A free preschool unit study based around "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"

Starting Monday, I'll be doing a unit study on butterflies with D, 4, based loosely around The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I wrote it up as a 5-day plan so I thought I'd share in case anyone else would like to play along.

What D doesn't know is that my parents are coming for a surprise visit soon and we'll wrap up this study with a trip to the butterfly exhibit, "Butterflies Go Free" at the Insectarium. In case you've never heard of it, you get to walk through rooms filled with butterflies from all over the world. Last time my kids went, one landed on my oldest's shoulder and refused to leave. He was in that room for a while!

Anyway, all this to say that you can find the file here, and that I hope you enjoy it as much as I think we will.

10 reasons why homeschooling is better than public school

1. Your clothing budget is drastically reduced. If your children each have two pairs of pyjamas (one to wear, one to wash), at least one tshirt without stains, and a respectable pair of pants, you're all set! Bonus points if you can convince the child that shoes are also neccessary.

2. Real food. You can warp your children's brains early on into thinking that multi-grain homemade bread and vegetables from your garden (with homemade hummus) is the best food ever. They may even think that processed food tastes weird, if you "program" them early enough.

3. Close-knit family. Why send them out to argue with a bunch of children the same age when they can learn their debating skills from older siblings and parents?

4. Creative turns of phrase. Your child may prefer "Avast, ye scurvy lubber!" to "Stop iiiiiiitttt!". Unless they spend time regularly in the car with me, the driver/potty mouth. Then all bets are off.

5. Sleep. Your child can get the sleep they actually need. Unfortunately, in the case of my children, that's still very little sleep. Maybe yours need more than 5  hours.

6. Time to pursue interests. Once school time is done, I generally find one child programming, once dancing, and one cooking. Often there is overlap...which probably explains my kitchen floor.

7. Learning real, useful stuff instead of how to raise your hand. Enough said.

8. No bullies (and if a sibling tried it, easily and swiftly dealt with). I refute, absolutely, the premise that your child needs to be shoved around, picked on, and manipulated as a child in order to be a successful adult. Especially when the worst offenders are sometimes the very people supposed to be in charge of the class.

9. Days off at convenient times. Anyone who has had a child in school knows the horror of discovering at 8pm that  "Oh yeah, Mom...." there's no school the next day....right when the CEO is visiting your office from another country. Choosing how and when you take a break is one of the best things about homeschooling.

10. Homeschooling gives you TIME. Time to enjoy their childhoods. Time to give them a wonderful childhood. Time to show them the wonders of the outdoors. Time to play and use their imaginations.

What other things, in your opinion, make it so much better?

Thinking through next school year's plans

I am trying to figure out way ahead of time what we'll need to use and buy for fall, so that we can spread out the purchases a bit. Here's what I have planned (I think); I'd welcome feedback!

M (grade 6): If I want to follow the 4-year history cycle of classical education, she'd be starting with Ancients again, and I am just fine with that since we didn't go into too much depth previously. Based on that, I'd like to line up everything to follow the same timeline. Therefore, I plan to use:

-BF History of Science Through Literature (which we used for exactly one week this past fall before life exploded, but it looked great)

-Harmony Art Mom's Ancient Art and the Orchestra

Yes, I know it says grade 5. I don't care. I think it'll line up with my plans and art isn't age-specific anyway.

-Intellego's Ancient Civilizations 1 and 2

-Continue with Ellen McHenry's Mapping the World With Art , which we already own

-Math will be the wonderful Teaching Textbooks again (I plan to stick with this until they stop selling it or all the children move out, whichever comes first!) If math is a daily fight, you should go check out the demo on their site with your child.

-Grammar and Punctuation will be The Cozy Grammar and The Cozy Punctuation.

-For Latin, we're sticking with Lively Latin

-For spelling, we're sticking with All About Spelling

-for French, I have found what appears to be the best program available. Imagine a customizable total language immersion computer program, that can even line up your speech with that of a native speaker on the screen so that you can adjust accordingly...this program I stumbled across in the Rainbow Resource catalogue is called Tell Me More French and looks absolutely incredible. The description is long and well worth reading. It is pricey (you're looking at $230 US) but I am willing to take that chance for a good fit. They offer the following languages, in case you're interested: French, German, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese. I'm pretty psyched about this one!

