A Day in the Life

Wednesdays are a favorite around here. It's the one day a week that we can dedicate time for special projects, activities, additional lessons, reading, etc. since the only planned thing for the day is youth group and that doesn't take place until evening.

Today started out with a leisurely breakfast over which we listened to a podcast from Brave Writer (our favorite new podcast to listen to!) and then we started a new lesson in math which meant we watched Mr. Demme present the topic via video. Zoey got it right away and finished her work in math and then moved on to science. In physical science for the next few weeks she is covering content surrounding the periodic table, and since she loves the periodic table (and has studied it on her own quite a bit already), I thought it would be fun to make it a bit more meaningful. In addition to the Oak Meadow lessons she will be working on and completing an Elemental Journal, watching videos on the elements and even creating little elemental tiles using modeling clay and doing little mini breakout experiments here and there. Ethan helped us hook up my laptop to our TV using a HDMI cord and we now can watch our school videos on a big screen which may sound funny, but is making things even more fun.

After science we took a break for lunch and then Zoey practiced guitar for close to an hour. Her guitar teacher is giving her more and more challenging pieces to tackle which means there is a bit of frustration here and there, but she keeps on working through it and the pay-off has been great. Probably watching her progress in guitar this year has been the most rewarding thing for me to observe as a parent. She went from not even knowing how to read sheet music to playing actual music and chords. So amazing.

The rest of the afternoon will be for free reading, free time and just plain enjoying the afternoon sun that has decided to make an appearance today. Like I said earlier, her youth group meets this evening for three hours so a bit of free time is nice before heading to that.

Thursday and Friday are library days, which means she has work time scheduled in for working on her literature and writing assignments, vocab, etc. This week Thursday also starts her additional dance class which is her Modern/Contemporary class that meets before her Ballet/Pointe class.

Slowly we are getting things finalized for next year's studies and we are so excited! We've already changed some things up from our original pre-planning blog posts. Ha ha! You shouldn't be surprised.

Enjoy your afternoon!

First Day of 8th Grade!

While yesterday we did ease back into math, today marked our first official full day of 8th grade! We spent most of the morning familiarizing ourselves with our new planners and books for all of Zoey's subjects for the year, as well as going over her syllabuses. We are mostly using Oak Meadow this year, with the exception of Math-U-See for math and First Form Latin for her latin studies.

This year I want her to get into the habit of writing out her assignments in her own planner and to be able to juggle when to work on things on her own, to meet deadlines and due dates, etc. This will be an important skill to master for high school. We did a run-through of this today for this first shorter week.

 (Listening to music with Leo for a bit before getting down to work.)

After talking about this week's expectations, she busily got into her first writing assignment with Oak Meadow's English course, which was to free write for a set time on the subject of writing, as well as creating an outline for her writing. She was very happy with this assignment and had fun with it! It's not even noon and she's finished up with her math for the day as well. The sun is shining now (after having a few days of rain) so we're hoping to get outside for a walk yet this afternoon.

Happy homeschooling!

It's Officially in the Books!

Our first official year of homeschooling is in the books! It definitely was a learning experience for Zoey and I BOTH...and we are totally and completely smitten and in love with this year and our experience with homeschooling in general. Were there some bumps along the way? For sure. There will be some curriculum changes next year and subject changes here and there. For example, she's not in love with Spanish and has really been interested in Latin lately. I think we're both feeling more confident in our expectations from everything to what it is that we think school will or should "look like" to what expectations we should and can have of one another.

Zoey has grown so very much in this past year. Not only physically and emotionally but her mind has just cracked open and she's made me so proud with how it is that she is thinking about people, the world and life in general. This is what it is that I was wanting for her!! The safe space for thinking original thoughts as well as the space to explore interests that she may not even have had the chance to know about before now. Just in this year alone she's confident and even enjoying math, something that was so not happening while in public school and she's actually retaining what it is that she's learning! We love Math-U-See and Mr.Demme so much! So very thankful we went with that curriculum for math. She also discovered an interest in drawing and sketching, something that she didn't have the confidence enough in to express while at her public school, (at least it didn't happen in the past). Growing up in a family with an artist as my father, there are days when I see Zoey sketching and drawing and I can't help but get a bit teary eyed. She NEVER used to do that and she does it all the time now. I love that she has so many ways of expressing her creativity and that drawing is now one of them.

