Bookshelves and Books

I have been trying to get organized around here as we gear up for our new school year.  Normally, one year flows into another, as we do not follow our district’s school calendar but rather school year-round with light Fridays, breaks when we need them, and a lighter load with just a few weeks off in the summer.

But last Christmas I decided that with a new baby coming in May, we’d go ahead and take off the whole summer, so we plowed through spring doing “regular school” every day and even on Fridays.  “Regular school” should probably be clarified in a post by itself, but suffice it to say that “school” and “real life” have much overlap around here, and we like it that way.

Some people have wondered out loud over the years how I manage to keep so many kids’ attention all day long as they sit chained to at their desks from 9-3 while I teach their lessons.  [insert howling, knee-slapping laughter]  But I digress.  That is not how we “do school,” and this post wasn’t going to be about that anyway, was it?

I’m here to show you my new bookshelves!!

A few months ago we found two sturdy bookshelves (this is one of them) on Craig’s list for just $30.  If you’re a homeschool mom, you know the kind of happy dance I did over that!

This shelf is nicely organized now, and the others (I already had two in the school room) are still a work in progress.

This past week I hit the library’s annual book sale and found some fantastic deals, further adding to my organizational work load.  A selection of these, though incomplete, will be very helpful for Hannah’s Cantering the Country history/geography/science studies this year.  We thoroughly enjoyed that curriculum guide when I used it for the “big boys” when they were her age.

I was also happy to add to our collection of these Cornerstones of Freedom books.

And I found a number of other children’s books as well, most of which are excellent and entirely wholesome.  A few others, however, I knew to be very good overall but in need of slight editing.

Really, moms, it is okay (and sometimes preferred) to do this to books, provided they belong to your own library:

Overall wonderful picture book with the offending page removed.

Hilarious two-time family read-aloud we have all enjoyed, but it needs a black “highlighter” in certain sections.

Just make sure all the kids know that this is a job for mom only; otherwise they may try to help. 

Easing into “School”

No, we’re not late getting started, as we actually “school” quite a bit in the summer too.  And since we try to live a lifestyle of learning, I am reluctant to divide “real life” education from “school” since there is often no clear delineation in our family.  One does not need to crack a book to “do school” and learn something, although of course we regularly do that as well. 

We had a lighter work load during the summer, of course, since there is so much to be done outside.  But as those chores become less and less demanding, we ease into a complete “school” load until we’re going full steam ahead.

Last week was very diverse and enjoyable.  Since I’m teaching multiple ages, that is often the case.  Some of our highlights were  . . .

Preposition bingo.  I first got the idea from our Easy Grammar book, but you certainly don’t need the book for this game.  Just print off some bingo cards like this or make your own.  It’s much more fun than memorizing a list like we had to do in school, and even more fun if you have the kids take turns making up sentences with their prepositions.  They come up with some doozies!

Cow eye dissection.  We’ve been learning about the human body this summer, so it just made sense, since cow eyes are quite similar to human eyes.  I’m sure you could get some free eyes at a slaughterhouse, but the closest one I know of was farther than I wanted to drive, so I ordered ours from Home Science Tools.  For the faint of heart, you may prefer simply watching this informative dissection video we found online.  And for the very faint of heart, please accept my apologies.

Caleb inspecting the iris

Fire station field trip.  Always a hit with the kids.

We’re looking forward to another full(er), interesting school week starting Monday.

 

Lyrical Life Science

I can’t remember where I first heard about this award-winning curriculum, but the thought of it intrigued me for months before I decided to purchase it.

I wanted to do a life sciences unit that the whole family could enjoy, and this one is a winner!  Lyrical Life Science has several volumes available, although I’m only familiar with Volume 3—The Human Body.

As you may have guessed, music is involved, and we have been singing along for the past month or more.  Everyone knows that words set to music will be remembered (like it or not); thankfully, in this case there is much to like.

There are 13 songs on the CD—a song for each system of the body and then some, along with 13 corresponding teaching chapters, workbook sections and quizzes, and even sheet music.  These are not your typical annoying, dumbed-down children’s lyrics set to equally annoying music.  The songs are FANTASTIC and are performed by the talented Bobby Horton, known for his works featured in various historical public television series.  The song styles are “traditional, patriotic and camp tunes of long ago.”  No rock, rap or anything distasteful here.

The lyrics are all great too.  In case you’re wondering, the “Reproductive System” is handled discreetly and is actually one of my favorites, with lyrics like “our genes and our dreams to the children yet unborn, to continue life’s cycle again,” tugging at a mother’s heartstrings.

These songs are absolutely brilliant and are jam-packed with educational content.  The skeletal system, which we recently finished up, is set to the quick-paced Italian Tarantella, and names many of the body’s bones, states how they’re attached to each other, how many there are, etc.  It’s hilarious trying to keep up with this one!  My big boys are able to, although you may not be able to pry the song out of them in public.     And when my 3-year-old goes around singing the songs and telling everyone how to correctly pronounce “appendicular,” I know they’re all learning something about how fearfully and wonderfully we are made.

If you’re looking for a fun way to learn about the human body—something all ages will enjoy and benefit from—then look no further.  Our family loves this, and we know yours will too!

Edited to add:  While the “Reproductive System” song is discreet and rather vague on details, I see the teaching book packs more facts that you may want to share, depending on the age and maturity of your children.  So if you plan on handing them the book for independent reading, I’d recommend doing a preview of this chapter first.

 

A Bright Idea . . . by Caleb, 11

A few days ago, I got an idea from one of my favorite books, Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things, by Cy Tymony, who also wrote Sneakier Uses for Everyday Things, and Sneakiest Uses for Everyday Things.  (They’re available through Vision Forum.)  There is a project in his book where you use a string, toy dart gun and camera to take a picture of a thug, (or anyone) who opens your door too far.  I thought of a similar idea where you use the same concept to turn on your room light.

I took an old spiral-bound notebook and cut out a piece of the cardboard cover (the shiny side.)  I taped this to my door and then stuck a suction cup to it.  (Without the cardboard, the suction cup wouldn’t stick to the door.)  I tied a string to the suction cup as seen in the next picture:Then I wrapped the string around the hinge of my closet door, which is right next to the main door:

Finally, I tied the string in a loop and looped it around my light switch, so that when you open the door, it pulls on the loop, which pulls on the switch, which flips up, turning on the light.

The only problem is that every time you leave the room, you must reset it, by looping the loop around the switch, and then squeeze through the door, without turning on the light.I hope to be able to improve this, by running the string through stick-on eyelets, stuck on the wall.