Open House

I haven't posted a weekly report in ages and have been overwhelmed with the thought of catching up. So this post isn't meant to cover EVERYTHING that we've learned since Week 11 (we are currently in week 19, but merely to give a sampling of some of what we've accomplished and discovered in the past couple of months.

In math, Kimball is still working on his multiplication tables. We've learned about perfect squares and square roots. He's currently working on a line graph comparing the daily low temperatures in Albany, NY and Sacramento, CA. Henry has been working on comparing numbers on graphs, figuring out how many more and how many less, and has mastered his doubles plus one facts. Both boys are on track to finish Saxon Math in about 12 weeks. We'll have a little celebration and start the next level. I'm hoping to do some math through the summer so they don't lose their skills, but with a new baby coming in July, we'll see how that turns out.

Ian and I have been doing math regularly, but taking it a bit more slowly. He and I have really been focusing in the past two weeks on numerical order and on recognizing the numbers between 6 and 10. We have also been counting backwards from 10 to blast off, which he enjoys. We spent a week doing the same lesson each day, just so that I was sure he was solid on the principles. I'm just trying to establish fundamentals with him at this point--if he were going to public school, he'd still have almost 2 years until I sent him (as he has a late fall birthday). That is one of the perks that I see with homeschooling him--I can help him learn in the areas where he's ready without holding him back until he's mature enough for public school kindergarten.

In history, we finished up the ancient Greeks before Christmas, as well as learning about Alexander the Great and his empire. We spent the first couple of weeks after the New Year learning about the Etruscans. I was a docent at the BYU MOA the first year it was opened, when it featured an exhibit from the Vatican about the Etruscans. I will admit that my memories are more broad than specific about the people, but my mom had acquired a teacher curriculum that the museum published then, which we had lots of fun with. We made dioramas of an Etruscan home, studied the Etruscan alphabet (Kimball loves and alphabet), and pored over Etruscan art. Last week we made an Etruscan-style family portrait. (Henry's has a knight and princess theme, not quite true to the period, but I allowed the artistic license.)

This week, we move on to the Romans, whom we will study for several weeks. We hope to take a trip to the Getty Villa this spring to see some of the antiquities there.

In Russian, everyone has been making progress. The boys have learned numbers to ten, colors, and the names of family members (father, mother, baby, grandma, etc.) Their sentences are getting more complex, and I am impressed at how intuitively the kids seem to know what they mean. I am really pleased with the Rosetta Stone program. Kimball got a pocket Russian-English dictionary for Christmas, and Henry got this book, which Jared & I had so much fun looking through before we wrapped it up. (If Usborne offers this book in the language that you are studying, I highly recommend it. Check out Sonja's bookstore to find out.) We also had an unexpected Russian visitor this month. Jared & I recently got on facebook and have discovered many of our Russian friends there. One of them contacted us to say that her 21 year old son was visiting San Francisco and wondered if he could come for a visit. So he caught the train to see us and came for dinner and the evening, then took the train back the next day. So the boys got to try out their language skills on a native!

We've been trying to work in more memorization and have learned some poems and scriptures. We are currently working on Alma 37:35 "Oh, remember my son, and learn wisdom in thy youth. Yeah, learn in thy youth to keep the commandments of God." We have also tried copywork again--still not the boys' favorite, but I'm aiming for once a week right now, copying the scripture or poem we are working on.

In December, Henry was lamenting that they had done more fun holiday activities in public school last year, so we decided to up it a bit. The boys created their own Christmas ornaments for a small tree in their bedroom, we decorated gingerbread houses (thanks, Grammy & Papa!),

and hosted a cousins' Christmas party where we did an art project and decorated cookies.

We also learned Silent Night in Russian. We also learned about Hannukah and spent one evening eating traditional Hannukah foods, playing with a dreidle, and (not) lighting the menorah--as I forgot to get candles to fit in the one I bought in Jerusalem.

