Goals and Planning

As much as I love unschooling, and understand how wonderful it is for my kids learning, I am a little crazy about planning.  I am an unorganized person by nature, and a little lazy to boot, so without a plan of some basic sort it is easy for me to get sidetracked, lose focus, and to fail in many areas of my life.  I have tackled this in my homemaking life with my homemaking binder, chronicled here: Peace, Love, Laundry and Food  Having had success with that I have a homeschooling binder.

On the cover is a poem I wrote in 2006 for my resume.  It helps remind me why I do what I do.

The beauty in the face of a child
       Who finally understands.
The ah has and the I get its
        And the ever present demands.
The wonder in a student's eyes
         When they see who you are.
A counselor, and mentor, and the
          World's best teacher by far.
You show them how to conquer math
          And teach them how to read.
You scaffold them, and love them
           Trying to fill every need.
You lift them up so they can grow
           Proud, and smart, and strong.
You teach them to be themselves
            Though you don't have them long.
For all these reasons and many more
             Do all the teachers teach.
For our lives are full and our goals are met
             If even one small life is reached.

I handwrite my basic plans for each day of the week in pencil in the daily section.

The front has my spreadsheet of basic goals and subjects I want to cover in 2014.  Then the daily section where I keep my lesson plans.  Tomorrow looks like this:  

Monday 15     Dixit

Binder                 Phys ed               Science lesson and games with Rich

Geography          Time Machine

Chess                   Library visit

I put the day of the week, day of the month, followed by the game we will play together in the evening.  Then just a basic list of what I want to cover that day.  Our time machine is just reading the Time Machine and doing the literature unit we have to go along with it.  We will continue in a geography book we are doing and play chess.  Their binders have a math activity, a literacy activity, a calendar to fill in, weather to graph, time to write in analog and digital, multiplication fact families, and they have to write and illustrate a sentence in their journal.

The other portions of my binder are: Art and Music, Health and Phys Ed, Language arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, and Technology and other.  In art I have the printouts for the art video curriculum we use.  In phys ed I have a printout of the phys ed curriculum I purchased.  Other sections have ideas, curriculum, lists of helpful websites, or anything I think will help me in that area of learning.  This bit of organization really helps me not feel overwhelmed.

Just in case the state or town ever requires any type of data from me I have assessment data for each goal I wrote in each spreadsheet.  Sometimes it is a worksheet that shows mastery of a skill, like addition.  Sometimes a project that shows we covered and understood a concept.  An example is a pasta project that showed the life cycle of a butterfly with labels.  Sometimes it is just a copy of the curriculum we used or pictures of an activity.  I am a little paranoid :)

Again, all of this planning and organizing has little to do with helping the kids learn more, and more to do with keeping me sane and feel like I have a little control.  It helps me plan ahead a little, using their interests as a guide.  If they hate a topic we generally skip it, or skim it.  So far there are few things they don't enjoy learning.  If they are not liking a particular type of activity we adapt.  We try to keep learning an enjoyable experience, while still teaching them that if Mommy asks you to do it, you try to do it.  Obviously I want them to learn to write well, but sometimes it is a fight, at which point we put it aside.  I want them to be proficient in adding and subtracting three digit numbers, but sometimes they act like it is a brand new concept, at which point we try again another time.  But with my organization and planning I at least feel like I am prepared to provide educational opportunities on a fairly consistent basis.  And watching them love to learn is worth any work I have to put in.

Read Aloud Goals

I have always read aloud to the kids.  I love to read, they love to read, they love to listen, and they love good books.  This year though, I wanted to be more intentional about reading quality literature and to do some work with it, learning vocabulary, focusing on reading/listening comprehension, and to show deeper understanding of the books.  I keep telling myself that this is a lofty goal, and it is, but the kids are so great with books and understanding so I made it a goal this year to do this with four books.  Luckily I found Confessions of a Homeschooler.  

She has already done the work for several great books we already own.  I bought and printed out these cool things with questions to get us started and it gave me a great list to start with.  Next year I will feel more comfortable doing more of the work on my own, but I am thrilled with this.  So we are now onto chapter 7 of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, a personal favorite.  In the first chapter it talks about how the Time Traveler figured out that there is the fourth dimension, time.  CJ stopped me and said, "Well Mommy, of course time is the fourth dimension, Albert Einstein taught us that."  Love my kids :)  I think Wind in the Willows next, then Little Women, then Sherlock Holmes.  Can't wait!

