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I am not a feminist in the traditional sense at all. Not really in any sense other than not wanting woman to be mistreated or abused in any way. You need to understand that before reading these lyrics. I just fell in love with them because they say exactly why I wanted to homeschool my children. Boy or girl, I want to raise my kids with a love of learning and a love of what THEY love. I want them to follow their interests and learn to motivate themselves. I am not a classic unschooler, though I have a lot of sympathy for those who are. And I get a lot of inspiration and comfort from the unschooling world. So...anyway...here are the lyrics to a song that inspired me today.

Malvina Reynolds, "There's no hole in my head."

Everybody thinks my head's full of nothin,
Wants to put his special stuff in,
Fill the space with candy wrappers,
Keep out sex and revolution,
But there's no hole in my head.
Too bad.

They call me a dupe of this and the other,
Call me a puppet on a string, they,
They don't know my head's full of me
And that I have my own special thing,
And there's no hole in my head.
Too bad.

I have lived since early childhood
Figuring out what's going on, I,
I know what hurts, I know what's easy,
When to stand and when to run,
And there's no hole in my head.
Too bad.

So please stop shouting in my ear, there's
Something I want to listen to, there's
A kind of birdsong up somewhere, there's
Feet walking the way I mean to go,
And there's no hole in my head.
Too bad.

Everybody thinks my head's full of nothin,
Wants to put his special stuff in,
Fill the space with candy wrappers,
Keep out sex and revolution,
But there's no hole in my head.
Too bad.

School suddenly seems to have hit a groove. It certainly took long enough! But I suppose with the upheaval of moving and having daddy in transition, I should have expected it. We plan to do a light school schedule throughout the summer, so I'm not worried about keeping up with "peers". I just think it sort of strange that it is April now and I finally feel like we are moving smoothly.

I have indeed picked up SWR again. I'm glad I did. It is going really well and I'm seeing major improvements in Zoe's reading in just the two weeks we've been doing it. Just the phonogram flashcards alone make a huge difference. Maria is moving along well too. I could call her an intermediate reader now I think. Luci is showing real signs of "getting it". That magic moment when reading just catches, the lightbulb goes on, or however you want to describe it. It does seem like magic. One minute they are still trying to figure out the sounds of the alphabet, seemingly unaware of the power in what they are doing and the next they are sounding out words on signs and you can't spell things to keep them secret anymore. It just clicks one day. Magic. I have LOVED teaching my children to read. I have LOVED watching that particular lightbulb come on.

We are still plugging away at Rightstart Math. I had a hard time with it for a month or so. All the manipulatives were overwhelming and confusing me. I think it is just for a season though, as Maria's lessons seem to be simplifying a lot. Zoe's are still using several different manipulatives per lesson, which is annoying to me, but seeing it work with Maria, I now understand the reasons why so many different ways of seeing a concept are used. One is bound to work if you use enough of them, right? Place value is so important to this math program and it is essential that kids master that before moving on. So I now get why we had to do it and will have more patience with it for Zoe and Luci. I was feeling really frustrated there for a little while.

We are reading the Burgess Bird Book for Children, one chapter a week, and the girls are doing coloring/notebooking pages on each bird as it is introduced. They have to listen very closely to hear what the bird looks like in order to color it. It is fun to see them concentrating so hard on what I'm saying as they color.

History Odyssey is still going really well. We are still catching up on some stuff it introduces that I didn't have in my original plan. We are in the middle of ancient Europe. The girls and I read a book on Stonehenge last week and did a notebook page on it (mostly the drawing a picture of Stonehenge and copying the word). This week we are talking about ancient Crete and the Minoans. We'll read the story of the Minotaur and color a picture from a Bellerophon coloring book to go with it. Fun stuff. I still need to order some books for this to truly work well. I keep putting that off. Must do it this week!

Poetry for right now is Emily Dickinson. The Poetry for Young People series of books are about the best thing ever written, I think. The girls love Emily Dickinson, much more than they seemed to like Robert Louis Stephenson. They really find her poetry interesting and I see poems we've recently read directly inspiring drawings from Maria. You can see them really getting into her head. And I hope her heart.

