FloorSchooling

I don't like sitting at a desk. I never have. I remember, as a child, my family bought me a beautiful wood desk. I never used it and always felt kinda guilty. I would do my homework sitting on a big "floor" pillow while leaning up against the wall. I have tried schooling my children at their desk, but chairs are a big nuisance! I have computer desk chairs...imagine....they twist and turn....and........SPIN.....ooohhh, aaahhhhh. That is what I would be doing if I were 5 or 6! My oldest daughter had a beanbag style lap desk that we tried to use. Beanbag lap desks are fine if you are old enough to keep them steady on your lap; otherwise they lean and your stuff falls off. So I went on an internet hunt for the perfect lap desk. I wanted it to be more like a folding breakfast tray, but it couldn't have a lip on the edge. I found these and ordered 3! They open and my  children store their school supplies inside. When we are done for the day, The desk fold up nicely and we put the aside.


I haven't had many picture of my children doing more 'academic' work. It doesn't make for as good a picture as crafts! But I wanted to let everyone know we do more than sing and create.

Joshua working on Skills from Do it Carefully.
Learning to read color words and working on fine motor
skills by cutting and pasting.

Logan working on Singapore Math 1a.
Doing addition and subtraction with a number line.
The bunny "hops" the the correct answer.

Joshua is still working on color words in Do It Carefully.

Logan working in Singapore Math 1a. Doing an
additions and subtraction  puzzle picture.

In math, we have been learning shapes and sorting
this week.
I threw in some pattern block puzzles for fun!

The Golden Calf

This week we have been learning about Moses, the Plagues in Egypt and the Ten Commandments. Our last story of the week was from Exodus 32. This passage tells how the Israelites became discontent and made a gold idol of a calf to worship while Moses was on the mount receiving the Ten Commandments.












Moses made the people destroy the gold calf and drink the gold dust. In LHFHG we made 'gold calf's' out of peanut butter dough and ate our idol.

Just Finnished Our 5th Week

We have had a strange few weeks on our homeschooling journey. Logan was having so many problems reading that I was starting to try everything I could thing of to help. We started a rewards system where she would receive a star for every lesson she read and followed the rules. After 5 stars she would earn a treat of her choice. The rules were: she could not touch her face, she had to focus on what she was doing (it was like she wouldn't even try to stay focused on reading), and she had to sound out the words instead of guessing. It worked well for several days then flopped. I finally decided to schedule a eye exam for her. She had had an eye exam 2 years ago and the doc didn't seem to think there was a problem. The eye exam day came and guess what!?!?!?!?!? She needed glasses. Really needed glasses. She had astigmatisms in both eyes and had focusing problems. We went on a reading break till her glasses came. She has now had her glasses for a week. Her reading is starting to SOAR. She is asking to read extra! No more rubbing her eyes or touching her face. She isn't having problems sounding out words. It is making a tremendous difference. I really suggest if you child is having reading problems and you think they are just too smart to not be catching on, please go get their eyes examined. Many eye doctors don't give glasses if they think the eye problems are developmental and a child will grow out of the problem when a child starts school. The reason I took her to the eye doctor 2 years ago was for the same problems she was having now. I think at 4 years old the eye doctor didn't see a need to give her glasses because he didn't think I was really trying to teach her to read. Now that she is "school age" it makes a difference. Blah Blah.......The eye doctor still thinks she may "grow" out of her eye problems in 2 years.
Anyway I am very glad that the problem is fixed! School is SO MUCH BETTER NOW!

God Sends Ten

Here is my children singing the week 5 'Rhymes in Motions' from Little Hearts for His Glory.

Classical Education verses Proverbs 1:7a

In my search to learn how to best educate my children I wanted to pursue Classical education. Classical education is made up of 3 levels: Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric. Each level corresponds to certain grade levels. Grammar is grades 1-4, Logic is grades 5-8 and Rhetoric is grades 9-12. Last year I wanted to attempt classical education with Logan. She has a late birthday and turned 6 in October. Now depending on what state you live in, she is either considered a K'er or a 1st grader. I assumed that because she would be 6 that she would be ready to start the Grammar stage. I was prepared with my copy of Well Trained Mind and many of the authors curriculum. I was so excited to start the 4 year history cycle beginning with the Ancients! I also had My Father's World 1st grade to use for phonics. All of the WTM suggestions flopped and MFW was good only for the first semester. What was I doing wrong?!?!?!? These curriculums are touted as some of the best available!

This year I decided to just relax or what I considered 'relaxing' I was going to use HOD LHFHG. It did not start off using the 4 year history cycle, but I didn't care at this point. MFW doesn't start of using the 4 year history cycle either. Both curriculums disliked the idea of teaching children that young about other cultures that worshiped false god. That didn't bother me. I always just put the world 'fake' in front of the name of the false gods and made sure that the children knew they were not the One True God.

