November Homeschooling

Most of our homeschool routine is just that - routine! Not all that exciting to write about really. We typically start with Bible followed by Language Arts, do some math, and then fill in history, science, and specials where they seem to fit in the day. 

For reading last month, we broke away from the same ol', same ol' a bit and did a unit on tall tales, which all got started rather unexpectedly. Among the books we'd picked up from the library one week, we had book about one of these legendary characters, and Caleb's interest was sparked. I reserved a bunch of other stories online through the library's website, and they had them waiting and ready to go for us later in the week so we could begin our unit. While my first grader was just enjoying the stories, he also learned so much as we went about the elements of tall tales and oral story telling traditions. We often compared and contrasted the different books, talking about the similarities and differences we found and why they might have varied. He was introduced to new vocabulary like hyperbole and personification as well, which we saw examples of over and over. I love when things like this just fall in our lap and that we have the freedom to spend as much time as we want exploring them. 

Another Language Arts activity we go ourselves into was the annual holiday writing contest. While Caleb is an incredible reader for his age, we haven't worked on writing as much as we should have probably. Last year we continued to focus mainly on handwriting, which was a struggle for him, so I didn't push him much to do other forms of writing. He did write a little holiday story for last year's contest and won though - a definite motivator to try again. While he didn't place this time, the activity wasn't in vain as it provide a really good opportunity for me to introduce him to the writing process - brainstorming, creating a rough draft, proofreading, and making a final draft.

Planning

Rough draft

Final copy

Hopefully, I'll have some more little writers soon. I didn't know much about fine motor development when Caleb was little and didn't do much with him to cultivate those skills. Knowing how tough learning to write was for him, I've tried to find more activities to do with the kids along those lines now. Pinterest is full of easy ideas like the one below to develop those little muscles. Who'd have believed a lump of dough, three sticks of dried spaghetti, and Cheerios could entertain these three as long as it did? 

In math we've continue to follow Saxon's program, but one lesson in particular really stuck out last month. It involved purchasing three apples of different colors and cutting them into fractional pieces as a review. They took it a step farther by asking the students to taste test and ask others to taste test as well in order to collect data and create a graph. Caleb didn't have a classroom of children from which to gather his stats, so we started by just having the four of us taste the apples and then we did a Facebook poll to gather the rest. We had tons of people eager to help him with his project. 

One of the things I really like about homeschooling though is that so often learning becomes self motivated. You can have all the programs in the world, but the best days are when your little students take control of their own learning. More and more I'm seeing Caleb use his free time to do some type of activity like this 50 states puzzle, reading books of interest, creating art projects, etc. I hope all my kids will be life long learners, curious about the world around them.

Our little co-op was a bit of a mess in November between the holidays and folks getting sick, but we did get together a few times. 

Reviewing the days of the week

Experimenting with making gases

Our Bible lesson on creation

P.E.! The Cookie Monster game!

Yay for sunshine and warm weather in November!

The second and third weeks we ended up canceling due to sickness. We were supposed to skip the fourth week too so everyone could prep for Thanksgiving but decided just to meet early in the week on a Monday instead since we'd missed so much already. We kept it low key and fun though - a Thanksgiving story, the Mayflower Charlie Brown episode, and a few crafts. 

Hadley, Payton, Lillian, and Piper

Days of the week (snap, snap), Days of the week (snap, snap)
Days of the week, Days of the week, Days of the week (snap, snap)
There's Sunday and there's Monday,
There's Tuesday and there's Wednesday,
There's Thursday and there's Friday,
And then there's Saturday
Days of the week (snap, snap), Days of the week (snap, snap)
Days of the week, Days of the week, Days of the week (snap, snap)

The final week things were back to normal.

Amanda made miniature felt Bibles for each of the kids to learn about the contents of the Old and New Testaments. 

What better time to learn about evergreens?

Jennifer showed the kids what happens to pinecones when the weather gets warmer by doing an experiment. When we put the pinecomes on a cookie sheet and placed them in the oven, guess what happened? They opened to release their seeds.

