A New Year!

School has officially begun this week, and we are enjoying it so far!  I just wanted to make note of some special projects we are doing this fall:

• All About Me booklets - It has been fun to go back and look at the booklets made in previous years and see their handwriting, likes and dislikes, statistics, etc!  This year I added a page for "When I grow up, I want to be...", and it was especially fun listening to my 4-year-old tell me all of the things that, in his mind, are special grown-up things (washing dishes, being asked to return library books, driving all sorts of vehicles, etc.) 
• Oral History Project - We are going to slowly work our way through our entire family, interviewing them via email with questions about their families and growing up and special memories that they have.  Just this week we have begun with my 89 year old grandmother, and it has been really neat to read her responses to the girls' emails and to share these stories together!  I'm looking forward to compiling an entire family "history" with the girls this year!  
• Weekly Projects - We told the girls that they get a chance to "teach" us every Friday and can even ask us questions to see if we were paying attention!  They have to pick out a book at the library on Monday (not sure if I will assign different parameters here each week), read it and pick out three things they learned that they want to teach us.  Then they have to draw a picture and prepare a short presentation.  They seem excited so far and have done well with it this week.  I'm looking forward to Friday! 
• Blogging as Creative Writing - Both girls have balked a bit at creative writing, mostly not knowing what to write about and not really being motivated to write in the journals I had them use last year.  So, this year we are doing a different writing exercise each day.  I did wonder if having an actual audience might help with motivation to write, so we came up with the idea to start a blog for each of them.  They will write a weekly post to share with their family and maybe some friends.  I figure they will learn typing, internet, scanning and uploading skills in addition to creative writing!  And, more importantly, they are excited about it so far!  

I'll port more later on what we have finally decided to use for our curriculum this year.  

Mosaics

We have been working our way through A Child's History of Art and got to a chapter on the ancient peoples of the two-river region (Fertile Crescent area). Apparently, they first began working with mosaics and tiles, so we got to do our own little mosaic pieces.

self-portrait

a beach scene

pickup truck

Summer School!

Summer school has begun around here, and so far we are having fun! Today was the kids' first sewing lesson, and they were thrilled! They already have great designs on sewing elaborate doll costumes by the end of the summer. I think we'll at least get the pillowcases, tote bags, book covers, doll quilts, laundry bags and pot holders made!
Today the point was to introduce them to the machine and let them try the pedal. Then, they got to practice sewing straight lines on a piece of paper and even learned to backstitch at the beginning and end of every seam.

Ahhhh, Summer!

Summer has officially begun at our house! So, our summer schedule is in full swing! Movie Mondays, Living Room Play Tuesdays, Game (or Water) Wednesdays, Cooking Thursdays, Library Fridays! We will be doing some "summer school" in a few weeks, but that is fun stuff, like art, sewing, science, first aid, and a summer reading challenge for the girls with new reading lights as the prize!
We've also added a 30-minute tidy-up time right after our morning devotions and a 10-minute laundry time.  We're slowly attacking the stuff we just didn't get to during the school year cleaning-wise, and the laundry mounds (mostly clean clothes, I'll have you know!) are slowly dissolving as we get to them daily instead of twice or so per week!  My goal for the kids (and myself!) this summer is for them to learn to do it right the first time, working with all their hearts. 

Looking Back

I just revised my post on planning for 2010-2011 to include comments on what has worked this year and what has not, why we have chosen some things over others, and what we are considering doing the same or differently next year.  You can read it here.

Planning Ahead

We are in process of deciding what we want to study and use next year for 2nd and 3rd grades with our girls. Here is a partial list of what we are looking at so far:

Math - Singapore Math – Lessons and Math Sprints (levels 2 and 3)

History - Story of the World vol. 2 & activity book.  As I am looking at the time frame, Fall of Rome through the Rise of the Renaissance, I am thinking we can incorporate lots of music and art history.  Hmmm...where are my old music history CDs and books? 

Science - Apologia Exploring Creation with Botany and then probably Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day

Language Arts – All About Spelling (I am switching because one of my kids is having some writing/motor skill issues and I am hoping this program will address that a bit), weekly composition writing (on computer, use to reinforce spelling, grammar concepts), Writing With Ease vol. 2

Spanish – Rosetta Stone (if I can find a good deal on it!)

Latin - not decided on this yet (3rd grader only)

Geography – continue to use our geography songs CD and map them (this year, we've learned the continents and oceans and the countries of Africa, the Middle East, Southern Europe and the US and Canada so far!)

US & PA History – make up units in PA and US History as we are interested

For our preschooler, I am looking at the following:

Praise Factory Big Questions and Answers for Little People

Nature studies

Botany

We just began Apologia's Exploring Creation with Botany course and are really enjoying it! Our first big project was building a light hut so we could grow some seeds. Here is our light box building project (we had several sick kids, so school was done in pjs all week if at all).






We planted our seeds a week ago and kept peeking in at them. Here they are a week later!
Broccoli, lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, zucchini and a green onion! Now to prepare the garden!