Category - Eagle’s Wing Academy

One of our extra things we do in school is our story notebooks. I don’t really know what else to call them. Each child has their own sketchbook to draw a picture and then write a story. They use Crayola sketchbooks which are unlined. I measure off 2″ from the bottom of each page and draw a line. They draw on the upper portion of the page then dictate a story to me. I haven’t given them any direction on this, just let them draw whatever they choose. It’s been an interesting peek into whatever is on their minds that week.

Boo is not really into coloring or drawing. This is painfully evident in his story notebook. He does not draw like a 7 year old at all. I have been trying to keep my opinions to myself and not “help” him draw, but really, he really needs to do better. You can really see what I’m talking about here:

“We were all with God in a very happy place. That is Heaven. All the yellow stuff is the glory surrounding them. We were all very happy. We had a terrific party. We danced and danced all night.”

He does write good stories.

After another, I hate to say “bad”, drawing I decided he did need more guidance. We had an impromptu art class where I taught him how to draw a little more realistically. Here is his first drawing since then:

“Today I was driving my motorboat to the Smarty Mart to deliver stuff. The wind blew now and then, so I had my motor on, too. I also had my sail up. I arrived at the Smarty Mart in a jiffy. Then I just hung out for the rest of the day.”

Much better.

Pumpkin Girl’s stories are mostly about her and Rebecca:

“In Heaven, Becky was with God. They were happy and smiling at me when I went in. They had a beautiful party for my family. At the end, we all had a great time and then went to bed. The End. (p.s. The one that is all sparklish is God.)”

Today we not only used the notebooks for undirected stories and pictures, but we also used them to further our drawing skills. We used a picture of Larry and Bob from a coloring book and copied it. I then had the children write their own stories to go with the pictures. Interesting enough, Pumpkin did better at the drawing, getting all the peices in the same places at the coloring book picture, but for all her story-telling skills, she had trouble making up a story.

“Bob and Larry are dancing outside in the cool morning.”

Boo wasn’t as accurate with the drawing of Larry and Bob, but he embellished his drawing by putting them in a boat. He also made up a great little story, complete with dialogue.

“It was a warm, sunny day. Bob and Larry were out sailing. They were headed towards the beach. It was a windy day. The wind took a pause, so they had their engine on, too. When they spotted the beach, Bob shouted, “Land, ho!” And Larry shouted, “Anchors down!” They landed ont he beach and had a wonderful time there. ”

Here’s my drawing. I didn’t write a story.

This is one of Boo and Pumpkin’s favorite school activities. My plan is to keep them going as long as they enjoy them. We will be starting nature notebooks in the fall, too, so I may combine the two into one discovery journal where they can continue to write and illustrate stories, and observe and record nature and the world around them.

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We had so much fun with our science experiments today!  We are using the Usborne Science Activities Book 2.  Today we had experiments with fizz.

First up:  raisins and soda.  Pour some clear soda into a clear glass or jar.  Add a couple of raisins.  The gas bubbles in the soda will grab the raisins and lift them up.  As the gas escapes, the raisins will fall back down, but come up again when more bubbles stick to them.  This is really funny to watch!

Next:  baking soda and vinegar.  Just add a little of both to a cup and watch what happens.

And: fizzies in your mouth.  A little citric acid plus a little baking soda gets you…nothing!  You need to add liquid.  But first, mix some powdered sugar in for taste, then put a pinch of the mixture in your mouth.  Sort of a sweet and tangy fizzy thing going on.  Fun!  Put some of the mixture aside for Daddy to try when he comes home.  You can also watch what happened in your mouth by taking a spoonful of the mix and adding water to it.

By the way, if you are using the Usborne Science Activity books, Sonlight has some great DVDs to go along with them.  Every experiment in the book is demonstrated on the DVD by a fun and often silly science dude.  They are great to compare your own experiments with our to use if you don’t want to do them yourselves.  Especially if you can’t get all the materials needed.  Sonlight also sells science kits to go along with the books and DVDs so that you do have things like citric acid on hand.  I’m not affiliated with Sonlight in any way, just a big fan of their curriculum.

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Look what arrived yesterday!

Our new curriculum for the upcoming school year.

