Category - Eagle’s Wing Academy

No New Year’s Resolutions for me. They are too easily forgotten. Instead, in regards to our homeschool year, I am going evaluate what has been working and what has not. After finishing our first week back after the holiday break, here are my thoughts.

What has been working this school year:

1. Using Sonlight Core 1 for both children. They love the books so much so that Pumpkin Girl usually asks to borrow them when we’ve finished one. Most of the time she’ll reread the whole thing, whether it’s a history book or a novel, over the course of a day or two. Then she’ll hoard it in her personal stash or in her “secret place”, affectionately known as the Pit of Never Return (they named it that, not me!). We do whatever Science experiments interest us and that we can manage to do with Nicholas underfoot. Boo completes the science worksheets, Pumpkin does not.

2. Explode the Code books. My children are both very strong readers, but they can use a little phonics practice. The ETC books are perfect for them and don’t involve a lot of writing. Phil says that they like them so much because they are Chinese and all good Chinese students thrive on workbooks. This from a man who’s report card once said, “Philip does not finish all of his homework.”

3. Horizons Math. I tried so hard to make Singapore Math work, I really did! I struggled with math my whole life and hoped to give Boo a good foundation in “mental math.” But it just wasn’t a good fit. I actually started him halfway through the first Kindergarten math book. I had him doing 3 pages a day to make sure all the basic concepts were in place. When we reached shaky ground, we slowed day to a page a day, then sped back up when we were ready. He’s now in Horizons 1. I console my competitive nature by reminding myself that Horizons is said to be advanced by one year.

4. Reading to Learn Readers for Pumpkin. Having a kindergartner reading at a 3rd and 4th grade level presents itself with some interesting problems. Mainly, how to provide her with the opportunity to increase her reading skills while keeping in mind that maturity-wise, she is very much just 6 years old. I found the answer in these wonderful Mennonite readers. The difficulty level is perfect. New vocabulary words are in bold and you can look them up in the glossary in the back. The stories are very wholesome, with good moral messages. I didn’t buy the teachers manuals, but I don’t think I really needed them. Pumpkin often stops reading right in the middle of the story to tell me what she thinks is going to happen next or what the characters should do. I can tell she has no trouble with comprehension!

What has not been working

1. Spelling tests for Boo. They were like pulling teeth. In doing a little research, I discovered that most of his spelling mistakes aren’t really mistakes. He spells phonetically, it’s just that the English language doesn’t follow it’s own rules. By doing dictation and copywork, most of these spelling “mistakes” will correct themselves. We’ve dropped spelling completely.

2. Following the Sonlight Language Arts reading schedule. With Boo also reading above grade level, sticking to the LA 2 schedule just wasn’t working. I’m already having him do 2 reading assignments a day, and he would do more if I’d let him. I don’t want to drop the readers completely because all the books are so good, and I don’t want to move him into the Core 3 readers because at that point, they line up with the history books.

3. The Sonlight Language Arts worksheets. I think they contain w-a-y too much grammar for a 2nd grader.

4. Boo’s religious education classes. My first cause for concern came when Boo would come home with a 6×4 index card filled with his 2nd grade printing of one of the prayers that he was supposed to know. Printing out the Our Father is a lot of writing for a 7 or 8 year old, especially when it’s on an index card, not the handwriting paper they are used to. It was supposed to be study guide, but 1) it was practically illegible and 2)he’s known the Our Father since before kindergarten. It seemed like a lot of busy work for this very important year of First Reconciliation and First Communion. I’m not going to bash his class any further because I am not in a position to help, so at this point it would be nothing but gossip. Suffice to say, I’m not too happy with the situation.

What I’m going to change for the remainder of the school year.

1. I found a different set of readers for Boo, this time they are Amish. I don’t want both children using the same ones because Pumpkin was soooo delighted to have her very own readers that no one in the family had read before. I’m hoping that Boo’s new readers will also allow him to read at a 4th or 5th grade level, while not being too mature for him.

