Back Where We Belong

I have not blogged about homeschool nearly as much as I thought I would. To be honest, I thought I would need it more. I often use writing as a way to process. The wonderful thing I have found about teaching Wes at home is that it comes very naturally. It does not feel like work. I was just reading some of my very first blog posts and I can't believe how far we've come. All of that initial anxiety has vanished as I have watched my son become an enthusiastic and independent student of the world around him.

Now we are in 6th grade and one important thing has changed. When I first started homeschooling, I always thought that we would at least explore going back to public school. I had several reasons for this and one of the bigger ones was being around other kids. Homeschool does feel a little isolating, especially where we live. My nearest, active group of homeschoolers is not in fact very active and most of the members have very young children. So, at the beginning of this year, we went back to public school. I was not perfectly comfortable with the idea, but I felt the need to explore public school one more time.

Our schools start early, so we just finished the first quarter. It was always my plan to take a good hard look at how things were going at this point and decide how to proceed. It was a no brainer to run, not walk, back to homeschool. It would be easy to kick myself for even exploring going back, but that wouldn't serve much purpose. All I can say is that after nine weeks, I'll never worry about whether I'm making the right decision again. Homeschool is simply where Westen learns the best. It's here where he is allowed to explore, create, build, write and problem solve without any distractions. It's where he thrives.

With a renewed passion for this path we are on, I have made one more change. Since I believe Wes will homeschool through 12th grade, I wanted to be a part of an accredited online school. I didn't have to search for the right school, because I've been carrying a particular one around in my back pocket so to speak. It's the place I've always known I would choose when the time was right. Now Wes is enrolled in the Global Village School. For me, the Global Village School is almost too good to be true. Their philosophy and mine are perfectly in tune and I can't wait to get started on their curriculum. This year feels like a new beginning. This time there is nothing but pure joy in the process which is exactly what learning should be!

A Fable

The World in the Center of the Universe

Three million years ago, there was a talking animal world in the center of the universe. There were zebras, spotted chameleons, tropical birds, owls and tigers. Long ago, one of each animal ran into a magic circle and became one being. This new animal was called the creator. His black and white zebra horns Stood on his head like a king’s crown and his zebra eyes were gentle and wise. He had a rainbow face with pretty feathers and colorful scales. Two chameleons’ tails made his nose. His mustache was the soft plumage of an owl which partially covered his fanged tiger mouth. The creator and all the animals lived together in love and harmony.

The world in the center of the universe had a sun. The sun shone on the world and gave it warmth. It had so much fun watching the animals play. The sun was happy to be a part of the animal world. Then one day, the sun saw another sun off in the distance. She was beautiful and golden and he fell in love. The sun thought that to win her heart he must have more love to give, so he started absorbing the love from his world. He saw the zebra children playing and he took their love. Then he took the love from the happy tiger couples. Next, he took the love from the chameleons. Finally, he saw the birds and owls and he took their love of flying. After he was done, the sun left with the golden sun leaving his animal world in darkness and despair.

Without the sun and all the love, the world was pitch black and icy cold. The animals started fighting with each other. They yelled and clawed. The birds were so sad, they didn’t fly. Chameleons cried in the trees. The tigers layed sadly in the grass. The zebras walked with their heads down. Mom and dad animals didn’t care about their baby animals. Some others just criedbecause all the love was gone. They were all upset except for one, the animal with love still in his heart, the creator.

The creator went to visit the animal sun. He begged with his whole heart for the sun to give the love back. The sun said that he wanted the love to give to the golden sun, but the golden sun heard the entire conversation. She told the animal world sun that she would not stay with him unless he returned the love to the animals. She told him that she loved him even more when he was just being himself. Since the animal sun cared about her so much, he used all his strength to return the love. The flowers bloomed and the black grass turned green. Fighting turned to playing. A colorful rainbow filled the sky and the birds sang and soared. The chameleons didn’t cry anymore. Tigers ran and wrestled playfully again. Zebras walked with their heads high. It was the happiest day ever. The animal sun learned his lesson. You can’t steal love. It has to come from your heart. And they all lived happily ever after.

THE END

Art

When They Were Ten

When They Were Ten

I would like to know what life was like when my grandparents were my age. What about my aunts and uncles? I want to know their hobbies, what favorite movie, radio or TV show they liked and where they lived. I’m going to interview three members of my family and see what I can learn.

