simple science lesson

Charry was having trouble understanding why the tilt of the earth would cause the changing of seasons. And I was having trouble finding a way to explain it to her.

Until today! First I had her glue strips of yellow paper in a column along one side of her paper.

Then I had her color a paper plate to look like a globe, I added an equator and marked the north and south poles.

Then we put the "Earth" in the "sun light" and counted how many strips of light each half of the world would be getting.

Finally we tilted the "Earth" on its axis and saw how the amount of sun each half got changed. Having something concrete to count helped Charry to understand something that hadn't been making much sense.

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.

week two

This last week I was really glad I had made all my lesson plans ahead of time. It was my husband's first week going back to school and we all had other things on our minds. But thanks to the lesson plans I had made at the beginning of summer we were all set.
Having a pattern (bookwork, computer time, activity) has really helped me to stay on track. I've also learned it is a lot easier to simplify an overly ambitious plan than to add to a too easy plan.

Getting Started

I am a homeschool mom with two little girl, one is five the other is two and a half. This is my first official year homeschooling. For the past year or so my oldest has been doing workbook pages while her sister took naps. I was amazed how much she enjoyed sitting and learning. She is already reading basic words.



This year I'm trying to to be a bit more organized. I spent the summer putting together a basic outline for what to do each week. This blog is a way for me to share what works really well and what doesn't.

I'm in the middle of my first week and so far I've learned that even at two and a half a little sister knows when she is being left out. So I made a spot for her at the table, too.