Shakespeare

Tyler loves Shakespeare!  I want to jump up and down and say that over and over again!  I did NOT like learning about Shakespeare when I was in school.  It was hard to read the Old English and we had to memorize huge boring sections of his plays.  I wanted to teach Tyler Shakespeare without having him dread it like I did.  I thought maybe if I worked really hard at it he might not hate it.  I had no clue just how much he would take to it. :)

We have been enjoying a lot of resources in our study of the bard.  I knew we needed to do a lapbook because he has been retaining so much more every time we use one to organize what he has learned.  I chose the project pack and lapbook from Hands of a Child.
I am really loving how this particular lapbook is suited to his age level.  I also like the creative writing assignments it contains.  One was to write a sonnet which was rather cute because he wrote it for our Lucy.

A really terrific book we have been using to learn more about the life of Shakespeare is Shakespeare for Kids.  This book does a great job of covering his life and also has a bunch of terrific activities.

I have chosen not to read the individual plays in the written language right now as I knew that create a lot of frustration for Tyler at this point.  We have been reading some adapted versions in story form though and I feel he is getting a lot out of them.  We are using the Shakespeare Can Be Fun! series, Tales From Shakespeare, and The Children's Shakespeare.
Hamlet is by far his favorite so far.  He calls it the play in which everyone dies at the end and he really loves to pretend to play King Hamlet's ghost.  We are also reading The Shakespeare Stealer Series which is a fiction series but has a lot of history integrated into it.  These books are great and both Tyler and I would recommend them.

As we read through the plays I have been having him notebook on the different characters and some of the plots.  He has been coloring some pages in The Dover Scenes From Shakespeare coloring book  to go with the notebooking too.

As added fun and some exposure to the original language of the plays Shakespeare wrote we have been enjoying a beautiful pop up version of the globe theater.  This I believe has been Tyler's favorite part.  This book is so beautiful to look at.

The book pops open to show the inside of the globe theater.

There are several punch out characters for each play.

There are two scripts with scenes from the plays to act out.

You slip the characters through holes on the sides of the stage and then read your lines.

I knew that I also wanted him to do some memorization work but I didn't want to have it be as boring as I had felt it was when I was in school.  I made him a booklet and I am letting him pick two quotes for each play in the book.  The book is actually just a couple of file folders I put together but he likes it a lot.  I am thinking of making a certificate for him when he finishes it.  I was going to put on it something like he had completed his apprenticeship and now he is a player in Shakespeare's theater company.
Here are the pictures of our memorization booklet.

Here is the download for our book if you would like it too.
Shakespeare Quote Memorization Book

It has been fun to watch Tyler recite his quotes.  He has an awful English accent but he does a great job at his memorization.  Hope you enjoy this one from Hamlet!

Summer School

Today was our last day of school for this school year...sort of.   We actually homeschool year round but we are taking a small break for about two weeks because my parents are coming to visit for a week and then we need about a week after that to get everyone back on track.  Christians schedule is pretty much the same every day  whatever time of the year it is as working with him is a constant.  Tyler's schedule will be slightly different during the summer as there are a couple of areas I want to cover with more intensity and other subjects that I know he is doing great on and can take a small break from.   Tyler has been studying Shakespeare for the last couple of weeks and absolutely loves it. Who knew?!  That really deserves a post of it's own though because we have done a lot and hope to do much more after our break.  Along with studying Shakespeare I also wanted to do Creation Geology from Media Angels with him.  I have had the curriculum for this for quite some time and it is one of those things that always gets put off and so I am determined to cover it this summer.  It is also nice because it covers the flood and fossils which coincides with the history we will be doing in the fall.  The other thing I will be working on with Tyler this summer is his writing.  I have been teaching him some outlining skills and that has allowed him to start constructing better paragraphs but he could definitely use more practice.  He can narrate well what he has learned but has a hard time organizing it into a more organized format when he writes it out.  The final thing I want to focus on with both of my boys this summer is something I feel we have been neglecting.  I have been longing to do nature studies for forever but unfortunately that is another area that often gets pushed aside.  I have been reading the Handbook of Nature Study blog for awhile now and so I finally decided that we would try out one of her Outdoor Hour Challenge ebooks.  I downloaded the summer one today and it looks great and adaptable to fit both kids.  I like the fact that it doesn't look so time consuming that we are likely not to do it.  I already have The Handbook of Nature Study by A. Comstock in the house so that helps too.  
So that is the plan here for summer school.  Tim is still recovering from foot surgery but we are also hoping and praying that he will be able to get around a little better soon and we can spend some time at the beach.  Christian especially enjoys the beach!  I would also like to do more geocaching this summer. All that will have to wait though until Tim is able to do more walking.  Family outings here go much more smoothly with two parents.  :)
I hope everyone whether taking a summer break or homeschooling straight through has a wonderful summer!

