PrIorItIes

Recently, I read from a post of Paige at Elemental Science about things she didn't predict as she conducted her work-at-home-mom life.  Number three on her countdown of things she wished she'd known was about remembering priorities. Well, around here, we all have differing priorities, but a few things unite us.  Music is very important here.  Reading is essential here, whether you listen on the text-to-voice kindle or read word-for-word from the screen/page.  Outside time with the lawn mower or gardening is a wonderful escape and exercise.  Lego time is, dare I say, "Holy" here.  There's a room dedicated to it, or mostly because the guest couch and sewing machine also live there.

The Mommy on the other hand continues to aim at doing the best she can with what she has. So many lessons I learned about life from My Grams who was born in 1914.  That was a tough time to be a little kid, especially one in rural Iowa amongst 8 brothers and sisters.  Their parents were first generation in the United States and the Old Folks still spoke lots of harsh Swedish over their heads. The Great War and the Depression were R-E-A-L to them and she shared so much of that with me as I was the only one of my siblings to go to get my bachelor's degree back then (since then my sister who came 20 years later has done the same as me).  I lived with My Grams in order to go to teacher's college.  And so much of that time is very evident in how I teach, guide, cook, clean, organize, drive, all of it. Waste not, want not, so don't even think you are going to get away with dawdling.

But mostly, TRAVEL IS ESSENTIAL AND NECESSARY.  It's how we think about all of our studies and church events and purchases and chores (frugal living-stewardship affords us to plan our errands to save fuel).  Band participation, science lessons each week (this can fall thru the cracks if spelling seems more important) and Bible study are those hills I'm willing to die on here at Paisley Classical Academy.  What would my kids say is the priority in their lives? Why is that what they classify as a priority? Take a minute to visit with them or a nature walk to discuss it.

SOTW3CH27 What Engineering Minds Want to Know about History

SOTW3CH 27, begins on page 259

A Changing World

Steam and Coal in Britain

·         READ & SUMMARIZE in Goodreads:  Howard, Ellen.,  The gate in the wall (Not a door - mind you)

·         Synge Struggle for Sea Power:  Story of the Steam-Engine

·         Bachman, Great Inventors and Their Inventions:  The Invention of the Spinning Machines

·         Builders of Our Country II.  Chapters about Howe and Whitney.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/0/22301464

Cotton and Guns in America

·         Bachman, Great Inventors and Their Inventions:  Eli Whitney & the Invention of the Cotton Gin

·         Guerber Story of the Great Republic:  Ch. VII  A Wonderful Invention, 1797

·         CH. 27, Schlessinger Media has a DVD James Watt and also Eli Whitney (Inventors of the World)

·        
Continue memorizing US Presidents and making notes about each president in order that they become special and memorable. (I'm up to #14)

·         https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/crash-course1/crash-course-world-history/you-aint-the-boss-of-me/v/crash-course-world-history-32

Usborne pages:  Pgs. 338-339; The Industrial Revolution

KHE pages:  Pgs. 296-297; Industry:  Early Revolution 1708-1815

Including Science in Classical Education

I should have known that I'd home school for almost seven years when I watched the kids dig in the backyard (whether authorized or not). They love discovery.  I do to, but I thought those who homeschooled were CRAZY back then.  Discovery is one reason I became a science teacher and love learning.  But I haven't always shared that love of learning with others.  Many moms would ask me how I even get to science, actual hands-on exploration each week of homeschooling these three creative people.  And, sadly, I haven't always had good answers for my faith in the importance of science study.

The classical education is organized around reading and writing, arithmetic skills, and history.

The Well Trained Mind, p. 158.



Yes, we have to do spelling and grammar and math, but those moms just didn't understand why they should have to do science with their kids, when they themselves hated science from their own school classroom experience.  Well, I loved my science class, teachers and experience.  I couldn't put it into words until I watched my kids begin to use the scientific method in everyday stuff...how we've continued no matter how much we stick in our classically educated schedule (and sometimes it seems like too much), science is a mainstay and another reason I homeschool.

