Big Weekend

Ivy had a big weekend.  Saturday she got to go with her classmates to the Phantom of the Opera at the Detroit Opera House.  Part of her coursework is protocol, where the students learn basic etiquette then get to practice at a cultural event and later a dinner.

Then Sunday Ivy went through her profession of faith at church.  I was blessed to be on the Praise Team and got to lead "In Christ Alone" to celebrate her public declaration.

A week without the girl

Ivy left for a week long mission trip in Chicago with some pretty stupendous people.

  She spent the week helping to fix houses, she specifically spent most of her time helping to build a fence.

Meanwhile little Liam had to spend all week without big sister.  I cannot express how much he missed her.  We daily went over how many days were in a week, how many days she had been gone and how many days until she got back.  Not that he spent the time twiddling his thumbs. 

We worked on school, we went lots of places including Grandma's house, the grocery, even Jungle Java, a fun indoor play area. He started summer speech, which he loves.  I got a box of curriculum books, thus a super fun box and paper to play with.  He even looked through the microscope, a totally self-directed activity.  He wanted to look at a dollar bill, then a flower petal, then a leaf, then he wanted to see what crayon on paper looked like under the scope.  Seriously, he spend more than an hour looking at all kinds of things.

Well Ivy finally came home.

We had a lovely reunion over spaghetti where she told us all about her time in Chicago.

Happy Father's Day

We were in the kitchen a lot this week.

  Which got me thinking about the great food my dad taught me about. Here is a short list:

1. BBQ chicken, and how to make it properly
2. Lebkuchen, I still eat it every Christmas
3. Garden fresh veggies, especially strawberries and tomatoes.
4. Deviled eggs
5. Oyster Dressing and rhubarb.
6 Bratwurst and brotchen.

The last couple of times I talked to my dad he asked about this blog and when I was going to update.  Well, dad here is your father's day gift:  I am going to try my very hardest to post weekly right here, so you and mom can keep up with everything we are doing and learning. 

Happy Father's Day 

 

 

Zippy's New Haircut

Before

After

Working on a Cooking Badge

This year Zippy decided that she wanted to work on a badge at home for her American Heritage Girls and she chose cooking.  Now, I totally approve of this endeavor, as it means we get to eat lots of yummy food. She got started this week by making banana bread.  It is her dad's favorite.

Here is the recipe, in case you want to make it too:

Banana Bread

3/4 c. softened butter
1 1/2 c. white sugar
1 1/2 bananas (mashed)
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 c. sour milk (add 2 tsp. vinegar to milk to make it sour)

Cream together butter and sugar
Blend in bananas, eggs and vanilla
Sift together flour, salt and baking soda.
Add dry ingredients alternately with sour milk, blending until just well combined.
Pour into two greased loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Homeschool Plan 2014 - 2015

I am pretty sure that I made this way harder than it should have been, but, at long last, we have a plan.

Zippy:
Classical Conversations Challenge A - this is a total curriculum that is as the names states challenging.  We decided that Zippy is going into grade 9 this year.  Challenge A is geared for grade 7, fortunately there are some minor modifications to make this high school appropriate.  A good example is math.  Zippy is doing Algebra instead of 7/8 grade math.  I love that students can work on the math that is appropriate for their learning level and still discuss math concepts on the community day with their fellow Challenge students.

Extra Curricular
Those fun, social activities during the week.  This year kind of turned service oriented, but it is what she chose to do:
American Heritage Girls - She joined AHG last year and made some really nice friends. Her first badge she wants to work on is cooking.  Look forward to seeing lots of yummy badge requirements here on the blog.

The Animal Shelter - She started volunteering during the summer.  You have to be 13 to volunteer and she has been bugging me about it for a while.  She is really impressing me with her desire to help the animals even though the job is sometime kind of stinky.

The Library - She is also volunteering once a month for an hour at the library as part of the teen advisory group.  Basically they discuss things they can do to help in the library and community and work on projects. This summer they helped out with a program where they one on one read to a small child.

Church - This year our church is trying something a little bit different.  There is not a normal Sunday School class for the teens.  Instead they are encouraged to participate in a small group of teens on a different night and serve on Sunday morning.  I think Zippy will be part of the team that greet people as they enter the church.  It is right up her alley.  There is also the fun youth group meeting once a week as well.

Little Dude
This was where a lot of the thinking and rearranging came into play. I really had to figure out what the goal needed to be for this year and plan accordingly. The goal, in case you were wondering is to get his speech well in hand.  That means practicing, practicing, practicing, and not just with me.  So I had to find places for him to go where there would be other people to talk to.  We already decided that we are going to homeschool him because of his medical issues so finding a place was a little more challenging than just putting him in kindergarten.

Preschool - 3 half days so he can practice talking with the other children, and also work on all those preschool skills, like holding a pencil and letter recognition, that he still is working to master.

Speech Therapy - One time a week through our local public school.  While I have had serious reservations about our public schools, the speech therapist that we started working with last year is super helpful.

Classical Conversations Foundations - This was probably the hardest bit of the puzzle to fit together.  I had this mental block that said he is not is kindergarten so he should not be in classical conversations, right?  In addition to that because I am tutoring Challenge A I did not want to just throw him into this new, slightly more rigid class environment.  However an opportunity came up for me to tutor Essentials on a different campus.  I take him with me to give Zippy the time to work on her work (and the responsibility to get it done withing a set time frame).  Essentials meets in the afternoons and Foundations meet in the morning.  It dawned on me that he could attend class and the work at home - all oral memory work since he does not read yet - would provide a perfect opportunity for him not only to learn more words but practice saying them as well.  He gets to hang out with the younger siblings of my Essentials class.

The road is set before us, and in truth we have been traveling on it for a couple of weeks, but I am now comfortable in saying this is the direction that we are going this year.

The Great State Project

While we are done with Classical Conversations for the year, we are not done with homeschooling.  Over the summer Zippy is embarking on a fun exploration of the states.  I was inspired by the coloring wall map that I got for my birthday this past year.  As Zippy finishes a state it is marked in either red or blue (she is coloring in the rest in her free time, usually when I am reading aloud).  Because we only have a two and half months to complete as many states as possible, she is doing multiple states per week.

I really wanted Zippy to keep reading, writing, and presenting over the summer so she would not forget some of the great skills that she learned in Classical Conversations this past year. 

She is using the Sleeping Bear Press alphabet books as a starting point. We are so blessed that our local library has all of the states.

While these might, at first glance look like ordinary alphabet books, they offer a world of information in the side margins.  Each week Zippy picks 2 or 3 books to read.  Out of her selection she picks one to write a report on.  These reports consist of 3 topics (3 letters) that have a common theme.  For instance, in her Ohio report, her theme was nature and her paragraphs were on the buckeye, Holden Arboretum, and nature preserves, with introduction and concluding paragraphs.  She then chooses on of her paragraphs to give a short presentation.

The states that she does not do a written report she draws a picture of something that she liked about the state.  Check out Hawaii's picture below. I think this is her best yet.

In addition to reading, writing, drawing, and presenting she is also memorizing the state capitals. She memorized once when she was in school, but this is a nice refresher for her.  We add the capitol of the states that she chose for week to the prior week's capitols, that way she is building and reinforcing knowledge.

An American Heritage Girl

I am so proud of Zippy, my American Heritage Girl.  Last Tuesday was her last regular meeting and award ceremony.  It took me a year but I finally think that I get what being in a scouting organization is all about.

She earned on regular badge, internet adventure (as part of that badge she did some work for me right here on the blog including her own about page) and she got a patch for participating in the pen pal program.  She did nineteen hours of community service, they get a star for every ten that they accomplish.  Her whole troop logged over 700 hours of service.  I was impressed.  Because of all that service whole troop was eligible for the Hug Award.  Lastly one of the young women set out to do a service project to sew dresses for the Dress a Girl organization.  They sewed a bunch!  Zippy made almost an entire dress by herself, as most of the older girls did. Every single girl in the whole troop from from the littlest on up helped in some way so everyone got a patch for that too.

In the spring the troop sells and delivers mulch.  I stink at selling I stink at encouraging my kids to sell.  But I can help deliver.  So last Saturday we spent the morning slinging mulch.  Zippy was a great worker and the Little Dude was very patient.  He wanted to help so much, but most of the bags were as big as he was.

A Field Trip to the Village

Last week we got temperatures in the eighties for the first time this season.  I thought it would be a great day to take a field trip to Greenfield Village.

We walked to the Village.  It is a bit of a long walk so we took the wagon for the Little Dude to ride in.  Zippy and I took turns pulling him.

They have a really nice, new playground in the Village.  Including a couple of water features that Little Dude loves.  This is the "boiler"  the kids turn knobs and switches and every so often it "blows" with sprays of water.

The wagon makes a great seat to eat a cookie after a hard afternoon of playing.

Zippy is Cracked

An end of year Celebration

We all enjoyed Classical Conversations this past year.  Zippy gains so much knowledge and confidence through the experience.  The last day was full of fun and excitement.  Zippy's speech was a top ten list of things she liked at Classical Conversations

A Top 10 List of Great Things About Classical Conversations, by Zippy

1. The presentations on food by fellow classmates (these included a pi pie, homemade doughnuts, and beer bread).
2. My mom tutoring for a day
3. The family presentations (topics included maple syrup, camping, and India)
4. A presentation done by sisters including a star poster they made.
5. A presentation on a bow and arrow by a fellow classmate
6. The time line song
7. Playing with others after lunch
8. Eating lunch at Classical Conversations
9. Learning new things
10. Making new friends

The Part where Zippy is cracked

One of the fun aspects of Classical Conversations is the weekly science experiment.  The last two weeks of class was all about building an egg protector and the last day they tested them by dropping first of the grass then on the hard pavement of the parking lot.

 

Most of the eggs came out intact.  One boy's egg was broken and Ivy's egg was cracked at little bit.

Then there was lunch

One of the things that I love about Classical Conversations is the fellowship.  The last day we had a potluck with lots of great conversation, laughs and tons of healthy food. 

It looks like Zippy will be continuing with Classical Conversations next year with the Challenge program.  It look just about perfect for her needs and she (and I) are looking forward to another outstanding year.

School Pictures

The bloggy neglect is due strictly to the sheer busyness of life .  As the weather is warming activites are happening with greater frequency.  I want to spend a few days catching you up.  

School Pictures

Last year I did not get pictures at all.  This was rooted in the question of what grade is Zippy in?  This year I wanted to be sure school pictures happened.  

I contacted Bob Brodbeck, a local photographer (who also happens to Zippy's kindergarten teacher's husband). Both kiddos had pictures taken individually and some together.  I was super pleased with the outcome.  He took so many more photos than the usual school pictures, so we came away with several great ones.  

He included all the photos, so not only do I have some wonderful school pics, but also a fun reminder of the experience. 

Paczki Day

First Law of Thermodynamics

 The first law of thermodynamics states: energy can be neither created nor destroyed (conservation of energy).  Zippy's science book does a nice job of explaining this with a play doh example.  Using 4 cans of play doh make a world, then you can change it around,  but one is still using the same play doh.  

After she was done reading about this Zippy asked if she could try it.  So she did.  I think she will remember the conservation of energy after this.  That is why I love homeschooling. 

Here is her play doh creation: