Okay, I warned you on my first blog post that I'm horrible at keeping up with journaling. At least I know my weaknesses ;) Now be prepared because I'm going to talk for awhile to make up for it.
11 months ago, I created this blog as an easy way to "out" myself as a new homeschooler. I didn't want to have to deal with the same conversation over and over again where I explained how we came to this point while I defended our decisions. 11 months later I'm very happy to say that I am definitely a homeschooler, very proud of it and will talk anyone's ear off about it! This last year has been amazing! Don't get me wrong...it hasn't been perfect. My educational vision has evolved multiple times, the girls and I have had our share of power struggles, I've been ready to pull my hair out when my husband got home in the evening (even more so on the evenings when work kept him away), my housekeeping skills appear to have been taken over by a 6 yr old child and yet, through it all, I still say that it has been amazing!
For those of you that like specifics, I will give a quick listing of SOME of what we studied last year and what curriculum we used to guide us through those studies:
As a family, we learned in surprising depth, about space and what is in our sky, using Apologia's Astronomy course. We also went through many different areas of history using pieces of Biblioplan, Story of the World, and TruthQuest. Aly went through all facets of single & multi digit division using Math U See Delta and Sav went through single digit addition & subtraction using Math U See Alpha. Aly began the Student Writing Intensive course from the Institute for Excellence in Writing while also using Christian Light Education's Language Arts books to work on her language arts and grammar skills. Sav made amazing progress in her reading using Hooked on Phonics, while she did Grammar from First Language Lessons and Writing from Writing with Ease. They also did some handrwiting books, made several lapbooks, did art projects and read more books this last year than they have read their entire lives. Miranda still attended our awesome co-op preschool 2-3 times a week but when she joined us at home, she adored doing her Letter of the Week work, playing all sorts of fun file folder games, and just generally tagging along with what everyone else was doing.
So, why has this year been amazing? I don't want to negate the fact that the learning they have done has been phenomenal, but that honestly hasn't been the best of it. The growth they have made emotionally, socially and spiritually is what has made it all worth it. For anyone that is concerned about the social aspect of homeschooling...well...it's crap. Sorry, just putting it out there, but it is! This last year has shown me exactly what the difference is between "socializing" in a 5 day/wk regular school environment and socializing in normal, every day environments.
I can see the difference most clearly in Aly, simply because she was in the regular school system for longer. The peer influence of regular school which caused my then 3rd grade daughter (8 yrs old) to constantly discuss the continuously changing cycle of what boy she liked, what boy liked her, how large a male classmate's boy parts were (yes, really), and so much more, is now practically non-existent. Don't get me wrong, she still has her crushes. The difference is they are now normal, 9 yr old crushes. Not the obsessive, my-life-revolves-around-this type of crushes. She has, on her own, picked up on the difference between those friends who exhibit virtues that she agrees with and those who she still may enjoy hanging out with, but she doesn't necessarily want to emulate. She has learned that her sisters aren't the enemy, they truly can be her friends. She has learned that her mom and dad are available for any off the wall question she may have (and boy does she have a lot), no matter how personal they may be. And best of all, she has learned that God isn't separate from life...God IS life!
Since Sav is younger, and only went through kindy in regular school, I don't see the amazing about-face like I do in Aly. Instead, what I see is a tremendous growth in the confidence she has in herself, her love of Christ and her patience with her sister. She is growing into a wonderful young girl, who doesn't have the 7 hr/day, 5 day/wk influence from other immature children. Instead, her main influence is a woman who is confident in who she is and very confident in who her children are becoming. Unless things drastically change, Sav will always be the quieter one. She's more reflective, more introspective and just darn sweet. This isn't getting squashed by 30+ loud and overbearing 7 yr olds. Instead these qualities are being enhanced by a mom who can see exactly how to work with it and bring out the good parts of these traits.
Let me also clarify all of this by saying that I am NOT their only influence! I'm just their main one, the same way I have been since their birth. They still have tons of interaction with their peers through enrichment classes, tennis lessons, dance classes, play dates, field trips, church activities and so much more! Whoever came up with the term "home"schooling really should be slapped because it truly gives an incorrect picture of our day. We are anything but just home! I've put more miles on my car this last year than in quite some time...and I'm enjoying all of it :). It really isn't anything like most people imagine!
So, while I have loved watching the learning take place, and loved seeing them grow to new potentials, the thing that really has made me have that amazing year is to see who the kids are becoming as individuals. I get to see that just because they hit school age, all my years of being a stay-at-home mom don't have to be thrown out the window. It's an amazing sight to see and I'm very happy to say, we will be proudly continuing this adventure through another year (and hopefully more). I've changed some of our curriculum around (and am VERY excited about the changes...more on that later) and I've kept some the same. Very anxious to see where this next year in our Life of Learning will take us!
Showing posts with label apologia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apologia. Show all posts
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Don't look directly into the sun!
We always heard that growing up. I even say it now that I'm a mom. I never knew exactly why this was though, despite the old adage that it can "damage your eyes". Our science studies went from learning about the solar system as a whole to a study of the center of our universe - the sun! During these lessons, we learned WHY it truly can be damaging to your eyes to look directly at the sun for too long. The lenses of your eyes are shaped similarly to the lens of a magnifying glass...and we all know what can happen when you take a magnifying glass in the sun to a leaf. The kids didn't yet though ;). We went outside, armed with a simple magnifying glass and some curious children, on a hot, sunny day. We were lucky enough to actually find a leaf floating around from a neighbors house (since we have practically NO trees at our house LOL). After a little bit of practice (because I have to admit...I had never actually done this before), some focusing of the heat from the sun into one small spot onto our leaf - it started sizzling, then smoking, and soon had a hole in it!
