MFW Adventures: West by Wagon and the Human Body

January 19, 2016January 19, 2016 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 3 Comments

Its our favorite time of year! “Winter.” The weather is gorgeous, though very rainy this year, and we spend more time than ever out of doors.

The garden has gone absolutely berserk this year. I love walking outside and cutting a head of lettuce before dinner. We planted more veggies this week and I am looking forward to harvesting them in March.

West by wagon train! The boys were eager to jump right in. I gave them each a small bag and asked them to pack things they would need for one week of travel through an unsettled, wild area.

We had to pack and repack for over an hour. It was fun watching them try to figure out what really needed to go in the bag and what they could do without. We read “Daily Life in a Covered Wagon” by Paul Erickson and the boys made their own “travel journals” as an exercise in creative writing. They wrote and illustrated stories about their make believe travels on the Oregon Trail. These entries read like the old Oregon Trail computer game I loved as a kid. Day 1: shot a buffalo. Day 2: dysentery. The illustrations were hilarious. I love when they ask to do their own projects. Its fun to watch their creativity bloom as they take complete control over their work.

After reading “The Josefina Story Quilt” and our reading selection from American Pioneers and Patriots, the boys asked if they could make their own quilts. After showing them squares from the quilt I’ve been working on for the last nine years (no joke) they opted for glueing fabric scraps onto paper and making “Quilt Art.”

See that little model wagon? Looks nice in the picture doesn’t it? Its garbage. We could have burned three dollar bills in front of our children and they would have learned a greater lesson than the experience of putting this thing together. While we’ve had fun with other wood building kits, this one received poor marks. The quality is terrible and there is no building involved. You glue pieces together and watch the wheels fall off because the accompanying nails don’t fit correctly in the predrilled holes. a big thank you to my patient hubby for seeing that project through to the bitter end.

After that disaster, we opted to use our play stand as a covered wagon. We threw a white sheet overtop and our eldest sang “Old Dan Tucker” as the kids pretended to bump along the trail. They ate lunch in their wagon and pretended to cook a few meals while I read aloud from their book basket. Then our youngest began crying for his play stand. “My birds! My blocks! My sky!” We put things to rights once more and he has not left it since. Territory claimed!

We used the booklet, “My Body” last year during Cycle 3 of Classical Conversations.

The boys each made a life size cut out of their body which they then filled in with various organ systems from the pages of this book. One book can be used for an entire family or classroom.

It was a great learning experience. I was tempted to repeat it once more for this unit but instead chose the following add ins:

This dover coloring book was an excellent choice for the boys. They have loved working in it and describing the various organs and systems to me as they complete each section.

We picked up a Magic School Bus Human Anatomy science kit. The boys completed the majority of these experiments on their own and learned an incredible amount of information. This kit has inspired me to allow the boys to lead more of their own science projects. They are more than capable of gathering their own materials from around the house, following procedural steps, forming hypothesis and recording their results. I picked this kit up several months ago during a Zulily science sale. The school bus kits show up on Zulily frequently at a hefty discount.

Other hands on activities we introduced and enjoyed included: puzzles, three part letter cards and a safari toob of human organs.

This digestive system puzzle shows up in the Target dollar section every August.

Our cross section Human Body Model from Learning Resources.

I put together a human anatomy tray with three part cards for sorting and classifying. We used the Human Organs Safari Toob. The boys reached for this tray often throughout the week.

Our little guys spent the majority of their time playing with Hape’s Layered Body Puzzle (male version).

All our boys, ages 3-8 have used and enjoyed the Hape layer puzzle. It is currently the family favorite.

Lastly, to reinforce right and left, our kids have been working with this Hands Counting puzzle from Melissa and Doug.

We’ll be sharing more Anatomy projects in the days to come!

MFW Adventures: Fulton & Stain Glass

December 5, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 1 Comment

Greetings & Salutations!

The garden is in, my friends. No sooner had we turned our backs on those lovely beds than the heavens began to pour out rain. All our seedlings seem to have doubled in size the past week thanks to the ceaseless rains.

Unit #21 brought our merry group of adventurers to Robert Fulton and his Steamship.

Day 1: I read out of the recommended book basket list and set the boys loose in the yard with 4 kiddie tubs and an assortment of plastic trash. Empty bottles, milk jugs, egg cartons, straws and robber bands. They had a marvelous time constructing their own “steamships.” This eventually led to us hauling out one of our Usbourne science books and executing another round of “sink or float” with other backyard items.

Day 2: We hauled out tons of books and encyclopedias that catalogued various ships throughout the ages. The boys looked at “Into the Unknown” by Stewart Ross and copied his diagram of the steam engine along with a few other pictures of steamships detailed within.

This was intense work for the boys. They took notes and later spent two hours drawing highly weaponized steamships.

Day 3:
Origami style steamboats! Thanks to Chaos Meets Creativity for the link!

While we folded ships my youngest two tackled their own projects. Give the three year old an entire sheet of tissue paper and a glue stick–it will buy you at least 20 minutes!

The 5 year old was content to light up his Christmas trees with the correct number of red and white pony beads.

Day 4:
After finishing our state sheets, the boys did a little more work on their nature journals. On this day they transferred one of the public speaking presentations from our last week of the semester at our Classical Conversations Community. I love when they work so carefully and meticulously.

Meanwhile….

Day 5:
Thanks to the delightful “A Year of Playing Skillfully,” the boys and I discovered the lovely idea of window painting. My Adventurers join in almost every AYoPS activity and this was not to be missed.

We wiped down our sliding glass door, mixed the paint, layed out our painting blanket to catch any wayward drops of color and set to work!

We recently looked through our London Gallery Nativity book which featured several diptychs of the nativity. With two large glass panels at our disposal, we all agreed to make our own “Stain Glass” diptych featuring the nativity. The 5 year old was our creative director. He loves “Starry Night” and it quite obviously influenced his work.

We ended the day with a little sensory therapy in the form of homemade peppermint playdoh. It was worth the 20 minute make time. Peace on earth for over an hour!

We are on track to finish Adventures by the end of March. We’ll spend the rest of the month enjoying advent, studying The Nutcracker and prepping for our “Adventures in US History” Road Trip!

MFW Adventures: More States & Birds + Evaluations

October 2, 2015October 2, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

It’s Fall inside ya’ll!!!

