The Eductional Value of the Game "Risk"

I am very excited to have a guest poster today, my awesome Hubby!  We are definitely a game-playing family and I know he is excited that he can now start easing the kids into more advanced games like Risk, Settlers, and Ticket to Ride.  And I am excited that such games can be so educational!  Without further ado, here is Hubby's summary of the benefits of Risk:

Some time ago Primus asked me if I wanted to play a game with her. I had assumed she wanted to play SORRY or YATZEE for kids, but in fact she wanted to play RISK; she’s seen the adults play it and is eager to play with us some day. We had a fun game, even mommy joined in, and Primus had several educational experiences.

Geography:

Risk teaches geography basics. Primus was able to grasp the six main continents and their names. She was able to locate various places of the world to which her family has traveled: vacations, missions, etc.

Mathematics:

Risk actively teaches addition, subtraction, and exchange. Primus was able to count out her pieces individually, she learned that cannons and cavalry equaled a set amount of soldiers,  she learned to replace the former units in the event of a loss in battle, and she was able to discern number values with each roll of the dice.

Strategy:

RISK obviously teaches strategy. She was able to identify possibilities and make choices with her options: to attack, where to attack, attack from where.

Life:

RISK also teaches a valuable life lesson. Primus was able to experience that,  through no fault or virtue of her own, failure and success are still possible.

Fun with Food

Here's a couple fun treats we made recently:

First, gingerbread (graham cracker) houses.  I discovered that apparently the key to a good (stable) gingerbread house is the frosting.  This is the first year I've ever done it with my kids.  But I remember as a child making these at various church or school activities and usually we would take the easy way out and just use canned frosting.  But those darn things would always fall over.

So I decided to make some royal icing for the first time.  That stuff is magic!  Dries like cement!  The girls helped me pipe a square of icing on the plate to be a foundation for our walls.  And then obviously we piped a line of frosting at the corners to keep the walls together.  The roof was a little tricky to get it stuck together just right so it wouldn't fall off before drying, but we got it to work. 

While we waited for our houses to dry so we could put candy on, we read the story of "Hansel and Gretel" together. 

My mother-in-law sent me a link to this cute idea.  It was probably in Family Fun magazine, but I'm not sure now.  To make Rudolf you just need: 
*mini chocolate donuts
*red peanut M'n'M's for noses
*tiny white sprinkles for eyes
*broken mini pretzel twists for antlers

The antlers and eyes are easy to just poke right into the donut.  For the nose, just stick the candy in the center far enough so it stays, but not so far that you end up breaking the donut.

A friend and I decided that you could probably make cute snowman heads, too.  Just use white powdered sugar donuts, an orange candy for the carrot nose (M'n'M or maybe a candy corn?), and then black sprinkles for the coal eyes.  You could probably make some kind of top hat using a Rolo.  I'll have to try that soon.

Finally, we made the classic Ants-on-a-Log.  Celery, peanut butter, and raisins.  It's the perfect fun, healthy, easy snack.  It was also great because it led to a discussion of why ants always walk in a line.

Mind=Blown

Did you know that the United States dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki almost 3 and half years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor?  Three-and-a-half years!  That's a long time! 

Am I the only who has never understood that until now?  I guess in my head, the two events are so strongly connected that they must have happened in quick succession.  I guess if I had to think about it, I would have admitted that it would have taken us a few months to organize our attack.  But 3 1/2 years?  Is this evidence of my crappy public school history education?  Or just me not paying attention in said boring classes?

I can't remember how exactly this came up, but when Hubby told me this I could do nothing more than just stare at him slack-jawed.  I finally replied, "Really??  You just blew my mind!"  I love having a history-fanatic husband!  I learn so much from him everyday.

When Does Our Holiday Start? Oops!

Since we are enrolled with a charter school to do our homeschooling, they give us a calendar dictating when we should take holidays.  (And I have to report our attendance.)  But I figure that one perk to homeschooling is taking vacation whenever you want. 

For example, back in November we were supposed to take Veteran's Day off, which was a Friday.  But Tuesday of that same week, I was gone all morning at the Principle for a Day thing.  So I made that Tuesday our holiday and we did school on Friday to make up for it.

Well, it looks like I've done it again, accidentally.  I was so sure that our Christmas break began after Friday the 16th, same as Secundus' preschool.  But yesterday I finally looked at my planner and it turns out we are supposed to have school Monday thru Wednesday this week and then take 10 school days off.  Oops!

So minor inconvenience, now I just have to pay attention and make sure we get all the right number of school days in.  Primus is excited to be on break right now so I'm not going tell her that she has to wake up early today and come do her journal and math just because South Sutter says so and Mommy screwed up.  But at the same time, I don't want to get too far off the schedule.  (And sticking to their plan of not starting school again until January 5th as opposed to the 2nd sounds really nice!)

