Hubby had the week off! 

So we took school off too... isn't it grand when you can do such a thing? 

First job...fix up the trailer... cut up some old carpet to give us a warm floor, fixed up the hole that a bear thought we needed this summer, and water proofed the tenting.   The lad and our student did the carpet, with me providing moral and occasional instructional assistance while helping hubby with the rest.

Then we headed out camping.   We camped Tuesday and Wednesday nights at Valens Conservation area.   A good half way point between home and Toronto.   I enjoyed a couple of walks, one solo and one with the lad.

We had a great time at the Royal, we saw lots, laughed, cheered and groaned, and were occasionally amazed.  It was good to see life through the eyes of a visiting lad and to see the joy in another lad.  

And Friday we had hope days.  Children making, creating, doing art.   FUN.  Pokemon Going with Dad in the park, and having a good supper together.

Tomorrow our student is busy all day with the youth group and then going out to a movie with friends.   We are doing karate with our son and then probably heading out as well.

While I've been away I've had some posts up on the blog

Word Prompt Posts
FMF: Common.
Outside
Colour.

General Posts:
Art Series: Art Play.
Field Trip: Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory.
Recipe: Apple Pandowdy
Hymn Study: There is a Fountain Filled With Blood.

Reviews:
Marie Curie for Kids.
One of the Few.

Devotional
So Turn and Live.  Devotion on Ezekiel 18
Two Eagles, a Willow, The Lord Speaks.   Devotion on Ezekiel 17
Remember.   Devotion on Ezekiel 16 (last few verses)
The Amazing Love of God.   Sunday Sermon on Romans 5:6-11

Linking up to the folks below

Don't you just hate it when you are looking for a pen or pencil and you just can't fine one?  Or if you have a child constantly saying, "MOM, do you have jar I can use to  do _______?  Do we have any wood in the house mom??"  or "HUN!  I need tape! Where is it?!?!"  All these questions....repeated constantly....with the needful demand behind them, and sometimes I felt like I couldn't keep up. 

UGH!!!!   It drives me crazy, so over the years I decided to create a full proof system.. and it's WORKING!!!  Even hubby can find pens and tape when he needs them.  :)

So what is my system?   It's a bin organized system.  Lots of bins.  :)  Mostly see-through which is a very good thing, as it means anyone can see what's inside without having to open bins you don't really want to waste time opening.  :)

Pencils and erasers in one drawer.
Scissors in another.  
On top.. our cardstock... useful in the making of minecraft figures, and other papercraft items.   Useful to for making unit study/modified colour lap books.

Pencil crayons and pens.. all in one spot.  Markers and compass kits.   Sorted and easy to locate. 

And our Lego.. not the neatest right now and my giveaway pile of books is sitting in the way, but when it is organized we have room for lego creations to sit on top, and pieces are sorted by type and size.  Makes it SO easy to build lego which makes me happy.

I used to scrapbook.  I don't do it anymore, but I still have my scrapbooking drawers.  :)   Some of them still hold the remnants of my scrapbooking, which unsurprisingly, are useful with creative children.

I've added two rolls of tape drawers, and a paper cutting drawer.  oh.. and I think I have stencils drawer in there somewhere too.

The sticker and paper drawers remain (though their supplies are getting reduced).  I do not consider that a bad thing.

Between the table and the window I have my large storage bins.  When you have a child who can and will make items out of anything, having "stuff" to make it from comes in handy.   :)   It goes up and down in the amount of materials available as I regularly purge it (or bring it along to craft based co-op days), it works...and keeps it all contained.  A good thing that eh?

The thing I like about plastic drawers is they are portable, it's easy enough to move them from room to room, it's easy to shift drawers around as you don't then have to shift everything from one drawer to another.. you just move it!  :)

So tell me.. how do you store things such as legos, pens, pencils and what not.   What have you done to ease the craziness?

More in this series:
Part One, Organized Chaos - Science Materials.

The new school is almost upon us!    I know, I know.. only a week to prepare, man, I feel like I am running out of time to get things ready and moving forward.