Confession: I love autumn when its actually autumn, but I’ve never been a big fan of decorating for fall when it looks like the the height of summer outside. Yet my boys love decorating, so this is the week when I show them love by hauling out the box of fall decorations from the boiling hot garage and then spend hours of my life tossing fabric leaves on every available surface of my home. Sigh.

Now autumn themed food? I can get on board with that at any time of year. My pumpkin bread will never ever be as good as my Mom’s bread, but that doesn’t stop me from tossing a sub-par loaf in the oven now and then. It smells good enough to draw in one or two kids. Beggars can’t be choosers. Oh the joy of reading “Farmer Boy” around a plate of warm mediocre pumpkin bread! Tea time is 30% better these days.

Week 15 arrived and I realized that we were almost halfway done with Adventures. We are having fun and time is flying fast! Not as fast as the birds outside when they hear us coming, but close enough. I wanted to spend some time evaluating our homeschool life now that we are nearing the halfway mark. Here’s what happened this week…

On Monday morning my son quipped, “Guess we are in for another round of birds and states!” and so we were. You can read all about how we study the states and birds here.

We added a few great elements this week that my boys enjoyed. Beginning with inspiration from this lovely graphic….
The boys and I started to look around for bird tracks and scat along with feathers and nests. We have found some pretty great stuff so far along with some not so legitimate made up stuff too. (My four year is the King of “Look at this oviraptor egg that I found!”) We are gearing up for a deeper study of animal tracking next week with Daniel Boone, so this was a great introduction. Premeditated Leftovers has a handy dandy article on Bird Unit Study Resources and we used several of those ideas this week.

We are anxiously awaiting our new Birdscapes clear view bird feeder from Amazon. Hopefully feeding the birds straight from our window will provide us with plenty of bird watching opportunities. We decided to wait one more week before decorating our tree for the birds. A low key schedule next week will provide ample time for bird viewing so we can reap the rewards of our hard work! The boys are eagerly planning out bird treats, designing shelters and building additional feeders. We’ve picked a tree close to the house but far from walkways. (No sunflower seed enhanced poo poo on my sidewalk, thank you!) The tree is situated near a large thicket of thorny flowering plants which already house many birds. We’ll be posting updates of our Bird Tree along with our upcoming Bird Watching post!

I’ve been training Team A to take more initiative and responsibility with their school work. Teaching time management is a taxing but worthy effort. Some days the boys decide to forgo our block schedule rhythm and finish all their work quickly in order to spend the remainder of the day outside. My boys are starting to recognize how and when they work best. I don’t think I really learned that about myself until halfway through college! I’m thankful they have the opportunity to evaluate those things now.

This week they flew through their work in the early morning hours and then rushed outside to play the day away. They played with mud, sticks, puddles, grass, stringy moss, leaves and pine needles. I assumed they were just making an enormous mess and having fun. After a few hours my son invited me over and explained what they were working on.

“We are watching the water flow from the top of the crest down into this lower area and figuring out all the ways to break up the stream and make it flow the way we want to. We built the things to stop the water from flowing and doing that created all these little lakes. Then we tested out what things would sink and what things would float. Then we played with the water hose to figure out how much water had to come out at which speed in order to knock down the dams we built. Like a flash flood? And we tried making little mud houses to see if they could stand even against certain levels of water flow. Water always flows downhill, don’t forget. If you stand down there you might think its flowing up towards you, but its not. Its flowing down. Think of the Nile river flowing North. You are North but your elevation is lower so that means our river flows down towards the North. Which reminds me, that puddle is the Sea of Galilee and that little rivulet is the Jordan river and guess where it flows, Mom? The DEAD Sea! We filled it with dead leaves so it wouldn’t get confused with the Sea of Galilee.”

This blew me away. As he spoke I could connect the dots between the years of My Fathers World. Bible stories, science projects, history work, books, and games. Its strange watching MFW K, MFW 1st and MFW Adventures come together in a single moment and then join hands and merrily skip away. I tuck these moments away and reflect on them in the moments when the world tries to bring doubt into our classroom. When the devil whispers that what we are doing is not enough, that the kids don’t know enough, that I am not enough; I silence those whispers with the moments of affirmation God gives me. Those precious moments I can look back on, reach out to cup in my hands and then spill out like little pearls before God as I thank Him for His faithfulness. He called me to homeschool. He is equipping me daily. He is even encouraging me while I stand in the heat, swatting mosquitoes and listening to my eldest bubble up knowledge that feels outrageously beautiful to him.

Here is the plain truth of my homeschool life at the close of week 15: My rough and tumble boys are thriving with their gentle education. Its not perfect. It doesn’t have to be perfect in order for them to thrive. In fact, I think they are thriving because our homeschool is not perfect.

Because the preschooler threw tantrums in the classroom this morning, we ran away to the park and had a beautiful morning.

Because I forgot to print out our language arts cards, we stayed even longer since we didn’t have a reason to rush home.

Because I lost my temper in a flood of sinful anger, I had the opportunity to apologize to my boys under the shade of this beautiful tree. We got to talk about grace again and it reminded us of this week’s Bible verse and before I knew it, we were talking about the Tabernacle and the Temple and the mighty curtain torn asunder and we were all breathing in gratitude together.

Because MFW is gentle with my children, it reminds me to be gentle with myself. Gentle with my expectations and the demands I put upon myself as a wife, mother and teacher. I recite Isaiah 40:11 to myself quite often, “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.”

He is gentle with us!

I never expected that one of the defining words of their childhood would be “gentle.” And yet there it is, coexisting with other defining words/phrases like: “muddy, messy, adventure, accident-prone, projectile vomit, projectile everything else, stories, farming,therapy, insects, confidence, legos, bravery.”

“Gentle” is the umbrella that covers all the other words.

I am so thankful for that.

MFW Adventures: President Washington & Frank Lloyd Wright

September 15, 2015September 15, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

I awoke on Sunday, September 6th, still fighting to shake off the last vestiges of my cold. We were scrambling around the house in a mad dash to feed and dress ourselves and four children before church. It was the routine chaos of a Sunday morning—until it wasn’t. After a few terrified shouts from my children and then my husband, I ran into my laundry room to find our faithful Westhighland terrier, Frank Lloyd Wright, in the throes of massive seizures brought on by toad venom. He had death written all over him. We tried desperately to save him.

