Week 2- SOTW and TOG Reading List

READING LOG

First Grade

TOG-1, SOTW-1

We're using both Tapestry of Grace and Story of the World this year, so I thought I'd keep a log of the books we read, as well as the sections/weeks we've coordinated between the two spines.  Both kids are in first grade.  I have an Excel spreadsheet in progress but I'll wait to post that until we're further along.

*I liked the way that SOTW laid out the first few weeks in chronological order, so I used that as my main "map."  I pulled literature recommendations from TOG in the weeks that I felt corresponded to the topic SOTW covered.  There are lots of over-laps in the first few weeks.  We frequently read a few of these books out of order, and/or repeated them if we enjoyed them.

** We combined weeks 1 and 2 of SOTW, as we had covered them before.

Week 2: (May 7-May 11, 2012)

Coordinated Weeks: SOTW weeks 3, TOG week 2-3

• SOTW chapter 3
• Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of the Ancient World, “Mesopotamia" and "The Birth of Writing", pages 16-19
• Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, “Sumer and Akkad", page 9
• Archaeologists Dig for Clues, by Kate Duke
• Bill and Pete Go Down the Nile, by Tomie dePaola
• Little Grunt and the Big Egg, by Tomie dePaola
• You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Pyramid Builder, by Jacqueline Morley
• Archaeologists Dig For Clues, but Kate Duke
• See Inside Ancient Egypt (Usborne Flap Book) by Rob Lloyd Jones
• Bible Story: Noah, the Flood and The Tower of Babel, from The Children’s Illustrated Bible (pages 22-29)

Books in Red are books I consider Historical Texts, and the books in Blue I consider Literature.

EIGHT YEARS ALREADY?!

Today marks our eight year wedding anniversary.  I simply cannot believe how time has flown!


I want to take a minute away from homeschool and mom-stuff to ponder a while on our marriage.  But a minute is about all I'll get, as time and life do not slow down.  Rob leaves for a 2.5 week road trip tomorrow, and it's a Tuesday, and his computer got a virus so he was up all night fixing it last night and is sleep-deprived, and he needs to pack, which means I have to be sure I'm caught up on laundry...  So we're not going to celebrate in a big fancy way tonight.

And after seeing this picture, who wants a big fancy meal?  Who ARE these skinny people?

Although I think big special days are important to celebrate, there's also something to be said for celebrating every day in such a way that big days aren't necessary.  Now, I'm not saying we do that.  We've had our ups and downs, our times of closeness and of drifting apart, and we're certainly not a poster couple for the Perfect Marriage.  But we try.  And we try together.  That says a lot in this day and age.  


And things have often been hard.  We had two kids really quickly (surprise!) and didn't figure out how to be a couple until we were also trying to learn how to be parents.  We've also had four pretty traumatic, second or third trimester miscarriages.  And those are just the things that I can talk about in terms of my emotional health.  Rob has his own.  Mine have taken me through depression, and on the way back out, and Rob and the kids have been dragged on that ride with me.


And he's stuck by me.  And fought for me.  No, not fought me, but fought FOR me.  I will love him forever for that.  Even when he doesn't put his socks in the hamper.

He also "drags" us on road trips, like to the Space Needle in Seattle, where now pictures are taken from the waist up.

So here's to you, my loving husband, Rob.  Thanks for loving me more than I deserve.  Thanks for being an amazing father.  I strive to be as wonderful a wife and mother to try to meet you at least partway.  Here's to eight more years, no decades, of the best journey ever.


(You can tell I'm not slowing down too much, as I've actually taken these two pictures from posts other people put on my Facebook wall.  I cannot even take the time out to go look for my own pictures!  I have science to teach and dinner to cook...  Anywhoodle, thanks to Laurel and Rob for the pics!)

The Battle for Dominance

"Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely"  Uncle Ben, Spider Man
"You're not in charge, Dada is."  My kids, every time I ask them to do anything.  Ever.


Okay, those quotes may be misleading, a little.  First of all, I have no idea what the origin of that first quote really is and I cannot be bothered to go look it up.   Secondly, my kids do occasionally do what I ask.  Like when I say, "Please finish your ice cream."


