Weekly Report, August 26-30

Week Two.

Short Version:

Unfortunately, there is still work outstanding which is why I'm late posting this.

Copywork: a, o, c, d

Dictation:
Older--two longish passages
Younger--everyday with FLL.

Recitation: Memorized The Flies and the Honey Pot.

Latin: finished up Lesson 6 and began Lesson 7 in Lively Latin.

Spelling: List K6 in SWR, plurals page.

History: SoTW2 ch. 25 and 26

Writing: Aesop A: not done (and I've decided it won't be on those weeks we double up on SoTW.)

Math
The Younger--SM 2B, Ex. 24- 29
The Older SM 3B Review 1,2, and well, he didn't finish.

Grammar
The Younger--FLL 159-163
The Older--R&S4, 5, 6 and 1/2 of 7. Again he's not finished.

Science:
First half of Ch. 10, Apologia's Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day.

Long Version:

Tuesday.

Up at 6:30am this morning. This time it did not go well! I let them watch Arthur for a bit and what with one thing and another we didn't actually sit down to start until 8:30. Then the Older had to take a bathroom break. He takes looong bathroom breaks.

Spelling (SWR); I started with it. It took 50 minutes to dictate K6. It was torture--for all of us. In six or seven weeks, we start over again at list J. I can't wait!

Latin: Review of Junius Brutus. It wasn't as bad as I'd thought it might be. Note to self: do not take a month long break in the middle of a two part history lesson.

Aesop A: We read The Top and the Ball by Hans Christian Anderson. I took the part of "narrator", The Older was the top and the younger read the part of the ball. When I first read this story this weekend, I nearly cried. The kids had the same reaction. The younger actually said, "I die?" We had a nice discussion of whether the top "really" had loved the ball or not.

I dictated a complicated section to the Older and had the Younger copy it out.

Break.

Oh Happy Day. We did Chapter 25(a) The Plague. And we did the colouring page. And the map. And our narrations--all in about an hour! The younger dictated hers to me and I dictated the first two sentences back. (Boy, has FLL made this process quicker and smoother than it has been with the Older!) The Older wrote his out. Here's what he wrote (after correcting for spelling and punctuation. I don't correct everything all the time, so his idiosyncratic use of caps is retained!)

In the Middle ages people suffered from the Black death (the Plague). People were dying Left and Right and through the window. Animals and humans died from it. Even the sick cloths made everyone get sick. No one could stop the Plague, some said "it's the End of the world!" If you felt a headache or had lumps in your armpits, and a lot of pain, you had the Black death. P.S. It does not exist anymore.

My eight month old nephew arrived and stayed several hours. I can see why Moms with little ones love reading aloud so much! All three sat on the couch (with the dog!) and listened to me read a chapter of The Railway Children. I was surprised, but it calmed the little one (as long as we played his little music toy very softly from time to time. Fortunately it didn't bother me a bit.) My kids were so good with him! My daughter, the Younger, decided she would feed him. So he sat on my son's lap and it went like this:
Daughter: spoon feed baby.
Son: Wipe baby's face
Daughter: pass the baby his sippy cup.
Son: help the baby hold his sippy cup.
Daughter: spoon feed baby.
Son: Wipe baby's face
Daughter: pass the baby his sippy cup.
Son: help the baby hold his sippy cup.
lather...rinse...repeat.

It was funny until he started to fuss--and that was no surprise! But they were so good with him that when my sister arrived to pick him up, I gave them about 45 minutes "off" until we started school again.

Grammar:
Younger: FLL Lesson 159. Prepositions. When she came into the room and saw the table "set" she asked, puzzled, "I thought we were doing grammar."
Older: R&S3, Lesson 5. I had thought we'd do 5 lessons a week--but really, it's enough to do four. Why stress? It's much more thorough and the lessons are longer than R&S 3. But it's still good. It seems to be much more at his level than R&S 3 which felt like going through the motions, even though the material was all new to him.

Math:
Younger: breezed through two money exercises in 2B. She got all but two of the "American coin" questions right. I was surprised! I also gave her a Canadian Coin supplement--but she's been counting change since last year!
Older: Excused from Math today.

Evaluation: Didn't do Bible, or penmanship and neither did their first draft of The Top and Ball. But that's OK. We had Read-Aloud and Baby Feeding 101 instead!

Wednesday.

Up at 6:30.
45 minutes of assigned reading.

