It's all gouda: Wrapping Up School

Friday, May 30, 2008

Wrapping Up School

My posts have been rather girl heavy lately, and so it's time to give equal footing to Offspring #1. Our homeschool year is winding down and it's almost time to say goodbye to 6th grade. My young man continues to amaze me with his awesome memory, and I'm always so impressed with his willingness to try new things.

We homeschool using the Calvert curriculum, and I absolutely love it. I have a unique opportunity to gage our progress since I have twin 6th graders. One is homeschooled and the other attends private school. I really like our private school. It has a comfortable family feel to it, and the staff and teachers really try to provide a sound education to the students. Since starting homeschooling, I have a new found respect for teachers and appreciate their dedication. How they can present material to 30 kids at a time astounds me. That said, I LOVE homeschooling. There are so many reasons that I value it ... the time with my child, the 1:1 instruction, the positive balance it provides the family, the ability to adjust materials to learning styles, the depth and pace of materials, and elimination of busy work. The list goes on and on. So, I guess it's appropriate to say that we walk comfortably in b

oth worlds ... but I sure do miss my girls when they are gone and I get frustrated seeing them bogged down with homework after being at school all day long. Summer break is just a week and a half away, and I'm giddy that we'll have lazy days to spend just "being". It's a good thing.

Anyway, here's a pic of my boy who's growing up way too rapidly. In this photo, he's busy typing in the latest installment in the adventure story that he's writing and illustrating. He is a talented artist, and I'm amazed at how he draws his characters. He's recently started experimenting with what I consider advanced marker coloration, and his newly colored illustrations really "pop" off the page. His little sister just got a pair of 3D glasses to use with a chalk kit, and he borrowed them to see if they would alter how he sees his drawings. Oh. My. Gosh. It was so cool to look through those 3D glasses at his creations. I swear it made the illustrations come alive!

1 comment:

Marjie said...: I wrote posts about 3rd & 6th grades earlier. It's like we were both channeling summer! I'd love it if you'd take a couple of pictures of #1's drawings some time, since I have heard so much about his talents!; June 1, 2008 at 4:46 PM

Post a Comment

Homeschool Tips and Tools: 2010

Bananagrams! Not too long ago, my kids and I discovered a great new game called Bananagrams. Far more fast paced and loads easier to play than Scrabble, this game requires only a table top and kids to get the fun underway. Better yet, adults and kids of all ages can play together. The playing pieces come packaged in a delightful, banana colored and shaped, zippered cloth pouch. It's free formed fun, and great entertainment for the entire family.

From a homeschooling perspective, it's a great tool to segue into creative writing or story telling. My kids create their own Bananagram "puzzle" and then use the words they created to write or tell an impromptu story. Silly or serious, all type of stories are encouraged!

The book titled English from the Roots Up by Joegil K. Kundquist has rapidly become one of my favorite resources for building a strong vocabulary base for my children. This spiral bound book provides both Latin and Greek word roots that provides students with tools to help them determine word meanings. I absolutely love it, and the rapid results that I see in my children are amazing. This is way better than a spelling program; by studying word roots, my children are gaining a much broader understanding of language and the power of words. The lessons are very easy to administer, short in duration, and my kids enjoyed them.

On the writing frontier, there is a book called Story Starters, Helping Children Write Like They've Never Written Before by Karen Andreola that provides writing prompts in the form of partially written stories for children to complete. While I found the book to be just ok, my children love it. I read the partially written story aloud, and they write the rest. The kids really enjoyed doing this as each of them looked forward to hearing the other's completed versions. This ended up being a great experience as the kids really wanted to impress their siblings with their version, and thus put more effort into their writing.

And for the grammar enthusiast lurking inside your student, here's a great book that explains how to diagram sentences. Diagraming Sentences by Deborah White Broadwater is a 46 page workbook complete with an answer key, and is perfect for your middle schooler.

Does your student embrace Science? Do you need quality supplies to conduct more in depth experiments at home? Check out Home Science Tools. I'm very impressed with the quality of the products we just ordered. Beakers, flasks, stirring rods, thermometers, chemicals, safety equipment, and so much more can be found and ordered on their website. www.homesciencetools.com . The items we received were top quality, the customer service rep was super, and the items were extremely well packed and delivered as promised. Look out Bill Nye ... future scientists in the house!

Lapbooking and Notebooking are buzz words in the homeschool community. Here are two great resources for incorporating those strategies into your learning curriculum. Big Book of Books by Dinah Zike and The Ultimate Lap Book Handbook by Tammy Duby and Cyndy Regeling helped me enhance our homeschooling experience using lapbooks. The content found in these books enabled me to teach a group of homeschool mom's how to incorporate lapbooking into their curriculums. You'll want to laminate your copies as they will get pulled off the shelf over and over again.