The children witnessed it all.

That night we made our way to the vet, half of our children asking “what does dead really mean?” We said goodbye to our companion, friend and head of ranch security.

We wept.

Labor Day was probably the saddest day I have ever experienced with my children. Watching my little boys pick flowers from our back hollow and make the long walk towards the corner of our property to place those mangled weeds on the dog’s grave—it was heartbreaking.

That is how we started off our week with President George Washington. Weeks ago I had planned so many fun things for the boys.

Like serving up these George Washington pancakes from Kitchen Fun with my 3 sons.

I wanted to have an Etiquette Tea Party using George Washington’s collection of manners.

The boys were eager to throw an Inauguration Parade for their pal, George.

Instead, we cried. We cried a lot.

We relocated our class to my Mom’s house and worked through our Adventures Guide for the week. We swam in the pool. We went to the beach. We ate lots and lots of dessert. We had many difficult conversations.

I love My Father’s World gentle learning approach for many reasons. One of them is the following: I don’t have to hurry through difficult times or push dark days under the rug because we are too frantic to finish school. This is the first time my children deal with a “close to the heart” death. They watched it happen. I am so thankful that we didn’t have to dive back into a hectic routine the next day. They were given the gift of grief. They had time to process their emotions and have all the conversations they needed to have. They were able to shed every tear that needed to be shed. They stayed up late at night, lost in thought. They got to sleep in the next morning and heal a bit. I asked, “Do you still want to do school this week?” They said “yes.” Then they got to learn about George Washington in a gentle, lovely way.

Guess what? General George helped them along in their grief.

Son: “Mom, I know we need a new dog to be head of ranch security on the farm. But, well, I’m RELUCTANT to get another dog. I love Frankie so much and I am so sad he is gone.”
Me: “I know, sweetheart. I loved him too. Its hard to think about having another dog come into our family right now.”
Son: “George Washington was RELUCTANT to become President. He was! He wanted to just be a farmer and have everything go back to the way it was before the war and all the fighting and sadness.”
Me: “That is true.”
Son: “I feel that way. I want everything to go back the way it was before sadness. But it can’t and so now we have to be brave like George Washington when he stepped up to be President. We need to find a new pup and train it up.”

We said goodbye to Frankie. We said hello to our new sweet little gal, Trusty Banjo. We were brave. We finished Unit 11.

We are now chugging through Unit 12, learning all about the New Nation, while we try to grapple with our new Farmhouse/Schoolhouse life and the strange precarious balance between sadness and joy.

There is no rush to get through it all.

MFW Adventures: Revolution & Rhinovirus

September 13, 2015September 15, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

The best time to gauge my children’s progress in learning to work independently, always occurs when I am sick.

Mom is down for the count. How much can you do on your own?

I’ve been working hard with my eldest son to learn how to fend for himself. Last year, I realized that if I ever disappeared for a few days, I would likely return to find him half starved and wearing the same clothes he had on when I left, with a decent chance he may not have even noticed my absence. The child knows how to melt away into imaginative play like no other. On the other hand, my second born would have prepared three square meals a day, finished a load of laundry, completed an assortment of projects on top of his daily schoolwork, and managed to keep all the pets fed and the house clean.

Its not like I only worked with the second born on life skills. They both received the same lessons and the same amount of attention. It really boils down to this: my second born cares about independence and basic hygiene; my first born does not care about anything but the alternate universe in his head.

So I end up sick for their all time favorite history topic, the American Revolutionary War. What to do? Should I skip school for a week? If it had been any other subject, I would have! But here was a chance to see the kids in action in a subject they were well versed in.

I did decide to skip science this week as an act of grace and mercy towards myself. We voted to double up on science the following week. We kept our morning routine the same. The boys worked through their Saxon lessons and we set aside our Language Arts for the week. When life gets hard we usually stick with one or two subjects and let the other subjects take a rest. The chances of goal achievement are much higher and I don’t have to deal with the horrible guilt of not finishing a tremendous to-do list by the end of the week. Honestly, stripping back also helps the kids learn much more than they do when I try to pack in too much. Win-win.

So how did we survive the Revolutionary War while the General battled Rhinovirus? Well, aside from an insane “Liberty’s Kids” marathon that has left me with a vehement hatred for the opening bars of “I see a laaaaaannnnnd….,” we spent the majority of our days on the floor with packs of army men and an assortment of legos. I read books aloud and drank tea. Whenever I needed to sleep, they read books to each other and drank tea. Even outside of school hours, the boys kept picking up easy readers and step into reading books about the Revolution. I loved passing by their room at night and seeing those night lights on and the history books open. What a thrill! Despite the hideous plague of illness I was wallowing in, I could not help but feel immense gratitude for the blessing of homeschooling. My kids don’t hate school. They love to learn. <—This will never cease to amaze me!

The boys built a variety of weaponry. Cannons, sabers, muskets. Full disclosure: I did not teach them any of this, I don’t know where they acquired this knowledge and I still have no idea what any of it is , how it works, or when it was used. I only know that my kids dig it big time.

A few months ago, I stopped off at a Barnes & Nobles with $7 left on an old gift card. I found this book in the clearance section. Totally NOT age appropriate, however, it came with dozens and dozens of document replicas that made its $5 price tag worthy of my gift card.

The boys loved reading notes from Cornwallis, drafts of the Constitution and George Washington’s commission note which renounces his allegiance to King George and pledges his loyalty to the United States. Lots of tiny people geeing out over here. They spent Friday in Revolutionary War garb, tricorn hats in place, sending missives back and forth between camps. ~~The toddler~~ Nathan Hale was usually charged with carrying the documents between the Greenback Mountain Boys and an “ICY COLD” General George Washington.

So what did we read this week? Pretty much everything by Jean Fritz. One lunch hour consisted of twelve books and many, many quesadillas with sliced avocados from our tree. (Lemon tea for me!) They did not want lunchtime reading to end.