But for many, science isn't that easy to get to each week.  I've always regretted not having the information for moms who are struggling to give their kids science lessons each week. They would ask me what worked for me, and I answered that we were constructing a grammar stage curriculum that is (k-4) from some suggestions in The Well Trained Mind by Dr. Bauer. They looked at me blindly and changed the topic. I didn't understand their reluctance to use this book.  The book was easily available in my public library, and told me to study biology for one for one year, geology, meteorology, astronomy and oceanography another year, then chemistry and physics. I agreed because my Junior High science classroom experience taught me it was "wonky" to make kids study back and forth from one topic to the next in successive chapters from a book called "7th grade science" (otherwise known as integrated).

... classical education is...orderly.  ...use notebook pages for their drawings..your record of their narrations from read alouds.

The Well Trained Mind, p. 160.

Often these moms change the topic because Susan Wise Bauer wrote from a non-biased or non-biblical perspective (for example secular vs religious; many people can be religious about being secular as well). I rejoiced in the freedom of teaching my kids about God's creations within the framework of The Well Trained Mind structure that closely follows a traditional classical education method.  I've never been accused of being structured, so WTM recommendations gave me guidelines.  And I hadn't read about Charlotte Mason or The Bluedorns back when I found the TWM in the library. 

...read something every day touching on science or nature. Teaching the Trivium, p. 382.

Now, I am emphatic about the same scientific method that I loved before the struggle to actually study science.  I now suggest reading about nature and physics, chemistry and habitat. We record observations from all these experiences we have with science (suggested in nature study from HFA Mom) and the format we've learned in Elemental Science study.

 

Notebooking has become a wonderful way to document and solidify learning.  http://harmonyfinearts.org/notebooking/ 

I have bright kids and they seem to need more challenge.  So I introduced a creation based text book, really that's what it was, for them to study about astronomy.  This lacked what we needed, so we moved on to activities involving more hands on work to study astronomy. We moved back into the textbook route to study birds and then ocean habitats, but it never really kept them attentive. Then in 2nd/3rd grade (my children were born within a 16 month period so they follow the same topics for science and history each year) we found chemistry materials that moved us into a realm of challenge, structure and substance that directly tied into the WTM suggested guidelines for science. Even if you are an eclectic, secular vs traditional, Christian homeschooler who never "gets" to science, don't let your kids miss out.

Science is EASY in Summertime

I've mentioned that these 3Gs studied science and history TOGETHER during the grammar stage even though they are 16 months apart in age.  That means many times they were able to divide and conquer my attentions, divert me from the topic, and in order to manage the "classroom," I followed many of their RABBIT TRAILS. I didn't take elementary teacher training. The secondary methods I learned were very different from what was necessary when dealing with these three, young, bright children.  So, many of the topics in our first/second grade study of earth science and astronomy were not covered at all.  They picked up the concepts through osmosis and acquaintance with other lessons, but simple experiments that many others might do just didn't happen when there were so many other topics to cover. Plus, I was a little obsessed with their sitting at desks.  Their little bodies just didn't sit well for long enough duration to watch the vinegar dissolve the seashells. Even today as we watched the seashells dissolve, there were many other events taking place concurrently. 

My 3Gs are traveling and involved in many activities this summer. Each is being blessed by an individual's week with the Utah grandparents.  There was vbs at our church for a week and drama camp at another church for a week.  There was an experience for one to do a culinary camp and another to do an art camp with friends.  There are visits with friends, library reading time and swim time. There is an opportunity to visit the Iowa grandparents for a county fair experience.  Rarely are all three children here together during the summer.  I wanted to do a little school during the summer which included math practice and science interactions.  My goal was to work through simple Janice VanCleave Earth Science and Astronomy experiments as far as possible because there won't be time to try any of these during the school year with Elemental Science's Logic Stage ESA.  I LOVE Earth Science and Astronomy. I'm delighted with how it relates to other studies and how the topics are ever present in daily life.  I endure discussions of my three tween children in order to persevere for science experiments.  It's so worth it when they share what they saw with each other as one travels away.  They will refer back to some of these experiments we are attempting even if it's not all 101 ideas from the book.  And, it isn't torture to do a simple experience with household materials for a few minutes each day that may even be individual work causing more pride in their own work.

