Let’s Eat Some Brownies, We’ve Officially Started
Our Soft Start planned for Wednesday, became a Non-Start that rolled over to our Official Start today!
We broke out the brownies and popcorn to celebrate the start and finish of Day 1!
After our slow, to stop, to slower start, I especially needed to mark our success with some chocolate.
I thought I’d give a brief view into what our first day looked like, particularly for those of you with multiple (and little) children. Our children are 11, 9, 6, and almost 3.
Many new homeschooling mama’s have asked me if I have our day scheduled by specific times. For example, 8:30am-math, 9:15am-history.
I don’t organize our day that way and I never have. I think there are too many variables to guarantee exact times and I would feel like I was behind before we even finished breakfast.
Instead I have a list of our subjects and assignments for the day and a general order and plan to accomplish them. It works for me and allows for flexibility. If most of the assignments get done, even if I have to shift the order, it’s been a good day.
A Peek Into our Window on the First Day
(as I said we don’t schedule times, the times below are from looking back to the day that’s already happened)
Between 8 and 9-We all get up and I get a shower while the 9 and 11 year old get dressed and get started on their individual school work like math practice sheets and cursive.
9am-The kids eat eggs and grapefruit while I attempt to read the Bible and a book on art. Squishy interrupts constantly and tells us long toddler versions of the Bible story so she’ll feel included in the conversation and I finally decided to postpone the art book until later. Bible and breakfast are completed.
9:45ish-The kids go off to finish morning chores, such as brushing teeth, tidying their rooms, wiping off the kitchen table and sweeping the kitchen floor. I grab yogurt and check my email.
10ish-Since the girls have already gotten some assignments done, I instruct them to go play with Squishy for 30 minutes while I help 6 year old Drummer boy clean out his school bin, do his handwriting, and read aloud for to me for 15 minutes.
Confession: the girls’ play gets very loud and completely distracting as they decide to play hide-and-go-seek throughout the house. I confine their play to the back bedroom and things settle down.
Mid morning snack-We’re all at the table again and I finally get to read that art book from breakfast.
11:30ish-Instead of an hour of room-time for Squishy, I give her and her brother the privilege to watch a Scholastic Video and I work with the girls on their cursive (which is copying the first stanza of our hymn for this week) and introduce Simply Grammar to the 11 year old.
12ish-The girls finish their cursive and I head into the kitchen to make soup for lunch (we didn’t have anything quicker on hand).
12:30ish-We sit down for lunch and I eat my soup quickly so that I can try to read some of Little Lord Flauntleroy, our newest read-aloud, while everyone (meaning, Squishy) is occupied with food.
confession: Squishy interrupted every two minutes, exactly like Bible time that morning, so I finally gave up on reading. I need to trouble shoot that problem and see if it can be rectified presently or if our longer reading times just need to happen during naptime for the greater peace of the reader and the listeners.
1:30ish-The kids have played a bit and Squishy is settled down for nap. The three big kids sit down with me to do a history review which includes updating our timeline.
Confession: I had planned on doing this history review in the morning and starting a bit of our new history unit during this afternoon time. The review was moved to this spot and the new history moved to the next day. The kids squabbled over who got to put which timeline pieces on and Mama started to get grumpy.
2ish-The boy plays on the computer in Microsoft Word while I do math with the girls.
2:30-The weather is sunny and actually warm, so I send the kids out to play and I make brownies and sit down to write part of a blog.
Confession: the blogging was a “yea, we made it” indulgence since I really had other things to do, but instead sat down to the computer and a spoonful of chocolate.
The end of Day 1 of our Winter/Spring Semester!
Do your days ever go just as you planned? Do you schedule specific times for school subjects? Your ideas and thoughts are always welcome!
The Softer Side of Starting back to School
I don’t know about you, but I can only describe December as a whirlwind month on a sugar high. By the day after Christmas my brain turned itself off in an act of self-preservation in order to recharge from the planning involved in the previous month.
Planning school, planning advent, planning presents, planning a service project, planning food- What a relief to find a week of nothing to plan and no lists to make. I put off anything related to planning (school, groceries, other life resposibilites) until the very last day or two of my husband’s generous vacation time.