Revolutionary War Book List
Can’t You Make Them Behave King George? by Jean Fritz
And Then What Happened, Paul Revere? by Jean Fritz
Shh! We’re Writing the Constitution by Jean Fritz
Where was Patrick Henry on the 29th of May? by Jean Fritz
Why Don’t You get a Horse, Sam Adams? by Jean Fritz
The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz
Why Not, Lafayette? by Jean Fritz
Will You Sign Here, John Hancock? by Jean Fritz
The Scarlett Stocking Spy by Trinka Hanks Noble
The 18 Penny Goose by Sally M Walker
George the Drummer Boy by Nathaniel Benchley
If You Lived at the Time of the American Revolution by Kay Moore
If You Were There When They Signed the Constitution by Elizabeth Levy
Heroes of the Revolution by David A Adler
Nathan Hale Patriot Spy by Shannon Zemlicka
Paul Revere by Esther Forbes

We capped off the week with a Revolutionary battle reenactment that resulted in three nosebleeds, one broken picture frame, a box of overturned cheerios, a damaged tricorn hat and left me bedridden until my sweet husband came home early from work to rescue me.

Confession: I have a super big crush on my children’s principal.

MFW Adventures: Benjamin Franklin & Layers

August 13, 2015August 13, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

We get a lot of lightning storms. This time of year, we have them almost every day! Our study of Benjamin Franklin coincided nicely with the weather. Last night, the bad weather rolled in just as the sun was setting.

It was overwhelming. Soon after the evening meal, the inside of our home suddenly turned a brilliant golden pink. We ran outside to see what was going on! We were greeted by brilliant colors, the rumble of thunder and powerful lightning bolts transecting the sky’s rosy palette. A great way to end a week of lightning watch. Thanks, God!

If you’ve been following our blog, you know by now that I am a bit of a book junkie. I hyper focus on books all. the. time.
So I am taking a page out of Ben Franklin’s personal book of improvements and finding ways to improve the way I ~~do laundry~~ homeschool with books. Book overload is not a good thing. I am learning to cut back on book volume and instead of grabbing copious amounts of literature repeating the same information ad nauseaum, I am choosing a few solid books that are well written and beautifully illustrated. I am trying to make sure that our book basket has variety and sustains high interest levels. Do I really need 6 books on Benjamin Franklin that all present the same biographical material? No. For example, we picked up “A Picture Book of Benjamin Franklin” by John Alder at our local library last week. This book is fine but not necessary for our week because it parrots back all the information we received through other sources. We ended up slipping that particular book, along with a few others, back into the library bag.

Benjamin Franklin Book List:
1. Benjamin Franklin Young Printer by Augusta Stevenson We read a few chapters from this biography every night before bedtime. The boys loved hearing stories about Benjamin Franklin as a child. In fact, he simply became “our pal Ben” during these evening readings. How fun to step inside the Franklin family banter! Ben made tough, deliberate decisions even as a child–this captivated my boys.
2. Now and Ben by Gene Barretta We loved this book! Bright and engaging. Parallels our world today with the innovations created by Franklin way back “Ben.” The four year old always came sniffing around when this book was pulled out.
3. The Amazing Life of Benjamin Franklin by James Cross Giblin The pictures alone are enough to draw a crowd.
4. Electric Ben by Robert Byrd My boys read this one back and forth to each other.
5. Ben and Me by Robert Lawson Another great chapter book read. This was our lunchtime book and my children are so hopeful for their own Amos.
6. Whats the Big Idea Ben Franklin? by Jean Fritz My second born has chosen to read this book on his own. He is 3/4 of the way done and I am excited to hear his “report” when it is finished. I love that he is interested enough to pick up a book on his own.
7. Ben Franklin and the Magic Squares by Frank Murphy Simple enough for my son to read by himself. He came running into my office, waving the book and begging for help so that he could make his own “magic squares.” He made magic squares all week long.
8. Benjamin Franklin by Indri D’Aulaire Our primary resource (outside of The Story of the U.S.) Beautiful, informative, incredibly engaging.

Our Beautiful Feet study has now synced up perfectly with MFW Adventures. We read the D’aulaires book, “Benjamin Franklin” each morning while coloring in the free pages provided by bfbooks.com.

One of our favorite chapters in the book, “Ben Franklin, Young Printer,” describes Josiah Franklin’s undercover methods of educating his children. Josiah and Abiah would invite guests over for dinner and through carefully crafted questions, lead the guests through a series of informative conversations that would edify their children and open the world to them while their little feet remained planted under the dinner table.
Now on his return trip home, Uncle Captain David stopped by for pizza and brought along his sea charts. Once the pizza was consumed, the chart was placed on the floor, measuring instruments were brought out and my children were soon learning how to plot courses around buoys, shipwrecks and shallow water.

My eldest remarked later, “I think we should do this kind of Franklin School Style more often!” We are so thankful for a wonderful visit with our dear friend and for his willingness to sprawl out on the living room floor and talk to our boys about the things he is learning.

I would have loved to spend our week outdoors doing fun Ben Franklin Activities as originally planned; but the heat, lightning and mosquitoes convinced us otherwise. The great outdoors are a great misery right now. I didn’t want the kids bouncing off the walls all week. (This summer we are averaging 3 nose bleeds a day thanks to wrestling, wiggling and plain-old “not watching where you walk”). How to have a fun week learning about Ben Franklin with minimal outdoor time while also avoiding meaningless handouts? Hmmm…

Dare we try lap-booking?

Confession: I never really fancied myself a “lap book” kinda gal. They seemed like an inordinate amount of work for Moms with mixed reviews on how much kids actually learned. The endless copying, card stock, glue, coloring, assembling–yay! More “Things to Do.” I wondered what percentage of these books were actually put together by children? Also, anything that feeds my Type A personality in a negative way is something I tried to avoid. Lap books just seemed like the homeschool version of crystal meth for my personality. (RUN AWAY!) Anyways, my boys have loved Ben Franklin for many years (devotion to the point of attempting non-sanctioned haircuts in B.Franklin’s money style) and they wanted to do a BIG PROJECT when we reached our pal Ben during Adventures. You know whats coming….

We finished a lapbook.

Or rather, THEY finished a lapbook. Yup, we took the plunge. As you can see from the cover page, I was not in charge of coloring. I certainly did the majority of the assembling, but these boys took charge!

Homeschool in the Woods lap-pak study of Benjamin Franklin was incredibly fun and meaningful. The instructions are clear and precise. The Benjamin Franklin book we assembled was lovely and I am so thankful that it came with Audio accompaniment. I was able to leave Team A coloring, cutting materials and listening to audio, while Team B and I sorted laundry on the other side of the house.

