Our curriculum-fair splurge: One big timeline of history

I went to today's curriculum fair, held by our local homeschool association, in part just to be nosey. I want to know what other homeschoolers are doing. If nothing else, I wanted to look at some of the materials and go, "Nope, that's not for us; we're doing the right thing."  Today turned out to be much more than that - in a good way.

We were blessed to be joined by some good friends of ours whose daughter is also taught at home. (This is the same wonderful gal who was Sarah's sleepover guest recently.) It was just great to get to talk with them and have the girls EXCITED about learning. They stood still and listened to a man from our local historical society talk about Colonial times for, seriously, 20 minutes. That's big for our ADHD Ladies! :)

The girls learned from him about wampum, furs (which they much would have preferred to keep as pets!), writing with feathers and ink, how our county was important during the Revolutionary War, and a bunch of other stuff. (I'm not even sure WHAT stuff, because I was in the background chatting.)

We did sneak a peek at some of the packaged curriculum, but the prices alone were enough to send our two families (both on what I affectionately call the low-budget homeschooling plan, AKA "we have internet, and we have the library") packing for the used-curriculum area.

I can't believe it, but we found, for a grand total of about $4, three other books in the same Abeka series as Sarah's absolute favorite book, "Understanding God's World." We are now the proud owners of "Enjoying God's World," "Exploring God's World" and "Investigating God's World" as well. I think it's safe to save we've got God's world covered. (We spent about an hour tonight reading from "Investigating," the most advanced of the set.) For people who aren't "textbook people," we sure own a lot of science books now. Hey, if Sarah wants to learn it, I'm all for it.

Other odds-and-ends purchases included a biography of Martin Luther King Jr.; a book called "Your Rugged Constitution," a lovely 1952 paperback explaining what, exactly, all that stuff in our Constitution means; a pretty cool book of themed word searches with facts about each puzzle's topic included; a book called "Understanding Geography" and another called "Great Map Mysteries," which the woman selling highly recommended to Sarah, as it works detective stories into reading maps; and another Abeka text called "Our America," which is a history and geography basic overview. Oh, and "The National Geographic Traveler's Map of Italy," and a little pamphlet-sized book from 1985 called "The President." Grand total on all that was, maybe, $10 or $15.

The splurge was TOTALLY unexpected. Sarah does like history, but she has NEVER been much for dates. I think it wasn't until this year that she picked up on "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." So when she goes, "MOM! Look at that, it's a huge blank timeline!!" Insert me going, "What??" Indeed, it was, as described, a huge blank timeline. Much like the ones I'd seen in some of the curriculum catalogs, and had thought, "Oh, good grief, we'd never keep up with that, and where would we even put it, and wouldn't Sarah hate it if I made her do that?"

Well. After some negotiation, I am pleased to report that for somewhere in the range of $8 to $10, we are now ALSO the proud owners of the laminated Mark-It Timeline of History, which is now proudly taking up most of the door to my basement. In biggest news, it is no longer blank, because Sarah spent FOUR HOURS tonight filling in her choice of what ended up being 28 events from 4000 BC to present. Why four hours? Well...

 To this point, we have:

• 4000 BC: God created the earth we live on today (this led to a discussion about the way we believe the Biblical account of creation to fit in with the "old earth" philosophy, etc.)
• 2166 BC: Abraham was born
• 2156 BC: Sarah was born (we did a LOT of research to figure this out; being my Sarah's namesake, it seemed important!)
• 2066 BC: Isaac was born
• 1526 BC: Moses was born
• 1445 BC: Ten Commandments written (Sarah wanted to know how long ago that was, so I then helped her figure out that the Ten Commandments are about 3,457 years old)
• 1 AD: Jesus was born
• 100 AD: The wheelbarrow appears in China (which led to a discussion later using a map and globe about how the wheelbarrow eventually came to North America, via China to India to Britain to the colonies)
• 300 AD: Mayan civilization at its high point
• 419 AD: Attila the Hun was born
• 787 AD: First known Viking raid (more on Vikings to come tomorrow, from another Chris-and-Sarah project)

• 1000 AD: Mountain lions roamed North America
• 1452 AD: Leonardo da Vinci was born
• 1485 AD: Da Vinci makes Vitruvian Man drawing (this led to an explanation on my part on what the Vitruvian Man is - a measure of ideal proportions - and to illustrate, we got out the tape measure and measured each other to see if we meet the "perfect" proportions - the same from fingertip to fingertip as from head to toe)
• 1492 AD: Columbus sailed the ocean blue
• 1542 AD: Kingdom of Ireland formed
• 1550 AD: Bison came to North America
• 1600 AD: Mitts (polydactyl cat) first found in North America (Mitts is OUR polydactyl cat, seen at the bottom of this post, and Sarah wanted to clearly reflect him on our timeline)
• 1680 AD: Blackbeard the pirate was born
• 1776 AD: The Declaration of Independence was signed
• 1788 AD: Australia was founded
• 1853 AD: Vincent van Gogh was born
• 1888 AD: National Geographic was founded
• 1899 AD: First German Shepherds bred
• 1935 AD: My Mommom was born; Elvis Presley was born
• 1970 AD: My dad was born; winter white hamsters introduced
• 1982 AD: My mom was born
• 1992 AD: Golden doodles first recognized
• 2000 AD: I was born

Honestly? By the time it got to be about 11:30 p.m., MOM was the one too tired to continue. I think she'd have been at it another hour if I'd had the energy. As it is, I feel like we not only covered about a year's worth of history lessons, but we put them in more context than I ever remember from history classes. No, it's not an exhaustive look at the history of the world. But it took things Sarah already knew about or was interested in and put them in perspective, and I'm pretty sure she's going to want to keep filling it in as we go.

But now I need a nap.

Making robots out of recycling... and Legos!

We've been on a robot rampage in our house since early March. Reading about robots (nonfiction)... making Lego robots... drawing robots... looking up pictures of robots... brainstorming what we'd do if we HAD a robot... reading about robots (fiction)... and the list goes on.

This is a perfect example of why I'm convinced the best education for Sarah is (a) individual and (b) flexible. She had an interest, and when given the time and the freedom, she not only pursued it, she really owned the topic and all sorts of things that came with it. If someone had told her in December, "OK, we're going to study robots this week, and we're going to write a report about how robots are used," I guarantee she would remember nothing by now. But, as it stands, she's followed this interest for a full month, probably knows more than me about robots and how they work, and has had a good time doing it.

I'd mentioned the Lego robots (non-"functional" because we can't afford the $300 working robot kit from Lego) in an earlier post. The thing with these is, Sarah was very specific with each of them about where their sensors are, what they're used for, where they're effective, and all sorts of other details.

These are just a few of the smaller ones. She's got moon and Mars rovers and some other larger ones she designed up in her room, but they're not terribly portable for Mom's photo shoots. Of these, her favorite is the little monopod in the front center (we learned that monopod means "one foot"). She would tell you that the two in the middle row at right are from the same factory; you can tell by their round front sensors. Many of these are household robots - used for things like cleaning, amusing pets (so they're not lonely while you're at work), cooking and more. The one in the middle row at left has a trap door on the back; that's where it puts the litter it picks up.

Speaking of being environmentally friendly, Chris had found, a few weeks ago, a kit from a company called MAKEDO that gives you reusable connectors designed to help you turn your recyclables into things like dogs or robots. We'd been saving up boxes of various sizes, and Sarah bought a little bag of wheels and washers at our local Rescue Mission store for about 50 cents, so today we put those things together and made some recycled "friends."

Originally, she wanted to make all robots, but her creativity as she was putting some of the pieces together led her in other directions.

I had mentioned before that cars - especially race cars - are now an interest of Sarah's too. No surprise, then, that a car was the first MAKEDO creation she built. Those blue pieces are called "re-clips" and work kind of like reusable zip ties. They're made of nylon, too, again in keeping with the whole environmentally friendly thing. (Sarah LOVED that concept, so we talked a lot about it.) She liked using her wheels and washers from the Rescue Mission store, one of my Mary Kay boxes, and some of the stickers from the robot kit.

This guy is a bird. (Or an airplane. But probably a bird.) He's got the MAKEDO hinge pieces for wings and re-clips for feet and a beak. The re-clips are also holding on two large white washers for eyes. His body is a breadcrumb container.

This is a "monster." A friendly one, though. He's made from a Mary Kay box and a Silpada jewelry box (and a mouth cut from one of our spagetti boxes. His "eyebrows" and "mustache" were a completely great Sarah idea: Squeeze together the padding that was inside the box for the jewelry, and glue them on. She also figured out how to punch the eyes out, and how to fit the mouth in place where she wanted them.

This is some kind of tank or submarine with a periscope. (Or, as Sarah tried to describe it, "the military thing with the spy place on top.") Waffle box, another breadcrumb container, and the lid off a used-up can of spray paint. Two neat things here: First, the periscope piece spins all the way around, because of how we used the re-clip to attach it. And second, when we tried to punch a hole in the top of the spray-paint can lid, it punched it out too big, but Sarah was quick to say, "Oh, we can just put a washer there!"

The last creation was a simple one with some of our remaining parts - it's either a flower or a windmill (you can tell that Sarah likes to leave her options open!) That's the lid from the jewelry box the monster's head was made out of, and, you guessed it, a toilet-paper roll, attached by a re-clip.

Other than providing some help punching holes, I tried to completely stay "out" of the planning stages for these and just see where Sarah wanted to go.

She had a great time, though I fear I'm going to have to buy more of the MAKEDO kits because she's not going to want to take these apart to make more stuff, and we've used all our pieces. It's a shame I didn't know that BEFORE her birthday last weekend, but, hey, there's always Christmas.

A few other bits of random learning today:

• Sarah worked more on her Jimmie Johnson fan fiction story.
• Around 10:30 p.m., I was browsing through some free printable ideas and worksheets at Teachers Pay Teachers, just to see what's available, and Sarah looks over my shoulder and says, "Does that say the Declaration of Independence???!" as if I'd suddenly discovered the Holy Grail. We got an easy-to-read copy there, but she wanted to see what a signed copy looked like, so we found one of those and printed it out as well. Then, she found this website from ushistory.org, which lists the signers by state (as well as a ton of other stuff; very useful). THEN, Chris says, "Hey, Sarah, if you're interested in who signed it, I think I have a little book of all the people." Sure enough, he comes upstairs with a, like, 1950s booklet put out by Prudential Insurance, listing all the signers. (Benefits of having an ephemera hideout?!) Sarah sat and read from that - aloud - for about a half-hour, complete with phrases like "a special committee be appointed to draft a declaration dissolving allegiance with the mother country." I have a feeling we'll be hearing more on this topic tomorrow.
• Sarah and I took another walk around the former golf course; two miles in almost exactly an hour. We found a huge spread of wild-growing mint, which smelled great; examined the cattails and saw some fish and frogs around the pond (Sarah was able to come home and correctly identify the fish, which were bluegills.)

Tomorrow is our homeschool association's curriculum fair. I can't wait to meet some other local homeschoolers, but I go making this vow: I will not buy the shiny curriculum. Even if it's used and cheap. I can't promise I won't pick up books here and there, but I will strive to do so ONLY if they catch Sarah's interest. (Or, if, being a mom, I just can't resist thinking, "But I know she'll love that!")

As we browse, I'm going to try to remember today, and all the awesome things Sarah decided to discover on her own, and hopefully I'll walk out with only the things that will help meet that goal I mentioned earlier of individual and flexible learning! One of the things I've learned already is that those traits aren't a given in homeschooling. There are plenty of inflexible or "mass-market" homeschooling solutions out there, the same as there are in public or private school. I can't and won't say that any of those are bad, but I can say they're not what we need. Now wish me luck sticking to that!

Family Reading Roundup: World records, the Titanic and middle-school horror stories

Well, if you've been reading along since our last reading roundup, you would have to guess that some of Sarah's top choices in the past week have been about the Titanic.

