Christmas (or Winter) Mini-Unit

{This post contains a few Amazon affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a few pennies from your purchase.}  

We are counting down the days until our Christmas break and we are in the single digits.  Three more days to go. 👍 Because of Brian's line of work, we begin our school year in August and work hard through the fall so that we can take off at Christmas and continue our break through the end of January.  It has been an intense few weeks as the kids prepared for their Christmas choir recital and then as we worked toward a stopping point in our school books. Gavin, especially, put in a concentrated effort to accumulate hours toward his art history credit.

Now.  Now, we are beginning to breathe a little easier as the end is in sight.  We took some time this week to do a fun, book-based Christmas activity.  This would be appropriate to do as a winter activity in January as well.  

First, we sat by the Christmas tree and read The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.  This book is short and simple, appropriate for anyone from toddler on up.  Macie, who turns 1 next month, enjoyed turning the pages after we finished reading.

Then we read A Poem for Peter: The Story of Ezra Jack Keats and the Creation of The Snowy Day by Andrea Davis Pinkney.  I was fascinated by this a picture book biography of the life of Ezra Jack Keats (actually Jacob Ezra Katz) who was born into a Polish-Jewish immigrant family in the early 1900s.  Why did I always assume Keats, himself, African American?  Probably because he includes people of many nationalities and colors in his children's books.  This biography addresses why he felt so strongly about writing books for all children. This is a new book, published in November of this year, and while it is marketed to children, the comprehension level would begin at mid-elementary age.  The story will speak to those far beyond!

To cap it off, we watched The Snowy Day, a 45-minute movie, new on Amazon video this year. It expands the story of the book and is available free with Amazon Prime (not an affiliate link).

Do you enjoy Christmas reading with your children? If you 'like' my Facebook page, you will notice I've been linking to a slew of my old blog posts, recommending Christmas books.

Is there space for "twaddle?"

When I shared how our family uses the library, I implied that one reason I don't scan the shelves is to avoid twaddle-- poor quality, silly, or fluffy books.  

But...confession... I'm not totally offended by twaddle! 

I obviously steer away from books that are too mature for my readers (or listeners) and I discuss with my older kids the wisdom of setting a standard for content in the books they choose.  I sometimes push my younger boys to read books a little longer or complicated than they are comfortable choosing on their own, but I do not forbid them from easy, maybe even trivial, reading. 

Here's why: first of all, I know for myself that I often look to reading as an escape.  I have opportunities all throughout theday to stretch my brain, but reading is my way to relax.  I don't want to look up words or think deeply.  After Macie was born in January, one of my goals for the year was to read for pleasure. I declared that it was "not the year to tackle heavy classics or challenge myself intellectually."

Also, much of our family culture has been shaped by "twaddle-y" books.  Conversations are sparked by what we read.  No one would consider the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books classic literature, but we love them.  My kids say I am a twin of the "Mom" character in the books.  We both dance (and embarrass our kids) when we hear music and apparently "Mom" always gets her ideas from the magazine she subscribes to called Family Frolic. I get ideas from podcasts.  They know because I often listen out loud in the car while I am driving them to and fro... and then they see me implement the ideas at home.   I've been caught!  Maddie says that The Mom Hour is my Family Frolic. 

We enjoy other characters, too, and many quotes from the books are recited around the dinner table and are inserted into our real-life situations.  My boys particularly love how older brother, Roderick, watched the movie instead of read the book for his high school English assignment.  Unfortunately, he watched wrestling movie, Lords of the Ring, instead of the correct Lord of the Rings. 

I'm not saying that these types of books should replace classic or other thought-provoking literature, but I am saying there are pleasure benefits and relational benefits to fluffy books, too.

What are your thoughts?  Do you read twaddle?  Do you allow your kids to read it? 

How Our Family Uses the Library

I've had several in-real-life questions from in-real-life friends about how we use the library: how often we go and how I find the books I read to my children.  I answered them in person, but I figured it might be fun to share my answers here, too. 

