Last Thursday, the Boy participated in Bake for Good (Kids): Learn Bake Share program sponsored by King Arthur Flour. A co-op in a nearby county arranged it, and they had several sessions with 12 children each. The goal was to teach kids something about baking while giving them an opportunity to do good. In this case, the "good" was several loafs of bread for a local food pantry. While waiting for dough to rise, cinnamon rolls and pizza were also made, and it smelled delicious. The Boy did well for nearly an hour and half, then he had had enough, and we hung out a while longer, but left just before the end without eating anything. Still, it was loud, there were new textures and new people, and even I was a bit overwhelmed, so his shutting down was understandable.
This Thursday, we had art class with the same children, for the most part, that we did watercolors with last month, in a familiar location. He made it to the end, although I did the stem and the shading on his pear, because he was completely done with the sitting down thing. Still, acrylic painting, with the drying time between layers, does take a while, and I think we both did awesome! Next month the lesson is on mixed media, so should be interesting.
His
Mine
Art Class
Some may disagree, but to me, these are considered handicrafts. He is making beautiful and/or useful things with his own hands. One other activity that might be considered a handicraft that he does is computer coding. My husband came across Code Kingdoms, and the Boy has played it 10-20 minutes three times this week. Do you think coding should be considered a handicraft?
I'll be linking this to Learning By Hand at crossingthebrandywine.com!
As I mentioned last month in Craft Lack, our local homeschool group has the opportunity to take art lessons from a pro. March's lesson was watercolors, and I paid my fee to join in officially this time. :)
First, we were taught a few techniques, which we practiced on the 3 blocks of paper you see below. Mine is on the left, my son's on the right. We learned washing, lifting, dry brush, gradients, wet-on-wet, stamping, splatter, and of course, color mixing. The we got our new sheets for the tree, on which we used yellow, then blue, to let them run together into a green. We added shading, then I started on grass and sky but it was time to go :( I didn't want to stop!
Next month's art class will be acrylic painting, which we have attempted successfully at home in the past. I hope they boy feels more comfortable with that, although he has enjoyed this and the drawing class just fine for the first 30 minutes. His attention and sensory issues just can't let him enjoy it for the full hour at this time.
Lest you think I have all the areas of a Charlotte Mason education under control, let me share what I know from personal experience about handicrafts.
Ummmm.....
I made some friendship bracelets in elementary school, and made some throw-away crafts at camp a couple of summers. That's it. Seriously. I did draw on occasion for fun and take art class in high school, but I certainly didn't come away with anything worth keeping, or useful in any way.
Everything I know about handicrafts comes from the reading and researching I've done the past 4 years on behalf of my son, and my short experience knitting last winter. (I keep meaning to pick that up again, and I WILL, but my finger injury that occurred mid-October is holding me back, as it still hurts to type with it, so needles wouldn't be a good thing, but I'll get there!)
Knowing my own lack, I reached for help. We started with Boy's Ma, my mother-in-law, who knows all about sewing. They hand-sewed, then machine-sewed, so that was weekly for a year. For second grade, I went to his Pa, who knows a bit of leather-craft, so that was weekly for about half the year, then we floundered about. We tried soap carving with a bit of success but it wasn't exciting, hence the previous post about wood carving. When he gets bored, I always suggest picking up a handicraft, but he rarely goes for it. Why? Possibly my lack (and my husband's lack) of modeling that way of life. We reach for electronic devices, or sometimes a book.
This lack of craftiness will not fix itself. While making artwork isn't technically handicrafting, I tend to lump it together in my mind, and am giving myself some credit for making an effort in this area by taking painting classes sporadically. Yesterday, we attended a homeschool art class (the first in our county! yay, progress!) with Boy and you can see our success below.
However, I do need to be more intentional. I write it on the schedule at least 3 days a week, and we may get to it one of those times. I save handicraft until last in our school day, so he can work on it as long as he wants. It's never very long, though, so I'm considering moving it earlier; perhaps it will be less forgotten.