Then, there was this evening, when Gabrielle and I shared this beautiful moment.  I told her to get her shoes on, her dad wants us all to go out to dinner.  Gabs, being her mother's daughter, would rather eat at home.  I told her, as I do often, "I'm sorry, Gabs, but we need to do what your dad wants.  He's in charge."*  She disappeared for a minute into my bedroom and came out like this:

Those are not her shoes.  I do try to buy them big enough for them to grow into, but I don't plan quite this far ahead.

When asked why she had her dad's flip flops on instead of her own shoes, her response was this:


"Now I have the bossy shoes on and I'm in charge."


If only we could grab control over other people by simply stealing their shoes.  The world would finally value fabulous shoes the way they should.

Birthday Insanity

Pictured: Deliciosness

Why did we make a football cake for Aunt Debbie, who does not watch, or play, football, for her birthday?  Why did my kids want to hang a Kansas City Chiefs blanket on the banister as a "Happy Birthday Banner" for her visit?  Because her birthday (May 3) falls too close to Rob's (April 23.)  And he was traveling on his birthday, so she got the overflow of all the things Josiah and Gabrielle didn't get to do for their dad.  Sometimes it's hard not to make other people's special days all about you.


There are times that I wonder if my kids are a bit self-centered.  Okay, I don't wonder that at all.  To a degree, all kids are selfish, some are just more successful and obnoxious about it..  Shoot, that's true of all types of people, of any age.  Anywhoodle, I guess what I mean is that I wonder if my kids are self-centered beyond repair, and if I'm not doing enough to address it.  I don't think about it too much, because I spend a lot of time wondering if they'll ever stop picking their noses while they talk to complete strangers about our cats.  (There's a lot in that sentence to digest, I'll let you decide for yourselves which particular part of that situation I worry about.)


For Debbie's birthday, we picked her up from the airport at 10 and then took her to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  Because what first grade teacher wouldn't want to spend one of her few days off, her birthday no less, surrounded by the most field-trip over-loaded place in the Denver Metro area?  So why did we do it?  Because we live about as far from the airport as you can get and still be considered within the suburbs of Denver.  Also on that side of town?  You guessed it.  The Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  So it just seemed smart to go there on our way home.  And the last time we went, I was the only adult with three kids.  I thought the two adult, two kid ratio would be more fun for us all.  That's right, we planned what to do with Aunt Debbie, for her birthday, around what would be the most fun and entertaining for us.

We ran into a little trouble while there, but nothing we couldn't handle

So am I teaching my kids to be selfish?  Maybe.  Then again, Aunt Debbie is a first grade teacher, probably the best one on the planet, and she does it because she loves it.  So she actually does enjoy things that other grown-ups might not.  She's also their aunt, and my sister, and she loves us.  She wants to be a part of our lives, and, well, museum visits are a huge part of our lives.  Sometimes I think the most special way you can show someone love is to simply invite them to participate in your life.  To welcome you into the daily routine, the regular chores, the repetitive arguments and struggles- well, to do that, you're showing them that you trust them.  I want my kids to learn to be themselves around those they love, so they can then learn that people love them just the way they are.  Sure, they aren't perfect, but they're loveable anyway.  On top of that, people feel validated and valuable when they share things that they are excited about with others, and those people share their excitement.  It's a bonding experience, and such an important part of developing a child's self-identity and self-worth.  (Hear that, Rob?  Think of how validated I could feel if you would just get excited about SHOES?!)So we went to the museum, we made a football cake, and we gave her Nerf guns as a present.  

She also got to ride on one of the metal wolves outside the museum which may have been the best part for her.

But my kids also drew her many pictures, writing "I love you Deebie" on them.  They tried to give her their own toys, wrapped in the blankets off of their beds.  They woke up this morning asking "What are we going to do for Aunt Debbie's birthday today?  What does SHE want?"   I think, so far, they're not worryingly selfish.  


But give us time.  I have more than a decade to corrupt them some more...

Week 1 of First Grade

We're starting First Grade, we're starting First Grade!!!


This has been the musical chant all week from Gabrielle.  She is SO excited to be doing "Real School."  Here are some of the things we are doing this week:


We made our own continents!

