September Wrap Up

I have drafts for Weeks 2 and 3 waiting completion: details, photos, miscellaneous perfections.  I will leave that perfectionism aside for now and do a quick wrap up for the month.

5th Grade

Language Arts:
We are enjoying reading Swiss Family Robinson.  I have fond memories of the Disney film from my childhood.  I wanted to read the original.  Suprisingly, I found that there is no definitive original as this book has been translated, retranslated and reworked many, many times.  The version I found is said to be a reproduction of the first English translation.  Noelle and I are finding much of it difficult to understand, as our vocabularies are severely limited in comparison to the author and the English translator in the 1800's.  But we are getting the main ideas, learning some things along the way, and enjoying the narrative.

Noelle's independent reading has been Laura Ingalls Wilder's On the Banks of Plum Creek.  Again, I have fond childhood memories of the TV version but have never read the originals.  I am a sad product of my generation.  If I have time I hope to read them for myself.  I'm happy that Noelle is enjoying books about a time and place much different from her own.

We are currently using Spelling Workout level D and Wordly Wise level 3 for spelling and vocabulary.  These subjects continue to be a bit of a challenge for Noelle but she is making steady progress.

Writing has typically been a subject Noelle does not enjoy.  We continue to work at it, trying lots of different topics and projects.  This past week she found a project she really enjoyed in the form of a humorous fictional short story.  She is writing it and illustrating it and we look forward to its completion this week and will likely share it with extended family.

Math:
We are still working on learning all of the multiplication tables.  So far she has mastered 1's, 2's, 3's, 5's, 9's and 10's.  We will start 4's this week.  Other topics this month have included pints and quarts, teaspoons and tablespoons, feet and yards, area of a rectangle, solving for the unknown and an introduction to order of operations.

Science:
I have taken on more than we have time to handle for science.  We meet once a week with our co-op to study chemistry, and I haven't had the time to truly follow up at home and continue the learning as I would have liked.  She has had an introduction to the parts of an atom, molecules, elements and the periodic table.  I also have a 5th grade science textbook that will cover a variety of topics over the year, as I try to meet the state's standards in this area.  So far we have been learning about mass, matter, weight, volume, buoyancy, density, melting/boiling/freezing points, and physical and chemical changes of matter.

History:
We are using Landmark's History of the American People as a guide, and adding in small readers along with it.  We have read about how Columbus discovered America by mistake, and the Puritans settling in Massachusetts.  She read a book called The Lion to Guard Us about three siblings who make the voyage from England to Virginia in search of their father, and has begun reading a book called Squanto.

Geography:
This is the other fun subject from our weekly co-op.  We are currently learning about the Northeast Region of the United States.  Last week Noelle's co-op class made a model of the Memorial Bridge in Connecticut.  Like chemistry, I haven't found enough time to fully follow up with this at home.  We intend to make a states book but haven't quite figured out what we want to put in it.

Technology:
We are using My Tech High as a way to get reimbursement for curriculum and supplies.  They require a technology class.  We are going to learn a little bit about several different software programs this year, and this month we've focused on Microsoft Word.  She also uses a program called Typing Pal to work on her typing speed and accuracy.

Electives and other learning:
Rosetta Stone for Spanish, piano lessons, swimming lessons (overcame some fears this summer and at her last lesson swam laps for 8 minutes), hopefully starting sewing and art lessons sometime during the year, started Girl Scouts this past week, daily chores for money to learn about different household tasks as well as money management skills.

Oh, and we had an awesome trip to DISNEYLAND in the middle of the month.  Not exactly educational, but nice to have a family vacation and even nicer to come home.

Possibly some photos and work samples to follow, depending on my level of perfectionism this week.

Preschool

Ava is 3 and I would love to see her doing more real preschool work.  I intended to make time for her every day for some planned activities.  So far, the only thing she gets is at co-op once a week, and that's more like nursery than preschool for her.  Her vocabulary and language skills are improving all the time.  She makes us all laugh daily and is such a delight to have around.  I love to see her development socially and academically.  She went on her first airplane ride this month with our trip to Disneyland and she did amazingly well.  She loved Disneyland and was happy to go back every day except the last day--and we were all sick of it by then.

