It happened again.

We love books.

We have gazillions of them. I just believe that if we need to learn about Thomas Edison, we can do that so much better with a biography of his life than anything else. I want my kids surrounded by great literature. But last week something happened that just about put me over the edge. It has happened before, and it happened again.

I once again bought a book I already owned.

This experience sent me on a crazed organizational venture.

Yesterday Riley and I pulled hundreds of books off of their shelves. We separated them into piles according to subject. We had piles for Historical events and people, Artists, Animals, Science, Five in a Row, and Geography.

Some time ago, some brilliant homeschool mom gave me the idea of color-coding books. And that's what we did. On all of the books about geography- countries, states, etc. we stuck a yellow label at the bottom of the spine. We did a different color for each subject.

As we put the labels on, I quickly typed the title onto a list.

Now I have a list of every reference type book that we own. Every biography, every space book, every whale book, all of it.

I put each subject list in a page protector and I hung them all next to the shelf. At a glance I can see what we have! And I put extra labels in the page protector so I can easily stick them on new books.


Now whenever we finish a book, it gets stuck back on the shelf with it's coordinating color. You can easily glance at the books and notice if a book is in the wrong place because the color will not match the rest. Even if they happen to get mixed up, it will be a breeze to put them back where they belong.

So no more trying to search through a sea of book spines to see if we have any books on Helen Keller. Or weather.

No more reserving Five in a Row books at the library because I forgot I had it on my shelf.

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Isn't it pretty?

And it's easy enough that even a preschooler could get the books back where they belong.

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Ahhhhh...color-coding.

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Color-coding=peace.

I never claimed to be above bribery

It's just a fact. Reading makes you smart. Another fact? With all the free time in the summer, so much reading could be done that brains could start to expand to the point of oozing out of ears. That's what we are going for here. Seriously, it's really important to me that they are reading.

Everyone got off to a great start at the beginning of summer, but then things kinda started winding down and reading started tapering off a bit. So I decided to start a reward system.

For 1 chapter book or 100 pages, you can treat yourself to some delicious mini candy bars, or have a party in your mouth with these pop rocks.

For the bargain price of 2 chapter books, or 200 pages, you can be the proud owner of some adorable mini notepads, some refreshing gum, an assortment of wacky jelly bellies, or a roll of endless-potential-duct tape.

How about 3 books or 300 pages? Refresh yourself with a FUZE, or indulge in some Hazelnut Piroulines. Or how about a trendy notebook or some thrilling party poppers? Douse your friends and coworkers with this ca-RAZY silly string, or hide in a closet and eat this jumbo Symphony bar. ...oh wait, that's me.

And if you are a saver? For 5 chapter books or 500 pages, you could be the proud owner of a lovely hibiscus tote, a cuddly plush shark, a set of artist brushes, or a clip-on LED spotlight. Also in here are certificates for a one-on-one trip to starbucks or for ice cream.

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Do I have to bribe my kids?

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No, they like to read.

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Is it worth the cost of prizes to light a fire under them and get them to voluntarily read in their free time, increasing their reading levels over the summer?

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Of course.

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Is it really obnoxious when people ask themselves questions and then answer them?

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Absolutely.

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Have a great summer.

A little science on the fly

On a recent long lunch at the lake with our friends, we came across some unexpected science.

Yikes.

Immediately Cole was requesting that our next study be on snakes. Gulp. So we went to the library and checked out lots of snake books. We have been learning so much about snakes (sorry Grammy)! We found books with tons of amazing photos and interesting information. Each day we have read a book or two, reviewed fun new facts, discussed new vocabulary words we find in the books, and just for fun, made crafts I found by googling "snake crafts."

These were made from a paper plate.

These were made from old ties, stuffing, and coat hangers.

Then today we came upon more unexpected science. Apparently a bird or something grabbed a perch out of our pond and lost him as he flew away. The kids found the newly dead perch on the shore and wanted to dissect it.