I was a bit worried that we would overload on the Franklin family if we integrated this lap-pak with our MFW study, but it complemented everything quite nicely. The boys were always looking forward to the next small project. If they did not have such a high degree of interest then the lap-pak thing just would not have worked for us. But these boys wanted more! And the lap-pak delivered.
Leather apron trades, inventions, timelines, contributions, documents, etc. Kudos to Homeschool in the Woods for this thoughtfully prepared material. My eldest loved getting to set the type for his own name with all the letters placed backwards and then seeing it close down on his name with the letters facing the right way. The second-born loved reading about Ben’s inventions and setting up the printing press diorama.
Once we assembled the books, I carved 10-15 minutes out my day with each son so they could walk me through their lap-pak. They were so proud of their hard work and eager to relay as much information as they could.

“See this armonica? Mozart liked it so much he made music for it. Thats how awesome Ben Franklin was. I want to build an armonica because you can’t get them in a store. They are in museums now.”
“All the printer’s type go in backwards because when it presses down then the letter go the right way. Its a mirroring thing, you know?”
“Just think about how important the Treaty of Paris was, you know Mom? And Ben Franklin helped write it and sign it! He was already pretty old by then so he had to use the bifocals he invented.”
“This is all the stuff he did. This line right here stops right before he’s your age Mom, which means he did all this before he was your age!”
“Ben Franklin practiced these 13 virtues. My favorite is Temperance but really I think we could all use more Silence.”

If Ben Franklin is just another week for you, proceed as planned. But if your kiddos have a special interest in him and would enjoy something “extra” then I recommend this lap-pak with two hearty thumbs up. (PS. Its geared for grades k-2). The boys learned a lot about the life of Ben Franklin and the importance of following directions. I learned that I am a lap-book “once in awhile” kinda gal and am in no danger whatsoever of becoming addicted.

Last but not least, SCIENCE.Lots of Magic Schoolbus over here! Beep, beep! We love reading Faith McNulty’s “How to Dig a Hole to the Other Side of the World.” Its one of our favorite books to read on a fairly regular basis.

This year I deliberately included Gail Gibbon’s “Planet Earth/ Inside Out.” This book uses evolution and big bang terms throughout. I walked the boys through the basics of each theory using the book. We looked at the creation account (even browsed through our old MFWK Creation books) and then reread “Planet Earth/Inside Out.” Plenty of discussion and great questions. I had to look up a few things and the boys followed along as I researched. The second born was fascinated by Robert Ballard’s current research of the biblical flood’s impact on an ancient shoreline at the bottom of the Black Sea. My eldest wants to research the possibility of pangea’s existence before the flood and the subsequent break up as a result of the flood. I love that he is wondering about that. I am glad that he is sorting through questions about creation and evolution while at home. I went to an evangelical college with a lot of kids that were taught nothing but creation at home and then went through major crises once they arrived in science class and began learning all these theories. I love that homeschooling provides platforms for researching and asking questions together about the beautiful mysteries of the universe our God so lovingly created.

How fascinating is our earth? The boys resounding question was “But how do scientists know this FOR SURE?” They are hungry to learn more about the scientific method and the history of science in general.
I made a pretty ~~ugly and haphazard~~ basic felt puzzle for the boys to play with. They loved sorting the layers of the earth and labeling the various pieces, all the while asking for MORE INFORMATION! Something tells me that our high school science years will be quite the doozy!

Next week we begin our study of my eldest son’s all time favorite person ever: George Washington! We may be taking more than a week to finish our study, we plan on enjoying it to the fullest!
Happy Adventuring, friends!

MFW Adventures: New Netherlands + Wiggle Room

July 31, 2015July 31, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

Lots of new growth on the farm this month! Pineapples, bananas, watermelon, and avocados. What a great boost of encouragement for us as we lay out plans for our big fall garden.

We have wrapped up the unit on New Netherlands. Confession: I had no idea how to plan for this one. Not too many activities lurking around pinterest for this one. A trip to the library yielded a scant six books. I decided to keep the planner as bare as possible for the week. You know, keep a little wiggle room? I was tempted to take advantage of this “slow” week by adding extra geography or art, but I restrained myself. Instead, at the end of each session, I would turn to the boys and ask, “Lets play what we learned! What should we do?”

Well, these boys have zero problems being creative. They loved being in charge of our activities for this unit! We planned out settlements with our lincoln logs. We colored in maps of Old Boston and made a town meeting diorama.

We built windmills, sea port dioramas and Dutch step homes. We played with them during activity time.

We took the loom out to the backyard and did some weaving while we “watched the sheep.” We had to bring our rifles along in case the wolf (our west highland terrier) showed up. We pretended to take long sea voyages while huddled in bunk beds.
Then we had this conversation:

Six year old: “Sooo how come you never make those crazy snacks that go with our Adventures stuff? Like that little cookie bear driving a covered wagon made out of marshmallows and graham crackers.”
Me: “Because toddlers.”
Six year old: “Can I make a cool snack for us?”
Me: “Sure, what do you have in mind for Dutch Pioneers?”
Six year old: “I was thinking crescent rolls stuffed with gummy worms. Ya know, for the moldy bread?”
Me: “Not bad kiddo. You should write out a line up for the whole year!”

Not all ideas were approved. For example, the suggestion: “Lets invent a Separatist’s Diarrhea Bucket for sea trips! You go mix some mud for the diarrhea…” was met with, “Hmmmm, lets rethink this game a bit.”

So we went on a very long sea voyage while summer rain pounded down on the roof of the farmhouse. Whenever lightning flashed we’d roll about on the bunk beds and pretend to be seasick while someone shouted out “Day 42!” or “Day 127!” The boys excel at feigning sea sickness, so I can check that off the list, “Things the Boys should learn in 2nd Grade.” We sometimes read aloud from our book basket to pass the time during the voyage. Then the six year old began to direct things, “We’ll eat this moldy worm bread and Mom, you can be Trinka the cow. Go hide in the closet with the other cows and let out a sad, seasick, ‘Mooooo’ every once in a while.” (I have grown so much as an actress this year between my turns as Goodwife Misery and Trinka the cow). The six year old became a little overbearing and at one point my four year old rolled his eyes and said, “Ugh! You are such a Duke of York!” Guess the preschool gang has been absorbing more than I thought they would…

Have I mentioned how much we love ” American Pioneers and Patriots?” We are quite thrilled with it! Hands down our favorite part of Adventures so far. These stories about children throughout history make my sons wonder about their own place/story in history. Here are a few other books we read this week:

James E. Knight books—so much information relayed through these engaging stories!

