New School Posts Soon

We have been so busy learning that I just plain haven't had time to post about it!

We finished our four-month study of Ancient Rome,(hurray!) so I'll post lapbook pictures soon.

We are currently working on a unit study called "Cinderella Stories Around the World," and having an absolutely wonderful time! It is an e-co-op sponsored by Hands of a Child, and made possible at Wonderwood Academy through a Hogwarts Correspondence Course in the History of Magic. Details to come.

Next up, and I'm not exactly sure of the order yet, are:
* Mythological Creatures Around the World
* Art Appreciation
* Music Appreciation
* The Middle Ages

Busy, busy, busy! :o)

Magical Creatures

Yesterday Jelly pulled out a little comb-bound, 8.5" x 5.5" volume, about .75" thick titled Magizoology: Our Study of Magical & Muggle Creatures, Volume 1. It is a textbook that I put together in the fall of 2004 for a special class the girls "took" during the month of October - a Hogwarts Special Correspondence Course. It contains mini units on dragons, cats, fairies, phoenixes, owls, werewolves, and unicorns. As I am inclined to do, I OVER planned, and we didn't get through the whole thing that month, and the books got tucked safely away.

Fast forward to March 2008. We're planning on participating in two online co-ops with Hands of a Child in April. (You can sign up by joining this Yahoo group.) I've been talking them up to the girls, because we think that anticipation is part of the fun! I think looking forward to doing lapbooks on Mythological Creatures Around the World and Cinderella Stories Around the World is what prompted some long-remembered memory in Jelly.

Wanna know just ONE of the things that is really cool about all this?

We picked up right where we left off and I didn't need to do a thing extra!! We had stopped right in the middle of a study on owls, so that's where we started yesterday. It rekindled so much enthusiasm - in me, as I think about the work to be done for the co-ops, AND in both Jelly and Doodle! I believe our (stuffed) snowy owl, Hedwig, enjoyed the afternoon as well. We may end up slipping in an entire lapbook on owls. HOAC has recently updated their "Owls"research pack to a project pack - what could be easier!

Yes, indeed, we do love unit studies and rabbit trails. Studying Mythological Creatures and Cinderella Stories is going to be such a fun transition from Greece and Rome to our next unit on the Middle Ages.

We will finish Year 1 of Learning Adventures eventually. ;o)

Wonderwood Academy 2007-8

Jelly – 5th grade
Doodle – 3rd grade

Math-U-See
Learning Adventures – A World of Adventure
Hogwarts Correspondence School Yr. 4
Typing Instructor Deluxe
Rosetta Stone Spanish
Piano Classes
Swimming
LOTS of library books on LOTS of topics,
because we’re still quite partial to Charlotte Mason and her living books!

Our main course of study:
Learning Adventures – A World of Adventure
Finishing Greece
Rome
Middle Ages ?

We started this school year almost a month later than we usually do, but still started when “most” public schools do – the week after Labor Day. Due to my recuperation, we started off with only half days, but it didn’t take long to work back up to our usual school schedule. The girls got used to taking impromptu breaks, as we didn’t always know exactly when the home nurses were going to come. It’s nice to be back to “normal” now. :o)

A typical day looks something (we are not at all rigid, but do function better with a basic plan) like this:

* Wake up, breakfast, get ready, and chores done by 10:00 a.m.
* 10:00 – 10:45 a.m. Devotional and Scripture Reading/Study (On Mondays, we also do the Nat’l Anthem or another patriotic song, and the Pledge of Allegiance.) Sometimes this includes the Bible portion of the Learning Adventures curriculum.
* 10:45 – 11:15 a.m. Copywork and Memorization
* 11:15 – 11:45 a.m. Math-U-See
* 11:45 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Lunch and “Recess”
* 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. Learning Adventures or other Unit Study, including Language Arts, Social Studies, Science, and Fine Arts – It isn’t really a non-stop, two-hour block, because it includes reading aloud together as well as our notebooking, lapbooking, hands-on, and sometimes extra Hogwarts classes or projects. (We used to do “Show and Tell” every Monday right after our lunch break, but it isn’t a regular thing anymore – I hate to think that the girls are growing out of it. Maybe I need to call it something else, and get us going again. It is great practice for giving talks, speeches, or presentations.)
* 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. Typing and Independent Reading (While one dd does a lesson on the computer (Typing Instructor Deluxe), the other reads silently. (Sometimes Doodle likes to go in Mama and Daddy’s room to read “out loud” to one of her dolls.) Then the girls swap places. We’re also planning to add Rosetta Stone Spanish into this time slot, but I still haven’t figured out the Management software yet, so for now, Spanish is informal, with an occasional bit of notebooking.