It's a good thing that Kindergarten is easy and fun.  Because I was able to squeeze in a school day yesterday without Primus even noticing.  I got her to read 4 phonics books to me, we read and discussed several Aesop's Fables together, she watched an Eyewitness DVD about Skeletons, we made "ants on a log" for snack, and we made reindeer donuts for a treat.  (Pics and blog post to follow.)

So since I snuck in a day yesterday, that means we can now take vacation until January 3rd!  Sweet!  Although, now I'm conflicted because there is a chance I might get to go out of state without the kids at the end of January to help my sister-in-law with her new baby.  Which means Primus will have to take some vacation days at that time.  (Hubby can't be expected to do too much in my absence because he'll have his own homework to complete.  Though I will at least leave her with some handwriting practice pages and other easy independent workpages.)  So maybe I have just banked one day toward that. 

Thomas Jefferson vs Charlotte Mason

I am a homeschooler. 

I am not an unschooler, or TJed'er, or a follower of Charlotte Mason, or Whole-Heart learning.  I'm not even a Traditional or Classical homeschooler.  I'm just a homeschooler.

I've thought occasionally that maybe I should read up on these methodologies and see which one fits me best.  Maybe it would give me some direction.  But now I'm thinking that it might be more of a detriment than a benefit.  I may decide, for example, that I agree mostly with the Classical method.  But then I would feel pressured into including an in-depth study of Latin in our curriculum. 

When I decided to homeschool, it was partly because I didn't want the government dictating to me what and when my child should learn.  I don't want Charlotte Mason to be dictating that to me, either.

I didn't even know there were such things as "homeschool philosophies" until I started reading homeschool blogs.  And the more I read, the more I'm discovering that not only do all these philosophies exist, but that they are also at odds with each other.  Ok, so maybe the philosophies themselves aren't necessarily at odds.  But sometimes the mothers who implement them are. 

From what I can gather, there are some moms that are so devoted to their method or philosophy that they come to believe it is the right, and the best, method.  And moms who follow a certain philosophy tend to associate with other moms who also believe in that philosophy.  Too often, this can turn into cliques.

This new knowledge makes me sad.  Why can't we support each other?  Aren't we all just trying to do what we each feel is best for our children?  I thought we all chose homeschooling because we wanted the freedom to educate our children in the way that we saw fit.  Can't we allow our fellow moms that freedom without judgement?  (You could also add public-school moms into this mix-but perhaps that issue deserves it's own post.)

Thankfully I have never personally, in real life, encountered any of this animosity.  And I hope I never do.

Angel Ornament

This angel ornament that we made is made of coffee filters (the basket kind).  It felt really weird to buy coffee filters.  I also find it kind of funny that my coffee filters aren't going to be used in the kitchen, but rather they have been thrown in the craft box.  But I've also heard that they are good to hold snacks for little ones (better than a napkin because it's shaped like a bowl-but it's disposable.)  But I digress...

How to make a coffee filter angel: (taken from crafts.kaboose.com)

1. Place two cotton balls in the center of one of the coffee filters. (I used a balled-up Kleenex)
2. Hold the coffee filter with your fingers, gathering the cotton balls in the center to create the angel’s head.
3. Place a second coffee filter onto the open end, tucking the filter in a bit into the head area. This will produce the layered effect on the dress.
4. While still holding the filter together, tie a piece of gold or silver ribbon around the “neck” and tie a tight bow. Trim ends and set aside (I used a piece of a white pipe cleaner)
5. Take the third coffee filter and fold it in half, then fold the filter up length-wise accordion style. Wrap a white chenille stem around the center, and then fan out the wings.  Fold the excess chenille into a loop for your hanger and twist together at the end.
6. Make a halo from the gold chenille by wrapping it around something circular, such as the top of a paint bottle. Twist the ends to form the halo. Trim the long end of the chenille, leaving approximately 3”.
7. Have an adult hot glue the halo to the back of the angel so that it is positioned above the head.
8. Glue the wings in place behind the angel, hiding the gold chenille from the halo.
9. (Instead of using glue, I just fed my pipe cleaners for my wings and halo through the one on the angel's neck and twisted.)

Secundus put hers on our tree, and Primus gave hers to a dear friend who has an angel baby in heaven.

