For Presidents Day-Week....

Today, before lunch....we made Hoe Cakes! Just like George Washington used to eat for breakfast!

People from that time period, used to cook these on the blades of their hoes. So, they say.

They're really easy to make! And, they're not the best...but it's fun to say you tried them... Here's the recipe!

GEORGE WASHINGTON'S HOECAKES!

After lunch, we headed to a local nature center and pretended to go exploring like Lewis and Clark!

Come along on our adventure...click here: OUR FICTITIOUS JOURNEY ALONG THE MISSOURI RIVER!

Wink, Charlotte!

Yesterday, we took advantage of the abnormally-good weather here in Michigan..the last day before winter revisits us...we met up with a couple of homeschool families, for a 4 mile hike. It was 50-ish and misty rain. Lots of mud. Lots of mom-talk and laughter, recipes, and book-talk. Just plain good fun.


The boys burned off some of their boy energy... I think they ran most of the way! There were a bazillion giggles. Tommie is in the back, AJ is in the middle and Jacob is leading the way! The great thing about homeschooling is... there is no teacher telling you not to throw snow balls..there is no teacher telling you to stay on the trail and there is no bus waiting to pull you away from your fun. There is no push and shove to see hundreds of dead fish like in the pictures below...and there is no one ignoring the kids questions...and no one telling them to be silent... best of all there is no competition...no raising your hand and shaking it and moaning, me-me... like you're having an epileptic seizure, no humiliation for asking a weak question. Indeed, Charlotte Mason would smile, wink and nod...I'm sure of it.

In one marshy area, there were tons of fish...big, little, really little and huge! All dead. It was amazing. Some, still frozen in the ice chunks. Others waiting to be had in the food chain. Today, we'll dig a little deeper and see why this happens. There's something to be said about seeing it first hand and seeing it in a science text.

and, the beat goes on. lad-di-da-di-da!

Twisted Education!

Hey friends... c'mon over to my new "only-homeschooling" blog! I'm still going to blog here daily (or close anyway)...but my new blog, Twisted Education is a place for me to share our unschooling, Charlotte Mason, eclectic days!

click here: TwISTed EdUCAtion!

I hope you like it...I still have a little tweeking to do!

Favorites!

Thirteen of my favorite websites for homeschooling, recipes and other fun things! just click on the light grey areas to take you to the site! 1. Favorite homeschool messege board.. loaded with tons of living book suggestions, nature ideas and no-nonsense homeschooling ideas! Most of the homeschoolers tend to be Catholic here...which I am not. I still find great ideas! 2. The History Channel! We use this channel a lot! You can also sign up for printable lesson plans...although I've never done that. 3. Free printable graphs, charts, forms, newspaper scavenger hunts and more! 88 altogether! 4. Create your own free printable graph! We LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this site! Tommie's math curriculum calls for a lot of graph making. We use this site and the graphs come out so professional!!! 5. Charlotte Mason language art suggestions! 6. Paper toys! 7. Belgium Spice Cookies! My favorite Christmas cookie, ever! Easy, too! 8. List of English Literature 9. Thrifty fun! A gazillion ideas for all things thrifty! 10. Easy soup recipes from England... most are freezable! I love the potato-leek soup recipe...although I add a heap of caraway seeds. 11. Organic Grocery Deals! 12. Panera Bread Black Bean Soup Recipe! oooooo-la-la!!! 13. The Crafty Crow! Quality homemade crafts for kids of all ages!

Monday Math!

WAIT!
Before you pitch your Sunday newspaper... turn it in to your Monday Math curriculum! There is so much math to be had inside those sale flyers! Especially with the 3 for $5. or Buy One Get One Free's. Truth is... I'm not totally sure my 5th grader, who is doing triple and quadrupal number long division, could mentally figure out how much 3 for $5. would be individually. Now deduct a double .50 coupon and how much would you save? I hate to admit it...but glad I homeschool, so I can back up and teach these basics. I think he'll really enjoy this too, ...since it steps way out of the box, from ordinary workbook pages. I'll be able to review it too, when we're out shopping.

Speaking of using the real thing with math concepts... instead of the drudgery of massive, meaningless looooooooong division problems that are just there-on a black-liined page...I thought it would make long division more real to print-off resturant bills/tabs and have yours truely add and divide them out for a party of 15 or 17, etc. However, can you see how distressed my forehead and mouth look on my picture? Rolling my eyes...I was unable to locate any free printable tabs. I may have to whip some up from scratch. Ugh, unless you know of a printable site?

