Rabbit Trails and Slime Mold

It wouldn't be homeschooling if we didn't head down a few rabbit trails!  This week we are continuing our cell and DNA studies, and after reading a bit about diatoms and spirogyra, we wanted to check out a few more members of the fascinating Protist family.

We began by reading this book by Rona Arato.  It's a good introduction to Protists with lots of great photos and cool info about this odd group of organisms.  The kids like this series of nonfiction because it's written for a young reader but, as Dude says, "They don't talk to you like you're a baby."

I have to admit, we got a serious case of the giggles when we got to this page!  We have four dogs and have seen our share of, uh, slime mold, over the years!

Then it was time to get out the microscope and look at some protists.  Super took these amazing microscope photos.

Amoeba, reaching with their pseudopodia...

 ...Paramecia, dyed with such festive colors...

...and delicate, confetti-like Diatoms.

We learned that malaria and African sleeping sickness are caused by protozoa (which are in the Protist family) and that when you use chalk, you are writing with the crushed silica shells of ancient diatoms.  We read about the dinoflagellates that cause red tides, and about how important Protists are in the food chain.

Finally, we watched this very thought-provoking video:

Hope you're having a great week learning with your family!

Thinkwell Biology Review and Cell Activites

We are really enjoying our Thinkwell AP Biology course, but we are moving at a much slower pace than I had anticipated.  This is partially because we keep going down rabbit holes and discussing side topics and doing supplemental reading...and partially because there is just so much information to cover.  

It's December and we have just finally finished Unit One, so we will definitely be extending our subscription!

The lectures are great because the instructor takes big topics and breaks them down into manageable pieces (about 10 or 15 minutes instead of a typical hour-long college lecture.)  We never watch more than one video a day because we like to discuss the video, go over the course notes, and delve into supplemental information.  

My only criticism is that the video quizzes are useless; they are too short, not at all thorough, and awkwardly worded.  We never do them anymore--I make the tests using the excellent notes that come with the course (above.)

I made a vocabulary matching game to help the kids review for the unit test.  I also had them put some terms in order from least to most complex.

After testing, I thought it would be nice to take a short break from our usual routine.  The kids are always enthusiastic about microscope work! We don't have the greatest microscope in the world so I often print photos of what we're looking at as well.  Today we looked at Spirogyra, Dinoflagellates, and Chlamydomonas, and read a little about each. 

Then we prepared onion slides because, well, it's easy.  And fun!

Onions work well in microscope slides because it's easy to peel off a very thin layer.  We dyed them with regular food coloring.

Note to self: remove the extra onion pieces immediately so you don't cry while trying to use the microscope! 

"Oh WOW!  I can see a nucleus!"

We've never been able to make this work well, but just for the heck of it we looked at cork cells.  They always look clumpy, not at all like Robert Hooke's drawings, and I would imagine that our microscope is more powerful than what he used in 1665! 

That's OK, we still had fun messing around with the microscope.  And the kids did a fantastic job on their biology unit tests!

Middle/High School Room

When we decided to take our kids out of public school, we knew we would need a dedicated space for them to work.  Otherwise, as my husband said, "School stuff will take over the whole house!"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Six years later, we have a dedicated school room AND school stuff has taken over our whole house!  

Kids arrange the daily schedule

Still, it's nice to have a semi-organized work area.  It helps the kids stay focused and it does cut down on SOME of the clutter in the rest of our home.

Our basement is the official headquarters of the Super-Awesome School of Super-Awesomeness.  Meditation, discussions, read-alouds, and independent reading happen here:

Note the BOSU bouncer, an excellent helper for kids who need to MOVE while they think.  It's also helpful for my early-finisher: he can be active-but-quiet while his methodical (and much neater) sister completes her work!

Most of the book work and writing happens here:

Again, here is a solution to keep squirmy legs and feet busy so the mind can focus:

The stuff we use frequently is stored here.  Mom's shelf is on top, students' shelf is below.

Oh, darn!  Looks like I forgot to take a picture of my desk!

That's too bad because it's in absolutely (cough cough) PRISTINE condition going into the 2014-15 school year.   Wish you could see how neat and perfectly organized it is...oh, well, you'll just have to take my word for it! 

 ;-) 

Linked to iHomeschool Network's NBTS Blog Hop: http://www.ihomeschoolnetwork.com/6th-annual-not-back-to-school-blog-hop-school-room-week/

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.  

Our "Book Work" for 2014-15

 I'm not sure which family member first used the term "book work" but that's what we call our formal academics around here.  We do lots of experiential learning as well, but when we sit down at a desk or table and get serious about putting specific information in our brains, we call it "book work."


So here is the basic outline of our 7th and 9th grade "book work" this year...

Poetry

We always start the day with a poem.  I've already posted about my initial poetry choices here, but I'll add that Teaching Grammar with Perfect Poems for Middle School was a good resource last year.  We got about halfway through it so we'll finish it up this year.

Math

Hands-On Equations workbook, disc, and manipulatives

 
My kids typically want to do math early in the day.  To wake up their brains, I give them a challenge problem, and they either work together on the dry-erase board or independently in their math notebooks.  I get the challenge problems from our old Singapore word problem workbooks, Math Starters, or a fun book called Perfectly Perilous Math.  There are tons of resources for challenge problems out there, and I'll bet I've used nearly all of them at some point! 

