Our family was introduced to a group game called Bananagrams over the Christmas break, and we’ve been playing it quite often ever since.  Bananagrams is similar to speed Scrabble where you form and reform words until all the tiles are used up.  Whoever uses up all his tiles first wins the game.  I love this game because the nerdy side of me jumps for joy when the kids enjoy a game that challenges them mentally.  The boys continue to amaze me with their ability to form both easy and complicated words.  This game is definitely a family favorite as both old and young enjoy it just the same.

Matthew thinking hard and trying to use up his tiles.

Andrew is our most unassuming one.  He’s only six-years-old so we don’t  expect him to win, especially when he comes up against his big brother and his mama.  Well, once again, he proved us otherwise and took the win!

Andrew’s winning tiles.

There is no shortage of books in our house.

And likewise, there is no shortage of book shelves.

So imagine my surprise when Lois asked if I’d be willing to build yet another book shelf.

But when she pointed me to this blogger’s idea, it made sense: build a book shelf that doesn’t just hold books, but actually advertises the books in a way that encourages kids to read more.

Not that my “book worm” kids need too much help; but this is a great idea to use idle wall space all the same.

So I assembled and installed a rain gutter book shelf in our family room (aka school room) out of a vinyl rain gutter after we made a family trip last night to Home Depot.  I installed it just under our homemade white board.

And just to prove that reading isn’t just for little ones (or that we’re asking a lot of our little ones!), check out the book on the end:

A while ago we learned about Socrates in our homeschool and even though it was not mentioned in the book, I decided to go a little bit further by teaching the kids about the Socratic Method.  The Socratic Method was the way by which Socrates taught his students whereby he answered his students’ question with his own questions.  By applying this method, the teacher forces her student to think on his own and come up with his own answer rather than being spoon fed by the teacher.  In general, this is the means I try to employ when I teach my children as well as interacting with others.

My eldest got creative and wrote a book about his stuffed animals today, and in the process of composing his adventurous story, he asked me how to spell several words.  Finally after several rounds of asking, he came to me and said, “Mommy, sometimes when I ask you a question, you answer me like Socrates.”  Be still, my heart!  Every nerd fiber in me got me excited.  My boy actually understood the Socratic Method and realized that I’ve been applying it.  I love it when they get it!

We don’t have a TV but we have an eight-foot projection screen where we watch occasional videos.  Once in a blue moon, we even host  movie nights.  With a big screen and surround sound, we have a theater of our own.  Who needs to go to the movie theater?

We’ve recently discovered a new use for our projection screen.  My husband casually mentioned that I can project my school lessons onto our big screen.  Brilliant!  Absolutely brilliant!  I immediately took to his idea and went to work on my Powerpoint slides.  I started with history lessons and eventually I expanded to other subjects such as science, art, and Chinese.  I absolutely love the fact that I can project my lessons on the screen.  No more clamoring over the tiny picture in the book!  They can just look on the big screen!  We now can look at a painting nice and big without having to fight for whose turn it is to have the art book.  I’m also loving it because it forces me to prepare for the lessons in advance, which I love to do because it’s so much fun now.  My kids are discovering the wonder of Powerpoint slides.  They love the fact that words can fly, flash, dissolve, and appear on the screen.  They’re excited and so am I.  Our school is so much fun!

Here’s a glimpse of our new and improved school setup:

Even though we live in the suburbs, sometimes I feel like we’re in the country because we live very close to some rolling hills where the cows graze.  We can hear the cows moo in the mornings and by midday they often come down to drink water and sit under the shades.

When we learned about landscape for our art lesson today, I knew the exact landscape I want the kids to draw for their assignment.  We walked up the street with our art supplies and sat on the sidewalk to first observe and then draw what we see.

Here are the cows grazing by the hills.

I had the kids sit on the sidewalk and draw the hills and the cows directly in front of them.

Here are the two renditions of the landscape using oil pastel.