Bible--
Proverbs, 2: 6-end. Still dealing with procedural issues. Talked a bit about integrity. Hope they "got" it.

Spelling--
Taught how to make words plural. It was excruciating. I wonder how much they will remember?

Break.

Latin.
The Government of Rome.

Break.

SoTW2: 25 (b) How Europe Changed.
It's tough to do Review questions, narrations, and the chapter test all in one day! And then I gave them a craft on top of it: the Bubonic plague wheel. It was the carrot, you see.

Grammar--Younger did FLL 161--making up sentences with prepositions and nouns. She loves dictation but had a melt down when she realised that she was to write four lines of "Bed in Summer" by R.L. Stevenson. So, I let her write the first two.

Older--writing assignment. I didn't leave clear enough instructions about how to do it, but he did write something! So, that's all right.

Math--
Younger: played with the Rainbow Rock CD for quite a while and then did exercises (2B): 26 & 27
Older: Did yesterday's and today's work, 3B Reviews 1 and 2

Evaluation: It was a horrid day. I was upset and impatient through most of it. We actually made up a new song. (To the tune of the first line: "A sailor went to sea, sea, sea"):

You drive Mommy up the wall (repeat)
You drive Mommy up the wall. (shout).

The kids were singing it again at bed-time (but thankfully without the shouting).

Yikes.

Thursday

Up at 6:30. They read for a while (my daughter wanted me to read Railway Children. I hadn't had my coffee, yet.) and also watched an episode on DVD while playing Skip-Bo. So, I figured their brains were awake enough to start with
Latin. Finished Lesson 6 with a Vocabulary Exercise. Hooray.

Spelling:
This was interesting. I wanted them to do two things: 1) Use alliteration to write sentences from their words and 2) Pluralise at least one list word per sentence. They managed the second (but not the first). It was an excellent review of yesterday's lesson.

Copywork/Dictation.
I set myself up with a trial version of Startwrite (I used to have the full version and it's been a process getting it restored to the computer!) and ran off a sheet of "d's" each which they did.

Then I had my daughter copy while I dictated the following to my son:
"Many died daily or nightly in the public streets: many others died at home" Giovanni Boccaccio

Then we took a break.

As it was too hard to read our poems three times through a grilled cheese sandwich, we moved on to listening to Chapter 26(a) The Battle at Agincourt. Narrations took a long time. Again, the older wrote his directly from doing the review questions orally, and I dictated the first four sentences (two at a time) to the Younger.
Then they had an eraser fight.

Math--
Younger. It was funny. During our first break I corrected her math from yesterday. She had only one mistake, so I took it to her, saying, "Look, you did really well. Only one mistake." and she asked me, "Can I do it now?" So, she did Ex. 27 on her break! She did Ex. 28 after Grammar.

Older--oops. I haven't marked his work for a while and there were a number of errors. I'm a little concerned. We worked on a few corrections, but it is mostly my fault. When did SM start introducing equations with two different kinds of operations? And in the word problems no less?!

Grammar:
Younger--FLL 161. "Before, behind, below, beneath." We actually made up a little dance! That was so much fun.

Older--We went through the lesson part, but didn't do the written work. A friend he hasn't seen for a long time invited him over to play. School starts next week for him, so they haven't much opportunity to play.

However, I think the fact that we've jumped into this is beginning to cause some problems. I had to get out some pencil crayons and mark up a sentence in different colours for identifying the complete predicate, the simple predicate, the verb phrase, main verb, helping verb. ALL so we could then find the simple subject!

Friday
Up at 6:30. Really, really feeling it. So tired, my back felt glued to the bed. When the kids popped in a movie, I didn't say a word but let them watch it until it was done at 8:45.

Spelling test of List K6. The Older got 100%, the Younger missed three. Not bad, but not great either.

Latin: Started Lesson 7. It has been much, much too long since we covered subject/verb agreement and how to find the right declension for the noun. I should probably type up a little handout. If I don't forget. Or fall asleep.

Bible: Proverbs 3: 1-4. Had a great discussion of what it means to be loyal (and kind).

Poetry: They just about have The Flies and The Honey Pot memorized. Time for another one!

History: SoTW2 26 (b) Joan of Arc. Mapwork, colouring page, Timeline, chapter test.

Grammar:
The Younger--FLL 161.
The Older--

Math:
The Younger--Ex. 29 and she made brownies.
The Older--

Saturday
Science:
We did Metamorphosis. It took 1 1/2 hours. I don't want to talk about it.

