Once Upon a Monday Morning...

Once upon a Monday morning there was a family who had entertained grand plans of accomplishing amazing amounts of work and school around the dining room table.  The father of the family got the morning off to a lovely start by bringing the mother her favorite Monday morning treat.

After setting up a temporary office in the tender presence of his children, he set to work himself, to do list and faithful writing tool at the ready and trusty velcro cord organizers to keep his electronics as organized as his Monday morning agenda...

There was Sister, diagraming her grammar sentences with skill...

Brother, solving multi-digit multiplication problems...

And Little Sister...who would soon find a more ambitious pursuit...

...under the table upon which the rest of the family was working.

Round and...

...round and... 

...round they trampled. 

Knees and hands thumping and pounding the floor and table legs.

Father was much perplexed at the turn of events, and decided to investigate...

The Baby soon decided that Father was cramping her style and...

...paused to make a simple request of her mother:

"Mommy," she said looking the mother right in the lens, "can you pleath move Daddy?"

Mother needn't have worried about the bold request...

...it seems the Daddy was plenty "moved" without one bit of 

help from the Mommy after all!

Getting in Touch with Nature

Nature walks. The most guilt inducing school-related words I know.  Every year I begin our science studies with the best of intentions because every year before, my best intentions for science have fallen short.  Every book about homeschooling discusses the life-enriching benefits of actually stepping out of one's home and experiencing the science of the world around us.  Every page in the "science section" of homeschooling how-to books waxes poetic about the merits of teaching children about the great outdoors.
In all our years, we've never taken a nature walk and in each of those years, I felt I was cheating my children out of the education they deserved.  Surely by now we should be experts at cross pollinating exotic orchids or at the very least be able to keep the petunias on the front porch watered!
Inspired by another new year of science, we took our first Wright Academy Nature Walk!  Spurred on by a mysterious tree at the bottom of our hill, and armed with our newly-acquired tree identification field guide,

and our science book, 

we headed out into the heat of the morning and commenced to walk, nature walk.  

When we reached the mystery tree, we set to work.

See those veins on the leaf? Those mean that this tree is of the vascular type and the vein in the center of the heart-shaped leaf is, according to our science book, called the midrib.  I'm telling you the learning that happened on our street today was astounding.

We also learned that it wasn't a simple matter to identify a tree that we knew little about.  It was kind of like looking for a word in the dictionary that you don't know how to spell.  I never could understand that whole thing, "Mrs. Sherman?  How do you spell the word: knife?" To which she would respond, "You'll need to look that up in the dictionary." I know she was well meaning, and I've said the same thing to my own students, but I wasted lots of time in the "N" section of the dictionary that day.

Today, we think we found the right answer for the tree, but we wouldn't bet the ranch on it. 

 

We asked our resident artist to sketch the leaves and the "pods" on them so we could "send it back to the lab for further testing".  (It's what they always do on TV!)

It was a good exercise (and it was a good way to exercise!) and we learned, and stretched our brains and our legs.  I understand why all those homeschooling "know-it-alls" continue to recommend nature walks. Speaking of those who are in the "know" if ANYONE knows the common name of this tree, please let us know!!

  The Wright Academy had an additional incentive for taking our very first nature walk today...

      

...seems we've gained a new student and we wanted to make sure that his first day in our school was a pleasant one, so we spent some time outside hoping that there was less chance that we'd scare him away... today.  Tomorrow we're not going to take it so easy on him.

(Daddy's on sabbatical for 4 weeks starting this morning!

Read about it here.)

It's That Time Again

I've missed a few self-imposed blogging deadlines this week on behalf of a worthy cause, or rather, three worthy causes.  I've been doing "school work".  Two or three days ago you could have located me under a large stack of curriculum catalogues.

These are just a few of the catalogues from which I select what we will study this year in school.  The catalogues are such a large part of our existence as home schoolers and such prominent citizens of our bookshelves, that it often surprises me that non-home schoolers are often unaware of their existence evidenced by the popular question: "Where do you get what you teach?" It is the number one question about school that I am asked.  

