Wednesday, October 28

A Snow Day Book


From the kitchen: Mulled apple cider and peanut butter paisley brownies.

From the learning time: Our Read Aloud, Math, Colorado History, Poetry, Reading.

From the children: "Can we go out again?"

From the calendar: We had to put the axe to Tae Kwon Do, Swimming, Tae Bo and Chess.

From the bookshelf: Finn by John Clinch, Cowboy Small by Lois Lenski, and Star Wars graphic novels.

From the weatherman: 12 inches currently with more to come.

Tuesday, October 27

Winner

1. At home we are studying Colorado History (now that we are in a state that we think we'll stay in for a while. Fourth try is a charm).

2. B has been playing Colorado Trivia Jeopardy at his Friday Classes the past two weeks.

3. Guess who won?

Thursday, October 22

A Glimpse into our Space

Our school space is predominantly in the basement. It's our family room (the side of the room you don't see are the bookshelves and television). There is a bathroom nearby so they don't have to go upstairs and get lost on their way to it. The laundry room is down there too so if it's safe to do so, I can leave them to think on their own a few minutes while I put in another load. Additionally the basement contains the master bedroom (a nice alternative work space for someone who needs quiet) and the 3 year old's bedroom. I had hoped that he'd be more likely to play in his room when we were working on our studies, but that rarely happens.


This is how we transform it when we're working on learning activities. The curtain reveals our whiteboard (and one of these days, our cork board). The other curtain is actually a window. The table unfolds to give us more workspace. The drawers in the table contain our whiteboard markers, our pencils/colored pencils/markers, and there is a drawer of things for S to do as well. If we have to move locations we can pull the drawers completely out and take the stuff with us. Having two couches is also a great plus. These kids have no idea what sitting at a desk all day feels like.

The downside is that this space is also our company space (one couch is a hide-a-bed) so we have to move our study space around when we have guests. No problem. With the exception of the whiteboard we are portable.

We store three containers in our laundry room and bring them out when we get started. First, our supply box. Stuff that we usually go looking for, glue, tape, hole punch, stapler, index cards, timer, etc.

Second, our books. This magazine rack contains their notebooks and any library or reference books we're currently using.

Third, our station box. This is where they find their assignments. All workbooks, instruction sheets, read alouds, spelling words, etc. are in here as well as blank paper and a space for my stuff.

When we're done for the day we close up shop, put the containers back in the laundry room, fold down the table and close the curtain. I don't want to live in a school room. But I do want to have everything close by (there is a ton of storage for everything else in the laundry room). This does the job nicely.

Saturday, October 10

Readus Interruptus


I posted my fall reading list in August and intentionally left some space for new things to pop up. Well, look what popped up.

1. Overcoming Dyslexia. I was pretty curious to see if B was dyslexic. Now, after reading about 2/3rd of this book, I'm fairly certain that he is. I've contacted an "educational psychologist" in the area and will consult with her next week about the next steps to help B along in his journey toward reading.

2. Scouting the Divine. The only book that dh brought home from the Catalyst conference -- and he gave it to me! Margaret came to TNL several weeks ago and gave us a taste of what she wrote about. Can't wait to see what's inside.

From my original list I've finished Catcher in the Rye (which is even more gritty than I remember, but I still understand why it was an influential book in my high school years), and Outliers. After all the hype and the wait I had to endure to read Outliers it wasn't the mindblowing experience that everyone made it out to be. Maybe I personalized it too much because I don't see J spending 10,000 hours doing ANY one thing and although Gladwell claims that B is born at the right time of year to play professional hockey, it doesn't seem to be on his radar of aspirations. It was interesting though.

Off to enjoy learning about dyslexia.

(Those of you who've wondered, "What's wrong with my child?" and then had that question answered will understand that learning more about how to REALLY help them IS enjoyment).