Tag Archives: oak meadow
Weekly Wrap-Up: Lesson 10
This was one of the strongest weeks so far (in my opinion) for a couple of reasons.
Reason 1: COMPASS.
Finding North. She drew a compass rose in the driveway. There was also a map to treasure.
Reason 2: Math Wheel.
Math wheels are a very Waldorf method for reinforcing the patterns in the multiplication tables (taught along with skip counting – “counting by 3s” etc.) among other things. It’s just neat.
It’s basically a circle with the numbers 0-9 evenly spaced around the outside and a nail (or hand crafted wooden peg if you have a fancy wheel) by each number. There’s a piece of yarn tied at 0 (since you start counting at zero). To form the patterns, pick a times table and wrap the yarn as you go around…for 2s you wrap 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 (which is 2 again, but since you are counting as you go it makes sense as you pass 10 which is 0), and on until you run out of string.
This is what you get for 3:
Here’s 4:
And here’s a bunch of them all on top of each other because pretty.
Guess which is green.
Pretty sweet, right?
Totally made up for when Lucy ate last week’s plant science experiment.
Weekly Wrap-Up: Lesson 9
I started the Mermaid tail for the F pattern! I’ve made some yarn decisions for the rest of her (Woo!). I worked quite a bit in the yard this week too. The raised beds were planted last week. This week I started the long, arduous process of cleaning out the long, long, long neglected flower beds. After a year of PTO and a summer of It’s Just Too Hot, conditions are bad out there.
I also got the submission to our Oak Meadow teacher together. Pro Tip #1: If you’re enrolled, it’s a good idea to try and keep up with the photographs and labeling as you go along. The monthly submissions only require one example of each subject from each Lesson/week, but the big submission (Weeks 1-18) requires more (I haven’t actually done one yet so i don’t know how much more). It’s better to just photograph everything and label it while you still remember what it is you’re labeling. The first submission (Lessons 1-4) wasn’t that time consuming, but this time Ellie had created so many books that labeling all the photographs took forrrrrever. I take action pictures of our activities so that my submissions aren’t just pictures of her finished work. It’s interesting to see how we completed the activities and not just the results. In addition, many of the activities don’t have a physical result to photograph (like learning to use a compass). I don’t take enough pictures of Health. Pro Tip #2: make sure you take pictures of Health.
What We Did During Week 9:
Language Arts has switched to fables for reading comprehension and writing. Math was the 3 and 6 times tables (and reviewing 2, 4, 5, and 10).
Demonstrating 3 x 4 = 12 on our MASSIVE number line that goes all around the driveway.
Science was recording observations about how plants grow. Three pots with dirt and seeds: one gets sun and water, one just gets sun, and one just gets water (it’s in the closet). We used oat grass since it germinates quickly and Ellie predicted that the one with sun and water would be the one that sprouted. All three pots sprouted (our potting soil was slightly damp in the sun pot and the closet pot has white sprouts). The tracking charts she made go to Day 9, so we’ll see what survives until then. Lucy will probably eat the sprouts before Day 9 and end the experiment early.
Six seeds in each pot!
Social Studies has redeemed itself. We discussed our family’s lifestyle: where we live, our daily rhythms, our favorite family stories, and how daily life changes with the seasons. Ellie made a book with her thoughts and observations. As much as I was whining about the stories of the past few weeks, the Social Studies curriculum is strong. Very strong considering that many conventional elementary schools don’t have Social Studies at all. There is thought put into how our modern life compares to the lives of the story characters in other countries as well as how the themes of the stories of ancient cultures relate to our modern life (or not).
Ellie’s (current) favorite family story. “Daddy and I have a lot of Nerf fights. One time I knocked out my loose tooth!”
A quick aside: you’ll notice that Ellie isn’t writing on lined paper. Oak Meadow in the early grades stays away from the lined paper used in conventional education. Instead, the emphasis is on making letter shapes correctly and developing a personal sense of spacial relationships by arranging the words on the page independent of influence. (Independent of influence besides me saying “watch your margin” and “make sure that looks like two words” anyway.) Ellie’s handwriting has improved ENORMOUSLY in just these two months. It’s really startling. And makes perfect sense developmentally when you give it some thought.
The rest of the week was happy gravy. The weather was beautiful, the cats visited often, Girl Scouts was Tuesday, and Play Group at the park was Friday.
This is Abigail. This open window was also visited by Lucy, William Henry, Lady Bird, and Betty over the week. Mamie does not believe education is necessary.
Weekly Wrap-Up: Lessons 6-8
When you homeschool an only child, you have to own that on an everyday basis, You’re It. You’re the alarm clock, the playmate, the entertainment coordinator, the chef, the teacher, the task master, the parent, and the grown-up. That’s a lot of jobs. Some weeks there’s not much time left for anything else.
For the record, I didn’t realize that I had missed Lesson 6. I thought I was just late posting about last week. This proves that jet lag is not a myth.
Ireland in Social Studies. Well, really the ancient Celts. Social Studies has been a little ‘meh’ the past few weeks. And I know you’re thinking: How is Ireland, where the people practically invented the fairy tale, ‘meh’? The answer is that only one story has fairies in it while the other two are about saints (and no context is given). If we had been on our own instead of enrolled, I would have substituted either more interesting versions of the stories or new stories entirely. As it was, I supplemented. I’ve decided to do social studies backwards when the story is unapproachable on it’s own – we’ll complete the enrichment-type activity first and follow with the story and discussion. At least that way she’ll know what she’s supposed to be gleaning. The art that goes along with the the ‘meh’ has been pretty cool. We made ink.
Science and Language Arts helped alleviate the ‘meh’ of Social Studies. This week we made a leaf ID book for Science. In the weeks before that, the Science focus has been on daily rhythms. She kept a record of her daily wake up time, when she was hungry, and when she had exceptionally high or low energy. The following week was focused on plant and animal life. We have a bevy of wildlife in the woods! All kinds of animals! The only ones who showed up for the record of animal life were lizards, birds, and Tyler.
Language Arts has been all about the poetry. Ellie ‘learned by heart’ the Owl and the Pussycat, set a poem to music, and created her own written language which she used to send notes to Michael. She also wrote and illustrate a couple of story books (one because she got carried away with the assignment and one because it was the assignment). She’s one chapter away from finishing the last of the two provided readers and then we are free to pick whatever we want for read-aloud practice. The thing that struck me as extremely useful was the creation of a personal spelling word list. In typical school, as you know, kids get a list of spelling words to memorize each week. Ellie’s spelling word list is words that she typically (or repeatedly) misspells when she’s writing rather than a random list of words that she may or may not use again or that she already knows how to spell. No test at the end of the week, just practice until the spelling is internalized and no longer a hinderance.
Ellie loves math and is so so so happy to finally be doing ‘real’ math. Story problems during Lesson 6 to review the four processes and horizontal and vertical equations, then 2 and 4 times tables, and this week was 5 and 10 times tables. Memorizing times tables is going to be a total bore. Anything that happens over and over (if it doesn’t involve a Magic School Bus, a witch, or a princess) is an abomination. It’s actually solving the problems that engages her. This bodes well for algebra. She writes smaller so she can fit more problems on a page she likes math so much. I’m going to search the web for some songs or games or something that will help us survive the repetition since my imagination needs a boost.
Since we are enrolled and just finished Lesson 8, I’m working on the second batch of work to submit to her Oak meadow teacher. That means importing photographs and label label label.
Weekly Wrap-Up: Lesson 5
piggalicious
I finished my Pig! I also disabled all the toy listings in my Etsy shop. No worries, they’ll be back in October.
School. There was some! Ellie wrote her story-summery paragraph completely independently and it was perfect (except that “ribbin” needed an o instead of that second i).