One Lesson, Two Different Levels

One thing that I have anxiety about is, "Four years from now, how in the world am I going to teach a kindergartner, 2nd grader, and 4th grader all at the same time?  And what if more babies come along by then, too?"  I mean, I know that big homeschooling families do the one-room-schoolhouse thing all the time.  But at this point, it's hard for me to fathom how I could possibly have enough hands, eyes, and time to make it all work.
As I've read blogs written by experienced mommies, I'm learning that one key is to combine lessons as much as possible.  So in order to help my fellow newbies, I'd like to share just one example that I discovered of how to apply this advice:

To help my kindergartner practice her sight words, I downloaded some free, simple board games from http://www.theschoolbell.com/Links/Dolch/Contents.html.  As we play, Primus has to read various sight word cards to move on or win a card.  When Secundus plays with us, instead of having her read the words, I have her tell me the beginning letter name and sound.  So simple!

Lots of Santas

This morning Santa came to our music class.  As we were getting ready to go, the girls were talking about how excited they were that they would see Santa.  Next thing I know, I heard Primus say that Santa drives a blue car.  Apparently she has a very good memory; last year we were a little late to music class and we arrived just barely before Santa did so she saw him drive up in a blue car.
I questioned her about why he was driving a car and so she realized that it wasn't the Real Santa.  Then she decided that none of the Santas at Christmas parties are the real ones.  We talked about it some more and decided that the Real Santa is just too busy right now helping his elves make and wrap the toys.  So these other Santas are just pretending to be Santa.  And then they can talk to the real Santa and tell him what the children asked for.

I'm really impressed that Primus figured all this out on her own.  I was wondering how long it would take for her to realize that all the different Santas that we see at parties don't look alike. 

Secundus was there when we were having our discussion and she seemed to understand.  But I made sure to swear the girls to secrecy so they wouldn't tell any of the little kids at class today.  I explained that the other kids probably wouldn't understand the truth and it would just make them sad.

New Title, New Address

As you can see, I have changed the title of my blog.  I hope you like it!

The new web address is:  homeschooltypo.blogspot.com

Educational Poster FAIL

I just opened up a "Landmarks and Symbols of America" poster pack that I ordered and I am disappointed. 

First, the picture they had for Abraham Lincoln was a poorly cropped photo of the statue from his memorial.  What???  Why not use one of the good, contemporary, and highly recognizable paintings of him?

Next, I was hoping the "Constitution of the United States" would be the text of the Preamble.  But instead it is a photo with the preamble in the background on old paper, and a pair of Ben Franklin-type glasses and a feather in the foreground.  Pretty, but useless.

The "Pledge of Allegiance" poster is also completely useless.  Again, I was hoping for the actual text.  But instead I got a picture of a girl with her hand over her heart with a fuzzy American Flag in the background.

But this one takes the cake.  The little information booklet that came with it had this gem of knowledge about the flag, "There are many nicknames for the American flag, including Old Glory, the Stars and Stripes, the Stars and Bars, and the Star-Spangled Banner."

Did you catch it?
I'll give you a second.  Go back and re-read that.

Ready?  THE AMERICAN FLAG IS NOT CALLED THE *STARS AND BARS*!  That was the name given to the flag of the Confederacy!

Good job, educational materials publisher.  FAIL.

So Much!

Practically daily I fluctuate between excitement and anxiety about what to teach my daughters in our homeschool.  That's because there is just so much to learn! 

I go a little insane when I'm in the homeschool stores or the library.  I just want to buy (or check out) it all!  It all looks so fun! 

But then I think, "Holy Cow, how in the world will I have time to teach her all this stuff?  Where do I start??"

I'm still working on finding a good balance.

Pet Peeve

"Homeschool" is not a typo! 

This is my new pet peeve. 
Why must Microsoft Word and Blogger insist that I spelled it wrong? 
Come on, dictionaries, get with the program!
I'm starting to feel a little marginalized over here.  <pouts> 
Ok, so maybe that's an exaggeration, but it's still really annoying.

I thought I had a great idea...

We meet with our ES tomorrow and Ms. Szper told me that she definitely wanted to see some kind of documentation this time of the things Primus has been doing at gymnastics (Fliptastic-which the school is paying for.)

A few weeks ago I took a ton of pictures of Primus during her class.  And that same day, I sat her down and helped her write up a report about gymnastics (fill in the blank questions about her favorite thing to learn, the hardest thing, etc.)  But I have been procrastinating ever since and haven't gotten around to picking which pictures to print and include with her report for Ms. Szyper. 

Like I said, we meet with Ms. Szyper tomorrow so this morning I was working on our learning record and starting to stress that I still hadn't picked out the pictures.  I knew that it would take me forever to choose which pics were the best. 

But then I had a stroke of genius!  Primus can pick her own pictures!  She is almost 6; surely she is computer literate enough to do this on her own.  So I showed her how to scroll through them, and instructed her to write down the numbers of the pictures she liked.

