We made a start with homeschooling this week, but it was a gentle beginning with fun activities and/or visits with friends happening most afternoons, once the basics were were covered in the (yawn! eyes open yet?) morning.
First thing (while kids are eating breakfast or just after--quick, snag them before they run off!): we light a candle and read aloud either, from
Michael Clay Thompson's Language Arts (MCTLA),
Music of the Hemispheres, or, from Sonlight Core 5,
All the Small Poems (and Fourteen More)
, and then the day's portion of our Core 5 read-aloud book. This week:
Seabird
, by Holling C. Holling. I usually have the older two write down the "words to know" from the Sonlight read-aloud guide. J.J. likes to join in and tends to illustrate his words.
After reading together, Jazz and Jane are off to their
workboxes, and J.J. is off to Legoland-in-the-Living-Room.
His workboxes are filled with Montessori activities and
Five-in-a-Row
(FIAR) books, but right now we get to those when the spirit moves one or the other of us.
Workbox #1: Both of the older two are doing another round of
Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting
, with a focus on cursive. In the past, Jazz learned the serifs that go with the cursive italic letters, but somehow never got in the habit of connecting the letters, so his handwriting is spiky, and since he writes quite small, it can be difficult to decipher. Soon I'm hoping to alternate handwriting and copywork.
Workbox #2: Sonlight Core 5's
Eastern Hemisphere Explorer. I had debated about using this part of the curriculum, but am very glad I went ahead and bought it. Used in conjunction with
World Book Encyclopedia 2010
software (which has a fun
Mussorgsky intro. that sent us down a rabbit trail for a bit), the guide challenges students to find out a little bit of information each day about the region they are studying. For instance, yesterday's task was to compare and contrast three regions of islands in the Pacific (Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia). They also get to "choose an adventure," to be completed by the end of that region's study, which can take the form of a detailed drawing, a mini-report, the preparation of a meal, a mock journal entry, or another out-of-the-ordinary task to tie up what they've learned.
This workbox also contains a
Book of Time for each kid. More on this later. . .
Workbox #3: Jane is continuing with
Writing with Ease
, while right now Jazz has Sonlight's
How to Do a Research Project to read while we wait for
Grammar Town
to get here (should be arriving on the Big Brown Truck any day now). I was going to split the levels and go with
Grammar Voyage, since Jazz already has a pretty solid background in grammar, thanks to
First Language Lessons
,
levels 3
and
4
, but decided to keep everything in the same level and use
Grammar Town as a refresher course. There's nothing like coming at a subject from a different angle to help make things stick in the ol' noggin.
Workbox #4: Jazz is loving
Caesar's English
so far. Michael Clay Thompson's word roots curriculum is far, far different than traditional vocabulary programs like
Wordly Wise
, or even
Vocabulary from Classical Roots
, which we also really liked last year. Thompson's love for language resonates on every page, inspiring students to love it, too. Jane has her Sonlight reader in box #4--this week it's
Henry Reed, Inc.
Workbox #5: I've given Jane the
Writing Skills
book by Diana Hanbury King that Jazz used for a bit, but am not sure this is a great match for her. I'm sorely tempted by the Island level of
MCTLA, but feel like I have already donated a kidney to
Royal Fireworks Press and need to wait until it grows back before I can order from that company again. She probably gets enough (for now) from
Writing with Ease (narration, copywork, dictation, and narration, in four-day cycles), so this box will probably become the
First Language Lessons box.
Jazz has his pseudo-Sonlight reader in this box. Pseudo because a) he reads at a much higher level than most of the Core 5 books, but mostly because b) he and his sister would find something to fight about if they were reading the same book at the same time. This week, instead of
Henry Reed, Inc, he's reading
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
, which we somehow missed in the past, to go with the seafaring theme of both
Seabird and the Pacific Island region of Core 5's first couple of weeks. Jazz also has a few pages of
Ships, Sailors, and the Sea
to read each day, and that book is kept here, too. ("Why do I have to read two books in this box?" said in his best petulant twelve-year-old voice. I immediately pictured him curled up in the box, reading. Somehow, the humor didn't translate.)
And that's it for this week. I'm currently gathering ideas for next week's "fun" learning, which will hopefully include some Polynesian cooking (using
Sam Choy's Polynesian Kitchen
and
Kids Around the World Cook) the making of tissue paper flowers, and very likely the viewing of a surfing DVD or two. Workboxes #6 through #9 will be added eventually, and will have science, Latin, art, music, and hopefully foreign language in them at some point.
, a Smithsonian Channel production written and hosted by Canadian anthropologist and ethnobotanist (and modern-day explorer) Wade Davis. The four-hour series is based on his book
of the same title, and possibly this one
, as well. It was informative and thought-provoking, and we'll be watching the other episodes soon.
:
retold by Cherry Gilchirst and illustrated by Helen Cann shares stories of Purim (Jewish), Holi (Hindu), Vesak (Buddhist), Tanabata (Japanese), Halloween (Celtic), Christmas (Christian), Kwanzaa (Caribbean), and New Year (Russian).
retold by Cherry Gilchrist and illustrated by Nilesh Mistry is just plain gorgeous. I can't get over the artwork chosen for the vast majority of Barefoot Books titles. We're lucky enough to live just a few minutes from the flagship store of this stellar publishing company, and I love walking in there. And I never come home empty-handed (insert happy dance here).
and Demi's
biographies of Marco Polo, Marco Polo for Kids: His Marvelous Journey to China
by Janis Herbert, and two ensemble
cds
headed by Yo-Yo Ma to enjoy.
by Judith St. George; illustrated by David Small. Small's goofy illustrations are a big part of the appeal here, I think. Jazz grabbed this one and enjoyed reading it from cover to cover before we started back with organized homeschooling. St. George's tone is conversational and appealing to younger kids, and, while she runs the gamut from Alexander the Great and the Greek trader Pytheas all the way through to Buzz Aldrin and cohorts, and even further into the world of 21st century genetic scientists, the succinct text is mainly a roll call to familiarize readers with famous names in exploration. Fun for ages five and up, if my kids are anything to go by.
by Philip Wilkinson. This OOP Kingfisher title isn't that difficult to find used, and its division by geographic region is especially helpful, as that is how we are pursuing our study of exploration. Like most of the thinner Kingfisher books, this one has, for each geographic region, a two-page spread with a just-right amount of text for my nine-year-old, and contains both photos and drawings as illustrations.
by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel divides the text up by region, and provides information about an even longer list of explorers. Each name is allotted about three pages of text interspersed with maps and black-and-white illustrations. I think this book is most appropriate for middle school-level students.
by Marc Aronson and John W. Glenn. This beautiful National Geographic title would be a great addition to a year spent studying the exploration of the Americas, but unfortunately doesn't meet our needs for our pursuit of knowledge of the Eastern Hemisphere. I'll definitely keep it in mind when we hit American history again.
by Justine Ciovacco. My feminist little heart goes thumpity-thump with the inclusion of more than two dozen women in this 127-page book, from familiar names such as Sacagawea and Amelia Earhart to not-so-familiar ones like Naomi Uemura and Annie Smith Peck. While not terribly relevant to the region we're studying this year, this is still a great book to have on hand to find out information about adventurous people of the past.
by Jean Fritz; illustrated by Anthony Bacon Venti. Any narrative by Jean Fritz is going to make a wonderful read-aloud. This book is exactly what it claims to be--a look at one hundred years of exploration. While it's not all about the Eastern Hemisphere, and we can't jump around by region as it is a continuous story much like The Story of the World
(with chapters even more connected, I dare say), I'm planning to make time for this book as soon as we finish Holling's Seabird