All Glory, Laud, and Honor- Our First Hymn Study

We have started hymn studies in our homeschool.  My boys both have a big appreciation for music.  Last year Tyler's Bible curriculum had a hymn component included but this year we were really missing that.  I had read this post over at Jimmie's Collage and thought that something similar would work really well for us.
Since we had just celebrated Easter I thought we would start with the book Passion Hymns for a Kid's Heart.  All the books in the Hymns for Kid's books are great and include the CDs with them too.
 We have been using these great notebooking pages from Jimmie of Jimmie's Collage to explore the vocabulary and verses that go along with our hymn.  I made our own notebooking pages also to explore the biography of the hymn author and for Tyler to write the lyrics out for copywork.  We are using the books Then Sings My Soul and Then Sings My Soul Book 2 for the stories of the hymn writers.  These are fascinating books and the stories of the hymn writers are truly inspiring.  We are storing all of our hymn sheets in a three ring binder.

The first hymn in the book is All Glory, Laud, and Honor.  It is a beautiful hymn about Palm Sunday. It was written by Theodulph, bishop of Orleans.  He wrote this text around 820 while he was imprisoned at Angers, France, for conspiring against King Louis the Pious. Based on Matthew 21:1-11 (and similar passages in Mark 11, Luke 19, and John 12), the text was originally written for a Palm Sunday procession.  We love this hymn and look forward to studying another hymn next week.

Unexpected Lessons Learned in our Study of Russia

We have been studying Russia here and have been really enjoying it.  It has been a long study as there is much to learn.  Russia has always intrigued me.  They have such amazing architecture, beautiful art, and powerful music.  My favorite thing about Russia,however, has always been the literature written there.  I love to read Tolstoy and the older authors but I am equally taken with new writers like Boris Akunin.  I appreciate the complexity of the characters in Russian stories.  They are often formed through the combination of great hardships and strong spirits that yearn not only to survive but to find beauty in life.  When we started our study I was really anxious to share this with Tyler.
He had a great time listening to Peter and the Wolf and making matryoshka dolls to go with the story.

 We have used several  really great resource books along with our study. The first is Russia (Enchantment of the World. Second Series).

 The second is Eyewitness Books Russia.

We also used the Usborne book First Thousand Words in Russian.

Incidentally Christian was really taken with this last book.

This got me to thinking maybe he doesn't talk because we are trying to teach him English and he wants Russian.
Tyler has been doing lots of notebooking and map work to go along with our study as well.  We found some great printables at homeschoolshare.

By far our favorite part of this whole unit has been our read aloud of  Angel on the Square.

It is a historical fiction story that takes place in the years between 1913 to 1918.  This is the time of the reign of the last czar of Russia.  Katya, the girl in the story, is the daughter of the lady in waiting to the empress and therefore lives with the czar and his family which allows the reader to see not only the rule of the czar but his tender interactions with his family.
Tyler likes to label characters in his mind as the good guy or the bad guy.  There is not a lot of room for in betweens in Tyler's autistic world.  As we read through this story he was confused as to how to categorize the characters as many of them had complex relationships and made varying decisions.  He at first decided the Czar must be a good man because he loved his family and treated them well and was applauded when he rode through the streets.  Later when he found out some of the injustices he allowed he decided he must be the bad guy.  Only to change his mind again when he was exiled to Siberia and he felt sorry for him.  It was great to see Tyler attempt to reason this through.  There was another character Misha, who is a college student and a revolutionary.  Tyler was at first disgusted that he would be so opposed to following the rules.  He then liked him when he found out he wanted to help the poor.  Katya in the story is confused like Tyler and doesn't know how to feel about the people around her either.  This helped Tyler to see that he wasn't alone in his feelings.  He was able to understand in the end that it was okay just to take it all in and understand they were all humans that made good and bad decisions.  Understanding the people in the story didn't require us to label them.
I really like the unexpected lesson this story and our study of Russia and all it's interesting figures has brought about.  It shows me that he is starting to develop more complex thinking.  It shows me that there is room for learning beyond the accumulation of facts.  Yea for progress!!!

Update on a little of everything! :)

Life here has not been overly exciting  lately.  We have been working hard at school trying to take advantage of this time of the year when there is not a lot else going on to distract.  We also have standardized testing coming up in a couple of weeks as we live in a state that requires it each year.  I am trying hard to make sure we are at a good stopping point in our subjects as testing and Easter approaches.
I spent last week enjoying the Heart of the Matter Online Conference.  That was a great pick me up.  I was reminded of lots of things and learned some new tips as well.  Heather Laurie's presentation was a good reminder of keeping up a good sensory diet around here.  I think we are pretty good about that but was reminded of certain areas we haven't worked on in awhile.  I also walked away with a bunch of great tips on organizing my days after listening to Maggie Hogan.  I loved her idea of grocery shopping twice a month.  I hate grocery shopping to begin with so it is on the top of my list to strive for.
Last week was my week to sit down and ponder next year for our homeschool and start to think a bit about high school planning for Tyler. (yikes!)  He will be in the 8th grade, technically speaking, this next year although he really is above and below that in certain subjects.  The whole thought of homeschooling through high school still scares me a bit.  I don't want to screw it up but we still feel like that is the way God is leading us.  We have decided to go with Tapestry of Grace for him next year.  I ordered the download version and I love what I have seen so far.
Christian and I have been working on his communication.  We have been working with the Educational Insights Smart Talk system.  He loves to push buttons and we have tried different communicators in the past.  This is great because it has cards with big pictures of one thing and when you press the first button it names what is in the picture, the second uses it in a sentence, and the third button asks you what it is.  We are working on a set of about ten cards at a time.

Tyler has been working on all of his usual subjects and he has been working on a unit study on Russia.  He has also been loving the Sports Store business math program from Simply Charlotte Mason.  He finished his first mock month of business today and was so excited that he had made a profit.  It is his favorite thing we are doing right now.    He is learning a lot too like writing out checks, purchasing inventory, paying bills, and keeping a ledger.

As a final note here I had asked for prayer awhile back for my mom so I wanted to update you all on that too.  She is still not feeling well.  She is having a lot of shortness of breath.  She has had a ton of tests and so far they have determined she has water under her heart, fluid in her lungs, problems with anemia, and today they told her she has an enlarged liver so she will be undergoing more tests for that tomorrow.  There are still no real answers as to why these things are happening.  She is at home and my dad is taking excellent care of her and they hope to have some answers and hopefully some solutions soon.  Thank you for your prayers!  They are much appreciated.

Sorry there are no good pictures in this post and that it is a little choppy.  I am super tired tonight!  My hubby was doing a lot of sleep talking last night as he does when he is thinking a lot about work and I didn't get much sleep.  I am going to bed now and I promise to post something else (with pictures) real soon!

