What's Changed In Our Homeschool This Year! (Part 1 of 3)

We recently started our fifth (of sixth) school term for the 2013-2014 school year, meaning that we are a bit more than two-thirds of the way through our school year.

I've already written about our year's homeschool schedule (and also why I love it!), so I'll just briefly recap our schedule here:

1st term - 6 weeks (1 week break)
2nd term - 6 weeks (1 week break)
3rd term - 6 weeks (1 week break)
4th term - 6-8 weeks (4 week Christmas break)
5th term - 6 weeks (1 week break)
6th term - 6 weeks (6 week Summer break)

I absolutely adore having a schedule, and it's been a great blessing!

Now that we are two-thirds of the way through the year, it's easy to see that some things have changed from the way we planned them out for the year. That's just fine - home education is about adapting to individual and family needs, rather than rigidly adhering to previously-conceived plans.

Thus, I thought I'd do a short series telling you about how this year - first grade for our 7yo - has changed over these past seven months.

Therefore!

"What's Changed In Our Homeschool This Year" - Part 1 of 3 is....

We've ditched our phonics program!

Isn't that fun? Yup, it's back in its box on the curriculum shelf, and it's actually been there for a good four-plus months.

Was it because we found something better? Because we gave it up in disgust?

Nope, it's because the 7yo is reading fluently and doesn't need it any more!

*Throws wild party!*

This year we continued with Rocket Phonics, and were very pleased with it. However, a month or two in, I noticed that our 7yo was mysteriously reading words with letter combinations that I had not yet taught him. Weird, but okay. However, a month or two after that, he suddenly moved from "hesitant reader" to "completely fluent reader who didn't need the help of the phonics book any more" - wow!

It was fast. It was sudden. It was completely unexpected. And we were thrilled!

In the American public school system, going from non-reader to reader at age seven might be considered on the late side. And as a child, I taught myself to read independently before my fourth birthday. Thus, several years ago when our then-3yo showed no interest in reading, I was at the time quite alarmed.

But in reading book-upon-book-upon-book on home education, I learned an important fact (that is usually overlooked in institutionalized education) - reading is a developmental skill. It doesn't come at the same time for all children. It comes much later for most boys than it does for girls. And it usually comes much more easily and with less pain and frustration when it is allowed to emerge in its God-given time than when it is forced at earlier-and-earlier ages, as is currently happening in American schools.

Our son went from non-reader to reader almost overnight. I would state confidently that he is now several grade levels beyond where he would be expected to be in the public school system - whereas six months ago he probably would have been labeled as "behind." Seeing the reading skill emerge so quickly and spontaneously has given me much more confidence in trusting to a child's inborn timing rather than trying to force reading lessons at early ages (as I originally did with our son, to the frustration of both of us). When our next comes along, I will start reading lessons at age six (unless requested earlier, which I am glad to oblige), but I won't worry about forcing a child to read who isn't ready - and I can't wait to see the transition from non-reader to voracious-reader happen again.

So what has replaced phonics? Our 7yo is obviously not reading at an adult level, so practice is still needed. And in place of phonics, we have simply put reading aloud. Every morning I choose a book for us to read together, and we alternate reading either pages or sentences aloud. It's much more enjoyable than reading lists of words, and he is improving at a phenomenal rate. I am very pleased, and plan to continue this method indefinitely.

It's so much fun watching children make great leaps of ability as their minds put the pieces together. This year has seen similar big jumps in math ability, among others. They're never expected, but always fun.

I can't wait to see what the rest of the year holds!

In Which....The 7yo Bakes a Cake!

Yesterday, I was briefly feeling a little under the weather. To make me feel better, our eldest decided to bake me a cake!

Mind you, while he has often helped in the kitchen, he has not yet made anything on his own.

When I showed up half an hour later, he had mixed up some sort of concoction of eggs, sugar, milk, and... hot chocolate powder.

