Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Honest with Grace
During a conversation, recently, Grace discovered that I often have to learn the information before she does and that sometimes we are learning together. I told her that I did not ever learn about penguins the way they are learning about them. She thinks it is really great that we sometimes learn things at the same time too.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Remembering Math Frustration
Oh it seems so far away now but today I got a taste of the old time math frustration. I recently gave some advise to another person about the same thing and found myself reinforcing my own words.
"Grace it is OK, I see that today you immediately felt angry when we opened the math book" I said. I will ask God to give me patience and lets work out each problem is what I sort of told her. (cannot recall exact words). So we worked on the first few issues and then I brought her to a different part of the page that I knew she would feel successful in. It lightened the burden she felt she was carrying. So of course we had to move on to the next difficult area for her again and she approached it without the face in her hands and the knees to her chest. As I turned the page she was continuing to be successful and had to think some things out to determine what to do. When we got a big success I STOPPED! There was more to the page but we do not have to do it today. I want a good attitude and feeling of success so that we have learning taking place and not locking one of us up in a closet.
This seems to work for us. No more anger and frustration and it helps her to approach math without so much frustration at the beginning. I think the reason she felt it today right off is because we have been away from the math workbook for a week. We have done some math games and "shopping" with our money.
I would like to see all frustration with math go away. I even tried the famous MUS that others swear by. Well it is not through her inability to see and understand the concept and she hated the manipulates that we borrowed when we tried it. To be honest I disliked it very much. She gets the concept but she is not a memorizer and that makes a world of difference. On the flip side Faith is great at memorizing so she loves math as it does not require the same effort as it does Grace.
Other tasks done today included letting Grace mark my ballot today. I will let Faith mark it when we vote for president.
"Grace it is OK, I see that today you immediately felt angry when we opened the math book" I said. I will ask God to give me patience and lets work out each problem is what I sort of told her. (cannot recall exact words). So we worked on the first few issues and then I brought her to a different part of the page that I knew she would feel successful in. It lightened the burden she felt she was carrying. So of course we had to move on to the next difficult area for her again and she approached it without the face in her hands and the knees to her chest. As I turned the page she was continuing to be successful and had to think some things out to determine what to do. When we got a big success I STOPPED! There was more to the page but we do not have to do it today. I want a good attitude and feeling of success so that we have learning taking place and not locking one of us up in a closet.
This seems to work for us. No more anger and frustration and it helps her to approach math without so much frustration at the beginning. I think the reason she felt it today right off is because we have been away from the math workbook for a week. We have done some math games and "shopping" with our money.
I would like to see all frustration with math go away. I even tried the famous MUS that others swear by. Well it is not through her inability to see and understand the concept and she hated the manipulates that we borrowed when we tried it. To be honest I disliked it very much. She gets the concept but she is not a memorizer and that makes a world of difference. On the flip side Faith is great at memorizing so she loves math as it does not require the same effort as it does Grace.
Other tasks done today included letting Grace mark my ballot today. I will let Faith mark it when we vote for president.
Monday, March 19, 2012
How I Have Come to Love Mondays
Another Monday has passed and it was once again painless. We continued with the lessons about penguins since Faith had requested it a few months ago. We have now spent time watching the movie MARCH OF THE PENGUINS, visited the zoo for the specific purpose of going through the penguin display. It is amazing how much more we all enjoyed the display with a lesson prior to going. The display of written material made me look really smart too.
So last Monday we worked on some globe issues and found where each penguin lives. Today we read and reinforced the material so that we could begin a lapbook. I love the "Hands of A Child" lapbooks that I come across but I also have found lots of other material that are lesson related to enhance the experience. I imagine it will take two more weeks to complete the lapbook.
We discussed it and feel that perhaps it would be good to learn about Arctic animals. There is a new series on Discovery Channel called Frozen Planet and I saw the premier last night. Girls think it sounds like a great idea. Lots of books to get in from the library as I rarely pay $20 for a book but found several at the zoo we all liked. I tend to write down the ISBN and then go look it up. I can often find it at a much reduced price as well if I choose to buy it.
Today we also did a homeschool class at the zoo. One of the classes at Lyceum includes bird study and recently we took a great field trip that introduced the girls to bird nesting habits. They seem to be pretty fascinated with the topic as well right now. You know if I teach them how to have many irons in the fire now they should learn the skill of multitasking. SO they attended a class called BIRDS FOR BEGINNERS and loved it. It got them into a classroom environment totally away from a parent. They made a book of observations, they handled three different kinds of birds and made a cute set of binoculars. The class for both girls (using my zoo membership) was only $32. Of course, this is not something we can do often so we generally take advantage of the free stuff at the St. Louis museum scene.
