A Peak at Our Week: The One that Begun

Welcome Year 10!

In Our Homeschool This Week

On Wednesday, Jake woke up early (for him), nibbled a quick breakfast, grabbed his backpack and bagged lunch, and for the FIRST TIME EVER set off for public school with a friend. Not your TRADITIONAL public school, but a hands-on STEM charter high school without grades. And then Cati, Sam and I started our new year, right at the diningroom table.

So, How Did the Day Go?

6:15-7:30am Getting a Move On, Sort of

Jake and I got up and got moving at a snail's pace. I'd never consider us MORNING PEOPLE. Staying up late doesn't make the early hours appealing, but we'll adjust...eventually. I woke Cati and Sam before driving Jake 7 miles to meet up with a friend driving him to the school (which isn't nearby). 

7:30-9:00am Language Arts Block

I'm trying out a BLOCK SCHEDULE this year. Something new. Yeah, always tweaking. The kids started their new reading books, Bridge to Terabithia (Paterson) and Dinosaurs Before Dark (Pope Osborne), filled out a Who Am I worksheet (for their portfolios), started Grammar, and took their :groan: Spelling Power placement tests.

9:10-10:00am Math Block

I snagged a couple of Mind Bender books for FREE earlier this summer. Have you seen them? They're wonderful critical thinking puzzles. Anyway, we started Math with a "Bender Warm-up" and then plunged right into our text books, Saxon and Math-U-See.

10:00-10:25am Science Block...and a Shower

We're focusing on Life Science with notebooking and experiments this year. Cati is working out of a middle school Prentice Hall textbook and on-line website, and Sam will be doing Mr. Q's Life Science on-line free here. Cati took a shower and got dressed then did a few minutes of independent Science reading while Sam and I worked together on-line.

10:25-12:00n Band and Nibbles
We hopped into the van and headed off to the public middle school for Cati's first band practice. But while there, Sam and I got hungry so we drove to Subway, then back to the school for a picnic lunch on the grass. Cati ate her sandwich on the ride home, while reading her Language Arts book.

12:00-12:30pm Science Block Continued
We finished up our Science, notebooking information on the scientific method, and biotic and abiotic things.

12:30-1:15pm History Block, but Running out of Learning "Steam"

Looking for something video-based for U.S. History this year, I decided on the National Repository of Online Courses (NROC). Definitely for older students, we'll focus on just the videos and record people and events on our wall map from here, adding in Netflix documentaries and "America: Story of Us" videos (History Channel). It's a perfect, less focused way to end our school mornings.

1:15-4:30pm Free Time, Mostly
After chores, tidying up the livingroom - Ugh! Legos! - and catching up dishes, the kids biked and played with a friend that was in the neighborhood. And MAMA had some Facebook and Words with Friends time before vacuuming and sweeping and folding laundry and pondering what to make for dinner.

4:30-7:00pm Everyone's Day Wraps Up
I picked Jake up at his friend's house at 4:30pm. He was tired, but happy with his first day at B____. Today, the entire school went to a state park (with a BEAUTIFUL light house) and did team-building exercises. Not your typical public school!

I Rewarded By Kids This Week By

Having Chinese take-away to celebrate our first day back to school and going to Zeb's General Store for "penny" (i.e. QUARTER) candy!

7:00-10:00pm TV/Video Game Time and Off to Bed
After a productive, busy day, the kids and I settled down for SCREEN TIME before showers and climbing into bed. 6:15am will come much too soon again!

What about Fine Arts?
Did you notice that our schedule is "stream-lined" this year? and it didn't include fine arts? Oftentimes I over-schedule and over-complicate our day-to-day schooling. I have come to realize the VALUE in SIMPLICITY and allowing the kids more unscheduled learning and exploring time. I'm not ready to go UNSCHOOL though. :wink: Fine Arts will be accomplished on Fridays through a homeschool co-op starting in October. This Mama is concentrating on Core.

Our Favorite Thing This Week

Our FIRST Wellsummer hen egg! The "baby girls" are FINALLY laying! (Just in time too as 3 of our "old girls" are molting and have shut down egg production.) Just for comparison: L. to R. Pekin duck white egg, Ameraucana-Barred Rock hen pink egg and a Welsummer hen tan egg (which will get bigger as she lays more).

People and Places

On Tuesday we hopped into my friend's van with her and her kids and we headed to New Hampshire for some WATERFALL FUN. Diana's Baths is SUCH a cool spot to "hang out" and get wet! But the water is downright CHILLY!

And you know I would take my own photos too, right? LOL

As ALWAYS, linking up to these WONDERFUL blogs:

The Homeschool Mother's Journal: The One Where I'm Home Alone

IN MY LIFE

I'm not sure I like this 'home alone' stuff. :sniff: :sniff:

My kiddos wanted to spend more time with Grandpa and Nannie Lobster, so they packed up and went back with them after their visit here. They've been enjoying some SPOILING TIME while I've had "downtime".

I get that moms, especially single moms, NEED time away from the kids, and the kids NEED time away from mom, but I get bored...and a little lonely. I'm not one of those moms who wants time away from her kids that often. I enjoy them - their zaniness, messes and questions - even if they exhaust and challenge me too!

But it's TOO quiet when they're gone!

Yeah, quiet. :sigh: There ARE days when ALL I want is quiet for 5 minutes. How about you? But several days of JUST the fish tank bubbling in the livingroom - until I sold it to another homeschooling family - and the click of laptop keys and I need the TV on for "background noise".

I'll admit it..."Ricki", "Ellen" and "Judge Judy" kept me company some afternoons. That Judge Judy!

