General Update Post.

I've ripped up many of the workbooks the boys have been using over the last school year and placed some of the sheets in a three-ring binder. Then I threaded a bit of thin wire through the holes and twisted the ends to make a little booklet for our year's portfolio. That, our writing journal (fancy name for 50-cent notebook with Spelling work and journal exercises) and my plan book are bundled together with yarn, tied with a bow and tucked away. If I ever need my 2009-10 papers, the necessary ones are all together in the basement. We're still working plenty hard, but I'm not saving these papers. Doing this process makes me wonder yet again whatever happened to the acquaintence who called not too long ago and sent me into panic mode about her homeschool. I still haven't heard from the child welfare people, so I will assume at this point everyone is safe, especially since it is so close to the end of the public school year and she was enrolling there for next year anyway.

The pace is much more relaxed now at home, but we are working to finish English and Bible study. Elf and Emperor finally had to make the Great Wall of China on our front porch. I had about 50 of these milk jugs kicking around in my kitchen, but it kept raining outside and I was just tired of 'em. Lego people were inside, and the "barbarians" outside the walls were Playskool people.

I am including our Typing Instructor for Kids 4 in our lessons each day as well as math. Teaching Textbooks has a long unit on decimals before delving into a little elementary geometry. So we'll stick with that until the geometry part comes up before using Singapore 5A again.

We did get around to tie-dyeing t-shirts. You can see that the first step is wetting the shirt, pinching it in the middle and twisting round and round until you get the cinnamon-roll look you see here. Band it with rubber bands and put it in a soda ash solution, then apply dye and wait a day. Next time I will use more dye, but I didn't want the entire shirt gloppy, brown/grey and ruined. But for a first endeavour, not too bad.

Finally, I spent some time updating some of the profile pics you see on the sidebar. I had to take quite a few pictures to find one I liked as some of them SOMEHOW didn't turn out quite as I planned.

Homeschool Update

Hello! Here's an update from the Happy Elf Homeschool! The school year is almost over and I've promised the boys a vacation from school if they finish everything!

Bible

We're using BJU Press Bible Truths curriculum. We've completed about seven of the ten units. I would highly, highly, highly recommend this curriculum to anyone. But most especially I'd recommend it for those parents who are a little shaky on the background behind the Bible passages they want to study with their children, and for those who enjoy colourful maps, background on the characters in the Bible passages, and missionary stories as related reading. You could nix any literature program and focus on just this if you wished. Add in the recommended CD and you can sing some of the hymns that go with the character trait (for example, love or faithfulness) studied in the lessons.

It's very expensive. But I think this would be about the last thing to go if I had to pare down. It's that good. Naturally, we'll be continuing our BJU Press Bible Truths curriculum next year for fifth grade.

English and Reading 2009 - 2010

Somehow the state of Missouri counts "Communication Arts" and "Reading" as being distinct subjects. I'm lumping them together anyway as a subject, although I do count the particular hours we spend reading separately in the log book just to cover my hiney. Actually, when I log my hours down, I put the Bible studies under "Reading" because the entire curriculum is based around reading Bible passages and learning about them. This school year, we've also finished BJU Spelling 4, Landmark's Freedom Literature curriculum (uses McGuffey's Third Reader), many Great Illustrated Classics, and several other books, some with social studies tie-ins.

We're almost done with Chapter 11 in the BJU 4 English and Grammar curriculum (of 16 chapters). Hoping to finish that by July 1. Right now, we're in the chapter that works on verb tenses and I love seeing the progress Elf and Emperor are making. It wasn't too long ago that "runt" would have been listed as the past-tense form of the verb "run" by one of the children, and "rundided" would have been listed by the other. And in Spelling we've improved from spelling does "dozz," and are now spelling it correctly after about six months of the transitional "dose" spelling. Now we're working on READING THE DIRECTIONS so that whole sections of the workbook don't get done incorrectly.

