Homeschooling with a new baby

If you aren't a reader of my regular blog, you may not know that 6 weeks ago, I had a baby!  Yep, a big old surprise baby who is absolutely adorable.  Indy is in love with him and gave him the blog name "Han Solo."  This is them 3 days after Han Solo was born.  Aren't they precious?

I have been trying to get as much school work done as we possibly could before Han Solo was born, but of course we didn't finish the year.  Since Han Solo has been home we've done easy school, but still working hard.  It's not exactly easy considering I'm seriously lacking in sleep (I totally forgot what it was like to have to get up at night with a baby-NOT fun) and Han Solo requires so much attention.  Sadly he's not quite as easy a baby as Indy was and needs much more holding and face time.  Because of all this, our school days have changed.  Indy doesn't seem to mind though.  Our days have been starting later because after Han Solo eats around 6 or 7am, he goes back to sleep and so do I.  Indy gets up and plays in his room with Legos or his Indiana Jones action figures and usually fixes his own breakfast (man, I love that kid). I'm usually up by 9:30 and I'll give Indy some independent work to do while I hop on the treadmill (not every day, but I'm working on it) and shower.  Han Solo is generally up by the time I'm done and ready for a bottle. Indy LOVES to give him his bottle, so I set them up with the Boppy pillow (I sit next to them) and read to Indy.   Once Han Solo is done eating, I take him and burp him (Indy really wants to burp him, but I won't allow that) and then Indy reads to me. HE reads to ME!  He's reading level 4 readers, which is amazing considering he could barely read at all this time last year.   After we're done reading, I usually try to do some work that requires my assistance while Han Solo dozes in my arms.  This is hard!  Once he's asleep though, I can lay him down for a nap and Indy and I can get to the meat of his work before a late lunch (around 1pm).  After lunch Indy does his math (which is on the computer and does not require me!) and then we're done for the day.  We don't do quite as much as we did pre-Han Solo, but since we pushed so much before and it's nearly the end of our school year I'm not all that concerned.  In fact, last week we read about the Renaissance and Indy was so intrigued by Leonardo da Vinci (we read Leonardo's Horse, which is a great, short book). that we took the week off from our regular studies to spend this week reading about him.  Indy's working on a (FREE) lapbook from homeschoolshare.com on Leonardo's Horse (it includes other stuff about the Renaisance too) and today experimented with writing backwards.  He thought this was loads of fun.
So, homeschooling with a new baby is challenging, but totally doable.    We'll see how doable it is when Han Solo is a toddler.  ;)

Earthquake lapbook

In my previous post I mentioned that with all the media coverage of the Japan earthquake, we would start a unit study of them.  We opted to make a lapbook with our study.  Indy really enjoys making lapbooks and I do too, I just forget about them.  Homeschoolshare.com  has loads of FREE lapbook components and information on a wealth of subjects (we started on their HUGE volcano unit week).  All of the parts of this lapbook came from them.

Cover:

Inside:

We didn't have enough room in the basic folder for all the components, so I added another sheet of heavy card stock to make a flap that opens and give him more room to put things.   Here it is open:

Area under the flap.  We made booklets with info on the Haiti and Japan earthquakes:

Close up of one of the components (notice the neat handwriting!):

Indy really enjoyed learning about the earthquakes and has been riveted to the news to get the latest information on what's going on in Japan.

Natural Disasters and Science

Ugh, poor Japan.  I don't know what else to say.  Every day it seems to get worse and worse.  Indy has been glued to the NEWS watching what's going on over there and started asking questions about the earthquake and tsunamis and all that they encompass.  We've been really slacking in science, so I got the bright idea to study earthquakes and volcanoes.  Is that wrong? 
We started working on an earthquake lapbook (it also includes tsunamis) this week (FREE from homeschoolshare.com!) and when it is completed, we we will move on to the volcano lapbook (also FREE!).  Some part of me feels kind of weird to use a horrible event like this to kick start our sadly lacking science, but I figured we're getting loads of information on it via the news and Indy seems really interested in learning about it, so why not?