And then when the planning brain did turn itself back on again, fully charged, my synapses and fingers were clicking on endless great ideas-a hymn study over at Practical Pages, Composer Studies from Harmony Arts Mom, music lessons for the kids from the husband, new science curriculum that hadn’t been cracked open this year, grammar for the 11 year old…
With the planning brain now on overload and as the cut-off to vacation life drew closer, I considered post-poning school an extra few days or maybe a week (this is a perk to homeschooling, I can add on extra days at the end of the year to make it right). But experience has shown me that we didn’t need an extra week to flounder about (the kids) and feel grumpy about responsibilities(me). It would take us down a road of fighting and general discontent which can aptly be titled- Chaos.
Thankfully, around monday evening I remembered The Soft Start. I reminded myself that if I added all of my ideas into our first week back there might be a few of us no longer here by the end of the week (namely me, I’d probably be driving to the beach).
So I arranged my list by what I wanted to start with the first week, add in the second week, third, and by the end of the fourth all of my hopeful plans would be included in the schedule.
An example of what this might look like:
This Week:
- Bible
- Math
- Reading
- History
Next week
- All of the above plus,
- Science
- Hymn Study
- Art
Third week:
- Composer study
- Music Lessons with Dad
- Flesh out weekly schedule
You’re soft start might look slower or faster than the example above based on the ages and numbers of your children, family illness or other extenuating circumstances.
The Soft Start is about feeling successful, for everyone. The entire family gets to feel successful in getting back into a normal schedule, with a lighter load of academics in the first week, and ease into the realization that we actually like normal life quite a lot.
This Soft Start was actually even slower because, on monday, when we planned to take down the christmas decorations, we went out for hot chocolate instead and then took a nap. Which means today we took down the decorations and brought order to the school room and peace to my mind.
You might not need a slow start. If you have older children, who are quite capable of managing their work, and no little ones to call out for snacks and books and people to play with them, than I bet you can hit the week running.
But if you’re life this past week, minus school, has already felt full with working through sibling fights, accepting the fate of the grocery store, looking around at potential chores in every room, and finding one quiet moment to kiss your husband, and you’re wondering how in the world your going to start schooling multiple children in multiple grades, then consider the slow method.
And when you do start, start with the most important thing, the thing your kids(and you) need more than anything else, start with the Word of God, first thing in the morning, right at the table with your pancakes and cereal. Then you’ve tasted success before you’ve even finished breakfast.
Advent: To Wait and To Do
The expectations that arrive with the Christmas season parked themselves on my couch yesterday morning, and the growing lists of “to do’s” paralyzed me there for a good while (actually they drove me to my bed with a book).
When I think of family Bible study time in the evening, worship on sundays, the dark of the evening lit with our christmas tree, reading favorite christmas stories, and lighting the advent candles each sunday I look forward to the next month. When I think of Advent not as a packed calendar but as the chance to grow together in our understanding of the gift of Jesus, I’m anxious to enter this short season.
But when I think about money, presents for lots of family (budgeting, deciding, buying, making), making lots of treats to bring to librarians and sunday school teachers and others that serve us all year (this is one of the best things we do for our spirits, it’s just not exactly simple to add in to life with four kids), balancing school (which is already challenging right now) and the daily busyness of home and children, I want to skip the next four weeks.
So let’s just talk about the good stuff-the stuff of Advent without the world and its demands (and lies of what’s important) getting in the way.
Last year our family did an Advent Bible Study by Quiet Times for Kids. The focus of the study is the prophecies of the old testament and how they were fulfilled in Jesus. The study includes a daily individual Bible study page for the kids (the kids shared their study at dinner each night) and prophecy bags or boxes. Prophecy bags might sound weird, but just listen. In each bag, I placed an object as a hint of a prophecy and then printed slips of paper with the Old and New Testament scriptures. Each night a child opened a bag, pulled out the object, and tried to guess what the prophecy might be. Then we read aloud both scriptures. At the end of the month we knew at least 25 ways the Word of God foretold Jesus. The scriptures and object ideas are included in the study, but you do have to take the time to gather the objects, print the scriptures and put them in boxes or bags. The prophecy in the bag each night corresponded to the Bible Study page the next day. We all learned and were led to worship through this study. This year we’re bringing out the prophecy bags to enjoy again each evening.