Honestly, the reason I let handicrafts fall by the wayside more often than not because I feel my own inadequacy in this area. I can read and write, and even do math, but ask me to carve some wood or try something new, and I'm on the same level as the Boy. Its good for him to see me this way, though - I can model trying, failing, trying again, dealing with frustrations and sharing successes.
Are you willing to let go of pride and perfection and learn something new with your kids?
Woodcarving is not something I thought I would ever do. It still isn't, really, but in my quest to find a handicraft that my son will work at willingly, here we are. I bought the video months ago, and put the book and carving knives on his wish list, and he got them for Christmas! Thanks to the grandparents :)
So far, he has watched the first few chapters on safety and the basics a couple of times, and has been practicing holding the knives and making small cuts. Just this week, he progressed to making an actual shape, which he says will be a sword. The video has the first object as a bird, but hey, he's a 10 year old boy, so sword it is!
Why do we spend time doing things like sewing, painting, leatherworking and woodcarving? Because all learning does not come from books. Its important for a child, or adult for that matter, to have areas of competence, and to be able to contribute beautiful, useful things to the world. Not to mention the dexterity it builds, the habit of attention, and more. We are creative beings, and need outlets in which to be creative! I like to knit and scrapbook, but those don't appeal to my son in the least, so we are trying different things, looking for the one or two things that he can really love and stick with over the next several years, if not for his whole lifetime. It may remain a hobby, or it could turn into a supplemental income. Only God knows!
Now that there's just a month left of summer break, I had better get my review of the last term completed! We finished AO 2, Term 3 about May 15th, which is nearly 2 months ago now. Time flies. Let's see how much I can remember about those last 12 weeks of school....
This term's poet was Christina Rossetti. Most of her poems were short enough that we could read them at least 4 times a piece. For example, day one we read the first 5 poems. Day two we read poems 2-6; day three we read 3-7, etc. If we really dislike one, I may just read it 3 times, and if its a favorite, it gets copied onto an index card and put in the memory box. We aim for one per term, in addition to the scripture verses that we memorize.
Bible time went through some more changes this term. I stopped using Calvary Curriculum, because I realized at the pace we were going, we would never make it to the New Testament, and we were both getting bored with it. We got through Judges in last term, and switched to using this schedule alone, instead of in conjunction with CC. We covered Samuel through Second Kings. Here is another option for Bible, but now, AO has a Bible schedule, too! (Here is AO 2's Bible schedule.)
Our hymns this terms were Ah, Holy Jesus How Hast Thou Offended, When Upon Life's Billows, and All Cratures of Our God & King. I had heard the last 2 in church as a child, but the first was completely new. Let's just say that it had to grow on me. :) We sang them almost daily, before or after Bible time. We continued with one folk song a month, covering All Through the Night, Maggie, and The Wild Coloniel Boy. These were fun, as always.
Composer study covered Opera overtures. All the famous pieces...at least all the opera I had ever heard, which is limited, was covered. He liked it better than I though he would, possible because his daddy was so excited about the Barber of Seville, as seen in Bugs Bunny, LOL! Artist was Georges Seurat, the French Impressionist. He wasn't particularly impressed by these works.
Hunting for frog eggs
For Spanish, we didn't really change anything from term 2. We tried a few other typing programs, since the fun of Dance-Mat Typing had worn off, and he was getting tired of not succeeding or moving on to the next level. He ended up liking Typing Club best.
We made it through about 4 McGuffey reading lessons each week, and completed the second grade reader and ended the year in third grade, lesson 19. I plan on continuing with some McGuffey, but maybe mixing in some Treadwell readers as well.
He completed second grade Rod and Staff Penmanship, and was able to do copywork in cursive at the end. We will continue to do copywork in cursive for third grade, after a week or two of review so he recalls proper letter formation. He has been going to occupation therapy (OT) since late April, working on core strength, wrist and hand strength and coordination, and desensitizing him so that the sound and feel of paper don't bother him so much. His OT is awesome and he loves her. She sees great improvements in him, and I'm hopeful the coming school year will be more enjoyable for both of us!
