Day 47 / 101 - McKenna

On Wednesday, the UPS man delivered what seemed like a long-awaited package to my daughter.  The week before, she ordered the American Girl 2012 Girl of the Year, McKenna.  This isn't her first American Girl doll, nor will it be her last.  But, it is special to her because she saved her own money and purchased the doll all by herself.  If you are familiar with the dolls, you know they are not cheap.  I am proud to say this is the second time that my daughter has worked hard to save the money necessary to purchase a doll all on her own.  We don't give allowance in our home for daily household tasks, (like emptying the dishwasher or walking the dog) because we feel that everyone in our family has certain responsibilities to fulfill in order to help our home run efficiently. However, we do pay for tasks that are extra (like shoveling the snow out of the driveway or helping to take down Christmas decorations).  Between helping us out around the home, and saving some recent monetary gifts from Christmas and her birthday, the money came together quicker than she expected.  She is simply thrilled with her latest purchase.

Day 46 / 101 - Crafting Power Sentences

I'm so thankful for homeschooling during the age of the internet.  I saw this activity posted on a website this morning, so we tackled it this afternoon.  We began with the sentence 'The boy went up the stairs.'  Then we changed the mood and added modifiers, strong verbs, etc. in order to make our writing more descriptive and tell a story.

Day 45 / 101 - The Wind in the Willows

My husband has been reading The Wind in the Willows to our children.  The other evening, after reading to them, he said to me, "Whatever you are doing with them, it must be something right!"  He shared with me the following story...

We read the chapter "Wayfarers All", in which the Water Rat, near the end of summer, begins to lament that many of his friends will be going South for the Winter. He asks some sparrows why they don't stay through the winter, which has its charms and beauties as well as its hardships. They reply that they would love to, but they always feel such a mysterious pull to go South, and that pull must be obeyed. After some time in the South, they always feel the pull to return Home, and so they do, each Spring.

As the Water Rat is reflecting on these thoughts, he meets the Seafarer Rat, who is traveling along the road near Water Rat's home. Seafarer Rat has tried to settle down on a nearby farm, but the South and strange distant lands call to him, and he is going back to his wandering life. He regales Water Rat with hours of tales of adventure, and strange foods, and sea songs, and stories of faraway places and friends. Water Rat is totally transfixed, and heads home to pack his bags - the South is calling him, too.

As he is leaving his house with bags packed, he runs into his housemate, Mole, returning home. Mole sees what Water Rat is doing, and pushes him back inside, shuts the door, and guides Water Rat over to a chair. Water Rat breaks down and sobs hysterically, delirious with confusion and exhaustion. Eventually, Water Rat falls asleep. Hours later, when he awakens, Mole begins talking about all the fat, ripe apples that will soon be harvested, all the sheaves of grain that will soon be brought in for baking bread, the crispness of the air as the seasons change, the roaring fires on cold days just right for smoking pipes and telling stories. Water Rat has calmed down, but is still somewhat sad, and moves over to his desk to write some poetry.

I asked the kids what they thought the author was trying to convey with this story. Without hesitation my son said, "Don't try to live somebody else's life."

I was blown away.

Day 44 / 101 - The Second Continential Congress

Here you see Thomas Jefferson and some of the other more famous members of the Second Continental Congress as they represent their colonies and declare their independence from the Crown in July of 1776 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Everything is more fun with Legos.

Day 43 / 101 - U.S. History and the NFL

Me to my 10-year-old son:  Do you know why they're called the San Francisco 49ers?
Son:  Because of the 1849 California Gold Rush.

Excellent.

Day 42 / 101 - Classical Conversations: Essentials

In September, I posted about our morning involvement with our local Classical Conversations campus.  I figured it was due time to tell you what our afternoons look like.  My son and I spend our Wednesday afternoons in Essentials, a dialectic class designed to assist us in mastering the essentials of English grammar and writing, and increase speed and accuracy in arithmetic.  In a two-hour time block, we spend 45 minutes studying English grammar, 45 minutes on a writing assignment from the Institute for Excellence in Writing (more on that in a later post), and 30 minutes in Math drills and games.  Then, of course, we build on all this material throughout the week, during our regular homeschooling day.

Classical Education believes in a three part training of the mind, called the trivium.  The first part states that young minds are well equipped to absorb information.  Lots of information.  The second part states that as a mind develops, students begin to think analytically.  They begin to think through arguments and process new concepts.  At this age, students are less interested in finding out facts than in asking “Why?”  This usually begins around age 10, as their brains develop and their capacity for abstract thought begins to mature.  The Essentials class is designed for this age child and taught very logically and dialectically.

This complete Language Arts program takes students beyond the worksheet.  My son and I have a wealth of information now when it comes to grammar.  This curriculum takes 'nouns' beyond a person, place, or thing.  It teaches us that a noun names a person, place, thing, activity or idea.  That nouns have uses or roles in sentences (subject, direct object, indirect object, object of the preposition, appositive, etc.) that those roles are recognizable and how we recognize them.  It teaches that nouns have attributes (common, proper, concrete, abstract, etc.).  It teaches that sometimes nouns can be hidden as an infinitive or a gerund, and sometimes used as an adjective or adverb.  And more!