Yes, I actually DO teach the children. It's up to them to learn. They'll do even better next year! :)

English and Reading 2010 - 2011

Moving on to Rod and Staff for fifth grade grammar. We'll use BJU Spelling 5 even though our literature program has its own spelling component. It's a weak spot (obviously), so I bought it after Elf and Emperor said they wanted it this year. I'm also going to use Landmark's Freedom Literature (uses McGuffey's Fourth Reader) again. You have to love a curriculum that posts a big WARNING on the inside cover that assures parents that only the King James Version of the Bible is used in all instances, except in such cases as other versions are specifically referenced to show their errors. Aaahhh... can't fall too far into the "liberal leanings" ditch with that one. :)


Social Studies 2009 - 2010


We have two LIFEPAC History and Geography fourth grade level workbooks to get through. Considering we've done longish units on the Civil War and China, that's not too bad. Right now, we're working on the "Mountain Countries" LIFEPAC which covers Peru, Switzerland and Nepal. It does an interesting job of comparing/contrasting the cultures and talking a little about Hinduism and Buddhism. I have some extra materials on the Incans and Mayans to share with the boys. Some are public school books and I also bought a second-grade level reader about the subject with many colourful pictures.

Social Studies 2010 - 2011

We'll kick off a study of Ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt, followed by a world history overview. I'm particularly looking forward to learning about world history with them. You wouldn't believe all the materials I've collected over the years about Ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt. Well, maybe you would. It's in a BOX downstairs, waiting. I sometimes wonder how much of the World History we'll get through, because that in and of itself is a full-year curriculum for older children. Well... we'll get through what we get through.

Mathematics

We're working on Teaching Textbooks Grade 6 and Singapore Maths Grade 5. They are actually very compatible even if the label states that they're a grade apart. I would highly recommend using these in tandem if you want a maths-focused school. Emperor in particular is becoming more fluent in maths as he gets older.

We're almost halfway through both of these programs. When you use TWO full curriculum providers in the same subject, and do every exercise, it does tend to slow you down a bit. I do think that the repetition and practice and switching of particular problems (fractions here, angles there, now a word problem, etc.) helps retain the information.

Elf is starting to forget his multiplication tables, and I'm tempted to take a week off our progress in math just before we start our new school year to focus on this. He can still do the work, but he is adding and adding in his head instead of just KNOWING the answer, and that holds him up. He has also taken to cracking his knuckles during math, playing with his eraser and not concentrating. He does well with constant direction, but he needs to learn to budget his time.

Science

Continuing with LIFEPACs in science through our next year. We have never tried any other science curriculum yet. I like the colourful books and the easy-to-read type. Some of the hands-on experiments are difficult for me to do *correctly,* though I suspect this is a problem I would have no matter which curriculum I picked. So we're pretty happy with it.

OK, those are the basics I'm required to do by law. A little about our other subjects:

In art, we've done various little crafty projects and making a little project at Home Depot each month, but have not followed a set curriculum. Year after next, I will have to get more serious about this, although I don't think either child shows a serious inclination toward the subject. Next year, we'll be doing little things like sticky tile mosaics and Ancient Greek mythology colouring pages. Fun kid stuff. :)

In music, the boys learned to play a couple of simple songs on the piano. Our resident teacher needs to be corralled for more of those magical $5 lessons over the course of the next school year.

Typing? Have that maaaaade in the shaaaade. We have a new typing program on the computer and it is working out absolutely fabulously. I have already taught the boys where all the keys are on the keyboard, but when I'd do the high-school-type lessons I got on them, I'd get a lot of, "Wait! Going too fast. Now I lost my spot. Hang on!" about every other word I'd dictate. I'm trying to teach them to not look at their hands whilst they're typing. This way they can look at the thing they're typing or the thing they're copying onto the keyboard.

And an odd subject: weekly trips. It could be a simple trip to Wal-Mart, but as you know, getting into the vehicle and going ANYWHERE with the four smaller children just makes me want to freak out. Woodjie doesn't do so well... Elf and Emperor are all jumpy about stuff, and Rose? Does just fine. And she's the only one I haven't bothered training, but have let grow up all wild and stuff. NOT FAIR. I'm sorta over that "not fair" thing sometimes.

But I think other people don't get how doggone hard it is. I am tryyyyying to teach Emperor things like not kissing other people's babies (Ugh! On the mouth! And then the mom tells him he might not want to do that because Tyler is sick today... I hope she is lying to get him away from kissing her little boy... ughh...) or telling other customers that he is really a baby giant... well, he just pretends... and there are Pokemon that evolve and get smaller did you know that but some are usually only girls and some are usually only boys but most can be either and my mom asked me not to tell you how baby pokemon get here (it's in the daycare center, I'll just tell you that much but Mom says that's distur- okayokayokayMombutjustonemorethingstoptryingto pull me awayyyyjustasec) and did you know his first word was, "Kitty?"And where do you live?

