Getting Structured

Have you missed this face?

Blame it on facebook. I hate facebook. Since I have been more active on facebook, I have been neglecting our blogs. And I miss the blogs. So, I am back.

Emma has been getting crazy bored lately. When I am plugging away on school stuff (or wasting time on facebook instead of doing school stuff), she is wasting away from boredom. Well, that is what she tells me anyway.

I have a solution for that (insert evil grin). School work for her!

Emma is pretty smart (could just be mama talk, but I don't think it is). I think part of the reason she is so bored lately is because her brain isn't getting challenged enough. So, starting this week, we have implemented some structured schooling for her following a classical education approach. After reading, "The Well-Trained Mind," by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise, this style of education just made a lot of sense to me.

Emma's schooling will go in 8 week cycles, just like mine does. Here is what this week looked like on paper.

We use The Loved Edwardian Planner at donnayoung.org

Here is a breakdown of what we will be working on.
Math- Math Mammoth- Daily. We decided to give this math curriculum a try after our internet friends over at Craft Knife talked about how much they like it. To be truthful, most of what we are doing right now with Emma is based off recommendations from Julie and her girls. So, thanks Julie for all your hard work!

Right now Emma does two math pages every day. So far, Emma is breezing through it. There are areas that we need to spend more time on, but all-in-all, she is moving right along with it.

Yes, that is a bow hunter aiming at a horse. Hunter-Gatherers use to hunt and eat horse. 

History/Geography- Story of the World (SOTW)- 3x per week. We borrowed these audio books from the library back when we lived in Iowa and we all loved them. It wasn't until we started reading Craft Knife that I realized that the SOTW was an actually history curriculum. I finally took the plunge and bought the Mp3 download and the workbook. So far we are really enjoying it. We listen to the chapter on Monday then do a map worksheet, a coloring page, and Emma recaps what we have learned and I write it down. Then she draws a picture to go with it. Wednesdays (and really, every other day during the week), we read library books that pertain to that weeks chapter, then on Friday's we will do a project. We get to make cave paintings tomorrow! I'll try to take took pictures.

Random photo- Field trip last week to the Paris Gibson Museum. 

Science- 1x per week. For science right now, we just had Emma choose 8 creatures from the animal kingdom. We will read about one critter per week and do activities as we see fit. She chose, woolly mammoth, piranha, painted bunting, black fox, kaprosuchus, piggy-back spider, red panda, and otter for this 8 week period.

Reading a book to her friend Sydney.

(She records the reading then we share it with her friend via the internet). 

Reading- Daily. For those that don't know (or forgot) Emma is a bibliophile. No, that isn't a bad thing. She spends most of her day reading or listening to audio books. I have started to ask that she spend at least 30 minutes a day reading something from the library (from a specific list of books she has checked out), but for the most part, this is done without me having to say anything. If I had to guess, she probably reads at a 5th grade level or higher (if the age of the subject in her books is any indication). I will have her do one "book report" each week, but she really enjoys the sheet we use, so this assignment is more fun than work.

Part of her reading now includes poetry. I would like for her to memorize one or two poems over this 8 week period. If she can memorize (and retain for years afterwards!) this tongue twister, a poem is no problem. We are currently working on "The Road Not Taken," by Robert Frost. It's my favorite :0)

I know your really just here for the pictures. 

This was our V-day desert while we played our favorite game, Ticket to Ride. 

Writing- Daily. Emma is always working on lists, so she is writing every day. We are going to start focusing more on her penmanship as well as the art of writing. We will be doing that by copying (she will copy lines from the poem she is memorizing each week), she will continue to write letters, she will write about her horse lessons. We also just ordered, Writing with Ease, to try out, but we probably won't start till week three.

Random photo found on the camera.

Spelling/Grammer- We don't have anything planned this week or next, but in week three we will be giving, First Language Lessons, a try.

Emma's parrot that she drew while looking at a picture. 

Art/Music- Sporadic. We have a few art guides that we will be following, but for now I am happy to let Emma do her thing with art. As for music, she really isn't super interested, so for now we will just listen to some random classical, jazz, blues, symphony, etc. CD's randomly throughout the week.

Emma and her friend preforming their play. 

