MFW Adventures, Weeks 7 & 8

Let's take a poll right now and see how many people think that this is a downward trend? I started out trying to get the weekly update in by the weekend of, and now has turned into every two weeks. Thank you to all my lovely readers who show such patience! :)

Besides keeping up with the three R's (or technically, the R,WR,AR)...

During the past two weeks, our Bible lessons taught about Jesus, the Bread of Life. We started off the week with homemade English-Muffin Bread (mmmm), and through the weeks, we tied in yeast experiments, dough making, and a fun book from our book basket.

Glen's boss sent home a huge bag of books home for the girls. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this book, so perfect for our study.

Mixing up the yeast/water/sugar combination for experiment

...which is poured into a bottle and capped with a balloon.

The yeast feeds on the sugar, producing carbon dioxide. The balloon expands.

Olivia documents the experiment
Cute, huh?Carli's narration of the experiment (She dictated it to me, but drew the pics herself).
Carli joins the littles for an afternoon nap, making mama very jealous!

In history, we studied the colonists in New Amsterdam (present-day New York City) and the pioneers in Michigan. Besides enjoying the Pioneers and Patriots book, we read several books from our book basket (forgot to take a picture). One of the favorite parts of our day is always the read-aloud, related to history. Carli begs to keep going. Our current read-aloud is The Courage of Sarah Noble, based on the true story of a little girl who accompanied her father to the wilderness of Connecticut in the 1700s.

We also made butter (in pajama bottoms with a sweatshirt that doesn't match, evidently)!

Lots of shaking...

...turns whipping cream into butter in about 15 minutes.

I chose Amelia Bedilia for Carli's reader this week. She laughed herself silly, as you can see.

Ooops, these should have been up further, but here's Carli making homemade modeling dough. The intention was to bake her creation and then paint it, but evidently Daddy didn't get the memo. After it was out of the oven, he picked it up, asking, "What's this?" while it fell apart in his hands. Ah well, she had fun making it.

Comparison dictated by Carli

Just for fun...One day we ran over to the Pointy Pencil to pick up some primary-lined paper, and they had a craft going on for Oktoberfest.

For a nature walk this week, I had Carli draw in her nature journal one item and take my camera (!) and take pictures of something that made her think of fall. Her pics included...

...fading hydrangeas...

...leaves starting to turn...

...the neighbor's bush changing color...

...herself in the grass (huh??)...

...the clear blue sky....

Our weeks were especially busy with extra activities. We took Kirsten to Indianapolis Museum of Art (more on that in another post),

...visited an apple orchard with Olivia's preschool (pics coming soon)...

...trekked clear over to Flora with our homeschool group to take in an Amish sawmill and honey farm...

...celebrated National Reading Day with books I'd saved back from my Usborne party (one for each girl..they were beyond thrilled and we had fun reading them aloud together).

Although I didn't get pictures, the girls also spent two nights with Grandma and attended Old-Fashioned Days at their aunties' school, and on Sunday we took part in a Life Chain to support the rights of unborn babies.

MFW Adventures: Week 3 in pictures

Week 3, and still in love with Adventures in My Father's World curriculum. This week:

Bible: We continued to study about Jesus and how He came to save us from our sins. We talked about living like Jesus would live. We made a WWJD bookmark (Carli had never heard of WWJD) and a Jesus sun catcher by melting crayons shavings between wax paper(Um, yeah, we're doing Carli's over again because Mommy and Carli didn't notice that some of the letters were backwards. To defend myself a little bit, I was on the other side of the desk looking at it upside down. I have no idea what Carli's excuse was...)

Math and Phonics: We continued working on our first of the year review, and while I know it wasn't that long ago that we studied some of this stuff, I can see how it builds Carli's confidence to work quickly through a lesson and easily handle stuff that wasn't so easy last year. For our "reader" we continued with The Big Balloon Race.

Science: Still learning about air. Here we are doing a simple experiment to show that air pushes.

Step 1: Fill a glass to the brim.
Step 2: Place a styrofoam plate over the top, making sure there are no gaps between the glass and the plate.

Step 3: Invert. Air pushes against the bottom of the plate to hold it in place.

Second Experiment: Collapsing Carton. Sucking air out of the carton causes the sides to collapse and blowing air in "makes them fat" (Carli's words).

Geography: Carli seems to have inherited Grandpa Asbury's loves for geography. She loves to look at atlases and the big maps on our walls. Here she is labeling the continents on a placemat I got from Target's $1 bin (last year?).

Poring over the Usborne Children's Atlas...

...while Olivia "labels" the continents with letters from her name....

(which she is doing constantly, it seems)

We get as much outdoor learning in as possible. All that vitamin D is good for our spirits.

Breaks to climb in trees bring smiles.

Madeline enjoys a drink break. (Thick-It is a wonder, by the way.)

Olivia wanted to make her own sandwich: Multi-grain bread, lunch meat, yogurt, cottage cheese. And she ate it all.

History: Jamestown! Pocahontas! Below, Carli shows a favorite book from the book basket. We also started Squanto: Friend of the Pilgrims, and backtracked to read Eric the Red which finally came into the library. Right now, most of our narration and copywork is coming from history, and Carli has been asking to do copywork (!!!), which is a real surprise for me. We're still striving for her "best work" but at least there's progress in the "want to."

Family Read-Alouds: We are still working through the Gospel of Matthew around our supper table. It was a bittersweet moment when we finished Strawberry Girl, and I'm continually met with "Just one more, Mom!" while indulging in Shel Silverstein's delightful poetry.

More sunshine: Carli found a hat to protect Maddy a bit and it made it's rounds...

MFW Adventures, Week 2

Right up front: I couldn't find my camera this week. I knew that I had uploaded pics while sitting in my chair last Saturday. I pulled that chair out at least 5 times, tipped it, felt down in it. No luck. Turned every other nook and cranny inside out looking for that thing. Glen was leaving for DC on Friday--and wanted the camera, of course. So we started tearing apart our room one last time looking for the camera. I asked him to go look under the chair again...and Voila!

While I was (am!) very happy to have my camera back, I was (am!) very bummed about all pictures I missed.

(Quick note: MFW Adventures is our core curriculum and does not include math, phonics, spelling, or language. This blog post and others like it will mainly be about MFW.)

Bible: This week we started studying the names of Christ, starting with Jesus, which means The Lord Saves. We used Carli's Discoverer's Bible for Young Readers to read the story of the angel's instructions to Joseph concerning Jesus' name, as well as read some prophecies in the Old Testament concerning Jesus. We started our Jesus' names poster as well.

Math: Ok, I know I just did a disclaimer above, but I did want to say that we started using our Usborne Math Wrap-Ups this week, and they are a hit! It's fun to do something different than flashcards everyday.

History/Geography: Christopher Columbus dominated our week in the history lessons. We enjoyed reading about him in The Story of the US. Carli placed his picture on our timeline, narrated about the lesson and then did a short copywork based on the lesson as well. We also sailed the Santa Maria, Nina, and Pinta across the Atlantic Ocean, blowing to help them cross. The boats were made from aluminum foil and a pencil to hold the mast, decorated with the red crosses that various illustrations show. This activity tied in nicely with our science for the week.

We started a new read-aloud book for history American Pioneers and Patriots and I agree with every other MFW blogger out there that this book was a huge hit in our household. Carli keeps asking me to read ahead.

Carli and Olivia both remind me everyday to listen to the "Pledge of Allegiance" and "God Bless America" which we're learning in history time now.

Book Basket: Our book basket included books about Christopher Columbus. Our favorite read this week was I, Columbus, which includes Columbus' journal entries as he led his men across the Atlantic.

Science: We began the Usborne book Science with Air. We learned that air is everywhere within the earth's atmosphere, that it does not have a shape, but fills any available space. We performed one simple experiment which showed that even an "empty" bottle has air in it, as evidenced by the air being pushed out when dunked in the water. (This simple experiment we documented using a page from http://www.notebookingpages.com/). We also had fun moving the air during a paper race.

Art: This week we enjoyed looking at art in Children: A First Book of Art. We talked about different styles (not really in-depth) and then Carli chose one picture she especially liked and told me a story about it.

Nature Walk: What a beautiful week for a nature walk! We enjoyed two days of doing all of our school work outside. I think mommy benefited from the extra sunshine as much as the girls did. Maddy had fun crawling off the blanket and around the yard.

On Wednesday, one of our outside days, the girls were outside eating lunch while Maddy and I worked with her developmental therapist. Suddenly Carli and Olivia came crashing into the room saying they had seen a raccoon. Sure enough, a small raccoon was in storm drain right at the edge of our driveway, vigorously clutching a grape in his paw. (Evidently the girls had a "bad grape" and were donating it to the drain.)

Yes, I'm getting to our nature "walk." On Friday, we had school in the park, spread out on a blanket in the shade. We read and played lots, studied a little (Friday's our generally our light days), and drew in our nature journals. Carli decided to draw a plant, a pine cone, and a feather she found while Olivia and I drew raccoons. Since I am NOT an artist, I cheated and used a tutorial from http://www.dragoart.com/. I can't believe that I actually drew something resembling a raccoon because my brother Jordan inherited every ounce of creative ability from Daddy, leaving me nothing to work with. Yes, I'm bitter. :)

Reading: Ok, so this isn't MFW either, but in reading, Carli finished The Fire Cat and started The Big Balloon Race. As a family we are reading aloud Matthew, The Strawberry Girl (Lois Lenski), and Where the Sidewalk Ends (Shel Silverstein). I wish I could tell you how happy it makes this book-lovin' mama to have my kids begging to have "Birdie" (Strawberry Girl) or "The poem book" (Where the Sidewalk Ends) read aloud to them. Many times I heard, "Just one more, Mommy!" when I would finish one poem or one chapter. The kids have been asking for their favorites of the poems. Right now the reigning favorites are "I Must Remember," "Captain Hook" and "Homemade Boat."