We’re also going to read through Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room by Nancy Guthrie, this will be our first time using the book.
Quiet Times for Kids has a new Christmas Bible Study that will be available next week. In an attempt to keep our time in the Word simple, rather than like a stew with a lot of things thrown in, we’re going to wait until next year to use this new Christmas Study, but it might be exactly what your family is looking for this year.
My friend, who is passionate about the Advent season, is sharing her advent ideas here. She has the first week of advent posted and it’s full of good reads and activities to inspire a Christ-Centered month.
Waiting for Christ is so much harder than doing, and it’s even more difficult to figure out exactly what waiting looks like in this very imperfect world when day to day life demands much doing.
Today, as opposed to yesterday when I hid from the approaching weeks, I’m reminded of the privilege it is to lead hearts and be led by God in my own heart.
The Partly Successful Poetry Lesson
I stare at my daughter, mortified that the source of her crying came from my own hands.
She has just finished part three of her poetry assignment. Monday was free-writing, Tuesday she created a poem from her free-write, and today is the big “R”, revision.
Until today they have done some light revision but we’ve never used the “R” word. Last week they heard an author speak about his writing process and how his book went through five drafts before it become a published book. He shared that the process was hard on him but he had no doubt that the final draft was a much better book than his first draft.
So I couldn’t hide the “R” word anymore. But I tried to put the right spin on it.
I even started with an inspiring moment, designed to reveal that revision didn’t equal “wrong”. Based on the idea from Georgia Heard’s book The Revision Toolbox”, I brought out a geode.
“The first draft is like this geode. You definitely have something there. It’s a solid idea.”
And then I dramatically got out a hammer and we broke that small rock open to find the glimmering beauty inside.
“This is what happens when we go back to our first draft and crack open the first ideas to find the gems inside by looking at word choices, sharpening images, losing extra words. It’s not that the first draft is wrong or bad, this is just the next step to finding your poem or story.”
Inspiring, right?
I set the two halves of the geode on the desk and handed them some questions to help them think over their poem. And left the room.
Which brings us back to the sobbing child in the chair beside me.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“My poem’s not poetical anymore!” cried my 9 year old.
“What?”
“I loved my poem yesterday,” racks of sobs and broken breath continue, “but now that I’ve read those questions I don’t think my my poem’s even a poem anymore! I hate my poem,” the sobbing turns into a heavy slump upon the table.
This is when teaching stinks. All of my teaching is trial and error, which means sometimes I get it so right and sometimes I have a day like this one. I don’t mind making mistakes, but I don’t like to do them at the cost of my daughter’s creative process.
I warned them when I handed out the questions.
“I’m figuring out how to teach this to you as we go. This step of working on your poem might work great or one of you may love it or everyone may hate it. We’re just going to have to try it.”
Well, the almost eleven year old (who’s also pretty relaxed about her creative process) worked through the questions and declared, “This is fun, these questions are great, they helped a lot.”
You already know how it turned out for the other one-who, by the way, is two years younger. When the author last week said that in art, as well, the first draft is never the best, Jellybean declared he was wrong(privately, to me, later, thankfully).
“My first tries in art are always my best,” she explained.
Is it just age, is it also personality? She had written five pages of a poem and then decided it was no longer a poem!
Sure I should have seen that one coming. I should have handed her older sister the paper with questions for her poem, and allowed the younger to recite a beautiful rendition of her five page poem and call her poem done-but I didn’t. Because sometimes it’s trial and error.
The learning curve for this teacher is deep and wide, how is it for you? Have you had successes so far this year, or many nearly successful moments?
The Messy School Plan
I’m joining with some other homeschool moms to share a confession about real homeschool life. It’s not always like we plan for in our heads,full of projects and organized school time….
I sit down beside my Dad, letting my bag of school books settle on the floor beside my seat.
It’s not one of his good days. Actually he hasn’t had what I would call a good day in a very long time.
I lean forward and look into his eyes. ”Hi, Dad.”
He stares back at me but doesn’t say anything.
“I love you Dad. I’ve missed you, it’s really good to see you.”
He continues to stare at me, eyes the color of the turbulent green sea.