Independent Reading:
Younger: 2 1/2 days (or 1 hour and 15 minutes) behind.
Older: 3 days (or 3 hours) behind.

Jeopardy! (for Science)

Science* did not go well, today.

So, as is my usual practice, I took my troubles to the WTM board. Someone suggested I play Jeopardy!

I had to go to Wikipedia to remember how it is played.

During the game, three competing contestants select clues from a game board of 30 clues divided into six categories, each clue in the form of an answer to which they must supply correct responses, each response in the form of a question. The notion of "questioning answers" is original to Jeopardy!

So, let's see.

Category: Metamorphosis**

1. For 10 points, this is the first stage of my life as an insect.
2. For 20 points, in this stage of my life, I wrap myself up and change.
3. For 30 points, I spend my youth in the water.
4. For 10 points, I gather with other males and wait for the females to notice me.
5. For 20 points, I molt and molt and molt until I become an adult.
6. For 30 points, I go through four distinct phases in my life.


Category: Defense Systems***

1. For 10 points, I change to look like my environment.
2. For 20 points, my colours say "look at me!"
3. For 30 points, I look just like another insect
4. For 10 points, I have great big eye spots which scare predators away
5. For 20 points, I smell
6. For 30 points, I shoot out hot gases at my prey.

This just might fly!

*We're doing a text by the publishing house Apologia called Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day. We're doing Chapter 10--"Insect Life and Life Styles." (strange title, actually). It covers the process of metamorphosis and defense systems (but I bet you figured that out already!)

**Answers to Metamorphosis.
1. What is larvae?
2. What is pupa?
3. What is a naiad?
4. What is a luk?
5. What is a nymph?
6. What is complete metamorphosis?

***Answers to Defenses:
1. What is crypsis? (or camouflage)
2. What is advertisement?
3. What is mimicry?
4. What is trickery?
5. What are chemical defenses?
6. What is a bombardier beetle?

How did you score?

Today's Blackboard

Our blackboard is very small.

It fits on the freezer door of our two door refrigerator. My husband made it for us out of a thin panel of wood and painted it with blackboard paint. It is held to the fridge with magnets I found at an office supply store. They are wider at one end than the other. The husband drilled holes all around the board and put the magnets in--and there we have it!

From time to time I look at that little board and I'm astonished at what is on it. Today, it had the title of their narrations and a few words my eight year old daughter wanted to know how to spell.

Day Off

Well, it was supposed to be!

This afternoon, my son saw that he was all caught up on Reading for Week 1. "I've reached Stop 1 already?" he asked not believing his eyes. (Remember the kids complete three stops and they can get a "prize" worth less than $10.00)

And I said, "No. See you are supposed to do a book report. Shall I show you what to do?" So, he sat down and did it.

Then, later on today, he wanted some computer time. I'd just finished writing up his "assigned" reading for this week and noticed two items outstanding from last week. He could go on the computer, I told him, when he'd finished reading at least one. So, he did. (Chapter 2 of The Ottoman Empire by Adriane Ruggeiero).

Then, this evening, while my daughter was waiting for Dad to take her to bed, I gave her a copywork sheet of "a" to do from The Learning Page. When she finished that, I suggested she do her book report. At first she said, "no," but then she said, "well, show me it."

I had to run an errand and when I got home I found it perfectly filled out on the kitchen table. Well, not perfectly. The Book report form instructs her to write two sentences about her book. She wrote:

My Book is oBout tow popel how get married.

(Dad must have helped with "married" don't you think? And that's not the word "how" it's "who" with the letters flipped.)

I think it's wonderful.
(Next time I'll tell her that spelling counts!)

I am greatly relieved to have those book reports done! We are to do one a week and I just didn't know how we'd fit them in.

Weekend Prep.

I'd forgotten what work it is to prepare for the week!

I actually have a sheet in Word which lists what I need to do. Here it is:

To Do List
Weekend Prep.