Group Classes

I love homeschooling.  I love connecting with other homeschool families.  I really love being a part of a community of people who love teaching their children.  We have been very fortunate  lately that we are a part of a great program run by some lovely people I am lucky enough to call friends.  Their website is here: McWeeds

I have been able to teach some fun classes to prek and kindergarten age kiddos, while CJ and Eliza have been taking some wonderful and enriching group classes.  I think it is important for them to learn from many people, and in many situations.  In some cases there are classes on things I just can't teach.  Today they had the first in a series of physical education/sports classes, and they LOVED it!  While they were doing that, I taught two classes to different age levels on cooking, we made homemade strawberry shortcake.

We spend the whole day there on Thursday.  In the morning the kids have a science based class, and I teach prek/kindergarten science.  Then we do some binder and literature work together, have lunch, and then they have geography while I teach cooking.  They are adding in drama and other art classes in the future.  There will even be times in the week where we can meet for book clubs, chess clubs, and craft clubs.

I am so excited to be a part of such a great  program, and I know the kids are learning a ton.  Not only are they learning the subject matter, but they are seeing how other children learn, and that other teachers may go about things differently than I do, and that is critical to a child like CJ, who has a tendency to be very set in his ways, and always wants things to be done the same way.  Both kids are responding so well, and enjoying every minute we spend there.  In addition I love sending them to a class where I really trust the teachers, and where I know the teachers and other children appreciate and value the unique traits of my children.  They respect my kids, and work with their strengths and weaknesses in a way I have never seen in other classes they have taken.

I am enjoying teaching, and I know the kids are thoroughly enjoying taking classes at McWeeds.  I can't wait to see what cool classes come up over the next few months!

Plans for the Fall and Review on our Summer

We have certainly had an interesting and busy summer, but we are all ready to get back to a more school based routine.  We have played tons of educational games, watched some great educational shows and movies, played in the sun and water, collected rocks, observed insects and other wildlife, and relaxed with lots of books.  This past week we transitioned into a more structured type of schedule.  The kids have certain chores they have to do each day, and if they do not get all their schoolwork and chores done, they get no tech time or games with us in the evenings.  They have been doing a fantastic job of helping around the house and working on school diligently.  I have to keep sticking to my list and schedule now, so that we all are able to keep the house in order, and get as much fun and school in as possible.

We have done some cool things over the past month.  We put a mostly to scale glow in the dark solar system up on our school room ceiling.  Pluto is in the kitchen.  We are planning to add some constellations over the next couple of weeks.  We have gone to the library several times, and played chess.  We have been learning more about space, and visiting the planetarium at Mystic Seaport.  We have had several playdates, and listened to great audiobooks.  We learned about Pasteur, Jenner, Jane Goodall, and Annie Oakley.  We have taken some great classes locally, and I have been teaching some preschool classes, which I will talk more about in another post.  We have studied fractions, adding and subtracting money, done crafting, building, nature studies, gone fishing, gone to the zoo, reviewed money, learned to climb trees, jump rope, and swing better on a playground swing.  We have gone to the CT Science Center, learned about bees, harvested honey, learned about Machu Picchu, studied plurals and contractions, visited the Mashantucket Pequot Museum, and the Florence Griswold Museum.

We are planning to take a trip this autumn to the Eric Carle Museum, and the Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory.  We will visit the New Britain Museum of American Art, and make frequent trips to Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center, Mashantucket Pequot Museum, and the Mystic Seaport.  We are going to delve into some great read aloud books, starting on some classics, now that the kids are ready.  We are going to do weekly hikes, and bring our science notebooks to write and draw what we observe.  We are going to focus on writing this fall.  So if anyone has good ideas on teaching writing, I would love to hear them!  It is my least favorite subject to teach.  We will continue our cooking and baking lessons, games, geography, and start units on dinosaurs, insects, and Greece and Rome.  Looking forward to a great fall, with trips to the orchard, to pick pumpkins and apples and to do lots of canning and baking!  Can't wait for that nip in the air, and the crunch of leaves, it will be an inspiring season.

Here is our past month in pictures.

Catch Up

It has been a very busy few months.  We have been suffering with crazy allergies, we have all been sick repeatedly, and we just seem to be forever on the go.  Since my last post we have done so much, and covered a variety of topics.  I have been making it a point to add some physical education into our routine, mostly using family time fitness for homeschoolers, we love it.  We also do yoga, as a family, and the the kids do it along to a video.  We have made it a point to spend lots of time outdoors, working in the garden, working on our geocache/letterboxing trail, and hiking.  We set up small obstacle courses for the kids in the yard as well.  In addition we take every opportunity to take the kids swimming, and they are steadily learning to swim and be comfortable in the water.