And I am tryyyying to teach Elf not to correct the grammar and theology of the people he encounters in the store. I am calling it "social skills" class. We really should do this twice a week, but honestly speaking, once a week plus Wednesday and Sunday church is stretching it for me.

Thank youuuu for reading this far. You're a true friend! :)

Spelling Party

Elf and Emperor just finished up their fourth grade spelling workbooks, so it's time for a little party. We mixed some dough and let it rise whilst we did a little mathematics, covering how to divide fractions. We're reviewing for a quiz tomorrow. We shaped and baked our "bug bread." This picture is a turtle shape by Elf. Woodjie played peek-a-boo and he and Rose coloured and ate snacks. Woodjie made one of the little shapes himself, but cried when they came out of the oven and he wasn't allowed to have any. Woodjie took the picture of his sister you see above, with just enough help to keep the camera from dropping. He aimed and shot it. At the very end of our snacking and clean-up, it was time for presents! Emperor received a tiny Hello Kitty, and he was very excited about this. Elf got a Pokemon book. Congrats, guys! BJU Spelling 5 is on its way for us to use beginning in July!

Panda Time

We made ours with Bendaroos. These are wax-covered strings that can be bent, cut and otherwise formed so that one can make all kinds of objects. We found these hard to work with, although the directions were quite simple. It was hard to get the tubes to "stick" together and stay when more things were added. As you can see, we had to go through all kinds of mechanations to occupy Woodjie and Rose whilst making our creations. I had to drag out the puzzles and eventually just fed them lunch so we could keep working. It took that long. After we finished, Emperor wanted to know if we could do a zebra next. As in, right now? Nope.

All About China

Patrick will be going to China in June, as he has raised enough money for his trip. So I thought our next Social Studies unit would be "stuff I pieced together all about China." Emperor and Elf used the stencils of Chinese symbols to design their very own Happy Elf Homeschool t-shirts. (Our school slogan is, "Happy Elf Homeschool: The Home of the Happy Elf," because I'm original like that).

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D, G and I went to the Chinatown market in downtown Kansas City to search for things to share with the family. I bought lychees in a can. Patrick informs me that these are exactly the same consistency as a dissecting frog. Eeew, and they smell bad, too. D is scared that the can's contents could be poisonous, or need to be cooked first, and that sort of thing. SO I had to look it up on wikipedia. It's fine. We just didn't eat it.

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I also bought some chili-ginger candies that... well, now that I have 'em out of the wrappers, look like sugar-coated cat poo. And have nuts in them. I also bought some sort of peach/ginger candy that no one could eat because the plastic is melted onto the candy and peels off in tiny strips. You will *never* get the candy free; one would have to eat a half-plastic, half-candy concoction. Needless to say, it's becoming obvious that Patrick will be mighty hungry by the end of his trip to China if this is the sort of food he'll be eating. But I did also buy Chinese pears. Apparently these taste just like apples, but they are about five times as expensive. (Oh, well.)

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Another thing I bought at the market was a New Year's hanging of some kind. And I bought some cute paper money called joss paper. Welllll... you're supposed to BURN this money to help your ancestor ghosts. There was a lot of this stuff at the market, so I assumed it was a big part of Chinese culture, since it's important enough to have several brand names. The younger boys are enjoying it anyway. Patrick refuses to touch it now, even though he was very eager to play with the pretend money before he found out its usual purpose.

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We are working on a BJU Booklink titled, "These Are My People," the story of Gladys Aylward. We also watched an old movie about Aylward titled "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness." Elf and Emperor found several inconsistencies between the book and the movie, but I think they very much enjoyed the movie now that they have read most of the book. We've done tear-paper pictures and shadow puppets as well as our t-shirt art and regular worksheets and reading. I'm reading the Chinese Stencils book with the children as, in addition to some really neat paper stencils, it gives the history of each design and a pretty nifty overview of the nation itself, its art, major religions, and what homes looked like in ancient times.

"Homeschooling More Than One Child" Meme

Do you? Please share a little about yourself and your homeschool! Now I'll share about mine:

Elf (9) and Emperor (8) are 13 months apart, and they would have been two years apart grade-wise had they continued in public schools. Elf would have been in fourth grade this year and Emperor would have been in second. But they homeschool together in all their classes here at the Happy Elf Homeschool. They have been a class together at home for almost three years.

