One of the issues you have when you homeschool is that most team sports occur through the school and for that reason we have focused on individual sports like swimming, gymnastics and tennis.  Ice hockey was completely off my radar.  Chuckles was inspired to try hockey after she read the book The Mother and Daughter Bookclub.  Cassidy, one of the girls in the book club played hockey and the rest is history.

It has been great for her and she is at it with gusto which has translated into other areas of her work.

I went primarily to hang out with friends and check out the scene…and maybe pick up a few materials here and there…and get a handle on what I wanted to do next year.  I wasn’t expecting to learn as much as I did and find so many fantastic materials.

What most impressed me was a talk by a homeschooling mother, Dr Rebecca Keller.  She discovered that the most effective way to teach science was to teach the basic principles of physics and chemistry well in the Elementary years and to link the teaching with all other curriculum areas.  For example when you teach the atom, also link it to the Latin root of the word, Dalton, the elements, exponents, Hiroshima, the sun and that Swiss halogen collider that is up and running or whatever… and then you link atom to molecule and do the same thing with molecule and then cell.  What happens is that the information stored with each concept becomes very rich and well linked so that later on when a teen is understanding with the workings of fluorescent lamps or x-ray  machines there will be a lot of information at her fingertips to make the new learning easier to grasp and be able to apply the knowledge in understanding or answering test questions.

Montessori elementary curriculum does not include physics and I now have impetus to design a Montessori style physcs album.  Without a basic understanding of physics, it is difficult to come to understand many things we see around us such as geckoes walking up walls and how the eye works. 

I also was impressed by Andrew Pudewa and his presentation of research on music and brain development.  I felt compelled to invest in more classical music and dusted off my Tone Bars when I came home.  Meanwhile Bach and Mozart have been playing non stop in my household to make up for lost time.  Speed will start taking piano lessons again.

I also became quite excited by the Sonlight literature based history program and will invest in the US history core 3 and 4 as the books are fantastic and Chuckles is reading everything in sight right now.  If she loves reading herself through history this way and choosing related activities I will continue through the program going forward.  We also have some great ideas about traveling the US and visiting places we read about.  I am going to get the world history readers and read aloud books too to supplement Speed’s unit studies.  He is learning about Ancient Egypt right now just in time for King Tut’s exhibition arriving in NYC.

So I came home full of beans, ideas and happiness.  It was so nice to have a break and hang out with some favorite people.  I hope to go again next year.

Tomorrow is Destination Imagination Instant Challenge day and I am packing our snack bag.  It’s been so long since I blogged and so much has happened. Rather than recounting what we have done I thought I would just start again.

Instant Challenge day is held at Masuk Highschool, a large highschool in Monroe, CT.  I helped organize the challenges last year and I remember the classroom I was assigned to.  It was an advanced calculus classroom.  Very bland, stuffed with steel desks and chairs with the occasional mass produced poster on the wall.  Math is fun…trust me.  I felt like I was in jail.

I prepared our little Rising Stars team of 5-7 year olds.  I explained to them what they would see in a school designed for teenagers.  Most of these kids have never seen a school.  This little team is going to go from room to room doing little building assignments and skits where they have to solve a problem.

Chuckles and her 3 team mates are in the Middle School category.  Their challenges are more technical.  They will be making launchers, sorting machines and bridges. Chuckles can’t wait.

I need to get a good sleep too.

My curtain lady couldn’t believe it.  Every second sentence was…his energy is amazing.  If only I could bottle it up.  Of course I was thinking the opposite!  He was jumping all over the place.  He couldn’t walk 5 steps in a row without giant leap/swivel turn/donkey kick combinations.  Then she told me that children never calm down as they grow older.  Once they have a temperament they are set.  She wanted me to know that I shouldn’t hope to have a calm child.  I wanted to say that my child is calm (sometimes…when he plays with his Lego and watches TV), but the evidence wasn’t in my favor.

All I can say is that I am glad he is a bright little kid and that he takes a lot in while he is jumping all over the place.  I have set work that we usually finish over the day.  He has plenty of time to leap and bounce and do what his body dictates and I’m fine with it.

More or less.

Anyway I am back now!

We started school August 31st.  I decided to try using the box system with 12 boxes aka Sue Patrick which I heard good things about.  I thought it would be great for Speed who needs some structure to keep on task.  Chuckles immediately wanted the same thing for her as she loves a plan, compartments and to be in control of her time.  I decided I needed it also to make sure the children had a variety of lessons and to keep me on my toes, as far as preparing thoroughly enough.

…sometimes I get sucked into watching a favorite TV show and have to wing it in the morning.

Not any more!  I am organized.

Also this year I decided to observe my children and try to teach them effectively in a style that works for them, not what is written in my Montessori curriculum exactly.  Speed is not satisfied with just doing Montessori science (geography and biology), he wants to do physics and chemistry experiments every day. I have also been using Susan Wise Bauer’s writing and grammar books (Classical) with him with great success and making century books (Charlotte Mason style), but starting at the beginning of the Earth and then doing  the Montessori history and the timeline of life. Basically I am doing whatever works, that results in instilling a love of learning.

Anyway, so far so good.

We have started Lego League.  I will post about this in more detail after our next meeting.  Right now the kids are designing highly maneuverable robots that can run a course without knocking things down.  We have to also research transportation options in our community and produce a presentation suggesting solutions to transportation issues.

Also we just spent a week in Disney world, participating in Carolina Homeschoolers yearly Disney trip.  It was fabulous.  The children attended classes at the parks.  There were very few people and the weather was beautiful. The only problem was that it was too short and we couldn’t fit everything in…but there is always next year!

We spent this beautiful fall day in Massachusetts at Old Sturbridge Village, a town set in the 1830’s.  It was our best experience there to date.  The children spent 30 minutes in the school house rote learning! and then attended home school classes on farming and cooking.  Afterwards they made tin candle holders and candles.  They enjoyed most the “hands on house” (Fitch House) where the exhibit invites the children to dress up and touch and play with everything in the house.  It’s a wonderful place for children.

So now you are all caught up. 

And I will blog tomorrow now that my life has quieted down somewhat.