October 2012 ~ Homeschool Rewind

Family Read Alouds:

GOD:

• Wisdom and the Millers, chapters 18-19
• David and Goliath, Tomie DePaola's Book of Bible Stories
• The Fall of Jericho, Tomie DePaola's Book of Bible Stories
• The Light of the World, Katherine Paterson
• The Good Samaritan from Sacred Myths: Stories of World Religions
• The 23rd Psalm from the King James Bible, Michael Hague
• The Legend of St. Christopher, Margaret Hodges

NATURE/SCIENCE:

• The Gift of the Tree, Alvin Tresselt
• Miss Suzy, Miriam Young
• A Tree is Nice, Janice Udry
• The Pumpkin Book, Gail Gibbons ~ Life cycle of a pumpkin 

HISTORY/SOCIAL STUDIES:

• Saint George and the Dragon, Margaret Hodges
• Paul Bunyan from The Treasury of Children's Literature
• Robert E. Lee and the Wounded Soldier from The Child's Book of America
• Our Island Story, chapters 1 & 2
• The Sword of Damocles from 50 Famous Stories Retold

LITERATURE:

• Jack and the Beanstalk from The Red Fairy Book
• Rapunzel from The Red Fairy Book
• Sleeping Beauty in the Wood from The Blue Fairy Book
• East o the Sun and West o the Moon from The Blue Fairy Book 
• The Nettle Spinner from The Red Fairy Book
• Bambi, Felix Salten, chapters 1-4
• The Last Little Cat, Meindert DeJong
• Tatterhood from Tatterhood and Other Tales, Ethel Phelps 
• Festival of Stones, chapters 1-6 
• Hansel and Gretel from The Treasury of Children's Literature

POETRY:

• Read lots of poems from Favorite Poems Old and New and Read Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young

AUDIO: 

• Sparkle Stories "The Story of the First Jack-0-Lantern"
• Five Little Peppers and How they Grew, chapter 1
• Tilly Witch (Your Story Home)
• The Luckiest Ghost (Your Story Home)
• The Halloween Candy Nightmare (Your Story Home)
• The Halloween of Edgar Poe (Your Story Home)

The Three Rs:

THE PRINCESS:
Ch and Sh phonics, created a page in her Main Lesson Book
Copywork in print many times, from books we read
Wrote a thank-you card
English for the Thoughtful Child, lessons 1 and 2 orally
Read aloud to me from Harriet Treadwell Reader for 10 minutes several times (finished the First Reader)
Read aloud to me Amanda Pig
Read silently: 

• Prairie Friends, Nancy Levinson
• Chicken Soup with Rice, Maurice Sendak
• In a Dark, Dark Room and other Scary Stories, Alvin Schwartz
• Lionel in the Fall, Stephen Krensky
• The Lad and the North Wind, Treadwell Reader
• Black Beauty and the Thunderstorm, Susan Hill
• Clara and the Bookwagon, Nancy Levinson
• Horse, Malachy Doyle
• Going to Sleep on the Farm, Wendy Lewison
• A Little Prairie House, adapted from Laura Ingalls Wilder
• A Little House Birthday, adapted from Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Amanda Pig and the Awful, Scary Monster, Jean Leeuwen
• Tales of Amanda Pig, Jean Leeuwen
• Mama Don't Allow, Thacher Hurd
• Mythical Creatures "Dragons", Charlotte Guillain
• No More Monsters for Me, Peggy Parish
• Doctor DoLittle's Great Adventure, Hugh Lofting 

THE HIPPIE: 
Completed 4 lessons in Math U See
Copywork in cursive several times from books we read
Dictation from The Last Little Cat
Written Narration of The Dog and His Shadow
Wrote a thank-you card, addressed envelope and mailed
Typing several times
English for the Thoughtful Child, Lessons 1-11
Lots of storytelling to us
Read: 

