schickHouse

Sans Instructions

I always enjoy letting the children explore. I found a $3 set of the classic colorforms at a garage sale the other week. This is what Shelby did with them when we broke them out to play with, sans instructions.

The Eyes Have It

this week we started studying attentiveness, focusing on eyes and ears. today we dissected a cow eyeball. we had fun finding the optic nerve, iris, cornea, pupil, "jelly" (aqueous humor), lens, and retina. the retina was amazingly beautiful. (i have pictures but they're a little gory.) it was a blue-green-pearlescent-opal color. glad i muscled my way past the icky "jelly" to see it. here are just a couple photos i got to snap. i love 'em.

o. my. goodness.

i was perusing the 'freely educate' site and came across a link to the 'kiddie records weekly' site. all i can say is wow. i am so gleeful. :o) see my big cheeser? these are probably a little before my time, but both steve & i fondly remember listening to these or similar versions. remember "wait for the bell to turn the page?" i introduced cyrus & shelby to them the other day, and i was rather surprised at how much they loved them. one story they listened to didn't even have any pictures to go along with it, and they just stood by the computer for 15+minutes entranced with it. we will definitely be visiting these classics more.

      

Thoughts On Learning

i really enjoyed reading and thinking about this post over at untraditional home today. i thought she put down some points that are excellent (which i often have trouble verbalizing when i try to discuss these things with people i love). i've come across her blog more than once, so i am adding it to my roll (to the right). i'd be interested to know your thoughts on her post.

Fantastic Friday

yesterday i was blessed with an amazing day at the Christian homeschooling association of pennsylvania's convention. i took angela along, said my prayer for guidance, wisdom, and clarity, and headed into harrisburg. in the morning i mostly did seminars. first i heard the featured speaker, voddie bauchman. he was amazing. i bought a set of his cd's because i couldn't sit and listen to all of his talks, and i got him to sign a copy of his book.

then i listened to chris hogan of noble call. he was excellent and reminded me of our team speakers. i'd like to order cd's of his four talks from the conference. he was excellent as well.

after lunch i did my shopping. for the past three years i haven't bought much, but i think i made up for it yesterday. that's ok. i think it's all good. i did resist some things, like this number game called wonder number. i really thought it was a great visual for math, and since shelby loves playing head games with numbers, i'm sure she'd enjoy it. i saved that for another time though.

i had done my presearch and decided to get happy phonics because it looks like a fun way that will suit all my learners. i got the first two explode the code workbooks for shelby because the happy phonics doesn't have a writing component. and i got some adorable little bob books for beginning practice.

also in my presearch, we decided to try konos unit studies. (every time i type that it comes out "knons.") they look to line up well with our goals and methods. i'm excited to get into them. i got volume one which has units on Attentiveness, Obedience, Orderliness, Honor, Trust, Stewardship, and Patience. each volume is enough to last at least two years! i also did a little splurge and bought the premade timeline characters. i liked that they were color and had a bit of symbolism as reminders (like an ark next to noah, or a cross signifying that the person was in the lineage of Christ).

we're all quite excited about these maps i got. what geek fun!

my biggest personal splurge was on some movies from franklin springs. i have two, and i just love them. they are so encouraging and vision-casting. i also found the book bound for glory by sproul, jr. probably my most providential finds were at the notgrass company, where i found sign of love, a dvd about the founder of the american school for the deaf. and then as i was checking out i also spied draw to learn the book of proverbs. i think that'll be excellent for the shelb. she enjoys her scribbles book, and this will put more purpose behind it.

so, as you can see, it was a profitable day. angela and i had a wonderful time. God worked out all the details beautifully. ~bec.

Creativity

wow. this is right on. take 20 and watch, listen, laugh, think about it. listening to sir ken robinson is refreshing, knowing that there do exist some people that understand, even if the majority rushes on in a mad dash, not even bothering to ponder. ~bec.