A Mother's Journal » Five In A Row

The Planner

Lynn — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:17:16 +0000

First of all, in my series of posts about our school plans, has to come the planner. It hasn’t been long since I went back to carrying a large purse/planner because I just love having everything with me, all the time.

I have SO enjoyed working with my planner and getting it just right. You know how often I’m in thrift stores, and it is really fun to look through books, papers, and the bag/purse section of the store to see what I can find to enhance my planner.

The purse planner above started out as a 2-dollar cloth-covered notebook, though the actual notebook part had been taken out of it. Still, the zipper was in good shape, it had room for credit-size cards, and I liked the bright colors. As Gru says in Despicable Me, LIGHTBULB.

I knew my notebook would fit right in and I imagined using something to make a strap and maybe adding a purse part to the planner somehow. Basically, visions of glue sticks danced in my head.

I ended up finding two belts in complimentary colors in Goodwill, and a small satiny purse planner to glue to the front. (Note: fabric takes glue better and holds better than a small purse made from vinyl. I should know.) The belts are the kind that are just fabric with no holes and have the metal rings on one end, so I hooked one to the other and glued them across the “bottom” of the planner and then glued them up the sides, gluing one on one side and the other on the other side, thus ending up with an adjustable strap!

I found that the reproducible planning page provided in the Five In A Row manual was the perfect size to cut in half, hole-punch and put in the planner. I made copies, front and back for 8-10 weeks of lesson planning.

Since I work at home three days a week, I love having everything with me in my purse planner, all the time, so when I’m out shopping or running errands, if I think of something to write down for school, I can do it immediately and not have to re-write when I get home. When you are working and homeschooling, every minute counts.

I made pretty dividers by using pictures from old magazines that inspired me, laminating them and hole-punching them.

The small notebook you see me holding to the left holds weeks worth of lessons once they are done. I keep the pages in my purse/planner until the week is over and then transfer them to the notebook that will be a permanent record of what we did. (I do realize that a purse planner can’t reasonably hold a year’s worth of lessons all at one time. ) The goal is to keep our current eight weeks of study in the planner at all times. More about that in the next post or two.

The planner has sections for shopping, routines, school, to-do, addresses, etc. It also holds one or two things that I just love to read over and over because it helps me stay on track.

So there you have it: The Planner.

It makes sense to me and it works for me. And now I’m always on the look-out for cool paper that I can hole-punch and use in my planner binder. Or cloth-covered notebooks that can be turned into a purse planner with cool belts. Stay tuned.

PS – This planner is indeed 5-1/2 x 8-1/2. I am adding some more pictures to help explain how I did this. Now I’m looking for fabric-covered notebooks everywhere I go so I can make another one!

Important to note that one strap is glued on one side and the other strap on the other side, for balance.

Fairies and Friends

admin — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 19:48:53 +0000

Yes, it’s the fairies and friends post! (Whatever that is.)

Into the shop this morning went a new brooch pin, adorned with an image from Edmund Dulac. It’s from a fairy print, of course.

There. We have the fairy part of this post covered.

For the friends part, I know I’ve not yet shared a picture of those of us who met up at the North Carolina Homeschool Conference and got supper at the Mellow Mushroom. From left to right, it’s me, Hollie, Rebecca, Adele, Leslie, Angela, Bo, and Jackie. What fun we had! Some of these ladies I see regularly in person, and some I have known for years on line (through Five In A Row) and finally had the privilege to meet!

The Mellow Mushroom was unbelievably packed and there were some who couldn’t wait it out. We were sorry to see them have to leave! A few of us ended up ordering takeout from the MM and going back to the hotel and eating at two large, quiet tables in the lobby. It was a wonderful place to talk and carry on about conference and homeschooling stuff!