Back in the saddle and griping about books and maybe some changes

Whew, we've had an entire month off school and now we're back!  I was worried it would be hard to get back into the routine, but we fell right back into it.  Huzzah!  This week we're learning about Robin Hood and Richard the Lion Heart (who was not a great king if you want to know the truth).  Our book of the week is Robin Hood (A Stepping Stone Book).  We've read several of the Stepping Stone Books and the more of them I read, the less I like them.  I know they are aimed at children reading them to themselves, but Indy's not at that point yet, so I have to read them to him.  They are sooooo basic in their writing and grammar.  I find it insulting to be honest.  Some of the sentences aren't even complete, but fragments.  This drives me insane.  I'm not even sure I want Indy reading them once he gets to that point.  The stories are also pretty much dumbed down and that's really irritating too.  I think I only purchased 2 other Stepping Stone Books that we haven't read yet and I'm not sure we will.  I may get different books to replace them.  Sigh.
I'm also thinking of replacing our Latin program.  Indy really, really likes Minimus (mostly because of the comic strip at the beginning of each lesson and the fact that it's based on a real family who lived in Roman Britain), and I think it's cute, but I don't have a Latin background and find it hard to teach.  I've heard a lot of good stuff about Lively Latin and like the samples I've seen online, so we may switch to this and use Minimus as a supplement once our Latin knowledge has increased.   Indy really enjoys finding words in English that are actually Latin or Latin based.  It's become like a game.  I'm glad I decided to introduce it this year.  If we can keep it up, one day he'll rock the SAT's.  :)

Two weeks down, thrity four to go!

Whew!  We made it through the first 2 weeks and I still have (most of) my sanity!  Huzzah!!!  I have to say it's actually gone really well.  Last week we studied the fall of Rome (which marks the beginning of the Middle Ages) and I learned things I didn't know!  Actually, I probably learned them, but forgot, so this was a nice refresher for me.  The Roman Emperor Diocletian decided to split the Empire into 2 sections,  the Western and Eastern Roman Empire come from.  The Emperor of  each half was called Augustus, and they picked a junior Emperor, called Caesar, which meant that there were a total of 4 Emperors at a time!  Crazy.  This was called the Tetrarch period.  We learned how Rome was sacked by the Gauls, the Visigoths, the Vandals and the Ostrogoths.  Indy found this very interesting.

This week we studied the Byzantine Empire, which was what was left of the Western Roman Empire.  Indy was fascinated by the Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora (who was a circus performer, actress-courtesean, though I left that out-and wool merchant before marrying Justinian, who was in the Army at the time of their marriage).  We learned all about the Justinian Laws, and Indy found them extremely interesting.  He thought some of the laws were very fair, while others weren't.  We also learned about the split of the Catholic church into the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches. 

Indy's math is done on the computer (with some writing in a workbook), but and he loooooves it.  He begs me to do math every day!  I've discovered that if I hold math off until last he'll get through his other work faster to get to his math.  I'm so clever.

Language arts is still his least favorite subject, but after the Davis therapy, it's going much better and easier.  He's actually asked me several times if he can read to me!  He's still reading simple books and I have to help him with some of the bigger words, but he wants to read and it's much easier than it was before.  Yay!

We've done 4 science labs in the last two weeks and he loves it.  We learned about atoms and molecules and how they move and how temperature affects them.  He really enjoys doing the labs, but honestly, while they're fun, I kind of dread them.  The prep and the clean up do me in. 

Indy's hands down favorite subject is languages.  He loves to do his German (on the computer) because he hears it on a daily basis.  He gets excited when he recognizes words.  Latin though, this is his absolute favorite thing.  He loves Latin.  He's learned a few basic words and likes to pepper his sentences with them.  He calls me mater (mother) at every turn.  Silly boy.  The program we're using is based around a real family that lived at the Roman Fort in Vindolanda (in northern England) during the 100's AD.  Their home has been excavated and the author of the books has included real bits of their daily life.   Indy really likes this. Roman Numerals were a huge hit with him.  He was excited because the next time we go to Rome he will be able to decipher dates on buildings.  :)   We did a quiz every day where I wrote a number on the board in Roman Numerals and he had to decipher it.  He really liked it and was quite good at it, even when I went to really high and complicated numbers.  I can see why the system of Roman Numerals fell out of favor, it takes an awful lot to write some of the numbers.  Yikes.

