This Rocks Our Schoolhouse

Homeschooling is always an adventure. Every child has a different learning style and different strengths. Even twins. Ask me how I know.

Fun integrated into school always helps lighten the mood or an otherwise difficult subject area. Sometimes it's difficult to find just the right "fun" thing to implement, especially when it isn't necessarily conducive to crafting or your kids are over that age.

Years ago, as in maybe six, we saw a Schoolhouse Rock DVD set in the store. It had all the original Schoolhouse Rock songs on a couple of DVDs. Since Hubby and I grew up waiting with bated breath every Saturday morning for the cartoon breaks where they would show one of the songs, this was kind of a no-brainer. It was like Brady Bunch coming out on DVD was for me.

We wanted to show the kids all the fun songs that we would occasionally break out singing. What gave us cause to break out singing any of them is beyond me, but we find ways.

What we didn't realize at the time was that our kids would come to like them and how educational they were in such a little nutshell. This was to our benefit, especially the Grammar Rocks songs.

There have been times when we're working on our grammar and talking about parts of speech and one of the kids is struggling. I'll ask what song was about that part of speech, or I'll start singing one line so they can sing it in their head or with me. It has almost always gotten things moving in the right direction. Last school year we all sat down and watched all the grammar songs as a refresher.

We've put things to songs ourselves, like days of the week and months of the year when the kids were young, to prepositions and helping verbs as they were older. It helps to memorize lists, but it also helps to make things fun.

Schoolhouse Rock songs are fun and some are downright funny. You can check them out on YouTube. I can never pick my favorite, so here is one of them:

The School Room That Isn't

One of the most exciting things when we moved into our house was having a dedicated school room.

Yes, we only had two desks with the cubbies, but I assumed that when two of the kids were working quietly at the desks I would probably be teaching the others at the table.

Old habits are hard to break. They are still all at the table. I guess that's what happens when you homeschool for 10 years without a dedicated room and at your kitchen table. But at least we have a dedicated school room to keep all of our books stored and organized and easy to locate now.

And so I just sew on the desks that were intended for school!

When I originally had the room organized, here is what it looked like. It's had some tweaking since then.

I try to dedicate only three cubbies to one year of our Tapestry plus the books that go with it.

That's pretty easy to do since I'm getting rid of some of the 'youngest' books since I won't have any more children rotating through and I won't get the 'older' books until we get to each year plan with the girls. Plus there are books that overlap from year to year that stay with the current year we are working with. The current year we are working with usually takes more than that just three cubbies.

I have a dedicated spot for logic and math supplements.

I keep science type stuff together, geography books together, etc. We have some biographies that I keep in the school room that are specifically for the kids, but all of our other books (fiction and non-fiction) that are not dedicated to their curriculum is located in other bookshelves throughout the house.

There is a rolling cart for all of the school necessities.

This cubby is located in the living room right off of the dining room. It has two boxes for each child for consumables (math, etc.) and then some of my teacher guides. These are the things we access daily. And they need to be close to the table since I mentioned that old habits have been hard to break.

This lives in the middle of the table. We eat with it often. It's only not welcome when we have company. Right now it doesn't have many pencils since it's summer. Soon it will be more pencils than anything else.

These are the pockets I made for the backs of our chairs. Here's the link to the tutorial if you're interested.

This is our game cabinet that is right outside the school room, which should really have another name. The school room, not the game cabinet.

I've linked up to the Not Back-to-School Blog Hop. Click the box to visit other homeschool rooms that really are probably homeschool rooms.

Catdog is...

...14!

Betsy is going to have to order a lot of croissants based on her comment.

Jessica is very smart because she knew exactly what Caboose was thinking. I think that makes her smart.

Caboose thinks 14 in French (quatorze) sounds like catdog in English, at least when spoken with the French accent by the people on the cd-rom. That's how he remembers it.

Of course he was born in New Jersey to parents that were born and raised in Arkansas, has a brother that was born in Louisiana, lived most of the first six years of his life smack in the midwest outside of St. Louis (on the Illinois side of the river) where there is no accent, lived in Virginia for two years, and then ended up in Michigan where there is just a bit of Norwegian/Canadian twist to the accent. Plus it seems like we have a lot of friends from New York that have a strong accent undertone (think of how they say the word coffee).

So I'm not really sure what words in English are going to sound like the French words to him, as long as it helps him remember them.

It Sounds Like Catdog In English

Do you know what number that would be when spoken in French, according to Caboose?

