Back to (home)school days! (and My Father's world reviews)

Due to our "connectedness", we have become a culture of reviewers and reviewees. Whether its Amazon, Ebay, Angie's List, or TripAdvisor, we want to know what other people think before we buy something or go somewhere, eat at a restaurant, or try a new recipe. I have never written a single review, but have read thousands upon thousands of them. (Or so it seems). So, out of gratitude to the many many people who have shared about their school at home experiences, we are returning the favor. I realize this is "departing the pattern", as my pilot-husband would say, from our usual blog topics. This has nothing to do with missions, so feel free to skip this one. Unless you happen to be interested in homeschooling or considering using MFW (My Father's World). 

We have been homeschooling for a few years, which sounds strange considering my oldest is only 6, but for some reason we decided to get a jump on things. We used Horizons Preschool (very informally, not with the teachers manual), then started MFW kindergarten when Hannah was four and first grade last year. Now we are about a month into the 2nd grade curriculum. We, as I mentioned, explored a ton of options. I stayed up many a night reading about different educational philosophies, people's experiences, and looking at the enormous amount of homeschooling options available. (It can be quite overwhelming. Especially when you start receiving catalogs!) Here are a few things we like about MFW 

• drawing from the Charlotte Mason philosophy, it emphasizes "living books", or books that are about people and their lives. Not just textbooks with numbers and facts. This is true even for math and science. Obviously there is a need for textbooks eventually, but at this young age, living books about the subject are enough. in my opinion. After all, the goal is not to get them to actually learn facts and figures and dates or anything else. The goal is just to give them a taste of the incredible world they live in, and to foster a love of learning. 
• there is a bit of a unit study feel to it, which I love. The history/geography, art/music/crafts, literature and oral/written narration are all on the same topic. This emphasizes a multi-sensory approach to learning, which makes it not only more fun, but sticks with them more, and hopefully encourages them to want to continue to learn. (Its also more work. Way more work. Is it worth it? I would like to take a poll, because I dont know! But we try to make it fun and interesting, when we can.)
• It purposefully includes the whole world. MFW contributes a big chunk of its profits to worldwide Bible translation, and the curriculum strives to remind the students that they are part of a big world. We, obviously, found this helpful!
• we havent gotten to this point yet, but you are supposed to be able to easily add in younger siblings, teaching them the same thing at a different level. So we all have the same focus and the same enrichment activities, I just have different expectations of their work. Because teaching everything different to 3 different kids sounds overwhelming.

 This year Hannah has a few different notebooks where she will keep her work. The curriculum comes with a Bible, and this is the first time she has had a real Bible, not just a storybook. It is SO exciting to see and hear her reading her own Bible herself. Narration is a big part of this curriculum, both oral and written. I want her to really learn something, so instead of just a fill in the blank worksheet, she needs to recap, to me, what we read together, or she read on her own. Then she writes a few sentences about it, with help, and sometimes draws a picture. She decorated her notebooks herself, and has one for science as well. 

 Science this year is just exposing them to the natural world as much as possible. I will be honest and say this area needs more attention. Not because I dont like it, but because it takes more time and effort than sitting down on the couch to read a book. We have a few different Usbourne books, which have simple experiments and easy descriptions of things. Also, on the Usbourne websites, there are links to a wide variety of activities on other websites to help reinforce the topics. We document the experiments in her science journal, and the other thing that goes in there are her nature study pictures. We are supposed to go once a week for a nature walk. That is a great idea, but in the interests of full disclosure, i have been known to send her to, say, the driveway to study the tomato plant! (Its a growing thing, right? ;-) Ideally we would come home and learn a little more about whatever caught her eye. MFW does not have its own science, they recommend Apologia, which I am really excited about starting next year, I think.

We made foil sailboats to represent Colombus' three ships. Dont know how seaworthy they were. . . 

