Satori Smiles

Satori has been obsessed with learning her U.S. States. She wants to play the US State iPad and board games we have, but she needs to know a bit more than just their names and locations. My plan is to rapidly go over two states a day and only learning the capitals and abbreviations (she already knows locations) to get her up to speed quickly, but this is causing her pure agony. She wants to learn them faster! She wants to learn more about them – state flowers, state nicknames, state trees, state history! I am not prepared for all that, so we’re sticking to learning the two states a day and once that’s done, we’ll then go over them again, but more thoroughly, probably learning a bit of American History along the way.

In the meantime, she’s been re-reading her state books and writing about the 50 states in one of her notebooks. She’s so excited about it, she gets up early in the morning to start writing and works on it late at night. I do not expect or require this.

She’s pretty thorough, incorporating things she knows about each state even from books we’ve read months ago. She woke me up early today to show me her writings on California.

While this is cute, bound notebook pages like this can fall out over time, and it’s not as “cool” as if we did this in a more planned way utilizing a different method…

I have a feeling that she’d like to incorporate actual Notebooking into her homeschool studies, so I started researching some notebooking resources. Had I known she was going to set out to do all this on her own so quickly, I would’ve printed out the State Notebooking pages NOW that I had planned out for our more thorough state study later this spring.

NotebookingPages.com 50 States Complete Set w/bonuses

If you want to start a State Notebook, NotebookingPages.com offers the most complete set in their Bundled 50 States Complete Set State Study. It’s just $29.95 for the entire bundle, or free if you’re a Treasury Member (which I found out I am this year, as I bought a lot last year). I am completely overwhelmed with the amount of features in this package! Just view a few sample pages and you’ll see what I mean. I think it is totally overkill for a six year old, but Satori is different in that way that she’ll love all these pages to write on.  If you don’t need the whole bundle, you can buy each state separately for $3.95.

Each individual set of state notebooking pages includes:

• Notebook Cover (1 pg)
• Map, Nickname, & Motto Page (1 pg)
• State Facts Reporting Page (1 pg)
• State Timeline Recording Page (1 pg)
• State Symbol Pages – bird/flower, tree, flag, seal, song (6 pgs)
• Map Pages (2 pgs)
• Template Pages for History, Government, Famous People, Inventions, Tourism (2 pgs each)
• Template Pages (Blank) – for your own topics (4 pgs)
• State Symbol Pages (Blank) – draw your own symbols (11 pgs)
• Cutouts for Notebooks or Lapbooks (3 pgs)
• Travel Journaling Pages (4 pgs)
• 2 pgs of Info, ideas, directions, and state facts.

In addition to the individual state sets, you’ll also get:

• 13 Colonies Themed Pages
• National Memorials, Monuments & Parks
• State Birds, Flowers, Flags & Seals
• USA Pages
• Washington, D.C. (same as state individual sets)

Wow! If you’re a notebooking family, that’s the place to be.

The Fifty States Copywork & Fun! by homeschool bits

If you find that huge set overwhelming, I found a simpler, yet still appealing Notebooking/copywork set, which happens to be one of CurrClick’s most popular offerings (it’s a Best Gold Seller). The only setback is that they are releasing them by volume, and have only released the first 7 out of 10 volumes. Volume 7 was  just released this February 2011, so hopefully the last three volumes won’t be far behind. You can get the first The Fifty States Volumes 1-7 [BUNDLE] for just $3.50. It goes alphabetically, so this covers Alabama through Ohio. You can also buy each volume of 5 states separately for $0.50 each. It gives a color summary of the state, then a fill-in-the-blank summary, a flower to color, word search, full color flash-cards, copywork, page of facts, blank copywork pages, and more pictures/info about the state.

Here’s an actual page on Arizona that she loved filling out.

Free State Notebooking Templates

I found this 50 States Notebook Squidoo page by Jimmie about her 50 States Notebook. It’s full of state notebook resources. Some links are outdated, but we found a lot of good resources.

I printed off her free Notebooking Page Template. We plan to fill out just the first page. We’ve actually started using this now. I’ve asked her to hold off on filling out some of the spaces, I am not sure if I want to have her draw the items on her own or if we can paste a picture.

There are so many resources for a great state study. I’ve started a US State Study page (work-in-progress) that is a list of our favorite state resources that includes books, games, websites, etc…

Today Satori had her first Top Secret Adventure in Kenya (by Highlights), and she loved it! I had this subscription back when she was four, but at that time, there was no way we could have done it. Your child needs to be able to read, write, and figure out puzzles pretty well to take full advantage of this. Their suggested age of 7-12 years is pretty right on. So I cancelled it after getting the first four countries. After trying it again this year (Satori is 6 but can read/write), we’ve renewed our subscription!

Your first package will be free (except for shipping and handling) and ours consisted of the Japan kit, a world map, passport and stickers. From then on, every five weeks, you’ll be sent a new country (for $13.95 plus $3.45 S&H). You get a folder with your puzzle and guide book, plus a white resealable bag with a puzzle. I’m going to review our experience with the Kenya package “The Nail-biter in Nairobi”. When you get your package, your child won’t know the country until it’s opened.

The puzzle will say “Open Me First”, so open that and complete the puzzle. The puzzle was 36 pieces. Read the puzzle to find out which country is covered, and what your Top Secret Mission will be.

Your child should then find the country on the World Map and stamp the passport. Next she’ll look at the list of villains. There are six, and you’ll notice a lot of plays on words.

You’ll separate these into 6 full-color cards with pictures of the villains. One of these suspects is the person involved in the crime your child will be solving!

Throughout the experience, your child will be solving Who Did It, What Was Stolen and Where It’s Hidden. In the 33-page Kenya Puzzle Book, here’s a sample puzzle, where you find the suspects at a Nairobi market. One is missing, so you can cross that suspect off your list.

You’ll also get an awesome 33 page book – Guide to Kenya. It’s full-color and very informative. Although the puzzle book is consumable, this Guide Book is one you can keep on your shelf for reference later.

You’ll need it to help solve several puzzles in the puzzle book. We learned so much about Kenya, such as geography, culture, history, foods, plants, animals, language, and more.

There were 14 puzzles total in the puzzle book, such as word puzzles, mazes, crosswords, math puzzles, trivia, word search, etc… Each one eliminates either one suspect, item, or place.

In the back of the book, you’ll be crossing off the list as you figure puzzles out. Eventually, the mystery will be solved! It took us several hours to solve the mystery, that included a few breaks, and Mommy skimming the fairly extensive guide book to help with the answers. (I promised people a review, and didn’t’ expect it to take this long, so I gave Satori some help with reading.) If your child is reading  and searching for clues with no parental help, I would suggest breaking it up into several days.

For more information, check out their Sampler PDF file and their main page. It’s pretty detailed. Their customer service is great. I was able to cancel two years ago once I realized it wasn’t for my 4-year old, and just as easily reinstated my service. The lady was very kind when I said I got a few countries but lost a few. She said don’t worry, we’ll send you all the ones you lost for free (as I paid for them once), and will skip the ones I already have, and my service will continue on with the countries I haven’t received yet. How convenient! She also gave me a list of the total countries they are offering.

Top Secret Adventures Country List

1. Japan (with welcome kit) – “The Riddle of The Rising Sun”
2. Australia – “The Dilemma Down Under
3. Mexico – “The Mystery South of the Border”
4. Kenya – “Nail-biter in Nairobi”
5. France – “The Left Bank Baffler”
6. Great Britain – “Trouble on the Thames”
7. Egypt – “The Puzzle in the Pyramids”
8. Brazil – “The Ruckus in Rio”
9. China – “Mayhem on the Mainland”
10. Italy – “The Colosseum Calamity”
11. Spain – “The Incident in Iberia”
12. India – “The Pickle in Delhi
13. South Korea – “The Snafu in Seoul”
14. Argentina – “The Problem on the Pampas”
15. Germany – “The Bummer in Berlin”
16. Canada
17. Russia – “The Menace in Moscow”
18. Peru – “Emergency in the Andes”
19. South Africa – “The Cape Town Caper”
20. Greece – “Panic at the Parthenon”
21. Costa Rica – “The Impasse on the Isthmus”
22. Sweden – “The Stumper in Stockholm”
23. Thailand – “The Boggler in Bangkok”
24. New Zealand – “The Kiwi Conundrum”
25. Ireland – “The Error in Eire”
26. Ecuador – “The Query in Quito”

