Science Add-Ons To Curriculum

Science Add-Ons To Curriculum

October 22, 2022

One of the advantages to homeschooling is being able to pick curricula.  Most of us would agree that our children can recite movie lines – sometimes even if they’ve just seen the movie twice. 

We used BBC Nature with David Attenborough for science for as long as we had access to it.  It showed nature in its entire splendor.  Of course, as with Carl Sagan’s Cosmos Series, we had to reflect on their errors in timeline and regarding the theory of macro-evolution.  We would say things like, “look at how amazing God’s creation is!” and as they got older, invite them to ask and investigate the question, “why do these scientists believe in millions of years instead of thousands?”   

In depth studies of animal adaptations and human interference in our food (animal and plant husbandry) have led to the understanding that “kinds” of animals adapt by losing a recessive trait rather than by adding a completely new trait.  This led to my kids saying “oh yes, I believe evolution happens, do you understand the true meaning of the word evolution?” (Spoiler: it simply means change) But have you ever been able to add anything to a creature or plant?  We have bred plants, raised animals (Becky bred chickens to get specific traits or colors), watched and observed the genetic traits pass in Guinea Pigs, chickens, and parakeets.  

Imagine their surprise and excitement when we discovered a video series that discussed the same adaptation and genetic issues they had seen in life!

We discovered The Ark Encounter website along with Creation Museum and their affiliated YouTube channel called “Answers In Genesis!”  Wow!  They are not afraid to take on difficult subjects and ask and investigate so many fascinating things about our biology, animal adaptation, DNA structures, explanations of the how and why behind so many scientific theories.  It is a wealth of information. 

The first single episode we watched (it was almost an hour long) on dinosaurs in the Bible had my youngest five captivated the entire time.  Even Theadora, who interprets every video in terms of “Paw Patrol” at the moment, sat on the couch with her snuggly blanket the entire rainy Sunday afternoon as we watched the long dinosaur episode and three others!  The podcast episodes are more for those with longer attention spans.  The lectures and Ark Encounter and Ark Exploration videos are fascinating. 

Well-done science videos help my younglings to remember the subject matter better than simply reading it in a textbook.  Apologia science (our core science) textbooks are amazing because they are bright and have experiments that bring the science to life for the students.  Adding videos as supplements to our coursework aids in bringing the words off the page and into “real life;” we are a visual people.  We like to touch, taste, see, and feel the world around us.  If you can’t physically see the Grand Canyon with your own eyes, it certainly helps to be able to watch a video showing it.  The tools available to my children far exceed those I had access to 35 years ago.  I still default on books, but I am totally willing to include new tools to help them answer tough questions in any subject. 

Check out the Ark Encounter website or look up “Answers in Genesis” on YouTube.  You will be amazed at the wealth of scholastic information in their videos.  Second best to sitting in the actual lecture hall (actually, Louis thinks it’s better because we can pause it, pull out books, and do our own discussion and additional research as they talk). 

I’ll type later about our super history supplements (also free from YouTube!) we’ve discovered.

Thank you for reading and I hope this helps you explore some cool new teaching tools!

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

House Hunting – Turn Negatives Into Positives

November 11, 2021

Turn Negatives Into Positives

I make that a command for myself.

When we first ran our information into a loan company portal, I felt it wouldn’t happen. I kept asking for everything I could check myself. We check credit reports constantly, we knew our shortcomings and explained everything we knew about up front trying to make sure we wouldn’t sink another chunk of our savings into an attempt and get rejected.

Last week, after being reassured falsely that I’d done everything, I was told about a secret report I can’t access that reported a “transfer error” where loans I had paid had been sold without someone passing that information along to this secret report place. My credit report showed all these loans as “paid in full.”

Doesn’t matter. This “transfer error” would take a lawyer thousands to fix and a minimum time, supposedly, of ten months, if it could be fixed because they don’t care if you “choose” to overpay… Oh well. Life.

So 20 days from what would be our closing and getting into a little house of our own, we can’t. One doesn’t have long enough work history and another has a “transfer error” that can’t be fixed quickly.

