education – Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs..

For the first time since we have started homeschooling, our year was more of an amble than guided hike. I must be getting more used to this homeschooling thing and Wyatt and how we work together! I didn’t stress as much about sticking to arbitrary timelines that I just decided on, and let ourselves explore as we wanted. However, that does mean that we only made it as far as the brink of the Revolutionary War this year! Did Ben Franklin really need two weeks dedicated to him? Probably not, but Wyatt was enjoying learning about him so we really spent time on him, which is one of the perks of homeschooling.

Since I started with American History, I might as well talk about that for a minute. I have been rolling Michigan history up with American history, adding in the lessons about Michigan as necessary in the timeline. I feel like we are walking the timeline of history here. What do you expect from a woman who has a history degree though? We really dig in here. We started with the Native Americans of Michigan, specifically the Anishinabe. We read Birchbark House, which was fantastic, and made a birchbark house, a winter cabin, and learned more about the way of life of the Anishinabe. From there we wandering into the fur trade, and read The Littlest Voyageur, which I felt was a less traumatic way to learn about this time period. It was less historically accurate, as it was told from the viewpoint of a squirrel, but my introduction was Eagle Fur by Robert Newton Peck which was extremely violent, honestly, and I was maybe 12 when I read it. It has stuck with me forever. (As a side note, his book A Day No Pigs Would Die also has haunted me forever)

From here we segued into the 1600s over there on the East Coast, the puritans, the 13 colonies, and colonial life, which we apparently lingered over for a while, but I wanted to be thorough. We ended the year in the years leading up to the Revolution, and our last study was good old Benjamin Franklin. We read a lot of good books, like The Courage of Sarah Noble, Who Was Benjamin Franklin, Your Life as a Settler in Colonial America, Explore Colonial America, and we started Sign of the Beaver but we just couldn’t finish it, as we had just finished two books about kids surviving on their own in the wilderness. ( My Side of the Mountain and The Courage of Sarah Noble) and couldn’t do another.

Wyatt loved history this year. I will say his one of his favorite things was learning about the different jobs that were available during the Colonial times. At the end, we pretended that he was getting ready to move out as an apprentice (since kids did at like 11 in that time) and had him choose his job. He had a hard time choosing – first he thought silversmith, then thought about blacksmith, before deciding on printer, which I thought was a good choice.

We did put history on hold in March while we did a whole month of Irish legends, folktales, and culture. I mixed things up a bit here and there.

In the spirit of that, we celebrated Appreciate a Dragon day, and had a school day dedicated to dragons.

Science was another area we really lingered! I had only planned for dinosaurs to take like 6-8 weeks tops, and we spent much longer on them. We started at the very dawn of existence though, with the Pre-Cambrian period and trilobites and worked our way on up. After that we sort of dodged around, talking about the environment, conservation, and then even the experiments of Ben Franklin, so no formal unit the last few months.

Our book studies were pretty awesome this year too, with the exception of Alice in Wonderland, which I hated although I tried to like it. I think that trickled down to Wyatt a little as well. Neither of us cared for it. Next we read The Phantom Tollbooth, and Wyatt loved that book so much. I think that was his favorite book this year, hands down. (He also loved Fortunately the Milk which was also that same absurdist type style) From there we leaped to My Side of the Mountain. This book was so crazy to me as a mother to just think this kid did that, his family knew and were like ok, see you later. Wyatt liked that one. Then I wanted to read a “fun” book, so we read The Wolves of Greycoat Hall, which was the book that generated the interest in conservation. Plus it had wolves for Wyatt.

Art – I was disappointed in our art this year. We learned about some great artists- Hundertwasser, Maud Lewis, Charley Harper, Emily Carr – but we just didn’t get as much time to work on art as we usually do. We had to focus our attention elsewhere, which is fine, but I missed it and so did Wyatt. Hopefully next year we can add it back in more. We will see, as every year is different and fun in its own way.

We of course worked on reading and math and English type things as well, but those are not super interesting to talk about here. Just, we did them. I think I am going to write a post about homeschooling resources soon, maybe next week, and these will come up there too.

I have started planning for next year, of course. I usually do this time of year, so we can be ready. It is even more important to be ready this year, as next year we will be jumping in post-surgery and I don’t want to have to worry about planning school during his recovery time. I am also working on planning out Cub Scouts too, for next year. This is such a time of getting ready for us!