• Freckle Juice, Judy Blume
• Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Judy Blume
• Bard of Avon, Diane Stanley and narrated
• How to Train Your Dragon, Cressida Cowell
• Half of Phantom Tollbooth (decided not to finish at this time)
• Started Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims and narrated (finished in November) 

MATH TOGETHER:

• Playing UNO
• Connect the dots
• Squirrels collecting acorns ~ adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing
• Squirrel problems ~ moved from horizontal to vertical
• Lots of practice problems in all four processes
• Counting by 2s, 5s and 10s
• Clapped 2s, 5s and 10s times tables
  

Other Family Subjects:

MUSIC:  Mozart ~ We listened to Masters of Classical Music, Mozart every morning.

MEMORY:  Come Little Leaves by George Cooper ~ Both girls memorized this long poem and recited it beautifully.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE: German ~ We listened to several lessons multiple times, all on audio. These are mostly songs and games and the girls LOVE it.

SCIENCE & NATURE:

• Zoo Field Trip as a family ~ fall is a WONDERFUL time to go!
• Nature Study with Daddy at the beach
• Two Nature Walks in our neighborhood
• Collected fall items
• Collected acorns for Squirrel math
• Observed squirrels in our yard as well as birds
• Mythbusters

SOCIAL STUDIES & HISTORY:

• Fort Caroline National Monument ~ learned about Timicuan Native Americans and French occupation of our area
• Watched 3 episodes of Liberty's Kids

HOME LIFE SKILLS:

• Baked pumpkin muffins together
• Cooked pumpkin soup together
• Costume making
• Learned to shuffle cards
• The Princess made birds out of fuzzy sticks.
• The Hippie made masks for a party.
• Several other self-directed crafts and handwork projects

ENRICHMENT:

• Created ALL ABOUT ME pages
• Pumpkin patch
• Pumpkin carving
• Spookle party created by Hippie, enjoyed by family
• Surfing lessons with Daddy 

FIELD TRIPS & OUTINGS:

• Corn Maze field trip
• Park Day with friends
• Downtown Art Walk ~ lots of "lessons" by talking to the artists and asking tons of questions
• Sea and Sky Spectacular Air Show 
• Several library trips

Reflections on learning around here

I've given it some thought and decided that I will do a Monthly homeschool review rather than a weekly one. I'm just trying to simplify and put less pressure on myself. If I can find time to write each week, that is fantastic. But, if we get busy and I can't, I need that to be okay, too. Last year, having that pressure to document each and every week of school became somewhat of a chore at times. I'm thinking that once a month, I can recap what we've learned, what we've read and what we've experienced in the past month. That is a commitment that I hope to feel a bit less pressure about meeting. If you really want to see some of what we're doing as we are doing it, check the three reading logs across the top. I'm trying to update those daily or every couple of days with the books that we read aloud and that the girls read themselves. A book doesn't make it to the list until after it's read, so that is your record of some of what we have actually done.

Anyhoo. Even though I don't intend to do a "Week in Review" for the past two weeks, I wanted to spend some time reflecting on some of the things that have been working for us and some of the things I've already decided to change a bit.

What is working for us?

Music in the morning.
   Monday morning I made a point to stop my quiet time at 8:00 am on the dot. I put in our "Masters of Classical Music: MOZART" CD and headed to the kitchen to start breakfast. When the girls came out (excited to start school) and smelled homemade pear cinnamon oatmeal on the stove, heard Mozart on the speakers and saw Momma in her apron, putting dishes away, they said it felt so good. I made a mental note of that and have since done the same each day ~ 8:00 am on the dot, my computer time ends, Mozart is turned on and I'm in the kitchen doing the work of the day. It works for us. It feels good to me. It signifies the start of the day. It signifies that Momma is plugged in (or rather that Momma is now "unplugged") and ready to hold the rhythm of the family. Plus, I can stop worrying about "scheduling Composer Study" ~ it's now on the agenda each and every day and doesn't take up a bit of our lesson time! The Hippie and I planned out the months of the year with our 10 CDs and we will have a new composer each month. I know that is a bit shorter than the typical "one composer per term" Charlotte Mason recommendation, but if we're hearing the music every single day I think one month is enough. We like it this way.