--Select Bible Verse(s)
--type and enter into Memorization sheets
--type into Start write for copy work

--prepare Poem
--prepare poem for Copywork

--prepare other Copywork and Dictation selections (History, Spelling, Aesop &/or Reading selection)

Writing:
--plan The Older and The Younger’s Aesop work

Reading:
--Look up and request SoTW books
--write up the Older and the Younger’s assigned reading chart
(goal: "one biography, one science book, one history book, one practical or art-and-crafts book, and three books of their own choosing - stories, poetry, or nonfiction." WTM)
--run off selections as needed from FMMA and Baldwin.
--update Reading Logs

Latin:
--run off worksheets for the week
--(as needed) Cut up cards for Latin vocabulary

Art:
--run off Meet the Masters Sheets
--find MtM prints on-line

Science:
--run off notebooking pages

Housekeeping:
--Type up schedule for the week.
--Cut and punch index spelling cards (5 cards of 2 colours)
--run off lined paper (10 sides)

It's astonishing to me how this just eats up the whole weekend. I'd like to put together a lap-book on insects for science but that idea is overwhelming at the moment.

Does anyone feel like there's just waaaay too much to do? Or am I just feeling that because we're not into the swing of things yet?

(And when am I supposed to clean the house?)

Weekly Report for August 19 to 23, 2008

Week One

"Road" by the Younger

"My Town" by the Older.
(See Saturday's write up)


I've decided that I must participate in order to be accountable for our work. I wrote this as we finished up each day, and sometimes throughout the day.
Our schedule is Tuesday to Friday with a 1/2 day on Saturday. (Dad has his days off Sunday and Monday).

Tuesday:

Bible Study: read and discussed Proverbs 1: 1-2

Recitation: Introduced "The Flies and the Honey Pot." Discussed unfamiliar vocabulary and re-told each stanza. The kids drew a picture.

Copywork: the youngest copied out the moral.

Dictation: The oldest wrote out the moral.

CW Aesop: Introduced the Princess and the Pea.

Spelling: Drilled phonograms and spelling rules. Only got half way through the list for K5

Latin: Read about Junius Brutus and did the picture study.

History: Read about Ivan the Great and Ivan the Terrible. (Ch. 22, SoTW2)Did the chapter test, using the book as a reference for the answers.

Math:
older, did 3B ex, 12 and 13
younger, did Review 2E. (from 2B) She finally agreed to use a few manipulatives for multiplication and division--beans in an egg carton.

Grammar:
older, Lesson 1, R&S 4
younger, FLL, Lesson 155. She had a lot of difficulty identifying nouns, verbs, pronouns, adverbs and adjectives.

CW individually:
Older wrote fist draft of re-telling the Princess and the Pea.
Younger--Didn't get to her narration.

Assigned Reading
Older completed his one hour. Enjoying "Seven Wise Princesses" retold by Wafa' Tarnowska, illus. by Nilesh Mistry
Younger completed only 15 minutes of her required 1/2 hour.

Evaluation: It was a long, hard and difficult day. We started at noon, and I was still at it at 7pm with the younger one when I had to quit and go grocery shopping.

Wednesday

My mom arrived to do their piano practice with them, so the order changed a bit.

Grammar:

Older--Lesson 2, R&S 4. The forms of the verb "to be" were new to him. I think we'll leave that for when we get to verbs and pull out the lesson in R&S 3 if necessary, when we get to it.

Younger-- FLL,Lesson 156. The script told me we had done conjunctions. Had we? I told my daughter that I think we'd been asleep for that lesson. She agreed. Anyway, we went on to articles which was difficult until I explained it the SWR way. (The "n" in "an" is just to help you say the word which starts with a vowel. The consonant is a "stop" for your tongue.) She did the dictation.

Math
older--3B, Ex. 14 & 15.
Younger--2B, Review A and corrections from yesterday.

History
Ch. 24(a) of SoTW2: The Ottoman Turks. This was a very confusing chapter, but the kids did well. I took down their narrations. My son wanted to add a few sentences so I gave it to him to do that. Then we re-ordered the sentences and I had him copy it out. He said it was shorter and was quite surprised. He was using pronouns! Nice things, pronouns. My daughter copied hers out.

Latin: Introduced Vocabulary D. They got into a fight over sharing a gluestick.

Inconsistency is the death of language study, so I've decided we're going to take the rest of the week and review ALL their vocabulary and chants to date. Most of the lessons this week are in history, so it seems a good time.

CW-Aesop.
Older--rewrote his copy from yesterday to correct for spelling mistakes and mechanics. He seems to be allergic to the dictionary and actually wants to look in his "Bone" books to find the words he needs to spell. What's with that?
Younger--took down her re-telling of the story. We included some dialogue at my suggestion. When I told her she could type it, she was quite excited.

