From the archives: just another school day, about ten years ago

First posted March 2007. Links updated/edited. Ponytails was in Grade Four, and Lydia (Crayons) was doing kindergarten. The Apprentice was in her second semester at public high school, but she was also doing Canadian Geography with me.

We had a picture study lesson that was kind of a transition lesson: we've been studying John Constable, and we're going to be starting Claude Monet, so I read about both of them from Hillyer and Huey's Young People's Story of Fine Art: The Last Two Hundred Years. (Basically the same as Hillyer's art book) The book talks about the problem of making something in a painting bright enough to look realistic, like trees; painters before Constable used to make their trees brown, but Constable managed to make them green by using little dabs of different colours; and that's why he was an influence on Monet and the impressionists, both in the "dab" technique and because of his interest in light and the brightness of things. We looked at a Monet calendar I have and also some prints-on-canvas I got from Hampstead House; I held them up close and then from across the room so the girls could see the difference. The prints aren't great, but you could still get the effects; "The bridge at Argenteuil" was wonderful with all its reflections in the water.

It was a good lesson because it felt like we were all discovering something together, and because it linked something we knew about (Constable) with something new.

Besides that...we finished "Les Biscuits," a story in our French book about a greedy girl who grabs a handful of dog biscuits instead of chocolate cookies from the kitchen shelf; a chapter of Sajo and the Beaver People (we're almost done, the beaver is about to be rescued); and some geography, about faults in the earth. Ponytails worked on multiplying 3 digits times 2 digits, and played a game of Math Munchers on the computer. Crayons did a Miquon Math page. And there was an ongoing game of paper dolls. Oh, also Ponytails is reading The Secret Garden to herself, and Crayons is busy with a bunch of old Ladybug magazines.

The Apprentice and I did some of her geography in the evening as well: we finished reading a Canadian Geographic article about David Keith, a Canadian environmental researcher who is also involved in public policy. Real people doing real things.

How was your day?

Related: Another post about Grade Four/Kindergarten

Frugal finds and fixes

Frugal stuff we've been finding and fixing:

I won a book on SewMamaSew's Handmade Holidays, a random draw from the comments section. (Thank you to the providers of prizes!)

I also got a free copy of Canadian Geographic Magazine, their annual Energy issue, along with a poster and some promotional teacher stuff, because somehow I got myself registered as a Canadian Geographic Education member and forgot about it.  It's always nice to get school surprises in the mailbox.

Do you remember how Dollygirl made a doll tutu back in September, and the dolls put on an impromptu Nutcracker show?  This week Samantha (the doll) decided she likes gymnastics better, so the rec room has been taken over with improvised doll balance beams (tissue boxes and yard sticks), bars, and fun-foam floor mats.  We also watched You-tube videos of Nadia Comaneci at the 1976 Olympics.

We went to arts night at Ponytails' school (Ponytails was one of the organizers).  Fun and free, and some unnamed squirrels did some Christmas shopping from the tables of artists and crafters.  Dollygirl decorated a mug with bake-on markers, for $2 (you had take them home and bake them yourself).  I also bought a $15 holiday arrangement from the horticulture class, which doesn't sound frugal, but we needed one, and I would have had to spend more than that at a store, and I would rather support the students' work anyway.

Dollygirl and her friend went to a free Saturday event at the public library, with lots of different things to explore and create.  The Rainbow Looms table stayed crowded the whole time, and so did some of the other most popular stations; but they did dress up at a photo booth, and they also got to see a 3-D printer in operation.

I've been using odds and ends of yarn to make amigurumi animals.

Tonight's dinner menu:  beef burritos, using last night's roast beef and some tortillas that we bought on sale and froze.

The why and how of frugal homeschooling, Part Two

Part One is here.

One part of frugal homeschooling is making better use of the books and other materials that you have.

Another part is to take resources--or things that you've never thought could be resources--and use them in ways that they weren't originally intended.  Like this summer when our cutlery box became my jewelery box.  Or the bits and pieces of the Aunt Sarah Scrap Challenge.  Or a Chinese-style sauce made with ketchup.

How does that work for school?

We've had a thrifted copy of Kids' Magnetic Poetry Book and Creativity Kit (Workman Publishing) for years.  Originally I had great ideas for incorporating the included poetry suggestions into our language arts time, but that never really happened.   We did use the magnetic words that came with the book, but mostly on the refrigerator rather than on the shiny blue fold-out panel inside the cover.

This week I was looking for a white board to use for some math review with Dollygirl.  I found a small magnetic board stuck to the washing machine, but I wanted a bigger one.  I thought there was a larger one somewhere in the school cupboard.  When I went to look for it, I saw the Magnetic Poetry Book, and thought of the shiny blue fold-out panel.  It worked!   What a great resource for math, or for other wipe-off work like spelling words!  As a bonus, it's already marked into centimeter-sized squares:  good for graphing, or geometry, or Cuisenaire rods.

We've used many resources for French lessons that weren't intended as curriculum--but they happened to be in French, like magazines bought from the library's discard rack.  We've also used real stuff from around the house:  toys, fruit, and so on...and not just for French, but for math and other subjects.

Magazines in general can be a great learning tool.  A few years ago we subscribed to Canadian Geographic, and that became the core of our high school Canadian geography course.  What could be more current and more relevant?--plus the magazine has a website with expanded articles, maps, and other resources.  Also we had a two-subscriptions-for-one coupon that we shared with another family, which made it even more frugal for all of us.

Recently I came across one of Emilie Barnes' Twelve Teas books.  This would make a great resource for young ladies (even very young ladies)--there are recipes, crafts (such as invitations), suggestions of ways to acquire basic "tea party equipment," thoughts about keeping friendships strong, and illustrations that, while slightly overdosing on lace tablecloths, show ways to make your house homier.  It wasn't written as a "home ec" book, but you could do worse than spend a season trying out some of the ideas.

What else do you have that you could use in an unintended way, or for a subject other than the obvious?