They were supposed to arrive Saturday, but I guess they staged a Boxer Rebellion and didn’t get on the truck, keeping me waiting until Tuesday.  Of course, it took until after 5 pm for the FedEx guy to show up, meaning my boxes sat in our hallway for a few hours.  Everytime I passed by them, I patted them lovingly. Philip had choir practice so they had to wait while I popped into the shower before he left and then put the baby to bed.  It was 8:15 by the time I got downstairs to give my boxes the attention they deserved.

I went right to work checking the contents against the packing slip, just smiling away at all the wonderful books we will be reading.  When the children were done with their movie, they immediately pounced on the books.

Pumpkin Girl grabbed The Beginner’s Bible and read the first 3 stories.  Boo chose Amelia Bedelia and a Frog and Toad book.  I’ve read about how excited other children get when the Sonlight box arrives, and I was so tickled at seeing my own children get so excited, too.  And to add to the fun, the box has a castle printed on the inside that we can cut out and assemble!  We have not yet put together the children’s Playmobile castle, so this is perfect.

Once I was done with the inventory, I separated the books into piles by subject.  By this time, the children had finished their first set of books and started examining the rest.  Each new discovery was met with "Cool!"  Boo found the book on ancient Greece and said, "Hey, this is the same as the movie."  (They’d been watching "Hercules".)  They were happy to find a new book of science experiments and its accompanying DVD and Pumpkin Girl was delighted at the new "Look With Me" art appreciation books.

Phil came home from choir practice to find that bedtime had come and gone and we were still downstairs with our books.  We were all eager to share our favorites with him and Pumpkin Girl asked if she could read the Bible story from the new Bible.  Then she read one of the stories out loud right then and there.  (Can I just brag on her a bit here.  She’s only 5 1/2 and can read The Beginner’s Bible, which is about a 2nd grade reading level.  She really amazes me.) Then, right before they headed off to bed, Boo said, "Can we start 2nd grade tomorrow?"  Pumpkin went upstairs with the bible tucked under her arm. Ah, it’s moments like these that warm a homeschooler’s heart.

Later I started putting together my instructor’s guide.  I’m really looking forward to our upcoming school year.  We’ll be studying world history from creation to the fall of the Roman Empire.  I can hardly wait.  Can we start 2nd grade tomorrow?

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Our two week spring break is over and we’re getting back to business.  After the great day the children had yesterday, they were tired out and went right to sleep.  In the morning it was cold and gray, so the sunlight didn’t wake them as usual and I found them both still asleep at 8:00 am. Bip missed his morning nap on Sunday then was awake 6 hours before finally crashing.  I let him sleep in until 9.  So after a  slow start, we got our day started.

I was happy to find that neither Boo nor Pumpkin Girl lost any ground during our time off.  Even Boo’s handwriting looked good – after some practice- and I think his math has actually improved.  I got a chance to try out my new planning sheet.  Even though Sonlight’s Instructor Guides are all planned out and printed up nicely, with two children doing some of the same work, but not all, plus doing 4 days of school but using the 5 day plan, I have customized just enough to require a bit more planning on my part.  I had considered using Home School Tracker, but it wasn’t quite what I wanted.  I also didn’t feel like spending money on a plan book only to find it also didn’t fit my needs.  I found what I was looking for on Donna Young’s site (plus it seems like one of her children is a CAP cadet).  On one side of the planning sheet I have what the children call their "couch" work – all the stuff we read together sitting on the couch.  That would be Bible, history, science, read-alouds and readers.  On the other side is the seat work.  So far, it’s working fine.

Another good thing today was that Bip actually napped, two hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon.  He was his usually happy self all day.  I’m hoping to reset his clock and get him back on a good sleep pattern.  He never quite recovered from the switch to Daylight Saving Time.

I have started reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to Boo and Pumpkin Girl apart from school time.  With the release of the DVD, they’ve been seeing ads for the movie and want to see it.  It’s rated PG, so Phil and I will preview it first, but even before that, I want them to experience it the way I did, through the book.  I also bought the radio theater production of the whole Chronicles that Focus on the Family put out.  I’d like us to listen to them as a family.  My mom recently attended a seminar by the author of Companion to Narnia, which she bought me. (that is, she bought me the book, not the author or the seminar, LOL!) He said the best way to experience the books was to have someone read them out loud to you.  So thus, the CDs.  Boo is really into LWW.  I have to read two chapters at a time and he begs me for more, but Charlotte’s attention span won’t stand for it.  I’m really glad he’s enjoying it.  I really love sharing meaningful things from my childhood with the children and seeing them come to love them, too.  Today, as a special treat since Daddy is gone, we popped popcorn and sat on the floor with Nicholas while we read our two chapters.

