On Nature Study

Nature Study. It's one of those homeschoolish things that I long to include in our day but often fall short of. I've resolved to begin adding more nature study to our days, but I don't quite know how it fits in. I mean, going outside to find something inspiring to look at, draw, and discuss just doesn't work for us. It's too vague. We need direction in nature study. Does that negate the entire idea of nature study?

We live in Germany, where it's wet, grey, and cold a lot. Like, almost the entire traditional school year. Going outside just isn't always appealing to us. Still, it's something I want to include in our days.

I'd love to take some plaster of paris out there and mold animal tracks. I'd love to sketch near a babbling brook.

But it's time I got honest and realistic about our time in the great outdoors.

Nature Study here is going to look like bird watching, star gazing, and rock collecting. In the fall, I hope to wax some leaves. I'd like to set up nature scenes in the house. And in the spring, I want to set up a patio garden.

But for now, it's cold and wet. So I bought some young plants and put them in a third-story window. And we made toilet paper roll bird feeders and hung them outside the window. Hopefully, birds will come and we'll remember to watch them.

Anyone reading have any nature study ideas I could implement in my little German village, preferably from home?

Paper from Pulp & Hieroglyphics

Tuna already made actual papyrus last year, from reeds, in the proper manner. But we wanted to write on some handmade paper for our Egypt project, so we tried recycled paper pulp instead. It was a giant mess but it was fun and successful.

Our blender was lost in our move to Germany, so we had to use my food processor to make our paper pulp. I hate the scent of newspaper, so to mask it, I added vanilla extract and cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger (it worked). 

Oh, by the way: It's super messy. Paper goo came SPLASHING out of my food processor all over the tile, counter, stove, sink, everything it could reach. 

Nasty-looking paper pulp mess ready to be made into paper

It looks like cooked hamburger meat, doesn't it? Since I didn't have a screen, I used one of my stockings over a pan to dry our paper. We flipped it after a day so it would dry evenly. 

No more hamburger meat. Now we have paper. Tuna's writing "EGYPT" on it.

All done!

We made a cuneiform tablet, too, out of baked salt dough. 

In Which We Discuss Nebulae and the Life of Stars

We're not following a set curriculum for science this year. I might like to next year, but for this year, we're going it alone. And that's been fun. 

There's so much rich, free information in print and online, that I can't believe schools use textbooks. They're dry, boring, dull, monotonous, 

Oh. I digress.

We're rounding out the month of January by focusing on stars. Have you looked at pictures of the birth of stars? The birth of a star is so much prettier than the birth of a human. 

It's true. 

Look here. And here. 

And if you want to watch a really great video series on the Life and Death of Stars, I recommend this series (here is part one of five. They are all on YouTube): 

If you love They Might Be Giants like we do (What? They sing catchy songs!), you should watch this video. Three times. And then spend the rest of the day randomly blurting out a few bars. 

Since we're rather crafty in a no rules, do it our way only, kind of way, we decided to craft our own nebulae.

 Yes, I got in on the action, too. We blew through straws, added glitter and sequins. It was great fun. 

And now, we're going to go make whoopee pies, just for fun. I love homeschool being school-free. 

Updated 4th Grade Curriculum

MY GOAL FOR THE YEAR: Bring the joy of learning into Tuna's life again. 

I consider our curriculum to be a fluid thing, evolving along with us, changing as needed. Here's what we're using for fourth grade. I will update as things change. I've noted where things are not at grade level. 

EFF IT ALL. WE ARE UNSCHOOLERS.

Language Arts

Spelling and Vocabulary: Spelling City (using words I think are appropriate from other subjects we're studying.) We have a premium membership. We've dropped this for now. Instead, we talk about commonly misspelled words and play games like hangman, SPARKLE (it's a game when the family tosses a ball around to each  other, each one speaking a letter of the given word), and that sort of thing. Spelling just happens enough in other topics we cover, so I don't feel like we need Spelling City. 

Writing: Tuna maintains a blog (private) that holds her writing prompts from the book Unjournaling. Twice a week, I give her a prompt from that book. Bah! Scratch that. She does it on her own sometimes. Mostly we're working on just creative writing. On alternating days, we are working on creative writing. Our goal is to self-publish a book. We're both going to do it. Tuna has expressed interest in seeking a publisher for hers. We'll see how she feels once she's begun writing. She gets possessive over her writing. I'm okay with going through the submission process with her and will encourage her if she elects to do so. UNSCHOOLIN' IT!

Grammar: I'm taking a loose approach to grammar, as I don't see a need to introduce it so young, but we're using the book A Sentence a Day. It's painless and takes a quick five minutes to do. It reviews basic, common grammatical errors using funky sentences. We like it.  UNSCHOOLIN' IT!

Literature (chosen by Tuna)

Paddle to the Sea
Little House on the Prairie
On the Banks of Plum Creek
*more to come as we choose new books

If we find a cool activity about something in our story, we will stop and do it if Tuna wants to. 

Math

Life of Fred (reviewing books meant for younger ages to make sure Tuna has a firm grasp on math basics and stepping down because she doesn't like math at all. Trying to make it more approachable, and so far, it's working) UPDATE: Tuna LOVES Life of Fred. I mean, she professes her love for it and tells everyone she knows about it. Today, she said to me, "If I had a blog for homeschool recommendations, I would tell everyone to run and get Life of Fred." That is a telling statement from a kid who hated math a few months ago!

We've done:
Farming
Goldfish
Honey
We also have a membership at IXL but we haven't been using it much. at all. 

Science

No set curriculum, but I have a plan of study based on talks with Tuna and what she's interested in learning this semester:

Astronomy
Meteorology
Biology
Botany
Chemistry

We use a lot of library books, videos, and hands-on experiments and experiences to learn science. Doing something with her hands helps Tuna learn, and really gets her involved in what she's learning. For meteorology, for example, we'll set up a weather station. For biology, we'll make a model of blood and a working four chamber heart. 

Each unit will last about a month. That will take us through the end of the school year.  UNSCHOOLIN' IT!

History

Story of the World Volume I: Ancient Times (we use only the text, not the activity book or the tests, and we supplement with tons of hands-on activities, videos, and library books) UPDATE: Tuna loves this. I read it aloud and she snuggles up close and listens attentively. We will be continuing this series next year for sure. 

Other Stuff

Dance Mat Typing (Finished that quickly, now just playing typing games)
Rosetta Stone German
Girl Scout badge work as needed
Learning to Cook & Creating a Personal Cookbook (Uh... This has not begun yet)
Nature Study

I like setting my own curriculum plan instead of buying a boxed set because I can tailor it to suit the needs and styles of Tuna and me. I could never stand to follow a script, having someone else tell me what to do. It takes me about an hour or two a week to set up our schedule for the week ahead. I spent about six hours doing my initial setup of curriculum. It's not a terrible length of time, I think. And it's not hard to do. I'm not worried about gaps or holes in her learning. They exist at public school, too. I'm just teaching her what she needs, when she needs it. I make no claims that this is a perfect guide for homeschooling your fourth grader. But it's darn close for homeschooling mine. 

Fun Friday

That's not a real thing here. At least, it wasn't even planned to be like this. But we had a great time today reinforcing the week's lessons through hands-on activities.

Actually, "normal" days have looked a lot like this, too. I guess it's just that we had so many projects we wanted to do that today just felt extra fun.

On an average day, we do our obligatory lessons (spelling, grammar, writing - though that is about to become a fun activity because we're working on writing a real book now - and math). Then we move along to the fun stuff: literature, art, history, and science, though not usually on the same day. We can spend hours and hours on our favorite things, and we do.

Today, since we took yesterday off, we wanted to finish out our week with our intended projects. These included whittling soap (just like the boy who whittled Paddle out of wood, but our projects were not as ornate, to say the least), painting and filling and hanging a bird feeder, and baking and decorating a cookie dough map of ancient Egypt.

Whittling soap to get a feel for whittling, as the boy who created Paddle whittled a canoe out of wood. Whittling soap is harder than I expected and we have a great appreciation for "real" whittlers now. 

We're going to start observing local birds, so making them a place to eat seems like a logical place to start. 

Ours is made from a 1/2 gallon milk container, a stick, some yarn, and some paint. 

Hands-on is a great way for Tuna to commit a subject to memory. I expect she will not soon forget her cookie dough map of Ancient Egypt. We used peanut butter cookie dough (1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup sugar, 1 egg), butter-cream frosting, food coloring, and colored sugar. 

In Tuna's own words: "Today was fun, amazing, awesome, and I loved making the cookie. I pretty much loved everything about school today." 

{snow day}

No lessons today because that delicious snow is just too alluring. 

I love the freedom that is afforded us through learning at home!

The public school kids still had to go to school today, so we had pristine snow to play in today. It's the best kind. 

School-Free's the Way to Be

 I think we've settled into a cozy routine here. Thank you for the kind words left on my little blog, dear visitors. I didn't know anyone was reading. Let me first tell you that we have dropped schoolish math and have started doing a chapter of Life of Fred each day instead. I also have Tuna play some math games to reinforce her lessons a bit. 

Above is our stack of books we're using right now. We're pretty happy with all of them. 

We wrote. A Sentence a Day is a great grammar program. It takes five minutes out of our morning and it lets Tuna practice word choice, punctuation, run-ons and fragments, and more. Today, we covered the fact that supposebly is not a word. 

We made a pan of brownies for an edible solar system. Well, not we. She. Tuna did it all, including trying to crack open an egg in a  cereal bowl perched on the edge of our counter, without holding the bowl...

...which led to the egg landing on our kitchen floor. Almost all over the dog's ball. 

