CT Homeschoolers Conventions

There are 2 notable and local homeschooling conventions coming up...

TEACH 2010 Convention (early registration ends June 4th, save $10)
Friday & Saturday, June 11 & 12, 2010
First Cathedral
1151 Blue Hills Avenue
Bloomfield, CT

TEACH also is having its 2nd Annual Used Curriculum Sale in Waterbury
Saturday, April 17, 2010
10a-1p
Waterbury Christian Fellowship
1 Dube Lane
Waterbury, CT

MASSHope 2010 Convention (early registration ends April 1st, save $10)
Friday & Saturday, April 23 & 24, 2010
The DCU Center
Worcester, MA
View the convention brochure
This is one of the largest conventions in our area. You have your choice among 5 or 6 workshops for each session. There are about 5 sessions each day, as well as a lunch session and general session. There are also separate sessions for teens. Ages 5-13 may also partake in a Children's Program.

Classical Conversations Groton/Mystic CT

Today in Hamden, we enjoyed a visit from Leigh Bortins, founder of Classical Conversations. She reviewed the trivium of the Classical model for Education and founding principles behind the CC curriculum.

Leigh has a weekly internet radio show called Leigh! At Lunch. You can access previous shows at her blog 1 Smart Mama. Also, her newest book "The Core", published by MacMillan, is geared toward a secular audience. It will be available for sale on Amazon.com in June. With this release, the CC community hope to make it a best seller by purchasing during the first week of its availability.

Additionally, we received her self-published book for being the ones who traveled the farthest at 1hr and 10 minutes. "Echo in Celebration: A Call to Home-Centered Education" sends "forth a call to anyone who loves children to consider the challenges of academically preparing sturdents during the age of global technologies... to teach children to echo in celebration the wonder of great thoughts well understood". The book "challenges parents to believe that they are created to competently pass on the love of learning aboutl life to their children"

I also met a family from East Hampton CT who were eager to here that I am opening a CC Chapter in Groton/Mystic for Fall 2012. Actually, they are praying that I open it this fall!

Our first year at CC Hamden (and first year homeschooling in general) has been an enjoyable learning experience. I've observed what it takes to smoothly manage a CC chapter, to tutor (I filled in as a Substitute Tutor), and to teach the curriculum to Rilla. Although I am eager to open a CC chapter in Groton/Mystic, I am planning to become an office Tutor while Rilla continues in her 2nd year and Max enrolls in his first year at the CC Hamden chapter. With that, it makes the most sense that I spend my third year increasing my responsibilities as a Director to Classical Conversations in Groton/Mystic for Fall 2012! This seems to me the most natural evolution of our journey. But what do I know? He may have other plans for me...

Edible Books Festival at Bill Memorial Library

Entry forms were due today for the Edible Books festival. This year, Rilla, Max and I are entering 2 creations inspired by the books Madeline Lost in Paris and The Little Engine that Could. I visited a few sites (Books2Eat, Austin TX Edible Books, Univ. of Illinois Edible Books) for ideas but ultimately asked the kids for their suggestions. One was Rilla's choice and the other was my idea, because I have a Wilton train pan. Max enthusiastically agreed and said he'd have fun with decorating. Here is the flyer for the festival:

Please join us for the Fourth Annual Edible Books* Festival

March 28, 2010

Hosted this year by the Bill Memorial Library

240 Monument St, Groton

*What is an Edible Book? We’re looking for donations of any creation that look like a book, pun on a title, refer to a character, or have something to do with books - it just has to be edible.

Event Schedule: 12:30 to 1 p.m.—set up “books” 1 to 1:45 p.m.—ooohing and aaahing by public 1:45 p.m.— “book tasting” 2:00 p.m.—raffle

Sponsors: Friends of the Bill Memorial Library 860-445-0392 Friends of the Mystic & Noank Library 860-536-7721 Groton Public Library Circle of Friends 860-441-6750 For further information or to help out with this “tasteful” event, please contact one of the sponsors. Entry forms are available at all three libraries.

Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel

Today was Classical Kids Co-op at the Old Mystic Baptist Church. This is where we spend our Fridays with other homeschool families where the classes are taught by the parents. These include: Preschool Games, Story of the World, Cultures of the World, Preschool Science, Fun with Music, and Montessori Journey, to name a few of the younger classes that my kids are enjoying.