He started the second Graded Work in Arithmetic, which starts at operations with the number 20 and goes through 100. The first week included review, so he breezed through 7 lessons; second week was 5 lessons, then he slowed down to about 4 lessons per week. He got through Lesson 44. Next year I plan to continue with this book, but we will also add A+ Interactive Math for third grade...if I can get it installed on one of our computers (compatibility issues)!
We slowed piano lessons down to once a week, as we caught up to the end of Mr. Hoffman's freepianolessons4kids. See more about that here. I know they are busy adding more lessons, with plans to go to 100, so I'm hoping to continue using this resource for third grade.
First bareback ride
Handicrafts were unfortunately dropped from the schedule this term, although he tried his hand at Soap Carving. For physical development, we added horseback riding lessons once it got warm enough. We also repaired the trampoline and got a playset for the yard, complete with a fort and rock wall.
We completed the AO scheduled reads for year 2, and several more of the free reads. This term he finished Wonderbook for Boys & Girls and Tanglewood Tales, and Brighty of the Grand Canyon. I hope to get Mary Poppins read before school starts, but we are in Alice in Wonderland (year 3 free read) right now, and also listening to At the Back of the North Wind via Librivox (get the free audio for year 2 here).
I feel like we did a really bad job on nature study this year, although we had our moments. The weather fluctuated wildly, and we just didn't make the time for it. We must do better!! On the other hand, we did finish Bob Jones second grade science book and are in the process of raising tadpoles. Once they turn into froglets, a post will be forthcoming. :)
My goal of posting each week didn't really work out, but I still want to chronicle what we accomplished, so I'll try to capture the look and feel of Year 2, Term 2 in this post.
During this term, we worked on 2 different poets (Eugene Field & James Whitcomb Riley). I enjoyed quite a few poems from each of them. As time went on, the poems got longer, so I went down to reading 4 a day instead of 5, then to 3 a day at times. I made sure we heard each poem 4 times, since you often hear something new or understand it differently after some repetition.
For Bible, we continued using Calvary Curriculum, but towards the end of the term, I quit printing the coloring pages, and just took a bookmark sized piece of paper and wrote down the suggested readings to use as a check-list. This saved paper, as well as my frustration as he would refuse to even look at the coloring page most days. I kept thinking he would enjoy looking at an illustration while listening to the reading, but that never happened. We made it through one lesson per day most of the time, although some of them were multiple chapters and had to be spread out over 2-3 days to keep the lessons short. We made it from the end of Genesis to Judges this term. In addition, we completed Kids of Character during week 21, so have one more day a week with which to work through CC.
Alongside Bible, I was more consistent about listening to and singing the hymns. I put more on the YouTube playlist and hung the words next to the computer in case the video didn't have the words on-screen. It was quite nice to start school off with pretty music and him cuddling up as we tried to learn the words to Anywhere with Jesus, Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow, My Song is Love Unknown (brand-new to me, and I loved it!) and This is My Father's World (a childhood favorite of mine). As with most things, he resisted the new routine for a while, but I know he enjoys it now along with me.
Our folk songs for term 2 were I'se the B'y, Silent Night, Keys to Canterbury (his favorite) and this month is Mairi's Wedding, which is lots of fun! I have a playlist for our folk songs as well, but normally am able to use what I've purchased in iTunes, so its not as thorough as what some others have created. Composer was Bach, and artists were Dutch - de Hooch and Ruisdale. Neither he nor I are fans of their styles, but did enjoy Bach!
I tried to expand Spanish beyond Rosetta Stone, since its getting quite a bit harder for him now. I'm finding some sites with fun children's songs in Spanish and doing those once a week, watching Salsa once a week, and doing RS just once a week instead of twice. That's helped him groan less. :) One days we don't do Spanish, he practices typing, using mostly Dance-Mat Typing from the BBC website. His pace has been much slower than I expected, but I try to remember that its not a race!