It worked!  Kind of.  Out of 91 photos, she successfully narrowed it down to 11.  But then I was picky and got rid of 7 of them and added 14 of my own choosing.  So question is...did I really end up saving myself any time at all?  Oh well, at least Primus got some computer experience and she had fun doing it.

Craft Round-Up

I want to share some of the crafts we've done in the last month.  It is so easy to be crafty during the holidays!

1. Craft stick star ornaments.  The kids painted the sticks white, then I hot-glued them into the star shape.  The kids put on the finishing touches with Elmer's glue and glitter.

 2. Craft stick tree ornaments.  Again, the kids did the painting and glitter, and I did the hot-gluing.  I tried to get the kids to glue little beads as ornaments for their trees, but Primus wasn't interested.  She only used a single yellow bead in place of a star.

 3. Glass balls ornaments.  I got clear ornaments and poured a little bit of tempera paint inside after removing the hook part.  The kids then shook it up until all of the inside was coated with paint.  Then glitter-glue designs were done on the outside.

4. Stuffed Turkey.  This was made on Thanksgiving Day.  I cut 2 circles out of paper bag and punched holes all the way around.  The kids glued on the feathers and turkey head.  Then the circles were laced together (so the part where the feathers were glued were on the inside.)  A couple balls of newspaper in between the circles before they were finished being laced up made the turkey nice and fat.

5. No-mess painting with wax paper.  This is the same method I used when we made those fall leaves a couple weeks ago.  I love this method!  Fun, easy, looks cool, and no mess!

6. Handprint Santa.  Made for a cute, quick gift for Great Grandparents.

7. Pipe cleaner candy cane.  Nothing spectacular here.  I just handed the girls a couple pipe cleaners and they whipped up a few of these to put on the tree in only a couple minutes.  Not all crafts have to be complicated!



New Nativity Blocks

My children were given a nativity set to play with a couple years ago.  But, being that it was ceramic, it has several broken pieces.  I think the donkey's ears broke off only weeks after we acquired it.  And recently one of the wise men lost his head completely.  So, the search was on for a new set for them. 

When it comes to Nativity scenes, I am very picky.   This did not make my search easy.  Especially since there aren't many nativities for children on the market.  And I had a complaint of one form or another about all of them.  Plus, we're not in a position to be spending much money on extras right now, anyway.  So I decided quickly that I would need to get crafty and make my own.  I saw the idea for the following set on some blog.  But then I had to find a nativity clipart set that I liked.  That was even harder!

Anyway, I finally found some great, simple clipart on JennySmith.net.  The only thing it was missing was a donkey.  But I was able to whip one up on Windows Paint pretty easily. 

I cut out all the pictures and simply Mod Podged them onto my Melissa and Doug wooden blocks.

The stable, the star, Mary, Joseph, the manger, and the donkey.  As you can see, I cut the stable and the star into multiple pieces.

The wise men and even King Herod!  So cool that I was able to teach my kids about this antagonist and the important part he plays in the story of Christ's birth and infancy.

Shepherds, sheep, and angel.

Advent Calendar

I wanted to do an advent calendar with the kids this year so I searched Pinterest and found some great ideas to get my creative juices flowing.  And then I came up with this:

I painted a big Christmas tree on poster board and glued on 24 little pieces of the scratchy side of velcro.  Then I cut out 23 little ornaments from felt.  (As you can see, the 24th ornament is a star.)  Actually, every ornament consists of an ornament shape with a circle shape glued on top to create a pocket.  And then that puff fabric paint was perfect for writing on the numbers.   

Each ornament's pocket contains a scripture about the birth of Christ and then a coordinating song.  So every night we take the correct ornament out of the bag, read the scripture, sing the song, and then put the ornament on the tree.

I am really pleased with the way it turned out and the girls are loving taking turns putting the ornaments on the tree.

Preschool Discontent

Today Secundus had a field trip to a gymnastics place.  While the kids did their thing, the moms sat on the bleachers and talked.  There was a group of 4 or 5 of us that especially had a really great discussion.  I learned that I am not the only one who is incredibly dissatisfied with the preschool class. 
I won't go into all the reasons here, but suffice it to say that everyone thinks that sending their kids to this class is a waste of time.  I am pulling Secundus out at Christmas break time.  And it sounds like several others may do the same.  Several moms have gotten on the wait list to transfer to the morning class with a different teacher. 
Anyway, it was very eye-opening for me to hear that my criticisms of the class weren't unfounded.  I even found out about a couple reasons why the class is so bad that I wasn't even aware of previously.  Very interesting.  I wish I could find out how many kids are left in the class in January!