2. I still have all the wonderful readers from Sonlight. I have decided to let the children read these by themselves instead of out loud. I’ll give them an assigned amount of reader, probably following the Sonlight LA instructor guide. Then, they will do a narration of the chapter they read. I will use the dictation/copywork from Sonlight that is taken from the readers.

3. I am going to drop the grammar exercises in favor of copywork from other sources. We will study grammar another time. I’m going to use The Writer’s Jungle as a guide for writing assignments.

4. I ordered catechism books from Seton Home Study. I had the chance to look at them at a friend’s house and I think they’ll do the trick. I won’t pull the children out of religious ed because they enjoy the socialization (ack! it’s the S word!). They were excited to see our new religion books when they were delivered this morning, so I don’t think it will be too hard to incorporate them into our schedule. At least this way, whatever busy work they are doing in class, at least I know they are being well educated at home.

So there you have it, where we’ve been and where we’re going. I’m hoping Boo’s new readers show up soon. When we’ve tested them I’ll report back.

Today we ventured out to our Catholic Homeschool group here on base. All the families try to attend mass at 11:30, then we meet for lunch in one of the chapel activity rooms. Following lunch is some sort of academic endeavor for the children. Once a month the children do a brief presentation of a saint or country from a pre-determined continent. Other weeks we try to do a craft that relates to some feast day during the month. This month, being the month of the Rosary, the children made knotted rosaries.

At first I thought the children were just making beaded rosaries from kits. They are easy to find online or can be put together with strong string and pony beads. You can even use alphabet beads from any craft store to personalize them. I was surprised to find that the Rosaries they were making were knotted.

I’ve never seen these before and I was impressed. They are made from dyed parachute cord. They are a little tricky to put together, in fact, I think that most of the children under 10 had their mom or this month’s Craft Lady do them entirely. Some of the older children helped, too. Craft Lady Mom was smart and didn’t have the children attempt to make an actual full size Rosary. Instead, they made single decade ones that when wrapped around and hooked onto the crufix, could be worn as bracelets.

Here are the two that Pumpkin Girl and Boo had made for them.

Boo’s is the red one and if you’ll notice, actually has 11 beads. The last bead on the left is larger than the rest and is an Our Father bead.Being a lover of crafts of all kinds, I promptly came home and did an internet search for knotted Rosaries. You can read more about the ministry of the Rosary Army here. Their site has instructions on how to make knotted rosaries and links of where tp buy supplies. FNT Industries has a Rosary Starter Kit for $2.50. However, do not use the “add to cart” option or they will try to charge over $10 for shipping! Follow the instructions on the page for mailing them a check.

Many of the families in our homeschool group, mine included have been trying to make praying the rosary a regular occurance. We’ve noticed on the days that we do say the rosary, the rest of the day goes much smoother. I’m glad the children now each have their own nearly indestructable rosaries to pray with.

 

 

The first week of our new school year went well. We learned to work around Bip by sitting on the floor to read as much as we can while he climbs all around us. Boo likes having an assignment sheet and working on some of his subjects on his own. This is something new for us this year as he starts moving towards working independantly. When it is time for me to put Bip down for a nap, I can leave Boo to work on his assignment sheet. He is usually done by the time I return. I figured out to do the teaching portion of math first, then take care of Bip. Then Boo is free to do his worksheets without needing to wait for me to return and explain his math. I guess that’s kind of a no-brainer, but it was just one of many little things we needed to work out. In the past, math was the last subject of the day.

Our first official nature walk got rained out by Tropical Storm Ernesto. We attempted to walk anyway, but the wind was too strong for Pumpkin Girl. We did get a chance to walk last week, though. We identified a pin oak tree and made some guesses about the gulls flying overhead. We need a closer look at the gulls to be sure. While we got the mail today, Pumpkin and I spotted a bunny in our neighbor’s yard. We’re not sure if it’s the same bunny that lives in our yard. We also collected a leaf and two seed pods from what I suspect is a maple tree.