Here's a look at what she's been reading:

• The National Geographic April 2012 issue
• National Geographic's special Titanic-themed free website
• The Guinness Book of World Records 2012 edition 
• Middle School, The Worst Years of My Life by James Patterson
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules by Jeff Kinney
• Still more of Understanding God's World (an ABeka science text)
• The Story: Teen Edition (and watching its accompanying video series, which she likes a ton)
• Several library books, also about the Titanic

I have to highlight that Sarah is a HUGE Guinness Book fan, and randomly disappeared upstairs today for about an hour to read from this year's.

She's received an edition every Christmas for the past three years, and with her own money at her former school's book fair, she bought the "Gamer's Edition" of the book.

These are the perfect type of book for her - written engagingly, but also at a high level of comprehension; visually engaging; and able to be "browsed" without having to follow a plotline for hours.

Along with those, today she picked up her copies of Middle School, the Worst Years of My Life and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules and read for a good while. She's read them both - or had them read aloud to her - before, but still enjoys them, especially the sketched pictures. They both combine a comic book style with more of a standard novel, and that's another thing that's a good fit!

I'm reading a historical romance called "The Secret Diary" by Martha Kirkland, and Chris is reading The Pinball Effect by James Burke. May I point out that this roundup each week serves to remind me how lowbrow my reading material is compared with the rest of my family's? (Case in point: Chris's book has the subtitle "How Renaissance water gardens made the carburetor possible," while mine has a picture of a guy in a cravat.)

So what are you and your family reading this week?

Family day: Inside fun with Monopoly; outside fun with a 'backyard' hike

Today was Chris's day off... which ALWAYS makes Sarah happy! She calls these "Daddy days," and she is just not interested in doing anything unless he's involved.

Thankfully, Chris is an amazingly great dad who doesn't mind giving up most of his day off to the whims of a 12-year-old girl. Today, her first request was that the three of us play Monopoly, which was a birthday present from her Grandma. She very specifically wanted the classic edition, which was certainly a relief to me - no electronic banking to figure out, and the rules were mostly just as I remembered.

This had to have been the best game of Monopoly I've ever played. Sarah was the banker (VOLUNTARILY, once I told her the banker gets to go first!) and we taught her how to make deals. Interesting deals. Early on, we all started off pretty even, but later, Chris got ahead, drifted toward usury (which allowed us to learn a new vocabulary word, in addition to all our it-doesn't-even-seem-like-math math fun!) and Sarah and I started colluding to stay afloat. By colluding, I mean things like Sarah gave me $17. Just because I'm nice. I ended up with Park Place and Boardwalk (with houses), Sarah had all 4 railroads, the yellows and the reds, and Chris had... everything else. I mean everything. We left no property unpurchased!

And when Chris put 3 houses on Pennsylvania Avenue, which Sarah landed on, I basically bought him off by giving him all I had left, bequeathing my properties to Sarah, and allowing the two of them to continue the game.

Best trade, though, was when Chris (in a moment of generosity, as we were talking about Christian charity), told Sarah he'd give her $100 for a kiss on the cheek. She did. I was, at that point, just about broke, but I offered her $1 for a hug and kiss, and she kindly accepted.

This was a two-hour game, and we finally ended with another deal: Sarah would be declared the winner IF she let Chris pick two stories of his choosing to read at bedtime. Win-win!

It thundered and poured very briefly during our game, but it quickly dried out, and we left to run errands. Among our stops was the library, where Sarah was slightly dismayed by the lack of books on either the Titanic or the kingfisher bird family, but we found what we could.

Driving home, Sarah had a wonderful idea: "Let's take the dog to the golf course!" We are blessed to live almost adjacent to a former golf course, eventually to be the site of a local hospital, but for now home to a wonderful mix of wildlife and walking trails provided by the former golf-cart paths, open to the public each day from dawn to dusk.

We all set off, with Sarah walking Coby, and took an almost two-mile, hour-and-a-half hike over rolling hills and abandoned putting greens.  It's amazing to see how nature is taking over; in fact, while a couple years ago, the golf course layout was pretty recognizable, now, we were only able to really identify one green.

 We saw red-winged blackbirds (which Sarah was the first to correctly identify).

  

Sarah was SO nice to the dog. He's a little on the older side (he'll turn 10 this year), and he wasn't exactly a speed demon. But Sarah encouraged him, telling him what a good job he was doing keeping up, and calling him a nice boy. She even asked Chris to "help" Coby climb up on the rocks with her here, and praised him like crazy for "almost making it on his own."

I can't believe we don't spend time here more often. It's beautiful - wonderful scenery, very relaxing, a great workout (thanks to all the hills) and literally in our neighborhood's backyard. We love being outside, and as far as I'm concerned, even despite my somewhat accident-prone nature, I'd love it if the hospital project were delayed so we could enjoy this spot a bit longer.

5 things I learned NOT to do in our first month of homeschooling

I had planned today to write about "5 things I learned in our first month of homeschooling." Yes, a month already!

Then, I saw that The Homeschool Classroom's writing prompt for this week was "What curriculum or resource just didn't work for your family?" And I thought... why not look at what I've learned by way of what I've learned NOT to do or expect?!

Again, these are all just what's not working for us. You might have a wonderful son or daughter who LOVES schedules, workbooks, getting up early, lesson plans and days "off" - and that's OK. In fact, it's so OK that I'll be at your house tomorrow to hang out for a while. :)

For us, here are the top five cautionary rules.

1. Don't overplan or overschedule. I'm a list-maker. I love to make lists of what I "have to do" each day. I'm almost sick in my enjoyment of crossing things off. (Yes, I write things down I've already done... just to cross them off.) But our new "learning lifestyle" works best when there's unstructured time for whatever catches Sarah's interest. As I looked back over our best days so far, they were completely wrapped up in a particular activity or topic that we took the time to really explore and enjoy - NASCAR racing, rainbow rice, a 1920s geography book, the Titanic. Not surprisingly, these were days when we had the least on our family calendar and the most time to just explore. 

2. Don't overorganize. We tend to keep a pretty neat house - everything nicely put away as often as possible - but some of the best chances to get Sarah interested in learning have been the times when we've had stuff strewn about. I didn't even know strewing was an official "thing" until this month, but imagine that - it's the conscious choice to put things that encourage discovery in the path of your child. We find that some well-placed books and papers and art supplies masquerading as clutter have made a big difference for us - and, yes, Mom just has to get over the piles of stuff that seem to multiply on her piano. (Minor grumble on my part.) 

3. Workbooks are work. Sarah is funny: When we go to bookstores, she will OFTEN purposely pick out workbooks or worktexts and really want them. She'll read from the worktext-style books often, and she'll occasionally get on a kick where she'll do a couple math pages or a geography puzzle or a vocabulary word search on her own. But our plan to supplement our day-to-day "living math" with a page a day from a workbook that Sarah chose has turned into a lot of work. She'll do it, and mostly without complaint, but it's clearly "here's a thing I have to get through" and not "whoa, check out this cool thing I learned!" That said, she picked up the family bathroom crossword puzzle book this week (oh, don't laugh, you know you have one too) and filled in a significant number of answers to clues I wouldn't have thought she'd know, and she enjoys doing occasional puzzle pages that I print out for her. She just doesn't like the idea of a book of work. When you think about it that way, I guess I can't blame her; my plan moving forward is to "strew" some pages, but not use the overwhelming book o' work concept.

4. We're not morning learners. I don't just mean we're not early risers. (Though, in varying degrees, we're mostly not. Chris gets a lot done in the mornings; my mom is usually up by about 9, even on days she doesn't work; but Sarah and I alternate between rare days of 8 a.m. wakeups and lots of days of "goodness, is it really 11:30??") Today was a good example. Sarah and I were both up by 9 a.m.; I went to our newspaper office for my at-work day, and she basically sat around - in her pajamas - until I got home around 5 p.m. After my mom got home from work, Sarah did spend most of their lunchtime together telling "Mommom" all about the Titanic, but in general, it was mostly a "pet the cat, watch the hamster, play on the iPad" kind of day. After about 7 p.m., it was like a switch flipped. Sarah drew a picture, told me a detailed story about her new picture and some older pictures she found in the same sketchbook, made a cartoon about people playing laser tag, made up a new game to play with the cat and, when I said it was "bedtime," sat with me on her bed and read all about insects from her "Understanding God's World" book for at least an hour, even answering the review questions as we got to them. Know your family. If you've got an evening learner, it might be a tough adjustment, but I can highly vouch for making it work! (Read more on this here in a GREAT post from Rachel at Clean.) 

5. Days "off" make it harder to have days "on." Probably the only negative reaction we've gotten - at least openly - to our system of learning so far is that a few people have said, "Man, you're not really giving her any days off." The reverse of that is that it might look to some people that we're not "doing any work." I figure if you've got critiques on both sides, you must be walking the middle pretty well. We don't have days off because our days on  are just... regular days. We're truly trying to embrace everyday learning, and that doesn't stop on Saturdays and Sundays. I articulated this in our first week, and I feel pretty strongly about it. I'll also add that, because of Sarah's personality, days where we truly are off our game, where we're not engaged as a family in anything that stimulates us to learn or experience new things, are really hard for her. She's kind of adrift, and she doesn't react well to that. And, the next day, it's really hard to get her engaged again. I think of it like a gear system - once the motor is turning, if all the gears are meshed, it'll keep running. But when the gears are out of alignment, or when the motor stops, you just can't get everything moving again without some work. So, for us, we'll stick to everyday life and everyday learning and try to limit our time "off."

Two bonus points I thought of as I was writing:

6. Don't bring "school" home. Pennsylvania law requires your home school district to provide a copy of all the textbooks and other curricula for your child's grade level, at your request. Well, to be on the safe side, we figured, "Let's get a copy, just in case." They've since sat in Sarah's backpack, almost untouched. It wasn't too big of a shocker to us, and we didn't even plan to work out of them - just to have them for reference - but I have not found a single one even half as useful as the books on our family bookshelf. I will add, in a rare "negative review" from me, that I wholeheartedly do not recommend the "Everyday Math" and "College Preparatory Math" programs that so many schools in York County are using. Talk about overcomplicating things. Our biggest challenge is that these programs are nonlinear, and for Sarah, that's a recipe for confusion. Interestingly, I don't know of any homeschooler who picked up this curriculum to use after removing their child from public school, and for me, that says a lot.

7. Beware of curriculum overload. Funny, for the lady who has no curriculum right now outside her family's own bookshelf, right? All I'll say is, go read this, which I consider to be a WONDERFUL post by Lynnae of Freelance Homeschool Mom. All the shiny catalogs look wonderful... and that curriculum fair will be an excellent chance to check out the latest and greatest... and the used stuff, that's SO cheap, it can't hurt to buy... all of it... right? See my comment on Lynnae's post, and my own Point No. 1, for the answer here. Don't overcomplicate. Books are great. Plans are great. But you can't follow ALL the plans, or read ALL the books. Pick what works, and let the rest go. Don't worry. Much like those kittens my friend Rose posts on Facebook, that cute little curriculum will find a good home. :)

So what are some other lessons I still need to learn? Save me some heartache... comment and tell me!

A great day to play outside and learn about the Titanic

Even though it was a little windy and just slightly chillier than I'd like, today was one of those days where I looked around our neighborhood and thought: "This is beautiful." The ornamental pears and other trees were blooming; birds were everywhere; everyone's grass was freshly mowed; and even the "weeds," like dandelions near the mailboxes, were cheerful and bright.

 

We moved our cars out of the driveway and Sarah showed me how to play "ball hockey," the game she thought of yesterday. We used a miniature Hershey Bears hockey stick and a Phillies baseball bat as our "sticks" and had to get a combination of balls of various sizes and weights past each other's goal lines. It incorporated some soccer and a little bit of basketball, too.

Believe it or not, it was pretty fun - and great exercise. After several rounds, made progresively more difficult by the wind, we took a break to walk the loop around our neighborhood, checking out the birds, identifying different types of garden flowers and chasing the petals of the pear trees as they fluttered around.

That's my kind of "gym class." In fact, Sarah, who normally hates not to win at games, didn't even mind when I scored the winning goal, because we were just having so much fun being active and being outdoors together.

