A typical school day at the Mathias homeschool...

So I thought I would share what a typical day is like.

Our day started with driving Daddy to work (we have one car at the moment).

Then we went to homeschool ice skating at 9 am (we get to skate at the Abby every Tuesday for free)                                                               Samantha and her best friend Bristel

We came home to start our school day...
First She worked on her math in her Math U See book working on multiplication.
Then She did some Grammar in her work book then she had fun as we did a few Mad Libs

She did her science learning about animal habitats and the food chain.

Then her favorite Five in A Row. We are rowing the book Owl Moon.  

• We read the book 
• We talked about the father and child relationship
• We talked about the Literary Device- Hyperbole (an exaggeration made for the purpose of emphasis)
• We talked about When Time is Altered- discussed times when time seemed to stand still or when time seemed to go so fast.  
• We then read a book to go along with this White Owl, Barn Owl by Nicola Davies.  Good book and gave me the idea that we should make a nest box to put in the woods at grandma's house. Maybe grandpa can make it with Samantha.   

This book is going to be so much fun and take at least 2 weeks there is so much to do with it.

After FIAR we started the Magic School Bus kit on The Secrets of Space Today was all about stars and why can't we see them during the day.  

Our "school" day was officially over but we then watched a video on netflix- the Dear America Series.  

Every day in homeschooling is different. Today we didn't do anything in history but most days we do history. 

Learning takes place all day long.  Samantha is hooked on the tv series cake boss the next great baker.  Today as she watched it she played with our homemade play dough and she created cakes out of it as she watched the show.  

I made the play dough 2 days ago and she can't stop playing with it.  Its very soft and smells nice. You make it by using 2 parts cornstarch to 1 part hair conditioner.  

Five in a Row The Story of Ferdinand

This book was so sweet.  Samantha and I both loved it. I wasn't sure if I was going to but it is so sweet.

Here is a youtube video of Disneys cartoon of Ferdinand from 1938.

So the first thing I ususally do with a FIAR row is to do Geography.  So the first thing she learned about was Spain and the Iberian Peninsula.  We talked abotu the people who live there and lived there in the past. How Spain was conquered by many different people including the Romans and the Moors.  Spain was involved in exploring and trading by sea.

For Language Arts we talked about Animal Fantasy Story, how this story includes the reading in the story when it asks what you would do and repetition in stories.  We also talked about a part of speech called Interjection and watched the you tube video on this.

We talked about many parts of art from the book, humor, drama, symbolism, size and distance, line of design and balance.

Samantha did some measuring of things around the house. I showed her the list I have of her growth just like Ferdinands mom keeps of him.

Science was fun we talked about Cork Oak Trees. I learned something new... where Cork comes from its very interesting. Here is a video all about cork..  CORK.  Then we talked about Vultures briefly.

We watched a video on bull fighting and young kids who learn the skill bull fighting.\

We also talked about Clovers and how the bee was on one.  What family clovers are from  its a legume or a member of the pea family  Its a favorite of bees This lead to bees and honey and how there is different kinds of honey.  I bought some different kinds of honey and we did a taste test.  The Clover honey was very good.  Sweeter...

We did a craft she made a bull out of a toilet paper roll. 

Another fun FIAR book Mirette on the High Wire

This was a fun row.

We talked about Paris France and it was fitting that her brother went to Paris right before Christmas and brought her back some of the coins.  We talked about what she remembered from our row of Madeline.  Amazingly she remembered a lot.

We talked about maps and where on the map the places that were mentioned in the story.  

It was fun talking about talents.  She was able to talk about her talent of ice skating and how practicing and not giving up will help her achieve her goals of figure skating.

We talked about Boasting and how it makes others feel bad and is not a nice thing to do. About why people boast and how to try and not boast.

We revisited occupations.  We drove around the city to find different places to talk about who works there.

Vocabulary was interesting this row.  With words like protegee, stupendous, hemp, winch, vagabond and a few more.

