Friday, November 5, 2010
Unschooling Moments - Thursday Journal
This is just an example of how journaling helps you see how much learning is going on even though it isn't formal.
* Child-initiated
S up 1st (8:00) - *continues to work on recreating Flight of the Bumblebee on garageband by playing it slowly and then manipulating it digitally so it will sound right when he speeds it up.
W (8:30)*wakes up, practices guitar including his audition piece, goes to Mass
J (9:00)*wakes himself up, showers, gets a bowl of cereal and then starts on math. He meets with math tutor today.
B - I wake her at 9:00 a.m., *checks e-mail, eats breakfast.
I read aloud story of Tobias in Bible History.
S reads next chapter in St. Patrick's Summer Catechism.
After breakfast *B starts looking at parts of speech poster up on wall. This reminds her of Mad Libs. We've been doing these off and on and there is a pad on the coffee table. B wants S to participate so we do two Mad Libs.
B does some practice writing words that begin with f in cursive. She does very well.
B does lesson 21 orally in Getting Started with Latin. It explains about 1st, 2nd and 3rd person sing. and plural. She does well.
S does list of prepositions that take the accusative in Latin. That finishes up Ch. 25 in LfC.
B does one subtraction problem with borrowing and two expanded notation problems. Doesn't quite get the expanded notation thing.
S copies over a paragraph about Clara Barton in cursive. Not bad, could be neater.
W *practices piano
B and S *play with photobooth program on mac with much hilarity
J *reads web comics and looks at pics of signs from John Stewart Rally while I correct his math lessons.
B *played games on Webkinz
S does half a lesson of Saxon math
W to metro to piano lesson, J to math tutor
B *got old rug with picture of town on it. She got out trucks and was playing 'town'
S *played with his keyboard
B and S *watched recorded Fetch with Ruff Ruffman and Phineas and Ferb.
S *practices playing Flight of the Bumblebee on the piano. Picks out tunes on the penny whistle.
B * makes a book by cutting up pages and stapling them together. She's drawing faces and calling it 'facebook'.
J *reading more webcomics after tutor session.
B *finished making key chain out of gimp.
S* phone call with his friend Jack. They like creating video games together.
W * listening to The Man Who Was Thursday on audio.
S*scanned B's 'facebook' into art site he goes to.
W* practicing lots of of music
B and I work on Thanksgiving Tree poster.
J * still reading those web comics!
S* is majorly into beat boxing and making sounds a la Fred Newman. He perfected his water drop sound. It really sounds just like a drop of water dripping!
S is a wiz! I asked him if he could scan a picture of me and his dad into the computer and put it on facebook and he did it. He even edited out some spots that somehow showed up on the picture. He's amazing.
J and I did some Latin homework.
We all put up what we are thankful for on our thanksgiving tree.
Read aloud to B and S about Numa Pompilius from the Story of the Romans.
Read Jo's Boys to B
B* in the last couple of days, B's interest in playing violin has surfaced again. She took it out of the case and wanted to show me all the parts of the violin. I had to guess the names and then she corrected me if I got it wrong.
W and S * W showed S Librivox which he is really excited about. The went through the different samples, especially Shakespeare plays and listened to the different readers, laughing a lot about how the talent of the volunteer readers vary so much.
Our thanksgiving tree:
* Child-initiated
S up 1st (8:00) - *continues to work on recreating Flight of the Bumblebee on garageband by playing it slowly and then manipulating it digitally so it will sound right when he speeds it up.
W (8:30)*wakes up, practices guitar including his audition piece, goes to Mass
J (9:00)*wakes himself up, showers, gets a bowl of cereal and then starts on math. He meets with math tutor today.
B - I wake her at 9:00 a.m., *checks e-mail, eats breakfast.
I read aloud story of Tobias in Bible History.
S reads next chapter in St. Patrick's Summer Catechism.
After breakfast *B starts looking at parts of speech poster up on wall. This reminds her of Mad Libs. We've been doing these off and on and there is a pad on the coffee table. B wants S to participate so we do two Mad Libs.
B does some practice writing words that begin with f in cursive. She does very well.
B does lesson 21 orally in Getting Started with Latin. It explains about 1st, 2nd and 3rd person sing. and plural. She does well.
S does list of prepositions that take the accusative in Latin. That finishes up Ch. 25 in LfC.
B does one subtraction problem with borrowing and two expanded notation problems. Doesn't quite get the expanded notation thing.
S copies over a paragraph about Clara Barton in cursive. Not bad, could be neater.
W *practices piano
B and S *play with photobooth program on mac with much hilarity
J *reads web comics and looks at pics of signs from John Stewart Rally while I correct his math lessons.
B *played games on Webkinz
S does half a lesson of Saxon math
W to metro to piano lesson, J to math tutor
B *got old rug with picture of town on it. She got out trucks and was playing 'town'
S *played with his keyboard
B and S *watched recorded Fetch with Ruff Ruffman and Phineas and Ferb.
S *practices playing Flight of the Bumblebee on the piano. Picks out tunes on the penny whistle.
B * makes a book by cutting up pages and stapling them together. She's drawing faces and calling it 'facebook'.
J *reading more webcomics after tutor session.
B *finished making key chain out of gimp.
