CTC Math Review

CTC MATH 

I would love to tell you about what we have been doing for math for the past 6 months.  I had not been able to settle on any particular curriculum, even the most highly recommended Charlotte Mason style math curriculum's, while I knew they were good, just didn't seem right for us.  So we started doing a lot more living math which I wrote about here and were really enjoying doing math this way.  However, I was becoming more and more drained, not because from doing living math, but my health was just not keeping up and then I started really dropping the ball. I didn't know for some time, but I was very anemic and very low on vit D and just felt like I was dying.  

I didn't have the energy to plan and prepare the fun, engaging living math fun that we were finding so rewarding. I wanted to keep doing living math activities, but I felt like I needed something more stable and structured than what I was doing, yet still gentle and not stress inducing. So I went back to searching my top choices.  One that I kept coming back to was CTC Math. My husband and I were hesitant about doing an online math program, especially after doing math in such a hands-on way AND being very Charlotte Mason, Waldorf, Nature Inspired in our homeschool, we just weren't sure about doing math on the computer or ipad.  

The kids and I were traveling to visit family for 2.5 weeks, so I decided to do the free trial as our math while we were away and now here I am writing a ha;f a year later.  My son (K) was so excited by the certificates, he really thrived on the structure of the program and was motivated to plow through it. He thought is was fun and just took off and is almost a full grade level ahead now. He would ask me if he could do more math. I'm so happy that he is just starting out on something that he has taken to so well, hopefully we'll just avoid any math drama all together with him at this rate.

With my daughter (3rd grade) we had started out with basic math workbooks from the store in Kindergarten and done fun math sheets and activities from 1+1+1=1 and other fun pinterest stuff.  It was going well. Then first grade we started doing MFW and we did the math that came with that and that's when things started to get wonky...it wasn't bad...it just wasn't good either.  We did everything by the book, but it wasn't working, nothing would stick...it was like starting over every day.  And part of that is how my daughter learns and the reason we went away from "curriculum" and more into relaxed eclectic, or what I coined Classical Masonori Waldunschoolers. (that's Classical Conversations, Charlotte Mason, Montessori, Waldorf and Unschooling all blended up into a super yummy and healthy smoothie!) 

Anyways, then by second grade we started Singapore as recommeded by MFW and she liked the pictures and how there weren't too many questions per page so she wasn't visually overwhelmed, but I was floundering in trying to teach it because I'm not mathy...I'm a math phobe!  I'm still haunted be a reoccurring nightmare that I skipped my last college math class the last semester and remembered right before finals and am freaking out knowing there is NO way I can pass the final or make up for the all I missed.  I hate that dream!

  

Meanwhile I had began looking at other options more obsessively (at least that's probably how my husband would describe it when he turns on the computer and there's 30 tabs open in just 1 of the browsers and I'm reading and researching too much).  We were getting through the Singapore book, but when skills came back up, it was clear she wasn't getting it, it wasn't sticking.  AND with any math I did with her, she was always immediately overwhelmed when we started a new topic or idea and would shut down before even giving it a chance and I'd be trying to convince her how simple it was if she would just listen for a second.  

I really wanted to like Math U See or RightStart, those are such good programs but every time I looked at them, I just knew  it wasn't for us, she would shut down as soon as she see's that page of problems just as much as I felt overwhelmed when looking at all the stuff that came with Rigthstar.  Anything that looked like a textbook just was a very hard part of our day.  So that is how we just decided to embrace hands-on learning and dove into Living Math.  

But once we gave CTC Math a try, I was amazed.  My daughter would watch the short video lesson that is like an animated and narrated power point presentation and would just be engaged, nodding her head like "Oh OK that makes sense" and then as soon as the lesson was finished and Pat Murray says "alright we've completed our lesson and good luck with your questions." She would just go right in and confidently be ready to do her math, even if it was something totally new...something that would have her sliding out of her chair and onto the floor in a ball of misery, excuses and overwhelm in the past.  

Some key things that really make CTC Work for us are:

• Only one question is displayed at a time
• There is a progress bar at the top that moves each time they submit their answer so they get that immediate reward of seeing how much closer they are to being finished with questions.
• Their score is kept showing their current percentage on that lesson as well as how many out of the total number of questions they have completed.
• Being able to type in or select the answer takes away the added stress for those with Dyslexia or other similar issues as they can just focus on the math and not worry if they wrote 25 when they mean 52 or hand fatigue for those who grip too hard, then write wrong and can't erase their answers since they press the pencil SO HARD.
• The lessons are concise and to the point but do a great job explaining and demonstrating the concept. (Charlotte Mason would approve)
• You can select how many practice questions you want your child to do and what you require for a passing grade when you set up your students account. You could set it for only having to do 10 practice questions but require 90-100% accuracy or you could set it up however you want.  
• There are diagnostic tests for each topic and you can select short (20 questions) Standard (30 questions) or comprehensive (40 questions)
• Parent can assign tasks with deadlines if desired
• Parent can edit the students account so if they want to delete a lesson and redo it to get a better score and award, you can.
• Kids love checking their awards section and keeping track of how many platinum, gold and silver awards they have earned.
• They enjoy the speed skills.
• My daughter likes that after she completes a lesson, it shows how long it took her to complete the lesson, but that it doesn't show a timer while she's doing the lesson because any sort of timer is stressful and distracting for her.
• mobility - we travel quite a bit and this is easy to access from anywhere without having to pack anything
• Built in manipulatives that kids can move around on screen with either a mouse if using computer or with their finger if using an ipad to work out their problems and find the answer.
• No teacher frustration...I sit with my kids as support but if they don't get it (which has only happened on rare occasion thus far) they can simply re-watch the video lesson and try again.  
• Affordable! Having a family subscription with multiple kids with access to all grade levels is an incredible deal.  The subscription for the whole family (with the home school discount) costs the same as other curriculum, but just purchasing one grade level.  And you can easily move your kids up or down based on where they need to be without having to buy more curriculum/materials.  
• This program is great for a variety of learning styles as it is Visual, Audio and Kinestetic.
• Kids like the new feature of being able to customize the color scheme of their account.  My son has Red and Orange and my daughter Teal and Blue. Sometimes it's the little things, like having their own user name and password, their own color scheme, records and awards...they like it.
• This program has been like a burden lifted for me as I feel very confident in how my kids are doing in math now and I can still add in living math activities to our day, but I don't HAVE to always be prepared.  
• I have a two year old...I don't have time and patience for whining and tantrums and dawdling over math!  I haven't had any of those issues since we started CTC Math AND my daughter is retaining what she has learned.  

I think if Charlotte Mason were around today she would approve.

A couple Cons:

• I wish it was easier to go back and change one question that as wrong so they don't have to have a lower award or redo the whole set of questions because of a simple mistake like bumping the submit button or a typo when they knew the right answer. Although it's taught them to really DOUBLE check before they click submit.  
• The Times Tables Game and Speed Skills didn't work on the ipad but they just fixed that so that's been great!
• They have great built in manipulatives but every once in a while you may want to actually take out a scrap paper and pencil for your child to work the question out on. It's not a big con but sometimes you are used to the manipulatives and then you'll get a question without any and my daughter will stare blankly. this isn;t really that much of a negative but more of an FYI.  Also one some of the money questions, I brought out some of our fake money for her to use because on some of those there were not built in manipulatives...however, I was happy to be able to bring in some other manipulatives that she could use so not a big deal.
• I would love if they made an app for the ipad instead of doing it within the Safari browser.  Sometimes it can be a little glitchy on the ipad sometimes. It definitely works smoother on the computer.

Those are the only Cons I could think of and I was really trying to be honest and thorough but there are really no HUGE complaints I have.  I think this program is totally awesome and I envision us sticking with this all the way through.  And...I'm honestly getting more confident at math from watching his lessons with my kids! I struggled to do mental math...but I am getting much better now and I don't think I've had my college math class nightmare in a while now! :0

And I will say, we are not total unschoolers, but I think many unschoolers would enjoy having this as a math program as I know many people resonate with the ideology but then wonder..."what about math?" I think CTC Math could blend well with any full on homeschool style out there...except maybe not full on Waldorf because you can't watercolor paint on your computer screen! :)

Living Math

This year as I prayfully researched all the great homeschool math programs out there, I could not settle on one.  When I embarked on this homeschool journey and originally started reading and researching I really gravitated towards the Charlotte Mason living as well as the words of John Holt like this gem...

Kindergarten with 1 child was fun and easy with a napping toddler but come first grade and a third baby on the way, I started to feel pressure to make sure I was doing "real school" with her.  So I bought an open and go boxer curriculum and signed up for Classical Conversations.  However, other than feeling good that I had something "to show" for our days in published bound books and folders...that was about it.  I got so caught up in trying to do school and get it all done and forgetting one main reason we were led to homeschool in the first place!  My daughter is smart but it was obvious in preschool she wasn't a typical student who fit the classroom mold and we thought she would do better in a more relaxed , flexible environment with the freedom to cater to her learning style.  However, teaching her systematically during "school time" at home wasn't helping her that much, but more just making me feel like the worst teacher and worst parent in the world.  It would take do long to get through simple assignments that I was resenting her for taking up so much of my time in which I had to keep distracting the younger ones.  All in all...things were not right.  I had 2 little ones but the oldest was taking up all my time and energy and although I had planned to do more preschool activities with my son, he really ended up just doing puzzles or whatever off to the side because I had to be on top of my daughter the whole time!  It wasn't fair to anyone and by the time we got through our day I was spent and had no interest in engaging with them to do all the fun creative things that I really wanted to do.  The worst part was the resentment...why couldn't she just copy 5 words without taking an hour and all my emotional energy? Why couldn't she just remember what we had already learned? How can we keep going on in our curriculum when she keeps forgetting what's 7+2 and can't figure it out after a year of practicing it? I just wanted to give up (started learning about dyslexia).

Then I came across a video by Sandra Dodd, an unschooling advocate and she was answering the question of how much time do I need to give to my kids each day and she drew a simple graph...

Basically the youngest need the most mom time so no wonder doing a traditional homeschool curriculum felt wrong, I was spending my time backwards!  How often on homeschool pages do you see the question "what do I do with my little ones while we are doing school time?"  Now I'm not a full blown unschooler but leaning that way gives our family lots of grace to spend our days in a meaningful purposeful way together, without the stress that can lead to resenting the older children and having them under constant pressure while not spending enough time with the littles.  It allows us to improvise and do more learning all together with everyone included, which you will see in our examples of living math further down this post. And yes as I realized this mom time problem, I did consider and pray about putting my kids in school, but that wasn't the answer so last year I still struggled to let go of traditional school style and culture around education and step into the unknown so I bought the 2nd grade curriculum.  It was actually going pretty good a little easier than the year before as kids mature a little more each year but  something still wasn't jiving.

Sandra Dodd also said don't let your home become some miniature copy of a school...which resonated with me and the first book on homeschooling I ever read, The Thomas Jefferson Education.  I just kept coming across all these reminders of the original things The Lord had brought me to in my original quest into homeschooling but had forgotten due to insecurity and worrying what other people think...(a major weakness I have been overcoming).  She talked about creating and maintaining an environment where natural learning can thrive, creating a nest where it's not just the home environment but the family relationships within the home are crucial.  She encourages parents to learn about learning, not about school, but how real natural learning happens.  Be their partner (and mentor as Thomas Jefferson Ed  puts it) not their adversary.  Encourage, facilitate and assist.  See all that is good about your child (which I was having a hard time doing with the way I was doing school with her).  Be the kind of person you want your child to be, nurture your own curiosity and joy, find gratitude and abundance in your life....don't do what you don't understand, read a little, try a little wait a while, read a little more, try a little more, wait a while more...don't pull your plants up by the roots to see if they are growing.    That's not good for any plants or any children.  Be patient and trust that learning can happen if you give it time and space. Observe your children.  Are they calm? Happy? Curious and interestied in things? Don't mar their calm or happiness with arbitrary limits, shame or pressure.  Learning can't happen when people feel afraid or hungry so feed your children happily, share food and smiles and laughter. Watch movies and listen to music together, explore...follow information trails, play, make connections and touch your children sweetly, smell their heads, relax into an appreciation of each child in your life.  If you can envision the kind if relationship and life of learning you want to have then every time you make a choice, choose the one that takes you nearer to that goal.  Learn to make many choices a day and when possible choose the more loving, peaceful options.  Choose to make your life more positive and less negative.  Choose optimism, choose joy. Create good memories with your children.  Look directly at your children without filters or labels.  Babies are born whole people, help then to grow up and remain whole people, unmared by shame...paraphrased from Doing Unschooling Right by Sandra Dodd.  

As I've mentioned in other posts, I didn't feel led to sign up for Classical Conversations this year and my kids didn't seem to care but they did request to do the memory work at home.  My daughter loves learning through song and hand motions so we decided to do CC at home along with following Ambleside Online for a guide for each grade, leaving plenty of space for project based learning and to just be curious and spend time in the moment together, and being able to seize the teachable moments in a natural, unforced, meaningful way.  This year has been our most productive by far but I was still having my daughter do her Singapore math...that is the area I felt the least confident and bringing to life the way I was everything else.  

I poured over homeschool math options and was praying and seeking, but I couldn't settle on any one curriculum, even though I know they are great.  I knew in my head which math curriculums I liked and thought would fit our family but in my heart, I couldn't to it.  Why? I kept seeking and praying.  Then The Lord brought me to info about living math.  Well I'm not good at math so how can I teach without a textbook???  This seemed like more work for me not less! Shouldn't I just do Teaching Textbooks or Math U See?  Well who knows what the future holds but the answer and conclusion I came to was Living Math.  This means I have to face my insecurities, look at the how and why and incorporate what needs to be learned in hands on, fun ways.  Followed by some worksheet and or online practice after the concept is understood through hands on play, activities or life experience. This was a definite experience in learning to read a little, try a little, trust and see.  What I've found is that we can actually ENJOY Math together and it is sticking better than when we just stuck to the workbooks.  Also it's easy to include everyone and then take the concept further with my oldest while my Kingergarteb age son is still getting to play around and be introduced to math concepts beyond his level but enjoying it because we are having fun.  There is a website callee Living Math that I found the book Family Math and have been enjoying using that.  We also having been purchasing used through amazon or borrowing from library living math books. For worksheet practice we use either the math section of the big Brain Quest workbooks by grade or Math Mammoth worksheets, among other sources and practice online using websites like ixl, matific, starfall, and xtramath.  But mostly we are learning through hands on projects, games, role play, or just living and bringing out the math in our daily activities or things we cone across.

Here are a couple of the fun times and ways we've encorporated living math, just a sample not exhaustive of every single thing we do :) My point in sharing is to inspire some ideas and feeling freedom to step outside the box a bit if traditional methods are working as well as you like.  The great thing about homeschooling these days is we have do much information and resources at our fingertips and therefor can totally individualize and cater to our individual family needs and styles!

Making up stories for Remembering Odd and Even Numbers

Place Value

We love playing the game Dino tracks.  You can make the game more advanced with the playing cards giving lots of opportunity for more advanced math thinking or keep it simple to just becoming familiar with place value.

Millions of Cats - we borrow from the library frequently the book and audio cd set because they love this one! Especially my 5 year old! Now he's ways he can tell me how much he loves me first with a hundred much, then a thousand much up to millions, billions, trillions and finally infinity and beyond ;)

Geometry -Tangrams 

Read The Warlord's Puzzle

Cut out Tangram pieces using pattern and activity ideas from Family Math.  My kids kept going back to that book and their Tangrams daily for over a week on their own, fascinated by the puzzle and the culture, architecture and clothing in the book.

Wood Pattern Blocks

Megaformers 

The Book Nature Math and the section about shapes and patterns in nature.

Symmetry, Mirror Image, Patterns Measurement and Perimiter

https://instagram.com/p/-zlGdIx8Ng/

Concentric Circles-studying patterns and shapes in nature from the book Nature Math

https://instagram.com/p/99x-szx8EP/

Familiarity with a Grid

This game from Family math called Animal Crossing

https://instagram.com/p/9Uk3gLx8C1/

Battleships - Santa brought it for Christmas

Inequalities

Card games such as war and they are starting to learn poker (with their dad) soon we will introduce the chips just for family fun no real money...not trying to teach gambling but it is fun playing some Texas Hold'em at a family gathering! The chips make it fun even if theirs no real money involved)

Also a print out activity from one plus one plus one equals one with an alligator mouth for the > and < symbols for practicing.   

Multiplication 

All the skip counting songs from Classicsl Conversations memorized up through the 15s has made multiplication so much easier to learn!  

Little homemade Montessori multiplication grids are great too

This monster dice game is great for practicing addition, subtraction , multiplication or division 

https://instagram.com/p/9Eol5Rx8KY/

Critical Thinking, Memory, Strategy

Playing Poker and learning/memorizing the different versions, rules, hands while having fun and bonding with dad!

Making Donuts for Division and Fractions 

we have 12 donuts and can make as many toppings as you like as long as we make an equal amount of each type. You want 3 toppings? Ok then how many donuts will be in each group? What if we did only 2 types of toppings? How many donuts in each group? What if we do 4? Etc?  Also when they are measuring ingredients I often hand them a smaller measuring cup so they have to figure out how many "scoops" of 1/3 cup to make 1 cup like the recipe says.  Casually practicing division and fractions while having fun making donuts! 

Money- counting, dividing, percentage, and life skills money management 

Counting out all the money and change, making dollars with different coin combinations of $0.25.  Introduce percentage and how to figure out 10%.  (We recently  did hymn study of Because I Have Been Given Much- not intentionally but it worked out to a good intro o this).  After taking out 10%, divide money in half, or 50% for spending and 50% for saving.  Child then has to work out how to divide the money into each jar.  We wrote in the too lid with a chalkboard marker how much is currently in each jar so we can easily erase and change the number as needed for keeping track.  I told my daughter she can give her money however she wants, to church, orphans, missions, or other charity collection boxes and coin rolling things at stores or if she knows of anyone she wants to give to.

For all these resources and more great living math resources, check out my Living Math Shop.

CC Week 9 cycle 1

This week we enjoyed week 9 of our CC studies!  And of you haven't seen my other posts, we use CC as a launching pad for other studies as well as incorporating the recommended things to cover for each year from Ambleside Online in our own arts based hands on eclectic style homeschool...so keep that in kind if things seem random or not part of Classical Conversations. I just like to document and share some of the things we do each week.