We go to the library every. single. week of life, including when I was 8 months pregnant during  last holiday season and when I had a tiny new baby. Books are due every three weeks and a few years ago I considered only going that often.  Then I came to my senses, realizing that won't work for us. We check out and return far too many books each week.  We currently have 55 items checked out on our library accounts and about 20 items on hold waiting to be picked up.  It hurts my brain (and my back!) to consider stretching the time between visits and needing to deal with that volume of books times three! 

the newest reader: Macie, 10 months

Alaine and I have continued the habit we began during the summer of  reading a few picture books on weekday mornings after breakfast.  I try to have between 10 and 15 waiting for her at the library each week. We are also reading the entire Mr. Putter and Tabby series out loud in order. I did that with the kids once before, but  it was before Alaine was even born so she and I, plus Ben, are revisiting them. Again, too many books to consider not going weekly.

Then there is the questions of how I find the books we read. My older kids generally choose their own books, but how do I find the books we need for school, plus a variety of picture books... in a small library... with a baby in tow?  I seldom browse the shelves at our library.  I would guess that 95% or more of the books we check out come to us via the hold shelf.  I can go online to access any book in the statewide library system and have it delivered to my small town library.  I do all my research during the week and make a ten minute trip inside the library where a large stack is waiting for me.  (My older kids often browse for themselves while I nurse the baby or let her crawl around the children's room.)

I have mentioned briefly how I utilize the list feature on my library card online.  I am forever on the look-out for book recommendations.  I follow several book lovers' Facebook and Instagram accounts (like this one and this one and this one...) When someone shares a book that interests me, I add it to my ongoing online list. I have a general list and then I have more specific lists, too, like a "Christmas" list and an "audiobook" list. This is what I pull from when I place my holds each week.

 Below is a screenshot of my list of lists.

What about you?  How often do you go to the library?  Do you take your kids with you?  How do you select books?  Any great sources of book suggestions? 

Be looking for a post where I share what I think about twaddle-y books. It's not what you might expect. 

In Twenty-Three Days

Is it too cliche to say that time is flying this fall?!  Growing up, my dad used to say, "Today is the 4th of July. Tomorrow is Christmas."   I am seriously in denial that Thanksgiving is a little more than three weeks away.  That means you have twenty-three days to get your hands on this book and read it to your kids, your grandkids, your friend's kids...yourself!  I'm being very honest when I say that I often check out books from the library for my kids because I want to read them myself!

throwback to Thanksgiving 2009

We have a tradition in our family on Thanksgiving morning.  Though I cook most of my Thanksgiving dinner contributions-- the cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and sweet potato biscuits-- on Thanksgiving Eve, I intentionally save the corn pudding for Thanksgiving morning. It only takes a few minutes to assemble, but it goes into the oven for 45 minutes and the aroma fills the house for much longer.  It is the smell of Thanksgiving for us.  When I bake corn pudding other times throughout the year, someone often remarks, "It smells like Thanksgiving in here."

While the pudding is baking, we watch the Thanksgiving Day parade on TV.  Sure, the televised version includes things besides the actual parade-- Broadway dancers, corny commentary, street interviews, and pre-recorded musical performances-- but we love it anyway because it says Thanksgiving to us and it is tradition.  My kids have never believed in Santa, but they still stick around until the end of the parade to see Santa come into town on his sleigh.

For my kids, the highlight of the parade is the balloons. They try to spot Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon, Greg from  Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Red from Angry Birds. They look for classics, too, like Snoopy and Sonic the Hedgehog and Buzz Lightyear.

We discovered Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade by Melissa Sweet this year.  Sweet is also the author of Some Writer which I read and recommended in October.  Both books have mixed-media  collage-style illustrations which I find fascinating and draw me in almost as much as the story {no pun intended!}.

Balloons Over Broadway is the biographical story of Tony Sarg, the puppeteer who designed the first large helium balloons for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  The balloons debuted at the 1928 Parade and were not "characters" like many of the balloons are today.  These first balloons, controlled by men holding long ropes, were shaped like zoo animals. Sarg called them "upside-down marionettes."  Sarg continued working with the Parade and did eventually collaborate with Walt Disney to design character balloons, including a Mickey Mouse balloon which made its first appearance in 1934.