Up until this point, all the paragraphs/sentences have been focused on retelling/summarizing a story. For Social Studies, she got to editorialize about the story themes rather than just rehashing it. It was pretty precious, she called out all the animals involved for not being very nice. I was very happy to see that the curriculum changes at the right time – Ellie was getting worn out with summaries. So: If you’ve only read the first few lessons in an Oak Meadow Coursebook, don’t think you know what the whole year will be like.
So many costumes – she’s making ribbon bookmarks for art.
This was a really nice week for us with many activities that we’ve come to love and lots of new ones (poetry!!). In Health she tried to convince me that the Princess First Aid Kit had everything a home first aid kit needed (it didn’t, I had brought the Red Cross’ list with us to the pharmacy). We compromised with a regular first aid kit and some Darth Vadar Bandaids.
My flu shot is modeling the aforementioned Bandaids.
And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the sun is coming up a little later every day. So I get to see things like this when I walk in the early morning:
*sigh*
I’m going to leave you with that. Next week is something else entirely.
Weekly Wrap-Up: Lesson 4
This week was a challenge. Every day there was something that interrupted our school time: coming back from the beach on Monday, Girl Scouts on Tuesday, piano at a funny time on Wednesday (Monday was a holiday), she was part of a Flag Ceremony on Thursday (Girl Scouts), and Friday was the bi-monthly play group. This week was another lesson in just how important rhythms are to our everyday and that ‘scheduled’ does not always mean ‘convenient’. Flexibility is a Life Skill.
Frog Collages are also a life skill. I’m glad I never recycle All Animals!
Ellie finished the first of the two provided Grade 2 Readers and we wrapped up the first Language Arts story series. I hope the new Main Lesson Books I ordered get here quickly – she’s only got room to fit one more lesson in the Language Arts book. Next year, I think we’ll use high quality, spiral bound, artist’s sketch books with hard covers instead of the traditional Waldorf-style Main Lesson Books so that everything will fit in one book. I think this will work better for the science journals too; field work and finished work can all be together in one place. (Honestly, a big part of me wants to make the transition to sketch books RIGHT NOW before we get in any deeper.)
More mancala, lots of Anansi, mirrored drawings that cross over the line, and a little science research project (on frogs) were some of the activities that filled the rest of the week. Edited to Add: The puppet show! Ellie’s puppet show was brilliant. I don’t know how I forgot about it. She made the puppets we didn’t have.
action coloring shot
Music is a big part of the Oak Meadow curriculum. Songs, verses, and rhythm activities have all made appearances in the first month. There is also specific learn-to-play-an-instrument instruction with recorders. The lesson books are easy to use; we worked trough the first half of Beginning Recorder over the summer. However, we chose to substitute piano lessons for recorder instruction this year. Ellie did have the recorder out to play ‘Hot Cross Buns’ a couple times this week, so I think I’ll learn a few more notes to pass along.
I wanted to post a video of Ellie playing ‘Old MacDonald’ but she said NO WAY. Here’s a picture of a frog on a stump instead. Look closely.
Lesson 4 brings the end of the first month of school. Lesson 4 also brings the first time we submit work to Ellie’s Oak Meadow teacher. I’ve got to take extra time this weekend to sort photographs, scan lesson assessments, label files, and figure out how to work Google Docs.
Ellie is knitting away on her scarf. I’m knitting away on a pig. The sample card for Mermaid skin is here and I think it will work well! Now I’ve got to pick colors for her hair and her top.
Weekly Wrap-Up: Lesson 2
I felt a little more cramped for time this week. We had hair cuts one morning and a new friend over during our usual school time one afternoon. Both events were totally worth it but effectively knocked out an entire day of school. We ended up doing a chunk of Language Arts work Sunday morning. My first reaction was I AM A TIME MANAGEMENT FAILURE, but it’s really fine. It’s only Week 2 – we’re still adapting to the idea that school doesn’t have to happen on a weekday.
