EMMA Homeschool Co-op

(sorry for the foggy picture... It was warm that day and the camera had been in the air-conditioned car, which fogged the lens.)

This Fall, we enrolled Olivia, Gabe and Ezra in a homeschool co-op called EMMA, which stands for "Enriching, Mentoring, Mastering and Achieving." While the boys were only there for PE (so they could have some time playing organized games with other kids), Olivia took much more. She was in NC history, Botany, Literature Circle (where they would read a book over a few weeks and then take turn breaking down a particular aspect of the book like vocabulary, imagery, narration and so on), and Robotics! 

During the term, they did some special days, one of which was "Dress Like Your Favorite Literary Character." Guess who Olivia picked...

She did really well in her classes and during the last week, they had a fun Arts and Sciences night where they showcased science projects, artwork and music that the kids had all prepared. 

 Olivia's Botany project was a leaf classification display. She had to find 10 different leaves and display them with information like the leaf margin, shape, position on the branch and so on. She did a fantastic job on it, splatter-painting the background and using different brightly colored paper for the mountings. 

 The robotics class had a really cool display set up with Lego robots that had their own controllers and allowed kids to pick up blocks and run into each other.

 Gabe and Ezra tangled up a few times. 

 They also had these little robots that could be controlled with a TV remote. 

Enriching, Mentoring, Mastering, and Achieving

 Emma and Irene certainly enjoyed playing with those. Enriching, Mentoring, Mastering, and 

Olivia demonstrated how to move the robots up a ramp and knock all the balls off their perches. 

The semester ended last week and they have a couple of weeks off. They will be going back in January and we're adding a couple of classes for the boys: Art and a musical called The Agape League, which is about superheroes that embody different fruits of the Spirit (Love, Joy, Peace, etc.) The boys will likely be in the choir, not actually acting, but we'll see! 

Olivia's Spring Term

So, we decided to make a bit of a change in our curriculum this Spring. We have used My Father's World for 3 1/2 years and still really love the curriculum. We were getting into the Middle Ages time period as 2014 began. When last we posted, she had reached as far as the vikings and William the Conqueror. We were speeding through history using several resources to tell the stories. We were letting her listen to Mystery of History and/or Story of the World. We were using Usborne books and many library books for further study and great pictures. However, we felt like Olivia wasn't retaining as much of the information as she should be.

We have been moving our homeschool style more and more towards Charlotte Mason's methods over the last couple of years. Rebecca and I attended a Simply Charlotte Mason conference in January and it gave us tons to think about. It was wonderful. On the second day of the conference, she actually took us through a day of school, as if we were students and Sonya was the teacher. We had already moved much of our language arts curriculum to CM style with copywork, SCM's Spelling Wisdom, and narrations for the kids. We also had family subjects including reading poetry, Bible memory work, and artist and composer studies. One of the things that we came away with was the CM way of teaching history slower and doing it using the lives of historical figures. Ultimately, we decided to transition to the SCM history, geography, and Bible curriculum right where we were in our history time period rather than waiting until the end of the year.

The SCM history curriculum uses a book called Famous Men of the Middle Ages, which has 3-to-4-page biographies of major historical figures like Rollo the Viking, William the Conqueror and Justinian the Great. The stories are easy to read and we often have the boys sit in with us. I will read the story aloud to them while writing key names, dates or places on a whiteboard and using a map to show where we are talking about. Once the story is done, Olivia has to take a few moments and then narrate back to us what she heard in her own words. Most of the time, she's nearly perfect, though sometimes the names and places get confusing. We do that 4 days a week and at the end of the week we ask her to choose a figure from that week and write a notebook page about him/her.

In addition to Famous Men, she has other books that go more in-depth on a topic. She read the books The Vikings by Elizabeth Janeway, which was an in-depth story about Leif Ericsson and his eventual discovery of "Vineland" or North America, and Adam of the Road, which was more of an adventure story that gave a lot of insight into life in the Middle Ages She would read the story on her own and then come to us to narrate it to us. While this was fairly easy for us to give over to her, we had to make sure we had read the chapter before she narrated it so that we could verify her accuracy. Most of the time she was pretty good in her recall, though she sometimes left important details out or got things in the wrong order and had to back up.

Gabe and Ezra didn't get out of doing their share, either. They read stories about Leif Ericsson (Leif the Lucky), William Tell (The Apple and the Arrow), The Sword in the Tree, Viking Adventure and Minstrel in the Tower. We would read to them and then Gabe would narrate it back to us. While not perfect, he did very well in remembering the gist if the story. Occasionally, Ezra would pipe in with something Gabe forgot, so we know he was paying attention, too.

After finishing the Body, we began our study of Astronomy. We are using Apologia's curriculum just as MFW suggested but we slowed it down and are still currently working our way through it. We got the Junior notebook to go with the text and Olivia is doing a fantastic job. She Olivia loves to share with us the things that she is learning. She is a fountain of knowledge some days. :) So excited. The other day she said to me, " Didn't you learn about astronomy in school? Then how do you not know some of these things? I don't think I will ever forget. It is so interesting!" 