The kids finished ccd for the year and did a week of vacation bible school.  While they enjoyed it, I was less than thrilled with their teacher, who told me that they would be better, ie know to raise their hands, if they were in public school.  Though this is the same teacher that had to admit that CJ and Eliza were the only two in the class to discuss the bible readings at all, and they did so with insight and understanding.  That was a fun week!

We do weekly baking and cooking projects/lessons.  The kids are learning to use the stove and knives, and are doing great.  They get excited to look at their cookbooks and pick new recipes to try.

We have done painting, coloring, crafting of all sorts, and several art projects.  The kids are loving their scratch art kits, and their spyrograph art kits.  We still do puzzles, playdough, legos, building toys, and other fine motor activities on a regular basis.  We did a solargraphic nature art project with special paper.  The kids thought this was great, I thought once was enough!

We are now members at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and have been going often, and even have gone to the Tantaquidgeon Museum that has a great exhibit on the history of the Mohegan Tribe.  We have been doing lessons in our Human Body kit, and studying space.  Also learning about oceans, and other habitats.  We have been studying maps and learning about latitude and longitude.  We have been watching Cosmos which has lead into some great extension activities and excellent discussions.  I highly recommend buying it.  We have studied insects through a butterfly kit and some great toys we found at a local store.  In addition the kids built a bug house at Home Depot, and have been using them to safely trap and study insects before releasing them.

We also have a membership at the Mystic Seaport and the kids have been enjoying the science exhibits they have for the summer, the planetarium, and all the history they have learned.  This was such a great investment!  The kids have enjoyed their unit on Greek Mythology, and continue to practice chess.  Both kids have finished memorizing all their sight words and read voraciously daily.  They are learning multiplication and taught themselves to add simple fractions through use of a fraction tile toy.  We have learned parts of grammar and sentences through a great game, Silly Sentences, and have been practicing reading comprehension through discussion and written questions.  We have also made several trips to the CT Science Center, as usual.  We are also trying to finish up our Draw Write Now curriculum.

One of the coolest field trips we took was to a replica of the Nina and Pinta that were visiting the Norwich harbor.  We were able to board the vessels and ask questions, and the kids thought it was great!  We bought some cool books and resources to continue studying about the ships of that era, and of Colombus himself.  One of my favorite field trips was to the Mark Twain house, and the New Children's Museum.  That was a great day.  We also studied the Ice Age, and Mesopotamia.  And one of the kids' favorite lessons was all about Mozart.

We have studied Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and Neil Armstrong.  The kids took classes on rocks and minerals, and on Castles Kings Queens Knights, both of which were fantastic.  We learned about the Wright Brothers, and the kids have put on a reader's theatre puppet show of Green Eggs and Ham.  Also we acquired two adorable kittens, who are teaching the kids so much about animals, responsibility and paying attention to non verbal clues.

We have not been following actual lessons and curriculum for awhile, but are now going to start buckling down to doing more schoolwork.  It will be a great summer and autumn coming up, with some great topics and field trips planned.  Can't wait to share more!

I love homeschooling for so many reasons.  I love going the pace the kids need.  I love focusing on things the kids are interested in.  I love being able to let the kids sleep in as they need to.  I love going places where the kids learn things they wouldn't normally be exposed to.  What I don't love?  The way so many people think they know better than I do about what is right for my children.  I don't love how hard it is to stay on task and get things done.  I don't love having my house look like a tornado went through because the kids were building cardboard box space ships.  But I love spending every day with my kids and that they have the freedom to build cardboard box space ships.  And I especially love how our school happens anywhere.  Since my last post we went to the CT Historical Society Museum taking a class there, we went to the Imagine Nation children's museum, the Beardsley Zoo, and the CT Science Center.  In the car we brought whiteboards and brainquest workbooks, and did math, history, study of Greek mythology, practiced writing our phone number and address, and did listening centers and comprehension practice, all while traveling to great educational experiences.  I love the freedom we have to do this.  We have spent time outside in the garden, planting, and observing seasonal changes.  We have practiced math problem solving, and watched Cosmos.  We studied medieval food.  We did imaginary play about space, and we acted out stories we love.  We made crafts, built legos, studied world history, studied maps, played chess, did playdough, art lessons, computer and kindle, measuring activities, and are in the process of building a barnyard diorama with Daddy.  We are working on snap circuits to study electricity, and we have done cooking and baking together.  We practiced sight words and worked on lacing and tracing.  We watched a 3D movie on the universe reinforcing our continued study of space, and we spend a lot of time playing games and discussing questions together.  We learn so much from each other every day, as we journey further together.