Interesting Websites

Prairie Journal – Photos of the Northern Lights

Jan Brett Drawing Lessons via video – This is free

Somewhere Over a Rainbow – Very awesome video

Our Oceans Are Turning into Plastic – Are We? – Really made me think about our plastic use

Eight wonder of the world? – Cool pictures along with this article, so wish I could see it in person

Pete’s Power Point Station – Free power point presentations on a variety of topics

Best Online Documentaries – for those of you who would like to watch free documentaries

Wrapping Up before the Holidays

We are wrapping up this week and then taking 2 weeks off for the holidays.  Yes, I know that I usually hate taking off that much time, but there are other factors involved this year.  Tyler’s reasons are: he’s figured out that his cousins (who are in public school) get 2 weeks off so why shouldn’t he, and his other reason is that he’s been doing school since way before them (I think he means that he started this school year in July and they didn’t start until Aug) and that it isn’t fair for him to not get a break (OK, it is weird to be getting so much sibling-type comparison to his cousins considering he’s an only, but this is his first year with them and there is more than a little hero-worship going on with his older male cousin so I’ll have to deal with it for now).  My reasons include the fact that Trent will be working from home next week since the plant that he normally works at is closed for the whole week (school with Trent around is a real work in patience because Tyler is just too excited having his dad around to concentrate much on school) and because I’m hoping that with the cousins off of school we can get the kids together to do something fun a couple times (if the snow stays then maybe we can get them sledding.)

I’m going to have to buckle down on Tyler if he really does want to enter a picture in the art contest.  I was planning on his working on it yesterday, but then for some reason school took almost all day.  Well, first he hasn’t been getting up until around 9am (but that might be because he’s messing around in bed and not going to sleep until around midnight even though bedtime has been moved back to 9pm.)  So we started late and then everything just seemed to take forever.  We started school around 10am, with a little break at lunchtime and didn’t finish until almost 4pm.  That’s a long day for us.  Hopefully today goes smoother and we can get things done a little faster so he can do that drawing.

I won’t be blogging about school for the next 2 weeks, but if we do something fun and I get pictures, I’ll share them.  In the meantime, have a wonderful holiday season!  I’ll see you next year!

Will Smith Homeschools

Did you know this? I didn’t until I read it over at the Just Enough Blog Will Smith Is Starting a (Homeschool Co-Op?) School.  Then I found out more when I read the Reader’s Digest article that was posted in the comments section of that blog (Will Smith Interview).  Now I have always been a big fan of Will Smith’s.  I admired him when he was a rapper for not getting sucked into Gangsta Rap when it became popular and trying to keep his music more family friendly.  I’ve thought about how dedicated he has to be to reinvent himself into an actor.  Back when he did it, there really wasn’t anyone else transcending all those genres.  It’s been uplifting how he’s stayed out of the paparazzi media storm and protected his family as well.  And I’ve been impressed how he and Jada almost always make their outings a family affair.  They really are trying to raise their kids (i.e. not handing the responsibility over to someone else.)  But now I find out that I have something in common with him – I homeschool as well.  I also found out that we share similar education philosophies.  I call it my “Teach the basics, teach them how to learn, teach them a love of learning and the rest will follow” philosophy.  We learn about reading, writing, and math in our school, and, yes, we take some test/quizzes on these topics because I expect him to learn these really well.  We touch on topics of social studies, science, health, etc. but I never require him to remember everything about those topics.  If he needs the information again, I’m teaching him how to look information up in books, encyclopedias and on the Internet.  I totally agree that you don’t need to know the date of the Boston Tea Party.  I don’t know it (though I’m sure I was required to learn it at various times during my school years), but I do know a variety of different ways that I could look it up if I ever needed or wanted that information.  Now I’m not sure about teaching Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics yet because I’m just getting Tyler to read books that don’t have pictures in them, but they are interesting books to read.