First I called my Grandma Helen. After I said hi, I asked her what hobby she liked when she was my age. My grandma liked to read books. She also played with her orange cat Carrots and her dolls Judy and Dolores. Next, I asked her where she lived when she was my age. She lived in Corry, Pennsylvania. It was a small town with only about ten-thousand people. Her dad worked in a factory that made office furniture and he was the manager. Finally, I asked my grandma what TV, movie or radio show she liked when she was my age. She said she watched Snow White and Bambi, but that’s when she was younger. She didn’t listen to the radio and they didn’t have TV. I’ve never imagined a ten year old life like grandma’s.

After I called my Grandma Helen, I emailed my Grandpa Gary. He gave a lot of information about his younger days. The hobby he liked was building model airplanes and this interest influenced him to become a NASA engineer. He lived on a farm 15 miles north from Sublette, Kansas. He liked growing up there. He worked hard. His favorite movie was Tarzan of the Apes. He went to any Tarzan movie that came to Sublette. He thought it would be fun to live in jungles and be strong like Tarzan. He also watched western movies like Roy Rogers. His horse’s name was Trigger and Grandpa’s horse’s name was Dixie. He listened to radio shows such as Sky King, Cisco Kid, Straight Arrow, Inner Sanctum and Fibber McGhee and Molly. Grandpa’s childhood wasn’t like mine, but it sounds fun.

After talking to Grandpa Gary, Mom and I sent a face book message to Uncle Scott. Uncle Scott’s hobbies were reading, board games and computers. He lived in Niceville, Florida. He had a magnolia tree in his front yard. I even looked it up online and saw it on Google Earth. He had lots of friends and he was a happy kid. He didn’t watch a lot of TV, but he watched the saturday morning cartoons specifically Looney Tunes. Uncle Scott’s childhood seems like it was great because he made lots of friends and had cool hobbies.

Now I have a good idea of what life was like when my relatives were my age. Grandma’s life was different from mine because she played with dolls and didn’t have television. Grandpa’s life was fun because he worked on the farm and watched a lot of Tarzan movies. Uncle Scott’s life was like mine because he played on the computer and watched saturday morning cartoons like I use to. I learned a lot and I’m glad I know what life was like when they were ten.

Westen's Spooky Story

One Dark, Black Night

One dark, black night, a little boy named Andrew was walking through the woods alone. For an 8 year old, Andrew was small. His short, wavy, brown hair looked dark compared to his skin which was pale and thin like the skin of an onion. His striped shirt hung loosely from his shoulders and a pair of baggy jeans almost hid his new brown shoes. As he walked along the leaves crunched under his feet. He saw an old house with broken windows and a crooked front porch nearby, but Andrew didn’t want to go inside. Just then, a clap of lightning broke into the night. He raced for the door, even though he was scared.

When Andrew got to the door, he put his grip on the brass handle of the leopard door knocker and knocked. There was no answer. He turned the knob and the door opened with a creak. There was an eerie rattling and Andrew gasped. Suddenly, another clap of lightning forced him to go inside. Out of nowhere, bugs appeared and swarmed his face, but Andrew slapped them all off with his hands. Before he could find anything, he heard a spooky howl. Then, a rattlesnake slithered right past him. Andrew screamed and ran deeper into the house. There was another terrifying howl which left Andrew cowering in fear.

Trying to be brave, he stood up straight, put his shoulders back and swallowed the lump in his throat. He reached his hands out in the darkness and felt something mushy, wet and slimy. Andrew yanked his hands back, but the slimy thing grabbed him. His heart was pounding. Then another flash of lightning gave him enough light to see that it was a giant worm monster! Andrew struggled to get free and began punching the monster. The monster backed away from Andrew giving him the chance to escape. Andrew ran for his life and he didn’t look back.

-THE END-

Barkling ~ A Short Story

Barkling

This little brown dog is called Barkling. He loves chewing on his bone and he barks a whole lot. He likes food pellets that cats eat. Also, he loves his name because he loves barking all the time.

One day, Barkling is playing on the beach and runs right into a boat. He decides to climb aboard. Suddenly, a strong wind blows it out to sea. Then, a giant whale swallows the boat up making Barkling scared.

Barkling spied a purple fish who lived inside the whale. The fish swam out of a wooden box that the whale had swallowed. The fish hit the whale’s jaws with it’s tail which opened the whale’s mouth. Barkling quickly sailed out of the whale’s mouth before it closed. He made it just in time.

When Barkling wanted to go home, a magical bunny jumped out of the clouds and used it’s magical paws to carry the boat to shore. Once Barkling and the bunny reached the shore, the magical bunny bounced back into the clouds with Barkling on it’s back.

