JrFLL 2010

The Junior FLL teams have been hard at work so far this season. Each year I coach up to two Junior teams for the JrFLL Expo that will take place the last Saturday of January. Dan runs the event at the university where he works and an afternoon of family fun is had by all.

I use the homeschool co-op as a place to host team practices and hold the class. JrFLL is open to all kids 6-9 years old. This year's theme is biomedical engineering. So, the kids had to research things that help people- something their doctor might use and then depict that in a LEGO model and tell about it in a poster. Each model has to have a moving part and a simple machine.

Typically, I review simple machines with the kids and help the teams with some team building exercises and some team builds before letting them lose on the projects. This year I had a special challenge with a class heavily loaded with 6 year olds! However, they all stuck in there and we finished the class with some handsome models!

These displays were set up for our Co-op Night last week (the last celebration of all things co-op that happens the evening of the last class session of our co-op). I will gather the teams together one last time in mid-January to give out the team shirts and make sure the kids remember their projects and can talk about them. Then the Expo, with evaluators asking them about their work, will be the last Saturday of January. This year none of my own kids are on the team. I8 opted for Pioneer Living class instead, but we have plans for J5 and I8 next year!

Team Fire Spitters worked on a model of an arm with a hand. Their area of research was on syringes and their moving part is a plunger that moves in and out of it's barrel on the arm. Their simple machine is a pulley that moves the plunger up and down.

Team Blue Wolves concentrated on hearing and hearing aids. They built a model of a hearing aid with a moving part being the gear that turns it on and off.

JrFLL is sponsored by the FIRST Organization.  The vision and mission of FIRST are as follows:
 
Vision
"To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders."
Dean Kamen, Founder

Mission
Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.

The cornerstones of the Jr.FLL program are its Core Values, which emphasize contributions of others, friendly sportsmanship, learning, and community involvement.

We ask that everyone affiliated with every team honor these values.

• We are a team.
  
• We do the work. Our coaches and mentors help us learn, but we find the answers ourselves.
  
• We share our experiences and discoveries with others.
  
• We are helpful, kind, and show respect when we work, play, and share. We call this Gracious Professionalism.
  
• We are all winners.
  
• We have fun.

Dan heard about FIRST when Dean Kamen, the founder, came to give a talk at the university. He is the inventor of the Segway (which peaked Dan's interest), but he really came to encourage the university to work with FIRST. A few years later when they had a theme directly related to what Dan does in the lab, we began our relationship with LEGO FIRST. We started by sponsoring some teams and creating the Expo event all the while hoping to start an FLL team which we were successful in doing (an update on the FLL team next).

For those interested in starting up a team, I encourage you to visit the FIRST website and learn about where the events are near to you and how you can get a team started. They do sell a special kit, but if you already have loads of LEGOS and a way to have a moving part, you only need to pay the $25 registration fee. If you have any other questions, please feel free to email me!

Outdoor Hour Challenge #8- Seasonal Weather Autumn Observations

The challenge was to spend some time outside observing the weather and compare it to a different type of weather day sunny vs rainy, etc. We sat inside on a snowy morning and observed our weather! But it did inspire us to think again about our weather station. It's sort of a random set of materials we use including an indoor display, a rain gauge, an anemometer, and we use the next door neighbor's flag to record the wind direction!

Some of our kids love drawing with their notebook pages.

J5 said he LOVED drawing the backyard!

Once hung downstairs, we brought up our weather station pocket chart to the dining room so we can fill in some cards at breakfast. At first the kids wanted to measure the weather three times a day. That fell away...but I think we can do once a day regularly.

Another fun nature study for sure! We did this one the same day as the Queen Anne challenge so we basically concentrated on our fall weather and comparing the different types of days we've had this fall. This was just last week and we've had several snowfalls and some warm Indian summer days as well. Which led into a great discussion about what our average fall temperature has been this season.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #6- Queen Anne's Lace

We are slowly but steadily getting these Outdoor Hour Challenges completed. I had saved a sprig of Queen Anne's lace from one of my morning walks and it had been on my counter for at least a month. Finally! The time was right for the study last week. This is a great weed to read about in the Handbook of Nature Study. We learned how this plant has been so successful AND we learned how it got its name which is what R10 wanted to know!