As his resistance to reading has decreased, I was able to increase his McGuffey reader lessons from 3 painful ones a week to 4 mostly pleasant ones. Whew! He worked from lessons 23 through 57 this term, and I think we'll be able to finish it this school year. I like how short the lessons are and the gradual introduction of new words. It always seems the right amount of challenge.
Penmanship and spelling continue to offer resistance, but it has improved, in fits and spurts. We are still on track to finish both courses before school ends. I think he wouldn't admit it, but he's enjoying learning cursive. The research shows that those with higher resistance to writing often do better with cursive, so I'm really hoping that will be true for him. I haven't really focused on spelling, or offered tests at this point. I'm using it more so he will notice patterns, review phonics rules, and practice handwriting. I keep trying to help him visualize the words in his mind, but so far he's had a hard time with that. When he's through the workbook, I will spend the rest of the weeks of school going back to Charlotte Mason's word-building exercises, like we tried last year.
Math lessons continued at a pace of 4 per week, with day 5 being needed to finish up a longer lesson or play math games. (We purchased Wings for iOS, for multiplication practice, and I think it will help, since he can't stand flash cards, or me helping him review.) Just yesterday, on the last day of term 2, he completed lesson 100 in the first Graded Work in Arithmetic. This took him through basic operations through number 20. So, term 3 we will start the second volume, which takes him through all basic operations with numbers up through 100. He seems to have a decent grasp of addition, subtraction, division and multiplication, although fractions and word problems are tough and I have to step him through those.
tools of the trade
I intended to add PE to the daily schedule, but it keeps skipped most days. I bought Family Time Fitness, and love how the plans are laid out, but this just hasn't happened. Handicraft is going along fine, with his grandpa doing leather-crafting with him. He enjoys learning new stitches and creating gifts for us. Another subject that's been almost completely neglected this term was Nature Study. I'm sad about that, and not sure how to get it back in, but I definitely will be re-working the plan so that it gets in there. Part of the problem was the cold weather (I despise winter), part was him dragging out other subjects so that there was simply no time for the fun stuff. Yes, he and I both need to work on some more discipline, which would easily done if times didn't cause meltdowns on his part. Works in progress, we are!
his first coin purse
He has kept on with piano, doing 1 or 2 lessons per week and practicing for a short time on the other 3 days. He made it through lesson 43 at freepianolessons4kids.com and is pretty proud of what he can do now. He does need more review as to how to actually read the music, but his finger control has improved much. Here he is:
Now, for the Ambleside Online suggested readings! We followed the schedule as written, and finished The Little Duke. That was his favorite! He didn't care for Wind in the Willows, but got through it. He likes Pilgrim's Progress, and that is made easier due to reading Dangerous Journeys last term. He enjoys the Burgess Animal Book, more so after we slowed from 2 chapters a week to 1. We are using a spreadsheet another AO'er created that has picture and video links for all the animals mentioned, and DS really likes watching the nature videos. He can take or leave Our Island Story; regardless, his narrations are improving. He sometimes does a really good job telling back a story, and I get many fewer "I don't knows" or repeating the last sentence that was read.
I scheduled a few of the free reads to be done during school time, to be sure they geo read. Others I read at bedtime, or listened to on his iPod. He is not a pleasure reader, despite the rewards system we tried. He loves to be read to, though, so for now, that's good enough.
The free reads we've completed in term 2 are:
As a testament to how any age can enjoy good literature, he now asks to listen to Lamb's Shakespeare for fun at bedtime! All in all, it was a successful term.
This was a week of beginnings. While my husband was off for his second missions trip to Nicaragua, DS started fall soccer and Minds in Motion. Everything went well, including my babysitting job and meetings.
Week 6 of AO Year 2, followed nearly to the letter!
