Classical Education Audio

I'd love to say that I accomplished a lot physically over the weekend, but one overzealous medication sat me down hard. I am still learning to balance this whole auto-immune thing, and I am surprised by just how bad I can feel after feeling so great earlier in the day. I saw the nurse practitioner at my rheumatologist's office and made an adjustment to the medication that already is helping to deal with the side effects.


The boys worked on cleaning out the garage and cars on Saturday while I rested. Ellie even contributed, mostly by running around and drawing with sidewalk chalk.


While they were all busy outside I was busy with the printer and headphones- I worked more on my homeschool binder for the next few terms and organizing my part of our materials, including printing out several lists I've collected or made to help me know at a glance where we are with things.


I also listened to several lectures (and took a lot of notes) over the weekend while I sorted and printed and hole punched: 


Why Latin and How to Teach it in Grades 3-6 by Dr. Christopher Perrin {scroll down to the section titled Audio Lectures (MP3)}


What Are We Doing To Our Boys? by James Daniels


The Long Haul: On Morning Time by Cindy Rollins


Eight Essential Principles of Classical Education by Dr. Christopher Perrin {This is a youtube video- the beginning of a series. Be prepared to take notes!}



My brain is still in processing mode over a few of these lectures. I went back through my notes this morning and filled things out a little more fully from what I remembered, and added thoughts on how the application might look in our homeschool. Summer is always a great time for us to try on a new routine for awhile and see how it works out before adopting it permanently, so I envision a few changes to begin around June.

Homeschool 2014: Planning

We started our last official term for this school year a couple weeks ago and we'll be moving full steam ahead through mid-May to officially finish the year so that we can take a break (read: still do math and read for an hour every day) for about 6 weeks before starting the new school year in July.


Back in February I started working on our 2014-2015 school year in order to be ready for our local homeschool conference this past weekend. When I plan I tend to gather every bit of information I can, then whittle it down to what is useful and necessary. I re-read the books that mean so much to our homeschool to remind myself not to view curriculum as a solution, but as a tool. What do we really *need* to learn? Not much it turns out. Books to read and paper to collect our thoughts, mostly, but a few excellent tools can really smooth the process.


This year my brain is in overdrive as I've been trying to absorb so much information these last several weeks. It all started with reading Sarah's wonderful series on Teaching from a State of Rest. If you are a classical homeschooler (or even begin to bend that direction) and you don't subscribe to Sarah's posts, go over there right now and subscribe and read. But be warned- it's a slippery slope toward thinking longer and deeper about your homeschool than you had ever thought possible.


It was her writing and her Listen Up podcast and audio lecture links that led me on to Circe Institute and listening to back episodes of Quiddity and to listening to Andrew Pudewa and Susan Wise Bauer and so many more.


At the conference this weekend I also went to sessions with Steve Demme of Math-U-See fame that focused on family discipleship as well as sessions on our state laws and teaching your child to write. I walked the hall and looked at all the curriculum,  I talked with vendors about why their curriculum may or may not be a useful tool in our home, and I checked out all sorts of opportunities for my kids in extracurriculars and part-time schooling options.


My head is crowded, y'all. It's a mess of educating methodology and trying to translate it to practicality.

What I know right now:

1. We have some tools in place that are working wonderfully and getting the job done for the kids I am responsible to educate. We use some curriculum that isn't necessarily classical, but it is really getting the job done and with good attitudes from my boys. I don't need to change something that is working, even if it doesn't fit the classical mold perfectly.


2. Latin. The more I read the more certain I am that we should we studying Latin together NOW. We're going to start in June when we have a lighter schedule so that we can give some focus to getting started. In the meantime, does anyone have a suggestion on best ways for me to learn latin at my own pace as well (meaning faster than the boys)? I've seen recommendations for Wheelock's and Henle so far, but I'm just beginning my search on learning latin as an adult.


3. Starting my morning early is the best benefit I can give our family right now. It gives my slow-to-respond body time to get moving before the rush of kids needing breakfast, and I still have enough time to enjoy my coffee while I read Scripture and study a little. I'm able to write in assignment books and lay out the boys' Scripture readings before they even come out of their room for breakfast.


4. Starting our mornings focused on listening helps our day go more smoothly. I refresh our classical music playlist on Spotify every so often to focus on a new composer, and while it does seem like they aren't listening most mornings, I know it gets in their heads at some point because someone will say "hey, Mama- you play this one!" every once in awhile. We move from listening to music into listening to French and then listening to a read-aloud or two. I'm looking forward to adding Latin listening and Shakespeare readings over the summer in this morning time.

What I'm still pondering:

1. A writing program for my upcoming 3rd grader, and whether or not we need one. I'm looking particularly at Writing and Rhetoric and IEW's Student Intensive A program. I think Ender would particularly like watching the IEW videos on Mondays and then working on an assignment through the week. But can we accomplish the same thing through letter writing, narration and dictation?


2. History. We really like Story of the World, but I don't feel like we are retaining much as we read, narrate and do map work. I know something needs to change here, but I'm not sure what. More support reading? A timeline book?

Planning Ahead: Homeschooling 2014

It's that time of year again- February is over, but spring isn't here yet. One spreadsheet is everywhere in our house, printed fresh every few days (after a gazillion changes) so I can pour over it in spare minutes.