We also picked up on our knitting lessons again, did some mind bender puzzles (logic) and started our home economics course. As I was explaining what the home ec book was about, Boo was making a face. I said that even though the picture on the cover was of a little girl, it’s important for boys to know how to care for their home, too. I reminded him that Daddy had made dinner the night before, and he always helps with the dishes and does all the vacuuming. Then Boo said, “well, I hope we start with learning to cook.” Fortunately, our lessons do start in the kitchen, nutrition specifically. The children are keeping a chart of the foods they eat all week and which food group they belong to. We’ll get into food prep next week.

I had wanted to report back on what I am using for the children’s readers. I borrowed a Catholic third grade reader from my next door neighbor. Both Pumpkin and Boo could read it, which further confirms the reading test results from a few weeks ago. I was looking for books for them to read that will improve their skills but have age appropriate subject matter. These books, first published in the 1890’s, are certainly not objectionable. The only problem is, they are boring! The exact word that comes to mind is esoteric. yawn. I gave Boo my copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends, which seems to be more to his liking. I am unsure at this point if I will keep pursuing actual “readers” for them or just let them read whatever they feel like it, within reason. Pumpkin Girl seems interested in the Little House series, but even those books will be beyond her level of maturity at some point. I believe there is a similar “boys” series that Boo might like, too.

So there’s our week. Nothing too outstanding, but I didn’t want you all to think that I dropped off the face of the earth or anything.

Before you finish reading this blog entry, please go read this poem: "I Trust You’ll Treat Her Well." For copyright reasons, I’m not going to write it out here.

When my clock radio turned on this morning, the morning show people were talking about this poem.  The woman was saying that when she heard it yesterday, she was in tears.  The other two were talking about how what a wonderful milestone that first day of kindergarten is.  Then they read the poem.  Towards the end of the poem, the baby started waking up so I turned to nurse him and I saw that my husband was awake, too.  I asked him, "Are you listening to this?" His response:  "Thank God we homeschool."  "Exactly," I said.

Is this poem supposed to be inspirational? Is it supposed to make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside? To my husband and I, it is a list of all the reasons to keep our children at home.

Gossip, group think, hurt feelings, jealousy, betrayal – uh, no thank you, not for my children.

In our family, observing nature is important and has a place in our school day.  The "important things" certainly do NOT include what to wear and the drama of best friends and second best friends.  My children are each other’s best friends.  Just ask them, they’ll tell you.

And we understand that the magic of dolls and blocks…and legos and toy kitchens is equally as important as the magic of books and learning.  In our home, childhood doesn’t end just because formal education has started.

Don’t even get me started on what "proper young ladies" do and don’t do.  And I know they don’t teach that at school anyway.  And why does the journey to womanhood have to be long and lonely?  Shouldn’t it be filled with love and joy?We should be taking that journey with our daughters, and the journey into manhood with our sons, not watching them navigate it alone.

No, I didn’t find this poem to be inspirational at all.  Instead it reminded me of how I got started  homeschooling in the first place.

When my oldest child turned 3, I heard a lot of "aren’t you going to put him into preschool?"  Being a first time mom, I bowed to the pressure and enrolled him in a twice a week preschool.  It didn’t take long before my sweet little boy started to change.  I had to plead with him every time to go to school.  Once there he cried for me.  About three weeks into it, his teacher informed me that he had grabbed another child by the neck when he didn’t get a turn at the computer.  My son had never before and has never since resorted to violence.  Never.  Then the next week his teacher tells me that Boo was doing better now, "he didn’t cry much after I left. " Didn’t cry much?  It had been 3 weeks, he shouldn’t be crying anymore at all!  That was the last class before Thanksgiving.  I spent the long weekend doing some serious soul searching.  Boo never went back to school.

