Daily Record - 16 September

Today, in addition to his typical free play, Isaac showed off his great imagination. I was awoken by him asking me to play with his wooden trains (he only has plastic ones, unfortunately) and he was pretending to carry them around in a box about four times larger than he is. So funny to see him pantomiming hauling around a huge box!

We later had a discussion about keystones - what they are, how they function in an arch. His question was why Pennsylvania is called the Keystone State. We found pictures from our trip to the Delaware Children's Museum back in July - he played with big foam arch blocks then. We showed him a map of the 13 colonies, with Pennsylvania in the middle, and told him how people called it the Keystone State because of how it held the young nation together. He doesn't at all understand the concept of "past" yet, but the question was answered.


Isaac also drew and lettered a card to a friend of ours from church. It includes a rainbow on the outside, and a picture of a checkers game. He enjoys writing cards to people and it certainly reveals his empathic nature.

In the afternoon, we watched a geography DVD from the library on the Northeast US. Isaac now can tell you that maple syrup comes from trees. "Which kind of trees, Isaac?" "Maple syrup trees!" He also drew both Delaware and Pennsylvania (with Harrisburg indicated) on his drawing board.

Just before dinner, he spontaneously sat down with a Blue's Clues placemat and began to work on shapes and patterns. He verbally completed the two pattern matching exercises - both shape and color - but then made up his own version of the exercise when he had the marker. Sometimes he surprises us with what he's picked up here and there.

Tomorrow, I think we'll work on his memory verse for the week (Genesis 1:1), read through our state books again, and I want to sort through the workbooks we have to see what he's ready for. I think we're both - slowly - getting a clue about home education.

Introducing Journal of the States - Delaware

Over the weekend, we purchased a couple of composition books that are set up with story pages (blank top half for drawing, guide-lined bottom half for practicing handwriting).

One of these is going to be (well, has become) Isaac's Journal of the States. Our hope is that for each state he learns, he completes a page in the journal. At a minimum we'd like him to draw the state, draw a couple things associated with the state, write its name, and include whatever else he wants to describe. (Overall, our state curriculum goals also include identifying the name and location of the capital, and naming two "state facts": state bird, state flower, state insect, state tree, etc.)

I started it with him today. Delaware was our state last week, so he drew the state, added a dot for Dover, wrote "Delaware" 1.5 times (after getting hung up on the first W), then drew another figure. I was looking at it upside down, so it wasn't readily apparent. "What is it, Isaac?"

"It's the United States. Here's Delaware. It's kind of hard to see."

Library Day

So, clearly, it's easier to set up a blog than to maintain it. Oh well.

Isaac and I just got back from a walk to the library. Some helpful (friendly, courteous, kind, ...) Eagle Scout cut a new path through the woods behind the library to the park near our house. It's much more interesting to walk through nature and along the old railroad tracks than along the residential sidewalks. Now we just need to remember the mosquito repellent!

We took a bunch of books back and got a bunch of new ones, mainly on trains (natch) and Pennsylvania, which is our next state about which to learn. I also grabbed a book on woodchucks (groundhogs) in honor of Punxsutawney Phil, a geography DVD, and Isaac added a Signing Time DVD and two other books that caught his eye.

My administrative home education goals for this week include hammering out our educational philosophy and typing up the curriculum guides that Tiffany and I worked on during our drive home from Tennessee over Labor Day weekend. I know I want to take it easy with the formal curriculum plans this year, but I still think we should have some broad goals to work toward. I also need to sort out a rough schedule for our weeks, so we don't get to Saturday and wonder why nothing got done.

Sorry for the lack of updates. We had a great learning day at the fair last week - lots of baby and adult animals to discover. Tiffany and I picked up a bunch of workbooks and flashcards at Target yesterday for 70 cents each - check out your local Target's dollar section if you get a chance.

Time to cook dinner and read - Tiffany and Isaac have already started in on one of the steam engine books!

Learning for Today

Both kids at home and just me - and I was so sleepy! With both at home, there's no good downtime during the day. And here I am up late on the blog. Oh well...

Art/Geography/Spelling

Isaac is nigh-on obsessed with his Magna Doodle drawing board - it's nearly an extension of his hand at this point. And when he's not drawing trains, he can turn out some impressive stuff for his age:

The United States. Note Lake Michigan.

He just sat down this afternoon and wrote this out. I didn't have the heart to tell him that we won't get to Alaska for another year. At least I caught it on camera before he erased it (he's got a quick trigger finger!).

Math
He doesn't like math, and he'll tell you as much. In a bout of wishful thinking, we have a few basic math workbooks lying around. This morning he picked up a first grade workbook and, with some coaching from me, turned out the following:

Note his 6 on the left hand page, my subsequent demonstration 6 under the equals sign, and his next 6 on the right hand page. And of course, we had to put stickers at the top of both pages.

Where Insanity is Defined

If insanity truly is repetition expecting different results, count me in.

I've tried lots of times before to create a blog. Now, however, I think I may have a workable angle: stay-at-home dad recently separated (voluntarily!) from corporate life and re-tasked as a homeschool teacher for our four-year-old son (and eventually our 17mo daughter). Along the way, I'd like to maintain and expand our food garden, get into canning, maybe drop some green lifestyle tips and tricks (although we're far from perfect), develop my photography skills, and perhaps write e-books/homeschool curriculum. Gotta pay the bills somehow!

We're just starting to formally (as formal as it gets, I suppose) homeschool our son, and he's currently big into geography, US states in particular. A couple nights ago, my wife and I began to brainstorm curriculum ideas based on the order each state joined the Union. Delaware is first up, and since I happen to know a little something about the state <cough>livedtherefortwentyfouryears<cough>, here's hoping things come together smoothly.

Stop by to see how we're doing and determine whether or not I have lost my mind. Feel free to 'follow' our journey - I'll do my best to make it an interesting ride.