Once upon a time, there lived three children who were very odd.
They did odd things, ate odd foods, played odd games and often wore odd clothes.
No one is really quite sure why they were so odd. Genetics? Atmosphere? The fact that they are homeschooled? Global warming? It is a mystery…
Despite their social dysfuntions, their quirks and their oddness, they were happy, and that’s what really matters.
The end.
I’ll bet that if you’re a reader like me, then you’ve collected a few….or a thousand….books over the years. And I’ll also bet that even if you know you’ll never read a certain title again, that it’s hard to get rid of the copy. And I’ll also bet that several of your volumes have thick layers of dust collecting on the spines. If that last assumption is not the case, please don’t tell me, okay?
I have collected books for a couple of decades now and have several shelves laden with the contents. Lately, however, I’ve been perusing them more often looking for things for Bonny Annie to read, and I’ve come up with some long-forgotten treasures.
Currently, we’re in the thick of a two-year study of American history. Annaleigh’s curriculum is actually designed to be completed in a year, but we’re drawing it out over two in order to keep her and Dirty Harry covering the same subject matter simultaneously. Bonny Annie reads voraciously though, so I’ve been trying to find extra books to fill in the holes.
Right now she’s in the middle of the series pictured above. It’s The Keeper of the Ring series by Angela Elwell Hunt. Each book focuses on real and fictional characters that surround one of our country’s first settlements. I had collected this series when I was a newlywed college student, almost twenty years ago…back before I had three kids and had the time and the metabolism to loll around reading thick books and eating entire bags of peanut M&Ms in one sitting. When we got to this point in history, I remembered reading and enjoying them years ago and went searching for them. As it turns out, I had to scrounge a couple of copies up on Amazon. I guess I loaned a few out and never got them back.
Now, you can say what you like about Christian fiction. I know, I know. I’ve read some duds too. Lots of them. But there are some really good works out there, and this series….and really anything by Angela Hunt….is one of them. For this series, don’t let the covers that are illustrated like this scare you….
Or this…
Just ignore and get past the simpering females, with swoony faces, heaving chests, and flowing tresses. I promise you that these are not Harlequin novels. You will find no bodice-ripping or sweaty, glistening muscles between these pages. While there are some romantic elements, they are handled tastefully and surrounded by historical fact and sandwiched within a well-written yarn.
Other good series that I’ve found on my shelves include the following….
And I’m sure there are many, many more. In fact, if you’ve read some great historical fiction, please leave your suggestions in the comment section.
Also, I’m not limiting my additions to Bonny Annie’s education to just Christian fiction. Many, many good titles abound in the classics section. I know she will be reading one of my all-time favorites, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith in about a year, when we to turn-of-the century times.
I know she needs to know the facts of history, and we spend a good bit of time on that too, but in the meantime, it’s okay to let those facts come alive within the pages of a good read.
“You know, Mom,” Dirty Harry began the other day, “I think Jack Henry would have probably survived the Starving Time at Jamestown.”
“Really? Why is that?” I was expecting him to say that he thought his baby brother was going to grow up to be extra strong or brave or smart or something.
“Because he would have been one of the first ones to eat his leather shoes. It would have probably been his idea. He probably would have even liked it.”
I think he has a valid point…
At least Dirty Harry is listening to his history lessons.
Well, actually it will cost you more like $12.50.
US Geography using state quarters….what could be more simple? Or fun?
Several years ago, Big D’s dad, whom my children affectionately call “Pa,” started collecting the state quarters for all of his grandchildren. At the time, I think he had three. He now has seven, with one more on the way, so it has turned out to be a more costly venture than he first anticipated. Last year, he presented all the collections in map binders to each child…
We all ooohed and aaahed over them, and then we put them on a shelf and didn’t think about them much…until last week.
I started a state-by-state geography study with Dirty Harry this year. We are going alphabetically and making a notebook filled with all of our findings of each state. When we got to Alaska, I found this sheet on the internet….
As you can see, it shows an illustration of the Alaska’s state quarter and then asks some questions, in which your student can answer inductively just by studying the coin. I thought the concept was pure genius, and you can find sheets for the other states here. The whole activity got me thinking about the coin collection, and so we got it out and have been pouring over it for the past few days. Even if you don’t end up using the sheets, you can learn a lot just by studying and discussing the coins themselves.
Here’s the quarter for our state…
All of the quarters list the year the state was admitted to the union. Some include state nicknames. Many include symbols, like ours. Guitars…of course. I’m actually quite surprised that Elvis wasn’t on ours.
Here is the state where the older kids were born….