Evaluation: We worked solid from about 1 pm to 6:30 pm. Another long, difficult day. Missed Bible Study and reciting our poem.

Then dinner and 1/2 hour of reading from both of them. Sigh. So nice and quiet.

Thursday

We got up with Dad at 6:30 this morning. That was too early! I let the kids watch TV (videos) until 8:30 and then we started with History at my daughter's request.

History: SoTW 22(b)
Older--wrote his narration on his own, without help though he was in the room as I worked on my daughter's with her. Surprisingly, he took great pains with his printing, punctuation and capitalisation. I was quite pleased.
Younger--Dictated to me, I wrote it down and dictated the first two sentences back to her.

Spelling--SWR K5--dictated list for the second time. They wrote the words on cards and alphabetized them.

Latin--reviewed Vocabulary A to D. Did Lesson 6.5They clowned around a lot during the vocabulary review but then we were all pretty tired by then. Doing the lesson was a slog.

Lunch at 11:00. Wonderful! Took an hour.

Bible Study:
Proverbs 1 (yes, all of it. We talked a lot about the "fear" of the Lord.)

Grammar
Older--R&S4, Lesson 3
Younger--FLL, 157

Math:
Older, 3B, Practice 3B
Younger, 2B, Review 2A

Evaluation: I was done at 1:30. (They still had their math and independent reading to do). I'm exhausted, but very happy--which sure beats exhausted and frustrated, as I have been the last two days. I don't know if we can start tomorrow at 8:30am, but this sure is nice.

Friday

Holy catfish!
We're up at 6:30am again. And they are reading. Reading! Not watching TV/DVD's as is usual. They wanted to. It's calm. Peaceful. What a wonderful way to start the day.

Spelling --the test. I'm going to have the eight year old redo it tomorrow.
Latin--Vocabulary exercise. Reviewed Vocabulary A-D.

Writing--Talked about the six rules of sentences and changed the type of two of them.
younger finished typing out her re-telling. She took 45 minutes but did a wonderful job. I told her next time, I would not use any punctuation as I wrote it. She immediately saw how challenging that would be and asked me to pleeeeease include capitals. We'll see.

Bible--Proverbs 2: 1-11. This is not going well. I'll have to seek some advice.

History--Ch 24(c) Sulieman the Magnificent. Also didn't go well. They seemed to blank out the audio CD. I'm strongly considering going back to rereading it myself. They may have just been tired. We did the chapter test rather than a narration. Perhaps that was the trouble?

Grammar
older-- R&S ch. 4 A bit bumpy but fine.
younger--FLL 157. Prepositions. I think the text is a bit babyish for her, now.

Math
Older--3B, Ex. 16
Younger--2 sheets of mental math. I had to sit with her and re-teach the techniques for subtraction. It was horrible for both of us, but she was getting it in the end. (I had to send her out for a bike ride in the middle of it to clear her head.)

Evaluation: I think I'll put down today's difficulties to our tiredness. It's been wonderful getting up at 6:30 two days in a row but we are still adjusting. After all, no one was in bed before midnight on Wednesday. (A long, rare, hot spell made it difficult to sleep, plus our habit of staying up late most nights anyway.)

Reading
younger--all caught up and a bit ahead.
older--still needs to do 45 minutes to catch up to today.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow, though. Science, Art, Grammar, Math and writing a book report. And I must tidy up a LOT! We haven't done our poem all week because, ahem, I've lost their sheets.

Saturday

Again, both chose to read, first thing. Well, the older wanted to "check a few things on the computer" and after that he happily settled into about an hour of reading.

I am. of course, chomping at the bit to get to our art and science, but this is so great, I'm doing my best to curb my impatience.

My son wanted to continue reading, and after a half hour my daughter was ready to move on, so I gave her some super simple subtraction math sheets.

Art--
I presented Meet the Masters, Grade three., Portfolio A. (See side bar for link to this free program). Pieter Bruegel, The Harvesters, and Marc Chagall, I and the Village. The kids really appreciated seeing the larger web images!

Each of them wrote a little bit about the painting and the artists and did an art project using shapes to create a picture. (See above!) They really enjoyed it.

And that was that. Some neighbourhood kids came by to play and I let them go. We had a good week and we all worked hard.

On the First Day

Last night I apologised to my son for having yelled "all day."
Tender hearted kid that he is, he said, "It's understandable."

I told him I would try better tomorrow.

He replied, "Today wasn't as hard as yesterday."