UPDATE: Sat down with Tommie and the Sunday sale flyer and went over the 3 for $11. minus $1. in coupons... I'm glad I did. He needed to be guided and helped along. Not horribly...but still a new, hands-on concept. Plus, we did it all mentally. Without pencil and paper. Unschooling life skill. smile-wink-nod.

CHARLOTTE MASON ROCKS!

I wanted to show you a picture of our home...all decorated for Christmas! Don't look at my windows...they're not as clean as they should be! Can you see Tommie in the upstairs window..and can you see me waving in the doorway?





Gotcha! NOT TRUE!....

This week and into the next, we'll be expanding on our unit of England! A few entries back, I explained a little of the fun we've had, learning about The Great Fire and The Great Plague. This week finds Tommie reading Mark Twain's classic, "The Prince and the Pauper."

It's a fantastic book for boys! I've been able to use the Charlotte Mason methods again.. with great success! Spelling, vocabulary, narration, dictation, handwriting and culture.

Our homeschooling was becoming too routine and too much like the movie Groundhog Day! This style saves a ton of time and wraps everything into one nice package, successfully- and with depth. Outside of the Charlotte
Mason basics, this week we actually took a vacation to England! I bought (at Goodwill $1.) a one-hour movie...where we toured all of England! It gave us a nice little overview of the entire country! I also had made a scavenger hunt, in which Tommie was taking a trip to Great Britain and had to locate and write: where the legend of The Loch Ness Monster lived, where shipbuilding takes place, The White Cliffs of Dover, abandoned tin mines, Liverpool, The Cotswalds, and much more! I was given a very old book with a map that highlighted all the popular spots...this is where I pulled my information from. It was great for map work, too! Today, using the same old reference book, he had to figure out which countries speak English... South Africa, India, Indonisia, etc. Another thing which was quick and effective was a very small lesson on Shakespere. Who he was, what did he do, when was he born, research and make a theater program of his most famous plays: comedy, historical and tradgedies. The movie gave a good look at his home and talked a little about Anne Hathaway, so that was a bonus! At this point, I'm not sure he needs to know too much more about Shakespere... until high school!

Next week, we'll be visiting and touring this English style mansion...the one in the photo- that you thought was my house! It's open to the public and all decorated for Christmas... I think this will be a very warm experience and a nice finale for our unit and end to our December homeschooling! smile-wink-nod!

A HOMESCHOOL WEEK IN REVIEW....

Yesterday, we finished up our week long unit on The Great Fire of London 1666, The Great Plague of London 1665 and King Charles the 2nd. I homemade the unit. And, I use the pronoun, "we"... since my entire family of three- enjoyed it immensely.

I found the used children's book, "The Great Fire," at Goodwill for a quarter. As I had hoped... I was able to use it the Charlotte Mason way... with dictation, narration, silent reading, 30 new spelling words, grammar, 6 new vocabulary words, history, and Internet research (not very CM- but kids today, do need computer skills).

My intent here, is not to sound braggy.. believe me when I tell you...my son is far from being a kid-prodigy... but, rather to give you a glimpse of how successful the Charlotte Mason method can be...if the workbooks and all other methods and curriculum's fail or if you were just spinning your wheels with homeschooling and feeling unfulfilled- like I was. Yes. I was.

Here are a few facts we used in this unit...I thought they were worth sharing:

*The fire started in a bakery on Pudding Street. King Charles' baker's maid forgot to put out the fire in the ovens. She died-trying to put out the fire.

*Many people fled in boats down the Thames River.

*Only 5 people died.

*The lead from St. Paul's Cathedral melted and the people watched it flow down the street. (See picture above).

*The Great Fire destroyed The Great Plague and sanitized the narrow streets of London.

*The Great Plague was caused by all the garbage and human waste, which people put in the streets..rats would get into it..they'd have fleas and infect the people. Some rats would burrow into the thatched roofs of people's homes and infect them that way!

*King Charles the 2nd fled to the countryside-where The Plague was non-existent.

*And, whoa that King Charles... he was one wild-hustling dude. (No, I didn't discuss this with Tommie), but he had 17 or was it 13, illegitimate children. I found this on the internet... keep it in your spandex tights King Charles!


I also found a much more kid-friendly website where Tommie wrote his own (short) on-line/printable mini book...it was unlike anything he had ever done and was a really good experience... click here if you're interested: really good!

Lastly, I used this website for my own use- to teach Tommie about the unit... click here if you're interested in learning more.

Next week, we'll be starting Mark Twains, "The Prince and the Pauper." It wil unfold nicely with what we learned this week.

smile-wink-nod.

OUR WEEK IN REVIEW......