As I think about getting ready for school, some of what I think on requires doing some cleaning and rearranging, and then I need to think about how we do school in our house.   Perhaps you do the same thing as you prepare?

So just what spaces do we use in our house.  We live in a lovely two story house with a basement.  We do not use our basement for schooling unless we are doing PE with a video or something.

We use our kitchen (naturally) to do cooking.   I hope to punch that up a wee bit this year and get my lad making more meals on his own.   I want to teach him how to make a white sauce, cheese sauce and bread.  (and how to play around with those recipes a bit).   After all, it's good for him to learn these things.

My lad does his veritas press and math sitting in my chair first thing in the morning.

A good portion of our schooling is done upstairs at the desk.   History, math, reviews and what not generally happen up here in the book room.  Behind where my son sits in a table that we use a lot as well.

In the morning when we have breakfast we read a book, we also do art at the dining room table.   Currently we are reading through the Narnia books.

31stOther spaces that we school, are various museums in the area, the trails in the bush, the provincial parks in the area and more.   :)   School can happen most anywhere.

The Canadian Homeschooler is hosting a round up this month on the theme homeschooling spaces, do visit on August 31st.   GO HERE.

I cannot tell you how much the lad and I have been enjoying this book called "Cleared for Takeoff, the Ultimate book of Flight".

We've giggled, gasped, been awed, been shocked and a whole host of other emotions.   Oh but it's a delightful, thorough treatise on flight.  Call signs, hand signals, obscure airlines, interesting birds, the history, the joys, the sorrows and so much more are contained within the 320 pages of this book.

This video below bespeaks some of the things we learned in this book, but definitely not all that we learned.  

Neither one of us has read this "Cleared for TakeOff" all the way through, we've picked our way through some of the pages that have peaked out interest.

Being amazed at the size of the Hindebergh Zeppelin.

His Joy in finding the Canadian aircraft symbol.

The text is well written with scores of full colour pictures, most look like painting, a few from real life.   It was just a pleasure to go through.

Occasionally experiments are provided to assist in the understanding of a concept, from making pop rockets to hovercrafts, enough experiments to intrigue most children.  As a parent/teacher one of the things I appreciated about the experiments was the teaching component came first with the experiment coming second.   All the experiments I found were distinguishable in being all in black and white.  All use easy to find materials.

As I mentioned earlier, this book was filled with full colour pictures to delight and inform.  I was delighted that it held global appeal, interesting tidbits from around the world are found within it's pages.

Did you know that a Canadian Pilot once landed a 767 airplane successfully that had run out of fuel and therefore all it's systems were shutting down.   None of travellers lost their lives, a only a few injured when they disembarked the aircraft?   Simply amazing.    We also learned why different countries use modified Phonetic Alphabets (for instance Saudi Arabia uses Washington rather than whiskey because of the alcohol connection).

I have been ever so pleased to have had a chance to review this book.  It's a marvellous resource for anyone interested in the world of flight.   The only thing I found lacking was an index at the close of the book, to quickly find facts.

If it is something you are planning to do a unit study on, or a create a lapbook from, snatch it up.   You really won't regret it. :)

Welcome with me today won't you?  Kym from Homeschool Coffee Break.  Did you know that Kym is a fellow Canadian who just happens to be living stateside.  :)   She's a dear heart and is an encouragement to me.  She has walked the path before for a good long time and is worth listening to.    Welcome KYM!  :)

Did you know that the five day blog hop for The Schoolhouse crew is happening this week?   Amazing eh, and I'm not even home to help celebrate it.  :)   And visit blogs and all that lovely stuff.  I am really really hoping that a friend of mine will link up my posts for me while I am away, but time will tell eh?

Anyways, the set up is this:

• Monday - Curriculum
• Tuesday -  Planning
• Wednesday - Home Management
• Thursday - Traditions
• Friday - Encouragement

and since today is Monday today we'll talk about curriculum.

