30 Days of Thanksgiving

As I was scrounging the Internet and Pinterest for homeschool + middle school + Thanksgiving, I noticed something. 

It doesn't exist. 

All the Thanksgiving homeschool stuff is for little kids. Gluing popcorn onto paper cobs. Toilet paper tube pilgrims. Feather headbands and paper pilgrim hats and stick pilgrim houses. 

Nothing for the big kids. Well, it's out there. It's just hard to find and there's not enough of it. 

So, I'm going it alone, forging the way for my middle grader. Over the next thirty days, I'll share Thanksgiving teaching ideas: lessons, crafts, recipes, projects. Tuna and I are embarking on 30 Days of Thanksgiving. Won't you join us? Here's our plan for activities:

Sundays: nature and science activities
Mondays: art activities
Tuesdays: poetry activities
Wednesdays: cooking activities
Thursdays: videos and movies
Fridays: reading and writing activities
Saturdays: craft activities

Day 1

We're thankful for...
Tuna: I'm thankful for having parents. That's my top priority. I have to have parents.

Mom: NaNoWriMo, which has inspired me to finally put pen to paper (or, well, keyboard to word processing software) and write my first novel. 

Activity: Sign up to receive letters from a Pilgrim girl and Wampanoag Boy in your email throughout November. Link is under the header "Letters from the new world" on the right side of the page. 

Begin working through the lesson plan here. We aren't doing all the writing. We're just picking one writing activity and doing that. 

Sixth Grade Curriculum Chosen!

OK, I know. It's only October. But I've planned Tuna's sixth grade year already.

Thinking about what's worked for us and what we want to change, and keeping in mind that we want a more rigorous curriculum, I went shopping. 

I found our curriculum. 

Seriously, I can't be the only one that plans this far out, right? 

We're going to use Moving Beyond the Page for science, social studies, and language arts. And we're going to use Teaching Textbooks for math. For music, Tuna will be taking up an instrument and receiving lessons. For art, I'm not yet sure. 

I love it. It's so neat and tidy, short and sweet. And it's geared toward gifted learners, so I know it will be challenging enough, in the right ways. 

I can hardly wait to get my giant box of new books in the mail. But I'm holding off for spring fling, MBtP's annual sale. 

Yay for new book smell!

Added Responsbility

Baby Tuna with (wow, he looks so young) Daddy at The Royal Gorge in Colorado

You're familiar, I'm sure, with the expression looking through rose-colored glasses. It means seeing things optimistically to a fault. Well, I think I'm guilty of looking at Tuna through baby-size glasses. Or something like that. 

She's my baby. 

But she's also a tween. Almost a middle schooler. We're halfway through with fifth grade already. 

The other day, we got together with some friends we haven't seen in nearly a year. We've known them since Tuna and her friend were in first grade together. I watched that boy lose his first teeth, and knew his brother before he was born. We made plans to get together for dinner a few nights ago. When the boy opened the door, gone was the young boy I knew, and standing in his place was a tall, awkwardly handsome in that pre-tween way young man. I couldn't help but remark, "Wow, you've gotten so tall!"

Then, Tuna stood beside him without saying a word. 

She's taller than her friend. 

Taller than the boy I, not three seconds earlier, recognized as having matured, grown, changed. 

My baby. She's a big kid. She's nearly to my chin now. She's changing, growing, maturing. 

And somehow, I didn't see it coming. 

In an instant, my view of Tuna changed. My brain readjusted, somewhat unwillingly, and I began to view things differently. I knew it was time to start giving her more responsibility to work on her own in several aspects of her life, including her education. So here are some changes we're going to slowly make over the next several months:

• Tuna will read her math chapter in Life of Fred and complete the Your Turn to Play on her own, bringing any difficulty to me for help. 
• I'll start giving her long-term assignments to keep track of: memorization, reports, silent reading, to name a few. 
• And I'll begin researching online classes that would interest her, that she can take from home, learning from other teachers. 