Now that I’ve basked in the celebrity shadow for a few moments, I’ll update you on our stuff.  Tyler finished the Magic Tree House #2 book yesterday.  I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to walk into a room and be told we can’t start other school stuff yet because he’s reading.  And that he’s reading at times other than when I tell him he must read something.  I’m sure the tides will change and there will still be days where he doesn’t want to read, but I am going to enjoy these days where he just sits down and reads by himself.

I’m signing him up for his next art class today.  He’s decided that he wants to do the Family Fun class.  This class is a mixed media class, but with an adult present.  The adults get to do the projects as well.  We haven’t gotten a response on whether it has to be the same adult every class (in this case he has decided it will be me) or if we can send a different adult to various classes so that Dad and Grandparents can attend with him as well (this is what he really wants to happen.), so we’ll just have to wait and see.

We are also headed to the library today.  Yes, we are going to the main library because the branch library out by us just doesn’t have enough stuff for Tyler (this he told me).  I can understand this.  When we lived in Denver and could just walk a few blocks to take the 16th Street Mall Shuttle and then walk a few more blocks, we almost always went to the main library.  The children’s section of the Denver library was probably as big as the whole first floor of the main library (of which the children’s section is only about a fourth of it) where we are now (yes, bigger than the little branch library by us.)  So I guess he got spoiled (I know I did.)  It was also nice that the Denver library had audiobooks, ebooks (my preference) and movies all available for download right from their website, so we didn’t have to go to the library sometimes.  So he has requested that we frequent the main library so he can find the things he’s interested it.  Again, basking in the glow that my son wants to go to the library on a weekly basis and that he is interested in what is there, I’ll take him to the main library.

I’ve moved my blog here, Winter, etc

Yes, I’ve moved my blog to here.  I’ve been doing some research and talking with others and it seems like this will be a better fit for me.  It will still be me talking about things we do for “school”.

This weekend winter arrived.  We got about a foot of snow this weekend.  We’re thinking that we might have a white Christmas, but I looked at weather.com and it is supposed to warm up at the end of the week with rain scheduled for next weekend.  If we get that rain, then we might not have a white Christmas.

Here’s some pics:  Frontyard 12/17/07  Driveway 12/17/07  Deck 12/17/07  Backyard 12/17/07

Tyler has started the next Magic Tree House book.  Book#2: The Knight at Dawn.  He’s read 3 chapters already.  I found that they have companion books for some of them that are non-fiction.  For this book, the companion book is about Knights and Castles.  I’m hoping that he can read the fiction book and then read the non-fiction book for a little education along the way.

Trent & Tyler made sugar cookies yesterday since it was our stay-at-home lazy day (well, except for the dig out the driveway and sidewalk time outside.)  Tyler told me he put love in them and I must say they are very tasty.  We’re not normally a sugar cookie family, but he made cookies over at Grams & Grandpa Randy’s and enjoyed rolling out the dough and using cookie cutters, so he had to make some at home as well.

We’re staying home today, but tomorrow we will be running errands.  I am so trying to finish things up before Christmas and we need to return videos to the library.  They only give you a week on videos, and yes that makes me keep going back but sometimes it is a hassle.

Oh, I didn’t want to forget to mention that Tyler found something wonderful out at Lego.com.  It is the Lego Digital Designer (Click here).  This is a download, so it takes up space and needs certain graphics stuff.  But he is loving it.  He can create designs and save them (this is a BIG thing with him.)  He has all the pieces he needs and never runs out, he has all the colors he could want, and he never has to hear me tell him to pick up all the Legos.  He’s been creating trucks, barges, helicopters, houses, hotels, etc, etc, etc.  He will spend hours doing this.

Legos, Library, Christmas

We didn’t get around to making chex mix yesterday because Tyler wanted to build some Lego creations. He’s been out to the Lego website again and found the MindStorm Legos. Yes, the ones that you can program using your computer. He has a long list of reasons for why he needs/things he could build with these Legos. So far I’ve heard: so that he can program them to pick up his toys, so he can program them to pick up Hershey’s toys so that I don’t have to, so he can program them to put away his clothes, so he can program them to put away clothes for me, so he can program them to feed Grams’ fish for her, and so that he can program them to play with Hershey. His Christmas gifts from his parents have been purchased already and I already think I know what we’re getting him for his birthday, so he’s going to have to plead his case to someone else on these. However, people looking for ideas for him for Christmas could probably just put this on the list, along with Transformers.

We had to make a quick run to the library this morning as we had videos to return. We got more videos so we’ll be back at the library next Tuesday. I’m slowing working on getting him over to the educational videos. He’s been getting Transformer videos lately, but I was showing him today the educational section. So far, he’s told me that he likes videos where there are a few of them and the pictures on them line up to make a big picture. Not that he wants to get the actual videos.

We did decide on our Christmas e-card. Tyler & Trent liked the one that I liked, so I worked on getting that sent out this morning (they’ll send it out for me sometime in the next day or so.) But I’m sharing it here as well since I don’t have emails for everyone who reads this:

Happy Holidays from our family!

Freezing Rain

Yes, we got freezing rain. Yuck!!! I will take snow over freezing rain any day. The roads were icy, the lawn crunches while you are walking on it, and the sidewalk/driveway is a skating rink. We are supposed to get more freezing rain, then snow and then more freezing rain through tomorrow. I’m staying home where it is nice and warm and safe.

In an update on the conservation efforts to save paper: I updated my calendar in Outlook so I’m not using the paper one, I found the Homeschool Tracker software and got all my lesson plans entered that I had on paper and ones I had in my head so that is now paperless, and I ordered the charging/syncing cradle for the Palm that we have. It should ship out today or tomorrow and then when I get it, it will be like having a new toy. I did do some research into graphics tablets and drawing software for his art stuff. I think that is going on the birthday list so I have some more time to figure things out and to figure out the cost.

Fri. we watched National Treasure. The next movie is coming out soon so I wanted Tyler to see the first one. He liked it and paid attention to the history parts of it more than some of the action stuff.

Sat. saw us model train shopping. Trent & Tyler are going to do this as a hobby, together (this being the most important part of things.) We went to a few places and Trent got to ask some questions. I think he has it all figured out, but they have to do it together. Well, that’s not totally true. Trent is going to get the initial set as a Christmas present for the 2 of them. Tyler is going to get to open it at Christmas and doesn’t get to go shopping for it. (And please don’t mention it to Tyler since he doesn’t know this is a for sure, he still thinks it’s a maybe.) After that, they make all the decisions together and do the work together, etc. We also did some cleaning around the house and rearranged a few things in the basement.

Sun. took us to Grams & Grandpa Randy’s for decorating and cookie making. The grandkids decorated the Christmas tree over there. Then there was cookie making with cookie cutters and sprinkles. Tyler really liked rolling out the dough and my niece’s favorite was the sprinkles (pink and purple, of course.) My nephew did a little of everything, but I think his favorite was eating the dough. Then everyone got to eat ice cream and cookies.

I have the ingredients to make chex mix and I’m thinking about having Tyler help me with that this afternoon. I’m sure he also wants to make cookies again so he can roll out the dough. We have the ingredients, but I don’t know about him making 2 things in the same day. I take that back, I don’t know if I can handle him making 2 things in one day. Maybe we’ll hold off on the cookies until tomorrow and then I’ll make some more biscotti at the same time (the oven will already be on for one of these things and we might as well not heat it up twice.)

I’ve been researching Christmas e-cards. I have found the top 3 for Trent to have an opinion about. My favorite is from a company in the UK, Envirowise: http://www.envirowise.gov.uk/ I also have one picked out from http://www.ecards.com/, and http://www.nwf.org. Yes, I’m supporting causes. Envirowise’s big campaign right now is to get businesses to send ecards instead of regular cards for the environment. If you send ecards from ecards.com then you are donating money towards saving the rainforests. And NWF is all about the wildlife. The Envirowise one is not my fav because of the cause it is supporting (even though it is one dear to me), but because of the picture. We’ll see which one Trent picks.