I have to admit, with the mirade of curriculum options that are out there, it can be mind-boggling and worrisome to pick the right curriculum for your family.    Will you do a free one?  An expensive one?  Patch things together?   Buy a program that is relatively complete and just work your way through it?    Is price indicative of quality?   Is free, in the end of it all worth it?   Should one do Charlotte Mason, classical, unschooling or ????   So many options, it's hard to pin it down.  

What is a home educating family supposed to do as they try to do right by their children?

Some steps that might help you.

1. Know your children.  Study them.  How do they best learn?   If your child LOVES working on the computer, look into computer based programs.  If they devour books consider a program that has lots of reading in it.   Like to do worksheets?  Some children THRIVE on them.  Hands on?  Lapbooks, experiments, building, creating... just work with it.

2. Budget.   Break down what you can afford to spend.   If one program meets all your requirements but is a bit costly can you do something cheaper in another area?   Can you wait for a sale?   Can you, if you are a blogger, contact the company and see if you can get the product in exchange for a fair and honest review?  Can you share the resource with another family and split the cost?

3. Research research research.   Discover the pros and cons.  Read reviews.  Ask questions of the vendors.    Look at samples.   Do the free viewing if you can.  Take the placement tests.  Consider if it fits with the paradigm of how YOU do school.   For instance if it says you must do a program five days a week but you only school four, can you make it fit without a lot of struggle?

4. Weigh out the pros and cons.   Sometimes it is helpful when considering two curricula to list out the pros and cons side by side. To really see how they compare.  

5. Know your schooling philosophy.  Some families will make out a mission statement for schooling, others will have their philosophy internalized, but if you know your philosophy it will help you determine if it fits.   For instance, if you want to do purely secular approach, you won't want to pick a curricula filled with faith tie-ins, if you want a creationist approach you won't pick a curricula that is heavily pro-evolution.   If mastery approach appeals to you for doing math, looking at a spiral approach would be a no-go.     If you know, at the very minimum, in your head what mindsest fits with your family, it helps in making curricula decisions.

6. Mistakes happen.   Be aware.  You'll do your research, sampling, question asking and get your curriculum home and go .... oh shoot... I didn't realize it involved this or that your children hate it or it's method of doing things doesn't work for you.   What do you do?  Toss it?   If bad enough, seriously, just sell it and move on.   Rework it?  Most curricula, especially the non-computer based ones, can be reworked or have something added to it to make it bearable.   Ignore sections.. sometimes that is all you need to do.   Figure out what part of the program REALLY isn't working and leave it out.   And there are times when you just have to bear down and work through it, it's just the way it is.   Life has moments like that.  :)

Anyways, 6 things that might help you as you approach the new year.  :)

IF you would like to read others thoughts on this broad topic of curricula, click on the image below.  :)   Have a great day!

Are you an eclectic homeschooler who touches on a variety of subjects and often does homeschool your own way?   Well have I got a product for you from NotebookingPages.com, called the Lifetime Membership.  Journalling, note-taking, picture drawing... so many options to supplement your learning.

So what is notebooking you ask?
According to the Homeschool Mom: Notebooking is related to lapbooking, but notebooking is a bit simpler, with the information inserted into simple 3-ring binders ..... Notebooks are put together using maps, lab reports, scrapbook pages, worksheet pages, drawings, essays, timelines, and any other relevant work that your child creates.  (source)

There is SO much information on this site.  It's totally surprising.   So once you have your membership, you will have this for a dashboard:

As you can see, there are numerous categories you can choose from.   Within each category you will find a number of sub-categories.

Each of these categories opens into additional files.    One of the things that is rather cool is you can choose how you download the files to your computer.   In the mammals folder below you will see a "mammals zip file".   This holds the entire contents of this file.   But let's say you just want to look more in-depth at say...just the African buffalo, then you scroll down the page until you come to that file and it will open into a PDF so you can print it off.

As I scrolled through this list, reading off random ones to my son I came across Mouse.  My lad's ears perked up and he said "Can I write about them mom?"

If you look closely you will see this file comes with regular lined notebook pages as well as print line style.