I talk to him about deep sea fishing, the book I just read, the kids trip to florida. But my one-sided conversation can’t sustain itself forever, so I get out the computer and show him pictures of the kids. The cloudy eyes stare and he moves his hand to tap the computer.
I settle back in the chair and get out my school books.
Planning school is challenging, often overwhelming at the beginning of the year. But there’s another side, too. When the schedule, book lists, and ideas gather into a nice tidy braid, it’s very satisfying, not at all like what I’m doing with my Dad. I can control what we do, I can see the outcome, I can make lists of what we’ll accomplish in convincing black and white. School planning seems very alluring, a way to distance myself a bit from the darker waters in my heart.
I open my brand-new, crisp planner, blank with possibilties. But other, not so tidy thoughts, interrupt.
My Dad’s presence, the tubes and the small shared room press me and I can’t help but realize I’m trying to look at my Dad’s stuggle and our homeschooling journey as if they’re on two seperate pieces of paper. But that’s not the truth of our life or even my goal, for that matter.
After six years, homeschooling is no longer defined as the portion of our day assigned to academic study. It’s seeped into the ebb and flow. We read about history and science to know the God who made the world and us. We learn when the baby is sleeping or when we’re all schlepping around a big lake. We study art together, but we also do art when we feel like doing it. Learning follows us when we’re in our school room or out of it, and the tide and waves shift when we’re having a baby or when my Dad’s in the hospital for four months.
The learning within our home and family feels very connected to our actual world, not a school world before “real life” begins.
It’s taken time to get here.
But still I forget.
And then I remember where I’m sitting and who I’m sitting next too with my bag full of what we need to learn.
And then I remind myself. Again.
What’s happening with my Dad is part of what we’re learning.
It’s a messy part that doesn’t look great in my planner. But I’m trying to grow kids who are engaged in a world bigger than themselves, and with a God bigger than my own well-typed plans.
It was two school years ago that my Dad went into the hospital for four months. As his only family in the same town, we needed to be there for him in some way every day. School flowed, trickled, and reached a full stop. I worried about what the neighbors would think when they saw the kids outside in the middle of the day. I worried about our families and whether they would accuse us of neglecting our children’s education. But mostly I longed for us to live in a different era.
I thought of a time when families took care of the stuff of life first-planting, sowing, baking, caring for aging family, and the academic studies came along when the plants weren’t growing or when mom wasn’t busy making the meal for the day.
Last year a friend called and reminded me, “They will look back and remember that you cared for your Dad when he needed it.”
What does this really mean for me, books in one hand, the slow end of life happening on the other? It means we might hear difficult news this week about my Dad. I might not have a year long plan fully conceived with a lovely table set for the first day, a special breakfast, and a freshly painted schoolroom (I really want that new paint). It means I have to be careful about not taking refuge from what’s really happening inside the very predictable and safe world of planning. I might have to accept messy planning that happens throughout the year instead of now (if I were really honest, all of my before school planning just makes me feel good, I never adhere to any of the schedules I make anyway).
We need to start where we already are in our lives and see how our formal learning can ebb and flow with the plans the Lord has already put into place. Or we might miss the best lessons, which are the ones not planned by me.
Like all things I’ve learned on this journey, I’m going to need to tell myself again and again.
To read other personal stories of homeschool moms, head over to Sunflower House to see a full list of blog posts.
Learning Near a Big City
I grew up in a city but my heart belonged to the beach on the edge of the city.
I moved to another city for college and another city for marriage and it’s no New York, but it’s a great city and we love it.
One of our favorite questions to ask each other is “Do you want to live in the city or the country?”
None of us can answer with a distinct yes or no.
I love the idea of wide open spaces for my children to roam, of a slower life, of a closer relationship with nature.
I also love my library, my coffee shop, a short drive to the grocery store, and a life without wildlife that gets too friendly.
No matter how we might answer the question in the hypothetical, our trip to Chicago this past week had me mentally planning school as if all of the great places we visited were just around the corner.
First we visited Oak Park, and took a walk around the neighborhood, picking out our “new” house. A lot of the houses looked prime for secret crawl spaces and hidden rooms. The neighborhood is also home to the studio of Frank Lloyd Wright and many houses designed by him can be found nearby. We dragged our hot and sweaty selves into our friend’s favorite bookstore. I’ve always dreamed of walking from our house to a coffee shop, park, and library. (That’s one point for the city side of the question).