For Story of the World, Chapter 38: The End of the Ancient Jewish Nation, we created a sand art craft and molded a dreidel out of clay with decorated letters N, G, H, and S. The kids learned how to play the game of dreidel, spinning their own creation, and used candy for the "counters".

• We started with 10 counters for each player.
• Every player contributes one counter into a central pile. This becomes the "pot."
• Players spin the dreidel in turn and contribute or collect items from the pot based upon which letter faces up when the dreidel stops its spin.
• For N - Nun - Nisht - the player collects nothing from the pot.
• For G - Gimmel - Gantz - the player gets it all.
• For H - Hey - Halb - The player collects half of the pot.
• For S - Shin - Shtel - The player sets one of his own items into the pot.
• The player who gains the most (or all the counters) wins.

Rilla enjoyed this game so much that she played it with Max using marbles when we returned home.

A great, free, resource @ DonnaYoung.org

What a plethora of free (and importantly) useful information! DonnaYoung.org is a wonderful resource for homeschoolers that includes lesson plans, printable worksheets, calendars, planners, blank pages, journal pages, ideas, and links. I have found great use for the calendars in our record/profile keeping and planning. The art curriculum pages of line drawings to copy or make mirror images of, are simple, engaging, and fun to do. I regularly print out the penmanship pages (available in various “levels”), especially the ones with blank tops for drawing and photos. As a side note: we’re currently assembling a recipe booklet that uses these “blank top” pages to incorporate a photo of the finished product and handwritten recipe below – I’ll have a separate blog for that project. Also, these pages are easily readible using free Adobe Acrobat Reader or if you prefer MS Word .doc format and MS Excel .xls format. Additionally, you may purchase the CD for $25 that includes all of the resources available online, including additional info.

This is our first year of homeschooling and I have to admit that I have bought more materials than I really need. I suppose it’s because I am *really* excited about all the teaching resources out there. However, this website shows that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to homeschool with quality materials. Websites like this are out there, you just have to dig around or keep your ears open to others’ comments and what they have discovered. I’ll continue to blog about more sites like this (as I find them on my journey) that have quality, free, materials for homeschoolers. Enjoy!

Storywalk @ Poquonnock Plains Park

Another beautiful day! We played at the Tercentennial Park (aka Poquonnock Plains or Soccer Park) after returning from CC Hamden. Turns out, our usual group of moms had the same idea and so it seemed we “resumed” our Tuesday afternoon meet-up with the nice weather. It was great to catch up. The park was busy. We also learned of the Storywalk that was set up beside the loop which outlines the soccer fields. Starting at the Tercentennial Park sign, 2-page spreads of the book “The Big Storm: A Very Soggy Counting Book” by Nancy Tafuri, are posted at regular intervals. My kids enjoyed running from board to board, reading along as we followed along the track – a half mile loop! And it was a good read.

The “Storywalk” project was done in collaboration with Groton Parks and Rec, as well as the local libraries including Bill Memorial Library and Groton Public Library. That “The Big Storm” was chosen for “Storywalk” was based on this year’s One Book Every Young Child book selection by representatives from 13 libraries over southeastern CT.

KidCity Childrens Museum photos, Middletown CT

Paid a visit to KidCity Childrens Museum yesterday and I can’t say enough good things about this place! What a thoughtfully designed, creative, and engaging place to play and discover! Come to find out that a lot of the work is done by neighboring Wesleyan art students. This museum is essentially 2 older homes combined and expanded with modern flair to house rooms upon rooms of creative play areas. The KidCity site was very informative, but the photos were few. Browsing through the internet, I came up with nothing as well. With that, here are some of my photos to give you a better idea of what to expect. I was able to take photos of the rooms empty because there seems to be less visitors during the week and in the early opening hours.

These photos are just some of the creative spaces that delighted me including: the Fishery with ship, Asia with mountain and bridge, Farm with clubhouse and chicken coop, Train table village, Diner, and Farmhouse kitchen beside a fun carrot patch, the Rocket Ship (there’s also a UFO Saucer!).

There are still more rooms that I didn’t show like: the Victorian reading room featuring an oversized brush that serves as the bench, the Puppet/Dress-up Studio room featuring a working video camera that can be manipulated during performance, the Sea Caves on the bottom floor for ages 3 and under, to name a few.

