The Bears' Travelogue: Bearis, France

I'm behind on my blogging. (I know, what else is new.) Before I attack the 19,268 pictures that my husband took on our recent trip to Williamsburg, VA to pull out a handful for posting, I thought I'd better finish up the exotic vacation for the bears.

Their last leg of the trip was a visit to Bearis, France. You know, where the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower are.  Yes, Bearis.

After a short four-hour flight from Cairo, the bears thought they'd get a good night's sleep in the 4-Star hotel on the back of J's door. Sightseeing takes a lot out of you!

The next morning their room service breakfast was a lovely French pastry--a bear claw, of course. (Well, it's actually American, but it was too appropriate not to use!)

Rested and full, the bears went out to see the sites. The taxi driver took them straight to the Eiffel Tower. Sadly, this was the only picture that came out as the photographer kept putting his paw in front of the lens.

The bears are back and chat late into the night about their experiences abroad. Since returning home, they have been available to help J with his homeschooling. Recently they participated in a Civil War battle reenactment. Perhaps they'll oblige us with another performance that could be photographed and used on the blog.

You've never seen a Civil War reenactment until you've seen one put on by small bears!

The Bears' Travelogue: Egypt

The bears are off on another adventure--Egypt this time. Our guest columnist will be USA the bear.

The Bears Explore Egypt
by USA the Bear of Homeschooling "J"

Hi. My name is USA. I am the spokesbear for this part of our trip.

Here's a letter I wrote to my family back home:

Dear Mama and Papa Bear,

Guess where we are now? EGYPT!

Yesterday, we dove in the Nile River. You should have seen Classy swimming away from that crocodile! Today we saw the pyramids. A camel was spitting at Osito, but it missed. For lunch we had Basboosa to eat. Basboosa is semolina cake with honey and lemon and it tasted yummy!

Sand keeps getting in my eyes. Maybe I should wear a ghoutra and 'iqal like my friends.

Our next stop is Bearis, France.

Write you soon,

USA

Osito and Sunny posed in front of the pyramids:

Wallace and Sizzle really wanted to ride the camel. Osito warned them about the camel's bad behavior:

Cheery and Ty 2K taking advantage of good headwear. The fabric is called a ghoutra, and the circlet to hold it on is called an 'iqal.

Our final destination is Bearis, France.  Then we'll be home!

Fourth Grade Curriculum: Language Arts, et al

Going by the title, one would think that this post would be very short. One would be wrong.

I'm grouping all things language related into this post: Literature, Grammar, Spelling, Writing, Penmanship, and Latin! Here we go:

Literature

Since our history time frame this year is from 1850 to the present, this is the year I'm going to cover all nine of Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books. We've already done Farmer Boy. The remaining eight will be covered one each month loosely using the suggested study helps and activities from this book:

(Link)

Grammar

We didn't finish this whole book from last year, so we'll take care of that this year.

(Link)

SPELLING

J is a strong speller. In the future I will use his writing as a guide for checking on his spelling, but right now I'm using random spelling books that I pick up at sales to see where he might be weak. This year's book of choice is this one:

(Link)

WRITING

J loves to write. His writing skills have been surprisingly good considering his age. I attribute that to the huge amounts of reading he's always done. Now it's time to make sure that he has the tools he needs to be a REALLY good writer. At some point in the future (junior high?) I hope to have him ready to spend a year writing a novel. We need to make sure he has everything he needs at the ready when the time comes.

I picked up this Evan-Moor book at a sale because it looked like it laid things out in an attractive, thorough way.

(Link)

Just for fun I'm going to have him do a monthly report using this book (also from Evan-Moor):

(Link)

PENMANSHIP

J's printing and cursive has evolved over the years. I think he wrote more neatly in first grade than he does now! I know that computers are the future. I know that good handwriting is useful but no longer holds the same level of respect it once had. Still, I feel that the discipline and artistry of good handwriting is a good thing. Once a week I will have him carefully copy passages from his favorite books with the understanding that I'm looking for the muscle control and attention to detail.

He may not agree with the need. That's OK. I'm the mama.

LATIN

I am still completely enamored with the Latin course I discovered last year. We completed Book 1 and J has kept up with his vocabulary charts over the summer. We're ready for Book 2 now!

(Link)

My husband and I have a plan for J's foreign language studies. He will continue to study Latin through the 12th grade. We hope that continuing with Latin will give him a huge help in learning on several levels: history, science, English, other Romance languages and general educational value. It would also be cool to be able to read some of the classics. I know he'll pass me up fairly quickly as I don't have the time to study that he does. That's OK. He can translate for me.

