New blog for doll lovers

Hello, everyone!  Just wanted to let you know that I've launched a new blog just for doll lovers.   If you loved dolls as a child, love dolls as an adult, collect dolls and/or create things for dolls, this blog is right up your alley.  I'll feature interviews with doll lovers young and old.  YOU could be featured on the blog!!  If you have a great childhood memory about dolls, let me know.  I'd love to have you participate.  The more the merrier.  The new blog is called "Never Too Old For Dolls" and can be found HERE.  Go check it out!!

Copywork and Journal Writing

Copywork is not something that I have used until very recently.  I have not read a whole lot about the Charlotte Mason method (which, I think, is where this idea comes from).  I know that it's something that is encouraged in several classical models of homeschooling.  I had a visit with a homeschooling friend recently who expressed that she does not think a child should do "free writing" until they have had a strong background in copywork so they can learn and understand the mechanics and tools of written language before trying to apply them to expressing their own ideas creatively in writing.  I have to say I tend to disagree with this a bit.  I do feel it's important for children from an early age to begin to express their ideas in writing, even if those ideas are not perfectly executed in terms of spelling, usage, punctuation, capitalization and grammar.  Writing is a means of communication and I would hate to see children being discouraged from communicating their ideas in writing until they have mastered all the basics.  With that said, I'll share what I'm doing right now with my first grader who will be seven in about a month.

We started the year doing a minimal amount of writing because he was reluctant and skeptical about his own abilities.  Now that he has a better grasp of some basic phonics rules (we used Explode the Code 3 and just finished it) as well as some spelling rules (we use All About Spelling), he is in a better frame of mind to do some writing on his own.  So.......about a month ago I gave him a spiral notebook to use as his journal.  I have him write the date on a new page each day and require him to write at least two sentences about a topic of his choice.  I often suggest ideas if he's stumped, but the thoughts he writes are strictly his own.  If he needs help spelling words, I either help him sound it out, remind him of the rules he knows, or just write the word in a word box at the top of the page.  Here is a recent entry he wrote about a Lego Universe he is building in his spare time.

In the top left corner you can see the box where I wrote "Lego Universe" and "vehicle".  The next photo shows the sentences he wrote.  I think he's doing a great job!!   I can see I need to give a lesson on contractions soon, though!!  :-)

In addition to writing in a journal each day, we have just started  doing copywork each day.  My first grader is reading Frog and Toad books now, a chapter each day.  So.......I've been choosing one sentence from the chapter he reads for him to do as copywork.  He just finished doing his Handwriting Without Tears book, so copywork is replacing that and this is one of his main ways to practice his handwriting. After he writes the sentence (you'll notice that I draw a line for each work with a red colored pencil to help him with spacing), we talk about various aspects such as, "What words are nouns?" (and he draws the Montessori noun symbol over them), "Why are these words capitalized?"  or "Why is there a question mark?"  With a simple conversation like this we are able to target several skills in a very short amount of time.  Below is a photo of a recent copywork passage.

one thousand gifts

One aspect of homeschooling that I really cherish is how we start our "school" day together each morning.  Around 9:30 a.m. the boys and I (and Lucky!) gather on the couch for our read aloud time.  Lately, I've been reading one chapter a day from the "Jesus Storybook Bible", as well as a chapter from our read-aloud book.  Right now we're reading Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor.  Something I've added recently is that we're making a list of "one thousand gifts" in a notebook I created just for that purpose.  I got the idea from Ann Voskamp and her book of the same name.  It has been a real blessing to be able to share this practice of daily gratitude with the boys.  We are all challenged to come up with new blessings each day.

For our special notebook, I just took a regular spiral notebook that I had on hand and decoupaged some pretty scrapbook on it along with a label I made.  

Below is a glimpse of our first page........the boys are excited that we get to try to come up with 1000 ideas.  I know it will take a while, but will be so nice to look back on.  

Our Little Lucky

We are proud to introduce the newest addition to our family.  On March 17th, we welcomed little "Lucky" into our home.  He is a Japanese Chin and is about 5 months old.  We adopted him through a local rescue agency who had rescued his momma from a puppy mill.  She was pregnant when rescued and gave birth to four male puppies.  I did not know much about the Japanese Chin breed before we adopted him.  I am now convinced it is one of THE best small dog breeds.  Chins are very docile and loving.  They are NOT yappy.  He hardly ever barks and this is characteristic of the breed.  He is so fun and playful, and we are SO glad he is part of our family.   His official name is Lucky, but we often call him Pup-Pup.

