In Honor of Poetry Month

Because my girls are into music and singing, I encourage them to write creatively and to write poetry because I think they could easily become songwriters with these skills if they so choose. 

As a special Poetry month program My oldest daughter has been attending a free 4-hour poetry & creative writing workshop at one of the libraries in our city. She's been so excited to attend every week, I am sorry to say the class ended today. I gathered together some special gifts for the teacher because she showed such dedication to my child, and I really appreciated it.

 

One assignment my children have  for spelling is to write a song, poem, or story using their spelling words. My eight year old daughter sent me this poem she wrote using 8 of 20 spelling words. Hubby saw it thought I wrote it, and thought it was even advanced for me.

It's Called The Sun

A party of amazement when the light comes and visits your home you demonstrate your gentle rivers high balance and are happy it came to your address .

Running Out Of Steam

As the end of the year nears, I find myself running out of steam. I am not sure what else to teach. They seem to know everything for their grade level, and even some for the grade level above. It's starting to feel like traditional school around here (you know, the time of year when nothing is getting done but movies and field trips). Anyone else running out of steam?

Cutie Booty Cakes Green Giveaway

In honor of Earth day Cutie Booty Cakes is participating in an Earth Month Giveaway sponsored by Walmart and the Eleven Moms. Go over and enter and maybe you will win some cool stuff like this.

Homeschooling as a Reflection of you...

On Saturday my 3rd grader took notes in acting class. When I saw them with all kinds of misspellings and scribble I became immediately concerned. "Oh no!" I thought. I'm a failure if she goes back to school she'll be behind (when honestly, she is ahead--she should be in the second grade). I was so sad. Bright and early this morning I demanded she work in her journal and write. She was hard at work writing about yesterday (Easter). Finally, in a tizzy I said "this is taking too long I want you done in 5 minutes." When she turned it in it was well-written with only four misspelled words. I felt like an idiot. I realized that in acting class she was writing on unlined paper with no desk and had to do it in a hurry. Everything is just fine.


My dramatic response to my child's rushed scribble made me think about how homeschooling is so tied to how we feel about ourselves as parents, as teachers, as learners ourselves, and how we feel about what we pass on genetically. When a child is in out-of-home school, parents mostly carry feelings about how his/her educational progress as it relates to them being parents, their own ability as learners and what they have passed on genetically. We homeschooling parents however, have the added burden of being teachers, so we sweat about keeping records, keeping them on track academically, and keeping up with standardized scores. I personally sometimes fear that once my children take their required standardized test that they will be grossly off, but then I have to calm myself down and realize that they are gaining skills that they wouldn't have access too at out-of-home school.

So far they can make Keynote Presentations, search anything on the internet, cook, clean the kitchen well, find any book they want at the library and put it on hold (I just take them to pick them up), my 12 year old is writing a book that is currently 26 pages, I could go on and on. Overall, I have realized that they are at level if not above, and they are gaining more knowledge than they could have in out-of-home school, plus they get to sleep in.

Here's my theme song these days.

3rd Grade Spelling

My third grader needs extra help with her spelling, so I create a weekly program for her to practice. In addition, both girls have to write their definitions for all spelling words. They also have to choose from assignments like writing in cursive three times, putting words in alphabetical order (elementary level) or writing a song, developing a crossword puzzle, writing a poem or story.

I've found that my programs have given my 3 grader the extra edge she needs. She went from f's on her spelling test to B+ & A's.
They are clickable, but I deliver them to her in pdf format. That way they can't be altered.

Here is a downloadable version
Here's version 2.

Here are some screen capture of the program.

To Kill a Mockingbird Book Report By Aja

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

This year I read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. It was published in the year 1960. This book has 296 pages. The genre is American Literature and Southern Gothic. This book is basically showing how diversity was frowned upon in era of time. The people who were not in the right circle had troubles with being themselves. The different people are forced to be like others but they are not,so everybody was trying to “kill their mockingbird”.

The purpose for this book was to explain some of the injustices that went on when the author was a child. The story took place in Maycomb County, Alabama. This story is told by and about the main character, Scout or Jean Louise. The many other characters are Calpurnia, the cook and their caretaker, Atticus, her dad and a lawyer, Jem, her brother, Dill, her friend, and Aunt Alexandra, her nosy aunt.

In the beginning, Scout and Jem meet Dill during the summer before she begins school for the first time. They begin talking about plans to make Arthur “Boo” Radley come out of his house. The Radleys are a very peculiar people because they stay in the house all day. They only come out on grocery days and on Sunday.

When Scout goes to school she gets into trouble. She gets into trouble for talking bad about the Ewells and the Cunninghams because they are not inside of the common class. The people in Maycomb don’t like the Ewells because they don’t value education and they also don’t like the Cunninghams because they are very poor. This is an example of classism Later on Scout’s Aunt Alexandra comes to town to “help” Atticus out with the kids. This is a god example of sexism. She keeps telling Scout to be a young lady because she is a tomboy. Atticus does not like this but he lets her stay anyway. During her stay, Atticus, a white lawyer, is defending a black man named Tom Robinson. He was accused of raping Mayella Ewell. Everybody is calling Atticus a Negro lover and Scout doesn’t like it. Sadly Atticus loses the case and his defendant goes to the Electric chair.


This book was a little bit difficult to read because of all of the very different events happening, however it all ties in and comes together at the end. I think that the author achieved her purpose to explain the injustices that were going on in the 30’s, like racism, sexism, and classism. This book has many strong points like expressing the many prejudices of the south in the thirties. I found this book very interesting because of the surprising series of events. In conclusion I think this book is well written and I liked it.

Uruguay Geography Project

The girls went to Globetrotters, a homeschool Geography club today. Here is their presentation on Uruguay. I didn't help them, they are pretty good at using keynote, so I just gave them feedback on what information they should include in their presentation.