Category - Eagle’s Wing Academy

I love Math-U-See! Why didn’t anyone tell me about it earlier? Oh wait, someone did. But most importantly, Boo loves Math-U-See. A recent writing assignment had him listing his favorite school subjects and in the number one position he put Math-U-See (MUS). I asked him what he liked about it and he said that “it’s got blocks to work with and a nice DVD.” High praise indeed from my math-impaired boy. And if you have a child that struggles in math like Boo, then you know how happy this all makes me.

Let’s talk a little more about MUS. First, that “nice DVD.” What child doesn’t love a good DVD? And Mr. Demme is funny and nice and he knows how kids think. He keeps the lessons short and easy which makes everyone happy. I do some additional teaching to reinforce the concepts, using those fun blocks. Then Boo gets busy with his workbook and blocks. He works aloud so that I can see that he gets what he’s doing and not just faking his way through. The worksheets are also quick and to the point and include multiple variations of the concept, including word problems. When I think Boo is ready , he takes a test on the subject and if he passes, he moves on. We stay on a single subject as long as we need to, whether its a day or a week. If you need more worksheets, they are available on the website.

So let me tell you about Boo’s math progress. We’re still keeping up with Horizons Math. He understands what he’s working on and is able to continue to make progress, but we need to go back and learn those math facts. I look at it like earthquake retro-fitting. His foundation is shaky, but there is no need to tear down the house. With a good, strong foundation, his math house won’t come falling down. That’s where MUS is helping.

In a few short weeks, he’s gone from needing to use his fingers to add, which is really counting, not adding, to knowing a good deal of his addition facts. He actually knows his +9s! No finger counting at all! And he doesn’t know the facts by rote, either. He can actually explain to you just why 9+7=16. You know, how 9 really wants to be 10, so it grabs a unit from the 7 and turns the math problem into 10 +6. Let me say it again, The Boy is learning his math facts.

Let me just take a moment and revel in that.

In the meantime, Pumpkin Girl, who does just fine in math, has been quietly watching the DVD and listening in on the lessons. She often stands next to Boo while I help him with the blocks. Just the other day she was finished with her schoolwork and Boo was working on his dictation for the day. Pumpkin had asked to use our little white board and the MUS blocks were sitting on the table. I looked over to her and discovered that she was busy solving for x. She was quietly writing her own math problems like x+8=10 and solving them with the blocks.

Have I mentioned that I love Math-U-See?

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It’s that time of year again – Back to School Time! We actually school year round, taking breaks whenever it suits us. But every August I “officially” bump up Boo and Pumpkin Girl to the next grade and we continue on our merry way. This year I did something new before starting the new school year. I sat down and evaluated what we did last year, what worked, what didn’t and what new things I wanted to try for this year. I am so glad that I did this because it really brought many things into focus for me. Most importantly, for those things that didn’t work out so well, I was able to plan how to do better.

The main points – I’m using Sonlight Core 1 with two children, 8 yo and 6 yo. We’re spreading Core 1 over 1 1/2 years and we’ll start Core 2 in February 2008.

What worked:

History. We enjoy all the books that Sonlight provides. We added in Mystery of History, mostly to help us in extending the Core. Boo and Pumpkin seem to enjoy it, but I think they’ll get more out of it the next time we hit up world history.

Science. Again, we enjoy the books that come with Sonlight. We particularly enjoy the Discover and Do DVD that they produce.

Reading. Boo and Pumpkin both read way above their grade level. I have them using Pathway Readers and Reading to Learn Readers at their appropriate level. They each read aloud so I can help with pronunciation, phrasing and expressiveness. Boo reads the Sonlight readers that match his Language Arts level as well. He reads those on his own time, then narrates back to me a la Charlotte Mason so I can check his comprehension. Pumpkin Girl will do this as well, as soon as the appropriate readers gets closer to her level.

Math. Pumpkin Girl is doing wonderfully with Horizons. Boo is still struggling with his basic math facts. He is progressing well with Horizons, but essentially, he counts instead of adding. He understands how to add and why, but relies solely on his fingers. At least he stopped thinking the answer to every problem was 20!

Handwriting. We use Handwriting Without Tears and it’s working well for us. I had started using Seton to each cursive to Boo, but he wasn’t getting it, so we’re back to HWT.

Typing. Boo started using Typing Instructor For Kids. He really likes this and he’s up to typing about 12 WPM. His goal is 15 WPM, which he’ll need to reach before the program will let him into the castle at the end!

Seton Religion. This has been a true blessing! We started midway through last year, so we’re slightly behind, but going year round I know we’ll catch up soon enough.

What didn’t work.

Well, mostly the Charlotte Mason suggested activities. We were off to a good start with Picture Studies, Nature Studies, music and art, but they all fell by the wayside.

Language Arts. We tried using Sonlight LA, but LA 2 was a LOT of grammar for Boo andLAK was way too easy for Pumpkin. I dropped it completely for Pumpkin, who after all, has just finished Kindergarten, and adapted it heavily for Boo.