The kids also made pinecone bird feeders.

E is for elephant. The three year olds work on a new letter each week. 

The older guys did a little sight word dominoes to learn some new words and review the others.

HEARTH only met three times in November as well. Our first meeting of the month was putting together shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child. We've done this through our church or Awanas before, and it is a great way for kids to learn about others in the world who don't have the luxuries we have here. My guys were so thrilled to do the shopping for this and fill their boxes. They wanted to pack in as much as they could. God is so good to us to let us experience the joy of serving others.

The following week we celebrated HEARTH's anniversary with a birthday party.

My favorite gathering was definitely the Pilgrim lunch though! We'd all had colds and I was worried we were going to miss out on this event like we did last year, but thankfully we were able to make it and the food was incredible. No wonder there was a great turn out! From now on, I vote we potluck every week at HEARTH!

After our bellies were full, Ms. Kathy read a couple books - including The Great Turkey Escape!

Finally, we watched a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving as the kids colored placemats.

At Awana, the kids got to participate in a special drive-in movie towards the beginning of the month. Since we were already crazy busy and worn out at that point in the year, Dave and I were a little overwhelmed when they told us each of the kids had to bring in a cardboard box car they made for the event, but we got it done. They turned out pretty cute and the kids really enjoyed decorating their cars.

We missed a week of Awana due to Thanksgiving too, but everyone still met at the church for a huge potluck, which meant the kids and I got our second turkey dinner before the real shubang at Granny's house.

As far as specials go, Caleb practiced a little with an art set his teacher gave him for learning how to paint straight lines...

...and he got in a couple more lessons. I couldn't believe she got this out of a six-year-old...I'm impressed. 

Often Caleb just came up with his own projects though like this "pocket" he made for Reid to carry his dinosaurs. 

We continued to spend time at the library weekly too, usually following HEARTH. Caleb has been breezing through those animal books like they are easy peasy. I typically let each of the kids choose only two or three books to keep us from getting overcrowded at home and losing some, and often Caleb's already finished his before we get to the house. One week in particular I let him check out extras and he read all nine books that evening, so excited to see the growing stack of ones he'd finished. The funny part was I had taken away several privileges from him that evening like toys, TV, computer, etc. and with those books in hand he wasn't phased a bit by my restrictions. What's a Mommy/Teacher to do? "No more books for you, young man..." Nah! 

(Sidenote: One week I actually didn't let him check out any books while we were at the library because he wasn't following direction like he should have been while we were there. It was such a tough thing to that little guy to handle...he just cried and cried. After the fact, thinking about it, I couldn't believe that ME - a mother, an English major, a teacher, and a Reading Specialist - disciplined one of my children by not allowing them to get a book at the library. Who'd have thought? Do what ya gotta do!)

Caleb's stack of evening reading

As for Caleb, we didn't do great in November with keeping up a P.E. schedule now that t-ball was over. Hadley still got in her share of physical activity at ballet though. The class that she is in now is much more focused on skills that just exercises and play, and I can tell she's learning a lot even if she's on the small side compared to the others. What a good listener my girl is! :)

For field trips, we didn't so anything huge in that month, but there is a local Catholic drama group that puts on great plays each fall so we got to catch their show. Last year it was Suessical, and this time around we watched Robin Hood. Reid is still a bit young to sit through the play and I was feeling under the weather on opening night, so Dave took the older kids one Friday evening by himself. They ranted and raved about it so much that I wanted to catch it the following week and, to my surprise, I didn't have to go solo. Caleb and Hadley jumped at the chance to see it again and were a bit heartbroken that it would be the last time they'd get to watch it. Caleb could hardly hold back from telling me when the exciting parts were coming.

Caleb saw they were giving away free hats and ran to get one for him and his sister. When he got there, there was only one left and when he came back to sit down, he humbly gave it to Hadley. My heart melted. 

Yep, November was a pretty good month.