The Plans of Mice and Men (and moms)...

Once again, I spent some time this summer tweaking the school room and the basic plans for curriculum and schedule and such. I thought we were ready to move into the official school year. Apparently, Baker was not as ready as I though or maybe he is just being ornery. For the past two weeks, he has spent quite a bit of time on the laundry room stairs. The Lord really encouraged me the past few days with similar stories from other moms. I have spent quite a bit of time in prayer for me and for my son. As you can imagine, I have delayed getting this post up because I have been so worn out. All you mommas that school more than one child, my hat is off to you. To think about having a sibling around that Baker would feed off and vice versa, I'd probably throw in the towel. LOL!

Here are the pix of our spiffed up room. We found out that Baker is just slightly nearsighted so he now has a lamp on his desk since good lighting will help him see more clearly. I have built a break into the morning which seems to help us. We are continuing with the work box system. It has been such a tremendous blessing to us.

I am loving the "morning meeting" board that has his memory work, calendar, a critical thinking activity, visual art from our artist of the month and our We Choose Virtues card. It has made it easy for me to incorporate some of these things that I have and probably would continue to forget to do - namely, critical thinking and learning about the artist.

The art card that you see on the board is from the Usborne decks, "Famous Paintings" and "Impressionist Paintings". There is information about the artist and the style on the back of each card. It's a mini art course in a deck. Let me know if you want to order. We are loving them.

The We Choose Virtues card has been a great introduction to our curriculum. Right now we're doing one a week. The back of the card has a clear definition of the virtue and a verse. We review it every day. I downloaded the coloring book so we are making a book as we go. For every virtue, there is a color sheet followed by a page with the verse in cursive that he traces (I use abcteach.com to make those).  He even hugged his "book" to himself one day and said, "I love my virtues book!". Granted he was disobeying within a few minutes but now I know we are deliberately working towards better behavior. To purchase these materials for your family or church, use "AMY" at checkout to get $8 off the flash cards. The coloring book is $1. The teacher manual is now in a downloadable format for $4.99. The fridge poster is on sale and it's one our fridge so the material is in front of us all the time.

I love seeing your home school spots so please share!

Fun Art Resource

I have to admit that I like the idea of art and music but they are the first subjects to get dropped when I am pressed for time. This is a great site that introduces children to fine art. The animation is very fun and your child doesn't have to be a reader to use it. Have fun!
The Art Institute of Chicago Curious Corner 

Accidental Learning

Sometimes, the best ideas hit me in the middle of a lesson. I was showing Baker pictures of frescoes and we were discussing what a fresco is. It dawned on me - let him "paint a fresco"! I'm not brave enough to get out the paints but I did have him tape some paper to the underside of his desk and use markers to draw. Of course, this project induced some giggles but he got the idea. He even caught on to the fact that these were usually religious scenes painted specifically for a grand church. He loved it and did several pictures.

I say as often as possible, act on those brainstorms and see what happens. That's one of the advantages of home schooling. Classroom teachers also get great spontaneous ideas but it's hard to implement them on the fly with a whole classroom of children. I speak from experience on this one. Have fun! (Uh, yes he is in pajamas / costume and those are Sponge Bob magnets behind him. Don't ask. I pick and choose my battles. )