CHRISTEPHI

In my last post I shared what changes we're making to our core curriculum as we cycle back around and repeat Exploring Countries and Cultures from My Father's World. Now I'd like to share how we're organizing our day with a "morning basket." My kids are three years apart in age. From the time the youngest was in kindergarten to now, we have always done school together. Even when they were working on independent lessons, I'd have one kid on the right doing math and one kid on the left doing other math. But partway through our last school year, my eldest up and left us. Without consultant me, she apparently decided that she preferred the solitude of her own bedroom for her independent lessons. In fact, she started even taking some of our group work off on her own to complete independently! (The nerve!) So, we've made some adjustments. As much as I miss the togetherness of our younger years, this new style has its benefits.  For one thing, it allows ...

I am so excited to go through Exploring Countries and Cultures again. The last time my kids were so little -- 3rd grade and Kindergarten. And now they are in 5th and 8th grades! They have grown so much over the past five years. As I began to think about our plan for this year, I realized two things: 1) my gifted eldest child remembers just about everything we covered in ECC the first time, and 2) my younger one hasn't had many of the basics that ECC covers. So I was faced with a dilemma -- how do I adjust ECC to suit the very different needs of both children? How do I shift the focus for my 8th grader to aspects of ECC that she hadn't spent time on before (such as types of governments, imports and exports, etc.) while also taking my younger child through the more foundational information that he missed when he was just a kindergartener?  ECC is designed to be parent-led, family learning, with a supplement for 7th and 8th grade. But I came to the conclusion that I need to deco...

Konichiwa!  We have spent the last two weeks "in" Japan.  This has to have been one of our favorite countries to study so far!  The kids had a blast watching Godzilla with Daddy and obsessing about ninjas all day.  In addition to this, they... ...made koinobori ... ...created an entire menagerie of origami creatures... ...wrote original haiku poetry... ...drank ramune style soda pop... ...fell in love with mochi ice cream... ...turned up their noses at green tea mochi... ...learned about the beach... (Miss M made this image in PicCollage to illustrate her geography vocabulary word). ...and created a relaxing rock garden. We're heading to the Philippines next, Hubby's homeland.  We're closing in on our final push to the end of the school year (remember, we started back in January).  It's been fun, but all good things must come to an end.  Sayonara!

We love books.  (You probably know that by now.)  And my kids love to be read to while they eat lunch or play with clay or sit in the hammock chair on a gorgeous spring day.  One of the latest books we read together is Panama Girl by Ida (pronounced EE-duh) Freer. Panama Girl Written by Ida Freer ISBN: 978-1480076792 Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 156 pages This is a story about a 12-year-old girl named Surni from the Embera people in the Darien jungle of Panama.  As you read, you get a clear picture of life in the village and how the Embera have lived for generations by finding everything they need for food, clothing, shelter, and transportation in the jungle.  But change is coming to the jungle.  Visitors from Panama City are arriving with increasing frequency and Surni and her people must learn to adapt to new ideas, new technology, and new beliefs.  Surni herself faces many challenges and proves that she is a girl...

Part 1 of our first two weeks of ECC can be found here . Bible This week we started reading  Kingdom Tales  and I was immediately floored at how amazing it is! I even went so far as to message my cousin and tell her she has to get her hands on a copy by hook or by crook because I just know she's going to love it as much as I do! (She herself is an author of Christian allegory.)  The kids are enjoying it too and though they're only seven and four, they easily caught onto and understood the symbolism and message of each chapter. Geography This week in geography was a continuation of basic map skills.  We talked about how cartographers draw scale maps of large landforms and Miss M copied an outline of her hand from 1:1 scale to 1:2 scale.  She did fine, but I think this is definitely an activity better suited for older students. To facilitate our study of map symbols and keys, I pulled up our neighborhood on Google Earth and sketched ou...

It's a new school year at Sycamore Hill Academy!  Miss M is now in 3rd grade and Little Guy is beginning the first of two years of kindergarten (K4 this year and a slightly more rigorous K5 next year). I found these cute printables via Pinterest  and we had a little photo shoot on our first day! We are starting each morning with My Daily Learning Notebooks from Confessions of a Homeschooler.   The PreK one for Little Guy and the cursive variant for Miss M.  This has been hugely popular!  Both kids have gotten started on them before I'm even ready to begin school most days! And they work together on the so sweetly, Miss M lending a hand to Little Guy and he hanging on her every word. I love it! Bible To start off our year, we systematically went through some important concepts: where the world came from, how it got to be the way it is now (the Fall), how different languages began, and the gospel is for all the peoples of the...

Somewhere along the way I learned about a scheduling method called Sabbath Schooling.  In order to prevent burnout (for the kids or for the mama!), the idea is you schedule six weeks of school followed by one week off, the Sabbath Week! When we first started homeschooling I didn't set out planning to make our school year match the calendar year, but both the kids birthdays are in November and we like to take off plenty of time for the holidays to be with family and attend Thanksgiving and Christmas events.  So it works out best for us to school through the miserably hot summer and have extra time off in the spring and fall when the weather is nice. We finished our last school year just before November and took a 3 month break (our "summer" vacation).  We started our new school year a couple weeks ago, but before I tell you how it's been going, let me share with you our curriculum choices for our new school year. Our core this year is My Father's World's ...