with which questions are answered where.  (Thanks, Pam, for that advice.) I also have her trying to summarize verbally what the page or section is talking about.  She will have to do some reading over the weekends.  She will have to write out her AQ/TQs by Tuesday so that we can do discussion on Wednesdays.  Princess M will be sleeping, Princess S will be at piano, and Princess L can have her Jump Start Computer time - that way they are all occupied and not able to interrupt.  Then Thursday will be evaluation day, when we decide to use them.  Sometimes I just give them out as assignments to find the answers and turn in.  It depends how busy we are any given week.  We are starting the switch after our ND trip, however.  Too much at one time is overload.

Homeschool Room

Last year at Christmas break, I decided that I wanted to change our little used living room into a homeschool room.  So little by little we have added some things to make it more usable as a homeschool room.  Here's a little bit about each of the shots in the slideshow:

Piano - This would be the piano my parents bought when I was five. I took lessons on it for almost eight years.  When my mother moved across the country right after I graduated from college, my step dad told her he would buy her something else if she would leave it with me.  (I think he knew it would get a lot more attention from me than from her.) Princess M has been taking lessons for four and a half years and Princess S for three years.  Princess L would start this year if we let her but we told her she had to wait until she was reading well enough, or until she was 6 1/2 - whichever came last.

Teacher's Manuals - This is where I keep all of my big stuff.

Ikea Billy Bookshelf - I've waited for this for a long time!  I finally was able to take my books out of boxes and bins and put them all up where they are easily seen and accessible.  And would you believe they are almost totally full!  I can gain a little space by putting books of the same height on one shelf and add another shelf.

Teacher/Mom's Desk - We've had this awesome desk hanging on the wall for about six months and I love it!  It's another Ikea buy.  The nice thing is that when we do need to use the room for something other than school, like an extended family celebration, then it closes up into the wall and locks!  Which also means I can keep my laptop away from the kids if I'm not going to be around. The organizers came from DH's work.  They are moving their office at the end of the summer and are getting rid of stuff.  He brought home several things that had been left in the cafeteria for anyone who wanted them.  They're a little beat up but they work great.

Whiteboard - This was a Christmas gift from Nanny and Papa.  Another nice addition.  Notice the picture of the principal (DH) that hangs over it.  He hung that as a joke a long time ago when his family was going to be coming over.  But, I teased him endlessly because he wrote "Principle (name) Strive for Excellence".  I reminded him that the principal was your pal.  It remains there still to remind us.

Height Adjustable Tables - I purchased these from Sam's Club. I love them because they are easily taken down and stored, have handles built in, and are height adjustable.  Last year I had one as low as it goes, and one at chair height.  I figured Princesses L and M would use one, but they really didn't yet.  So this year, since we had the stools, and I have one (Princess S) who NEVER SITS STILL, I thought we'd try this at counter height and see how it worked.  It will keep Princess M from coloring on, spilling on, grabbing or otherwise attacking whatever is on their desk at the time.  I also have one sorter on the top that they can use to put some of the more often used books.  For this year, only the older two princess will use these tables.  Princess L still does everything with me, so we just work at the kitchen table, which is just to the left of my desk.

Read Aloud Sofa - When we made the room over, we brought our old beat up sofa (which was our first major purchase as an engaged couple) up from the family room and moved our "nice" furniture (read less beat up) down to the family room.  While it takes up a large foot print, we needed to have a sofa for read alouds.  At least for those that we don't do during lunch.

Entire Room - Someday I have dreams of doing more, but not until we have a lot more saved up.

Well there you have it.  I hope this gives you a little better glimpse into our homeschool life.  And for a full disclaimer - it never looks that straightened up.  I grabbed the rest of the stuff that was scattered all over and put it all in a laundry basket so I could take pictures.  I'll have to go through it all tomorrow.