If it sounds like I’m complaining, I’m really not. There’s a lot to do! And we get Involved! And we’re new at this! And Ellie talks a lot*. We’re still trying to sort where some of the daily things fit into our rhythm. For instance, knitting a couple rows now happens during bedtime reading (she started her scarf).
So this week: knitting, form drawings for math (harder than you’d think), more about China,
she finished up her mask (meant to be part of our China study but it came out a kitty anyway),
body systems for health, science was ants (really, science was learning to make extended observations and take notes),
the weather was perfect, our mornings are getting cooler,
more work in the Main Lesson Books as expected,
that’s the science entry about ant survival techniques (her foot with an ant biting it is on your left),
and language arts was more sentence structure, composition and comprehensive attention to detail along with a review of blended consonants and vowels sounds.
Another full but well-balanced week. Weirdly, there aren’t as many pictures. I didn’t get as much knitting done (although I finished the little Rooster and the Mermaid) because the first Girl Scout meetings are looming ahead and I thought it would be smart if I did a little planning…
*Ellie chatters constantly from when she gets up in the morning to when she goes to sleep at night. Unless she’s reading to herself. When she’s reading to herself, I may as well not exist. I have a little bit of we-should-have-done-this-sooner angst every time I think about her in a classroom being good, still, and silent. And not asking any of her questions. And keeping all of her thoughts inside. And not having a hug every time she finishes writing a sentence because apparently that is also vital to her learning process.
Weekly Wrap-Up: Lesson 1
Best. Week. Ever.
We explored the five senses, talked about territory, started piano lessons,
had cats in the classroom,
played a bunch of games, studied China,
started a mask (expect a tutorial),
reviewed word families, sang songs, knit, recited verses,
played word games – the whiteboard was an excellent decision by the way,
read books, composed sentences, had a friend over after school, went to Play Group at the park on Friday, and
worked in two of the Main Lesson Books.
That’s not even everything. In case anybody is sitting around wondering if Oak Meadow’s curriculum actually has enough to keep the student busy: we could have easily made all of the activities in Lesson 1 last for a week and a half. I sorted out our weekly schedule for Lesson 2 and I feel like the same thing is true. Ellie and I do tend to get really involved in most everything we do, but I have a hard time imagining anyone just blowing through these activities, stories and projects.
In spite of our longer-than-anticipated school days last week, I managed to make all of the Mermaid but one arm and her hair, kept up with the house, fixed all the meals but two*, and read to myself for fun. Oh wait. All the meals but three. I forgot about the donuts on Monday morning. I will also say (lest you think that there is too much Donna Reed over here) that I wrecked one dinner with my illiteracy and had to make Emergency Substitute Dinner from the freezer. I like to cook, but I am not always good at it.
MY POINT IS: It was a full week but not hectic or rushed. It was a full week with a relaxed pace.
I’ve got to start planning for Girl Scouts this week, so we’ll see if I feel as relaxed at the end of Lesson 2.
*That sounds super domestic and like a weird thing to be proud of. If you need to judge me for it go right ahead. When you’re finished, please cross your fingers that Devoni’s Pizzeria reopens in September like the sign says they will…
Course Work
It’s Meet the Teacher night at our local elementary school. (Look who’s not there!)
I don’t think I ever talked about curriculum.
Here it is:
It came in a big box.
Everything to guide a year.
The Oak Meadow curriculum materials have just been re-worked and reprinted. The new books are attractive, the teacher books are spiral bound, and the whole system is easy to use even when you need several books to assemble a lesson plan. I’ve seen examples of older versions of the materials since I ordered the ‘Home Teacher’s Process Manual’ before we enrolled to get a feel for the program. The improvement in visual appeal is marked.
New one in front. But I’m sure you can tell.