Duck eggs have not begun to stink so I imagine we are free of any rotten eggs and the experience will be a positive one. I must get the chicken coup repaired as I am suddenly down to only three chickens left out of thirteen. This is disturbing to me but fortunately the chicks are cheap right now. (ha ha to myself ..cheap cheap little chick)
Other projects we have recently done to reward the days work is to plant the strawberries. They are growing and in one more week the roots should be settled enough to hang them as they are intended. I also got a roll out butterfly garden that we will put around the tree when the get their work done this week. I will plan to do this on Thursday with them. These things cost little as I get lots of things from the dollar store or plant starts from friends.
I cannot express the joy I feel getting this opportunity to teach the girls. Soon Owen will be crawling around and of course learning begins with play.
OH yes! We are absolutely going to move school back to my house. The classroom is going to be a toy room for the girls things that Owen will have the potential to get into. It was a toy room before it was a classroom. I have a nice sized out-building that is attached to my back deck. We are going to make it into an old fashioned one room schoolhouse but with modern technology. I have Internet so they will have access to lots of things. I have a large wooded yard that is near much to explore. They have a nice big yard but it is surrounded by corn/soy/wheat fields and it use to be a wheat field. Their swings and toys are fun but recess here will be OK too. The room will have storage as well so that items can be saved and brought out in cycles. I am excited as it means that I will stay here and they will need to come to me. I know it is a whole eight miles lets face it. I am not getting younger and walking down to their basement lately has been more difficult for me. I am playing with some floor plan ideas to place things.
Lyceum is all ready half over and I am working on enhancing the class I have planned. I am pleased with the content so far but find one boy not so enthused. You know that means I need to find a way to touch him.
That is all for now!
So last Monday we worked on some globe issues and found where each penguin lives. Today we read and reinforced the material so that we could begin a lapbook. I love the "Hands of A Child" lapbooks that I come across but I also have found lots of other material that are lesson related to enhance the experience. I imagine it will take two more weeks to complete the lapbook.
We discussed it and feel that perhaps it would be good to learn about Arctic animals. There is a new series on Discovery Channel called Frozen Planet and I saw the premier last night. Girls think it sounds like a great idea. Lots of books to get in from the library as I rarely pay $20 for a book but found several at the zoo we all liked. I tend to write down the ISBN and then go look it up. I can often find it at a much reduced price as well if I choose to buy it.
Today we also did a homeschool class at the zoo. One of the classes at Lyceum includes bird study and recently we took a great field trip that introduced the girls to bird nesting habits. They seem to be pretty fascinated with the topic as well right now. You know if I teach them how to have many irons in the fire now they should learn the skill of multitasking. SO they attended a class called BIRDS FOR BEGINNERS and loved it. It got them into a classroom environment totally away from a parent. They made a book of observations, they handled three different kinds of birds and made a cute set of binoculars. The class for both girls (using my zoo membership) was only $32. Of course, this is not something we can do often so we generally take advantage of the free stuff at the St. Louis museum scene.
Duck eggs have not begun to stink so I imagine we are free of any rotten eggs and the experience will be a positive one. I must get the chicken coup repaired as I am suddenly down to only three chickens left out of thirteen. This is disturbing to me but fortunately the chicks are cheap right now. (ha ha to myself ..cheap cheap little chick)
Other projects we have recently done to reward the days work is to plant the strawberries. They are growing and in one more week the roots should be settled enough to hang them as they are intended. I also got a roll out butterfly garden that we will put around the tree when the get their work done this week. I will plan to do this on Thursday with them. These things cost little as I get lots of things from the dollar store or plant starts from friends.
I cannot express the joy I feel getting this opportunity to teach the girls. Soon Owen will be crawling around and of course learning begins with play.
OH yes! We are absolutely going to move school back to my house. The classroom is going to be a toy room for the girls things that Owen will have the potential to get into. It was a toy room before it was a classroom. I have a nice sized out-building that is attached to my back deck. We are going to make it into an old fashioned one room schoolhouse but with modern technology. I have Internet so they will have access to lots of things. I have a large wooded yard that is near much to explore. They have a nice big yard but it is surrounded by corn/soy/wheat fields and it use to be a wheat field. Their swings and toys are fun but recess here will be OK too. The room will have storage as well so that items can be saved and brought out in cycles. I am excited as it means that I will stay here and they will need to come to me. I know it is a whole eight miles lets face it. I am not getting younger and walking down to their basement lately has been more difficult for me. I am playing with some floor plan ideas to place things.