We go to the library as a family quite often. The Learning Adventures curriculum relies heavily on living books, which is one of the reasons it fits us so well. When the girls were little, we went once a week at Storytime, and just checked out books then as well. We don’t really have a regular day anymore, but still are VERY faithful library patrons. The girls were thrilled earlier this year when they got their OWN library cards. Now they use the self-checkout machine like seasoned veterans. :o)

We meet with our local support group, Liahona, on Wednesday afternoons. If we have a field trip, we may not “do” any other school that day. If it is a park day, we try to get in our usual morning stuff before we go.

We officially finished our study of Ancient Greece in November by sponsoring a field trip to the Getty Villa, in Malibu, CA. It was a bit last minute, but some of our homeschool friends were able to join us.

A wonderful time was had by all - even when it sprinkled on us a bit it did NOT dampen our spirits. We also had a Greek feast at Daphne’s Restaurant, in Anaheim Hills, CA. The girls want to go to Getty Villa again, so we have plans to celebrate there when we finish our study of Ancient Rome - we’ll just change our focus from Greek to Roman exhibits, tours, and presentations. No problem. :o)

For the 4th year in a row we participated the Sunday after Thanksgiving in the Yorba Linda Messiah Sing-Along at the Nixon Library. Daddy Woody is the tenor soloist. The girls are already VERY familiar with some of the Christmas selections, so it has been easy to add a study of Handel and the Messiah to our study of Rome. The life and ministry of Christ occurred within the timeframe of the Roman Empire, so studying the oratorio now is working out well.

Since Doodle’s birthday is in December, and since our family loves trains, it was just a natural for a very special party theme – a Polar Express Pajama Party! I’ve already blogged lots of details about it, so you can get more info here.

Polar Express Pajama PartySnuggled in and ready to watch the movie,with their stockings full of movie-watching goodies.
At Christmastime, we continued to work on the Symbols of Christmas lapbook we started last year. We listened to music, sang, read LOTS of holiday stories, crafted, and baked. We did a LOT of gingerbread, in honor of our Mawgs.
The girls each put together and decorated a house from a kit.
One was a Wilton, and the other was from Trader Joe’s. I think they both turned out great!

Because we were actually at HOME on Christmas Eve, we had a special celebration. The girls received Owl Post, with directions, supplies, and gifts for “A Hogwarts Holiday – Christmas in the Great Hall.” They had fun decorating 12 mini trees with different themes after a breakfast of cauldron cakes and other British breakfast items. Lunch was pumpkin pasties and butterbeer, and we had Quidditch Players Pie for dinner, washed down with pumpkin juice, of course. During the course of the day, the girls brewed potions, made treats from Honeydukes recipes, and played games including a variation on Wizards chess and Harry Potter Scene It.

A magical holiday.

Our focus this year was to have a JOYFUL and peaceful holiday. We attended two Christmas Around the World celebrations - our plan is to make that our holiday theme next year! So cool!

2008 started out with a bang! For three years now the girls have actually stayed up playing family games and listening to Daddy Woody read aloud (Inkheart) until midnight to welcome in the New Year by banging on pots and pans, blowing horns, and pulling “poppers” that explode with bursting confetti streamers. Good, um, not-so-clean, fun! ;o) Those things are messy like crazy, but not too bad to clean up. Especially if the girls decide to pick up all the streamers and decorate Daddy! Everyone gets a big hug and kiss at midnight, and this year we toasted with Martinelle’s Sparkling Cider. Yum.

In January, we celebrated a milestone event. Doodle and two of her cousins have all been baptized within the last six months. There is another picture of these three as babies, each in a car seat – three in a row in the middle of Grandma’s living room. If I had a digital copy, I’d post it here. Hmm… maybe we can scan it.

This one was taken at the celebration party after Ben’s baptism. (His was the last of the three.)
Definitely cute cousins.
February fun has included making and delivering chocolate rocket valentines for friends and family. We got the idea a couple of years ago when some friends launched and landed Livesaver rockets at our house. We adapted the idea, making ours from Rollos, Hugs, tissue paper, tape, and a bit of hot glue to hold the nose cones in place.