In reading, Henry has been reading the Flat Stanley books. Kimball has read a slew of books, including all of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books in a matter of hours, which a friend loaned him. Those books have spawned a whole series of knock-offs by Kimball and Henry, as well as lots of conversations about why it's not nice or funny to put people down. Why is it that so many books written for young boys involve put-downs? Every time I buckle and let them read a book that is popular in their age group, I regret it. Kimball is reading and loving The Black Stallion at the moment, which is a much better choice in my mind. They've also read a lot of books about Greece, wildfires, polar animals (again), and all the Christmas books I keep under the tree in December. I have accumulated around 40 0r 50 Christmas children's books that only come out after Thanksgiving. I love watching them lay on their bellies around the tree, rediscovering old favorites.

I also tried to focus on service more in December. We chose a needy family and shopped for Christmas gifts and a tree for them, then delivered it as a family. We made cinnamon rolls for all of our neighbors and some other families.

I was touched to see them empty their spending money banks to buy Christmas gifts for each other, and each one spent a lot of time and thought choosing what they would give each other.

Jared just finished reading The Princess Bride to them at bedtime, and we have been listening to Little House on the Prarie in the car. I am also trying to make sure that the little ones hear me read aloud books a few times a day. Trips to the library keep me from getting tired of reading the same things over and over.

The kids have been helping me in the kitchen more, have acquired a new nightly chore of clearing the table and loading the dishwasher, and we all worked to prepare our garden bed for planting a couple of weeks ago. If the rain will let up for long enough, we are anxious to plant lettuce, spinach, cauliflower, broccoli, and peas.

Science really hasn't been happening regularly, but they have had a couple of lessons using Kimball's new microscope. We are planning on participating in The Great Backyard Bird Count next month.

There is more, but I'm out of time now, and this at least gives some record of what we've accomplished. I'll try to post more often, but I'm not making any promises.

What They Did Today Instead of Math

I really intended to have our individual math lessons today. Really, I did. But we decided to do history first this morning and had so much fun with it. Then, after Henry went to speech, we went to the park because you never know how long this 65 degree weather will last. When we got home, I put Bronwen down for a nap and sat down to check my email, telling the kids that we'd start math in 10 minutes. But they have been so busy being creative and brilliant that I haven't wanted to interfere. So, instead, I have spent the past hour and a half online (gulp--where does the time go?) and they have built a "habitat" for Henry's plastic lizard

and then discovered some dinosaur bones in the backyard.

Warning: you may need a dramamine before you watch this. We haven't studied cinematography quite yet, and this was filmed by our students.

I guess it's not too late for math to happen. We are heading out for a walk next because we all need some exercise and did I mention how gorgeous the weather is? But I'll commit now that they will at least do some math worksheets before the day is over. In the meantime, I am remembering how much learning takes place away from the dining room table.

Still Homeschooling

I haven't posted in forever and this is not going to be an update either, except to let you know that we are still having school 5 days a week. I promise that my children are not as neglected as this blog is. I plan to do a little bloggy Open House soon that updates what we've been learning, but I just don't want to take the time right now (or in the past six weeks, apparently!) I know that I need to do report and feel some accountability, but I am telling myself that the actual learning is more important than reporting it.

This sounds so lame that it makes me sigh and think that I really need to get a report written soon. Leave me a comment if you still care!:)

Reporting on Weeks 8,9, and 10

We have been seriously busy lately, plus not feeling very motivated to do weekly reports (can you tell?) But I wanted to check in and say that we HAVE BEEN LEARNING around here.

In math, we have been cruising along, doing four to five lessons in Saxon each week (except for last week, when I think we did one lesson. Between the election and election burn out last week, our math program slipped a little.) Henry is starting to multiply by twos, which is so exciting for him. Kimball has learned about cartography, liquid measurements, and other scientific applications of math, as well as strengthening his skills at multiplying by 7s, a number that remains a bit challenging. I really need to find something that he can just memorize, some sort of visual chart. If only it had letters or words as well--he is so drawn to letters, whereas numbers seem to bore him. Ian has made pictographs and has moved up to ABB patterns. He loves our daily calendar that he works on in his meeting book.

We learned the letters G and H, then last week we reviewed all of the letters we've learned so far. It was especially fun to include Halloween themes in our letter of the week--using words like "ghost", "goblin", "haunted house," etc as we learned the sounds of the letters.