So there you have it.  Not too bad of a day considering we all miss Phil and it was too cold and damp to be outside.  Hopefully, tomorrow will be even better.

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I have been so inspired by how LindaFay’s blog, Higher Up and Further In, about Charlotte Mason education, that I risked life and limb to dig out my Charlotte Mason books from their hiding places.  I found them in the bottom box of a stack of 4 moving boxes of course.  I became interested in Charlotte Mason when we first starting homeschooling, but didn’t really do anything with the information I had found.  In reading the books again, I am reminded at how well Sonlight goes along with CM.

One reason I like Sonlight so much is that it is all put together for me.  I don’t have the temperment to research what I want to teach, when to teach it, etc.  So even the thought of adding something simple like picture studies to our curriculum is making me nervous.  I mean, which artist to study?  Which paintings?  Where am I going to find copies of the paintings to look at? Then it hit me.  We live in Washington, DC – so does the National Gallery of Art.  I took my copy of A Charlotte Mason Companion  where the author outlines the steps to a good picture  study.  She even recommends some artists to study.  I checked her list against the list of artists featured at the National Gallery and discovered that the museum has a good collection of Mary Cassatt, Raphael, Monet and Renoir.  They even have a huge collection of Ansel Adams.  So those will be our artists of choice for the next year or so.  I plan to have the children study the specific works that are on display at the National Gallery and then end our year with a trip to the museum to see the art in person.

I am excited about this new venture.  I like that we won’t be doing huge extensive studies of schools of art, techniques or even of the artist’s lives.  We will be reading short biographies, but will mostly focus on just enjoying the art for itself.  I believe that Charlotte Mason had her students do picture studies for only 10 minutes a week.  I can handle that!  Next on the list – nature journals!

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My internet access was down for two days so I didn’t have a chance to add the ending to my math story.

After the neighbor boy came by asking for Boo to play, Boo sped through his chores, ate a tiny snack then sat right back down to complete his math. I saw him sitting there with his hands folded and asked him if he was praying about his math. He said yes and I offered to pray with him. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I mentioned how Jesus understood what it is like to be a 7 yo boy. He liked that. It makes him feel good to think of Jesus experiencing the same things he does. Except I bet He never had to fill in a hundreds chart.

Boo finished up his math with a cheerful attitude and with only a little help from me.

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I’m a bad mother, I’ll admit it. I assigned the boy homework today. He got such an attitude over his math assignment! He has no intuitive math ability. None. He comes by it honestly, though. I am a Math Turkey. Phil is no better. Phil’s two brothers are engineers, obviously they got all the math brains and he got the language brains. So the genetic possibility of math prowness does exist in the family, Boo just didn’t get it. He can’t tell you what number comes before or after any given number. He struggles to count backwards. His standard answer has become “20.” Frequently his math assignment will be to fill in the missing numbers on a hundreds chart. It goes something like this:

Boo: 59…59…59…20?
Me: No Boo, 20 is over here after 19.
Boo: Ok, then what is it? (note the attitude!)
Me: Well, what comes after 9?
Boo: 10
Me: Good, so what comes after 59?
Boo: 50 10?
Me: Yes, and what do we call that?
Boo: 20?
Me: No, remember I told you we already used 20 back here after 19?
Boo: Yes.
Me: So the number after 59 wouldn’t be 20, would it?
Boo: No. Um. 60?
Me: Good! OK, keep going.

He continues filling in numbers. We repeat the same conversation at the 79.

Boo: 20
Me: No. Boo, “20” is only very rarely going to be the right answer. In fact, it’s only going to be the right answer if the question is “What comes after 19” or “what comes before 21”.

I may have to start charging him a nickle every time he says 20.