Our Solar System. She refuses to acknowledge that Pluto is no longer a planet and insists that we include it in the model, so it's there, just tiny. :)

Learning how craters are made.

How penetrating radar mapped the surface of Venus.

Once a week, we have a structured Bible Study. We studied the books of Galatians and James. When we read them, we are to be listening for the GOAL, which stands for:

• Grasp this promise
• Obey this command
• Avoid this sin
• Live this principle

When we finished a chapter, the kids had to tell me if they heard any of those things somewhere in the passage. I would say about 85% of the time, one or more of the kids comes up with something to talk about. On the same day, we also learn about an explorer like Columbus, Bartholomew Diaz or Henry the Navigator. She also does map drills where she studies a labelled map of Europe that has the countries, bodies of water and mountains for about 15 minutes. Then she has to fill in a blank map as completely as she can. By the last week, she was really quite impressive.

Olivia is continuing to teach herself cursive. She enjoys using it when she is writing cards or making lists. Here is a sample of her work...

We did decide to continue using the English Root Words curriculum included in MFW. Twice a week, she learns a new Latin root word and then 2 or 3 modern words that use that root. We did the Greek root words last year. Learning root words help us to understand the meanings of new words and increase vocabulary. 

Our composer this term was Beethoven. We listened to the story of his life and then many of his compositions. The kids easily identified most of the pieces we listened to as being on The Little Einsteins at one time or another.

I think we made the right choice in changing the style of learning the kids do. We recently reached the end of the term and did oral exams on the Vikings, Marco Polo, Bartholomew Diaz, The Cape of Good Hope and the Barbarian hordes that sacked Rome. Olivia did really well, even recalling details from the beginning of the term. For now, we will continue on with this plan for our homeschool

In addition to these studies, we attended our homeschool co-op group for 7 weeks this spring. Nature Study was animals common to NC, including the Eastern box turtle, Gray Squirrel, White-tailed Deer, opossum, Wood Duck, frog, and Cottontail Rabbit . The poet was Carl Sandburg. We both learned a bit about him and listened to his poetry. Then each week the kids recited a poem they had memorized. Olivia chose some really challenging long poems to memorize. She pretty much was in charge of choosing and learning them all on her own. I was impressed with her independence and follow through. Gabe joined in and learned a poem for just about every week. Ezra memorized a couple and would recite them at home but then became shy each time we were in the group. The character focus was generosity. We sang the songs Battle Hymn of the Republic and When They Ring the Golden Bells. Our artist Jacob Lawerence. He was a storyteller and was known for his portrayal of African-American life. We really enjoyed his work for picture study. We listened to composer Scott Joplin. Olivia enjoyed his ragtime music so much that she requested to learn The Entertainer on the piano. Of course she is learning a simplified version and she may be learning it for a while, but she is really trying and doing quite well. She is realizing how different the rhythm is from the classical pieces she has been playing up to this point and that is a challenge. We ended each co-op time with Swedish Drill and PE.

Here is a look at the kid's journals during nature study:

Spring 2013 Charlotte Mason Co-op

Our Charlotte Mason Homeschool Co-op met once a week for the last 6 weeks. We gathered outside of one of our local library branches in the field. Thankfully, we had good weather all but one week. Our group is made of 7 families with kids ranging from infants up to 10 years old. Our schedule went as follows: Hymn, Nature Study, Composer, Artist/Picture Study, Folk Song, Habit, Poetry Recitation, and Swedish Drill/PE. Each parent was responsible for teaching one area the whole term. For hymn we learned For the Beauty of the Earth, adding motions to our singing as the weeks went on. The kids were exposed to a little information about the man who penned the words and then the music composer, which we have found is often two different people in the case of hymns. Our nature study was on trees. Each week the kids learned about a different part of the tree as well as a specific tree (Loblolly Pine, Southern Magnolia, Red Maple, Red Oak, Sweet Gum, and Shagbark Hickory). For composer, we listened to works by Stravinsky and, again, each week the kids were given a bit of information about him. Our artist this time was Carl Larsson (painter and interior designer). The kids looked at a different picture each week for a period of time. They were asked to try to see the picture in their heads. Then with pictures turned over they would go around and share what they had observed. His works provided many familiar things for the kids to talk about as he primarily used his family as his subjects. For folk song, we learned Michael, Row your Boat Ashore. Our habit was Cooperation. The kids heard or discussed what cooperation meant each week and then they played a game or two that involved cooperation. Such a fun way to teach good habits and get them excited about it. Then they heard a poem recited and learned about things like pronunciation, enunciation, projection, standing still, and nervousness. Then each kid had a chance to stand in front of the group and recite a poem. Olivia did excellently and recited a poem each week from Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child Garden of Verses. Gabe also did well reciting a poem or rhyme each week. Ezra would practice at home with Gabe but always got shy once we got to the group. We finished up with Swedish Drill and PE. This was the part that Jeremy and I taught together. Swedish Drill involves giving the kids several steps of instructions followed by a "go" command (i.e. feet apart, feet together, turn right. Go.) This allows the kids to hear the instructions and practice keeping it in their minds until the "go" command is given, working on many good habits. The kids got pretty good at it and were able to move as a whole group, even many of the little guys. For PE, we did lots of various activities, exercises, games and stretches. We tried to incorporate the concept of cooperation or team work into PE too.