We have a few lessons to finish in Hands-On Equations before moving on to Saxon Algebra I.  We typically do a Hands-On lesson or two, then a review lesson from their old Saxon 7/6 or 8/7 books, and then a practice packet.  I make the packets in advance (I have 21 ready to go!) but not too far in advance so I can customize them based on what the kids need to review.


The practice packets are five or six pages and typically contain a Hands-On worksheet, practice pages from Saxon or Singapore workbooks, worksheets I've found online, and at least one logic grid from Mindware Perplexors.   

Mindware Perplexors logic puzzles

 Grammar and Punctuation

Last year we worked our way through the very silly and fun A Sentence A Day.  This year the kids will learn some interesting history facts from their daily proofreading sentence.  I'll just make a copy of the sentence from Take Five Minutes: A History Fact A Day For Editing and the kids will tape or glue it in their notebooks and then write the sentence correctly underneath. 

  

Literature and Writing

This year we are using Oak Meadow's Introduction to Literature and Composition I.  They have recently reorganized their curriculum and I'm not sure if this specific course still exists, but it includes To Kill a Mockingbird, A Wizard of Earthsea,  Animal Farm, and Our Town, plus grammar lessons from The Least You Should Know About English.  The course manual suggests discussion questions and writing assignments, and we also use the Notice and Note method whenever we are reading literature.

Notice and Note signposts for close reading

By the way, I can't recommend Notice and Note highly enough--it's a fantastic way to help young readers move beyond the basics of characters and plot and get into the deeper themes of literature.  Come to think of it, Notice and Note strategies are worth a blog post of their own...I'll get right on that! ;-)

After I wrote my post about our literature choices for 7th and 9th, the kids requested two more books, and I added three more, so we are going to be doing lots of great reading this year!

Science

My science-loving kids have already started their Biology I course from Thinkwell.  The lectures and course notes are great.  The quizzes, on the other hand, are kind of confusing--they appear to be written by someone who didn't actually watch the lectures.  After some frustrating experiences with poorly-worded questions, the kids decided to just watch the lectures and study the notes, and I'll make unit tests based on the course notes.  

Vocabulary

Vocabulary graphic organizer from TeachersPayTeachers.com

I believe the ideal way to develop a good vocabulary is from reading and from hearing scholarly speech.  However, it never hurts to build on that foundation!  In addition to collecting any unfamiliar words they come across while reading, the kids can choose interesting words from SAT vocabulary books for their vocabulary study.  They really like using graphic organizers for new words.  

Philosophy

Philosophy is a favorite subject around here.  We have read about two-thirds of Philosophy for Kids, and the kids have enjoyed it so much, I ordered The Examined Life so we can continue discussing Deep Questions!  Philosophy is a good subject to do before or during lunch because the questions always spark a lively conversation.

History

We have been working our way through the wonderful A History of Us series for several years.  I really like the author's approachable writing style, all the great maps and graphics, and the short-but-detailed chapters.  We typically read and discuss two or three chapters a week.  If a topic really fascinates the kids (our never-ending unit on WWII comes to mind) we do some supplemental reading and maybe a mind-map or other hands-on project.

Thinking Skills

I'm adding a new subject to our routine this year: thinking skills.  After reading Making Thinking Visible this summer, I really wanted to try some of the "thinking routines" described in the book.  (One example of a thinking routine is called "See-Think-Wonder."  After silently observing an object or a work of art for a few minutes, students are asked "What does this object/image make you wonder?  What questions come to mind?")  Trying out would be an interesting transition activity to try once or twice a week.  It's an experiment, but it should be fun, and I'm sure it will spark some interesting conversations at the very least!

What's the story here?  What does this image make you wonder about?

Foreign Language

My 9th grader will continue her German studies.  She started with German in 10 Minutes a Day two years ago, and last year she took a German course at our local community college.  This year will be her first year to work with a private tutor, so we'll see how that goes.

My 7th grader decided to switch to Greek this year.  He'll start with Pimsleur Greek and Your First 100 Words in Greek.

Written Conversations/Journaling

We usually end our "book work" days with a journal entry.  Last year, I found this really cool idea in a book called Written Conversations.  The night before, I write a brief letter to each kid in their journal, always including a personal question or two, and then they answer my questions in writing.  These journals are not graded or corrected in any way--they are just an opportunity to put thoughts and opinions on paper with zero judgment.  

So that's pretty much the gist of how we'll be spending our school days this year.  Of course there will also be music lessons, handwriting practice, note-taking practice, volunteer work, travel, museum visits, camping, geocaching, and activities with our local homeschooling group.  We're looking forward to a great year of learning together!

This post is linked to the 6th Annual Not Back to School Blog Hop!  Stop by to see what my homeschooling blog buddies are doing in 2014-15!

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!

Our Week in Pictures

Also known as the lazy mom's guide to homeschool blogging...

 What we're reading.

 

Vocabulary Bingo.   

 A few more things for our Time Capsule.

Measurements, and three things that represent you.

  Nature, knowledge, and creativity.

 And pugs in the sun.

A reference I made for the kids using bookmarks from abcteach.

 Practicing multiples...

...and playing integer games.

 

 Korean food!

 

 Cereal and sign language.

No matter how busy we are...

 

...there's always time to be a smart-aleck!

Hope you had a great week, too!