The Magic Treehouse Book, Art Contest, Conservation

Even though Tyler told me he would never, ever read it since I got him to check it out at the library, I made him read the first 5 chapters yesterday for reading. My plan was that it had dinosaurs so he would be interested, he would start reading it, and he would like it. Turns out my plan worked. He complained that he didn’t want to read it and told me he would just sit there staring at the pages, but not read it. I let him do it because I knew he’d get bored and either complain more or start reading. Soon I heard, “Mommy, this treehouse was in one oak tree and then it went to another oak tree and the boy touched a dinosaur and saw another one.” He had started reading. It turns out he really likes the book so far and wants to read more of them. Score one for me!!! It doesn’t always happen, so I’ll take my wins where I can.

Yesterday he also decided that he wanted to enter the art contest I was telling you about. Here’s the info on it: http://www.elkhartcountyparks.org/childrensartcontest07.htm He also had decided what he was going to do and he wanted soft pastels (the chalk like ones) to do it. So we stopped by Hobby Lobby yesterday for some heavier paper (no framing or mounting allowed for this contest), but it had to be 8 1/2 x 11, which is a hard to find size in drawing paper. Most drawing paper is 9 x 12. Then we found a box of 48 pastels for like $5. Ben, his art teacher at the Elkhart Art League, has told us that the cheap ones work just fine for kids because they use them up so quickly. I’m glad that’s what he says because my pocketbook would not survive many purchases of things if we went with the expensive ones. We found one set of 10 pastels for $35 and that was definitely off the list. Then we picked up a thing of charcoal because Tyler says that’s what they use during classes to sketch out what they are going to color. In all I spent a little over $13 on those 3 things and Tyler is way beyond happy about it. Now the fact that he has changed his creation to something different and it is too detailed to use the pastels so he’s using colored pencils is a whole different situation. I have no doubt that he will use those pastels on something and it will be soon. I also gave him some drawing paper that I had that is 14 x 17, so he has some bigger pieces of paper to work other things on.

Which brings me to my little environmentalist. As you all know, I’m an environmentalist and Tyler has been raised hearing me talk about lots of these things. I’ve always advocated things with him like using both sides of pieces of paper unless he’s colored with marker since those tend to bleed through the paper. He has decided to take things a little farther than that lately. I now know why, but first I will show you examples of this. It started a while ago. He complained that my lesson plans are written on paper that I keep in a notebook. He asked me if I couldn’t do that on the computer instead. I have a list of books that I want to read. It totals around 375 right now, but our library only has about 150 of them. I have a printed list that I take with me to the library that lists the title, author and call number so I’m not just searching the library or waiting to use the computers there. Tyler wants to know if there is a way for me to take the list with me, but not have it printed out. He’s also concerned about the calender that I have with information on it like sports schedules for the nephew and niece, art class schedule, etc. He wants me to do that in the email program (i.e. Microsoft Outlook) like he does. He has been telling me that writing his spelling words and taking all those tests on paper is a waste of paper. Then I started noticing that he is hyphenating words when he writes his sentences containing his spelling words and he is telling me he will only write short sentences because they take up less space. Yesterday, he hyphenated the word “You”. He put the “Y-” on one side of the paper and the “ou” on the other side. Now we have talked about hyphenating words before, that’s why he knows you can do that, but we have now started talking about how there are rules for hyphenating. He thinks the rules are stupid and thinks it is wasting paper for him to not use that little bit of space up. Then he told me yesterday that he wishes that he could practice his sketches on the computer instead of on other pieces of paper because then he wouldn’t be wasting paper and he could work out the details of the sketch (like sizes of things, etc) before he wastes paper. So I asked him where this “wasting paper” campaign came from. It turns out that at the Art League during his art classes that they don’t get practice paper and that Ben has told them that there isn’t a lot of extra paper so they need to use it wisely. I’m sure most of that comes from the fact that they have limited supplies due to funding restrictions, but my little one has turned it into a campaign to not waste paper overall.