So there you have it.  Next week it's on to Charlemagne!

Dyslexia

School is on summer break!  Hurrah!  I'm not sure who's more excited, Indy or me (probably me).  One of the good things about homeschooling is that as a parent, I get to see what works, what doesn't and what, if any problems there might be with Indy's learning.  For a while I suspected Indy had a reading problem.  He wanted to read so badly, but it just wasn't coming together for him.  He struggled, he cried, I cried.  It was awful.  At first It thought there might be a problem with his eyes, so we went to the eye doctor for a check up.  His eyes were perfect.  I then started taking note of the specific issues and took to the internet to research what they could mean.  Over and over I came up with dyslexia.  It shouldn't have been  a surprise really, as Mr. HH is dyslexic. I did not want Indy to struggle the way Mr. HH has and started researching methods to help.  We went to his ped for advice (she verified the dyslexia, even though I already knew) and finally found the Davis Method.  Mr. Davis is dyslexic himself and devised this method on his own.  I picked up a copy of his book, The Gift of Dyslexia, which, if you're not dyslexic is a fascinating read.  I had no idea how it worked.  After reading this book, I knew this was the method that would work best for Indy.  On the main page of the website, they list the Davis Providers in the US and around the world.  There happens to be one about an hour and a half from us that works in English.  I contacted her and set up a consultation.  We spent a few hours with her so she could evaluate Indy and see if she thought this would work for him.  I already knew it would (I'm a mom, I know these kinds of things), and she agreed.  Of course our insurance won't pay for it, but we decided that any amount of money was worth it to help Indy read.  Mr. HH, who still struggles, would have paid twice the fee if it meant Indy wouldn't have the same issues he had while growing up.  We are going to Stuttgart in 2 weeks for Indy's therapy sessions.  I so hope this works.  Indy is crazy excited because he too is convinced (he concluded this all on his own) that he will be able to read better afterward.  Cross your fingers.  I'll let you know how it goes.

New Curriculum!

We started our new program yesterday and it was fantastic! Today was great too, except that I have almost no voice, so I couldn't do much reading aloud. Indy was so excited when the new books arrived and wanted to start that day. I had to put the Instructor's Guides together and get myself prepped first. We are still missing a few books, but have enough to do most of the daily assignments. Indy loved doing the map assignments and looking up all the places we've been (and it's a big list).
As I mentioned before, we're doing a program by Winter Promise. If you've never dealt with them, let me just tell you have have amazing customer service. They are the nicest, most helpful and friendly people you can imagine.
I really like the books that are included in our program (Oliver Twist, The Three Musketeers, Anne of Green Gables, Swiss Family Robinson and a host of others that I can't wait to read together) and there are sooooo many activities suggested in the IG that we are going to have a hard time choosing which to do. Our first "cultural gathering" is going to take place next week and is an English Tea and a celebration of Guy Fawkes night (which happens to be next week!). Indy is so excited. We're going to have some of his friends over (dressed up of course) and he's going to wear a tie (which he loves to do).
There are days (especially when I'm sick) that I think about how much easier things would be if I just sent him to regular school, but the days I get to watch him figure something out or get excited by something new he's learned, I remember again why I do this.

Field Trip to Saalburg

Last Friday Indy and I went with our local hs group on a field trip! This time we went up to Saalburg (about 10 minutes north of Frankfurt) to the reconstructed Roman fort. Kaiser Wilhelm II, when he wasn't ticking people off and starting wars, was very interested in the Roman history in Germany (and probably a few other countries) and had the fort reconstructed on the site of the original ruins. He did take a few liberties, though. The crenelations on the outer wall are too narrow for the Roman weapons, but Wilhelm thought they looked better slim, so slim they were built. The buildings that have been reconstructed are now used mostly to house artifacts found on the site. Just a little ways from the fort is the Roman Limes (LEE-mess) which was the northern border of the Roman Empire.

The entrance, with the Emperor Hadrian, who had the Limes and fort constructed. Apparently Hadrian really liked walls.


They have some interesting interactive things for people to do, like try on chain mail. I think it weighed about as much as Indy.


This was one of the highlights for Indy. It's an entire Roman Legion composed of Playmobil soldiers. Indy has quite a few Romans, but not quite a Legion.