I have to find positives.

First, in less than two years, all three “issues” with our joint loan would be moot. Awesome!

Second, in two years’ time, maybe I can find a property for us to build on and keep us from any kind of loan (you know, mortgage means death and pledge, literally) and Louis said he didn’t want a mortgage.

Third, we can build our perfect simple house ourselves!!

Becky looked at me in the van last night (she’s been the most excited to leave our present situation) and said, “obviously, this isn’t what God wants for us.”

Bam! Absolute truth, but can I agree?

Flatly, once I look at the positives: Louis doesn’t want a mortgage, check, I want to build our own perfect house, check… I almost get excited.

I feel sad that I wasted so many people’s time, frustrated that again, I allowed my kids to believe we would get something we all want desperately but can’t, and sad that our savings dropped due to this. I honestly don’t care about errors, I guess we are all human.

I can only move forward: this means, making sure my children understand the importance of having everything written down. I will make paying their student loans my first priority. If it is in my power to help them better their lot, I will.

I challenge myself to move forward, learn from the past, and believe the best is yet to come… It is. Although it saddens me that my oldest daughter is an adult and we don’t have a house, I know our family is home whenever we are together!

Thank you for reading!

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

My New Gym!

August 22, 2019

Our New Gym!

Have you ever moved? 

YES!  I can remember 19 different homes in my early years.  My husband and I have shifted houses 10 times in almost 17 years. 

I am intimately aware of moving.

I know just how many boxes can fit in a 5×8 moving trailer.  I can look at your furniture and see it morphing into place inside a moving van like blocks in Tetris – just with some blankets and pillows strategically placed here and there for padding.

WGV Gymnastics (which yes, I call “my gym” even though it’s not mine, I coach there… but I love it!) just moved from their old facility to the new one at 135 Center Place Way, Saint Augustine, in World Golf Village area.  (They literally moved across the pond!)

We helped with loading a trailer and cleaning.  Our monster was the pit – do you know how many giant trash bags are needed to clean out 15,000+ 6”x6”x6” foam pit blocks?  We have no clue, but it’s upwards of 500.  And that doesn’t count those wrapped up in the tarp! 

Our new facility has amazing new equipment, huge cooling fans, the climbing rope (Kimberly’s favorite), and I can’t wait to teach classes in the new preschool area!  Our after-school program is very nice.  We have two vans that pick children up from area schools. (Mill Creek, Pacetti Bay, and Palencia Elementary, to name a few – check with the office if you want to find out if your school is covered!) In this program, you can pick which days you need pick up, and your students will have assistance with homework, crafts and games to entertain them, and snacks while they wait for you to pick them up!  Since we are a gymnastics facility, the bonus to the program is access to specified gymnastics classes.

Dozens of people helped out in this massive move.  Teamwork.  That’s why I only know a small facet of the whole picture. 

We finished by sorting all the blocks into good, bad, and ugly. Good went to the new pit, bad to be shredded to make new mats, and ugly to the trash bin. Our teamwork system was separated into groups of various sizes doing specific tasks: One pulled bags up out of the pit, one opened bags, one put good blocks neatly into uHaul boxes, one bagged up the bad & trashed the ugly, and one took “train cars” (aka uHaul boxes loaded with pit blocks) to the door to wait for the “engine” (aka the truck to the new gym).

Lucas and Jillian loaded the bags out with a rope (before it got reassigned to another task) while Kimberly tosses bags up to be sorted! This teamwork went on for hours.

While I only know the pit blocks intimately during this move, I am super excited for the new facility and our growth from here out.  Come and see us at 135 Center Place Drive at WGV Gymnastics!

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Finals Week

Cramming for Final Exams: My thoughts on this week.

December 3, 2018

Finals Week

Whew!  I’m finally on my computer again!

We have one internet computer (mine) and for the past little-over-a-week since the Monday after Thanksgiving, the oldest two girls have commandeered it for uploading papers, researching for reports, and taking online tests.