Inside, her huge interest today was sparked by the April edition of National Geographic arriving. Its cover story is about the sinking of the Titanic, and we spent HOURS reading, looking at pictures, and digging deeper online.

I highly recommend this website, also from National Geographic, for an amazing (and FREE) look at the ship's history. You can play an interactive game where you become a personality from the ship, see an interactive timeline of the construction, and view the photos and biographies of some of the architects who went down with the ship. I truly think I learned as much as Sarah, who knew some things that surprised me. For instance, we talked about the Olympic being the sister ship of the Titanic, but Sarah knew a lot about the Brittanic, another ship in the line, as well. (Thrifty Thursday, Learning Laboratory and Homeschooling on the Cheap folks: I encourage you ladies to check this site out if your children are, say, third or fourth grade and up!)

It also surprised me today how visually observant Sarah is. While playing the interactive game online, you "meet" various personalities like the head purser and captain, and she was able to go to Google images, search for Titanic photos, and pick out some of the crew members from seeing their likenesses in the game. Ditto with one of the online galleries - there was a passing shot of a crew working on the Olympic, and when we opened the magazine, she saw a similar image and said, "Hey, go back to that online where they showed that boat, it's the same picture." I'd totally missed that, but she didn't!

This was Sarah's favorite image from her searches today:

She decided she wants to create a Titanic PowerPoint, filled with facts and photos. She found a copy of the ship's dinner menu from two days before it sank, images of newspaper front pages, all sorts of things she wants to include. She was also both fascinated and horrified at the idea of the captain and so many crew members, including the orchestra, "going down with the ship." That was a new concept to her, and we talked a lot about it today.

Anyway, I can't wait to share her finished PowerPoint presentation, which I'm sure will be awesome; she LOVES to make these things! For now, though, I'll show the cover - she found an animated background, so the ocean rolls when you view it as a slideshow; you'll have to imagine it for now.

The font is called "Sinking Ship," and she found that by herself too. Who knew that existed? I'm excited to see where Sarah takes this new Titanic interest... when she gets into something to this degree, it's usually a multi-week interest that leads all sorts of directions, and that's one of the most exciting things to me so far about homeschooling, the ability to follow these when they happen!

Quick Mom update: My primary job is as project manager for a pretty well-known financial blogger. I've been working with Baker and Man Vs. Debt full time since early December, but today, I got to do something new - share my story as an introductory post on the MvD blog. If you're interested in our not-pretty financial life and its turnaround, feel free to read more here! Our financial efforts are what's most DIRECTLY responsible for us being able to homeschool, so it's pretty important to me.

Happy 12th birthday, Sarah! A look at last week, and a look ahead

We call this the "It's My Birthday and I Know I'm Cute" face.

So after taking yesterday entirely "off" to celebrate Sarah's 12th birthday with her, as well as celebrating Mom's birthday today, I think I've mostly slipped out of my funk from Friday, and I'm pretty excited about the week ahead.

Sarah's birthday celebration involved me making and decorating a cookie cake (adapted from this Pinterest recipe) and taking a few of her friends out for a hibachi dinner.

Regarding the cake, mad props to Mom, who figured out how to "create" an extra H from the pack of sugar letters we bought, when we found ourselves to be short one. (Sarah promptly informed me, "You know, Mom, like when you do 01134 upside-down on the calculator." I consider myself told.)

 Despite our shortness of Hs, we had some extras of other letters. Like this B. Which Sarah enjoyed.

And, finally, no birthday is complete without your friends eating out of your hand, right?

Moving on from all that sugar, now here's a look at some of the things we might do this week... of course subject to change completely!

- Sarah loves codes, and we found this spring code sheet that she wants to do tomorrow. (It's super-simple, but she'll still get a kick out of it.)

- Tomorrow, Sarah wants to play in the driveway a game she made up called "ball hockey," which seems to be a type of obstacle course you need to maneuver a ball or beanbag through. As we possess zero hockey sticks, this should be interesting.

- Sarah has also been begging to make something out of a Styrofoam ball from the craft store. (Funny part: She doesn't care what. She just wants one of the balls.) So I said I'd see if I could find something we could make. Here's the inside of the earth.

- We have all the stuff to put out this "nesting materials box" for the birds... except for the suet feeder, as both of ours currently hold suet. So, we'll pick one up, and make a project out of getting it all put together!

- I'd love to plant this Easter garden.

- If we get a ton of time, we picked up some more soapmaking supplies - CHEAP! - at our local Rescue Mission economy store. So it'd be cool to make some more soap.

- Would love to take a family day trip of some sort this week, or at worst, schedule one for next. We might do something as simple as one of our local factory tours, or maybe head to a park outside our normal visiting area. Who knows?

- I found a bunch of LEGO activities that Sarah said she'd like to do. Probably we wouldn't be quite as organized as the wonderful people who created them, but still, lots of neat stuff. This is the original set of LEGO "curriculum" for a week; this is what another family did using that as a starting point; and then I found even more great LEGO ideas on Pinterest. I know, you're shocked.

 If you're not already, you should clearly be following me on Pinterest to see all the stuff I want to get into. It's a problem. :)

Just one of those days

We've all had "those days."

Over at Hip Homeschool Moms, Sarah wrote about Acting Pretty When It Gets Ugly.
Theresa even titled her recent post at Red Oak Lane ... One of THOSE Days.

Ladies, I feel you.

It's not exactly a bad day. It's just that day where there's a bird flapping around inside the walls of your house because the flashing on your roof pulled up, and one of your cats can hear it, and he runs back and forth mewing and stepping all over your desk trying to "get" it, almost interrupting the hour-long virus scan you've been running on your daughter's not-working netbook. And then when you sort the cat out, you find the bird has gotten down into your basement, which you know because it wedges itself out the crack under your basement door, and then your cat starts chasing it, and your entire houseful of people consists of lots of people saying, "There's a bird!" "A bird just flew out from there!" ... and YOU stopping the project you're working on to figure out how to get it out.




