Tag Archives: kindergarten homeschool

Homeschool

A wooden duck, a weepy Mommy and some pachyderm communication

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Our “Five in a Row” book this week was “Daniel’s Duck” by Clyde Robert Bulla. It’s a nice little story about a little boy who lives in the mountains and wants to learn woodcarving. It ends sort of abruptly, and Poppy wasn’t thrilled about that. She wanted to know what happened next, so we spent a little time on Monday imagining what might have happened after the book’s end.home/school In other “FIAR” news, we talked about how artists do what they do and about why the days are shorter in winter.

Poppy finished her handwriting book before Thanksgiving, so we’ve started doing copywork. I made several sheets for her to work on at the Zaner-Bloser web site. This week, I used lines from “Autumn Fires,” a list of our family members’ names, a quote from “Toy Story” and a line from one of her favorite songs. So far, she’s been excited in the mornings to see what the copywork sheet will be. She also memorized “Eletelphony” by Laura E. Richards this week (it’s a silly little poem), and we started reading “Betsy-Tacy” by Maud Hart Lovelace. I’d never read it before — in fact, I hadn’t ever heard of it until I was looking for chapter books for Poppy and I to read together. We read Chapter 8 on Friday, and I don’t want to hand out any spoilers here, but: I cried. On the bright side, I’ve now steeled myself against any more surprises in Lovelace’s cruel world.

What to know what other homeschoolers are doing? Here’s the Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. I’m linking up there, and lots of other homeschoolers have, too.

Homeschool, National Blog Posting Month

Maybe our homeschool needs more Selleck

NaBloPoMo 2010When I was in school, the days before a holiday break were not the most productive. I can’t remember how many teachers resorted to showing us “Quigley Down Under” in middle school. But I know I’ve seen it more times than I would’ve chosen to on my own.

We didn’t watch any Tom Selleck this week, but we did slack off quite a bit. I’d planned for next week to be a week off from school, but we took it so easy this week that I might have to change that. We didn’t have a “Five in a Row” book this week, and I didn’t have much planned beyond our regular stuff.

home/school

  • Poppy finished her handwriting book on Tuesday. I’m planning to start her on copywork using the poems she’s memorizing. But the printer’s out of ink, so I’m going to have to fix that before I can print the sheets to do that.
  • She’s still doing well with Rosetta Stone Spanish, but she asked this week if she could do it less frequently. She’s been doing a lesson every day. This week, she just did it on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We’ll probably stick to a schedule like that once we add our math and science curriculums.
  • We’re talking about Cheerfulness in our “Character Building for Families” study. I can’t say with 100 percent certainty that the lessons are helping all of Poppy’s character issues to fix themselves, but it has helped me to have something specific to say when she has a meltdown or is being generally rotten. Something other than “Stop that,” I mean.
  • Poppy memorized “We Thank Thee” by Ralph Waldo Emerson this week. This was the first poem that took her the full five days to memorize.
  • We finished “The Water Horse” this week. I finally looked up the summary of the movie, and it is so far removed from the book’s plot that I’m not going to put it on the Netflix list. I’m not sure what we’ll do for our next read-together.

    • Our next “Five in a Row” book is waiting at the library, but we won’t start on it next week. I’m guessing next week is going to look a lot like this week.

    What to know what other homeschoolers are doing? Here’s the Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. I’m linking up there, and lots of other homeschoolers have, too.

    Homeschool, National Blog Posting Month

    The study of cakes, cats and composers

    NaBloPoMo 2010This week’s “Five in a Row” book was “The Duchess Bakes a Cake,” about a bored duchess who bakes a ridiculous cake that’s so full of yeast it carries her up into the sky. Ridiculous, but Poppy thought it was pretty funny. We talked about feudal society (while Pete wore the knight costume he got for his birthday), alliteration and baking. We tried to make a tres leche cake, but something went amiss. It didn’t home/schoolabsorb all the milk and ended up looking like a cake that someone had spilled a cup of milk on. Rockford says he’ll eat it anyway, so I’m going to pour off the excess later today and let him try it for dessert.

    In that-which-we-do-every-week news:

  • Poppy is pages away from the end of her handwriting book. Happily, Zaner-Bloser has a great tool available for making your own copywork pages. I’m using lines from the poems she’s memorized, songs she likes and movies she loves.
  • Speaking of poems, this week’s was “The Cat of Cats” by William Brighty Rands, which naturally became “The Marsha of Marshas” or some such derivation.
  • We read chapters three through seven of “The Water-Horse,” and I still haven’t decided whether or not to put the movie on the Netflix queue. I’ll be googling at some point to find out how it stacks up to the book. Have you seen it? What do you think?
  • Once again, Poppy finished her BookIt challenge this month with weeks to spare. Her assignment for November was to read 100 pages. It’ll be 200 next month. I don’t want it to be insurmountable, but I’d like to find a number or a book that will actually take her through the whole month.

    • We did start something new this week. I’ve been thinking about doing composer studies for awhile now, but I don’t have much classical music on hand. But I was given an iTunes gift card for my birthday (thanks Chloe!), so I downloaded a Mozart compilation. On Monday we listened to the Classics for Kids “About Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart” podcast and then spent a little while actively listening to some of his works. We usually have music on in the background as we go about our day. This week, it was mostly Mozart. Pete enjoyed it even more than his sister did, even if he was disturbingly fixated on the composer’s fate. Nearly every time I turned it on, he’d walk into the room and say, “Is this Mozart? Mozart is dead.” At least it’s proof that he was paying attention to the podcast.