Tot School: GeoBoard, Toddler Style

P is currently 27 months old.
It has been a long while since we've linked up to Tot School, but it's time to come back to the party! Here's a quick look at an activity P enjoyed recently. We have a set of wooden geoboards with nails like this:

My older children go through phases where they play around with them quite a bit, and during a recent session, P decided she wanted to play, too. I wanted her to be able to join in the fun, but I was a little concerned about the sharpness of the tiny nails. "There must be something around here that she could put the 'rubbands' around," I thought. Then I remembered these plastic knitting looms I had in my closet:



Much more toddler friendly, wouldn't you say?

For more great ideas for toddler activities, visit Carisa's blog!

The First Week of Fall 2011

I'd say it is definitely time for an update to this long-neglected blog! I'm not going to let myself feel guilty, though. These past several months, I have made the choice to thoroughly enjoy living and learning with my family instead of trying to force time to record everything. What grand adventures we have been having! 

We have had a truly joyful spring and summer season, and perhaps as winter approaches I will find more time to spend on blogging. We shall see . . .

We officially began our Fall schedule this week. (We homeschool year-round with breaks when we need them, and scale back to a more relaxed schedule from June to August.) It was a good week to ease in to a more structured (but still flexible) school-day routine. This is what our week looked like:

• Monday: J had to work despite it being Labor Day, and the kids were excited to start some new things. We went ahead and "did school", then hosted a fun barbecue in the evening with friends to enjoy the holiday.
• Tuesday: a full "school" day that actually went like clockwork! I deserve at least one of those per week, I think!
• Wednesday: We spent the morning at a poetry club in a nearby city (followed by a walk down to the river) that some friends inspired us to check out. This requires some driving time, but will be a fun once-per-month break from our schedule.
• Thursday: It was B's birthday (the big "oh-four"!), so we did some "basics" and spent the rest of the day celebrating. 
• Friday: Friday is always a more laid-back school day for us. We spent the morning doing some much-needed housecleaning, finished up a couple of school-related things, and enjoyed the summer weather that refuses to admit Fall is just around the corner! 

We are starting some new things this month. I hope to make time in future weeks to describe each more fully and how it is working for us. For now, however, a simple list will need to suffice:

• The Student Writing Intensive Level A (SWI-A) course from the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) for N and K.
• Primary Arts of Language (PAL) Reading and Writing (also from IEW) for B. (He is chomping at the bit for the reading portion, but we'll be taking the writing at a much slower pace.)
• A daily character development mini-lesson I'm calling "Growing My Character", as well as mini-lessons on safety, manners, and health.
• A twice-weekly study I've named "My Heritage", focusing on personal and family history, and branching out to include components of geography, state history, and U.S. history. This is going to be very "agile" in the sense that we'll let it take us where it needs to take us!

These are in addition to other great things that we have done in the past and will continue doing. Overall, this has been a fantastic first week of Fall! Here's to many more!

Ancient Mesopotamia

We recently wrapped up our "World Investigations" unit on Ancient Mesopotamia. It took a lot longer to get to everything than I had planned (mostly due to the holidays and prolonged illness), but we had so much fun with it!

I used the History Odyssey study guide from Pandia Press (Level 1: The Ancients) as a starting point, adapting and adding in things to fit our style. These materials are built to be "agile"--a fabulous find for us!

In addition to reading, writing, and map work, we did several engaging projects to learn a little about the culture of the Mesopotamians. Here's a glimpse of the fun we had:

Making royal Mesopotamian costumes

Making "Sebetu Rolls", based on a 3700-year-old recipe!

Writing our names in clay using cuneiform symbols

We also read the first part of a kids' trilogy based on The Epic of Gilgamesh, ate lunch like Mesopotamian royalty while wearing our costumes, built multiple ziggurats out of Duplo blocks, and played an iPad version of "The Royal Game of Ur".

I honestly didn't realize just how much fun we would have with this unit! Now on to Ancient Egypt . . . .

Where Am I?

Okay, so it has been a very long time since I updated this blog. I could tell just by looking at the photo of Baby P (who is no longer really a baby and has quite a bit more hair). I have not actually fallen off the face of the planet (though I've had a few days when I wished that would happen!). Sometimes, though, when you believe in flexibility, you have to be willing to give up something you care about. For quite a while, that meant this blog!

Now that we're starting to get back into the swing of our "normal" routine after the holidays, I find myself thinking a lot about blogging. The truth is, writing about our homeschooling adventure is an important part of how I process and evaluate what we're doing. I want to put time for that back into my schedule. (Somehow!) It will probably take me a little while to update everything. I may not be able to write as much or as often as I would like, and my posts may be less polished and less enhanced by photos than before, but I'm going to start writing again. I've missed it deeply.