Of course, still being a first time mom, I felt like I was short changing him somehow.  How was he going to learn his ABCS if he didn’t go to pre-school?  Maybe I could teach him at home!  I searched the internet for pre-school at home.  Of course, I know now that all a preschooler needs is time with mom and lots and lots of good books, but back then I still had a lot to learn.  I finally found a curriculum that had a preschool level – Sonlight.  When I received their catalog, I fell in love.  So many good books, ones I remembered from my childhood, others that I wanted to read myself.  The whole idea of homeschooling beyond preschool intrigued me.  The ability  to adjust the pace for each topic to fit my very active, very bright son was what clinched it.  Nurturing his tender spirit, guiding him carefully, letting my husband and I be his primary influences only sweetened the deal.  I ordered that preschool curriculum, spent 2 years using it with Boo and we’ve never looked back.

Yes, there will be a time when I also send my children out into the world.  But they will be physically, emotionally and spiritually prepared to handle whatever is out there.

As for this litany of things a five year old has to look forward to – no thank you!  My children are home where they belong.

We ended our summer of fun with a homeschooling support group picnic in our backyard. Actually, it was our next door neighbors and our combined, fenceless backyard. We figured it we be the best place, between our two families we have a swing set, climbing-sliding thing, playhouse and our yards open onto a huge field. We really need the combined yards and field because this wasn’t just any homeschooling support group, but the Catholic homeschool group. Between the 8 families in attendance, we have close to 40 children.

Great fun was had by all, even though an unattended 3 year old got into our fountain, threw the porecelain fisherman, thus losing his fishing pole and fish. The little girl was even drinking the water…ew!!!

Today was our first day of Kindergarten for Pumpkin Girl and 2nd grade for Boo. Boo has been so excited about this that he’s been begging me for school since Thursday. “I just can’t help it Mama, I need to do school!” I hope his enthusiasm lasts for a long time. Our first day went well, a few minor hiccups as I got back into the groove again. Boo said his favorite part of the day was getting to use his new binder. It’s one of those updated Trapper Keeper type things with a million little zipped pouches. Pumpkin Girl like learning about the flags of other countries.

However our day was muted at the discovery that Rose the Crab had died. Pumpkin Girl was quite upset, not hysterical, but sad and weepy. She made a little memorial for Rose:

It says “My first pet, I love Rose, Pumpkin” with a very nice picture of Rose taped to it. The back says, “Rose deer(sic) I love you So, I hope you come home to me. Pumpkin.” We debated burying Rose in the backyard or giving her a burial at sea, but the backyard won out. We thanked God for letting us care for one of his creatures and buried her under the garden gnome.

Rose the Crab, kind of crabby, but well loved.

As I was getting Bip dressed this morning, I looked out the window and saw geese! Our backyard opens into a small grassy field and a baseball field. The geese were actually in the baseball field, but it was still cool to see. After breakfast I got the camera and took some pictures.

I like this guy standing on the pitcher’s mound.

Knowing absolutely nothing about geese and being the good homeschooling mom that I am, I promptly looked these guys up in my field guide. The National Audubon Society Field Guide to Birds tells me that this geese are Canada Geese, having a brownish body with black head, long black neck and conspicuous white cheek patch. They live near lakes, bays, rivers and marshes. You may remember that we live about 2 blocks away from the Potomac River, so this isn’t actually the first time we’ve seen geese here. We see them on a regular basis, usually around the grassy areas along the river. We have enjoyed watching them fly in the V-shaped formations and hearing them honking. My children have tried to get close to them, walking v-e-r-y slowly towards the flock, which in turn stands very still. The geese regard my children rather suspiciously, then moving as one, side steps away, then stops again. My children move in closer, still going slowly, the geese continue side-stepping away, then – honk, honk , honk! they take refuge in the river. It’s a pretty amusing scene to watch.This is the first time I’ve seen them in the housing area, but according the field guide, it may not be the last. Apparently, Canada geese are “especially noticeable in later summer and early fall, when they form molting flocks on golf courses and large lawns…” Well, that explains the baseball field. But is it late summer already?