In history, we have been studying the Greeks. We have decorated vases (if you look carefully, each picture on the vase tells a story from mythology or the Odyssey), writing our names in Greek, reading about the gods and goddesses, learning about the different cultures of Sparta and Athens (we think we would have rather lived in Athens), and holding our own Olympics. We had a Greek dinner one night of homemade pita, herbed pork chops, tzasiki sauce, feta cheese, hummus, and baklava for dessert. Kimball has started transliterating everything into Greek (that kid loves a code) and they all want to know when we can start studying Greek as well as Russian. Some books that we've enjoyed have been:

In Russian, the kids have learned new words for colors, numbers, articles of clothing, and other shopping vocabulary. The sentences they use and translate are becoming more complex. I am really proud of how well they are doing. Kimball loves it most (did I mention he loves a code?) but Henry and Ian are really catching on as well, and Bronwen has picked up a few words from our conversations. When she sees me get the headphones out that we use with Rosetta Stone, she jumps up and down and yells, "Russian! Russian!"

In terms of read alouds, Jared has been reading The Princess Bride to them, which they are really loving. In addition, we have read lots of picture books (as usual). Two library books that Ian has picked a lot lately are
and

In week 7 we built a volcano, which we later painted and then erupted on Science Friday. Other science lessons have included blasting off a rocket (using the same principle as the eruption--an acid/base reaction,) and the sad lesson we learned that when you carve your jack-o-lanterns on Monday night, they will probably be caved in with mold by Friday morning, the day of your Halloween party. There was a bit of weeping and wailing around here when that lesson was learned. Oops.

We were very involved in the proposition on the ballot in CA to protect marriage. You can read my other blog for an account of the rally we attended together. We had lots of conversations in the month leading up to the election about the family, about tolerating those whose views were different (but that tolerate does not have to mean agree with), about the way democracy works, etc. The week before the election we could hardly leave the house without coming across street corners, congested with sign wavers in support or opposition to the amendment to our state's constitution. The day before the election, while I was busy arranging for people to help us knock doors and make phone calls to get out the vote the next day, Kimball and Henry took their homemade signs out to our front yard (we live on a corner) and waved them for a good half hour at the passing cars. I was proud of their determination to help Prop 8 pass. Even Bronwen got involved and chanted "Yes on 8" any time she heard it mentioned in conversations!


You can read here about our Halloween party. Nana helped Kimball and Henry turn their bedroom into an Egyptian tomb for the night. Kimball took great care to get the hieroglyphics completely accurate, and explained to all who "toured the tomb" each of the Egyptian gods depicted in the paintings.
Besides all of these things, we also threw a birthday party for Ian, kept up with soccer and tae kwon do, went to the library, participated in Cub Scouts, wrote in journals religiously, practiced the piano, studied the scriptures individually and as a family, prepared for our ward's Primary program (where the children share with the church congregation the things they have learned this year in their classes), and much more. I always hate ending these posts because an hour later I think of four more things we did, but it's just going to have to be good enough!

I just want to say how grateful I am to be homeschooling. It is demanding. It requires more patience than I have some days. It does not leave me much free time. My house is never as clean as it used to be. But it is so rewarding. I love learning with my boys. I love teaching them things and seeing their eyes light up with excitement. I love that we get to spend so much time together, where other families have to spend so much time apart. I love that I can teach them secular things with a gospel perspective, in an environment where the Holy Ghost can enrich our learning. And I am so grateful to feel the Lord guiding me and helping me figure this out as we go along.

Weekly Report #7

Another week has passed and here I am on Tuesday, writing a report, which will surely be too brief and not have nearly as many pictures as I had planned. But at least I'll record what we accomplished, as I rely on this for much of my record keeping.

Our highlight this week was history (as usual.) We studied the Minoans as we prepare to start Ancient Greece next week. We learned about their shipbuilding, their love of arena sport (specifically bull jumping,) and about King Minos and the Minotaur. We built a labyrinth out of blocks, created our own mazes on paper, colored bull jumpers, wrote about Theseus conquering the Minotaur, and built a volcano. We had planned to paint it and make it erupt on Friday during science, but I had neglected to allow for the clay to dry, which has taken about 5 days. So we'll be working on the volcano this week (yes, I still have a half-finished Egyptian death mask in my closet. But this time will be different!)