I can finally post again (I hadn't been able to do anything on my blog since last night) and thought I'd throw one up for fun before leaving for Buddy's ball game. This happened to be part of our discussion at the dinner table.

Latin and Cow Milk from a Straw

We've moved on from French and Blank Socks.

Sparky and the boys are learning French. Sparky is learning French since that is the primary language they speak in Togo, West Africa, where she wants to be a missionary. The boys are learning it because they think it's cool, fun, and they want to talk to her so no one else knows what they are saying.

All the kids are learning Latin. We're using Prima Latina to start everyone at the beginning together. It makes it easier for me. We're learning Latin to help with vocabulary.

When I told the kids we were starting Latin a couple of weeks ago, Caboose was excited. He said, "Now I'll know three languages." I told him Latin isn't a language that is spoken in any countries anymore like English or French. He no longer saw the need to learn it.

Today during our lesson they were supposed to remember to call me teacher in Latin. Magistra. They were doing that, Salve, Magistra, and then Buddy piped in, "It sounds like you would be something we would be drinking milk out of - the straw part."

I went along with it and said, "I'm a magic straw." Although there is no 'c' sound in there.

And then to finish it off, Caboose chimed in, "You don't have things you squeeze milk out of like a cow."

There were three kids and one mom who are a lot smarter than one 10-year-old at the table, and we were totally cracking up. Sparky was laughing so hard she was crying.

I just gave the zip-the-lip sign and we're waiting until he's older.

Planning

Just some of the things I got at the homeschool convention last Friday.

Four kids makes for lots of curriculum.

French and Blank Socks

When Sparky got home from Africa, she asked if she could learn French instead of Spanish since that is the language spoken in Togo. I found an instant immmersion cd set at Sam's Club that promises it is as good or better than Rosetta Stone for under $20. It's at least a start for the remainder of this school year to get her familiar with some words and pharases.

The boys have both decided that they want to learn French too. They've learned a few foods, numbers, simple phrases, and colors.

Caboose was telling me the colors he remembered the other day. In the course of the conversation he couldn't quite remember white, so I told him it was blanc.

So everyone starts saying blanc over and over. It gets a little irritating sometimes, but I try and bite my tongue since they are learning and not intentially trying to annoy me.

Then I told them how they could remember it. White is plain, like blank, like blanc.

So we proceed into a discussion about socks. It's not hard for me to get there. I have a way.

When Buddy was little, as in under 5-ish, he wore the cutest socks. Socks with stuff on them, like dinosaurs, and construction stuff, and firemen stuff, and lizards...you get the idea. He didn't own white socks, because he didn't like, in his own words, "Blank Socks."

Back when we went to my grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary celebration at church, for some reason we knew my cousin Jeff liked socks with stuff on them, but grown-up stuff, like paisley or grown-up designs, not plain khaki or black or blue or brown, so Buddy was all pumped about talking non-blank socks. I don't even know if Jeff remembers, but here they were with Buddy counting off all his different ones as he told him.

I have little snippets of his old socks in his scrapbook because I also have fond memories of them. His "blank socks" comment ranks as one of mine and Hubby's favorites.

And now, Buddy only wears blanc socks.

Split, Peel, Dump, Bananas!...and the dreaded Rotten Banana

Have you played before?

Bananagrams. Fun in a zip-up banana.

All the ages in our house from 10 to 44 were able to play. It was fun for everyone even when they didn't win.

Maybe except for me. I'm a tad bit competitive.

Depending on how many people are playing you pick a certain number of tiles. They are like Scrabble tiles without points. We picked 15 each.

Then you make crosswords with your words. You can re-do them as much as you want.

You can get rid of letters you don't want by 'Dump"ing them, but you have to take three in return.

When someone uses all their letters, they call out 'Peel' and then everyone takes one more tile from the pile.

You keep going until there are fewer tiles in the pile than there are people playing. When one person finishes using all their tiles they yell "Bananas!" and you pull out this if you need to check anything.

If you make up a non-word or use a proper noun or misspell anything, you're a Rotten Banana. Then everyone else just picks up where they left off until someone else finishes using their tiles.

Here are some of our crosswords.

This game was tons of fun. We've had it for a while and just pulled it out tonight for the first time. I have a feeling it will stay out on our table for quite some time.

On another unrelated note, I'm a little behind in my reading the Bible through in 90 days. I've been behind since I think the beginning of the Chronicles. They were difficult to read through quickly and then I just never got caught up.