Homeschool Co-op- We started attending a weekly co-op that our friends manage and we are enjoying it. While we are not religious, we have enjoyed learning about the bible and science from a religious perspective. We have also started doing the Junior Master Horseman with a few of the other girls from the co-op, so it's really a fun day for us. Plus there are snacks and RECESS!

As I said, so far this week, Emma has really enjoyed it. I think it has helped keep me on track as well because it's day four for my classes and I have already completed all of my assignments. Usually, I am yelling at Jared and Emma to leave me alone on Sunday afternoon so I can hurry up and get the rest of my school work done. Feels good to have it done so early!

Well, I think that is more than enough for my first real post in a while. I hope all is well with everyone out there!


*As Jared has gone to bed already, I don't have anyone to proof-read this for me. So, my excuse for any bad grammar or disjointed thoughts is this- I spend all my brain power on my college classes and on Emma. You get whatever's left at the end of the day. Sorry!

Kid Made Window Bird Feeder

Way back in December, Emma decided to make a window bird feeder for the chickadees and finches that lived in our tree. Being the lazy mama that I am, I check on pinterest to see if there were any bird feeders that she could make on her own. Here are the two that inspired Emma's creation.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/41517627788660183/

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/41517627788660199/

We all LOVE how Emma's bird feeder turned out. We loved it so much she made a second one and and documented it with photos, then went and wrote up the words later to create a tutorial. 

The lazy mama that I am, I have not gotten around to posting her tutorial until now (I have totally given up all hopes of winning mama of the year). 

Enough from me. Here is Emma and her Kid Made Bird Feeder Tutorial.

*all the photos and words for this tutorial are Emma's*

How To Make Window Feeders

Things you need:

· Scissors, a milk carton, birdseed, a hole punch (not pictured) & suction cups (not pictured).

Let’s get started!!

Cut off the top of the milk carton.

· Cut three sides of the milk carton off & make shore you leave part of the bottom for the bird seed.

· In the last piece of the milk carton cut a window.

· Poke a hole in top & put the suction cup in the hole &… Finished!!!

p.s. & remember to have fun!!

EMMA

Learning Through Horses- Books

I've decided to create a series to document how we incorporate horses into (almost) all our learning. I will link all the posts in this series to this resource page on our site. Feel free to visit often as we will update that page frequently (I hope!).

Books

To spare you from spending all day reading this post, I had Emma pick out her 5 favorite horse reference books. I limited my input to the two newest additions. Your welcome. 

Nonfiction

"I like this book because it has 96 horse breeds and it has 'At A Glance' profiles of the horses"

I like this book because it focuses on horses of North America. Some of the breeds are rare or no longer around, but the information is really interesting.

"I like this one because it has a couple of very good breeds like the Morgan and the Missouri Fox Trotting horse."

Emma got this book when we were doing the Pony Club (which is not longer in operation-so sad). 

Emma uses this one most when looking up horse colors. That's what she told me. 

Emma likes this one, "just to look through because it has pretty pictures in the back."

This has horse breeds as well as basic info for taking care of a pony.

Emma likes this one, "because it has a lot of common breeds."

The details in this book seemed to be pretty good, but we have other books that provide more info about each breed. It has great pictures though, so that's why I think she likes it :0)

The photos in this book are stunning and depict the skeletal system, muscular system and other anatomical aspects of the horse. We are not really at a point where we use this book a whole lot yet, but I am excited for when we are ready!

This book was discovered at our local toy store. Lots of great info and pages for Emma to color. We have dabbled off and on with the evolution of the horse and I think this book might give us a bit more motivation to stick with the subject from beginning to end.  

Fiction

Again, to spare you, we are going to share a few of our favorite horse book authors are rather than list our favorite books.

Marguerite Henry: Misty of Chincoteague series is her most well known set of books. We actually own a lot of her books and have loved them all. We are always on the lookout for more of her books to add to our home library. 

Jessie Haas: We discovered Jessie Haas through the American Girl series about Saige. When we researched Jessie Haas (at Emma's request) we discovered that Jessie Haas has a long list of books about horses. We are on a mission to collect as many of her books as we can. 

Janet Muirhead Hill: Mrs. Hill is a Montana native. She wrote the Miranda and Starlight series that Emma and I both really enjoyed. I think this series will be read again once Emma is older. 