Later this week, we should be getting our first Which Way USA? packets on Florida and Texas, so I’ll provide another review on that Highlights subscription as well. I’ll also give a Little Passports description later this week.

Satori and I have been on a big geography kick. I read The Little Man in the Map last year to her, and again last week. She has been drawing maps, such as this one featuring the little man. She has been fascinated with maps ever since we started Story of the World last year. We played a few geography games a few weeks ago and she amazed me by knowing the names and locations of all the US States. I never taught her, we just have maps all over the house that I guess she’s memorized them. She’s been playing a few iPad games on geography and really wants to learn more, so I’ve been busy trying to whip up plans for that.

Satori already loves all her geography workbooks, so much in fact, that we’re tried out most of the popular geography workbook series up to grade 3. We have started a new series – MCP Maps, Charts and Graphs C, which is great, because she loves reading the lesson and learning about geography on her own. We’ve also enjoyed the Steck Vaughn Maps Globes Graphs series and Scholastic Success with Maps (out of print now).

We’re stepping it up a notch this spring, to study the US States. She really is motivated to learn more about the states then just their shapes and locations. So we’re going through a quick one-month study of all the states, and will learn their capital and abbreviation. That will be alphabetically, and yesterday we started with Alabama and Alaska. Then, we’ll take it a bit slower, adding State Birds/Trees, Nickname, Major cities, etc… I want to take that study at one state per week, in order by region. We’ll then take a break learning the states and for grade 2, we’ll start studying American History, going over the states all over again in order of statehood.

I’ll be sharing our resources used in this study in a future post.

We’re also going to study World Geography more. We’re going to use The Core method of “blobbing” and eventually draw the entire world by memory. We started last week and I will show examples soon. I also made a map sheet with the 5 great circles if you don’t want to hand-make your lines everytime. I’ll share that in an upcoming post.

What else is new? Satori has been so excited about typing! I’ve created a blog account for her and soon you’ll see blog posts written by the little girl herself! (Approved by me before they go live.)

I’ve also been a bit fanatical about getting an educational game collection going. I will be posting reviews on educational board (and iPad) games on geography, math, science, language arts, art, and more soon.

I was just presented with the map of “The Hole World” this morning out of the blue.

She said I think Hawaii is a spelling rule-breaker after she asked if she spelled it right.

We finished our last geography workbook and now we are going to try Maps, Globes, Graphs: Level B. We’ve done a few geography workbooks, so far they are all pretty similar, all are colorful and appropriate for this age. Starting this spring, she can even read them on her own and write without help from me. We first started studying geography December 2009. This summer we started our 3rd workbook, this one is Level B.

This is the first few pages in, as you can see, she is writing in all by herself! I think it’s cute to see her little handwriting and the way she spells. (forist = forest, woch birds = watch birds, mountens = mountains)

A few of the classical education books I’ve read have all emphasized Geography, so we’re happy to do once a week, in addition to what we are learning in History.

I haven’t been the best teacher this spring. We skipped several subjects for entire months, unfortunately, all the creative and fun ones. Science, history, art, music, and math… yes we consider math creative and fun when we use RightStart. I am excited to  start in again on the fun activities and projects, and of course photograph and blog accordingly!

My excuse for slacking this time – I am on a mega huge health kick this spring, and it seems that all my energy went towards that. On the plus side, I weigh less than I’ve weighed in at least the past 7 years! Satori has been such a great sport and is eating very healthy too. We hike a lot and are just having a blast this year.

