This is a syllabus for my Latin class at Homeschool Out of the Box co-op.

Assignments:

We will be tackling one chapter per week in the Latin for Children Primer, with accompanying exercises in the Activity Book. I will be assigning pages which I will collect and grade. We will mark the assigned pages in class so your child will always know which pages will be collected. Week 1's assignment will come from Chapter 1, and be collected in Week 2, and so on. Assignments will come back with positive comments.

Quizzes:

Each week we will take the quiz in the Primer. If you do not have a blank quiz sheet, don't worry -- I will make copies of my blanks. The children can study the quiz sheet during the week, use their books to help them take the quiz, and even collaborate.

Stamps:

Your child will come home from Day 1 with a special purple folder and fifteen blank stickers. Each of these represents a stamp he or she will earn during the semester. Here is a list of the stamps to earn:

First conjugation verb (amo)
Present tense verb endings
Verb principle parts (any verb)
Sum chant
1st declension noun (mensa)
1st declension noun endings
2nd declension noun (ludo)
2nd declension noun endings
2nd declension neuter noun (donum)
2nd declension neuter noun endings
Adjective endings
1st and 2nd declension adjective
2nd conjugation verb
Imperfect verb endings
Sentence pattern chant

Everyone can work at their own pace, but this will take us through half the book in this first semester.

Flash Cards

We will be making our own flash cards with some of the vocabulary words that can be visually represented. The children can use whatever graphic reminds them of the word. We will be spending some time in class on this, but if they don't finish, they can finish at home. Any visual that reminds them of the word is fine. What's important is that we don't use the English translation on the card. I'd like them to go straight from the idea of the word to the Latin word without transitioning through English. The children will come home on the first day with a pouch to hold their cards.

Labels: language arts, latinclub, lesson plans

You have heard of the Book Arts Bash, right? It's a new writing program and contest for homeschooled writers, with twenty categories across the full spectrum of literary arts from novels to poetry to storytelling, dramatic skits, and book cover art. With five age groups in each category (including homeschooling moms and dads!) the Bash has something for everyone. Shez and I have been working hard to promote and organize the project, in this our "beta" year, and we've run into some major shocks.

First, the judges. Now peel your eyes open. I know you had a late night watching the Olympics. Take a deep breath. Shoulders back. Just have a look at a few of the people we have on our roster of judges for the Book Arts Bash.

Bestselling authors: Sara Gruen, Karen Abbott, Joshilyn Jackson, Dan Elish, Michael D'Orso, Robert Sabuda & Matthew Reinhart.

Industry Pros: Caryn Karmatz-Rudy and Emily Griffin (Editors, Grand Central Press), Kirby Kim and Daniel Lazar (literary agents in NYC), Caitlin Roper (Managing Editor, The Paris Review), Cressida Leyshon (Fiction Editor, The New Yorker), David Lynn (Editor, Kenyon Review).

Then we have homeschooling moms who are also published authors: Julia Devillers, Jennifer Roy, Melissa Wiley. Storytellers Bobby Norfolk, Odds Bodkins, Joel Ben Izzy. Internet Favorites: Ann Zeise (A to Z Home's Cool), Mir Kamin (Woulda Coulda Shoulda), Michelle Mitchell (Scribbit).

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky.

Are you kidding me? Does it not bring a tear of joy to your happy eye to see such glorious support for homeschooled writers from all over the literary world? I cannot tell you how shocked and amazed I am at the response from everyone we've contacted. Many more have said they can't help this year, but asked to be kept in mind for future years. These are busy, busy people who are juggling speaking engagements, new projects, book promotions, and regular jobs, as well as parenting and grand-parenting and the rest of life. They have agreed to help us with our project, to get more kids to try different types of writing and art, and to encourage homeschool teachers to use writing and art across different areas of the curriculum. A big booming thank you to all our judges, the ones I listed here and the other twenty exciting names I have not yet announced.