Rosetta Stone Mandarin. Way. Too. Hard. We’ll try again in about 8 years.

What sort of worked.

Piano lessons for Pumpkin. I need to be much more consistent in having her practice.

Science Experiments. I tend not to do these and just watch them on the DVD. I know they children would like doing them, so I need to try harder. I’d also like to have them start science notebooks.

Phonics. We’re using Explode the Code. I think these are ending up mostly as busy work, just worksheets to fill out. I don’t see either child retaining the information. I hate to drop them completely yet, so we’ll see.

What is new for this year.

Sonlight’s revamped Language Arts. We’ve only been using it for one week and already I like it much better. It’s got a much heavier emphasis on creative writing, even at Pumpkin’s level, but less of the endless grammar rules. Boo spells very, er…let’s say creatively, so we’ll need to put some focus there.

Seton Art. Pumpkin is using Art 1, which centers around the Liturgical Year. A short explanation of the week’s feast day and a simple but fun art project. Boo is using Art 3, which uses about 6 different art media throughout the year.

Rosetta Stone Spanish. Already this is a much better fit for us. Pumpkin Girl scored 95% on her first test.

Math-U-See. We need to do something to help Boo master his math facts. This program is highly recommended all over the place, so we sent away for their informational DVD. Boo was very enthused about it, so we ordered the Alpha level. It arrived today and when he realized what it was, he gave me a big ol’ hug.

When I finished my evaluation, I sat down with All Year Round, Boo and Pumpkin’s art book and my notebook and planned out my Year in Crafts. Don’t laugh! I want to do more crafty stuff with the children, focusing on holidays and the church calendar. I can never seem to get organized enough to pull it off, but I’m going to give it a good try this year.

I also wrote out my Weekly Plan for our first 9 weeks of school. Even though Sonlight provides excellent Instructor Guides, we adapt their 5 day schedule into a 4 day week. Plus, we add in enough of our own stuff like religion and art to make having my own schedule worthwhile. In order to stick with our picture studies and music, I added them to our schedule, which I never did last year. I only did 9 weeks in case I need to make changes. I used a planning sheet from Donna Young and just typed it all up. Each week, I’ll just print out the needed plan.

I use Fridays for Art, Nature Studies and all those fun not-so-extras. Using my Year In Crafts notes, I made up a Friday Plan for the entire year.

Boo’s art book came with a supply list, which I copied and took with me to Michael’s last weekend. I added things from Pumpkin’s art book too so I could shop all at once. I dropped Philip and the older children off at swimming lessons and only took Bip so I could shop in peace. $70 later, this is what I came home with:

And phew! I’m done planning for the year.

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Yummy, yummy!

To go along with our studies of Ancient Egypt, today we started making a mummy out of fruit.

First, we carved the face out of an apple:

Then we pulled the internal organs out of the orange body.

The Egyptians used wine to clean the body. We used rubbing alcohol.

Next, we sprinkled the body with sweet smelling spices to help with the odor.

At this point our cinnamon covered apple-orange mummy is smelling delicious!

But now Pharaoh Fruitenkahmen is covered with natron to dry him out.

We’ll wait a week or two for him to completely dry out, then complete our project by wrapping him in cloth and making him a coffin.

Project supplies and instructions from Hands and Hearts History Kits.

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Funny how the Lord lets you know when he wants you to change direction.

Not too long ago, Boo let it be known that he didn’t like science days because that meant he had to do science worksheets. This has been the first year I have required that he complete the worksheets that came along with our science curriculum. I didn’t really give them much thought, I just figured that they would help reinforce the material we’re learning. Then last week, during the chapter review, I was surprised at how little information he’d retained.

Coincidentally (or not), also last week I read this post –Notebooking With Sonlight – over at Falling Like Rain. I realized that Boo must feel the same way about those very same Sonlight science worksheets. He, too, struggles with drawing (which is a whole other post) but is good at narrations. I started wondering about notebooking. I had read about it in passing, but I think I was confusing it with lapbooks. I’ve seen examples of lapbooks, and holy cannoli! I just don’t have that kind of time or energy. Maybe when my children are older, but not now. But after doing a little more research of my own, I realized that there is a difference between lapbooks and notebooking and that notebooking is far simpler than I had originally thought.

I looked into all the notebooking templates that are available to buy. Most of them seemed to be some variation of blank spaces to draw in with some lines for writing. I didn’t think really feel like buying something that I could create myself. I also didn’t feel I needed all the extra graphics, borders and hoohas that were being offered. Plus, for the number of pages I’d be printing out, it sure seemed like I’d be going through a lot of printer paper and ink. Frankly, I just wanted Boo to draw a picture of what he’d learned on any given day and write a few sentences about it. Depending on what the rest of his workload looked like, maybe I’d do the writing. That’s when I found paper with a huge drawing space on top with lined handwriting paper on the bottom. (Picture Story Pads) Exactly what I was looking for.

It’s funny that I hung on to our science worksheets for this long. They were really the only busywork in our school day, and they just didn’t provide enough interaction with the material. I’m hoping that creating science notebooks will really drive the information home.