So I leave you this time with "I Must Remember."

I must remember

Turkey on Thanksgiving

Pudding on Christmas

Eggs on Easter

Chicken on Sunday

Fish on Friday

Leftovers, Monday.

But, ah, me--I'm such a dunce.

I went and ate them all at once.

Yep, I've done that!

Coming tomorrow: Awesome news on the Madeline Kate front!

MFW Adventures, Week 1

I must say that one week in, and I'm absolutely in love with the My Father's World curriculum. My Father's World follows Charlotte Mason's philosophy of education and teaching methods. For a mama who has always wanted to do more than just workbooks and inspire my kids to love learning and reading, but also not being overly creative on my own, this curriculum is does what I couldn't do on my own.

We are doing the second grade core this year, called Adventures in My Father's World. Through the course of our year, we will be studying the history of the United States and learning about each of the 50 states. Next year, we will get a good dose of geography and culture with Exploring Countries and Cultures, to be followed in 4th grade with Creation to the Greeks. Each year after that, we will be studying another section of history. What I love about MFW is that I can incorporate all the children into the core without having to teach separate history lessons to each one.

So these are pictures of our first week of school. Carli was not at all excited about starting school until the night before, but halfway through our first day, she said, "I'm excited now! I can't wait till tomorrow so we can do more!"

Here's Olivia on the first morning of school. (Funny...the girls laid out darling little sundresses to wear and we woke up to a chilly house. Someone had accidentally bumped the AC down way too far, AND it was in the 60s outside! Most beautiful weather this week. So they found sweaters to keep them warm for a while. They wanted to wear their robes, but I didn't think that would be fun for first day pics!)

Carli ready to start

Oh, and she wanted to show off the rock she painted.

All three littles.

Day one called for a red-white-and-blue snack. We had Icee treats.

One of Carli's favorite activities was the timeline. Since I didn't have wall space to make the line on the wall, I accordion-pleated cardstock. I was going to buy a book, but I talked to a MFW rep and they suggested that we do a more simple timeline this year, one that could be stretched out so she could see a full line at once...something about how young ones see time at this stage of development. So we'll start our big timeline books in two years with Creation to the Greeks.

Carli adds Leif Ericsson to the timeline. We also had a brief geography overview of the United States, as well as the continents and oceans. (My camera was dead for a couple days and I didn't get that photographed).

I bought Draw Write Now book 1 for art this year, and we worked on it twice this week. (This is day one). This will be a favorite activity of ours this year. Carli, Olivia, and I all worked on this. I am NOT an artist, so we started simple with this book. Carli enjoys art, but Olivia LOVES to draw/paint/color/marker and does a good enough job that I think she has a more creative bent than Carli or me. I'd like to get them into art lessons next year. Carli was constantly complaining that hers didn't look as good as the book, and saying things like, "I'm just horrible at this!" If anyone has great ideas about making art lest scary, encouraging us both to try and practice and be happy with our best efforts, let me know! :)

Carli working on her aBeka math and phonics workbooks

In Bible this year, we are learning about the names of Christ. This week we talked about name meanings and how our names were specially chosen.

• I wrote her a letter to tell her about her name.
• Carli did some copywork on special paper.
• We incorporated Chrysanthemum to remind us that our names are special.
• We did a simple notebooking/lapbook hybrid page
• We made name necklaces to remind us that our names are special.
  

On highlight of the week would have to be Science. MFW includes the Usborne First Encyclopedia of Science, and we enjoyed the bright and colorful pictures, the internet links(!), and the simple science experiment. We used a notebooking page from http://www.notebookingpages.com/ to document our experiment.

On Friday, our whole family traveled about an hour and a half away for our first field trip and nature walk. We visited one of Gene Stratton Porter's home and Rainbow Bottom. More on that coming soon.

Another part of our school day that did not get documented photographically is our Book Basket. We really enjoy any chance to read and we definitely have plenty of chances to read between our read-aloud (Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski, sometimes read during school and sometimes before bed since it's not part of the curriculum), book basket time, and "reader" time for Carli. (We've been using Sonlight's reader list mixed with ones we choose) The Book Basket is used with MFW to provide read-aloud or independent reading related to our history, science, or Bible topics. This week, we read Chrysanthemum, the Usborne Vikings book, and have started Paddle-to-the-Sea (we're practicing our narration skills with this book, and Carli is really enjoying that process!).

Coming soon: "Not-back-to-school blog hop: A day in the life" and "Limberlost"