Are you trying any school this summer? Are you in a hurry to start the next school year?

Elemental Science Prep for this Fall

Highlighters & underlines with sticky notes a plenty. Yes, this means the KSE & UISE will have marks in the book if I ever resell. But, my kids won't be able to say they can't find the definitions to terms or what to outline on the page when they look at all the aids I'm plugging in.  I will slowly decrease the amount of these aids as I move through preparation of the books for this fall, but last year I gave them Paige's discussion questions as well as her definition of vocabulary terms from the start.  They had to find their own answers to the discussion questions, but I helped them go over the answers before they were allowed to put the notebook page in their science binders each week.  This was done in order to straighten out the misunderstandings and lack of detail from each page covered.  This year, they will slowly be outlining instead of answering discussion questions (which are really part of the outline anyway) and deciphering from the KSE and UISE what each definition for vocabulary terms should be before they come to me to go over the material.  The life of 5th and 6th graders around here just got more challenging, but I know they will handle it BRILLIANTLY. 

Homeschool Attempt to View the Transit of Venus

Tuesday, June 5th we attempted to tape the small binoculars to the Daddy's camera tripod and see the image of Venus transiting across the sun projected on a sheet of paper.


My junior astronomers continued their studies of Astronomy a little out of schedule. We follow a Well Trained Mind Classical Education model of arranging our curriculum. That said, astronomy was part of the 1st/2nd grade year and will be part of our fall studies in 5th/6th grade.  But the transit of a near planet doesn't happen everyday.  We were able to see a faint, circular image of the sun lightened on the binocular shadow AND the dark dot of Venus on that circle.  G#2 and I then followed the proceedings after dinner on a website broadcasting the transit from Mt. Mauna Loa NASA observatory.  She was so anxious not to miss this event and stayed away from neighborhood kid time play in order to watch the experience.  She knew that it wouldn't take place again for over a hundred years and didn't want to miss it. 

We've made a request from an uncle who has welding training to gift us a welder's helmet for Christmas so we won't have to deal with the tripod anymore.

Checking In with Weekly Report

Ok, so y'all are always posting weekly accomplishments and I'm the sluggard who is just trying to keep up on who ate last and who is going where. So, here is a run down or sum up of what point we are in the schedule for 4th and 5th grades. 

G#2 started a week earlier than her brothers because she was ready while they were still playing with legos until noon back in August. She is completing Week 26 of an approximately 40 week schedule for 4th grade.  She read and finished all the sources for the Story of the World chapter 28 about the Roman Empire. She enjoyed a video about Ancient Roman art from Harmony Arts Mom's 5th grade plans.  She learned some new words from Spelling Workout lesson 26.  She is done with Rod and Staff English 5 lesson 56 and Saxon 5/4 lesson 73.  She survived flute in homeschool band for week 18 along with her brothers as well as read about Mongolia after moving all the way East in Asia from the Mediterranean Sea.  Her habitat studies have her and her brothers in the rainforest with the Hands of a Child crew answering a question in paragraph format regarding why the rainforest is a great place for animals to live.  She was especially grateful for poor weather this week as it was the Elemental Science Logic Stage Life Science week for Amphibians and a frog dissection. The dissection which needs to be done outside was postponed until better weather hits the Chicagoland area.  Our CBS lessons took us to Genesis 33 and it was a nice change to have more action from Bible study.

G#1&#3 both sailed through the same habitat, flags, CBS, science and art lessons. They both have their own grammar, spelling and math lessons which keep them busy.  History finds them in chapter 25 of SOTW and notebook pages from our 2009 Rome field trip were completed with pictures of each kid in historic locales.  G#1 finished reading the final book of the Roman Mysteries and wrote a short narration to complete his collection which will get printed out and placed in his history binder.