For the rest of the week we parked ourselves in Batavia, an hour out of Chicago and surrounded by great little towns and more than we could do in our short time (add 4 kids and two tired parents).
We were all impressed with the Dupage Children’s Museum. If you’ve been to a children’s museum, you tasted a piece of this three story exploratorium. Famous art lined the walls with correalating activities in color, sound, and structure. In my head I planned our return trips. First we’d study color and shadows and head back to that section next time. Then we’d study construction, a unit on wood and tools and head back to the construction exhibit. Then we’d come back and just explore the section with giant tools to build marble runs. If we lived there.
The next day we took the train to the Field Museum.
The Museum blew us all away and we didn’t even get to see two of the exhibits because there is so much to see. Oh my, the Underground Adventure where you get to see what’s under the soil as if you’re the size of an ant. Our six year old still sincerely believes he was shrunk to half and inch for thirty minutes of his life!
The egyptians, the native americans, the dinosaurs, the animals, oh my.
My favorite area was the section on North American Birds. Every single bird was represented. Birds we had only read about and now we got to examine them up close. I wanted to get sketch books and come back-every week! If we lived there.
And finally we visited the Aboretium. If you’re familiar with Nashville, this was like Cheekwood hiked up three levels. An amazing children’s section designed to get kids close to nature. A garden maze, and miles of trails. My friend asked me, “If you were a member here, how many times would you visit in the year?” Twice a month, or even better yet, once a week and that would be school for the day.
We’re not pulling up roots and moving out of Nashville, but I do wish we could pull up Nashville and move it atleast four hours closer to Chicago.
Summertime Mama
“Do you school all year round or just the normal school year?”
I pondered this question in those first few years and a older friend said something that’s always stuck and always led me to choose a true summer break.
“My kids have me as teacher mom all through the school year,” she said, “I’m always assigning tasks, telling them something they need to do. During the summer, they need me to just be Mom.”
Her simple explanation continues to resonate.
There was the spring that we had taken many breaks because of a medical issue with my Dad. I felt pressed to “finish” school, to work long into June, to keep going with Math through the summer. After several weeks of schooling in June, I realized we needed to stop. I needed to stop. And not look back at the books until August.
This morning, our second day of summer break, the 3 older kids played Monopoly until the toddler and I showed up for breakfast(around 9). I read aloud during breakfast, they ran off to do their morning chores, and then I surprised them by putting on a video. (Only a homeschool family watches Winged Migration, a documentary, for fun, but we did and the two year old acted out the flight patterns of birds. )
My 8 year old made a wise crack during the movie and couldn’t stop laughing at herself. I watched her, my eyes lingered on her, without thinking of what task I needed to remind her of, and I smiled. We then watched the two year old do acrobatics on the living room chair, and I didn’t have to think once about sending her off with an older sibling so I could do math with the 6 year old.
After a leisurely lunch they headed off to play their marathon monopoly game. As I sat here to begin this blog, I realized that the 3 siblings hadn’t fought once during the game over the last few days. My dark mom side told me that they would fight soon enough, after the luxury of less schedule turned into bored picking and fighting. And then I stopped myself from predicting doom and I remembered my daughter’s laughter from earlier and I thought,
Let’s just take it day by day.
My children need me to have less outside goals and desire just to be with them and delight in them.
So what about math and reading? We have a creative way to incorporate reading into our summer and some math games we’ll play so those multiplication and adding skills don’t get lost in the backyard pool(though monopoly seems to be doing the trick right now!).
What about you? Do you school in the summer? Do you have any secrets for spending time with your children during the school year without always having an agenda or reminder?
Where Have We Been?-Birdwatching! (Part 1)
Where have we been these last few months? Taking a nice long break from blogs(mine and others) and…
We’ve been watching birds.
Birdwatching falls into the same category as History in my book. It’s filed right under Something I Never Thought I Would Care About EVER, But Now I LOVE it. This goes right back to my great secret about homeschooling, I have learned to love to learn.