These are the lapbooks (all from Hands of a Child) we’re working on right now. They coordinate with our Learning Adventures – A World of Adventures. We’re in the Ancient Rome unit, with rocks, minerals, and volcanoes as our science topics.
Ancient Rome
Gladiators
Rocks & Minerals/ Rodney Rockhound
Volcanoes

The plan is to finish Rome by the end of March, and start the next unit, the Middle Ages, at the beginning of April. It probably won’t happen quite that way, though – we enjoy rabbit trails and extra projects too much!

We also have plans to do these lapbook studies in HOAC coops this spring:
Cinderella Stories Around the World
Mythological Creatures Around the World
Art Appreciation
Music Appreciation

We continue to add timeline figures and other entries to our Book of the Centuries. The girls really enjoy looking through them and at their finished lapbooks.

Home and school, for us, together are most definitely a magical adventure and a winning combination.

I can’t wait to see what adventures await!

Wonderwood Academy 2006-7

Jelly – 4th grade
Doodle – 2nd grade

Math-U-See
Typing Instructor Deluxe
Learning Adventures – A World of Adventure
Hogwarts Correspondence School Yr. 3
Medical, Magical, and Marine Science
Hiking/Swimming
MANY library books on MANY topics, because, because, because!

Because of the girls extreme fascination with pioneers, and the virtual Oregon Trail trip we made last winter, we started our school year off with an “Extended Field Trip.”

After attending a temple open house in Sacramento, visiting Donner Memorial State Park, a family reunion, and visiting with extended family along the way, we met up in Montpelier, ID, with the "Neighbor" family, at about the half-way point along the Oregon Trail. (We actually got a personal tour that started in Cokeville, WY, -a tiny town where my mom was born- from a dear history-loving uncle and aunt, before we met up.) Together, our two families followed the trail, with many stops along the way, to the End of the Trail Museum, in Oregon City, OR. Though we began with a good base knowledge, we gained new respect and admiration for those amazing pioneers AND the country they traveled and settled. We also had an incredible time!

SwimChick, Doodle, & Jelly, "Pioneer Girls"
at the Nat'l Oregon/California Trail Center, in Montpelier, ID
Fort Hall Replica, Pocatello, ID

SwimChick's grandma made her pioneer costume, but we got Jelly's and Doodle's from Kelly's Costumes. The quality is great and the girls still wear them - sometimes for dress-up and sometimes just because they like the dresses so much. :o) As we traveled, the girls worked on their Pioneers lapbooks. (They didn’t do much on them, though, because we kept them too busy! Next time around for this study, we’re planning to do a more complete lapbook on the entire Oregon Trail.) As we made our way home at the end of our vacation, we did a mini study on the California Gold Rush, with stops at Sutter’s Fort and Mill, and a boomtown (Columbia, CA). Again, we’ll be more thorough when we study US (and California) History, but it was a great introduction.

Travel for a family wedding later in the fall gave us a chance to see some great fall colors up close and personal – a great science class! On our way home, we focused on LDS history in Southern Utah. We visited Cove Fort and several historic points of interest in St. George. We love LIVING history!

Our main course of study for the year:
Learning Adventures – A World of Adventure
Finishing our unit study of Ancient Egypt and beginning Ancient Greece

To kick off this year’s studies on our unit on Ancient Egypt, we sponsored a field trip for our local homeschool support group to the Bowers Museum. They had a great Mummies exhibit called Death and the After Life in Ancient Egypt, on loan from the British Museum.

We also did some great projects that the girls really enjoyed. We had an Egyptian feast (great all except the figs, but we do like Fig Newtons!), made sugar cube, Lego, and Math-U-See block pyramids (andfigured out the total number of cubes/Legos/blocks used for each), made not-so-scary mummies (complete with sarcophagus), and read the Egyptian Cinderella and the Golden Goblet. Doodle especially liked making paddle dolls using the Hands and Hearts Ancient Egypt Discovery Kit.

We focused on our Hogwarts classes around Halloween, even correlating support group field trips to Sea World and the Aquarium of the Pacific with our study of Magical Creatures.

We finished our Hogwarts Halloween by assembling the lapbooks the girls worked on for about a week. Both Jelly and Doodle are very proud of the way they finished up, and rightfully so. Jelly especially was excited to show her origami ghost to her origami-loving friend.

The Halloween lapbooks were only our second attempt at “from scratch/on our own” folder projects. We used a different technique for assembling the base folders than we’d ever done before, and it worked out really well. We had three main topics and so the girls’ work showcased the studies we did in these three areas: History of Magic(al Holidays - Halloween); Herbology (Pumpkins and how they grow); and Halloween Celebrations and Customs Around the World (anthropology and geography). We used three folders, with the second and third inserted into the first so that when completed, it opened like a regular book rather than being shutter-folded. Of course, we also included jokes and riddles, pumpkin poetry and a concentration game, and a build-a-skeleton game (Science - Body Systems) played like the classic game of Beetle/Cootie. It was based on this free lapbook that I got from the Seiler Clan's website, and then we added stuff I’d collected over the years from ALL kinds of sources.

Halloween Lapbooks - Front Covers
Notice the tabs on the right-hand side. They are labeled with the three main topics.
First Folder Open - History (and some Botany!)
Second Folder Open - Herbology (Pumpkins)
Third Folder Open - Halloween Around the World
Halloween Lapbooks - Back Covers
Wasn’t it nice of nature to provide such a great transition into the Christmas holidays? The rainbow arched almost from one end of the world to the other!!

And yes, we DID add an impromptu study of light to our science classes. How could we not? :o) It was Christmastime, and the LIGHT of the World was a perfect topic.

The girls’ grandma/Mawgs/my mom was gravely ill during the holiday season, and passed from this life to the next on New Year’s Eve, after a long battle with cancer. We focused what time we had for school on the Symbols of Christmas and Christmas Cheer, again joining the HOAC co-op. We were able to keep our projects with us easily as we traveled back and forth from home to be with Mawgs. It was exactly what we needed during a stressful time – it really helped us keep the spirit and joy in the season in spite of our sadness and grief about Mawgs. We had a wonderful time, and we will be working on that lapbook project for YEARS of Christmases to come!

The girls loved showing their almost-finished Egypt lapbooks to their paternal grandparents, who came for a visit from Texas in mid-January.

Ancient Egypt Lapbook - Front Cover
Included minibooks from HOAC project packs for Ancient Egypt, Mummies, Pyramids, and Desert Habitat, as well as some other projects we did.

Ancient Egypt - First Folder Open
Ancient Egypt - First Extension Flap Up

Ancient Egypt - Left and Right Flaps Open

Ancient Egypt - Vocabulary Book Open

In addition to formal school, we learned a lot about life, and how it goes on even when you’re hurting. A local homeschool support group field trip to the our county’s chapter of the Red Cross helped – we saw how people help people in times of challenge. Extra cool field trips (including a whale watching trip on a sailing ship and a port tour on a modern boat and even a trip to Disneyland!) and lots of hands-on projects kept us not-quite-busy-enough. We still missed Mawgs/Grandma a LOT!

We made a HOAC lapbook about Disneyland as a thank you gift for Daddy’s boss’s wife. She works there, and with a friend, arranged to get us all in FREE!! We loved making it, and she loved getting it!

Hands of a Child Disneyland project pack - Two folders, shutter-folded

Our study of Ancient Greece actually began in the Spring of 2007. We had the following lapbook/notebook projects from Hands of a Child: Ancient Greece, Healthy Bodies, Human Body, Five Senses.

As we had done with Egypt, we combined our studies of Ancient Greece into our Book of the Centuries and intended one large lapbook and some notebook pages. Our science unit was anything related to the human body – anatomy, biology, health and nutrition, and the five senses. One of our first activities was about fingerprints – the girls LOVED investigating!

That sums up the school year pretty well - we had lots of great adventures as we spent time investigating together!

Our Family Vacation, during the Summer of 2007, included Owl Scout Day Camp (where the girls earned four badges each) and a Northwest Coast Lighthouse Tour.

Owl Scout Camp - a la Hogwarts; Making Magical Memories!

Little did we know that the end of the tour would include an injury that would change our lives for the next four months. It was still a wonderful vacation.

But that is another story.

Wonderwood Academy 2005-6

Jelly – 3rd grade
Doodle – 1st grade

Math-U-See
Hooked on Phonics
Dolch Sight Words & Spelling
Hogwarts Correspondence School Yr. 2
Science Around Town & Country
Story of the World, Vol. 1
Learning Adventures – A World of Adventure
Horseback Riding/Swimming
LOTS of library books on LOTS of topics,

always just because we can’t not!

This was a year of transitions. We tried lots of different things, both topics and methods. It took until the end of the year, but we finally found our “groove”!! It’s still a bit eclectic, but more Charlotte Mason; less school-at-home, and a more relaxed structure; quite scheduled, but not rigid.

We began the year with a study of the United States, but after just one state (Delaware), I changed my mind about the order and timing that I thought we needed. So, instead, our study of world history began with a study of the Creation of the World. We started there, and notebooked and project-ed our way through Adam and Eve, Noah and the Flood, and the Tower of Babel. As usual, we did these topics unit-study-style, so we got language arts, social studies (history and geography), and science covered. We had so much fun with rainbows and color!!

We took time out from our world history to have our first experience with Hands of a Child (HOAC) co-ops. Wow! So much fun, and so cool to know you’re doing the same thing as others, but with your own twist on things. It does take some effort to get your assigned job done right, but what you get in return more than makes up for it!

We did co-ops for two HOAC lapbooks, but there was so much information that I got overwhelmed and we didn’t finish either Thanksgiving or Pilgrims. We are planning on finishing them another year. No worries. Everything is tucked away in ziplock bags and folders, and will be ready for us when we are ready for them.

After Christmas, and our holiday/family activities, we went back in time to finish: Ancient Mesopotamia. This was our first purchased lapbook project that we completed all at once. We had only made one lapbook previously that we kind of made up as we went along. (The Little House one.) It was SO wonderful to have most of the work done for us! We used the guide, reading and discussing it a bit at a time, and then doing the minibook project/s that went along with that section of the guide. It had been a LONG time since I’d even thought about Mesopotamia, and I didn’t remember much. We really enjoyed doing these projects, though we ended up putting them in our notebooks on cardstock rather than in a lapbook. We also added paper dolls (from EMC 3701 – History Pockets, Ancient Civilizations) because our girls really like to pretend that they are living history.

The girls still hadn’t had enough of pioneers, so when I found about an online Wagon Train experience, “Westward Ho!” in January 2006, we decided to join up. We made Oregon Trail journals, and assumed pioneer identities. All the pretend was right up our alley! Plus, the girls already had such a good background on pioneers that they REALLY got into it. It was fun that Auntie Neighbor and SwimChick were “making the trip,” too!

After finishing our virtual Oregon Trail Trek, and while we waited for our new curriculum, we had some fun with holiday studies (St. Patrick’s Day) and Hogwarts classes. Then we got ancient history going again with the Story of the World, Vol.1. The girls had fun testing their skills as archeologists at a “dig” and investigating cave paintings.

We were really busy (all year!) with some great field trips for science – gardening in Santa Barbara; Rancho Los Alamitos; Discovery Science Center; Natural History Museum in L.A.; Knott's Berry Farm; IMAX; an Amtrak trip to Texas (Remember the Alamo!) - across the desert and back again; and lots of beach trips.

To celebrate her birthday, Jelly chose a Harry-Potter-themed sleepover party. We were able to use a lot of the ideas we got from our Hogwarts Correspondence School classes. We had a magical time! I'm including a picture collage of some of the things we included in our Hogwarts weekend.

Our main course of study for the last month of the year, our new curriculum:
Learning Adventures – A World of Adventure. We absolutely LOVE this! It includes everything except math, typing, and Spanish, (which we want to get into more formally soon). The author is great to answer any and all questions, too. We love that the studies are based on living books, and reinforced with notebooking and LOTS of hands-on activities.

Our study of Ancient Egypt began with the story of Joseph, who was sold into Egypt. We started one HUGE lapbook, combining four from Hands of a Child into one, (Ancient Egypt, Pyramids, Mummies, Desert Habitat) using two folders, with flaps and extensions. We just barely got started on this unit, so we continued it in 2006-7. Check that post for more info.

By the time this school year was over, I finally felt like I really had a handle on what works for us. Sometimes homeschoolers speak of having to de-tox their kids for a while after they are pulled out of public school to be homeschooled. The longer the exposure to public school, the longer the time required for de-toxing.

Apparently, the same phenomenon affects those of us who have been teachers in public school. ;o)