Spelling

The boys all used a typical spelling program, learn a given set of words, do some activities with the words and take a test. Each week new words. Nothing wrong with this but I just could not face doing this again with Emma. For one I kept seeing words Emma uses in her writings and gets wrong not being in the lists. Her working word list was not represented in the spelling books. Granted these words need to be learned, the spelling book ones, but other words do too. I decided to use the ideas in Ruth Beechick's book You Can Teach Your Child Successfully (I highly recommend this book).

In it she has several options for teaching spelling. The one we will be using is where you take the child's writing and pull from it words they misspell, words you think they should know, and keep a running list of them. When you get 10, or how many you want to work with, you then teach those words. I kept a running list on a piece of scratch paper and had it hanging on the fridge.
(here is a pic of our list written on the back of a calendar page)

Ruth Beechick then suggests making a note page for the different phonics sounds. She breaks this down in her book with page suggestions and examples of the letters that make the sounds. This is very helpful for me because it is hard to decide sometimes exactly where the different sounds go. I made Emma make the different pages that had to do with her mistakes. Eventually we will have all the pages represented if Emma needs them.

Before she wrote the words on the appropriate page we discussed the sound and letters as well as other words that had similar spelling/sound. Then I had her write the list out. We will have a test at the end of the week on these words. I am also having her write the words in script for hand writing practice but that is a separate subject and not necessary for spelling.

The lists she makes are her personal word lists. I can add words I want her to know how to spell to it. There is no limit to what we can add and no wrong way on what notebook pages we want to add. It is a personal spelling book. Ruth Beechick gives suggestions and lets you know it is okay personalize it. For now this is how we will do spelling.

Developing Me

Long ago I was tired and felt like I had no time for me. None. Even a trip to the bathroom had little ones trailing behind. This was when I had 3 little boys under the age of 7. I can remember my husband trying to console me one especially tiring day...he said, "One day you will have more time then you know what to do with"....at the time I just wanted to glare at him because how were those words going to help me when one had little sleep and hungry mouths to feed. I did get a taste of this promise, just a taste, right before Emma was conceived. The boys were older and 2 were teens. Then a new baby and once again any time for me was gone. Fast forward to present day. 2 of my 4 have flown the nest, and the 2 left are old enough to not need mom very much. With the exception of school and housewife duties, I am left to pursue my interests.

During this re-found freedom I have learned to knit and started this blog. As more and more time finds it's way at my feet I am finding my interests are branching out. Because I want to make a serious study of nature I decided to learn to draw and/or paint with watercolors. Gardening is another thing I want to pursue. Some I can start now and some I will have to wait a few more years, but I am preparing for that day. The day I retire from being a stay at home mom and become just a house wife...one where the day is all mine from the time hubby leaves the house till I make dinner. A good 6-7 hours free to pursue
knitting
gardening
art
nature hiking
journaling
Bible study
blogging
working on a book
puzzles
weaving
scrapbooking
reading
learning to play a musical instrument
video games (yes, I play these)
math studies
to name just a few. 

I have never had time for myself, not like this. As a child I had school, then college, work, and children. When hubby retires I want to work on our relationship. Getting to know each other once again. Doing things with him, just him and me. Sure there will be plenty of time to pursue my hobbies but it will be different...not in a good or bad sense, just different. But those years of just me, to develop just my interests...it will be my personal Renaissance, my time of enlightenment.

The science wheel is taking shape

Imagine my surprise when I opened a thread I started on TWTM forum and found a treasure trove of ideas, resources, and blog posts pertaining to my looking for an alternative way of doing high school science. The thread is found here TWTM Science Post. One of the links given to me by Faithr (I want to hug this woman) was exactly what I had in mind, a list of books...not textbooks...that read as a whole will give the student an understanding of the science. Not just facts or terms, but a true understanding of what the science(and it's parts) is by people who have a passion for the subject (can someone say living books). The link is Living Book Science .
I already have several of the books for Biology in my Amazon cart. Soon as these come in I will be working on schedules and course work needed to complete the Biology year. Just reading these books will not be the course. I will require note taking on these books. Some sort of lab work or field work is needed also. I still want nature study to be a part of the Biology credit.
I feel the plan starting to come together and am actually doing a mental happy dance. Cannot wait to get things written up on paper though.

Reinventing the science wheel

High school. I have gone through it 3 times, once as a teen and twice as a homeschooling mother. The 3 experiences were all different but had the same result....hatred. I went to a public school, that at the time was rated one of the top in the nation, and I was in honors (said not to brag but to let the reader know I was not in classes that had no merit). With that said, I entered college not knowing how to write (papers) and not knowing how to study and nothing but a bare minimum of things learned academically (graduated with a 3.4 GPA, again not to brag but to let you know I passes with more then the minimum). My oldest did high school pretty much on his own and made excellent scores on both the ACT and ASVAB (Navy bound graduate) but found everything we did extremely boring and it pretty much killed his love of learning. Second son was a different sort of child and after enough butting heads went into a Youth Challenge school (military run) and earned his GED by end of 10th grade. He also lost his love of learning somewhere around middle school. I am now on my 3 son and sadly it is turning out to be the same sad story. Loved school until it started getting textbooky and then the spark went out.