I was extremely doubtful as to its ultimate fate, but I want to encourage any instance of helpfulness or kindness, so I immediately offered to bake it off for him. He cheerfully assented, so into the oven it went. To my intense surprise, it actually set up a bit and smelled not too bad!

We all sampled it later, and it tasted like... hmm. I guess it tasted like an overly-sweet soggy chocolate quiche-pudding. No one went back for seconds (or even a second bite), but that's not bad for a 7yo's first free-hand cake! In actuality, he was only off a bit from an authentic flour-less chocolate cake (chocolate, eggs, butter, sugar).

Obviously, great culinary accomplishments are ahead.

Afterwards, I helped him to make our favorite Fannie Farmer's Golden Cake (we love Fannie Farmer from Fannie in the Kitchen), which came out beautifully.

With lemon glaze from our leftover King Cake. YUM.

I love seeing big jumps in responsibility and ability like this. Sometimes it just takes that little, "Okay, maybe we haven't arrived, but we're getting somewhere" to give hope along the parenting journey. Seeing the jump from, "I don't care that mommy is sick, I need such-and-such" to "Mommy is sick, so I'm going to bake her a cake!" is huge. Huge, big, earth-shaking, and immeasurably cheering.

Life is good.

Have a wonderful night, dear friends.

Happy Epiphany! (Hand Over the Cake!)

Or, to put it more succinctly, hand over the cake NOW and no one gets hurt.

Happy Epiphany!

Though I grew up Lutheran, Epiphany - the celebration of when the wise men visited the Christ Child - was never considered particularly important. Part of the blame, of course, falls on the fact that Epiphany is right after Christmas. It might be a fun holiday, but everyone's too tired to care. "We Three Kings" went on the hymn list for the week, and we called it a day.

But this past year, when reading "Strega Nona's Gift," I decided to pick a couple of fun oft-ignored holidays to try to work into our family's holiday schedule.

Last year we had fun making Santa Lucia bread for Santa Lucia Day, and I planned to do that again this year - but didn't make it. (Hoping to pick it up again next year.) Next year I'd also love to pick up on Las Posadas. 

But we did make it to Epiphany this year!

Myth has it that on the Eve of Epiphany, one should always feed one's animals extra well - because on the Eve of Epiphany, animals are given the gift of speech for one night. If poorly fed, of course, they will talk badly about their masters.

This is, of course, a myth - but we had fun with it anyway! "Oh, boy - better feed the cats well tonight! Never know what they're gonna say!"

Then on Epiphany itself, one bakes a King Cake with a small plastic baby baked into it - the recipient, of course, being the favored person who will have good luck over the coming year.

Anyhow, it's an easy and fun holiday - both from a biblical perspective and as a cultural-mythological holiday.

We made our King Cake yesterday, using this recipe. I was expecting a run-of-the-mill sweet bread, and thus, when I caved and tried a bite, I was absolutely blown away.

I have finally found culinary nirvana, and it's called King Cake. 

Wow. That stuff is amazing! Don't believe me? Come over, and I'll fight you over it! (And then I'll take your piece and enjoy every morsel of it.)

But in the meantime, you've got to try this awesome recipe!!!

One tip - start this early in the day. I ended up pulling it out of the oven at ten o'clock at night, when I was dead tired (and ready to be doing other things, like chores and taking a shower), and it didn't help that I also had wired kids bouncing off walls while they waited for the cake to be done.

A delicate, chewy texture, flavored with a hint of nutmeg. Add in a cream cheese filling and a lemon-cream glaze, and you have.... a food for the gods. And yes, that IS our open dishwasher beneath it. It's called professional photography, people. 

I should note that it's supposed to be baked on a cookie sheet, but I decided to do a half-recipe in a Bundt pan. It worked beautifully.

My piece. One of them. 

Ours was not colored in the traditional way (stripes of pastel-colored sugar - see recipe link for the proper decor), but we did our best. And twelve hours after it came out of the oven... it was gone.

About the "good luck toy" - we didn't have a tiny plastic baby, so I went English-style instead and put in a sixpence (okay, it was a quarter). It was a complete disaster. It came out of the cake as soon as it was unmolded, and much as I kept trying to stick it back in, it kept falling out. I eventually gave up in disgust. Next time I'll find a toy and do it properly!

In the meantime, ENJOY! This is one holiday tradition that has come to our house to stay!

* Note - I learned later that this cake, while called King Cake, is actually a different kind of King Cake - one that is traditionally made in New Orleans during Mardi Gras (the Wednesday before the start of Lent). Well, gee. I made completely the wrong dessert for the wrong holiday. You win some... and you lose some... but I think I've found our Epiphany dessert anyway! YUM. We'll just be a bit radical in terms of messing up traditions of the liturgical year. 

* Even later note - Finding definite information on this cake is very difficult - it's all over the place! Another source I found says that King Cake is served anytime between Epiphany and Lent, in which case we didn't screw up after all. 

So, when all is said and done, just forget historicity and enjoy the cake. 

Keeping the Holidays Sane With a HOLIDAY NOTEBOOK!

Last year, I was introduced to the wonderful concept of a summer notebook - a really cute idea that helps keep summer vacation fun and relatively organized. I tried it, and it was great!

This fall I decided to use the same idea to make a notebook to organize the three months of our holiday season (November, December, January) - and it was a great success!

In the past, I have used FlyLady's Holiday Control Journal, and it is a great free resource (download here). I highly recommend it. However, it has way too much material for me (though I have tried just printing off the pages I need), and in many ways, it stresses me out due to its complexity. We're trying to simplify Christmas, not just organize the insanity. Thus, making my own holiday notebook was the next logical step - and the easiest way to add just what I need without extra pages that would bog me down (and make me feel guilty for all the stuff I don't do!).

Here is my holiday notebook.

Are you impressed? You should be. Wow, look at that red notebook. Impressive. 

And here are the different components contained within...

Calendar pages - one per month. I copied events from my personal calendar, and then added an activity or craft to do at home on the blank days:

A page to record Christmas gifts (for thank-you notes):

[Picture left out - too many personal family details! Just imagine it.}

A meal plan for Christmas week - especially important as I had both houseguests and a job playing for a Christmas Eve service, so we needed everything planned ahead of time:

A printout of my Evernote list of activities planned for each holiday:

And finally, an article that I wanted to keep handy (link) to remind myself of plans for Christmas morning:

It was simple, easy to keep track of, and a great help.

Each mama's notebook would contain different items - no two notebooks will look alike. But if you haven't given this idea a try - and find the holidays as stressful as I do - it might be a good thing to look into for next year! I'm already looking forward to planning my 2014 holiday notebook!

Enjoy!

In Which New Year's Eve Is Saved From COMPLETE Disaster

In other words, it was still a disaster. But not a complete one.

But I digress.

Normally, we spend New Year's Eve up in northern Arizona with DH's folks. We watch old movies, eat leftover Christmas goodies, and have a great time. This year, for the first time ever, DH's parents were unable to host, and we were on our own.

Oh, no! You mean I have to think of something to do on my own? 

Yup, pretty much.

Being that I was still tired from Christmas, I had a hard time mustering any enthusiasm for planning yet another holiday. (Why, why must we Americans lump our holidays so tightly together? What were we thinking?) Thus, the day before New Year's Eve, I posted a request for ideas on Facebook - and a sweet friend gave me this easy and extremely fun idea. Here it is!

Simply take index cards, write the evening hours on them (ending with bedtime, or thereabouts - however long you want your kidlets up):

On the other side, write a fun activity on each card:

Fold in half, and slip into a bag. If you want to be uber-creative, you could wrap them, put them in prettier bags, or make up some sort of treasure hunt to search for them. I settled for the super-simple this year.

