Music and Art Appreciation: #1 Most Likely to Drop Subject

Part 5 (and last one!) of my series wrapping up what we learned this year in different subjects and what each experience taught me about homeschooling in general. (Part 1: History, Part 2: Science, Part 3: Math, Part 4: Language Arts.)

Language Arts: A Very Good Reason to Homeschool

Part 4 of my series wrapping up what we learned this year in different subjects and what each experience taught me about homeschooling in general. (Part 1: History, Part 2: Science, Part 3: Math.)

For the sake of this blog post, "language arts" is reading, writing, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, and handwriting.

Math: Going Against Common Advice

Part 3 of my series wrapping up what we learned this year in different subjects and what each experience taught me about homeschooling in general. (Part 1: History, Part 2: Science.) It was a year of adapting and adjusting, that's for sure. Just like the year before...

A Friday at Sceleratus Classical Academy

I had plans for this day; plans for this blog post. I was going to do what a fellow blogger did and take a picture on the hour, every hour of one day to give a snap shot of the day. But nothing this day went according to plan....which is actually pretty representative of almost every single day here.

The DORA the 2nd Time Around: Not What We First Thought

It has been a year since I first had the boys take the Diagnostic Online Reading Assessment (DORA) from Let's Go Learn so we found a few good days recently and took it again. I remembered our experience last year and this time spread it over two days. Which was better for the kids, and worse for my nerves, as anyone who follows Sceleratus Classical Academy on facebook can attest to. But day 2 arrived and the boys finished and I eagerly/dreadingly looked at the results. Because it saves your account information and test results, I thought that being able to compare the results would give me even more information that last year's would. My biggest fear for Builder Boy was that his results would not show a year's worth of progress. My fear for Early Bird was that last year's test results were just a guessing fluke, and he'd score much lower this year.

Supplementing FLL2: Lessons 1-10

 
Once again I am supplementing First Language Lessons to make it more kinetic learner friendly. Not every child will need stuff added to this book; it is considered a complete program by itself. But to help things "click" my hands on learner needs things he can move or see, rather than just hearing what I say and talking to me about it. I know from reading on the Well Trained Mind Forum that I'm not the only one with a kid like that trying to use this curriculum, so instead of letting them give up or have to think up stuff themselves, I posted what we added every ten lessons for FLL1, and I'm doing it again for First Language Lessons Level 2.

Weekly Wrap-Up: Week 3

Good News: this expressive introvert survived leaving the house for activities three days in a row this week!

Bad News: we were all so tired and grumpy from the new schedule that we got even less done this week than we did last week.

Story of the World: Ancient Times: Chapter 9

Last week we finished reviewing all the chapters of Story of the World Vol. 1 that we did two years ago. This week we started on new material; sort of. See, when we last did ancient India, we only did about half of the chapter. We did the brick experiment the first time around, which was cool, but not something I wanted to repeat at this time. There wasn't much else in the activity guide, so inspired by the memory of Colonel Brandon whispering in Margret Dashwood's ear, "the air is filled with SPICES!" I did some quick Googling and then went off schedule.

Weekly Wrap-Up: Week 2

Last week I gave a review of our week by subject. This time I'm going to do it by day. Because it has been A Week. *Warning!* This got really long. And involves what kind of looks like complaining. Feel free to skip this one. BUT, there is also a learning progression that happened for me, that might help others if they're in a similar situation with their homeschooling. So maybe it's worth reading.

Architecture School: Day 8

It's another Thursday and co-op doesn't start until next week. So that means another Architecture School Day! The big activity from the next lesson in Architecture: It's Elementary! was to draw their bedroom from memory. The perspective that they wanted the kids to draw from, however, is completely different from what they are used to. If I had just told Builder Boy to draw a picture of his bedroom, thanks to Beginning Geography, he probably would have drawn a pretty good top-looking-down view map. But that's not what the lesson had in mind, and I thought it would be good to stretch their minds and get them to think about it from a different angle. But how was I going to accomplish getting them to change their mind's eye?

Art Appreciation Tea Party

On Thursday afternoons we have added to our schedule an afternoon tea party at 3:00 at which we will absorb and discuss various forms of art. I can't claim credit for this idea; I've seen it on several blogs, though I don't remember which blog I first saw the idea on. However, I was immediately in love with the idea, but it has taken a few years to actually get to doing it.

Week 1 Wrap-Up

Our first week of the 2014-2015 school year was completed on Friday! Despite a printer breakdown right when I was trying to print out papers for this week, and a baby girl who thinks erasing the white board while I'm teaching from it is hilarious, we got school done! And I feel really good about that. Even some of the new things I tried this week worked!

Architecture School: Day 7

Today is Thursday. Most Thursday mornings we will be doing co-cop this year. But co-op hasn't started yet, so we did another day of Architecture school. We didn't do as many days this summer as I had hopped, so I am happy to continue through the school year when we can.


The next lesson from Architecture: It's Elementary! was about measurements and....a little bit boring. So I came up with our own lesson plan. I wanted the boys to actually experience the problems with non-standardized measurements.

Handwriting Without a Pencil

I never did any pre-writing skills with Builder Boy; I just gave him the pencil with a pencil grip to help and we started in the book. In hindsight, I'm not sure that was the best approach for him. Handwriting has been a tough subject for him, and we've been sadly inconsistent with it. I am happy with the handwriting curriculum I chose; I just think I should have prepared him better.

First Day of School!

Today proved that students aren't the only ones who learn something at homeschool. I learned a very valuable lesson that until now I thought wouldn't need to apply to us because we homeschool, but something that almost all parents know: bedtime must be strictly enforced when the next day is a school day.

