Bird's-Eye View of the Week: If Spring Is Here, then the End Is Near!

As warm(er) weather arrives, I am reminded of end-of-year reviews and Closing Programs and approaching curriculum fairs, and I've gone into a sort of panic mode as I find us behind. What have we done?? What do I have to show for it?? Will my child be put back in public school where they do SUCH  a much better of record-keeping, a fact that clearly makes them better equipped at teaching??!! Does the following week sound like slacking to you?

HISTORY

Educating at 5 am. Yes, it's history.

We could call the AmblesideYear 3 schedule: Keeping Up With the Tudors ..and the Hanoverians. Mei already so gets the vast disparity and therefore horrific breach of class Prince William caused when he married Catherine the Commoner. See? History is relevant!
And about Jamestown. FYI, the original colony of Virginia wasn't confined to the mid-Atlantic, but extended south to the Carolinas and north to New Brunswick.. (see here) Save that for Trivia Night

GEOGRAPHY
"Marco!" "Polo!" She hates the water game but enjoys the subject. Here is an area that we've definitely dragged on. MP should've made it to Cathay two months ago, but onlyrecently crossed into Kashgar.
But we're catching up. Helping to focus us and "show what she knows", we are using In the Hands of a Child.com's "Marco Polo" lapbook unit combined with Jimmie's Collage "Ancient China" lapbook  and reading suggestions on Homeschoolshare.com . We're also cooking up tastes of the Middle East and creating blog post cooking lessons. Check out: Cooking Mei's Way: Chicken Tagine.

SCIENCE"Science in a Supermarket" continues to inform all of us humorously.  Lately it's been soap and detergents. We requested laundry detergent samples from all of our Easter guests (cheaper than buying four different boxes) and will be using them to critque differences--if any!--in cleaning power. Hmm.....


MATH
Mei was DISAPPOINTED when I announced we
would take a week off of math to catch up on other subjects since she had alreadycompleted Math-U-See Gamma. (At least we were ahead on SOMETHING.) But...woah! Excuse me? My child who "hates math" disappointed to take off a whole week? Turns out she couldn't wait to start the new level, Delta. Wow, Steve Demme, looks like another satisfied customer! You can quote her on your site if you like.
And having completed only ONE unit of division, she announces it, sagely, to be SOOOO much more interesting than  multiplication!

FIELD TRIP
Took in Theatreworks USA's new production, "We the People." What a raucous way to teach the complicated (and snoozable) Three Branches of Government, the Electoral Process, and How a Bill Becomes a Law. A highschool student runs for class president simply to pad her college applications, but the Fab Revolutionary Four show up to set her straight about being a public servant.
Don't know how Washington and Jefferson would feel about being portrayed as hipped-up rockers cranking on Fender Stratocasters painted in the Stars and Stripes, but if Mei came out of there understanding the Balance of Power (and she did), then I approve.

So that's a quick recapping of one of our waning weeks in Ambleside Year 3. How about you? Feeling pressured or do I have to hate you because you're so well-organized, maybe even ahead of schedule??

Check out more slackers hard-working homeschoolers at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers AFTER you leave me a comment. ;-)

The Homeschool Mother's Journal: Frogs and Princesses

.In my life this week…
(caution: whining ahead.) I'm getting more and more frustrated with the chronic pain which is now in BOTH feet due to "plantar fasciitis". It is really affecting my lifestyle and I am praying for healing. I broke down and began wearing the "splint" (medical word for "open-air ski boot") that I am supposed to be able to SLEEP IN, being forced to choose between its supposed therapy and getting rest. Hard to effectively school with your eyes closed. :-P

History class: The Royal Wedding

On the OTHER HAND, I really got a kick out of watching Kate and Wills' wedding! I got up before dawn thirty years ago to watch Di and Chuck tie the knot the same summer as I did, so how could I refuse to do it again?
Mei wanted to be a part of it too and I figured, after spending three years reading British history from
An Island Story, how could I ignore the fact that this too was educational? 
(She really preferred the horses.)