You can choose to print off individual pages, or the entire unit.   I choose to print off the entire unit and let my lad look it over and choose what he wanted to do.  He can do this better with the pages in hand.  I honestly expected him to pick the print-lined sheets with a spot to draw a picture, but he surprised me.

You know, it's good to be surprised by a boy child.   It really is.  :)  

AND THAT my friends is why I can recommend NotebookingPages.com to you, the lifetime membership is worth it. 

With so many different options (over 600 pages) available to intrigue your child(ren), you might end up being surprised as well. We also worked on music, snakes, biographies and more, so much information it was hard to pick.  It will fill a gap, allow for creative expression, fill a need in a child to tell why he likes something, or just peek a child's interest to look into something more deeply.  

And that's a good thing, is it not?

You can learn more about NotebookingPages.com  and the Notebooking Pages Lifetime Membership by clicking on the image below.

In case you wonder if we covered other areas, check out these pages the lad did as well.  :)  Music, snakes, biographies and more.  Good stuff from a boy child who really isn't into copywork,but sometimes CHOOSES to be, and NotebookingPages.com has encouraged that in my lad and I am happy.

I sit here tonight with two round ups on my brain.   One for evaluating/looking back over the school year and considering the good, the bad, the sad... and the other about gearing our schooling according to the child(ren) we teach.  As I sit here I think, I could combine those two topics... at least I think so.  :)

Greatest Pleasure of the Year:
Take for instance a win-win in our schooling.  Over the past year we started studying Europe.  This started out as a review for drawing our way our Europe.. it involved repetitive drawing and simply wasn't working for my boy.  He for the life of him, couldn't see the point in day after day drawing the outline of a country and finding where it went on a map and ergo, being the lad he is, fought me on it.   I needed to change it up.  I liked the overall concept... drawing a country, learning some basic facts, and then finding that country on a map.  Really LEARN where that country is.   So I switched it up in a way that would appeal to my lad.    We watched videos, learned geography and made a meal to which we would invite people we cared about.   And my boy learned.
Not only did he learn.. we had fun AND he still learned country facts AND drew the country and found it on the map.  Finland.  Georgia. and more.

Unexpected Delight of the year:
Finding two math programs that work with how my boy learns!!!   Yes, can you believe it?   MATH has been another highlight of the year!!!!
1. A+ Interactive Math gave him some confidence in geometry and division.
2. LearnBop... he gets a tad upset with this program at times, but by the end of his session he's pleased as punch and learning has happened.

Why do they work?   My lad is able to use technology.. aka.. the computer to do his math learning, without colourful figures or poorly executed drawings impeding his learning methods.

Struggles of the year:
Can't say I've done well with language arts this year.    In fact... I would have to say I more or less gave up.    It's hard to find something that will work with my boy in a way that works with how he does things.   I'll be restarting Logic of English next year and doing it as a formal program.. in fact I may pull it out to work with our French Student in July and just have the lad join us in the lesson.  I am suspecting I will simply have to talk with him and say "this has to be done laddie boy, so just buckle down and do it"... despite his protestations to the contrary.

My son's favourite over the past year?
Veritas Press ... have to admit, he didn't even have to think about this at all!  :) 

Least favourite? 
Copywork.  This took more thinking on his part to come up with.   He liked practicing cursive, but he didn't like having to put it to work.  

Lately I've been reading facebook posts about "wanting to homeschool but...." or "help!!!  What about socialization?" and  "my kid just doesn't want to learn....".   All sorts of issues and problems that people are having with the whole homeschooling deal.

Sometimes posts like that can get me seeing only the problems with schooling at home, instead of seeing the blessings that are all around me.    This post is about the blessings of schooling at home.

1. Spending time with my son.   He makes me laugh and sigh and sometimes cry, but mostly he just makes my heart glad that I know this boy.   In all his goofiness he's all mine!  :)   Smart, video oriented, kind, just a good lad. 

2. Freedom.    I don't have to work around the schedule of a school.  Getting my lad up in the morning, having the pressure to be working (have to fill my days somehow!), being home when he gets back from school, making lunches, helping with field trips, teacher interviews, vacations (can take them when we want), and more.   We have freedom to sleep in, rise early, see friends during the day, and so much more.   We just have freedom.