In the same way we’ve become that family that watches historical documentaries for fun, we’re now the odd family trying to identify the birds that somehow made it into the rafters of Home Depot. We’re that family-all the way down to the two year old. We found her the other morning with the bird guides surrounding her, looking out the front window, identifying birds. True, she categorized all species as “Robin Bird”, but she does so with all the enthusiasm of a life-long birdwatcher.
I’m not a natural-naturalist. Homeschool friends think I am until I tell them the real story. Nature study doesn’t come easy for us, and it always looks so darn easy and beautiful on other peoples’ blogs. Early on I heard about keeping a nature journal and became quite frustrated when my 5 and 7 year old didn’t become Audubon immediately. Was I failing? Until this season of birdwatching, I put nature study on the back shelf.
Now I take a view with a longer lens. We’ve grown into History. We’re having a great, very natural time, studying birds. It’s exciting to think what we’ll be doing by the time the youngest is ten or twelve. Maybe science will be in the same category by then! So if you read this blog, and think “Oh my goodness, we have to study birds!”, and it doesn’t work for you-then put on the long lens, and keep doing what you’re doing for now. There’s time.
This has been a great multi-age study. We’ve read our bird books together, taking our nature walks together with baby on the back, and painted and water-colored our birds sitting around the table(okay, sometimes the baby is in bed for a nap by then).
We used to think we had two birds in our backyard: cardinals and robins. Now we know we have brown creepers, mockingbirds, starlings, grackles, chickadees, sparrows, and bluejays. We never noticed the constant chorus outside, now we notice it all the time. We thought all nests were in a tree and all birds ate seeds. Boy, did we have a lot to learn!
Our study of birds has included:
- Reading fiction and non-fiction books in the morning after breakfast.
- Working on activities from the nature patch program at our local nature center.
- Going on nature walks with our birds guides and identifying birds. (On our most exciting walk we found 9 different bird species, including the Pileated Woodpecker. Who knew woodpeckers could be 18 inches long?)
- Identifying birds around our backyard.
- Creating bird related art and poetry.
- Studying artists who have used birds as their subject.
Other than reading bird books every morning, I didn’t have a set schedule-we’ve tried to do related activities 1-2 times a week.
Here’s are some resources that have transformed birds from black and white into brilliant color:
Activities
- Our local nature center is focused on Birds this season for their yearly Jr. Naturalist Program and they have put together a wonderful pamphlet of bird-related activities that can be done at home or during nature walks. Even if you don’t live in Tennessee, this would be a good jumping off point for studying birds together. It’s also provided individual work for my 8 and 10 year old as I say, “Go pick another nature patch project and get started.” You can print the pamphlet here.
Read-Alouds:
Chapter Books
- A Nest For Celeste by Henry Cole: We follow the kind-hearted mouse, Celeste, as she befriends John James Audubon’s assistant. She has many adventures with the birds that are captured for Audubon’s drawings and in the surrounding fields. As wonderful as the characters are in this book, the black and white detailed sketches really bring the story to life. We kept our bird book on hand so that we could look up pictures of the birds as they entered the story. A great companion to study of birds, mice, and/or John James Audubon’s art.
- Burgess Book of Birds by Thornton Burgess-Follow Peter Rabbit as he greets his many bird friends who live near the great orchard, and get to know the cheeky Jenny Wren who always knows the real scoop on everyone. Told in story form, we still learned a lot about the behavior and nesting of each bird. Take this book a chapter at a time. And keep the bird guide nearby to look at actual photographs.(The edition in the amazon link has photograph illustrations, ours has black and white sketches).
- Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat-I have not read this book, I found it at a used sale, perused it, and the kids have enjoyed it.
Picture Books
- The True Story of Stellina Matteo Pericoli
- Albert by Donna Jo Napoli
- Owl Babies by Marin Waddell
- Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
- Hawk Hill by Suzie Gilbert
Bird Guides
- The Young Birder’s Guide to Birds of Eastern North America(Peterson Field Guide)-Our favorite guide. A great guide for young, new birdwatchers. Using photographs instead of artist renderings, it’s easier to match the bird in nature to the bird in the book. At a quick glance you can read a physical description and description of the bird call, see what area in North America the bird lives(in all seasons), and it includes photos of both the male and female.
- Tennessee Birds-An introduction to Familiar Species(Pocket Naturalist)-Available for many states, this is a folded guide, good for a quick glance to identify the species and then look it up in a more detailed bird guide. This contains pictures and names, with colored illustrations, but no detailed information.