When we began incorporating Emperor into our lessons, of course Elf had a great advantage. Emperor was barely out of preschool, but it took him only about three months to get to the point where he was competent and out of the second grade math-wise. Elf is the reading elf and has loved reading, especially since he's been homeschooled and has learned at his own pace.

Each child has a great strength in his particular area. I try to encourage teamwork and cooperation, but often discover that their idea of "teamwork" is "Emperor does all the math and Elf does all the reading aloud that Emperor hates." Ummm... sorry. Mom makes you share.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen Elf "accidentally" reading Emperor's part in a textbook. I make Emperor go back to the very beginning of the passage and read it again when that happens. It annoys Elf no end because it feels to him as though Mom is undoing his reading. Ruining it, even. It bothers Emperor because now he has EXTRA work to do in addition to what he would have had to do in the first place. Well, that's what happens when you don't do your fair share. "Helping" and cooperating is one thing, but doing things for someone else when he should be doing it himself is quite another.

Sometimes a child will get very annoyed because one will call out an answer to a question the other was asked. Do kids in public school cry and punch each other because they get THAT MAD about who got to read what first or who got to answer which question? Or who gets to do "the Elfie dance" for about 10 seconds when a question is answered correctly? Oh, yeah... if Elf was supposed to answer the question, he should get the dance. But if Emperor answered it correctly, he earned the dance. That's not right! I should get two questions after this, then. And two dances.

If you homeschool two or more children, do you pass books down? If they're in the same grade, do you buy an entire set of books for each child, or do you make them share? Cheapo Mom here makes them share books for the most part, and copy answers in a notebook or workbook so we can pass it on yet again. Besides which, it makes it easier to divide "reading out loud" passages because they'll put the book between themselves and the pages on the left are Elf's and the pages on the right are Emperor's. Many tears happen when someone's page has questions instead of stuff to read. It isn't fair. And he read more than me yesterday, too. And he took my dance and IT WAS MY DANCE! ARG!

I am looking over what I've written and am considering that perhaps, instead of only INDIVIDUAL goals, we have "working as a team, helping each other learn and being kind" goals and rewards in addition each week for the children. Sometimes writing out your problems can help you think of good solutions. This is (for some reason! extra energy this week or so!) the time to revamp and revitalize that homeschool setting here at the Happy Elf Homeschool. Because I could use a Happy Elf and a Happy Baby Giant. I really could. Though Emperor might be a bit embarrassed if he knew YOU knew that he was the "baby giant." No matter. When he grows up he will just be a regular grown-up giant. We all know this. :)

But overall, I LOVE homeschooling these guys together. They really are best friends, and I think being together almost all the time keeps them on the same wavelength. They have many inside jokes. Most of the time, they work together as a team, often moreso than I would wish. They have common hobbies. They eat the exact same school lunches. They even wear the same clothes, though Emperor gets to wear them first as he is taller.

What are some of your challenges and blessings if you homeschool more than one child? Do your children work together in all their subjects? Do you save books or buy a new curriculum for a younger child? How do you decide? I don't have a Mr. Linky, but if you leave a link in the comment section, I will edit this post and list your post here:

sample link here

The *NEW* Schedule

Oh, yayyy. I've realized that I've been frantically trying to get *everything* done at once... and while we have tons of stuff started, we have trouble getting anything actually FINISHED. Or I'd realize suddenly that we hadn't studied the Bible in two weeks. (Really! If this sort of thing hasn't happened to you yet, you either have a schedule, are perfect, or you just haven't been homeschooling very long.) I sorta copied the idea for a schedule from this link (pdf) I found after browsing Luke's blog. Woodjie doesn't have school on Wednesdays, so now I will schedule trips to the grocery store, art or other fun things on this day. We've also moved cooking to Wednesdays. I have left bunches of ideas in the "Wednesday" column and I will probably let the children pick what they want to do after their math is done. Did you notice there is no science to be done this week? We've just finished a science LIFEPAC today, so we'll begin a social studies LIFEPAC next week. When that's done, I'll probably get two science packs done and then concentrate on China for a while as Patrick is travelling there in June with the high school orchestra.

Crazy Pace! Run Run Run!

Do we really need to finish a good-size chapter book every three weeks? Do I need THREE English curriculum items, one for Literature, one for Spelling, and one for Grammar? AND the vocabulary and grammar worksheets for an entire grade that were purchased separately? And do writing exercises on a regular basis?