The class is taught in a three year cycle, and each year we are able to build on the information we learned previously.  We are entering into the second half of the second year, and I'm thoroughly impressed at how much information my son has grasped and retained this second year.   Our highest praise always comes from my husband (who is the smartest man I know and received an unbelievably high score on the verbal section of his GMAT 4+ years ago) when he says, "You two now know more about the English language than I do!"

Day 41 / 101 - GEO Bingo

Around our home, we have several geography games (board games, card games, and more!) helping us to learn our states, capitals, and various other U. S. features this year.  This is what we've been playing today.

Day 40 / 101 - Diagrams of the Day

My son and I have been working hard this school year learning to diagram sentences.  We've reached some peaks and valleys during our attempts, but the mountain we are climbing has become much easier!  Either that, or now we are better trained to tackle it.  Several weeks ago I posted a quote from a homeschooler that read, 'Don't think of yourself as the teacher, think of yourself as the leading learner'.  Nothing could be more true when it comes to myself and sentence diagramming.  I do have some vague memories of diagramming sentences when I was in junior high, but I have no recollection of what I learned or how it was done.  As we've begun this journey, I realized that diagramming sentences is extremely useful to us.  Both my son and I are visual learners, and diagramming has become an important tool for us in order to see how our language works and how the parts fit together.  It is very formulaic and has a real intellectual challenge, which we both enjoy.  We're still early on in the process (I envision us diagramming sentences for several years before it becomes second nature), but our progress has been encouraging thus far.

I've also mentioned before that I don't use many textbooks (or worksheets), so we've learned to diagram with minimal resources, which I think has aided us.  The strong benefit has been taking sentences that we see, read, or use regularly and attempting to diagram them.  Plus, since I don't have the answer sheet in front of me, I need to pay attention and learn too.  I have started calling this our 'Diagrams of the Day', and I believe this has made the assignment come alive for my son.  I've dictated sentences to my son from all sorts of sources and texts (Harry Potter books, Nutcracker books, history assignments, Christmas cards, etc.).  Then, after checking his written sentence for spelling and mechanics (capitalization, end mark, etc.), we ask ourselves a series of questions to reveal and label the role of each word in the sentence.  Following that we are able to discover the structure of the sentence, the purpose of the sentence, and the diagramming pattern that fits that particular sentence.

Our sentences for today are pictured above.  They came from my son's Cub Scout Webelo's Handbook.  He wrote the sentences on the white board as I read them to him.  Then, he marked the words using a color coding system to identify the parts of speech (red = verb, green parenthesis around prepositional phrase, etc.). Next, we identified the subject and verb of the sentence.  In the sentences above the subject is an understood you since the sentences are giving a command.  We asked the question 'what?' after the verb to discover that the nouns in the predicate part of the sentence are direct objects.  This then makes the verbs transitive since they are 'transferring' the action from the subject to the object of the sentence.  At this point we are able to discover any other words in the sentence being used as modifiers.  The purple ink in the photo shows where he identified the sentence structure (simple - somehow this didn't make it into the photo), the sentence purpose (imperative, because it is giving a command) and the sentence pattern (subject - verb transitive - direct object).  Then he finished with setting up the basic diagramming format.  

It may seem like a lot, but it really is a very simple task that only takes us a few minutes a day.  I'm certainly no expert, but even this morning I realized that it is beneficial to sort through something like this daily.  We had several days off of diagramming for a Christmas break, and like with anything else, to begin again is more difficult than had we continued on in the first place. 

Day 39 / 101 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

It's been awhile since I've posted a Harry Potter update, but I'm pleased to say we've finished the Goblet of Fire.  It took us awhile, first because this book clocks in at 734 pages, more than twice as long as any of the first three.  Second, we were distracted from our reading for a bit due to a minor mousetrap.  However, once the Triwizard Tournament began, we were unable to put the book down.

I am appreciating even more Professor Dumbledore, as he shows up only about once every hundred pages in order to impart some wisdom to Harry.  This wisdom, I find, so applicable to our lives today.

Really, Hagrid, if you are are holding out for universal popularity, I'm afraid you will be in this cabin for a very long time....

You fail to recognize that it matters  not what someone is born, but what they grow to be!

"I will settle, in the short term," said Dumbledore, with a bite of impatience in his voice, "for a lack of open hostility.  You will shake hands.  You are on the same side now.  Time is short, and unless the few of us who know the truth stand united, there is no hope for any of us."

Day 38 / 101 - Liberty's Kids

Liberty's Kids is an animated television show which tells of young people in dramas surrounding the major events in the Revolutionary War days (Boston Tea Party, First Continental Congress, Battles of Lexington and Concord, etc).  The show's premise is to teach children the origins of the United States.  Throughout the series, we are introduced to the individuals critical to the forming of our free country.

This series has become a regular part of our curriculum this year as we've studied U.S. History.  It has been an enjoyable way to introduce my children to some of our nation's past historical events.  We've then built on what they've learned in the episodes with regular school assignments or additional fun activities I've found on their website.