The judges will be reading the world of all 300 finalists in each of 20 categories, 5 age groups each. All of the adult groups will be judged by industry pros. All of the winners will receive critiques and comments from the judges, glory and recognition on the web site. The younger kids will get prizes too. One early critic of the Bash sourly and openly speculated back in June that the prizes would probably be pencils, and the judge would probably be the lady down the street who edits the local homeschooling newsletter. I can assure you (and her) that this is not the case.

Here's another shocker: This was originally intended to be a rather localized program, reaching out from our home base in Norfolk, maybe across Virginia and down into North Carolina, possibly up to DC. The idea started as a book fair to complement our science fair, to showcase literary efforts of local homeschoolers. However, when we started getting "yes" replies from big names like judges Robert Pinsky and Sara Gruen, we also started getting urgent interest from elsewhere in the country and even in the world, as far away as South Africa and Australia. We had never meant to exclude anyone, but we didn't think people from other areas would really be interested. But they were. So, would we open the contest to people outside Virginia? We decided yes.

Such a swell of interest from such widespread locations led us to really examine the original idea, which was to have an event in Norfolk, at the Chrysler Museum, where we'd invite in one or two visiting authors, showcase the finalists in a reading and a display in the museum lobby, and party down to celebrate homeschoolers' creativity. We can't celebrate finalists from Oregon if the party is in Norfolk. Then there's the question of the visiting author: We've been in conversation with Christopher Paolini's publicist, but will we be able to actually swing a visit from that homeschooled superstar?

How many people will ultimately enter? Is it fair to have an actual Book Arts Bash event in Norfolk when our finalists will be from all over the country and mostly unable to attend? Will we get a great big name for the event? Will Walt Whitman sign on as a judge? What will the prizes be for the younger age groups? Trips to the moon? These questions are all still in the air. As we put together this experience for homeschooled writers, illustrators, and teachers, we are watching it unfold in front of us. As we were shocked with the level of judges we were able to get, shocked with the amount of interest from around the world, we hope to be shocked by more developments as we move into fall.

The entries have started to come in. Will you be among them? Do you have any advice for us? Can you help us promote the project? Are you a close personal friend of Mary Pope Osborne, and can you convince her to speak at the Book Arts Bash in November? We welcome all your comments and suggestions. And of course your best work!

Labels: book arts bash, homeschooling, language arts, writing

Hiya! Are you visiting for the first time? Nice to meet you! Why not tune in to my feed, or take a peek at my Tumblr, or check out the Idea Box for more interesting lessons and songs? Now... on to your regularly scheduled Treasure Island Unit Study:

It's here! The Treasure Island unit study you've been staying up nights longing for! Ready to download and use in your homeschool family, your co-op, or even your regular old classroom! Get out your eye patch and saw off your leg -- it's time to launch the Hispaniola and go search for Captain Flint's lost cache of Spanish gold! Since the book itself is so full of pirates being skewered and shot in their pursuit of financial gain, I'm giving away the lessons for free. Free is the new ARRRRRGHHHH!

This printable 35-page PDF includes twelve lessons to take you and your student through Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. You'll learn ancillary skills like boxing the compass, reading signal flags, and telling time with ship's bells. Write your own pirate story, make an oilskin treasure map, and learn the songs from the novel. Six vocabulary worksheets, one for each section of the book, introduce nautical terms like hawser and capstan along with regular old words like incongruous and dexterity. Click the cover page to get the PDF. No charge.

This seminar was written for use in our homeschooling co-op and classroom-tested on a group of eight 6-9 year old boys. They approved of it, especially the knot-tying, the skits, and the shouting "Yo Ho HO."

Download the entire class now as a PDF! Treasure Island Seminar Or, you can visit the page I created for the parents to download materials as they were coming out, week by week. There you will find individual pages and worksheets. Note: The old versions have been updated and are now new and improved, so if you download the individual pages, you are not getting the latest version! I recommend downloading the full thing.