Back to the plan. Beginning in fifth grade, we're going to do four years of Spanish. I've take a little Spanish, so I at least have a basic understanding of form and pronunciation. Fluent I am not. Perhaps I'll be that much closer after we complete the studies.

In 9th grade we are going to let him choose another language to learn. Or more than one. We're going to have him do that completely on his own. With Latin background and a good command of Spanish, this should be a fairly easy transition for him if he chooses a Romance language. If he chooses Japanese or Russian or Swahili, he'll at least won't be afraid to try!

This completes the posts regarding our fourth grade plans. We'll start school officially on October 3rd. It's good to have this finished!

The Bears' Travelogue: Mt. Ev-bear-est

Normally I write the posts that appear on this blog. Today I asked J if he'd like to provide the captions for the photos and he jumped at the opportunity. It's short and sweet, but then, so is he.

The Bears Climb Mount Ev-bear-est
by J of Homeschooling "J"

Apparently a bear is going somewhere. (Hence the name on the suitcase.)

Why, they're traveling on an airplane! (Their names are at the end of the post.)

Flight attendant Valentina is telling everyone to buckle up here.

They are at Mt. Ev-bear-est! They need proper gear. (Goggles and...)

(... air tanks.)

Now, let's hope they make it...

Order of Bears in airplane shot

Bears (L to R, T to B): Mr., Ariel (AIR-ee-ull), Frankenteddy (FRAIN-kin-teh-dee), Glory, B. B. Bear, USA, Ty 2K (TIE TOO-kay), Osito (oe-SEE-toe), Clubby II, Classy, Pappa (PAY-puh-pah), Hero, Erin (AIR-inn), Peace, Fuzz, The Beginning, Halo, PeaceBear (The Peace part is the symbol), 1997 Holiday Teddy, Valentina (val-in-TEEN-uh), Valentino, Kicks, Cheery, Curly, Sizzle, Kissy, Mrs., 2004 Signature Bear, Halo II, Spangle, 1999 Signature Bear, Britannia, Wallace, Princess, Milennium, Bearon.

Fourth Grade Curriculum: Bible, Art, and Music

Last year (and throughout the summer) we read through the New Testament. This year we're going to start with the book of Proverbs for the first two months. After that we'll begin reading in Genesis. At some point in the past I was able to download this Old Testament timeline as a freebie ebook. In it the student uses stick figures to help take them through the layout of the Old Testament. It's really cute and provides memory cues.

(Link)

In December we'll take a break from the OT reading and go through the Advent story. We did this last year and J wanted to do it again, he enjoyed it so much. I've also got a couple of activity books for Easter that I may go through.

Art

In the past we've studied artists and done lots of crafts using wonderful books such as MaryAnn F. Kohl's Discovering Great Artists. You can see examples of J's artwork using that book HERE, HERE,and HERE,

This year we're going to concentrate on increasing his drawing skills using some "how to draw" books to give him new techniques.  It's a good thing I've got a lot of paper. 

MUSIC

I play the piano, so I will continue to give J piano lessons. Regardless of a person's natural abilities regarding music, my opinion is that at least one year of piano lessons is a useful thing to anyone. Therefore, J will be taking lessons until. It's good for him! If he wants to write his own music in the future, knowing how to play the piano will make that a lot easier.

His true love, though, is the drums.

My husband plays the trumpet, guitar, violin, and has a fantastic singing voice. I play the piano, flute, and have a mediocre singing voice. What does our son, our only child, our flesh and blood want to play? The drums.

So, for this year we're going to use a video series for lessons. He has a natural aptitude for them (I might try to upload an audio some time if you're game), but I can take him only so far. Soon we'll need to get someone to teach him actually knows what they're doing!

The final post for this series will be about my intention to cover many facets of language.

Fred and J

I'd like to introduce you to a new friend of J's. His name is Fred. Fred Gauss. (Rhymes with "house.") He's 5 1/2 years old and is a professor in Mathematics.

We met Fred a couple of months ago and he assured me that he could help J overcome his distaste for all things math. Fred has lived up to his word!

The books are entertaining, yet they're written so that it's clear that math is important to everyday life. It's important to be pretty well versed in the addition and multiplication facts, but the rest seems to make so much sense to J that he's absorbing the processes along with the stories. (He quotes passages from the stories when the mood hits him.)