Now. On another “friends” note…

It wasn’t a field trip or a co-op, but as sort of a last outing of the school year, our homeschool group met to share a potluck lunch and say goodbye to one of our families who is moving away. Oh how they will be missed! It was a wonderful (if bittersweet) time. If you can’t tell from the kids’ red faces, it was hot! It did not, however, slow the children down! This is only a small fraction of the children who were actually there that day.

I am puttering around today, working in the garden, trying to get supper together (I must share my notecards soon), making more pins, cleaning a bit and just enjoying a day off.

I hope you are having a wonderful day!

Few’s Ford on the Eno River

admin — Fri, 14 May 2010 22:18:43 +0000

Yesterday was one of our last co-ops of the school year, and boy was it great!! It was so much fun for the children (and the moms), and the lessons were done so brilliantly, I don’t think even the oldest kids thought of it as “school.” Still, even I was learning about our waterways as the children played on a sandbar in the Eno River.

Come on, Mom! Let’s get to the river!

I immediately spotted a butterfly sitting on what was, as my husband explained to me, raccoon scat, or droppings, or whatever you like to call it. Michaela could not understand why I wanted so many pictures of this, but it’s the butterfly I’m looking at! Still, all in all, very educational, no matter what you are looking at!

The children in the co-op begin to gather around one of their teachers for the day and listen to her tell them about what to be careful of — copperheads, leeches, but not to panic. She explained what to do in case of each. Don’t pick up or antagonize snakes, don’t panic if a leech gets on you, we’ll get it off of you the right way, etc. It was a good reminder for all the children as we head into summer.

Next, the children sat down on quilts and listened to the story for this co-op: The Raft by Jim LaMarche, a beautiful, beautiful story about a young boy who spends the summer with his grandmother, an artist who lives on a river in the woods. At first he thinks he’ll be bored, but nothing could be less true! He is in love with that place by the time he leaves!

How clever of our teachers to take us to Few’s Ford for this co-op!

The first half of the class was about the Eno River, where the river starts, what other rivers and/or lakes it feeds into and gets fed by, and thus by what route it ends up flowing into the sea. Instead of making this a technical talk that no one would remember, our teachers had prepared tags, one for each child, representing places along the Eno River or whatever other waterway the Eno flowed into.

Look at all the places!

The students listened as they were each told about their locations, including highlights about elevation, tributaries, landmarks, etc. They were each to “build” their location on the sandbar, and as they dug out the river running through their location, it would connect with the person on either sie of them. Finally, the point was to have a flowing river from start to finish.

These boys build Seymour Johnson AFB in Goldsboro.

Michaela was all the way out at Pamlico Sound.

Some small areas had to be dammed up as the children started testing water flow. It’s some kind of work to build a river!

The sand held the water well, so the water is headed toward the sea.

Tributaries. I loved watching the children really put their minds and all of their effort into this!

It’s working!

Cape Hatteras. Isn’t she lovely?

Now nearly everyone is done, the system is complete and we are pouring water in! It worked so well. The water flowed from Hillsborough to the Outer Banks!

After a lunch break — a picnic with peanut butter and honey sandwiches, apples and lemonade, we started the second half of the co-op, which was a scavenger hunt for creatures and plants! I was in plant heaven out there! I think not one child seriously hunted for plants. They all chose creatures! But I could not blame them, for the creatures were many and varied, and very interesting!

Fresh water mussels.

There were displays set up all over the place for creature visitation so all could get a look, then they were gently released back into their natural homes.

Crayfish. Big! With big claws!

A fishing spider.

After all the “school work” the kids just played in the river. Michaela claimed that she “fell in” but I think falling can be on purpose sometimes.

I think this will go down as one of the best co-ops in FIAR history.

You know what I did during all of this, right? I visited with little creatures and tried to identify plants.

It’s a work day for me. The day is more than half over, but still a ways to go. Just using a break to finish up this post.

The Harvest

admin — Tue, 04 May 2010 19:07:33 +0000

My Dear Readers,

I’m so sorry I never posted yesterday! I was supposed to post about school stuff: where we are, how I am going to finish up the year… Then yesterday went crazy, as work days are likely to do, and I never posted, though I was thinking about it.