Do I really need to do all of Singapore Math AND Teaching Textbooks? Does it all have to be done in one calendar year?

Am I crazy?

What's really nuts is that I'll do every activity in every book, and then "supplement" with other stuff yet still, and then wonder why we work so hard, but yet there is no way possible we're going to finish "on time" this year.

I have just looked a bit at the lopsided expectations I've fallen into and realized that I need to make several changes:

Have a GOAL

My goal for the current homeschoolers used to be that they could read, write, and do basic mathematics. Goal met! Yay us!

Next goal: get them out of my house and living independently, even though I really don't want them to leave. Ever, ever, ever. :( Sometimes it stinks being a Mom.

Breaking that goal down, though, we need more work on social nuances. I live with these little guys and I can tell you that even though they're VERY verbal, they're more than a little odd. They get very upset about things you and I might not think are out of place. For example, we were at Wal-Mart recently and we found little playsets that contain, say, kitchen or bedroom items and a little tiger or bear or horse family that would live in the playhouse.

"WHAT is this world coming to??!" Elfie exclaimed. "My word! That's just... that's SICK!"

Emperor saw the playset and laughed hysterically. "Mommy," he said in a high-pitched baby voice, "Can I have some more human meat?... Sure! Here's another steak!" Ha ha ha haaa!

*Elfie starts laughing despite himself*

I had to tell them both that they were being pretty sick and I was wondering what this world was coming to. These fellows operate on a totally different wavelength sometimes, I tell ya.

Organize

Oh yeah, I hate doing that. But I probably need to catalogue everything and figure out if I have a huge glut in one subject or several. I might even look ahead in my boxed curriculum. When we study, say, Africa, I want to pencil a note in the teachers' manual that I have a sticker book about it in my fifth grade "box of stuff" or whathaveyou.

Get Real

Here's where it's going to get really tough. I feel I need to start having a rough timeline. Maybe even pare my expectations down a little. I might want to figure out what I want to get accomplished each month and plan for that. I'm diligent about DOING THE SCHOOLWORK, but not planning for the schoolwork and certainly not "grading" the schoolwork. I'm starting to get itchy thinking about that. Grades are so stinkin' objective. Plus there's the fact that I make the boys take the same tests over and over until they score at least 90 percent. That wastes some time as well. It would be easier to write "95%" on all tests in the gradebook as D has been very specific that he wants the kids to have grades.

Or maybe I should let them fail a test or two for real. I just would hate to have a big "F" next to "ocean animals unit" should I die tonight and my children need to enroll in a "real school." Thankfully my school presently is rather imaginary, and we just pretend to learn all day. But I think of the clucking disapproval of folks after I die going through the record books. "Tsk, tsk," they'd say. "Mrs. C didn't teach about ocean animals very well. I've also noticed that her children are very unsocialized and laughed at the beautiful tiger-and-kitchen playset we set up in the back of the classroom. What is this world coming to?"

I shouldn't worry, though. Likely if I died, my husband would not be able to find any of the papers I have carefully kept. He would enroll them somewhere and they would TOTALLY BOMB on the standardized tests they'd use to determine grade level. Emperor has a good command of the English language, but will answer a question literally instead of figuring out "what they mean." Oh, boy. He'd be in kindergarten again if they tested him, nevermind how smart he is.

Really, though, I need to sort through all my homeschool stuff and figure out what I'm doing here. Otherwise, when convention time rolls around, I will buy LOTS OF STUFF and want to pack even more into my homeschool day. It's sort of a hobby. I like buying homeschool stuff and doing homeschool stuff. But I sort of make my kids participate in my hobby for hours each day.

We were talking of environments and things parents do to make their children feel safe. Elfie said that what Mom does to make him feel safe is to have school. He loves school! (I think it's the routine that makes him feel safe, but I won't tell him that if you won't.) Emperor groaned and rolled his eyes. Emperor likes his weekends off. I have a sneaky feeling soon he will ask for a vacation. He doesn't mind school, but he likes breaks as well.

Maybe I will take most of tomorrow off and doodle with my books.

On Australia.

How odd that I came across this story about the Australians' new idea for highways. We're doing a brief overview of "seaport cities" in our fourth-grade LIFEPACs, and right now, we're in Sydney.