It's weird, seeing her as getting big. Even in this photo above, I see my Baby. I know that others see her differently. She will always be my Baby. I will hold her hand crossing parking lots as long as she will tolerate it. I will always read aloud to her. I will always have time for a cuddle. But, for her own sake, it's time for me to see her as growing and changing. I'll be better able to meet her needs if I do. 

I wonder: Have any of you had a similar issue, seeing your baby as a baby and not quite so mature as others seem to see? 

FROGS: Our Complete Lesson Plan (Dissection)

*Important: This unit study culminates in a dissection, and this post contains photos and video of dissection. Sensitive readers should proceed with caution. 

Ever since the owl pellet dissection, Tuna has been expressing interest in continuing with biology and dissection. So, I ordered some specimens and got a lesson plan in motion. 

It was somewhat difficult to find straight-forward, middle school level lesson plans online. Most of what I could find was cutesy, lower grade, arts and crafts stuff. Knowing the end of our unit study was a pretty serious matter, I wanted to avoid the cutesy and cut to the chase. Here's what we did:

Frogs

Time Spent: 3 Days

Purpose: To facilitate curiosity of frog anatomy. To provide an introduction to middle school level biology and dissection. To explore and learn about the internal and external structure of the grass frog in a hands-on manner. 

Materials required:

• internet connection
• printer (optional, for worksheets)
• frog specimen*
• dissection pan* (or Styrofoam meat tray)
• dissection tools* (pins, scissors, scalpel, pointer/stick)
• recommended: gloves and goggles
• a strong stomach and nerves of steel

*I ordered our supplies from the Online Science Mall. 

Outline

Day 1: Familiarization with frogs

1. We watched several video clips on the National Geographic site:
   Life Cycle of the Tree Frog
   Trials of a Tadpole
   Frog Father Spits out Young
   Baby Toad Born from Mom's Back
   Bullfrogs Eat Everything
   Slow-Mo Frog Jump
2. We discussed the life cycle of the frog in further detail.

No need to be overly serious. Some fun with basic amphibian information:

A Brain Pop on amphibians (subscription required) has a good video, worksheet, and quiz. 

Day 2: Learning about frogs' bodies and preparing for dissection day

1. We used the following websites to familiarize ourselves with frog anatomy before our dissection:
   eTutor
   The entire set of links at Biology Corner
2. And, finally, we watched two dissection videos (actual dissection shown):

This one from Teacher Tube

and this set from You Tube:

Day Three: Our turn (The actual dissection)

If the videos from day two didn't scare you off, congratulations. You've got guts. Much like our little friend here. 

I, on the other hand, am very squeamish, and I'm having a hard time even typing this. My head is a little bit spinny and I keep averting my eyes. 

Throughout this process, I have maintained my badass stature. No big deal, I said. I can do this, I said. Tuna thought it was the coolest thing ever. I had to keep pace. 

So don't feel bad if you ...feel bad. I know how you feel. Really, I do. If Tuna wasn't into this, we wouldn't be doing it. This is definitely not for my benefit. 

Ready? Right then. Away we go. 

I printed this PDF Frog Dissection Manual to accompany our dissection, because the dissection guide that came with our frog was tiny print and I didn't find it particularly user friendly. 

We donned our gloves, put on play clothes, and went to work. 

We first took a good look at all the external structures of our frog: the head, the trunk, the arms and legs, the cloaca, the eyes, mouth, and external nares, the tympanic membrane, the toes and webbing, the skin (not slimy), the belly, the jaw (pretty firmly closed, not slack like I was expecting). 

Then, we look a look inside the frog's mouth. In order to do this, we had to cut his mouth wider where the jaw hinged. We checked out his tongue and manipulated it to demonstrate how it catches prey. We felt his (oh, right, our frog was a boy) teeth and looked at his eye sockets (if you poke them gently, you can open the eyes, but don't poke too hard. trust me.)

I've decided not to share more graphic images. The videos cover everything in detail. 

Tuna was able to identify almost all of the frog's parts at the end of the dissection. She was amazing throughout the dissection. Lots of guts, that kid. Pun intended. 

If I can survive frog day, anyone can. I breathed through my nose (though he really didn't stink, more psychological than anything). I wore gloves. And I put on a brave face for Tuna. 