Geography 

While studying East Asia Geography we opened up to those countries in our MAPS book and took done time to study all the images and facts about each.  When we came across Mongolian Throat singing, we had to YouTube it and found a great little video of a Mongol Man Throat Singing while playing the  Morin Khuur....(here's a small corner of the Mongolia page in the MAPS book).  The video had a beautiful landscape in the background and the sound was strangely enchanting.  The kids loved it.  

Here's the link to the YouTube video, I can't seem to embed videos when blogging from my phone.

http://youtu.be/1rmo3fKeveo

We also watched this video we picked up at the library 

Which was great because after reading the book The Warlord's Puzzle this week my kids kept wanting to know what a munk is and it just added a little more info to the peg they set in their little minds about Buddhism from week 7's history sentence.  

Math

We had a lot of fun with this book this week playing with Tangrams and just enjoying the story and the artwork.  I kept finding the kids studying the pages of this book at some point everyday this week.  And they didn't tire of playing with their Tangrams either. The book is good for math, history and geography which is why I saved it for this week as we head across Eastern Asia as it takes place in China, where Tangrams supposedly originated.  

We also continued to have fun with the game Animal Crossing from the book Family Math. 

We also did some worksheets from Math Mammoth on line symmetry and some other geometry activities to go along with our work with Tangrams.  

Other math we did included the big Brain Quest Grade 3 book, math war, math facts app, starfall etc.

SCIENCE

this weeks science was some parts of a plant: root, stem, leaf, which was easy enough to remember we didn't expound in it that much as we have spent plenty of time pulling up weeds and examine them from the roots up.  We could have drawn a diagram in our nature notebooks, we probably still will but we just didn't yet.

LATIN-ENGLISH GRAMMER

We cover this in out memory work but other than being silly with our frog puppet, we just do the memorization and act silly usually and try to make up some actions that help remember the English Granmer words. 

HISTORY

Because Confucius was the topic of week 9s History Sentance and that Toaism emphasizes harmony with nature, we turned to the section on Confusianism in my Art History Text and saw images of beautiful landscapes so we did watercolor paintings of Imaginary   landscapes.

We read a book about Ancient China and learned about archeology and artifacts.  This also led into some science discussion on Ozygen and Carbon Dioxide and plants which tied in nicely to our current study of plants for science.

We watched a narrated version of a The Emperors New Clothes on YouTube.

We also started listening to Story of The World this week.  I ordered the CDs and the kids listen with drawing paper so they can take notes and it draw what they find interesting or important.  We listened to the first couple chapters taking us from the Nomads snd The Fertile Cresent up to Egypt.  It was a good review of things they have already touched on but with the addition of Egypt because CC didn't cover ancient Egypt, it went from the fertile Cresent to Greece and Rome and then onto Asia.  I REALLY wanted to read Tirzah to my daughter after a friend who is doing Heart of Dakota mentioned how much they loved that book several times.  Ambleside Online year 3 says to cover Exodus and we started CC this year with the Ten Commandments so I was so happy how I could tie it all in together and I really enjoyed the details given in Story of The World.  Its so enjoyable to listen to and so easy to just pop in and get cozy and relax together with some notebooking supplies!  My daughter liked hearing the perspective of a Nomad girl and drew a picture depicting part of her story with a couple notes.  I also had my Art History text handy because it is a beautiful resource to have on hand for history!  Just flip open to that time period and it has the best images....no google needed!  My son immediately wanted to draw this gold Pharroah mask as we listened to the part about mummification and Pharoahs while looking at the images in that section of my book. I gave him some tracing paper and let him trace it while listening. I'm just excited about this addition because when I actually looked into SOTW I thought it would complement CC cycle 1 and our other studies reall well and just nicely round things out.  I mean, from a Charlotte Mason perspective I think this is the perfect thing to listen to during afternoon quiet time/tea time once a week or so.  I originally thought we would use it in the car but I'm dependent on the DVD player at this phase with my toddler so I don't go deaf from his screaming!!!

At night I started reading Tirzah with my daughter and we couldn't put it down!  My husband got home from the airport late and we had been snuggled up reading longer than we realized...it was past 11 pm!