R10's sketches- we had one flower that had gone to see and one on the same plant that still had its flowers when I picked it.

E12's sketch- he does not enjoy the sketching, but this is one of his nicest ones!

Did you know that there can be over 700 "fruits" on one these?? Just one of the several reasons this weed does so well. We learned that winter is not so hard on Queen Anne's Lace because it is biennial. Some seeds germinate in the fall and send down a tap root so it has a head start on plants in the spring.

We used Barb's notebook pages from the series to create this page of the stages complete with a sketch in the corner. 

Although Barb has been working on comparing in this series, I chose to just focus on this one weed this time. We actually did the autumn observations challenge on the same day so I will share those next. I have really enjoyed the nature studies this fall and I plan to continue on with the series from last winter. We do our nature studies on Fridays typically and it is a great way to inject some life science into our week- no matter what our unit studies hold.

Word Practice...

If you've been a reader for a while, then you know we are a gaming family! J5 had asked for Super Scrabble (deluxe edition) the other day and he worked on his sight words if you remember. But eventually he wanted the full game experience. So, I teamed up with them and we had a family game last Thursday. When I8 got tired of the game, Dan (just home from choir practice) stood in for him. E12 is a serious Scrabble player. Do not sit down with him unless you are prepared!

J5 consults the Scrabble Dictionary...he uses every opportunity to read.

The start of the game...I used all seven tiles on the first turn and got 50 points! Though in retrospect it may be misspelled...

I don't have Scrabble Patience, but I hang in there. I did challenge a few words that turned out to be real words. So, I lost turns twice, but I still ended up in second place.

But really...is "bio" a word? Since when? The definition is a book about a person. Really? Back in the day that was actually "biography" and "bio" was an abbreviation.

The other day we were waiting in the orthodontist's office (anyone visiting a place like that? We have two kids in treatment) and E12 had brought his travel Scrabble. He introduced another family to the game. The boy's mom is not really a fan of the game, but since her son liked it so much she guessed she'd have to get one. Sorry about that fellow homeschooling family!

Any other families out there playing Scrabble?

The Aftermath...

Another fun-filled semester of co-op is complete. I taught a JrFLL class and an American Girl class. Dan taught the FLL class. Last night was Co-op Night when everyone is gathered together to show off displays and to perform new skills. More on this later...such a great semester!

For now just know that I had no less than 6 bins of LEGOS in my van along with stacks of American Girl projects and displays. Two of them were large drawers...about 2ft by 3ft...without lids.

I had taken out most of the stuff into the building for classes and to set up, but when I left to get Dan for the second hour I pulled out and heard a spectacular, "Phssshhhhh!"

The drawer was empty when I started my task. Spectacular indeed!

Thinking I had finished the job, I shook out the mats underneath the former mess...and heard, "Tink, Clinkity!" So, that led to this little discovery among others. It was trying its hardest to be stealth. but I found him! And oh yes...he would be missed!

So, now you know what I've been doing today. Now that co-op stuff is out of my van, I have room for a turkey and his friends the side dish ingredients. I'm off to the store!

Daily Routines

For readers who have been asking about our daily routine, here you go! First, you should know that we are more the relaxed set of homeschoolers and though I'm a very structured classroom teacher, I am not at all that way in my homeschooling. One of my Hall of Fame Posts is a Day in the Life kind of post. You can see here how we did things when we had a full-fledged toddler in residence. Things are easier now that our youngest is five. Five!

Last spring I put this together and it's worked pretty well. I had to back off from the workboxes because they were too controlling on our day...but as you can see in recent posts, they are working more for US now rather than the opposite. That is not to say workboxes are all bad! Some families are thriving with them and that is wonderful. They were just too rigid for our homeschool goals. I am more comfortable with how we use them at this point. They still allow us to be creative and spontaneous which is a requirement at our house! At the same time, they help me to stay focused along with this "routine".