Now for D, who will be in kindergarten this fall. I want to focus on math and reading skills, and anything else we get done will just be gravy.

-We'll be finishing up All About Spelling Pre-K and heading into All about Reading and level 1 of All About Spelling.

-Thanks to a recommendation from Michelle, we'll use Singapore Earlybird Math plus its activity book.

-I already have Five in a Row Volume 1 and we have only done a couple of stories in it so I think we'll do that for fun.

-I also plan to get Queen Homeschool's First Language Lessons. Maybe. I'm on the fence about this one.

What are you looking at for fall? What do you plan to avoid like the plague?









Disclaimer: Most of these links are just links in case you want to read the information about the product mentioned. There are a couple of affiliate links thrown in, though, because why not?

Cold rainy weekend=Cooking and baking frenzy

Please note: Attempting this baking and cooking marathon may not be a good idea if, as with us, your dishwasher died and the replacement has not yet been delivered. Unless you really like washing endless mounds of dishes, in which case: you're welcome.

I have a ton of photos to show you all the school stuff we've been up to the last couple of weeks, but today I want to tell you all my favourite new recipes which I have tested (with much assistance from the kids) this weekend.

I have always liked cooking and baking, although I'm not fond of the daily-neccessity aspect. That love, combined with an excruciatingly tight new food budget courtesy of my recent layoff, and a desire to discover new healthy recipes because my standbys are making my pants shrink, led to some internet hunting. My kids can also eat like you would not believe, so I was looking specifically for low-cost things that would fill them up.

Here are some of the recipes we tried this weekend:

Ok, not technically a healthy recipe per se, but since we love French bread as a treat and it costs more than $4 a loaf at the grocery store, we tried Phyllis's recipe for french bread from her blog Household Ways. If you have never visited her blog, you will want to set aside and hour or two and eat before you look. Great stuff! Cost per loaf: 22 cents. (I buy my yeast and flour in bulk, which helps...without this your per-loaf cost might be about .60, still pretty great.)

We made supper on Saturday using Jimmie's amazing calzone recipe from her Squidoo lens . I added some whole wheat flour and tripled the batch. Then I made another double batch because they were a big hit and I didn't get any on the first round. We stuffed them with sauteed mushrooms and peppers, and meatballs cut into quarters. Fantastic! This morning the kids were already asking if we could make some more. Cost per 2-big-honkin'-calzone batch including filling: $2.48

I made hummus as a veggie dip (Cost: $1.13 for about 3 cups). I have now misplaced the source for the recipe I used, so I can't link it. Searching in the grocery store, I discovered tahini in the aisle with falafel and coconut milk, and came home also with coconut milk and falafel. Luckily, I also came across this recipe for coconut rice and beans from 5 Dollar Dinners , which was so good that I think I will have to make regularly. Cost: I spent a total of $1.59 on a meal for 5 people!!! If I had made my own beans it'd be about half of that, too.

Still drooling over Phyllis's recipes, I also came across this recipe for oatmeal breakfast bars , which I love because it leaves the add-ins to me. I did not get any of these because they disappeared so quickly. I made a second batch and wrapped all the bars individually so I can just grab snacks and go if we get some more sunshine. I increased the honey by 1/3 cup on the second batch and they held together better. Cost: $1.89 for 16 1.5" x 4" bars, or 11.8 cents per bar.

Finally, to eat with the French bread I made Fasolia Xera Salata, (fah-SOL-yah kseh-RAH sah-LAH-ta), a greek bean dish made with Great Northern beans, onion, olive oil, and spices. Fantastic!

I have another pile of recipes to try out this week, but I wanted to mention these before the recipe pages got too stained for me to read the names and links. I would, with pleasure, eat any one (or all) of these again. More importantly, so would even the pickiest eaters in my family!

Nature study with a preschooler: see it through their eyes

My next guest post in the Just Get Outside series is up at Itsy Bitsy Learners. In case you haven't seen them, it's a series of posts I've written on how to enjoy nature study  with your preschool sidekick. Since we're outdoors enthusiasts, it's a topic near and dear to my heart.

