ThadenPierce School

It’s a series and we checked out the Emily Dickinson book from the library. I read a bit of the biography to the kids which is in the introduction and then read them two poems. They’re illustrating one of the poems now.

When they are older we’ll do more of a poetry study and have them write poetry and study the various types, but for now I think just exposing them to poetry is a good introduction. We also read some Maya Angelou today and I have some sonnets from Shakespeare. If I find a good “Intro to Poetry for Kids” type of book I’ll post it but for now… just read poetry sometimes and call it good. I think the more formal stuff will come after they are closer to 9 or 10 years old.

At a young age I think the classics – Mother Goose, A Child’s Garden of Verse – are good places to start. Our speech therapist said the rhyming of Mother Goose is especially good for kids’ speech development. That & Dr. Seuss. They said that’s a fun and playful way to help kids develop sounds.

Poetry. Find something YOU really enjoy and read it to the kids before bedtime. Let them draw how the poem makes them feel or dance it out.

I’ve been looking up books online about Texas and Denton county. Yesterday we hit the library to pick them up and I explored the nonfiction section more to see if I missed any and to find some books about plants & animals.

This is so very obvious but I’ve just had it hit me – I pulled out any book with serious visual appeal and did a variety of reading levels to check out. They’re obviously all nonfiction, they’re all educational (how plants grow with lots of pull out pages and pictures; Texas state book with fantastic visuals) and the kids are hooked. They’ve been exploring the various books for an hour this morning and Christopher keeps stopping to announce interesting facts he’s learned. I was thinking I would need to create this whole, “Learn About Texas!” curriculum and Christopher now knows more about Texas than I probably do – all because I found an enticing book and left it out for him to pick up.

For the early/pre-reading kids the picture books still have a lot of great information. Bennett’s been looking at the Texas map and identifying cities and neighboring states and Moira’s checking out the neat plant photos like side shots of the plant growing from seed to big flowering plant so you can see the roots going down and stem going up – and she can read enough to identify the labels (leaf, stalk, flower.) I asked Christopher to read some of his interesting facts to Mo as I changed a diaper and he got her looking at his book, too. When they see a sibling excited about something they usually want in on it.

I now have a testimony that I need to schedule library trips more consistently and explore the nonfiction section, both things relevant to our current studies AND any fun nonfiction books that catch our eyes. When Christopher finishes the book I ask him to tell me three things he learned (though he’s been spouting off new facts all morning) and encourage him to either type or write it up or to make a video book report (knowing he’s going to share it is motivating for him) or to do an art or craft project related to show me what he’s learned.

Again, something so obvious – provide your kids with books that are appealing. But I think I’m stunned at how self motivated they are to check out these books and to share what they’re learning… and I absolutely count this as a history lesson or science lesson even if the kids are learning all on their own and I’m not “teaching” them the topic. I do try to follow up and see what they picked up. But I try to keep it casual so they don’t feel like I’m forcing a boring report out of them. If I say, “That book looks neat, tell me what you discovered?” applies to even a four or five year old who is looking at pictures but not reading. They’ll often ask me to help them read it, too, and we can discuss it as we go.

I think this falls under the idea of using “living” books (from Charlotte Mason) instead of only using text books. Find books that are fun and engaging and informative and not just dry lecture type readings. The kids are engaged and I think that emotional connection helps them better cement the concepts and facts in their heads.

We’ve started SOTW III and it’s a big jump it seems from II to III. It’s not keeping the kids’ attention and it’s far more detailed, which makes sense since it’s suppose to be for 3rd graders. I decided to shelf it and focus instead this year on local history & geography, beginning with our city and moving outward. We’ll learn more about Denton and Texas history and do some local field trips. For geography we’ll cover wide first, starting with the continents and oceans then move in until we get back to our city. I don’t have any curriculum I’m using, we’ll use our Circling the Globe book and our various DK atlases.