Getting Ready - Part One

Well, we're on the countdown for the start of our school year on August 9th.  I cannot believe how fast this summer has slipped away.  I still have a few things left to do, but I'm almost done.  Here is where my list stands so far:

• Make spreadsheet with library request dates
• Make and print schedules for everyone
• Purchase bookshelf for home school room
• Clean and organize home school room
• Make copies of phonics games
• Get MCT books spiral bound
• Get Latin books put into page protectors
• Purchase school supplies - pens, pencils, markers, paint, glue, etc.
• Print TOG SAPs
• Organize recipes and menus for meal planning (I'm beginning a kids cook night where the older two princesses will help me with a meal, so I want to decide which recipes are simple and easy for them)
• Make handwriting books out of this year's Awana verses
• Finish summer unit study on the Civil War
• Finish summer science chapters on the planets

So as you can see, my work is slowly getting done.  When I finish the home school room organizing, I will get some pictures up.   I've been very blessed to find some of the books that are needed for multiple weeks at Half Price Books - some even in the clearance section!  I also exchanged some books with my former TOG secret sis.  Now I'm getting excited to jump into our study of the Twentieth Century this year, as well as to implement the new things which I feel God has lead us to use this year.  Bring it on!

LHOTP Field Trip

We were blessed with a field trip to see Little House on the Prairie the musical. We had a wonderful time! We got to see the Guthrie Theater and its beautiful and unique architecture. The girls had been to see Anne of Green Gables before at the Stages Theater, but this was their first big production to see. It was a little weird, at first, to see familiar characters burst out into song. Yet, they weren't totally familiar as they were played by different actors. Melissa Gilbert played the part of Caroline Ingalls. She garnered loud applause when she first came onstage, and I dare say that the play wouldn't be as popular if she were not in the cast. But it was a wonderful, wholesome family musical for all ages to enjoy.

After the play was over we made our way downstairs to the stage door. We brought along our hard copy of Little House on the Prairie on the offhand chance that we would get autographs. We almost didn't. There was a line of 50 people or so waiting for Melissa Gilbert to come out. Some of the actors with ensemble parts came through. Finally, she came out to a cheer from the crowd. We were in the back of the line. The other actors, with more prominent parts, came out and stood off to the side - seemingly ignored by the rest of the crowd. So I took my two princesses and we went to get their autographs. They were wonderful. After getting three of the four, I turned around to see Melissa Gilbert heading for the door because her taxi had arrived. I grabbed the girls and said, "Oh no! Is she leaving? Can you do one more please?" She didn't look real pleased, but did stop. When she saw I had children with me she smiled (I guess that made the difference) and she signed our book and the program. Then she was off. We went back to the other actors to get Kara Lindsey's autograph, the actress who played Laura.
It was a wonderful night.

TOG Y1r U1 W2

(Translation - Tapestry of Grace Year One Redesigned, Unit One, Week 2)

So our first week went fairly well. The girls are still trying to get used to learning some new ways of doing things. First and foremost is learning how to schedule their weeks. We sat down on Saturday afternoon and went through all of their work for the next week. We wrote everything out on their schedules. They will decide this week, because it is a shortened week due to Nanny and Papa visiting, when they will do each thing. The goal is to finish everything by Wednesday evening except for our hands on activities. We will do these on Thursday and Friday when Nanny and Papa can be here to join in the fun. Then we put everything into their new school baskets. I bought two nylon baskets at Target. They are to keep all books, papers, folders, pencil boxes, notebooks, (everything but their 3 ring binders) inside them. Then they can just pick up the basket and move around the house as they need to. They can bring their "school in a basket" with them. Hopefully I won't ever have to hear, "I don't know where ______ is," ever again. Okay, I'm in a dream world I know, but maybe I'll hear it less. Here are the plans for the week.

