Homeschool Report Card- Summer Trimester 2012

School may be out all summer, but for us, learning continues whether it's the school year or not!  At the end of each "trimester", I like to put together a "report card" and post about what we've accomplished academically.  Summer may be three short months, but we packed a lot into it!  

• 2 living history presentations
• 9 science presentations/activities
• 16 arts experiences, including hands-on art making, watching artists work, watching performances, and seeing visual art
• 33 purely social activities with other families
• 40 nature walks, with an effort to explore many new places

We spent a lot of time in the water!  We volunteered for a stream survey for the Xerces Society to look for freshwater mussels in Johnson Creek, which was really interesting.  No one found any live freshwater mussels the whole day in our survey area, which they explained in itself was important data. But we did learn all about the types of freshwater mussels that inhabit our rivers and streams, and why they matter.  As filter feeders, they take a beating from pollution, and their presence can be an indicator of stream health. Since then, we've been on the lookout for them, and have been recognizing  their shells. Also, we got to use some cool water viewers!  A commercially available one is the Aqua Scope II, but you can find directions online to make your own.  They really improved visibility.  And best of all, Jasper got to see real science firsthand.

We also went whale watching on the Oregon coast, which was just amazing!  Seeing gray whales frolicking in the water is something we'll always remember.  But mostly we just went exploring in local  ponds, rivers, and streams, seeing what amazing creatures were living in the water, armed with just a couple of aquarium nets and a jar.

We also made a lot of tie-dye!  We've been hosting a tie-dye event every summer for our homeschool group for a few years now, but this year was special.  One of the families in our homeschool group owns a screen printing business, and generously offered to create a shirt for our homeschool group. The kids were even able to print their own! We requested a plain white shirt with a black logo so that we could tie-dye right over it.  Of course we had a record turnout, but not everyone who wanted shirts was able to come.  So I ended up hosting two more tie-dye events.  Jasper dyed a bunch of shirts himself that he wore all summer long, and the whole group had fun wearing their group shirts to park days and gatherings.  This was definitely a highlight of our summer!

I attended OHEN's biennial convention, and the best workshop I attended was a sea star dissection for elementary educators.  Another mom from our homeschool group and I were  eager to put one together for our kids before we managed to completely forget everything we'd learned.  So we did!  We ordered our kits and safety supplies from Carolina Biological.  We wisely decided to do our dissection outdoors at the home of one of our families, which was perfect.  In the classroom we'd used at the OHEN workshop, the fumes from the preservative were nasty.  Outside, they were barely noticeable.  I didn't use the guide that came with the kits much to plan the presentation.  Instead, I found this page with excellent powerpoints on sea star anatomy, and this video (link is to the first of two parts) which is a standout among sea star dissection videos!  The vast majority of guides to sea star dissection that I found were heavily oriented towards learning vocabulary words, which is great for passing tests, but not necessarily the most helpful information if what you really want to know is how the animal's anatomy actually works.  We also read the book Star of the Sea: A Day in the Life of a Starfish by Janet Halfmann, which actually covers quite a lot of interesting facts about sea stars.  It turned out to be especially good to have a microscope on hand- we were amazed at how interesting sea star skin looks close up!  I was really glad we did this dissection, because it taught me to be a little less afraid to try teaching new things, and definitely proved the power of teamwork among homeschooling parents!

Jasper also tried several new things.  One hot weekend, my husband took us bowling!  The bowling alley did several things to level the playing field for a kid bowling for the first time.  They lifted rails to prevent gutter balls, and gave Jasper a metal ramp on wheels that he could roll the ball down.  These are innovations that I don't think existed when I was a kid.  It was crazy!  Jasper actually beat us!  He loved it!  We also attended the International Tree Climbing Championship, held in Portland this year.  They were giving kids free climbing lessons using professional tree-climbing equipment, which Jasper loved.  (Although I must say I was not really thrilled they gave my 7 year old a certificate that said "I Got High in a Tree" afterwards.  Jeez, guys, do we really have to poke fun at childhood innocence with drug references?)  The contest itself was also really cool to watch!

For English, my greatest concern at the end of his first grade school year was his reading fluency.  In my opinion, reading curriculum for beginning readers seems to serve two purposes.  First, to point out to kids that English has observable phonics patterns.  (Which is definitely helpful, but only to a point.  After all, the goal is ultimately to stop sounding out words and just to recognize them.) And second, worksheets are great ways to show on paper that a student is making progress.  If you homeschool, you probably know if your kid is making progress without worksheets.  I decided to stop using curriculum in the spring and concentrate solely on just reading books.  The summer reading program worked well for this goal, and we decided to keep the momentum going by rewarding Jasper with a book purchase of his choice for every 20 new books he reads.  At the end of the summer, his fluency has soared!

For math, we did no formal lessons.  I decided to stop formal lessons in the spring because although I thought the Singapore Math curriculum we were using was excellent, he had reached a definite wall.  He had finished his first grade curriculum, but was struggling with the concepts in the second grade curriculum.  My original plan was to continue at a slow pace, with the idea that 12 months of math per grade would lead to a reduced workload per week.  But giving him a break proved to be a much better plan.  After resuming exactly where we left off in the middle of spring trimester, Jasper was elated to discover that the same equations he had struggled with were "easy".  This is exactly what "readiness" is about!

 We continued our studies of ancient history by launching a unit on ancient China.  There is so much material on China, perhaps the world's sole example of 5,000 years of a continuous culture, that we felt an in-depth unit was justified.

My biggest challenge this fall, as I see it, will be to find new ways to make Jasper's education really terrific.  Especially in science, Jasper's favorite subject.  I've been overjoyed to see a sharp improvement in his ability to sit still for adult level presentations, which is very helpful when he's often bored to tears by science education aimed at 2nd graders.  He definitely absorbs more at adult presentations. But of course he's not an adult, he's a 2nd grader who is still mastering reading and the ability to sit still. Facilitating engaging science experiences that are a perfect fit is definitely a challenge.  Generally he maintains his interests as long as we can find new ways to feed them, so I'll do my best!