This is the first draft of last spring's grid- I still have it hanging next to my desk and it's missing LA! Guess I need to replace it with the below. Tweaked it based on my notes there.

Keep in mind this is a "routine". I purposely do not have times on the grid. It is a framework we use to do our work. It's pretty self explanatory I think. We don't do all of everything every day. That should make some of you feel better! One thing I love about this weekly routine is that if we get behind or we have to go out unexpectedly, I just pick up where we left off. So, if one morning gets shortened and miss the history lesson, I don't cram it in the next day. I leave it for the next scheduled day. If that makes sense.

I also listed our our daily and weekly chores. Say...if you see something up here that is obviously missing let me know! For example, if washing curtains is on your weekly list, you won't find it on mine. What else would you do weekly?!

I like the idea of using this to keep the pattern of our day consistent. I've tried times and times make me crazy, but I can do the pattern. Feel free to check out our official Weekly Routine document below. I have it colored so that I can easily tell meal times and the morning, afternoon, and evening batched items. Feel free to ask more questions if I've left anything unanswered!

Weekly Schedule

Sewing Rooms: Doll House Style

We are continuing on slowly with our Year of the Doll House. We attended a doll house show in late August and had a great time seeing all the fun houses and ideas. I thought sure I had posted about that, but as I went to link it, I see that it's not there...hmmm. I may have to post it again! In the meantime, trust me, we had a grand time seeing all kinds of houses and getting ideas.

Any house of R10's will need a sewing room! Here are some ideas we have so far...

R10's house which underwent a major renovation almost three years ago now. It was constructed so that it could handle Barbie furniture as well- when she was 2. The Barbie thing never took so we are back to doll house families!

How cute is this sewing room? I love the fabric stash. We have an idea for putting that together.

This house had a spinning wheel- we love the fabric basket!

This was a nice little room with shelves for the fabric. It's an attic room like R10's. 

A close up of R10's sewing room- we are still working on the sewing machine and we'll have to get the dress form too.

I've been on the look out for a doll house sewing machine that is more modern, but most of them are too pricey for our folly. So, now I'm going to see about making our own. We can make a nice machine out of Sculpey I think and set it on a table in her house. The old fashioned models are lovely and R10 has used a hand crank machine herself at her sewing co-op (which she really enjoyed using!), however the furniture is not in the same style as the rest of the house.

Anyone else still pursuing doll house fun? Tell us about it!

Reading Fun!

I like to look for ways to use what we already have around the house for letter play.

J5 loves to practice his words! Recently, I gave him a ring of sight words and he used the Super Scrabble letters to make the words on the board. He read them and made some sentences.

We are on Lesson 20 of Reading Made Easy, but he is trying out all kinds of words he sees. That's what happened when I taught I8 to read...about half way through the manual, everything clicked and he started reading everything.

I have a feeling J5 is racing ahead of his lessons. This is the last one I have to teach to read. Phew! What a skill to have behind us when it happens!

What's in the Bible- A Contest

My MOPS Field Leader friend Athena is having a contest on her blog. It's for What's in the Bible #4:  Battle for the Promised Land.

If you've never seen What's in the Bible? before, I've provided a clip of the video that's the contest prize. This series is the newest product from Phil Vischer, one of the creators of VeggiTales. I had an opportunity last summer to see Mr. Vischer at the MOPS Convention in Orlando. He did a talk on Kids and Media and I was able to get a glimpse of this new series. He's working on making lasting impressions for kids concerning the Bible - VeggieTales was a good introduction, but didn't help kids remember the Bible. It was also very expensive to produce! Check out the puppet animation below and enjoy! Then go to Athena's blog and enter the contest!  