I came across this post about homeschooling:

http://americanvision.org/2624/the-socialization-of-education/

The main idea out of the article that struck me was

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
Proverbs 1:7a

The article has several references from the book Teaching the Trivium: Christian Homeschooling in a Classical Style. Great! I have that book, so out it came. I bought this book about 10 years ago when I first started homeschooling Taryn. In this book it out lined the 3 stages of Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric, but said that the Biblical version was Knowledge, Understanding and Wisdom. In Teaching the Trivium , the ages for each stage is different. There are two stages of Knowledge early 0-9 and late 10-12, Understanding ages 13-15 and Wisdom ages 16-18. This started to make more sense to what I observed with my oldest daughter. She took off reading at age 10-11. I also remember, in her 9th grade year, most of the literature the school had her read was way over her head, all the kids in her classes head! I would have to interpret the stories to her. The literature was awesome, but she hadn't reached the Wisdom stage of development yet. According to the classical trivium she should have been in the rhetoric stage. Teaching the Trivium called for a more relaxed school environment for students under age 10 and then you really pick up the pace!
So far, I liked what I was reading in Teaching the Trivium, but something still was not sitting well with me: the verse- Proverbs 1:7a.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge…...
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge…...
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of………... Knowledge.

Wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is another stage!!!!!!!!!!! Teaching the Trivium called it Early Knowledge. HOD and MFW wanted to teach Biblical History for the first several years instead of following the classical 4 history cycle. HOW COULD WE MISS THIS STAGE? I understand that the Bible should be woven in and through all subjects, but this is different.

The first stage in a Classical Biblical Education should be "The Fear of the Lord" stage or the "Biblical Foundation" stage! Teach the Bible first. Teach the Bible stories, memorize scripture, teach your children to pray. Teach them how to obey the Lord………TEACH THEM TO FEAR THE LORD. Then they will have the foundation to begin teaching them knowledge! They don't need to be able to read or write or add or subtract during the Biblical Foundation stage. That doesn't mean that you don't start teaching them these things, but the 'academic' subject can be done at a more leisurely pace or honestly at a pace more lined up with child brain development (but that is a topic for a different post). Study history! Until recently (in the last 75 years)children did not start school till age 7. Hum…..why do we push school to start at 3,4,5 or even 6? These ages should be the Biblical Foundation Stage. We push education younger and younger so we can quit having to paying for daycare! Just let the government take care of us……poohy! If the main focus in the first stage was Biblical Foundation, it would allow each child to learn to read and write at their own pace. By the time they are 9, most children will have mastered these skills. Children learn to read at different paces, anywhere between ages 4-9 or 10.

Here is my suggestion for Biblical Classical Education

Fear of the Lord (Biblical Foundation) ages:3-8 grade:PreK-3rd
Knowledge ages:9-11 grades:4th-6th
Understanding ages: 12-14 grades: 7th-9th
Wisdom ages: 15-18 grades: 10th-12th

Will the Boat Float?

We are reading about Noah’s Ark this week in school. Our science experiment is- to see how to make a boat move without touching and how much weight the boat will hold before sinking. Noah’s ark had to be very big because the animals were heavy. Our curriculum called for us to make boats out of tin foil and fill them with some sort of weights to represent animals. How many animals would fit on our boat?
The littles were very excited about this activity! Playing in the water is a favorite. I made each `little’ a tin foil boat and filled the bath tub. Each child set their boat in the water and was surprised that it actually floated! We then blew on the boat and made waves to see if we could get the boats to move.

We used pennies as `animals’ in our boats. After a while Joshua got tired of putting pennies in his boat and turned it over in the water. He then turned over Logan’s boat
The only boat to safely survive Hurricane Joshua was Luke’s boats. We got 75 animals (pennies) on board before the boat sank.

Bon Voyage!

The Magic of Marshmallows

Today the children were not focused on school. They had been begging to do school all weekend, but when Monday rolled around, school was not on their mind. Logan had lost her 10th tooth last night. In anticipation of the Tooth Fairy, all the ‘littles’ went to bed and fell asleep without prompting. The Tooth Fairy brought a little fairy doll from the Tinker Bell movie. With morning, came a desire to play with the new toy instead of doing school. All the fun schools activities were met with unenthusiastic attitudes. After trudging through the ‘fun’ part of school and doing Joshua’s phonics and math it was Logan’s dreaded turn.
I’m thinking !?!?!?Reading?!?!? I needed to do reading first to get it out of the way: if I could just get through reading... In the past, I have heard Logan tell Joshua that reading is not fun, but you just have to do it anyway!!! The bane of a teacher:a student who doesn’t like to read. Logan can read, but she really, really hates reading.
Today’s math lesson was learning what number combinations add up to six. The lesson plan suggested using cotton balls or marshmallows as math manipulatives.

MARSHMALLOWS

YES! I found the key to a great attitude in school. After my daughter dragged her feet up the stairs for her turn of lessons, I went and got a bag of marshmallows. I then saw a lit up face and a smile followed. I told her that she would be doing math with marshmallows, but math would be last. Finally, I had a student who was ready to work and learn. Reading was done enthusiastically as was the rest of her work. After the math lesson I let her eat her six marshmallows. When she was about to eat the last one, she stopped and said that she would divide it in half and give it to her bothers. I was warmed by her kind thought and told her to go ahead and eat it and I would give her marshmallows to give to her brothers.

And that is the magic of marshmallows!

What's Logan reading?