And with that, I am going to go do just that before we start school for today!

Whatever you do today, try to do something that makes you smile!

If you have ever homeschooled, or know someone who does, then you probably know just how much time, effort, research, conversations, and comparisons go into picking the curriculum your child uses. Our position is unique – we do not need to choose something that will be effective for an entire school district of children all with different needs. We need only choose based on our own child and their educational journey. However, despite having a much, much smaller student body, it is just as important and just as time consuming.

After weighing Wyatt’s needs, where he is academically, and how he best learns, I FINALLY made my choices and started purchasing them, always with the slightest trepidation and anxiety about making the wrong choice. And then I remind myself, when I start doubting myself, that if it doesn’t work, then we find something that does. Wyatt’s education is probably our biggest expense outside of our actual bills, and it is something we sometimes make sacrifices for. But it is 100% worth it.

The homeschool world has so many options. Secular, non-secular, nature based, wildschooling, unschooling, roadschooling. We sort of take a little bit of everything over here, and have a very eclectic approach.

Let’s start with Language Arts!

This year I am going with Blossom and Root Year 3. I am super excited! There is just so much diversity and depth included in the year 3 curriculum, and when I spoke with other parents in the Blossom and Root Facebook group, so many told us that their children loved both years 3 and 4 and not to skip them. I had told them that this year Wyatt and I did our own thing and I didn’t know if I should just skip year 3 and they emphatically said no way, it is too good. So, I am listening!

And speaking of Blossom and Root, we are also using them for one trimester of science as well. We usually use them the whole year, but this year I am mixing science up a bit! We are doing four different units of study. Our focuses this year are the Prehistoric World from Blossom and Root, Extreme Weather by Books and Willows, The Human Body by The Waldock Way, and STEM by The Waldock Way, with a renewable energy study from Books and Willows. I love The Waldock Way studies, and so does Wyatt. This is the first year we are using them for science and I am looking forward to it. We have used them in the past for history/social studies so we are mixing it up a bit this year!

Math is the most challenging subject for Wyatt, and we tend to go very slowly and really spend time on it to make sure he understands a concept before moving on. One of the perks of homeschooling! I don’t care what “grade level” he should be at, he doesn’t need to keep up with anyone, it is all about Wyatt learning and understanding at his pace. We have found he responds very well to the math teaching style presented in The Good and the Beautiful, and then if we need to supplement for a concept it is is easy for me to just make stuff myself for additional material.

History this year is also a mix of topics and creators. I wanted to focus on two topics, Government and Michigan history. I know that in Michigan, fourth grade spends a lot of time on these two areas in public schools, so I wanted to make sure we cover them. I found some great looking materials on Teachers Pay Teachers and Living Books Curriculum.

As for art and music, we are going to stick with my own studies. I have so much fun making them for Wyatt and he seems to really enjoy them. Although, I would love to hear suggestions for artists to study. We have covered so many and so many different styles as well. We haven’t done Warhol or Pollock, and they are on my list. Who else do you think I should I add? I would also like to add more women artists, we have only covered a few. I would love to hear your suggestions!

And finally, a present for me, to keep myself all organized. With all the different hats I wear, and now adding in Cub Scouts, I need to be organized, and I am a person who needs it written down. I am not into digital planners. So, I use a Passion Planner right now for my overall life – meetings, appointments, etc, and I treated myself to a Clever Fox Teacher Planner for next year. It is so cute! The one that I bought last year was really nice but was more than I needed. This one looks to be about the speed I need. It is undated which I like because we school all year, with breaks here and there so I can make the dates work for when we are actually actively in school. It has stickers, monthly and weekly pages, extra blank pages for notes, and an events area where I will plan field trips. It does have a bit more than I need, but the one I purchased last year had way more pages than I needed, and it was designed for homeschool. So although this is designed for a traditional teacher, it still will be more practical for my particular needs.

And of course I got it in the dark green, because it is my favorite and matches my Passion Planner. Lol.

We will be ending for the month of June very soon now and I am looking forward to the next school year already! We will be starting these particular curricula in the fall, and finishing up this school year over the course of 6 weeks in the summer. I would not change what we do for the world.