Back to the Books...What will we learn?

So we started back up with our lessons last week. We started slowly with just Math, reading comprehension and phonics. This week we started with history. We are studying American History and I am so excited because this is something that our entire family enjoys learning about so much.

So Hope and I sit down to begin reading her book Squanto and this is the conversation that occurs after the first page.

She stops, looks at the cover of the book and says:

"Are we going to learn why the Indians dressed so funny and also the Pilgrims?"

Me: "They didn't dress funny."

Hope: "Big hats, puffy pants, tights and tap-dancing shoes. They dressed funny!"

Me: "We'll have to read on and study why?!?!?"

I realized that I couldn't win this one, she had a point. So hopefully we'll learn why they dressed funny and a whole bunch of other interesting facts about the founders of our country and the Natives who were here first. We'll keep you posted!

Blessings to you all!

A Special Part of Me

Well it's the end of the year and I start to doubt myself as to whether or not I covered enough, did enough or am good enough to be teaching these beautiful children. But then, we had an AMAZING day! I have a child who struggles with certain aspects of learning. We have not had her tested yet, but we believe it is some sort of dyslexia. She has been struggling with multiplication and memorizing her facts. We have tried pretty much everything and I finally just gave her the table and had her look it up and we moved on to double digits. This child is so intelligent that she can't just learn something, she has to understand every aspect of it. She has to take it to such a level that sometimes I wonder who is really teaching whom? The other day was not a good day and as her frustration level grew, so did mine. Pretty soon I realized that we were not going to accomplish anything, so I closed the book, took her hands in mine and looked her in the eyes and we made a pact.
We have decided that when she reaches her frustration level (even if it's just while I give directions), then we will come back to that lesson at another time. Well...it worked!!! The next day we tried again, with patience, and it worked. It took awhile, but she understood. I love our math curriculum because it is very manipulative and hands on. She was able to understand how when you multiply double digits, you can automatically start counting hundreds. It was wonderful. She felt good about herself and I realized that no other teacher would care for her the way I do because she is a part of me, a very special part of me.

coming to an end and beginning anew

We are finishing up with formal lessons for the year and ordering curriculum for next year. It is an exciting time around here. Faith has finished several subjects and is now doubling up on what she has left so that she will finish within the next few weeks. Hope and Charity have also been trying to wrap up some formal subjects, but will continue some of them through the summer. We don't want to have to reinvent the wheel next fall, so we'll continue with math facts and our wonderful reading book. Writing Road to Reading. http://spalding.org/store/instructional.php

I am really looking forward to our new method of learning next year. After spending six months researching a new approach, I find that it is so very similar to what I learned in college. Why did I not think of this sooner? Who knows? All in His time...(I keep telling myself that). We will be changing our way of doing things and following a kind of Charlotte Mason/mom invented kind of approach. We will tweak it all to make it work for our family, so that we will learn as we live. I am a "fly by the seat of my pants" kind of gal and so I will have to be diligent about sticking to a guide so that we cover everything, but that is what I like so much about this approach. There is always plenty of time for exploring in the afternoons. As long as we get Love on our time table, everything should work out just fine. HAH! He is ready to start learning right along with us and loves to color all that he can. Including his body!

I can't wait for the boxes to start arriving. It's one of my favorite things and makes me feel like Christmas morning. The girls and I tear into everything and devour it all right then and there. I love to see their faces and hear what they have to say about what the new school year will bring and what they would like to study.

This next year for history, we will be studying American History for all three girls. Faith will deepen what she learned in 5th grade and Hope and Charity will work on their own levels as well. We will use this for our vocab and spelling throughout the year. We are also switching our language to use Primary Language Lessons for Charity, Intermediate Language Lessons for Hope and Lingua Mater: Language Lessons from Literature for Faith. These books bring all of Charlotte Mason's methods together for daily language in a beautiful way. Through picture studies, narrations, dictations they are all pulled together in these books for each level. We are also beginning our own art studies and music appreciation. After researching prints from different artists, I decided calendars fit our budget best, so I hit calendars.com today and bought enough for free shipping! We will be studying Mary Cassatt, van Gogh, Monet, Renoir and da Vinci. We will also be studying nine different composers and learning about their lives as well. For science we will pick different subjects to work on together and separate. We will study life science, biology and some physical science as well. We will also throw in whatever unit studies we want to as we go along. For math we are sticking with Math U See as we really love the way he teaches the concept, not just the shortcut for learning the tricks.