Now known as the “Guide to Teaching the Early Grades,” the new version of the Process Manual isn’t just prettier, there is also an appendix in the back with rhymes, songs and poems.
Pro Tip: When you get your Oak Meadow curriculum, start with the Resource Book. That’s where the introduction is. Nothing makes sense unless you read the introduction first.
The Coursebook contains the outlines for 36 lessons that are to be completed over the school year. Each lesson contains one week’s worth of activities sorted by subject: all of the Language Arts assignments for the week come first, followed by Social Studies, then Math, and so on. As the teacher, my responsibility is to read through the Lesson, sort out how and when we will complete each activity and gather any resources we’ll need for that week. A ‘boxed’ curriculum doesn’t mean that parents can just follow along step-by-step! Especially since this is project-based learning and not a stack of worksheets to complete. There are still lesson plans to make! Schedules still need to be sorted! My personal plan is to stay two weeks ahead with lesson preparation. That’s plenty of time to request books from the library and get any Thriftbooks or Amazon deliveries to enhance the lesson. Social Studies is about China for the first two weeks, so I’ve got a few library books that directly support what is covered by the included projects and stories. In Lesson 2, Health focuses on the systems of the human body and how the whole thing works together. My library didn’t have the book I wanted (it’s got transparent layers!), so I’ve got one on the way from Thriftbooks. I (probably) won’t buy one-time-use-resources, but this particular book is pretty cool and will stay useful later. Plus it’s Thriftbooks* so I spent all of $3.59.
Everything on the shelf.
I’m not sure how Oak Meadow could have made project-based learning any easier. The Coursebook contains weekly planners, weekly checklists, and Learning Assessment pages for every lesson. Stories in the Resource Book and Readers, and activities in Crafts for the Early Grades are referenced – this makes it extra important to look through the lessons ahead of time so that you can have all the needed materials ready. The craft instructions are detailed and the stories fit the methodology (you’ll have to read the introduction). I feel prepared and supported and pleased.
All that to say: I’m feeling pretty good about our choice.
I’m ready to get this show on the road.
*I have a small Thriftbooks addiction.
Oak Meadow Family (What We’re Doing About School)
Ellie has been accepted to Oak Meadow, a distance learning program based in Vermont.
She’ll work from home, but her school is in Vermont. Just like Michael works from home, but his office is in California. Or like I work from home and my office is where I’m sitting. I’ll be her main teacher, but she will also have an Oak Meadow teacher who will review and grade her work, provide support and help keep us on track, and maintain her transcript with this fully-accredited school. Oak Meadow has a curriculum-only option, but enrollment feels like a much better choice for our family this year*.
The curriculum has a wonderful Waldorf flavor in the early grades without placing limitations on academic endeavor (unlike traditional Waldorf-Steiner programs). In second grade, Ellie will study poetry, history and geography, fables and folklore, and multiplication. Her science program and the reading selections are focused on animal study (Yay!). Art is integrated throughout the curriculum. If I were going to hand pick a curriculum tailored to Ellie’s strengths and interests, I’d end up with something very close to what has been working for Oak Meadow for 40 years.
As students move through the grades, the curriculum grows and changes. In fourth grade the focus shifts: the syllabus speaks to the student rather than the parent, who begins to take a supportive role rather than one of leadership. It is gratifying to see that the progression of the curriculum reinforces the natural development of the child. This is a program that we can continue all through high school if Ellie chooses. We are incredibly excited. The minute I found their website, I knew it was an exceptional choice for Ellie and for us as a family.
*Left to our own devices, Ellie and I might just read and paint all day. And bake (to learn fractions). With enrollment, not only is my life simplified as far as record keeping, dealing with the local school board, providing balanced learning, and staying on track, but I don’t have to be the bad guy when we’ve got to get stuff done! It’s actually DUE! It has to be TURNED IN! As a first time homeschool parent, this makes me feel a lot less pressured. And Ellie gets to have school swag. Which she loves.