Pioneer Living- Hunting Bag

I8 has been taking a Pioneer Living class at our homeschool co-op this semester. He adores this class! They have learned to start fires, cook things over a fire, dry apples, work with wood, etc. Early on I8 enthusiastically took on making a hunting bag.

He'd been dying to use a sewing machine and now it's finished! He brought it home yesterday...he finished the hard work reportedly giving up more "fire" lessons/bowl making to complete his project.

Nice bag I8!

What can't this bag do? Right now it's full of hiking materials- binoculars and a compass and a trail map. But it makes a perfect Indiana Jones satchel as well!

This morning as I came walking down the hallway I was greeted by a hunter and tracker trying to move stealthily across the room without being seen by enemies...

I need to be more careful around the house...didn't realize the dangers afoot!

Workbox Labels

So, I thought it might be a good idea to list the labels out for you specifically...just in case you are interested in seeing what non-typical things I came up with! Perhaps some of these will be helpful to you.

• Math- we are Math on the Level users so we do a family math approach. This is the box we keep our things in.
• Geography- we use the Trail Guides to World and US Geography (see resource drop down list) because my kids adore it. What can I say?
• History- we are following Mystery of History and adding in Story of the World and TruthQuest resources. This in addition to our normal unit studies. Mainly, I wanted to blend secular and biblical history while getting in some ancient cultures- something we have not hit much in our unit studies thus far.
• Nature Study- once a week we do a challenge with Barb over at the Handbook of Nature Study blog or we just do our own observations.
• Unit Study- this is classified as non-FIAR unit studies. For example, The Photography Amanda Bennett unit for E12 and the Portraits of American Girlhood for R10 or just our own studies
• Language Arts- writing and grammar which is usually done as an extension of our unit studies or for this month NanoWrimo, etc
• Word Challenge- this could be a dictionary assignment or daily quest on a word or a word game, etc.
• Passion Pursuits- refers to approved activities we do after our other school time is complete. For example, sewing, computer programming, sports practice, snap circuits, etc.
• Programming- Scratch, Alice, and NXT
• NXT- LEGO mindstorms. We have a personal kit (and a team kit we store) along with some books and of course there are websites.
• Timeline- this is a box for our timeline FIAR style. On Fridays we put pages in according to what we've learned that week.
• Math Challenge- puzzles, more difficult problems, math journal assignments, etc and sometimes computer math. We like The Puzzle Site.
• Art- art materials for our assignment will be here. We do this as a family all together.
• Spelling- materials for All About Spelling
• Five in a Row- unit study materials when it's a FIAR book we are rowing. The younger boys are doing mostly FIAR so that is what their unit study box is labeled with specifically.
• Beyond Five in a Row- same with this box. When we are doing a BY book, this label takes the place of the unit study label
• Reading- mainly for Reading Made Easy for J5
• LEGOS- for the younger boys mostly...a time of building during Passion Pursuits
• Silent Reading- we normally don't need this. Our kids read anytime and often, but it's there when I need it
• Games- If I want them to play a game during the afternoon, I will put up this card on a box with a card inside telling which game or how to choose a game.
• Sewing- R10 almost always has a project going so this is a place for storing it while not in use. I give her hand sewing and machine sewing projects and encourage her to try new things. I8 has in interest in sewing as well so we can sometimes insert a project for him. He's all about the sewing machine though...hand sewing- not so much.

 Next up, I think I will further explain a few of these in further detail.

Rockwell Museum Part 2

In addition to the art work at the museum, there were some artifacts from The Old West as well. You know, of course, that my boys were all about the guns. Rifles, revolvers, pistols...they really enjoyed them all. You must know that I8 asked Dan if he could carve him a gun from The American Boy's Handy Book. That book is a post all its own! He even thought he saw a Peace Medal that Thomas Jefferson gave to Lewis and Clark to hand out to the Indians on their Expedition. I8 is really becoming an expert on all things west!

Blurry rifles- sorry, but I8 would not stand for them to be left out of this post! We had a great conversation about rifles...how they work and the parts. He even explained them to me based on descriptions of Pa's guns in the Little House series. And people think those books are just for girls...

Revolvers- and the boys loved that there were drawers they could pull out to see more. Whoever cleans fingerprints there might have some extra work this week. Ahem.

Didn't we all have a cap gun like this once? The engraving designs on the barrels were really quite nice. These, of course, are all guns from long ago that would have been used when cowboys roamed the west and earlier too.

There were displays of artifacts made and used by the Native Americans in the southwest. The American Girl Josefina would have used a pots just like these. R10 might enjoy seeing them.

You can't study westward expansion and not talk about The Pony Express! I8 read a book on that too (he's been reading non-stop) and really loved the stories of the riders and their harrowing adventures delivering the mail on time.

There were a few places where there were items the children could handle. Normally, there is a whole room full of dress up, but it was under construction.

We almost missed this guy jumping out of the wall! The front of the exterior of the building has a buffalo bursting out of the brick wall- very clever.

This enormous painting was on the third floor and I8 explained to me all about how the Indians hunted buffalo. Then we had fun sitting on those art museum benches acting out shooting an arrow from a bow. Good all around boy things for an art museum visit!

I8 has had a thoroughly grand time studying this time in American History. This week we are making a coon skin cap and making plans for a chuck wagon meal. This field trip was a fantastic opportunity.

As Hannibel from the A-Team would say, "I love it when a plan comes together."

The Rockwell Museum of Western Art

Today we took an impromptu field trip to this museum of western art to see...any guesses? The art work of Charles M. Russell (Cowboy Charlie!). We were going to the FLL tournament in the same town and I took the two younger boys for the fun.

Not having been to art museum with my kids yet, I wasn't sure what to expect, but if you have the chance to be near the Southern Tier of NY, I highly recommend it! They did a really good job of engaging the kids and I'm looking forward to going again this time with all the kids when R10 has begun the American Girl Josefina.

The boys were able to do a scavenger hunt looking for elements in the paintings on each floor. At the end they got a little prize to take home along with their papers. They also have back packs you can take a long which have activities in them that focus on different aspects of the paintings they have in residence. Oh and pardon the poor picture quality...these were taken without flash (of course!) with my cell phone. The other camera was with the FLL team!

Charles Russell is considered one of the best animal painters in the world and he loved painting everything about the west. According to the facts at the back of the book Cowboy Charlie, his is the only statue of an artist in the Rotunda of the Capital building in Washington, DC.

This has been a great study for I8! I'm so excited we got to visit his paintings. It was really cool to show him that these were paintings that Cowboy Charlie actually painted. They were not copies. And for our first trip to an all out art museum, it was terrific!

Workbox Adjustments

So, I had this notion the other day...my workboxes need relabeling. I had a lot of reaction to my One Year Later post about workboxes where I basically detailed how our family uses them- at that time we'd been using them for a year. The major outcome there is that we use our workboxes by subject and they do not rotate around. So, for us, the workboxes are a place for us to keep our things tidy and all together. I decided it would be great to remove the numbers and replace them with what we store in the boxes!

I bet some of you will find these numbers and activity cards very familiar! I grabbed freebie shared downloads from Jolanthe and Carisa....and really never used them much because we don't use the schedule cards. Those are great resources though if you do use the cards.

Here we go- notice that the new labels were made on white cardstock and then I added color with a marker before I laminated them. I have a different color for each child.

We have all the regular subjects for the day- math, FIAR (Unit Study), Geography, Language Arts, Nature Study, Spelling, History (for our weekly strand of world history we dabble in...I'm afraid I don't make a great poster child for the classical homeschool movement!) among other things.

R10's sewing box- this would fall into passion pursuits which happen in the afternoons. This is a box full of felt and patterns for some felt food.

I took the liberty of creating some new ideas like the Math Challenge! This is for puzzles and other exercises that will provide a bit of a challenge for the kids in addition to their regular math for the day. Great stuff to add to the math journal. I also have a Word Challenge box that will be for the occasional dictionary exercise.