(Psst! Unfortunately I didn't take many photos this week to share.)

I'M GRATEFUL FOR

Family and friends who give of themselves, their time, energy, and even money, to my kiddos, and enrich their lives with new experiences and wonderful memories. Thank you!

THINGS I WORKED ON

Mostly I watched a UNIQUE selection of DVDs, read "beach books", worked in the garden, played with the animals, sold some curricula, and continued on with home improvement projects.

I moved on from DECLUTTERING/ORGANIZING to PAINTING. Our "leftover" paint cans caught my eye one day, so I looked through, found what colors we had, and started repainting some areas around the downstairs. We're looking cleaner and brighter!

And complained to Rosie, our Golden Retriever, about the mud. :sigh: With all the rain we've been having, parts of our yard, especially around the chicken coop, have turned into  slippery "mud bogs".

HOMESCHOOL HAPPENINGS

I attended a planning meeting for a new co-op. One of my goals for this upcoming year is for Cati and Sam to have OTHER INSTRUCTORS, VARIED LEARNING EXPERIENCES and TO MEET NEW FRIENDS. So, we'll see how things "pan out" with this new co-op.

HOMESCHOOL HELPS

Have you seen the website Teachers Pay Teachers? Well, I got this idea to click on the FREE button and then 3rd grade (for Sammy) and voila! download "mayham"! You should check it out! Lots and Lots of cute downloads!

MY FAVORITE THING

Chinese take-out...for the 4th of July. Happy Independence Day! BBQing or picnicking without the kids just seemed like too much work...and NO WAY am I brave enough to mingle with the CROWDS in-town for lake space!

IN THE KITCHEN

But what I DIDN'T do was cook much. Why bother for ONE PERSON, right? Well, OK, I cooked, but nothing exciting. :wink: I did spend QUITE a bit of time pinning crockpot SOUP recipes on Pinterest though. Do you have a recipe?

PEOPLE AND PLACES
• Walmart • Hannaford • Post Office • Library • Garage • Dollar Tree •

SOMETHING TO SHARE

As ALWAYS, linking up to these WONDERFUL blogs:

Summer Learning Inspired by Pinterest: Math Coordinates

I'm a "pinhead". 

Yeah, I love Pinterest and pinning and do it QUITE often. There ARE some really GREAT ideas out there just waiting to be pinned and used. Right? LOL

But I haven't been able to get to many during our school year. We're focused so much on our regular schoolwork and activities (and all those other gazillion "little things" that need doing each day) that EXTRAS get passed right on by. This summer I hope to change that. There are just too many AWESOME ideas and websites to be explored!

Math Coordinates!

Aren't you excited? LOL Actually I found LOTS of wonderful, interesting, hands-on, multi-sensory, and   delight-directed learning activities to help kids understand and use coordinates. 

The kids LOVED this video from Math Crush! Not only does it explain the history of coordinates and how to do them, but it also shows how it's used in EVERY DAY LIFE! And then we completed the review worksheet provided together. (Unfortunately the rest of the activities are by paid membership only. Boo hoo! I'm a frugal-minded homeschool Mama!)

 We practiced finding coordinates by playing Dice Tic-Tac-Toe from Education.com. Using a single quadrant grid, the Saplings rolled different colored dice to find a number for the x-axis (red di) and the y-axis (white di), and then marked their spots with a specific shape (i.e. circle and square). And when someone got 3 points in a row, they won. This was perfect for learning which line IS the x-axis and which is the y-axis and for plotting those points!

And then we were ready for something a bit harder! The Saplings completed coordinate puzzles from Math Aids. What's great about this site is that you can make puzzles with varying levels of difficulty! White Pine skipped right through to the Angry Bird character since he's more a pro at this stuff, but Sugar Maple and Balsam Fir completed medium and hard level puzzles.

Oh, and since parabolas were mentioned in the video and how video game designers use coordinates to create games, I let the kids PLAY Angry Birds. This got me MAJOR COOL MOM POINTS! We didn't get into the plotting of parabolas though. I think that was BEYOND the scope of our study! LOL

Math coordinates are also helpful when looking at maps and globes. So, I pulled out the Delorme and we used the key and coordinates to locate various places in Maine, and then we spun the globe around and learned about latitude and longitude. We made a simple manipulative to remember latitude and longitude and (x-axis and y-axis) inspired by Nauticus and practiced latitude and longitude on a world map from Eduplace.

Photo by Nauticus - Visit Website Link Above
For Activity

Coordinates are also very important for the Global Positioning System or GPS.

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a space-based satellite navigation system that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. It is maintained by the United States government and is freely accessible to anyone with a GPS receiver.

The GPS program provides critical capabilities to military, civil and commercial users around the world. In addition, GPS is the backbone for modernizing the global air traffic system. - Wikipedia

And for Geocaching! Ever been? Geocaching is a treasure search game using the GPS system and a handheld GPS receiver using COORDINATES posted by "cachers" at Geocaching websites. (Head over to this website to find out more.) Oftentimes these caches or small plastic or metal boxes are hidden in public parks or wooded areas and are nice hikes. It's ALWAYS exciting to find one, but sometimes disappointing when we simply CAN NOT locate it. We "unearthed" 3 new ones in our area for our coordinates study!

Cache #1 - Founders Cementary

Cache #2 - A Babbling Brook Along the
Path to the Cache by Lumberyard

Cache #2 - Hidden Here!

Cache #3 - Hidden here at the Fish Hatchery! We Fed Fish
Afterward

And we played Battleship! What better classical COORDINATES board game then this one, huh?

So, what fun Pinterest-inspired learning should we do next?!