It's all about school for the upcoming year.


The thing is, we're still in the thick of this year, and now up to the part of the year where I start to feel like we'll never "be done", which is a little silly. See, we school essentially year round with breaks taken as needed through the year. We're never "done", but it's nice to move through material and end up with a stack at some point that shouts, "You've completed something big!"


So, I'm refreshing my schooling brain so that I can think good thoughts and finish out this year strong, while getting ready for next year.

The two books I come back to every single year are The Well-Trained Mind and Real Learning. Combined they provide the backbone for education in our home.


If you only take one thing from Elizabeth Foss's book Real Learning, let it be the literature lists. We use her lists for audio book selections when possible, and read-aloud if they aren't available on CD. They are rich and lovely book lists, utilizing picture books into later years- which I have not seen on other lists. Picture books are so very valuable in the later years and we shouldn't confine them to the 2nd grade and under crowd.



The Well-Trained Mind is my reminder text to keep the main thing the main thing. It is so easy to get into a "buy the best curriculum" scurry instead of recognizing that education is best when it is direct and uncluttered. The Well-Trained Mind forums can be an extremely helpful source of information. I'm currently researching elementary French options for next year, and there are dozens of threads to search through on that one topic that have provided almost as many options as there are posts. These forums are the first place I go to when I need to get started on researching a school area we want to pursue. I also appreciate that many posters there are considerate of budget and will mention costs associated with programs.



So for now, I'm trying to refocus the rest of our year, March- May. I picked up the Astronomy book from Memoria Press at my local curriculum store last night and we're going to focus heavy on science for a few weeks, as well as spelling. We will still study our other subjects as well, but we're going to put some focused work into spelling and science since those two subjects have gone a bit lax over the last 2 months.

Quiet

{It's tradition now to start a "selfish" project on Christmas day after all the Christmas knits are complete. 2013= socks} 

Christmas time is always a paradox around here- fast paced and crazy just as often as it is slow and quiet. We finished most all of the out-and-about celebrating before the actual holiday, and this year I even had everything wrapped and ready to go before Christmas Eve. Blessings on the online shops who kept me a little more sane this year and helped me in being prepared well before Christmas day. Brian was the only one to go hat-less at Christmas, but I'll remedy that soon.


We took last week off of school, of course, but we are back to business today. We missed some of our hours earlier in the month for doctor and dentist, so we're using this week to catch up a bit. I've already got a bit of a curriculum bug going for next year, so some of my free time lately is going to looking at curriculum possibilities for 2014-2015. It's not even 2014 yet, and there goes my brain, thinking ahead to next year.


I'm hoping to get back to a more regular posting schedule here, but truthfully there has been very little to share. I'm not able to knit much lately due to issues with my left arm and shoulder so there's been nothing to post. After some less than satisfactory test results with my primary doctor I've been referred on to two specialists- January is essentially going to be spent in waiting rooms it seems. I'd love to say it will just be more knitting time, but I will have to wait and see if my body will cooperate on any given day. I was able to do a few inches on a sock over the past few days, but I never know if I'll wake up the next day unable to grip. Even typing is a chore as I mostly type 1 handed these days.


I'm needing to save my left hand mobility for work (since a violinist/pianist is pretty useless without her left hand), so I'm investigating some different knitting styles to see if I can make a change that will help for the long run. I currently knit english style- switching to continental is out of the question as it would rely even more on the left hand. Portuguese knitting looks promising, but there is still a lot of left handed involvement. If anyone wants to suggest a style you know of where the left hand is essentially stationary please let me know. I'm willing to try anything no matter how obscure!

Schooling So Far

:: If you came to school at our house, you would have to contend with the often sighted Table Top Toddler. This is the only table she can climb on (our dining table is bar stool height) but we spend so much of our time in the family room/school room that she is on that table often, no matter how vigilant we are about pushing chairs in and making sure markers/scissors/staplers/glue sticks/temptations are put up.


:: It reminds me of another Table Top Toddler we had around these parts not too long ago. How is he in FIRST GRADE this year???


:: Have I mentioned yet that this school year is rocking so far? I'm really happy with our materials, our schedule, and how we're working through things. I felt like we really hit a good place of learning in fun ways but also covering basics in the second semester of last year, and have continued at a happy rate this year. We're reading a lot, making lots of art, and getting out for field trips while still covering math and other basics.


:: Our schedule changed a lot this year, and all for the better. I'm teaching in the studio less so that we have more time to learn together. We cover math and language arts first thing in the morning and then we read and make and play until I head into the studio to teach. We're reading from Story of the World and a giant stack of science books, and whatever books come home with us from the library.


:: Read Alouds are a hard thing to find time for around here with Ellie always on the go, but they are REALLY important to me- important enough that I'm admitting that I'm not doing a great job of fitting it in and conceding that audio books are the way to go for now. So far this year we've enjoyed Tales from the Odyssey by Mary Pope Osborne and we're almost to the end of Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White. Next up is Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder. We especially enjoyed the voice work on Tales from the Odyssey- nothing like a British accent from a Shakespearean actor to really bring a story to life!