Heart of the Matter Online Conference Day 2

I had another wonderful experience today as I listened to the speakers at the second day of the Heart of the Matter Online Conference.  All the speakers today were down to earth people with practical advice.  It was very informative.
The first speaker today was Joyce Herzog.  Joyce is the author of Learning In Spite of Labels, the Scaredy Cat Reading System, and many other books.   She spoke on teaching struggling learners which is for obvious reasons a subject near and dear to my heart.  She was a wealth of information on catering our teaching to the individual child.  She also explained her reading system which I am interested in trying with Christian.  Her website is  http://www.joyceherzog.info/Joyce_Herzog/Welcome.html .
The second speaker today was Katie Kubesh of Hands of a Child.  She spoke on lapbooking which is a favorite learning activity in our house.  She spoke on the different ways that you can use lapbooking in your homeschool.  She also spoke on modifying lapbooking for individual ages and abilities.  We have already used several Hands of a Child lapbooks in our school so we didn't need to be sold on their products as we know how fun and useful they are.  It was nice to learn some things I didn't know or hadn't thought through before however like typing out the words onto the minibooks instead of writing.  This would be a great help for Tyler with his fine motor issues.  She was delightful and informative.  I enjoyed her presentation a lot.
The third speaker was Dari Mullins.  She is coauthor of Galloping the Globe and Cantering the Country.  She spoke about those times when we are just not happy homeschooling.  I think she was a lot of encouragement to everyone as most homeschoolers have been at that place at least once.  I know she was encouraging to me.  A couple of inspiring thoughts she left us with were "Accept where you are and trust God for the rest" and "Homeschooling is not a sprint, homeschooling is a marathon".  She was just full of practical Godly wisdom!
The last speaker today was Jim Mueller of http://www.sciencejim.com .  He spoke on the need for hands on science instruction.  I definitely would agree with that.  Science is my personal favorite but a tough subject for my boys.  Jim has a curriculum available as well as online webinars if anyone is interested.  He does believe in teaching physics as a first science curriculum which was interesting but I feel would not be a good fit in our home.  He was informative and I can see that his animation would appeal to children.
Tomorrow brings more great topics.  I can't wait.  I am glad that the audio of this conference will be available afterword because I know I will never remember all this great information.  I'm off to get some sleep!  Goodnight!

Heart of the Matter Online Conference Day 1

Today I was so blessed to be able to attend The Heart of the Matter online conference.  I won a ticket a little over a week ago on Heather Laurie's blog SpecialNeedsHomeschooling.com .  Thanks Heather!!!
I have not been able to attend homeschool conferences as I would love to during our past 6 years of homeschooling because of the special needs of our boys so to be able to hear these great speakers online is such a treat.  I could also get my laundry folded at the same time. ;)  LOL
The first speaker this morning was Sheila Carrol, founder of Living Books Curriculum.  She spoke on the Charlotte Mason method of homeschooling.  I can't say that we are a truly Charlotte Mason type homeschool here but I do love her ideas and try to incorporate them into our learning as much as possible.  Her words were spoken with great wisdom and a lot of experience and left me with a lot to think on.
The second speaker was Diane Lockman, author of Trivium Mastery and The Classical Scholar.  Diane spoke on reading aloud to your children and it's role in language development.  She shared a lot of insight into how important reading is even at a young age.  I have to admit I was thrilled to hear her reaffirm that it is okay for a child who is a reluctant reader to listen to audio books of good literature.  Tyler does so much better with audio books but I always have a bit of worry that perhaps he isn't getting as much as he would by reading an actual book.  She did suggest having them follow along in the actual printed book as they listen to pick up more of the sentence structure and such so we will give that a try in the future.
The next speaker was Jay Ryan, author of Classical Astronomy and Signs and Seasons.  I have to admit I didn't catch most of what he had to say as it was lunch time here and rather loud and hectic.  I will have to listen to him again when the audio for the conference becomes available.
The last speaker was probably the most inspirational to me today.  Carol Barnier is the author The Big WHAT NOW Book of Learning Styles.  I know her better as the author of How to Get Your Child Off the Refrigerator and On To Learning however.  She spoke on learning styles but she covered so much more than that too.  She is just an amazingly creative teacher and entertaining and inspiring speaker.  Her ideas are ones that will work very well around our house.  I also found out she has this great website called SizzleBop that is loaded with ideas to teach distractible people.  I can't believe I didn't know it existed before!  She shared some of the great ditties she uses with her children to help them remember information also.  They are also located on SizzleBop under the ditties section.  You really should check them out as they are priceless!
I feel so inspired and renewed today after listening to these great speakers.  I can't wait to here more tomorrow!  Hope everyone else who is attending the conference is enjoying it as well!

Chinese New Years at our house

We decided to celebrate Chinese New Year a couple of days early this year because it falls on the same day as Valentines Day.  We wanted to devote a special day to each.

  Last night I pulled out our Chinese lanterns and hung them from the ceiling.

 

We enjoyed some great stories about China today.  

After reading The Great Race we arranged the animals in the story in order.

Tyler practiced writing some Chinese words.

We practiced using chopsticks by transferring noodles from one plate to another. 

We timed ourselves to see how we did.

 

Tyler did some studying about Chinese life in Material World and Hungry Planet by Peter Menzel and filled out a VENN diagram comparing and contrasting life in China and the USA.

