what's in store...and those first day photos

Sheesh...why can't I get my act together and keep this blog up-to-date?!!

"School" officially started a few weeks back. And I did take those obligatory first day photos. (Poor munchkins...rarely a day goes by when I'm not taking their pictures.)

 

Oh, how I love those gorgeous little mugs! And oh, how sad it makes me when they head off on that school bus each morning. :(   They began school this year on the 9th. And so far, they are having a lot of fun. I just can't believe how incredibly lucky we are that they both have such amazing teachers (they each have the same teacher as they did last year). Both have joined Chess Club again. And Gray has started the violin and joined the Math Olympiad team. Barring disaster, Annie will never be going back to public school, but we all feel confident in the decision to have the boys in public school again this year. Next year? Who knows.

Annie officially started the school year on the 8th. Off to MCC she headed for her Children's Lit class. Um yeah, she's loving it! Hardly a surprise. :D

This year, we're also tackling geometry, using a  DVD series from The Teaching Company. Though I've bought a few of their courses, this is the first one we've used. (Will hopefully use a couple more next year.) And we are absolutely loving it...I can definitely see why people recommend these courses so highly.

And for science this year, we're delving deeply into the world of environmental science. We're actually using the same textbook, Environment: The Science Behind the Stories, that Rich uses in teaching it at the community college. But we're just using it as a jumping off point. Since we're devoting the entire year to it, we've got lots of time to explore in all kinds of ways. Added bonus: Annie's Children's Lit class is on the same day as Rich's environmental science lab, so since she's already on campus that day, she's doing some of the labs with his class.

For U.S. history, we're exploring the 20th century. No textbook or anything. Just using a myriad of resources. Including continuing with our "history through literature" explorations. Annie just finished The Jungle by Upton Sinclair...and YAY!...she liked it. Here's her review. (I'd hate picking out a book she despised, but luckily that hasn't happened yet.) We're still deep into the turn-of-the century period, and will be for a few more weeks.

This first quarter of the school year, we're focusing on HIV/AIDS for health. We've been over the basic biology and whatnot in the past, so this year we're focusing on the history of the epidemic/pandemic and on personal stories. Among other things, we've watched movie And the Band Played On and read the graphic novel Pedro and Me by Judd Winick. (Annie's review.)

(As usual, PBS's Ed.Online has provided a wealth of resources! We've already watched videos for both history and health this year. Anyone homeschooling in NY is able to set up an account and have access to a wealth of free resources. I'm guessing that other states have similar programs through their PBS affiliates as well.)

Another wonderful resource we discovered is  the National Gallery of Art's loan program. They have a variety of materials that they loan out for free. The length of time one can keep the packets varies. (We're using their Art Since 1950 packet, and are allowed to keep it for 9 months.) While we're adding many additional activities and resources to our unit, it is a wonderful base. This particular packet contains a book, both with history and art appreciation information, but also with suggested activities for various age groups, a collection of slides, and several prints. We're currently exploring abstract expressionism, and have watched two different videos about Jackson Pollock (one biographical, one dealing more with his oeuvre), read a short book on Willem de Kooning, and completed an action painting project.

Music will be much as it was last year. Annie's continuing with her flute lessons. Oh how I love listening to her play. :D She already loves an extremely wide variety of music, so we feel no need to push her in that regard. As usual, we plan on attending at least a couple of live concerts each quarter, as well as watching several specials on Ovation TV. We watched one already about Lang Lang, the Chinese pianist.

For the most part, her phys ed requirements are going to be met through her everyday life. Bike-riding, soccer, tag, swimming, ice skating, hiking, jogging, etc. She will, of course, be playing organized soccer in the spring as well. She has a "time sheet" she fills in each week recording her activities.

Quarter one for practical arts this year involves sewing. We started with a simple hand sewing project--a yo yo Christmas tree ornament. Annie then learned the basics of using a sewing machine and has nearly completed her next project--napkins.

And for library skills, the final required subject, Annie is doing a series of four independent projects. Each quarter she is choosing a different religion to research, and then is completing a project. She's chosen Wicca for her first project, a 10-ish page report written in MLA style.

She hopes to take another language course from MCC during the spring semester, either continue with Spanish, or ideally, if it will fit in everyone's schedule, Arabic. As Arabic is what she really wants to learn, I hope we can find a way to make it work for her.

Annie has also become quite involved with the local library...but I'll save that for another post.

still alive and kicking

Not sure how I managed to let this blog slide so. Oh, who the hell am I kidding. It was the same way I seem to let everything else slide. You know, the whole squeaky wheel thing. This blog has not been demanding my attention, so it has not be getting my attention.

So, why am I back now? I just miss it. And I'm going to try to do better by it. I think Annie will one day treasure this record of her homeschooling experience. And I'm going to try to be better about including what the boys are up to, too. After all, just because they are currently in public school, that doesn't make their educations any less important. It just makes it harder to capture. So I shall just try harder.

We took the summer off from official schooling. I think Annie needed it. I know that I did. And of course, homeschooling has still been taking up enormous amounts of my time, even if it hasn't the kids. I've been hard at work planning, and planning, and planning, and planning, and...yeah, you get the idea.