Barkling and the magical bunny got to the cloud top kingdom. That was the place where the bunny lived. Barkling loved the kingdom in the clouds. He wanted to stay forever. He and the bunny played and lived happily ever after.

Wes Art

First Art Class

Our Celtic Irish Tree

Hangman's Tree

The Lost Treasure of
The Golden Hangman

My name is Westen and I’m a treasure hunter. I like being a treasure hunter because it’s full of adventure. Today, I’m in search of the Golden Hangman on Hangman’s Tree. Let me tell you the story of me finding the Golden Hangman.

I began my hunt at midnight. The first place I came to was a Spooky Cave. Once I walked into the cave, a friendly bat flew right toward me with a clue. The clue said that we have to go to Rock Peak next.

Once the bat and I got to Rock Peak, the dragon who lived at the peak flew out of nowhere. All of a sudden, a giant wind blew the dragon away, leaving the second clue behind followed by a baby dragon. The baby dragon gave us the clue and it said that the next place we have to go to is the bridge, but it’s broken.

When the bat, the dragon and I got to the broken bridge, we found a poor animal underneath it. It was a leech fish. We pulled it off of the broken bridge and found a tiny clue on its bottom. It said to go to Lucky Lagoon. On the way, it started to rain.

Once we got to the lagoon, a lucky sea snake jumped out of the water and transformed into a bridge. When we got across, the sea snake coughed out a clue that said to go to the Indian Camp.

Once we got to the Indians, an Indian bird, who had the next clue, was trapped in one of the teepees because it was mean. I told the Indians that I’d train it to be nice, so they set it free. After we went away from the Indian camp, the Indian bird gave us the clue.

It said to go to Frolic Forest. When we got there, there were a lot of wicked trees we had to get through first. After we got through them, we found a male monkey and a female monkey. The male monkey had the final clue and the female monkey had the key to the treasure.

The final clue said to go to Hangman’s Tree where The Golden Hangman lies. When we all got to where the treasure was, there were six hollow squares and a key hole. I put in all the clues, along with turning the lock which unlocked a secret door on Hangman’s Tree.

When all of the animals and I were about to walk through it, I woke up from my adventure. I felt so confused. I couldn’t believe it was all a dream! I will keep thinking about finding the treasure at Hangman’s Tree for the rest of my life.

Descriptive Writing Paragraph

Fortune Teller

We were at the Renaissance Festival. We stopped by this Gypsy Fortune Teller’s House. The Fortune Teller had red robes, blue eyes, and long dark blonde hair. She was very warm hearted and I felt comfortable. I never had my fortune told before. The Fortune Teller reminded me of the one in Scooby-Doo. It felt like she was seeing into my mind. She said that I would get married and have two kids and grow up to do something important. I was listening hard. I hope my fortune will come true.

Poetry by Westen

Autobiographical

I am Westen

I like Majora's Mask

I hope I will beat it

I dislike the big task

I admire termina field

I fear not a thing

I need to get lots of items

I know about nothing

I wish I would know

I wonder where to go

Acrostic Poems

Moonlight in the sky

Often not an eye

Of the bright moon

Not sunny noon

Flowers are fluffy

Lovely and puffy

Often good plants

Without ants

Eager to grow

Rain not mow

Sunlight dance

Cinquains

Dad

Bald, caring

Plays Guitar Hero

Grateful, happy reading stories

Father

Elvis

Furry playful

Likes eating fast

Loves playing with toys

Cat

Haiku

The Blowing

The big blowing wind,

It blows things off to their side

It will never stop.

The Kangaroo

Jumps on hot deserts,

He wants to find his mommy

But he can't do it.

Westen's Book Report

Last quarter Westen's reading book was The Janitor's Boy by Andrew Cements. We began this quarter by writing a book report. I gave Wes a rubric in the form of a submarine sandwich to keep it fun, but make no mistake, this was a serious report which included setting, character descriptions, summary, climax, vocabulary words and art work. He made first drafts, went through the process of editing and then carefully wrote final drafts onto his sandwich pieces. He also presented his finished report orally which he enjoyed doing because he was very proud of his sub!

Pictures From Our Study of the Middle Ages

This is Westen's representation of the four alls: the Peasants who worked for all, the knights who fought for all, the king and queen who ruled all, and the priests who prayed for all and who were thought to be all knowing.