I'm playing with SWR again. I really like this program. It is the kind of program that "should" work for just about everyone and every learning style. It is just really labor intensive at first and I never really put a lot into figuring it out. Okay, to be fair to myself, I did put a lot into it right at first, but it tapered off pretty quickly and then I just couldn't be bothered. But I really credit the program for the huge leaps Maria made in reading toward the beginning of the school year. I want to give it a try again. I don't think the Spectrum workbooks have hurt the girls any, but they are really boring and they don't teach phonics the way I believe it should be taught and lot of it is just busy work. We don't need that in our homeschool. Plus, they don't teach cursive, which is a problem. Anyway, I'm going to give SWR another chance. I "discovered" a pretty detailed lesson plan outline in the back of the SWR book that I didn't know was there before and light bulbs went on all over the place for me while I was reading through it. I think if it will dramatically cut down on the time I spent trying to "design" lesson plans. I looked intently at the All About Spelling program recently, thinking it might solve my problems, but the more I read the more I realized I already have all the stuff I need to teach reading, spelling, and writing if I can just figure out how to implement it. Sometimes I feel like I'm back in school myself. I can't believe how much I've learned in the last two years teaching my children.

I'm currently in love with History Odyssey from Pandia Press. (Thanks, Jessa for introducing me to it!). After months of struggling to come up with history lesson plans and notebook pages, I think History Odyssey may be the answer. I downloaded the ebook version of ancient history and started with lesson/week 8 because that was the first lesson we had not already done something similar. We will probably have to skip over a few of the future weeks as well, as we HAVE been doing history, just not very well. I need to pick up a few more books too. Yes, new books!! I'm very happy to have found it. We've done a couple of lessons so far and it is just the right amount of guidance for me. Enough that I don't have to scramble around trying to figure out what to do, but not too much so that I can easily adjust it to my girls ages and interests. Very cool!

Luci is very, very interested in learning to read right now. But I don't know how to help her as she just cannot seem to retain even single letter phonograms. The vowels especially seem to elude her. When I point to a vowel and ask her what sound it makes, she just goes through all the vowel sounds in existence in rapid succession. She doesn't really seem to understand what I am asking. I'm trying not to be worried about this. We've worked on basic alphabet phonograms for over a year and she turned five in December, so it is hard not to worry. Maria and Zoe both had this much sooner and were starting to read short vowel, single syllable words by this point. Luci recognizes her name and her sister's names, but that it about it. When should I get worried? When should I be doing something more or different with her than with her sisters? I just don't know. This is another reason I want to get back into SWR. I think the method might work a lot better with her than this workbook approach we've been doing recently. It doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

So...We have a somewhat revised curriculum going.   And I think I have everything in place for next year too.   I've been spending way too much time planning next year's curriculum.  But it is so much fun! 

I have pretty much given up on the Spell to Write and Read program.  I love some aspects of it and will continue to use the phonics flashcards and games and some of the ideas.  It was certainly a good program for me to learn from.  But I'm switching to a workbook approach for phonics and spelling now to save myself some time and effort.  We are using Spectrum Phonics and Spelling workbooks and it is going very well.  The girls seem to really like them.  Even Luci loves her K level Phonics book.  Speaking of Luci, she seems to have had a lightbulb go on suddenly in the reading department.  I think she might finally be ready to seriously study phonics and start reading soon.   A couple of days ago she made me spend nearly an hour writing simple words on the whiteboard and helping her sound them out.  The "sounds like" approach seems to work very well for her.  When she discoverd the "at" always sounds the same and realized she could read the words "cat, rat, mat, sat, pat" etc, she was laughing out loud with joy.  It was adorable.   

Maria is continuing to use Rightstart Math and I really, really like it.  I plan to work through it more slowly with Zoe and ease her back into it soon.  Right now she is doing Kumon workbooks for Math.  I plan to use Rightstart with Luci too, but we have not started it formally yet.  I do use the concepts when playing with her however, so she is learning the Rightstart way already. 