In short, you’ll find artfully painted rooms with attention to detail, PLENTY of seating for adults, engaging activities in each room. My kids’ favorite was the Fishery where plastic fish are transported and gathered via sliding belts and pulley systems throughout the room. Also a hit was the Farm room with a clubhouse and bucket system between the ground and 2nd floors, as well as the neighboring egg activity area.

Logistics… there is plenty of parking, ample coat storage that features a newly added eating area with fountain and hand washing stations (so pack those lunches!), and many spacious bathrooms (at least 7!) spread throughout the museum. Here are photos of the eating area near the coat room.

Finally, consider getting the Association of Children’s Museums reciprocal membership for $100 which will get you into any participating ACM museum in the United States or abroad. In CT, your ACM membership also gets you into the Childrens Museum in West Hartford, Childrens Museum of Southeastern CT in Niantic, Imagination Nation Children’s Museum in Bristol, Lutz Children’s Museum in Manchester, Stepping Stones Museum for Children in Norwalk.

KidCity Children's Museum

119 Washington St

Middletown CT 06457

860 347 0495

Enrollment for the Pizza Hut’s Book It! reading program starts today and runs through June 2010, or while supplies last . This program rewards grades K-6 students for their reading activity between October 1, 2010 through March 31, 2011. Homeschooled students are also eligible to participate!

Teachers who have registered will receive their materials packet which contains a pad of award certificates for each of the month’s reading goals, good for each student that the teacher has registered.

There are ideas to motivate your students with games, incentives, arts, crafts, and various activities in the Teachers Section.

Leigh Bortins is coming to Connecticut!

Founder of the Classical Conversations curriculum, Leigh Bortins, will be visiting the New England area with a stop in Hamden CT.

It’s a Celebration Tour with Classical Conversations!

Join Leigh Bortins, Classical Conversations founder, as she delivers a message designed to encourage parents to embrace classical education and restore the pleasure of learning for a lifetime. Come hear Leigh as she shares teaching methods that will allow parents to relax as they enjoy the academic advancement of their children. Anyone interested in homeschooling is welcome to attend this time of winter refreshment!

Tell all your friends and join us in celebrating the joy of teaching our children “to know God and to make Him known”.

Westminster Orthodox Presbyterian Church
565 Shepard Avenue, Hamden, Connecticut 06514
Saturday, March 27, 2010
10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Young At Art, Mystic Arts Center

Today I received an email from another homeschooling mom who I can always count on to be in-the-know of all the local educational and enrichment happenings. Her email informed us of an upcoming exhibit, Young At Art, held by the Mystic Arts Center. They were currently seeking art by students in the elementary through high school grades, to be featured in the museum from March 6 through April 3, 2010.

Young At Art 2010: The mission of the Young At Art exhibition is to showcase the creativity of children by giving them the opportunity to hang their works in a professional gallery setting and view the work of their contemporaries. Our goal is to broaden students’ perspectives on the creative process and inform the community about how teachers use art to advance learning. The YAA Exhibition supports the Mystic Arts Center’s commitment to education and to the enrichment of children’s lives. Young At Art is open to all young people 18 and under who reside or attend school in New London County or Westerly, Rhode Island.

With that, Rilla and Max went to work on their pieces. We did 2 special crafts to submit for the exhibition. The first was a creative pizza craft made of corrugated cardboard (for crust), red paint and glue mix (for sauce), with toppings of yellow yarn (cheese), chopped green felt (peppers), red glossy circles (pepperoni), crumpled construction paper (meatballs), colored punchouts (spices). The next craft was a construction paper mosaic using black paper and punchouts in various shades of red, blue, green, yellow, and gray. Rilla was inspired to make a pony with sky and mountain background, on grass with a sun and rock.

CT Co-op of Home Educators East of the River, CT-CHEER

We just joined CT-CHEER, a wonderful, informative, and welcoming group of homeschoolers. The primary mission “… is to focus on disseminating homeschool information and support to current and prospective homeschool families that reside east of the CT river. We provide the opportunity to bring people together to expand our families’ horizons, in a collaborative, informal manner. We are a group of people with diverse homeschool philosophies & experience, but with a common vision: volunteers who are supporting one another, sharing information, and reaching out to new homeschoolers as a labor of love and understanding of a new homeschooler’s process.”