"What do you mean? I asked him. "Was yesterday harder academically or do you mean attitude?"

His reply was, "Yesterday I didn't know what was going on all day. My brain wasn't caught up. Today, I knew more about what I was doing. It's just because we hadn't done it in so long. But it's like this," and he gestured to the book in front of him, meaning reading, "well, now."

Why would it have NOT occurred to me that the kids might have trouble "switching on their brains" to start school? It's tough for me: having to keep them on track and not be distracted--I expected that! But, I saw it as an obedience issue--not an issue of adjustment to get their heads back in the game.

We both agreed that today should be "even easier."

It does get easier the longer we do it, but again, I'd thought it was an obedience issue, getting used to having limits and boundaries and so on. I thought it was a relationship issue. And, here, at least for my son, it's just a matter of being familiar with the material.

It isn't personal.
Whew.

I think I can breathe now.

(And that confession is highly motivating to remain consistent, too.)

The Princess and the Sandwich.

Our writing program is Classical Writing-Aesop. It is the beginning level of the Classical Writing program. I had been doing it last Spring with just my son. This fall, I've decided to fold my daughter into it as well. The format of the program is very simple. At the beginning of the week you read a folk tale or bit of anecdotal history and then the child re-tells the story in his or her own words in various ways (Like using mostly dialogue, or changing the characters, etc. Then one uses it to work on mechanics and word choice and writes a few drafts until the final copy.)

Today's story was the Princess and the Pea. An incident with my daughter tonight inspired this, my own re-telling.

A lowly chef toiled in a sandwich shop. He longed to be a personal chef, but he wouldn't work for just anyone. He had to work for someone discerning, someone who would appreciate his work with the most perspicacious palate.

One day, the most bedraggled customer came in. Her hair was lank. Her shirt was stained.

"I wonder," she said, in a high, haughty tone, "I wonder how good your sandwiches are to eat?"

Biting his tongue, the chef was most polite as he asked her how she would like him to prepare her sandwich.

"What would you like, Madam?"

"Ham and cheese on a bagel." she said. "With the cheese sliced thinly."

"Ok. A Bagel, toasted or not?"

"Butter or not?"

"No butter, then. Mustard?"

"No mustard but mayonnaise."

"So you want an untoasted bagel with just mayonnaise, ham and thinly sliced cheese. Is that it?"

And then came the imperious command: "Do not put the mayonnaise next to the cheese."

"Madam," he said, "Would you be looking for a chef?"

And she was.

Starting School Tomorrow

"You can't watch TV anymore, it's time to go to bed."

"But, why? You always let us watch TV."

"Not tonight, tomorrow we're starting school."

"Oh no we aren't."

"Yes we are. I'm going to get you up bright and early so we can start."

"I'm going to sleep in."

The Reading Club

One of my perpetual frustrations is getting my son to read material I want him to read. He'd be happy reading comic books, Tintin, Asterix, and Calvin and Hobbes the whole day long.

I wouldn't mind it so much if he read some of the other books out there, but he doesn't. The closest he gets to a "real" book is Hank the Cow Dog.

So, tonight, we made a deal. I based it upon our library's Summer Reading Club program. The idea is this: after you read a set period of time, (the library asked for 15 minutes) you got to tick off a "stepping stone." Once six stepping stones were ticked off, you were at a Stop. The library gave you a small prize of a few water based tattoos for each Stop. Halfway through, you got a whistle. When you were done the 8 week program you got a whoopie cushion and a clown nose.

Here's our plan.

One stepping stone represents one hour of reading from my son, and a half hour from my daughter. Six stepping stones plus one book report equals one stop (or a week). At each third stop, the children are entitled to a "reward" costing less than $10.00.

The catch: I choose the reading material!

This way, either of them can read anything they like, I'm not punishing them for their choices. But, hopefully, I can steer them towards better choices.

I already supplement our History with Famous Men of the Middle Ages by John Haaren and A Child's History of the World by Hillyer as well as other readings, so those will count towards the time requirement, but not the book reports. On the other hand, either of them can write a book report on a book they've heard on CD--but the CD won't count as far as reading time goes.

I'm not exactly sure what the book lists will look like, but I want to include some of the books recommended by The Story of the World Activity Guide as well as some biographies. This will be something of a challenge--especially finding good books for my daughter, who is a rising third grader and just starting to read "Junior" chapter books.

Suggestions welcome!

