Great Pumpkin Carving Post...

I ran across this fabulous posting by Jessica on different Pumpkin carvings. I wanted to let my readers know about this too, plus I will have it on file now for next year :-)

Advent 2007 - School plans

A commonly asked question I hear every year from homeschool friends is 'What do you do for school during the holiday season?' Typically here at Knotty Pines Trails, we take a break from our regularly scheduled school subjects and go on an Advent and Christmas season "rabbit trail" or unit study.

In past years we have done variations of this integrated literature unit for Advent and Christmas with Tomie de Paola which has now been updated, and Jan Brett's 'Twas the Night Before Christmas unit study both of which Elizabeth Foss has brilliantly put together. We have thoroughly enjoyed them both and look forward to using them in future years.

However, this year we will be taking a different literature approach for the Advent and Christmas season with 'The Little Pinecones'. My dear friend Cay Gibson has just come out with a new book Christmas Mosaic, An Illustrated Book Study for Advent and Christmas. After starting our Liturgical Craft Club this year, using her book list and ideas from Catholic Mosaic, I could not resist this new treasure trove. I am really excited for this year our Christmas budget is very tight and many of these books I have been able to find at our local library and I promised the kids we would fill the season with many fond memories - cooking, crafts and reading etc! We are all very excited and thank you Cay for this wonderful treasure we will enjoy it for many years to come.

Starting the week after Thanksgiving we like to take a break from some of our regularly scheduled school subjects to follow rabbit trails (mini unit studies) that are more focused on the season.

In the afternoons the whole family has been enjoying wonderful books from Christmas Mosaic and participating in some great craft and cooking projects of which I will post more on later. I am building a wonderful Christmas list of books for next year.

This year the children are participating in a couple different unit studies. Typically we do these together as a family but this year it worked out that each student desired to pick their own unit study.

Aravis is working on a St. Nicholas study that I adapted for our family using a variety of resources from several very creative and resourceful ladies at the 4Real Learning forums.

Jill is working on a mini unit study for the fabulous Advent trilogy Jotham's Journey. This idea was one of those unexpected rabbit trails graciously offered by Catholic Mom's Journey. When she is finished with this mini unit study she will be doing a Twelve Days of Christmas lapbook. We love Jan Brett's books so when this opportunity unexpectedly arose we decided to take advantage of all the wonderful ideas.

King Peter and Lucy have been working on Jesse Tree books while reading aloud from a wonderful book called The Jesse Tree. King Peter is using the prayers relating to that day's Jesse Tree reading for copywork then coloring an illustration of the symbol that will then be bound together into a book. Lucy's Jesse Tree book is a bit more simplified. We are creating felt symbols each day, using many from Serendipity and several of our own, then gluing them onto a page where that day's Jesse Tree bible verse is already written. These will then be bound into a book. I will try to work on getting updated pictures into our albums this week.

Our 4Rs Brainstorming..

Since blogging about our learning centers this has been one of my most asked questions. I will try to shed some light on how we go about planning for each of our learning center topics of study.

I am paraphrasing poorly here but to make a strong point, Charlotte Mason spoke a lot about how children learn best when they develop a relationship with their subject matter. When this is allowed to happen the child comes up with their own thoughts and ideas and connections. She really reinforced the idea that children were not buckets to be filled but fires to be ignited. When my children begin to develop a relationship with a certain subject matter, it then becomes my job as their teacher to take them beyond that "how neat" level and to supply ample resources so as to encourage that relationship on a deeper level. Please keep in mind we have only just begun this process of using learning centers and 'instruction cards' in the last six weeks so it will probably change over time and with experience.

I try to think of my unit studies like an onion. The first layer is very simplistic (for my younger ones) then I add to them layer by layer. What exactly do I assign on my 'instruction cards' for each student? Well, this has been a combination of my initial brainstorming ideas, and then as we research and learn more about a topic, I add more spontaneous ideas as they arise.

Please believe me when I say I am by no means an *expert* on any particular topic, and yes there are times I have allowed myself to get intimidated by this overwhelming realization. This is when I need to step back, humble myself to our Lord in prayer and trust in Him. Then just by taking those trusting baby steps I find myself learning alongside my children which then enables me to teach them what they may not fully comprehend. Although I have to admit those little sponges can absorb more information than me, and many times I end up learning from them!!

One evening the kids and I sat down at the dining room table and brainstormed a list of topics we wanted to study. I took those topics and divided them out between all of the learning centers. Then I printed these lists and posted one at each center. Now I have something to refer to when one topic is finishing up and we don't have another one lined up from some rabbit trail. When a topic of study is almost completed, and by that I mean the kids are around two projects away from finishing their 'instruction cards', I usually take one or two weekends to do what I call my 4Rs Brainstorming. My 4Rs include Research, Reading, Recording and Reporting. I will attempt to show you how I do this....

Since we are finishing up our Science & Nature: cricket unit study I will use this center as my example today. First, I have to say God works in mysterious ways, because one topic that I wanted to cover this year in our Science & Nature Center was a more in depth study on "insects". Well, about a month ago after the weather started warming up the kids started finding and collecting crickets. That is when I decided to just go with that rabbit trail. Right now, we have almost finished all of our projects for that unit study so I have been 4R brainstorming how I could take the next steps to further our studies on insects in general. Here is where God intervened because just this past weekend the kids took a new interest in finding and collecting bees, grasshoppers, moths, pill bugs, and snails. (The latter two are not insects, but they will make good rabbit trails.)

RESEARCH - Using our Peterson Insect Guide, our Pets in Jar, a library book from our crickets study called Keeping Minibeasts: Grasshoppers and Crickets, and our Creepy Crawlies book as references I had Aravis and Jill make some terrariums for the grasshoppers and pill bugs. Then I briefly visited http://www.enchantedlearning.com/ where I printed out some wonderful labeling pictures and information for the younger kids. Next week I will do more in depth research with the older kids at http://www.unitedstreaming/ and other Internet websites. I will also stop by the 4Reallearning Bulletin Forums and see if there are any resources I can use. Next I will look through Pilgrims of the Holy Family, and last but definitely not least we will research the library catalog to add those layers I mentioned earlier.

READING - I will look for picture books, whole books, and non-fiction books on these topics. Hopefully some interesting biographies on entomologists will arise in our researching.

RECORDING - I think I will use our Hands-On Science Insect kit from Homeschool Science for some more hands on activities with the kids and see what experiments we can find in Creepy Crawlies. The kids can do any or all of the following:

• create title pages on each insect for their notebooks
• create web graphs
• make Venn diagrams on the differences and similarities between the different insects
• sketch drawings in their nature journals and label, finding the Latin names
• complete written or orally dictated narrations on everything they learned about a specific insect

REPORTING - I think I will have each child create a report on their findings and present them at the next For Children’s Sake night with our NWGCMH group.