Adjust

I went to sew with friends on Saturday mornings and was rudely interrupted by a migraine. I had to leave early and go to bed for much of the rest of the day. The boys were able to help Brian outside all afternoon cleaning up one of the overgrown beds in the backyard. Ellie went happily back and forth, outside for a bit and inside with me. She would get very upset if she caught sight of the tractor outside through the window. Ellie seems to believe that the tractor is her personal carriage.

I made some adjustments for school this weekend and gave each of the boys a reading placement test. Ezra's reading is coming along nicely and he's a little bit ahead. Ender is doing great as well and reading a few grades ahead. I'm having a hard time deciding what to have him read- I want to have him read at the level he can read, but I don't want him to read topics that are too mature for him. I'm pulling back in a few other school areas and doing more in others. I always seem to come into the new school year with a little too much to do, see what the boys enjoy and then adjust, making sure we are still covering what needs to be covered.


We're definitely enjoying our reading list so far. I tried to include as much science as possible for Ender which has made him a lot more enthusiastic about getting started each morning. He knows that as soon as he finishes math and language arts in the morning it's on to snap circuits and reading about scientists and how machines work and projects... and for this kid who doesn't *love* school, it's exciting for me to see. Reading is now easy for him and that has made all the difference in the last few months. It makes all of schooling easier and he can really be self-led in his project work now that he can read and follow the directions himself.

This Week

This week I started the summer session in the studio and we went to approximately 8 MILLION baseball games. Baseball season is almost over and we'll be a little sad when it's done, but I won't be sad about not having to figure out how to keep Ellie up until 9:30/10 on game nights. She's in that weird transition from 2 naps to 1 nap, where she needs different things on different days.

On the Needles... 

The Boneyard Shawl is still in progress, I'm working on another cardigan for Ellie for this fall as I have time, and I have the first of the grey and coral Regia socks on the needles. I find myself mostly working on the Boneyard Shawl, but taking the sock to baseball games.

I read...

Still Game of Thrones, but I got a solid 90 minutes of time in last night and made a ton of progress. I'm still trying to get it done by tomorrow night, but not sure I'll get it done. If I run out of time hopefully I can queue it back and get it back quickly.

Just Keep Spinning…

I'm trying to get a little time with the spindle each day to "warm up" for Tour de Fleece. I'm not doing anything special for the Tour and I certainly don't expect to finish all of the wool I have to spin, but I do want to make sure to spin for at least 15 minutes each day of the tour and gain more experience.

Learning all the time…

We spent pretty much all day Monday cleaning out the school room. We threw out a TON of paper (my boys produce artwork the way they breathe) and I stacked up the finished workbooks and binders from this year. We made sure all our games have the proper pieces and everything is together, we re-stacked books on the shelves and cleaned out the cabinet drawers.

I'm working on coming up with an organization system that will be a little more self-propelled. Some things we tried this past spring really helped- one basket per kid for the books each kid works out of, a plastic tote for the art that they make (that we clean out at the end of each month) and one central place for all crayons, markers, pencils and pens have been great. 

The problem that needs a solution is the stacking. I'm super guilty of this too- it's certainly not just the boys. By the end of the week we end up with stacks of things- narrations, library books, lesson plans... and by the end of the month it's crazy. So I end up using the whole last weekend of the month to take care of all of this and I'm tired of devoting a full day to this. We (the kids AND I) really need to work on putting everything away right away.

Garden...

The strawberry plants are gone, eaten almost down to the ground. My mom needs me to take about 10 strawberry plants from her to thin out her giant patch of about 75, so we'll "re-stock" but I need to figure out who is eating the plants.

I'm hoping next year to turn up more ground for more garden space next year, and once we determine the right size I want to get some fencing up.

In Stitches...

I picked up a few simplicity patterns for Ellie and also printed off a pattern for diaper covers since this girl is wearing dresses a LOT lately. If I show her two outfits she will *always* choose a dress.

I'm hoping to get some time in today to cut patterns and fabric and maybe to get started with the sewing. We only have 3 baseball games over the weekend- maybe I can sneak in an hour with the machine then?

I didn't get to...

The Studio organizing project I'd hoped to tackle. My library of music is seriously out of order and much of it is piled in recital-prep stacks from last April. Maybe next week?

This weekend...

3 baseball games and more school planning for me. I'm finishing up all the list making and once that's done the school year feels like a breeze. I can just turn in my binder to the right subject, look at the next thing and do it. So easy!

What You Need to Learn

I'm in the midst of planning a big picture plan for the next year, and then detail planning for the next 4-6 months. The boys are happily "on a break" so that I can use our usual schooling time to plan a bit.


I'm building book lists, figuring out if a piece of curriculum will contribute to our schooling or hinder it, and ultimately deleting half of what I originally added to the list.


There is just so much out there to aid in education, and a lot of it is good. Really good. It is easy for me to get caught up in all that good and feel like "good" is exactly what we need. The truth of it is that I'm the gate keeper and my job is to provide them with a GREAT education. For us it means protecting our time to explore and our time together as a family. Using materials that individually add a little bit of time to our schedule is fine, but adding curriculum upon curriculum that would keep us at the table for 6 hours just isn't going to work for us.


We want our kids to have the best education they can have, and we decided long ago that that means having the time to really investigate their areas of interest. We have spent the last two years cultivating that philosophy in our home, spending the first part of our homeschooling time on reading, writing, and math and the rest on exploring. There is science, history and geography, there are biographies read and projects begun, but I work really hard not to add anything that ultimately boils down to busy work.