And because I was off my game due to the stifling humidity, I couldn't come up with a reason why we shouldn't participate in this smelly activity, so we dug in. (I know, dug in, that was good, right?)

We investigated his mouth and how it expands, we propped it open and looked at the tongue and all of the teeth. We did some in depth eye exploration *shudder*. We neatly sliced the side of him open and found his air bladder. The air bladder is the pocket that allows the fish to be buoyant (among other things). And no, I certainly did not know this until today. And we marveled once again at God's creativity.

It was definitely gross. But fun! And it ended in a big water hose fight. You can't beat that.

This is the kind of natural learning that sticks with you!

More on writing

One of my favorite ways to teach writing/grammar is by letting my kids have their own blogs. We are fairly new at it and I pretty much allow them to write about whatever they want. I don’t edit or make suggestions on content because I feel like the more they own the writing, the more they will get out of it. I want this to be something they desire to do for fun. I don’t always correct spelling in the beginning, but as they mature in their writing, we discuss correct spelling more.

Yesterday with blogging we were able to discuss and practice writing directions, contractions, when to spell out number words, compound words, and capitalizing brand names. And it was all done in a natural way just from what they had chosen to write about. No worksheets that will be forgotten tomorrow, but real learning that meant something to them because it improved their creation.

The novelty of blogging encourages their writing. It’s fun to add pictures and to see the work appear on their own page instantly, knowing friends and family will be reading it soon. The feedback they receive makes it worth the effort! They love to get comments. And the thought of publishing for other people provides just enough awareness to make them a little more conscious of how they are writing. It’s a great tool! It’s fun and free and is only available to those who are invited to view the blog. I think it's also going to be a great keepsake for them.

On that scary grammar subject...

I've had several questions recently about what we use to teach grammar. We don't use a formal grammar program at this point and I don't predict we ever will. We learn grammar and sentence structure through reading and writing. The more they read, the more natural it is for them to form sentences and use words correctly. This spills over into their writing as well.

Instead of having a two day lesson on, say, quotation marks, we instead point them out each time we notice them as we read. From early on we discuss when to use them and what they mean in passing conversation. This method seems to stick with them a lot better than if we sat down and had a one-time formal lesson on it.

I've found that if I will just let them write, they will present themselves with every grammar lesson in existence. Riley has been writing a story called "Meet Riley, American Girl." I let her type her little heart out with no suggestions or guidance from me. After she got all of her thoughts on the screen, I broke her story into small segments for us to edit together. We will be doing a couple of paragraphs a day, which I copy and paste into another document so it doesn't look so long and intimidating.

During this process we are naturally able to learn and review many aspects of language. She has a lot of dialogue in her story, so today we were able to review where to use quotation marks, and we learned how to use capitalization and punctuation with the quotation marks.

She had a couple of different tenses, so we discussed keeping our stories in one tense only. Same thing with writing in first person only if that is what you chose in the beginning.

Also today we learned about using commas when listing.

And we learned about when to spell out a number and when to use the numeral (I had to call David to be 100% sure on this one. You don't have to be a language arts master to be able to teach great writing, you just have to be able to find the answer).

All of these lessons presented themselves in just a couple of paragraphs of her own creative writing. And the kicker was when she later went on to work on another story, she was correctly using the new information she gained today. Score!

I do the same thing with my older kids, except more in depth. This technique may not be neatly packaged in a checklist form, but it stays with them. It works!

Practicing spelling words

'Cause sometimes paper is just boring.

It's slightly reminiscent of potty training

Remember back in the day when you may have given your potty apprentice a little incentive for toilet use? Perhaps an M&M, or a jelly bean? Well I had an idea to revisit that today. Except for vocabulary words.

It seems like writing new vocabulary words and their definitions just isn't cutting it. They aren't sinking in for real-life purposes like I want them to. The whole point of learning new words is to use them, not to write them and forget them a week later. That's not learning.

So starting today, in an attempt to spark a little more effort in really learning, every time someone uses one of their vocabulary words in a real, relevant, pertaining-to-the-conversation sentence, they are going to get a chocolate kiss.