Both Boo and Pumpkin Girl enjoy history, especially when we get out the map. They particularly enjoyed discovering that their daddy was cruising all over Mesopotamia in his tank during the Gulf War and was probably very close to the garden of Eden. We’ll be doing notebooks for history, too, so they can track what they’ve learned and connect it all together. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks to report on the success or failure of our notebooking efforts.

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Today at lunch, Boo was wondering what archaeologists would find out about the Brady Bunch after digging up their trash.  An interesting question, don’t you think? We recently finished reading Archaeologists Dig For Clues as part of our history lessons.  The book makes the point that archaeologists rarely dig for treasure, but can learn so much about people from the trash they leave behind.  We had a discussion about what our family’s trash would tell archaeologists of the future about us.  Not so much our garbage trash, which would be unlikely to be found around our home, but rather the things we might accidentally leave behind, like maybe a plastic sword from our Playmobile pirate ship.

I guess this book has made a bigger impression on my children that I had thought.  We’ve been watching a lot of old Brady Bunch episodes on DVD lately, which my children are really getting into.  Looks like they’ve made quite an impression, too.  In one episode, Tiger chews up one of Greg’s shoes, which he obviously needs to throw away now.  So while I prepared my own lunch, we determined that archaeologists, in finding Greg’s chewed up shoe, could determine the following things:

• From the size, style and color of the shoe, the family had a teenage son.
• The family had a dog
• From the materials the shoe was made from, how it was made, and the style, the family lived in the late 20th Century

Which only goes to show you that learning is not confined to textbooks.  I wonder if anyone has ever made a unit study from the Brady Bunch?

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I just found this out:

The prairie landscape of Laura Ingalls Wilder will soon be
changing. HarperCollins, in an effort to keep the classic Little House
on the Prairie series relevant to a new generation, is repackaging the
paperback editions, and will replace the familiar covers by Garth
Williams with photographic covers, and remove the inside art, starting
in January.

Williams, who died in 1996, had a signature style—whimsical and
folksy—that has endeared readers not only to the Ingalls books, but to
E.B. White’s classics as well, among others. Since 1953 Williams’s work
has graced the Ingalls series. But according to Tara Weikum, executive
editor of HarperCollins Children’s Books, sales of backlist properties
in the competitive middle-grade market have been lagging. “For readers
who view historical novels as old-fashioned,” says Weikum, “this offers
them an edition that dispels that notion and suggests that these books
have all the great qualities of a novel set in a contemporary time.”

Before deciding to make the change, Harper consulted its market.
It held an informal poll of roughly 100 attendees at the 2004 National
Council of Teachers of English conference, which persuaded them that
librarians and teachers would welcome the idea of updated covers.

But some booksellers aren’t so sure. Leslie Hawkins, owner of
Spellbound Children’s Bookstore in Asheville, N.C., says she will give
the new covers a try, but she worries that parents, who like purchasing
beloved titles from their youth, might be put off by the new look.

HarperCollins isn’t scrapping the Garth Williams art entirely;
his jackets and interior art will still be available in hardcover, as
will the colorized paperback editions from 2004. That’s good news to
Alison Morris, children’s book buyer for Wellesley Booksmith in
Wellesley, Mass. Morris believes that “when you take a classic book and
put a trendy cover on it, it’s not a classic anymore.” She feels that
Harper should have kept the interior illustrations, and won’t be buying
any copies of the new editions. Instead she’s stocking up on the
colorized paperbacks.

Kate Jackson, editor-in-chief at HarperCollins Children’s Books,
understands Morris’s point, but believes that Harper’s responsibility
is to keep the books “relevant and vibrant for kids today. A childhood
book is an emotional, tactile object, and you want it to be as it was,”
she says. “But Laura Ingalls was a real little girl, not a made-up
character. Using photographs highlights that these are not history but
adventure books.”

(The original article is here: Little House Under Renovation)

How could they?! The Garth Williams illustrations have become as much a part of our beloved “Little House” books as the stories themselves. The books were originally released with different illustrations, and later reissued with Williams’ drawings. He interviewed Laura before drawing them and she was delighted when she saw them. From her biography: “She immediately sent a telegraph to her publisher saying, ‘Mary, Laura and their folks live again in these illustrations.’ ” I remember seeing a photograph of Laura and Almanzo taken shortly after their wedding. She is wearing a coat and hat that she describes in one of her books which I recognized immediately from the Williams’ illustration. I was delighted to see for myself that he had so accurately captured these moments of her life.

I am so saddened to find out that these wonderful drawings will no longer bring to life Laura’s wonderful stories. I am grateful that my own boxed set of the Little House books is sitting safely on my shelf. I’m afraid I will be reluctant to let my daughter read them lest they end up in the Pit of No Return. She’ll have to make do with sturdy library copies for now. I still read these books as an adult and now my set will become even more cherished. I will pass them on to Pumpkin Girl in the future. I know I will not be buying any of these new editions.

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