After all- what do we really need to be able to learn?

Paper, a pencil, access to books and real experiences.

Curriculum is a tool, and when used in the right way and situation can be precisely the needed instrument. But sometimes it's a $300 dollar hammer when a $10 hammer would have done the same job just as well.

I'm trying to remember: 

Don't trade "great" for "good".

Less done really well is more than a giant stack you plod through, kids wondering if it's "over yet".

Going out and doing something trumps reading about it.

Starting Our Garden Journals

This past weekend there was actual spring-like weather going on and we were able to get outside to check out the yard situation in depth. We planned the location for garden space, bought a few flower bulbs for one of the beds, and Ender started on a great plan for what needs pulled out. A few things were dead from the previous owners so that is first on the list to take care of in the next week or so as we prepare beds.

{Ezra's entry}

{Ender's entry}

One of the things I really want to be sure to do this first season with the new garden is to keep a journal of our work in the yard. I'm keeping the primary garden journal myself, which will be more list making and written journal entries than drawings. The boys are keeping smaller versions of my journal. Ezra's notebook will probably just be nature related drawings, but Ender is working to keep an accurate record of our time spent outside similar to my journal. We talked this weekend about making a point of noting the date and the weather, being sure to record what part of the garden we work in that day and what was done. He's still deciding how he'd like to organize his journal, but for now he's making a page each time we work outside.

We handed Ellie a pencil about a month ago and now she wants to draw all the time. In fact, she will most definitely squawk at you if she sees you with a pen or pencil and will not let it go until she has her own pencil. I read the book Young at Art when Ezra was a bitty baby and put a pencil in his hand right around a year old as well- that book has dramatically shaped the way art happens around here.


My garden journal is a bit less impressive- it consists so far of a list of items to plant, and a sketch of the layout. I'm excited to bring our plans into reality over the coming weeks.

This Week

We received our second foot of snow within 5 days (which just doesn't happen around here) so this week has been incredibly strange- the city was pretty much shut down on Tuesday and some of Wednesday if you were in our part of the city. So I taught parts of 2 days and 1 whole day, but it was all very weird since so much of it was rescheduled from the snow days.

Ellie has been sick for a long while and this week got worse with a fever and other fun things- now it is an infection to fight off. The amazing thing to me is that she is still so very good-natured through most of this, still able to play and make the little jokes that babies make. It made her two really bad days this week that much more pronounced- to see our little happy girl so tired and whimpering was quite the sad sight. I'm glad she's on the mend now.

On the Needles...

I almost finished the first sleeve of Ellie's pink Baby Vertebrae cardi last night. A little more work tonight and it will be done and I will be on to the second sleeve. 

My "in my purse" knitting I take everywhere is a Looped Loop cowl in a really pretty mustard yellow.

Once I finish Ellie's cardi I'm going to force myself to focus on the sleeves of my Shapely Boyfriend Cardigan and get those out. If I would have just done those darn sleeves right away I'd be wearing that cardigan right now.

I also may have cast on for a shawl because I was feeling a serious lace itch earlier this week... 

I read...

Mysterious Benedict Society, An Everlasting Meal, and the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. Reading time has been hard to find lately, so I made only the smallest bit of progress this week.

Just Keep Spinning…

I shared my 2nd skein here yesterday and I'm working on that red wool blend still. I have a hard time stopping when I get started spinning this particular fiber. It is really easy for me to say "Just one more hand length" and then find myself saying that 10 times in a row when I *really* need to be getting to bed instead. Part of the enthusiasm is for the fiber, and partly because I can see such a difference in how well my singles are going now. There is still a lot to polish and work on to truly get them consistent, but I'm very pleased with the progress.

I've also been reading a ton on the Ravelry forums and on abbysyarns.com.

Learning all the time…

I worked on a unit based on Roxaboxen to start next week and had a great time putting together a pack of "homework" for Ender for a trip. More on that later!

I didn't get to...

A lot of things with the sick baby this week, but that was okay. Sometimes it just works out that way.

This weekend...

I'm planning to catching up a bit over the weekend on the cleaning and laundry. Exciting, I know. Hopefully Ellie will be feeling well enough that I'll get an evening or two with consecutive hours to spin or knit.

Our Homeschooling Day

I have really enjoyed doing a Day in the Life posting each year. This is really a perfect point in our school year to do so- we've worked out the kinks by now and eliminated or changed anything that wasn't working, but it also helps me to notice anything else that might need freshened up.


Ender is 7 this year and having a 1st/2nd grade year. Ezra is 5 this year and in Kindergarten. Ellie is 9 months old now and adds an interesting aspect to the day (mostly keeping paper and other goodies out of her mouth!


Each of our days is a bit different. Brian and I are both in client-based work, but my hours are set. His are set too, but it is a really screwy schedule rotating schedule that takes a full month to go through one round of the schedule. This actually allows one of us to be with the kids all the time, aside from a few days per month that our schedules overlap a bit. That's when my mom swoops in to save the day.


6:30/7:00 I am up and prepping for the day. I sometimes don't get this time on my own if the sleep is more important, but my day goes noticeably better when I do.


