Field trip: Visiting a dairy farm

Today we got to visit a dairy farm for our field trip.

The kids were really excited to go see the cows and of course free ice cream isn't half bad either!

This farm trip was set up for fourth graders (perfect for Emmi) but we went as part of our homeschool group, so of course Litte Miss O came along for the ride.

The event was set up in different stations so each group could rotate through the whole farm without having to wait and without having the feeling that the place was crowded!
The organizers did a wonderful job and we had a great time!

We learned quite a bit about dairy cows and their life on the farm.



But we also learned about pollination, corn crops and pasture land plants, trash reduction and recycling.

We got to husk corn in 100 year old manual corn husking machines...

...and of course we got to find out if vanilla or chocolate ice cream tastes better (it's a tie, just in case you were wondering).

Sandart

The art project for week one in the Catholic Schoolhouse curriculum is sandart.

This is little Miss O's master piece...

...and this is Emmi's.

Instead of colored sand as suggested we used different colors of glitter.

The main reason was saving some money. The store we went to only had big bags of colored sand, great if you have a lot of kids but unnecessary for two.

(And with the raised blood pressure I got from watching little Miss O handle the glitter, I don't see us doing a lot of sand or glitter art in the near future.)

Added bonus, the girls enjoyed it even more! Because GLITTER!

Christopher Columbus

Since we're learning about Christopher Columbus this week, we got the book Christopher Columbus by Peter and Connie Roop from the Scholastic series In their own words from the library.

It took Emmi a while to get into the book. The first week she read about twenty pages.

After that I put it on her daily schedule and we started reading it together before bed. I read it aloud to both Emmi and O and they tried their best to follow along and not fall asleep. But it worked out well, they both were excited when they heard something they had already learned or something new entirely.

Although, they were rather disappointed when we were done with the book and they noticed that there had been no mention off Columbus' egg. Oh well, good thing we had more than one source.

The book is written very well and is rather interesting. There are a lot of quotes, taken from Columbus' journals, woven into the story. It is full of facts and details and we found out quite a bit that we hadn't known before. 

The "problem" that Emmi had with the book was that it was "so long".

Whenever she sees a book that's not a chapter book, it automatically is too long for her to want to read it on her own.

For the next book we're going to read we'll try something new: narration!

And once that works we'll try our hand at notebooking! I'm really looking forward to that!

Our curriculum choices

"So, I hear you talk about this Catholic School House quite a bit but what else are you using?"

Should you ever have asked yourself this question (or not) here is the answer.

This is the Year 1 of Catholic School House. We use it as our core, meaning should life get in the way, this (plus math and language arts) is the minimum that we'll do (and by we I actually mean Emmi).
I made that cute little box for the history cards myself.
Here are the instructions.
Do yourself a favor and actually read them before you start cutting out the template (saves you all the time you'd need to do it again)!

For language arts and spelling we're using Intermediate Language Lessons by Emma Searl,  and Writing Road to Reading by Romalda Bishop Spalding together with Starting a Spelling notebook by Mari McAlister and homemade phonogram cards.

For math we use Math U See. Before we started, Emmi took the placement test on the Math U See website to see which level we should start. She scored in between the Gamma and the Delta level, so we decided to start with Gamma and to work through it more quickly since a lot of it is repetition for her.

As a supplement for geography we're using States and Capitals flashcards and a basic map skills workbook.

To supplement history  Emmi will read the matching chapters of Our Pioneers and Patriots by Most Rev. Philip J. Furlong.

To supplement religion and because I'd like her to have a deeper understanding of our faith we'll also use the Baltimore Catechism No.1 and Bible History by Ignatius Schuster.

Since my kids grow up with English and German Emmi will also have German lessons. These books are used by her former classmates in Germany in public school.

For Latin we'll use Little Latin Readers and since we're total beginners we'll start with Puella Romana Primer A.

As a supplement for the Quarter 3 science we'll use CHC's Behold and See 4, mainly because we already bought it, and because I really like the Human Body Parts Felt Project they have in there. But we'll see how much of that we'll actually accomplish.