Workplans (instead of workboxes)

If you click on the page link above and take a peek at our schoolroom, you'll likely see photos of some drawer/boxes that I originally planned to use like "workboxes".  To be honest, this system did not last long.  I have kept the boxes because it's nice for each boy to have his own shelf with a dedicated place to keep the materials for various subjects.  However, I have never ended up filling the boxes with work to be completed individually by the boys.  Instead, what I have done up until very recently is write out a list of work to be done for the day on an index card.  Each boy has their own card and they can check off each item once it's completed.  This system has worked very well, especially for my oldest son.  He has become much more responsible about getting his work done and can move from one activity to the next without interrupting me when I'm working with my younger son.  One downside to the cards (especially for my oldest son) is that because they are small, they tend to get lost during the day.  Perhaps that seems surprising since we are only using them right in our own home!!  Still, they often get placed under things or taken into another room and "forgotten".

When I decided to move to a more Montessori-based approach to our homeschool, I made some changes to our system.  Now, instead of writing up a list for each day, I type up a workplan that shows what work needs to be done in each subject for the whole week.  I require that they do at least one "work" in reading, language, and math each day.  Otherwise, they can work at their own pace and do the subjects in any order they want.  If they want to work ahead, that's okay.  In fact, I told them that if they finish everything by Thursday, they can have Friday off!!  We'll see how that works.  I'm hoping they will make it their goal to get almost everything done during Mon-Thur each week so we can be more relaxed on Fridays.  Maybe we'll plan field trips then, or maybe I'll let them look through my back issues of Family Fun magazine to choose a fun activity to do on Fridays.

To prevent our workplans from getting lost, I clip each boy's plan onto a clipboard.  My oldest son's board is shown below.

Fabulous Reading Resource

A few weeks ago, I read a review of Reading Eggs on Mary's Homegrown Learners blog.  I was very intrigued by Mary's review and decided to sign us up for a free preview.  I have to say I am VERY impressed with this website.  I ended up purchasing a subscription so I can use it with both of my boys.  There are two main levels:  Reading Eggs for children from the pre-reading stage until about 2nd grade and Reading Eggspress for children from about 2nd grade through 6th grade.

What I like about this as a mom is that I find the activities to be challenging for all age levels.  I feel that each lesson includes many important components of reading instruction including phonics, sight words, vocabulary, and comprehension.  There is a placement test that your child can take to help you decide where they should start.  I felt that my youngest son tested a little low (i.e. the level they placed him in seemed too easy), so I emailed their help desk.  They replied very quickly and explained how I could go about moving him up.  Great customer service!!  I am also REALLY impressed with the difficulty level of the activities for my oldest son.  He reads well above his grade level; however, I sat with him as he did one of his first quizzes and could not believe the critical thinking skills he had to apply in order to answer correctly.

What my sons like about this program is that they receive "golden eggs" for completing their lessons.  These eggs can then be used like money to purchase items for their own little avatars.  They can customize the avatars and each avatar has its own house.  My youngest son (and actually my oldest son too) loves to buy new items for his "guy's" house.  He is actually learning a lot about budgeting because he has to decide if he has enough eggs and whether he should save or spend.  He has been know to do several lessons within as single day in order to accumulate more eggs to spend!!  I feel okay about it because I know he is learning a lot from the lessons.

In all, I highly recommend this program.  My sons are doing lessons from Reading Eggs/Reading Eggspress several times per week as part of their homeschool reading instruction.  Even if you don't homeschool, this would be a really great program to have your child use over the summer so they don't lose their skills.  They will have so much fun they won't even know they're learning.

Grammar the Montessori Way

OK..........I LOVE the way grammar is taught in the Montessori method.  Again, once I had my A-ha!/Duh! moment, I didn't know why I hadn't decided from the get-go to teach grammar the Montessori way.  I tried Easy Grammar for a while with my oldest son, and First Language Lessons with my youngest for a while.  I cannot really find fault with either of those resources, and I'm sure they are a great fit for many a homeschooling family.  However, I am really excited to delve into the Montessori way with both my sons.  I could not do it without having these free online albums for reference. My Montessori 3-6 year old training online very lightly touched on grammar.  The online elementary-aged albums go into great depth and provide a wealth of activities for teaching grammar.

In addition to the online albums, I ordered a few materials.  I purchased THIS STENCIL from Alison's Montessori.  And I purchased this set of wooden grammar symbols from Caliber Montessori.  In future posts I'll be able to show you how we'll use those materials. 

The first lesson I gave the boys was to just explain to them that words are classified into various types which we call "parts of speech".  Each part of speech has its own special symbol, and we used the stencil to record those symbols in our grammar notebooks.  Future lessons will focus specifically on the various parts of speech.

Fourth grader's notebook page

First grader's notebook page