With our membership, comes an official CT-CHEER membership card good for “proving” that you’re an official homeschooler which affords some perks and discounts at retail and educational establishments. We’re also in the know of local events tailor made for homeschoolers and programs that we as a homeschooling family are able to participate in because we have organized with CT-CHEER, including the Six Flags Reading program.

This is in thanks to Diane Connors who founded and continues to moderate the group. It is certainly a busy bunch of families with events all the year through: “Support & Info Nights, Parents’ Night Out, Park Days, Beach Days, Book Swaps & Sales, Family Business Ads, Scouting, Parks & Recreation, Library Events, Science Fairs, Geography Fairs, Valentine’s Potluck Party, Pinewood Derby, 4-H Clubs, rollerskating, swimming, ice skating, Game Days, Craft Days, Skiing, gymnastics, Book Discussion Groups, Gym Days, lots of field trips, classes and workshops, and more.”

Furthermore, “The *myth* of homeschoolers being unsocialized is laughable to us; as we’re an extremely social, active bunch who enjoy the planet as our playground while we’re learning !!” Well said, CT-CHEER!

History through Story of the World

Our participation in the Classical Kids Co-op lead us to discovery World History using the Story of the World curriculum by Susan Wise Bauer. This curriculum consists of a 4-volume series: Vol. 1 Ancient Times, Vol. 2 Middle Ages, Vol. 3 Early Modern, Vol. 4 Modern Ages where a single volume can be completed each year. The text reads like an engaging story to be read to your children or you can buy the audio CD sets (7-8 CDs per cycle) wonderfully narrated by Jim Weiss and listen to it at your leisure. Rilla will ask to listen during short trips around town.

For co-op, our Story of the World history class reviews one chapter a week. We parents take turns leading the review questions, map work, activities and or crafts as assigned in the Story of the World Activity Book. Additionally, there is a Story of the World Test Book, but we don’t use it for this class whose students are generally ages 6-9. Some examples of activities we’ve done include creating headdresses and mosaics for our study of Civilizations, “minting” celebratory coins using plaster for our study of Romans, molding The Great Wall of China out of with clay and making puppet dragons for our study of China.

Classical Kids Co-op, Mystic CT

I just registered with our local homeschool co-op, Classical Kids Co-op, based out of Old Mystic Baptist Church. Our co-op is made up of about 25 homeschooling families. We meet every Friday from about 9a to 3p. Classes are offered throughout the day and are taught by parents who have a specialty or interest in various subjects such as: History, Improv, Writing, Art, Science, Chinese (yes! we have a native Mandarin speaker and mom), Cooking, Crafts, Chess, and Music, to name a few.

There is an annual registration fee (to cover facility use and insurance) for each family. Besides the classes, we all enjoy lunch and playtime with our friends. For our first semester, we enrolled in Chess, History (Story of the World), and Story Time Stew (cooking with a story). This is just another example of how we stay connected with others who homeschool. For me, it’s a great support group of parents who share in their experiences, lessons learned, discovery of new curriculums, as well as the challenges and rewards of homeschooling.

Classical Conversations Foundations Curriculum

The first level of learning in CC (for ages 4yrs/pre-K through 11yrs/6th grade) is called Foundations. There are Cycles 1, 2, and 3 where one cycle is covered each year. Cycle 1 covers Old World history, Cycle 2 covers Modern World history, and Cycle 3 covers American history. All cycles cover the related sciences of that period. Each cycle consists of 24 weeks. The heart of the curriculum is the weekly “grammar” (or facts or pegs of knowledge) for 6 subject areas: History (8 timeline cards and history sentence), Latin, English Grammar, Science, Math, and Geography. There is a 7th subject/activity that is learned during the weekly group meeting. It consists of a Hands-On Science experiment AND a Fine-Arts activity. Of course, these topics could be incorporated during the weekly review at home. But, it is great to know that enrolling in a Foundations Community, all the supplies are provided for these group activities.

Side Note: Ideally, a student would have completed all 3 Cycles before taking on the additional Essentials curriculum. CC Essentials curriculum is for 4th to 6th graders and is a more intense approach to memorizing the facts. Where Foundations occurs in the morning, say 9a-12p, work continues for the 4th to 6th graders with Essentials from 1p-3p. Those in 7th-12th grade follow a similar schedule learning the CC Challenge curriulum from 9a-12 and continue 1p-3p.