The Bible - continue with the story of Abram and Sarai
An Island Story ch 26 William the Conqueror - Death of the King
The Little Duke - second half of chapter 3
Tree in the Trail - through chapter 24
Burgess Animal Book: A Fellow with a Thousand Spears; A Lumberman and an Engineer
Poetry of Walter de la Mare - through poem 25
Understood Betsy: ch. 5 Pilgrim's Progress Dangerous Journey - watched video for chapter 4
Parables of Nature - The Light of Truth
For handicraft Thursday, he created this coin purse.
We intended to do ants for nature study, but ran out of time with everything else going on. We did, however, spend quite a bit of time at the park and playground, so at least outside time happened.
Mushrooms growing prolifically on our property
His copy work is improving - going to the park first thing in the morning, combined with his time at Minds in Motion resulted in him voluntary pulling his paper out of the sheet protectors and touching the paper with no issues. If you are wondering why we were using sheet protectors, see Overly Sensitive? from earlier this year.
For math, we did Lessons 29 and 30 from Graded Work in Arithmetic, which I like so far. Its gotten harder fast, so I'm slowing down some more. We supplemented with Greg Tang's multiplication book, called The Best of Times. That's one I want to come back to again next year. If you haven't looked at any of his books, they are a fun, different way to look at math facts.
This was a short week because of Labor Day. And foster kids. And construction in our house. And a field trip.
Yet, somehow, all of the scheduled AO readings were completed, along with 3 days of Bible, 2 lessons each of typing and Spanish, a spelling lesson, reading and copywork lessons, math and piano. I did less of several things, but there is no doubt he was still learning.
The Bible - Discernment was our character trait, and lesson 13 from Calvary Curriculum
Tree in the Trail chapter 7 - still speeding through to get it back to the library soon; ch. 12-17
Poetry of Walter de la Mare - I only read poetry twice this week, so we are through pg 21 now Pilgrim's Progress Dangerous Journey, finished ch 3 and all of ch 4
For piano, we did Lesson 12 from freepianolessons4kids.com, then tried out a new iPad app. Its called Piano Dust Buster by Joy Tunes, and is similar to Magic Piano (which my husband loves). Both remind me of Tap Tap Revenge, or Guitar Hero :) The great thing about Dust Buster is that it shows the keys and as you (a little granny on the keyboard, holding a feather duster) tap the key at the right time, granny jumps up and dusts the "germ", making music. Its too cute. It also has a real piano mode, where your ipad listens to your actual instrument to play the game. However, we couldn't get it to "hear" our keyboard, so that's something for me to figure out soon!
His Pa is teaching him leather-crafting, and he made some designs on coasters this week. One had his own name, one said MOM and the third said DAD. It was cute, and when he came home he had to show us what he learned so laid everything on the kitchen table and promptly used up the "practice" coaster leather that same day.
Cockatoo stare-down
On Friday, I used my Groupons for Kentucky Down Under, which is about an hour from here. It was a warm day but we both enjoyed it more than I thought we would (I'd heard mixed reviews).
This post wraps up my introduction to Year 2 (see part 1 & 2). My goal is to post the readings we've done every week, along with any interesting stories or new resources I have discovered.
Week 3 readings were completed with the just a couple changes:
The Bible -we have read through nine chapters of Genesis, with him narrating each story.
Tree in the Trail chapter 4 3-6
Poetry of Walter de la Mare (poems 11-15) Pilgrim's Progress Dangerous Journey - finish chapter 2
Handwriting (copywork): Rod and Staff's Penmanship for grade 2 This goes from print to slant to cursive, using short lessons; he does this 2 days a week. Bible verses and other phrases are done on other days, if spelling doesn't take too long.
McGuffey readers (free at Gutenberg or Amazon) for introducing new words - once or twice a week. I have him read aloud something everyday, but he is still very resistant to this.
Math: Graded Work in Arithmetic, book 1.
Hopefully, we'll get through all of 1 and part of 2 this year. We did more than one lesson a day at first, but now we've slowed down a bit. Finished up lesson 20 this week.
Spanish: 2-3 times a week. Rosetta Stone (new!) and Salsa episodes (once a week).
