Restoration Place

Resource ~ Winter Nature Study

I've just printed out my new Winter Nature Study with Art and Music Appreciation e-book created by Barb at Harmony Art Mom and I'm excited about the fresh life it's going to breathe into our winter nature study. Seems like somewhere between January and February I experience that late-winter slump and lose my enthusiasm for nature study. 

 

 
I love how Barb connects winter nature study to music and art. That's not something I would normally take time to do (I'm grateful if I keep up with my meal plan and the laundry!), but I know my children are really going to like the connections.

There are 56 pages full of ideas for January, February, and March in the e-book version I purchased (you can view other versions at her site), more than enough ideas and resources for us to enjoy all winter.

Resource ~ A Child's Geography Volume II: Explore the Holy Land

This summer we're going to be slowly working our way through A Child's Geography, Volume II: Explore the Holy Land. Perhaps you're already familiar with the authors through their lovely and inspiring blogs: Ann Voskamp of Holy Experience and Tonia Peckover of Study in Brown.

We enjoyed A Child's Geography Volume I: Explore His Earth three years ago when my children were 8, 6, 4, and a tag-a-long 1, and they still remember so much about what we learned. My now 9-year-old still asks if we can "please do the atmosphere layers in a jar project again, Mom!" Hmmm...guess I really should get around to it, already.

The volume will take us on a tour of six countries: Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, at a pace of about one country every two weeks. We will adjust our pace, as needed, as we have lots of interests to pursue this summer. We might not even finish the entire volume this summer, and that's ok, too.

We'll keep you updated on our "travels" and share go-along resources as we go. We begin next week. First up: Turkey.

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I originally thought I might follow Serendipity's Tour of Continents and Cultures, which dovetails with both volumes of A Child's Geography, begins with Africa, and provides lots of helpful resources, links, and recommended books, but we spent a lot of time on Africa not so long ago, and the children are eager to learn more about the Middle East right away. I urge you to take a look at what the ladies at Serendipity have put together and generously share with the rest of us--especially if you want to begin a tour of the continents with Africa. I may just have to come back to Serendipity's plans in a year or so, and take the journey with my younger two children.

Art Curriculum ~ ARTistic Pursuits

We recently discovered ARTistic Pursuits art curriculum by Brenda Ellis (home educating parent and professional artist) and now that we've done a few lessons, I've got to tell you about it.

We're using one book from each of the two different levels: Grades K-3, Book One: An Introduction to the Visual Arts and Grades 4-6, Book One: The Elements of Art and Composition. I use the first one with my 4-, 6-, 8-year-olds, and my 11-year-old uses the second book independently, though she likes to join in with the others' art lessons and projects.

Here's Book One: The Elements of Art and Composition for grades 4-6:

 

It includes 64 lessons in 16 units, and each unit is divided into four lessons: Building a Visual Vocabulary, American Art Appreciation and History, Techniques, and Application. Maggie (11) reads and completes the lessons on her own, averaging about two per week. Maggie feels her drawing is greatly improving, and she's thrilled with the results!

 

She can't remember which lesson the cat drawing was for (we must get better at marking and organizing her drawings) but it's a big change from the way she used to draw her cat, a favorite subject.

The book I'm using with the younger children, Grades K-3, Book One: An Introduction to the Visual Arts (forgot to take a photo of that one) has 32 lessons. Each lesson includes a short introduction that I read to the children (5-10 minutes each), observing and talking about an artwork by a master (included), then an art project which takes us about 30 minutes. From start to finish, it takes about one hour. We do one lesson each week. It's very easy to use and fun! That's counts for something with this homeschooling mama. ~smile~ Every time I say, "Art time!" they cheer.

But the best part of all is to hear my child say, "Mom, look! I'm really doing this! I really made it!" I've been hearing that a lot while using ARTistic Pursuits.

One final thought: Ideally, I'd love to enroll my children in an in-person art class taught by a professional. I can't make that work for us right now, so I'm extra pleased to be able to offer experiences in art through this curriculum.

Earthquakes ~ Christian Kids Explore Earth & Space ~ Unit 2, Lesson 6

We spent an afternoon this week learning about earthquakes. We're using Christian Kids Explore Earth & Space as our main earth science guide, but it's functioning merely as an idea generator at this point. I'm somewhat dissatisfied at its skimpiness. I plan to write a review of the book at some point; right now I'm too busy gathering ideas to extend it.