Listening to Mrs. Erin teach about leaves and specifically the Shagbark Hickory. It has compound leaves which sets it apart from the other deciduous trees we learned about this term.

Drawing in her Nature Journal: Olivia writes the proper name of what we are studying and the Latin name. Then she draws. At home after co-op she would write a few sentences in her journal about what she learned that day. Gabe and Ezra both color and we help them do leaf rubbings or whatever else they are willing to try. Occasionally Gabe will try to draw on his own with some direction. 

Picture Study

Habit Games

The littlest ones, like our Emma and our neice Rooney, just hung out with us, rode on our backs, or took naps. Considering how many varying ages we have in the group that we are trying to teach or keep occupied, it went really well. I actually believe that our kids benefit from learning together this way rather than being separated into their age groups. We get to see the older kids helping the younger kids. It is fun to watch them and work with them. In the ideals of Charlotte Mason, we encourage all the kids to participate but we do not force them too, especially the younger ones.

Corn

Our Cottage Co-op is doing fall crops this term for our nature study. Unfortunately, Olivia had a cold and so we could not attend the first meeting. The fall crop was corn. We read a book (Corn is Maize), a poem, and then went in search of a corn field to do some observation. Olivia added an entry to her nature journal and Gabe drew a picture with my help as he told me what colors to use and what he wanted to draw.  

The corn we saw was primarily dried so it was likely that some would be used as animal feed and some for seed for next year's crop.

Ezra even tried a little coloring but wasn't really interested in connecting his picture with the corn.

Olivia is walking through the rows and using her senses to make some observations to add to her nature journal back home. 

We looked at some ears of sweet corn back at home and then cooked them to eat with our lunch.

The second meeting featured apples. Olivia's biggest take-aways were that, when cut, you could see a star inside the apple with its five seeds. The other one was that it takes about 50 leaves to give one apple nutrition to grow. Gabe's take-away was that apples come in many different colors.

In addition to our nature study topic, here are our other subjects:

 Hymn: Take My Life and Let It Be
 Composer: Claude Debussy

 Artist/Picture Study: Pierre-Auguste Renoir

 Folk Song: If I Had A Hammer
Habit: Truthfulness
Poetry: each week one parent will share a poem and then the kids each share/recite a poem of choice

 Swedish Drill and PE 

Cottage Co-op, Birds and Monet

Our Cottage Co-op just finished out another term. Our topics this time: Nature Study-Birds, Artist-Claude Monet, Habit-Initiative, Hymn-My Father's World, Folk Song-America the Beautiful. As usual, we had our time each meeting for poetry recitation. These were great choices for our group of kids. They really enjoyed themselves and have remembered the bits of information we have given them.

Here is Olivia with her nature journal. We take them out and draw at co-op as a part of the nature study but she will often come home and finish her drawings or write some about what she learned.

This was the bird she picked as her favorite.

The squirrels had broken our bird feeder a few months back so we took this opportunity to finally get a replacement. It has been nice to have the birds back close to the window so we can observe them. I am amazed how quickly the kids have been able to identify the birds by look and sounds. We have also kept our eyes open for the various nests we see around our yard.

Below are a male and female cardinal having an interaction of some kind. It was funny to watch and went on for several minutes. The female kept ruffing her feathers and chattering away. The male kept getting food from the feeder and feeding her. He even flew away at one point and then came right back to do it again. Mating ritual of some kind?

woodpecker and ?a sparrow or type of finch (we can't find one just like it in our books)

Mourning Doves above and a Robin hidden on the ground below (nice demonstration and lead for discussion of the bird using camouflage)

This is an old nest from a bush in our yard. It has not been used in a few seasons. When we took it apart and looked it up in our books, we determined that it was likely a Robin's nest. It was made of stick and leaves with a mud cup inside. The picture below is of a nest that was built this year. We have a good view of it from our "school room" window and Olivia got to see some of the process. The birds built it early before all the leaves came in on the tree so it was easy to watch.

At home, I am reading aloud Birds At My Window (published by Rod and Staff) to all the kiddos. I have also been using my Handbook of Nature Study and we have been spending lots of time watching for birds. It is an easy subject as they are numerous right out our windows. We keep some field and bird guides on the table just about all the time for easy reference.

In the middle of our term, Olivia got to go to an art class on Monet. Nana took her and she had a wonderful time. It was at Anja's Art Playhouse. This event came at such a great time to correspond with our studies.

Olivia's Impression: Sunrise

Olivia's Japanese Bridge

Olivia's waterlilies

There are many kid books on Monet out there. Linnea in Monet's Garden (and the movie based on this book) and Claude Monet: Sunshine and Waterlilies were two that I got from the library and pulled most of my information for sharing with the kids from.