We are also plodding our way through Betsy Maestro’s book: The New Americans: Colonial Times 1620-1689. We began last week during Pilgrims and we read a bit more this week about the colonists in New Amsterdam. The book does describe plenty of the violence between the settlers and the Native Americans. I am still not sure how much of the book we will finish in weeks to come. As always, I must balance informing their minds while still taking their young age into consideration and protecting their hearts. The fragility of their innocence is both humbling and terrifying sometimes.

We watched Magic School Bus, baked bread and finished our yeast experiments. We churned butter and kept working on our handicrafts.

We completed our Beautiful Feet study of “The Courage of Sarah Noble,” well ahead of the MFW schedule, which allows us to read “The Matchlock Gun” next week, during Michigan Pioneers. We snuck in “Sign of the Beaver” during our noon reading. “Sign of the Beaver” carries many parallels to “The Courage of Sarah Noble,” but replaces a young heroine with a young hero. The boys were thrilled at the thought of being abandoned in the wilderness with only Indian neighbors for company. They are currently wondering which part of the farm they can run away to and how long they might survive there. Many votes have been cast in favor of “somewhere near the chicken coop so we can eat eggs!” We also managed to squeak in a few chapters of “Misty of Chincoteague.” I had not planned to read this book at all for our Adventures year, but our language arts book, Writing With Ease, used it this week and the boy’s collective curiosity was piqued. After all, “American Pioneers and Patriots” featured animals brought over on ships to New Amsterdam. What other voyages did European animals take to come to the New World? My eldest is considering penning a small children’s book for his baby brother about just such a journey. Whether or not he ever does it, I am pleased that he is thinking about storytelling.

This unit was 40% pretend play, 40% read alouds and 20% science experiments. Does it sound like we read a lot? Well, we do. If your family does not read out loud much, don’t feel less than. I love reading and it has naturally flourished in our home because I make a huge effort to read out loud as many times a day as possible. We suffer greatly in other areas because of that single minded effort (read: LAUNDRY). I encourage you to do what you can with where you are in life. Even if its just ten minutes a day. Don’t feel guilty, just start somewhere and be consistent!

The boys always keep their hands busy while I read. The preschool gang made use of our sensory bins during story time. Mostly water beads, kinetic sand, corn and playdoh. They have learned to play quietly and are quite absorbed in what they are doing when measuring cups, magnifying glasses, scissors and toob figures are involved. Its taken training over the course of many weeks, but the stretches of quiet play are getting longer and longer each day!

This week we used the book “Colonial America.” It provided the patterns for the projects listed earlier in this post. Dutch step homes, windmills, etc. This book was more challenging than the Pilgrims History Pockets book we used the week before. The boys had no trouble coloring in and cutting out all the pieces, but they were only able to independently assemble 2 out of the 8 projects we finished. I would not recommend this book if you are looking for independent work, unless your child is especially deft at constructing these sorts of models.

Our favorite project was probably the “Look Inside Log Cabin.”
The boys loved seeing how simple these log cabin homes were. “No room for toys inside…so that means the outside world was where the kids played all of the time!” They seemed to be inspired by this prospect. During our Mom’s group playdate, my second-born eschewed the splash pad at the park in order to climb our family’s favorite giant banyan tree, far away from the group.

When I asked him about it he responded, “I am a pioneer boy in my heart today. I want to only be in this tree with my thoughts and imagine whatever I want. I think its the best way to play.” Little by little, his brothers joined him. When we arrived home, they quickly changed clothes and headed outdoors again; eager to collect eggs and mushrooms, scouting for places to build a log cabin, gathering pinecones and jasmine flowers to trade with neighboring Indian villages.

These imaginative adventures are made of rich stuff, my friends.

MFW Adventures: Pilgrims & Constellation Fun!

July 25, 2015July 25, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 2 Comments

Its the end of week/unit 5 and I am pleased as punch that we decided to use MFW Adventures this year. What a fantastic curriculum!

We started the week with a classroom switch up. I try to rotate things every 4 weeks to keep the preschoolers from rebelling.

Our reading corner has a new location away from the play stand, or as it was known the first four weeks of Adventures, “The Launching Pad.” After repeated collisions and head trauma, I figured it was time to rearrange things.

Puzzles (Target dollar spot finds) and toys were swapped out too. I never keep more toys out than they can clean up within 10 minutes. We clean the classroom at the end of each day and I am not a fan of spending more than 10 minutes doing so. I’m glad we started the week out with a fresh feel in the room. I rotate the toys to keep the little guys interested and engaged.

I really needed hands skillfully occupied this week. We kept last week’s Native American sensory bin and also added a sensory bin filled with water beads. The boys had a few tiny ships in there at one point and launched several journeys to the new world across a sea of colorful beads.

Lots of rain and thunderstorms this week meant no great outdoors for us. I chose my flexible version of the Pilgrims unit since we would not be making tiny Plymouth plantations out of sticks and mud in the great outdoors as previously requested.

The boys were still not over last week’s Native American study when we began on Monday. We definitely had a lot of thematic carry over. The boys made a few more necklaces and even started a line of Indian pottery fashioned from modeling clay. Squanto is cooler than Ironman around this house.

I don’t believe I have ever read a book about Pilgrims in the middle-end of July. Usually, such books are read in the coolness of a dry November, under a shady tree, after a large dinner. How strange to read in this blazing heat and pouring rain. We did not feel very Thanksgiving-ish. I am ok with that. We have a Thanksgiving Unit included in our MFW package which I will gladly use in November. To be honest, there is so much more to the Pilgrims than just Thanksgiving. I’m a bit glad all the cliche stuff was out of the way!

Our Beautiful Feet study led us through “Pilgrim Stories” by Margaret Pumphrey; “Squanto: Friend of the Pilgrims” by Clyde Robert Bulla; and “The Pilgrims of Plimoth” by Marcia Sewall. These books are rich and deep and thought provoking. My boys asked many difficult questions that led to very hard conversations about persecution. “Pilgrim Stories” was very informative but quite long to get through. The boys colored through a 3D map, coloring pages from pinterest and completed activities from a colonial history pockets book to pass the time as I read aloud. We would pause after each chapter to discuss storyline and ask questions.