When our studies were done, we were forced to get fully dressed so we could go out in  public. Comfort is king at our house. Even during school hours.

I was asked today how I was enjoying homeschool and, "Is it hard? It's hard, isn't it." I answered as honestly as I knew how: No, it's not really hard. You get into a groove and it's quite fun, most of the time. I love learning alongside my Tuna. And she's loving it, too.

I'm glad we chose to withdraw Tuna and teach her at home. Being school-free is so much more peaceful, loving, and relaxing. I am a better mother for it, and she, a better learner. 

When Math Makes You Cry

I hate math.

I have always hated math.

I see the need for some of it. I need to pay the bills. I need to cook dinner. I need to plan for a party. I need to tell time. 

Math is something we need in life. 

But does it have to be so painful to learn?

My daughter...my brilliant, higher level thinking daughter, is reduced to a puddle of tears over a subtraction problem. 

Being determined to make this the year she gets back the joy of learning and loses frustration, I am trying desperately to avoid those tears. 

Today, in a review worksheet (Math Mammoth, grade three, though she's in grade four) asking her to subtract a 2-digit number without regrouping, she cried and math was over. She shut down. She's afraid of math. She has a mental block when it comes to math. 

I can relate, because I did, too, all through school. 

I took away Math Mammoth, at least for now. We have Life of Fred (Farming -- seems way too easy but at this point, I don't know her level of understanding* without frustration so I am willing to take it really slow). After a short break, we sat down and did chapter one of Life of Fred. She had no problem with the small amount she was asked to do at the end of the chapter. 

Then, I had her play Timez Attack addition and subtraction. She actually struggled with recall of those facts. I was a little bit surprised. She didn't enjoy the game much. 

Here's where I am torn. I've always been taught that rote memorization of the addition, subtraction, and multiplication/division facts is crucial to moving on in math. 

AND our intention is to send her back to public school in seventh grade, so we need to get her on grade level. 

BUT I don't want to further injure her self-talk in regards to math. 

So what do I do? Where do I go from here? Do I lose the "drills" altogether? Do I keep them up? Do I stick with a living math method using Life of Fred and literature? 

My instincts tell me Life of Fred, living books, real life math will be enough to teach her for now. But I worry that it won't be enough to get her to grade level. I can't decide if I have plenty of time to get her there or not. It's only two and a half years until she enters seventh grade. 

I need input. And no one is even reading my blog. ;)

*She understands more than she thinks she does. It's when it's on paper that she cries. Or on a screen. Or anything mathy. 

Engrossed in Space: Delight-Directed Science

Tuna playing a game at NASA's site. She played after watching a lovely video tour of the International Space Station. 

I love this chalkboard that I scored for FREE at an elementary school that was switching to white boards. Tuna's recording her data here. 

Organizing data into a lapbook. She's enjoying this much more than I thought she would. The lapbook was a freebie I found here. 

A recent acquisition: planets poster with tons of data. 

Her Space Encyclopedia, which she devours daily, provides plenty of data for her project. 

In her own words: "It was fun because I noticed the facts all over my poster. I got to do a project. We got to listen to that solar system song. Yeah, it was really fun today." I guess fun is the word of the day. 

The Solar System (and the education of Tuna begins)

Today was our first official day of school for 2013 and it got off to a stellar (pun definitely intended) start.

Lessons didn't take nearly as long as I anticipated, and I ended up dumping a couple of lessons that were just...dull.

We began the day with Unjournaling. Her prompt was to write a paragraph with at least ten words that rhyme with "be"... She wrote a paragraph of song lyrics about a girl and a bee out to sea. It wasn't beautiful, and it wasn't technically a real paragraph, but I'm not going to correct her morning journaling. That's for her, mostly.

We did math, which is just a reteaching of basic math skills that I feel like she somehow missed in public school. Mental math is our focus this week. She whizzed through the lesson.

Next, we began reading Paddle to the Sea. I am purposely going slowly with the story in order to hold her attention (plus, we're doing activities surrounding the chapters). We're reading three short chapters her week. We mapped Paddle's journey so far and did some spelling and vocabulary words going along with our reading.

After lunch came science: her favorite subject of all, and one that the public school system barely touches. Science will be largely delight-directed since it's her favorite area of study. I consulted her on what she'd like us to cover. She answered with astronomy, weather, plants, and anatomy. For now, we're studying astronomy. Her grandparents bought her a very nice telescope for Christmas, which is going to come in handy!

She loves project-based learning, so I am going to try to offer her constant projects to feed her busy mind. Here's a simple one we did today that she enjoyed. She made salt dough and created a solar system.

In her own words: "Well, today was amazing! I loved making the salt dough solar system. With the leftovers (dough), I made a volcano on an island with a turtle that was laying eggs. I really liked the math. It was nice and easier than usual, but it will get harder. And I really liked Paddle to the Sea. It was amazing."

Can't ask for more than that. :)