Bible-Devotion-Character

We chose our main devotion to be from the Big Book of 5 Minute a Devotions which is animal themed and we learned about sloths and being patient.  Later in the week I had woken up early with a migraine and the baby was up.  After I got him back to sleep I just decided to stay up and try to get rid of the headache before it got to the unbearable point.  Since I was up so early, once my head was feeling better I started reading in proverbs and came across this verse 

Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out. Prov 17:14

I told my kids about it later over breakfast for a devotion, first remembering the Wild Kratts Episode where the dam gets broken and it was so hard to build the dam back up once all that water had gushed out and it took so much work to rebuild it and not have new leaks keep springing, spewing out more water...they are big Wild Kratt fans so they knew this episode well.  Then I told them that proverb I had come across and we talked about it and how when we start a fight, it's like breaking the dam and then instead of water rushing out, yucky feelings and ugliness rushes out and it's hard to fix things once we let all our anger out, and then it just keep getting harder not to have little fights all the time because there are leaks in our "dam" that make us more quick to anger and then we just get stuck in all that continual cycle of patching the dam and springing new leaks.  It was good because the kids are wonderful playmates but it is a needed skill to learn about choosing your battles and they have been bickering more and more over what seems to me like nothing.  (Cabin fever probably with the weather!) They got it quickly and after that, when little petty disputes started to break out I would remind them "is this worth breaking the dam over?" And before I knew it they were talking about it on their own and my 5 year old even later said he was going to say something to his sister but then stopped because it wasn't something to break the dam over.  Thank you Lord for your simple wisdom!!!

We also read The Hundred Dresses this week which was great as we've been talking a lot about kindness in our devotion/character development.  

Charlotte Mason/Unschool

Moving away from the Classical/Charlotte Mason side of things here is the more Charlotte Mason/Unschool parts of our week 

Tinkering

The kids often enjoy working and tinkering on their clubhouse.  It is a framed out bathroom in the unfinishee basement.  They have laid tile they found in the surplus from when the house was built.  We told the previous owner not to worry about cleaning out the basement...made things easier for her and it was like little treasures for us.  This week they started decorating it for the upcoming holidays.  They were bailing the Christmas ornaments to the wood frame using a wooden branch piece I cut when making a set of blocks out if different size tree slices.

They made a coat hook

Anyways it's just a fun space where they spend a lot if time planning, tinkering, rearranging and imagining.

My daughter has an old school desk on the next area over with all kinds if old printed business paperwork and she has a stack and goes through with a pen and calculator acting like a stressed out contractor.  Lol.  

NATURE

The yucky Gray skies and rain parted for a little bit this week allowing us to enjoy NATURE!!!! Ahhh...so good!  

My kids pointed out how fresh the air was in the woods and were reminded of our conversation about Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide, and how trees take in the CO2 and give us back fresh air!!! (aka oxygen).  See you really do learn by living and learning can happen anytime anywhere!  It doesn't stop when you leave the classroom/schoolroom.  It doesn't always have to be done within the pages of a workbook. :)

And we are still getting a few tomatoes but the season is pretty much done the kids check on them for us.

MUSIC

My daughter is taking a ukulele class but my son I'm just going with a gentle approach with him and let him take the lead with how much or how fast he wants to learn.  He was a little intimidated by trying to play at first but now he remembers how to play a c note and is getting more comfortable just experimenting with it.  Here they are learning how to tune their ukuleles with a SNARK.  

And my daughter put on my old prom dress on while she sang along with The Celtic Women....yes mostly inside these week due to weather and having colds!

LIFE SKILLS

They've become a good team at making gluten free muffin mixes, refilling the cat food, making beds, unloading the dishwasher, sweeping up their crumbs, packing their lunch before their enrichment class day, etc.

And other things that kept them busy this week are Lincoln Logs, poetry, making their own story books, writing cards to grandparents, reading Pollyanna together ( my daughter reading it to her brother), helping me sand down a headboard with a power sander, playing checkers together everyday, sidewalk chalk, trampoline, gymnastics, soccer and of course Halloween excitement.

Classical Conversations Day cycle 1 week 6 A Day in the Life

A Day in The Life 

with lots of pics :)

When we first set out on our homeschool journey...I had a secret wish...and I wished it so badly!  I would always wish I could be a fly on the wall of some other homeschool families house to see WHAT THEY DO! How they do it? What their day looks like?  All those things...I had plenty of insecurities and questions! So, here we are, 3 years later and still figuring it out but not wishing to be a fly on someone elses wall anymore.  I've learned to trust the Lord, more than ever, I've learned to trust my kids and their natural ability and desire to learn and cooperate if I don't get in their way and trusting myself...thinking of the analogy from the book A hug and a kiss and a kick in the pants that gave me the mental picture that kids are like a piece of string, if you push it, it crumples up, but if your gently pull on the front you can guide the string along quite smoothly...

