What have we been up to?

Work work Work FUN! or Fun fun fun WORK!
We have been busy this semester with great opportunities for learning. Laura is now 7 years old and is still enrolled in Sky Mountain Charter school, currently doing second grade. We meet with her teacher once a month and let him know our progress. She took her state mandated language arts and math assessment pre-tests and demonstrated to be a grade above average. We are very proud of her.
This summer we started reading the Harry Potter series and she took off with it! She is now in the seventh book and has become a complete fanatic of it.

This Year's Curriculum
PE: She started western riding classes (partially funded by the school), has taken a basketball class and participated in the local AYSO league this fall.
MUSIC & Arts: She has continued with her piano lessons and is becoming more proficient at reading musical notation. She loves to compose her own music and enjoys her weekly choir practice. She just performed during the thanksgiving service and has another performance scheduled for December, as well as her first piano recital.
This semester she's had the opportunity to attend a ballet based on her Wizard of Oz reading and a musical of Mary Poppins. What fun way to bring literature to life!
Her art classes were taught by myself while attending a local homeschooling co-op school. I used the Art adventures at home curriculum. I have volunteered there for the last year and have had a great time teaching art and Spanish.
SCIENCE:Besides from regular hikes and readings we have done our science curriculum at home thus far this year. We get messy, experiment and record all our findings. We are using the Real Science curriculum and has proved to work very well for us. Flexible and fun. She has also taken advantage of Burbank's science classes for homeschoolers which use the Stough Canyon Nature center and hikes around it as a classroom.



SOCIAL STUDIES: In social studies we have concentrated in early and classical Greek culture, begun reading the Odessy, have learned about Alexander the great and are now moving into Ancient China. We are following Level I of History Odessy. I like this program a lot because it still uses Story of the world and also utilizes other resources and point of view that I find very valuable.
LANGUAGE ARTS: Besides from allowing her to read voraciously, we do the following:
Spelling: Sequential spelling. I find this to be a nice strong program. We do it 4 times p/week and occasionally do "Spelling workout"
Grammar: "First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind", year 2. After considering changing for a while, I decided to continue with it. I like the poetry memorization and its gentle and fun approach to grammar. Yes, the lessons are repetitive but I find that to be an advantage and makes sense to me. Laura does very well with it too.
Writing: "Writing with ease". We incorporate our writing work with our social studies and science.
She also attends our Homeschool group's reading club monthly and participates in the book readings, discussions and activities.
Literature: Besides from her "personal" reading selection (basically whichever Harry Potter she's working on) we try to cover one classic p/ month (excluding "The Odessy" of course). We sometimes download classics from Librivox.org and listen to them as we craft or do a more tranquil activity. This is personally, one of my favorite times.

Math: Still love "Right Start Math"! she's doing level C. We love the games, approach and everything about this program.

We supplement her "standards" education with occasional workbook sheets, computer based instruction,games and her girl scout activities.

Over all this has been a very busy and engaging semester. I am currently looking for employment and desperately trying to hold on to our homeschooling ideas.
And since a picture (or two or more) are worth a thousand words, feel free to look at our "Homeschooling in Action" albums on the side bar to see what we've been up to this semester.
Thanks for visiting today!

Year recap- just the tip of the iceberg, really

Hello friends and family,
I have been really silent and busy lately, so I just wanted to give you a quick recap of our going ons.

This summer we are planning on taking a road trip to see daddy in Seattle while he is there. We will be driving up thru Whisky Town National Recreation area and Lake Shasta (and see the caverns)in California. Then we will go up to Crater Lake in Oregon and end visiting Mt. St. Helens in Washington. On the way back down we will be also make a cannot-miss-for-anything-in-the-world stop in San Francisco and visit the King Tut show. DD studied Egypt's old, middle and new kingdoms along with other ancient cultures this year so we are really looking forward to it. We are following Susan Wise Bauer's "Story of the World" curriculum for social studies.

We will try and see daddy at least twice some time again before November, when he comes back from his tour. He has been performing Technical Director duties for Disney's promotional tour of their Christmas Carol beginning with the planning stages, back about 8 months or so. Believe me, this is not an easy job!