Ten minutes of copywork and no more ... and from books we are actually reading.
   I spent most of the summer thinking I just wouldn't be able to come up with my own copywork each day and that I needed to just buy something. I'm so glad I didn't do that. It really was easy to sit down the Saturday before and pick out four days worth of copywork from books we are actually reading, plug short sentences into this worksheet maker (cursive for the Hippie and print for the Princess) and be done with it. I really believe they are more interested in the writing when it is something they recognize. They get excited about it. Another key, though is that I have set the timer for 10 minutes and made them stop wherever they were at the end of 10 minutes. Period. I want ten minutes of perfect handwriting instead of 15-20 minutes of sloppy mess. Each day the Hippie was able to finish and the Princess finished about half. But, both were beautifully written and that is what matters!

Dictation with the Hippie. 
   I cannot express enough how beautifully this went this week. My oldest child (up to now) has hated copywork and anything to do with writing (when Momma requested it). Charlotte Mason says not to begin dictation and written narration until the child is in 4th grade or about 9 or 10. Boy, did she know what she was talking about. We did our first dictation exercise on Monday and the Hippie loved it. She wanted to do it every day (she's only going to do it once a week, but I love the enthusiasm). Again, I agonized over buying something, but in the end decided on the more natural route and am so happy that I did. On Monday morning, I asked her if she'd like to do her dictation exercise (she didn't even know what that would be) from Bambi or The Last Little Cat (two books we happen to be reading aloud at the moment). She chose The Last Little Cat because her copywork that day had been from Bambi. I chose a paragraph for her to look at, told her to pick out any words she might have trouble spelling and wrote those on the board. She then took mental pictures of each word and spelled them orally. I asked her to look over the paragraph again, looking at capitalization, punctuation and spelling. I told her to listen closely because I would not repeat myself ~ she would only get the sentence one time. I then dictated one sentence (she did not know which one it would be) a few words at a time for her to write. She ended up doing it perfectly ~ no mistakes at all. She was so proud of herself! Awesome.

Written Narration with the Hippie.
   Just like I said above, I really thought this was going to be met with whining and complaining. But, again the girl totally surprised me ... in such an amazing way. I expected sloppy handwriting, 2 or 3 short sentences and major complaining. What I got was beautiful, carefully written handwriting, an entire wide-rule page and even more detail than the original story. She blew me away, big time. We had just used The Dog and His Shadow in our oral English lesson, so she chose to do her first written narration on that. As I said, she wrote it better than the first one. Double awesome!

English in Momma's bed
   Grammar is another subject I agonized over. I originally planned to have the Hippie just do Intermediate Language Lessons from Emma Serl in the workbook format. Again I was thinking "easier for me" ~ just do it. But, again (even after purchasing and printing over 200 pages ~ ugh, hate to waste paper and ink like that), I ultimately decided to go the gentle,natural route of doing English lessons orally and with me and only having her write the dictation, copywork and written narrations from books we are actually reading. Again, I am so glad I did. Twice this week, the Hippie and I curled up on my bed and went through several English lessons orally and then called it a day. She loved it and it was simple and natural. I'm telling you, natural is better! Once this week, the Princess and I did the same (only going through one or two lessons instead of several). Again, that bonding time is so special. I chose English for the Thoughtful Child because I already owned it. Keep it simple, right?

Fresh air and movement
   This is so important. We started each day with a short walk and I am convinced that it made things better. After breakfast and chores, we headed out the door for just about 30 minutes. We walked and talked and looked at all the nature we could see (tons, by the way). It got each of us some fresh air, some sunshine, a little bit of exercise and got the wiggles out so that they could concentrate when they got home. Success!