3. Fostering Independence.    As much as I am thrilled that my lad is gaining independence in his learning, it also at times makes me sad...and that's a good thing.   He's moving away from being a child needing direct supervision, to being a lad more responsible for his own learning.  This is a good thing and I am so pleased to see that progress, though it makes me sad a bit to not be needed as much.  :)   I suppose the need now is in a different manner.    Someone to share what he is learning...this is a good thing.   I love the sharing.   This video recently fascinated.

4. From my son "I don't have to deal with stupid people".    From watching TV and dealing with some neighbourhood issues, my son is glad that he doesn't have to deal with bullies and people being deliberately unkind.   He appreciates that he can take alone time if he needs it throughout the day at his choosing.

5. Curriculum choices.   As hard as these are to make at times, it's great to be able to make choices and use some really great materials.   I don't have to deal with someone else's choices of what works for them (whether it works for my lad or not).   I can struggle with it, delight in it, see the understanding gleam in my lad's eyes and more.   It's just GOOD.   My choices for next year can be found here.  

Plus One.   Connections.

I have made friends while schooling my son.   Friends on the crew (the review board that I am part of), friends on-line (through homeschooling forums) and friends in real life (through our homeschooling group).   It is SO GOOD to have friends.  

Friends to talk to, seek advice from, pray with, cry with, lean on for support.  Friends are so key.   It keeps one focused and grounded, broadens your experience, and gives you community to belong to.  Friends to share meals with from foreign countries.  To make crafts with it and go on nature walks.   Such a wonder and joy to us.

This is indeed my biggest homeschool blessing.

The Crew is doing a round-up of our Biggest Homeschool Blessing.  Click the image to go the link (which goes live on this Friday)

I've developed a reputation for doing hands-on interesting classes with my co-op, having this reputation isn't always a good thing.... means I need to think about what I want to do!

This time around I wanted to do hands-on STEM type stuff but didn't really have a clue about what I really wanted to do with it.    Week two has me doing earthquakes.

What types of Earthquakes are there?    Four Kinds

• A tectonic earthquake is one that occurs when the earth's crust breaks due to geological forces on rocks and adjoining plates that cause physical and chemical changes.
• A volcanic earthquake is any earthquake that results from tectonic forces which occur in conjunction with volcanic activity.
• A collapse earthquake are small earthquakes in underground caverns and mines that are caused by seismic waves produced from the explosion of rock on the surface.
• An explosion earthquake is an earthquake that is the result of the detonation of a nuclear and/or chemical device.
  

If you want to know more about how earthquakes form check out this page.

What kind of faults are there?

•  Normal faults form when the hanging wall drops down. The forces that create normal faults are pulling the sides apart, or extensional.  (Divergent)
• Reverse faults form when the hanging wall moves up. The forces creating reverse faults are compressional, pushing the sides together. (Convergent)
•  Transcurrent or Strike-slip faults have walls that move sideways, not up or down.  (Transform)
  

Check out this site to see an easy way to demonstrate.   This site talks a bit more about the different types of faults.

How are earthquakes measured?
The Richter scale is used to rate the magnitude of an earthquake -- the amount of energy it released. This is calculated using information gathered by a seismograph.

The extent of damage is rated on the Mercalli scale. Mercalli ratings, which are given as Roman numerals, are based on largely subjective interpretations. A low intensity earthquake, one in which only some people feel the vibration and there is no significant property damage, is rated as a II. The highest rating, a XII, is applied to earthquakes in which structures are destroyed, the ground is cracked and other natural disasters, such as landslides or tsunamis, are initiated.  (source)

Some Activities we are going to do.

See how FOLD mountains are made because of the earth moving.
Earthquake waves.
This on-line seismic simulation.
Watch a seismic shadow simulation.
Build towers to see how well they survive our shake Table.

If I was doing this for a longer period of time I'd make this seismograph.
I thought this activity looked cool but couldn't figure out how to make it.