My Baseball Loving Boy

I'm joining the ABC meme today ~ what fun! Today's letter is B. The thing that immediately pops into my head is Baseball! My six year old is OBSESSED with baseball. I'm here to tell you: You can take a subject that interests your child and turn it into a YEAR LONG study. We're all learning more about the game, the players, and having so much fun together. If you stop by my house any given afternoon, it's likely you will find my son playing ball with friends outside, or (if friends aren't around) he will be playing an entire game by himself!

First, some pictures of my ball player. Then, some resources for other baseball enthusiasts!

A little boy, waiting to parade around Turner Field (home of the Atlanta Braves) - what a magical day!!

Always the serious ball player, getting his batting gloves and bat ready:

On a baseball field trip with Daddy, to see the Minnesota Twins spring train in Ft. Myers, FL - next year they want to make a big trip out of it and hit several training camps!

#4, warming up in the batter's circle... look out world!

When it was evident GMan was obsessed with the sport, we gathered lots of resources to use with him. The first thing we did was a lapbook about baseball. From there, we began collecting lots of baseball cards - he loves to play Topps Attax, both online and with his dad as the board game.

I got online and ordered several baseball readers - if you search Amazon you will find them (many of them were Step Into Reading books, which I love). I also had inherited some Matt Christopher baseball books from my nephew. These are wonderful stories, which a beginning reader can handle alone - and of course they make great read-alouds.

As we started First Language Lessons in the fall, I noticed my son was a little bored with writing common and proper nouns -- but guess what? When I got out the Atlanta Braves program with the roster of players and asked him to copy those proper nouns, he was thrilled! I kid you not - he can now spell each team member's full name!

To get all of us involved, we are working our way through a series of baseball card adventures by Dan Gutman - the first we read was Jackie and Me. We also are avid baseball watchers, so my husband got the MLB TV for our iPad and it allows GMan to watch any game any time - how cool is that??

My daughter loves the sport, too (whew) -- and at one of the first games this spring we got a crash lesson in scoring. I'm thinking about ordering some scoring pads and having us all score a few games as practice. My oldest sister is a baseball fan and loves to do this!

To me, this is a prime example of interest led learning, which is the most meaningful learning there is. Homeschooling allows us to go off on this huge tangent and create some wonderful memories for all of us!

Getting the hang of it

I think it is safe to say that after 5 months we are getting the "hang" of homeschooling. Here is a picture of my sweet girl working on her history timeline. So far we have worked our way from the Incas, Atzecs and Mayans up to the Revolutionary War. I can honestly tell you that I am learning much of this history for the first time. Oh, I learned the facts and a few important dates, but I never really internalized it and understood the real motivations behind many pivotal events in American History. I'm laughing at the pictures of the tv character, Arthur, in the background. My son is obsessed with drawing and he loves to watch Marc Brown draw Arthur. My five year old's rendition is pretty good, don't you think?

I am learning to relax and let learning be our guide. I am also finding that lapbooks are a great way to commit a lot of information to memory. In a previous post I mentioned a shark lapbook from a Magic School Bus chapter book. Here is the finished product:

I'm also very proud of the fact that even though I do not like math, my daughter has been progressing well with third grade math. We have all of our multiplication facts committed to memory, and we are doing well with division. She is most proud of her knowledge of Roman Numerals and a mastery of money -- we like to play store to learn how to make change!

Now, all of this has come with a "price" to our family.... our home is markedly messier, the laundry piles up a little more, and the kitchen table has been permanently transformed to a work table (we would like to convert our playroom to a school room this summer, but no time for that now), and I have less time for myself. But the peace I have from knowing my child is in a loving environment all day where she is learning at her own pace and loving most days makes it all worth it.

It is also amazing to me the people and opportunities God places in our lives to carry us through any season of life. I have a dear friend from church who invited us on a nature walk today. She is quite knowledgeable about the outdoors and had wonderful things to share with us. I have lived in this particular area of Georgia for five years and had never been to this nature area. She provided a scavenger hunt for the walk, and my daughter promptly pulled out her camera to take photographs of all the things we found. Nature is really full of some wonderfully amazing things if you take the time to look around you.

More importantly, it was a time for us to spend time with a good friend, and also time for us to enjoy the mother-daughter relationship and appreciate everything God has given us.

So, here it is 5:15 p.m. and I am hoping the dinner I set out to thaw is actually thawed, the children are playing outside pressing leaves for daddy, and I can barely keep my eyes open because I'm so tired. But, I can honestly say that for now - life is good!

Sharks, Sharks, Sharks!

This week we have been taking the California Achievement Test, so I wanted the rest of our school activities to be fun and stress free. In our "Mysteries and Marvels of Nature" book we had come across a section about sharks that seemed to fascinate both kids. So, I hopped online and did some research.

I found a really cute lapbook about The Magic School Bus book, "The Great Shark Escape". I ordered the book on Amazon and it seemed to be right at a level where both my eight and five year old could enjoy it. (On a side note, two years ago we bought the Amazon Prime Membership, which ensures you get free shipping on qualifying items. Most items do qualify, and we get two day shipping for free. This has been a great investment!) This morning after testing I just gave my daughter a ziploc bag which contained the lapbook directions and all of the minibook supplies she would need. She did the first 10 books in about 45 minutes and learned a whole lot about sharks in the process!

Tomorrow after testing I have some shark books we checked out from the library and I will also let Anna play on the Scholastic Magic School Bus site. These books seem like a great way for me to do unit studies about science that will appeal to both of my children. Check them out!