Candle and prayer
   In Waldorf circles, school generally starts with "circle time". Well, the typical "circle time" just isnt' me, but we do signify the start of our learning time and this works well for us. We have a special "school candle" (that the girls picked out at the Farmer's Market last week) that we light. We then hold hands and say a prayer ~ going around and letting all three of us speak. We say "Amen" and blow out the candle and get to work. It centers us. It bonds us. And, we always start the day by Giving Thanks to He who deserves it. What could be better?

Tea time after lunch
   What is "tea time", you ask? Well, I had originally planned to do it after quiet time and before they went out to play. I wanted to have a dedicated time, make them some tea and fit in things like Picture Study and Composer Study and Poetry and Shakespeare at this time. Just some time together over tea (theirs was caffeine-free, of course) reading together. Well, as it turns out, no one in this family is coming back to anything "schooly" after rest time. The Princess had suggested doing it before rest time anyway because then the tea could relax her (as she said). So, I thought ~ great idea. We ended up doing our tea time after lunch and clean up. I fixed up tea for each of us, we took it outside and we read aloud. It was great. We read the classic story of Paul Bunyan one day and the next day we took turns reading TONS of poetry to each other. Blissful.

German and typing 
   Again with the subjects I fretted over "scheduling" and didn't need to. The Hippie asks to do her typing every day even though I only "scheduled" it twice a week. And, our German CDs and songs have been on as much as Mozart (by request), again, even though I only "scheduled" it twice a week. Some things really are better left to the natural, Unschooly way. I'll still keep them on my schedule just to remind me, but I don't think I'll have to make it happen!

Scheduling the hair brushing to audio or video
   Sounds silly, doesn't it? Well, we have a lot of hair in this family and although my girls are good at many things, keeping their hair free of tangles is not one of them. In recent history, we had a habit of letting it get pretty bad and then once in a while, Momma would spend an agonizing hour removing dreadlocks from each child's hair. Well, no more! I take a stand, lol. I actually scheduled hair-brushing time! The Princess is on Monday and the Hippie is on Wednesday. We listened to audio history while brushing, so it was part of our school day. And, the girls' hair is beautiful now. Can't beat that! I figure that as long as Momma hits the hair once a week and they continue to brush and fix it each day (which they've done beautifully), then hopefully it will never get that bad again. Let's hope.

God and memory at breakfast
   We started doing our "God readings" at breakfast last year and really liked that. I have their attention when they are eating and can read a bit from the Bible or Wisdom and the Millers (our Proverbs for Children) or something of the like. We can discuss it. And, it doesn't take any time out of our lesson time. It is perfect. This year, I've added Memory to that time slot. We're working on memorizing "Come Little Leaves" by George Cooper at the moment. Perfect for fall.

Keeping the rhythm!!! 
   I cannot stress this enough. It is imperative that Momma keeps the rhythm! If the children come out and find Momma sitting at the computer, not dressed and ready to go, they will follow suit. If they come out and find Momma doing what she is supposed to be doing, they will as well. It's that simple. Whether we like it or not, Momma's make or break the school day right from the start. Whether I feel like it or not, I must get up before them, have my time to get in a good place for the day and be ready for them when they come out. Period.

Reading every day
   The girls have read every day. Period. Some during our "lesson time" while I was working with the other and some more during "quiet time". I made a nice little log for them to record books they read (we all love lists, don't we?) and they read. Period. The Princess also reads aloud to me for 10 minutes each day. I had only "scheduled" that once a week, but she requested it each day, so I'm following her lead. Again, it's a lovely cuddling time on the couch. It's working.

Squirrel math
   This is working well because we have squirrels in our yard that the girls named over a year ago, so I can easily talk about Nutmeg and Peanut Butter (yes, those are two of the names) collecting acorns. If Nutmeg has 8 acorns and Peanut Butter has 4, how many do they have together (8 + 4)? If Cinnamon comes along and they want to share them equally, how many will each one get (12 / 3)? Okay, so they each have 4 acorns ... a new friend comes along with 4 more. Now, how many do they have (4 x 4). Uh oh, winter is here and they have forgotten where they hid 7 of them. How many are there now (16 - 7). You get the idea. Tons of fun. And, it works.