Lyceum is all ready half over and I am working on enhancing the class I have planned. I am pleased with the content so far but find one boy not so enthused. You know that means I need to find a way to touch him.
That is all for now!
Friday, March 16, 2012
Duck Eggs
We have begun the process of incubating some duck eggs. It is a huge surprise activity for us. First, we do not know for certain that the eggs are fertile but have a certain degree of certainty that they are. Second, we do not know which type of ducks we will be getting if we succeed. Finally, they should hatch on Easter! Grace and Matt did not look at the calendar to see when they would hatch when they finally put them into the incubator.
Grace is keeping track of the temperature and turning them as we do not have a fancy turn yourself incubator. She is too young for judging a 4H project yet but this is nice practice for her so that when she does her skills of record keeping will be better.
Today I got nine more eggs so we marked them and added them to the mix. This should prove interesting as we have not done this before.
Grace is keeping track of the temperature and turning them as we do not have a fancy turn yourself incubator. She is too young for judging a 4H project yet but this is nice practice for her so that when she does her skills of record keeping will be better.
Today I got nine more eggs so we marked them and added them to the mix. This should prove interesting as we have not done this before.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Photos of some activities discussed in prior post
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| Grace at Nature Institute in an eagle's nest |
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| Lewis and Clark interactive display at Magic House Children's Museum |
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| How old is the tree? |
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| Grace watches as they tap the Sugar Maple tree then later make maple syrup |
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| climbing Jack's beanstalk |
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| love that beanstalk |
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| New baby Owen came to Magic House and he sat in the Oval Office display |
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Upcoming week
Tomorrow we will have a KTM with some discussion of penguins and a review of butterflies. We are watching the movie March of the Penguins and going to do a lapbook as well over the next several Mondays.
This week we will finish up the book Who Was George Washington with Grace and order the next one on Adams. If you have not tried this series I really do recommend them. Not only are they good books for specific historical figure lessons but also great lessons of the period.
WE also will be going to the Butterfly House this week for MARCH MORPHO MADNESS on Wednesday. WE have learned about butterflies in the past be reinforcement is always great. It also makes them feel very wise when they know the answers already.
I have made several good choices with my money in joining the St. Louis Zoo and the Missouri Botanical Gardens. It permits us to participate in member only events like the Morpho Madness presentation. Next week Grace and Faith will attend a homeschool class at the Zoo at a decreased rate as well. Without intending it, we have learned about birds and nests in general. One of the classes at Lyceum that they attend is beginning the bird component and the zoo class is "Birds for Beginners". I find Grace being pulled by some force of gravity to the books about birds and their nests recently. I hope to find an eager learner in Faith soon. So far she continues to be an easy learner but could care less if she sticks with the entire lesson. I keep reminding myself that she is only five years old but she tends to act so much older--then suddenly I am taken back by a typical five year old behavior.
They have begun the duck egg incubation experiment. We are making sure Grace keeps records of the event. I think it is good practice for her to try this. I expect her records to be fragmented but it is a good step forward. I may be surprised!
AS the weather is becoming nicer I hope they will be motivated to get early start so we can have an early finish. WE will plant strawberries tomorrow as well.
So I will wrap this up for now as I am actually at work and having a "slow" day.
This week we will finish up the book Who Was George Washington with Grace and order the next one on Adams. If you have not tried this series I really do recommend them. Not only are they good books for specific historical figure lessons but also great lessons of the period.
WE also will be going to the Butterfly House this week for MARCH MORPHO MADNESS on Wednesday. WE have learned about butterflies in the past be reinforcement is always great. It also makes them feel very wise when they know the answers already.
I have made several good choices with my money in joining the St. Louis Zoo and the Missouri Botanical Gardens. It permits us to participate in member only events like the Morpho Madness presentation. Next week Grace and Faith will attend a homeschool class at the Zoo at a decreased rate as well. Without intending it, we have learned about birds and nests in general. One of the classes at Lyceum that they attend is beginning the bird component and the zoo class is "Birds for Beginners". I find Grace being pulled by some force of gravity to the books about birds and their nests recently. I hope to find an eager learner in Faith soon. So far she continues to be an easy learner but could care less if she sticks with the entire lesson. I keep reminding myself that she is only five years old but she tends to act so much older--then suddenly I am taken back by a typical five year old behavior.