We also made our own Medieval Feast. The bread was a special recipe Wes worked on with his dad. It's called Rose Petal Bread. Notice the hollow our bread in the picture. That is what we used for our plates. The main course sits on a piece of flat bread or "mess". We had salt as a seasoning, but no pepper. We drank from goblets and used our fingers! If the bread looks good, Here's the recipe:

Rose Petal Bread

You will need:
1 package of active dry yeast
1.5 cups lukewarm rose water
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
3-4 cups flour
Cornmeal and butter
Food Dye
1 egg white

To begin, make the rose water by simmering rose petals in a small amount of water. Remove the petals.

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the rose water. Stir sugar, salt and some flour into the yeast. With clean hands, knead the dough. Add more and more flour until it won't take anymore.

Push the dough around on a floured board. When the dough becomes smooth and elastic, cover the bowl with a clean cloth and go play for an hour!

When you return, the dough will be bigger. Punch down the dough, and divide in half. (we made ours into one larger loaf) Form each half into a circle, oval, heart or long loaf. Place the loaves on separate buttered baking sheets that are sprinkled with cornmeal. (We just placed ours on a silicone baking mat on top of a cookie sheet.)

Next comes the art part. Mix a food color with a little bit of egg white to make "paint." Paint vines, leaves, flowers or any other art on the top of the loaves. (my son chose blue food coloring. We painted the whole top of the loaf and then decorated with rosemary and chives.)

Bake in a preheated oven for 40 minutes at 400ºF. Delicious!

Second Quarter into Third

So I guess I took the second quarter off from blogging. That just means I have some catching up to do. So let me summarize:

Quarter 2

In Math we have continued working through the Total Math 4th grade workbook. I teach the concepts and I use Scholastic Study Jams to reinforce the lessons. You can find the link at the right under "My Favorites". We've gone from the beginning of the year which was a review of basic operations to fractions including adding and subtracting fractions with like denominators. We also compared and reduced fractions as well as working with mixed numbers. From there we ventured into decimals, graphs, ordered pairs and probability. Next we tackled measurement focusing on length, perimeter and area with both metric and English systems. We finished up with Volume.

Quarter 3
Well start this next quarter with a review of time and money. I will also be incorporating videos in this last quarter. I discovered Cerebellum and stocked up on some great videos to support our entire curriculum for the rest of the year. Once again, you'll find a link for Cerebellum on the right.

We are really almost done with fourth grade math. We probably only have about two weeks left. Afterwards, we'll review and maybe even take some practice tests, but then its on to fifth grade!

Quarter 2
In Social Studies we spent the bulk of the quarter studying the Middle Ages. We had a great time with it and I highly recommend the book we used as our travel guide called Knights and Castles by Avery Hart & Paul Mantell. It's filled with history and activities. I'll have to come back to share pictures of the Four Alls Wes made or the Feast we created. We also used kidspast.com (link on the right) for additional information. We finished up by studying Spanish explorers to the southwestern region of the United States.

Quarter 3
We will begin this quarter by studying westward expansion and the Mexican/American War. I found some great videos particularly in the social studies area at Cerebellum and I am going to have this part of our day be video driven. Of course we'll support this with conversation and other classroom resources. I don't have any projects in mind yet, but I'll think of something. Perhaps we can incorporate some of our history knowledge into our poetry section in Language Arts.

Quarter 2
In Language Arts we finished our Vocabulary book and started parts of speech and some reading success exercises. Wes read Janitor's Boy by Andrew Clements throughout the quarter taking notes each day. We continued our fluency work and in writing we covered How To and Personal Narratives.

Quarter 3
We'll start off this quarter with our first big book report on the Janitor's Boy. Wes will follow a rubric and go through the process of drafting, revision and publishing. This will be our main focus for the first couple weeks and then we'll head into poetry. As the year goes on, I'm placing more and more emphasis on reading comprehension and independent study skills.

Quarter 2
In science we studied weather and plants and animals.

Quarter 3
We are moving into magnets, circuits and electricity. I still have some planning to do for this subject, but I have a couple new resources that I think will help. I'll have to elaborate when I have more of a plan.

Well that kind of catches us up on the core subjects. We've also added a morning workout to our day and I'd like to bring piano lessons back into our routine. We continue to work our way through a study of the world's religions as part of our social studies and we start each day with a following directions warm up.

So that's a wrap for now. I'll try to post some fun pictures soon and maybe type up a couple of Wes's writing assignments for posterity.

Patayan Inspired Intaglio ~ An Art Project

As Wes and I have been working our way through the different ancient people that are part of the 4th grade curriculum here, we have been incorporating art projects. This week we have learned about the Patayan people. Among the things we learned is that the Patayan left behind amazing intaglios. Here's a great article we found: America’s Nazca lines We decided to make intaglios of our own. The project was a lot of fun and very easy to do. So for all of you art teachers or arty moms, we'd like to share:

This is Westen's Intaglio. He wanted to see how many different symbols he could make. We gathered inspiration from a little book we have called Easy Field Guide To Rock Art Symbols of the Southwest.