 I knew all of those Lego sets Rob buys would come in handy- their empty boxes make great craft foundations!

Josiah's finished continent 

Gabrielle's finished continent

We are learning about how the world looks, how people chose where to live in the Ancient World, why the Fertile Crescent was desirable, while some Nomads settled down to build civilizations near the Nile River.  We're learning geographic concepts, like peninsula, bay, mountain, river.  These sculptures were made with salt dough, then painted after they dried:

Gabrielle chose turquoise water, and ChacoKitten, in the background, approves. 

Josiah chose a more traditional blue water for the deep sea and turquoise near the shore.

This was a fun project and a nice launch for our year.  Both kids love to paint, so any opportunity we can find to give them that outlet, we take.  Next time, when we're a little further along in our writing and reading, we'll have them make label flags for the various topographical features.  For now, we're content to enjoy some "school that is actually fun!", as Josiah says.

Also done this week:

We've started reading Peter Pan and have made a couple of chapter narrations for our Language folders.

We did some map work, learning about the Nile River in Egypt, specifically it's annual flooding and the Delta.

We visited the Museum of Nature and Science, where we enjoyed the Expedition Health exhibit the most.  We watched the IMAX movie Into the Arctic, which was given a "pretty good" rating from the kids.

We finished up our unit on coin counting for math, and the kids are moving on to the next section in their phonics and reading and math, as well.

On the agenda for next week: We'll be studying ancient writing and starting our study of the animal kingdom..  

Week 1- SOTW and TOG Reading List

READING LOG

First Grade

TOG-1, SOTW-1

We're using both Tapestry of Grace and Story of the World this year, so I thought I'd keep a log of the books we read, as well as the sections/weeks we've coordinated between the two spines.  Both kids are in first grade.  I have an Excel spreadsheet in progress but I'll wait to post that until we're further along.

*I liked the way that SOTW laid out the first few weeks in chronological order, so I used that as my main "map."  I pulled literature recommendations from TOG in the weeks that I felt corresponded to the topic SOTW covered.  There are lots of over-laps in the first few weeks.  We frequently read a few of these books out of order, and/or repeated them if we enjoyed them.

** We combined weeks 1 and 2 of SOTW, as we had covered them before.

Week 1: (April 30-May 4, 2012)

Coordinated Weeks: SOTW weeks 1-2, TOG week 1

SOTW chapters 1 and 2

Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of the Ancient World, “Early Civilizations” pages 12-14

Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, “The First Farmers” page 8

Archaeologists Dig for Clues, by Kate Duke

The First Dog by Jan Brett

Little Grunt and the Big Egg, by Tomie dePaola

You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Pyramid Builder, by Jacqueline Morley

Archaeologists Dig For Clues, but Kate Duke

Bible Story: Creation and The Garden of Eden, from The Children’s Illustrated Bible (pages 18-21)
See Inside Ancient Egypt (Usborne Flap Book) by Rob Lloyd Jones

Books in Red are books I consider Historical Texts, and the books in Blue I consider Literature.

Homeschooling- WITH CATS!

It's never a dull moment when you live with a young and adventurous cat.  This is especially true if you also live with extremely energetic five and six year old kids whom you are trying to get to sit still.  A while ago I was trying to take a picture of a weather chart for our month to month weather charting project, and here are some of the results:

 How could such innocence be so frustrating?

 Like he doesn't have enough places to lay out.  Except for, you know, the whole rest of the house.

And no cat picture collection would be complete without the obligatory action shot of the cat trying to eat the camera.

Since that day in August, I've learned to try to do things like this when the cats are sleeping or otherwise engaged in harassing someone else.  


Now that Spring is here and the weather is nice, the kids and I have been doing more and more of our school work outside.  This upsets our cats, who would like to be out there with us.  I'm not convinced it's because they want to spend the time with us.  No, I think it's because they want to wreak as much havoc on me as they can.  So, today, little ChacoKitten has upped the stakes:

I framed and cropped this picture in such a way to limit how much dirt in my window track you can see.

