Dogs Explored, Too!

Remember how excited I was when we started our unit on The Hatmaker's Sign covering Thomas Jefferson and some American Revolution?  
The excitement continues.  This week we moved a little past the Revolution to Jefferson's presidency with a unit on Lewis and Clark using this cool book.  It is a short chapter book told through Meriwether Lewis's dog, Seaman.  It's similar to a shorter book called Seaman's Journal which E had read before.  

I LOVE unit studies.  We read great books and connect them to geography, history, science, sometimes math, and life.  
In addition to our core units from Five in a Row, there are some wonderful and talented home-school moms out there who love unit studies so much that they create their own studies and post them online for other moms to use - for FREE!  
I found an excellent one for Lewis and Clark and Me at HomeschoolShare.com.  If you have never seen these, or are just curious about them, here is the one I'm currently using.
So far, we've learned about Newfoundland dogs, found the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio rivers on a map, and learned that some squirrels can swim!  And we're only in chapter 2.  

Down Memory Lane - Radically

Do you ever feel that something bad or hard or big is coming your way?

I've been having that feeling lately.  This year holds a big change for our family as C gets closer to his military retirement.

Only, his retirement isn't turning out to be full of joy and excitement as I'd hoped it would be.  Think reference letters, health care, job searching, income level, moving, etc. 

To add to that, just having Z in school this year has been life-changing, and I look forward to having him home again after this school year.  But I know it won't be an easy change.

Let's just agree, that change brings stress.

Then there's God who never changes.

But what does He have in store for us?  for me?

I've had a lot of scriptural questions lately.  I recently learned (not that it was news) that the holiday Easter was specifically timed NOT to coincide with Passover because Constantine hated Jews.

I've been floundering in my times with God.  I've been struggling to disciple and train my son.  I have not been respecting my husband.  I have been self-pitying.   I have not lived in faith.

But, in God's wisdom and grace, it doesn't end there.

I follow, sporadically, Ann Voskamp's blog, A Holy Experience.  The reason I follow it sporadically is because sometimes this woman's earthly "goodness" is too good for me.

Yesterday, however, when catching up on my email from the last week, I decided to read hers.  She is encouraging her followers to do something radical: memorize scripture!  The Beatitudes even!  You know, I have not done that in a long time.  I think I'll give it a try.

I feel better already.

If you're interested, check it out.

Confession of an Un-Planner

Yes, I said it.  I am not a planner.  Well, I have a lot of plans as in seeing the forest, but when it comes to the day to day, subject to subject kind of planning, you may not see the trees.
I sure have tried to be better planned.  I tried a curriculum that had every day all planned out for us.  All I had to do, was, well, get to EVERYTHING!  The problem was, we never got to everything, then the planner didn't work very well.  For me.
Here is something I found useful in our "school."  It's a subject checklist.  

 What's nice about it is E can look over it and see what she has done and what she hasn't done each day.  Then she is responsible for checking off the done subjects.
It isn't perfect.  I decided not to put the occasional subjects on the list, and that sometimes throws off E's balance.  But, overall, it works.   

I declare!

Christmas and New Year are done; a fresh school year's begun.  

Like my rhyme?  I thought it was about time 

I put something new on here so that stranger's underarm isn't the first image you see.  

I am actually very excited about our January studies, like I usually am in September!  I have the whole month mostly planned out.  In fact, I've already started researching what we're going to do NEXT school year.  I like to plan, you know.

We're starting with a Five in a Row unit on The Hatmaker's Sign.  (It's out of print, but I found it on paperbackswap).  It's a story within a story that takes place in 1776.  In it, Ben Franklin consoles Thomas Jefferson who is upset that the other members of the 2nd Continental Congress want to make changes to his writing of the Declaration of Independence.  Can you see the endless possibilities for history lessons here?  

But the other story is about a hatmaker who lets other people's ideas about his sign for his hat store discourage him.  How about some lessons on good judgment, perseverance, tact?  

I've found some great go-alongs for this book to add to our 2 week unit.  

There's a creative illustrated book called The Declaration of Independence. 

We're going to read Katie's Trunk which is a living book about the conflict between the colonists who wanted to separate from England (Rebels) and those who did not (Tories), including the children.  

I've ordered America: A Patriotic Primer from Paperback Swap. 

For science:  The Cloud Book by Tomie de Paola.  It's a stretch, but when you look at the book's art, it works. 

One last resource that has been a fun supplement to our studies recently is Brainpop.  This is a website with short animated lessons on a variety of topics.  It's a paid site which I got for a huge discount through a homeschool group.  But it does have some free lessons, too.  

I can't wait to share some of the fun things we've done with this unit after we've actually done them.  

What's more, I'm looking forward to the next unit on Lewis and Clark!  Really.  Just wait and see.