So what do you think? Should the Australian government build speed bumps every 100 metres on the highways? It sure would cut down on high-speed accidents. I thought this story was for real at first because I had just been reading of another hare-brained idea in Veronica's blog that would entail zie government reviewing every website and see if it is safe for children. We want to keep the kiddies safe... so... the government will make sure that no bad ideas - I mean- porno websites enter the country. And anyone who doesn't agree with that must hate children.

I have to say that I didn't make any connections between the Clean Feed and that highway story until I read everything through and saw the web link. That's good satire, but I had just *assumed* the entire government had gone bonkers. :) But I have to tell you that this government censorship, on such a LARGE SCALE, is absolutely chilling. Though I do have to wonder if that sort of thing happens here, too, and we are just not told about it. No, I don't have any conspiracy theories. Just wondering aloud.

Back to our homeschool. One of our LIFEPAC review questions was along the lines of, "Name three ways you can tell Australia was founded by British people." Emperor said that you can NOT tell by their accents, because they do an "awful" imitation of a British accent. Umm... kid... it's a different accent. They're not trying to be British.

"But the question said..." Sigh. Nevermind. Elf?

So Elf comes up with ideas such as, "People speak English in Australia" and "Just look at the FLAG! It's obvious!" and "Because all Australians are white."

Thanks to the Wiggles, I thought, I'd be able to disprove this easily. But Elf and Emperor do not see the difference between Jeff and the other Wiggles. See, because they are all Australians, so he must be white. Actually, he is the PURPLE Wiggle.

I tell you, I deal with this logic EVERY DAY.

A Thrift Store Education, Part II

Usually I'm a literary purist, but I *really* like this series of books. I started reading Oliver Twist and thought it was a faithful if simplified version of the original. The series does a great job of helping the younger student while maintaining the "voice" of the author. D and I began keeping an eye out for these at the thrift store about a year or so ago. Thankfully, the books are all pretty much the same size and have the same type, so they're easy to spot. Most of these were purchased for 50 cents each and yes, we have two copies of Oliver Twist and Heidi. When you have two children who enjoy reading at night together and following along, 50 more cents and an extra spot on the bookshelf isn't that big a deal. Robin Hood is in this series as well, but is currently hiding in a little box under Elf's bed.

A Thrift Store Education

Spending $25 on some books at the thrift store seems like a bit much, until you price these materials new. We have a full curriculum for sixth grade reading once I buy the workbooks. Even these would not be necessary, but greatly enhance the experience. I just love Bob Jones stuff, but it is usually very teacher intensive, so I don't use it in every subject. In the pile D purchased are also some ABeka books, pieces of various science sets, a social studies textbook and a health curriculum complete with teacher and test manuals and the test answer key. If I decide to use these, I just have to buy the workbook$ and away I go. I might just wait until next April or so and go to a homeschool convention and try to find them used. If I can't find them used, I can order from the ABeka booth and get free shipping. :)
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I enjoy buying certain staple items new, but reading-wise, our entire collection is pretty well cobbled together thrift store finds, McGuffey readers and the good old King James bible. I also use www.crayola.com and print colouring pages for the flags of the countries we study in social studies. I also like the Dover sticker paper dolls and colouring books we used during our brief overview on Japan.

Having "The Talk."

"Mom, I need to ask you something." Emperor is trotting after me as I clean the living room. "'Member how you said that scientists like to put everything into groups? And give them names?"

Mm-hmm. "Well, how do the scientists figure out which are the boy and girl hurricanes? And how do the hurricanes make new hurricanes?"

Awww, you're so cute, Emperor. Hurricanes aren't alive.

"They AREN'T?? But how do they give them names if they're not alive? And how do they get new ones then?" Sideways look. Mom must be holding out some important information.

Hmm... Well, here are some books on the subject. And if you have any questions, we can wikipedia about it or ask someone who knows more about it than I do. Or maybe you need to do your own research.

Be looking on Elf and Emperor's blogs in the next few days for a post about hurricanes. :]

Beware Samurai Bearing Gifts

Many thanks to Sue for directing us to this neat tutorial on YouTube on how to make samurai kabuto (war helmet). Click here to see the craaazy picture she posted that inspired us to ask for help in making our own! And yes, this counts toward our Social Studies hours, mmmkay?

NEW Math Books!