We also did four lessons each of Saxon Math, four lessons of grammar, and Russian five days. We learned about King Solomon. The boys were fascinated by the story about cutting the baby in half. We also talked about the temple and the importance of the temple today, as Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem. For a read aloud, Jared is reading Gulliver's Travels to the boys right now. I also read aloud lots of library books and otherwise to the three youngest. I continue to see Henry's abilities improve, which is so exciting.

For science, since the volcano wasn't ready, Jared taught about acids and bases and they shot off a rocket that uses baking soda and vinegar reaction to blast off.

Our letter of the week was F. We read all of the Froggy books (by Jonathan London) we own, which is a lot. On Wednesday at the park after speech, we ran "fast", threw the "football" and leap-"frogged" before we had "free" play. Ian consistently picking out previous letters of the week, and although he doesn't always name them properly, he always knows the sounds they make, which is more important.

We participated in Cub Scouts, soccer, tae kwon do, and piano lessons. We rode bikes, took a walk, and read lots of books. We went to the dentist, twice, and Henry got to have what the dentist called a "baby root canal." (I guess he got my family's teeth. Or eating habits.)

It was a good week, and a busy one, and I'm not going to spend anymore time this week posting about it!:)

Weekly Report-- Our Week Off

This week was our first scheduled break. I am so glad that I planned these in, because it was really nice for all of us to take a break. I had planned on keeping our same structure in the morning: Family Devotional, breakfast, get dressed, make beds, brush teeth, journal, personal scripture study and prayer, piano practice, etc.. However, these things only happened on a couple of days. The boys took turns feeling sick, having caught the cold that I'd had the week before. We had lazier mornings.

We made cupcakes and took them to the park to celebrate cousin Isaac's birthday.


We made bread and shared it with some people that we love.


We had some friends come over to play one morning to give their pregnant mommy a break.

We went to the library and picked out lots of new books.

We learned how to play Settlers of Catan. (It might still be a little early for this.)

We did some cleaning (but not nearly enough.)

We made invitations to Ian's birthday party and delivered them.


I also conquered the ironing pile that was threatening to take over my bedroom. I did my mom's taxes. I finished my book, Wives and Daughters, and started the Poisonwood Bible. I talked on the phone more than usual. I vacuumed in the middle of the week!:) I made whole wheat bread, banana bread, and dinner rolls. I attended an IEP for Henry's speech services. I took a nap.

Things I had meant to do this week and never got around to:

• Lesson plans for the next 6 weeks (oops!)
• Plant a fall garden
• Wash all the windows in the house
• Decorate for Halloween
• Bake rolls and freeze them for an upcoming business event
• Go to lunch with some girlfriends
• Play soccer with the boys (since they didn't have soccer this week)
• Buy and wrap some Christmas gifts

I got up extra early this morning and got my lesson plans done for the coming week. I'm going to have to make time this week to get our plans done until Thanksgiving. But we had a great time being productive and being lazy and being together. And we (especially the kids) were ready by the end of the week for the structure of school again!

Weekly Report #6

These past six weeks have gone by so quickly. I am really happy with what we've been able to accomplish and how we've been able to mostly keep to our lesson plans as scheduled. I am glad that I planned in pencil, though, as things have had to shift a little here and there. We are in a good routine and enjoying learning together. And we are looking forward to relaxing our schedule next week, taking the week "off", and preparing to jump back in the following week. I'm hoping that these one-week breaks that I've scheduled after six weeks of school will allow us to stay fresh and excited (and to get caught up on deep cleaning).

We studied the rise (again) of Babylon this week under Nebuchadnezzar. How is it that in all my life of reading and listening to Bible stories, I had never heard the story of Nebuchadnezzar's madness? The boys found it to be so fascinating. I was tempted to jump ahead in our Old Testament studies to Daniel, as he was king N's contemporary, but the boys already seemed to know that about him and I decided we'd just stick with our plan. They were so interested in the tale of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which King N built for his homesick Persian wife, and they were quite enthusiastic about drawing the gardens as they imagined them. We also looked in the Great Wonders book we got at the library, which spent a few pages speculating about what those gardens were like.