- Beginning Birdwatcher’s Book with 48 stickers(Dover)-I recently purchased this book for our 6 year old since he’s not as adept at sketching birds quickly during a hike. As the young birder sees a bird in nature, they find the sticker that matches and place it on the right page. Under the box for the sticker is information on food, nesting, range, and eggs, and a place for observations. Since buying this book, we’ve only had a chance to use it once. It has a very nice layout. I expected, however, a smaller book, easier for placing in a backpack, but this is closer to 12×10. I’m also not sure if I like the sticker vs. the sketching format, we’ll have to play with it some more.
- Birds, Nests, And Eggs-A Take Along Guide by Mel Boring: Includes helpful renderings of each bird’s nest and their eggs. Also several bird related activities.
Non-fiction Books About Birds
(Note: I just went to the library and grabbed the most interesting books each week. These are all great, but you can find other greats just by visiting your library shelf, if these are unavailable.)
- Birds in Your Backyard by Barbara Herkert
- On the Wing: American Birds in Migration by Carol Lerner
- Cradles in the Trees The Story of Birds Nests by Patricia Brennan Demuth
- A Place for Birds by Melissa Stewart
- Birds Build Nests by Yvonne Winer
- Urban Roosts: Where Birds Roost in the City by Barbara Bash
- Perching Birds of North America by Sarah Swan Miller
- Watching Water Birds by Jim Arnosky
- The Robin Makes a Laughing Sound: A Birder’s Journal by Sallie Wolf
- Gone Again Ptarmigan by Jonathon London
- Feathers by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent
- Owls Whooo are they? by Kila Jarvis and Denver W Holt
Videos about Bird Identification/and other great information about birds
- Cornell School of Ornithology-We have really enjoyed the four videos on this side about bird identification. I recommend loading the videos while you’re busy doing something else and then coming back to watch it.
- Planet Earth: Don’t miss this breath-taking series. Though not specifically about birds, there are bird species throughout. Although the narrator includes some evolutionary commentary, we simply spoke to our kids about it first. Without intending to, the producers created a series that brings glory to God and all of His creation!
- March of the Penguins
After you’ve studied birds for a little while, test your knowledge with these two online quizzes.
In the next post I’ll share more about the artists we studied and a few art project and poetry ideas.
Evan Moor Fairy Tale and Folktale Pockets: A Review
Why I Chose the Evan Moor Folktale and Fairytale Pockets, Grades 2 and 3
With two middle elementary students in the house, I wanted to make sure that we didn’t forget to do some fun, younger activities for our kindergartener. He’s always tagging along with our school time, a little ahead of himself, and I wanted to dip back into the precious early years of learning. I also wanted to try matching him with his 8 year old sister for a project, and give our eldest a independent project.
We really enjoyed the Evan Moor Native American Pockets last year, and I’ve had my eye on the Folktale and Fairy Tale Pockets for a while. We started them just after the New Year, as something different to spice up our learning time during the winter slump.
They have indeed spiced things up, and provided the magic that fairy tales bring, something I don’t ever want to lose in our home. Our ten year old did her own project and then begged to sit down with us every day because she couldn’t stand to miss the fun. We let her, of course. If you’re homeschooling multiple children, these pockets are quite a find, a nice break from balancing multiple projects with many children. It’s easy to simplify for younger children and add in more challenging connections for your olders.
You can read more about what’s included in the pockets here. I enjoyed the e-book, knowing that I could print just the right amount of copies for our family.
What We Liked
The selection of fairy tales included a handful of favorites and a handful of surprises. Each story includes suggestions for extending the lessons and several hands on activities. We enjoyed making finger puppets, a story mobile, paper doll elves, painting, and more.
What Needed Adjustment
As was true with our last Evan Moor Pockets, we needed library books to supplement each slim two page fairy tale that was included. I also would have enjoyed more background information for my own preparation, such historical information on the folktales and fairytales along with a comparison of the two genres.