I'm in the New Testament now and getting caught back up rapidly. There are actually two grace days built in, but I'd like to finish it in the 88 it has on the schedule. You know, the OCD and all. It's been bothering me that I've been behind all this time, especially because I was several days ahead for a little bit.

Either when I get caught up or when I get finished (hard to believe it's almost over), I'm going to read this book I picked up at the Christian bookstore the other day by Alex & Brett Harris.

I've heard a lot about this book, and I want to read it before I let my teens read it. I'm excited to see what it has to say.

Has anyone else read this book, and if so, what did you think?

Math

It's advancing more rapidly than my age at my house. And that's saying something.

Caboose is working on factoring for least common denominators and stuff like that. I'm so okay with that. Makes me remember why I'm a math geek and love it so much. I always did like fractions. I even like fractions that have fractions in them. I used to make them up and do them for fun.

Comment at your own risk.

The girls on the other hand are in their third year of algebra, which is called Algebra II. Go figure that one out and I give you permission to have some chocolate as a reward. Their factoring is not so much fun. Actually it is no fun. I don't remember anymore why I loved Algebra II when I was in school.

The last week or so we have done:

• Monomial Factors
• Perfect Square Trinomials
• Factoring a Perfect Square Trinomial
• Difference of Two Squares
• Factoring the Difference of Two Squares
• Difference of Two Squares — Special Case
• Sum or Difference of Two Cubes
• Sum or Difference of the Same Odd Powers (here is where we got into the tricky stuff)
• Difference of Even Powers of Two Numbers
• Factoring Binomials (where you have to choose your method — yuck!)
• The Quadratic Trinomial
• Trinomials of the General Form ax² + bx + c
• Polynomials Whose Terms May Be Grouped to Show a Common Polynomial Factor
• Making a Perfect Square Trinomial in Order to Factor a Difference of Squares (you add something in to the problem to make it a perfect square trinomial and then subtract it at the end of the problem so that the problem is still equivalent to what it started out as...you got that, right?)

All this with a cold running rampant through my head. I'm starting to have difficulty explaining to Chatty (who does not enjoy math or any form of it) how she is ever going to use this in real life. Feel free to come to my rescue if you do.

I'm ready to go back to 4th grade.

Hair Spray Isn't Just For Hair

We're working on a transparency map project at our house right now. We did one a few years ago, we took a break from it, and now we're starting a new one for a new time period — the Medieval time period just after the fall of the Roman Empire. Lots of fun gore for the boys.

Another day I'll share the map project in detail, but today I want to talk about hair spray.

I've had this bottle of hair spray since 2005.

It's moved across the state lines from Illinois to Virginia in 2006 and then from Virginia to Michigan in 2008. Even though I don't use it on my hair anymore (unless I'm having a horrible, no-good, very bad day and need to tuck in an extremely stubborn grey piece), I've kept this trusty bottle.

It's great for killing bugs when you can't stand to step on them.

You know, because they're big and they crunch.

That's also assuming you have time to get your bottle before they run away.

Vacuum cleaner hose attachments also work great too. Especially in hard-to-reach areas.

It also helps to have growing boys who don't mind the crunch.

So back to the purpose of this post. Yesterday I was printing out base map after base map after base map after...well, you get the picture. And along the way I needed to print a few transparency maps. We could just put the transparency over the original map, but because I like to do things just so, I wanted to try.

Of course the transparencies I have are not the ones you can run through your printer where the ink will dry. I found that out as I was printing off four copies of one of the maps. See that little smudge on the bottom when I realized it.

I thought maybe in time the ink would dry, but after about an hour it was just as wet as it was when I printed it.

Smart chick that I am, I thought of my hair spray. I don't really know why, I just did. I'm kind of silly that way.

I sprayed on one layer, but it was too thin. I realized I needed to do it like I'd use spray paint...cover the surface completely and thoroughly.

Worked like a charm.

WFMW — Homeschool Tips

When we lived in Illinois, I purchased a comb binding machine. Now that may seem like an unusual purchase, but homeschooling my four children I saw oodles of uses.

I purchased it online because it was recommended from someone in my local homeschool group, at the time it was an additional 10 percent off, and it was by far the best price anywhere. They had free shipping then and they still do (as long as you don't take their free $5 in supplies - I buy my supplies at the local office supply store, but you could get them online and just pay the shipping).