Her favorite subject this year hands down, was science. Both what we did for school and her independent projects. Reading was a close second and she enjoyed free writing as well. She read a TON this year! So many books that I lost track of them all, (we originally were trying to keep a list). Makes me so happy. Something kind of quirky to note, she loves finding words that she doesn't know the meaning of and then looking them up and then finding ways to use them in everyday conversation. She cracks me up.

My one big worry about homeschooling her last year was, are you ready for it...socialization!! I know, silly right?!?! I had all sorts of concerns and worries. Well, guess what? She is just fine and in fact, had perhaps even a busier social calendar than had she still been in public school! Weekends were busy with friends coming over or her visiting friends. She knows more kids than ever now with the homeschool group kids in the mix of things now as well. Having dance classes twice a week and hanging out at the library after school hours helped too. She even attended two out of three middle school dances this year, which was awesome too! Very thankful that her friends have stuck around and remained friends despite our rearranging our lives a bit and that we've been able to make some new special friends through homeschooling as well.

She's happy that it's summer break, that's for sure...but interestingly enough, she mentioned that she was sad that the routine of "school" would now be over and that she was looking forward to next year already! Over the summer she'll be taking part in a day drama camp, taking some summer dance classes, babysitting and she has a potential job assisting at a gymnastics summer camp as well. She will be continuing working through math (I don't want to lose her foothold on things) and we'll be doing a somewhat lighter botany course as well. It's safe to say that reading will be on her agenda as well. There's no stopping that! I'm hoping to get her to be involved in the teen book club at the library that I work at, as well as participate in the summer programming.

Feeling so very thankful that we took this leap of faith last year and just DID it!! Thankful too for our friends and family that have shown so much support.

Feeling pretty blessed.

We'll be sharing our happenings here on the blog yet this summer, so stay tuned for what's to come!

Our Homeschooling Journey | 4 + Months In

I thought it would be fun to document a little re-cap of how we're feeling about our choice to homeschool. Since starting in the 7th grade, some would say we're perhaps late to the game. I will say, that I often find myself entertaining the thought that I wish we'd been brave enough to start this homeschooling journey sooner. Zoey had been asking to homeschool since the 4th grade and at that time we pulled her out of public and tried a charter school and after two years of that, we finally felt confident enough to go ahead and be brave and try homeschooling. I wonder though, that had we not started this late, if she would still be so happy with the choice of homeschooling now here in the thick of the middle school years. She truly got a taste of public school and decided it wasn't her first choice and now gets to own that knowing full well what public school looked and felt like.

It's been awesome! Can I say that again? IT'S BEEN AWESOME!!

We were a bit shaky in the beginning...lots of doubts floating around, lots of what if's to think about. Are we using the right curriculum? Are we documenting enough? Heck, are we doing this right? They are still there, we're just in a place right now where we're really feeling our groove. Every single day I am thankful that we are homeschooling! Most importantly, so is Zoey! She tells me, "I am so happy we are homeschooling!" almost daily. When I ask for her reasons they range from being thankful that she can do her own thing, or go deeper in any given subject when she wishes to, to enjoying the fact that she doesn't have some of the daily stressors that public school had. She tells me that she couldn't imagine going back to public school now after getting a taste of homeschooling. :)

One thing right off the bat that was a struggle was the idea of what our school day was supposed to look like. Zoey was carrying over the stress and hurry up mentality that public school was, into our homeschooling day through no fault of her own. It's just what she had known for so long...so it naturally carried over. If there is one piece of advice that I would share with individuals that are starting this homeschooling journey, it would be to take the time to deschool. It was recommended to me by so many people and I shrugged it off as something that we didn't need to do. We did have the benefit of having a whole summer behind us before homeschooling and that helped some, but if I were to be honest, we did need more time to get away from the idea of what school at home should be vs. what it could be. Thankfully, we quickly realized this and adjusted things so that we were a bit more relaxed and since, have been transitioning into what our school day is now shaping into in a more authentic manner.