A reaping of that sown: greens to cook, greens for a fresh salad, greens for an infusion.

On Sunday evening I spent some time thinking about this school year: about Ambleside Online, Five in a Row, how much time we’ve spent in co-ops and on fieldtrips, where we are in our Saxon math text, and where we are in our writing and grammar. I say “we” because even thought it’s Michaela’s education, at this point I am totally responsible for putting her lessons together and making sure she follows through.

As I wondered about writing out yet more lessons, I could not get off my mind that, very simply, “you reap what you sow.”

I had everything I needed right at my fingertips to do a full year of Ambleside and yet we have persisted in reading only a few of the selections on the year’s list of books. We have focused on only one artist: Raphael. But I’m not going to cry over things not accomplished.

On the other hand, we have been 100% involved in our Five In A Row homeschool support group, including a co-op that split off to study Volume 4, and our lives have been so enriched with friendship, hands-on learning, review, and time outdoors and in others’ homes, the result has been beyond my expectations. But I am not going to be over-confident regarding things we did accomplish.

The summation of this is that we are not yet where I had hoped we’d be in the math book and yet we are still inspired to learn, and here it is May! I think it has been a successful year.

It is clear to me that we are reaping what we have sown through the year. There’s a harvest to everything. Perhaps we’ve a table covered in too many sweet fruits and not enough vitamin-rich vegetables, and yet, at least for now, we are doing well with what we’ve harvested. It’s clear to me though that there are some lessons I need to take from this and that we need to be wise with the time left in this school year and even this summer.

We have three more outings with our homeschool group and the year will be done in that sense. Otherwise, we are focusing only on math and writing during our days, and our evening/bedtime/independent reading will be purely the bible and the few books from Ambleside Year 5 that we want to finish but have not yet. Michaela will be required to name all of the paintings by Raphael that we have studied. Her end-of-year testing is already set up to be done with an indepedent testing service in the second half of June. Then we’ll break, except for math.

I feel like I’m tying up loose ends and that I have learned so much. As far as I know, next year we will be using Ambleside Year 6, Beyond Five In A Row, our Saxon math, and other things yet to be determined. (Must wait until after the NC Homeschool Conference!)

While we’re at it, do expect a final Ambleside post before the school year is out.

I’ll leave you with a bunny picture. Trying to crawl up out of my hand and look at the world, this little bunny does have ears! If you’ll remember, Coco sometimes looked like she had no ears, or only one ear. Like mama, like baby.

A good reminder: You reap what you sow.

Enjoying Wonderland

admin — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:07:27 +0000

Today will be another FIAR co-op, where we “row” the book Roxaboxen. What a lovely book! If you have not read it, you should. It will inspire your children to make a magically fun village — right in their backyard, with streets lined with pebbles and shells and whatever else they can find.

I hope you enjoy the wonderland within your school and life today.

Pictures later.

Arabella Co-Op

admin — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 03:57:07 +0000

My Dear Readers,

I’m sorry I have not posted very much this week! Where do the days go? I’ve been busy feeding baby bunnies, trying to keep up with the few garden beds I’ve got started, planning for a FIAR co-op that occurred today, and — be still my heart — I had the opportunity to watch a little 3-year-old girl this afternoon! Did I ever laugh! I had forgotten what ridiculously adorable things little children say! We talked about all sorts of things and she even called me a silly goose once. Made my day.

Once again, this a co-op which I helped to teach, so I don’t have any pictures of me to share, not that you only want to see me — and today of all days I felt pretty scattered and like my teaching didn’t go so well, but my point is that I can’t really share the portion of the co-op that I taught.

Our co-op today was based on the story Arabella, using Five In A Row as our curriculum at home, and then sharing lessons together as a group! It’s an amazing group.