S* phone call with his friend Jack. They like creating video games together.
W * listening to The Man Who Was Thursday on audio.
S*scanned B's 'facebook' into art site he goes to.
W* practicing lots of of music
B and I work on Thanksgiving Tree poster.
J * still reading those web comics!
S* is majorly into beat boxing and making sounds a la Fred Newman. He perfected his water drop sound. It really sounds just like a drop of water dripping!
S is a wiz! I asked him if he could scan a picture of me and his dad into the computer and put it on facebook and he did it. He even edited out some spots that somehow showed up on the picture. He's amazing.
J and I did some Latin homework.
We all put up what we are thankful for on our thanksgiving tree.
Read aloud to B and S about Numa Pompilius from the Story of the Romans.
Read Jo's Boys to B
B* in the last couple of days, B's interest in playing violin has surfaced again. She took it out of the case and wanted to show me all the parts of the violin. I had to guess the names and then she corrected me if I got it wrong.
W and S * W showed S Librivox which he is really excited about. The went through the different samples, especially Shakespeare plays and listened to the different readers, laughing a lot about how the talent of the volunteer readers vary so much.
Our thanksgiving tree:
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Alexander's Amazing Adventures
I am just revisiting this resource for my youngest child. These are wonderful audio stories that teach virtues in a really clever and meaningful way. My older kids listened to these over and over again for years. Somehow we seemed to have lost many of the tapes over the years. And then tapes started being old hat anyway and we preferred CDs. Then our last tape player broke and we never got it fixed. Lately, I have been thinking about how much my older kids learned from these audios and feeling regret that my younger kids have missed out. So I got my husband to check out their website (I was too sleepy at the time. LOL!). It's different from before when I bought the cassettes 10 years ago. You have to sign up and join their site for $50.00; then you have a choice of downloading the stories for your MP3 player or getting them on CDs once a month. I opted for the CDs because to me having to download and make our own CD just added another layer of complexity that I don't deal with well.
So this resource does appear to be pretty pricey, however, my older kids did listen to the tapes again and again for years and it looks like now you get lots of information, advice, activities, etc from their website. I've read a couple of the Eyre's books and they are excellent. The Eyre's are Mormon, but I never read or heard anything that conflicted with the Catholic faith. They just teach good old fashioned family values in an entertaining, clever and surprisingly profound way.
So check out Alexander's Amazing Adventures in the kingdom of Inlandia and learn about things like honesty, self-discipline and chastity and laugh a lot too while you (and your kids!) are learning!
So this resource does appear to be pretty pricey, however, my older kids did listen to the tapes again and again for years and it looks like now you get lots of information, advice, activities, etc from their website. I've read a couple of the Eyre's books and they are excellent. The Eyre's are Mormon, but I never read or heard anything that conflicted with the Catholic faith. They just teach good old fashioned family values in an entertaining, clever and surprisingly profound way.
So check out Alexander's Amazing Adventures in the kingdom of Inlandia and learn about things like honesty, self-discipline and chastity and laugh a lot too while you (and your kids!) are learning!
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Wordless Wednesday
Halloween
All Saints Day Party (She's St. Elizabeth of Hungary)
All Souls Day
My paternal grandfather and grandmother and my brother
My maternal grandmother (I'm writing my NaNoWriMo novel based on her)
My Mom and Dad. I miss them so much.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Greathall Productions
We met Jim Weiss last year (or was it the year before? Time flies so. . . ). He was invited to our parish's school and the folks that run the school were nice enough to remember that some members of the parish homeschool. So we got invited too! My family was the first to arrive (a miracle in and of itself!) and Jim Weiss came over and talked to us and had us sit in the first row. My kids were awestruck. They love him. He absolutely radiates kindness. What a wonderful man. He then proceeded to completely hypnotize a huge roomful of school children with his amazing storytelling abilities.
Every year at least some portion of my children get a cd or two (used to be cassette tapes a long time ago!!!) in their stockings. He is rather a Christmas tradition around here.
So check out Greathall Productions and strew some learning in your stockings!
Every year at least some portion of my children get a cd or two (used to be cassette tapes a long time ago!!!) in their stockings. He is rather a Christmas tradition around here.
So check out Greathall Productions and strew some learning in your stockings!
Monday, November 1, 2010
Temporary Slow Down
I've been so enjoying writing this blog! All these ideas and thoughts that have built up in the over dozen years I've been thinking about all this stuff, are just pouring out of me! It is a great release.
However, I have committed to writing a 'novel' for NaNoWriMo and since I have very limited time to spend on the computer anyway, my time will be even scarcer. So I see an inevitable slow down ahead. I'm still planning to post some, though!
Wish me luck on my writing adventure!
However, I have committed to writing a 'novel' for NaNoWriMo and since I have very limited time to spend on the computer anyway, my time will be even scarcer. So I see an inevitable slow down ahead. I'm still planning to post some, though!
Wish me luck on my writing adventure!
Calendars
I like to give my kids calendars for Christmas. You can get calendars that focus on all kinds of things. Word-a-day, math, artists, countries, etc. My youngest daughter likes the Doodles calendar. One year one of my sons was really into M.C. Escher. He really loved the Escher calendar I got him that year. So strew some interesting calendars this Christmas!
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