During class, the previous memory work is reviewed and the new grammar (or facts, or pegs of knowledge) is introduced. Because it is a group (think classroom) setting, the teachers are able to incorporate innovative ways of learning such as quiz games and sing alongs. Math is generally skip counting and math facts/rules, therefore CC suggests supplementing with another Math curriculum. Additionally, CC suggests supplementing with a language curriculum, too.

Just a more in-depth look at the 6 subject areas:

History: We learn 8 timeline cards (made by Veritas Press). One side of the card has a picture and title. The other side has in-depth detail and includes references to reading materials and resources such as Kingfisher and Story of the World publications. There are also motions for each timeline cards to help with memorization. There is also a History sentence that is generally sung to a catchy tune. These tunes are provided in the Classical Conversations CD Audio Set. There are 3 CD sets for Cycle 1, 2, and 3. Each set contains 2 Cds – one arranged weekly and another arranged by topic.

Latin: In Cycle 1, for instance, we are introduced to the 1st through 5 Declensions in both Single and Plural forms. There are also catchy tunes provided in the CC Audio CDs.

English: We learn the definitions of the parts of speech and the lists of words for each part of speech. Cycle 1, for instance, are Verbs and Prepositions.

Science: A fact is learned that relates to the weekly Science group activity or experiment.

Math: Consists of skip counting (more catchy tunes to help remember are provided in the Audio CD set), conversions, formulas, and laws.

Geography: Consists of memorizing an area and 4 or 5 features of that area. Review of this involves use of line drawn maps, tracing, coloring of the various features, and writing the names (this makes for great penmanship work, too).

So think of this Foundations stage of Classical Conversations as the Who?, What?, When?, and Where? facts. The How? and Why? are covered in the next stage called Essentials.

Classical Conversations, Hamden CT

It’s official! We’re members of the Classical Conversations family. After attending the Open House Informational, Open House classroom visit and 3-Day Parent Practicum, we decided it was a good fit and enrolled Rilla in the Foundations class. We will meet every Tuesday in Hamden, CT with about 20 other families, some traveling even farther than our 1 hr 10 min drive. Our first “day of school” is September 15th.

Have you ever considered…

home schooling? This was the question asked by our friend who was visiting us one afternoon in the summer of 2008. She observed that Rilla was about Kindergarten age (she was turning 5 in a couple months) and was curious to know if we had even heard of such a thing. At this time, we had already decided that she was going to repeat the 4’s class of preschool, because of her “late” birthday. She was enrolled for the fall, but this question had planted the seed in our minds.

Our friend was currently homeschooling 3 of her in Virginia. After having “done the research”, she had decided that Classical Conversations (founded in Virginia 15 years ago by Leigh Bortins) was a good fit. She went on to describe the academic interests of her kids, how enthusiastic they are of learning, the flexibility of their family schedule, the increased socialization among peers of various ages and from different backgrounds, the support group of CC, and generally how pleased she was. By this point, she had been homeschooling for 4 years and was currently the Director of a chapter of Classical Conversations.

It was eye-opening to hear of her experience. Although we had heard of homeschooling, we had not yet been given much insight to one family’s daily schedule and lifestyle . Some time ago, we found the blog of one family who was traveling abroad with their middle-school aged children. They were homeschooling them and traveling the world weeks at a time. Imagine that – exposure to foreign cultures, ideas, landscapes, experiences with your family and learning as you travel the world?! It seemed exciting and unusual to us. But, if we were to have this type of life experience (actually it seemed more like a unique lifestyle) how could we set ourselves up to make this happen? Between a chance encounter with a family’s blog and an enlightening conversation with a friend did our journey begin…

The following summer 2009, we attended an Informational Meeting at the “local” CC chapter in Hamden, CT. Actually, it is the only one in CT, even one of the first in New England! We met several wonderful, kind, like-minded and like-valued families. We considered that homeschooling could be a grand experiment for us. What could happen in one year’s trial? I mean, it’s not like I’d have to teach Rilla rocket science, nor would she be missing out if we didn’t enroll her into the school system. Besides, Max was continuing his final year of preschool 3 days a week which would guarantee one-on-one time to teach Rilla. This circumstance would afford a year’s time to transition into home schooling. And from there, we’d take it one year at a time.