Here’s some updates on how our lessons are going.

RightStart Math A

Last month we finally learned the “proper” names of numbers. One of the most appealing aspects of RightStart is that they emulate the Asian way of naming numbers: “ten 1″ (11), “ten 2″ (12), “5 ten 8″ (58). This makes so much more sense, and comes in handy in understanding place value and visualizing math concepts. Now that Satori understands numbers in this way, she now can also say them in the normal way – eleven, twelve, thirteen… twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, and so on. I loved the lessons that taught her the new names. Now I know how we came up with “eleven” (left one) and “twelve” (two left) and so on. We still use the special AL Abacus every day we do our math lessons.

We’re also in the middle of learning clocks. Here’s our little gear clock that came with our RightStart A kit. I love how they taught these lessons as well, such a great job! As we move the longer blue minutes hand, the short orange hour hand will move as well. Behind the blue hand, is a display that shows night or day, making it easy to show if 12:00 is midnight or noon.

Of course we finish up math lessons with a fun math card game, they have clock cards, time cards, hour cards, and Satori is totally thrilled to play these games.

Every now and then they have her do a short worksheet, which is no problem…

Reading

Reading is one subject we finished all our lessons in this spring, as some days we’d do multiple lessons. My goal was to have her reading chapter books this summer, we shall see on that, but she can read any children’s picture book. It surprised her that she could pick up any of her books and read them to us!

This summer we will have finished all of Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading and then she will have the tools to tackle reading her favorite chapter books like Roald Dahl, Avi, and so on (right now we are reading Ragweed).

The past month she learned to tackle two-syllable words, and so much more. Here’s what we did today – Lesson 190: The Soft Sound of the SC Blend. A short and sweet lesson, which is great on a day like Saturday when we don’t even plan to do any lessons!

Reading is becoming more and more effortless that she can read her own workbooks and answer them. How fun! Here’s her Geography workbook:

We are almost finished with Lollipop Logic. Most of this workbook was so easy, we probably could have done it all in a few weeks easily. But I’ll be progressing her logic work to be more challenging for her now. Here’s a page she did yesterday, this is one of the easiest pages. But I show it because I think her coloring is getting so neat.

Have you noticed a lot of geography posts lately?

I recently finished reading The Latin-Centered Curriculum by Andrew Campbell. I had to purchase it used, but I did get the second edition version that was written in the past year. You can get new in stock at the Memoria Press website, including an eBook version.

It has given me several things to think about for our classical education style of homeschooling. I already knew we have been following more of a neo-classical style, but wanted to see what this book had to offer. I won’t be following it 100%, like everything, we’ll take what we like and leave what we don’t. I appreciated the inclusive manner the book spoke to me, and am considering adding a few more subjects to our lineup now. (Namely geography and I’m still debating about a few more I’ll post on my self-education blog soon.) I read this book to help convince myself to include Latin in our homeschool subjects, but mostly what I came away with was the urge to simplify and streamline our studies. Due to my personality, I would find it hard to let go of a subject, but now I’ll be looking at all our subjects with a critical eye and deciding whether they are necessary. Ironically, mostly I came away compelled to add several new subjects to our already full schedule!

Anyway, now you may understand why the sudden urge for geography in our household! We now have geography books, workbooks, coloring books and more coming in the next few weeks and I hope to officially study geography once a week from now on. Satori has missed studying it, as we did a quick burst of geography lessons a few months ago. I’m very open to any suggestions at this point – geography for the K-2 years.

Geography has been a priority for me all along, I just figured we’d include geography in our history studies. For Christmas, all I wanted was a high quality globe. Thank you Mom and Dad (Satori’s grandparents)! We totally love it. We carefully chose a globe that will reflect our family’s style. We wanted a colorful, raised relief large globe. One that would allow both adults and children to stand up, twirl around easily, and familiarize ourselves with the world.

So our Trafalgar globe is now a great addition to our household.

If the globe ever needs an update, we can get a new ball at a greatly reduced cost.