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.
We’ve had a lovely day. I can say that, even though I’m exhausted and my brain hurts. Time for bed, no doubt.
I won’t bore you with more marked-off lesson plans today, though it was fun to share that for a couple of days. It helped me find some of our weak spots, and I hope it helped you as well.
Homeschooling is all about learning to live real life, so real life happening shouldn’t scare anyone out of homeschooling.
As noted, we are dutifully finishing up The Raft this week. What an amazing book.
You all know me and my love of the doll house. We’ve been making some sort of doll house souvenir from each book we’ve rowed. It just so happens that the Five In A Row lessons for The Raft included a perfect doll house accessory without me having to come up with anything on my own.
Yes, it’s a raft. Princess of the Universe will likely, at some point, get around to adding information about this to her blog. I’ll be adding this to our doll house blog later. You may want to pop over to Home Made Doll House anyway and see our new doll. She’s most intriguing to the dolls already living in the doll house.
My walk today was nice. The day ended up being a bit warmer than I had anticipated, so my black shawl was all I needed. No coat required.
I love the old trees in our neighborhood. They certainly have personality. The trees look different without their leaves.
Pretty.
I love this tangle of wild roses with only some small rosehips left hanging on.
As promised, I will follow up yesterday’s lesson-planning post with how our day actually progressed. Here’s Monday. (I’m not sure I can do this all week!)
Below is what was actually written in the planner to be done and I’ve marked through what’s been accomplished so far, at 8 p.m. I’ve put notes by what will be done before we go to bed. As usual, we have had many occasions, as I call them.
Joseph
Monday: Call out spelling words for sister’s test Go over grammar lesson with sister, p. 26
Work on book
Japanese Typing
Karate practice
Language Arts worksheet Math concepts test and then we’ll go from there for the rest of the week
Princess of the Universe
Monday: Spelling test/grammar lesson – see Joseph Read aloud – Caddie Woodlawn (this will be done at bedtime)
Read newspaper article about reaching out FIAR social studies The Raft
Saxon 19
Here’s how the day unfolded.
I awoke at 7 a.m. and put on water for hot tea. I did some of my morning chores and took a shower and by 9 a.m. I was at my work desk and had called the children to get up. Yes, they are spoiled, I know, but they don’t always sleep so late.
The day was windy, which Princess of the Universe noticed immediately upon waking up. She always looks out at the kittens when she gets up. She remembered her kite, because of wind blowing. She dressed herself and took her kite down in preparation for play this afternoon.
On my break we took out a Q&A science book and read a very simple explanation of how kites fly. This was an elementary 2-minute science lesson that will be a foundation for more talk later about airplane flight.
The next thing you know we all hear loud bumping and jumping on the front porch. Oreo the cat has killed a squirrel. Princess of the Universe and I watch for awhile and make a video of this wild-cat-like behavior. Fluffy took the squirrel away from Oreo and then dared anyone to take the squirrel away from her. Fluffy ate the squirrel. Sorry if that’s TMI. If you listen during the video, you will hear Fluffy growling when one of the kittens comes near her. (You can stop my blog music – if it’s playing, at the very bottom of the page.)
The squirrel, up close, did look like a rodent.
After that adventure we took out our Macmillan Illustrated Animal Encyclopedia and Princess of the Universe read about various types of squirrels and that it’s the gray squirrel we have here. We talked about classification of animals including those with spines and different kinds of mammals, including rodents. It was the perfect opportunity, considering our study of animal classification with The Raft this week!
Joseph was steadily working on a long math test, having already done his typing, and things seemed to be going as planned, but as usual Princess of the Universe checked PBS at 12:30 to see what was on Reading Rainbow. She ran to get Big Joe! Reading Rainbow was all about Japan today with the story of The Paper Crane (Reading Rainbow Book). Even Big Joe stops his math test to watch.
Talk about occasions, right? You’ve probably noticed that Joe did not do his Rosetta Stone Japanese today, but I think the fact that he and Miss Priss watched Reading Rainbow together and talked about Japan is pretty special. I’m okay with trading out the two lessons — for today.
After Reading Rainbow, Big Joe goes back to his math. Miss Priss gets on line at the Wisconsin gov website to do a state worksheet. She also prints a map of Wisconsin for her state notebook while there. We learned while reading that the Madison State Capitol is the only capitol building built on an isthmus. So there we go with another rabbit trail. What is an isthmus? That must be discussed further on Tuesday when we read from National Geographic Picture Atlas of Our Fifty States about Wisconsin.
Whew. It’s been a long day already, but I’ve not even had my lunch break yet!
