Fraction Fun

J-Bird is baking shortbread cookies and learning the very important difference between one half and one quarter.

Play-dates, chorus, church, sports, co-ops, and AHG - our answer to "the socialization problem"

One of the many objections to (concerns about?) homeschooling is the fear (worry? concern?) that homeschooled children will not be well-socialized.  After all, people think that since the children spend the "schooling hours" at home, within the same four walls as their own family, that they will miss out on the opportunities that public schooled children have to socialize with other people, particularly children in their own peer group.

This kind of makes me giggle, since I remember being chastised as a chatty young public school student with the admonishment "you come to school to learn, not to socialize!"

I am not blind to this concern, nor do I dismiss it out-of-hand. Instead, I look for ways to overcome this objection by being intentional about socializing my children.  

 I consider socialization VERY important, but not just socialization between my children and other children who happen to be the same age as they are!  I take J-Bird with me to my chorus, and she is the youngest member.  I am fairly certain the median age of this group is somewhere around 49.  She "socializes" quite well with these ladies, and I enjoy watching them coo over her. 

I forget sometimes just how little she really still is...

The world itself is a part of our classroom.  When I have banking to do, a package to mail, or the water bill to pay, I am dragging my kids here and there and everywhere and forcing them to talk to people of all ages. 

I belong to several online homeschool support groups which offer park days and outings such as roller-skating and bowling.   Pretty soon, basketball season will be upon us, and the girls will join an "Upwards" league.  In the summer, we give them golf lessons.The kiddos also have church Sunday School with children who are the same ages as they are.

Another way I am intentional about socializing our children is through homeschool co-op.  Our family is enrolled  in  the highly desirable Seeds of Faith Homeschool Co-op.  This is our third year with them.

First day of co-op, 2012

What is a homeschool co-op, you ask?  Basically, it's families pooling knowledge, resources and inclinations to give our children learning experiences not readily available in the home.

Translation: I'll teach your kid a subject you hate if you teach my kid a subject I hate.

Okay, well, not really.  At least, it is not always that, and it is not only that.

Sometimes it is simply giving homeschooled children some of the opportunities not readily available in a homeschool classroom.  Take gym class, for example.  Unless you are the Duggars, you are not going to have a sufficient amount of students in your homeschool to effectively offer games like "sharks and minnows", "spiders and flies", or even baseball.  

Science labs are another area of homeschooling often more efficiently handled through a co-op.  Many parents chipping in make the cost of all that fancy-shmancy lab equipment more affordable.  Plus, your home doesn't have to get all formaldehyde-stinky on frog dissection day.

Not only is our family enrolled in Seeds of Faith, I have also worked with a wonderful team of ladies to start an additional co-op closer to home, called HEARTH.

Because I had nothing else to do in all my spare time...

This year, my children are taking co-op classes that include: Martial Arts, Gym, Michigan  Facts and History, American Icons, My Amazing Human Body, Astronomy, and more.

First day of co-op, 2012 "silly face" pose

Our family is also a scouting family.  At least, the female 3/5 of us are (z-man isn't old enough, yet). The girls and I are members of American Heritage Girls.  The girls are earning badges this year in the Science and Technology, Heritage, and Family Living frontiers.  Also, as a part of the American Heritage Girls program, the girls and I have each completed well over 10 hours of community service (Z-man comes along when he can).

This is a highly sociable activity.  There are 22 girls in J-Bird and Trincy's age-level unit, and 46 girls altogether in our troop.  

Just try to keep that many 5-18 year-olds from socializing.  I triple-dog-dare you.

J-Bird - ready to March with Troop MI3130 at the Burton Memorial Day Parade.

Trincy - ready to march  with Troop MI3130  at the Burton Memorial Day Parade 

So, that is how our family handles the perceived "problem of socialization" in our homeschool.  I like that there are still educational components to these activities.  I must say that we are adequately busy, but not overly so.  Our co-ops and our AHG Troop each meet only every-other week,  This means we have entire weeks "off" when we can refresh and re-charge for our away-from-home learning adventures.

I'd love to hear how you have been intentional about socialization!

Thank you, God, for the wonderful volunteers who make all of these activities possible!

The Best Learning Doesn't Always Come From Text Books

This week, my daughter asked me, "What does S.O.S. stand for?"  She had plenty of ideas of what it might be.  So did I.  Turns out, we were both wrong!

Also this week, my (same) daughter asked me. "Why do sharks die if turned upside down?"

(??????????????)

My response: "Sharks die if turned upside down?"
Her reaction, "I think so.  Otherwise, why would whales flip them over?"

LOL!  I had no clue about either of these notions, so, we looked it up.


Together.

I adore home-education!

The Story About Ping - Science

This is my second post about our Five In A Row (FIAR) studies relating to The Story About Ping.  You can read the first post (which includes an explanation of the FIAR program) here.

I was inspired by a blog entry I'd seen to do an experiment with the kids about why ducks don't get wet.  After our reading of the story, I started by asking the children if they'd noticed that Ping never looked soggy in our story.

As I spoke, I started gathering my materials (because, of course, I did not have them prepared the night before).  We contrasted Ping, who stayed dry-looking after coming out of the water, to the boy in the story, who'd fallen into the water and was dripping wet.

Still searching for what I needed to run our little experiment, I explained that a duck's body has a special oil, and that the grooming ducks do, called "preening", spreads the oil all throughout the feathers.  This oil helps to keep them dry.

("Look!  I'll show you" cried the enthusiastic Mother, as she continued to rummage through the cupboards. Popping up some moments later with a handful of brown paper bags and a spray bottle, she exclaimed, "Isn't God so creative and awesome?! .)