We love waking up in the morning and having the time to make and eat a good breakfast. I love seeing Zoey choose a book and read while eating her breakfast, all while, the sun starts shining in through our kitchen windows and on to our table. I love being able to notice what is around us. We've been able to take note of what kinds of birds visit our feeders daily, how they interact with one another. We've seen wildlife in our yard, woods and neighborhood. Wolves, a fox, raccoons, deer, even a bear this past spring! So fascinating! She gets to help cook throughout the day and meal plan. She can (relatively speaking) have control over when she does school each day and thus is learning how to manage her time and juggle responsibility and accountability while getting the taste of the freedom of choice. I've involved her in her curriculum choices as well, as much as possible. We talk about what she thinks would be a good fit, research it and make decisions together. Just recently, over Christmas break she was given some coins to cash in from a family member. Upon cashing it in at the bank she was to use a portion to donate, a portion to save and the rest she could use how she wished. She just asked me the other day if she could use the money she got to keep to purchase a logic workbook!! It's so exciting for me to see her owning her school experience in so many different ways.

This is the logic book that she wants...Building Thinking Skills Level 3, Figural.

One of our struggles, interestingly enough, is one of worrying whether or not we are going to be able to fit in everything that we want to cover! Again, with the flexibility of homeschooling behind us, we get to rearrange things as much as want to make it work. An example being that while this year we are covering a very thorough anatomy course for science, she has an incredible interest in botany so we've made the decision that we're going to go ahead with a botany course (along with continuing working on math) this summer.  It's so awesome that we are both excited about this!

If I had to change any one thing, it would be that I had more time with her and didn't have to juggle work into the mix. That said, working part-time at our local public library certainly has it's perks for a homescooling family! I'm blessed that we have so very many resources literally at our fingertips and that Zoey can spend time there while I'm working. The little bit of extra money certainly helps us with our endeavor as well.

This is where we're at currently! If there is one thing that's certain, it's that things change so we're open to that possibility. Right now however, we're in love with our choice to homeschool and how this year is shaping up!

Geography Project Presentation + Happy Halloween!

Zoey's choice for her Geography project this time around was to create a portfolio board and present an oral presentation covering fashion trends in the United States. She also created a quiz for her audience to complete.

We are wrapping up our current studies of North America and this fits in with that and incorporates something that she is interested in as well. She created a little red "runway" of sorts for her Barbie dolls that were in different styled clothing and took pictures of them all on the runway sharing the category their clothing style fit in to.

She is a very good speaker and she did an excellent job. She also shared some of her clothing that fit into each category of dress that she spoke about as well. You could tell that she had done her research as she knew what it was she was talking about and could field my questions when I asked her several. It was a fun project that she completely did on her own since I've been busy these past several days with library programming and Halloween festivities etc. through my job working at the library.

Sunday we finished up reading the book Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. Zoey cried and was pretty upset upon finishing it up because it was so sad. She's a pretty emotional and empathetic kiddo. She doesn't choose to read books that she knows will be sad so this was hard. We had a good talk about it though and I'm so glad we read it. So many important things to ponder over with that book. So many gifts to be had from it.

Hoping to press pause on our geography curriculum and start in on our election studies tomorrow!

And because it's Halloween...here are some silly photos of Zoey as a mad scientist!

Happy Halloween!!

P.S. In case you have some candy in the house that you would like to get rid of, why not try one of these leftover candy science experiments?

Busy Week!