I bought the sixth-grade Teaching Textbooks for use in our homeschool. It's a lot of fun! I would recommend getting the grade HIGHER than what you're starting now if you'd like to try it out (better yet, peruse the website, look at the tables of contents, allow your child to take a practice test and draw your own conclusions as to what is best for your child!). It says sixth grade on the cover, but I wouldn't get too excited about that part as much of the first quarter appears to be review. Place value and long division are re-covered in these first lessons. We have begun Singapore Math for our fifth grade studies, but I am using these Teaching Textbooks for our lesson about once a week. It slows us down a little bit, but I also figure that it's fun and it can't hurt to review on a weekly basis, or go over previously learned material in a new and different way.

I'd highly recommend getting this set, but I will warn you that it's a bit difficult to install. I finally had to resort to calling the company on my cell phone while I was at the computer doing this process. Hopefully, this review was helpful to someone thinking about purchasing math curriculum for a child. Teaching Textbooks are available through CBD as well as the company's own website for the *same* price, and shipping is included. I would advise against getting an extra workbook in the lower grades, however, as the answers to workbook pages are easily worked out on a scrap paper.

Saying Goodbye

Our fourth-grade Singapore math books and some of our ABeka readers went into the homeschool storage box a bit ago. As excited as the children were at the prospect of receiving NEW books, they were sad to see the old ones go. But Mom is a bit picky about the pricey curriculum stuff. It goes back into storage so we don't lose it. Many of the regular books we read (such as the Wizard of Oz and the like) are still on the children's shelves. I will pick those out for Woodjie and Rose as there is interest later. I keep praying that Woodjie will need to use one of the math books that is now tucked away.

Taking a Picture Because it Lasts Longer.

A new week starts in our Happy Elf Homeschool tomorrow! We'd better snap a photo while all our books and materials are so well-organized. God bless you this week. :]

Spelling Discouragement.

Elf has a little trouble spelling. He'll study and study and study and study. Oh MY will he study.

He's finally, after three years of homeschooling, gotten to the point where he no longer spells "dozz" for "does." Now it's "dose." Arg. Ok! But it's progress.

It isn't the spelling list. There is no magical curriculum that is going to make it easy for the Elf. I think he's an awesome reader, and he does well in math, but I'm just going to do the best I can with him in spelling and call it good. I think there is only so much the best spelling teacher can do with certain students. I love the kid... but there it is.

One of the spelling words this week was the name of a book in the Bible. It also happened to be Elf's name. "Whew!" I thought. "Finally, some easy points for Elf on the test!" But he got it wrong. And then, after more studying, writing the words out, blah blah blah, he got it wrong on the retest. Double Arg!

I'm going to admit right here that had the kid gone to public school, that's one thing he'd have learned better than here at home. At home, this little guy has been signing all his worksheets "Elf" for the last three years. That, or putting a tiny, tiny dot in the corner of his paper and saying that that was a detailed picture of him. You just can't argue with that sort of logic.

Mean Old Mom (Or just MOM for short) will probably be requiring that one writes one's full legal name on worksheets occasionally. In other news... Elf and Emperor have lived here their whole lives, but have forgotten their address and phone number. I swear I cannot make this stuff up.

Update: Elf's spelling troubles with his name are over!! I *brilliantly* showed him (short version of name) + u + elf spells his name if he removes the F. So it really spells that "U" are an elf. We take the F away to disguise exactly how elfie he really is... Yes, someone is very obsessed still with being the elf. I have caught him more than once trying to wear the elf outfit to church under his clothes. :]

Testing, Testing...

In addition to some craziness that's been going on behind the scenes at the Mrs. C house, Woodjie must "test" in order to "qualify" for the local special-needs preschool. Um, non-verbal kid? Unable to follow directions? Unable to get a bedtime routine down, let alone start working on the letters of the alphabet and potty thing? That kiddo? We have to "test" him to see "if" he qualifies??

Bleh. We all know he qualifies. Whatever. So my schedule next week is a real bear with four appointments for "testing," six therapy sessions for other children and several doctor appointments for G (bloodwork and stuff. Nothing serious). Throw in a little homeschooling and a couple toddlers and you have...

Me, wondering why I get headaches every night. Why, just when everything is critical, I find the YoVille sweets factory calling me to check the ovens, make a little virtual money, and buy a big-screen TV for my virtual self. Not that I'm escaping or anything, but my place looks reallllly nice on YoVille. :P

We're about done with our Singapore Maths 4B book. We had our last "teaching" lesson yesterday. The rest is review. I'm stretching it out because I want to be sure the concepts we haven't covered in a while are reviewed and clear before we move onto fifth grade. It's hard to believe my just-turned-eight kid is going to go into fifth grade math soon. Well, we'll probably slow it down a bit and start Thanksgivingish. He doesn't need to go to college at twelve.

