Our First Week of School

I am so excited about this school year!  The Academic and I started "school" on Monday and it has been a great week.  Starting school means that I pick a novel or other literature for us to study and plan science and history lessons.  

We also started doing math activities from Family Math and the Academic is reading The Life of Fred Pre-Algebra with Biology in addition to his work in ALEKS.  This is math on the first day of school.  He is doing an algebra problem with those cubes and beans!

We are using the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia as a spine for our history studies and reading other literature to round it out.  We'll be doing related activities and writing.  I will also be organizing our Earth science studies to connect with history.

For science we are using a text book supplied by the charter school we have enrolled with.  I have some other resources, but I don't have as much confidence with science.  The text book includes demonstration activities and experiments.  We started with chapter 8 because it fit the pre-history unit that I had planned. Here we are on the first day doing an introductory activity.

First we put equal amounts of water into two clear cups.  Then, the Academic added salt to one of the cups. Next, he added food coloring to the saltwater cup.

When we poured the salt water into the plain water, we could see the green salt water sink to the bottom. The top layer was still mostly clear and the bottom was green.

Ok... that was what was supposed to happen.  The first time we tried it, the salt water just mixed evenly with the plain water.  The whole thing turned an even shade of green.  So, we tried again and added more salt to the salt water (a LOT more) and it worked.  This illustrated how the more dense parts of Earth sink to the bottom.  We're learning about Earth's layers and plate tectonics.

We're currently studying plot and character development by reading Boy of the Painted Cave and working through questions and activities that I put together. (I am hoping to have this unit completed and ready for sale very soon.)  The Academic is also doing Vocabulary from Classical Roots A and Easy Grammar 6+.

Within the next couple of weeks we'll be adding guitar lessons and Rosetta Stone Spanish lessons.  The Academic will also be participating in classes one day per week and group history/science activities that complement our studies.  

It's going to be a good year!

Becoming a Curriculum Author

One of the activities that I have given some time to this summer is writing curriculum.  I have always developed curriculum for my classroom and for my own children, but preparing guides for other people is a different thing.  It has been challenging and I am learning quite a bit.

I started by writing some reading fluency passages that are based on 6th grade history and science topics.  I chose to start there because I found a teacher that was looking for passages and the Academic is a 6th grader, so my efforts will benefit him.  I have posted two packages so far and plan to add more.

I am currently working on a literature unit for a book called Boy of the Painted Cave by Justin Denzel.  I have posted a package that includes the introductory power point and a painting activity. Both highlight prehistoric art and could be used without the book. I am still working on the rest of the unit and will post it soon.

You can find all of my offerings at the Teachers Pay Teachers website.  In fact, TpT is having a back to school sale today and tomorrow.  My things are 20% off as part of the sale. Most other teacher/authors are discounting their products as well.  If you use the promo code: BTS13 you will get an additional 10% off the sale price.

Click on over and take a look.  Let me know what you think!  

Growth Mindset

I recently read an interesting article about how kids respond to being told they are "smart."   The article sites some interesting research that compares kids' performance when they are told they are smart or good at something with kids' performance when they are told that they must have worked hard/tried hard.  The kids who are encouraged to believe that their own effort effects the outcome are willing to try harder tasks and actually achieve at a higher level in the end.

The article, How Not to Talk to Your Kids,  is lengthy.  I was more than willing to read the entire thing because I believe this is a core concept that we need to understand.  For years experts have talked about self-esteem issues that children have.  We have all tried a variety of techniques for building self-esteem.  Often, the result is lavish praise. The research that Carol Dweck is doing suggests that much of our "solution" is actually contributing to a larger problem.

Here is a short video where Carol Dweck give a very brief summary of her basic research.



Growth mindset is something that people are starting to pay attention to.  Before I finished the school year last year, we watched a video related to this in a staff meeting.  The Academic and I have joined with a charter school for our homeschooling this year and in a beginning of the year parent conference we watched a video about growth mindset. I hope more people start to think this way and that schools and parents will act on this information.

What do you think?  Do you tend to have more of a growth mindset or a fixed mindset?  What were you told as a child?  Did it impact your success?  I would love to hear your thoughts.  Leave a comment!

The Importance of Perseverance

I have always believed that learning to work hard and sticking with things is way more important than being able to do hard things easily.  It is one of the reasons that I chose to homeschool.  I wanted to be sure that the scholar athlete experienced challenge in his academic pursuits.  I never intended to push him just for the sake of achievement and I tried to avoid frustration.  However, I quickly found that he became frustrated with anything that he didn't automatically understand.  I found myself constantly reassuring him that everyone makes mistakes and lecturing about how no one can learn if they only do things they already know how to do.  (Disclaimer:  I don't believe early academics should be pressured.  I think young children need to develop a joy in learning.  We did fun activities, read aloud, went on field trips, played, and only spent a small amount of time on paper pencil activities.  His resistance was clearly not about appropriateness - as an educator who has espoused a developmental philosophy that was where I questioned myself the most.)

Those were emotional and sometimes difficult times.  I doubted myself and sometimes wondered if I was pushing him to much.  I'm sure there are things I could have done better, but I'm glad that I stuck with the plan.  It taught us both valuable lessons.  I think grit is something that I am short on and it is something my son is still learning.  However, I have watched him make mistakes, then work to fix them.  He didn't make the baseball team he wanted to be on, but worked hard to improve his game with the team he was on.  He takes disappointment and even failure in stride and I am very thankful for that.

Moving Beyond the Page recently posted this video.  It reminded me once again how important character is.  Grit is a trait I wish I had more of and as I head into this new season of homeschooling, I feel that I need to work on this more with the Academic.  He has been in school for the last three years and the lack of challenge frustrated him.  I'm gearing up to help him face challenge.  I am praying that we both develop more perseverance this school year.