We rowed Jane Yolen's calm and wintry story, Owl Moon, the story of a young girl and her father who go owling late one snowy night. The young girl, entranced by the outing, follows her father and applies all the skills he taught her about owling--the importance of patience, quiet, and bravery.
Aidyn loved the understated adventure in Owl Moon and requested an owling trip of our own!
Language Arts: Setting
On the first day, we discussed the setting of the story. Aidyn listed off various answers: winter, nighttime, in the snow, in the forest. I also suggested other stories we have read and movies we have seen and asked him to name the settings until I was sure he understood.
Language Arts: Similes and Metaphors
On the next day, we read Skin Like Milk, Hair of Silk: What Are Similes and Metaphors by Brian P. Cleary and learned about similes and metaphors.
We had fun performing some metaphors like "icy glare" and "frozen stare." When we read Owl Moon again, Aidyn spotted all the similes and metaphors and yelled them out:
"...a train whistle blew, long and low, like a sad, sad song."
"And when their voices faded away it was as quiet as a dream."
"But I was a shadow as we walked home."
Language Arts: Hyperbole
We also discussed hyperbole when we read how they stared at the owl for "maybe even a hundred minutes." We came up with more examples like, "Aidyn took a million years to get ready" and "I waited forever for the rain to stop."
Social Studies: Relationships- Father and Child
Looking at the close relationship of the father and daughter in the story, we discussed Aidyn's relationship to his father and things he's learned from him. We continued working on a thank-you letter to Daddy from earlier this month.
Science: Owl Study
We read Gail Gibbon's Owls and learned about different species of owls, how they hunt, what they eat, where they nest, how they raise their young, among other interesting facts. I asked Aidyn to find his favorite fact for copywork and here's what he chose:
We also read Jim Arnosky's All About Owls for more owl facts.
On YouTube, we watched a National Geographic special called Owls: Silent Hunters.
Although we enjoyed rowing Owl Moon, we didn't do as much as I would have liked. We're still adjusting to having a new baby in the house, but check out the links below for more ideas for learning about owls:
Homeschool bloggers, at one time or another, write a day-in-the-life post, even though most days look nothing alike. I guess I should finally show what a day-in-the-life looks like around here, even though we, too, always change our days.
Current stats:
Aidyn: 8 years old, 3rd grade, and currently obsessed with Minecraft
Me: 8 months huge pregnant and really just trying to make it to 3:30pm every day (when the husband gets home and cooks dinner and FORCES me to rest)
Homeschool style: Mostly classical, eclectic, with a dash of FIAR
Homeschool philosophy: Set up a strong foundation (enjoyably!), literature-rich, get messy, facilitate learning, support a healthy relationship, and have fun (!)
What we're using (basically): Saxon Math, Brave Writer (Partnership Writing) and BWL (Poetry Teatime Tuesdays, Wednesday Afternoon Movies, Friday Freewrites and all the other stuff) Spelling Power, Story of the World: Volume One (ancient history), Adventures with Atoms and Molecules (chemistry), Song School Latin, Typing Pal Online, and mountains of books from the library.
Classes: Recorder (music) class (1x a week), character class (1x a month), Grade 3-6 science class (1x a week), Pre-engineering Lego class (1x a week), K-8 fun study hall club (biweekly).
Let's do this.
5am~ Rise and shine (for me). I usually get up between 4am and 5am because I'm crazy like that I'm a morning person. I enjoy a severely watered-down teacup of coffee (and dream of the non-pregnant day I will drink a jug of coffee) and traipse around in internetland. I check Facebook, email, secular homeschool forums, Pinterest (if the mood so strikes), and any random Goggle search prompted by a leftover wonder (how do you ease devastating mid-night leg cramps during pregnancy again?).
Sometimes I have a window for catching up on all my terrible shows, and other times I sit in the rocking chair and read a nice book in beautiful silence, or I might do some creative writing.
I need mornings to recharge and ground myself before a homeschool day.