Two weeks ago when it was time to do school, the kids seemed not with it.  Even though they were physically there, their minds were elsewhere.  Nothing out of ordinary happened.  I knew then that we had to take a break from school.  I decided to look at my school record and check how long we’ve been doing school.  We’d been going at it for six straight weeks, and six weeks is just about the right time after which to take a break.

I decided to change our school plan.  That morning I read a chapter from a book they like and then we took off to run errands.  Even though running errands and getting things done seem mundane, my kids actually enjoy it, especially when it’s during a school day.  We took it easy that day and then went to a friend’s house in the evening to swim.  The next day we went on a horse ranch field trip and that was a blast.  Weekend rolled around, and we carved pumpkins and hung out with friends.  On Monday we went to see Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis present a talk on dinosaurs.  What fun and relaxing time we had.  The following day we resumed school and the children were more engaged mentally.

I’m glad that we were able to take a break from school when we needed it.  One of the beauties of homeschooling is that you are not under someone else’s schedule.  Too often homeschoolers see that they have to keep up with the public or private school that they impose a rigid schedule on themselves.  We should really strive to see the needs of our children and determine what is good or could potentially be destructive for them.  On that day when my children displayed a lackluster spirit at the start of school time, I knew I had two choices.  One, I could just move forward and press on with our school schedule.  If I did that, the children would be obedient and do their school work though I would have to bark at them (not a pretty sight) to get them motivated.  I’ve been through this road before and it’s counterproductive.  The end result is inevitable: one very unhappy family.  Imagine the stress that daddy has to walk into when he returns home.  Been there, done that, and we’re not going to repeat it.  So, we opted for the second option of simply taking a break.

I know for some homeschooling parents that taking breaks as needed is a scary concept.  You had planned out the curriculum for the year and in order to complete the course, you have to stay on schedule.  If you miss a week, then everything is thrown off.  In addition, there are music lessons and sports practice we need to keep up with.  When taking a break seems so foreign or that you feel you can’t allow that, think about your goals of education.  What’s the point of education?  What’s your goal?  Is your goal to produce educated individuals or go through all the books they’re suppose to study?  In grand scheme of things, does it really matter much that your children are supposedly few days or weeks behind the schedule you planned out for them?  What if you did complete everything you had planned, so what?  Does God give you brownie points for having done that?  Are you more spiritual?

The question is, are you sacrificing your children for the sake of adhering to a schedule?  I want my children to love learning and sometimes this means taking a break and enjoying things that are around us.  I don’t want my children to feel pressured nor stressed when it comes to school.  Next time when you’re tempted to press on, look at your children and their needs.  Would pressing on benefit them?  Will they end up hating school as a result?  We should strive to have our children’s well being in mind, not merely keeping a rigid schedule, when it comes to education.

I didn’t look forward to teaching taxonomy, classification of all living things, because it seemed so boring to me.  It’s pretty much about memorizing different lists and words that sound complicated.  The kids will probably be bored and lose interest.  But, I should teach it anyway because it’s important.  So. . . . I proceeded.

We began with how living things are categorized starting with kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species.  To memorize this classification in order, the science book proposed a mnemonic of “King Philip Cried Out For Goodness Sake”  Obviously, the first letter of each word represents each classification.  After I presented this mnemonic, the kids seemed ok with this memory trick, but they weren’t enthralled.  Me neither.  It’s a good one, but not a great one.

I decided to teach them the one I learned in school.  I’m still impressed that I still remember it because it’s quite hilarious.  The mnemonic is “King Philip Chased Old Fat Girl Scout.”  I asked the kids if they prefer the book version or my version.  Honestly, there was no contest, my kids loved my version!  They couldn’t stop laughing.  They just kept on busting up.  They memorized the classification in no time.  From there, they were quite happy to learn the five kingdoms as well as the phyla for the animalia kingdom.  What a fun lesson!

In two weeks we’ll be going to Monterey Bay Aquarium for homeschool day, and we’ll use today’s taxonomy lesson to categorize marine creatures.  We’ll look forward to that fun and educational trip.