The kids?

Well, Annie just finished up soccer season last week. She's going to miss it. A lot. And I'll miss watching her games. Rich, as assistant coach, I think has a mixture of relief and sadness going.



She also participated in a track and field camp earlier this month. And loved it!




The boys have started karate. After just a couple classes, they're still rather unsure of themselves. I hope they grow to enjoy it.




Gray will begin learning the violin this year in school. They're having a little mini camp for strings this summer. Gray seems to be enjoying it, and taking it quite seriously. Such a relief to us, as he tends to become so incredibly anxious when it comes to trying new things.




And of course, there's been unstructured family fun and learning, too. Like painting.





And bowling.



And hiking.




And reading.

But we'll save that for another post...

homeschool highlights

It's been a while since the last update. Mostly because we've had a lot of interruptions to the schedule. We've spread two weeks worth of work out over three weeks. Of course, one of the advantages of "officially" schooling year-round this time is that we've got the leeway to do that without having to make up a lot of work on weekends.

So what has Annie been up to since the last update?

*Her English class is still going well, and she's still enjoying it a great deal.

*She's learning a lot of great new vocabulary. We love our "klatches" and the vocabulary game. A huge thank you to everyone who plays! And she's donated several thousand grains of rice.

*We've read and discussed a plethora of dark and eerie stories, including among many others, "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs and "Jerusalem's Lot" by Stephen King.

*Real world math has had Annie working with living expenses and budgeting, and algebra has seen her working mostly with inequalities.

*We're still traveling through time in the history of western science, and have met people such as Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, William Gilbert, Galileo, Rene Descartes, Pierre Gassendi, Christiaan Huygens, Robert Boyle, Francis Bacon, Marcello Malpighi, Giovanni Borelli, and Edward Tyson.

*The Civil War is still our focus in U.S. History...Annie can't seem to get enough! Grant and Lee have finally met, battled intensely, and are now outside Petersburg. And we learned about battlefield medicine. Yikes.

*She's completed the first two packets for the quarter in DBQ, and written essays on political parties in the blossoming nation of the U.S. and on the differences between the North and South leading up to the Civil War.

*We're continuing to explore Africa, looking at the physical and human geography of the continent. We're about to start looking at some of the history and some of the current day issues. And by the way, thank you Jean, for sending us the e-mail about your dad's experiences. We actually haven't read it yet, but are looking forward to getting to it when we start exploring current day Africa.

*Still focusing on elections in U.S. Government. Along with learning about the candidates, their positions on the issues, and the elections process in general, Annie participated in a on-line mock election for school age kids.

*Music consists mostly of fluting. But Annie did also watch a video, Music and Culture, which featured the musical traditions of some Polynesian, African, and Native American cultures.


*She's still taking an art class on Thursday evenings. Since last post, she's completed a watercolor painting and a painting using acrylics. We're also looking briefly into the lives of selected artists, so far looking at Da Vinci and Michelangelo.



*We're still learning about HIV/AIDS in health education, doing some demonstrations of how most viruses are spread as compared to how HIV is spread, and learning about risky behaviors. We've also read and discussed articles on the importance of sleep, autism, and vandalism.

*At Camp Arrowhead, Annie took classes on fire-building, outdoor cooking, and outdoor survival skills.

*As far as phys ed goes, Annie is also still enjoying swimming lessons on Wednesday evenings. She also continues to jog with Rich on a semi-regular basis, and has been hiking twice. And of course, bike riding never gets old.

home school highlights

Week one of quarter two is now behind us. There's always something fun about starting a new quarter. While we always try to keep things fun and interesting and relevant, at least as much as possible while still "following the rules," there are definitely times when we're just ready to move on to something new.

For example, under the heading of literature, our focus has moved from poetry to short stories. (I knew before we started the year that quarter two was to be set aside for short stories, because that's when Halloween falls. Not only do both Annie and I simply love dark, eerie, spooky type stories, but I also ran across a pre-planned unit using the short stories of Stephen King. It looked great, and anything to save me a little work is a definite plus.) Anyway, we spent this week reviewing the elements of short stories. And Annie is reading "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs this weekend. That's one of those short stories that has vividly stuck with me since the first time I read it back in my school days.

As far as English goes this quarter, Annie will be in her Advanced Composition class through the end. Good for me because I don't have to do all the work. But really great for her...she's loving this class. And it's definitely keeping her challenged! And of course, we're still handling vocabulary in the same way, with weekly lists, our vocabulary klatches, our weekly games, and FreeRice.

Math...still plugging our way through algebra. And in "real world math" this week, Annie worked with input/output tables.

Our new unit in science is "the history of science". We're using The Scientists by John Gribbin as our "sort of" textbook, and going off on tangents from there. (By the way, so far at least, we're both enjoying the book.)

The original plan was to finish up with The Civil War last quarter, but Annie has been so fascinated with it that we've gone in a lot more depth than originally planned. (One of those home school perks!) This week we spent mostly comparing/contrasting Lincoln and Davis, now that we've had a chance to really "get to know them". We also watched a biography about each of them.