The series currently begins with Fractions (lower grade math books are supposed to be for sale soon) and moves through Decimals and Percents, Pre-Algebra, then Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, and finally Calculus, Statistics, and finally Linear Algebra!

According to the website, this means all the way through to college math. We're both very excited about this possibility.

There are a LOT of good reviews and I am adding my own "thumbs up" from our experience so far.

One thing that many families commented about was that there didn't seem to be enough review. I think I may have an answer to that. If you're using Life of Fred and want to know my take on that, please leave a comment and I'll fill you in.

If you're intrigued, please use the following links for more information:

Books for sale with descriptions of every volume.

Reviews from Amazon.

Reviews from Homeschooling families.

Cathy Duffy review.

Fourth Grade Curriculum: Geography, History, Science, and Math

Another year, another custom-made curriculum. This is my fourth for J. I absolutely love it! As I've said before (if you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know this), I would find a boxed curriculum stifling. It works for a lot of people, but it's just not for me. Of course, that means a WHOLE lot more work for me on the front end, but I'm delighted to get to do it. I find it, well, fun!

For those who are interested, I'm going to break this subject down into three separate posts because, believe me, it is a lot of material. It's a good mixture (I think) of the challenging, enjoyable, and stimulating. If knowing my plans for the next school year would cause you to glaze over in boredom, the title will give you advance notification and you can wait for non-curriculum posts which will follow this series.

In this post, I've grouped together the four areas of Geography, History, Science, and Math.

GEOGRAPHY

J has a really great handle on how the world is divided up since we went through it a few years ago. Now I'd like to build on his previous exposure and enjoy doing a continent a month. Beginning in October, the order will be North America, Australia, Antarctica, Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, and Krypton.

Each month we'll head to the library and just absorb everything we can about each continent. There might even be some activities and food tasting. What? Oh, you noticed an 8th continent? Well, we had an extra month and I asked J if he wanted to do something different. He did. He decided that we'd study Krypton and its 14 continents. This should be interesting.

HISTORY

We've been working through history chronologically using Susan Wise Bauer's Story of the World series. I did not use the workbooks or the test books that she also provides. Instead, we read the series and then went to the library to add to our knowledge with a variety of books. After that, J's imagination would run amuck which would solidify the information in his mind. HERE is an example of the results of learning about the Ishtar Gates and HERE shows how he absorbed what he learned about Egypt. This totally works for us!

(Link)

SCIENCE

In following the suggested order of presentation from The Well-Trained Mind, the history and science time periods match up. This year we're studying Physics. I decided, since we're only at elementary level, to use this book about Isaac Newton that includes experiments and

(Link)

THIS really cool book! The lady who does our end-of-the-year evaluation recommended it. We'll do one experiment a week out of this book.

(Link)

MATH

We'll be enjoying learning with a mathematics professor whose name is Fred. I will do a separate post about him in a few days. J and I LOVE Fred.

(Link)

Post 2 of 3 will be about Bible, Art, and Music.

Bears, and Bears, and Bears! Oh My!

Sometime back in May J discovered that a couple of his bears sort of looked alike. This caught his interest. Then, while we were in Cape Cod at a thrift shop, he spotted ANOTHER bear with the same features. This one had a tag on it. It said "Ty." A collection was born.

We told him no more than 20 bears of all types in his entire room. He quickly downsized his NON-Ty bears so that he could add to his original 3. Thanks to yard sales (or maybe not "thanks?"), he met his 20 Ty bear quota. Then he decided to go through the other stuffed animals in his room and really cut their numbers to the bone. He asked if he could trade those in for another 20 Ty bears. In a moment of, I don't know, insanity I guess, I said yes. He is now running at 36 Ty bears.

These bears have featured heavily in many vignettes and activities. We have an "ourson du jour" that accompanies J throughout his daily routine. We have bears traveling around the house in the middle of the night (with Mama's help) determined to become nocturnal and party a lot. They have even come to bear as behavior modification aides.

The other day J was in his room for quite a while. He was dressed, of course (?), as a . . . cowboy and had done some bear-wrangling. In a very orderly way they were lined up waiting for something:

Cowboy J seemed to be providing something to the individuals in the crowd:

A penny! Each bear was carefully balancing a shiny penny on his or her leg. But what for?

Why, it's a sun bath! For one cent admission (notice the one in the "toll booth"), each bear gained entrance into the closet where, apparently, sun bathing was going on.

Here you see Frankenteddy (who, by the way, is the new Favicon for J's blog) about to enter. Beyond, the previous customers were finishing up.