We did a fun lesson of compound words.

I put painters tap on the dinning room floor and had her pretend she was a tightrope walker.  Had her do a somersault and see how hard it was to do in a straight line.

We went through the book and talked about the art detail. About complementary colors on the color wheel and how its used in the book.

Math- we did a lesson on Lines and points.

Science- learned about copper and how it turns green when its oxidizes. How to clean it with salt and vinegar. She then left it out on a napkin to watch what happens after we cleaned it. She didn't dry it just left it wet.  To watch it turn green.

In science we also talked about our ears and how it works with balance balance

We watched some youtube videos of tight rope walkers.  tight rope walker if you google it you will find many youtube videos of them. Or check out my pinterest page I have a few there.

Five in a Row Very Last First Time

We had lots of fun rowing this book.

We first learned about the Inuit Culture and watched a few youtube video's on them.  Here are some links to the videos we found interesting... Inuit singing  walking under the sea for mussles A sesame street video on the arctic living conditions  check out my pinterest page for more ideas. Some people have done so many fun things with this book.

Since its been cold here with snow we talked about appropriate clothing.  Here is a picture of her dressed for a day out in the snow as she went out we talked about the difference in our cold weather to theirs..

She researched mussels all by herself and wrote down what she learned.  We talked about Art detail and the type of art they used in the books called pointillest. I will be posting her picture as soon as I take a picture of it.  (just trying to catch up here)

This book covered many subjects  family relationships, first time experiences, Good titles for a book eye catching titlesVocabulary, ordinal numbers and what to do for safety and crisis thinking.  How staying calm will help you decide what to do when something bad happens.

The last thing we did was eat mussels.  I found a frozen package of them at walmart.  One night for supper I cooked them for her to try. She has had them before but we always try and cook something to go along with the book. She was fine eating it until her annoying older brother started telling her gross things about them.

Pictures to come soon.....

Five in a Row - Truman's Aunt Farm

Truman's Aunt Farm,

I have to admit it took me a while to get why it was called this... you see up here in the north we say Aunt with the AU sound we don't say it ANT.  LOL

So in this row we covered many things...

Character Traits- Truman was kind, loving and wise. So we talked about Samantha's traits and the traits she would like to nurture and the ones she might want to stop.  It was interesting to see how she thought of herself and I have to say she was totally right!  Samantha is kind, considerate, loving, emotional, a good friend, compassionate, determined, head strong, a very encouraging person and so much more.

I had Samantha take the time to write 2 letters. She mailed out one to her Aunt Lyette and one to her Aunt Chris. They both were surprised to receive it.  Aunt Lyette wrote her back. It was a lesson on how to write a letter and address the envelope.

Now onto the part that had me a little confused at first until I heard one of Sam's friends calling her aunt ANT. LOL  We talked about Homonyms.  Made a list of them.  We talked about Repetition in stories.

I wish I took a picture of the picture she drew using the art techniques for faces it had her doing.  When I do I will post it here.

After she wrote the letters I had her go to the post office and buy 2 stamps and mail them.  This gave her the whole experience of mailing the letter.

In science she learned all about ants she even made a toilet paper roll ant. I couldn't take a picture the cat had fun with it.

Sorry nothing exciting here for this story no pictures or exciting activities. Just some quiet bonding time reading and learning.

 

Five in a Row- The Rag Coat

Our favorite time of the day is when we do Five in a Row.  So here is a few pots that will be catch up posts of all we have been doing with FIAR.

One of our favorite rows this school year....

The Rag Coat

This book about a little girl who lived in the Appalachian mountains. She needed a coat so she can attend school.  Her mom and the quilting ladies all work together to make her a very special coat.  

This book covered many subjects that we found very interesting and some of it hit home for us.  

First you learn about the Appalachian region. We just visited my sister in law in NY and took a walk in part of the trail.  We were able to look at our pictures and talk about what it was like in the mountains back then.  