It includes the nickname, the state bird (Carolina wren) and the state tree (the Palmetto…what else?). Half the things in the state of South Carolina are named Palmetto something-or-other, and I think you should know that encounters with Palmetto bugs are some of the most unpleasant experiences you’ll have in your life.
See? Study of the state quarters sparks all sorts of interesting conversations.
Many quarters depict historical scenes. Above you can see North Carolina commemorates Kitty Hawk. Virginia, below, shows the English ships coming to Jamestown…
Other state quarters show famous landmarks, like Arizona and the Grand Canyon…
After a thorough perusal of all the coins, I think my favorite is Connecticut….
I just love that tree! I’m considering stenciling it on my living room wall.
Because I have this thing for skulls, I think Montana is pretty cool too.
I haven’t had a contest in a while, so I’m giving away one of the map binders like mine (well…it will be fairly close to mine as I’m having a hard time finding the exact match). If you’d like to be in the running to get one of these cool maps, leave me a comment telling me which state quarter is your favorite. If you don’t have a favorite, just make it up….I won’t know the difference. If you want to link to this contest via facebook, twitter, or your own blog site, just let me know that you’ve done that, and I’ll enter you once for however many times you blabbed. The contest will end Friday at 8pm Eastern, and I’ll announce the winner sometime over the weekend. (Continental US entries only….sorry!)
Oh, and the quarters are NOT included. I wouldn’t want to rob you the experience of collecting your own!
My secret is out: I can’t spell Pocahontas. I have to look at it every single time. It’s ridiculous. And time-consuming.
For history this year, we’ve started a two-year journey on American history. So the past several weeks have been filled with stories of Native Americans, conquistadors, and Christopher Columbus. Harrison was assigned to read the Clyde Robert Bulla book, Pocahontas and the Strangers. I think it would have taken me about six years to write a book about that chick because I would have had to look up her name 649 times. It may take me two hours just to get through this blog post unless I just continue to call her things like chick or girly or young Indian woman….all of which I know how to spell.
Anyhoo, for the kids’ literature selections this year, I am having them complete some sort of project for each book they read, and for this one I found a whole mess of lapbook activities (link shared below), so he’s been gradually putting one together. We learned a lot….even things that weren’t included in the book. Except for how to spell her name. I will never get that one down.
Dirty Harry decorated the cover with a coloring page depiction of the girl in which we were studying and the correct spelling of her name, executed quite colorfully on the border. Did you know that Little P was not actually the buxom, leggy creature of Disney’s imagination? And did you know that there was actually no romance between herself and John Smith? And did you know that she didn’t actually have conversations with a talking tree?
On the inside left flap we attached two mini books. One covered medicine men in general and their functions in Native American tribes. The other focused on how our heroine and her tribe helped Jamestown.
Above shows a pocket where he included character cards. On the back of the index card, Harrison wrote some facts about each person. For example, on our girl’scard, he explains how she eventually goes to England and commits all kinds of fashion faux pas, and how they change her name to Rebecca because they don’t know how to spell that other name either.
The above tri-fold booklet nearly caused a breakdown one afternoon because Harrison thought it was too detailed to color. He was relieved though that he could answer the questions about her wedding in just a few words.
We included another little mini book on how she saved John Smith’s life. Now there’s someone with a nice, sensible, easy-to-spell name!
Then at the bottom, we placed two matchbook style books on her childhood and the roles of Native American women in general.
On the side flap, we attached the story of our Indian maiden’s kidnapping. At least Dirty Harry got the spelling right.
On the back, we have a map showing home girl’s travels to England and a chart where Harrison compared his religious beliefs to those of Native Americans. Did you know that P-Dawg (I watch waaaaay too much American Idol.) eventually became a Christian?
All in all, it was a fun and informative project! And here is a link to most of the resources that we used to complete the book: http://www.homeschoolshare.com/pocahontas.php The activities were actually based on the d’Aulaire book about you-know-who, but we were able to adapt the ones we wanted to use very easily.
Work boxes are apparently sweeping the home schooling nation. As a reader of several home school blogs, this term “work boxes” kept cropping up, and I was like, “What the heck is a work box?!” So then I did what I always do when I say, “What the heck…?”. I googled.
Here are a few of the links I found….
http://www.workboxsystem.com/ This is the official work box site, which sells a book by the inventor of the system.
http://www.blogcatalog.com/topic/workboxes/ This is a list of sites and blogs that have posted about their use of the system.
http://dir.blogflux.com/topic/workboxes.html And another list of links.
I was intrigued by the idea. Basically, you set up a little center with see-through shoeboxes. Everyday you put the work your student is to complete in the box, along with the materials they need to complete it (i.e. crayons, glue, etc.). Your student will then have a visual of exactly what they need to do each day and can work systematically through their box system.