The first year, first grade, was based on the Bible. Our timeline began at creation, and continued from there. (We will continue to add to this timeline for the next few years, so they can see how it all works together). Now we are studying American history, and a (very) brief overview of each of the states. We are learning the Pledge, various songs, and other things.I think its really neat that it worked out this way, since this year we are spending ALOT of time on the road, and we have a children's atlas with maps that she follows along in as we drive. We will be able to cross many many states of our list! Then next year, third grade, is an introduction to the world. Which is neat, because we will be transitioning out of the US and on to Africa next year. (Yes, Caroline is wearing only a pajama top. If you are not a stay at home mom of a toddler, please don't judge! There is no point in getting her dressed. She's usually naked or still in her pajamas ;-) 

Not school per say, but this is why I like homeschooling. We were studying Vikings at the beginning, since they were the first to come to the shores of North America (Canada, actually.) Then the next week we were at a street festival and found this guy there. It was not easy to get Charlie to take this picture. We had learned all about how brutal they could be! I told Charlie this was a friendly Viking, like Lyle. (if you dont live in my little world, that would be Lyle the veggie tales character. :-) 

 Native American week was fun, and one of our activities was making these instruments, with beans on the inside of the rattle, and beads. We also made teepees and paper mache wigwams.

Maybe. just maybe. Caroline is going to get easier to have around. While we were doing an activity, she actually sat and did her own craft instead of tearing apart the others'. progress! 

 My favourite part, predictably, is finding a recipe from whatever group/time period/state we are studying. This is fry bread, which we used to make Indian tacos. (Thankfully, my kids were at my mom's the week after, and they were able to try the real thing, called bannock where they were, and it is much better than our attempt.) Every Friday we try to cook different. 

On the left are some of our history books. We also get a bunch from the library every week. Now to switch gears. I wasnt thrilled with the math that came with the first grade. Dont remember what it was called. I dont know if we went too fast, or she just wasnt ready, but we came out of first grade without a good grasp on basic addition and subtraction. I did some research, and decided to try out Math U See. I thought it was expensive, but we will reuse the teacher's manual and manipulatives. It is very different. It goes very slowly, in my opinion, but I think that is important to really grasp the concepts. They use a spiral method of introducing a topic, getting to know it down cold through alot of practice, then review. Every lesson has review questions from all the previous topics. (Obviously, we don't have to do every single question every single time.) The blocks are really neat, they help her understand much better. There is also a dvd for the teacher, to help me learn how to explain things. (This is helpful because I, along with the vast majority of homeschool moms, do not have a teaching background.) Just a note, MFW suggests using Singapore Math, which I have heard good things about, and will probably transition to. But it is supposed to be challenging, so I wanted to try this first.

There is a spelling book included with second grade, and an English primer as well. The English book was very Charlotte Mason, old fashioned with alot of picture studies and narration. I decided to drop that after the first week. Instead of her doing copywork with random things, I thought she got enough copy work with things like her memory verses, and enough narration practice with her history and science books. I think I like Shurley English, I know I've heard many good things about it, we may start that next year. For this year, I didnt think she needed anything additional. We try to include a writing exercise every week, either a story or a letter to a family member. It is not her favourite thing, but I think its really important. I am thinking about some book for that, or just some creative writing prompts, for her to have ideas to write/journal about. Maybe then it wouldnt be such a fight to get it done!

There is also an art book, which is not really my thing, because I am a terrible artist, and dont remember ever choosing to do any kind of art once I got out of the second grade. But maybe the kids will take after Patrick, who is a really good artist and enjoys that more than I do. As long as they have some creative artistic expression, be it drawing or music or something else. So we try to do the formal drawing lessons once a week or so. They also recommend starting a foreign language, and Rosetta Stone has a great homeschool curriculum, from what I have heard. But I didnt know if she was ready for that kind of formal language program, so we are looking into The Easy French, which is for homeschoolers and has a strong focus on evangelism using your newly acquired foreign language. (Is it cheating if I start them in French? I sort of feel bad, but then again, I have used my (very) basic French schools many many times in the 28 years I have known it. So I hope it would be useful to them as well.)

So that is our curriculum. I love the actual school part of our life, but I won't lie, most days are really quite challenging. (ahem, Caroline!) We are not exactly superbly scheduled and organized, I am also about an hour behind schedule. (Like tonight: it's 12.40 pm, and I am supposed to be in bed by 11. because 6.30 comes much too early in the morning.) Homeschooling with a toddler is just hard. I know other people do it over and over again. We, however, only have to do it this year, and then she will be easier. (fingers crossed). So I'm basically trying to get through this year! One very very busy day at a time.