Here is my curriculum plan for next year.  There are still some decisions to be made before I start buying things, and I would love any input.  I'd especially love to know if anyone knows of any good books for kids on the Byzantine Empire.  I'm having a hard time with that one.  ( Read more... ) 

Spelling/Phonics – Maria: Spectrum Spelling and Phonics 3, 
Zoe: Spectrum Spelling and Phonics 2, 
Luci: Spectrum Spelling and Phonics 1

Reading - Read aloud every day

 My dream list of beginning readers:

     Danny and the Dinosaur
     Sammy the Seal
     Chester
     Morris Goes to School
     Harry and the Lady Next Door
     Oscar Otter
     Oliver
     Grizzwold
     There is a Carrot in My Ear
     What Do You Hear When Cows Sing?The Flicka, Ricka, Dicka books

     Cat Traps
     The Lion and the Mouse

     Jack and Jill and Big Dog Bill
     Big Egg
     Tiger is a Scaredy Cat
     My New Boy
     Quick, Quack, Quick

 

 

Grammar – World of Language Books (one per month ?)

Copywork (Paidea downloads, poetry, scripture, etc.)

 

Math – Rightstart Level A/B/C

 

Science – Tanglewood Grade 1 Nature/Science Study

The Burgess Bird Book (one chapter per week)

North American Bird’s Notebooking Pages

Nature Smart (use Tanglewood reading and project schedule)

 

 History – History Portfolio Medieval

A Child’s History of the World (Hillyer) OR Story of the World Volume 2

Story Bible

A Children’s History of the Church by

Galen; My Life in Imperial Rome by Marissa Moss

The Story of King Arthur by Tom Crawford

The Sword in the Tree by Clyde Roberts Bulla

Viking Raiders by Anne Civardi, J. Graham-Campbell

D’ulaire’s Book of Norse Myths by Ingrid D’ulaire

Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest by Ann McGovern

Time Traveler’s Book of Knights and Castles by Judy Hindley, Abigail Wheatley

The Emperor’s Winding Sheet by Jill Paton Walsh

Aladdin and Other Tales from the Arabian Nights by W. Heath Robinson

The Samurai’s Tale by Erick Christian Haugaard

The Discovery of the Americas  by Betsy Maestro (summer 2009)

Secrets of Ancient Cultures; The Maya (summer 2009)

Secrets of Ancient Cultures; The Inca (summer 2009)

The Secret World of the Aztecs (summer 2009)

Literature –

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

Lassie by Eric Knight

Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter

A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond and Peggy Fortnum

Li Lun, Lad of Courage by Carolyn Treffinger and Kurt Wiese

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle by Betty MacDonald

The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary

Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Heidi by Johanna Spyri

Poetry for Young People: Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, Lewis Carroll

Favorite Poems Old and New (cont)

 

Music/Music Appreciation – Lessons ? (piano, violin, recoreder?)

Composers from SCM module 1: Bach; Mozart; Chopin; Strauss; Tchaikovsky; Stravinsky

 

Art/Art Appreciation – Artistic Pursuits cont.
Picture study from SCM module 1: John James Audubon; Claude Monet; Mary Cassatt; Christian Riese Lassen; Maxfield Parrish; P. Buckley Moss

Spanish:  Rosetta Stone

I've been spending some time after the girls go to bed every night planning next year's curriculum.  Many things have worked very well this year.  Some things have not.  I'm not going to plan my own history curriculum again.  While the readings have worked out very well, coming up with entries for the Book of Centuries has been a bear.  I needed more guidance.  We should have used the History Portfolio Jr.  In fact, I'm still tempted to buy it and use it as a resource to get us through the rest of THIS year.  I'm more than tempted...I'm pretty sure I'm going to do it.  