Looks like they're bearly done. Perhaps Frankenteddy should wait a bit.

You just never know what the imagination of a 9yo will produce.

(For longtime followers of Homeschooling J, I have sad news.  The longsuffering sidekick, Teddy, didn't make the cut.  Mama rescued him and is storing him away.  She couldn't bear to see him rejected.)

Back to School 2011

It's official.  As of today, Miss Girl is in the 3rd grade and J is in the 4th.  Do they look older?  (They're the ones without the fur.)

Our Back to School Party theme this year was: Pizza.  First, we had a clue hunt (Miss Girl's clues were written on pepperoni shapes and J's were on anchovy shapes) that led to their new school supplies.  They love clue hunts, especially J.  When we got home, J quickly made one for me.  He had me climbing up and down the stairs like nobody's business! 

For the second event, we had them draw toppings on a paper pizza. One could go the boring route and have them draw "mushrooms," "pepperoni," and "green peppers." I opted for something different. They had to draw toppings such as "vehicles," "wild animals," and "weather." Then they "called in" and gave their pizza orders. When we got home, J wanted to do that again as well. He gave the choices and I had to do the drawing. Two examples of my "toppings" were "J playing the drums," and "reptiles." Never a dull moment at our house.

We wanted the final activity before settling down to a pizza lunch (we're so good at themes) to be a fairly active one. One internet suggestion was to have a race with empty pizza boxes on their heads. It was raining outside and we had only a small amount of room inside, so I had to come up with another way to use those pizza boxes and their energy. The result of my brainstorm was "Pizza-nastics."

I started out with a calm and peaceful command. I could have suggested a nap at this point but knew that would go over like a stale pizza.

Next we moved into a higher skill set. The old balancing on the head trick. Miss Girl showed exquisite poise.

J, too, seemed to cotton to this particular pizza-nastics event. Of course, it does appear that he's being helped by that chandelier. I'll check the rules on that one...

Next the arms. Careful, careful...

Look at the loft on those! Fingertips, no less!

Now for the final event. Centered precariously, will the boxes remain for the next move?

Success! The extension on those arms is marvelous. Congratulations, new students!

And now, it's time to pack those carbs. (J is pointing to his recently lost tooth--I think. Maybe he's just indicating where the pizza should go.)

Summer Program 2011

We don't actually homeschool "year-round." I simply divide the year into regular homeschooling (usually from after Labor Day to Memorial Day) and what I call "Summer Program."

I started doing this last year (between 2nd and 3rd grades) because I found it a useful place to put things we were too busy to get to during the regular school year, and because J just simply does better with some structure. Not a whole lot, though. It's summertime after all! (Click HERE to see last summer's plan.)

After we completed "Brawn Week," (click for explanation), we began doing the following:

Bible

During the school year (3rd grade) we read John through Hebrews. We just kept going through the summer and read through Jude. We went back and did Luke again at J's request. This has been a wonderful experience together.

Math

Math has not been a favored subject, as I've mentioned in the past. Back in the spring, I signed up for Time4Learning in hopes of getting past J's self-determined brick wall. It wasn't that he couldn't do the work. It was just highly distasteful to him. Using the Time4Learning format caught his interest enough to catch him up to grade level very quickly. (See HERE for my full review of the website.)

Since then I discovered something that I suspected would be a fantastic fit for J: Life of Fred. We got the first book that is currently available (Fractions) and there was actual cheering going on when I brought it out each day! (I will do a separate post on this series in the future.) We completed the fractions book and have started the next book about decimals and percents.

History

We're going to Colonial Williamsburg this fall! The second half of 3rd grade we spent a lot of time studying about the colonies. Once summer began, we read through a guidebook that I had kept from when L and I visited many years ago. He and I know our stuff now, by golly!

Latin

I didn't want J to lose his vocab skills from last year, so we kept that up through various games throughout the summer. We finished Lively Latin Book 1 last year and will begin Book 2 when regular school starts up.

Gardening

Though not a "subject" it has definitely been an education! J has helped with all the steps involved and is especially enjoying the results. We all are!

Music and Art

These were incorporated by basically telling J to go play. (I'm such a slave-driver in the education department.) Lots of drums were played, some piano, and quite a few pieces of artwork were produced. (A future post may be about his "studio" upstairs.)

Along with regular chores, visits to the park, library and to be with the cousins, summer has been wonderful and too short at the same time. We've got another "Brawn Week" coming up soon as we transition to the new season. At least one of us is excited about that. Can you guess which one?