At $89.99, the binding machine is actually slightly less expensive than when I got mine. It punches the holes and also opens up the plastic comb binding so you can put the pages on. It is manual, not electric, but not difficult to use at all. You can check the Staples reviews and the OfficeMax reviews (and $199.99 price) to see how it stacks up.

We were working today on our world history timeline book. I purchased the software from Knowledge Quest so I could print it out multiple times, then I printed it on parchment-looking cardstock paper to give it kind of an aged look. I laminated the front and back covers to toughen them up. Then I used the comb binding machine to bind them together.

I also purchased the software for images to use in the timeline from Knowledge Quest (if you click on the link, hard copies are at the top and the cd-rom is at the bottom). I printed them out on clear sticker paper, instead of white, so that when it was placed on the paper the parchment color would still show through. I'm printing out pages as I need them.



The kids don't get into homeschool projects much, but they all enjoy this.



Some of the more unexpected things I've used the binding machine for are to bind pages the boys colored and collected and wanted to keep, paper for scrap pages for math work, and a scrapbook when we kept Flat Stanley (we cut the plastic comb binding to the length we needed). You can have your books flat when they have been bound with the comb binding, but you can not fold them back like a notebook.

The benefit to comb binding is that you can repair your book if anything comes loose, you can add pages, remove pages, fix messed up pages (if we goof on a timeline badly), replace a damaged cover, etc. You just put it back on top where you originally opened up the comb and put the pages on in the first place and take it apart. You still reuse the same comb and it's not damaged in the process.

Last week in a post about various projects I'd been doing, I showed off some books I'd had bound at Kinko's. Here's what I did.

I took my Motivated Mom's Planner to Kinko's and had them spiral bind it rather than put it in a three-ring binder myself.

The benefits are the ability for it be flat

or folded back.

Since we don't tear the pages out of Caboose's math book, the book is thick, and it's hard to write on the pages unless you put something under one side to hold it up, I decided it might be a good thing for that book too.

Did you know they can cut the binding off of a book? It's one of the greatest things since sliced bread.

So now his book can be flat

and fold under.

I took Buddy's the next day and had it done.

They can also 3-hole punch pages for you at Kinko's.

And this is what works for me (and my kids!) around our house and with our homeschooling.

Projects

I've been working on a few projects this last week.

The first one many of you have probably seen or done yourselves — fleece tie blankets.

I'd made these for all my kids when we lived in Illinois. They were all at least five years old, not so soft anymore, and a little short for kids that had grown. I made them all a new one.

I used two and a half yards each for all three of the older kids and two yards for Caboose. I wash and dry both pieces first, lay them out flat on the ground wrong sides together, and cut four-inch strips all the way around about an inch or so apart. I eyeball it.

I cut four-inch squares out of each of the four corners.

Then I start tying them together in knots top to bottom like a crazy person until I've done it all the way around.


And yes, Betsy, I tie every single one the same direction every single time.


Then I made these handy-dandy chair bags.

I first saw the idea over at Organizing Junkie. Mine look so plain next to the fancied up ones showcased over there, but they serve their purpose. Here are the tools I used to make these:




All of these things are on sale this week (except for the Wal-Mart velcro) at Hobby Lobby this week.

First I cut off both handles where they met the top of the bag.


Cut little pieces of the velcro and sew it to opposite sides of the handles (so they meet when you loop them over the chair frame...I goofed the first time). I folded down the edge of the handle strip a little when I sewed on the velcro strip to give it a fake seam and to keep it from fraying. I also sewed each velcro piece on at both the top and the bottom and not just across the middle of it.



I covered a composition notebook for myself with scrapbook paper and Mod Podge thanks to Lora's tutorial. Again, hers were a little fancier and cuter because she added stickers, but I just really wanted one and I knew I wouldn't do it if I waited to do stickers.


I'm not sure what I'll use it for since I don't journal, but I'm thinking really hard about it! It's cute!

Then the other project required some outside help. I took my Motivated Mom's Planner to Kinko's and had them spiral bind it rather than put it in a three-ring binder myself.

The benefits are the ability for it be flat

or folded back.

Since we don't tear the pages out of Caboose's math book, the book is thick, and it's hard to write on the pages unless you put something under one side to hold it up, I decided it might be a good thing for that book too.

Did you know they can cut the binding off of a book? It's one of the greatest things since sliced bread.

So now his book can be flat

and fold under.

Now Buddy wants his done too.

This post is linked to Show and Tell Friday hosted by Cindy at My Romantic Home.