So here is what it is looking like for next year.  The one thing I'm really struggling with is science.  I don't want to "do it all" myself.  But I just can't get away from the Charlotte Mason ideal.  I love, love, love the Tanglewood suggestions but they involve so much more work for me.  Anyhoo... here is the current plan

 

We are finally back on the homeschooling wagon after a move and the holidays and complete chaos. And I'm simplifing some things. I'm following the Tanglewood reading schedules for history more closely. Modifying them was silly and taking up way too much time. I'm stopping Rightstart Math for Zoe because she hates it. She cries over it everyday. I don't know what exactly is the problem as Maria is doing great with it and I LOVE the method. Who knows...different ways of learning I guess. I bought some Kumon workbooks on basic addition and subtraction for Zoe. She begs for workbooks. In addition we'll work on patterns and telling time and counting money and hopefully she will relearn the love of playing with numbers I somehow messed up with Rightstart Math.

Luci surprised me today. She turned five less than a month ago and she is so inconsistant when I work with her, I never have a good feel for what she actually knows. When we go through the single letter phonogram flashcards she gets at least fifty percent wrong. She just throws out sounds most of the time, almost as if she doesn't even know what I'm trying to get her to do. Then she'll turn around and sound out a word on a sign. She is the same with numbers. Half the time I don't even think she recognizes the numbers from one to ten. But today, I played War with her using our Rightstart basic number cards. And she absolutely got it. She reacted almost instantaneously and correctly to which number was greater. I was amazed. So she knows more than she lets on a lot of the time, I guess. I just have to figure out what will trigger retrieval of that info. I'm going to get back into FIAR with her next week I hope.

Maria had a ped appointment this morning. I'm trying to get all the girls yearly physicals in before we move. So school didn't really happen this morning. The girls played on starfall.com this afternoon. Maria read me an Arthur book Arthur's Reading Race, and Zoe read me about 10 pages of Green Eggs and Ham. Luci and I read her letter D book and she also played on Starfall for awhile. They all watched Super Why, a very cool new PBS show. They played outside for a long time and made up interesting games.

We'll be more productive tomorrow.

Zoe was flipping out about "doing school" this morning and once I got her calmed down I tried talking to her again about WHY she has this attitude. It was a fairly humorous conversation. She said she just wants to read and play fun math games, not "do school". I said "Isn't that what we do?"
She said "We don't READ! We just do dumb spelling words."
I said "Well, first of all, you have always seemed to enjoy writing your spelling words on the white board. Do you not like that anymore?"
"Yes, I do."
"Okay, we'll do that today. Second of all, when you make a house or castle out of blocks, do you just plop it down all ready built or do you have to do it one block at a time?:
Zoe answered, "One block at a time."
"Well, that is how we have to learn to read too. First you learn the sounds that the letters make and then put them together into words and then those words into sentences and then you can read. It is just like building a house out of blocks."
"Oh. Well, can we do it NOW because I REALLY want to read!"

No more complaint from her so far today. Can someone please explain why we've had this conversation probably ten times before and it never worked? Why did it work today? I just keep trying new things to keep her interested. I knew she was going to be a challenge to teach. Maria, though my challenge in many other areas, is not a challenge with school, she seems to love it and never, ever argues or complains about it. I think I will have my work cut out for me "schooling" Zoe.

Today we did our SWR lesson, of course, and we did half a Rightstart Lesson. We are partitioning 100s right now and this is confusing the girls for some reason. I feel like we are going really slow with Rightstart right now, but I just keep trying to remind myself that if they get these basic concepts well from the beginning they will have a much easier time understanding the harder concepts later and lots of time spent now will save us time later. Right? Slow and steady wins the prize.

We did a My Body lesson on the kidneys and bladder which threw the girls into fits of giggles when they realized what was stored in the bladder. "Pee! Its the PEE sack!" I don't think my proper terms like "liquid waste" and "urine" are going to stick. Pee it is.

Luci is starting the letter D this week. Funny girl loves to make people out of her cursive letters for some reason. Last week was letter A and she covered the white board every day with funny little girls with lowercase cursive A's for heads. It does make a perfect head with the connecters flowing like hair. I can't wait to see what she does with the letter D.

