Green’s Western Camel Report

1. The animal ate leaves, forbs, fruits, and grass.

2. Forbs are herbs other than grass.

3. They were found in North America.

4. They died out 20,000 years ago.

5. It is related to the llama.

6. It was 7 feet tall.

7. North American camels came 45 million years ago.

8. It looked like Asian and African camels.

9. The scientific name is Camelops hestermus.

10. We do not know how it behaves.

http://nature.ca/notebooks/englIsh/wstcamel.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/3053.shtml 

http://www.tarpits.org/education/guide/flora/camel.html/

http://www.sdnhm.org/exhibits/mystery/fg_camel.html

Re-Introduction

Hello. My name is Tulip. I have been married to Hot Sauce for 21 years, and we have two sons, Red who is 13, and Green, who is 10. This year will be even more of an adventure, since Hot Sauce got a new job in another state and we are homeschoolers on the move!

This Year

I am using Oak Meadow curriculum for my 8th grader.

For my 5th grader — a hastily put together hodgepodge. I’m using texts and workbooks as jumping off points for individual exploration. I hadn’t really expected to home school my fifth grader, but due to a job change our family is moving, and of course, these changes all happened at the beginning of the school year.

I’m also designing things to be done in the car and motel rooms as that will be how we’ll be living for a while. Hmmmm … maybe we can study math by measuring moving boxes … and volume .. just how much stuff CAN we cram into a box.

Another Year Has Flown

Whoa … I knew this blog had been neglected .. but a year!!!!  Wow.

Well, here I am again with TWO that I’m homeschooling. Yes, Red and Green are both under my tutelage. Our family is in the middle of an out of state move and we need mobility and stability in the transition. Wait, are those two things mutually exclusive?

And the Games Begin

I know this blog has been long neglected, but school starts tomorrow. So we’re off! I’m not the totally planned person I had hoped to be at this time, and I’m afraid I’m flying by the seat of my pants. In fact, the detailed plans I had worked on in the late spring have been cast aside for current events – namely the Olympics. I asked him to choose one country to study during the Olympics, and he chose South Korea. We will not only keep track of Korea’s progress in the Olympics, but also study its geography, history, and culture.

For social studies he will complete this quiz http://www2.lhric.org/pocantico/olympics/ancienthunt.htm, in addition to copying vocabulary and writing a summary of two pages about Korean geography from his Social Studies text. We are using World Cultures and Geography: Eastern Hemisphere by McDougal Littell.

For science he will use the periodic table here http://www.chemicalelements.com/show/name.html to fill out a page in his Elements and the Periodic Table workbook (Mark Twain Media/Carson-Dellosa Publishing Company,Inc.)

In the public junior high, Reading and English are separate classes, but hey, Mom’s gonna run them together. Vocabulary study is going to be a big part of our year, so we will start off with taking an Analogy Assessment (Unlocking Analogies/Steck-Vaughn). Then he will read the first chapter of A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park, and we will discuss it after he reads. Then he’ll spend at least thirty minutes reading from any book of his choice and recording the title, author, and a few summary sentences in his Reading Journal.

For math, he will use this site http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/ to create a graph to keep track of the medals Korea is winning.

Red has selected http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/ for his daily typing practice. Sorry, I just can’t bring myself to call it keyboarding.

And then, probably the highlight of his day, will be setting up a Word Press blog to keep track of his progress and experiences.

And somewhere in the day we’ll try to remember to eat lunch, go take a walk, and pick up Green at the elementary school.

Yes, I am still alive

Ack!  Mid-July!!!!  

Okay, my other identity is that of a fledgling children’s book writer. And I’ve been going full speed ahead on a middle grade novel for boys.  Suddenly —- I remember —- I am HOMESCHOOLING in a few weeks. I think I better get things in gear. This from the person, who was going to have it ALL planned out. Okay, so I have a couple of boxes of books.

Our local educational/Christian supply store had a BIG SALE today …. so I went and got a few science workbooks and one of those nifty neato grader slider thingies like I used to have when I taught public middle school. I had Red and Green with me. They were not happier. So I’m in this store full of SCHOOL TEACHERS and the very conservative homeschool moms with their neat long hair and dresses and perfectly behaved children with neat hair and clothes, with my two acting like well… my two. But I knew how to control them. See… right next door to the educational book store is a junky little accessory shop. So I said, “Everytime you touch each other I will spend ONE minute in Junkee’s. And everytime I have to say STOP IT!, I spend FIVE minutes in Junkee’s. They were perfectly behaved in their unkempt, dirty sock way.

So, looks like I’ll be more active now, as I gear up. 

Oh yeah, and Junkee’s isn’t the shops real name … but it could be.

Last week, this week

Last week was definitely in slow motion. Green was home sick, and I was feeling down as it was the fifth anniversary of my mom’s death. It didn’t help that the weather was wonkers. This week the sun is out.  Red just now ceremoniously shredded his junior high enrollment papers. The school has been informed that he is not enrolling with the rest of his sixth grade class. The school officials have been supportive. But me… me….I’m sorta trembling..wondering if I really, really am doing the right thing. 

Luck – Serendipity – Angels

I do not have a strong faith, although I do believe in God. The rest of the stuff is a bit on the murky side for me though. However, I do feel “looked after” many times.<paragraph>Sometimes it’s something big. For example moving next door to a woman who has a son with Green’s ailment and a grandson with Red’s. Neither are that common of ailments, and this woman turned out to be tremendous support to me. <p> And other times, it’s like what happened today.  I rushed into the UPS store and spent about twenty minutes in there getting employment info notarized and faxed.  When I reached in my pocket for my twenty to pay for all this, the money was gone. I figured it had fallen out at home.  I have this bad habit of stuffing money in my pockets. But still…$20 is a lot to lose. I’m not officially employed…yet. I go outside, and there on the ground next to the passenger side of the car is my neatly folded twenty … just laying there. Still there. Amazing. <p>  And maybe it’s nothing. And maybe it’s just luck or coincidence. But I said a little prayer and a thank you.  

New Books!!!! (and Fly Lady)

The books from http://www.books4home.com arrived today. Although they were labeled as “used,” on the website, they look brand new. One has a teeny-weeny tiny chink out of the spine, and that is all. I’ve very pleased, and think they are worth every penny. Having these texts will save me a lot of time. In case we do decide to re-enroll him in 8th grade, I want him to be on track with the other kids, so I’m trying to teach the same objectives. And…I’ve signed up for Fly Lady again … although I’ve been a total Fly Lady failure in the past. Don’t know the Fly Lady…go to http://www.flylady.org  We’ll see if I turn into a dropout…again.

Not an idiot

I plopped a stack of nine homeschooling books on the library table where Hot Sauce and the boys sat. I then plopped myself down and began leafing through them to choose three or four to check out. ”Mom,” said Red and Green. “Don’t get the Idiot’s Guide to Homeschooling because you’re not an idiot. Thank you, oh sons of mine.