What a Year

When I started this blog last year, I was determined to post as often as possible.  Unfortunately, our life became very busy.  We spent last summer selling and buying a new home.  This took all my time and little was left for planning our homeschool much less posting to this blog.  The lack of planning definitely affected our homeschool this year. 

I found that I piled on too much school, activities, etc.  Throughout the year the love of learning slowly faded away from my children and to tell the truth myself.  Everyone has one bad year, right?  I have not kept my observations from my children.  I even gave them questionnaires to complete to make things better.   My older daughters both told me it was because I didn’t plan.  Maybe my lack of planning will inspire them to see the benefits of planning?

As we slowly end this school year, I am revved up about the next.  I have all my planning materials laid out on my desk.  Notes I have jotted down through the year and I look forward to posting the planning process here on the 2inspire5.  My contact email for this blog is inspire5@outlook.com  

At the end of May I will be hosting a giveaway for the Well Planned Day Planner.  There is a link on the blog for their planners.  (It was one of my saving graces this year.)

Claude Debussy

We are in our third term this year and my oldest asked if she could please pick the composer.  How can you say no to that?  She picked Claude Debussy.  She also picked the six pieces that we will learn about this term.  I have made a playlist with Grooveshark and thought I would share the Claude Debussy Playlist:

• We spread the 6 pieces throughout our 12 week term.  How do we do this?
• The first week we read a small portion of a biography about the composer.   Here is the website for Debussy:  http://claude-debussy.com/
• Then we listen to the first piece at least twice.
• We write on our notebook page a small narration of what we learned about the composer and how we feel about the song we listened to.  (As everyone is writing I play the piece.)
• I complete a notebook page with everyone.  It makes a big difference if you are working with your kids instead of telling them what to do.
• The next two weeks we will listen to the song before we do any group work.

Claude Debussy Notebook Page by

Burgess Animal Book for Children

My younger 2 and I have been enjoying Burgess Animal Book for Children this year.  This book is recommended on Ambleside Online for year 2.   I created notebook pages for us to use with the chapters.  The notebook pages are downloadable below.  

I thought I would share how we have used this book in our school. 

• I read a chapter (they normally look through animal books, draw, etc. as I read)
• They pick the animal they would like to research (there is normally more than one animal mentioned in the chapter.)
• We work together to look up information about the animal.
• YouTube - excellent resource to see, hear and just learn about the animal.
• Our narrations for this book are very relaxed. We talk about it as we are looking up items on the animal.

They are keeping their completed notebook pages to make an Animal Book.  My older kids did this with the Burgess Bird Book and still look through it. 

The Burgess Animal Book Notebook Pages by 2inspire5