Then give the kids the cards, and let them open them at the right times as the night progresses.

This was such a great idea! Hopefully we won't have to spend New Year's Eve by ourselves again, but if we do, we'll definitely do this - and we might even use this for other celebration dates!

Here were some of the "special things" I put on the back of the cards (in case you can't read them from the pictures):

- Make brownies with mom (I used the crockpot brownies-in-a-mug recipe - so fun!)
- Start crockpot hot chocolate
- Pick a board game and play it
- Eat brownies and milk
- Pick one cookie and eat it
- Fill out our "Remember 2013" New Year's sheet
- Watch the ball drop in Times Square

So how'd it go?

Well, not so hot, actually. It was a bit of a rough night. I wasn't feeling well, DH was out of sorts, and the kids were on the cantankerous and rowdy side. At times it was a bit stressful.

What I didn't realize, of course, was that a wee little virus had happily flitted into our household, and all of our kids were getting sick - and thus were displaying that mysterious pre-illness "Why are these kids so doggone cranky?" syndrome. Two of them woke up with it the next day, and two more on Friday (I'm including DH in the count!), and I am now coming down with it. So that put a definite damper on the fun.

Also, I had forgotten why I despise board games with young kids. Suffice it to say, never again. Or at least, not any time soon. I'll reconsider at some point - say, 2037.

However, this game was really the saving grace of the evening. Otherwise, it would have been a complete disaster, but as it was, this put some fun into the evening. Next time I'll leave out board games and put in something easier like "make a tent out of blankets in the living room." I learned some tips of the trade.

Additionally, this year was the last year that we are going to watch the ball drop in Times Square. We turned on the "TV" (i.e. the computer) two minutes before ball-drop time, and we were very disappointed. We were thinking "a fun show," but it looked more like some type of manic orgy consisting mainly of really bad music and close-ups of really intimate kissing. I was embarrassed, DH was disgusted, and we both thought, "Why on earth are we actually showing this to our innocent children?" We shut it off the second the ball dropped, and we shut it off for good. Next year we'll just go outside and drop a pine cone. It will be a big improvement on the New York scene, for sure!

And with that, we head (officially!) into 2014. School starts back up tomorrow, and I'm going to be working hard on my current goals - and the main one for tomorrow will be staying on schedule!

I look forward to interacting with you all over the coming year!

Cheers, everyone! Happy Sabbath!

In Which I Refrain From Making New Year's Resolutions!

As I've mentioned in years past, I do my best not to make New Year's resolutions. Despite my best intentions, they inevitably fall by the wayside within, oh, twenty minutes or so. Two days later, I can't even remember my resolutions, let alone keep them.

But I always enjoy spending some time at the end of each year looking back to see what the year has held, and how far we've come - and what directions or goals I'd like to have for coming months.

Again, nothing formal. As Amy at Raising Arrows said so wisely this week,

"All I can do is walk. I have been given just a little light on my path.  I walk one step and wait.  I walk another and wait.  I know eventually there will be more light on the path, but even then, it won’t be much."

In other words, it's not possible to sit at one spot (January 1st) and know what the Lord has planned for us for an entire upcoming twelve months. Often we are given only enough light on our path to take the next step - not plan all the steps ahead for month upon month into the future.

In some ways, that's where we are right now. Our family too is in a state of limbo. Though we've been in this unemployment journey for an unbelievable fifteen months now, we are still not at the end of it. DH has created a business that he is greatly enjoying, but it is not yet producing enough income to provide for our family. We don't know if it will work out in time, or if he will be forced to take a corporate job in the end.

It's just not possible to plan too far in advance. School plans, travel plans, etc. - everything major is on hold until we reach a place of more stability. Thus, I won't be making a lot of long-term big plans for our family, our school, or our home. It's just not possible, so those type of plans will have to wait.

