2014 was an amazing year!

Here are a few (OK, more than a few) of my favorite photos from 2014.  After such a busy, eventful year, it was difficult to choose, so please forgive the photographic overload! 

What an amazing year!  We traveled to beautiful places, learned fascinating things, and had a lot of fun along the way!

Thanks for sharing 2014 with us.  We wish you and yours a wonderful 2015!

Sticking to a daily schedule

Schedule, routine, time map...whatever you want to call them, I'm just no good at sticking to them!

Sometimes life gets in the way.  We have every intention to do what we call "book work," but then an opportunity to go somewhere or do something interesting comes up.  

Field trip to butterfly nursery!

Of course, that's one of the great advantages of homeschooling--schedule flexibility.

Sometimes a kid gets fascinated with something and we end up going down a bunch of rabbit trails that weren't part of the plan.  (Our never-ending unit study of WWII led us down lots of unexpected paths and that's why we've never been able to call it finished once and for all!)  

Nature study

Again, this is a great advantage of homeschooling.

But sometimes we get off schedule because we just can't seem to stick to one for more than a week or maybe two at the most.  

I'm an obsessive planner.  I love plans.  

Plans make me feel secure, but carved-in-stone plans make me feel claustrophobic. 

I love learning along with my kids and I love checking things off the plans I've worked so hard to prepare...but I'm simply not capable of doing the same subjects in the same order every day!

Peach cobbler and family read-aloud

For that reason, I just keep a subject list and we pick and choose from it, cafeteria style.  Here is our typical planned-but-not-carved-in-stone routine.

The ONLY things that never change:

Morning Stretch
Morning Mindfulness
Poem of the Day

Our "cafeteria-style" subject choices

 Stuff we do about four days a week, in whatever order 
the kids prefer: 

Math

Literature
Writing
Proofreading Sentence of the Day
Handwriting
Thinking Skills
Foreign Language
Philosophy for Kids
SAT Vocabulary/Spelling/Word Origins
Written Conversations

Daily(ish) proofreading sentence

Rotating subjects that we typically do daily for a week or so at a time:

History

Science

Grammar

Current Events

Art

Super's latest masterpiece!

Other stuff we work around:
 

Music lessons and practice

Volunteering

Occasional tutoring

Our homeschool group's activities
Letting dogs in, letting dogs out, letting dogs in...

I'm NEVER a distraction during school!

 

I don't write dates on my plans anymore.  I used to make files with math worksheets, graphic organizers, etc. for each school day, collated, stapled, and complete with a dated sticky note.  

Then, when we inevitably got off track, I would feel stressed that we were running behind.

Now I just use a couple of crate hanging files for whatever printed material we are using.  They are ready to go when we need them but there is no such thing as "behind" because we are getting it done at our own pace.

My ultra-complex filing system

I do make monthly goals.  By the end of August I'd like the kids to finish up their Hands-On Equations kit.  By the end of September it would be nice to have a couple of books crossed off the reading list.  And by December I'd love to see major improvement in a certain kid's handwriting...

And I have made a four-year-plan for Super now that she's at the high school level.  I want to make sure she meets our state's graduation requirements, is prepared for college, and has a good transcript for her college applications, so I think it's important to at least have a list of goals. 

Summer wildflowers

But if we spend a couple of weeks doing a big block of science and then do history for a week and then focus on grammar for a bit and then get really into a book and just read for three or four days...that's just fine.  We can go in the general direction of the plan even while straying from the details (and I can absolutely guarantee that we will stray from the details!) 

Under-desk solution for squirmy feet!

Scheduling, yes, but on our own terms.  Another great advantage of homeschooling.  

A New Journey

Yeah, it's been a while.  And I've been missing this blog and all my blog buddies terribly! 

Do you even want to hear my excuses or shall we just move on to the new plans?  :-)

Oh, OK, here's the first excuse.  I lost my camera.  Happily it has been found, but for several weeks I wasn't able to take pictures of our daily work.  And without loading the photos every evening, I wasn't prompted to post about our activities.

The second excuse is that our adoption did not go as smoothly as we'd hoped.  I'm not going to go into a lot of detail here; I'll just say that November and December were hard months for our family.

Third and final excuse: I have recently become a working mom.  Well, sort of.  I'm spending several days each week helping out at our family business, and it has thrown our entire schedule out of whack.

Not that I wasn't sympathetic to working moms before, because I was.  But now I really get it.  My hat is off to those of you who work full-time, because just going in part-time has been overwhelming for me!

My kids are old enough to do a lot of their schoolwork independently, but I still feel like academics have suffered here at the Super-Awesome School this winter.  Besides, I really miss doing school with them every day.

And we are all eating way too many frozen dinners and dinners out.  (The waitress at our favorite local Mexican restaurant doesn't even take our order anymore, she just smiles, waves, and tells the cook we're there.)