They have begun the duck egg incubation experiment. We are making sure Grace keeps records of the event. I think it is good practice for her to try this. I expect her records to be fragmented but it is a good step forward. I may be surprised!
AS the weather is becoming nicer I hope they will be motivated to get early start so we can have an early finish. WE will plant strawberries tomorrow as well.
So I will wrap this up for now as I am actually at work and having a "slow" day.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Long time between posts
It is not like me to be away this long. It seems that I am forever busy and when I have a moment to play on the computer I find myself on the laptop working on my Master's Lyceum lessons. So let me see if I can summarize what has taken place in three weeks. I will begin at the current and work my way back.
Yesterday Kelley gave all class instruction while I saw my physician. I then grabbed the girls and took them to a friend's house to get them acquainted with the lay of the land. She has a huge horse farm and is expecting several new colts. The plan is to spend the night in the barn and experience the birth of a horse. While there Grace gathered eggs from the hen house and found several duck eggs as well. She has brought them home and we will put them in the incubator for our surprise. Debbie, the friend, has several different varieties of chickens and ducks.
Back another day, Kelley and Grace took a field trip to tap Sugar Maple Trees and make homemade maple syrup. They seemed to enjoy the event greatly. The group that held the event is a very nice, warming, and accepting group of women. Some also belong to our co-op but not all. It was a different atmosphere indeed as there are not any noticeable "clicks". I stayed home with Faith and Owen. I am getting a bit old for the baby stuff but he is only three months old so took a great nap. During the nap Faith and I had school time together and played games. It was also National Read Out Loud Day so I read her all the books that she wanted. My mouth hurt by the end of the day.
Last week both girls and I went on a field trip to learn about bird nest and hike to observe several different types of nests. It was with the same group I had just mentioned and the quality of the trip was remarkable. I love it when they clearly learn and have fun.
Yesterday Kelley gave all class instruction while I saw my physician. I then grabbed the girls and took them to a friend's house to get them acquainted with the lay of the land. She has a huge horse farm and is expecting several new colts. The plan is to spend the night in the barn and experience the birth of a horse. While there Grace gathered eggs from the hen house and found several duck eggs as well. She has brought them home and we will put them in the incubator for our surprise. Debbie, the friend, has several different varieties of chickens and ducks.
Back another day, Kelley and Grace took a field trip to tap Sugar Maple Trees and make homemade maple syrup. They seemed to enjoy the event greatly. The group that held the event is a very nice, warming, and accepting group of women. Some also belong to our co-op but not all. It was a different atmosphere indeed as there are not any noticeable "clicks". I stayed home with Faith and Owen. I am getting a bit old for the baby stuff but he is only three months old so took a great nap. During the nap Faith and I had school time together and played games. It was also National Read Out Loud Day so I read her all the books that she wanted. My mouth hurt by the end of the day.
Last week both girls and I went on a field trip to learn about bird nest and hike to observe several different types of nests. It was with the same group I had just mentioned and the quality of the trip was remarkable. I love it when they clearly learn and have fun.
We went to the final homeschool Monday at the Magic House as well. I had recently injured my foot so I sat on a comfy couch and played with the baby while Kelley and the girls enjoyed the day together. Grace was excited to find that they had updated the pizza place to a vet clinic.
We have also attended the Mammoths and Mastodons homeschool day at the Missouri History Museum. It was a crowded but great day. Only Grace was able to participate as the last time I took Faith her behavior was so poor that she was not permitted to go to this event. I do believe she learned a lesson. Additionally, Grace was very engaged in the activity but she missed her sister. I find that funny since she feels her sister can be such a pest.
So that brings me to around my last post as far as activities go. In class we are clearly far behind for the year since we had so much going on. Faith got the flu during this time as well and had a terribly high fever. The rest of their household became ill but the severity was controlled by Tamiflu. Speaking of which, $500 to treat the entire house with Tamiflu! (and that is with insurance)
The girls continue to make progress. Faith's reading has once again begun to flourish. For a while there, she seemed to stall but these days I am pleasantly surprised each time she sits down to read to me. He comprehension is also doing very well.
Currently we are in week four of this semester's Lyceum. I am teaching two classes. Each revolving around material the Illinois Department of Natural Resources has available. The younger group seems to enjoy the class, the older group has been on the edge of enjoying the class but last week they really bloomed and I think I have figured out how to get them engaged.
The girls are well aware that school will go into the summer but they do not seem to mind. Afterall, they know that it does not take all day to have school and I am sure that the pool and trail hikes will keep them motivated to get the work done.
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