My co-teacher went all out with her decorating, right down to a model boat in the window! It was a lovely setting in which to learn about the Great Barrier Reef and the animals that live there.

I loved watching the children looking at the shells. I’ve never seen a child yet that didn’t enjoy seashells.

At one point the children were split into two teams. Questions were asked of the teams, alternating back and forth, and I was quite impressed that (working as a team) each group was able to answer nearly every single review question given them! They had heard about vertebrates versus invertebrates, cephalopods, gastropods, whales, and many other things, so there were quite a few things to remember. Having the children work as teams to find their answers, I think they retained so much more. It’s amazing how one little tidbit of information might appeal to one or two and then another couple wouldn’t have even heard it! Two heads ARE better than one!

The learned about resonance.

Guessing whether a larger bottle would make a higher-pitched sound or a lower-pitched sound than the smaller bottle made.

The food was amazing! My lovely co-teacher put all of this together. One of our themes for the day was ropes, so she had several types of pretzels to look like ropes; there were tropical foods to represent the coral reef.

She had even taken little sausages and cut them before cooking to look like little octopuses!

Finally, the children worked on more tying (carrying on with the rope theme) skills to make a keyring with beads and/or cowrie shells and string. They learned to tie square knots. I’m very excited about being able to make more of these at home with Michaela!

Today was so nice. It was a beautiful, beautiful day. I’m off to bed soon, as tomorrow is a work day for me. My garden is literally springing to life, with more growth, more color and more creature activity every hour! I find myself saying, “spring don’t get away from me before I can plant all that I want to plant!” I hope, whatever the weather has been at your house, that you’ve had a lovely day too!

Making an Egg Basket from Fabric Scraps

Lynn — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:54:47 +0000

I posted last week about the fabric egg baskets I made for our Albert co-op and I said I’d post directions. Well, here they are. It’s not as easy to explain as it would be to show someone, so I hope it makes sense. It was a fun and cheap project!

This first thing I did was cut 4 strips of fabric, somewhere around 16 inches long and 1-1/2 to 2 inches wide. You can adjust the size as you want to. I ended up liking the wider (2 inches) scraps better. There was always length to cut off after tying, but the longer strips are easier to work with.

The next thing I did after laying out the strips in a star-type pattern was to carry them carefully to the sewing machine and sewing a messy circle of stitches in the center. This may be the most tedious part because you have to keep straightening the strips of fabric as you go around. This makes the bottom of the nest and does NOT have to be perfect. I even had different color threads on my spool and bobbin, but it only added to the color!

Now it gets harder to explain. The next step is to cut three more strips, also about 16 inches long and also about 2 inches thick. You are going to weave one strip at a time, over and under and over and under, and then cinch it and tie it at the end to make the circumference of the nest the size you want it. (The size of that messy circle you sewed will in part determine the circumference of the nest.

As you can see, I keep an old suitcase full of scraps, so my fabric choices were many. I chose bright springy-looking fabrics.

The picture above shows the first strip, woven over and under and then being tied the size I wanted to make the nest. At this point, holding one hand in the bottom of the nest, pull the original strips (blue stripes in this case) up to tighten that bottom “layer” and lay the strips out neatly for the next fabric strip to be woven in.

The second strip is woven exactly opposite as the first, and it will come out exactly right each time, i.e. you won’t end up with two “unders” or two “overs.” Tie the second layer.

Above is the picture after the third and final layer/strip has been woven in, exactly opposite as the second layer, so you end up with a weave just like a basket. Again, put one hand in the bottom of the basket to hold it while you pull and straighten out the original strips.

Now. This may be the hardest part to explain yet! You are going to have a lot of long pieces of fabric hanging off, but DON’T cut anything YET. You will have 8 long pieces from the original set of 4 strips, in this case blue and white striped. You will straighten them up and then tie pairs of strips over the top and final layer you’ve just woven around. In the picture above you can see me tying one. It will secure the top layer in place. You don’t want to tie it too tight, but you don’t want it too loose either, because then your egg nest will be flimsy. After tying four sets of ties around the top, you are ready to trim the ends.