So, we did it. Our next specimen is a perch, but that's a few weeks off yet. 

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Catch Up Week

For several reasons (in-laws extended visit, lots of awesome field trips, to name two), we've found ourselves a bit behind where I hoped we'd be by this week. In an effort to catch up to where I want us to be, I've implemented a catch-up week. Regular schedules are set aside and we work on just one subject each day for a week and a half. Here's what it looks like:

Days 1 & 2: Science. Day 1 will catch us up and day 2 will complete the current week's planned lessons.

Days 3 & 4 : Math. I'll split up the assignments over two days to catch us up.

Days 5 & 6: Art, music, and German: These will be fun days. I want to finish up with chalk pastels, and we've got a music study going that we keep setting aside.

Days 7 & 8: History catch-up. Lots of reading and hands-on activities will be completed. 

With that, we'll be caught up. Normally, I wouldn't care that we're behind, but I do want us to finish our curriculum before our move next summer, with plenty of time to pre-plan our sixth grade year before chaos ensues.

What do you do when you fall behind? 

I'm in a bad mood!

I woke up in a bad mood! I'm just irritated today, with no real cause. It happens to the best of us. So, what does a homeschool mom do when she finds herself grumpy? 

I don't want to take it out on Tuna. She's done nothing remotely wrong. So, I don't know what other homeschool moms do (we just don't talk about the bad stuff enough, you know? and when we do, it's laughingly. we should talk about this stuff), but here's what I did:

1. I sat at my desk, drinking overly-sweetened coffee, and puttered around on Pinterest (here is my Pinterest page, by the way. I think it's pretty great.) while Tuna played her bells upstairs. Until I asked her not to. Because the ting!ting!ting! was grating on my nerves. 
2. So, I asked her if she wanted breakfast. She asked what she could have, and I told her anything at all that she wanted in the kitchen. 
3. She wanted to bake cookies. I don't want to bake cookies, I thought to myself. But, wait. She's old enough to handle a cookie mix on her own!
4. I gave her simple instructions: use the microwave to soften your butter, don't forget the timer) and went back to Pinterest. I needed some time, some time alone, to feel better.
5. She set about the task of baking cookies and called me over when her whisk was full of cookie dough (why a whisk? she thought it's the tool she needed, as she's never done this before). I helped her mash up her cookie dough, and she took over from there. 
6. Ten minutes later, she presented me with gingerbread cookies, which I devoured happily. 
7. Next, she watched a movie while I still needed some alone-ish time. She was all of fifteen feet away from me, but the different engagements helped. Again, it's not Tuna, it's me. But I find when I'm cranky that working quietly alone helps. 

And that's where we are now. I'm writing, she's watching a movie. I'm hoping this mood blows over soon. I'm deep breathing, about to go soak in a tub for a while, and I'm sure I'll feel better. 

The bottom line is this: Every mom has bad days. Heck, I remember my teachers having bad days. Out came the board games, the rolling television, the indoor recess, the other teachers monitoring us while our teacher stepped out. It happens. And life goes on. And no one's education is compromised. 

So if you're cranky, go soak in a bubble bath! Pop in Home Alone for the fifteenth time this month and just unwind. There's always tomorrow. 

And for the love of sanity, share your bad days with your fellow homeschoolers, so they don't all feel isolated, alone, and bad for being cranky sometimes. 

Sunday Stroll: Kallmünz, Germany

This week found us in Kallmünz, Germany, a charming, typical Bavarian town situated on the river Naab. We didn't get to spend much time there due to needing a toilet (public toilets are few in Germany and when you do find one, it's not free). Still, we enjoyed it while we were there, and we might return to explore some more. There's a castle ruins in Kallmünz I'd like to see. 

Look at these formations on the underside of the bridge above. Stalactites! I thought stalactites only formed in caves, but they were all over this bridge over the Naab River. So cool!

Committing ourselves to weekly Sunday Strolls makes sure we see lots of Germany in the little time we have left. This short stroll was worth the 30 minute drive from home, proving you don't have to go far to see much. Where are you strolling this week?