There were leftovers! Can you imagine? I labeled all 12 boxes for each child easily (with the exception of J5- his were a bit harder at the end) and had ideas leftover. So, I can change them out. If I want E12 to have time with our NXT, then I take off the computer programming label and put up the NXT one. This will help to focus his efforts after formal schooling is finished for the day.

Many of us have modified this system to meet our needs. At this point, ours are no where near the original system, but I am thankful to have a space for our school things to collect. They are available when we need them and it gives my kids some independence on organizing their school items which is important. It also gives me an easy way to provide materials for some passion pursuit and extra practice time. Some down sides to the system- in our basement they require frequent dusting/vacuuming since I can't use the lids! The small width boxes bend up the items in the box or are tough to fit. This is likely not as much of an issue for those of you who rotate things out frequently.

How are you using your Workboxes? Are they still a useful tool for your homeschool?

Happy 40th Birthday to Me!

I'm celebrating...can you tell?

My heartfelt thanks goes out to Jolanthe at Relevant Designs (and Homeschool Creations) for making my bloggy makeover dreams come true!




I've learned a lot about blogging on my own over these last three and a half years, but I could never have made this leap without her skills.

And thanks goes out to Dan who recently allowed me to purchase $5 worth of extra Google storage per year (I had maxed out the free portion!) and who said yes! enthusiastically to the blog makeover as part of my birthday celebration!

So, stay tuned for more news on this great, big birthday moment. We have a super busy weekend with our LEGO FIRST competition on Saturday and an extra practice today for 3 hours...so not sure what Dan and the kids have planned for me.

I have a few more thoughts on this milestone birthday...no, I'm not freaking out, but I have come to a few conclusions about things. So, stay tuned!

Reading Games- RME Style

For all of you RME users out there, did you know that Ms. Bendt has flashcards available for each section of the book? You just need to email her and she will send them to you. Visit www.valeriebendt.com and see for yourself! We use these to do matching with the pictures and the words, but you could easily print them all again and make a concentration game. What's nice is that she has the visual cues included. Later on you'll have a choice of whether to print with our without the cues. So nice!

The short a family...

Short a with some new silent letters!

All done! Look at all those words J5 can read!

J5 is moving right along. I really like the additions to Reading Made Easy that have been made. You have the option for more practice using RME materials if you need them and if not, you can use the manual only. If you do need more practice, there are workbooks available now as well which I really like.

Adventure Reading

You can't keep a good boy down...he'll always look for the adventure. That's our I8. He's been reading about frontier adventure non-stop these last several weeks.

We are having a great time exploring with Lewis and Clark. Up next is a coon skin cap. I've been using Cowboy Charlie from FIAR Volume 4 as a base for the study and we've added in elements from various places including Homeschool in the Woods The Early 19th Century Time Travelers Study.

Halloween 2010!

We had plans to make some LEGO mini figure costumes involving boxes and paper mache, but time got away from Dan so instead our kids visited our dress up box on Sunday afternoon. This may surprise some of you. Fear not, I have made plenty of costumes in my day. However, this whole trick or treat thing takes all of about 30 minutes tops. The ratio of work time to usage time is way out of proportion...I have my limits.

I8 chose a pirate theme- he's been listening to a lot of Treasure Island lately.

R10 is a prairie girl and can you guess who J5 is??

How fun is this bag?? R10 made this at her sewing class.

Two of the four carved pumpkins...I have a post on our trip to the farm coming soon, but going late in the season is a great idea. We paid a $1 a pumpkin whatever the size!

So, that's our Halloween story. We get about 100 "kids" that night..."kids" refers to the number of teenagers I see every year. I almost think I see more teens than young children and they aren't escorting siblings. I'm just sayin'.

Speaking of older children, E12 went to youth group that evening and helped to hand out candy when he returned home. To children older than he is... 

Oh yes, I almost forgot! Take note of the SNOW on the ground. It was a chilly night!