My pirate class building ships:

And our pirate party at the grand finale, provided by Shez aka Ben's mum:

Enjoy! Send me pictures! Long John Silver awaits!

Hiya! Are you visiting from Homeschool Freebie of the Day? Nice to meet you! Why not tune in to my feed, or take a peek at my Tumblr, or check out the Idea Box for more interesting lessons and songs? I'd love to hear from you!

Update: If you're trying to download the PDF and you get a message like, "This file is corrupted and can't be fixed," it may be that you do not have the latest version of Acrobat Reader. You can download that from this web site for free.

Bookmark this on Delicious

Labels: language arts, lessons, treasure island, unit study

Benny has written three glorious and exotic comic books and has plans to sell them at the Colonial Place Community Yard Sale tomorrow. These each represent the first installment in three separate series he has plotted out. Their titles are:

Jefferson in the Missing Clothes
Potato Biscuits and the Big Bad Sausage
Superdog in Cinderpoodle

He figured out all the finances involved in making five copies of each book at Kinko's, decided to sell them at 20% off at his sale, and figured out what profit he expects to make. He made a sign, he's signing collector cells, and he's very very excited. I'm about to go stuff him into bed, but here are a few links:

He created a blog for his comic books. He named his press "Out of the Box Readers" because he wrote his first comic while hanging out at our co-op, Homeschool Out of the Box.
He created a web site for his comic books.

Here is the sign:



Here are the children holding up some of the products:



If you're reading this blog and you're local to Norfolk, will be in the neighborhood of Colonial Place tomorrow morning, and want to spend $2 supporting Benny's new publishing empire, shoot me an email to jackets at rpsd dot com, and I'll let you know the specifics of where he'll be set up.

And of course I'll blog about it later. :)

Labels: benny, language arts

Don't judge me. This isn't what it looks like! I have an eight-year-old son who has suddenly become deeply entranced with Star Wars. So, he is reading this Boba Fett series, alright? He doesn't like fiction as a category, and I just go with whatever captures his imagination. Right now he is building Lego Star Wars with great vigor and obsession, and he wants to read about Star Wars too. He loves this series, and I can't argue -- they are written by the Hugo and Nebula award-winning SF author Terry Bisson. So put down your eyebrows. I read them before he does, and they're good stories.

Anyway, internet, I have to tell you that instead of just letting my little boy joyfully read these books, I have written some reading comprehension questions for these Boba Fett novels. Yes, I just heard all my unschooling readers thump their heads in irritation! Benny actually asks me for questions because he's proud to be reading fiction on his own again, and it helps me know that he's following the story, not just enjoying the words "droid" and "blaster." Just in case anyone else happens to be in the same situation I'm in, and just in case anyone else needs to somehow label this as schoolwork or even just find out if the kid is really grasping what's going on as he whips through these books, I thought I'd share. Here is a question for every chapter:

1. Who taught Boba the lesson "First things first!"?
2. What are the count's two names?
3. What two things does Boba own?
4. What is special about the windows in the count's lair?
5. What is the count looking for at his archeological dig?
6. How did Boba get himself out of the mucky pond he was stuck in?
7. What happens to distract the count from questioning Boba?
8. How does Boba feel about the Jedi?
9. Why are the clone troopers so much like Janga Fett, Boba's father?
10. What is Candaserri?
11. What is a padawan learner?
12. What is special about Garr?
13. Where are Boba and Garr when they finally find the bridge?
14. After the alarm sounded, how long did Boba and Garr have to get back to the ship before the jump to hyperspace?
15. What did Boba use as a jet pack to push him back to the ship?
16. How did Boba know that the orange light was a ship and not a star?
17. Why is Aurra Sing following the Candaserri?
18. What did Glynn-Beti do on Bespin that made Boba nervous?
19. What does Aurra Sing offer Boba in Cloud city?
20. How long are the days on Bespin?
21. What does Aurra Sing think Boba did to betray her? Who really did it?
22. Who is driving the Slave I during this chapter?
23. Why does Boba need Aurra Sing to help him get Jango's treasure?

