Grandma Diesel Visits

We had a really great week!  Our biggest surprise was that we got to visit Grandma Diesel for a few hours on Thursday.  She was helping Brad move to Dallas and took the trip to Hobbs to be here for a while.  We had a lot of fun with her.  We ate lunch, fed the ducks, and then went to the cowboy museum.  It was so nice to see her! 

We started a few new ideas for learning this week.  We started a nature journal.   In it we are going to include drawings done by the girls, leaf/flower rubbings, short journal entries of what we saw, information about the new things we are learning in nature.   By the end of the year the girls should be able to tell the name of 6 trees that we studied in each different season by looking at the bark and the leaves.  They will also be able to name 6 types of plants/wild flowers when looking at them.  They should also be able to tell the name of 6 birds by appearance and by their call.  So this means we will be outdoors a lot.  I am very excited because I LOVE nature and being outside and so do the girls.  This week we learned about 2 trees.  The Elm and the White Poplar tree.

Mackenzie has started reading a poem a day.  She also has started to read Aesop's Fables.  Some of them are pretty interesting.  She has also been studying Ancient Greek Myths.  This week she read about Albion (son of Poesidon) and how he was the first ruler of an island that was named Albion after him. Later on it was named Britannia (named after Brutus who conquered the island of giants) and finally named Great Britain (because it was the largest of the group of many islands).  I ordered her a new book off of Ebay.  It is A Little House in the Big Woods.  I can't wait for her to start reading it.  I know that she will love it.   

Both of the girls have started "copywork".  This is where I find a passage from a book or a poem, something for them to copy.  I bought the lined paper with the dotted line down the middle.  This is to practice their penmanship.  I also think it will help them learn capitals, punctuation, and spelling.  I have seen an improvement in Mackenzie's printing in this short time already.  I think it has made her more aware of writing neatly.  Before she would just write and not worry about what her writing looked like.  Now she does.

Lorel continues to improve with reading.  Sometimes I even find her trying to read stuff on her own!  YAY!  I haven't done much else with her but read.  She reads to me and I read a lot to her.  She, of course, is learning about nature and loves it.  She also listens in on Mackenzie's lessons.  She is very much so a free spirit and learns a lot on her own by watching and listening.  She is so laid back and only does things when she wants to do them.  She loves to play with water in the sink, sand outside, bubbles, anything to make a mess! LOL!  Which is great.  That is the joy of homeshooling.  She can learn at her own pace.  I think the most important thing with a five year old is that they get to run, jump, and play when and how they want to.  I still think that she is ahead and is very smart!

The girls tried a pomegranate for the first time this week.  They loved it!  It really surprised me.  I am so lucky to have children that aren't picky. 

Today we are going to make a count down to Christmas chain.  Then at 3:00 we are going to the library because they have a man that plays guitar coming to sing Christmas songs with the children.  It should be fun!

All of these new ideas that I have implimented came from an educator named Charlotte Mason.  She taught school in England.  She lived from 1842-1923.  She saw trouble with the public education school systems so she dedicated her life to improve the quality of education of children.  Her ideas were a head of her time.  Her ideas are now used by many homeschooling families.  She was a brilliant woman and I have enjoyed reading and studying her life and her work.  I am very glad that I stumbled across her.

This is a picture that I captured last night of the sunset from our backyard.  I LOVE it so I decided to put it on!

 I am so glad that I am the one raising and teaching my children.  I know that the most important person in a child's life is their mother.  I love my girls more than they will ever know and glad that they are apart of my life. 

Getting ready for Christmas

We have had a pretty busy week.  The weather has been BEAUTIFUL here.  Wednesday and Thursday it was 70.  Today it is supposed to get up to 78.  It is perfect.  We did our school work in the morning and then I gave the girls a chance to play outside all three days in the afternoon.  They LOVE being outside. 

On Saturday the girls had fun raking leaves.  The neighbor kids came out and raked their leaves also.  The girls really enjoyed jumping in the piles.

 

On Monday we got our Christmas tree.  It sure was a crazy sight with us driving it home in the camaro!  We had fun decorating it though.  We can't wait for Christmas!

  

  On Tuesday the girls, Chad, and I made a bird feeder.  We found the kit at Lowe's so we kind of cheated so we didn't have to cut the wood.  The girls used wood glue and the drill to screw it together.  They then painted it.  We allowed it to dry over night and hung it up on Wednesday.  We haven't seen very many birds eating from it but hopefully in the spring we will see more.

  The girls learned about mummies online this week.  We read many books.  Lorel continues to get better with sounding out words.  Both of the girls are doing really well in math.  We are studying poems this week.  The girls are in the process of memorizing a poem.  It's called One Sister for Sale by Shel Silverstein.  It fits the girls perfectly!  It's about a sibling who is trying to put their sister up for sale in an auction.  They almost have it down.

This week we started a little reward system with tickets.  The girls receive a ticket for positive behavior such as helping me, helping their sister, picking up, getting their work done, etc.  They get a ticket taken away for negative behavior such as fighting, back talking, arguing, etc.  Then every Saturday the girls will count how many tickets that they collected during the week and choose if they would like to use them or keep saving.  We made a list of rewards and how many tickets each one is worth.  For example, an ice cream cone, a new book, a small toy are all 15 tickets.  Then we have big rewards like a new outfit,  a big toy, a movie, and a day out alone with mom or dad.  These, of course, are all 50 tickets and above.  It really seems to be helping!

I am really enjoying homeschooling and the more we do it the more I feel that it is working for us.  I really feel that the girls are right where they need to be.  Am I preparing them for standardized tests? Well, no.  But I do feel like I am preparing them for life.  I have never really agreed with standardized testing anyway.  How can one test determine what a child knows and how smart they are?  Homeschooling educates a child in a completely different way than the public education system.  I really do believe that homeschooling was a positive decision for us.  

It was a good week!  I am REALLY looking forward to next week!  We are going to try some new ideas with homeschooling!  I can't wait!