Friday, May 25, 2012

Will Evernote Change My Life?

I just downloaded Evernote, a program that promises to "remember everything, capture anything, access anywhere," and "find things fast."  I'm interested in how it can help me in my homeschool and other aspects of life.  I dabbled with a very basic program called Keynote for a while at one time and liked it (before I started homeschooling), but it's no longer supported and probably pretty out of date. 

I'm especially hoping that Evernote will help me keep track of recipes I find online.  I'll update this blog if I find it useful or not.  Right now, it's Friday, and I think I've got to get out of this house for a while and go get a nice cold sugar-free coffee smoothie.  Going pick up a couple of important things (we're out of Coke Zero!) at the store, and take my Kindle, my planner, and a crochet project.  Not coming home until after the children's bedtime. 

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Wrapping up the Year

Locally, the school year begins after Labor Day and goes until the middle of June!  I've decided this is far too long.  Bee and I are both a little burnt out.  He did awesome on his standardized test, and, well, we're just ready to take a new direction. So, we are officially ending Bee's 2nd grade on May 31 and starting our pre-3rd grade summer on June 1. 

We are not really stopping school (really, "school" is going on at all times), but we are taking a break from workbooks and structured learning.  He'll be doing the library's summer reading program.  We're going to work through a bunch of science experiements.  And he is signed up for several camps. 

The summer is going to be a nice time for me to re-evaluate our approach, decide what's important, and to get things ready for the next "school year," which can start right after Labor Day.  I also hope to get the house in better shape, all the closets and drawers and cabinets organized, all the work that seemed  nearly impossible to get down when I still had a toddler in the house! 

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Exposing Homeschooled Children to Classical Music

Since we spend so much time driving around, many homeschool families use the car to squeeze in learning.   Sometimes Bee reads in the car, and we also listen to Spanish music in the car.  I've also been using to to expose my children to classical music. 

I grew up playing the cello, and music was a big part of my life.  I know a fair bit about music history and kept thinking and worrying about how I was going to make it a part of my children's lives too.  They don't have to love classical music, but I'd like them to be literate in classical music.  By the time they "graduate" from home school, I'd like them to be familiar with the different periods in Western music and the major composers and pieces. 

I kept thinking about how I might do it.  Should we devote a month to each musical period?  Do a unit on one composer at a time?  Wouldn't it be interesting to incorporate art as we study the different periods of music, since they tend to parallel each other?  I have a pretty good collection of classical CD's, and I thought I might make a playlist.  But how would I decide what to include? 

All of this thinking resulted in my doing nothing.  Finally, I decided just to buy a greatest hits album on the Internet and put it on my mp3 player.  Then, we would just listen to it in the car once or twice a week.  Maybe we would talk about it, maybe not, but they children would be getting familiarity with many of the most famous works of Western literature. 

After a little bit of searching, I settled on The Fifty Greatest Pieces of Classical Music by the London Philharmonic.  I will probably add some pieces to my playlist and remove some. For instance, Spring from Vivaldi's Four Seasons is so overused in our culture that I can hardly bear to listen to it.  I'd like to add a piano concerto by Rachmanninov, Dvorak's cello concerto, amongst other things.  

The great thing is that it's a good start, and the boys are really interested in it.  I don't tell them anything unless they ask.  Bee likes March of the Valkyries, a piece he had already heard.  They both really liked Holst's Jupiter and want me to put the other planets on my mp3 player.  Bug got very angry when Jupiter ended, and a nocturne by Chopin started.  They definitely are paying attention to the different sounds and melodies they are hearing. 

I do want to sign them each up for private music lessons, and I think I will start that for Bug this coming fall.   I think it's great to know how to read music and to understand how music works, and the best way to do that is to sing or play an instrument.  At the same time, I don't want it to be a high pressure situation. 

I think that this coming school year, we will get tickets to children's concerts put on by the local symphony.  It really is fun to have 2 children that are old enough to do such things. 

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Technorati Claim

WSY77296GFMA

caterpillars

We have some little Painted Lady caterpillars to observe as they grow, spin cocoons, and turn into butterflies.  I know homeschoolers who go out and get the proper plants and catch their own caterpillars, but, I'm afraid, this year, I decided just to go with what I knew: the caterpillars from Insect Lore.  The boys were thrilled when they arrived in the mail!  Next year, maybe I'll use dill and get swallowtail caterpillars from my garden. 

Keeping and releasing caterpillars was something I had planned to do every year with my children, and I did it once when Bee was about 2 haven't gotten around to it for the past 6 years.  But the great thing is that, in my now toddler-free home, I do not have to worry about anyone grabbing the container and shaking it (as happened to my praying mantis egg sac one year, thanks Bug). 

Friday, May 11, 2012

Bee learns Danish

I have to say, we seem to be leaning more and more towards unschooling.  Friday is "games day," where we only do flash card reviews (takes about 20 minutes maximum), and the rest of the day is for playing games, field trips, or free play. 

