Posted by Cindy on November 30, 2008
School is slowing down a bit for the next three weeks. (Yay! – Shhh, don’t tell my kids I just cheered about that!) Besides all the real-life skills that come with writing Christmas cards, baking cookies, budgeting for gifts, crafting and such, I’m planning to keep some “real” school alive with the following:
Among anytime readings from the books on my sidebar, I think we’re going to purposefully read a daily chapter from
then
I’m excited about our Bible/unit study – The Names of Jesus from Easy Fun School (which was FREE!) I’ll be sure to post about the notebooks the kids create in a few weeks.
We’re ditching most of the regular math schedule for a geometry unit from AIMS called
We’ll also be keeping up with weekly artist (various nativity scenes) and composer (Handel) studies. I’ll post more about those plans soon.
And that about does it for planned school time this Christmas season. I hope you’re able to take a break from the normal to enjoy something a little different this December. Whatever you do, I hope you enjoy your children and the joy and excitement that comes with this time of year. They’re only little once!
Posted by Cindy on November 26, 2008
I had intended to be completely finished with this unit before Thanksgiving. Although we’ve completed the study of the war and all the projects going along with it, I decided to spend another week or so on what I’m calling American Pride. We’ll be learning about the Constitution, Bill of Rights, our flag, National Anthem and various American symbols, as well as some of the rights and obligations we have as citizens of the United States.
But for now, I thought I’d go ahead and share what made up the bulk of the American Revolution unit study.
We read and listened to many, many books – picture books, chapter books and books on tape. Some of our favorites were:
Johnny Tremain
Sarah Bishop
Ben and Me: An Astonishing Life of Benjamin Franklin by His Good Mouse Amos
George Washington’s Socks
Benjamin Franklin
Katie’s Trunk
Yankee Doodle
If You Lived At The Time Of The American Revolution (If You.)
Paul Revere’s Ride
The Fourth of July Story
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
The Matchlock Gun
Below is a wonderful book my husband bought from the HSLDA table at our homeschool convention a couple of years ago. I highly recommend it!
The America’s Heritage: An Adventure in Liberty curriculum had many nice lessons for things such as the Declaration of Independence, George Washington, John Hancock, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. I think you can order a FREE CD-ROM of the lessons by going to their site!
By the end of the unit, I assigned each of the children projects to complete. Even though I already do end-of-unit projects with my children, the lovely samples on Learning Through Living’s blog have inspired me even further. After talking with her via email, she reminded me of the use of rubrics. Essentially, a rubric is a “What Is Expected” and “How You Will Be Graded” chart that lays out the exact expectations you have of your children and what it will take to get an acceptable score.
Mahayla’s final project had to include an Easy File Folder Reports
biography of a notable figure from the war, some sort of presentation about a famous battle during the war, and a complete time line of important revolutionary dates.
Here’s what she came up with. 
A file folder biography about Molly Pitcher.
An oral report about the Battles of Lexington and Concord, complete with maps and a model of the battle.
She even decided to make a little flip book of her battle.
And a time line three legal pages long!
Caleb’s assignment had to include a file folder biography and a presentation of a famous battle. Here’s what he came up with.
A file folder biography of George Washington.
And a reenactment of George Washington and his troops crossing the Delaware River to battle the Hessian soldiers, complete with Daddy as Washington’s horse!
Here are two more pictures of the file folder biographies – the title page and a not-so-great close-up of the little clay figures they made.
I promise, if you give your children a little guidance and a lot of freedom, you’ll be amazed at the results!
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Posted by Cindy on November 21, 2008
We take part in a Book of the Month Club (which is actually a book every two months) that met last week to discuss The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. My children loved this book!
Mrs. Lisa had prepared some very fun activities to go along with the invention – drama – secrecy theme of the book.
Invisible ink messages.
Mask making.
Candy and toothpick inventions.
Next up – The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois!
Posted by Cindy on November 19, 2008
We continued studying Winslow Homer this week during art. Using this Winslow Homer online lesson, we took special note of the water prints. The kids tried their hand at creating a water landscape and practicing perspective with an up close boat and far away island.
Continuing our study of Hayden, we used parts of this Classics For Kids lesson plan. The rhythm section was particularly helpful for my 3rd grader who is just beginning to start piano and music theory lessons.
And finally, to round out our Fine Arts Tuesday, nature study focused on clouds. We had a snow system that was moving out and new clouds moving in. Observing the various types of clouds in the sky was fascinating. We used this cloud website and this wind speed chart to help fill out Cloud Detective pages from Considering God’s Creation. The kids took a few minutes to sketch some of the clouds we observed on the back of the notebooking page, too.
What are you doing for nature study now that the weather is getting cold??
Posted by Cindy on November 18, 2008
I was so blessed to visit with Melissa and her homeschool co-op this past Friday. They have a WONDERFUL group of ladies who meet together in the Mom’s Oasis and the co-op is full of rich and interesting classes for the kids.
I had the pleasure of speaking about homeschooling during the busy holiday season. We talked about relaxing the “regular” school schedule a bit, while creating unforgetable memories AND including the Christmas chores (Christmas cards, baking, party planning, etc.) as part of school time.
For the ladies who are looking for the links I passed along on Friday: I think I finally organized my previous Christmas posts so that you can find all the Bible, unit studies, literature, math, science and such lessons. You probably won’t be able to find them under the links I gave you on Friday. Instead, if you’ll just click on the “Christmas” link in the far sidebar, you should be able to find what you are looking for. Please let me know if you have any questions or problems!
Happy Christmas planning!