This past week has been super busy for us. I had some additional programming to take care of at the library (where I work part-time as our community's youth services librarian). Extra work for me meant for mostly independent work for Zoey and the feeling of less school over all (with the exception of math and reading which she diligently worked on moving forward with). I kind of feel like this was a bum week for us, our first this year. That said, I'm trying not to feel too badly about things because one of our area public schools had Wed-Fri off this week. We're a bit "behind" where I thought we would be at this point but will use this next week to get back to where I want to be. I guess the beauty of homeschooling is having true flexibility! 

One of her new favorite books that she's reading for science lately is this one...

She is continuing to really enjoy Guest Hollow's Human Anatomy studies. I am too, it's content rich, includes many different ways of reaching the learner and for me, it's laid out so clearly that we can just pretty much open and go and if I need materials I can seek them out in advance and feel ready for whatever is coming next. Super awesome.

For geography, literature and reading we are hoping to wrap up her current study of North America and the two books that she is reading Walk Two Moons and Navigating Early. She is also wrapping up her project on Fashion in the U.S. (her choice geography project).

After starting in on Writing with Skill I think we're backing away from it again and going to stick with the copywork, dictation, and narration suggested that's written into the Build Your Library curriculum as well as incorporating some of Brave Writer into the mix. Zoey is finding it (WWS) dry and repetitive and I am too. When I look ahead and see that it appears to be more of the same, just presented in different ways, I think it would make for a very long and perhaps not joyous year of outlining, outlining and more outlining.

Some things that I'm excited about that are coming up...

We're planning on wrapping up our current studies upon finishing up our books next week and moving into a study of the election process. Mostly using books, online resources, and some electoral maps I've found online. All of the books we're using I found through the library. Yay!

Upon finishing our mini election unit study we're (so excitedly!!!) going to move into a month long study of Winter Holidays around the World. Zoey is so pumped about this and so am I. This will be our rebel act of homeschooling this year I think (haha!). We're making it fun! It will fit into our geography studies nicely and also allow for us to ease into the holidays ourselves. That's the idea anyways. I am finding the books that we'll be using through Thrift Books and it's a mix of non-fiction chapter books and picture books featured around the Winter Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and the Chinese New Year celebrations. I'll be using a mix of BYL's Unit Study and other things, beefing it up a bit with other resources so that it's a bit meatier.

So, that's what's up in our corner of the world lately...lots that we're doing and even more that we're planning.

This Week...

This past weekend Zoey volunteered to help out at her third birthday party through her dance company...this is the second one that she's walked away with a tip afterwards. I think this taste of financial greatness has been a good one for her. It's just enough for her to perk up at the idea of "working" at something other than her schoolwork or housework/chores. I can see her mind thinking ahead to possible part-time jobs that she could have in the near future, which is fun to see. 

This week we are talking about muscles, joints, and tendons in science. One of our activities today was to have her do some tasks "thumbless" by taping her thumbs down. She did some writing, cutting, sweeping, tied shoes and made a cup of hot chocolate all without her thumbs. It was pretty tricky! She also made a model of a long bone and discovered that her skeleton is estimated at weighing just 16 pounds!!!

In geography we are still talking about North America and she had to choose to do another independent project. She chose to do one on fashion in the United States. We got some supplies for her project today and she's really excited to get started in on it. Some interesting books that she is reading currently are Material World: A Global Family Portrait and Hungry Planet: What the World Eats...both really shed light on the places that she is learning about. Her reader for geography currently is Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool. My...this book is a good read! We are taking turns reading the chapters aloud to one another and today we were both in tears! 

We are also reading the book Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech and wow...wow...WOW! I can't say enough good things about this book. I can't believe that I haven't read this book already in my lifetime, perhaps I should be embarrassed about that? We are actually listening to the audio book before bed every night and I find myself thinking about things from the story the next day. Rolling them around, savoring them. This is a goosebumps kind of book. At least for me. :) One that I know will stick with her and I both, long after the story is over. 

This is about where we are at in the book right now and this particular quote hit me and left me thinking and my heart aching a bit actually, if I'm being honest...

"As I walked home, I thought about the message. In the course of a lifetime, what does it matter? I said it over and over. I wondered about the mysterious messenger, and I thought about all the things in the course of a lifetime that would not matter. I did not think cheerleading tryouts would matter, but I was not so sure about yelling at your mother. I was certain, however, that if your mother left, it would be something that mattered in the whole long course of your lifetime."

Photo credit Journal Prompts

I'm so excited about the books that we are reading this year...it's just so amazing, this journey we both are on. 

We've started in on Writing with Skill for some "official" writing...I kind of am still in test mode here with this curriculum, but so far, so good it seems. It's starting out with having her work on narrative summaries which is kind of boring but important. She's wordy like me so it's hard to pare things down to the bare minimum when summarizing! I'm still working on incorporating Brave Writer into the mix of things too which really isn't that difficult so far. 

This week and next week I have some library programming that will pull some of my attention away from schooling but it shouldn't be too difficult to manage seeing that it's Halloween stuff for the most part and is programming that Zoey and her friends will be able to participate in as well. 

If I'm being honest, things are going swimmingly so far...I find myself having these moments of pure joy when I think that we are homeschooling. I want to shout it out to someone, share our excitement, but really don't know if there is someone that would "get it" at this point. We'll just continue to go on being secretly thrilled with life for now. 

Science Studies This Week

For science this year we're studying human anatomy with health and survival skills mixed in later in the year. This week we've moved into talking about the skeletal system and while this little plastic model isn't specific to just the skeletal system, Zoey went ahead and did a little investigating by way of dissection of this model. It is pretty cool and is something she can reassemble and do over and over as many times as she wants.

A book came with the model and takes you through the human body, bit by bit, as you dissect and investigate.

It also has an organ-izer for all of your body parts...haha!

A fun little hands on project to throw into the mix this week. We'll be doing this again as we talk about other parts of the body I am sure.

Right now we have it on her science table downstairs in the school room so she can look it over anytime she wants.

Our September Homeschool Hours!

Okay...we're first time homeschoolers here, so I may be going a wee bit overboard with my recording of hours and with my expectations overall, etc. All that said, I'm super happy to have figured out that our first month of homeschooling gave us 139 hours to record for the state! Woo-hoo!! Way to go Zoey and way to go mama!! Wisconsin requires 875 hours of instruction throughout the school year. We are well on our way and I feel like it's pretty safe to say we're going to go over that required number.

Did it feel like 139 hours? Yes, pretty sure it did. For both Zoey and I. :)  She mentioned to me at the end of last week that she feels like she's done more in this one month than in the last three years of public school. YIKES! I will just say, we had a little chat about that and we're both planning on adjusting our expectations a bit to meet in the middle a little better. That said, do I think we may have over-done things here and there? Yes, especially on those first few days...I might be learning to lighten up just a smidge. Did I record everything...as in every-little-thing? Yes, I did! I am counting any library programs, activities, free reading, dance classes, hikes, etc. that she takes part in. It all counts, so I'm counting it! Were most of our recorded hours actual school "work" hours? YES!

We're feeling like we may have hit a little bit of a groove I think and I have to say, it feels good. This week is exciting because we're starting in on some new topics and new books. In Science we're moving into learning about the skeletal system and in Geography we're talking about North America and Zoey will be starting in on reading Hungry Planet: What the World Eats and Material World: A Global Family Portrait. These will both be spines that she refers to as she travels around the world, along with her book Geography of the World. We are reading the book titled, Navigating Early together and discussing it starting this month and for Literature she is starting to read the book Walk Two Moons.

Homeschool Happenings for the Last Week of September

Some of the things accomplished last week...

Geography //

Zoey started in on and completed a geography project in which she created a travel brochure for those wishing to learn more about visiting Alaska.

She prepared a Canadian meal from scratch for her family...Maple Chicken, Wild Rice w/ Mushrooms and a Blueberry Crisp.

She finished up working on a smaller project dealing with graphing place name origins of towns and villages within a state of her choosing, in the US. She chose Wisconsin.

She also worked on some map work locating different places and water masses on the map of North America.

