Lionden Landing

We said goodbye to Pagoo and Seabird this month.   To say goodbye to Seabird, Froggy made a timeline of sorts.  It chronicles the different kinds of ships Seabird sailed on and who the captain was.  This is the Charlotte Mason style of final exam.  It was way more fun for both Froggy and I than a traditional exam and led to a grand conversation about the book as a whole. Pagoo was a constant virtual companion during our beach trip.  We visited the bay and looked in tidal pools at what is what like when "Pagoo battled death".  The large hermit crabs sold on the boardwalk were the "heavy boxers".  It was neat watching them "pull in their claws and close their door."

This weekend Froggy and I get to go to the wonderful Jewish Homeschool Conference .  They are even going to have vendors this year. I have some things I have been thinking about using for our Limudi Chodesh subjects such as this or maybe something from here .  But I am waiting to see what the convention has to offer. There is no reason to wait though for our secular subjects.  We are very pleased with Ambleside Online and booklist for Year 3 to see what I needed to order.  It turns out there really are not any.  One of the great things about the Ambleside booklist is that we can read many of the books online.  Those that we cannot are often for history and used for several years.  Froggy will begin Year 3 in the Fall.  To that end, I finally got around to looking at the I do need to decide what we are going to do about Marco Polo.  His travels are supposed to form the basis of our geography studies for Year 3.  Usually my de...

With a raucous joyous Simchat Torah on Thursday evening, we started the Torah over again.  Froggy's Hebrew birthday is Shmeni Atzeret and we celebrate with a special dinner at the end of that solemn day so we are already in a festive mode when we chant Maariv at Shul.  One year soon, I hope to bring Froggy to a celebration that actually takes the Hakafot out into the streets.  Meanwhile we have tons of fun singing and dancing with the Torah at our synagogue.   After two years of using the same texts for our weekly parsha study, I decided to shake things up this year.  If we were the typical stair-step family, we would have welcomed a new young into Torah study this year and Froggy would move to reading My First Parsha Reader to the younger sibling. I have encouraged Froggy to read it to her dolls since there is no sibling. For Froggy, we are doing a very creative multi-media approach this year.  For the core we are using Reading Genesis by Roberta Osse...

I finished our curriculum review and finally have at least some goals for the upcoming school year. But now the issue is how do we get that to actually happen. Judaica and Math will happen every day. Science, Geography, Art/OT, and Music Appreciation will happen one day each week. To help me, I created a file system. The idea came from Dawn . She uses file folders but I am using duotangs instead so that the folder for each can easily travel with us. We do much of our schooling on the road and I need her stuff to travel well. I will use a folder for each week and a hanging file for each month. The reason to have everything laid out in the beginning is to mark the double parsha weeks as well as file the holiday stuff where it should be. Geography, Art and Music all work as multi-month units so this helps me plan them out and organize them. The plan is that no later than Friday morning before Shabbat I can lay out the upcoming week using this template. The folder will give me...

Finding a science program I like has been torture. Nothing at all seems right. We tried REAL Science Odyssey and were thoroughly underwhelmed. We finally received our Living Things curriculum from Insights . The curriculum is written for a classroom and as such we would automatically need to modify it. The Learning Experiences (what they call a lesson) start out so basic that we have to skip to lesson 4 to find something that is still review but not so basic as to make Froggy feel stupid. I may use this pretty much as is if we get our science co-op up and running (coop needs a place to meet before we can make it happen) The most important thing I learned in my search through the curriculum is that Froggy knows lots more science than I give her credit for. I also realized we do more science and talk about scientific topics more than I realized. We are just not doing it formally. But then we have a very unschooly style in lots of aspects.

After much investigating I decided not to do a formal Social Studies curriculum this year. I like the look of Story of The World and we may do that eventually but not yet. With both Science and Social Studies, we will do a spiraling curriculum eventually similar to the one laid out in A Well Trained Mind but in our own unique unschooly fashion. All of the Kindergarten geared curricula I investigated were too easy but I do not want to do the anything more complicated for fear of overloading us since this is Froggy's introduction to "school". I do however want to do something. Therefore.... This year we will be doing Geography and Map Study , which is another Charlotte Mason find that I think will fit well into our life style. The hardest part was finding printable maps the right size for each. We will do (in order): North America United States The Middle East Israel

While this is part three of my review it is of number one importance in our studies. We may skip science or math but not these. As the traditional school year draws to a close, many of our homeschool friends are excited to be finishing school and discussing when to restart. We school year round and I cannot imagine any other option because how could we possibly take a break from Parsha study or prayer? Tefillah Brachot before eating, Bedtime Shema and Shacarit each morning including, in order: Modeh ani - upon awakening Mah tovu Asher yatzar Elohai Morning Brachot (as written in our ArtScroll siddur- not ideal but the best compromise) Shema/Vahavta Amidah (we are still working on this one. Only the first brachot is done out loud and in Hebrew, other parts are in English or silent) Aleinu Hebrew Reading / writing - I have ordered Sha'ah Shel Menucha Alef Bet Primer but I may end up saving it for a year before using it. We will probably just continue with our more unschool...

We are struggling to find what works just right for us. Since we are only really starting Kindergarten this year that is somewhat understandable. I started this series with the hardest piece because it was the most time critical. Now I get to do the easiest. We will have no formal reading program. We read together constantly and Froggy is moving into reading independently. I encourage her to read to me as much as she is interested and that is it. Provide quality literature and talk about it. The big change planned for the upcoming year is the addition of Narration . We have been working on Laying Down the Rails and this is the next step for us. The biggest thing holding us back from incorporating it sooner has been trying to determine the right text and quantity with which to start. The answer is our Parsha study. The text is very simple and she has a grounding in the context which will make it easier. We will start with just one page for now. Writing - We will be doing ...

This week I am starting a series reviewing curriculum, classes and extracurriculars as decide what to keep, what to toss and what to add for the upcoming school year. I am starting with extracurriculars since that is what prompted the review. I have signed Froggy up for swim team for the summer. This is a test for us on many fronts. It could fail (and thus make life simpler in many ways) for any combination of reasons. The team while it says it is not competitive and welcomes beginners may decide she is not developmental ready. Froggy may decide she is not up to it or willing to put in the effort/time I may decide that the time slot and/or commitment just does not work for our family Or it could be a huge success and thus require a total revamp of how life works at The Landing. Summer Swim Team meets five times a week for one hour. My understanding is that we can easily elect not to attend all sessions each week but it is unlikely we will be able to participate and attend less t...