Vocabulary/spelling words: custodial, toxic, visage, provisional, salvage, noxious, revulsion, deterred, self-sufficiency, maneuver, temporary, chronos, facilities, prohibited, atmosphere, security, unbelayed, generators, industry, flotillas, solitary, identity, polyglot, muscular, scrim, exotic, amorphous, ambush, reinforcements, sentimental, unaltered.

Hey, here's a political blog you might like!

Labels: boba fett, curriculum, language arts, lessons, reading, star wars

The children have memorized their Assyrian poem. Now we're on to Ozymandias. They're such good sports:

Labels: children, homeschooling, kids, language arts, memorizing, poetry, reciting

We're studying Mesopotamia right now, so for our poetry memory work, we're going to tackle this poem by Lord Byron:



The Destruction of Sennacherib
by George Gordon, Lord Byron

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd,
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpets unblown.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

Here's the down low on Sennacherib, Lord Byron, and the Assyrians.

Labels: history, language arts, lord byron, poetry, sennacherib

UPDATE: This set of lessons is available in full now, downloadable as one PDF. Go check out the Treasure Island Seminar to check that out. :)

Hello! On this page you'll be able to do access and download all the materials your children will be receiving in class, as well as additional stuff to look at and print. I will update this page as new materials become available. Here's a short list of the materials you can find here, and below is a more detailed list, by date.

Class Summary 1: jpg or pdf
Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum: jpg or pdf
Yo Ho Yo Ho a Pirate's Life for Me: jpg or pdf

Class Summary 2: jpg or pdf
Compass Exercise: jpg or pdf

Class Summary 3: jpg or pdf

Class Summary 4: jpg or pdf
A Pirate's Life is a Wonderful Life: jpg or pdf
Vocabulary Worksheet for Part One: jpg or pdf

Class Summary 5: jpg or pdf
Pirate Story Plan: jpg or pdf

Class Summary 6: jpg or pdf

Class Summary 7: jpg or pdf
Pirate Vessels: jpg or pdf
Vocabulary Worksheet for Part Four: jpg or pdf

Class Summary 8: jpg or pdf
Ship's Bells Worksheet: jpg or pdf

Class Summary 9: jpg or pdf
Signal Flags Worksheet: jpg or pdf
Lillibullero: jpg or pdf

Class Summary 10: jpg or pdf
Coin Worksheet: jpg or pdf

Class 11 and 12 available here.

Update May 6:

This week the children really impressed me with their grasp of the salient points from these chapters. As we near the end of the book, things will start to come together, plot-wise, but this part where Jim Hawkins is in the coracle, on and off the Hispaniola, and fighting with Israel Hands, is kind of difficult to follow even for an adult. I continue to be amazed with their comprehension skills and when we sit down to discuss the story they are almost always right with me as we go through the ideas and facts I want to get across. Kudos to you guys for reading with them, and kudos to them for tackling such a challenging text.

When Jim Hawkins returns to the stockade, he is clued in to the fact that the pirates have taken over residence when he hears the parrot saying "Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!" We learned what this phrase means, and the answer was kind of interesting! Spanish dollars were worth 8 reals, and they were made of gold. To make change, instead of making coins with smaller denominations, they would just chop up the big gold coins into individual reals. Each "bit" was worth one real, making each quarter worth two reals, or two bits! Interesting -- I did not know that until doing research for this class.

After we discussed some of the symbolism of the images that appear on coins, how carefully the faces, buildings, animals, birds, or shapes are chosen, the students designed their own coins with interesting results. We also talked about fractions, and practiced dividing our coins into halves, quarters, eighths, but I found this was not challenging for them -- they seemed to already understand these math concepts.

Documents:


Update April 29:

In this class we learned about signal flags and the way they were used to communicate between ships. We studied the signal flag alphabet and practiced writing our names and messages to each other in flags. Keep your eye open for flags in the harbor and also on buildings around town!

We learned a new song today. Lillibullero is an English folk song that has been used and re-used with many different lyrics at different times in history. We put Treasure Island lyrics to it -- a call and response song between the faithful and the pirates as they taunt each other over the wall of the stockade.

Lillibullero was the tune that the pirates were whistling while Dr. Livesey was making his trips with the jolly boat before the faithful took up residence in the stockade. I thought it would be neat to teach the children this song, and it *really* gets stuck in their heads. I may have assigned them to come home and drive you insane singing "Lero lero lillibullero!" Sorry about that.

Here are the documents:


Update April 8:

The men in the stockade had to make difficult choices about what they chose to take with them from the ship, since they didn't have a lot of room in the boat. Some luxuries and even some necessities were left behind, and now they're struggling to survive with only what they have. Today in class we're going to be creating "survival packs" in class. We will determine the bare minimum that we would need to survive in a jungle island environment and pack our boxes with symbols of these provisions and tools.

We will also be learning about telling time with ship's bells, and I have a worksheet for them to use in practicing this. It would be great if throughout this week you could reinforce the "ship's bells" method a bit when you find yourself checking the time or setting a bed time or a time for dinner. :)

Class Summary 8: jpg or pdf

Ship's Bells Exercise: jpg or pdf

Update April 1:

At the beginning of our reading for today, Dr. Livesey becomes the narrator and Jim Hawkins is temporarily out of the story. Today we focused on point of view as a literary device. The point of view from which a story is told determines a lot about the story! We discussed how different Treasure Island might be if it were told from the point of view of Long John Silver. We discussed how real life situations might be seen differently from different characters involved in the action. The boys were incredibly perceptive with this stuff! Well beyond my expectations! They continue to amaze me.

We are learning about different types of pirate vessels in these chapters and the ones to come. I assigned an art worksheet for them to do, with your help, after looking up pictures of gigs, coracles, schooners, and jolly-boats on the internet. I also gave them another vocabulary worksheet -- same as the first, with "pick three to use in sentences" and then "pick three to show in a picture." As usual, how much you do of these "assignments" is up to you, but it does enrich our class time if everyone can participate fully.

Class Summary 7: jpg or pdf

Pirate Vessels: jpg or pdf

Vocabulary for part 4: jpg or pdf

Update March 11:

Chapter 13 provides us with a lot of very evocative descriptions of Treasure Island itself. This is not your fun, happy, blue-skied, diamond-beached tropical paradise! It's marshy, grey, forbidding, and scary. Today we discussed literary settings, and the three elements that make up a setting:

1. The physical objects present, including landscape elements and "things" in view.
2. The time of day. Lonely beach during the day is quite different from a lonely beach at night!
3. The weather.

Without any of these three elements, a setting is incomplete. An author gives us at least an impression of all three, to create a full picture in our minds. We also talked about including other senses besides just vision. The marsh in Treasure Island smelled bad, the heat felt oppressive, there were bird calls, etc.

To reinforce these ideas, we did watercolor paintings of the setting we had read about. This is why your child's picture might have come home looking very dreary. We talked about including the major landmarks, like Spyglass Mountain, and giving an impression of the weather and time of day.

During spring break, I'd like the boys to read the next six chapters. Also, if you're interested in participating in the Reading Rainbow contest for young writers and illustrators, that deadline is March 28. I would love to have some pirate stories entered! They could even use their watercolor painting as a cover, or one of their illustrations.

I realized when I was unpacking my things that in the excitement over giving the boys their pirate mugs (thanks, Amy Moler!) I forgot to hand out the class summary sheet for Class Six: Land Ho! Here it is:

Class Summary 6: jpg or pdf

Update March 4:

What's up pirates and pirate parents? Today we spent some time working on their pirate vocabulary and looking at their homework. I was amazed and delighted to hear them already beginning to incorporate some of these words into their discussion of the books. These children are so smart! You might look over that sheet this week and ask your child which words he remembers, to reinforce his knowledge. If you didn't do this sheet, don't worry about it -- we'll be doing more of these as the book progresses. One of the most valuable side effects of reading real literature at a young age is exposure to interesting vocabulary, so we want to maximize that! We also spent some time talking about the geography of the ocean voyage, from Bristol to the Caribbean Sea. If you have a globe handy, you might point out these places on the globe.

New project:

Storytelling: Today we started a new project! We are all going to write pirate adventure stories! In their folders you will find a worksheet I made to help them start brainstorming ideas. If your child needs help writing down his ideas, you can absolutely be a scribe for him, or he can just draw pictures in the boxes to start thinking about the main points of his tale. In class, they already began telling me how they have different ideas, ones that don't fit in the boxes -- well, of course, that's just what I would expect!! Not at all necessary to fill in the boxes or stay within the limits I've defined -- whatever your boy imagines is fantastic. I'm just trying to spark some ideas with these questions.

Reading Rainbow, a show on PBS, has an annual contest for young writers and illustrators. The contest has some very specific rules, so you will definitely want to look at their web site if you're interested in pursuing that. Check out the local rules and regs at WHRO. I think this is a great contest, and I will be doing this with Benny. I encourage you to investigate it -- not a requirement by any means though! The deadline is at the end of this month. Next week in class we'll be talking more about structuring their stories, so over the break they'll have lots of time to finish working at home.

Ongoing Projects:

Songwriting: Two of our students wrote new verses to "A Pirate's Life is a Wonderful Life" which we sang in class. I encourage everyone to do this! There are lines on your song sheet for filling in your own verse(s) that relate to Treasure Island.

Treasure Collecting: I gave the children their treasure pouches today, in which they'll be collecting coins and jewels in class. They can either keep it clipped into their class notebooks or with the rest of their treasure trove at home. They've begun negotiating with me for trading up to better coins, better "diamonds" etc. -- this is awesome! Deal-making is very piratical. So now in their treasure troves they should have their beads, their maps, and their pouches.

Music: I have made MP3 versions of the three songs we are learning in class! I'm not going to host them on my site or the list, but if you would like to have me email them to you, please email me offlist and let me know.

That's it! Keep reading!

Class Summary 5: jpg or pdf

Pirate Story Plan: jpg or pdf

Update February 26:Ahoy pirates! I hope your reading is going well. Today in class we launched two new projects:

1. I invited the students to write their own verse, or verses, for the "A Pirate's Life is a Wonderful Life" song. I'm working on getting you guys a CD with all of these songs on it, but until then if you're not sure of the tune -- it's the song from Peter Pan. There's no pressure on this -- if they don't want to do it right away or at all, that's totally fine. Some seemed excited at the prospect, some less so, so let's just make sure it stays fun!

2. We will be making a pirate's sea chest later on in the class, but for now we are starting to collect our "treasure trove." The students should now have a treasure map (in an oilskin packet) and a necklace made with beads and shells from the West Indies. Note: The shells are not actually from the West Indies and the envelope is not actually made of skin. :) They will be collecting and making more items, so they'll just need to keep them in a central location at home until we make the chest later in the semester.

The reading for this week is the next three chapters. I welcome your feedback on the speed at which we are going through the book. If three chapters per week is too fast, please let me know. Also let me know if your children are done reading the book! :)

The vocabulary worksheet that the children brought home is a "friendly" homework assignment. We will be talking about it these words in class, and it would be helpful for the students to learn their meanings. If these homework assignments are too much, just ignore them. If you're enjoying them, that's great! They're meant to enhance their understanding of the book, not to be a chore. :) If you have any questions, feel free to email me at jackets at rpsd dot com.

Class Summary 4: jpg or pdf

A Pirate's Life is a Wonderful Life: jpg or pdf

Vocabulary Worksheet: jpg or pdf

Update February 19:

Hi pirates! I hope that by now you've uncrumpled your treasure maps and rubbed them with oil. Ours turned out really old and piratey-looking, but we had a terrible tragedy in our house -- THE DOG ATE IT! The dog ate Benny's homework literally! I guess we should have used goat oil or something, because the olive oil we used was just too delicious for Leroy the Boston Terrier to resist.

If you are in the same situation, or if you just need instructions on making your pirate map because you missed class, here are the steps:

1. On a plain piece of paper, draw a pirate map with permanent marker or crayons. Don't use washable marker! Your map should include the elements we agreed on in class: a compass, labels on landmarks, and an X to mark the treasure.

2. Paint the map with tea. We used pretty weak tea in class, but you could use stronger tea for a darker color. Paint both sides.

3. When the map is good and wet, crumple it up and leave it to dry overnight while crumpled.

4. The next day, uncrumple the map and rub oil into it for a greasy old pirate map.

Note: If a lot of the crayon rubs off during the oiling process, don't worry -- part of the point is that when maps get used and abused, they get harder to read.

Here is the class summary for this week:

Class Summary 3: jpg or pdf

For next week, please read chapters 7-9. Please bring your treasure maps back to class with you so we can all admire them before we put them in their "oilskin packets." :)

Update February 12:

This update is late because almost immediately after our class on Tuesday, I went off on a trip! For those who are wondering, it went very well. For those who are wanting to download the class materials, here they are!

Class Summary 2: jpg or pdf

Compass Exercise: jpg or pdf

In class, we sang our pirate songs, and then covered the "salient points" of chapters 1-3. We learned about boxing the compass, which means reciting the thirty-two points of the compass. We learned sixteen points of the compass, and did a worksheet in class to practice putting these points where they go in relation to each other. For next week, I'd like them to be able to place N, S, E, and W on a compass. We will also work on this in class with some games on our not-quite-round rug. :)

I handed out their folders and they each got a black pencil. It would be great if they could bring these to class each week. I will have extra pencils for those that forget, and I have someone's pencil in my bag from last week, but if they could just put their pencils in the center little pocket on their folders, then they'd always have one. It is not important that they bring the actual text of the story, since we will not be using that in class.

For next week, please read chapters 4 through 6. The children all had amazing recall of the facts in the chapters they had read. You are all doing a great job supporting them as they tackle this literature! They are such bright, enthusiastic, exciting students -- I really appreciate them.


Update February 5:

I realized that I assigned the boys to research one of the piratey terms in "Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum" but did not provide them with a lyric sheet. I had to wrestle my printer into submission to get it to print out the class summary, but it stuck out its lip last night and refused to print the lyrics!

Here is the class summary, which the boys received on paper today. You'll find their chosen pirate names in the blank on the sheet they got in class. You can download this either as a JPG (image) or as a PDF (Adobe Acrobat file).

Labels: book club, homeschool co-op, homeschooling, islands of adventure, language arts, lessons, literature, reading, treasure island

Bookcrossing is a social and literary phenomenon, one of a new breed of hobbies, like geocaching, where new online technologies facilitate old-fashioned connections between people in real space. Have you ever found a book on a park bench, or in a used bookstore, and wondered who had left it there, who had read it before you did, what they thought of the book, what it meant to them? Now, with bookcrossing.com, you can find the answers to those question, and also register and release your own books so you can track their journeys.