Switching bedtime reading to single stories instead of chapter books
   I decided to change up our bedtime routine to include single stories like fairy tales or picture books instead of a continuing chapter book at this time. The reason was simple ~ too often we would end up not reading before bed, so the chapter books would drag on forever and really not be that great because we barely remembered what was going on. With this new system, I can read the chapter books during "school time" (hopefully following through much more often so that we can actually make some progress) and we have time at night to fit in all the great picture books and fairy tales we love so much but never had time for. It's worked well. With this new plan, we read bedtime stories much more often! I think one story is less pressure or doesn't sound as daunting as one chapter. Whatever it is, it works for us.

Family time and family learning
   Lessons are important, yes. But so is life. Our family bike rides and family beach walks and Nature Study with Daddy and our family Zoo trip and our visit to a local fort and historical Native American preserve and our impromptu night at the Art Walk have been fantastic and have been just as educational as our Squirrel math and dictation and copywork! It is so important not to get so bogged down in "lesson plans" that you forget the good stuff! Get out there and have fun as a family ... and learn a thing or two!

********


Wow. If you are still with me, you must be a homeschooler, lol. No one else in their right mind would read this much chatter. I had some ideas to talk about the changes I've made or our daily or weekly rhythm, but I'm thinking this post is long enough. I'll put those into another post for you. If you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to ask. I'll do my best to get back to you.

What is working so far in your homeschool this year?

Until next time,

IrieMomma 

A Smashing Succes!

We began a new homeschool journey today ~ 2nd and 4th grades. I must say, although things were consistently about 30 minutes past my "ideal", the day was a total success. Although I completely forgot to break out my camera, I thought I'd share some of this day with you while it was fresh in my mind.

In all honesty, I was concerned that today would not go well because the girls went to bed much later last night than they should have. Blame football. We'll have to work on our Sunday evening routines!

Either way, the Hippie woke up raring to go, excited to start school and fired up.

The Princess, not so much. She was tired this morning. I'm happy to say, though, that even though she was tired, she still came out this morning, dressed, teeth brushed, room tidy and bed made. Good girl.

We began the day like we usually would with morning chores and breakfast, but you could feel the difference. The Hippie took care of the animals and the Princess happily started a load of laundry (she loves starting laundry). I cooked breakfast on the stove, had Mozart playing softly on the speakers and set the table for breakfast.

At breakfast, we enjoyed The Light of the World by Katherine Paterson and I quite enjoyed the conversations that sprung out of it. I just love listening to these girls talk about God! After that, we read the poem "Come Little Leaves" by George Cooper a few times through ~ we are hoping to memorize it this month (the Hippie memorized the first stanza in no time flat ~ the Princess was "tired").

After our poem, we all went our separate ways for a bit, the Princess washing the dishes, the Hippie vacuuming their bedroom and I sweeping and mopping the laundry room and kitchen.

Then, it was time to start.

I had planned for that to be 9:30, but it was 10:00. I had a feeling that would happen.

We headed out the door for a short walk to get the wiggles out. To my surprise, both girls had excellent attitudes about the walk. The Princess said that she didn't used to like walks, but since we walked so much in Germany, she likes them now and that our walk reminded her of Germany, so she wants to do them every day. :) Good thing, since that was my plan!

We saw all sorts of nature ~ a bright orange lizard, an orange moth nearby (the girls speculated that they both ate something that turned them orange), one tree that was turning colors a bit (we are in Florida ... fall doesn't come to us like it does to the rest of you), some moldy ivy stuff growing on a fence, an Osprey (we saw him twice), squirrels gathering nuts and so much more. The girls were disappointed that I didn't bring my camera. So was I.