So why all the upheaval in the Sparklee family?

Because it will be worth it!

In the coming months, we are transforming our family business (a small hotel) into a natural history-themed resort, complete with art galleries, science exhibits, classes for kids and adults, a spa, the coolest pool you've ever seen, and a restaurant that serves fresh, local food.  It's an exciting project that has captured the imagination of our entire family.

Researching and developing our business plan has been an amazing opportunity for our kids!  They are now on a first-name basis with some of the leading scientists in the country.  They've enjoyed behind-the-scenes tours of multiple museums.  They have sifted through style boards, choosing their favorites from among the carpet and wallpaper samples.  They have worked with professional artists, brainstorming ideas for everything from logos to pool design.  

They have sat through some very, very boring meetings as well.  Because any big idea worth pursuing takes a lot of planning and coordinating, budgeting and compromising.  

So even as I say academics are suffering, I'm not too broken up about it.  We're perpetually behind in math, just barely keeping up with history and science, and grammar and German went out the window some time ago.  But they are getting an amazing education as they watch an idea go from "wouldn't it be cool" to "let's make it happen."

I still plan to dedicate this blog to our daily homeschool activities, especially our unit studies and hands-on projects.  But I'll be starting a new blog as well, so I can journal about the new business.

Can't wait to share our new journey with you all!

Advice for a Young Utahraptor

If you happen to be a young Utahraptor living in the Early Cretaceous period, you'll need lots of important skills to make it through each exciting day.

For example, this Astrodon may look like a yummy lunch, but you'll need to use cunning and teamwork to down one of these ten-ton dinos. 

 And if an Acrocanthosaurus moves in on your hard-earned meal, it's best to just move on.  I know, I know. Utahraptors are tough, but trust me.  You are not tough enough to take on this megasized predator!

 

 Don't worry...there will be other feasts, like this iguanodon.  Just watch out for the thumb spikes!


In addition to hunting skills, you will need to be flexible.  Occasionally you are going to face something unexpected, like a flood.  Your best change of survival?  Learn a new skill on the spot!

 

We are loving Raptor Red by Robert T. Bakker!*  Told from the point of view of a female Utahraptor, this fascinating novel is definitely our favorite family read-aloud this year.  We have cried for Raptor Red's lost mate, rooted for her when her survival was on the line, and laughed when her curiosity got the best of her.  All while learning about the amazing creatures of the Early Cretaceous.**

  

One more word of advice, Raptor Red.  If you happen to meet one of these armor-covered guys...don't even bother.  He's not worth the broken teeth!

 

*If you've seen Jurassic Park II: The Lost World, you might recall the character Dr. Robert Burke, who met his unfortunate end in the jaws of a T. Rex.  That character was (somewhat loosely) based on Dr. Bakker!   

**The best part of all: Super got to meet Dr. Bakker today! He was very friendly, but instead of just talking about his own book, he asked her what else she liked to read.  They ended up discussing the Warriors series (and, because he never talks down to a kid, Dostoevsky!)  Thanks, Dr. Bob!

Anatomical Pilgrims

Dude was grumpy today because he got some terrible news. He is not allowed to quit piano lessons now that he's taking drum lessons. (His mother is so mean!)

He didn't bring much enthusiasm to our history class after that. He refused to put together his Pilgrim man, telling me, "This is a project for four-year-olds."

I told him that I knew it was geared towards younger kids, but it was just supposed to be a fun little activity to keep their hands busy while we read these books:

And these:

Meanwhile, Super (who plays the guitar and doesn't have to take piano, which is so unfair) worked quietly on her Pilgrim woman.

After a few minutes, she noted: "My Pilgrim lady is totally hollow. She can't survive like that!" She proceeded to make a heart, brain and pair of lungs and glued them inside.

Dude watched for a minute, then chimed in: "I'll make her some white blood cells to protect her from smallpox!"

Super: "You can make her a pancreas, too!"

Dude also cut a long strip of paper and twisted and folded it into intestines. (And yes, the Pilgrim couple ended up with all the main body systems.)

Much hilarity ensued, with comments such as: "Eew, his spinal cord is stuck to my finger!" and "Don't even bother making an appendix. It will just get infected."

Thank you, Super, for taking a rather uninspired idea and making it infinitely better! And for helping your brother get into a better mood!

Not exactly the lesson I had planned...but they are learning just the same!

Whoa! It's September already?

How did that happen?

Anyway, here's what we've been up to this week...

A bit of cursive practice...

...some outdoor Roll-n-Multiply...

...geography study with Holling C. Holling's Paddle-to-the-Sea...

...some fun library books...

...talking about prepositions...

...and making some fun posters for the classroom...

...reading The Swiss Family Robinson and working on our map...

...and just a little bit of boring-but-necessary stuff...

...you know, the usual insanity!

Have a super-awesome weekend!