7am-ish~
Aidyn staggered downstairs early today and flopped on the couch. He had breakfast while we watched "Mythic Warriors: Theseus and the Minotaur." Then Aidyn watched a Muppet Babies episode of Greek myths while I took a shower.
Around 8:30, Aidyn dashed upstairs to play some Batman video game (modern mythic warriors, right? We'll go with that.)
9am~
We start math. I usually make a quick snack to share (today it was cinnamon and honey apple slices)
.
Aidyn:
writes the date, answers some questions ("what date will it be in eight days?" "what day of the week is it?" "how many days in one week? two? three? four?" "what are the months of the year" etc.), makes three number sentences for the number-of-the-day, counts a random collection of money and records it, solves a problem-of-the-day, answer some clock questions, and counts by 5s, 10s, 100s, and odd and even numbers forward and backward.
Today's lesson reintroduced him to sums of ten. He drew two large circles on a piece of paper. I gave him ten counters, and he placed them in the circles in different combinations. I wrote out each combo on the chalkboard. Then I wrote out all eleven combinations and purposefully left one addend blank for him to solve.
He then did a 45-second timed addition sheet before doing his math page for the day.
10am~ Break
Aidyn ran around the house, playing with an Indiana Jones mini-gun, and had some kind of epic imaginary war.
10:20am~
Spelling Power!
I retested Aidyn on words he had previously misspelled and studied. He only missed one! Then we studied the one word (nice). With each missed word, I write it on the board, he reads it, we break it into parts (by syllable or sounds or some other pattern), he recites the letters in the word (twice), he spells it aloud with his eyes closed, he traces the word on the board, and then finally he respells the word without looking at it.
Then we moved on to our spelling activity (it changes every day). Today, we made a huge list of words that rhyme with "nice." I was expecting simple words, but he blurted out words like "slice," "thrice," and "vice" among others.
THEN, he had the best idea (totally on his own). He suggested I hide the word "nice" somewhere in the house for him to find, and if he finds it he gets a prize. So I took him up on the offer...
I made twenty "nice" decoys, words that rhymed/resembled "nice" and Aidyn's misspelling "nise" to throw him off. I hid the real "nice" on our globe over Nice, France.
10:45am~
We're using the Partnership Writing program through Brave Writer, and this month's writing project is Secret Codes. During this first week, we've been playing with picto-words. We had made a key of picto-words, and yesterday I wrote him a letter using our code words.
Today, Aidyn wrote a picto-coded letter to his grandma and, from what I heard, hid it somewhere in her room.
11:00am~
While he was occupied, I hid all my "nice" decoys through the living room and kitchen. Only one hidden slip of paper had the real word written on it. When I called him, he charged down the stairs and searched endlessly for the real "nice" card.
He eventually found it, and now I owe him a toy next time we go shopping. :)
11:15am~
Word games.
We played with a MagnePoem set to create some original poetry, just for fun.
Aidyn's poem. He insisted "sea" meant "to see."
My poem.
11:30am~
Chemistry!
Today we did chemistry experiment #3: do hot molecules move faster than cold molecules?
I posed the question, and while we debated it out, Aidyn wrote the question in his chemistry notebook. At first, he guessed that cold molecules would move faster because they're cold (he reenacted how his body shakes in cold weather).
He labeled one glass "hot" and another "cold" before I filled them up with hot and cold water, respectively. At the same time, he plopped one drop of red food dye in the hot water while I squirted one drop of blue dye in the cold water.
We watched the blue dye immediately sink to the bottom while the red dye spread all over pretty evenly. Aidyn concluded that the hot molecules spread faster than the cold. We talked about how if you're near a bakery, you can smell the warm deliciousness baking inside, and you can always smell a warm dinner coming out of the oven, but you never pass an ice cream shop and say, "Mmm, that ice cream smells delicious!" (unless they're baking waffle cones). And now we know it's because hot molecules travel and spread faster than cold molecules.
Afterward, we used a spoon to stir each glass. The hot water barely needed any stirring. We talked about how hot tea spreads in the cup more quickly than iced tea.