I gave all "safety first" lessons, but even after that, Aly was still a little too eager to show her newfound discovery, to her Auntie. We then let things be known with NO questions about it, that ANY sort of play with fire, no matter how simple it may seem, can lead to disastrous results. It's nice that I was able to be around to see that she might not understand the magnitude of the original "no playing with fire" speech, so I could nip that in the bud right away.
So what did we learn from this experience? 1) The lenses in our eyes act very similarly to the lens of a magnifying glass, and it could be fairly simple to do big damage to our eyes; 2) Despite the fascination, even a small smoke can lead to a giant fire, so DON'T MESS WITH IT.
I gave all "safety first" lessons, but even after that, Aly was still a little too eager to show her newfound discovery, to her Auntie. We then let things be known with NO questions about it, that ANY sort of play with fire, no matter how simple it may seem, can lead to disastrous results. It's nice that I was able to be around to see that she might not understand the magnitude of the original "no playing with fire" speech, so I could nip that in the bud right away.
So what did we learn from this experience? 1) The lenses in our eyes act very similarly to the lens of a magnifying glass, and it could be fairly simple to do big damage to our eyes; 2) Despite the fascination, even a small smoke can lead to a giant fire, so DON'T MESS WITH IT.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
The Solar System
When I got into the whole homeschool world, one of the things I loved was that I would have the ability to put more emphasis on history and science for my children. Unfortunately, with the No Child Left Behind act, and the California school systems in the budget crisis that they are, History and Science are 2 things (among many) that are being left behind, in favor of focusing more on the subjects that the end of the year test (STAR test) surveys them on (only reading and math for the lower grades). These subjects are of course, very important, but so are all the rest, so I was really looking forward to digging deeper into both history and science with the girls. I knew that since I had control over what they learned, I wanted to teach them a Creation Based science, while making sure that they understand all of the rest of the theories out there, but also understand why I feel this is the truth for my life. I chose to go with Apologia's science curriculum, but then I let the girls pick which area of science they would like to study this year. They chose (after some negotiating LOL) Astronomy, so Astronomy it is!
We're loving Apologia so far! The girls each have their own age appropriate notebook where they take notes, do crossword puzzles, have copywork, make mini books, write summaries, etc of the things they are learning. It should be a fun thing to look back on at the end of the year to remind them of everything they did in this course. The first thing we started learning about was the planets in the solar system. Right off the bat, this was all new for me, so I went right along learning with them. We learned about the order the planets rotate around the sun, we learned about Copernicus and Galileo and what they brought to this field of study, we learned gravity and how the planets all stay balanced in their position, and so much more. The girls made up a silly mnemonic phrase to help them remember the order of the planets. The cool thing I like about this is how they brought in the Magic Tree House audio books we've been listening to in the car, in their phrase: Morgan visits everywhere, means just some ugly new place (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune & Pluto...more discussions later about Pluto's planet status removal).
Our first science project for this year was to make a model of the solar system out of balloons. This is obviously not an exact process, but is more of a fun, hands-on way to get a feel for the difference in sizes of the planets, along with the order that they rotate the sun. We did this project on a weekend, so that Daddy could be there to do it with us. It was so much fun for the girls to bring him into their school lessons with them. There was measuring of planets involved, decorating of planets using markers and construction paper, and lots and lots of blowing up balloons. Normally our science time is done when Miranda is napping so that we can focus a little more on the actual studies, but we wanted to make sure she got to be there for the fun of this project also. This just meant that there was a little more spit-swapping in the balloon department than we might have had otherwise, but she loved it so that was what it was all about. Here's some pictures of our first project:
We're loving Apologia so far! The girls each have their own age appropriate notebook where they take notes, do crossword puzzles, have copywork, make mini books, write summaries, etc of the things they are learning. It should be a fun thing to look back on at the end of the year to remind them of everything they did in this course. The first thing we started learning about was the planets in the solar system. Right off the bat, this was all new for me, so I went right along learning with them. We learned about the order the planets rotate around the sun, we learned about Copernicus and Galileo and what they brought to this field of study, we learned gravity and how the planets all stay balanced in their position, and so much more. The girls made up a silly mnemonic phrase to help them remember the order of the planets. The cool thing I like about this is how they brought in the Magic Tree House audio books we've been listening to in the car, in their phrase: Morgan visits everywhere, means just some ugly new place (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune & Pluto...more discussions later about Pluto's planet status removal).
Our first science project for this year was to make a model of the solar system out of balloons. This is obviously not an exact process, but is more of a fun, hands-on way to get a feel for the difference in sizes of the planets, along with the order that they rotate the sun. We did this project on a weekend, so that Daddy could be there to do it with us. It was so much fun for the girls to bring him into their school lessons with them. There was measuring of planets involved, decorating of planets using markers and construction paper, and lots and lots of blowing up balloons. Normally our science time is done when Miranda is napping so that we can focus a little more on the actual studies, but we wanted to make sure she got to be there for the fun of this project also. This just meant that there was a little more spit-swapping in the balloon department than we might have had otherwise, but she loved it so that was what it was all about. Here's some pictures of our first project:
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