Today:

Morning prayers and a Law of God reading which led to a fairly intense discussion of the Trinity. Zoe was very frustrated by this discussion because it just "doesn't make any sense! How can God be three...things!... and still be everywhere!? He can't be Jesus on the earth and God in heaven! How can Jesus go be with God if he IS God!?" Dear heart, you are treading into waters too deep for the deepest of the Saints. I don't know. I used St. Patrick's beautiful illustration of the clover (did St. Patrick really use that or is that just a legend?), and the visual helped her some, but she was so frustrated by it, she was getting teary eyed and laughing at the same time. My five year old (almost six!) theologian. Maria was interested, but as seems to frequently be the case with her, was satisfied with a lot less explanation.

SWR started with a phonogram quiz on the whiteboard and then a game of opposites. I'd say the opposite of one of their spelling words and they would write down the spelling word. Then I wrote out a bunch of Maria's spelling words and showed her how she could make compound words out of them; into, upon, without, uphill, overstep, outdo, etc.

Rightstart Math introduced the 100s place value and then talked about quadrilaterals, rectangles and squares.

Artistic Pursuits lesson on still life drawing/painting. The girls did their own still life watercolor paintings.

We ended with about two hours out in the yard digging in the dirt for bugs. Why do my children love bugs so much? Grubs, rolypolies, worms...they are all thrilling. To me as well, just in a much different way. Ugh.

I think I've hit on a solution to our problem; the whining and the "I don't want too!" wails of anguish. I made a chart, a very simple one, with the days of the week at the top and the subjects we need to cover each day along the side. The girls get to mark off our progress as we finish things with stickers or smiley faces or whatever. It is really working well with Zoe. She was anxious to move on to the next thing when we finished something instead of begging for "free time" or "outside time" after every completed task today. I also made charts for each of the girls to mark off their chores. We haven't tried this chart concept since potty training days, but it does seem to be working fairly well today. I imagine the novelty will wear off eventually, but I'll enjoy the peace while it lasts.

Today we did our SWR lesson, a review Rightstart lesson because I don't think the girls "got it" the first time around, a science lesson from My Body on the heart, and our history lesson. We are deep into ancient Egypt now. The girls colored a map of Egypt today, labeling the Nile and the Red Sea and we read up to the Israelites leaving Egypt in our Story Bible. I need to go to the library and find some more books on Ancient Egypt. The one we did read was nice, but we need more. I don't know if we will continue with The Cat of Bubastes, or not. It seems really over their heads.

I'm also starting a variation on The Letter of the Week curriculum with Luci. We are still reading our FIAR books, and she has some workbooks we do, but I am anxious to set her up for next year and make things a little easier for her then they have been for Zoe. I'd like to have Luci easily writing all the lower case letters of the alphabet in cursive by next year, so that we can immediately move into the spelling words. Zoe and I have really struggled with finding the balance between the writing and reading aspects of this program because she wasn't doing all that much writing yet when we started. So Luci and I are doing the letter A this week. She can already write it really well, so that is no problem. She doesn't quite have the idea of what sounds it makes though. We'll get there. I had bought a series of books years ago that has a book for every letter of the alphabet and includes most of the sounds the letters make, so they are fitting in nicely. I think she will enjoy this approach a lot. I'm planning to teach them in the order they are taught for writing in Cursive First instead of alphabetical order. I hope that works.

Zoe, who is five "going on six", has been really balking at our more formal school times lately. She struggles with writing, not because she has some true difficulty I don't think, but because she is a perfectionist. And she has a short, very kindergarten length, attention span. Sometimes our spelling and math lessons push the envelope for her in writing and concentration. She seems to enjoy herself once we get started, but she gets very upset when I say it is time to do anything vaguely resembling school. Today, I told her she had to stay in the same room with us while I worked with the other girls, but I would not make her do anything. I said that would not be true everyday, but for today she could choose. Strangely, she chose to do everything I had planned for her with no pushing on my part. She is an interesting little person. Trying to figure out just how hard to push is a delicate task. Sometimes my children seem very fragile to me.