Aidyn recorded his findings and included illustrations in his chemistry notebook.
12:00-12:30~
Lunch
We both had chicken and cheese sandwiches before loading up in the car for his afternoon science class.
1:00-2:00pm~
Aidyn attended a science class with 3rd-6th graders. From what he told me, they each received a packet of questions and needed to visit different science stations to answer the questions (on insects, ants, bees, and metamorphosis). Then they divided into teams and played a Jeopardy-style quiz game based on the questions.
2:00-2:30pm~
On the way home, Aidyn read a book about piranhas (he's been interested in them lately), and the backseat was filled with "oooh"s and "ahhh"s.
We also listened to some good ole Harry Nilsson songs, particularly these three:
"Me and My Arrow"
"Are You Sleeping?"
"Think about Your Troubles"
2:30pm and onward~
Once we got home, I crashed on the rocking chair to recover. Aidyn zoomed upstairs and, from what I can only imagine, played in his room. Once 4:30 came around, Aidyn went outside, scooter in hand, to play with his neighborhood friends.
4:30p-ish-7:45pm~
When the husband got home, he cooked dinner (salmon, rice and veggies). While he was cooking, I watched a Not-Back-to-School lecture online by Julie Bogart (creator of Brave Writer). The husband overheard most of the presentation, and I'd pause every once in a while to talk with him about it.
As per usual on Wednesday evenings, the husband and I watched "Face Off," a Syfy show about special effects makeup artists. Aidyn played outside with his friends and checked in every ten minutes or so. There's a gaggle of about three to seven kids out at a time, and they all ride bikes and scooters, play with oversized yoga balls, run around like crazy and get sweaty and dirty. Typical stuff.
8pm~
Once it's dark-dark, Aidyn comes in from playing and does the back part of his math sheet from earlier (takes him about five to ten minutes). Because the husband gets up early for work and I get up early cuz I'm crazy like that, we both go to bed. Aidyn stayed up and watched "Goosebumps" on Netflix for a while before he fell asleep.
And that was our day!
I'm not sure I would say it was typical, except that we typically do different things every day. Most days we practice Latin, copywork, and dictation, but I followed Aidyn's interests this day to play his "spelling word hide-n-seek game." We also had an afternoon class; otherwise, we would have read a chapter from Story of the World.
But all in all, this is a normal day (in our current lives).
Random run-ins with family, friends, and acquaintances have led to questions like, "So are you still homeschooling? I could never do that" and "How do you have the patience for that?"
I hear stuff about public school. I went there. I remember. And I think the same thing: I could never do that. Why? Because I'm too lazy.
I recently semi-ditched our English curriculum. Why?
As a writing tutor, writer, and lover of all things English myself, I felt like the clunky textbook too closely resembled something from school. It was dry, uninspiring, and way too methodical. Writing should be messy, experiential, and alive! Shouldn't it?
Knocking on wood, but these first three weeks of third grade have been amazing. We both transitioned into our new routine pretty effortlessly. Our first day of third grade went well; the Minecraft shultute, pancakes and gifts were a huge hit.
The World of Wonders Science Museum certainly encourages hands-on science discovery. Although situated in busy downtown, the museum showcases a relatively large space filled with dozens of exhibits. Admission is more than reasonable:
As homeschoolers, we celebrate the first day of school a little but differently than our public-schooled peers. On the first day of first grade, we had sort of a Christmas-homeschool morning with educational gifts like a chess set and a Rubik's cube. On the first day of second grade, our family went spelunking at the Moaning Caverns in Vallecito, Ca.
This year we had another Christmas-homeschool type of morning, mostly because I'm about seven months along in my pregnancy and that's about the only physical adventure I can stand right now. But I still wanted to make his first day special. Lately, Aidyn has joined the millions of other Minecraft fans and, on most days, eats, breathes, and sleeps all things Minecraft.
The night before I made him a Minecraft schultute. A schultute is a cone-shaped holder of goodies, a first-day-of-school German tradition going back to the early 1800s. It's also fairly common in the homeschool world to give these schultutes, but this was our first time.