The rest of the morning sort of flowed back and forth ~ I worked with the Princess while the Hippie worked, I worked with the Hippie while the Princess worked, we worked on some things together and so on.

The Princess read to me today from a Treadwell reader, we did a couple of English lessons orally (she loved that) and we had a sort of phonics lesson on the board. She then worked diligently, drawing pictures of three "ch" words and three "sh" words and doing a bit of copywork from the book Bambi. I only required her to write for 10 minutes and only wanted as much as she could do perfectly in that 10 minutes. She didn't quite finish the sentence I had written for her, but what she wrote was beautiful. She will finish the sentence tomorrow ~ again, only as much as she can write perfectly in 10 minutes. She finished reading the story "The Lad and the North Wind" silently and then narrated it to me beautifully.

The Hippie and I did a dictation lesson today for the first time ever and she loved it. According to her, it was her favorite and she wants to do it every day. Bless her heart, I only have that scheduled once a week. :) I allowed her to choose if she wanted to do it from Bambi or from The Last Little Cat (two books we are reading aloud at the moment) ~ she chose The Last Little Cat because her cursive copywork was from Bambi today. As I said, it was the first  lesson ever and she did it perfectly. There were no misspelled words, the punctuation and capitalization were both correct and her handwriting was beautiful. A smashing success for the child that supposedly hates to write! On her own, the Hippie did cursive copywork, 15-20 minutes of typing, read about 5 pages of Bard of Avon and a did one math lesson and worksheet.

As a family today, we read The Legend of St. Christopher (the Princess narrated this beautifully), did German for about 15 minutes (The girls loved the German!) and listened to two chapters of Our Island Story on librivox (the Hippie narrated that wonderfully). After listening, we found Great Britain on the globe ... and of course, the girls had to find Germany again and trace our plane route.

As I write this, the girls are finishing up their after lunch chores ~ the Hippie is washing the dishes while the Princess folds the laundry. After chores, the girls will read and rest a bit for quiet time and then play this afternoon. All is right in the world.

****

Don't you worry. I am not naive. I know that the enthusiasm for school wanes. I know that things will not always been smooth and lovely.

But, today was good.

I want to remember today. Regardless of tomorrow.

Until next time,

IrieMomma

2012-2013 School Plans

I've really struggled this year over what we were going to do, how we were going to do it and whether or not I would post about it here. I'm coming to some general conclusions and have a solid plan, but that plan could change at any time, so I don't think I'm going to get as detailed about it here as I have in the past.

But, ...

I also know how much it has helped me to see what other people are doing. So, I've decided to give you a rundown of some of my basic principles for the upcoming year. Again, know that specifics are not set in stone. I don't have a perfectly planned 36 week schedule with neat little notes on when each term begins and ends and what we will do in each term. I have a general plan of what matters most to my family and how I might accomplish some of those goals.

 
What matters most to me are the basics ~ that my children have a sincere love of God and that they develop Godly character, that my children can read, communicate and do basic math, that my children are out in nature as much as possible and have a genuine appreciation for all of the amazing things that He created and that my children are surrounded by beauty like well-written poetry, the art of the masters, beautiful music, classic stories and the writings of Shakespeare. So, in no particular order, here are some of the things we are going to try out this year.

My basic plan is this:

• Read to the girls about God at breakfast or thereabouts each morning.
• Memorize poetry and scripture with the girls.
• Spend time each day one-on-one with each child. For the Princess, this time might consist of math or her reading to me or some oral English lessons or some phonics lessons or games. For the Hippie, this time might consist of oral English lessons or a dictation lesson or hearing her orally narrate something she's been reading or helping her with a written narration.
• Have the girls spend time each day working on things they can do on their own. For the Princess this includes copywork, reading independently and logging it, drawing pictures about the stories we hear and copying summaries we come up with together. For the Hippie this includes copywork, math, typing, reading independently, written narrations and drawing or crafting from our stories.
• Spend time each day as a family. In a nutshell, we will read and they will narrate. I've got some typical Waldorf Grade 2 type stories lined up (Animal fables, stories of saints, legends, Jataka tales, etc) that I'd like to read to the girls this year. I'd like to read a variety of chapter books ~ both fiction and historical. My goal is exposure to a variety of topics (history, nature, biographies, Shakespeare, literature, fairy tales, fables, myths, legends, classic stories, etc.). I'd like to read lots of animal stories like Bambi and The Last Little Cat and Along Came a Dog and The Cricket in Times Square and Ribsy and more. We'll also learn German together, do some math puzzles together and do nature study together.
• My current plan is for us to listen to some of the books suggested in Ambleside Online Year 1 and 2 on audio while I brush their hair or we eat lunch. I'm planning on Our Island Story, Viking Tales, 50 Famous Stories and as many of the classic literature as we can get to (Understood Betsy, Wind in the Willows, King of the Golden River, Peter Pan, Pinnochio, Robin Hood, Heidi, Tanglewood Tales, Five Little Peppers and How they Grew, The Story of Doctor DoLittle, Five Children and It, Otto of the Silver Hand, etc). I own many of the titles, but my voice can only handle so many readings in a day, so I'm trying to share the load a bit with the audio books. :)
• I want to read the rest of the D'Aulaire biographies to the girls this year.
• Have a "Tea Time" each afternoon where we do Picture Study or listen to different composers or read some more classic stories or read from Beautiful Stories of Shakespare or read poetry together.
• To round it all out, we'll continue our weekly Homeschool Adventures Group, use our Zoo Membership to its fullest, attend regular shows at our local symphony and the girls are taking an Upcycled to Art Class this fall.
• Then, of course, there is the LIFE learning of baking and games and just plain fun.

There you have it. My sporadic thoughts all laid out for you. Neat and tidy (not). I just keep trying to remind myself of the ages of my children. My youngest is in the Primary years where the most important things are really the 3 Rs and God. That's it. And play. Then, we have my oldest who is just past that cusp into the 4th-6th grade block of learning. That age is ready for more content, but still needs time to play and (in my opinion) doesn't need to be bogged down with too many facts. Everything they have been exposed to in these early years can and will be solidified when they hit Junior High and High School ages.

 
God, a wide variety of books, nature and the basics.

That is where we are at this year.

******

Of course, I might have mentioned to the girls at some point about spending an entire year learning all about animals and they keep asking me about that, so I may break down and get this when we can afford it. They really want me to get it. But, that will just fold into the plan laid out above.

Read something every day, write something every day, do some math, get outside, be surrounded by quality literature and living books and hear all kinds of beautiful things. That's my educational philosophy. What's yours?

Family Field Trip ... Zoo Membership Kick-Off

We are kicking off this school year in a more experiential way than in years past. Daddy's schedule has changed so that he is often off on a week day (that changes each week). Rather than be upset by this because it interferes with my "school routine", I've decided to embrace this and plan fun family field trips on his days off.

This week, we chose to go to the zoo and start our annual membership (thank you, Nanu for that). Let me just say, if you haven't been to the zoo in October, you need to! It was the best zoo experience we've had probably ever. There were babies galore and all kinds of activity. We even got to watch a sloth ... a sloth. If you're not familiar, sloths are never awake and are never active (at least not when we've been at the zoo). Yesterday, this sloth was all kind of active (for a sloth). Super cool day at the zoo! Perfectly productive. TONS of nature study. Beautiful weather. Wonderful family. Couldn't have asked for a better kick-off to our zoo membership or or school year.

Take a peek at some of our pictures.

Squirrel that begged like a dog

Baby leopard on the left

Does he look relaxed or what?

This guy was NOT part of the zoo ... he was on our path!

We studied this last year ... do you remember what it is?

We are probably the only people who fed this cutie pie something he SHOULD have been eating ... a couple of whole, natural almonds (as opposed to doritos or whatever else he is used to).

Until next time,

IrieMomma