Today, Bee chose to study Danish on his own initiative with his father's Pimsleur Danish Compact cassette tapes.  He did the entire unit 1 and learned several words and  phrases!  I had thought Pimsleur would be too boring for him.  I never would have dreamed that he would have done that all on his own.  He keeps saying that he wants to learn "all the languages in the world."  I am so happy that he is enthusiastic about his language learning. 

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

More Parent Well Being

Christine, of the Welcome to my Brain blog, has a great post today called Permission to Like Yourself.  As a nerdy homeschooling parent of 2 brilliant little boys, I find that academics are always the easiest part of our day.  I love to learn.  They love to learn.  I'm good at helping them learn mostly because they effortlessly.  It's the other parts of parenting that scare me, the parts that every parent, home schooling or not has to do, raising a child of good character.  Accepting, liking, and loving ourselves seem to me to be the basis of all of that.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Sleep, sweet sleep

I've never been a good sleeper.  I love to stay up late and sleep late.  If I have to get up early, I've always liked to have a nap in the middle of the day.  This worked well at certain times in my life.  As a homeschooling mom, however, I don't have much time for naps.  My children are too young for me to really feel comfortable shutting the door to my room and having a real nap.  The best I get is a light doze in the living room, where I can hear them playing and know if they open the front or back doors.

I went on vacation with my husband.  We had a cabin with east-facing windows (no curtain) that streamed bright light into our bed early every morning.  We hiked all day.  We went to bed early.  I felt awesome.

I came home and didn't want to go back to my old schedule of staying up late every night, dragging myself out of bed each morning, and dragging myself around all day, drinking coffee and diet soda continuously.

So, I haven't.  After the children go to bed, I get in bed with my Kindle, and I'm asleep before 11 PM.  I realize that isn't early to some people, but it sure is to me.  And then I get out of bed at around 7.  I  find I'm needing to set my alarm for 6:45 to do this because I just don't wake up well.  (Probably may be an ADHD-type thing.)

The word on sleep deprivation and metabolism is pretty bleak.  I've been reading about it for years.  So what if I leave emails unanswered or chores undone?  So what if I have to make activities while the children watch and help, rather than having them all ready?  It'll be a lot easier to do anything the next day if I get enough sleep.  Also, chores can be caught up on, but sleep is extremely difficult to catch up on.  When sleep deprived, I am so much more snappy and grumpy. 

I've been feeling that my sleep deprivation has been holding me back with my weight loss, as I've really struggled to see any changes on the scale these past few months, despite modest eating and exercise changes.  I know I've built up muscle, and my clothes fit better, but it hasn't translated into any weight loss.  I did see a slight loss about a pound, coming back from vacation, which I think was due to lack of stress, increased exercise, and better sleep.  I ate plenty, including dessert (homemade cookies or brownies and S'more's trail mix!) twice a day. 

Anyway, there is no other way that I know of to help myself lose weight while remaining completely imobile, other than getting enough sleep.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Pick Your Own

It's springtime and strawberry season here!  Several local farms offer strawberry picking--what a perfect homeschool field trip, both for a single family or for a group.  For some reason, I hadn't gotten around to doing it in years past!  I took my older son, Bee, yesterday.  We picked 2 pounds of strawberries, and I made 18 cups of freezer jam from them.  I hope my family likes the jam!  I'd love to make more and have our own homemade jam year round.  I used Splenda, since my family watches our sugar intake (I'm probably prediabetic.)  I love the freezer jam. 

My boys are pretty familiar with the life cycle of plants.  They have planted many a seed and harvested many a vegetable, but it's always good to get out and see things growing.  I did talk with my son about how the strawberries in grocery stores are shipped 3000 miles from California, even though we have strawberries growing right here. 

A fun and educational experience.  I love anything that gets my indoor boy outside.  The same farm offers peaches each year, and they also sell seasonal vegetables.  I am going to shop there more now that my boys are a little older and easier to cart around. 



Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Unit Study: War

Well, Bee has been obsessed with war and weapons for some time.  He only wears camo shirts, which I think it cute, and it makes clothes shopping for him very simple.

I've never been extremely interested in war myself, but I am trying to support his interest.  The cool thing with learning about war is that there is ton of other history that goes with it.  He's going to a war reinactment summer camp(!) for child his age.  Also, his dad has been reading him Band of Brothers before bedtime.  I assume that my sweet husband is editing any inappropriate parts, but I don't know for sure.

He's obsessed with the documentary America: The Story of Us.  He's allowed to watch TV (especially documentaries) when he gets up before everyone else, and he's been watching this over and over.  We're also starting Ken Burn's The Civil War, which I find fascinating, but so far, he thinks it's boring.  I'm hoping he'll start to like it, because my husband would like to take him to some nearby battlefield sites, and the background would really enhance the experience.

But frequently with Bee what I think will be great isn't, and he tends to find his own way, which is often much more interesting than anything I ever would have thought up.