In geography, we've switched to world geography, and our starting our journey around the world with Africa. To this point, we've focused mostly on Africa's physical geography and climate.

We've set the U.S. Constitution aside (seems to be a popular thing to do these days) for the time being, and are focusing on elections for a while. Would be a shame to pass up this timely opportunity. This past week we learned about primaries and caucuses, and spent some time "meeting the candidates".

In addition to regular reading/listening/watching of the news, we're still focusing on the issues of poverty under the heading of "current events".

For phys ed, swimming lessons have started again (one night a week). And Annie continues jogging with Rich, as well as spending a lot of time bike riding with her friends.

Annie is still adjusting to her braces when it comes to the flute, but she thinks she's about back to par. She's been practicing away for a mini-recital she's giving us tomorrow.

For visual arts, Annie started taking classes with a friend at a local art studio (one night a week).

In health we've begun a unit on HIV/AIDS.

And if we did anything else this week, well, it's just not popping to mind right now.

pop art project

Thanks for the inspiration, Mr. Warhol.

just keeps getting better

I don't think Annie ever could have imagined that today would be even more exciting than yesterday, but it has definitely proved to be just that!

First off, today is Take Your Sons and Daughters to Work Day. Rich's school always puts together all kinds of great things for the kids. Annie has always had a ball, and this year was no exception. Gray was finally old enough to go as well, so we also had one very happy little boy on our hands. Gray actually spent the morning with Rich as he was doing a fun animal lab with his students that he figured Gray would really enjoy.

But Annie went off with the other kids to do the "planned activities" for the morning. One of these was "classes" was on recycling. And each kid had to make a poster on recycling. The posters were later judged...and Miss Annie won first place! I wish I could post of photo of the poster, but they're keeping it hanging on campus for now (and Rich had forgotten to take the camera with him to school). But here's a picture of Annie with her prize:



(Rich is more than a little jealous...he really wants one of these hoodies, but they cost $40 at the bookstore.)

But that's not the most exciting part of Miss Annie's day...no, that would involve something she received in the mail. She was invited to the Awards Ceremony for being among the top-scoring students on the John Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth's SCAT test. Way to go, Annie! (And Jean--I'm sure you've been through this, so maybe you can give us a heads up of what it will be like...you know, like is she supposed to dress up? will she receive her certificate during the ceremony, or do they just hand them out afterwards?...that kind of stuff.)

Anyway, we will be taking her out to dinner to celebrate shortly...after she and Rich get home from a talk being given by retired Army Major General Batiste.

a little culture...the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Now this is what I call a field trip! Since the boys (both big and little) were off for spring break, we headed to Grandmother's house. Along with seeing Grandmother, we had another mission for this trip to southeast Pennsylvania...visiting the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Frida Kahlo was Annie's latest "artist of interest," so when I found out the museum was holding a special exhibit of her life and work, I knew we had to find a way to get down there.

And it was well worth the trip. Frida Kahlo was such an incredible woman...I just can't help but admire the way she lived her life to the fullest despite the tragedies and pain she endured. Seeing her paintings in person was just the most amazing experience...one I hope Annie will always remember.

Unfortunately, photography was prohibited in the Kahlo exhibit itself, but we did get some shots while we explored other areas of the museum.

on the go

Yesterday was a fun, busy day in Annie's world. Unfortunately one devoid of photos though. Well, photos of Miss A anyway.

Yesterday was another Camp Arrowhead day. The morning was spent in a hiking class, and the afternoon in a calligraphy class...Annie enjoyed both immensely. And she made new friends as well, since she has now moved up to the next age group.

After supper came swimming lessons. Annie is really enjoying diving. Just one class left of this session. She's not sure if she'll be moving up a level or not. But we probably won't get back to swimming lessons until the fall anyway, as soccer is about to start.

And finally, last evening she headed out with Rich to view the annual salamander migration. It was harder to pinpoint "the perfect night" this year as the ideal weather conditions haven't really presented themselves. Yesterday's weather was close, so they headed out to scope things out. And sure enough, they were rewarded for their efforts.



Not sure how easy they are to see, but there are three salamanders in this photo.

They saw three species of salamander this year, fewer than last year (but that is probably because of timing, not because of a change in populations).

field trip!

Oh yes, Annie is one lucky girl to have a Daddy who teaches at a community college. It allows her to do some things she probably wouldn't be able to do otherwise. A big for instance:


We've been studying birds this quarter for science. Rich just happened to need to set up a lab practical for his vertebrate zoology class. Hence, Annie got to accompany him up to school Friday afternoon and help him dissect a pigeon. Now one might think that
being a vegetarian and all, that this might bother her. Apparently not. She seemed to be of the opinion that since her dad had to do this for his class anyway, that it wouldn't hurt for her to learn something from it.



While there, she was also able to examine some bird skeletons.




And then, for a change of pace, they also visited the Mercer Gallery there on campus.



Yes, Miss Annie had a very fun, informative afternoon indeed.