We began with reading about earthquakes, doing map work to locate the earth's faults and plate boundaries, and watching simulations of earthquakes online. We had already looked at picture books on earthquakes and watched a couple of videos last week.

Next, we built a Geoblox earthquake model. It was easy to print out, color, cut and assemble:

 

 

Jacob was inspired to build his own seismometer. He was determined to produce more authentic seismograms, which he could then analyze with a Richter scale:

 

 

We simulated earthquakes and produced many seismograms.

The links in this post should help get you started if you need to pad (or even just begin) your earthquake studies.

Have you used an earth science book, curriculum, or anything to guide your earth science learning that you can recommend? I'm not particularly interested in something Christian per se, but I do want something that's beefier than what we're currently using.

Volcanic Eruption Activity

Yesterday afternoon was volcanic. We watched videos, read books, colored pictures, investigated pumice, made a Sculpey lava flow, and created an erupting volcano. Even with all that, I think the boys could have kept going the rest of the afternoon.

We're on Unit 2, Lesson 5: Volcanoes of the Christian Kids Explore Earth & Space and there are perfectly good instructions for simulating your own volcanic eruptions in the lesson, but I already had this kit stashed so I brought it out:

Never mind that I neglected to read all the instructions and gather necessary household items beforehand, and didn't have club soda, and didn't want to make a plaster and sand volcano that would have to dry 24 hours before creating the eruptions--we were erupting a volcano that afternoon!

Good thing I know how to make a giant glob of salt dough, and had a few liters of Coke sitting in the basement (for the Steve Spangler Mentos-Coke geyser).

The children globbed the salt dough onto the kit's plastic volcano form:

 

We prepared the eruption ingredients:

 

Filled the volcano's crater with Coke:

 

Threw in the kit's tablets (which are mostly baking soda and red food coloring), and watched the eruptions:

 

 

Of course, you don't need a kit (or even salt dough) to create an erupting volcano. Just Google the phrase "baking soda volcano" and have fun!

Australia Scrapbook Page ~ Sonlight Core 5

As you know, Maggie's working her way through Sonlight's Core 5 ~ Eastern Hemisphere for the bulk of her home education focus this year. But we kept getting hung up on the core's Eastern Hemisphere Explorer, a research guide coupled with the World Book on CD-ROM, which were provided to help us navigate our way through the various countries.

As attractive as the guide is, it's little more than a fill-in-the-blank workbook to us, as we have never taken to the idea of using workbook-type activities for our home learning. Yes, it has a fantastic section entitled, "Choose Your Own Adventure" which provides great ideas for hands-on projects to experience each country (recipes, art, music, crafts, games, and so on). And in other sections there are great opportunities to research each country, draw in a picture of a flag, fill in information about the people, culture, etc.

But we really disliked the format and because Maggie's frustration level was increasing to the point that her joy of learning was draining away, it was time to turn to prayer. After talking and praying together, we decided to try a scrapbook/lapbook approach to learning about the countries included in the core, instead of making ourselves fit into the constricting box that the Eastern Hemisphere Explorer had become for us.

And so, with absolutely no scrapbooking experience, but with the encouragement and ideas of my dear friend Deb at As We Walk, and a complete stranger at in the aisles of Michael's (who must be the queen of scrapbooking!) who generously shared the world of scrapbooking with us, we've begun!

Here's Maggie's first page, done almost entirely by herself and with such joy!

 

I feel certain that when Maggie completes Core 5, she's going to experience the deep satisfaction of creating her very own travel guide to all the countries she's explored. And she'll be the richer for having learned about the non-Western world.

I'll have the peace of knowing I've prayed, listened to God's voice guiding us, and let Him who knows my children best help us navigate our home education journey.

The Big Plan: Home Education 2008-2009

Here's the "backbone" of our learning plan for the coming months: (I could not get this post to single space in the right places...hence all the white space)

Maggie (10):

Literature, History, Geography: Sonlight Core 5 ~ Eastern Hemisphere

Math: Math-U-See

Language Arts: Spelling Power

Spelling Wisdom (for dictation); Copywork ~ various scripture and poetry selections; something for writing skills and a little grammar--undecided

Devotions: Sword Fighting (loved this last year but now looking for something different)

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Jacob (8):

Literature, History, Geography: Sonlight Core 2 ~ World History, Part II

Math: Math-U-See

Language Arts: Draw, Write, Now! (copywork, handwriting, drawing)

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Katie (6):

Literature, History, Geography: Sonlight Core 2 ~ World History, Part II

Math: Math-U-See

Language Arts: Handwriting Without Tears, Draw, Write, Now!