We filled and overflowed it with all kinds of goodies-- a Minecraft foam sword, kinetic sand, Create and Destroy Fortress Invasion clay, glue sticks, Minecraft benders, a Guardians of the Galaxy dog tag, a Minecraft creeper poster, a box of Buddy Bars, a box of Nerds...
AND a new-to-him scooter. The weekend prior, David and I found a scooter at a thrift store for $7, so we brought it home, cleaned it up, and added new handlebar grips and Minecraft stickers.
He rode it outside before we started school and during every break throughout the day.
For breakfast, I made him a creeper pancake.
And we eventually started our day.
I regret not taking many pictures of the rest of our day, but Aidyn worked on a sheet of Minecraft Math (addition and subtraction sheets can be found at this link) until our math curriculum comes in on Thursday. Aidyn took the placement test for Spelling Power, learned about mapping a story with our grammar book, restarted our reading program and listed things he wants to learn about in 3rd grade (most of which are underwater creatures like piranhas and sharks.
We had a good, Miecrafty sort of first day and are looking forward to the new school year!
Here are some other first-day-of-school traditions and ideas:
Oh, California, you have so much to offer. We live smack dab in the middle of California, which means we're within the agricultural belt that runs down the state. We have the beautiful and busy Bay Area to the west, the quiet and peaceful splendor of Gold Country to the east, the capital of Sacramento only an hour away, and Southern California only 5 hours south.
We've spent a lot of time exploring our state, for educational and entertainment purposes (usually both!). Because we're Northern Californians, the list favors this area. If you have any more suggestions, please let me know and I will add them to the list! Links marked with asterisk are places we've visited and can vouch for.
This is an ongoing list of field trips in the Northern California region. You can even see some field trips we've taken. If you have suggestions and places to add, let me know!
"The rift between the past and this moment is so huge it is like being marooned on a square of ice, seeing other patches of his life also floating around him, and unable to piece them all together. Sometimes it is easier, he thinks, to live out the mistakes we have made than to summon the energy and imagination required to repair them" (Joyce 376).
Perfect by Rachel Joyce circles around the theme of lost time. Byron Hemmings, a bright 11-year-old, discovers that the powers that be have decided to add an additional two seconds to time. Terrified, he worries that two seconds is the difference between something awful either happening or not happening. His story exemplifies how two seconds can completely alter someone's life.
I have a tendency to look back too often, at the past, at what could have been, at mistakes I have made. Nostalgia is a pain as real as heartburn. And what is even more devastating is that the past is already written and unchangeable, but the ache to change it or recreate it burns just the same.
As a parent I worry that my son isn't living some idyllic childhood, isn't swinging on enough swings, playing with enough cousins, or creating enough carefree memories like I did. I look back and see my "perfect" childhood and mourn that Aidyn might not be living his. But it's a silly worry.
I catch him in the depths of childhood wonder and imagination ("I think I might have ice powers after I read that spell book," he told me yesterday.). I watch him sled down the stairs on a "magic carpet." I see him bond with his cousins, eating ice cream sandwiches in the back seat of the car or staying up late on summer nights.
His childhood may not include everything mine did (which might actually be a good thing), but he's effortlessly creating his own. The past isn't meant to be recreated. It cannot be brought back. But in looking backward, we can see the beauty and possibility of today. Someday today will be a memory, and we have the power to influence and shape it.
Perfect reminded me how hung up we are on time, especially time past, and the frustration we feel at our inability to change it. For some reason, we are hell bent on living out what has happened to us in the past, allowing ourselves to be defined by it. It can feel imprisoning to always be that person who we were. And again, it's silly, especially when, each day, we have the new and awaiting possibility of doing Something Else.
For the past couple of weeks, I have made an effort to return to reading. As a child, teen, and young adult, I had love affairs with books, but after years of college coursework and forced readings, I lost that love for simply picking up a book and getting lost in it.
I recently picked up Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch, a gentle memoir about reading books to escape back into life.