It would probably also surprise you to learn that my sister, who also home schools her children, uses a completely different set of catalogues from which to order her materials.  There are hundreds of curriculum catalogues sporting hundreds or curriculum choices each.  If, for some reason I can find nothing to suit my little class from the massive numbers of options listed on the various catalogue pages, I can visit the local board of education which will provide me with text books free of charge from the public school system. 

The most difficult task isn't finding things to teach the children, it is instead narrowing down all of the wonderful choices.  

 

This year I'm stepping a toe or two off my usual beaten path of curriculum choice which has my older students a bit curious and we're adding a kindergarten student which has the teacher a bit nervous.

Nevertheless, the task is done and the textbooks and readers and poetry books are trickling in from this company and that.  We still await a 24-pound box from Washington state where one of our favorite home educating companies, Timberdoodle, is based and I may have one more Amazon.com order to place if my teaching assistant thinks we need the extra material...

While she makes up her mind, I'm busy getting pumped up for the year by reading...

The Core: Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical Education, which is causing me to look differently at a few things we've been doing in our school and a few things we've not been doing.  This book has been my textbook which is super because one of my favorite things about teaching our kids at home (a question no one ever asks, for some reason...) is that I get to be a student too.  I've learned so much in the last five years that this time through school I actually have a chance to graduate fourth or fifth in my class!!

 

Test Prep

Tomorrow is the homeschoolin' Super Bowl.  Testing day.  Our state requires homeschoolers to choose one of two courses of action in which to remain accountable to the Board of Education.  The first option open to us is to keep a portfolio of the students' work throughout the year and have it reviewed by a certified teacher.  In our case that would mean a certifiable teacher having her students' work reviewed by a certified teacher--HA! 

The second option available to us is for our little scholars to sit for a standardized test and then send the results in to the Board of Education.  This is the option we choose each year. 

For the last few weeks, we've been sharpening our testing skills.

Practicing filling in little dots, learning how to handle tricky questions.  We've worked on slowly reading the directions on each page.

We've been reviewing math facts, science methods, important historical events and some political science.

We've even called in a special tutor for geography.

She takes her job seriously and her heart for her students beats true...

She's readily available to both of our students which is a good thing because...

Test prep is exhausting. 

Molly and I, we've done our best, but we're a bit nervous because we realize that the test scores are not only a reflection upon how much our students know, the scores are also a reflection on the quality of the teaching the students have received!

At this point, we've done all that we can do.  Now we'll just have to hand 'em their #2 pencils, get out of their way, and pray for our students to shine!   

Oh, Florence. . .What Have You Done?

Here's the story. . .
The big kids, Cole and Meg, are enrolled in a wonderful creative writing class called the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW).  This class meets every other week at a local church where the students are divided by age into 5 or six classes.  Each class is taught by a home schoolin' mom whose children have previously taken the course.  Each class session is two hours in length and the information absorbed by the students (and this parent) is valuable.

We take IEW seriously, very seriously.  Entire days of school have been dedicated solely to its assignments.  This week is IEW week and we've been hard at it.  The kids are learning to write reports and the assigned subject of this week's report is Florence Nightingale, nurse extraordinaire.

While editing Cole's writing, I noticed that he had described the conditions of the Crimean War, in which 60% of wounded soldiers died from infection, as dirty.  I felt that he was vastly understating the war's conditions and was emphatically trying to get him to ponder using a stronger word than merely dirty. 

"Cole, we're talking serious dirt here" I said, my eyes growing wider (which tends to happen when I get excited about a subject).  "You need a better word.  A more serious word for dirt."  For some strange reason, the thought of serious dirt made him grin a bit.

"How about just using that Mom, 'The Crimean War had some serious dirt.' "

This was not going like I thought it should.  I just wanted him to get to the word filthy on his own (ok, not totally on his own...).