Yes, that is a gigantic hole torn into our window screen.  This annoys me, and not just because I had to chase his maniac self around the neighborhood to get him safely back inside.  No, this annoys me most because that means there is one less window we can open to let in the fresh air during school time.  

Guess we'll just have to spend even more time outside.  Rough life.

The Nitty-Gritty: Curricula discussions

WARNING- This will  only be potentially interesting to about 1% of the population- those that are interested in homeschooling, paranoid family members who think we're ruining our kids and want to check up on us, and strangers with such insane insomnia that they've somehow wandered over to this random corner of the Internet.  If you're not one of those people, TURN BACK NOW.  And if you are one of those people- well, it's still boring.  But I'm writing it for myself, and Josiah and Gabrielle, as a record, and for reminders and accountability when we need it.  So there.


Here it is- the obligatory curricula blog.  Below I will list the curricula we will use this year, and the ones we hope to use but may not get to because, holy cow, where did all the time go?!


One thing you should know about us- we do a wacky May-April school year.  I'm not going to bore you with the details why we chose this right now- there'll be plenty of other details I'll bore you with in this post.  So starting April 30, the 2012-2013 school year begins with both Josiah and Gabrielle in the first grade.


We've chosen to do a Classical approach to education.  That can mean a million things.  For us, it means I read The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise, liked what they have to say, and planned our curricula around this.  We'll use the trivium approach, beginning the first of four Grammar years this year.

A copy of the picture of the cover from Amazon.  I am an amateur blogger, deal with it.

We'll use Tapestry of Grace and Story of the World for History, and as our spine.
We'll use First Language Lessons, Writing With Ease, All About Spelling and Explode the Code for Language.
We've chosen Easy Classical Science for, well, Science.
We use Singapore Math for our Math curriculum.
We'll use Artistic Pursuits for art appreciation (although I haven't received this yet, and it will be the first thing I drop if/when we get over-whelmed.)


For anyone still reading, and interested, I'll describe our interpretation of the classical approach.  To me, classical education is defined by three main characteristics: 1) An emphasis on history, 2) An emphasis on language, and 3) The Trivium.  We'll do a lot of reading, a lot of narrating, dictating, and drawing as part of our note-booking, and we'll hopefully get to do lots of fun things like craft projects and science experiments.  We'll chose our literature and projects around what part of history we're in.  This first year, our focus will be on Ancient History through 400AD, the creation of the world through the fall of Rome.  Our second year focuses on Medieval and Early Renaissance history, the third focuses on Late Renassance to Early Modern history, and then in fourth grade we'll study Modern History, 1850 through the present day.  Then in fifth grade, we'll enter the Dialectic/Logic phase of their education, which will last for four years, and follow the same four year pattern.  The last four years, the high school years, are called the Rhetoric phase, and we'll start the pattern over one more time.  So everything the kids study now they'll get two more cracks at before graduating.  I'm excited that this will allow us to choose our pace and depth of study based on our skills.  We can skim Ancient Assyria if we want to dig in and spend extra time on Ancient China because we know we get to do it all over again later.  I also like the fact that they'll be studying history in order.  That just makes so much sense to me.  And, probably most important of all, I just really love the focus on language- the reading of, interpretation of and creation of literature.  


I am excited about this year, but I won'r pretend that a part of me isn't more than a little overwhelmed.  It's a lot to cover!  I hope to do posts every week, on what we're studying, and what we've done.  But as I've said in another post- I want this to be about our lives, too.  We'll just have to see how it goes, huh?


Okay, so there it is.  Wasn't too painful, for me at least...

Restarting the Journey

I cannot believe it's been 2.5 years since I last blogged anything...  Guess perhaps I've been busy.


I decided to start up again because we're hitting a new place in our lives: "Real School."  Okay, so it's not really "Real School" because we're still homeschooling.  But the kids have finished up their kindergarten work and we're beginning First Grade.  That's right, I capitalize First Grade because Gabrielle says it this way.  She is quite excited to tell anyone and everyone that she is now in First Grade.  Grade levels are, of course, completely arbitrary in our homeschooling environment, but I'm not going to be the one to dampen her enthusiasm. 