Through all of this the most important message that we want to teach our children is our faith. The beauty of the Catholic Church and Jesus' gifts of the sacraments are such a blessing to all of us. A year from now, our Charity will celebrate her first communion and so this second grade year will be one filled with exploring and learning so many things as she prepares to receive her Lord and Savior for the first time. We are blessed to have the gift that Jesus left us the night he instituted the Eucharist. The love that He felt for us needs to be spread around to all that we meet. "All are to be welcomed as Christ" St. Benedict. So above all as we journey down this new year and new path, may we treat all as Jesus treats us, with Faith, Hope, Charity and Love!

overdue update

Life has been so busy around here with soccer ending and swimteam starting, that I haven't been able to catch up on our long overdue updates. We have had many wonderful things happen and have learned so much more than we set out to learn. We have also had some sad things happen, as does with nature.

First, we still have many visitors to our feeding center. One day Brian and I were out enjoying the day and we noticed a bright orange bird in a tree in our back yard. It never came to eat, but it hung around for quite a while. We finally figured out that it was a Baltimore Oriole. We were very excited!!! The next day, we had an Indigo Bunting come to eat. We were amazed at how blue it was. We have enjoyed all these colorful creatures in our back yard.

We were very excited to realize that we have 3 nests in our yard. The swallows are back and we believe the eggs have finally been laid, because someone is hanging out in that nest all the time now. We have a mockingbird who built a nest in our front yard. Funny thing, the mockinbirds never come to eat. I guess they just eat insects. Lastly, our sparrows built a beautiful nest, right in our backyard, in our bottle brush tree. We were a little concerned because there are often cats hanging out under that tree. On Wednesday we noticed the nest, on Thursday there were eggs and on Friday we had a HUGE storm with lots of wind. We were worried about the birds and when we checked on them noticed they had found shelter on our rain gutters, right next to their nest. The next day we checked on them and noticed 3 babies!! We watched them grow and checked on them daily. We used our plastic picnic table to stand on so that we could see inside the nest. Well, we left the table too close to the nest and the cats were able to reach the nest. We were all so sad to lose our babies and have learned an important lesson about interefering with nature.

If you build it, they will come.

This is an entry that the girls wrote. These are facts that they have learned about the birds in our backyard. (or some they made up) We have also been studying birds that we haven't seen in our backyard like owls, pigeons, ducks, hawks, egrets, penguins, eagles and swans. We will post more about those birds later. By the way, our swallows are back this year and as we read about the swallows of San Juan Capistrano it makes us feel special that they chose our house again to nest. If you click on the links (you may have to copy and paste), they will take you to the song of each bird here. I also found an incredible site that has much information for "birding."
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/

Have fun reading our thoughts!




This is a mourning dove with a grackle. They are called mourning doves because of the cooing sad, song that they make. The grackles have colorful patches on their neck. They're mean. The mourning doves is why they're called mourning doves is cause they're always in the birdfeeder at morning. The mourning dove's beak is not curved.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Mourning_Dove.html#fig1

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/audio/Common_Grackle.html



This is a house wren. They only came to visit once or twice and there were several of them. Their beak is small, straight and pointed. It might be a female red winged black bird.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/audio/House_Wren.html


This is a cardinal. It is a male.
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Northern_Cardinal.html#fig1


We think this one is a Bridled Titmouse. It eats insects and acorns. The one below is a Bridled Titmouse too.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/audio/Bridled_Titmouse.html

This is a white winged dove. It is not common in Texas.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/White-winged_Dove.html#fig1

This is a female cardinal. It has a red beak not like the many other birds. And it's light brown. And the male is red. The cardinal's voice is very good. It's feathers make a mowhawk and some don't. The cardinal's are only is special spots and you don't see them very often around town. Usually in backyards.




This is a red winged black bird. It has a little bit of yellow on his wings. He's about 4 inches tall. His beak is pointed and not curved. We see it sometimes in our backyard. The female is more dark brown and is not black or red.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/audio/Red-winged_Blackbird.html



This is a house sparrow. It can be 5-6 inches tall. They blend in with trees. They live in cities and suburbs, and farms.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/audio/House_Sparrow.html


This is a goldfinch. These are very obvious, but they blend in very well with the magnolia tree. This is a male. The female's colors are duller. They're just about darker. They look like the color of a flower.They sometimes come to our backyard and they eat in the birdfeeder and they don't fly away, but then a grackle comes and it scares them away. They nest in mid summer. They kind of look like the lemon fish in our fish tank.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/audio/American_Goldfinch.html
This is a house finch. The house finch has a red head and a brown body and the female has just a plain brown body. They are very common around the United States.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/audio/House_Finch.html

Our first unit study!!!

I am so excited. A few weeks ago I realized that our ocean unit was winding down so I decided to take the plunge and develop an entire unit study for all subjects and go with it. We have had several birds visiting our backyard lately so I decided this would be the perfect study. I started researching online and making a book list. I started searching the used book stores and talked my husband into going with me to our local Wild Birds Unlimited store. We ended up coming home with lots of wonderful stuff! Our wonderful Daddy put it all together and we were all trying to figure out where everything should go. This was a wonderful family event. Right Daddy?!?

So today was to be our first "bird" day. It started out wonderful. Our painters came to fix our damage from Hurricane Ike and Daddy took the baby to run errands. We grabbed what we could out of the learning room before they covered it all with tarps. We gathered around the kitchen table and began to discuss all that we knew about birds and all that we wanted to learn. The whole time watching our new feeding center in hopes that someone would come and dine. There were at least 20 different species that we saw, but no one stopped to eat. We sketched some birds while we all talked and the girls came up with some amazing art work. Then daddy came home with the boy and he wanted to help the painters. So we called Grandma and off we went. We gathered what we could and took off to Grandma's house. I began to feel like this may not have been the perfect day to begin, but I prayerfully offered it up and tried to just go with it. Once we went to my parents, it was lunch so off the kids went upstairs to play some computer games while we fixed lunch and got settled in. After lunch I decided it would be the perfect time to go for a nature walk around their trails. So we started off and as we turned the corner we were greeted by a beautiful sight and sound. A cardinal was on a low branch singing and communicating with another cardinal far away.

What a treat for us. Part of our studies will be learning the different bird songs. We learned this one from a real life experience. This is the connection that I want for my children to experience. I don't want them to read about these things from a textbook. I want them to learn them from real experiences so that they develop a relationship and it will stay with them their whole life. We walked a little further along and I was amazed at all we saw. From spider webs to turtles to beetles to a very unusual flowering tree that we still have to look up to identify.

Once Daddy called with the all clear that the painters were gone and it was safe to return, we went home and began a poetry study outside while waiting for visitors to our feeding center. We learned a wonderful poem by Victor Hugo.

Be like the bird

That, pausing in her flight

Awhile on boughs too slight,

Feels them give way

Beneath her and yet sings,

Knowing that she hath wings.

This is the first time that Hope has not complained about having to copy something this long. She is loving this so much!!! After we studied the poem for a few minutes, we were visited by a mockingbird on our roof. We watched her for awhile and saw her catching bugs, then we were amazed as she flew to a small, bare tree in our neighbors yard. She went to her nest and fed her babies the insects. Immediately Daddy mockingbird showed up as well. The girls ran upstairs as fast as they could to grab the binoculars to look out their bedroom window, but they couldn't see inside the nest. They were disappointed, but we will be watching to see when the babies leave the nest.

This morning we woke up and finally had visitors. We watched as a male cardinal came over ever so slowly and checked out the feeders, then finally flew up and started to eat. He then delivered a meal to a female who waited patiently in the tree. Once he did this several times, she became brave enough to fly over and fill herself up. We then had some mourning doves who made themselves very comfortable and rested their for several minutes. Not eating, just resting. I am anxious to see where we go and what we learn on this amazing new study. So far in the last two days I have learned more than I ever realized I would learn. I am seeing things and hearing things that I never have heard before. What an amazing world God has created for us and how blessed are we to be able to connect to it on such a deep level.