So I have a campaign today: figure out a way to put the school lesson plans on the computer so I’m not wasting paper (shouldn’t be too hard – the data entry will be the longer part of that), figure out if I can find a charging/syncing cradle for a Palm Vx that Trent got a while ago but that came without that cradle so that maybe I could use that for things like my book list, and research art software to find out if they have ones that also come with a drawing tablet that we can get so he can do his practice sketches on the computer. Maybe then Tyler can relax about paper some. Though it is nice to know that my little one can hear what myself and others say about saving resources and take it to an even better level of conservation.

I think I might also use this as an opportunity to talk more about charity. He knows about it some as his Grams & Grandpa Randy get the grandkids a gift of some animal from Heifer International (http://www.heifer.org/) for Christmas. It took a lot of explaining for them to understand that they aren’t getting the animal, but that the animal is being donating in their name. They all understand and are now picking out the animals that they want donated. We also do other charity things, like Goodwill, etc. So I’ll have figure out how to transition those to the Elkhart Art League’s wish list and see if he’s interested in getting some paper for the Art League. Should be interesting as I never know what to expect from him.

Spelling

***2nd post of today***

I was wrong and I admit it. Tyler only missed 1 word total on his spelling test today and because his cousin told him that she is allowed to miss 1 or less (with only 10 words) to not take the test on Friday, we instituted that here as well. So he doesn’t have to take the test on Friday!! He’s excited about that. He missed “these” in the regular words by leaving out the “h” and got all of the challenge words correct.

He did think he should also get out of writing the sentences tomorrow, but we are practicing more than just spelling with that one so I told him he still has to write sentences.

Snow!!

We got snow last night. A little over 4 inches. I posted some pics over on my other blog. Check them out here: http://writingsbykristi.blogspot.com/

We got to the library yesterday. Tyler got 2 Transformer movies that he hadn’t seen yet. He got a Transformer graphic novel, a Jane Goodall book, and I talked him into getting a Magic Tree book. They actually had the first one so he can see how the adventures started. My mom mentioned them before as books that she had been getting my nephew and that Tyler might be interested in. It seems to me that they look like beginner chapter books with still some pictures. Tyler was upset that the pictures inside the book are black and white (i.e. he likes color pics much better), but I reminded him that he is working towards no pictures in books so he will get used to it. We’ll also see if he likes the story. I would like to get him interested in a series, but that’s tricky.

Here’s the book we checked out:

I noticed a posting on a bulletin board at the library about a children’s art contest through the Elkhart Country Parks Department. The theme this year is Nature Around Us. I looked it up online and got all the info. Tyler says that he wants to do this and I’m excited that he does. He’s still not comfortable with others looking at his artwork in a show type setting. He does such good work that I’m hoping he gets used to it so that he can show others his wonderful artwork. I’m also hoping that it will help with his confidence in himself and his artwork. I know he’s awesome, but he says that I’m his mom and I have to think that. I’ve tried to tell him that being his mom does not mean I have to think that, but he says that it does so I guess it’s a good thing that I do.

Off to go make some hot chocolate for Tyler. He’s come in from shoveling the deck, making a snow angel and a snow hill. He says that he’s cold. I’m going to have to warm him up before we start school today.

Off to Ecuador, etc

I was right. Tyler is going to Ecuador in his Top Secret Adventures. Yesterday he read through the guide book and today he starts on the puzzle book.

This may be a tougher week for him in spelling. Regular words: easy, gain, grade, late, leave, meet, name, pail, raise, reach, saved, scream, seat, theme, and these. Challenge words: found, investigate, mystery, search, solve. He actually had more issues with the regular words than the challenge words. He missed the 2nd “i” in investigate and the first “y” in mystery he spelled with an “i.” I would have figured those were the hardest words and he was really close on those. The regular words have several words this week that could be spelled differently based on the meaning (i.e. meet/meat, pail/pale) and those were the ones that gave his problems.

I was feeling better yesterday and made some biscotti. It was my first time making it. It really isn’t that hard. Trent says that I can keep practicing and expand the varieties that I make, and Tyler just wanted to know how many pieces he got to eat. So I guess I did really well.

I think we’ll try for a trip to the library this afternoon since we are supposed to get snow again tonight and tomorrow. I plan on staying off the roads as much as possible during bad weather.