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Window Peek

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Peeking in at our Music & Art

We hit music via piano for an hour a week with just lesson but are closer to 6 hours when we include practicing and our other music activities. Through piano lessons the boys have both covered a healthy portion of music theory. This year Jr. has begun working with different keys and even transposing his pieces to a different key. In actuality his understanding of music theory outstripped mine this year! I am thankful to have found an instructor that gently challenges not only his playing but also his mind. LilB is still well within my own musical understanding but that doesn’t take away from the fact he’s able to read music and knows many musical terms (such as forte, crescendo and allegro etc). Primarily we focus on instrumental music but I’ve also taken some time this year to introduce childhood songs. We learned several this year like Old Dan Tucker and Tisket a Tasket. I’m always looking for new songs to teach them if you have any favorite suggestions!

Art is a weak area in terms of formality yet we crank out craft activities weekly. Our walls are a testament to the experimentation with art mediums. We work mostly with paint and paper crafts. I have yet to find a good resource for clay. Though we have worked with several of the brands available at the local craft store.  The formal art history and instruction will come too but for the moment I’m just occasionally pulling out some of our art books to admire the paintings, sculptures and what not.

A couple of our resource books are:

Usborne the Children’s Book of Art: Internet Linked.

Usborne the Children's Book of Art: Internet Linked Cover

Story of Art (admittedly this one is more for me at the moment)

Story of Art, the - 16th Edition Cover

What are some of your favorite Art resources?

11.03.2010 musings 3 Comments

Give a girl a hand…

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

We’re talking budget. As in homeschool budget for next year. I won’t really tell you the number I work with because to some it will be a pitiful amount to others it will be an astronomically high number. But I’ll say this much it isn’t the $10,000 that I’d have to pay to put them in the local private school.

Budget talks make me look at what I’ve purchased in the last year and evaluate whether it was worth the money spent. Unfortunately there are many times that the answer is Nope Not Worth It!

This next year I am considering adding our Gym membership back. That’s a big chuck of money but this winter was long. Long and cold with nowhere to run (literally). I’m still a little surprised we didn’t have a major meltdown with all the excess energy that was stockpiled during the cold, snowy days of January.

Anyway I’m making my list and so far I have this:

1. Laser Printer ($$ not $$$$$)

2. Gym Membership (maybe)

3. Science Center membership??

4. Piano Lessons

5. Curriculum (duh)

6. Book Budget (support materials)

7. *this space reserved for some really neat and necessary thing that I have yet to think of*

This got me to thinking about what we use and love.

1. Whiteboard also known as a piece of Melamine board from Menards cut to fit our space (6ft by 4ft). We spent $20 three years ago and it’s still working fine. My only addition would be to magically make it magnetic because that is super cool.

2. Chalkboard table. Absolutely the best “stole it from a friend” idea we’ve done. It is great to just be able to write the word or problem right next to the child. Not to mention that the paint is black so it hides a lot of hideous paint splotches. A fresh coat will go on this summer and all the paint splotches from last years craft projects will be “erased”.

3. Stereo Microscope. Okay I didn’t really buy this one. It was a present. Or rather it is really grandpa’s but he’s letting us use it. Unless we don’t take care of it then he’s taking it back. Wouldn’t you know the boys take really, really good care of it. There is really nothing more fun that finding a speck – that moves – looking at the speck and finding another smaller speck on the speck. Did you get that? Well just know it was really neat.

What would you add to the list?

04.03.2010 greenfield academy 8 Comments

Back into the swing…..

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

Sort of. Mostly. We started back to school yesterday. And for the most part it was a good day. If you calculate how “good” of a day it was based upon the number of times that your child melts off the couch or makes his grumble face. Or how much you have to redirect the younger child back to the task at hand. Yep it was a “good” day.

First up yesterday I pulled up my schedule. You know the master schedule that some of the crazy structured homeschoolers make at the beginning of the year. The one that takes a good long while to complete. The one that was completely missing and not in the folder it should have been in.

… ??? !!!

For a moment I almost went into a panic. Okay for a moment I probably did but internally because the boys don’t like it when mommy freaks out about computer stuff. Though my oldest did sympathize with a “Bummer.” Then I tossed my panic aside and set about doing the work of recreating at least a weeks worth of information. I thank our school boxes for making it easier than I feared it was going to be. Turns out we aren’t to badly behind though we aren’t quite where I wanted to be but I think perhaps more where the kids need to be at the moment.

I found a new option to track school assignments. And it’s for Mac! I’ll use it for a month before I really review it.

I think we were all somewhat happy to return to routine. The holiday rush and celebration was wonderful but also tiring. But I think the real test to that thought will be if the boys are willing students when they get up this morning!

05.01.2010 musings No Comments

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