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Ben (3): Sonlight P4/5 and enjoying all the trickle down

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Group studies:

Bible and Breakfast (Bible always goes with breakfast ~smile~): Our 24 Family Ways ,The Child's Story Bible, Complete Jewish Bible

Science: Christian Kids Explore Earth & Space

Art: Artistic Pursuits, K-3 and 4-6 

Music: still investigating options

Physical Education: homeschool P.E. class and swimming weekly for all; possibly dance for Maggie later this fall.

Health: Blood and Guts: A Working Guide to Your Own Insides.

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Some thoughts on the big plan: I'm not an inveterate box-checker with the Sonlight Instructor's Guides. I use the IGs as a map that we freely diverge from; we welcome "rabbit trails"; I drop/add books at will; we always have non-Sonlight read alouds that we're enjoying; we love lots of other resources such as The Story of the World, Vol II The Middle Ages narrated by Jim Weiss on CD and Hands and Hearts History Kits. Perhaps I'll write a separate post on our "style" sometime.

Christian Kids Explore Earth & Space ~ Day One Review

I asked the children what science-oriented subjects they wanted to learn about in the coming weeks and months. Everything they asked for pointed to earth science and space, with some microscope and physics thrown in.

I don't have the desire or energy to research and gather all the resources and supplies needed to create our own path of study, so I looked for a pre-made book or curriculum which we could use as a basis for our explorations. I settled on Christian Kids Explore Earth & Space. It's published by the creators (Bright Ideas Press) of Mystery of History.

It's got the right blend of topics and hands-on projects to fascinate all four of my children (ages 3-10). We'll be investigating plate tectonics, caves, volcanoes, rocks, the water cycle, oceans, the atmosphere, sun, moon, and planets, and more. (View the entire table of contents.)

Today we did the first two lessons, which were about the structure of the earth and we finished up with a play dough model of the earth's layers. The children colored one of the coloring pages (not "cutesy" at all, thank goodness), colored a diagram and labeled the earth's layers, then made the play dough earth.

 

 

Now for the play dough model of the earth structures. Using 5 different colors, we began with a small ball to represent the earth's inner core and then rolled more thin layers to wrap the core, one at a time to create layers:

Now that we have all the layers, it's time to slice the earth with a piece of dental floss:

 

Isn't it beautiful?

My children were so fascinated with the play dough-layered earth, they made many more, and now I have a colorful display of earth wedges:

We're going to use Christian Kids Explore Earth & Space in whatever way suits us best, adding or deleting as necessary; speeding along or taking our time. The point is to enjoy our own journey through earth and space.

Home Learning Plans ~ May - August

We're winding down with the regular studies this month. Maggie and Jacob have nearly completed their Sonlight cores and will soon pause in everything else, too: Math-U-See, Grammar Ace, Spelling Power, Spelling Wisdom, Memoria Press Copy Book, Rosetta Stone Spanish (recently picked up again after a long hiatus), Apologia Botany, and our various art and music explorations.

Of course, Katie and Ben have participated in all they possibly can with our afternoon group time, in addition to having their own special morning read alouds, reading lessons and handwriting (Katie) and lately, lots of card games.

As we shift into summer, I plan to keep more of a home learning routine than I have in summers past--at least for an hour or so in the mornings. Maggie and Jacob will continue with Bible and devotionals, math, spelling, and Spanish, and Katie can keep going with her reading lessons if she's interested.

I'm looking into doing elementary physics with Jacob (and whoever else is interested) and think that Noeo Science Physics II may be just what we need. I had thought of using The Young Scientists Club kits (and, actually, Noeo Science incorporates some of their kits into its curriculum) but I think Jacob needs something with more "teeth" in it. And I need something more than just a fun book from the library with ideas for projects. So Noeo Science may be just what we're looking for.

Of course, we'll continue with our current read alouds: Swallowdale, The Horse and His Boy, The Swiss Family Robinson, Minn of the Mississippi, and whatever else we decide to read.

Maggie wants to work on embroidery and recorder lessons (she's teaching herself), Jacob wants to mount his insect collection and expand his animal bone museum, Katie wants to learn how to sew, and Ben wants to learn how to make an origami frog.

That's a tentative look at where we're headed for the coming months. Subject to revision, of course. ~smile~

Sonlight Box Day Follow-Up ~ Joyous Book Glut

I know you're wondering what happened on Box Day last week. Here's a wordless follow-up: