Black Hills Homeschool Pod

Black Hills Homeschool Pod has now closed.

Our little family is embarking on an adventure to a new home in Pittsburgh, hoping we find and create a community as dear to us as our pod friends.

We wouldn't have been a pod without you, and I thank you all for believing in a dream that I got to realize with your families. Black Hills Homeschool Pod opened in January 2022, and had 2 1/2 years of classes together.

In May the kindergarten pod kids put the bulbs in for this dahlia, and it's sunset colored blooms have been opening for a few weeks now. It is now August, and thoughts turn toward the school year ahead. This new adventure is bittersweet, we will miss you all, and we thank you for being our community.

I will never call you and ask for money or personal information!

Yesterday I'm pretty sure I received an AI phone scam call at our business #. I tried to keep it as short as possible to ascertain whether it was an actual parent calling me before I hung up. It did get probably 5 -10 seconds of my voice. Please be aware should you receive a spam call with an AI voice that sounds like mine.

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These rising 3rd and 4th graders wrapped up a year studying the Age of Ideas with an "experience history live" field trip to Keystone Historical Museum, complete with costumes and a 1903 classroom experience and museum tour. Benky's was the perfect ice cream stop after our field trip.

Parents please share pics from our classroom time in comments if you caught a few good ones, it would be fun to hear what your kiddo's favorite part of the school experience was.

Ice cream party, yearbook making and signing, a game of wagon wheel and 20 minutes at the neighborhood playground. It was the perfect last day of pod for the year.

I cannot wait until September to hear about everyone's summer, I miss them already.

Last day of in-class class for this bunch! Montana Historical Society created a public resource, "Discover Lewis and Clark," that gave us some fantastic tools to learn about the Corps of Discovery and the "Lewis and Clark" expedition.

The students each read exceprts from a non fiction historical student narrative which we "jigsawed" to piece the part of the story together. We are developing the ability to take away the key point from a paragraph or short excerpt, and will continue to hone in on this next year. We covered "How it all began," to "The Louisiana Purchase," "The Mission", "With the Mandans", and finally "Westward to the Pacific."

We then used a powerpoint slideshow with artists' reenditions of the voyage. This was a beautifully assembled experience called "Step into the Picture," again big thanks to the MHS! Students practiced "close reading" by examining a piece of art while I read a short excerpt. They traced the journey on their own map as the images told the story and took us through the timeline.

When preparing for this lesson, I discovered a beautiful picture book story about York, the unsung hero of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. York was an enslaved American who was the property of Clark--who even after his immense contribution to the expedition's survival, received no pay, land, freedom or recognition for his contribution. He was the only person who was not a volunteer on the expedition but is in great part responsible for its success. If you have a chance to check out "The Journey of York," I was able to borrow it from a neighbor library through the Rapid City Public Library, and it's a phenomenal part of the story that brings the entire expedition alive.

We had big energy today--so we opted for a walk outside (photo by a flowering apple tree). I'm proud of them for making it through the lessons presented, I wish we had gotten to the picture book but they needed to get some outdoor energy out. I hope you'll check it out over the summer.

"Bloom" by Deborah Diesen is about the seaons and growing up, and such a sweet tribute to how something small blooms into something beautiful. The kids helped me plant dahlia bulbs in the front flower bed. I can't wait to hear their stories from summer when we gather again in the early fall, and hope for some beautiful dahlias to bloom for their return.

We dedicated today to a recap of all we have done this year, singing some of our favorite songs, dancing some of our favorite dances, and playing a few of our favorite games. The four seasons and months of the year have been touchstones throughout the year. I read poems from "A Child's Calendar" by John Updike as a guessing game for which month the poem was in reference to.

Passports came home with kiddos today, I'm excited for parents to look through these and see where the kids have "traveled." The kids also drew "This is Me In School" portraits to paste into the yearbooks we'll create at our party next week.

As we sang "Five Green and Speckled Frogs" and "There Was an Old Lady" with my favorite felt story puppets, I tried to really soak up this special Kindergaten age with these kiddos for one last Kindergarten class, it's such a magical age.

The worms in the dirt were probably the kid's favorite part of class today ;-)

There was a May snow shower this morning, so it felt like a tea party kind of day. We've worked through a lot of difficult and inspiring material this year. I set the table for this crew to enjoy together and also make for an extra special read aloud.

There is so much to cover during the first half of the nineteenth century, I'm realizing that I can just share a few windows for the kids to peer into and find sparks to carry on exploring further on their own. Once a week will never be enough!

Today's read aloud, "Down the Colorado" is the story of John Wesley Powell. Powell was an abolitionist and a naturalist. He led an expedition down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon and provided the first written mapping and surveying of the area. He is considered one of America's greatest conservationist heroes.

His story gave us the context to define what it meant to be an abolitionist, that there was a Civil War in America, and in a *very* introductory way, to consider the conflict between westward expansion and the protection and preservation of the American West--both the use of its vast natural resources, and the dignified treament of its native peoples. There was so much in this story....I hope some seeds for further thought were planted.

