April: A Realistic Art Lesson

Last Friday was our Art Day, and Crystal had the kids do a realistic picture of this flower vase with the table and window behind it:

Closer look at the flowers

Talking about Hex Bugs before class started

Getting started

Waiting patiently to start

One of our newest families waiting to get started

One of our youngest families

Mommas talking and exchanging ideas

A work in progress

A couple more in progress

Everyone pitching in and cleaning up afterwards

Our pictures were as varied as the students we had and everyone put forth good effort. It was a challenging lesson, but the kids did a good job working at it.

Next up is a field trip on May 3 to Graham Oaks Park in Wilsonville; we're meeting up at 10:30a and bringing picnic lunches for after.

April: National Poetry Month

Every 3rd Friday is book club and I teach "The Big Kids Book Club". My ages are about 7-13 years. Since April is National Poetry Month, we focused on poems this month. I asked the kids to bring a poem to share; it could be one they had written or a favorite one someone else wrote and we started with the kids sharing their poems.

ISBN: 9780763606626

I wanted to do a kind of overview of the different kinds of poems and the different places you find poems. The book above, A Kick in the Head, is awesome because it defines poem types and gives examples. It really helped me structure the class. We talked about haiku because one of our kids wrote quite a few and brought them to share. We also talked about riddle poems and I shared the Sphinx's poem from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and a student shared one from The Hobbit. I talked about a ballad and shared one from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I used the Harry Potter books to help the kids see how poems are every where, not just in poem books.

I went to Shel Silverstein.com and downloaded this year's Poetry Workshop Kit. The kit included several worksheets in several types of poems. This kit would be useful for a group or for a single student to use throughout a poetry unit. There are a few year's worth of kits on the website, too. I focused on concrete or shape poems, and I shared some concrete poems from these books:

This is written from the point of view of a 14 year old girl. It is actually a follow-up volume  called Technically, it's not my fault written from her younger brother's view point. Funny poems we really enjoyed.

Jack Prelutsky was the first Children's Poet Laureate and many think a worthy successor to Shel Silverstein.

So while the kids were working on the Silverstein worksheets I read some more poems.

This is a favorite of my 11YO daughter. It includes The Raven which is her very favorite. This volume is excellent because it includes definitions of little used words at the bottom of each page. I don't know as our younger than 11 crowd particularly liked it, but the older ones did.

This is a Children's anthology that my 8YO daughter loved. It includes lots of different authors and so lots of different styles.

The cover says it all. My girls have checked this out multiple times from the library. Even our boys liked the poem I read from this book because the girl comes to a terrible end.

And of course, I read several out of this book. A couple kids asked for their favorites and I read the poem we used to beg my 3rd grade teacher to read. She was the one who introduced me to Silverstein and I am indebted to her for that.

This is his most recent volume and most likely last as it was published posthumously. If you're a fan of Silverstein, I recommend it.

One more Silverstein that was brought by a student. He is well-loved by many kids.

I sent home the Silverstein worksheets and copies of the pages containing poem definitions from A Kick in the Head. There are many resources online to aid in your study of poetry; these are just the ones I used. I have to admit, I had a great time pulling together this book club and I just skimmed the surface of what I was hoping to do.

~Becca

A Bob's Red Mill Field Trip

In March, part of our group was able to make it up to Bob's Red Mill for a field trip. All the feedback has been this is a great field trip and worth the time. One of our mom's blogged all about it on her personal blog. The tour includes a video of the history of Bob's Red Mill, a tour of the plant, and a hands-on taking a stalk of wheat and turning it into wheat flour.

Introduction of our group

The Woodburn Public Library where we meet most Fridays at 10:30a

 This is a group for families in the Woodburn Oregon Area to connect and support each other in the journey of homeschooling. We hope to provide opportunities to learn, and create friendships and memories for our children. We welcome other homeschooling families to join us for regular activities, such as group games, park days, book club, and support meetings.

We are a fairly new group that formed after months of casual meetings at local parks during the Spring and Summer 2012. We connected first through Facebook, and voted on what we wanted to do as a group there. Starting in September 2012, we began meeting at the Woodburn Public Library every Friday at 10:30a in their Multi-Purpose Rooms. Through May 2013, our routine will be:

1st Friday - Field Trip
2nd Friday - Science (Teacher: Aleshia)
3rd Friday - Book Clubs (Teachers: Diana & Becca) 
4th Friday - Art (Teacher: Crystal)
5th Friday - Service Project

June will start our transition to enjoying the sunshine and meeting at local parks through the summer. I'll post more about that as we get closer. Most of our classes are stand alone so come any time you can. You won't be behind or miss anything. The exception is book club, and I've listed our books for the next months on the right of the blog.

We decided to start this blog to make it easier for new people to find us. Many of us googled Woodburn homeschool, and found nothing. We want to correct that for others. I will post about some of our past activities so you can have an idea of what happens when we meet. 

If you are on Facebook, we invite you to ask to join our closed group, Woodburn Area Homeschooling Families. We keep that group closed because we share home addresses and phone numbers and things like that which we don't mind others in the group having, but don't want available for public consumption. If you are not on Facebook, don't worry! That's why we started this blog. We will post coming events so you can come join us. We'd love to connect with you and your family.