Before trimming, I went around and tightened every knot so they would not come loose. I also had to re-tie a couple because once the higher layers were done, the lower ones seemed too big. You’ll know what I mean when you get to this part.

After trimming, you’ll have a finished nest for a pretty egg!

Voila!

I want to tell you all how much I appreciate each and every comment. I have not had time to answer each one over the last couple of days, but I read each and every one, and they mean so much! Life has been very overwhelming here lately. Thomas and I each missed at least a week’s worth of work (more for him) from his hospitalization, there were new medicines to be bought, both times he went in, I feel we got behind in life and in lessons, and of course we worry about those we love when they’re not doing so well, so we were all worried about carpenter-man. I am so thankful that Thomas is healing. He was even able to put in those couple of hours on the greenhouse last weekend, but John was a huge help, and Thomas really has really made sure to take it slow getting back into work, etc.

Just so you know I appreciate all of you!

Albert FIAR Co-op

admin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 02:56:57 +0000

Today was a delightfully wonderful day! We had a Five In A Row co-op today, and this time our studies centered around the book Albert, by Donna Jo Napoli.

This is absolutely an adorable story, and the illustrations by Jim LaMarche are gorgeous. Albert, the main character, finds his inner strength when he stretches his hand out an upper story window and a pair of cardinals make their nest there. He is forced to stand, holding the nest, and listen to the noises of the city — both the good noises and the bad noises that always frighten him into staying home.

I do not have pictures of some parts of the day, as I was teaching today. Our day started off with a reading of the story and then a talk about “discovering the truth” and “illusion.” We looked at objects that were not what they seemed when you could only see parts of them. We looked at optical illusions on paper and had a lot of good discussion.

Each child received a laminated picture of a bird which was hole punched and hanging on a piece of cord with a couple of beads. Each child’s “mystery” bird was in an envelope. I think all of the children wore their cards and had a lot of fun comparing their new names.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Purple Martin! Who are you?”

Next it was on to some EGG-speriments! We did the ol’ egg getting sucked into a bottle, how much weight can eggshells hold, egg in vinegar losing its carbon (shell), and how can you tell if an egg is cooked or raw. They were quite successful (thank goodness — you know how something works at home but then in front of a crowd…). Again, I was teaching this part, so no picture of me doing the experiements. Thought you might want to see the EGG-speriments table, however.

Next, my co-teacher pulled out a large poster of different types of nests. Each child was given a picture of a bird. One by one, the children came up and paired their birds with the type of nest that bird creates. The children seem to love activities like this.

The children are just a great bunch of kids. They are all really good students and very easy to teach. Could it be any better?

Next, we moved the children into the edge of some woods — a lovely surrounding, to decorate eggs. Some of the eggs were hard boiled and some were just shells that had had the yolks and whites blown out. The children enjoyed this so much and we saw a lot of individuality (as always)!

We had Mod-Podge and tissue paper available.

Markers and colored pencils.

Paints.

And more paints.

After a plenteous time of painting and a few dashes through the woods by some active children pretending to be birds or some type of important egg bomb dropper (think boys here), the children were ready to sit down and listen again.

My co-teacher had a great display on the ear and drew the children into a very well done talk about how we hear.

Once again, each child was given a piece of paper with a picture on it of something that made noise. One by one, these things were placed on a decibel scale to illustrate how much noise they generated and whether or not it was enough noise to damage the ear.

Finally, the children had their snack, which consisted of tomato juice, one of Albert’s favorites and yet a drink which most of the children today decided was definitely NOT their favorite; and, they had little cups of seeds and raisins — things birds like to eat. The moms stood around and drank hot tea and coffee and talked, something we are all really, really good at.