Ellie wakes between 7:00-7:30 and she has a bottle and breakfast. If she's up early we hang out in her room until the boys join us.


7:30 The boys get up. They have a "morning routine" that they are in charge of completing, including breakfast, brushing teeth, getting dressed and making their beds. I make breakfast for them about half of the week, and they do frozen waffles, pancakes or cereal the rest of the time. I try to make a big batch of waffles and pancakes ahead of time to freeze for the mornings I need them to be more independent. My morning routine involves starting a load of laundry, making sure the kitchen is clean after breakfast and cuddling the baby.

8:30-9:00 We aim to "start school" around this time. We don't have all day to school, so for now in this season we must start "on time" if we are going to get our state required hours in.


During this time the Ender works on anything he can do independently or with minimal supervision. I'm right there to answer questions or to listen to some reading, but mostly Ezra and I work together on phonics, reading and math.

Around 9:30 Ellie goes down for her morning nap and the boys and I get to work on the things we do together- history, science and memory work.


By 10:30ish Ezra is done for the morning and he gets to go play. Ender and I stay at the table just a little longer to work on Language Arts- we review spelling, writing rules (we're learning about punctuation and capitalization right now), practice copywork, etc. I also look over his work from the morning if I haven't already checked it and we talk about any corrections that need to be made.


By this time it's usually about 11:00 and Ender heads off to play too. Ellie is usually up by now and so is Brian. He takes over with the kids so that I can run on the treadmill, take a shower without interruption and get ready for work. Brian takes care of lunch time and supervising chores the boys are responsible for.


Early afternoon sees me at work for the rest of the day. I will be back out of the studio in time to help with bedtime.


In the afternoon the boys follow up on anything they need to finish. Ezra reads out loud to Brian, and both boys practice their memory work again. They usually do a short math drill on xtramath.org and Ezra usually plays a bit on starfall.com. Brian takes care of the kitchen and laundry on my long teaching days, which is such a blessing. Otherwise afternoons are pretty free for them to do whatever they'd like. A few evenings a week Brian manages the runs to soccer or baseball practice and church. I usually finish in the studio just as they are getting home.


At this point Brian heads to work if he is on-shift and I manage bed time with the kids then spend most evenings with Netflix and knitting if I do not need to follow up on any work issues.


If Brian is off-shift we tackle kid bed time together. Usually we both have a little bit of work to follow up on but then the evening is ours.

You can see our past years here:

2012

2011

I know our day isn't the norm for homeschooling families, but we make it work. 

How do you spend your homeschooling day?

Ender's book

I feel so silly now that I have spent so much time worrying in the past about Ender not writing. This year he writes so well and so much. I tried to listen to everyone telling me to not worry and to work really hard not to push him, so I didn't push. I tried to make writing all about special projects and fun activities aside from Handwriting Without Tears, which has been such a fabulous program for Ender and has made writing so approachable and easy for him.

Narration has been the other key component. For the last 1 1/2 years he has narrated about twice a week from whatever we were reading for school. We started with 1 paragraph at a time from the Christian Liberty Press Nature Reader for Kindergarten and by the end of the year he was narrating from the entire reading at his request.  I would have him read the material on the first day and we would talk about what he remembered. The next day I would read the material aloud to him and he would give a narration that I would type into a word document. I printed that out for him and he illustrated the narration.

And now we have little books everywhere.

Did I mention that this book is volume one? I've been told it may be quite a lengthy series.

And now I find signs like this and handmade calendars and little books and projects all written by him. I will be so sad when these little signs disappear from our house. It reminds me of all the sweet little signs in the Winnie-the-Pooh books, complete with tiny misspellings.

Quiet

I apologize for silence here, but there is so little I feel I can say right now. How is knitting or "holiday rush" at all important in these past few days?


This tragedy feels particularly personal in such a strange way. After hearing all this news over the weekend and striving to find the real information in the midst of all the speculation, it became so very real to know the children lost were mostly first graders, 6 and 7 years old in that safe little town.


My oldest son is 7 and if he attended school he would be a first grader too.


As I was beginning to feel just a bit of distance from this awful case, Jamie Martin (editor of Simple Homeschool, a space where I have written a few times) shared that Newtown, CT is HER town, and it all became that much more personal.


We're all so different in the way we process things and just as many of my friends processed by turning off the news and going out of their way to not hear anything, I felt it imperative to my mental state to find out what really happened. I started looking for more accurate information on Sunday; Friday and Saturday were both so full of wild speculation that it was hard to listen to anything at all. And I read in more than one place where people being interviewed said that this tragedy is more than enough to make them consider homeschooling.


Dear friends, we don't homeschool out of fear. No one should. We aren't afraid of public schools or other people or that minuscule risk of violence breaking out in a first grade classroom. We homeschool as a lifestyle choice we have made, and not one we feel anyone else should make.


Yes, I hold my kids tight today. I look at my 7-year-old and know exactly what was lost last Friday in those young ones. But the actions of this one man don't make my decisions for me. We choose to continue our educational life at home, not out of fear of what may come, but out of the joy we have found here.

Learning All the Time

After getting a bit of a head start on our school year by starting during the hot days of July we've been able to take some time off from the more structured bits of learning. While I think we all enjoy the routine of our typical school mornings (or else we wouldn't school this way!) it is nice to have the option to call a week "off" and pursue life and projects around us.