It's the day where your daughter, on the eve of her 12th birthday tomorrow, doesn't want to "do" anything. Doesn't want to get dressed. Doesn't want to read. Doesn't want to do any math. Doesn't want to get changed for tae kwon do. Doesn't want to get changed BACK into regular clothes after she's delayed too long and it's too late for tae kwon do. And, when you give up and say, "OK, that's fine, we don't have to DO anything..." then she's bored. And whiny. And argumentative. And then you lose your temper and send her to her room, and she comes down happy as a clam - toward everyone ELSE in the house. You, though, get a bunch of sass at bedtime, full of gems like "I'm ALWAYS punished" (though, to be clear, there really was no punishment) and "I NEVER get to do anything fun."

Before I sound too much like "martyr mom" here, I have to interrupt my own whining and add - some of this is completely my fault. I decided that today would be a big work day for me. I work from home, and there are an awful lot of days where I don't find time to START most of my work until Sarah goes to bed. Today, though, I had way more to do than would be OK for that, so I planned to spend most of my day at the computer, concentrating.

I made choices. I decided not to plan anything for Sarah to do so that I could concentrate. (Less-than-ideal choice!) I put off a lot of work during the week until today. (Fine, but then you have to take what comes!) I decided to be a listening ear to a friend who'd had a rough day, and welcomed her to come spend the afternoon. (Definitely the right choice.) I decided not to make an issue about going to tae kwon do, but I also decided to MAKE an issue out of what was probably just a medium-grouchy attitude. (Maybe not so great of an idea.) And, honestly, I didn't feel very well, thanks to a crazy-bad allergy headache, a lack of sleep and a weird stomachache. So was I probably "medium-grouchy" myself?

Well, yeah.

And you know what? It's STILL not as bad of a bad day as we had before, when Sarah was stressed out ALL THE TIME and we were fighting over homework ALL THE TIME. It's not as bad as the days when I headed to the office at 8 a.m. and didn't get home until 7 p.m. (and then started the aforementioned homework fight!) It's not as bad as it could be, and it's not as bad as I make it sound.

That's what I'm grateful for this week. That the "bad" days aren't so bad. That we have some wonderful good days to share too. And that my family and friends and the blogging community won't laugh TOO hard when they read this. (If you were here for the bird thing...  you have my permission to laugh. Yeah, that was pretty funny, now that I think about it.)

Family Reading Roundup: Hamsters, birds, butterflies and cats

Since our last reading roundup, Sarah's interests have (not surprisingly) been focused heavily on spring animals (and family pets!)

Some of her top picks in the past two weeks have been:

• Her new National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America (an early birthday gift)
• The Complete Encyclopedia of Cats
• The Birdwatcher's Daily Companion
• The ABCs of Nature (this is an OLD Reader's Digest book, but it is wonderful!)
• Birds & Blooms Magazine 
• A Pocket Guide to Butterflies and Moths
• Various hamster guides from the library and our collection
• The Phantom of the Opera (the original paperback novel, English translation)

By far Sarah's big winner recently, though, has been Understanding God's World. This is an Abeka science textbook; we picked up a copy at the Book Nook, a huge local used book sale, last year - and our copy is from sometime in the 1980s. (Here's the new edition.) Anyway, despite its age, Sarah LOVES it. She will read this thing the way you might read a novel. This week, we've been reading all about insects and butterflies, and tonight, Sarah focused on the differences between butterflies and moths (hence the pocket guide above, too; she was really researching this topic!) We'd love to get her the newer edition, as well as the other two books in the series, Investigating God's World and Observing God's World.

As a quick note, I'm reading Open Season by Linda Howard, and Chris is reading Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino and Boomerang by Michael Lewis. He just finished Huckleberry Hill by Elizabeth Gemming, which was a really obscure (Chris protests, "It's not obscure!") look at "child life in Old New England." He was reading this at bedtime and sharing parts with me. Some neat facts, but some unusual stuff too!

What have you been reading?

Blogging about geography and old books with dad (and a very temporary mohawk)

Today was excellent. No better way to describe it.

I slept in, and Chris decided to do a "special project" with Sarah! They decided to go into our basement book room to look for old school books. (We run an online used bookstore, so when I say book room, I kind of mean a combination between a bookstore and a library. A really OLD library.)

They were originally looking for old math books, which we have a bunch of, and they were going to see if they could find any with word problems in them.

But early on, Sarah found an old geography textbook - from 1920 - that she absolutely fell in love with, and Chris decided to run with that too. She sat down and was reading through pages of it that talked about everything from the mechanization of farms to the human intrusion on the territory of brown and black bears. By midday, that became this guest post dictated by Sarah for Chris's book and ephemera blog, Papergreat.

Chris said the blog idea worked well because Sarah didn't have to type it herself, and also because she also likes writing blogs and doing research - the first thing she wanted to do when they came upstairs was to look up the book online and see what she could find out about it. 

I wasn't sure what had prompted all this (I came in at about the point they started working on the blog), so I asked Chris about it tonight as I was starting to write, and he said, "She had really been going off on quite an interesting lecture about the Amish and what has and hasn't changed on the farm in terms of mechanizations, because the geography book really focuses on how horses and mules are vital for the American farmer, but that things were starting to change. So she really was saying some smart stuff, so I wanted to get upstairs and do it in the form of a blog as quickly as possible, because it was a really a case of her not just repeating what's in the book, or saying something fairly obvious, but really saying some more insightful stuff."

The Amish parallel, by the way, she came up with entirely on her own, which fascinated me!

I LOVED hearing Sarah dictate her blog post to Chris, and I loved hearing Chris work through her ideas with her. He's pretty serious about his blog, and having Sarah guest post was truly an honor. (He's never had ANY guest author before!) I would really encourage you to check out what they came up with here. It's pretty stellar. (Mom likes to brag.)

The other neat thing about the post was how Chris and Sarah worked together on the art for it. They scanned their book page, and they worked together using Pixlr (which, by the way, I highly recommend if you can't afford Photoshop) to create different crops. When they got to a cropped version of the map you can see in the photo above, Sarah showed Chris how to use the eyedropper and paintbrush tools to first match the background color of the page and then mask out the text, giving an image of JUST the map with no fragments of text around it. Then they worked together to decide where to put the images in the post and everything.

