Studying Grammar

I am happy to tell you that after some hard work encouraging rhythm and discipline, the children and I are now contentedly working at a wonderfully relaxed yet productive pace. We're spending a little less time on schoolwork in this lovely mild weather than we likely will in the heat of summer or the dead cold of winter, but four days a week we sit down for essentials--two different math works for each girl, handwriting for each girl, reading for Sydney, and grammar for Willow--and then work a couple of "extras"--a documentary on George Washington, dissecting our daylilies, working on our mixed-media postcard swap, etc.--into the fun of the rest of our days.

Yes, I said it: Willow studies grammar.

*stepping up onto the soapbox*

Grammar is the structure of language. You may talk and write however you wish, and if you're understood then you've practiced good communication, but to write or talk well you must understand, and you must use, the correct structure. I want my children to write and talk very well, and I also want them to enjoy learning languages. As a reader of many languages, myself (though not a writer or speaker of them!), I know that understanding grammar makes learning languages so much easier. If they internalize the structure of language, then my children will always find it easier to speak and write well, and to learn to do the same in another language.

*stepping down from the soapbox*

For grammar, we first go to KISS Grammar. KISS Grammar is a fabulous (and free!) set of downloadable grammar workbooks for children that are in Microsoft Word format, and thus are editable. The writer also teaches freshman comp at Penn State, and I used to teach freshman comp, too, and so I feel like we are probably on the same page about what young adults need to know to be successful writers and critical thinkers, and (more frustratingly) what they tend to actually NOT know from their conventional schooling. I also like KISS Grammar because its sentences pull from living books--for instance, the first few worksheets in the Grade 2 book use Bunny Rabbit's Diary, which is a public domain book and therefore a free Kindle download, so Will read the entire book first--and LOVED it!--before she started the worksheets, giving her a more sophisticated context for the grammar work that she was asked to do.

So far, Will has needed more practice for each skill than is offered in KISS Grammar, so after she does all the worksheets pertaining to a particular skill from that workbook, I search online for other worksheets that cover that same skill or a logical extension of it (in the image below, for instance, I'm having Willow apply her newfound ability to identify the subject and verb in a sentence to differentiating between complete and incomplete sentences)--

--or I write my own worksheets for her, or I make it into her daily copywork, then have her do her identification work using her copied sentences. I also use the worksheets covering that skill from the Level 1 KISS grammar books written for higher grades, which explore the same topic using more sophisticated language. Willow definitely gets frustrated when learning a new grammar skill--the kid is really used to having academic challenges come easily to her, and she can get mad when she doesn't understand something right away--but she and I both love it when all of a sudden all the work pays off and the skill she's been working so hard at finally clicks for her:


There's no need to move on to another skill until I feel that Willow has really internalized the one that she's working on because, just like math, I want her to understand what she's doing, and why, rather than simply memorizing what to do by rote.

Just wait until I show you her baby sentence diagrams! They're stinkin' adorable.

Educational Apps for iPad and Android

I'm not ashamed of how tightly we maintain our budget, so I'll tell you flat-out that we wouldn't have been able to afford an ipad ourselves; our ipad was the Christmas gift from my partner's parents to our entire family, and a fabulously perfect gift it is.

My Android we can afford, but I'm the only one who has one, and I have the cheapest little data plan that I only turn on if I absolutely need it, and no texting or other nonsense.

So these major gadgets are not necessary for the educating of little homeschoolers...but they sure are nice! While I don't download every gimmicky little app, and I'm even more wary of spending money on apps, since the money comes from my limited crafts/homeschool budget, I have found a ton of educational apps that the kids and I seem to use almost every day.

Android

The kiddos don't spend a lot of time with my Android. For one thing, it's my phone, not their toy, but it also doesn't have a ton of storage capacity, and I don't like to turn on my data plan. So my Android apps mostly consist of educational time-fillers for them, and I'm the one who uses Netflix and Instagram and Foursquare and all those other fun toys.