In the last week we: 

 

Had three soccer practices

 

Had two soccer games

 

Took a trip to the ballpark for September baseball

 

Spent an afternoon at the local art museum to learn about portraits, self-portraits, still life, and landscapes

 

Made a math facts lapbook (Well, Ender did. I mostly just printed it out for him and offered advice when asked.)

 

Picked hundreds of pears (to can later in the week)

 

Went rollerskating

 

Watched Daddy complete his first 10K

And I started back to work last week, hence the "off" week. 

 

 

 

Today we are continuing our spontaneous learning by:

Making bookmarks (now that we have TWO little readers, we needed several more!)

 

Reading together- this is one part of our "regular" school day that isn't often skipped, even on our "off" days.

 

Quizzing math facts with the aid of that new lapbook

 

Prepping for some family art time this evening when I'm finished teaching in the studio.

Watching this video:

 

 

Loving this Monday morning!

School Resources: 2012-2013

Jamie invited us today to write about our plans for the upcoming school year so I thought I'd share what we have planned so far. I have to say- I am so excited to get started on these plans! I will have a Kindergartener and a second grader this fall- it's hard for me to believe that Ezra is old enough to join us for school already!


I've written in this space before about how I started planning really early this year in order to have those plans in place before Ellie was born, and I got about 90% of the way there. Our book list was selected, general plans were laid out for usage and I got about half way through setting up daily plans before the baby arrived.


Kindergarten

Ezra turns 5 mid-summer and though he'll be a young Kindergarten student we're going to go ahead and start lightly, keeping his age and maturity in mind. In our home Kindergarten is all about learning to read, learning to form letters and developing a relationship with numbers. We definitely explore topics of interest in other subjects, but that is not the goal of our year.


The Three R's by Dr. Ruth Beechick: This is the basis of our Kindergarten. I take a lot of ideas from this book in how I teach and I have to say- this book is invaluable for those wanting something a little different than a daily boxed program. It does require more work from the parent, but if you're like me (I love the planning almost as much as the actual schooling) it doesn't seem like work at all.


Victory Drill Book: Aside from the name (which makes it sound like you are relentlessly working your little one on phnics) I really love this book and use it primarily as a resource for myself. This book has list after list of words broken into groups by phonics rules. As we learn new rules for reading we play games with the words on those lists, we practice writing them, spelling them with the moveable alphabet, and once it seems like he has the rule mastered we "speed read" through 1 column at a time.


Explode the Code: Because Ezra loves to write, we used Get Ready for the Code and Get Set for the Code this past year and we will continue this year with Go For the Code and then on to ETC book 1. I wouldn't use this as our sole phonics resource, but it is a nice reinforcement for the learning we do with the Victory Drill Book.


Handwriting Without Tears: I really love this curriculum for encouraging my older son to actually practice some handwriting without complaining. It was a huge success for him last year so I'm introducing Ezra to it this year as well. Of course Ezra really loves to write already, but this curriculum will help us focus on correct formation in a little more formal way. Ezra will be using the orange book this year.


Math: This is where we off-road a little. For Kindergarten I don't use a formal math curriculum. my boys love to draw so we keep a math journal to practice the concepts we learn about through the year, but otherwise we play lots of games, count real money, tell time on the big clock in the living room, learn to count to 100 and then to count by 2s, 5s and 10s. We learn basic addition and subtraction with transformer toys (or whatever seems handy at the moment) and we eat a lot of math-related snacks. :)



Other: Ezra will also start to study the piano this year as part of my music studio (We use Faber and Faber's My First Piano Adventures for this age), there will be plenty of free art time (and a little bit structured), and he will join in on Ender's literature, science, history and geography plans as much as he'd like. We will a bit of informal narration this year also so that he understands the concept before starting first grade.



Second Grade

Ender will be 7 this fall (which I can hardly believe!) and doing second grade work for the most part. Because of his late birthday he would be in first grade in our school district so there were some subjects we put off starting until January last school year in order to be sure he was ready. He will start the school year by finishing those texts and then moving on to the next level.


Ender's resources for the year are a little different. One of the things I so appreciate about homeschooling is that we can truly work in the way that is best for our family. I really enjoy planning our own curriculum in subject areas and would feel really limited by a boxed curriculum and I love that there are resources out there that help me to plan in a way that feels right for us. That being said, many of the resources I'm going to list here aren't directly for Ender, but for me in order to help us have the kind of school year we want to have.


All Through the Ages: I use this resource to fill out our history and science book lists after I decide our course of study. This year we are studying the pioneers and westward expansion plus a unit on elections for American History. For World History we'll be doing a unit on explorers and navigation before taking a tour through the ancients.


How to Teach Spelling: This is another "list" resource that breaks down words by spelling rules and also gives suggestions for appropriate grade levels for learning the rules. Again, it does require some work on the front end for me, but once I set up our lists and approach for the year all I have to do is open and go. :)


Explode the Code: Ender knows his phonics rules very well and reads fluently, but he really likes these books and he asked to keep working in them this year. We're picking up with book 3 and we'll go forward as much as he likes.


Writing With Ease: I find this to be such an easy way to work on writing. Narration is the natural precursor to putting your own thoughts on paper. We don't use the workbook, but we use the principles and apply it to our history, science and literature readings. We will also add dictation in the second semester.


First Language Lessons: We will begin the year by finishing level 1 and then move into level 2. These lessons are short and to the point, just like Ender. That has made it a success for both of us- no busy work.


Saxon Math: We started Saxon 1 this past January after using a different math curriculum and Ender *loves* the repetition of Saxon. I didn't personally enjoy the books when I was being homeschooled myself, but I don't think I would have enjoyed ANY math text as a student. The important thing is that it works for Ender and he never complains about getting out his math work. We'll finish up Saxon 1 and head into 2 as soon as he's ready.


Geography: We're using the geography concepts from The Core by Leigh Bortins to work on learning to map the world one continent at a time. We'll also do some map work around our history work.


Science: Again I create my own book list, but our intention is to cover plant and animal life this year with a bit of geology thrown in for my rock-obsessed boy. One of our primary texts for the year is One Small Square: Backyard, which will be used for a few weeks each season so that we can see the differences each season brings.


Literature: I'll be reading aloud longer works of fiction, but I've also planned a unit on poetry and a unit to introduce Shakespeare using books by Bruce Coville.



Handwriting: Ender is going to use the blue HWOT book for printing and then work on learning italics with Getty Dubay as he transfers over to learning cursive. While I love HWOT to teach printing, I don't like the look of their cursive quite as much.

Planning (part 2)

So when you have that whole nesting thing going on and can't actually do anything about it?

 

Plan the next school year.

Seriously- plans are made and books ordered.

 

I've done as much in Baby Girl's room as I can do without moving, lifting or bending in ways I shouldn't. Everything that can be washed or cleaned or prepared for her arrival has been, well... washed, cleaned or prepared.

 

So in the evenings when I have that urge to work on just about anything I've been focused in on finishing up school plans for this next school year. I had always intended to at least have plans written out before Baby came so that I wouldn't have to scramble to figure things out in May/June in order to start the year in July, but I didn't think I'd have everything done down to the week.

And trust me- these plans will change to some degree as we start to live them in July. But this next year is planned as a continuation of last year, not as a separate entity, so many of the things we began this year will flow into next year. It is so nice to know what is working and to be able to stick with it!

 

New This Year:

1. Adding Ezra as an official student. It's really just a formality with a little more work for me (since I have to actually track his hours and keep a portfolio for him this year) because his work will be remarkably the same as it was this past year. His main job is to go about the business of being a 5-year-old boy, but he is also very different than his brother and has been begging for his own handwriting book and to learn to read and to "PLEASE have a math journal!"

Who am I to say no to a request like that?

2. Focusing a little more on science and history for Ender. Our primary concern for first grade has been fostering mastery in handwriting, reading and math. Without those three things it's really difficult to move forward in other subjects, so that has really been the focus of the year. We do also read about people and within history and science topics, but it's been very informal and the first item marked off the list if time ran short on a school day.

I'm changing that this year, planning a few weeks to introduce and explore new topics in history and science followed by "time off" to allow us to follow whatever topics Ender finds particularly interesting,

3. And of course- Baby Girl. That's going to be a new one on all of us, and I'm looking forward to it!

4. A change in math program. We switched in January from Singapore to Saxon and Ender has been one happy math student since then. I *never* thought I'd use Saxon, mostly because I used it as a student all the way through school and as a seriously non-mathy gal just the cover of the book gives me shivers. For my very mathy son? Love at first sight. It makes sense to him with very little instruction from me and the workbook pages get right to the point.

Same as Always:

 

1. Sticking with the narration and copywork suggestions from Writing With Ease. We don't use the workbook because I like to use whatever literature, history topic or science topic we are currently using, but I'm easily able to keep up with choosing copywork for Ender. I plan to add some dictation in the second semester as long as Ender shows he is ready.

2. Using our own book lists for science and history topics and literature. I've looked at many many book lists and packaged curriculums and I just can't find precisely what I want. I don't like to be told what to read or do each day (and in fact I'll probably NOT do it just because I was "supposed" to...) and I truly do enjoy building the plans myself. I know many families love to be able to "open and go" with a program, and I do something similar- I just happen to build those daily plans myself.

3. Keeping our daily rhythm. Our morning includes time together and time working alongside each other on our individual projects. It works well for us so why change?

 

Learning In Progress, March 2012

We are slowing down for the year and only have about 2 scheduled weeks of school in April. We've worked hard to get our hours in early this year so we could afford to truly take time off for baby. When we finish up our hours in the next few days we will continue with math, daily reading and faith even though we are technically "out of school" for the year and I'm sure the boys will continue making projects as usual!

Ender is 6 years old, in first grade.

Ezra is 4 years old and having a very relaxed K4 year because of his desire to be included in our school time. Very little is required of him on a daily basis, but he often chooses to read along with us or work on various projects of his choosing.



Faith:
** Reading Ender's weekly assignment from church every week.
** Started working on the extra verses flipbook for Awana Wingrunner
** 30 minute Bible Study with Brian each week, Genesis 5.
** Ezra- memorizing his weekly verse for Awana Cubbies.