Cooking with Faith

For the past two weeks Faith has been studying China. At the end of the lesson she was given an easy recipe for egg drop soup. So she asked if she could cook dinner for us. She managed to prepare (with a little help from Schwans) a wonderful meal of egg drop soup, egg rolls, steamed dumplings and "sticky" white rice. She had so much fun and we were amazed at how good it all was. She even loaded the dishwasher after dinner. We forgot to tell her the cooks don't do dishes.

Our first nature walk!

With all this new info I have acquired over the last few months, nature studies have intrigued me the most. I love to explore nature, I remember running through creeks, fields, and just leaving for hours and coming home at dark when I was a child. However, now as an adult, I think of snakes, spiders and other creatures that also live in nature and I'm not sure I want to front that alone, so...my cool idea was to ask for friends to come along! The Littles thought this was a great idea and so off we went after our Mom's meeting at church.

We went to a nearby park located on Cypress Creek. We went down to the shore and tried to find something unusual and we did. Seashells. I have no idea how those got there. We saw a lot of trash and were able to have a good talk about why that can hurt the wildlife around. Once we were through there, we headed back up the hill and onto the path. The kids immediately started seeing things that they normally would have just walked right by. The pulled out their sketch pads and started sketching.

We traveled further and saw the creek from so many angles. The kids found an old stump and decided to count the rings to see how old it was. It was 26 years old. We found trees with diseases (or so we thought).

We also found a tree that would make a very good home for an animal, and we found a centipede.

Thank you Littles for coming with us and making our first nature walk so much fun!!!

Ocean study

Since we went on vacation to the beach in February, I decided to do a beach study in the winter. Crazy, I know, but it's working. All three girls have worked it into their studies. Faith is doing a whole unit on the food chain for science and Hope and Charity are loving all the "living books" I found on Amazon and in ALL the gift shops we went into. Even Love is listening to our stories. It is wonderful to see them learn in this whole new wonderful way. They are living what they're learning and so they have a relationship that will last so much longer than if I had just read them something from a textbook. I feel like I have been given the greatest gift from Charlotte Mason and all the others since who have helped expose this wonderful way of learning to me. Thank you all for I am eternally grateful!

Homeschooling on vacation

We just got back from a wonderful, relaxing weekend at the beach. The beach you ask, in Feb? Yes, here in south Texas you can go and have an amazing time in Feb. The wind was perfect for kite flying and the hermit crabs were out and about.

My whole plan was to bring some formal lessons and then throw in a bunch of science and history, well forget the formal stuff, I needed a break. But the history is what really took over. My parents came with us and my dad was able to take my girls on a history lesson that will last with them forever! My grandfather was stationed on the USS Lexington when it was first out at sea. We toured the Lex and learned so many things and learned all about what my grandfather did. Where he slept, ate and worked. It made it completely real to them to know that their great-grandfather was on this ship during wars, and then they saw the war rooms, the ready rooms for the pilots and the ship's engine where he was "in charge." When we got home and I asked my daughter to narrate for me, I was amazed at all the things she remembered and it was so interesting to see what she took from this incredible lesson. My next lesson for her (daddy's idea) is to have her and dd#1 write a story about what it was like to live on that ship for a year. I can't wait to read what they write!!

Wonderful Week

Wow! We had so much fun and the learning was amazing...and the kids actually learned something too. lol While reading Little House on Plum Creek, my dd#2 asked what a dew drop was so I explained it to her and told her that if she went out early enough in the morning she might find dew on the grass, or plants. So during breakfast the next morning, she remembered and she and dd#3 went running out with their new backpacks full and ready to explore. I don't know if they ever found dew drops, but they found something even more rare for us down south...ICE! They had more fun exploring the ice and figuring out why it was on some items, but not on others. They also found out that if a piece is big enough it will shatter, but the small ones won't. They spent 20 minutes coming up with all kinds of ideas and loving every minute of it. After they came back in, they sketched in their books, and then gave me a narration about their exploration. This was definitely one of those special moments that can only happen when one is open to being flexible and not being too regimented on a "schedule." I am finding some of us are going to learn most by being flexible and following the rabbit trails when they are presented.