I don’t have the space to set up eighteen or so boxes for Bonny Annie and Dirty Harry, but I still liked the concept, so I modified. I bought these….
And then I set them up with a pocket for each subject…
Instead of filling it with their daily work, I’m trying to make it work on a weekly basis.
So far, it’s working pretty well, although it still needs a little tweaking for my organizationally challenged children.
My blogging friend Angela from Homeschooling and Loving It said that I could share a picture from her blog of a more traditional workbox system.
Pretty nifty, eh?
And because work boxes are perhaps not the most exciting of blog material, I thought I’d share about a little informal game that my sister Debbie and I have been playing over the past couple of years. It’s called “Dead Celebrities.” And basically the object of the game is to try to shock one another with a phone call announcing the death of a celebrity. So far, I’m winning 3-1 because I called Debbie to tell her about Heath Ledger, Farrah Fawcett, and Steve McNair. She told me about Michael Jackson. Technically, I told her about Farrah when she told me about MJ, but it still counts. And technically, Debbie didn’t know who Steve McNair was, but it still counts too…..mainly because I’m the one that’s making up the rules….mainly because I’m almost six years older than she.
So, are you curious as to who gets the Patrick Swayze point?
No one!
I was talking to Indiana Mimi last night on the phone as I was walking into a Mexican restaurant when she told me the news. I immediately thought about calling Debbie, but then the smell of salsa hit my nostrils, and I completely forgot about it. The first thing I thought about this morning was that I forgot to call my sister to tell her of the passing of Johnny Castle (which is another testament to how lame my life really is)! I called her at 6:30 AM, but she had already heard, so we decided it was a no-pointer.
Indiana Mimi could have the point if she wanted it, but she thinks we’re heartless and callous to be playing a game like this, so I don’t think she will want it. Oh well. Her loss.
Yes, we need them too.
The following are good reasons for a home school teacher/mom to take a work day…
Just one or two of the above reasons would make a good case for canceling school today to focus on your house, your lesson plans, your sinuses, on why your life is so lame that you cry over an NFL game. I, however, have ALL of those reasons.
It is 9:10 AM on Monday. All of my children are still in their beds. And I don’t care.
But when Bonny Annie told me that her tutorial’s history club was planning a trip to the Bethesda Museum, I was like, “Huh?!” The unincorporated area of Bethesda is approximately six miles from our house, we’ve lived here for almost eight years, and I was unaware that Bethesda had anything more than grass, cows, beautiful country homes, a gas station and an elementary school.
Well, apparently they also have a museum.
Our arrival in the parking lot and view of the building did nothing to bump up my enthusiasm.
Neither did the sign that greeted us at the front door.
The little man who served as our tour guide began his speech by telling us that he had a chronic cough and that if he had one of his coughing fits to not worry, that he was not spreading germs. I’m still trying to figure that one out, but I still kept Jack Henry, who was strapped to me in the Ergo carrier, at least ten feet or so away from him.
Despite my initial skepticism and suspicions of our coughing guide, I enjoyed the thirty minutes or so that I spent browsing the roughly 2,000 square feet of the Bethesda Museum.
They actually have a pretty interesting array of things there.
Who remembers Diet Rite? And why is it so difficult to find soda in glass bottles nowadays anyway? It always tastes better in glass bottles.
Harrison wanted to know what this was…
And I told him it was what parents thunked their kids with when they made too much noise in tiny, dusty museums.
Just kidding. I told him it was an iron, and that we had an electric one at home. He said he’d never seen it. And then I thunked him.
I liked their quilt display. I like to think about the women who hand-stitched them, about who they were, what they were like, and if they too needed to thunk their children.
I love old books, especially ones like this.
Picnic fun from the tree-top house? I have to find a copy of this.
Mow-pram rides? Charming. Dangerous, but charming.
I would not have wanted the job of running this scoreboard.
Leave it to Harrison to find the Lego predecessors.
They also had several shelves of more modern specimens. I think we had a camera just like this.
And I remember this…
We had the Atari, which I think came a little after the Odyssey. I’m a little concerned about the packaging…
The mind of a compute…? I’m hoping it was the archaic technology of the early 80s that caused the makers to miscalculate how much room they needed on their box to finish their sentence. Well, actually it’s a dependent clause masquerading as a sentence, but we don’t need to get technical here.
And, of course, no museum collection is complete without a Commodore 64.
Annaleigh browsed around a little more with her friends, but at this point, I had to go wait in the car because Cap’n Jack Henry was tired of trying to stuff my necklace in his mouth and was starting to grunt and bounce a lot.