We were all active for gym time on Tuesday and enjoyed time with friends on the ice for homeschool kids ice skating time.  So much activity is initiated around here from time off the couch while playing the Wii games.  I actually allowed a library Wii game after each G completed the winter reading program from our local library on Wednesday. I'm so glad for the freedom to move in and out of the library during a regular school day.

Coral Reef Replication Experiment w/ Elemental Science

So, we got a little messy while doing this exercise, but it was fun! 

http://www.mrsstewart.com/pages/explanation.htm

http://www.mrsstewart.com/pages/scginstructions.htm

The life science experiment in Elemental Science Logic Stage curriculum directed my Gs to grow coral by using salt, water and liquid bluing.  I had such a trouble finding the laundry item called bluing. I ended up buying the bluing product from amazon.com because I had driven to 6 stores in my area and still couldn't find it (we have prime for delivery costs, so it wasn't a huge expense considering I've already driven - the gas costing what it does - to several stores).

We are also working on our memory work and included Cnidarians last week. We'll have to postpone observing snails for this week's experiment until I find one. But, I did go into a pet store for the first time in 10 years and it wasn't a horrible experience.

Dissections In Logic Stage Life Science

Clam Dissection

What would you do on a beautiful day in January?  We went into the back yard & dissected an earthworm, clam and sea star. We're working Unit 3 called Invertebrates of the Elemental Science Logic Stage Life Science curriculum.   It's a Saturday & the Daddy could read the directions while Mom sliced open the earthworm or held open the sea star. Daddy also took on the opening of a clam which we don't have on the farm where Mom grew up in Iowa.  G#1 reflected upon eating clams or mussels before.

Sea Star Dissection


There were few directions for this exercise. G#3 enjoyed trying the forceps to touch the
Echinoderm, but G#2 continued to look on as she was still relishing the fact there was little formaldehyde smell involved while dissecting outside. 

Earthworm Dissection

I remember this dissection from seventh grade and was not afraid to start cutting into the
annelid from the kit.  The Daddy decided that after reading the clear and concisely written instructions to the dissection, he would examine the digestive system of the worm himself. 

There will be more dissections, but those will have to wait for another warm day in the sunshine at the back of the house.  Next, we examine coral and cnidarians in week 13 of Logic Stage Life Science.

A very animated naturalist at the Biodome

This man advised us about microscopes and even got G#2 to touch a thorny stick leg insect.

Uh Oh

I was putting away my school materials for the Thanksgiving week of travel, and found this. I have been starting seeds and buying flowers for science lessons.  But as I looked at the next lessons in order to prepare for what comes next in science, I found the need for earthworms and a optional dissection of a sea star. GREAT! I said to myself, I have those in the box from the vendor. Except, as I opened the box I see these pieces are not individually packaged. I don't need all of these specimens in the same week. Thus, I now need formaldehyde and a storage solution for those that are not used immediately. YIKES! Did I mention that I was a GEOGRAPHY/GEOLOGY MAJOR!!! My confidence level just took a dive... and now I'm ready to give up. But there is hope of some dissection expert in my future. I just have to find the means to preserve the specimens for my 4th and 5th graders to OBSERVE for Elemental Science Biology.

Happy Thanksgiving this week and I'll gladly post some pictures if we make it to Montreal and Quebec City, but just remember me in December managing this dissection conundrum.

Week 10 Flowers & Seeds

Lilies and Elemental Science Logic Stage Biology

Corn seed and bean seed in the dicot/monocot experiment plus the lilies makes for a colorful growing kitchen as it gets colder and darker outside.

Microscope fun with fungi and ferns

Logic stage biology delved superficially into the discussion of fungi last week and ferns this week. The fungi came from pond water the kids collected at Busse Woods while sailing with the daddy.  We followed along one of the youtube video links and remembered the ferns we'd seen in Hawaii recently. 

Next we explore flowering plants with corn and bean seeds which will be fun as the trees loose their leaves and the temperature drops. I wonder if there will be time for a garden this next summer after the house changes are done. The yard is cleaned off for this winter and we're starting garden seeds for science.http://www.elementalscience.com/blog/

YAHOO!