Because the focus of the activities involves a lot of cutting and coloring, we can only do these pockets once or twice a year. My kids are not big on coloring, preferring to sketch and fill in their own designs. But for some reason, coloring becomes all the rage when we keep these types of activities rare. If you’re doing these pockets with just one student, you might think about coloring along with your child or allowing him the choice of coloring or not. Remember, coloring a picture in the lines is really an overrated skill! You could also move beyond crayons and markers and try watercolors, acrylics, or pastels.
How We Organized the Pockets
As much as we loved the Native American Pockets, our hard work ended with a bulky, oversized, unstable product. This time we made the pockets the right size for a three ring binder. Smaller projects were stored in the pocket, larger items(such as the printed fairy tale) were hole punched and added after the pocket.
Suggestions for Extended Activities:
- Write your own fairy tale.
- Write a new ending to an already written tale.
- Write a fairy tale from the perspective of a different character (the frog or the witch instead of the Princess, for example).
- Ask an older child to adapt a fairy tale into a play for younger siblings.
- Read a biography about The Grimm Brothers.
Here are some pictures from our learning time.
The Brave Little Tailor
The Fisherman and His Wife
This was an art project inspired here, not an Evan Moor activity.
Jack and the Beanstalk
Measuring the beanstalk, an activity from the pockets.
The Elves and the Shoemaker
The template for these elves is included, the background is courtesy of the American Girl Molly Paper Dolls.
The Frog Prince
The Bremen Town Musicians
This painting activity is inspired by a project in the pockets, but we based our illustrations on the style of Hans Fischer, shown below.
Book and Video Suggestions:
Henny Penny
- Henny Penny by Jane Wattenberg
- Chicken Little by Ed and Rebecca Emberley
- Chicken Little on this Scholastic DVD Edition
The Brave Little Tailor
- The Brave Little Seamstress by Mary Pope Osborne
The Fisherman and His Wife
- The Fisherman and His Wife by Rachel Isadora
- Shadow Puppet Version on this Scholastic Video
The Elves and the Shoemaker
- The Elves and the Shoemaker on this Scholastic Video Collection
The Frog Prince
- The Frog Prince or Iron Henry by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Illustrated by Binette Schroeder
- The Frog Prince Continued by Jon Sczeika
The Bremen Town Musicians
The Bremen Town Musicians by Hans Fischer
Other Fun Read-Alouds or Older Child
- The Magician’s Boy by Susan Cooper
- The Sister’s Grimm: The Fairy Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley *
Videos
*Parents may want to preview this selection.
** The musical is a really fun twist on fairy tales and a nice way to wrap up your fairy tale pockets. However, you’ll want to preview this video and decide if it’s right for your family. We chose to watch only the first act (which is as long as a regular kids movie) as we liked the content of the second half less. And we didn’t like the scene with the wolf (it will be rather obvious why), so we just skipped that scene.
Pictures Confirming We’re “That Family”
In the immediate surrounding neighborhood, we’re the only family I know of that homeschools. Added to the fact that our driveway abuts the house immediately to our right and the wife and grown-up daughter both have long-standing public school jobs and you might understand why I wonder sometimes what people think of our family.
The family sharing our driveway have a wide open view for every day that
we didn’t homeschool during the sick, pregnant days,
the hours spent outside instead of sweating over workbooks,
the days we just played monopoly when my dad was in the hospital,
and they keenly see that we stop way before public school days ends.
They don’t ask me any questions(I wish they would) but they ask my kids, “What did you do in school today?” and it’s always on the day that the answer sounds like “We just played monopoly today” or “My mom’s too busy taking care of my grandad to do school today.” and never on the days that they’re overflowing with excitement about explorers, math games, art, or new reading skills.
I go back and forth over being concerned with the perception of our family. I think our learning life is great, moving with the seasons of real life, but I can let what others might think buzz in sometimes.
This was one of those days. The kids had created beautiful paint with chalks and quickly switched from decorating the sidewalk to decorating each other. And of course, being kids, they wanted to show off the fashion statement on anyone who walked by the house. I didn’t discourage them in anyway but inside I thought, “This seals it. Now we’re the family who’s kids are always home, outside during school hours, and look at how their mother lets them run wild.”
Oh, well. Maybe next time I’ll join them and really give the neighbors something to talk about. Ooh, and I can paint baby Sparkles, too.
Do you ever struggle with the opinion of others toward your unique lifestyle?