Ruth Sanderson: We found Ruth Sanderson through the Horse Diaries Series. Ruth Sanderson illustrated most of them, and Emma fell in love with her illustrations. We have borrowed many non-horse books just because she illustrated them. She has a bunch of books we would love to own, but have not been able to find yet. 

Emma loves to read. A lot. Most of the time she reads fiction books with horses as the main character. She will also read through her nonfiction horse books if she is looking for the answer to some question that has jumped into her brain. 

On top of the books that we own, just about every visit to the library has us coming home with one or more books about horses. I think we've borrowed all that they have, but we keep borrowing them anyway :0)

Emma working on a horse geography sheet using the book Horses!, pictured above. 

If you haven't figure it out yet, we are pretty unstructured in our learning. This approach doesn't work for everyone, but it works for us. We don't have any one way that we do any of our learning, so let me explain a bit about...

A few ways we use books for learning:

Well, to state the obvious, we used horse books to help Emma learn to read. 

We use horse books to spark interest in other areas. For instance this book (which we read at bedtime over many nights)

Sparked an interest in Austria and World War II. 

Reading about the Spanish Riding School

Creating a map of Austria. 

You can't really see it, but on the map printed out from google maps, we also tracked the route the Lipizzaners and their handlers from the Spanish Riding School had to use to escape during WWII. We used math to determine how many miles they had to travel. We also mapped out the route from where the stud farm is to where the riding school is. Again, we used math. 

Anyway, books are really the basis of just about everything we do. Without books we would be lost. 

Which is why I started this series with books!  

No Learning, Just Playing

Nope, no learning going on here.

Emma and The Tree.
We love this tree. So much going on with this tree. 

"A spotless ladybug!"
The little bugger wouldn't stay still for very long, but she got a pretty good drawing of it anyway.

Ticket to Ride
Newest game/obsession. We played this twice in one day. A lot of strategy and a splash of chance keeps it pretty interesting. Emma's really good at strategy.

We really do love The Tree. With crazy squirrels, cute chickadees and a random hawk, The Tree really does provide hours of entertainment. 

Like the squirrel feeder? We made it :0)
Maybe the little buggers will stay out of the suet feeders now...

Like I said, no learning going on here.

Oh, and Emma read and recorded herself reading Penny the Pony fairy. If anyone would like to hear Emma read it, you can do that here.

Major Life Theme- Books

We love books.

The missing book list last month wasn't because there was a lack of books read in the this house, it was because there were too many books read to keep up with. If you need proof of how much we love books, here is a link to posts I've written about books (there are 11, 12 if you count this one).

Lately, with Emma's drastic reading improvements, we can't seem to get books into her hands fast enough.

WE. LOVE. BOOKS.

Honestly, I'm not all surprised at how much she reads. She comes from a long line of readers. Both her Memere and Gramma read, her great grandmas on my side both read, her aunties read.

And before I went through the 12 step program, I was a readaholic. I would read so much that Emma would have to tell me, multiple times, that she was hungry before it would penetrate my reading haze.

So I gave up reading fiction books. Unless we are at Gramma's because then I know Emma will get fed. Now I mostly read nonfiction, which is a bit easier for me to put down.

That is, I read nonfiction when I am NOT reading textbooks  

Anyway, I love how much Emma reads. Each morning when she wakes up, she heads to the living room with a book regardless of if I am awake or still sleeping. She will then read till breakfast (which some days means about 2 hours after she wakes up).

Just about every night before bed, Jared or I will read to her for about 10-30 minutes (I love it when Jared reads to her while I clean up after supper), then she reads to herself, in bed, for another 25-30 minutes.

Often times the story that we start reading to her, she finishes on her own before lights out. She reads crazy fast.

Anyway, this long winded post is actually leading up to a project that will be on-going for her. A book timeline. How about I stop typing and just let the pictures do most of the "talking."

The idea started with a picture on Pintrest.

(http://mrsgoins.blogspot.com/p/readers-notebook.html)

Then I remember that a few months ago, Emma and I made an altered book out of a lot of her old art work. A perfect place to keep a timeline of her reading. 

