Looking Ahead to High School - Part 5

If you missed any previous parts HERE is a quick link to them.


This is the third year that KM has been participating in an incredible theater group that focuses on Shakespearean plays. She has been in Romeo & Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream and is currently working on Much Ado About Nothing.

The fab director that we are so lucky to be able to work with has reworked the original plays, keeping the original language and pentameter, but making them approachable and suitable for this age group. She has learned so much about the language and of course theater skills, but has now asked to learn about Shakespeare and to read the original scripts, so she will be doing a thematic unit on Shakespeare next year which will include his life, sonnets, Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet and Richard III.

We will be utilizing the following resources a free Shakespeare Kit - Shakespeare in American Communities  and the Shakespeare Thematic Unit from Teacher Created Resources as spines for this study. KM really likes and responds well to these interdisciplinary units. We are also planning on watching several versions of each play, other movies that follow the story lines of these plays, and are hopeful that she will be able to continue working with the theater group!

You Tube Monday - SMASHING EASTER EGGS

Looking Ahead to High School - Part 4

If you missed 1, 2, or 3 be sure to check them out!


For History next year we are going with a series by one of our favorite storytellers, Joy Hakim! We completely enjoyed the Story of Science and after all the rave reviews for A History of US we are really looking forward to it. After much discussion we have decided to take two years to do US History, so we are hoping to get through books 1-4 next year and 5-10 the following year. 


In addition to reading these as a spine she will be supplementing with the following resources - 

• America the Story of the US History Channel Series
• U.S. History: Inventive Exercises to Sharpen Skills and Raise Achievement
• U.S. Government, Economics, and Citizenship : Inventive Exercises to Sharpen Skills and Raise Achievement 
• Freedom a Story of US PBS free resources
• For the People (Learn American Government) - Standard Deviants DVD Series
• C-Span Free U.S. President's Poster and other C-SPAN classroom resources
• Hip-Hop U.S. History: The New and Innovative Approach to Learning American History (Flocabulary Study Guides)
  

If you know of any additional resources that might of interest - PLEASE let us know!

Additional Commenter Recommendations -

• Lies My Teacher Told Me

FREE Books From Scholastic & Kumon - Learn And Earn

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Soul Surfer - The Inspiring True Story of Bethany Hamilton - In Theaters Now

Sometimes timing is everything! I was just mentioning to KM that we should go see this movie this week and when I went to my computer to look up where it was playing this email was sitting in my inbox so I thought I would share -

Dear Homeschool Leader,

Have you heard of Bethany Hamilton? She's the young surfer who lost her arm when she was attacked by a 14-foot shark.

Amazingly, she was back in the water a month later, and surfing competitively within a few months ... All while bodly living out and sharing her faith in Jesus Christ.

Her inspiring story is now a major motion picture in theaters now and features an all-star cast: AnnaSophia Robb and Helen Hunt, with Carrie Underwood in her film debut, and Dennis Quaid.

Click here to view a clip from Soul Surfer including Bethany's upbringing as a homeschooler.

Please help get the word out!

Buy tickets here!

You can:
"Like" the Facebook page
Visit the Soul Surfer website to sign up for updates and get inside information.

Thank you for supporting family-friendly films and for getting the word out about Soul Surfer!

We went to see it this afternoon and it was an INCREDIBLE story! It was so inspiring to see this 13 year old girl overcome such a horrific situation with a poise and grace far beyond her years. Our family is not religious in anyway, but we are spiritual and to see how this child's faith brought her through was amazing. We were both in tears several times!

Looking Ahead to High School - Part 3

If you missed 1 or 2 be sure to check them out!


So we had no problem deciding on what KM will be using for her core text for Biology next year - Biology Demystified - she is very excited in trying this series out so that she can direct her learning fully on her own with these self-teaching guides. However we are working out the logistics of it being considered "high school" level if we leave out dissection labs. KM wants nothing to do with dissections, either in real life or virtual dissections with computer animated animals. She doesn't want to watch videos on it or anything. I completely understand and respect her position on it, so we are looking into other ways to get the concepts and ideas that dissections are suppose to be getting across. 

Here is a rather interesting essay/article that we read on the whys of dissection.

I am trying to compile a list of alternative resources and some that I found so far are -

• Dissection Alternatives
• Biology Coloring Book
• Teach Kind

If you have any to add please feel free to add them to the list or email! 

You Tube Monday - Selena Gomez & The Scene - Who Says

Looking ahead to High School - Part 2

If you missed part 1 be sure to check it out HERE.

As I continue to think about and discuss with KM what the upcoming years will look like, the biggest thing that she would like to avoid is redundancy. Her biggest pet peeve is repetition and I can totally understand why she would feel that way. If you have already learned something - truly learned it - why on earth would you want to keep going over it again and again and again. I know that there are times when you might forget something and need a refresher to get your brain on track again, but if you actually know it then you don't need to relearn it, you just need to brush up on it.

With this in mind I have been looking at a lot of areas in which things might be repeated and one of the most common areas is language arts, grammar to be specific. Now I have mentioned about a bazillion times in past posts that writing is really a difficult area for us, but when it comes to grammar KM has things down pat. She knows parts of speech, can diagram sentences, knows all the mechanics, and can easily edit other people's work - this really blows my mind since she struggles so much getting her own words down, but hey whatever. So I am thinking that since I have a few more books from the Straight Forward Advanced English Series - that I have stockpiled from Paperbackswap! -  that I will have her take the assessment test, if she passes them with an 85% or higher then I am going to give her credit for completing them, just like you would get on college level entrance tests. If she scores below that we will focus on the areas that she had trouble with and she can retest. This seems like the most logical time efficient course of action.

We actually took this route with Geography for next session. I had planned on having her do a Geography workbook over the summer to brush up on it since we haven't been getting into the map skills as much with Volume 3 & 4 of Story of the World as we had with the earlier volumes. I had gotten The Basic Not Boring World Geography - also through Paperbackswap - and when KM took a look through she said quite confidently "I know this stuff" and I replied "OK, show me." She took the final test at the back of the book and scored a 98%. The only thing that she stumbled on was some landform identifications, but really what is the difference between a bay and a gulf? or a strait and a channel? This showed me that there was no need for her to work through another book, when she knows the information.

I think testing out is going to cut down on a large portion of her academics and will allow her to explore more delight driven areas. Only time will tell how this will work out, but I have high hopes!

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Looking ahead to High School - Part 1

KM is finishing up the tail end of her 8th grade year and I have been thinking a lot about "high school" lately. So many families are putting such a huge emphasis on buckling down and hitting the books through these years, but I am just feeling that is not the route we want to take.

For those of you who know me, I am a researcher. Put a topic on the horizon and I am going to find out everything there is to know about it. I am going to dissect it and view it from every angle. That is just me and the high school topic is no different. I have spent hours upon hours listening to podcasts and webinars and reading book after book about how to homeschool through high school, but as with everything else in our life there is nothing that feels as though it is just going to FIT for us. I don't want to do "school" just because my daughter is at the age she would be entering "high school."

I want the upcoming years to be filled with the same type of delight driven learning and fun activities that they have been. I want to keep her engaged and interested in the topics that we cover and not just cover things because "that is what you do in high school." I want her to still have time to spend with friends, go to the movies, play piano, draw, play video games, and whatever else she wants to do and still learn in a way that she finds intriguing.

I have heard over and over again about all the things that kids NEED to get into a good college, well I am not 100% sure that she wants to go to college. I am not willing to force her into a box set of guidelines in hopes that she will get to where she needs to be, when she can just be now and we can work on a way to get her into college if that is what she wants to do when the time comes.

Another thing that we have been thinking about when it comes to high school and college is her age. When KM started kindergarten we lived in a district that had a cut-off date of Sept. 30th, but our current district's cut-off is Aug 31st, so according to our district she is ahead a year - in all actuality she is all over the place on several different levels, but I don't need to go into that right now. Anyway, when looking at it this way and taking her personality into account we have seriously been thinking about stretching her high school out over 5 years rather than 4. This would allow her to be an older 18 rather than a much younger 17 if she decides to attend college at that age. It would also allow a much more relaxed timeline and more time for her to discover and work on her own passions or to get a job if she wants without the added pressure of heavy academics.