I always wondered how he’d do in math. Once when he was around 7 months old and I was an anxious first time mom, I read that all babies need to learn to cross crawl. This is an important skill that developes spatial reasoning and a bunch of other important mental abilities. Boo of course, held out on crawling until he was 10 months old. He had me quite worked up. I see now that this was more an indication of his personality. He wants to be able to do things quickly and right the first time. If he can’t, he gets angry and gives up. Phil’s brother John, the civil engineer, didn’t crawl either. MIL says he sort of scooted around on his rear. He’s now in charge of all the sidewalk in San Francisco, – so much for needing to crawl to get ahead in life. No pun intended.

We started out using Singapore Math. It sounded like the perfect program for a family of Math Turkeys. Singapore Math teaches mental math, a skill I just don’t have. I use calculator math or finger math. Mental math is so not there for me, that any time I have to calculate a tip, say for a haircut, I spend a good portion of the time leading up to the calculating of the tip having Math Anxiety. So back to Singapore Math…we were doing fine with it except that the boy was just not learning his math facts. Well, without them and given his lack of intuitive math knowledge, we hit a wall. We absolutely could go no further in our math assignments without him just knowing that 2 +2=4. So we switched to Horizons Math.

What a difference! We backed all the way up to about 1/4 of the way through the Kindergarten level and have really been building a great foundation of math. I love the way Horizons keeps reviewing and reviewing the same concepts over and over, moving on for a while, then returning. He’s actually learning and retaining things. He’s not quite so angry at math. Well, not usually.

Today, I got out our DK “Math Made Easy” book which we use to supplement – great book by the way- and opened to our assignment. He took one look – fill in the missing numbers and said, “ARGH!! Well it’s NOT going to be easy!” He then promptly filled in the wrong answers on purpose. We talked that through and he admited to doing it out of anger and to not even trying to get the right answer. We struggled like this, including a couple of “20” guesses. Finally, school time was over. He’d had such an attitude of “I refuse to do this correctly” and “Well then what is the answer?’ that it took him forever to work through a half a page. We needed to get on with our day. I told him to go get a snack, then do his chores, then return to his math during his free time. He actually had to tell his friend from next door that he couldn’t play until he’d finished his math.

See how mean I am?

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Pumpkin Girl asked me if we would be adopting Rachel today.  I had to laugh.  We haven’t even begun to start adopting a baby.  Apparently they think that Bip is big now and so it’s time for another baby. Pumpkin pointed out that Boo is going to have 4 girls: Mama, her, Becca and Rachel.  After some thought he asked if we could adopt a  baby boy after Rachel.

We have been trying to come up with a name for our homeschool.  We wanted something that reflected our Christian beliefs, but nothing was forthcoming.  We decided not to worry about it too much and let God show us the answer.  He finally did:

  Eagle’s Wing Academy

(Phil wants to call it the Eagle’s Wing Academy for Cute and Gifted Children but I said it wouldn’t fit on a t-shirt)  It’s from Isaiah 40:31 – "But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will  run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."  During the Worst Week of Our Lives, my very good friend Tammy gave me a card with that passage written in it.  I have carried it with me ever since.  I repeated the phrase "I will walk and not be faint" every time I thought I couldn’t go on.  Relying on the Lord, hoping in Him was the only thing getting me out of bed sometimes, keeping me from not growing faint.  And while we may not quite be soaring yet, our strength is still there.  The most important thing we can do for our children is to teach them to hope in the Lord.  Everything comes back to this and all else will fall in to place from it.   Faith, hope and love.  Some day we may all soar again, but in the meantime, we will not grow faint.

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We have school 4 days a week which allows us to school year round.  The 5th day each week is for appointments, errands or field trips.  If we don’t have any of those, we have "Friday School."  We play with pattern blocks, work on our story notebooks or have art lessons.  Today we had art.  We’re using Smart Start Art and today we were working with crayons.  We learned about how light changes a color’s value.  You can tell right away which child colored each picture.  My 7 yo ds doesn’t color as well as my 5 yo dd.  Must be a girl thing.

On a side note, it’s really warm today!  The weather thing on AOL says it’s 76 degrees.  If it gets any warmer, I’m going to have to turn on the air conditioner.  I’m not a warm weather person.  Give me snow and freezing temperatures anytime.

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