But despite the financial hardship - and this past year was financially disastrous for us! - 2013 was actually an awesome year. Sounds odd, but it's true. We have come so far, individually and as a family. I think it's been the most spiritually productive year that we've ever had in our decade-long marriage.

And to be honest, unemployment was a big part of that growth. We didn't want DH to lose his job - it was comfortable and met our needs, even though it wasn't particularly interesting - but the road that we've traveled spiritually this year would not have been possible without that motivating catastrophe. And having DH at home for an entire year has been absolutely awesome. It's been an entirely new way of doing family, and one that we want to continue. That's why DH has been plugging away at developing a home business instead of diving enthusiastically into corporate interviews - now that we've discovered how life can be when lived together, as opposed to "Dad at work" totally separated from "Mom with the kids at home," we definitely don't want to go back to the old way unless we absolutely have to. Life for us is just better with Dad home. 

However!

I've gotten sidetracked!

Back to the point! The point of this whole post was simply to say that while I do try to avoid formal New Year's resolutions, I am working on many areas of our home and family life, as well as my own spiritual life - and I thought you all might like to see what those areas are!

Here we go, before I get side-tracked again!

Areas of improvement that I am currently working on (and hope to continue working on during the coming year) are....

Good stewardship of my time

As time presses on, I find that I have more, and more, and more responsibilities - but my time and energy stay constant! Thus, I must find more and more ways to use my time productively. Primarily, this means learning not to fritter my time away on useless internet browsing (can we say Facebook?). It's so easy for me to sit down "just to look up a quick recipe" and find, twenty minutes later, that I've automatically started wasting precious time surfing the web. This is NOT OKAY, and I mean for it to stop. I have already implemented a working system for this, which I hope to share for you soon. I've also deactivated my Facebook account, testing the waters to see if I can live without it - if so, I hope to end up deleting it. Why? Read the article here. As Cindy says so eloquently,

"I think we’ve been duped, homeschooling (and especially homeschool blogging) mamas. We’ve been tricked into thinking that we can simultaneously be with our children and not be with our children, or with our friends, or with our husbands. We think that because we’re in their physical presence, we’re doing what we ought to. But my children know better. They know when mommy is distracted by what some stupid stranger on Facebook said. They know when she’s cranky because someone who means nothing to her has said something horrible about her faith or her family or (Lord help me) her looks. They can tell when she has yet again turned her brain off to look at meaningless things that have nothing to do with her real work, her family."

That about sums it up. I'd like to quote more from the article, but I'd end up quoting the whole thing - so, again, if you didn't already click the link, go read it.

(I'm going to post more about my Facebook exit - hopefully soon!)

Emotions and words with DH and the children

Have you heard about the rice experiment? Wowza. But even without the experimental data that comes from yelling mean things at a jar of rice every day, the truth is blaringly obvious - as a wife and mama, my words are incredibly powerful. I can bless - or hurt - my family very powerfully by how I choose to open my mouth. While I have come so far, I have so far yet to go. This is an area of my life that I am keeping in serious prayer as I attempt to make lots of improvement in this area. In other words, it's time to get in my Michelle Duggar groove. I don't know if I'll ever attain that level of sheer awesomeness, but I can try!

Decluttering and housekeeping

The decluttering bug bites me about once a year, and I am thankful that I am showing signs of the bug once again. Thank heavens! It frustrates me greatly that the only thing standing between me and my minimalist dream-lifestyle is me. Nothing else is stopping me! If only I could pound that into my head, we'd have a much simpler household. Of course, it doesn't help that I have the huge American Culture of Stuff working against me - no matter how much I shovel out the door, more seems to come in! But again, that's my fault. I'm the one letting it in and letting it stay. And I need to work on that.

I also need to work on streamlining my housekeeping. As our family grows and our home education program grows, my time for housekeeping shrinks. Anything that is optional needs to go, and anything that needs to happen must happen more quickly. Period. Now, to learn how to do that!