So, what’s your take-home from my Tuesday afternoon experience? Find the smallest, most obscure area on your surrounding map and find out if they have a museum with a coughing guide. You’ll enjoy it.
You know, I don’t think that little man coughed one time, now that I think about it.
Pluto was demoted from planet status a little over three years ago in August 2006. I don’t know why exactly, but this made me a little sad at the time. But I moved on and, honestly, have thought very little about Pluto ever since.
Until yesterday…
The curriculum, Considering God’s Creation, I’m using for Harrison this year for science is outdated, at least where planets are concerned. They still teach that our solar system has nine planets, and that Pluto is full-fledged and not a dwarf planet. That’s fine. I just reminded Harrison of the media events of three years ago and moved on. But when I was teaching him my tried and true acrostic to learn the planets’ names, I was stumped. This is the same acrostic that I cut my planetary teeth on a few decades ago. It’s the same one that I taught Bonny Annie just four years ago. It works. Teach them the above, and kids will learn the planets and their order.
Now that Pluto has been stripped, how would you alter the saying? My very eager mother just served us noodles? Now that just doesn’t work. What is eager about serving noodles? How about My very eager mother just served us nothing? How bland. No, she has to serve us something. My very eager mother just served us naked? Wrong on so many levels. My very eager mother just served us nectarines? Oh brother. We need pizza! We need Pluto!
You know, now that I’m pondering this whole situation, I think Uranus would have been the planet to boot. I mean you can’t mention that planet without getting snickers….not even to the solitary nine year-old fourth grader at your dining room table. Without Uranus, the acrostic still works: My very eager mother just served nine pizzas. See? She doesn’t have to serve them to us. She just has to serve pizzas, otherwise the whole sentence just falls flat.
Okay, who’s with me? Keep Pluto. Boot Uranus.
Now, if you’ll please excuse me, I have a petition to write….
Many a documentary have been produced about pirates and how they live(d). Blockbuster movies have tried to capture their essence. Rides at Disney World have attempted to portray the mystery. And still we wonder about them. Our curiosity peaks at their mention. Who are pirates and what do they do all day?
Well, wonder no longer people! In honor of…
…I’m going to share a-day-in-the-life-of-home-schooling-pirates. Buckle your seatbelts…this is bound to be a bumpy ride!
Here’s what happened on…
5:30 AM
My alarm on my cell phone goes off. I press snooze four times. By 5:55, I’m up and stumbling into the kitchen. I see Big D ironing a shirt for work, and I have a momentary wave of guilt wash over me for not having the foresight to get that done myself. I assuage this feeling by putting together a lunch for him. He’s already started the coffee, so I go take a shower while the stimulants continue to brew.
When I’m finished and dressed, Big D is sitting at the table reading…
I make myself a L-A-R-G-E cup of coffee and disappear upstairs to read e-mail, catch up on the news and blog.
7:00AM
Both older kids are up now, and they make themselves cereal and get dressed. I finish up blogging just in time because Jack Henry is awake now and ready to be fed.
I get him dressed and employ Harrison to entertain him for a few minutes so that I can make my bed and do a couple of other things downstairs.
While I nurse the baby, I use my laptop one-handed to surf facebook and read some blogs. The kids get started on some independent work downstairs at the kitchen table.
8:15AM
The baby is fed, and we’re ready to start for real. I strap Jack Henry into his highchair and sprinkle a handful of Gerber puffs on the tray to keep him busy for a while.
My stomach growls, and I realize that I forgot to eat breakfast myself. I fix a quick bowl of Kashi with fresh blueberries and down it. Jack Henry is totally happy with his puffs, and the older kids seem busy, so I decide to go do my make-up and hair since Annaleigh has a tutorial class today and we’ll be out and about. While I am in my bathroom, Annaleigh and Harrison have some kind of wild, knock-down-drag-out fight. I come in to referee, yell my head off at them, threaten them with expulsion from TaeKwonDo if they ever lay a finger on one another again, and then, a little hoarse from this episode, proceed to finish my hair and make-up.
When I come back, I read our Bible passage to much more subdued kids, and we pray together.
9:00AM
I go over a to-do list of assignments with each kid and make sure they have it all written down in their planners. I begin a language arts lesson with Harrison by copying some sentences to classify on our chalkboard.
He finishes that while I feed Jack Henry some cereal and fruit. Annaleigh packs up for her tutorial science class, and Harrison gathers some things that he can do in the car, like his math lesson and a reader. I realize that I have something on the front of my shirt, so I quickly change it.