I don't honestly expect all his classes to be exciting and I don't expect it to be a party...school is work. But why can't work be enjoyable. For the most part I think I have found the right things for the main subjects. Daniel loves mythology so his English and Latin studies are centered around Mythology ( Classical Mythology and More for English and Latina Mythica for Latin). We solved his math hatred by switching to Teaching Textbooks and for the first time he mentioned math in a list of things he liked. Mystery of History is his world history curriculum and next year it will be combined with Sonlight (core 100). Science is the only subject I have not found a solution for. We did make it less painful by switching to Apologia but it is still a textbook and still dry, going into extreme detains that no one but a biochemist will need to learn. But even if it is a doable book it, science at the upper level has killed any love of the subject for my son. I cannot live with that, not again.

We are not talking about a child who is planning on pursuing a career in the STEM field or a student planning on going to a competitive college(if he plans on college). We are however talking about a student who loves to write, loves anything to do with weaponry, and loves trivia. Just today he over heard me teaching his little sister about comets and listened in. I happen to mention about Mark Twain being born and dieing during the passing of Halley's comet and he wanted to learn more about it. He spent time reading about Mark Twain and then found quotes about him that he had to share. This is Daniel. he hears something that piques his interest, studies it (maybe a cursory study or maybe an in depth study) and then shares his findings.

Because I do not want Daniel to follow the same trend I and my older 2 sons followed, I need to reinvent the study of science at the high school level. I keep asking myself why does science have to be taught with a text book? We can learn history using biographies, living books,original papers, and historical novels....why not apply this to science topics?

NOTE: I will be honest and add a disclaimer, as well, before I go any farther...I do not know what I am doing and if you follow anything I say here it will be like the blind leading the blind and the outcome is not know yet. Another thing...this will be tailored for my son and then retailored for my daughter. It is not a generic method. It will be tweaked, torn apart, put together and re tweaked and possibly thrown out. Please proceed with caution.

Here is my basic plan (the actual method will be written as I develop it). Use a textbook for a list of facts/terms he needs to know and let him learn about them on his own, keeping a notebook as he goes along. I also have Katheryn Stout's Design A Study Science Scope for a list of topics. Then incorporate Biographies of the scientist working in certain fields or who contributed to certain topics. Other books will be interesting ones I have come across in my search (example: for chemistry he will read Napoleon's Button and Disappearing Spoon).

I will post more once I have a better idea of what I am actually doing. Wish me luck.

"Art is the most awesome subject"

Back in early December (or maybe November) I purchased 3 Home Art Studio DVDs, mainly because I have been wanting to do art regularly each week and these were on sale. The projects did not look to crafty and I could see many art techniques being taught. Another plus, someone else was teaching the class, I just had to supervise.
The DVDs finally came last week and we headed to Blick Art for our supplies. Just a note, quality art supplies are EXPENSIVE. I just shopped for the first 3 weeks and spent $50. I am glad the things I bought will be used over several lessons because we will become true starving artists if this keeps up. Once home we placed the new supplies with the art supplies I have purchased in the past (all still like new because the curriculum they were purchased for failed). See all the art supplies organized on the art shelf had us ready to get started.
Monday morning, bright and early, Emma is ready for school. Her goal, get it ll done quickly so she can do art. I made the mistake of telling her what the project will be, a roller coaster, so all day I was bombarded with questions about the project. FINALLY it was time for art. I gathered the supplies and we sat down to watch. Emma's excitement level was too great and even before the lesson started she was squealing and saying, "this is going to be so good". During the lesson she was riveted, actually leaning forward to absorb everything. In all honesty the lesson wasn't anything special, just a teacher showing how to do the art project, but Emma thought it was great and that is what matters. After the lesson she was ready to get started. I was sure the drawing lines on all the strips of paper was going to make her antsy, but it didn't. In fact during this part she said it was fun.
The hardest part of this whole art thing is for me to stay silent. I am a take over or "maybe we could do it this way" sort of person. But I wanted this art project (and the ones to follow) to be all Emma, so I actually stayed quiet on my input and just chatted and encouraged her ideas....I am proud of myself. I did help though but it was just holding down the construction paper strips so the glue can hold.
Emma was very diligent in doing everything the teacher said, even on how many glue drops to put on each piece. Dot...dot...dot. Another thing is Emma will usually rush these things. She will take her time on her own individual projects, but an assigned project gets a rush job. Not this. She took her time. Tried different ideas before deciding on where to put each strip. Along the way she would exclaim, "this is going to be so good". As she was working, she came up with a name for her project, The Loop-de-Looper, which we made a name tag with and added to the corner of her project. After it was finished she looked at me with the biggest smile and said, "Mom, art is the most awesome subject we have ever done!"

Her project now hangs at the top of our stairwell next to the sarcophagus we made last year. It will be our Johnson Art Exhibit hallway, featuring the art of Emma.