After I loaded the geese pictures on to my computer, I thought they would make a good start to my nature journal. I want to get a head start on mine so the children can see one in person before starting their own. As luck would have it the book A Pocketful of Pinecones arrived from Amazon.com today. It is a fictional account of a mother in the 1930s as she goes through the first year of homeschooling her two children. She is following the works of Charlotte Mason, and the book focuses on the children’s nature studies and journal. I’m already several pages into it and enjoying it very much.

 

I hesitated to write about this, but you know, it’s my blog and I’ll brag if I want to!

A couple of days ago, I mentioned that my children read above grade level, but I wasn’t sure exactly at what level. Curiosity got the best of me and I found a free online reading assessment. I had Pumpkin Girl go first. Holy Hallowed Halls of Academia, Batman! The girl reads at a 3rd grade level! Remember, she is only 5 1/2. So I wondered about Boo. Same thing, he also reads at a 3rd grade level. Not as shocking, but impressive nontheless (is that one word or three?)

So what’s an overachieving mom to do?

I will continue to keep them at “grade level” for language arts. They may be strong readers, but they need to keep grammar, dictation, and spelling at K and 2. But how do I encourage their reading skills to improve, not stagnate? The problem is that 3rd/4th grade level readers will be way beyond them in terms of content. What to do, what to do? I posed the question over at the Sonlight Forums and I have already received some good advice. I got some good resources, book and author suggestions and this one key piece of advice: stick to children’s books written pre-1960. Anything newer could have subject matter that is too much for my young brood. It also occurred to me to look into the readers sold in my Catholic homeschool catalog. There were some good possibilities there, too. In a day or two, I will gather the resources and suggestions and post them here to my blog.

You know, this really shouldn’t surprise me much, given how much Philip and I both love books. I remember very clearly telling my 2nd grade teacher that I had just finished reading Little House On the Prairie. She said, “You mean your mom read it to you?” and I said, “No, I read it myself.” After that, on library day, I was allowed to go into the “big library” which was for 3rd graders and up. My first time there was amazing. I was bit timid at first, seeing all the stacks, but I got over it and never looked back.

It’s over! School, that is. More specifically, First Grade for Boo and Pre-K/K for Pumpkin Girl. We tied up the loose ends, finished up the subjects we’d fallen behind in and officially ended our school year. We actually school year round, so we will be starting 2nd Grade and Kindergarten on August 28th.

This last school year went quite differently from what I had planned. Last summer we moved twice and added a baby to our family. Our year-round schedule allowed us to work around the interruptions without getting stressed out about falling behind, but things happen and we got further off course than I’d “allowed” for. My plan had been to keep up school throughout the summer, finish in July, take a short break and start up again at the beginning of August. However, some unanticipated summer events got in the way. It wasn’t so much the events themselves as it was when they occured. I attempted to have school around the various activities, taking a week off for VBS, back in school for a week, two weeks off for swimming lessons, back in school for two weeks, off for a week for family visits, back for one last week to finish up. It was too disjointed that way and hard to get back into things for just a few days. This coming year, without any moving or new babies, we should find ourselves in a better position to incorporate our summer activities. I’m not too worried about it, though. We’ll see what happens and roll with the punches. It’ll all work out in the end, just like it did this year.

For those interested, we will be starting our new school year with Sonlight Core 1, which is world history. We’ll spread it out over 2 years, so that when the jump in difficulty occurs in Core 3, Pumpkin Girl won’t be completely overwhelmed. I’ve added in The Mystery of History along with Sonlight materials to help give us a little more “meat” as we take Core 1 slowly. Both children will listen in to the Bible, history and read alouds in Core 1, as well as Science 1.