The kids also used embroidery thread and needles to sew their own felt pouches.

"No one is without power. Everybody has the capacity to do something. Even if you never have the chance to see or touch the ocean, the ocean touches you with every breath you take, every drop of water you drink, every bite you consume." -Sylvia Earle

Today was pajama and bring your favorite stuffie day.

Our read aloud was "The Brilliant Deep: Rebuilding the World's Coral Reefs" which tells the story of sea conservation pioneer and marine life protector Ken Nedimyer.
The book has a wonderfully accessible premise--all it takes is one. One coral gamete to start a colony in the ocean, one person to make a difference.

It is just once a year under a full moon that coral release their tiny eggs into the ocean; the earth is a place filled with wonder.

In preparing for this lesson, I learned about the alarming loss of our planet's coral reef systems. NASA reports that 70-90% of the world's coral reefs will be gone within these kid's lifetimes (by 2050) at the current rate of loss.

We used Sylvia Earle's non fiction book "Coral Reefs" (she was the oceanographer we learned about last week) to establish a few facts. Earle believes that knowing is the key to caring, and it's been so special to share a bit of the wonder and beauty of the ocean with these kids.

See link in comments for a 4 minutes introduction to coral for parents and a conversation starter with kids.

We sang "There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea," and had a rousing reprise to "The Sailor Went to Sea." The kids used pipettes and coffee filters to design their own beautiful coral.

For the past several weeks, our Age of Ideas pod has researched and modeled landmarks of the world (both natural and manmade). Today their work culminated in a short presentation report with an introduction, 3 facts, and a "fun fact" conclusion.

We packed as much as we could into the last hour on the Industrial Revolution. (They got a real kick out of the "Job switching" I Love Lucy video, link in comments, they'd love to share it with you).

We did a brief recap on what life was like and how goods were produced and shared before the Industrial Revolution, and then considered how the onset of factory production exacerbated the labor/management conflict. Watch the short video (in comments) they used to answer questions about profit and working conditions.

We did a simulation activity in assembling paper rollerskates from start to finish individually vs. in an assembly line model (with
"Worker Rules" from Lowell--I got to pretend to be the nasty overseer). There was over a 4 minute difference in average production time! We talked a little about how the factory method would be atractive from a business standpoint, but how it put skilled workers at a disadvantage.

We finished by breaking into two small groups to imagine what work in 2049 would be like--this was a little rushed at the end, but this is what they came back to the group with:

-too many buildings, not enough nature
-continuing polution
-cutting all the trees down (so limits put in place about how many can be cut)
-workers paid a fair wage
-making sure everyone is heard--it was really important to one of the students that people were making a fair amount of money.

We have a lot to work on in their lifetimes, but we'll do it together!

It was storming outside, but we were snug inside starting our unit on the world's oceans! We learned the fun song "A sailor went to sea" and did some fun "ocean yoga" poses.

Our read aloud was "Life in the Ocean: the story of Oceanographer Sylvia Earle" (see comments for a fun National Geographic video about the : Oceanographer!) We also used Earle's book "Sea Critters" to decide which ocean animal we wanted to use in our aluminum foil relief craft today.

The glue didn't leave a strong impression like I had hoped, but the kids made the most of the project and created lots of fun ocean creatures.

We practiced listening for information during our non fiction read aloud on oceans and undersea life.

Our "World Passport" pod traveled to our 7th and final continent today--Antarctica! What a trip around the world it's been. I'm excited to spend the next several weeks learning about the world's oceans.

We read a really sweet picture book, "Polar Opposites," about the unlikely friendship between a polar bear and a penguin who once a year plan a trip to Galapagos where they meet "in the middle." This is such a sweet way to introduce the idea between opposites, the north and south pole, as well as a fun wrap up discussion about how people can be different and still be friends, and in fact enrich our lives in doing so.

Our non fiction read aloud, "The Arctic and the Antarctic: Polar Opposites" helped us identify the differences between the Arctic and the Antarctic. We covered some pretty sweet geography terminology today, and also did a step by step sketch/painting project of a penguin using lines, patterns, and color blending.

We wrapped it up with a quick playground stop, these kids are ready for spring!

I had the priviledge of learning from Bree Oatman last summer as part of the Ignite STEM kit's teacher inservice. She is a teacher with the Lower Brule schools, and has been awarded a fellowship to go on an expedition to Antarctica!

Our kindergarten pod is learning about Antarctica today so I had to share. We will be following her adventures.

We are proud to announce the 2024 Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship cohort! These thirty-five exemplary pre-K-12 educators will embark on expeditions around the world to enhance their knowledge with hands-on, field-based experiences they will bring back to their classrooms, communities, and professional networks.

National Geographic Society

📸 by Alexandra Daley-Clark Photography