When I mention to people I am thinking of going this route I am often confronted with some rather odd looks and astonished remarks of "what do you mean IF she goes to college?" So many other families with middle schoolers are buckling down and hitting the books as if that is the only option in life. There are so many career paths that do not begin with college, but begin with learning what you are interested in, what you are passionate about, what brings you happiness. I know far too many twenty-something graduates who are doing NOTHING that has to with what they went to school for. They are so far in debt and have no direction in their life because they were hustled through the system and led down the path without having any idea what THEY actually WANTED. They were just told go to college, get a degree and all will be well, but that is not quite so in our world today. More and more companies would rather employees have life experience than college degrees.

I also know many thirty-something career driven people who HATE their jobs. They have degrees and work in the fields that they went to college for, but they hate it! They go to work because they have become accustom to the life that their path has allowed them to have, but they are miserable. I would really like KM to be happy in whatever it is that she chooses to do. I would much rather that she learn about a wide variety of things as they come up in hopes that something will spark an interest enough that she may want to find a career in it, but I would also like her to know enough about other things that if she finds that she isn't happy in the choice that she made that she can switch things up and try something else.

Maybe I am being naive or too wishful, but I really think this is the route we are going to take - five years of relaxed delight directed academics.

I would love to hear others comments or thought on this, so please feel free to share. 

You Tube Monday - How to play BLACK STAR by Avril Lavigne (keyboard) - EASY

Expedition Week - Spice Up Your Week With FREE Resources!!!

Next week is Expedition Week on National Geographics Channel and there are some great resources available for FREE through this link - HERE

This is a great way to get out of the end of the year funk and put some spice into your week! See what you can entice your learners with by switching things up a bit!!!

Stay Day System

I have been asked many questions about stay days since I posted our spring session plans, so while I was reseting our white board calendar for the month I thought I would take a few seconds to explain this simple process that we use.

I require that we stay home for three days each week, no ways around this. There are so many activities and things to do that if I don't we would be out every day, my house and work become neglected and KM becomes exhausted, cranky and CRASHES! So I took a tip from a fantastic homeschool guru and I created a Stay Day System of our own.

Here is what are calendar looks like at the beginning of the month. I list all the things that we already have scheduled or planned and then I choose 3 days a week that we stay home, I mean I don't leave the house. Each of the three days gets designated a number 1, 2, or 3 because different chores need to be completed on those days. The three days can fall in any combination during a 7 day period. I try to space them out if possible, but sometimes it just isn't. On these days KM can have people over once she has gotten her assigned chores done for that day, but I will not take her anywhere or pick anyone up as I need to be able to get my household chores and work completed. This system works so well and each time I have allowed us to slip out of it, it has backfired and the house and the families attitudes fall to pieces.

Now I was also asked what sorts of things get completed on these stay days and this is going to be something that if you decide to implement you would need to decide for yourself. For us the days look like this -

• Stay Day #1
• Weekly baking - deserts, breads etc.
• Meal Plans for the Week
• Bathrooms thoroughly cleaned
• Full Kitchen Clean Up
• Laundry - Linens
• Vacuuming
• Stay Day #2
• Project - art, household, yard ~depends on what is needed~
• Vacuuming
• Clean Bedrooms
• ALL trash barrels emptied
• Laundry - K
• Stay Day #3
• Laundry - M & D
• Vacuuming
• Floors
• Fully Clean Dining Room & TV Room

Having this routine and schedule allows us to not get overwhelmed with the household chores. We do pick up things as we go along and there are other daily things - compost, feeding animals, recycling bins, etc - that are done, but those things take little to no time and allow us to be able to the "Full Cleans" in a much quicker way because things aren't left to get out of hand. 

This also allows KM to quickly be able to answer her friends when asked to setup an activity. If the day is blank or only lists library or something then she knows she can go ahead and say yes, if there is a number in the block she knows that the friend can come here or if she can get a ride from someone else - even CJ - she can go, but that I can't take her. There are of course ALWAYS exceptions to these rules - like birthday parties etc. but in general we have those things on the schedule in advance and I work the stay days around them. 

As always this is something that needs to be tweaked for each family - it will not work the same for yours as it does for ours - but it is a great place to start from! It also gives the kids a sense of knowing what is coming and if they want to spend the day in their PJs they can because they know they aren't going anywhere! 

I hope that clears up the questions that I received! Please let me know if there are any others. 

What About Private School?

What About Private School?

It's my quote, so I had to share!

You Tube Monday - Muppet Show - Mahna Mahna Original