This a really fun Chinese lantern craft we made.  I found it here. 

We also cut up some pretend Chinese money and put in tiger envelopes.

  This activity went well with the story Sam and The Lucky Money. 

Tonight we enjoyed a delicious meal of Chinese takeout.  Christian wasn't into the Chinese food however so I made him something different.  He liked it last time but wasn't having it tonight.

 Finally this evening we had good family time together watching Kung Fu Panda.  

We had a great day enjoying Chinese New Years.  If you would like to find out what other families are doing to celebrate Jimmie's Collage is hosting a contest and sharing ideas.  Just click on the button below.

Finally Finished- Postcard Writing Prompts

I have been working so hard at night trying to get our postcard writing prompts done.  Tyler has been excited to start them.  They have been fun to make but very time consuming.  I am becoming quite the pro at Microsoft Word however.  :)  I wanted to give him some research to do about different places and at the same time give him a variety of writing experiences.  I made 36 postcards all together.  I picked random countries and I tried to pick some from continent.

 

On the back of each is the prompt for that country.  I let him do his writing assignments on the computer or Alphasmart because of his fine motor abilities.

I did purchase a small (little smaller than I wanted) mailbox to put his prompt in each day.

I can then put his little mailbox with prompt inside into his workbox with the flag up of course.  Actually he reminded me of the flag.  Great attention to detail that boy!

I wanted to share the three sets of postcards I made in case anyone else would like to use them.  There are 36  overall so you could pick and choose if you wanted.  I printed each page with the front side first and then flipped the paper and printed the backs.  I printed all mine on cardstock.

Postcard Writing Prompts
Postcard Writing Prompts2

Postcard Writing Prompts3

Hope you enjoy them!  Please comment and let me know if there are any other countries you would like for me to make.

Quiet time

I just love this time of day.  It is about a half hour before lunch.  Christian is watching Signing Time and Tyler is in his room listening to The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe on CD from Focus on the Family (with headphones on).  I am listening to Vivaldi and enjoying the fragrance from my cinnamon and sugar candle.
We added a half hour of quiet time before lunch a couple of years ago at the suggestion of another mother with special needs children.  It has worked out wonderful!!
Tyler was taking several hours to eat lunch because he was so stressed out from going directly from schoolwork to lunch.  He needs a lot of buffer or transition times during the day.  Christian would often not be able to eat lunch at the same time as Tyler because when Tyler is stressed he is generally loud causing Christian to flee.  I was fighting to get lunch made while still working at school with the boys.  It wasn't good.
Now we stop wherever we are a half hour before lunch.  Christian usually watches a video although sometimes he just prefers to listen to the music on his little MP3 player.  Tyler listens to audio books in his room with a portable CD player and headphones.  It just works!
I did want to share with you a list Tyler has compiled of his favorite audio books.  I am proud of the great choices he makes.

1. Jonathan Park  He has all these CD's and has listened to each many times over.  They have taught him a lot about creation science as well.
2.Jim Weiss story CD's We don't have all these.  There are quite a few!  Even I love to listen to Jim tell a story.  Tyler especially loves Tales From Cultures Near and Far .  It has some funny stories that he can remember almost word for word.
3. Focus on the Family Radio Theater He loves Squanto at Thanksgiving and Traveling Home For Christmas at Christmas time.  We bought the Christmas one for my mom this year and she also enjoyed it on the way home from our house.  Tyler is listening to Chronicles of Narnia now and it is his new favorite.  He got it for Christmas.
4. The Kingdom Series by Chuck Black He doesn't have all of these yet.  A lot like the Chronicles of Narnia they are sort of parable stories relating a lot of biblical lessons.  They also go rather nicely with a medieval study.

I hope you get to enjoy some quiet time today too.  I think everybody needs at least a little.

Postcard Writing Prompts

Tyler has been wanting some new writing prompts in his workboxes.  I will be honest after doing fall pumpkin writing prompts and Christmas ornament writing prompts I felt we should do something not so seasonal.  I tossed around a couple of ideas but then I settled on prompts that focus on different countries.  I thought it would be fun to make them look like postcards and then put one each day in a small mailbox in his workbox.
Oriental Trading Company has some small metal mailboxes for only a few dollars and you can even decorate them.  I like this mailbox so it is the one I am ordering for us to use.  Here is a picture.