Anyway, here's the latest: They have comments disabled, so please come back here and tell me what you think!

Curriculum - an organizing and scheduling challenge

I have reached the point, somehow, where the amount of curriculum far outweighs the number of students. Did I mention I am a curriculum junkie, with large age gaps between children?

I thought I could resolve this problem last week (March break for the schools here) but it turned out to be a week where we got almost nothing accomplished around the house because of school friends visiting, and the nice weather. It was great.

So, my goal this week is to figure out what I have, and what goes with which grade (approximately), and containerize it somehow in those categories. I also need to identify gaps so I can start to buy/budget for fall. And if I can find anything that isn't going to be used any more, I will send it to a local homeschooling group meeting and see if someone else can use it.

Here's how I think I will do it, in case anyone is in the same boat:

1. I am going to take every last item off the two homeschooling shelves and the armoire. This will make a huge pile on my dining room table and children will find ways to bang into it and send the piles crashing to the floor.

2. I am going to label boxes in marker by grade and place them in the living room beside the dining room. I will also designate a large laundry basket as the "give away" container.

3. I am going to make myself a checklist by subject and tape a copy onto the side of each box. As I place ONE of each subject in, I will check it off. Any other versions of that grade and subject will go into the "give away" basket.

4. If D will use something later that I am currently using for M (All About Spelling, for example), I will put a sticker on the inside cover of the book with "D, grade 1 box". I will make a note on the checklist as well. Hopefully this will simplify things as we finish each subject. There won't be many of these because of the big age gaps.

5. After I have determined gaps, I will move to the computer with the lists (which is why I'm also writing the grade on each box in marker at the beginning - easier to match it back up later) and go through my many downloads of curricula (already saved in folders by category on the desktop), such as lapbooks and Intellego unit studies. As I find something, I will write the name (ie. "Intellego Middle Ages, PDF") in the space on the checklist.

6. Only after I have looked through all the files and emptied all of the shelves will I make a list of what will need to be purchased. I know that Teaching Textbooks will be on this list. I know that All About Spelling will most likely be there. I don't think I still have M's K-2 stuff for the most part, except for a few unit studies. I know D will need math and thanks to Michelle at Delightful Learning , who is kind enough to answer my constant harassment many questions and has a daughter about 6 months older than D, I know I plan what to order already.
 
7. I will replace the checklists on the appropriate boxes and determine a budget for the items I need to order, as well as a timeline. I will then stash grades not in use on one bookshelf, and current grades and art supplies on/in the other shelf and the armoire.

8. I will sit in the sun porch with a cup of coffee where I can not possibly look at the Well-Trained Minds curriculum forum, my favourite blogs, or any other form of curriculum temptation. Good thing the weather is so nice!

Why is there never a camera?

A couple of hours ago, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and walk the dogs at the park along the river.

Halfway along, there is a wooden bridge over a swampy area. It's fantastic in summertime when you can see frogs, herons, and other wildlife. They've also built a narrow boardwalk off through the swamp so you can see up close. At this time of year, it's pretty neat too, because you can see the patterns of the lilypads that froze into (what's left of) the ice, and bubbles rising up from the bottom of the swampy area, only about 3 1/2 feet deep.

Our dogs love this area too. They love the frogs, and we have to keep them on a tight leash to stop them from joining the wildlife in the water. Today the boardwalk was clear of snow, finally, so we all traipsed along it for a closer look.

Those of you with dogs and small children can probably visualize what happened next: An enthusiastic attempt to jump in. A pull on the leash to stop it. A dog turning around suddenly. A preschool sidekick suddenly flying through the air and ending up waist deep in the swamp, where the ice had thankfully stopped him from going in up to his neck. My husband, on his stomach on the boardwalk, with a guilty dog standing helpfully on his back as he pulled the very surpised sidekick out of the water.

The sloshing noise as my sidekick and I squelched back towards the parking lot. The guilty-looking dogs being walked off in the other direction. The glares or grins from passersby (squelch, squelch, squelch). The mound of laundry when we arrived home.

The cleaned-up dogs and one small freshly washed and changed boy, all asleep in a pile on the couch an hour later.

Where's the camera when you need one? I'm going to start wearing mine as a necklace, I swear.