Princess L (PreK)
Letter of the Week - B
Reading: Blueberries for Sal, The Little Ballerina, Berloiz the Bear, The Baby BeeBee Bird, The Berenstain Bears' B Book, The Big Balloon Race

Princess S (LG)
Bible - Exodus 1-5
Geography - mapping cities, pyramids and water/deserts of ancient Egypt
Climbing to Good English - pgs 94-97
Handwriting - cursive letters d, e, and f
Vocabulary words and Important People
Math U See - Beta Lesson 8 - skip counting by 10s, dimes and pennies and Unit Test
Reading: Tutankhamen's Gift, Who Built the Pyramids, Mummies Made in Egypt, Old Testament Days (excerpt)
Writing - working on pronouns list and adding to nouns list from last week

Princess E (UG)
Bible - Exodus 1-5
Geography - same as above
Easy Grammar - pgs 13, 15, 19
Handwriting - cursive review d, e, and f
Vocab words and Important People
Math U See - Gamma Lesson 2 multiplication 1's and 0's
Reading: What the Bible is all About (excerpt), Usbourne Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (excerpt), Pyramid, Calliope magazine articles on famous Egyptian Queens (because I accidentally returned A Place in the Sun)
Writing - pronouns list, dictation, learning about graphic organizers and completing two

Nanny and Papa are flying in on Thursday morning. We will be making sugar cube pyramids, mummifying cheap dollar store barbies, and writing our names in hieroglyphics for our hands on this week. Hopefully, they will enjoy this as much as I know the girls will. I'm anticipating a mess this week.

Blessings.

School's a startin'

TOG Yr1Redesigned Week 1 - looks daunting when I type it all out. But this is what I have committed to for the next school year. I'm very excited about it! However, DDs were not nearly as excited when I sat down today to show them how things were going to work this year. They love the topic - in fact had checked out books on mummies on their own this summer without knowing that was on the agenda. They love the idea of using the computer for their vocab words (they will be looking them up at Wordsmyth) and doing SOS for science. But when I opened up the pages of TOG stuff and showed them what the LG and UG assignments looked like, their eyes about bugged out of their heads! "All that work, that's too much, I'm going to die if I have to do all that," were the comments received. Now, realistically it isn't that much more than before. Last year we did more reading together because I spent the first half of the year pregnant and the second half of the year nursing a newborn. Since I was sitting on the couch anyway, might as well read their assignments together. This year they will be doing more reading on their own. But I'm not backing down. I think TOG is going to help prepare my kids for future learning in college, on the job and in life. And if it takes a four week fog, or longer, for them to realize that I'm serious, then so be it.

For this first week, we are actually taking two weeks to complete it due to the fact that we have VBS at church next week. Plus, with so much new stuff I figured I'll need to work with them a little more to begin with. So here is what our Week 1 will look like:

Princess S (LG)
Climbing to Good English pg 90-93 (where we left off last year)
Math-u-See Beta Lesson 7
SOS Science - Lessons 1 and 2
Three pages of handwriting practice of the cursive letters a, b, and c
Reading: Egyptians, The Nile River, several pages from Old Testament Days
Her SAPs (student activity pages)
Hands-On Activities: making notebooks, salt dough or cookie dough map (haven't decided which yet), Egypt coloring pages
Writing - learning about nouns

Princess E (UG)
Easy Grammar 4 - memorizing prepositions (ongoing) and pg 3, 5, 9, 11, 13 and 15
Math-U-See Gamma - Lesson 1
SOS Science - lessons 1 and 2
Three pages of cursive review letters a, b, and c
Reading: The Nile River, A Place in the Sun (5 chapters), Ancient Egypt Make it Work (several pages), Geography from A to Z, What the Bible is All about for Young Explorers(several pages), Usbourne Internet-linked Encyclopedia of Ancient World (several pages)
Her SAPs
Same hands-on stuff as above
Writing - reviewing nouns and learning steps in the writing process

I am not starting Laura until next week. We will be doing the letter A next week and reading books about them. I'll post them later.

Blessings,
Jennifer