This is their “finals week” for this semester!   (This semester flew by.)  Christina is also studying for CAP and her Cyber Patriot competitions.

So today, I’m up way before them and attempting to finish a few blog entries before they start this hectic week.  (Honestly, most of their stuff is already done, but they will likely be checking and rechecking before they submit it.)

Finals week reminds me of life.

Sometimes, we seem to get really busy with everything else but don’t study our Bible or spend as much time with God as we should.  Then we get convicted of our mortality (i.e. we’re getting older, we attend a funeral, or we get sick) and we study like we’re unprepared students cramming for finals week.  We should be living our entire life “cramming for finals” regarding studying the Bible, praying, and listening to what God says.  That’s like the prepared student who budgeted their time over the whole semester and as “finals week” comes, they just double check stuff, submit the final draft of xyz report, reread xyz chapters, and go into the exam room with a confidence that they’ve done all they can do.

I want to live my life being prepared for the spiritual things.  This includes: taking time to help others, reading my Bible, applying the Word to my life, teaching where I can, and setting a positive example for those who are watching.  (If you are a parent, at least your kids are watching.  Even if you aren’t directly responsible for littler hearts, there are others watching your life that you don’t even notice.)

Our “final exam” may be a long way off, but isn’t it better to live our life doing our best all the time instead of just at the end?

So, as I listen to the chatter of my girls discussing various student attitudes leading up to and during “finals week,” I am convicted to follow the same advice in life that I gave them regarding school; study thoroughly, spread your assignments out over the whole term, and then you won’t be rushed during “finals week.”

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Our Curriculum 2018

A Peek at our curriculum circa 2018.

July 31, 2018

Our Curriculum

One of the most popular questions I get asked (in regard to my children and homeschooling) is “what curriculum do you use?”

So, here’s what our jumbled “organized chaotic” curriculum looks like for 2018:

Honestly, most of what I use depends on the style of the learner and what books I have.   My core for the first few years has been A Beka Book Arithmetic (K5, 1, and 3) with A Beka Book Phonics (K5, 1, Phonics and Language 2, the first third or so of A Handbook for Reading) and A Beka Book writing (K4 manuscript, K5 cursive, 1, Cursive Writing Skillbook 3, and Penmanship I or II if needed for extra practice).

Beyond that, “traditional” style learners who get the most from reading a textbook and repetition of problems (my two oldest) like A Beka Book’s math program so mine goes (5th, 7th, Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, either personal or business mathematics).

A Beka Book’s language program actually starts in their “Phonics and Language 2” book (this is new last year and I LOVE IT since it combines phonics and language cohesively – instead of me doing the same thing by switching papers around from their previous first grade letters & sounds and language).   So I usually go: Phonics & Language 2, Language B or C (I like B/5th best, but C has more practice writing formal documents), and then we move to any vocabulary book they choose (I’ve used A Beka, Hanson, Pearson, and even the vocabulary list in our 1960s dictionary!) while writing an essay, poem, or report daily (this is usually a paragraph or essay for a history, science, or literature assignment).  You learn grammar, spelling, and vocabulary by reading and writing.

For more tactile learners, we’ve discovered that Teaching Textbooks works very well.  Those who have mastered the basics (5th grade math or up to basic operations) can pick up with Teaching Textbooks’ Pre-Algebra and perfectly understand it.  We’ve only used version 1.0, since I buy everything used, but am told 2.0 has the same content without trading out discs.  I won’t use 3.0 because it’s all online and our internet access is spotty at best (according to Teaching Textbooks, it has the same educational content as 2.0 so for those with good internet and toddlers who like to play with the big kids’ CDs, 3.0 is probably the best option).

