Our hoops have officially been jumped through for the year here in our homeschool.  Just as Steph at A Room of My Own mentioned here and here, we too have finished our testing for the year, and I’m ready to submit them for scoring.  We use the same tests from the same place that she mentioned, and for three years now we’ve been very happy with how easy and painless it has been.  However, each time I jump this little hoop I feel somewhat unsure that this is really what I should be doing to fulfill the “proof of progress” requirement that my state has.   We have the option to do testing (and there are many possibilities) or evaluation.   As the CAT test is very basic and really doesn’t tell me anything about my kids’ strengths and weaknesses, I sometimes think I’d like to have them tested using a different test that might give me some more useful information.  But I’ve wanted to avoid putting them into a stressful testing situation and also feel as though I mostly know what their strengths and weaknesses are.  So I’ve stuck with the CAT. 

On the other hand, I’ve also wondered what it would be like to have to be accountable (for me and for them) to someone else for what we’ve done during the year.  And as I’ve heard particularly good things about a teacher evaluator in the area, I’ve wondered about having her do an evaluation for us next year.  I wonder if it might be good for us to HAVE to keep track of what we’ve read and done, places we’ve gone, rabbit trails we’ve followed, conversations we’ve had that were especially enlightening, etc.  I’ve promised myself each year that I’m going to keep track of all of those things and have even gone so far as to set up various notebooks to do so, but somehow ’round about February (or even earlier some years ) I lose steam, decide that since we’re testing I don’t need to keep such careful track anyway, and finally stop recording our learning all together.  I think knowing that we would need to show someone what we’d done would help me to feel more accountable for keeping track of our learning throughout the year.  And I wonder if it would be a good motivator for the kids too.  Maybe it would encourage them to want to keep their own journals, logs, reading lists, notebooks, or scrapbooks of some kind to show the evaluator at the end of the year.  One parent who recommends this evaluator says that her kids (9 and 11) love to show the teacher their collection of work from the year.   She says it makes them feel very proud of what they have accomplished to be able to look back on what they did at the beginning of the year and compare it to the end and to be able to show off a bit what they learned about.  Sometimes I think my kids have much too little of that.  There is really no one to show their learning to (except Dad), so they feel no need to find ways to share it.  Maybe that isn’t necessary, but I do think it might be important at times to be able to say to someone “Let me tell you what I learned about!” or “Look at what I made when I was learning about ____.” 

Just one more thing to think through for next year.  Maybe it might be time to try something new.  I don’t know… those CATs are so painless…

Anyway, I believe summer is officially here!! 

Can someone tell little ole’ computer-illiterate me how to get those books out of my sidebar??  I was fooling around with the sidebar widgets the other day and put the library thingie in there but then couldn’t figure out how to use it or get rid of it.  I didn’t even choose those books to be there – have no idea how they got there!  I really wish I had more time to figure out all of this stuff.  I still can’t figure out how to put a list of blog links in my sidebar either – sigh.  It really can’t be that hard, can it??

Edited to add: I just noticed that the books keep changing too – what’s up with that??? I feel as though I’m having some sort of blogging hallucination, lol!

As I mentioned in my previous posts, in addition to the (very little) unit study learning that has been happening around here lately, there has also been quite a bit of natural learning going on.  Most of this looks like playing, but I’m trying to remember that playing (even that done by almost 10 year olds) still involves learning, even when it doesn’t seem at all “schooly.”  So I thought I’d try to remember and jot down some of the activities that have been going on around here.

Dragonology:

One day a couple of weeks ago, out of the blue, Ben decided that he and Madeline should be “dragonologists.”  They set up an “office” in Madeline’s room and proceeded to “look for” dragons to study.  When the “found” a dragon, they would draw it, label the drawing, and write down important information that they “discovered” about it.  They soon decided that they needed more research materials so they asked if they could look for dragon books on the library website.  They did that, requested them, and we later went to get them.  They read them (mostly Ben, I think) and reported some of the information to me.  Ben made up a list of types of dragons from this Gail Gibbons book as well as a “family tree”, as he called it, of certain well-known dragons and what type they might have been (I think some from Harry Potter made it onto this list and others of that sort).   They also began creating (from paper) eggs for different types of dragons.   Ben also asked for help finding an English/Latin translator online so he could make scientific-sounding Latin names for his dragon discoveries.  I also found this Dragons’ World video from Animal Planet for them to watch.  It was deemed to be one of the best movies ever by Ben.  This was all so cool and really imaginative, and I was loving watching it.  Unfortunately after about a week, Madeline got tired of the game and didn’t want to “play” anymore which made Ben drop it as well.  Great fun and learning while it lasted…

Art:

There have been various art activities going on including dragon and dragon egg drawing, Sculpey creations, some collage making, card making (for various occasions), and some marker drawings.  Madeline decided one day that she was going to be an artist so she put an apron on over her princess dress, pulled on a beret from the dress-up box, filled the apron pockets with paint brushes and then proceeded to paint pictures on some paper taped to the sliding door.  Too cute.

Government:

Ben told me one day that he wanted to learn about how the government works.  I found him the following books which he read on his own and then told me a few interesting bits of information from them.

Vote! by E. Christelow

D is for Democracy: A Citizen’s Alphabet by Elissa Grodin

Smart About the Presidents by Jon Buller, etc.