• 50 States: The app is pretty much flashcards with facts about the states, but for some reason the big kid LOVES it. A couple of weeks ago we used it to learn just about every state nickname while on a road trip to Michigan, and now the big kid wants to start on the state flowers.
• Angry Birds: I suppose you could pretend that these apps teach physics, but the real treat is that they (and lots of other apps) are free for the Android, but cost money for the ipad or iphone. Fun, huh?
• Draw!: It's an easy-peasy art app that gives the little kid a creative outlet when she's otherwise bored out of her skull stuck someplace boring, like the doctor's office, or outside the gymnastics studio during the big kid's classes.
• Google Sky Map: It's good for telling us what star is so bright, what planet is shining there so close to the full moon, and what constellation that funny little group of stars is part of.
• Piano Perfect: This is another easy-peasy app that gives the kids a little creative musical break, when noise isn't a factor while we're killing time.
• Plumber: In this logic puzzle, you have to rotate pipes to get the water to flow. The big kid doesn't have much patience for it, but the little kid excels at logic games, and she loves this one.
• Poetry: I love poetry, and I'm pretty thrilled that the children, especially the big kid, also love it. In this app from The Poetry Foundation, you can search through various categories of poetry, or you can spin the dial to read a beautiful poem chosen at random for you.
• Unblock Me: the little kid loves this moving-blocks-around-to-find-a-path puzzle game even more than she loves Plumber.

iPad

The ipad belongs to the entire family, and we use it extensively in our homeschool.

• Ball Fall Down Deluxe: I really love Crazy Machines as a physics tool for the big kid, and Ball Fall Down Deluxe is just as good, because there aren't any goals--you just play! 
• Beatwave: This a crazy creative non-linear app that the little kid will sometimes get immersed in. Basically, a rhythm bar moves across a grid of mosaic tiles; when you tap a tile, the bar will then hit that beat, giving it its own tone.
• Bob Books Reading Magic #1: I almost wish that I hadn't bought this app, since it was pricey and the little kid's now tired of it, but back in that short time period when she really needed the extra practice simply putting together simple words and sounding them out, the app was very valuable. Now that the little kid has unlocked that part of reading, there are more advanced skills that she could master using this app, but since you have to start back with the first screen each time you play, she's too bored with it to be eager to play.
• Brushes: This is an extremely sophisticated drawing and design app that I purchased for my own use, but I'm still learning how to use it to do what I want. The kiddos, however, have jumped right in, especially since I've shown them how they can use it to take a photograph and then graffiti it--fun!
• Creatures of Light: From the American Museum of Natural History, I just could not be more impressed with this app, released in conjunction with a special exhibit at the museum. You don't know how many times I have been SO jealous when wonderful special exhibits come to museums that are nowhere near me, and the associative materials that the museums put out in conjunction with the exhibits are often lousy, a couple of worksheets or a few photographs. This app, however, is a meaty, hefty, informative app, a real virtual companion to the special exhibit.
• Encyclopedia Britannica: I actually pay $1.99 a month for this app, but I consider it indispensable for ready-reference. 
• Glow Sketch: the little kid loves this simple glow-in-the-dark drawing app.
• Google Earth: We probably use this map app every single day. Reading about Pennsylvania? Let's look it up! Watched a movie about Rio? Let's look it up! Heard about some cool dinosaur discovery on the news? Let's look it up! It drives me crazy that landmarks and iconic places only seem to be catalogued in the system half the time, so that you never know if you're going to zoom in to The Great Wall of China or the Great Wall Chinese restaurant across town, but every time I do have to do the extra research to look something up by latitude and longitude instead of keyword search, I do bookmark it so that at least I won't have to do THAT again. The kiddos are fascinated just browsing the maps, and I'm a pretty big fan of looking up stuff like Disney World, or the Kennedy Space Center, or Paris, that look really neat in satellite imagery. The best thing we've ever done, however, is look up Mount Everest: 

That mountain is TALL!

• GoSkyWatch: If we've got the ipad when we're out and about, its larger screen makes this sky map more useful than Google Sky Map on my Android. 
• How to Tie Knots: For fine motor skill building or just nerdy little kids, I love this app, which teaches specific knot tying with ropes of different colors and a kind of multi-step animation that really makes it do-able.
• iTunes U: It's mostly been me who's played around with this app in the past few weeks--I keep adding class packs!--but I do have a couple of very do-able unit studies marked that I plan to set the big kid up with later this summer, to give her a try at an independent study.
• Kindle: What would we do without Kindle?!? Or rather, what would we do without Kindle plus a service in our public library that allows us to check out digital books? I keep our Kindle full of library books for people both big and little, along with tons of free classics. It works well, since the big kid will often read more adventurously on the Kindle (mind you, she reads constantly, but sometimes gets into a rut), since there's a limited number of titles available there.

• LeafSnapHD: It doesn't always work--the collection of trees from my specific geographical area is on the light side--but when it does work, it's the best kind of ready reference, in that it's immediate and relevant.
• Little Speller Three Letter Words: The kids don't love this app, but since it's right at the little kid's  reading level, and since the big kid is just now learning phonics herself, I'll sometimes have them play it as part of their schoolwork. And anytime they get to play the ipad for schoolwork, that's GOOD in their eyes!
• Merriam-Webster Dictionary: The corollary to Encyclopedia Britannica; EVERYONE needs an excellent dictionary at hand, and the fact that this one will pronounce words for you is priceless.
• NASA HD: We use this app for ready reference on space science topics (the planets section is particularly excellent on days when we're making our Solar System cookies), but we also watch launches and live footage on NASA TV and I'm very fond of the adorable NASA radio station, Third Rock.
• National Geographic World Atlas: This app is definitely more map-style than Google Earth, and I prefer it when I want an actual map of a place, rather than the admittedly more fascinating satellite imagery. I also like that you can download maps to use offline, since I don't have a data plan with my ipad, either, and so many apps crap out if you're not connected.
• NOVA Elements: I really want that pricey The Elements app to go with our reference book of the same title, but it's...well, pricey! NOVA Elements is a better kid-sized app, anyway, with a clickable period table, a bite-sized summary of each element that doesn't overwhelm, and a fun elements building sandbox.
• Place Value: This Montessori-style app is very simple--it tells you a number through the thousands, and you build that number using Montessori-style number cards. It's not gimmicky or super-crazy-fun, but the materials mimic our own Montessori math manipulatives, and it's that kind of one-skill practice that I really like for learning math.

• Pluto Piano: The screen turns into a seascape, with fish-shaped notes swimming by on a staff; kids pick out the proper melody for a song by tapping the highlighted fish and avoiding the ones that strike false notes. I'm not in love with it, mostly because the app will sometimes ask you to purchase new songs, and it will give push notifications unless you turn them off, but it's allowed to hang around since the kiddos play it pretty regularly.
• Presidents versus Aliens: From the makers of Stack the States, this app is too hard for the big kid, but she loves herself some presidential trivia, so she and I play it together, me with Encyclopedia Britannica pulled up on my computer for ready reference.
• Puzzle Grid Triangles: This logic game is a lot like tangrams. The little kid loves it.
• Puzzle Planet: The little kid also loves this jigsaw puzzle app. When she tires of the few puzzles that it comes with, however, I plan to delete it, because additional puzzles cost $.99 each.
• Scribble Press: This is a fabulous children's drawing app--there are loads of colors and thicknesses and effects, presented in an organized way that allows children to use them thoughtfully. The little kid and I often use this to play a game in which I write a simple sentence on the app's drawing paper, then she reads it and illustrates it.
• Skype: The kids regularly connect with their grandparents, also on their ipad, with Skype. It's fun for the kiddos to show of their latest dance moves, or the newest painting on their bedroom wall.

• Smithsonian Channel: When the kids are in the mood to watch a video, but they're/I'm sick of the PBS Kids app, the Smithsonian Channel, although it doesn't have a ton of videos, always has something worthwhile and interesting to watch.
• SparkleFish: The kids love this Mad Libs-style app so much that I even purchased a couple of extra packages of stories for it, and they still play with them, primarily for the pleasure of saying VERY silly things and having them read back in the context of the story. While I don't agree with those who claim that Mad Libs is all you need to teach grammar, the reinforcement certainly helps.
• Stack the Countries: This app is the one that first made me realize the real possibilities of our ipad, back when it was brand-new. It teaches geography, and it's REALLY fun. Using Stack the Countries, the big kid memorized pretty much all of the countries in South America, without even noticing.
• Stack the States: I almost love this version better than Stack the Countries, since it's more relevant to what we tend to study.
• This Day in History: This is a fun almanac that's updated daily, with links to relevant World Book articles for whatever notables there are from this date. And yes, you can scroll to find your birthday.
• Tinkerbox IS a lot like Crazy Machines, in that there are puzzles and challenges. I really love programs like these that have terrific physics engines, because real-life free play with physics and engineering, with bouncing balls, and simple machines, and blocks and obstacles and ropes and such, can be hard to set up.
• Wood Puzzle Map USA: The big kid's not often interested in puzzles, and this particular one is still a little too difficult for the little kid, but we're all so interested in geography that I'm hanging on to it for the little kid to play when it's do-able for her.
• World Flags: We often use this app to accompany our pin flag work, and as ready reference. My favorite part of it is that it plays each country's national anthem. How cool is that?!?
• Web browser: The kids aren't permitted to simply surf the web without my supervision, but we use Google Images, in particular, quite often. From flower dissection diagrams to photos of jaguars to copy in one's coloring book, it's amazing how often looking up an image provides the perfect learning experience!

• YouTube: My kiddos are not permitted to access YouTube without my permission, either, and in fact I have the app hidden in a folder--it's just too easy to accidentally encounter inappropriate content with YouTube. That being said, however, we use YouTube as a family all the time--jump rope videos, original Nintendo walk-throughs, ride cams at Walt Disney World, Morse code demonstrations, etc.; YouTube is a ready-reference, homeschooling dream.

And, of course, my kiddos' current favorite game apps: 4 Elements, Cut the Rope, and Jump Puppy. I swear, we DO do many other things besides ipad apps!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Tutorial: Re-usable Straps for Dress-up Wings

Does that title make sense? It may not make sense.

So, 24 hours before the Trashion/Refashion Show, Sydney's gigantic vintage embroidery hoop rainbow fairy wings were still being tied to her back with shoelaces (in fact, as I discovered when we watched a DVD of the fashion show with relatives this weekend, the emcee announced the shoelaces as part of her garment, even though I'd ditched them by then--oops!). It worked, but it was uncomfortable, and not really a workable solution since the next day she'd need to be in those wings for hours without a break to rest her back. I'd thought and thought and thought about a better solution for months, without finding one.

And then, 24 hours before the fashion show, I thought of it.

Measure your kid up and over her shoulder, around and under her armpit, and back again all the way around. Put your flat hand against her back as you measure so that the length will be able to accommodate her future dress-up wings, and add another 1.5" to accommodate the snaps.

Cut two lengths of at least 3/4" wide webbing to this measurement.

Using a snap setter, set two sets of snaps on each length of webbing--

--so that you can snap each length into a circle:

Let a kid set the whole thing on fire:

Seriously, webbing is made of artificial fibers, and it's very thick, so melting the raw ends is the best way to finish them and keep them from fraying:

To use the straps, simply snap them around the kid's shoulders and her fairy wings. They distribute the weight of even these hefty wings backpack-style, so actually pretty comfortably--

--and you won't have to worry about the wings slipping out of place even with vigorous movement:

Not only was this arrangement so much more comfortable, but it allowed me to place her wings exactly where I wanted them in seconds, rather than the futzy tying and adjusting that I had to do with shoelaces, so Syd could even have her heavy wings removed for even short breaks, because I knew that I could put them back on again perfectly right away when she was needed again.

Sydney really likes to construct her own fairy wings, out of tree branches, two unassembled flat-rate postal boxes stuck together, or pretty much anything along with lots of hot glue, markers, and stickers, so these dress-up wing straps have come in handy loads of times since the fashion show, allowing Sydney to take about ten seconds to put on any dress-up wings that she creates, instead of having to painstakingly design a way to wear them (generally involving duct tape) with every single invention.

Geography with Montessori Pin Flags

My own schooling in geography was woefully inadequate, so among the benefits of this rigorous study of geography that we've been enjoying is the fact that I'm finally learning my geography, too! Would you like to hear me recite the 53 countries of Africa?

I know, I know...it's much cuter when the seven-year-old rattles them off.

Obviously, the plan is to eventually cover the entire world, and we have been studying U.S. geography, as well, since the girls are interested, but seeing as Willow already has the names of the countries memorized, I'd like us to be able to physically locate them before we relegate Africa geography to regular practice and move on fully to new areas of interest.

I worked VERY hard a few weeks ago to build up enough of a surplus in my crafts/homeschool budget to purchase the entire pin flag and geography map collection from Montessori Print Shop. The prices are affordable enough to let me feel like I didn't have to do the design work myself to create my own pin flags and map keys from scratch, although I nearly reconsidered when I discovered that, although I could purchase all the  map keys I'd need as one bundle, I'd have to pick through the shop for nearly half an hour to find every individual pin flag set for every single continent and the United States--blech!

To use pin flags, you need a corkboard or foam core base, and a paper map to put on the base. The map package from Montessori Print Shop includes labelled and unlabeled, colored and blank maps. I printed and laminated one copy of the colored and labeled maps to use as a reference, and several copies of the blank labeled maps, because the girls enjoy coloring them in their correct map colors as part of their schoolwork.

To make the pin flags, you first need to print the flags (I did print ours in color, although coloring them in yourself would be another enjoyable, if lengthy, task). You cut each flag out, fold it in half--

--spread glue from a glue stick on one inside half of the flag, and also put a dot of Elmer's glue on both sides of a flat-headed sewing pin:

Fold the halves together, smoothing them over the pin--

--and repeat ad nauseum:

So far, we only have Africa and the United States completed, so I store both sets around the edges of the corkboard work surface. However, I do plan to eventually cut down a piece of corkboard to size, paint squares on it to delineate the area in which each pin flag set is to be placed, then cut a cardboard box to size so that the entire pin flag collection can be stored without poking anyone or getting in the way.

To play with the pin flags, lay the paper map flat on top of the corkboard work surface, and simply stick each flag where it belongs:

It's absorbing work, as you can see, and quite enjoyable. Although Willow has the names of the countries memorized, memorizing their locations this way, rather than in order along with the names as she recites them, will allow her to call up the location of a specific country without having to first get to it in the order of recitation.

In a more casual manner, as we organically begin to spend less time with Africa and more time with, say, United States geography, and the U.S. presidents, and Base Ten computation, we will also nevertheless begin to work on our ability to draw the continent of Africa, first by tracing it with dry-erase markers on a laminated map, and then by drawing it freehand with a model by our sides, and then by drawing it from memory.

Homeschool Field Trip: May's Greenhouse

We've self-toured around the research greenhouse at our local university numerous times (mental note: must set up an official homeschool trip!), but a field trip to a local commercial greenhouse, with a behind-the-scenes tour, lots of good home gardening advice, and a dozen or so enthralled children who could NOT be moved past the koi pond, was the perfect adventure for a warm Spring afternoon.

a machine that fills the pots with soil

a large room, warm and bright, where seeds are sprouted

the pond from which the children could NOT be moved--said the tour leader, "This happens every time"

flowers, flowers, and FLOWERS!!!

and, of course, souvenirs--flowers for one

and a new favorite little lovey for another

And then we went back home to garden, newly inspired!

Snuggling along with Geography

The other day, Matt got home from work and couldn't find us anywhere. All the lights were off in the main part of the house, but the car was in the driveway, but it was raining outside and so it was unlikely that we were at the park. At 6:05 pm I received his telephone call saying, "Where are you?"

"We're back in the bedroom watching a documentary, silly!"

Doesn't everyone watch How the States Got Their Shapes all piled together in one chair?

It's certainly a good way to homeschool!

We LOVE How the States Got Their Shapes, by the way. On a six-hour car trip yesterday, we were playing a game at memorizing all the states' nicknames; Willow was taking a turn quizzing me, and I got stuck on West Virginia.

"Momma," she said. "Here's a hint. Remember what they said about West Virginia on How the States Got Their Shapes?"

On How the States Got Their Shapes, they said that West Virginia is mountainous, explaining its nickname: The Mountain State. Willow quite loves a world in which logical deductions prevail and things make sense.

Midnight and Moonshine

She named this particular stuffed horse Midnight:

Her sister, however, named her Waldorf doll Sunset, which Willow also thinks is a lovely name, and which prompted her to announce that when she finally owns a real horse of her own, she'll name THAT one Moonshine.

Which would actually be a truly excellent name for a horse.