Basically, I make sure each core subject (Grammar/Language/Reading & Math) builds easily for the particular student who is using it.  The girls choose their own textbooks for Science (the 3 “required” by me are by Apologia: high school Biology, Chemistry, and Physics), History (I have two “required” textbooks, one is by Eggleston originally published in 1884, and a high school level two-semester course on US History), Social Studies, and Electives based on their interests starting with 3rd grade (paragraph-writing level).  I use those to reinforce grammar and writing skills.  Three students can be (and often are) using the same history or science textbook but end up with varying levels of reports.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

My Civil Air Patrol Cadet

July 12, 2018

My Civil Air Patrol Cadet

One day Louis was driving past the Saint Augustine Civil Air Patrol building and saw cadets marching around in uniform.  He stopped, asked them what they were, and raced home to tell Christina that he found the perfect activity for her.

She is my flying nut.  She loves planes.  Just like Lucas loves anything with wheels – she loves anything that flies (except mosquitoes and no-see-ums).  Better said; Christina loves anything mechanical that flies.

She’d studied famous flying people, physics, beat her way through math, and taken a helicopter tour for her birthday.  She’d talked with pilots as Louis shuttled them to the airport from their hotels.

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She had the time of her life when some friends took her to the Jacksonville Air Show! (Photo credit above & below – Hannah Clark & crew)

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The poster from that day was the first one tacked to her wall.

So, she “visited” the CAP meetings with Louis for three weeks – but Wednesday morning after her first meeting, she was like, “Mom, I’m going to join Civil Air Patrol.”  Of course, Christina’s decisions are never small – “I’m going to get to officer rank and they have all these things I can learn so I can get into programs to help me learn to fly…” and she continued talking me through the book and information someone had given her.

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She is a scrimping saver and refused any help with CAP dues, fees, or for her first uniform.  (This is a point of pride for her – to be able to cover all her own expenses.  She saw God’s love in action, though, when she thought she wouldn’t be able to go to winter encampment but our amazing church family gave her enough money for the trip and the extra items needed!)

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CAP gave her a grant to go toward buying her first blues uniform though – something about earning a certain rank.  (These are my borrowed shoes for her first day wearing blues.  Her real ones have a one inch heel and no decoration.)

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Lucas loves Christina’s uniform – especially the caps (aka, covers).

Thanks to CAP, Christina has matured greatly in social interaction (you can order younger siblings around all day, but it is different ordering someone else around!).  She is more confident, more physically active, emotionally and physically stronger, and enjoying the company of respectful, goal-driven, encouraging fellow cadets.

Our family has learned some new terms: water is hydration, anything not a uniform is civies, a funny backpack with a water bag inside and a fishtank-hose looking straw hanging around the cadet’s neck is a camelback, among others.

 

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We’ve swelled with pride watching our cadet march in parades (even if we only get a picture of her back half hidden behind another cadet)…

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…assist veterans in her blues…

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…and attend encampment as a student…

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…and staff.

She’s constantly challenging herself to new higher limits – one day, I’m sure, she’ll touch the sky!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

 

 

 

 

Goodbye Spring!

April 27, 2018

Goodbye Spring!

Jaquline says “goodbye spring!” as we drop Christina and Rebeccah at their final exam.

“Goodbye spring?” I ask.

“Yes, goodbye spring classes,” Jaquline laughs.  “Now we have summer classes!”

I smile.  Yes, today is the final day of spring classes for the dual enrollment students.  Although Kimberly, Jaquline, and Jillian don’t really transition into anything different at this point, Rebeccah is doing two refresher arithmetic courses over summer while Christina gets a week break and jumps into Psychology and more algebra.

For our family, spring classes shifting to summer means transition from every day at the college campus to later classes twice a week.

The transition brings expectation: we “kick summer off” with an awesome event where we are an annual vendor.  Our textbook money and hopefully some residual book sales will come from this year’s participation in the Alpha-Omega Family Fun Fest.  (If you are reading this before 8pm on April 28, 2018, come see us at Francis Field, Saint Augustine!)

We have a family trip planned.  Christina goes to summer encampment with her fingers crossed that she’ll be accepted as a flight sergeant.  Kimberly is training for running in any kid-friendly 3K or 5K Aunt Katy or I find.  She’s super excited to get to run with her sister-cousin!  We are expanding our chicken flock and livestock base.