Because Emmi likes to read and because I had already purchased it, we'll use CHC's Rare Catholic Stories for reading comprehension. This is more of an add-on for rainy days when she doesn't know what else to do.

Little Miss O (should the mood strike her to participate in school activities) will use The Golden Children's Bible, Teach your Child to read in 100 easy Lessons, Math U See Primer (not in the picture) and preschool activity books.

Most of these books come in newer, better looking, revised editions but I like to buy the books used when I can find them, and spend the money I safe that way on other activities and supplies.

The Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria...

Today was our second day of homeschool.

Everything went rather well. Even though, it is just our second day we already have a little bit of a routine going.

I don't know about you but me and my kids do very well with routines!
We all know what to expect and find comfort and joy in that.

Don't get me wrong, we love to do other fun and unexpected things as well!
Should I ever make the mistake of asking the kids if they'd rather do their routines or something else, you can bet they would answer "something else" every single time!
But after a while of extra ordinary activities they get restless and grumpy for no obvious reason (after all they get to do so many special things, they SHOULD be extra happy).

The solution: Getting back into our routines!
And we're back to normal within two days (two long and agonizing days, I might add!)! Yay!

Anyways, the CSH CDs with all the memory work songs on them are part of our morning routine and we really enjoy them (and I'm saying that after I listened to "the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria; the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria" sung slightly off key for most of the day in one seemingly endless loop).

I will never, ever be able to forget the names of the three ships that Christopher Columbus sailed to America with!

Never!

Even, if I wanted to!

But I guess, that's the goal!

I hope by the end of next week we'll also remember what year that was in...

.

First day of homeschool

Today was our first day of homeschool.

First off, decorating some signs and smiling into the camera!

Check!

Second, start out with the morning offering, hoping our Lord will cut me some slack on the first day!

Check!

Third, listen to the memory work CD from Catholic School House (love it!)!

Check!

Fourth, look at and explain the history cards (which lead to an interesting discussion with Emmi about a book she read)!

Check!

Next, Emmi does her own thing (going by the list I wrote down for her the night before and coming to me with any questions she may have)

And I focus on Miss O...

Half check!

Halfway through, Miss O decides she is done with school and has a minor meltdown once she realizes that we (Emmi and I) are actually going to spend more than 15 min doing school.

But nothing that can't be fixed by a pair of scissors and some tape!

Yes, she got to do some paper crafts, or what did you think?

Anyway, add practicing the piano and at 11am we have our final...

...check!

Emmi: "What can I do now?"

Me: "Go, play!"

Emmi: "Oh!"

Ready...set...NO WAIT!

I've been planning this little homeschool adventure of ours for almost a year now.

I have changed curricula more times than I can count (okay, I probably could, if I really, really wanted to). And thought I'd finally found THE perfect curriculum many, many times.

Eventually I was set on using MODG/DYOCC with some CHC mixed in. Then I happened upon the Mater Amabilis website which added some enriching living books to the mix.
So I made up my plan and started writing down our personal syllabus, purchased all the books after checking our local library (which saved me a ton of money, by the way) and was all set to go before we went back to Germany for the summer. I even took a bunch of books along to work out the rest of the syllabus (just realized last week that all this "working out" never happened; Note to self: don't expect to get any work done while on vacation).

So, everything ready...set to start...but NO WAIT!

What threw me into a loop just before putting all of our grandiose plans into action was finding this group on Facebook. By accident, I might add (or was it a divinely inspired stumble?).
It's  a group of homeschooling moms using Catholic School House at home.

At this point I should probably mention that I went to two different homeschool conferences and thought I'd seen it all.

Guess not, or maybe I just wasn't ready for it then.

Anyways, seeing this program in action through all the amazing videos and posts sparked my interest. Which in turn sparked a bunch of questions on the how and why of this program. These questions were VERY patiently answered by said ladies without even the hint of an eye roll!

So, long story short, I decided to go with Catholic School House Year 1 as our spine and to use the books I had already purchased as enriching add-ons.

What I've ended up with is a great mix of materials that combine the classical approach, with some self directed learning, with living books and finally with some great class room experiences.

Now we can finally GO!