The other cool thing, Chris mentioned, was that while they were still in the book room (or the "ephemera hideout," as Sarah called it), Sarah must have also gone through 10 math books, looking through them and seeing what year they from, what people had written in them, seeing the illustrations, that type of thing.

He said she must have said a bunch of times, "Oh, I know how to do this," "I remember doing this in class," or "I can do this." Chris said they must have looked through those for at least a half-hour, and they made a pile of the ones that were really interesting for future enjoyment. I think that's pretty awesome - and it's so great to see Sarah enjoying the history of books the way the rest of the family does!

Other exciting events today: After Sarah's shower, our friend Tracey helped her create a temporary mohawk out of her wet hair. Sarah LOVED it. I'm somewhat given to extreme hair myself, but I have to admit I cringed just a little when Sarah said, "I want it like this ALL the time!" We'll see. I wouldn't say no, but my concern is honestly that she wouldn't want to put the work into it and then it'd turn into a fight. Either way, she got a real kick out of doing it tonight!

And, finally, this weekend marks not only Sarah's birthday (and my mom's birthday, on Sunday), but also Sarah's great-grandfather's 70th birthday on Monday. Her grandparents and other family members are celebrating with him out of town, but Sarah isn't going to be able to go because of her own birthday celebration. So, she decorated a giant card for Great-Pappy instead. She did some really neat work - and for Sarah, this is a LOT of writing, so that was pretty cool!

Hope your day was as fun as ours. Tomorrow, we'll have family visiting from out of town, and I'll be interested to hear how Sarah describes her homeschooling adventures to them!

(This post is part of the "Look! What we did!" linkup this week. Go check out what everyone else is proud of here!)

Spelling, shopping and a found bird's nest

So here's the "great" thing about living and homeschooling in Pennsylvania and following a somewhat untraditional learning approach: We're what I've found is a high-documentation-required state for homeschoolers. The short version of that means that we have to justify our learning a lot more than folks in other states. 

That's not entirely bad - and a LOT is dependent on the evaluator you choose for your independent year-end evaluation; that evaluator's report, and a portfolio that can actually be very simple, are what go to your district. I've been "interviewing" two potential evaluators who both seem incredibly nice, one a current special education teacher and the other a retired teacher from our local Christian school. The first woman was kind enough to provide a list of what she prefers to see at the end of the year, and I wasn't too worried about most of it - until I saw that she'd like to see five samples of spelling practice.

Cue Patented Mom Panic. Spelling practice? I'm soooo not giving my kid spelling lists and tests. She has had them for basically six years and remembers exactly zero of the words from them if they're not things she uses in her daily life. Honestly, why bother? I would MUCH rather she be a "good speller" of words she is using to spell. So I figured, let's let her be as accurate as possible when she writes or blogs or whatever, and that's good. Well, then I saw the five samples thing and, while it's not absolutely required, I started thinking... what do I have to "show" for this?

Enter inspiration of Sarah's own choosing. She decided to help us write out our grocery list for this week's trip. Completely without prompting, and completely with an interest in getting things spelled correctly.

And she did a GREAT job. She also improvised on her first take at the word "deodorizer" - take note of "cat litter thing to make it smell good." But, on her second take, she was willing to give deodorizer a try!

That's my kind of spelling. Useful, voluntary, and good work - not the "you can't read my writing, I don't even know what I'm trying to spell" list-based stuff.

As a side note, Sarah was also incredibly helpful on this grocery trip, and with the menu planning and coupon sorting that preceded it. Our family only shops every two weeks, for a LOT of stuff for the four of us plus the menagerie of animals, and she often comes along, helping with coupons, with putting things in the cart, with making sure we don't miss anything from the list, and just for fun company. Maybe we're different, but we like all going to the grocery store together - it's always at least Chris and me, and Sarah and Mom join us when they can. It's fun!

Finally, I'll leave you with this photo, celebrating our first day of spring. We found this bird's nest on the ground in our backyard, and Sarah liked taking a look at it, seeing how the birds worked different twigs and the dryer lint into it. It now has a place of honor in her room (with an wooden owl figurine in it, not necessarily scientifically accurate but super-cute), and after seeing this, she's decided we should make a "nesting materials feeder" for the birds out of an old suet feeder (which, of course, we found directions for on Pinterest), so I've been saving string and my dryer lint for the cause.

Happy spring, everyone! How's your weather? Ours is slightly damp, but warm and with many sunny days. I love it.

Making our first sensory tubs: Rainbow rice, fuzzies and dice

One thing I've read about on a ton of homeschooling/unschooling blogs is the "sensory tub." (And, yes, they're all over my favorite site, Pinterest, too.)

Though I usually see them referenced for younger kids, I really thought Sarah would love one. She is incredibly tactile, and when she has something to fidget or "stim" with, it can be a huge help. When she doesn't... then she's an incredible nail and finger-biter, cuticle-picker, etc. (So, yes, I admit my "mom motives" on this were a little selfish.)

Anyway, I showed Sarah this recipe for rainbow-colored rice and explained that we could make a cool box of stuff that feels good, just to play around with.

She was THRILLED. So, today, we made rainbow rice, bought a couple of fairly cheap plastic containers with tight latches at Target, and made our first sensory tubs. (Or, as Sarah calls them, "Rice stuff boxes.")

It's pretty simple - separate your white rice into a bunch of zipper bags; in a smaller container, mix 2 tablespoons of rubbing alcohol and a few drops of food coloring, then pour into the bag - and then find a "squisher" to help mix it up!

We made nine colors altogether, and then poured them onto wax-paper-lined cookie sheets and sat them on the deck to dry. Luckily, that only took less than a couple of hours, because we brought them in when it started to rain!

Once the rice was dry, Sarah mixed the colors, and then we started assembling our tubs. The one you see below is our "house tub," a large one; we also decided to make a "rice car box" for trips; this is smaller and a little less full.

With this rainbow base, we just started adding "stuff that feels good." I was thrilled, because this turned into a whole-family project. Chris was photographing (which I greatly appreciated!) Sarah contributed a bag of kidney beans and a bag of black-eyed peas; she'd asked for those when we all went to the grocery store Sunday - cheap and good-feeling! I found some buttons and some cotton balls.