In our homeschool this week…

 It seems to be the "hurrier I go, the behinder I get." I spent hours two weeks ago completely revamping our schedule to make up for time that somehow slipped between the cracks this winter. I wasn't going to allow for more than Good Friday off, but Mei's P.S. friend needed watching during a family crisis so of course I said "yes." It cut into another day, but it ended up a real blessing even for "education" (see "my favorite thing this week.")

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…

Theatreworks USA on Monday to see "We the People", a musical lesson in civics and government! If you've ever considered a Theatreworks production, GO! They are worth it!

My favorite thing this week was…
Our spontaneous one-day frog unit! On Monday, I got the call from our neighbor making good on the promise to alert us when there were tadpoles in his pool. Perfect! Mei had her friend over who loves that kind of thing! We grabbed nets and buckets and collected a few dozen in no time (let most go into a pond later.) To enhance the activity (and get a little school in), I found a Frog Lapbook on Homeschoolshare.com . I chose just enough to get done in one day and it kept the girls busy for hours. The friend's dad was so impressed he asked if he could send her to our school every day! :-) (Sure, for a fee?)

What’s working/not working for us…

A look inside the Plague. Eww!

 Lapbooks are working! My "reluctant writer" (which may just be a euphemism for "lazy")  has finished her lapbook on "The Plague". Now she can demonstrate knowledge without too many hand cramps and I have something else to show for our efforts at the end-of-school Closing Program and review. We all learned a lot too, even if it gave us nightmares...

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have…
What to add to our curricula for next year.   Ambleside Online and Charlotte Mason would have foreign language added around Year 4, but I have this "reluctant writer/learner" who does not beg for more work. (Oh, well. Who does?) Torn between: French, which I speak; Spanish, which will be more and more useful in the States the way our country's demographics are headed;  and Latin, which is the root of both and a boost to English vocab. (A friend gave me her Latin for Children, Primer A Teacher guide and CD's. All I need is the Student Text. That is swaying me.)
I welcome your thoughts.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…
/Frog Lapbook slideshow /
Plague Lapbook slideshow 

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Do You Want Paper or Electronic with That Curriculum?

I am indebted to Blossom at North Laurel School for her meritorious efforts in cataloging all (or almost all) the Ambleside Online curricula that is available for use on the Kindle. At the turn of the year I always find myself re-evaluating our schooling and looking ahead to the next grade (I say singular "grade" because we are in this .02% of homeschool families with only one student). The thought of curriculum fairs--an excuse for shopping with the girls--fills my head and urges me onward through the dark days of winter (of which in truth I don't mind because they give me an excuse to go to bed earlier and sleep in later).
    Last year I had the notion, with that partly-Scottish blood kicking in, to do a side-by-side economic analysis of the cost of "paper" books vs. e-books to determine if I would be doing our budget a service by investing in a Kindle rather than obtaining curricula in the usual format. Alas, I could not justify it: too few books for AO Year 3 were downloadable. ("Tell Amazon you would like to see this book available for the Kindle!" the searches would always chirp.) It IS possible that my somewhat limited (zero) understanding of the Kindle's Wi-Fi capabilities, which would allow for accessing public domain books online from sources such as Project Gutenburg   , misled my calculations. Or whether that generation of Kindle had even been rolled out yet. It's hard to keep up. They change faster than hemlines on Paris runways.
    So I donated plenty of bread to well-deserving Mom-and-Pop curriculum dealers, especially the USED curriculum dealers. (Score one for the tight-fisted Scots.)
    But now, Blossom's blog convinces me that I've hit the break-even point! (Oh, joy, a toy!) And then she points us to another Jimmie "I'm-a-Homeschool-Mom-with-30-Hours-in-My-Day"  lens on Squidoo.com (love you, Jimmie) that not only gives us all HER reasons for buying--ready?--not one but TWO Kindles, Hers and Little Hers, but includes a video from Simply Charlotte Mason.com comparing the different e-book readers including the iPad. 
   Ok, now I'm really in trouble because NOW I have to decide if it's wiser to buy the iPad for a "little" more and get all its bells and whistles or go with the e-reader because I could sorta trust MeiWei with it. Great. I love decision-making.
    What would you choose?