Scanning book covers, which we then printed (as contact sheet) onto sticker paper.

Sticker paper is awesome. 

Cutting out individual book covers (while listening to an audio book). 

Applying book cover stickers to the cover of her book timeline. That's 35 books that she has read on her own or plans to read in the near future. 

And here is the month of October, so far. These are printed at wallet size.  

I had planned to have a two page spread per month, but that might not be enough space. 

"In Riding Rescue, Comet helps Gina get back on a horse again."

She places the sticker on the page, then writes a little about the book. As she gets older, I'll request that she write a bit more for each book, but for now, one or two sentences is fine.

I realize that the book covers are a bit hard to see with all the commotion in the background, but I'm o.k. with that. Besides, this book timeline will probably be full in a few months, then we can create a new one. 

What have you read lately?

August's Books

I have no idea what this child has read this month. She goes through books so fast, I can't keep up. This will probably be the last month that I even attempt to keep up with it.

Read to Herself
Books by Jessie Haas. We borrowed a bunch of books from the library by this author, and Emma has worked her way through them. Emma got hooked on Jessie Haas after reading the American Girl: Saige books.

Don't Pigeonhole Me by Mo Willems. This is kinda like is autobiography, but Emma flipped through and read all the comics/sketchbook drawings as well as a bit of other stuff.


Audio

Harry Potter- She listened to a few more in the series, currently working on #6.

Inkheart Trilogy- again.

A Dog's Life by Ann M. Martin. She said it was a little slow, but ok.

The Book of Elsewhere by Jacqueline West. The first in a series, and Emma seemed to enjoy it.


Read To Emma

Miranda and Starlight Series. We are finishing up our last book. Oh boy. This ones a big tear jerker. I read it through the other night and I think I cried for about an hour of the 2 hours it took me to read it. There are some interesting moral dilemmas that Miranda ends up facing, so it will be interesting to see what Emma's thoughts are on them.

That's it!

Have you read any good books lately?

Second Grade- Really?!?

Oh boy, this year Emma is technically considered a 2nd grader. What does that mean for us? Nothing really.

This year will probably follow the same basic routine as last year. We'll unschool (or hackschool) for the most part, with a few "structured" items thrown in for sanity's sake.

We actually started with some structure last week. Nothing major, just one task a day to get Emma back into the swing of things.

I mean, I started school again, why shouldn't she?

On the 16th, Emma and I sat down and I asked her to pick something to work on in the following areas- Geography, History, Math, and Science. I knew I wanted the writing to be postcards or letters, and that she would be writing for most of the other tasks, so I didn't feel like she needed another specific task for this.

Writing also happens to be the "school" subject she is the least excited about.

I also didn't include a specific task for reading because this child reads like a fish swims.

The ever elusive reader burrowed in her nest. 

(said in a Steve Urwin accent)

Oh no, I've been spotted!

She sure is "on the ball" with her reading. 

Not sure what the deal is, but she hates it when I take pictures of her reading.


If I'm sneaky enough, I can get some good ones. 

Anyway, back to the point of this post. As you can see in her list above, here is what we decided on:

Geography was a horse geography sheet about Thoroughbreds. She actually enjoys filling these out which makes this mama feel good about putting it together for her. 

She wrote two postcards.

Science was bumped to this week because she needed my help and we never got around to it. Bad mama. We will be making gak. 

Playing with numbers (math) is simply working through a 1st grade math workbook. She's already 1/2 way through it. She actually decided to work on it at bedtime last week and did about 5 pages. 

History was simply to write 3 or more sentances about a famous Thoroughbred. She chose to write about Seabiscuit. She first wrote the sentences out by hand, then typed them onto her computer. 

We taped the handwritten portion to her horse geography sheet. 

On schedule for this week are

Math- more work book (already done)

Geography- Horse geography sheet about Welsh Ponies

Mail Call- Writing a letter and drawing a picture for the author of the Miranda and Starlight series that we are really loving right now. 

Science- Gak

History- Type a one page story (using size 24 font) about a welsh pony who traveled in time to the Ice Age (her idea). I'm interested to see how this one turns out. I actually have a worksheet for her to use to gather some info about the Ice Age- if she decides to use it. 

And that's it. 

What did you learn this week?