I then gave each kiddo two brown paper lunch sacks (NO, not the $290 ones!) and told them that these would be our "ducks".

("Oh! These must be the ducks' feet!" Exclaimed an enthusiastic student, and suddenly,  three pairs of brown paper "duck feet" began dancing all over the  counter.)

Dancing duck feet

I broke up the dancing by introducing crayons and instructing that each child select a bag to be "the duck".  The selected bags were then given duck-y faces.

Three interpretations of a duck's face

Next it was time to cover our "ducks" with oil.  I gave them a paper towel dipped in olive oil and told them to start "preening".

"Preening"

 After the ducks were finished preening, we "made it rain" on the ducks and also onto the "control" paper bag.  The children enjoyed watching the water pool and bubble on the surface of the "duck".   The control, meanwhile, simply got wet.

Made this picture extra large so that you could see the "pools" of water on the oiled "duck"

Next, I had J-Bird round up three empty soda bottles while I filled our fancy-tea-party pitcher (kettle?) with water.  I then let each child pour water into a bottle until it was about half-full, then I added each kiddo's choice of food coloring to the water.

The caps were (tightly!) screwed on, and then my seemingly innocent instructions of "Shake it up until it is all mixed in," were gleefully obeyed.

Next, I put some olive oil into each bottle of colored water and replaced the caps.

I thought the olive oil was ugly, but I kept that thought to myself. 

Once again, the children were instructed to "shake it up until it is all mixed in".  The kids shook and shook their bottles.  They would stop occasionally, watch the oil re-surface, and then shake again.

("It's getting closer!" Exclaimed the enthusiastic J-Bird.  She stopped shaking for a moment, then watched as the olive oil once again rose to the top.  With a sigh, she shook again, this time with more vigor and determination than ever before.) 

Z-Man is shaking it up! 

 Finally, I felt it was appropriate (and probably legally required) that I let them in on the secret: 

("You can stop shaking, now," Mother confessed,  "You will never get them to combine!  Oil and water don't mix!")

I did not have my camera at the ready, because nothing says "I'm about to trick you terribly" like a camera in your face.  

 I had to have the kids re-inact their indignation at my evil withholding of information:

 

 

The Story About Ping - Geography and Dioramas

Thanks to getting a great deal on the first Volume in the series, I am trying the "Five In A Row" (FIAR) curriculum supplement with my kids this year.  The concept of FIAR is pretty neat; basically, you read the same story together five days in a row, and each day you do an activity or project that goes along with a theme from the story.   You would (presumably) cover a minimum of five areas of study throughout the week, all with a unifying theme to make the process memorable and cohesive.

Today was our second day with "The Story About Ping", a tale of the adventures of a yellow ducking who lives in China.

The Story About Ping - Our first Five In A Row book

Today I decided to enhance my read-aloud of the book with some traditional Chinese music.  I selected "River Water", since the title seemed apropos. I allowed it to play softly in the background as I read, and I think it really added to the tone of the story.

Then it was time for the lesson.  One of the great things about FIAR is that you can switch things up; you don't necessarily have to do science every Monday or art every Thursday.  Because I had it ready to go, I decided to cover geography today.

We all found China on the map together, and then my third-grader got a worksheet about China's geography to complete.  The first-grader got a lesson in "North, South, East and West", where the sun rises and sets, and how to locate the compass on a map.  Meanwhile, the preschooler got his hands on some kid scissors and cut himself a "boat" out of a piece of handwriting paper.

This boat originally went the other way. But Junior did not want to show that side, as his sister has written his name on it with pink crayon.  The horror.

This got me thinking about a website I'd stumbled upon while looking up ideas for this Ping unit, where the "Suggested Student Assessment" was to make a diorama of a scene from the book.  I showed my oldest how to make the diorama and explained to her how to make creatures with tabs on the bottom so that they'd "Stand up" inside the scene.

She was immediately excited and enthusiastic.  However, she was NOT excited and enthusiastic to create a diorama of the Yangtze river and Ping the duck.  No, she was excited to create a "savannah" scene.  Being the cool teacher that I am, I decided that since she'd completed her China worksheet, she could make her diorama however she wanted.  Here it is:

Lion, bird, gazelle, and meerkat.  Cute, eh?

Meanwhile, Junior was pressing me to cut out some shapes for his diorama:

According to the Artist: "It's a dinosaur walking around in the ocean. With a dog.  And a triangle."

Sadly, I have no pictures of Little Sister's diorama, which was made up as a dog pound or pet shop, or something.  She was using hers as more of a play-set, though, moving the pieces around instead of gluing them down..  I think she was the least impacted by this craft; much to the delight of her brother, she spent most of the time asking me why we were spending so much time making "diarrheas".

My oldest was very much "in" to this project.  She proceeded to make another couple of dioramas, one of "a library" (not pictured) and this one of "under the sea":

A mermaid and two dolphins

Between cutting shapes out for the kids, I managed to eek out a bit of artistic expression.  If I am honest, I must confess that I just HAD to make one;  it was driving me mildly bonkers that NOT ONE of my kids was paying homage to the original story during this craft session.  So, here ya go:

Interpretation of "fishing birds" scene

My son brought the Ping book to me tonight and asked me to read it.  I'm glad he didn't protest about having to wait until tomorrow to read it again.  That is the one thing I wonder if I will like about this program; I know kids like to hear a story again and again, but I am not sure I can say I enjoy reading anything 'Five in a Row" times.  But, it is keeping them engaged and we are having fun, so we're going to keep it up.  For now.