New Years

I'm looking forward to another exciting year. My "New Years Resolution" is to blog more. Even if no one reads these it's a nice way to keep track of our ever changing lives :)

Even thought the school year starts in September I think January is when I finally get the kinks worked out. I've had all Christmas break to reflect on what has been working well and what hasn't. I'm making three big changes. One: Global Studies gets scaled down. Still one country a day but not reading as much about each country. Two: Science will take a break from the text book and focus on a unit study about the Amazon Rain Forest. While learning about South America it was obvious Charry was most interested in the animals there. Three: Literature, I realized I had focused so much on reading that now Charry is reading but I didn't know what she needed to read. Thanks to the internet I found discussion questions, activities and quizzes to go with age appropriate books.

Happy New Year

China

In honor of Chinese New Year we spent the month studying China. We found some great books at the library and a few sites online. The girls especially enjoyed getting dressed in red for Chinese New Year. We didn't make it to the Children's Museum because of colds, but we managed to have fun.

I also decided to let Charry make a report, orally since she doesn't write much yet (she's only five). So I got out my camera and the world map, called her over and started filming. "So where is China?" I ask. "I don't know," she answers looking at the map as though she had never seen it before. But in the end she did really learn a lot. (And I let her decide on the title and credit colors and words. I'm glad I got a mention)

Diorama

Before the winter break I had to spend a week working, which meant my husband got to spend the week teaching. While I was laying out worksheets and books I started thinking about when I was a student. Over the breaks we always had to take home some project for our parents to help us with. I thought how unfair this was on the parents.

They had no idea what the teacher actually wanted and besides they were busy. Home school parents rarely get to experience this. We always know what the teacher wants because we are the teacher. But for one week my husband got to be the confused parent.

I assigned a diorama. After explaining what that was I left them to it. We all learned something that we. My daughter learned how to make a model and use it to explain a story. My husband learned how much work it took to homeschool (before he just knew how much money). And I learned that having a substitute teacher is just as hard as teaching yourself. I think we all had fun too.Here is the finished diorama.

It's a space ship. They read a Star Wars book together and her favorite thing in it was the Millennium Falcon. And yes her daddy is very proud.

Charry and Daddy both very proud of their accomplishment.