The back gate.


This barracks room (the part behind the glass) housed 8 soldiers. Eight! See the bunk bed? Four on the top bunk, 4 on the bottom. Yikes!


To make the buildings look more "Roman" the army would cover the stone with limestone and whitewash, then use brown paint to make the brick lines. They did this to every building and the outer wall! They must have had a lot of time on their hands. You can see a small patch here on this building.


Here is an entire building done up to look "Roman."


Indy in the guest house outside the fort.



We had a lot of fun and learned a lot of interesting stuff about the Roman experience in Germany.

Change in Curriculum

One of the cool things about home schooling is that if something isn't working, you can change it. We started doing Sonlight Core 1 about 8 weeks ago and I was really, really hoping we'd love it, but it's just not a good fit for us. I was disappointed that it didn't work for us, but after much research (hours of scouring the internet), I decided we'd change from Sonlight to Winter Promise. We're going to use their Children of the World Theme with Language Arts 2, Horizon Math and the World Around Me Science. I'm hoping this will be a good fit for us. I'm going to continue with Story of the World 1 (which I had added to Sonlight) and see what happens. He likes SOTW and so do I. WP is a literature based curriculum, so we'll still be doing a lot reading together and he's excited about that.
Sonlight fortunately has a fantastic return policy, so now I just have to pack it all up, ship it back and wait for my refund.

Celebration and Field Trip 2

Oh dear. I had such good intentions of updating this blog more often and then, well, life went on. What has been going on? Well, school! The schools on post here started back on August 31 and Indy and I celebrated "not going to 'regular' school." We went to a local cafe and had HUGE strawberry milkshakes. What a lovely (and delicious) way to celebrate homeschooling.
A few weeks ago we got together with our local hs group and went on a field trip. And what a field trip it was! We first met up at the Mauer Rathaus (city hall) where they have a small museum devoted to finds in the area, including the jawbone of the Heidelberg Man (which we visited on our first field trip).

Indy outside the Rathaus

Rathaus






The X on the photo marks where they found the jawbone:




After we left the Rathaus we went to the site where they found many of the remains. You can't see where the jawbone was found (it's on the other side of the mountain), but many things were found on this side as well.


From there we drove up to Messel just south of Frankfurt to visit their museum and the famous fossil pit.




This is the fossil of a very small ancestor of the horse. They were only 10-20 inches from the ground to their shoulder. IIRC, 74 of them have been found in the fossil pit.



The weather was no cooperating, but we didn't let that stop us. Just as we left the ticket office of the pit, the bottom dropped out of the sky. I tried to take photos, but it was raining so hard the pictures were all blurry. This is the group at the gates of the pit:


The pit itself:


Indy in front of the pit:

Our guide showing some of the recently found fossils. She said they find birds, beetles and bats almost daily, and about 1 crocodile a month. It's a busy place!


He was really excited. I promise.



The guide handed everyone a piece of fossil and told them to take a really good look at it.


Then she told them it was fossilized poop. The kids were all grossed out.


It was a great trip and we had tons of fun and learned an awful lot.

First week back and a field trip

Ah, school! We are officially back session and so far, so good. We are using Sonlight this year and we are enjoying it. I've had to do a lot of tweaking to it, but it's nice to have most stuff just laid out for me. I open the schedule book and off we go. Heaven! There is a lot of stuff included in this program, but I've already started supplementing it. This is a Christian curriculum, but I actually prefer not to include religion in our homeschool. Why did I choose Sonlight then? Well, the fact that it's literature based and comes with fantastic books is the main reason, but again, having the schedule laid out was a HUGE plus. The biggest disappointment with the program was that the first 17 weeks of language arts (reading done by Indy) was from the Bible. Indy was so not happy about this. He wanted to read all the other books that were included. He knows his Bible stories and really, really, really did not want to read nothing but the Bible (seriously, every day for 17 weeks!). I knew this would not instill a love of reading in him, which is what I'm really trying to do this year, so I ordered a bunch of basic readers from Amazon, took out one of the blank scheduling sheets Sonlight so thoughtfully provides and made up my own LA program. He's so happy with it. I did leave in some of the Bible stories for him to read because he should be well versed in certain stories (for cultural references if nothing else), but 17 weeks? No thank you.
I've also added a section on world religions (using The Usbourne Encyclopedia of World Religions) because I think it is important for him to know about more than just Christianity. He finds the concept of other religions really interesting. We're also supplementing a world cultures program (using Children Just Like Me). He loves CJLM. I find it funny because it was published in 1994 and the fashions are early 90's awesome.
We're currently reading Charlotte's Web for our read aloud and it is great. Story time is his favorite time of the day. We leave the school room to go cuddle up on the sofa and read. I know I'm going to cry though. Charlotte dies, people! She dies! Hope I didn't ruin that for you. ;)