I think this will help me capture Bennett’s interest, since he’s so happy to explore geography right now. It will give Moira & Christopher some foundations for when we get back to Story of the World and they’ll better know the world layout. We’ll also make this more hands on with local exploration and tie in some fun projects like foods from around the world while we study the continents.

I’ll be writing up a rough outline for myself of what we’ll cover and how. But I’m also patting myself on the back for recognizing something wasn’t working out well (doing SOTW III this year) and giving myself permission to shift gears and try something new.

Next year instead of resuming volume III I think we’ll start over again with volume I and pick up Bennett in the readings. It’s been 2 years so it will be new again for the older kids and we’ll include more activities and the timeline & mapwork. Christopher’s old enough to read the book himself or read it aloud to the others so I think starting back with volume I will work out well.

This will require much more homework on my part because I will need to create a curriculum specific for our area, gather local history & resources, figure out what to cover and in what order… but I’m excited! I think this will engage the kids much more and it will teach me a lot about the city we now call home.

Some updated links for further research:

City of Denton and official site.
Denton County.
Info on state of Texas.

Christopher was suppose to figure out what divided by six equals six. He’s not memorized all the square roots yet so he’s struggling and trying to figure it out in his head – I suggested he get some paper and pencil to sketch out ideas.

This is what he came up with:

60-24=36

Okay, that’s the correct answer but how did he come up with 60-24 to sort out 6×6??

He knows 6×10 is 60 and he knows 6×4=24. If 10-4=6 then it must be the difference between those two problems is it! That’s about how he explained it, I had to have him repeat it.

Not a conventional approach but it worked! I told him as he memorizes these problems it will make his math work faster and he said yes, but he says right now, “I’m coming up with ways to figure it out that you and Dad don’t think of! I think that’s kinda cool.”

Yes. That’s true, it is cool that he’s comfortable exploring a variety of approaches and isn’t trapped by thinking there is only one right way to find an answer. That does make me really happy that he’s so creative with his math approaches! I hope to encourage that so he realizes math can be creative.

Mo is doing really well with her second grade math (Saxon 2) and with her second grade language/grammar (1st Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind) and is halfway through 2nd grade in her spelling program (Spell to Write & Read.) She’s doing a fantastic job with her cursive writing and is doing science & history (Story of the World volume 3) & geography with Christopher and holding her own.

It seems like she’s hitting some great strides with her language & analytical skills – she’s reading more smoothly and with much more confidence. She’s doing more of her math in her head and using creative ways to approach some of her problems. It’s been wonderful to watch.

We hadn’t planned to promote her to second grade until after January with the stipulation that she finish up her math before then, the only text she was still in first grade level. She really worked hard and finished it and is now on lesson 8 of her second grade math! Yesterday I asked if she would like to start second grade and I was a little surprised that she said no. I said that’s fine, let me know when you want to be a second grader. She was reading a book and didn’t even look up but said, “Okay. Maybe in three days.”

SO, that means tomorrow Moira is going to become a second grader! Which logistically means absolutely nothing different but now she can tell people she’s in second grade when they ask.

It also means I now have a 3rd grader and 2nd grader. (And if I were being honest with myself, Bennett’s doing the kindergarden math texts and is obviously reading way above that level but I’m not thinking about that.) Which makes it feel like they are growing up WAY too fast for my tastes.

I bought a placemat/dry erase board at Target in their dollar section. One side has a map of the US with capitols and names, the other side has the map with states outlined but no names. He’s been carrying it around so for fun I started to point to different states and ask him their names – starting with Texas, an easy one. And this was the side without labels so he couldn’t read the state names (though he can read all the state names which is impressive in itself) so I made it hard & used the blank side.

HE NAMED 21 STATES!! Places like Florida and North Carolina and Arizona and Washington and Pennsylvania. GO, Bennett!! Then we stopped because Mommy didn’t know all of them. I confuse Kentucky & Tennessee all the time.