9:35AM
We’re out the door and on our way to Annaleigh’s science class.
We drop her off at 9:45. I try to take a picture of her going into the back of the church, but she’s embarrassed because some of her friends are standing around. Eight graders! I take it anyway…
Sometimes the boys and I just sit in the parking lot in the van and do school and listen to the radio and read since the class in only an hour and fifteen minutes, but today I go to Target. They have diapers on sale, and I have a coupon. I also have to fill up my van.
I also pick up a few more items that are on sale and that I have coupons for, and I marvel that I saved $14….ch-ching!
This Target has a Starbucks inside, so do I reward my frugality with a $2 coffee?
Oh yes, I do!
11:10AM
We pick Annaleigh up from class, and she is thrilled that I am still taking pictures of her.
In the backseat, the boys work on math and a bottle of juice.
We stop off at Kroger. It’s highly unusual for me to do this during the week (except for milk runs), let alone during the school day, but Harrison had a baseball tournament all weekend long, and this is the first chance I’ve had to get to the store. If I don’t go now, we will have to eat half a box of crackers, 12 grapes, and chocolate pudding for dinner.
12:15PM
We arrive home. Jack Henry is passed out cold, so I leave him in his carseat and put groceries away.
Annaleigh makes lunch for herself and Harrison. They choose HotPockets, which I just bought on-sale and with a coupon. (I saved $23 dollars at Kroger….that’s $37 for the day!!!)
I love that they still use their Princess and Star Wars plates.
While they eat, I get up a groggy Jack Henry, determine he is too tired to sit at the table to eat lunch, so I nurse him and put him down for his Round One nap. I come back downstairs and warm up some leftovers of meatloaf and mashed potatoes for my lunch. Jack Henry is in his crib all of about fifteen minutes before he starts howling. I bring him down and feed him lunch.
He likes it. I promise.
He then goes down for Round Two nap. He fusses for about ten minutes and then passes out.
1:30PM
The big kids are back at the table, working on more math, vocabulary, and spelling.
While they finish up, I sit on the sofa and read aloud a chapter from each of these…
…and scratch Clara’s ears because she insists on being in my face the entire time.
After I read, we all kinda go our separate ways. Harrison plays Lord of the Rings on the computer. Annaleigh reads over her drama script. I start some laundry, clean up the kitchen a little and veg on the couch with my laptop.
4:00PM
Jack Henry wakes up. I nurse him again. Then I start dinner prep. I already have some chicken in the crockpot, so I put some rice in the steamer and make a salad. Annaleigh and Harrison entertain Jack Henry on the back porch with some bubbles.
5:20PM
I realize all of sudden that I forgot to take Harrison to his TaeKwonDo class, which started at 5:10. Oh well. He can go on Thursday. Big D gets home, changes clothes and plays a little catch with Harrison in the backyard for a little while.
While I make final dinner preparations, the kids unload the dishwasher, and Jack Henry spends some time in his playpen.
6:00PM
We finally sit down for dinner.
After we eat, Big D feeds Jack Henry his favorite food: a Yo-Baby banana yogurt. I clean up the kitchen, and then help Annaleigh with a nagging math problem, while Harrison finishes labeling his map of Alabama for geopraphy.
7:15PM
Big D and Harrison go to the garage so that Harrison can work on his pitching with the backstop a little bit. I take Jack Henry upstairs and get him cleaned up and in his jammies. Annaleigh checks her e-mail and facebook. Jack Henry and I watch a Praise Baby DVD and read (and chew on) some books.
8:15PM
I nurse Jack Henry for the final time and put him to bed. Meanwhile, the kids take turns getting showers. They brush their teeth, read for a while, and both are settled by 9:30. Big D and I also get ready for bed.
10:00PM
Big D is at the kitchen table working on his laptop. I join him and read a chapter of Crazy Love. I read aloud a Psalm. We decide to log into Annaleigh’s facebook account just to make sure she doesn’t have a secret boyfriend or something. She doesn’t. Big D changes her profile picture to a goofy shot he had taken over the weekend. I tell him that Annaleigh will die a thousand deaths when she sees it. He leaves it on there and logs out.
I go upstairs to begin loading the 2, 542 pictures that I took today.
11:15PM
I look at the time and gasp. I had meant to be in bed by 10:45. Big D is in bed but is still awake. We talk for a while and he rubs a knot I’ve developed throughout the day in my neck. I check to make sure the baby monitor is on, set my alarm for 5:30AM and finally, I go to sleep.
So now you know what pirates really do all day. Go and tell all your friends.
That was fun, wasn’t it? I think I’ll do this once a week.
Or not.
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