School on Saturdays

We pretty much have to do it--the husband's days off are Sunday and Monday--so, I like to school at least a 1/2 day on Saturday.

We are not officially "back at school" yet--but the events this morning were most gratifying.

My eight year old daughter wanted pancakes for breakfast. Usually, this is easy: I have a recipe I use to pre-mix the dry ingredients and all she has to do is measure some out and add the "wet" ingredients.

Well, today, I didn't have any pre-made, so I asked her if she would make the recipe "two times." It's a complicated thing with three kinds of flour and both baking powder and soda. But she mixed and measured like a pro.

The kitchen table--where we usually "do school" looked like this:



She added some of the last raspberries:



It was absolutely scrumptious with just a drizzle of maple syrup.



I guess part of the secret to "doing school" is not to make it look like "school" at all.

Poetry Selections

The Ancient Mariner

This is actually our Memory work.

I can't think of anything nicer than having a store of poems in one's memory to draw upon in times of idle reflection, or even, in need.

In the past, I have tried to pick poems that sound wonderful to the ear, that use language powerfully to create a word picture or tell a story.

This year, I'm adding in at least one "moral" poem.

I type out the poem into the computer (or cut and past from here) and try and put in a "box" for an illustration. (This works really well in Word).

We read the selected poem every morning. You would be amazed how quickly you can memorize something by simply saying three times every day! When the children can recite it without looking at their sheet, we call Grandy and invite her over to listen. I also use a line or two, or a verse for copy work and dictation.

It works really well.

I'd like to assemble the sheets into a notebook for them to keep for their own children, perhaps.

Here are our selections for memory work until Christmas:

The Flies and the Honey Pot
by Aesop
(from the Book of Virtues ed. by William J. Bennett)

A jar of honey chanced to spill
Its contents on the windowsill
In many a viscous pool and rill.

The flies, attracted by the sweet,
Began so greedily to eat,
They smeared their fragile wings and feet.

With many a twitch and pull in vain
They gasped to get away again,
And died in aromatic pain.

Moral:
O foolish creatures that destroy
Themselves for transitory joy.



The Splendour Falls
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes dying, dying, dying.
O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes dying, dying, dying.
O love they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field, or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.



I Dug and Dug Amongst the Snow
by Christina Rossetti,
1830-1894

I dug and dug amongst the snow,
And thought the flowers would never grow;
I dug and dug amongst the sand,
And still no green thing came to hand.

Melt, O snow! the warm winds blow
To thaw the flowers and melt the snow;
But all the winds from every land
Will rear no blossom from the sand.



A Slash of Blue
By Emily Dickinson

A slash of Blue --
A sweep of Gray --
Some scarlet patches on the way,
Compose an Evening Sky --
A little purple -- slipped between --
Some Ruby Trousers hurried on --
A Wave of Gold --
A Bank of Day --
This just makes out the Morning Sky.



I hope that'll do.

Life is Difficult

Most do not see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly...about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy.

M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled.

It's timely to be reminded of this. The kids and I need to buckle down and get back to school and my mind is railing against it. Yet, strangely enough, I want my kids to learn this.

Many choose homeschooling because they want their children to have fun, they want their kids to have a "happy" childhood. In opposition to the imposition of school, they want their children's learning to be self-directed. And that's fine. If I knew how to do that without raising brats, I would.

It makes a certain amount of pedagogical sense, too: as an adult, one doesn't tend to learn much of anything about anything unless one wants to learn. To produce a "life-long learner" then, one wants to be instill the motivation to learn: the curiosity and the drive. (Assuming one can impart these things. That's a pretty big "if," I think.)

However, the danger with this approach to learning, for me, in my inexperienced hands is producing kids who will expect that life should be easy; that their pursuits shoud conform to their interests and that anything else is an unfair imposition.

And, of ourse, that particular attitude is extremely disabling. I know. I have it myself.

So, if the objective is to teach that life is difficult (and one should not expect otherwise) what is one to do to produce children who can meet the challenge?

The old-fashioned Virtues make sense in this context: self-dicipline, work, courage, perseverance, and responsibility. Two attitudes are crucial: fortitude and cheerfulness.

The Charlotte Mason approach to education stresses the building of character; the training of habits in the early years. It's a good approach and I haven't done it.

So, where do I start?

I have to model it, myself, of course. That's a subject I'll just mention and leave for the moment because then this would be all about me and I want to figure out what would be best for them.

Chores?

I need to think some more.