The web site is free to join. Members register each book to receive a unique tracking number, which gets written inside the front cover with a note explaining about Bookcrossing, asking the finder to log on and journal his/her find. Then the Bookcrosser "releases" the book, either to a friend, or in an official Bookcrossing zone (in a coffee shop or bookstore typically) or in a wild release -- out in the world somewhere random. Each subsequent finder/reader can log on using the tracking number, to journal where he found the book, what he thought of it, and what he plans to do with it next. So, that's Bookcrossing.

So why do Bookcrossing with children?

1. It's fun.

Bookcrossing is an adventure. Let me give you an example. Yesterday we went out for a walk with the kids on their scooters and me with my bag of Bookcrossing books on my shoulder. We left books in trees, on people's yard ornaments, on newspaper boxes. The kids love to speculate on what places are best to leave books, who will find them, and when. It's like playing Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, without all the accompanying holiday commercialism. ;)



2. Books = Treasure

By treating a book as an exciting treat, like a pot of gold or a hidden jewel, you're drawing a connection between books and treasure, communicating to your child the value of literature, the joy of reading, without articulating it in words. Bookcrossing with your child telegraphs the belief that books are important and the idea that others out there in the world share that belief.



3. Rescuing Books

We get a lot of our Bookcrossing books by visiting local thrift stores, where paperbacks can be had for 25 or 50 cents, and children's books are often even cheaper. When they find a copy of a book that they love, we buy it and Bookcrossing it, and I also usually find copies of classics -- The Mayor of Casterbridge, Angela's Ashes, The Golden Bowl, Mrs. Dalloway -- I've found these all at thrift stores in very good shape. I love the vocabulary the Bookcrossing founder uses: "releasing" a book into the world implies that the story wants to live, stretch out, expand, find new readers. This is a concept the children can understand.

4. Copies are Copies

By registering and releasing copies of a book that you have in your permanent collection, you're showing your child that there are different editions, different versions, different copies of every story, and illuminating the fact that the story itself, the characters, plot, language, and idea, does not reside in any particular physical object. This is something that I found myself really grasping only when I had been Bookcrossing for a while. All my boxes, all my shelves of books do not really contain those beloved novels. They're just copies. They're all just copies. You can have your favorite copy, but there is a fluidity to any great text which has been reproduced many times, which lives simultaneously in all these versions. There's also a better appreciation for the rarity of limited editions, because you can put that limitation on the context of the larger world of books. Only 1500 copies of a small press run makes more sense when you realize how many "Age of Innocence"s there are floating around out there.



4. Connect with Community

Our local "Bookcrossing Zone" is located in a free book exchange shelf in an independent coffee shop down the street. Bookcrossing gives us a reason to go. We eat their ice cream, drink their Nutellla Lattes, switch out Bookcrossing books, and chat with other locals. Beyond this, Bookcrossing solidifies that strange, anonymous, but very visceral connection that you feel, reading someone's margin notes in a book you're enjoying. It's a way of reaching out, touching minds with the person who's going to pull that book out of the fork in the tree. Of course, when you're out Bookcrossing, there are also lots of chances to talk to other people about what you're doing, and meet their dogs.



5. It's Educational!

When you register a book on Bookcrossing, there's a space to include a review, which your child can write for the books he/she chooses to release. It's a book review with a purpose, because you're actually giving your opinion about the book to someone who may read it in the future. You can talk about not giving away the ending, you can talk about plot summary, you can talk about how to be critical without being harsh.

Another aspect of Bookcrossing, besides leaving books around, is finding books that others have left. If you want to go "hunting," you can check the web site (or receive email alerts) for books that have been released near you, and then you can go and look for them -- in parks, in malls, in hair salons, bookstores, coffee shops, and of course our favorite: trees.

Bookcrossing, like Geocaching, makes you look at the world in a different way, like you are able to see a secret map laid over the familiar landscape of your neighborhood. Kids who love adventure, who love books, who love treasure hunts, will love Bookcrossing. And if you sign up on the web site, send me a message! I'm "lostcheerio" and I'd love to connect.

Labels: activities, bookcrossing, books, homeschooling, language arts