Chore systems

This is an area of major disaster and breakdown in our home. Current problems: (1) I have not assigned our children enough chores. This is a character issue - we have entitlement issues and lack of responsibility issues. (2) I don't check up on chores regularly enough. Translation - Chores are being done sloppily or not at all. I need to check consistently, and provide consequences for undone or badly done jobs. (3) We have attitude problems - reluctance, lack of diligence, entitlement, an unwillingness to help out with needed jobs.

All that to say - I need to work on chores. Chore charts, checking on chores, working and praying and training on attitudes - all of that needs to happen.

Developing a life of prayer

I grew up with a very anemic view of prayer. In other words, prayer is something that we do because we're supposed to, but it's merely a formality because it's not going to do any good. It's taken me a very long time to get over that unbiblical mindset (though I still have shreds of it hanging around my soul), and I now want very much to be a woman of prayer (rather than a woman of nagging or a woman of fretting, etc. etc.). It's a big change!

(This is also a continual struggle for me because I tend to be very uptight and focused on my to-do list. "Yes, I need to pray, but I also need to clean out the refrigerator!!" Staying in one place long enough to have a decent prayer life is a decided challenge.)

Working on FOOD

Oh, goodness. FOOD. Where to start? In any family, food takes up so many different facets of life. Here are just a few of them...

- I am working on learning to cook for a large family. "But," says the ever-sapient reader, "Why would you cook for a large family when you don't have a large family?" Good question! There are a couple of reasons!

• Our family is growing. Not literally (at the moment), but there's always the possibility. Additionally, our children are getting bigger - and eating more! (And the 4yo has always eaten like a teenager anyway!)
• I am working on a project suggested by a friend of mine - that is, cooking a huge meal every night and serving leftovers for lunch the next day. This is such a time-saver and a head-saver when I can make it work!! (And it's also a great way to work on the 7yo's picky eating! "Didn't like it? Great! Here it is AGAIN! Learn to love it, child!") But it requires thinking in much bigger terms with food preparation. 
• I am working on meal planning, which is a big area of failure right now. I'm actually good at the planning bit, but thinking of what to make is a constant frustration, and I need to work into a better system on that end. 

- I am working on our food quality. Adding organic when we can (not often right now!), adding lacto-fermented foods, trying for fresh vegetables, etc. 

- I am working - always, always, always - on our food budget. This is a huge undertaking, and will probably continue for the rest of my life. Learning where - and when - to shop. Getting started with Azure Standard and local co-ops and super-market overload markets. Learning prices, learning to buy and store food in bulk, learning where is the best deal on individual items. (Coconut oil? Sam's Club! Oatmeal? Azure Standard! Produce? Market on the Move! Canned goods? Walmart! Grocery items? American Discount Foods!) You see? It's a monumental task, and I'm working to improve constantly. 

In working on our food budget, I regularly encounter two conflicts, which are:

• Money vs. Health - If I don't care what my family eats, then it is easy to feed them cheaply. Very easy. Of course, they'll end up with serious short-term and chronic health conditions, have horrible behavior problems (Red 40, anyone?), and be sick all the time - but at least it would be cheap! In all seriousness - there is a constant balancing act between trying to keep our budget down while trying to eat healthy foods. The unfortunate fact is that really bad food is really, really cheap - and good food costs more. 

• Time vs. Health - Good food, besides requiring more money, also requires more time and work - especially in the areas of lacto-fermentations (yogurt, kombucha, kefir, lacto-fermented salsa, etc.) and produce-processing (washing, chopping, freezing, bagging, etc.). I'm willing to put in hard work - but there's also a balance between hard work and running myself ragged. I remember in particular one time last spring when I spent a weekend freezing bell peppers, putting up pickles (which later went bad), turning tomatoes into tomato sauce, boiling and pureeing squash, and freezing green beans - at the end of it, I was near tears. Yes, we saved a lot of money, which was great - but I also have to consider my sanity. It's a balance. 