Tot School: Spring is Here!

B is currently 30 months old.

The highlight of this past week was making Spring Cookie Cottages together as a family. (See this post for more details and photos of this fun activity!)

We were blessed with a couple of days with really nice weather this past week, so we couldn't pass up the opportunity to spend lots of Tot School time outside working on large motor skills.

B is getting quite confident on his tricycle these days, and has wanted to spend lots of time practicing.

We've also enjoyed batting practice,

running,

kicking a ball,

jumping,

and bouncing.

B is definitely happy that Spring is here!

Spring Cookie Cottages

Remember our Valentine Cookie Houses? Well, we had so much fun with them, that we decided to try a version using Easter candy. I made them 1/4 the size of the Valentine houses, which turned out to be a great size. I call them "Spring Cookie Cottages".

This is the one I made. I used M&Ms, Pez, and coconut grass.

This is B's creation. J put on dots of icing, and B enjoyed placing the candy pieces on the dots. (Great for fine motor control, sure, but also just plain fun!)

Here's J's cottage, complete with decorative brick wall and "Easter eggs" hiding in the grass! The shingles are (of course) jelly beans--J's favorite.

Here's the one N made, with a Starburst door and colorful gravel. (Who needs to mow a lawn?)

K created a cozy honeymoon getaway cottage, with a cute Pez chimney and a flower bed overflowing with colorful blooms in the back.

Of course, eating the houses is the best part of all. Just ask B!

For other tot-friendly projects and recipes, visit Delicious Ambiguity.

Weekly Wrap-Up: Almost Spring Edition

Can it really be time for Weekly Wrap-Up already? The calendar says yes, so here we go!

A few highlights of what's going well:

• I managed to get all the drawing prizes packed up and shipped out. If you were one of the winners, the Post Office tells me you should be receiving your goodies today (if they haven't arrived already). Although it may sound strange, I truly enjoyed the whole giveaway process so much, that I can't wait to hold another one! Stay tuned.
• I finished another week of C25K! Although it's not my main goal, I have lost a couple of pounds in the process, which feels good.
• Baby P took her first step this week! She has been working very determinedly on her balance, and is improving every day. This has been such a joyful time for all of us to see her progress and celebrate with her.
• B has loved playing with balls this week, practicing catching, throwing, and kicking. The weather was nice enough for part of the week for him to play in the backyard to his heart's content. Winter and too many sick days were definitely hard on this active child. Welcome, Spring!
• B is getting very good at dressing and undressing himself, which we are all celebrating. He also learned to peel an orange with very little help, which he was ecstatic about.
• K has really been enjoying math. In the past couple of weeks, she has especially had fun devising numerous ways to use and play with attribute blocks as well as exploring non-standard measurement.
• K completed the first level of All About Spelling, and is thrilled to move on to Level 2. She particularly enjoys manipulating the phonogram tiles and writing with markers on our "Spelling Board" (large white board). She has a great intuition for spelling, but this program is great to reinforce more specific rules. This has really increased her confidence in this area.
• N has been spending a lot of time this week riding his bike around the neighborhood. It has been a long process for him to feel confident on it, but he's finally there! This has been a great experience for him to keep trying something that didn't come easily to him and to overcome his fears to reach a goal. We have all been thrilled at his success.
• Since N joined a Cub Scout group a couple of months ago, he has had great fun working through the requirements. We decided to make "Scouts" one of our daily workboxes, so he has been making steady progress. He earned his Bobcat badge in about a week, and is now working toward his Wolf. This has been a fabulous program for him, with a good mix of learning activities that we might not come up with otherwise. He and J are looking forward to his first Pinewood Derby next month!
• We had a great time as a family making Spring Cookie Cottages. This is definitely a holiday tradition we will be continuing!

A few things that haven't been so great:

• Baby P is definitely in the process of cutting some teeth--the two in front on the top--and it has been a miserable week for her. She is also getting a cold, and has not been sleeping well due to congestion. We're all extra tired and needy this week!
• We had a dentist appointment this week for N and K, which, although it went well, was an interruption in our schedule. Although workboxing definitely helps with this, I still struggle to get back into our routine after it is disturbed.
• I have been feeling emotionally drained and on the verge of burnout lately. I have decided it's time for another personal retreat, which I'll be able to take in a couple of weeks. I just hope I can hold it together until then!

Well, that's our week in a nutshell! To see what other homeschoolers have been up to this week, visit Kris's blog.