It's too bad they were completely destroyed. Looking at how powerful and beautiful Babylon was at that time, it caused me to reflect on the pattern of pride and destruction. Babylon wasn't just powerful and beautiful, the Bible also tells us that it was very wicked and that is the reason for it's eventual fall. As I look around the world we live in today, I see a few things that might be familiar to the ancient Babylonians and I wonder when our city walls will come crashing down. (I guess the stock market is an example of how they already are.)

Each of the boys did four math lessons this week. I only have 3 per week scheduled for Ian, but he loves doing it and feels slighted if he notices that we skip a day, so he did four this week as well. Kimball learned how to divide by 1 and 10, and continues to work on his 7s on the multiplication table. Does anyone know a good resource for memorizing those? A fun game or strategy to recommend?

We did two grammar lessons and then incorporated copywork. This was the first time we've done copywork since week 2. I just got tired of the boys fighting me on it. However, Kimball needs to be more proficient in cursive--it is still so much work for him. And Henry didn't learn how to form the letters properly and needs to be taught all over again. He draws his letters instead of writing, if that makes any sense. So in grammar, we talked about proper names and how each member of our family has three proper names. Their copywork for the week was to write out the names of everyone in our family in their best writing. They took great pains to do it and were interested in it. So maybe I just need to have them copy things that are interesting to them instead of things I want them to memorize.

Our letter of the week was E. We worked in our Letter of the Week Journal every day and read books about elephants, elves, and eels. Just when I was starting to think that none of this was really sinking in for Ian, this week he started pointing out when he recognized letters and telling me the sounds they make when I'm reading to him. Hurray!

For our read aloud, I read to them different stories from Tales of the Arabian Nights. We are all really enjoying them, although they are a bit brutal. We finished listening to A Little Princess in the car, and when we were making bread for some friends a few days later, Henry said, "This is something that Sarah would do." "In what way?" I asked. "She's always thinking about how she can make other people happy," he said. I was so glad that he was thinking about that.

Russian is coming along, albeit slowly. But they are interested in it and learning. I probably need to do more to use it beyond when we use the Rosetta Stone program. We've only done so inconsistently.

Henry's team actually won their first soccer game this week! Both he and Kimball did much better on the soccer field this week. We are still working with Kimball on being a good sport (he likes to trash talk the other team.) Tae Kwon Do is also going well--I think that I am the only one who is tired of it.

Kimball is reading Harriet the Spy, one of my favorite books as a kid. He doesn't seem to stick to one book, though. He reads a couple of chapters of one, then picks up another, then another all in the same day. I think he can't stand to have a book in his room that he hasn't read, so if there are library books there, no matter what the reading level, he feels compelled to read them.

Henry read library books aloud to me this week and is improving all the time. He still is not very content to read to himself for very long, so his comprehension probably needs more work.

For Science, Jared taught them about how televisions work (their request.) He said that he had to study and learn about it before he could teach it to them, since that's really not his area of expertise. But they all had fun and learned a lot. I'm still contemplating buying a real science curriculum instead of the grab-bag science lessons we've been doing. The good thing is that they are all engaged, interested, and learning about science with their dad. There's just not much order to it all.

We learned about King David this week. A big lesson that we can learn from David is that even the righteous can commit great sins if they start with small ones. David went from looking on a woman he shouldn't have, to lusting, to adultery, to murder. And then he spent the rest of his life repenting and sorrowing for what he had done, which could not be taken back. We talked about how the atonement is for all of us, even when we make such terrible choices as David did, but that those terrible choices still bring painful consequences. We can be made clean and worthy again through Christ, but he will not take away all the consequences of our actions.

Our Hymn of the Week was "Do What is Right". We were excited to hear it sung in General Conference this weekend. We also wrote in our journals and practiced the piano, but I dropped the ball on spelling.

All in all, it was a good week. And since I'm writing this days and days too late, it's hard to remember as many details as I'd like. I have got to start posting these sooner. Perhaps I need to start writing the post early in the week.