Time to practice building what we've learned about during the year of Grammar Stage Physics and stay out of the way when the rocket goes off in the back yard! Quick: Who can name all three of Newton's Laws of Motion? Remember when we visited his gravesite at Westminster Abbey in September?  Pictures of rocket project coming soon!

Physics in the Grammar Stage lab page

My son's 3rd grade handwriting is not exemplary, but we had phun in Physics today.

The 3rd grade sister's lab page gave 3 changes that we made to make the lab work well.

Santa Cruz, California Field Trip/ Vacation

This boat is 70 feet long and took us out into Monterrey Bay to see an otter and seagull and lots of other stuff. We learned about marine biology of the area from a marine biologist named Jessica.

It worked well until G#2 got sea sick and of course, I didn't have the proper medicine to alleviate her condition. She was well taken care of during the trip by the crew who also steered, raise/lower the sails and served us breakfast.


We later visited the Seymour Marine Science Center at University of California Santa Cruz to have our hands on sea urchin, hermit crabs, sea stars, kelp, swell shark, mussels and barnacles.  We got to see how big Mr. Gray whale's skeleton is and compared it to Ms. Blue (whom we took a picture with).

We later were introduced to a Redwood forest nearby. Several hikes in beautiful weather were a huge blessing. We hiked at Natural Bridges State Park and Wilder Ranch State Park. We saw high tide and low tide in the same spot and marveled at the power waves and amount of sound from the ocean. Wonderful!

 

Wordless Wednesday

Natural Bridges State Park: Northern California surf, tide pools, sand, wetland!

Physics: Potato Clock

The children are doing a unit in Elemental Science Physics on magnets and electricity. And, the potato clock worked today, somehow. So, the rest of the week we get to research WHY it worked. Here is one idea.

The Red Pen

This is our fourth year of home educating three children who arrived into this world in a matter of sixteen months.  They are each quite different from the other, as one should expect.  I have always moaned about their arrival in a compacted time period, but if I'd had it to do over again, I may not have changed anything. And what right do I have of complaining over healthy children born with little trouble, after all! 

So, this is our fourth year as a homeschooling family and I've always been in a hurry while teaching them. "All my ducks were never in a row" as it were, and I've thus always been frustrated (except on those very special days when I used a secret weapon that I don't use all the time - prayer).  Why don't I always pray? Well, that is a mystery. Conundrum... 

And, through these four years I, as a geography teacher at heart and by training, have included flag studies by Continent as well as a biome study.  These subjects are separate in their planners, but have related until now. For example, when we studied Canada, I started an arctic biome study. We did a state bird and migration study that was somewhat related to the states of the Union study.  Europe overlapped into the arctic biome study and African flags overlapped into the desert biome study. We are studying the Latin and South American flags this year and the ocean biome.

As a basis for these biome studies, I have used some Hands of a Child materials and some Apologia materials.  The flag studies have always used Homeschooling with Index Cards materials and some Dover materials.  I have read aloud the Burgess book about the seashore, listened to Moby Dick from audio book, each child read a page a day of Holings' books called Seabird and the other called Pagoo. We've used the Dover coloring book to examine creatures along the seashore. But, now we've progressed past the Dover and HOAC materials for the oceans biome study into the Apologia book called Swimming Things of the Fifth Day.  I am using open ended short answer questions from the Yahoo Elementary Apologia group for each chapter.

Finally, I'm getting to the part where these three children are writing a paragraph independently and I'm using a red pen to convey a critique of their work.  And I thought that maybe they were ready to do a paragraph to answer the question of what differentiates sea grass from algae. Their requirements were simple: handwriting that I can read; topic sentence that states intent to differentiate between the two items; several sentences about how the items are different; and a final sentence about the importance of both items.  I was pleased to find handwriting I can read and I did have to coach a bit, but spelling mistakes aside, there was very little red ink on the pages.  I wonder if we're getting to writing and not just blowing it off as I've done in the past. Maybe the discussion of narrating and summations is sinking in to their brains. Maybe...

Physics: Spin chapter Stool

Elemental Science Spin Chapter Stool Project done independently and written about in complete sentences in their own notebook pages.