Here is what DD has been up to lately (well in May).
She performed really well in her end of year test, administered by her school teacher.I present her school teacher (who is a super nice guy) with an academic report every month along with work samples so he knows what we are up to. I like to also point out our state standards met p/subject, since it is a public school. I will try to figure out how to post this document in this blog so you get an idea of what we do.
DD is now seven and will officially start second grade in late August, but we are continuing to work all the same at our own pace during the summer so it's not so horribly hard when we "come back" in the fall. I am trying to keep summer and fall classes to a minimum so we can have the flexibility to travel around to see daddy and go camping! She might just do swimming.

We just finished reading "Harry Potter and the Sorcere's Stone" which she absolutely loved. She loves to listen to "Storynory" podcasts while in the car, which feature a great selection of unique stories. She also enjoys listening to classical, jazz and blue grass music. She currently reads "Magic tree house" books by the handfull and enjoys playing all sorts of games.
Her two favorite books that we read aloud this year were Edward Tulane and "The Adventures of Pinochio".

She just decided to sell a number of her outgrown toys on ebay and purchased her own Nintendo DS, which she is very proud to say, completely belongs to her.
She enjoys playing with and collecting My littlest Pet Shop toys and just finished putting together her first Bionicle, which she loved doing. Her screen time (computer/TV/DS)is still highly controlled by her fanatic mother (who is way too strict about it in her opinion) and does not exceed 3 hours p/ week on average.

DD started taking formal piano lessons last September. She joined The National Fraternity of Student Musicians in January and has been studying under one of their teachers locally since then. Her basic level piano audition will take place at the end of July. She will be judged by a guild teacher on her performance of basic piano skills including sight reading, basic scales and 4 memorized pieces. She will have her recital in late September.


She is ending her second year of Girl Scouts as a Brownie and absolutely loves it. I am her troop leader and I absolutely love it too. She is the only homeschool girl in our troop of 12. All of the girls are wonderfull. She did her first nuts and cookie sales, first encampment, rededication and awards ceremony this year. She also started sewing her own badges on her vest. We had a great year!


She dressed as a headless bride for Hallowwen and looked specially creepy, along with her groom, Timmy. I made their costumes.



This year DD also played the piano at her co-op's talent show, perfomed with her choir and drama class on stage and experienced drumming and percussion clases.



We have enjoyed this, our first full year of homeschooling a great deal. We have been sailing on a ship looking for whales, saw a fish disection and learned about the ocean. We visited san Juan Capistrano Mission and talked about its history. We have been learning track and field sports, gymnastics, learning to play tennis, hiking tall mountains and playing soccer with the AYSO. We learned about transportation at Knott's Berry farm, built a solar powered playcar at Legoland and slep with the manatees at SeaWorld San Diego as part of our school's field trips.
I can tell you that as a very busy mom and almost non-working artist it was amazing to wake up at 5 am to see my daughter's silluette sketching the manatees silently while everyone else slept. She was entranced.
I do count waiting in line at Disneyland as waiting in the cafeteria line ; ) There's no fear there, she's got that one down!



We have been to a number of concerts and school presentations including sounds of Korea, Earthquake county and the Sioux people at CalTech. We have also gotten a chance to visit the Aquarium of the Pacific, the Norton Simon, The Getty Villa and the Natural History museums.





Also, after reading "The Chritsmas Carol" we went to the Dickens fair, which was fantastic fun! We danced, played parlor games, saw characters from Dicken's novels, enjoyed the sounds, sights, smells and people around us and had a ball.
DD has also taken regular hands-on science classes, explored a sheep's heart, learned about the microscope and found many new treasures in it.
Overall, we have been extremely busy!





There have been hard days and great days (I especially enjoy our short winter season homeschooling days), for which we are very gratefull, as they have helped us grow a great deal. I am now more comfortable choosing our curriculum and have a better idea of what works for us; as well as what doesn't. It has been a learning experience alright. So what is the most important thing I learned this year? Don't over schedulle! we can't do it all!

As far as I am concerned, well... you have just read what I have been up to. Just view it from a "planner's" point of view. That's me. I am currently trying to make a dog cart out of a discarted baby jogger (they collapse nicely, are strong and light) for our dog to use in our road trip. We'll be camping most of the way and hey... someone's got to carry the fire wood. Might as well have the big girl earn her kibble right?



As many others, we are struggling thru difficult financial times, but we are well, healthy and trying to take it one day at a time. Hopefully we can continue growing the same way next year as well.

First grade has been great fun! I highly recommend homeschooling in southern California if you can do it!