"Cole, really.  Let's think about this, we need a better word.  Cole, what is the dirtiest word you know?"  (Oh, yes I did!)

It was now his turn to make "big eyes" at me.

"That's not what I meant," I said before he could speak (thank goodness).  "How about filthy? Does that work?" I said throwing in the towel.

"Yes," said a relieved little boy as he took pencil to page.

I don't need to worry about Meg's creativity for this project.  As she was reading her report on Florence Nightingale aloud, I learned that this amazing woman was able to get patriotic English folks to donate hand sanitizer to the war effort along with other needed supplies.

PARDON ME?

"Hold on a minute Meg.  Hand sanitizer in the year 1854?"

Impishly she said, "I was just trying to make it more interesting."

Here's interesting for you.  Before Florence Nightingale began her work with wounded soldiers the death rate from infection was 60 soldiers out of 100.  After Nightingale's efforts to adequately supply medical wards with the necessary sterile supplies, the death rate from infection decrease to 1 in 100 soldiers.

For that statistic and many others like it Miss Nightingale, I heartily say, "Go Flo!"  I also forgive you for nearly causing me to make my son say a dirty word.  Oh, and for making my daughter embellish , we'll say, her report about you.  All's fair in dirt and war?

Mark Your Calendars

Apparently, I nearly missed celebrating a holiday. . .

. . .a special holiday to be sure

  "Take Your Near-Sighted Teddy Bear to School Day"

We're looking forward to celebrating again next year!

If At First You Don't Succeed. . .

Here it is, the sequel to the riveting, the electrifying School Pictures post!  (You know, the one my computer ate over the weekend.)

Education is the movement from darkness to light. ~Allan Bloom

(So is Salvation!!)

Grammar - a necessary "evil".

(More fitly pronounced grrrrrrrammar!)

This year Cole's math curriculum is called The Teaching Textbook which is computer based-yippee!  The computer teaches the lesson, grades the exercises, and keeps records.  This setup is perfect for his home school teacher who agrees with Calvin Trillin who said, "I never did very well in math - I could never seem to persuade the teacher that I hadn't meant my answers literally."

This is more like it! Counting math - tell me what you use most each day...algebra or counting? I figure, as long as I can count to four...four bowls of cereal, four spoons, four squirming bodies behind me in the van, four million loads of laundry. . .

Working on a reader entitled Henry Reed early in the day. (I can tell that its early because the top of the table is still visible!)

Throughout the year, our history studies will be centered around the Eastern Hemisphere. Last week and this week our focus is on Australia. Our main "text book" is the 2009 World Book Encyclopedia on DVD-ROM. It is such a super resource. As we read the assigned article last Friday, it discussed the highest population areas of the land "down under." We clicked on a "population map" and a map appeared showing us in picture form the very thing we had just read. Continuing through the reading assignment, we read about the usual facts and statistics of Australia and then listened to the national anthem with one simple click. "What's that weird looking horn?" they asked, looking at an interesting picture on the screen. One more click and we heard the horn playing and learned that it was a didgeridoo. So much fun. We accidentally learned a lot while playing with the World Book program!


Now to my absolute favorite subject. . .

Home Economics!

 Kate received an A+ for this special project...

Easy Peach Cobbler

Baking is fun, dishes are inevitable.

Can you tell that the Home Ec teacher is trying her best to work the cafeteria lady out of a job?

And finally. . .

Driver's Ed

(Just kidding!)


Here at the Wright Academy we are ever looking toward future generations of teachers and so, we have developed a program to involve specially trained student teachers from time to time. . .

Never too young to learn.

Especially if it's from The Belly Button Book by Sandra Boynton - delightful.

What else, you may wonder does good 'ole Molly do now that the attention she was used to basking in has been turned toward more serious studies-toward books and markers, puzzles and dry erase boards, to reading and writing?


She keeps coming up with ways to stay at the center of it all.

It appears that good 'ole Molly is a pretty quick learner too!