For lunch today, instead of walking, I have to go into town and pay a couple of bills. Miss Priss goes with me and we stop by a bakery and get two large chocolate chip cookies. When we arrive home Big Joe is finishing up cleaning the kitchen, which he gets paid to do each week. Miss Priss has him call out spelling words to her while they enjoy their cookies with milk. I go back to my work desk.
Later in the day, Miss Priss looked out my office window and noticed a fish in the goldfish pond eating something that looked like another fish. We went out to investigate during my second break of the day. It appeared to be a partially eaten slug (??) but not another fish. Brrrr. It’s cold outside so we head back in. But do goldfish eat slugs? Another rabbit trail that must be followed up this week.
I finish up my work at 6:15 p.m. and begin supper. It’s good. Salmon patties, wilted spinach with garlic and olive oil, tabouleh, and bran muffins with dark chocolate chips for dessert.
You’d think the school talk would be over by now, but with Papa Bear home, the talk begins again. Not all of the children like spinach. I have two who love it. Papa Bear and I both love it. It leads to a round-table discussion about whether or not a person can survive on meats alone. I remembered a book I have that talks about Vilhjalmur Stefansson, an Arctic explorer who spent 9 years on a meat-only diet during an 11-1/2-year time period spent in the Arctic. This is certainly another rabbit trail, as I remember Real life stories and Literary Selections. It’s a two-book set which contains some fascinating old stories and there’s one in there about life with the Eskimos. I think it would be a great story to read as follow-up for Very Last First Time which we rowed not long ago. In addition, there are probably stories that go along with The Raft that we need to read. I put it on my nearby shelf to remind myself to read from it soon.
Somehow, during the course of the evening, Miss Priss helped me cook supper and Papa Bear played an intense game of monopoly with our three youngest children.
No, Miss Priss did not get her formal math lesson today, but she got plenty of real life math today. Also, since Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are heavy math days for us, I don’t worry that she’ll be behind by the end of the week. Usually I would have her just do a review worksheet, but that did not happen today in light of it being such a heavy science/nature day.
So there you have it. I have worked eight hours and the children have been learning — all day long. Big Joe has about four hours left before he goes to bed yet, and many nights he works on his book before he goes to bed. He may have more crossed off of his list when I get up in the morning.
Have a wonderful evening!
Lynn
PS — By bedtime we had read two more chapters in Caddie Woodlawn. Then we stepped out into the cold night air to look at the stars. We found the big dipper. We were looking for planets that would be close to the moon, but we never could find the moon. Of course, we did not venture very far out into the cold dark night either, but I think we waited until too late in the evening.
Happy Monday! And I really mean it! Ugggggggh I have to work today, and actually that groaning and moaning would be my first instinct, but my second thought — the better thought — is to take joy. With the economy the way it is, I am so happy to have a job. And not just that, but to have a job where I can work from home and save on gas and the other things that come with working in an office. I really try to look at my work time as a meditation time where I plan out and look forward to what I am going to do with my free time.
That said, I had the opportunity to pop into Goodwill for just a few minutes this weekend. I had to run out and get a few grocery items and the local Goodwill is right on the way.
I cut off the names of the some of the titles. Sorry about that! However, I think you can see that I found several much-related-to-each-other books. I am very thrilled about this. We are studying The Raft right now for Five in a Row, which involves a river. How natural would it be to drift right into a study of rivers running to the sea, sunken ships and (Michele, I thought about you) the Panama Canal? I was so lucky to find all of these books at one time, for 50 cents apiece. The Magic Treehouse book is just a bonus.
Here are the rest of the books I found. See the two Usborne books? I always love finding an Usborne to add to our bookshelves. We’ll be doing some reading this week!
Last of all is this very pretty, old lamp for $1.97. Yes, you read that right. I love the old switch that turns the lamp off and on.
That’s it. I did find some winter shirts, but they are in my laundry basket to be washed. And just so you know, I do donate regularly to our local thrift stores. It’s time, really, for me to do that again. Things are getting cluttered here, even by my standards.
Think of something today that makes you joyful. I love the quotation that Tasha Tudor often shared:
The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet within our reach is joy. Take joy.
Brrrrrrrrrrrr! It’s really cold outside this morning and it was cold last night. But I had a wonderful evening last evening, cozy and snug in my old house, writing out lesson plans and planning out the upcoming week. I’m very thankful that things seem to be getting back to normal around here. We got a VERY good report from the cardiologist on Friday, so things are looking up!
Happy Monday! I hope your week has started out on the right foot.
When I wake up on Mondays, it’s hard sometimes to make myself go to my work desk and work all day. I could easily get started doing little projects in the house and be content to mess around with house-related things all day long.