We loved our book basket this week! “If you sailed on the Mayflower in 1620” absolutely captivated my boys. It asks a new question on each page and then provides a detailed but brief response. Since it was not one long continuous narrative, we were able to go through a few pages each day that pertained to the storyline in our other chapter books. It all unintentionally worked out.

“You wouldn’t want to Sail on the Mayflower” was also quite the crowd pleaser…

But the real winners were a quartet of books from the library about colonial trades. My boys were thrilled with these!

They expressed interest in opening their own individual blacksmith trades and we made signs for their respective shops; “Sharp the Gizzard” and “The Hunter’s Blacksmith.”

Lots of imaginative play around the farmhouse this week. The boys were quite struck by all the strange Puritan names in the books we read (Love, Fear, Patience) and dubbed me “Goodwife Misery.” I was told that as a mute I could not comment on the living conditions. I basically sat in a chair while they brought me various household items. They would go hunting and gathering. They “planted” corn (yellow construction paper bits) in the couch. Later when I went to clean up, I found a can of tuna wedged alongside it. I am grateful that it was a sealed can of tuna. I love this kind of play that points to deeper learning. These stories are staying with them beyond the classroom.

We took up a new craft this week!

The loom is from Melissa and Doug. We were able to snag it for $10 with a coupon. All of my boys have loved giving the loom a try and we have two completed products so far. Weaving isn’t just for the little gals!

We watched library videos about Miles Standish and Plymouth Plantation, along with Drive Thru History’s episode on Plymouth. I managed to find my childhood favorite “The Mouse and the Mayflower” for free on youtube.

The lovely MFW blog, Chaos meets Creativity, shared a link for a very cute Mayflower game. Unfortunately, the boys were not very interested in playing by the time I finally got around to pulling it out because they wanted CONSTELLATIONS!

Our library had nearly every book on the MFW recommended book basket list for science this week. We read them all, along with our favorite well-worn copy of “A Children’s Introduction to the Night Sky” by Michael Driscoll. I love that book! We all wished we could go outside this week with the telescope, alas, certain death by mosquitos just was not worth it. Ah, life in the tropics.

I printed out Montessori cards, lacing cards and set out black squares of construction paper along with little star stickers so they could build various constellations.

We even made constellation tubes!

Yup…45 minutes of work to put those puppies together and the two eldest had zero interest in them. ZERO.

Truth is, I spent tons of time laminating, coloring, punching holes, wrapping, organizing, etc; and my kids just wanted to spend time making their own constellations THEIR way. You don’t always have to be fancy. Simplicity seems to be the recipe for flourishing around here. Complication almost always backfires on me. (I’ll learn the lesson one day, right?) Child-crafted constellations were popping up everywhere. Leaving soggy cheerios on the dining room table in the shape of Cassiopeia; connecting the freckles on your brother’s face with a pen to find Andromeda; arranging the Little Dipper in the schoolroom abacus, building your own constellations is quite a marvelous undertaking!

My personal favorite is simple and sweet– a boy with some sidewalk chalk and a bucket of rocks to mark the stars with.

Isn’t child-led play a wonder? I love it. These boys taught themselves more about constellations this week than I did with my sad little basket of internet offerings. This is as it should be. Way to go, boys!

MFW Adventures: Jamestown & Reevaluations

July 4, 2015July 4, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 8 Comments

There are times when my children prove with resounding flourish that there is an art to gentle learning. This was definitely one of those weeks. These kids kept slowing me down! I wanted to press on and they dug in their heels and demanded a slow walk through the unit. They wanted to savor their learning like a delicious meal. It was a good reminder to only give them the very best. Even though I found 12 books on Jamestown at our local library, I only gave the children 4 to look through. Good, true and beautiful is the standard.

After years of careful, parent-led gleaning, they are starting to filter through things a bit for themselves. “This book is….not that great. What are they trying to tell me? It doesn’t seem like its anything good or true or useful,” my eldest mused. He can’t put many words to his assessments yet, but he can decipher richness from twaddle. This is incredibly encouraging to me!

“Jamestown is mighty good fun, Mom! Lets study it again and again!” said the second born.

We spent the majority of the week in just this way; boys coloring pictures or building forts out of lincoln logs, while I read aloud from books.

This was so pleasurable for everyone, it almost felt like a vacation!

In some ways we are on an eternal vacation from school. Those strict regulations are being stripped away as I become more and more unschooled and we are left with the brilliant truth that learning is living and abundant and pleasurable.

The boys learned so much from their Beautiful Feet Books—Pocahontas and Jamestown, New World Adventure. We are just thrilled with their Early American History Guide thus far. We colored in our next 3D map and built a model of Jamestown (pictured above) which we found in a free sample lesson from Homeschool in the Woods.

Then came the unexpected punch in the gut from my eldest.

“Mom, I loved school this week. It was so nice to not feel stupid.”
“WHAT? You have felt stupid? Why? When? You are not stupid, not in the least!”
“I am such a slow reader and no matter how hard I try to remember what I learned, I just cant. It doesn’t make sense when I look at it and I never know which way things are facing. My heart beats really fast and I feel kind of sick.”

Yeah.

MFW 1st grade phonics was a huge hit with my 6 year old. He’s a duck in water when it comes to reading. Everything clicked. It all made sense. It was all so incredibly effortless. He is reading chapter books on his own now. He is always reaching for something new to read.

My eldest did not do well with MFW 1st phonics. He struggled. It was painful to watch and miserable to teach. We added in Explode the Code halfway through the year and he improved a little bit. But here we are on the threshold of second grade and it feels like he is regressing.

Do I press on? Do I stop all together? Do I hold the six year old back until the seven year old gets a more solid foothold?

I felt overwhelmed by all these questions at first. Then I remembered to be thankful for them. We are so blessed to homeschool. We can stop if we need to. We can slow up or speed down. No matter what, we have the opportunity to do what is best for our children without worrying about someone else’s timetable. What incredible freedom! What a gift to our children!