The book also details Sarg's background as a child who "loved to figure out how things moved."  This aspect resonated with me, the mom of just such a child. Sarg used his curiosity and ingenuity to shape his career.

This is not a new book.  It was published back in 2011 which ironically is when I published a list of Thanksgiving-themed books that we loved at our house that year...and still love five years later. 

Click the square below for more Thanksgiving books!

What are your Thanksgiving Day traditions?
Do you watch the parade?

a month of Firsts

We started our school year at the beginning of August. We do that so that we have enough days banked to give us a long winter break from Christmas through the end of January.  We do our best to keep August flexible if we need or want to take a day off.  Academics are important but so are relationships.  We want to be open to fellowship when our friends are still enjoying their summer breaks.

September, though, is the month to buckle down to our studies.  It's also the month when our activities start.  This thrills (most of) my kids. Maddie, especially, loves when her social life and academic life mix!

At the beginning of the month, Wednesday night classes at church started for the school year.  We share dinner and then break into smaller groups for an hour of missions-based classes.  This year  I am co-teaching the baby through preschool kids and I absolutely love it. 

I realized last year as I was homeschooling my own kids that I struggle with middle- and high-school learning.  Algebra and world history just don't thrill me. I find the early elementary ages-- picture books, animals, shapes, crafts-- a lot more enjoyable.  (That doesn't mean I give my older kids any less of me, but as they age out of elementary school, I miss it.)

On the first day of fall, we had the first day of gym. The air was a little warm and sticky for autumn, but there was a pleasant breeze so we walked with friends who live several blocks from the campus. Maddie reluctantly moved to an older class this year.  Alaine reluctantly stayed behind while her slightly older friends moved to new classes.  It's all about socialization for my girls!

Even though it didn't feel very fall-ish outside, we read a favorite fall book to celebrate the new season.  

Then there was the first day of book club.  Two years ago, the theme was decades.  Last year it was geographic regions. This year the girls are reading seasonal books so in September they could choose any book about school, teachers, or friends.  It was appropriate because one of Maddie's closest friends joined the club this year. 

And then last week marked their first day of homeschool choir.  Alaine, Ben, and Owen are in the "younger" choir with several of their friends, two cousins, and a smattering of kids they don't know yet.  Maddie is in the "older" choir with an aunt, several friends, and at least a dozen more potential friends.  (Gavin is choosing to sit this one out.) If the first day was any indication, they are going to learn valuable musical skills this semester, and it is going to stretch them all in the best way possible.

Happy October, everyone!

In Which I Answer a Question About Homeschool Boredom

We invited a group of friends over after church one afternoon in August.  The after-lunch conversation turned to kids and school and the question was asked, "Do you get tired of teaching the same things to all of your kids?" 

My simple answer is I don't teach everyone the same things. Obviously they all need to learn to add and they need American history, spelling, and basic science, but there is great variation in how we achieve that learning.  It sounds selfish, but I do it for me.  I choose to teach them things I want to learn about, too, with books that look interesting to me! When we circle back around to an era in history I covered years ago with the older kids, I choose different library books to read and new ways to explore the subject.  In this way, we've covered astronomy, composers, nature study, ancient history, poetry, geography, grammar, missionary stories, hygiene, drawing, fractions. cooking, typing, creative writing, sewing, and the list goes on.

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know we read a lot. One of my favorite things we're doing this year is purposing to read 10 minutes a day for fun.  This doesn't include what we're reading for history,  Bible study or our own personal reading.  This special 10 minutes is my chance to share a book I want to read with my kids... just because.  I don't have to finish a chapter each session and I don't have to read seven days a week, but I can almost always eek out 10 minutes.  Right now we're working our way through Little House on the Prairie and plan to keep going until we finish the series.  Do you know I've never read past the third book with any of my kids?! 

Learning is a lifelong pursuit so why not make it a pleasure for everyone-- including, maybe especially, the teacher? 

Whether you homeschool or not, do you get tired of teaching your kids the same things over and over?

How do you choose what to teach?

What are some things you want to learn with your children?