To satisfy the domestic side of me (which is my largest side, by the way), I do just a little something in the house before the work day starts. This morning I dusted and straightened a little area where I keep a lot of family photographs. Do you see the beautiful new tablecloth from my Five In A Row friend?
I lined the backs of the shelves with some retro-looking wrapping paper. I love the retro colors. Princess of the Universe loves anything Christmas-y, so she’ll love this.
We are continuing on with our reading of Caddie Woodlawn. We snuggled up last night and read a chapter.
We will also continue along this week with our study of The Raft, using lesson plans from Five In A Row. I have written out lesson plans for today using items that Princess of the Universe can do on her own.
I printed out some Caddie Woodlawn paperdolls from the Wisconsin History site for Miss Priss to have fun with this week.
I have a lot of nature activities planned for this week. More later. Off I go to type.
Lately I’ve read some interesting threads on line about mommies having “me time” — whether or not they really need it. I think that is such an individual thing. I don’t have to be eyeball deep in “me time,” but I can honestly say that it does amazing things for my perspective to have just a couple of hours every so often by myself, away from my usual day-to-day activities.
Last night I had a little reprieve from all that goes on at home all the time. I guess it’s a bit paradoxical that what I did while I was out was directly related to everything that goes on here all the time, but nonetheless I got out for awhile.
I had ordered a couple of books from the bookstore and received a call that they were in. One of them was Little Oh. We are studying The Raft
right now and I just love the illustrations by Jim Lamarche. I wanted Princess of the Universe to have a few books containing his illustrations, not to mention that the story of Little Oh is a great one. We also have the book Albert, which is illustrated by Jim Lamarche. These books are all out for display right now for our FIAR study of The Raft.
While I was upstairs, I snapped this picture of one of the dressers in our doll house. Tee hee. Miss Priss LOVES animals, which is why our study of The Raft will probably carry on for longer than planned. I wonder if this is an indication of what her real home will look like when she grows up.
Actually, I did not focus solely on things for school while I was out, but I stopped by Whole Foods and picked up some thing that I really love. The Greens and Whey is something I drink every morning with milk. Yum.
The Bragg’s seasoning are really good, if you’ve not tried them before. This is the first time I’ve purchased the plain liquid Aminos because I tend to stay away from anything that says “soy,” but my husband’s heart health information says that soy can help him, so I think he might enjoy using this. The ginger and sesame dressing, though? We all love it. Love it!
So that was my “me time” for a couple of hours last night. I think it feels good to fix up a bit and just enjoy getting out, going in a couple of stores, perhaps buying something special (like my new wall calendar for 2009), and just being me.
What do you do for ME time?
Lynn
PS – I was excited to find that my total cholesterol has dropped 30 points over the last six years! Woo hoo. I plan to post soon about why I think this is so. I’m sure diet plays a huge role.
About Lynn
I am a 40-something-year-old mother of four delightful children, have been married for 22 years to my carpenter husband, and live in a 1921 farm-style house. I find the most joy in my garden, growing and harvesting herbs and flowers and caring for our pet rabbits.
I have a 21-year-old son, a 19-year-old son, a 16-year-old son, and a bright and bubbly (and very funny) 11-year-old daughter who is homeschooled.
I'm a North Carolina girl and I love sharing North Carolina links and information. I'm a book lover, bird lover, gardener and aspiring herbalist. I seek no help for my thrift store addiction. I do medical transcription from home part-time.
The Players
Mom and Dad
Daniel
Big Joe
John
Princess of the Universe
Annie
Oreo
Coco
Basil
Midnight
Boomerang
A Pond of Goldfish
My Symphony
To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony.
William Henry Channing
1810-1884
this week. What an amazing book. 
and Princess of the Universe read about various types of squirrels and that it’s the gray squirrel we have here. We talked about classification of animals including those with spines and different kinds of mammals, including rodents. It was the perfect opportunity, considering our study of animal classification with 
. Even Big Joe stops his math test to watch.
about Wisconsin.
. It’s a two-book set which contains some fascinating old stories and there’s one in there about life with the Eskimos. I think it would be a great story to read as follow-up for 
which we rowed not long ago. In addition, there are probably stories that go along with The Raft that we need to read. I put it on my nearby shelf to remind myself to read from it soon.
Caddie Woodlawn. With the Wisconsin big woods theme, goes along great with a FIAR study of The Raft.
. We are studying 
, which is illustrated by Jim Lamarche. These books are all out for display right now for our FIAR study of The Raft. 
for you to leave a comment, but you can also e-mail me at lynn AT thehealthyhomeschool.com