Today was the first day of Maria's more intensive SWR lessons. She did great! She was definately ready for this. Twenty new spelling words and she flew through them. Her writing is getting clearer and neater by the day. I gave her a reading assessment and she tested in the middle of second grade. I guess we are doing okay, since technically she is at the beginning of first grade. I have not assessed Zoe because she is still very much a beginning reader. I'm concentrating on handwriting and memorizing phonograms for her. I'm planning to start ten spelling words a week for her next week. We'll see how it goes. Rightstart Math was, as always, fun. Zoe got frustrated toward the end of today's worksheet because she was having difficulty writing the numbers. She was flipping them in all kinds of directions. I think she was just tired of writing. How much is too much? I need to figure it out.

For history today we read Growing up in Ancient Egypt and then the story of Joseph from the Children's Story Bible. I decided to go back to the Story Bible as Our Young Folk's Josephus was not holding their attention. The Story Bible has a few lovely illustrations and is written in fast moving, interesting prose. When I tried to get them to narrate from Josephus, they just looked at me blankly. Today, Maria narrated the entire story of Joseph with only a few prompts from me. I think Josephus is just going over their heads. Since my entire history plan for this year is built around Josephus this is frustrating. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when we finish the Old Testament. Perhaps, by then, they will be more ready for Josephus. Or maybe I just need to simplify the stories for them somewhat.

I'm also a bit frustrated with our literature for the Ancient Egypt unit. The Gilgamesh trilogy by Ludmilla Zeman went over so well during our Mesopotamia unit that the girls are still asking me to read them at bedtime. The book for Ancient Egypt I'd seen recommeneded so many places, The Cat of Bubastes, I'm finding has the same effect on the girls as Josephus. They just zone out. Have I spoiled them with picture books? I'm not sure how to get around this. The reading level is high, but no higher than other books I have read them. I'm not sure what to do.

We spent a lot of time outside playing this evening. It is so nice and cool in the evenings now. I'm anxious for fall to take over. The warm days are getting old when the crisp expectation of fall is in the air.

Eventually I think I'll stop needing to give a blow by blow of every home schooling day.  Right now it seems to be helping me to realize how much we DID acomplish to fight off my "look how much we didn't get accomplished" moments.   It helps me to slow down and appreciate all the little moments too.

For instance, the moment when I finished reading our assignment in history today and Zoe begged me to keep reading.  And the moment when she squealed with glee over writing a cursive letter "K" correctly.  And the moment when the lightbulb went on for Maria in our math assignment.  

Those are the really good moments, priceless things that I am so glad I'm not missing.  One of the myriad reasons I decided to homeschool in the first place. 

 Your friends shall be the Tall Wind,
The River and the Tree:
The Sun that laughs and marches,
The Swallows and the Sea.

Your Prayers shall be the murmur
Of grasses in the rain;
The song of wildwood thrushes
That makes God glad again.

And you shall run and wander,
And you shall dream and sing
Of brave things and bright things
Beyond the swallow's wings.

And you shall envy no man,
Nor hurt your heart with sighs,
For I will keep you simple
That God may make you wise.

---Fannie Stearns Davis

I find a new poem to love every day in this book.  I highly recommend Favorite Poems Old and New, selected by Helen Ferris to everyone who would like to introduce quality poetry to children.  It is helping me rediscover a love I haven't had much time for since college.  And helping me put into words all the wishes I have for the kind of childhood I want my children to have.