I loved at the end of the co-op how the children carried their learning right into their play. They turned a little creek bed into a “nesting area” and set up nests for their eggs.

At the end of the day, each child was given a tiny nest, woven from scraps of fabric, to display their colored egg in. I’m too tired to post it tonight, but will soon post instructions for how I made the little nests. They turned out really cute I think.

Tomorrow is a work day for me, so I’m off now to relax for a few minutes, drink some Tension Tamer and then sleep. Ahh sleep. I’m tired. Did I forget to mention that I came home after the co-op and raked up leaves, cleared two garden beds, planted some rose shoots and a peony? Oh. Yeah. I did that too today.

I’m T-I-R-E-D! Happy, but tired.

BTDT…and got the T-shirt.

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 02:02:39 +0000

Over the weekend I found a few minutes to decorate a T-shirt using freezer paper stenciling. Like this. And this. And this. And this. And this. You get the point.

I felt I needed something that would speak my mind for me when I went to a meeting of some of the Five In A Row moms to learn how to make pasta. I think this works. Don’t you?

It was so easy.

Think of or find a design you like.
Trace it onto freezer paper.
Cut it out with an exacto knife, saving any little pieces that go into the center of letters, etc.
Iron your “stencil” onto your shirt.
Paint with fabric paint.
Let dry.
Pull off stencil.
Should wash up nicely turned inside out, but follow the instructions on your fabric paint.

Grass Sandals Co-op

admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:55:16 +0000

Yesterday’s co-op (Grass Sandals) turned out to be one of my favorite co-ops so far! Or is it that they just get better and better?

It started out with a reading of the story. The perfect way to begin the co-op.

From there we moved into learning about how Chinese (and the derivative Japanese) characters are written, how they evolved, and how very different the Japanese language is from our own. As I listened to Laura talk about this, I was struck at how much of it explained why my Joseph cannot spell worth a hoot in English, but takes to the Japanese language like a fish in water.

After learning about many of the symbols and how they were simplified over many years, each child and parent was give a card with a symbol. We had to put together what we’d learned and then guess what it meant. Mine is a hand, which looks like it could be holding a utensil (underneath the hand, the rod-like utensil), and of course that looks like a bowl and a mouth, so I guessed “eat.” Wrong. It is a hand, but that is a drum stick and a drum underneath, and the mouth is a smile. Music = joy. Yes, that’s the symbol for joy.

If you’ve read Grass Sandals, then you know the hat and walking stick are prominent parts of the story. When Miss Laura asked the children if they’d brought their hats and walking sticks, they looked puzzled. She said, “Oh, it’s okay, we’ll come up with some!”

Our co-op teachers had gone to great lengths to make hats for each child and to come up with Japanese symbols (or a Japanese name) for each child. The children then decorated their hats.

It was fun for the parents too, to go around the table and look at the various symbols and what each one meant.

Wouldn’t you like to have a cool hat like this to wear on your walks? I know I would!

The children compared designs. I heard one say, “Oh, I like yours!” So sweet.

Next, the children took their places around a bamboo mat to learn about bamboo: what can be made from it, how it grows, where it grows, how many species eat it as food.

Once the children were seated, Miss Laura began to pull out some fabulous pictures she’d put togehter of bamboo — two-sided pictures where one side had a clue and the other side had the answer. She had come up with guessing games to help the children learn what animals eat bamboo. And, yes, people eat bamboo!

Here the children go through 22 pictures, placing the pictures of the animals they think do NOT eat bamboo in one stack and the pictures of animals they think do eat bamboo in another stack. I love how they worked as a team! The kids did a great job!

One this part was over, each child was given a bamboo walking stick and told to explore the great land (the yard), for they’d find someone serving food. The co-op ended with fried rice and bamboo shoots. It was so much fun!

Well, today is a work day for me, so I must transition myself. The sun is shining so brightly and I’m about to take a little ramble through my tiny garden to clear my mind.

Enjoy this day.