My mom went upstairs and came back with one of the MANY leftover centerpieces from our wedding; they were simple glass containers with blue and white river stones in them, and she had the awesome idea to use the stones. Sarah got a brainstorm and went downstairs to our game shelf and came back with her container of extra dice. I wandered upstairs to her playroom and found some tiny plastic farm animals. Sarah was willing to use some of her neon pompoms, or "fuzzies," from some recent craft projects. In it all went, and we ended up with a container that is completely full of good feelings.

Here's the best part. We ALL stood around, running our hands through it, examining the textures, playing games Sarah made up (like, "Let's find all the dice," or "How many farm animals can we find?"), scooping with a measuring cup, making stacks, making volcanoes... and just enjoying the good feeling of feeling stuff.

Today might have been the best example so far of why I'm loving "our school at home." We spent most of our day on this project, it cost us very little, we all thought creatively, we worked as a team, and we had a GOOD TIME. Plus, now we've got something fun that our whole family will enjoy messing with for who knows how long.

Happy Monday. I hope your day was as full of good feelings as ours was!

(Besides being my "Moments to Remember" highlight this week AND my favorite resource of the week AND my "Look! What We're Doing" submission, this post is going to be my submission into The Homeschool Classroom's writing prompt link-up this week; the question was, "What was your best homeschooling moment recently?" This DEFINITELY qualified. I can't wait to read everyone else's best moments once the link-up happens Thursday. I really enjoyed participating in last week's link-up, too! And if you like sensory tubs, there are about a bazillion more ideas here.)

Meet Shadow, our family's new hamster

Yes, after Sarah did the "hamster cost" math, we did go along for the ride and decide to purchase our thrilling new rodential family member. She's paying some of the cost from her savings (her choice), and the rest is part of our birthday gift to her.

We could not possibly have had a happier kid at PetSmart this afternoon. Many thanks to Tyler, the associate who took Sarah's interest very seriously and didn't roll his eyes at this kid saying, "This is THE EXACTLY RIGHT hamster for our family."

It was sort of like any other birthday present... in that he came in a box and, when we got home, Sarah got to open it up and have fun... while Mom dealt with the parts that were "some assembly required."

After we got the cage assembled and filled, we put it in the place of honor - the top of one piece of our entertainment center. In a house with five cats, finding a safe home for a hamster cage is no small feat. This was a good spot because Sarah can see it, it's not in some out-of-the-way corner, and it's still as close to cat-proof as we're going to get.

Sarah was VERY excited to watch Shadow settle in. He kind of amazed us - he was very interested in exploring his new home, even climbing (most hamster species, dwarf ones especially, don't explore at that level for a couple of days when put in a new place.)

He also made "angry hamster noise" when we tried to wake him up to go back in his ball... if you've never heard it, it has a cricket-like quality, almost a clicking and squeaking together. I told Sarah we'd need to let him acclimate before we did much more. But watching him was totally OK - and she tuned in to "hamstervision" for about an hour.

Wish us luck! We've had several hamsters in the past, and most if not all had some interesting quirks, to say the least. Let's just hope this one doesn't surprise us with babies, like one of our "male" hamsters did in the past.

One week until Sarah's 12th birthday

Next Saturday, March 24, my girl will be 12 years old. I can't believe it. This is the cover page from her first-three-years scrapbook, which I just finished in the past year. (Behind, much?) Not a great photo of it, but you can see my pretty baby, who is still pretty and not at all a baby any more.

Today, she celebrated her birthday with one set of grandparents, Greg and Mary Jane, who took her to Build-A-Bear Workshop to make a St. Patrick's Day-themed green teddy. He's a cutie... named Lucky! She also got a scarf; she's been really into scarves lately, and her Nana, Mary Jane, also loves scarves, so... good choice. And, they gave her a choice of ANY book in the book department of a store they visited, and she chose...

The National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America. Told you she loves National Geographic... and birds. That's my girl!

In another vein entirely, Sarah got to go to a shooting range today with the same branch of the family. (This is her biological dad's family; while my husband adopted Sarah shortly after we were married, she is still close to her grandparents, aunt and uncle, and even to some extent her "first dad" and his family, including her "half-sister and a half" - one in elementary school and the other on the way!)

Anyway, all that aside - the shooting range was a trip with Sarah's aunt and uncle, Jamie and Matt, and several of their friends, plus "Nana and Pappy." I'm not into hunting, despite being raised in a rural area where it was really common, but I have no problem at all with anyone else doing so, and I even have been target-shooting a few times and enjoyed it. In my mind, it's good for Sarah to know about guns and gun safety, especially from people who are as well-educated on the subject as the ones she was with today. So, chalk that up to a "new learning experience!"

Next weekend, on Sarah's actual birthday, we're taking her and a few friends out for a hibachi dinner, which was her request. That, too, should be fun, and then I have to tell myself, "OK, you really do have a 12-year-old." Yikes!

Our scrapbook: Cookie-making with Dad

Since there are so many friends and family members out of town who are now reading, I'd like to regularly show off some of our fun photos. Today's are mostly from our cookie-making this morning, in which Chris and Sarah teamed up to get three kinds of tasty treats ready for donation to the 4-H auction fundraiser tonight. There might be some gratuitous cat photos, too.

 Sarah wanted to make a "food volcano," so she shaped the dough mix into one, complete with opening in the center.

 The batter for our double-chocolate-mint cookies. I'm not a mint fan, but they smelled pretty good.

 I love these cookie-bakers THE MOST!

 Here, Sarah expertly shapes the dough on the cookie sheet. She liked being careful to be EXACTLY the right size!

 Here you can see the finished products. Our three flavors were double-chocolate-mint, white-chocolate-cinnamon-chip-swirl and toffee-butterscotch. YUM!

Gratuitous photo of Chris holding Salem...

... and super-cute, gratuitous photo of Sarah holding Mitts! These are our biggest cats - Mitts is about 19 or 20 pounds (more than a third of Sarah's weight!) and Salem is about 22 or 23 pounds. (Not more than a third of Chris's weight... sorry, sweetie!) We love these big boys, but not as much as I love the nice people holding them.