Reading For Writing and 'Rithmetic

Some weeks are jam-packed with planned activities and you wonder how you will find time to breathe, let alone fit in a decent amount of school work.  This was supposed to be one of those weeks for us, but then one full afternoon of activities was cancelled, and the relentless rain drove Brian home from work for two-and-a-half days so our week was more peaceful than anticipated.  

Some weeks it is easier to lower expectations anyway and be unconventional.  Games of Monopoly, decorating for fall, baking, trying a new soup recipe, and sorting fall clothes count as practical learning, right?

Yes, we did keep up with algebra and science, but we also read these picture books and called it school!

Math:

Math Curse by Jon Scieszka I picked up especially for Gavin who loves to say that math is something he will never use again.  Okay.  Granted, he may never use some of the more abstract concepts of algebra or trigonometry, but this book was a fun way to emphasize how much we use math every day. 

English: 

Yaks Yak: Animal Word Pairs by Linda Sue Park was loads of fun for me, an person who loves words and grammar. It was fun to see my kids "get" the puns on each page.  For example, "kids kid"... as in, goats teasing each other and "slugs slug"...as in, slugs in a boxing match!  There are little notes on each page with definitions of words a child may not know. 

Art: 

Camille and the Sunflowers by Laurence Anholt is  about a boy who meets Vincent Van Gogh.  It is fictional and told in story form, but biographical details are sprinkled throughout, and reflections of Van Gogh's paintings and style of work can be found in the illustrations.  

History: 

Six Dots by Jen Bryant focuses on the childhood of Louis Braille, recounting the injury that caused his blindness. It follows him through school and  how he was inspired to create the Braille alphabet. My children have always been especially fascinated by picture books that tell a true story!

How to Get Out of a Reading Rut

A friend and I were discussing online how we had both fallen into a deep reading rut.  She was asking for book suggestions and I was telling her how I had nothing to offer because I had read very little lately and the books I had read were not thrilling me.  I was dragging through short books and returning books to the library unread. 

I turned to another (in-real-life) friend.  She is my go-to book friend.  We have similar taste, and she reads far more and more quickly than I do so she always has a book (or five!) to suggest. This is what she said: "My last rut, I just read a bunch of middle reader books, but it worked."  

I took her words to heart and got a few books from the library.  I started with Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper.  After reading that, my friend told me to try Wonder by R. J. Polacio, a book in a similar vein. Both books are the stories of children with physical difficulties who must navigate the social world of school and life and also what it means to be different than what everyone else calls normal.  I love books that are well-crafted stories but also appropriate to discuss and pass on my pre-teens.

What makes this even more fun is that Wonder is being made into movie (April 2017).  A local group of friends got together earlier this month to watch another book-to-movie adaptation and I'm hoping even more of us can watch this one, too, maybe with our kids.

Right now I need books that are easy to begin and continue, even if I can only read in short bursts. These are a few of my other middle grade favorites: 

The Wednesday Wars and its companion (not sequel) Okay For Now by Gary Schmidt take place in the late 60s during the Vietnam era. Each follow a different young boy as he lives through a year of school, friends, and the emotional heartbreak of growing up.  I absolutely loved both of these books, so much that I would list them among my favorite books of all time.  These are not just stories for children. 

A Long Way From Chicago and  A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck are a different sort of book. They each are written more like a series of short stories. Set during the Depression era, A Long Way From Chicago comes first and recounts a string of summers when Joey and his sister, Mary Alice, leave the city to spend the summer with their Grandmother Dowdel who is quite a colorful character. A Year Down Yonder, a Newbery winner, focuses on Mary Alice, now fifteen.  Joey is grown up, and is sent to spend an entire year by herself with her grandmother. 

Do you read middle grade fiction or do you leave that to your kids?
 
What are some good ones you (or they) have read lately? 

Art Class

{This post contains affiliate links.}

My yearly post, giving the run-down of our curriculum choices may not happen this time, but I do want to share a few snippets.  I gave my thoughts on high school science last week. and now I want to discuss art.  

Some years we've chosen to focus more on art than other years.  Some years we've done a picture study of fine art.  (Go here to see how we did that for free!)  Other years we did crafts and hands-on projects.  This year it is a little of both.

Gavin (9th grade) is studying art history.  We are using Short Lessons in Art History and the accompanying book of exercises and activities.  (I bought both books used on Amazon.)  Since we are studying the modern era in history this year, we decided it would be meaningful to study the more modern era of art, too, so we began midway through the book with Monet.  Our first weeks of art history were rocky as Gavin enjoys the art part far more than the history part, but we soldiered through and he is learning to make this course his own.  He can't skip the history part but once he finishes the reading which he finds dull, he can spend as much time as he likes on the art projects.  

Maddie (7th grade) and Owen (5th grade) are using Draw and Write Through History: The 20th Century.  The book is divided into chapters, each with topics that closely mirror what we had already planned to study in our study of modern history.  Tuesday is art day and they work on their drawings a little each week, turning in a final product on the last week of the month.

In August, they both drew the Titanic, and this month they are working on Antarctic animals that Shackleton may have seen on his expeditions. 

Ben (3rd grade) and Alaine (1st grade) are taking online art "lessons" at  The Art Club Online.  They just finished a series of lessons on drawing faces.   They have inspired their older siblings to get in on the action, too.  This week, four kids (instead of two) gathered around the coffee table for the week's lesson. Next up is drawing animals.


How do you teach art in your homeschool?
Are you more an art-appreciator or an art-doer?

When Plans Fall Flat Before They Begin

That title sounds more dramatic than I intended, but it describes our experience with high school science so far.  This just may be the homeschool year that kicks my butt.  

There have been a few baby issues.  First it was a cold, then teething, then realizing she had insomnia caused by her continuing dairy insensitivity.  Good-bye again, cheese and butter! All that makes for a mama who is tired, distracted, and not her best self. 

Our primary stumbling block, though, has been high school.  More than the increase in work or the difficulty of the work itself, it is navigating new expectations.  I'm putting pressure on myself.  I'm putting pressure on Gavin.  He's putting pressure on himself.  We both need to take a deep breath and realize it's not as hard as we're making it. 

I mentioned in another post that we shelved what I had planned for science.   One of the joys of homeschooling is tailoring the work to our children's interests, but it doesn't mean they must love everything they do.  Algebra is not going away just because some of my kids hate math!  We're teaching them that sometimes in life you have to do something just because it has been given you to do. 

That being said, in the first weeks of school as we slowly began each subject, we avoided Gavin's science day after day until finally it was the only subject left to begin so we cracked open the book, The black and white pages with very little color, the experiment supply lists, and the lack of insight on what was important and what aspects could be skimmed over...it was too overwhelming.  Two weeks into school and we put the book back on the shelf and started a search for new science curriculum. 

At the same time, I was pondering where to plug in the 3-D printing class Gavin took over the summer.  I wanted to give him credit for the 15 hours of classroom time, but wasn't sure what it could "count" towards.  My mom sent me this link, telling me she thought it sounded like Gavin, and the pieces all clicked for me.

The traditional sciences (biology, chemistry, etc.) will wait as Gavin dives into The Way Things Work Now by David Macaulay.  The subtitle says it all: From Lasers to Levers, Windmills to Wi-Fi,  a Visual Guide to the World of Machines.

I almost ordered a used copy of The New Way Things Work  at an incredible price, I might add, but I decided to pre-order (at full price) the new edition that comes out in October because the topics and technology covered are more up-to-date and include a section on 3-D printers. 

While we wait, we checked  How Machines Work: Zoo Break by the same author out of the library.  It is an incredibly fun, hands-on look at simple machines, and I had Gavin teach it to the younger kids. It was his idea to build an example of each simple machine with Duplo blocks as they read the book. They each (Gavin included) also illustrated a chart for their school portfolios. 

I'm sure there will be more bumps in our journey this school year, but this has put us on a more confident path.  Fellow mamas, don't be afraid to insist that your kids do hard things, but don't be afraid to change course if it's the better choice.

Bonus points if you can give us a name for this science course.  It goes beyond general science and I don't think it quite fits the description of physical science.  Help!