Another highlight of this month with her has been our Kindermusik class.  We did Kindermusik together about a year ago, and it was a challenge getting her to sit on my lap, follow instructions, put things away at the right time etc.  But this year it has been a joy for me to have some one on one time with her and she absolutely loves it.  I see my baby growing up so quickly, and I wish each stage would last longer than it does.

Week 1

Saturday night, 10:30 p.m., still trying to finish science we were supposed to do on Tuesday.  More work to do tomorrow to try to finish up the week.  Tired.  Grumpy.

The theme of this week was getting ready for co-op to start at my house.  It was supposed to be exciting not-back-to-5th-grade time and start-preschool-for-Ava time but mostly it was let's-try-to-do-anything-plus-co-op time.

Hmmm.  That sounds like perfectionism.  Instead of reading Swiss Family Robinson every day this week, we only read once.  Instead of completing all the writing, history, science and geography projects I had planned, we only did about 60%.  In an entire week, we had one awesome morning at home, one good co-op morning, some more sporadic school work, and a whole lot of other kinds of work.

This week Noelle worked hard on her school work, when I was available and had work ready for her.  But she also helped me so much.  She cleaned without complaint, asking again and again what she could do next.  (Well, maybe thinking she would get paid for some of the work helped, but still...)  She watched Ava several times so I could either clean, shop, plan, prepare or just drop dead for a few minutes.  Mel and I worked really hard to complete some home improvement projects before co-op started, and I did so much other stuff I can't even remember it all now.  If homeschool is about learning at home, then what did we both learn from all of this?

Even though we didn't do as much as I had planned, our academic learning included the following: we learned about coconuts from Swiss Family Robinson, worked on some multiplication facts and how to find the area of a rectangle, learned about atoms and molecules and matter and mass, talked about country/state/city/capital categories and Washington DC, started Rosetta Stone for Spanish and absolutely loved it, learned some word processing skills, practiced brainstorming and generating quality ideas for writing, achieved 100% on a spelling test, began reading On the Banks of Plum Creek, found Israel on a map, and learned that Bald Eagles eat lambs and piglets.

Upon reflection, I believe we also learned life lessons about service, sacrifice, hard work, procrastination, teamwork, housework, flexibility, patience, forgiveness and gratitude.  And I would argue that those kinds of lessons are worth more in the long run than coconuts and piglets.

Not a bad start to the new school year.

Noelle with her newly made September
calendar and a present from Mom

Ava tells the story of the 3 Little Pigs

First day of co-op: Noelle's class

First day of co-op: Ava's class

Whew!

Not Back to School 2013-2014

This year we had a major change in our co-op with our leader and founder moving on to a new adventure with her family.  This left it to me to host for the coming year, and to run the co-op with the help of another mom.  Getting the house clean, organized and a few home improvement projects done in addition to all the administrative work for the entire co-op and my individual teaching responsibilities and preparation has made for an extremely busy and exhausting summer.  I hope now that most of that work is done we can just start the school year and enjoy it.

On August 26 we had a not-back-to-school family barbecue at the home of another co-op family.  We kept the tradition of the BBQ and the pinata, and added a new fun part of the night where families could share a talent, do a skit etc.  Since Noelle and I don't have any artistic talents that we share, we did a funny demonstration of "language" of ubby-dubby, something I learned watching Zoom on PBS as a child.  Ava told the story of the three little pigs in English, and then I told it in ubby dubby and Noelle translated.

Ava loved the sand box in the back yard

Emma will be joining us this year with Benjamin and Colin in co-op

Noelle, Ava and Mom enjoying the food

Braelynn, Miranda and Noelle of the oldest class

Pinata time!

Ava gave it a good whack

And Noelle's was even better