I hate to add my voice to the already thousands out there clamoring and trumpeting their homeschooling blogs.  So I'll try not to make this a big ol' curriculum review site or personal brag site.  But I am a mom who homeschools full time.  So there's going to be a bit of that mentioned here. 


I do hope to keep this about our lives, too.  Our adventures, our stories, our mis-adventures, our nightmares...  It shouldn't be too hard to keep it wacky.


I'd also like a better way of documenting all that we do.  Sure, we do notebooks and pictures.  But I am not the scrap-booking kind of girl.  Craftiness is not in my bones.  So maybe someday the kids will look back on this and appreciate having it all out here.  Or maybe they'll hate me and try to make me pay for their therapy bills.  Since I'm planning on paying those bills anyway, because of all the other trauma I'll probably inflict on them, I'll take the chance on the blog.


And, at the very least, I will hope to have an outlet to pretend like I'm speaking to the outside world every once in a while. 

Claiming my Children- Elizabeth

For the most part, I don't like to admit that my children have any of my personality. I know, parents are supposed to be beaming with pride every time they uncover a little gem of a personality quirk little Junior seems to have mined from the family genes. Cynics would say I must not love my children enough if I don't want to claim them in public, and a therapist would probably tell me I don't like myself enough to recognize my own good qualities. Whatever, I don't honestly have time to think about that stuff. My kids are crazy. And they get it from Rob.

But I'm starting to have to come to terms with the fact that my kids may actually be a lot like me. And not like the Elizabeth that I try to be, or that I at least try to convince others that I am. No, my kids seem to be the Elizabeth that my mom and sister have always complained about, the one that I am continually talking to inside my head, telling her to back off because if she comes out, bad things will happen. (Any therapists reading this are having a field day with me right now...)

My mom tells a story from my childhood, when I was about 2.5-3 years old. In this story (which is one I fully embrace, not one of the ones I believe she is mis-remembering...) precocious little Beth comes running up to say, "I drew a B, I drew a B!" My mother, being the perfectionist she is, says, "That's nice, but why does your B have three loops instead of just two?" Without missing a beat, little Beth says, "It's a B on a rock!" This story frightens me a lot, especially now that I'm a mother and realize that having a child of 2.5 who can write letters, while impressive, is exhausting. And having a child that can cover her mistakes with excuses and complicated stories is just plain torture.

One of the letters of the week we're doing at our house is, ironically, the letter B. You can only imagine where this story is going. Josiah, being my less-academic child, has always avoided anything to do with letters, writing, spelling... learning in general. (I don't push him, mostly because I don't care if he ever learns his letters because that means he'll never be able to text or email me nasty little messages when he's a teenager...) But yesterday he was all fired up to do some drawing. The first thing he did was draw two circles on top of each other, and then proudly announced that he wrote a B. I cheered him on, took crayons out of Gabby's mouth and returned to removing the stickers from the couch. Josiah kept drawing, and presented me with about four more renditions of his interpretation of the letter B.

I'm not a complete jerk of a mom, so I did a lot of praising and all that jazz the books tell you to do so that your kids wait until they have their own jobs before wanting to shell out money for therapy. Then I held up our little B poster and asked him if we could compare his B to the ones in the picture. We eventually uncovered the fact that his B did not have a long line from top to bottom like the B on our poster did. So I asked him if he wanted to add a line to his Bs.

His response, after barely pausing to take a breath: "Mama, my B doesn't like to stand up straight. Mine likes to roll, fast like a race car, so I need to leave it round like wheels so it can GO! Vroom!" And then his Bs went racing around the room, soon to be followed by Gabby's.

I'm not really sure how to respond. Are we glad he shows creativity and imagination? Are we impressed he even knows what a letter is, let alone being about to identify one AND have the desire to draw it? Do we think he'll be flipping burgers or pumping gas because I don't have to discipline to make him sit down and keep trying until he gets it right? (If you choose the last one, then I'll just tell you now that Josiah will be coming home smelling like gasoline or fry grease, because that whole abuse, I mean strict correction, is simply not happening with me...)

And here's the truth- the only way I know to respond is to finally admit that my little terror may actually be a lot like his mom. And now I have to go call my mom and sister, and apologize for, well, my entire childhood...