Since before this "school year" we started at 10 am, it was never a problem if the kids slept in some because the night before they had gone to bed later. But with the increased workload this year we need to start at 9:30am at the latest. The boys slept in until 9am, and our special start of the school year breakfast took an hour to cook and eat. Add in pictures, and we didn't start school until 10:20. And the late start affected attitudes as well...

Architecture School: Day 6

Demonstrating Compression

So today we deviated from the book's lesson and built upon what we either didn't cover or only vaguely covered yesterday.

Architecture School: Day 5

Demonstrating Columns and Beam

I do intend on getting more than just one day of Architecture school done a week. But since it's summer, we're being flexible for play dates and other activities.

Architecture School: Day 3 & 4

We did do another day of Architecture School last week, but we also had errands and a doctor's appointment, so it was shorter than usual. We did more today out of the book, but didn't work on the art project, so I'm combining them into one post.

Architecture School: Day 2

 

For Day 2 we worked from the Kindergarten level, Lesson 3 from Architecture: It's Elementary! . (Click here for Day 1)

Architecture School: Day 1

Last summer we did Space School; or at least tried to until my pregnancy with Lady Bug got to be too much and we had to stop. I asked the boys if they wanted to finish it this year and sadly their enthusiasm had waned. So this summer it's Architecture School!

We call him "Builder Boy'' for a reason!

Builder Boy has been talking about becoming a builder for almost four years now. So this summer I decided was a good time to start building the basic skills and knowledge to further that aim. I have been very intentional to tell him multiple times that if he ever decides he wants to do something else with his life that is perfectly fine; that he is not stuck with a choice he made young. So far he continutes to be interested and as time spent on this skill set is not wasted, even if he eventually chooses another profession, I am happy to devote some time and resources to it. Early Bird is happy to be included, even though it is not his ambition.

Our main resources for this summer will be the free to download book Architecture: It's Elementary! generously put out by the American Institute of Architects and Michigan/Michigan Architecture Foundation. Our first two weeks we will also be using 123 I Can Build! which I got for $6 on Amazon.com. I have purchased other books in the series before and I like them very much for beginners like my kids. Or myself.

Architecture: It's Elementary! has lessons for grades Kindergarten through 5th Grade. We will be starting at the K level and go through until it becomes too much for Builder Boy. At the Kindergarten level there are actually a lot of vocabulary words that are new to all of us, so it's a good place to start, even if that's not Builder Boy's grade level. Because it is still relatively easy, we did both lesson one and part of lesson two today. (For lovers of the Oxford Comma, be warned: they do not use it. At all.)

Builder Boy's Finds

Level K, Lesson 1 is a review of basic shapes; square, rectangle, triangle, circle, and semi-circle. We did a quick review, defining the shapes, then I had them go around the toy room and find those shapes. We were flexible and generous in the shape finding, as not all elements of architecture in real life are perfect shapes, either.

 

Early Bird's Finds

They also looked at the provided pictures that I printed out from the book and identified basic shapes in the structures shown.

We skipped tracing and drawing and cutting out the shapes for today.




Level K, Lesson 2 we did not do all of today. But I did have Builder Boy replicate the street scape pictured in the lesson with his blocks. Taking a two dimensional picture and translating it into a three dimensional object is a skill that will prove very necessary if he is to be a builder, so I thought this would be good practice. He did a very good job, and I appreciated how intentional about scale he tried to be. Here's a picture of his results:

After that we moved outside for the first project in 123 I Can Build! The project served to emphasize the need for a strong foundation and to show how strong cylinders are. We used rubber cement to glue a large, heavy rock onto cut toilet paper rolls. On top of the rock we built a city using air dry clay. (I couldn't find our play-dough!) Tomorrow when it is all dry we will paint it. Or rock was very rounded on top, so we could only make two small buildings each. Builder Boy and I made rectangular prism and cylinder buildings, and Early Bird made a dome and a triangle "tent" looking thing.

As an added bonus for Christians, this rock foundation project is a great time to sing the Foolish Man/Wise Man song and talk about Jesus as a strong foundations on Whom we build our lives on. The boys talked about this and came to the conclusion that Jesus is also like concrete, since modern homes are usually build on a strong concrete foundation.















This weekend we also went to Home Depot for some basic supplies for Builder Boy to learn how to hammer a nail. We've been putting out feelers in our church, looking for a retired carpenter who would be willing to pass on skills to a youngster (hopefully for free.) So far we haven't found a teacher, but I promised Builder Boy this would be the summer he learned how to hammer two pieces of wood together, so went to the store. I purchased a small tool box, a small hammer, some nails that an employee recommended, and a 2x4 that they cut down for us (first 2 cuts free!) Home Depot offers free kid classes the first Saturday of every month, 9 am to noon. Builder Boy is very much looking forward to doing that on the 5th with Principal Daddy.

We already had some scrap particle board, so we had Builder Boy learn to set and hammer a nail into that first to get the hang of it. Then he tried hammering a nail into a 2x4 and he learned that that is much harder! I hope I am am teaching him correctly, and am not instilling bad habits that he will have to break once he has a proper teacher. I've made a Kid Carpentry board on Pinterest for ideas for learning and projects he could do. If anyone knows of a good YouTube video or other website with good, extremely basic instructions, I'd love to hear about it!

If you have a young child who is interested in building structures, but isn't quite ready for hammering real nails and wood, then check out my post on how to make a PVC Pipe Building Kit.