Math:
** Ender completed Lesson 36-47 in Saxon Math 1A
** Continuing calendar skills with learning to write dates.
** Worked with the hundreds board and was able to complete the whole board without the guide AND with all the numbers mixed together in a pile- he was quite proud of this accomplishment since it took 45 minutes and he completed it without a break.
** Ezra worked with the spindle box and also began to work with the hundreds board in groups of ten. We also talked about counting by tens.

Language Arts:
** Copywork and narrations based on our history, science and literature readings
** HWT (yellow)- p. 60-75
** Ezra: Moveable Alphabet practice with CVC words, working with short vowels. We used words he knows to write silly sentences with the MA.

Science:
** Watched Animal Atlas on Netflix
** Narrating from Christian Liberty Nature Reader K, letters K, L and M
** Read independently from Christian Liberty Nature Reader 1
** Worked on his own project: Making an "Animal Encyclopedia" from his own animal drawings and some animal coloring pages and arranging them by biome.
**  Spent time outside talking about the future planting plans and helping make some yard decisions.

Geography:
** Scrambled States of America game
** Maps, Charts and Graphs A-  p. 14-25
** Memory work- the names of the continents and oceans, the countries in North America


History:
** Amanda Bennett Unit Study- American Government, week 1


History/Science/Literature: (These are read together unless marked IR)
Let's Go Rock Collecting by Roma Gans
American Tall Tales by Mary Pope Osborne
Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss
The Big Brag by Dr. Seuss
America: A Patriotic Primer by Lynne Chenney

Memory Work
no other memory work this month aside from geography and verses.


P.E.:
Working on baseball skills with daddy.


Fine Arts:
Ender: daily violin practice
Lots of free art time.

Ender's Free Reading:
Magic Treehouse: Revolutionary War on Wednesday
Magic Treehouse: Twister on Tuesday (started)
several picture books.

A Little Geography

We read Maps and Globes by Jack Knowlton last week and it started a little bit of a map craze around here.

I hadn't intended to start map work until next fall, but that's the great thing about homeschooling- sometimes the opportunity presents itself and it would be crazy not to take advantage.

I've always loved the geography program presented in The Core by Leigh Bortins, so I showed the boys the 5 circles and where they were on the world map and how they could use those to place their continents. I demonstrated continent "blobs" to them and they were not impressed- Ender and Ezra love to draw (and recently to copy directly from book illustrations) so the fact that the "blobs" weren't the real shapes of the continents just didn't fly. They insisted on going at it getting as close to the real continent shapes as they could.


Ezra thought the latitude and longitude lines were really cool, so all of his continents have grids.

And what would a map be without color?

Ender memorized the continents and oceans and their locations last year during Kindergarten, so his first continent drawing was a little more accurate than Ezra's.

He did decide that he should add countries (and even made a passing comment about how drawing maps would be a great way to learn the names of all the countries, haha!) and I think he at least drew in boundaries for some of the larger countries.

I told Ender we'd practice drawing all of the continents for a little while until they got to be about the right size (as compared to the atlas we're using) and then he could pick just one continent to draw for awhile. And he announced that he has a lot of thinking to do so he can pick "just the right one". I'm curious to see what that will be!

Resources:

Maps and Globes

As The Crow Flies

The Seven Continents

Rand McNally World Atlas

DK First Atlas

Planning

I *heart* school planning.


It is one of my favorite parts of homeschooling to be honest. I love planning our trajectory for the year and then breaking it down into achievable pieces. I love watching the plans play out through the year too, but it's the anticipation that comes with those brand new plans that I so enjoy.


Phase one consists of gathering ideas. I look at a ton of curriculum online, I check out what other people with children in that particular grade are doing and get a giant list going of materials that have a possibility of working for us. Basically, I induce curriculum fog upon myself and when I'm good and muddy about all the choices out there I sit back for awhile to think.


Phase two consists of writing down goals for the year. I take all that muddiness in my brain and clarify what is important to me and my husband, what I know my kids love, and what developmentally appropriate skills they need to obtain by the end of that grade.


I've been hanging out with these goals for several weeks now, tweaking anything that didn't seem quite right, and flat out eliminating some of them that I finally decided didn't fit with our overall homeschooling goals. I think they're set now, and I'm ready to move on to phase three.


Remember phase one where I looked at a million and one books to see what was out there? Phase three is defined by culling that giant list. I eliminate anything that doesn't fit with our goals or educational philosophy. And then comes all the outside factors, and this is the land I'm currently living in:

Does this material best help us accomplish our goals?

How does it fit in our budget?

Can this material be used again with the next child?

Will my kid(s) enjoy using the material?

Am I interested in this material because it looks like "another good thing" or because it will truly add value to our homeschool that I don't have anywhere else?

It's a bit of a jigsaw puzzle really. I'm trying to decide which curriculum is a must budget-wise and then the rest is a bit of give and take- if I buy a certain curriculum I may not be able to afford another curriculum, and I always want to make sure I'm getting what will truly help us most. I'm fortunate to have access to a truly awesome library system and I take full advantage for our literature, history and science book lists so that I ony have to buy spines that we'll be using for a full semester or year.


And when I make the final decisions on curriculum I'll get to the truly fun part- dividing our year into four 13 week quarters (leaving 4 weeks unplanned to account for unexpected time off or rabbit trails), then dividing the work down into weeks.


I'm really liking the look of our plans for next year so far, and as soon as I get some decisions made you know I'll be sure to share!