After our morning prayers and Law of God reading, which sparked lots of discussion today, I put into practice some of the little changes we've been needing to make.  Zoe is not keeping up with Maria in SWR (Spell to Write and Read), so I decided I need to do separate lessons with them.  We will start out together, play some phongram bingo and do some review of phonograms.  But after that, today I set Zoe up with something else to do while I dictated Maria's new spelling list to her.  It is significantly longer than the last two weeks.  She is ready for it, more than ready.  I realized she was really being held back by my silly need to keep them together.  Zoe, being almost a year younger and without the formal kindergarten experience Maria had with me last year, just needs me to slow down.  She cannot yet write all the cursive lower case letters quickly and easily.  She needs more handwriting instruction.  So after I dictated Maria's new list to her, I worked on handwriting with Zoe.   The level B Rightstart math still seems to work well for both of them at the same time.  Maria is challenged and Zoe is keeping up.  Sometimes Zoe needs a bit more time to complete anything that requires writing, but that is not really a problem.  Our reading from Our Young Folk's Josephus today didn't go as well as in the past.  I don't know why, but the girls just seemed bored, and even with puzzles to work on to keep their hands busy, they struggled to pay attention.  And I'm struggling with how to accomplish narration.  I still have to lead them so much.  If I ask an open ended, "So tell me the story I just read you in your own words?", they both stare at me blankly.  I have to ask lots and lots of questions and, today, they didn't know the answers to most of them.  I don't think they were understanding much of what I read.  

Luci, however, greatly enjoyed her personal time with me.  We worked in one of her workbooks and read together and she did some tangram puzzles.   I took the advice of a very good friend and whenever I was not working with one of the girls, I gave them something specific to do.  I did not give them free play.  It was a lot easier to redirect them back to me that way.  I don't know why that works, honestly, but it does.

For tea time we made blueberry muffins which were definately edible, if not the best ones I've ever tasted.  We had our tea outside today and had ice tea as it is hot.  The girls seemed to enjoy tea time.  I gave them all a chance to sing or recite something for me, and then read them some poems.  After I finished reading the assigned poems for the day, I took requests and was surprised at how many of the poems from the past few weeks they remembered and wanted to hear again. One of them,  Zoe wanted to hear twice.  I'll have to share that one here too.  It is a funny poem.  After tea time, the girls spent a lot of time making mud pies in the backyard.  Zoe made several interesting "sculptures" out of bird feathers and soft seed pods she found in which she could stick the feathers.   I think it is time to start Nature Smart, a wonderful book I picked up of nature inspired crafts and art projects.  I think Zoe especially is going to love it. 

All in all, it was a fruitful, if somewhat disjointed day.  We are all still learning. 

 Last night, I gave Brad an update on our homeschooling progress.  While we were going through the girls' papers and books, Zoe walked up to the whiteboard and began practicing her spelling words from last week, just for fun I guess.  Brad looked up and saw she had written the words "and", "all",  "but", in imperfect, but quite legible cursive.  He just stared for a minute and then asked, "Is it just me or is that kind of amazing...for a five year old to just write words like that IN CURSIVE out of her own head?"  

Well, I think it is amazing.  But then, she's my child and I taught her.  So every single thing they all do amazes me.  The fact that I can teach them these things amazes me.  The fact that they LIKE it amazes me.   

Yes, it is all sort of amazing. 

 I have become truly inspired.  I know I have a long way to go, but everyday this gets more exciting.  I think our home is going to be a wonderful place to learn.

Today was an off day for us.  Fridays always are.  We will do field trips on Fridays when we can. Our field trip plans for today were canceled yesterday, but today was productive anyway.  We went to the Fantasy Playground, a fun, whimisical wooden playground, and had a picnic.  When we returned home, the girls were begging to go outside again.  I sent them out in the back yard with disposable cameras they were given by grandma and they took pictures.  I encouraged nature pictures, but I think they took more pictures of each other than leaves and trees.  We'll see when I have them developed.  If any of them turn out we'll put them in the nature journals and label what is in the picture.  Maybe I'll see if the girls can draw from the picture.  Later in the afternoon, Maria was itching for some "school".  She loves to practice her writing, so I wrote the first line from the poem Trees by Joyce Kilmer on the white board for her to copy.

"I think that I shall never see
a poem as lovely as a tree."

She copied it very well in her best cursive, which is improving every single day to an amazing extent, and then drew a  picture of a tree below it.  I think I'll have her do the rest of it, line by line, next week.  She would love that as much as I would.

Zoe and Luci mostly played today.  But when are they ever going to be five and four, respectively, again? They are learning to learn right now.   

They can learn to read tomorrow.  Or Monday as the case may be...