How blessed am I!!

Feeling Happy!

After devouring all the blogs and websites that I could find on what homeschoolers are finding success with, I have begun making some changes, ordering new books and trying to make my children fall in love with learning. IT WORKED!!!

Yesterday I went and bought all the things I needed to start with notebooks for my children so that they would be able to start narrating things to me and we could keep them forever in their notebooks inside protectors. Charity was able to retell me a story and tomorrow she will read it back to me and try to find any words that she can recognize and we will put those into our new word bank box.

We also put together nature backpacks filled with things the girls will need when we begin our nature walks each week. My 11yr old (who loves school) said this is going to be so much fun! The other two were ready to walk out the door and begin right then.

I have only made small changes and already it feels like major ones. One of the reasons we came to know that homeschooling was the path God wanted us to be on, was because our second child was in first grade and HATED school. How sad is it that a 7 year old hates school. She loves homeschooling, but I was falling into the "schooling at home" blahs and she was beginning to hate it again, as she should have. Today she illustrated her religion story and then labeled all the nouns. Common and Proper. She LOVED it!

We also were able to get all of our lessons done, clean the house and dinner is in the oven. Thank you God for the small graces that fill our everyday!

The Freedom to Choose:

I've decided to start a new blog about our homeschooling life. I have two other blogs, one about our family (which is protected), and one about finding the roses that God sends us each day.

This one will be about our homeschooling journey, now in our second full year. We are going through a transition and searching for the perfect curriculum for our family. I have three dd that I homeschool and one ds who is learning along with us in between naps and nursing.

I have recently discovered the wealth of info that is out there for Catholic homeschooling families and fell in love with all these beautiful families. I wanted to share our journey in searching for the curriculum that fits our family and what I learn along the way.

First thing I learned is that no curriculum works for every person. We all have to develop and design our own thing for each and every child. Now as hard and daunting as that sounds, it really isn't if you pray and let God lead you to it. I'm not saying just sit back and do nothing. I'm saying that begin with prayer and then search like crazy till you find what suits your family.

I have just discovered the book "Real Learning" by Elizabeth Foss and I am so delighted that she took the time to write this book. It completely changed my life, and my childrens' as well. I'll share a little info about myself. I am married to a wonderful man and have been for almost 16 years. When we first married I taught in a public school and thought that I would NEVER homeschool our children. Then came dd #1 and I kept teaching, but longed to be at home. Then dd#2 and again I longed and we planned. Finally I was able to stay home and I didn't want to send my daughter to pre-k. I wanted to keep her home and savour every moment. Along came dd#3 and off my oldest went to public school for Kindergarten. My dd#2 went off to MDO (only one day a week) and everyone was happy. But I missed them. I missed teaching them and loving them all day.

We moved to a new house and with it came a new option, Catholic School. Well that was very difficult financially and I was determined not to go back to work and leave my youngest with a sitter all day just so the older two could go to this school. So, back to public, and let's just say we knew very soon that homeschooling was the best thing for our family. If only we had known the incredible gift God was bestowing on our family sooner, we would have done this from the beginning, but with all things, in His timing. We also found out He was blessing us with another beautiful soul, that turned out to be a BOY! He is GOOD!


So we began our homeschooling journey with CHC and fell in love with everything. Of course I ordered everything and only had time for some, so I still have lots of stuff left and no time to fit it in. Then I changed things up a bit and again, knowing that eventually I wanted to design my own thing, but still trying to figure out the logistics of schooling at home.

After reading Elizabeth's book, I immediately implemented changes that I used in my classrooms when I taught and just hadn't figured it out yet. The changes in my girls has been incredible. The freedom to choose what to study and write about has inspired them. In the two weeks since I finished the book, we now have 4 books authored by my dds, countless illustrations to go with our read alouds and 10 reports on animals. All because of small changes that I made. And we did this all while still getting in our "learning lessons."

Thank you Elizabeth Foss for your wonderful book.