We
are following AO's rotation for music and art appreciation, using resources found for free online, and some composer's pieces purchased through Amazon and iTunes, as well as from the Homestead Pickers CD's we purchased last year.
Term 1's artist is Renoir. For weeks 1 and 2, we studied his Girl with a Watering Can. This week and next, we are looking at Girls at the Piano. The composer is Claude Debussy, and this month we are listening to Suite Bergamasque (Prelude, Menuet, no.3 Claire de Lune, no.4 Passepied). Our folk song for August is Gypsy Rover and the hymn is the Rock that is Higher than I.
The Handbook of Nature Study, which is to be used as a teacher's guide, is leading us through insects this term. Right now we are just working on the life-cycle of insects, and what exactly IS an insect...did you know that bugs are technically just one part of the insect family? I love learning right along-side of him. :) The nice things about studying insects is that there is no shortage of them in our yard to investigate! Ick. We are also working through the Bob Jones 2nd grade science book.
Last year, his handicrafts included hand and machine sewing. This year, his Pa is introducing him to leather crafting. So far, he has looked at the tools, played with the hammer and visited the Tandy store. He is also working on hand-sewing a stuffed puppy from a kit and hopes to get that done in time to submit it for the local fair.
For his instrument, he decided to stick with piano. We are using Free Piano Lessons 4 Kids. We have gotten through the first 10 lessons, which hasn't taken us any farther than we got using KinderBach or pianolessons4children last year. However, this guy really knows how to get kids involved, and does it using little stories and simple games, which DS really enjoys. Now, the videos themselves are free, and there pdf downloads for the first few lessons are free...then he starts charging. If you like the first couple of lessons, make sure you pay the $26 or so to get all the pdf's instead of purchasing individually. I think its worth it, to support his efforts.
There you have it! Hard to believe it took me 3 posts to get it all down! Doesn't a Charlotte Mason education sound fantastic? Its deep, and its wide...and will hopefully open many doors for the future.
I started introducing spelling to my first grader this week. Now, he has been spelling for some time by copying words, phrases, and sentences from the line above or from somewhere else on the page, or occasionally from the chalkboard. We just never called it spelling, since the focus was on proper formation of the letters themselves. (His handwriting has improved greatly by reducing the amount he wrote each day to as few as 4 words, then gradually building it back up; I am quite pleased with it now.)
I decided to pull out the magnetic letters that we've had since he was about 2 years old and put them to use, along with a baking pan that's seen better days. Here, we shuffled and I introduced him to alphabetizing.
I left out Q, X and Z, in case you are trying to figure it out :) We won't be spelling with those for a while, I figure.
I used the side of the pan for the word we were looking at, to reduce visual clutter. This also made it really easy to flip it around where he couldn't see it when he was air-writing it from the picture in his mind.
We went through quite a few 3-letter words this week - those ending in -at, -ar, -ur, -ut, and a few more. He seems to like it, as long as I don't do too many at a time.
Today, to change things up and because there are 3 preschoolers in the house on Fridays, this was our project instead. The great thing about a marshmallow and toothpick structure is that you get to eat it when you tear it apart!
Monday and Tuesday weren't bad. I'm fighting a cold and haven't been at full speed, but that has been balanced by not having any foster kids in the house during school hours, so things are getting done.
Today was terrible, and I'm not sure why. I kept my cool, better than usual even...maybe he was ramping it up to see when I would lose it. Well, I didn't so much as raise my voice, and he almost made himself sick with the fits he was throwing. He hasn't gotten that bent of shape in a really long time, thank goodness...and maybe that will be the worst for the rest of this school year.
We persevered and got through the school day, and went on to his handicraft hour with my mother-in-law. He is now doing machine sewing, and today he took the pins out from where they had cut the pattern last time. Then he sewed and ironed his first pocket onto the apron!
. For physical development, we added horseback riding lessons once it got warm enough. We also repaired the trampoline and got a playset for the yard, complete with a fort and rock wall.