Today, we'll be wrapping up our four-day Charlotte Mason-UNsChooLing unit on the Tropical Rain Forest by Jean Craighead George that I "homemade!" I am very happy to be finishing this up.. it was a fun adventure- where we tapped into new and unexplored areas! But, I am more excited about our next unit....stay tuned!

If you're interested in some of the topics or ideas or websites, that I used this past week.. take a peek:

I only gave .25 cents for this book...so I decided to use it as a "living workbook!" A cheap living workbook at that! One in which I wrote notes and required Tommie to circle 5 prepositional phrases on various page numbers, etc.

SPELLING: I pre-read the book and pulled out 45 spelling words that I knew he didn't know how to spell! I didn't give him all 45 at once, I broke them down into different days and used them the Spelling Power way. Today, he'll have a test on all 45 words. I also had him write them in sentences, add suffixes, prefixes, plural and talked about the parts of speech. This seems like a great accomplishment...45 words in one week... it is in fact, but let me remind you he is behind in spelling...so this is helping out tremendously with playing catch up!

READING COMP: I required him to use narration.

HANDWRITING, LANGUAGE ARTS and SPELLING: I did dictation with him...and I made mental notes of which words he struggled with.

GEOGRAPHY: Map of Venezuela, flag, Orinico River, review of Tropic of Capricorn and Cancer, longitude/latitude and read about products grown in Venezuela.

SCIENCE: Learned about several different animals: sloths, flying fox bats, mccaws, termites...and the worlds largest flower- it only has 5 petals!

I made a homemade scavenger hunt, I call this "internet research" (on paper) using this site and today we'll wrap things up by learning about the bibliography in the back of the book I made a scavenger hunt up for that as well. And, he'll be visiting this site to pretend he works in eco-tourism!

The thing I love about the CM method is not only does it reinforce the story, spelling words, science and geography, it frees up a lot of time to explore other things in life.... or math! (which is long division...and tons of it! and is way to time-consuming) ugh!

I have plans for us to make banana creme cookies, today as well! But, with 4 inches of fresh wet snow...I may be the one baking them while my boy rolls around in the snow! smile-wink-nod!

CHARLOTTE MASON methods! They work well for us!

Way back when... when I first explored the different methods of homeschooling, I fell in love with Charlotte Mason's theory! I'm not sure what happened? I loved it...but I never followed through very well.



Except with nature studies and birdwatching... Anna Comstock's Nature Guide is like an old friend in our home. One we take for granted way too often.

And, we thoroughly enjoyed Five in a Row... we have a few more books to wrap up before we bid our final farewell.

We've used living books for history and read-alouds..and we've done a few major artist studies.

I look at all the workbooks and mass-produced curriculum, that I've picked up along the way...thinking "this will be just the ticket to launch TOMMIE into the kid-prodigy he is"... (sarcastic slant!). It never happened.

Truth is, he's not a good speller at all. And, as I've told you in the past... those black-lined workbook pages or colored for that matter....zap every ounce of passion for learning out of him that he has! This is not how I intended our homeschool journey to be. When he watches me pull Spelling Power out... he slithers down in his chair and disappears under the kitchen table. don't laugh.. it's true.



I thought there should be a better way. A more efficient use of our time. A plan that would roll things together more effectively, efficiently and mostly use the time we have to make better memories, while subtly reinforcing different subjects.

That's when I remembered Charlotte Mason's dictation. That's when I remembered attending the Charlotte Mason conference and feverishly taking notes on pulling spelling words and narration/reading comprehension from the classics or living books.

For the past week..I've implemented this into our homeschool. And, it's working out beautifully! Our pastor talked about Martin Luther a couple of weeks ago.. I found the story to be amazing! While scanning the living books at our local library..I found a beautiful book to use! One that I can understand! smile-wink-nod!

Believe me when I tell you, I'm not bragging. My intent is just to share a success story and how to make your homeschooling a little richer. A tongue in cheek moment, where you silently say to yourself, "dang, this does work!".... or "why didn't I do this sooner?"

By switching to the Charlotte Mason method, in just one week, Tommie has learned and mastered 49 yes forty-nine new spelling words! And, in one day he learned 14 Greek words (with a cheesy homemade file folder game I made...so bad I couldn't bare to take a snap of it!). With those 49 spelling words (which I use like Spelling Power's ideas), I've had him make them plural, divide them, write them in sentences, alphabetize them and add prefixes and suffixes. I've easily woven in applied math and geography, as well. And, the whole dictation thing is phenominal! His handwriting has improved! exhale!

If you use the CM method, I'd love to hear about your success stories... please share in my comments!

P.S. We will continue with Horizons Math 5 (a mass-produced curriculum), since it is working out swell for us.