And maybe a real kiss too, if I'm really impressed.

Just thought I'd share. Can't hurt. Might help. I'll let you know.

Because chocolate matters,
Deleise

Ahhhhhhhhh....

I love that Spring is here. I am patiently awaiting the green. We really enjoy doing some of our work outside when the weather is oh-so-perfect, like it has been lately.

Something about the peaceful breeze and the fresh air and the sound of birds makes the backyard a perfect learning environment. If you're needing to change things up a bit, head outside! It gives you a whole new perspective! We did our "independent work" outside today.

Money fun

One thing that still catches me off guard is how simple it is to teach when you are just working with one or two kids instead of a whole classroom. When it was time to teach Riley and Cole about adding money I approached it with a classroom setting method. Write the numbers, look at pictures of coins and add them together, blah, blah, blah.

Then it hit me. Hello? I want them to learn how to add money so they can, you know, add money. So we ditched the math book and dumped out a big stash of coins that David may or may not use for poker.

The difference in touching and sorting and adding real coins was no comparison to the workbook sheet we had started with. It made it real.

After playing with and adding the coins, we moved on a did the original worksheet. It was a breeze after the real life experience.

It's always better with the real thing!

A fun place to put all the art

I love this idea for a rotating art display. My sister-in-law made this for their hallway to display her preschooler's work. These aren't great pictures because I couldn't get directly in front of it, but I think you will get the idea.

She painted the boards and nailed them to the wall, then attached the large clips. Or maybe she attached the clips then nailed them to the wall. Pictures can easily be changed out whenever they like.

I think it is wonderful. I plan on copying her and putting a much smaller version on Riley and Cole's walls so we can ditch the masking tape mess we have going on in there now.

I smell spring

It has been so warm here and the spring-like weather is supposed to continue through the week. This is making me crave some nature studies. We have done some nature stuff this winter, but it's just not quite as much fun.
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I came across these photos when I was doing some picture organizing last night. I took these last fall from Cole's bedroom window as he sat on the deck and sketched the autumn all around him. They inspired me to get out this week and enjoy our surroundings. Even if it rains.

Anyone else planning on some outside school this week?

Just go with it

I like themes. I just do. It makes me feel happy when things go together.

I love unit studies and honestly think kids learn better with them. It just seems natural to learn about things that are related to one another. The downfall is I am certain that sometimes I am a little too focused and this probably causes me to miss out on learning opportunities because "we aren't studying that right this very minute." What? The president of the United States is next door? Awww...too bad we are in the middle of a volcano unit...I guess we'll pass.

Alright, I'm not that bad, but I do admit that I could use some work in the area. Following my kids' lead even if it does take us off topic, usually results in some amazing learning experiences.

Since I have been more conscious of this lately, I seized the moment when Cole excitedly brought me a magazine with a picture of a walking stick bug. I admit, there was a part of me deep down that had a little anxiety attack because BUGS? That's for spring! It's winter! Stop the anarchy! But I kept it inside and dug into the topic with him.

We read everything we could find about them. We learned that they moult and eat their skin for the protein. We learned that if they lose a leg, no worries, they grow another one. We learned that they sway like the wind when they move so they are not only looking like sticks, but acting like them. Then we spent forever online looking at different camouflaged insects. By now we had several other participants looking with us. We marveled at how amazing God is that he could be so creative and care so much for something so small.

Then we headed out for a nature hunt to find the perfect sized sticks to make our own walking stick bugs.

It was an incredible learning experience. One that would have been missed if I would have stuck to my agenda or if I only did things that I planned.

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Bugs have nothing to do with Antarctica. And I'm okay with that.

My name is Deleise. I'm a recovering themoholic.

The "trickle down" effect

Have you heard this term before? Not relating to economics, but to education. I remember hearing it when I first started researching homeschooling, but I didn't give it much thought. The trickle down effect is when kids seem to learn what their older brothers and sisters are learning even if they are just kind of hanging around. You know, the information trickles down. I am definitely seeing it come into play at our house. Usually it is small stuff, but a few days ago it was a little bigger.