Presidential Elections and Other Cool Facts by Syl Sobel

Outdoor play:

With the beautiful spring weather we’ve been having there has been lots of outdoor play both at playgrounds with our homeschool group and in our backyard.  This has included lots of different things, but one thing in particular that I’ve noticed them doing (mostly Ben with his dad) is making up ball games to play.  Ben even came in one day and spent some time writing out the instructions for a game he made up. 

Writing:

This week Ben has decided to write a couple of short stories.  A couple of years ago he wrote some short stories about Bionicles (his all-time favorite thing in the world).  He recently got them out and then decided to write some more.  He wrote them out in a day or so and now is in the process of typing them into the computer and he then plans to illustrate them. 

Music:

Madeline picked up her recorder and recorder book a week or so ago and was really trying to teach herself how to play some of the notes.  She went around playing a few little tunes for a couple of days, but she since has stopped.  I wonder if I should encourage her to get it out again or just let her find it when she’s ready?

I know there must be more.  There is always a LOT of reading going on in our house.  That is one thing I never have to “get” my kids to do.  Ben and his dad are reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.  Madeline and I are reading The Secret Garden.  Ben has been reading the Warriors books among other things (he always reads several books at a time).  And Madeline has been reading one Boxcar Children book after another – drives me crazy, her determination to read the same books (or types of books) over and over.  And Ellie is reading lots of books on her own now, both to herself (she can read “in her head”!) and aloud to me, as well as still being read to quite a bit. 

So that’s all I’m remembering right off the top of my head.  I know that there has been a lot more going on around here.  The girls always have some kind of imaginative play going on (shop, tailor, farm girls, restaurant, etc.).  Ben is constantly building Bionicles, rebuilding Bionicles, researching Bionicle information, taking pictures of Bionicles … you get the idea. 

And me, I’m learning naturally how to live life with a baby and three busy kids on very little sleep without going insane… at least I’m trying…

So, in my last post I mentioned that we’ve been trying to do an informal unit study.  It has taken us several weeks to accomplish what I thought might last only a couple.  This is because some days we only do about an hour’s worth of reading and some days none at all.  But at any rate this is what we have been trying to do lately:

Exploring the World:

Reading about the Age of Exploration with the book Around the World in a Hundred Years and other books from the library about specific explorers, particularly Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan.

Reading Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne. This is taking forever because we started to read the original and the kids really like it and won’t let me switch to the Great Illustrated Classic version of it. I guess I should be pleased that they recognize the value of reading the original.

Finding places on maps in both of the above books. Plotting where the explorers went and Phileas Fogg’s route on world maps. (Not making actual maps, just looking at maps and finding the locations. I had planned to have them make maps, but that isn’t happening, and I decided not to force it.)

Reading The Fantastic Flying Journey to Ellie and Madeline (Ben’s heard/read it many times before). This is a great intro to geography and the animal life in each place the characters visit. And a really fun read. Unfortunately as I went to find the link I discovered it is unavailable, at least through Amazon.

Ben and I did the Global Puzzle again. Madeline helped a bit too.

Ben and Madeline played Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. Ben has played it before, so he was mainly playing to help Madeline who has never played before. They did a great job working together on this.

I had planned for us to play Top Secret Adventures, but Ben doesn’t want to play for some reason and it’s hard to find time for me to sit down and play board games these days.

We’re going to play a matching/concentration game with explorers and what they discovered.

We’ve also had several discussions about Columbus and whether or not he is really worth celebrating (as in Columbus Day) since he didn’t actually ever make it to North America technically, never admitted that he’d found a new continent, and treated the natives on the islands he did discover rather cruelly. On the other hand, he was brave and persistent and took risks that other explorers of that time would not take. And he did discover “the Americas” whether he realized it or not. So we’ve been debating a bit – pretty cool.

This has been the extent of our “formal” learning lately. 

It has been a crazy bunch of weeks around here.  About 5 and a half to be exact.  I feel as though I’m constantly spinning my wheels and getting nothing done.  Nothing except taking care of baby.  Which would be fine except I’m also the homeschooling mother of three other children!  I’ve wanted so much to just cocoon with this little bundle.  To be able to just devote all of my attention to his needs, to nap when he does, to coo at him and take his picture constantly.  But I can’t do that when I have a house to care for and these three other little people to look after and somehow educate.  We’ve been really taking it easy school-wise.  I dropped pretty much everything before the baby was born, and we haven’t by any means gone back to a regular or full schedule of learning.  But I did have the idea of doing a very relaxed unit “study” which would mostly be made up of reading and a couple of other fun kinds of activities.  My reasoning for trying to do that was to keep some kind of mom-directed learning going for continuity and structure and because I thought it would be easier to do some ”school” while the baby is still really little than when he gets a bit older and more demanding.  Problem is I cannot reliably depend on any amount of time in the day when he is asleep or awake but not fussing and when the kids are all available and willing to sit down with me and read.  It’s been very frustrating.   I’ve been trying to just finish up the reading we started because I hate dropping things in mid-stream and because the kids are pretty interested in what we’re doing.  Then I think we’ll take a serious break for awhile and just “learn through life” for the spring until we get into more of a groove here.   Maybe in the middle of summer when it’s far too hot to even be outside we’ll start something else.  Or not.  I’d just really forgotten what having a newborn is like!   I’d love to hear from other mothers of many how you get through these first few months homeschooling-wise.  I mean, I have done this before, but the last time I had a baby my older kids were only 5 and 3 so it felt a lot different as far as what I felt I needed to do with them school-wise.

Note:  After trying to finish this post for several days now with little hands-free computer time, I’ve decided to end this post here and then write a couple more posts detailing what we have been doing separately.