Literature & Writing //

She finished up working on a writing project relating to the finishing up of our reading of A Wrinkle in Time.

Art //

She recently worked on drawing up her own map (she chose to draw up a treasure map) tying into her geography studies of mapmaking and mapmakers. She did a leaf etching of a maple leaf and is currently working on a pencil sketch of a moose (also tying into Canada/North America studies).

World Religions //

Started reading the book In the Beginning: Creation Stories from Around the World (which she is finding really interesting).

Science //

Consisted mostly of reading this past week along with some internet research. She learned about Dolly the Sheep in her wrapping up of studying genetics and cloning.

Rainy Day Hike

The other day it was another grey and gloomy day but we decided to get out of the house anyways and try to venture outdoors a bit. The leaves are changing slowly, mostly to yellow and orange but we tried our best to spy some of the prettier changes around our house, as you can see from the photos.

On our way back home we did end up getting caught in the rain which our dog didn't appreciate (he's a baby!) but we made the best of it, and once home, enjoyed some hot chocolate to warm up. Love days like this!

The Making of a Canadian Meal

For geography we are starting our journey throughout North America and one of Zoey's recent "assignments" was to choose a recipe from North America from her cookbook (Eat Your Way Around the World) and prepare it for the family. She chose a meal from Canada and made maple chicken with wild rice and a blueberry crisp for dessert. It was DELICIOUS!!!

This was the first meal that she has made all on her own. I helped her with the timing of things so that everything would be ready around the same time for the meal, but other than that it was completely her! So proud of her!

The really cool part of all of this...besides getting to sample this yummy food, is that she has a little passport that she stamps (in this case we will stamp Canada) for every meal that she makes from a different place around the world and then she writes up a little journal entry for her food journal on the foods that she prepared.

It's tying in perfectly with our geography studies!

Weekend Updates

The end of the week last week was a bit of a whirlwind. Last week felt busy as we were kind of playing catch-up with what we had missed earlier in the week due to my having to be out of town for work training. Friday Zoey ended up attending a middle school dance with a friend. It was the first one that she has gone to since being homeschooled and I'm happy to report that it went well. Sometimes I think I'm more nervous for these things than she is!

The weekend was a bit of a sleepy one here. It was rainy and cool pretty much all weekend. I made a vegetable beef stew along with some cornbread muffins (actually Zoey made those) that pretty much lasted all throughout the weekend. 

Zoey worked on some more of her Lego building over the weekend. She is really into the Lego Elves sets. It's interesting, she never was really that into Legos before. Whenever we introduced them to her she was pretty ho-hum in response but lately she's really taking off when it comes to building which is fun to see. I'm wondering if her improved strength and dexterity in her hands has anything to do with it. She's always been a smidge behind in that area. Interesting to think about. Here is a dragon that took a loooooooong time for her to assemble, there may even have been some tears of frustration at some point but I'm happy to say that she finished it with zero help from me or her father. 

It is pretty cool. 

Sunday consisted of more Lego building, some free reading and some football (on TV) which meant our dog had to sport his fancy football sweater...he wore it long enough for the photo and that's pretty much it. :)

We ventured outside after the rain broke Sunday afternoon for a bit and Zoey found this little guy hiding under some fallen tree bark.

And I just thought this mushroom looked cool so snapped a picture of it. It's amazing how many mushrooms we've discovered this year with all the rain that we've been having here and therefore how much we've been learning about the different fungi in our area.

This week I'm excited that we're going to be finishing up and starting some new things regarding Zoey's studies. We're scheduled to finish up reading A Wrinkle in Time for Literature and also the book The Road to There (I'm actually going to miss reading this daily...it was SUPER interesting for both Zoey and I!!). In Geography we'll be starting to move a bit away from learning strictly about maps and mapmakers and moving into studies specific to North America. In science we're going to be moving away from DNA & genes and will be starting in on learning about the skeletal system.

Sunday evening I prepped our week and am happy to say that I feel really good about the rest of this week! Here's to hoping it's a fruitful one!