We are doing Ice Worlds with Planet Earth right now. Riley and Cole are doing some fun stuff on ice bergs, penguins and other arctic animals. Garrett and Tyler are taking it a bit deeper, learning pretty detailed information about ice bergs and doing an in depth study on the Titanic.



Well, the other day Cole came in and told me he wanted to write a story about the Titanic. I wondered what he could have possibly absorbed, I mean it is all kind of over his head and I hadn't directed any of the study toward his grade level, after all. We sat down and I typed as he dictated what he wanted me to write. Here is what he said.


This is the Titanic book.

It sunk because they thought it was unsinkable, but they didn’t get that right. They thought wrong. There was a big iceberg and the bottom of the ship cracked open on the iceberg and it got filled with water.


The Titanic was sinking and when one tip of it was going up, it cracked into two pieces.



They were building it really fast and they accidentally built someone inside of it.


They let the ladies and kids go on the lifeboats first. Most of the dads had to stay on the Titanic and die. Some of the men jumped off the boat to swim away, but they died when they were swimming because the water was too cold .


They wanted the kids and moms to live so they let themselves die. In the last minute they let down the life boats and some of the men wanted to get on, but they couldn’t get on them. It was too late, there was no more.



Some people who were explorers, after it sunk, went down in the ocean to look for it. They saw all the plates, and a black bag. There was a lot of money inside the black bag and some gold watches and a ton of jewelry.


The people were trying to find the very bottom and at the bottom of it was 2 stories. They had one more dive down to the sea and in the last dive they found the whole piece of the bottom of the titanic.



1517 people died and 706 people survived. (He asked me to find those numbers for him).



Isn't that crazy? Who knew he was absorbing all of that? Ok, it's not totally coherent, but it is such a great illustration of how we don't need to dumb things down for our kids. And how they learn no matter what we think they are doing.

He ended up asking for help looking for images online to go along with all of his thoughts. We printed them out and he made a great little book. I never would have dreamed of planning this activity for my kindergartener.

So teach on. And count your lessons as double if you've got little ones hanging around! (Oh, and also, be careful what you say if you've got little ones hanging around!)

Artists and authors

It's no secret that encouraging our kids in what they are doing is the best way to keep them doing it. This seems especially true with kids and their work.
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One of my favorite ways to do that is by “publishing” books for them. This can be as simple and inexpensive as taking their writing and art and cutting and pasting it into a cute journal from the dollar store. Or just giving them a small, blank scrapbook to create a book. I keep a whole box of these, ready for the taking. There's not a book in here that cost more than $1.

Also in this box are inexpensive photo albums that they can slide their individual book pages into, easily making a hardbound book of their own.

Here is a book that we made just by folding some cardstock, punching two holes in the center, and tying yarn through it to bind it. So simple

This one was a scrapbook, turned into a poetry book with a little cut 'n paste.

Keep your eye open at Dollar Tree and the dollar section of Target and when you see some, stock up. Don't let them scare you off if they have a Christmas tree or something on the front, we just cover that up by gluing a paper with the title of the book and art onto the cover.

Sometimes you can catch photo websites such as shutterfly.com and snapfish.com when they are having a free book deal. I used one of these opportunities to publish a book Riley had worked really hard writing. All I had to pay was shipping.

This was fun also because I could add stuff like a "Meet the Author" page.

I also try to treat their art very seriously. If it is something really special to them, I like to frame and display it. That doesn't happen as often as they would probably like, but I try. Here are a few of ours.

Here is my new favorite. Cole made these pictures for me. He drew my favorite coffee cups. I love this so much.

I want them to know I think their art is worth a lot to me. Plus, it’s adorable! Be on the lookout at garage sales and dollar stores for frames for this, too.

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Something about having your story in book form, or your painting on the wall, makes you feel like your work was worth the trouble and makes you eager to do more.

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It can be cheap and doesn't take much time. It's worth the extra effort!