It's great to get to talk with others, see what others are doing and such...that is research and is important, but ultimately everyone has to do what feels right for their own family and varied personalities and teaching, parenting, learning styles etc.  So if you are new to this homeschool world or curious, don't get overwhelmed by what anyone says is the best thing to do and feel compelled or anxious and let stress over the how get in the way of the simplicity of just learning through living and using the best resources available that suit your needs...and there are MANY resources so when you start feeling overwhelmed, just remember to take a deep breath, keep it simple, and know your children and just commit to being engaged and intentional in your relationship and how you do your day with them.  I've happened to find certain things that I like using as what you could say the spine of our learning, and then we creatively stem off from that and try to keep it as living as possible. "Living" is a term you'll find in the Charlotte Mason style homeschooling where lessons are kept short, hands on and pleasant and children are expected to give full attention and best effort (which is easy to do if us teachers are keeping it short, pleasant and living - bringing it to life.)  We are definitely an eclectic mix of all the great things I've come across in my educational homeschool research.  I wish I had been this way all along but after Kindergarten I felt like I had to buy a curriculum to validate that I was really doing REAL school with my daughter...and we were doing it...and it's a great curriculum, but alas, it wasn't for us...and although we fought through finishing our work then, I feel like we do a lot more now with just basic big picture planning, key resources I like to pull from and then just running with it and being relaxed and enjoying discovering the world together and working together. The more we do "school" this way...the more often I hear my kids make comments like "This was the best day of my life!" and guess what? I often feel like that too!  Making the moments count educationally and relationally.

This day while I made oatmeal for breakfast the kids had 3 minutes to get dressed and make their beds.  I put the timer on the microwave and its not threatening or anything, but just a beat the timer type of deal otherwise they dawdle and think they need help.

Kids ate breakfast at the counter while I read a 5 minute devotions

We moved into the playroom/schoolroom and went over the day of the week and calandar.  We made a calander board inspired by 1+1+1=1 we sing a couple short songs about the date, months of the years, days of the week etc. this is simple and fun.

I wrote our current memory verse on the chalkboard and we went over the hand motions by Rachel Carmen that my friend shared with me

And then we used this verse as our copywork/art journal page.  My daughter fatigues quickly when given lined paper to copy on but given work on a blank paper that she can copy in her own decorative way, well, same thing is accomplished in my opinion.  I sit down with them and make my own art journal page and we talk and the kids have a much better attention span to finish their work when they see me getting into mine.  For my 5 year old I just made a simplified version for him to write that said "Think Happy Thoughts".

I was really enjoying getting into doodling on mine...apparently really into it because when I stood up, I realized I had like 5 crayons in my underwear...my toddler was slipping them down the back of my pants and I hadn't even noticed! I was wearing stretchy flannel PJ pants so I guess I was just too comfy in my PJ's to notice! lol!  

After we finished up writing our verse, I was hanging them up on the wall in the playroom and the kids found their way into the living room where my daughter decided to practice ukulele and the boys worked with blocks.  A little breather :)

A little time to just love on this little guy!

This is the day I had decided to try implementing more living math.  I looked over the math materials of what my daughter needs to learn this year as well as my 5 year old son...and will use the books but I plan to make it more living as well.  So this is a book I ordered on amazon called Nature Math

The current math skill was Odd and Even numbers and the first thing in this book is a game to play that reinforced the concepts of odd and even while practicing addition.

We then did some riddles or word problems getting them thinking about odd and even numbers.  And the thing that really got it to click so now they both are not forgetting what numbers are odd or even?  I started grabbing the blocks that were all over the floor and made up a story pretending each block was a kid.  My daughter told it back to me after (narration) and I recorded it because she thought she could help other kids learn what she just learned in a fun way.  I hadn't planned this little math story, but it just happened in the moment while we were sitting there together talking about the math concept and that's one of the things I pray for daily, is wisdom and inspiration in the moment.  Inspiration from the Holy Spirit is the best teacher's guide of all!  ;)



We also expounded on the concept with some little brain teasers like I would say give me a five...but give me an even number!  My daughter was puzzled but then after some thought, gave me a double high five to make 10, an even number.  Then I said "isn't that cool how giving me one high 5 is an odd number, but if you double it it's an even number?  When you add two odd numbers together, you always get an even number!"  Then I had them test it out and think of some odd numbers to add together to prove it.  Then I said the same thing happens if you add two even numbers together, the answer is always even.  So they put that to the test as well.  Finally I said, now what do you think you get if you add an odd number and an even number together?  And I let them think up some examples to figure it out.  Later, I would say things to them like "I'm thinking of a number that is from 21 and 23 and it is an even number, which number am I thinking?" and so on.  The whole time was pleasant, fun and engaging and they really understood the concepts by the time we were finished.

I had to change the baby's diaper and put him down for a nap. When I came back downstairs, this is how I found the kids.  They were making muffins.  I picked up the gluten free Martha White muffin pouches and all they have to do is add 1/2 cup of almond milk so my daughter had actually read the instructions and shown her brother how to do it.  This is where our homeschool turned Montessori style...self directed activity, life skills...being able to work in the kitchen and make something from start to finish including clean up without much involvement from me other than supervision.  I say "If you're big enough to bake something, you are big enough to clean up after as well." And although they don't necesarily clean their rooms or play messes with much enthusiasm, they did take pride in washing their bowels, measuring cup and mixing spoons.  There was some intrinsic joy to that clean up because it felt grown up.