We talked about mourning and funerals. For Samantha this brought back memories of my grandmother it was the first funeral Sam has gone to.  She was very close to my grandmother.  But she was unaware of the color black was associated with death.  

We moved onto the subject of stories and how the quilt coat told a story. We both drew our own talking quilt.  I told her to draw in each block something that shows who she is or what she has done.  We expanded on the subject and learned about the slaves who used quilts to help them escape from slavery.  We read the book The Patchwork Path a quilt map to Freedom. It was a good time to talk about our own freedom and how others had fought hard to gain their freedoms.  

 Samantha's quilt I think she said the first is she is a baby, then when she started dance classes, a book for her love or reading, an ice skate for her love of skating and her recent Christmas ice show, her brothers in the army her hero's and her family.

These next 2 pictures are of Samantha reading the book while covered up by my quilt from when I was a little girl my grandmother made it for me... so its very OLD. The next is of Willy our cat he has to get involved with us while we are doing school so today he settled for sitting on the quilt.  

We talked about a variety of art that is in the book from viewpoint, color wheel, facial expressions and the art of quilting.  

We touched on the math subject of geometric shapes.

In science we talked about Natural Fabrics and Coal. I had received in the mail some samples of coal and we did a study in the types of coal, bituminous and antracite coal.  It was fun to hold it and exam it.  We looked at pictures on the internet of coal miners of years ago. This brought us to the subject of health. Mina's dad died of the coal miners disease.  We talked about how back then they didn't have the knowledge how to help people who had this.  But today they do. My mom has this. I always get the name of it wrong so I wont even try to spell it.  But she went on a year of prednisone and then on something else.  It surprised Samantha that Grandma had this.  Led to many good discussions about how to prevent many health issues and how some people can't.  

Here is a link to my pinterest that has some of the links I found many interesting things to go along with this row.

lastly we talked about the dulcimer. The traditional instrument from the Appalachian culture.  We listened to someone play it on youtube and looked at pictures of them.  If I was to do this row again I would have had Samantha make her own string instrument out of some recycled boxes.

Its been a while....

since my last post.  Things have gotten very crazy  here.  

Back in August my oldest son Mike moved back home.  He took the school room for his room.  Things got a little cluttered as I tried very hard to move all our stuff into Samantha's room and our dinning room.

Then in November my youngest son Nick came home for good from the army he served his 4 years and is now out to start his new journey... College!  I am happy for him but we only have a 3 bedroom. Thinking Nick was moving out soon(apartment fell through) he took up space in Samantha's room. She bunked down in my room.  I boxed up some of her toys in rubber made tubs placing those in the hall so she can play with them and tried to get out all the school stuff I thought I might need.  Things became more cluttered.  

So now we are here in the new year in our tiny 3 bedroom place,  4 adults and one child.  I am very happy my children are home and are safe.  Both boys fulfilling their contracts with the army starting new lives. This Christmas was the first Christmas in 4 years that my 3 children were together.  Did this moms heart good!

Then comes the second job.  Was I crazy taking on another job?  Yes and no.  I was needed for a brief time in this mans life to help make things easier for him.  He was 93yo and dying.  But doing so things became even more crazy I had no time. Between homeschooling and my 2 jobs I felt I was never home.  Samantha prayed daily that there would be a way for mommy to be home more. Just as I was about to tell them I can't do all the hours I had Pete took a turn for the worse and I knew the end was near. Talked to Sam and I stayed on until the end.  

Things are settling down now.  Through this all I had to stop one of the best curriculum's I have tried. I just didn't have the time to plan and do it with her. It was Heart of Dakota.  I was sad to stop but it was taking too much time.  The stress of everything was too much.  So we continued with the 3 R's and Five in a Row.  We really love Five in a Row and hoped we could do both.  So once things are truly settled here we will go back to both but for now We keep rowing our FIAR books and the 3 R's.