Growing a Garden, Homeschool Style

Homeschooling means taking a perfect morning to go to Home Depot, pick out very own flowers for the garden, then learn how to dig holes and mix soil, plant and water.

It means watching the way the sun shines in your yard, and the way the wall casts a shadow over the garden, and why.

Observing how many hours the sun shines on the garden, and figuring out if that is long enough for your pretty flowers to grow, learning about how flowers grow, and watching it in action.. (So far, so good. :) )

These two plants have new blooms already!

Homeschooling means doing out subtraction lesson on the sandbox table under the shade from the trees, while Sophie practices climbing up the ladder to the slide and sliding down all by herself, or plays in the swing.

Math is always more fun with a little bit of sunshine and the wind in your hair.

It means writing poetry and drawing pictures at lunch time, or watching YouTube to see what surfing really looks like.

Delaney said, Look Mom, I wrote a poem!

 

Under the ocean

Is a fish.

 

It means learning about things we are interested in in as much or little detail as we like...for as long as we like. (Hello, Month 3 of the Sky and the Universe...) Doing a whole chapter of math in one morning if we are particularly inclined, or just reading about Laura and Mary for hours, because it's a really good part.

It means to work on skills until they are mastered, in an order that makes sense, and not have to skip around and quickly learn things that will most likely be on a standardized test, but don't make a whole lot of sense to learn right now...Yes, AIMS, I'm talking to you and your arbitrary skill set. Hailey did the test all last week, and I tried not to get annoyed every time I read the "Make sure your child gets plenty of sleep and has a good, healthy breakfast." emails. Shouldn't she be doing that EVERY DAY, not just during precious testing time? (No offense, teacher friends. I know it's not your fault.)

It means a bathroom break or water break or snack break whenever you need one, without an evil eye looking at you for daring to be thirsty or need to go to the bathroom.

It means becoming friends with the nice people that work at the library, or the grocery store, or the many places we go...learning to talk politely with people of all ages.

I'm so thankful to be able to raise my kids like this.

Dugout!

Delaney and I are continuing to read the Laura Ingalls Wilder Series, and are now about halfway through "On the Banks of Plum Creek". Delaney is really intrigued by the idea of living in a dugout as the Ingalls family does for the first third of the book. We decided to recreate it with cushions and blankets, fort-style. 

 Delaney called me "Ma" all morning, and Sophie was "Carrie". 

 Delaney was "Mary" all morning, but if you ask me, she is a little more like Laura.

 

If you haven't read the books, Mary was always perfectly good. Laura was a little on the, shall we say, spirited side.

 I always loved Laura when I was little.

We did math in our dugout, and of course read some more about our favorite little pioneer family.

Reading Aloud

I began reading chapter books to Delaney in December. It's so important to read to your kids...it builds their desire to learn how to read, improves imagination, teaches vocabulary, improves grammar...I could go on for a long time. We read short books all the time, but I decided to see if Delaney had the patience to listen to a whole chapter with few pictures. We started with "Because of Winn-Dixie", which she loved. When I read aloud to her, I read a chapter, and then we talk about it. She asks about anything that she is interested in, or has questions about, and I ask her comprehension questions to make sure she is understanding the story. She amazes me with her ability to understand and empathize with the characters.

I chose to read the first Laura Ingalls Wilder book, "Little House in the Big Woods", to her this month. I absolutely loved the Little House series when I was young and read everything I could find that Laura Ingalls Wilder had written. I still love the stories as an adult, and was excited to share them with Delaney. We are almost to the end of the book after 2 weeks of reading, and we are both hooked. Hailey listened with Delaney during chapters 1 & 2, and decided to read the book herself for her monthly novel for Language Arts. She is currently about 1/4 of the way through the second book, "Little House on the Prairie". I am so glad that she is reading them with us...they are WONDERFUL.

Delaney is so interested in the characters and the facets of their life in the Big Woods, like hunting, making butter, butchering, sewing...all of the things that we take for granted in our modern lives. She talks about it all the time, and we play "Mary and Laura" a lot. Since it has been so nice outside, we pretended that the playhouse was our House in the Big Woods. I was Laura, she was Mary and Sophie was Baby Carrie. :) Then Delaney was Ma for a little while, too.

She drew a picture of Pa with chalk.

I found some fun printables at www.LapbookLessons.com for Little House in the Big Woods. Delaney colored the logs brown with a little blue, and we talked about how the heat from the fire can turn wood different colors, then she marble painted the logs. She hadn't done that before, and thought it was pretty fun. We are going to try to make butter with heavy cream. I wish I knew of someone that has a butter churn. I think she would really like to see what a real one looks like!

She is reading really well independently now, and it is definitely her favorite activity. She made herself a little reading pit the other day and it kept her comfy and busy for a long time.

I'm so glad she is growing into a little book worm!