We always find things to be excited about and wonder what God has planned for us in each new season.

I silently pray for God’s wisdom and guiding hand in our transition and exciting new season we are entering.  Thank you, Jesus, for giving me a moment of reflection!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

Homeschooling Challenge: Their Own Pace

April 12, 2018

Homeschooling Challenge: Their Own Pace

One of the challenges I’ve discovered in our home school journey comes from my philosophy to never keep one student back for another.   I allow them to advance at their own pace – if this means we spend eight weeks constantly studying and restudying one concept until we find a way to understand it or flying through a subject because it instantly clicks, we learn until we truly understand.

For instance, in our classroom (aka my kitchen table) right now:

Kimberly is working 7th grade arithmetic, 5th grade language, writing reports from a 4th grade science book, and studying high school vocabulary,

Jaquline is working 3rd grade arithmetic, 2nd grade language arts, a cursive writing K5 workbook, and 4th grade vocabulary,

And Jillian is working 3rd grade arithmetic, 3rd grade language arts, using a K5 manuscript writing practice, and reading 2nd grade readers.

This example would be easy if Jaquline and Jillian were twins.  Nope.  Jaquline is 8 and Jillian is 6.  Jaquline chooses to do “the bare minimum” (aka, only what mom assigns) for bookwork.  She is more interested in tagging along with her 12 year old sister when she’s watching her online Mastering Biology lectures.  She can tell you all about Mendel’s peas (the latest lecture subject) and can explain genetic color crosses in chickens (Rebeccah and Kimberly’s continuing project) and how to avoid genetic defects (aka crooked toes, hooked beak).  When she does her division, she does it all mentally!  She never has a carrying or borrowing error in operations (this was the most common error for mom, Kimberly, and Jillian).  She reads unabridged Tolkien and Hodges and loves them.  She has a very active imagination and writes with a neat calligraphic scroll.  So, when she is working, she does very well.

But she just isn’t interested in sitting down for bookwork.

Jillian, on the other hand, is at the “gung-ho” stage of elementary school.  She’s been doing workbooks since she started reading and flies through her work.  She sometimes has to go back and redo a concept (like carrying and borrowing numbers, greater than and less than, etc.) but once she’s gone through it for five or six times, she gets it and then we will hear her “teaching” Lucas or her dolls the newest understood concept.  Jillian often does the next days’ lessons just because, “I want to do more.”  She even does extra work from the back of the books “for fun!”

Jillian loves doing sit-down bookwork.

Improperly handled, this “younger child in higher grade” could cause contention in our home.

With the first instance where we had a student (our second one) surpassing another (our first one) in a subject, it caused concern for my husband and I because we didn’t want to “make learning a race” or “pressure” anyone.  Then we noticed the elder asking the younger how to figure out a problem.  They weren’t racing each other or fighting, one wasn’t irritated that the other was “over” her: they didn’t see it that way.  They treated each other as individuals and helped.  So now, we don’t worry about what “grade level” one child is at compared to another.  We continued to allow them to move through our “curriculum books” as they are able.

I’m careful to emphasize to my students that they are not in competition with each other; they are in competition with themselves.  Learning is competing with yourself.  We are to work to the best of our personal ability and strive for our best.   This is the same for anything in life!  We are to edify (build up) each other.  We don’t brag because that is cutting others down.  We rejoice when others succeed.  We rejoice when we succeed.  We are happy when we help each other.  We are thankful when others help us.  As iron sharpens iron, so we are to help each other and build each other up.

When love guides your life and reflects in your homeschool world, you foster a culture of mutual education where each student is treated with respect.   Your students learn to help others, rejoice with others, and ask for assistance when they need it without fear of ridicule.  That is part of my ultimate goal – teaching them to live in love.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Home School Organization

A little about our home school organization.

November 2, 2017

Home School Organization

So I’m one of these crazy people who can’t stand anything to be out of order.  I use to freak out trying to keep the house looking like a picture in a magazine…

This was until God smashed me with the realization that while life is in my house, it will never be perfectly clean.  (Note to self: NEVER be PERFECT!)