What can I say? FOOD. It takes work, and it will continue to do so this year. 

And finally, I am working on...

The Smoothness of Our MORNINGS

Right now, I find our mornings (from when the children get up till after lunch) to be incredibly stressful. Usually I'm pretty much ready to wring necks before breakfast is over - sometimes before! A good deal of this can be contributed to my aforementioned failure in the area of chores (see above). Another bit can be attributed to having two babies and to having a great deal more to do with our morning hours than can possibly be done.

But I know that there are areas that I can improve, and I plan to be in serious prayer about this while I work on streamlining our mornings and making them more pleasant.

In Conclusion!

I have a lot going on around here! And really, it's just a continuous cycle. As one area of my life grows into better shape, another area shows up needing work. I have the feeling that that is just life-on-earth, rather than anything I'll ever mature out of.

But I want to do my best to put in the work to make our home, our family, our educational system, and my heart as good possible with the strength that I have.

This year I've seen something new-to-me going around - that is, choosing a theme word for the coming year.

Jacinda at Growing Home chose LOVE.

          Tristan at Our Busy Homeschool chose HOLINESS.

                               Heather at Raising Mighty Arrows chose INTENTIONAL.

I have decided that my word for 2014 is going to be STEWARDSHIP.

I have been given certain jurisdictions in this life o' mine. I am the STEWARD of my mind - I shouldn't be wasting my very-limited brain-space on endless Facebook trivia. I am the STEWARD of my time - I don't want to fritter it away on things that have no value. I am the STEWARD of my home - I want it to be decent-looking and livable. I am the STEWARD of our home education system - I want to do a good job and make sure that our children receive a first-class education to the best of my abilities. I am the STEWARD of our family's well-being - I need to make sure that I am treating my husband and children with love and doing a good job of looking after them.

I cannot afford to waste - to waste time, energy, emotional energy. I need to be the steward that God requires me to be.

And that is what I'm working on this year!

What can you expect from this blog this coming year?

Not much. That's the beauty of being a small-time blogger! I have no obligations, no promised post-schedules, no link-up parties, no webinars. I don't know where I'll be headed, and I don't know where this blog will be headed. But I do know that I love to write, and I hope to connect regularly with you all, bringing you along on the journey that this coming year will hold for our family.

I hope that you'll join me!

Dear readers, I would love to hear about what you are working on right now in your lives, hearts, and homes, and I'd love to hear any suggestions or input about what I've written! Please feel free to chime in!

Happy New Year from Arizona! 

Because every blog post about New Year's resolutions should end with a completely unrelated picture of a baby in a WWI army hat. 

Serious Fun With Homeschool MAPS!

You may recall that we finished our unit study of England about two months ago, but one thing that we never did finish was our map of England!

Being that we are almost through with our next country study (China!), I decided that we would use a few days of our Christmas break to pound it out.

It was incredibly easy - and fun. Who would have guessed?

Poster board - Purchased two for $1.00 at Dollar Tree

Other supplies - Markers, black sharpie, water colors

I traced out the borders with pencil and then marker, and then worked with the 7yo to paint land-green and water-blue. We worked fast (as you can see) to avoid losing his interest (which doesn't take long!).

[Click to enlarge for more clarity of detail]

Then I went back through all of the topics we studied, and marked up the map to show where they were located. This was the fun part!

Home education is full of surprises. I often start doing a project (like poetry, or history, or field trips - or maps!) thinking that it will be hideously dull, but we'll do it because it has to be done, and voila! What do you know? It's fun! We learn a lot and we enjoy it at the same time. This map is now adorning our freezer, and China will be coming up next week.

Happy Saturday, everyone!!

* P.S. Yes, I know that some of our markings are based on fictional or semi-mythical characters. That's because he's seven and we want to have fun! (Not to mention that fiction is an important part of culture!) The movements of kings and armies will wait a bit - you know, till he's eight.