I have published the postcard prompts I have made so far on Scribd.  There are 12 countries so far but I will be making more in the next few days also.

Postcard Writing Prompts

These print best if you print them on cardstock and print the fronts first and then flip the paper and print the backs.  I hope you enjoy them and please feel free to comment and let me know any ideas you might have for other countries.

Room to Learn

Hi everyone!  We are still here. :)  I have had an awful cold for almost two weeks now and have been trying desperately to get over it.  I am starting to feel a little better so I thought I would actually post something here.  Nobody fainted  I hope!
We had an off week last week between Tim being off two days and me being sick we didn't accomplish a whole lot of school.  I feel really cheated that there are no substitute teachers here at our little homeschool.  We are back to work kicking and screaming with a bit of transitioning this week. 
We did accomplish one very exciting thing last week even though I was sick.  We decided to transform our walk-in closet into a schoolroom.  Well, at least sort of a schoolroom.  Before I go any farther here and someone thinks I am making my kids sit in a closet all day let me explain that we aren't in there all day and it is a nice size closet with a window that allows for lots of sunshine.  The boys are thrilled by the space as well.  
I will be honest I have long since coveted a homeschool room.  I look at all the pictures on the blogs and weep.  Military housing is not very spacious but we are blessed by what we have and so we have always done our learning at the table or on the couch.  In our last house we were able to divide the living room up so that we could have a separate space but this house isn't set up the same way so it has been more difficult.
Tyler really needs somewhere to do his independent work that he isn't distracted by what I am doing with Christian.  Christian needs a small space that is quiet where he can work with me.  He simply can't focus in a large space and just runs back and forth.
Fortunately when they remodeled this house they put in a nice walk-in closet off of our bedroom.  Thankfully they also left the original closet in there as well.  When we moved in I took the smaller closet over for all of our homeschool supplies.  This last week we decided to do a switch and the small closet is now Tim's and I pushed my clothes to one side of the walk-in closet and made the rest into a homeschool area.  It really isn't fancy and there is a lot crammed in there but it is working nicely so far.  Tyler thinks it is his office.  I have to remind him that we are all sharing the space.  I did have to leave his workboxes out in the dining room because there isn't enough room in the closet but that is okay because he still does all his work with mom stuff out here.  Christian is just thrilled with the space and is even sitting at the table in there without any prompting from me.
  

This our desk area and whiteboard. 

 

 

It's amazing just how much we have fit in there!

 And seeing Christian content to sit and look at books makes for a very happy mom!

Busy day

We had a really busy day here!  I feel good about the fact that we accomplished a lot but boy am I tired.
We are continuing to learn about winter here.  Today we read about birds during winter which was kind of interesting in a way because the book we were reading from pertains mostly to Canada and the Northern United States and well, yeah, I forgot to check that when I was getting our lesson ready so it was a little off for us here in the south.  It still worked out okay though. :)  After our reading we made pine cone bird feeders because unlike the book we read we have lots of birds here.

We gathered a basketful of pine cones from our yard.  We tied each one with a string so that we could hang them from the trees.

Next, we poured a bag of birdseed into a pan and spread peanut butter over each of our pine cones.

Then we rolled the pine cones in the pan of birdseed until they were covered.

We made a large bunch of them and put them all back in the basket to take outside and ...

hang on the trees!

We can't wait to see if we get some bird visitors tomorrow (probably some squirrels too).

Christian had some winter fun today too.  I was so thrilled to actually get some pictures too.  Usually I am the one that is helping him with things during the day and so I can't take pictures at the same time.  Tonight he decided to do his winter sensory box with his dad and so I was able to get some pictures.  Yippee!  Tyler made him this box for Christmas and he really enjoys it.

He was happy to hang with his dad for awhile and find all the hidden things esp. the snowflake beads.

Tonight Tim and I decorated cookies I had baked earlier today.  It was a good time.  We started off just icing and sprinkling them and then we got more creative.  Parents can have fun too!

Tim is definitely better at cookie decorating than I am.  Mine are mostly the ones to the right.

My favorites are the one he made look like the earth and the one that looks like a game spinner.

It was a silly good time.

We did a lot more than this today but like I said before I am tired so I am off to fill the workboxes and read and hopefully get some sleep.

Goodnight!