We also homeschool.  This means in addition to the normal kid toys, clothes, and assorted paraphernalia, we also have a stupendous collection of schoolwork items.  This all has to stay organized.  (Organization has paid off repeatedly as the girls move into high school level courses and dual enrollment.)  So I looked for an easy way to keep organized.

My first step at this organization was the purchase of three letter envelope sized Boxes upon which I wrote “Christina’s Schoolbooks,” “Rebeccah’s Schoolbooks,” and “Kimberly’s Schoolbooks.”

These boxes hold all current textbooks, notebooks, and school “tools” (pencils, pens, crayons, etc.) for that student.  I only had one “student” at the time, but the littler girls felt big to have their crayons, art supplies, and activity books in a “school box” too.  They also aren’t too heavy for a 5-year-old to tote around.

The students are responsible for their box and keeping their books and supplies in good order.  (Mom “issues” normal supplies like notebooks, primary crayons, pencils, pens, erasers, mathematical instruments, and books.  Usually, they like to buy their own “extras” like markers, colored pencils, or work pens inscribed with their name.)  This helps with responsibility.

Bingo!  I scored a short, sturdy wooden bookshelf that held my boxes perfectly!  **One (Jaquline’s) is missing in the picture, but that’s because she was using it!**

This allowed me to add the next 2 boxes (they were only 1 and 3, but Jaquline kept asking about her school box) and a third set for notebooks, charts & flashcards, and shared coloring & art books.  (Granted, we have a full-size bookshelf with art supplies and games and three full-size bookshelves with the supplemental school books – mostly history, science, technology, readers, and encyclopedias.)

Later, Rebeccah decided we needed a “non-reader” system on our boxes so we added “pictures” to the labels.  She likes everything organized too.

I created a book I call the School Planner.  (Rebeccah calls it “The One Book” as in “The book to rule all school!”) **Deceptively plain, isn’t it?**

It has everything school related in a very easy, homeschool-mom-friendly format.  (This means I can quickly enter information and file papers within my 10 or 15 minute time crunch.  I love organization, but hate spending time on it.)  One file drawer turned into the workbook paper file with one file for each student’s work by school year.  They look like steps and Kimberly has called them “the steps to college.”

Our School Shelf still holds everything current for 6 students (okay, Lucas isn’t a student yet, but he does have a backpack, crayons, and two coloring books in his school box).  Our School Planner sits on top of the School Shelf, and two sturdy boxes (perfect size to keep the workbooks snug and dust-free) sit on the other side against the wall holding all of the “next-ups.” (Core curriculum workbooks to be used by the next student.)

Our School Planner is organized by student in 4-week snapshots on each page.

On these pages, I keep a running list of reading books completed, courses completed and their GPA & weight (for high school-level), extra-curricular projects completed, and educational extras like field trips, community service, or practical learning.  The first page in my planner is my “base grade level guide” (texts I expect each student to pass at said grade level).

At the end of each school year (for us, the last Friday before our annual evaluation), I spend about an hour or two and compile all this raw data into a concise one or two page “report” I call a school year summary.

I attach a reading book list (gathered from the same data!) and if any high school level courses were completed, I add them into the student’s high school transcript.

For portfolio evaluations, I just grab the School Planner (reports go in the front in age order) and the file folder for each student for that year.  It’s easy and keeps me mostly stress free.  After evaluations, I rubber-band the School Planner pages together and set them in the file drawer with the previous years, print out the new pages with the changed dates and continue… the story of each school year in less than 1.5 inches of paper. The copy of their evaluation report (the copy of the official report on file with St Johns’ County) goes in a file folder with their name on it.  This has all evaluations and communications from the school district.  (This was a life-saver when the county changed computer systems!) **Lucas’ folder doesn’t have his name on it yet because they get to pick their colors**

Everything important with our school is in one long file drawer and one shelf.  This makes school time fun and easy – and organized!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

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