Boo will continue with Horizons Math. He’s currently doing two lessons a day of level 1 and it suits him perfectly. He’s doing Sonlight Language Arts 2. I’m not sure what grade level he can actually read at, but LA 2 is a good fit for his spelling, grammar and handwriting ability.

Pumpkin Girl will do Horizons Math Level K. She’d gotten all the way to lesson 42 when it became too hard for her. We took a break and she worked on a thinking skills book. She’s been asking to do math “like Boo does”, so we’ll be back to Horizons at the start of our new school year. She’ll do Sonlight Language Arts K. She is my Wonder Reader so is actually doing the readers from LA 1 already. She’ll be done with those soon and move on to the readers from LA2. But again, for grammar, spelling and handwriting, she needs LA K.

The extra fun stuff will include nature notebooks and artist/picture studies a la Charlotte Mason. They will both continue with knitting and weaving potholders (can you say “grandmas’ Christmas presents”?) and their illustrated story notebooks. I found a home ec course for children their age which looks like fun. Art and music appreciation will round things out.

Yes, I know. Looks like a lot of girl stuff. My goal is to teach both children to manage a home, craft a little and appreciate the arts. Knitting is excellent for hand-eye coordination, plus teaches patience. When they are older, they will both learn to care for a home on the outside, like mowing the lawn and tending a garden. Their home ec skills will include car care and woodworking. We have classes for those things on base, they just need to be old enough to take them.

Lastly, it looks like both children will be into scouting this year. Boo will be playing soccer in the fall and Pumpkin Girl is taking ballet.

As for Bip, he’s just along for the ride.

Bip and I have the bed all to ourselves for the week since Philip is gone. He’s spending the week in Hawaii (lucky guy) at a conference he put together. I’m not too sure what exactly his job is, so I can’t explain this conference. I know he’s in charge of a global satellite system and trying to get as many joint commands to use it as possible. Joint commands are where multiple branches of the US Armed Services are serving together in one unit. I think. Could be wrong, wouldn’t be the first time.

With Philip being gone and summer having arrived with a bang, I decided to mix things up a bit with our schedule. We school year round for two reasons. First off, we take a break from our regularly scheduled curriculum on Fridays. We don’t skip the assignments or double up on another day, we just push the 5th days’ work into the next week and everything moves over one day. If you do the math, you’ll see that we end up with 9 weeks beyond the more traditional 36 week school calendar. Those weeks, plus 7 weeks worth of breaks scheduled around the year make up our year round school. Taking one day a week off gives us a lot of flexibility. Sometimes that day is for appointments or other non-school related activities. Most of the time, though, it is for our extra fun things, like music, art and hand crafts.

The other reason we school throughout the summer is to prevent the summer boredom and craziness. My oldest tends to run amok without specific, directed things to do. Left to his own devices, he irritates me and his sister and ends up in trouble. Having schoolwork to do leaves less hours of the day for him to be naughty. Not to say I schedule every minute of his day. That would drive all of us nuts. But between school, chores, quiet time, and meals, his free time is in shorter blocks of time throughout the day- just long enough for uber-silliness to start to creep in but short enough for me to end it before the trouble starts.

The only problem is, we usually have school in the morning and by afternoon it’s blazing hot and humid outside. Today’s forecast – hot, in the 90’s, humid, chance of thunderstorm in the afternoon. That’ll be the forecast until September. The children last all of 5 minutes outside before coming in, first for water, then for a hat, then just give up altogether. You’d never even know that public schools were out for the summer. It’s so hot that there are no children out at all.

So we readjusted our schedule. We loaded up Bip in the stroller and headed to the park at 9 am. It was still warm in the sun, but there was a good breeze. We stayed out for an hour, then came home. By the time I put Bip down for a nap, we were able to start school at 10:30. Everything else in our normal schedule has been moved down. I wasn’t entirely happy with the fact that by being at the park, our morning chores didn’t get finished until 1 pm. Maybe tomorrow we’ll do chores before going to the park.