A little bonus Kindergarten math going on...learning by living...it's a skill in the textbook called sorting...utensils need to be sorted...by type and by size.

Mommy is very close and nervous but major confidence is being instilled that he is able to take the muffins out of the oven himself....but only if a grownup is right there with him!

Time to exhale after all the activity in the kitchen...this is what you would say in the Waldorf style of education is breathing out in the daily rhythm....vary activities in a rhythm so that you are breathing in, breathing out...

We sat down and watched this DVD I picked up at the library.  It was obviously made in the early 90s or something, but it was really engaging and I had no problem getting my kids to sit through it.  They actually were pretty interested in it.

While watching this, I had our beloved MAPS book on my lap opened to Greece, and whenever they would show or mention a certain city or landmark, we would quickly reference it on the map.

 We followed the DVD with a drawing lesson on Perspective.  We used the greek temples and buildings for inspiration, such as the Parthenon and used rulers to make straight lines and tried to make the columns get smaller as they got farther away.  We just all stayed on the floor in the living room for this lesson and used hardcover books to draw on.

It was beautiful weather so we made our way outside.  This is the day we do our Classical Conversation memory work (we are doing it at home on our own this year).  This is our frog puppet who goes by the following names: Latin Leo, Edward English and Skipping Simon.  He helps the kids learn their Latin, English and Skip Counting, I brought him out once and now his roles keep growing as he comes back by popular demand.

My daughter in particular is a more kenestetic learner, she needs to be moving so this....walking around the top of the play structure like a balance beam is the perfect way to memorize the major types of vertebrates and the causes of the Fall of Rome.  That is the Classical Conversations app on my phone.

Playing and repeating some of the new memory work and reviewing the past memory work.

Making a Nature Journal page depicting types of Vertabrates

Here's J doing her journal page and getting silly identifying as many mammals as she can think of

 My 5 year olds Notebooking Science page - Nature Journal Page of the CC science for this week.

next my daughter found herself making a dolphin craft with those plastic bead things that you iron and they fuse together.  I don't know what they are called.  Meanwhile I was getting dinner prepped before we left for soccer.

Then is was off to the park for soccer practice where my son rides his bike on the trails and I jog behind him with the baby jogger.

For dinner, I made something Greek that was still kid friendly.  Greek Fried Meatballs with french fries.  I also chose to make this because well, I like using what I have on hand an not having to run to the grocery store and it was a spur of the moment idea to make something "Greek" for dinner.

Dinner:
Keftedakia (Greek Meatballs) modified to be gluten and dairy free fried in Greek Olive Oil
Garlic Fries Baked in Greek Olive Oil
I pulled out the Olive Oil bottle and showed my daughter to read and when she saw the word GREEK on there her eyes got all big and she was like "OH MY GOSH!  We're just learning about Greece!!!" lol!  Then at the dinner table I asked them if they recalled where the Greeks thought the first Olive Tree came from.  It was one of our first stories in our Greek Myths book

They needed a couple hints to refresh their memory but then they rememebered the story and that it was Athena who gave the Olive Tree to the Greeks in Athens which is how the city got it's name...according to mythology.  We also reminded the kids how when we made maple syrup, it took lots and lots of tree sap and by the time we made it into maple syrup it was only a small amount...and that our cousins from Isreal told us the same thing about Olive Oil...it takes a lot to get a little.  

After dinner we read this book to the kids and it touched on lots of great points that the kids had recently learned or been exposed to and it kept them super engaged.  It even mentions the statue of Zues which was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world and part of the CC memory work a couple weeks ago.  They get so excited when they start connecting the dots to the various things they have learned, memorized or been exposed to.  This is where the Classical Education idea with memory work really does seem to play out well.  My kids enjoy memorizing through singing little songs, even if a lot of the memory work sounds like jibberish with no meaning to them at the time...the idea is that you are places little pegs in their brains that can further hang deeper meaning from that is more easily assimilated because of the vocabulary that is already there.  And I see it play out all the time, not just tonight with the excitement over the connection to the story and the reference to the Statue of Zues, but when we went camping on Cumberland Island this past spring, and saw the ruins of the Vanderbilt mansion, my daughter again had that exciting moment of "OH WAIT! I know who you're talking about!" And then recalls the memory verse ...in the late 1800s Tycoons like Vanderbilt, Rockafeller Carnegie and Swift fueled the nations industrial age by developing American Resources...Which then leads to further conversation in which she is excited to hear about due to that little connection she has made from her Classical Conversations memory work,  Suddenly, random words to a tune actually mean something and they are always fun light bulb moments to be a part of.