On Friday we took a field trip downtown (I promised him a field trip for our first week) to the Kurpfalz Museum. The jawbone of the Heidelberg Man is there and as we're working on prehistoric stuff (well, not yet, but we will) I thought it would be fun. He loved it! Unfortunately they don't let you photograph inside the museum (boo!) so I couldn't take any cool shots inside.

Indy waiting at the bus stop for the number 29 to the Bizmarkplatz. He's very excited.


Here we are!


We stopped for lunch at a cafe first (priorities people!). Indy ordered a Margherita pizza (cheese and basil). Look how big that thing is!


I had 2 bites! Indy ate the whole thing!


Outside the museum in the courtyard.

After we saw all the cool stuff (and there is lots of cool stuff there, including artifacts from when HD was a Roman encampment), we went to the cafe that is in the courtyard for a little desert. Indy loved the fountain.


In addition to some postcards we bought to show what we'd seen (since I couldn't take pictures-bitter much?) he HAD to have the Emperor's ring. He wore it all day at the Roman Fest the next day and told everyone he was the ruler. He's so humble, my boy.

Something he liked more than the fountain and the ring:


By the time we headed home, it was about 5pm and the evening entertainers were coming out to make their money. This guys was awesome! The 'dancing' puppet cracked us up.


The musicians were really good, but the dancer was a bit loopy. She kind of scared me. Plus her dancing style totally didn't match the music. Whatever.

There were actually about 7 more entertainers out, but I decided not to take pictures of them all. If you take photos, you kind of have to give them money, and well, some just weren't that good.
All in all, it was a great field trip. We saw tons of cool stuff and it helped him to relate more to the stuff we've been reading about. Go field trips!

I'm such a slacker!

Ugh! I have been so bad about keeping this blog updated. Now that the holidays are over though, I'll try to keep up with it a little more. We have not been slacking in home schooling though. We are so close to getting over the "I can't read" hump I can almost taste it. It gets better every day and all I can say is THANK GOODNESS! This reading thing is killing me! Killing. Me. There are days when I just want to bang my head on the table. He's such a smart kid (if you don't believe me, just ask him, he'll tell you!), but he's super lazy about reading. Ack!
Here are a sampling of the things we've done over the past few weeks:

made a compass (water, needle, cork)
grew borax crystals
made a gingerbread house (and then ate a large chunk of it)
strung popcorn and cranberries
read most of Despereaux (I read it it to him-we're a little over halfway through)
learned about nomads, and the first farmers of Mesopotamia
caught snowflakes on black paper and studied their shapes
cut out paper snowflakes
made a magnetic paperclip chain
planted seeds and watched them grow

Wow, when I look at the list, we've done quite a lot. And this of course doesn't include daily stuff, like reading, writing, math, German, etc.

Homeschool Blog!

I decided to start another blog for just homeschooling stuff. See how I use the English language? "stuff" Big vocabulary there. Actually, in real life I'm quite loquacious and have an expansive vocabulary. M likes to say I use $5 words. He's silly like that though.

Anyhoo, homeschooling now has it's own blog. Why Bent Grass Prep? you may ask. Good question. Actually our last name means Bent Grass Meadow and I took the name from that. Doesn't that sound lovely? Bent Grass Meadow. Makes you think of lazy afternoons and resting on a a bed of soft grass below a deep blue sky, doesn't it? I actually wanted to use the word meadow in the school name, but M said it sounded too girly. Also, Grass Meadow may have given off the wrong vibe. I'm just sayin. So, here we are Bent Grass Prep. Welcome. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact me.