You know, Emperor is very bright. The odd thing that homeschooling does is develop talents in a child that might be a little uneven. Emperor cannot, for the very life of him, write perfectly neatly. If it became some sort of requirement... he'd fail. Sorry! I'm about ready to just ask him to print everything. If I drag out schoolwork from a few weeks ago, even he cannot read his own writing.

So, it's tough. I've been printing up some interesting little math tests, and they often ask you to show your work when you do the math. Emperor doesn't. There the answer is, almost always correct, written on the line with no work showing whatsoever. And some of these are multistep problems requiring remembering to add, then subtract, then add, then do this or that...

But there is the answer. In fact, it messes him up if he has to write and show his work. He's done before Elf, and there's no answer key to my knowledge. He knows math. Maybe I should start believing the AOL commenters who know kids at the age of nine months who could recite the entire Bible and do Calculus and stuff. Oh, and they coulda entered Yale at three, but there wasn't enough scholarship money so Mom held him back a year.

LOL... ok. I see all kinds of comments like that. And I have to admit I don't really buy 'em. Though I DO think we can have uneven talents and abilities. And I DO think homeschooling can help bring those out. Remember that someday when Woodjie can multiply plenty of things on paper if he still hasn't said "Mama" when he's nine. Maybe he will write me an equation for Mothers' Day or something. You never know.

I'm VERY happy with Singapore Math, though I think Teaching Textbooks might be something to seriously consider as the children get a bit older. (It IS worth your time to click this link and look at some of the Teaching Textbooks samples.) Every now and then, though, I think it's good to expose the children to other curriculum or tests, to get a feel for how other people ask for the same sorts of math from their students. It wouldn't do for my kids to grow up and ONLY understand the question when it's worded as it would be in Singapore Math.

But...

Sometimes the tests are a little problematic. I swore to myself that I would hand the tests over to my children without comment except for laying out the ground rules. No talking. You may use the bathroom without permission but otherwise, please stay in your seats. When you hand in your test, that's it. No corrections once it's in my hand.

Ok.

Here's a question for you: If Jeremy wrote down the numbers 3, 9, 15, 21, 27... what is the next number in the sequence?

"33" written on the answer line. Good job, Emperor. Next question: On the lines below, describe Jeremy's pattern.

"Jeremy's pattern is easy and not quite tricky." I had to laugh. He DID "describe" the pattern, didn't he? And in the next question, he correctly wrote another set of numbers using the same rule (obviously, "add six"). He knows the math. He knows how to "describe." But somehow I think that the NY State people would mark that one wrong. :]

YoVille Math.

Elf and Emperor helped me figure out what the best use of my "working" time on YoVille would entail. We got the list of the things my character can "bake" in the Sweets Factory and figured out the profit per hour of baking time. To complicate matters, the boys had to remember to add in the mandatory $10 oven cleaning fee between each batch. It was eye-opening for me. I had no clue that the longer recipes (three days for a "yellow cake") average out to something like 50 cents an hour of oven time. The chocolate chip cookies and coffee cake average out to $2 an hour. The problem being, you MUST check those cookies at exactly four or six hours, or they will "burn" and not be very profitable. We talked a little bit about how a good businessman would figure out a good estimate of the number of hours he thinks a job will take (multiplied by labour cost per hour), pad that number just a little bit just in case and add it to the cost of the materials. I don't think I'm going to rush into doing the "oven" thing every four hours, but it's good to know anyway that while it's *convenient* for you to leave the yellow cake in the oven for three days while you go have a life, it isn't economically advisable for your avatar. And my avatar needs a new couch. :P

Games and Play

I had to post this after watching a YouTube video about a homeschooler's typical day. You know, waking up late in the day and playing "Boggle" for English class? We get up early, but we do still play with blocks and Boggle. Yes, I count that for homeschooling if it's reasonably relevant, though of course that's not all we do for English class. I remember playing Bingo in public school when I was their age as well and can still write a complete sentence. I think younger children get a lot out of these games and are learning to using their eyes to locate and decipher things such as where to put their chips in Bingo or how to find words in Boggle. Here you see Elf and Emperor building with Math-U-See blocks to learn about volume. In the past, I have logged Battleship game hours when we were learning about finding points on a grid (B7, D2, and so on).