We are sticking with MFW and Beautiful Feet as planned but with expectations adjusted for each child. I have taken out a few of our tougher language arts books for now. We will resume Writing With Ease once we’ve had time for remedial reading work. We will continue using First Language Lessons along with our Spelling program. We have ordered All About Reading and will commence with this program once it arrives. My eldest will work on this program with me in the afternoons. We are hoping AAR will help him decode words and build his confidence! The second born will use this time to read books and make new vocabulary lists to record in his composition book, which we have titled “Discovery Dictionary.” He jots down all unfamiliar words throughout the course of the week and we look up their meanings on Friday afternoons.

We will keep using lots and lots and lots of read aloud books.
We had torrential downpours all week long.

The backyard fort is infested with mosquitos.

Studying Jamestown gave these boys fort fever! So we built forts with pillows and blankets. We built forts with crackers and cheese. We built them with paper and toothpicks and glue.

The boys really melted into their play this week.

I believe with all my heart that there is no better learning than that kind of deep, engaged play. I’m glad we cut back on the unnecessary busyness in our life.

I see our schoolwork transforming into lifestyle.

Books start informing their play. Projects start melding with their dreams and ideas. Chores link up with character studies.

Even if the house is a bit chaotic and I am not using even a tenth of all the great ideas I had scribbled down while planning our Adventures year, learning is seeping into every minute of our day. I see the transformation from those once “busy hectic days” into “full rich days.”

Hard weeks can bring rich blessing into our lives. I am grateful for the revelation my son gave me and for the chance to slow things down and help him. I am thankful for God’s mercy in showing me all the ways these loose threads of many years are coming together to make something lovely.

MFW Adventures: 1492—go with the flow.

June 27, 2015June 27, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 1 Comment

Christopher Columbus!

I always love the way June Allyson, as Jo March in Little Women, lets that expression fly.

I ended up saying it all week…

i.e. “Christopher Columbus! There’s an armadillo in our yard!”
I have lived in Florida for the majority of my life and never once met an armadillo in the wild. To be fair, this armadillo has presumably lived its entire life in Florida and never encountered me once. We kept our distance out of respect for Mr. Armadillo’s wild nature and all around creepiness. Hooray, nature walk! Always exciting when something other than birds, bugs and/or types of bark, happens.

And that is not the only strange thing that happened around here….

My boys asked to do multiple crafts.

Multiple.

Crafts.

They made a pirate ship (Not what Columbus sailed on but I’ll take it), three maps, bead necklaces to trade for Indian gold and a flaaarrllaarggllaar made out of popsicle sticks. Ok, even after it was explained to me three times by my exasperated six year old, I’m still not quite sure. I believe it was some sort of navigation tool. I said “ooooo” and “aaahhh” whenever he paused for approval during his explanation. A flarrrrllaarggllaaar you guys! All on his own!

Ah, Columbus. He really wanted that trade route.

He wanted the route and I really wanted the boys to hit certain goals this week. Halfway through I realized that they were going in a completely different direction than I.

Just like Columbus, I had hit an unexpected barrier. Pesky ol’ South America kept Columbus from finding Asia (and months of madness, possible mutiny, starvation and eventual death in the middle of the Pacific). I decided to respect the road blocks my kids were putting up, lest I meet with disaster, and follow their lead. Last week, they were up for long discussions about Leif Ericsson. This week, they wanted hands on experiences and in-depth play about Columbus. In other words: “stop talking Mom and play with us!”

We enjoyed the MFW materials in this unit–especially American Pioneers and Patriots. This became one of our favorite read alouds during our Literary Lunch hour. When the rains came, we hid in the boys bunks. Catalina, Pedro and Martin, riding out the storm. (We did not wedge any knives into the door)

Our Beautiful Feet book study continues to delight the boys. While I enjoyed “Leif the Lucky” more, it was great to add in “Columbus” for a few great comparison discussions. The boys have learned so much about diligence and self-control in these last two weeks of BF study. We press on, eager for more great living-book learning!

The younger set of siblings had a great time tagging along this week. Every time the elder boys asked to draw maps or star charts, the younger boys would jump in on the fun. Lots of paint everywhere. Truly, a fantastic mess. They were so happy!

The boys are still loving their manipulative maps from Interactive 3D Maps: American History. Its probably our favorite resource this year!

We also enjoyed watching the Drive Thru History episode about Columbus. We asked for the series last Christmas and its been great fun so far–we highly recommend it!

After days of reading and mapmaking, the boys were itching for some adventure. When an afternoon rainstorm rolled in on Friday, my eldest stood at the window and watched the powerful winds shake the trees in our orchard.

“Can you imagine this kind of fury in the open unknown sea?” he asked.

“It must be terrifying,” I said.

“Mom, is it too late in the world to have an explorer’s heart?” he wondered.

“Never.” I assured him.

“Thats good. I am a kind of boy thats made up of courage and exploration but with safety too because, well, you’re my Mom and I love you,” he grinned at me.

I’m glad I went with the flow. Forcing them to do everything on my agenda, well, they may as well matriculate into our local school system for all the good it will do them as independent, creative learners.

I love watching them develop a love of learning.

I love that studying about Columbus and Viking Explorers has left my boys with a heart for exploring and a yearning for discovery, instead of an ache from sitting down all day staring at a textbook.

I read a passage this week about the unfurling of a mighty white sail from its massive yardarm. The boys were listening attentively, faces smiling and eyes alight with wonder. I’ve spent the last years hoisting their sails onto yardarms, tacking everything down and tying everything in place. Now the sails are beginning to unfurl, the wind may not have caught yet, but the sails are starting to stretch out and its a breathtaking experience.

Book List for Columbus (I found nearly all of them at the library)
1. Explorers Who Got Lost by Diane Sansevere Dreher
2. The World of Columbus & Sons by Genevieve Foster (this is an upper level BF book. We just looked through it)
3. Who Was Christopher Columbus by Bonnie Bader
4. Christopher Columbus by Stephen Krensky
5. Animals Christopher Columbus Saw by Sandra Markle
6. Pedro’s Journal by Peter Koeppen
7. Into the Unknown by Stewart Ross
8. Great Ships by Patrick O’Brien
9. Columbus by Ingri & Edgar d’Aulaire
10. Land Ho! Fifty Glorious Years in the Age of Exploration by Nancy Winslow Parker (This was a great read for any kiddos wanting MORE explorers!)