I couldn't resist getting in on the fun. I made a big person and a little person who seem to be celebrating the sun and their thriving corn crop as the lizards dance by.

This was a very easy project to put together. We just cut out pieces of cardboard from a box. We used our hands to coat one side of the cardboard generously with regular white craft glue like Elmer's. Then we covered the cardboard with black craft sand that you can buy in most craft stores. Then we just let it dry in the sun. To create our intaglios which actually means "incised designs", we used the wood end of a small paint brush. The brush end came in handy to remove loose sand or we just blew on it. We had a really good time with this one so we wanted to share!

Pueblo ~ Paper Model Project

This week we have been talking about the Sinagua of the Sunset Crater region. It was time to build a pueblo representing their later structures rather than their earlier pit houses.

You can find this paper model and many more at my favorite publishing house: Dover Publications. Whenever you walk into a museum shop, you can bet a large percent of the literature and activity books have been published by Dover. Their prices are great. You can buy paperback books in so many genres for discount prices. It's a super resource for anyone and an awesome educational site. I'll add it to my favorites list for your convenience.

Oh, one more thing. You can get on an email list for free samples. Weekly you'll receive clip art, coloring pages, shorts stories and more!

Westen's Aztec Temple ~ Schedule Updates

We just finished studying the Aztecs. Wes chose a golden temple for his clay dwelling project.

Well, we are three weeks away from the end of our first quarter. It's kind of wild to think of most of the school children being on their 3rd day of the year. I have to say, I love this year round schedule our school district follows. Those long breaks between quarters go a long way to keep your brain fresh and to fend off scholastic burn out!

In the way of an update:

Math - We just completed a section on division finishing up with long division with double digit divisors and remainders; the works. I think we are both glad to be moving on. LOL! Long division is not one of Wes's favorite things. Now we are entering a unit on averaging so we haven't completely escaped division. Next we will be headed for geometry. Yea!

History - We are working our way through the list of cultures that the fourth graders are slated to study. We just started with the Sinagua of Northern AZ and still have the Patayan, Salado, Inca, and Maya to go. Needless to say, we only have enough time to get a small sense of the life these people led. We are keeping a time line as we go in addition to our clay dwellings. We are also making a poster page of each group on which we write all the interesting tidbits we can find. We will also take at least one more field trip to the Basha Museum of Native American Arts (I'm not sure if that is the actual name). At some point this year I would also like to go to the Heard Museum.

Vocabulary - We are currently studying prefixes. Wes is a happy camper this week because the prefixes are uni-, bi-, and tri- which are already familiar to him. Who doesn't like an easy week?

Science - We've been studying the environment and the earth's processes. Tomorrow we'll look at floods. We have also been saving recyclables for art projects.

Religion - Currently studying Judaism

Reading and Language Arts - Just finished up our section n fables although we will still read a few more tales of Native American Folklore. This week we made cards for the Grandparents as this Sunday is Grandparents Day. I don't even know if the Grandparents know about Grandparents Day, but they are about to find out! Fluency is still going really well. It's become a nice part of the morning routine and practically runs itself. We started a new work of fiction this week and are enjoying the story so far. We need to get a little more into the book before we can really start to discuss some of the literary elements. Of the literary elements that 4th graders are meant to learn, we've covered over half already. Now it's just a matter of reinforcing the concepts in the work we do.

Westen's Fable

The Iguanas and Chameleons that Fight and Tease

Once upon a time, the sun woke up and the sun can't wait to see what good things are happening in the forest. Something was happening in the forest, but it wasn't good. The iguanas and chameleons were fighting and teasing about who got to go up the tallest tree first. The iguanas think they are more clever and the chameleons think they are more special. They were so noisy that they woke up the cobras from their morning nap. The cobras couldn't take it, so they hissed with all their might, but the enemies kept on fighting. Then the lizards can't take it, so they wapped their tails, but it didn't stop the fighting foes. Then the hippo roared! It finally got their attention. "If you guys do not stop fighting, no one can have the tree!" the hippo shouted. The iguanas and chameleons felt bad about not getting the tree and disturbing all the animals so they decided to take turns. That night, the sun went to bed feeling happy and pleased that the iguanas and chameleons finally solved their problem.

Westen's Great House Sculpture

Westen's version of the Great House at the Casa Grande Ruins.