Weekly Report, Term 2, Week 4

The Homeschooling conference feels like a million miles away. I over spent. And I didn't come back inspired and fired up like last year. I just feel guilty.

Moving on.

Morning Subjects:

Bible Study. Explorer's Bible Study, Discovery. Words of Wisdom.
Began Job. Hooray! I got it at the Homeschooling conference, as I'd planned, and I'm thrilled the three of us are back at it again. The material is actually new to them (I guess they don't figure Job exciting enough in Sunday School, or something.). The lessons are quite short. That was a pleasant surprise! I thought of Charlotte Mason all last week as we read discussed our passages without losing attention or interest. I wish I had experienced this sooner.

Latin. Lively Latin. Big Book 1. Ex. 16.9 to 16. 11.
As Rose says, it seems to be the never-ending curriculum. We've had the last pages in sight for two weeks. We just can't....seem....to....reach....them. I've put on Lingua Angelica twice since purchasing it at the Homeschool conference: one caught the Boy's attention. But I've promptly mislaid the song book, (of course) so we couldn't sing it. He actually had to ask me, though: "What language is this in?" (Is that good or bad?)

Spelling. SWR, List N2
I dictated it and we did a bit of work on suffixes. I forgot to test. Oops.

Grammar:
The Older: Rod and Staff, 4: Lessons 79 to 82. Skipped Lesson 80.

The Younger: Rod and Staff 3: Lessons 54 to 57.

Composition:
The Older: Homer A, Week 3: The Wind and the Sun.
Once again, he's written maybe two paragraphs. I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm failing. We did do some dictation.

The Younger: Aesop A, Week 16 or so.
I've ditched the Bible Stories. Somehow we barely have the time to work with short bits: never mind the long rambling story of David and Goliath. The child does not yet know how to narrate without relating every single detail. I corrected that in the older child: and look what I got for my trouble! Instead we're using the models from the first six weeks. She missed those as I folded her in with the older at week 7.
I'm flailing.

Math.
Older: Singapore Math, Level 4B. Week 5.
I'd planned the usual doubling up of weeks to progress more quickly: but we had to s-l-o-w right down when he encountered three long, tough reviews. I was slow at getting to mark them, too, so on Day four we just went over them and I re-taught whatever needed refreshing.

Younger: Singapore Math 3A Week 13.
The child surprised herself by whipping through her stuff. I took a few minutes earlier this week (fresh from a presentation on Right Start Math on which I spent a fortune for the games) and taught my daughter to recognise the patterns in the nine times table on the 100's board. She even found a few I'd never seen! You know, of course, that she's aced the nines times tables. Just like that. (She doesn't quite know it yet, but she will). And it seems to have been some sort of key to the lock in her brain for knowing all of them. I still haven't found the key to my son's brain. The multiplication table is still locked up tight in there.

Afternoon Subjects.

Science: Singapore i-science, Primary 4, Chapter 3b: How Do Plants and Animals Breathe?
The kids got all grossed out by the pictures of the stomata in plants. I had a chance to tell them that photosynthesis is the reason I believed in God.

History: Story of the World, Vol. 3: Chapters 13 (The Sun King) and 14 (The Rise of Prussia).
This was a mish-mash. We'd listened to The Sun King on the way down to the conference, so we did our map work, timeline and chapter test this week. Then we listened to "The Rise of Prussia" and I figured out that I had had Frederick the Great confused with his grandfather! (All the kids' assigned supplementary reading--from Synge to Famous Men of Modern Times was about Frederick the Great, so hopefully I haven't confused them!) We made several entries in our Timeline book, (we are soooo behind!) did the chapter test: but forgot to do our map work.

I'm thinking of stopping right here for a few weeks while we "catch up" in our Canadian History studies to the time period of Chapter 15, which, as far as Canadian History is concerned is dated at 1663, the year King Louis XIV sent first the soldiers and then the women to secure the survival and future of New France.

According to my reading schedule, if I read 2x a week (about an hour and a half, maybe, each time?) it may take us three weeks. I'm not sure I can do that, but not to do so is too fall too far behind for comfort. No, not comfort. Sanity. No, I'm not sure why I am so pathologically attached to my SoTW schedule.

Literature:
didn't get to the magic.

Canadian History.
I purchased Heather Penner's "Modern History Through Canadian Eyes" (A strange title, to be kind) at the homeschooling conference. I thought it would be helpful in coordinating all the various resources out there--I've been doing what I can, but it has been terribly time consuming.

Unfortunately, I find myself staying up late nights creating spreadsheets of my own and typing in all the info I need in a format I can access more easily--and so, thus far, it's been quite a bit of work. (I spend money to make life easier or more enjoyable. This was a bad purchase by those criteria. But, it's only been the first week. Perhaps I judge too soon.)

Canadian History is just one of those things you have to coordinate from the pitifully small number of available materials. (Yet, maybe it's unfair to compare the number of our resources here with those of the behemoth to the south.) There is no really decent stand alone spine. I lamented that as late as a few days ago. However, I read Granatstein's Who Killed Canadian History when we got home from the conference and perhaps that isn't a bad thing. It forces us to read our history from different authors...and so "different perspectives" are just built right in (without discussion or analysis) at this age. Granatstein believes, as I do, that history ought to be a story at this age--and analysed and examined when the child is older and better able to do that. One of the things Penner has done is coordinate resources for older students as well as younger. So, for example, Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples is coordinated with chapters of Morton's "A Short History of Canada." So, we're good to go, once I get a copy of Churchill's books.

Fine Arts.
Music: Beautiful Feet
Art: Artistic Pursuits. (Yes, I broke down and bought it.)
aargh--we didn't get to THIS either.

I don't know what to do. I had thought getting up at 6:30 would help. That lasted one day. We just can't seem to get everything done in a day--and yet, I know we could. I spend 90% of my time disciplining them: and that's just not right. I keep thinking it shouldn't be necessary at this age and stage. I also feel as though I am not ever going to figure this out once and for all. It will always be a struggle (and it shouldn't be). (I think R.D. Laing would enjoy this.)

So, I'll keep making my plans and keep seeing them remain undone. And because they remain undone I feel like we can't ever take time off. We can't ever relax. And yet, I can't keep this up. We need to take breaks as much as I hate them. And I can't keep making plans and watch them be transferred from file to file week after week. Some thing's got to give and it's usually my temper.

The Greeks personified, this, didn't they? Or monsterfied it. Scylla and Charybdis, wasn't it? Or am I merely, as Hirsch would have us say, between a rock and a hard place?

Fairy Tales: Counting on the Magic.

The Three Sillies

I'm finding LCC not only restructuring the pattern of our day, but revitalising my plans for our studies. Free from the shackles of chronology, I can now embrace literature. Yes! Real literature.

I've been flirting with the idea of studying Fairy Tales. I want them to be a gentle way to talk about all those horrid things that with too much consideration can suck the joy right out of reading.

And yet, becoming aware, having one's eyes opened, as it were, can lead to better appreciation and more joy. I must believe that--else why am I teaching the kids anything at all? We're not unschoolers. (Though I confess the desire to become LCCers as it were is to free up time to do as we want!)
Literature is close to my heart and to turn it into something my kids hate would just about finish me. So, I've avoided it. Oh--I give the kids books to read, but off handedly--with the caveat they only have to try the first chapter. If they aren't interested by then, back to the shelf it may go.

But I'm going to risk it all with Fairy Tales, I think. There's an incredible site of the web devoted to them. It is most amazing. It's called Surlalune. It led me to read a fellow named Jack Zipes. If you are at all interested in Children's Literature, he is a must-read.

A google search led me to is Vladimir Propp. I'm not sure I can explain what he did very well, but it turns out that Fairy Tales always have the same consistent elements in it which go beyond the mere Rule of three.

So, with the help of many teachers' sites, SurLaLune and Jack Zipes, I have pulled together a list of grouped fairy tales to study. There are many ways and many tales, of course. I am doing mine this way based on the books on the shelves at my library!

Here they are:

The "Threes:"
Introduce this tale with a short blurb on the Fates from D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myth, p. 70. The Three Spinning Women*
The Three Men of Power (Russian) (This is quite long and I may just read it without a heavy duty analysis. There's lots one could do with this one, though!)
The Three Billy Goats Gruff
The Three Wishes (Perrault) or The Fisherman and his Wife* (Grimm)
The Three Sillies** also known as Clever Elsie*

The First Spin-off:
Traditional Tale: Rapunzel,
Melisandeor, Long and Short Division by E. Nesbit

The Second Spin-off:
Traditional Tale: The Frog King or Iron Henry* The Frog Prince Continued by Jon Scieszka

The Third Spin-off:
Traditional Tale: The Three Little Pigs**
The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas
The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka


Other Possibilities (they truly are endless!)

Traditionl Tale: King Thrushbeard*
Princess Smarty-Pants by Babette Cole
The Taming of the Shrew (as told by Jim Weiss on Shakespeare for Children. You can also use Nesbit or the Lambs', of course.)

The Magic Cooking Pot or Sweet Porridge*)
Strega Nona by Tomie de Paola.
Stone Soup by Marcia Brown

I'd love to do
Snow White and Rose Red and
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves*.

I wonder if we should compare Jack and the Giant Killer** with Jack and the Beanstalk**?

Perhaps we ought to finish up with Wise Women Tales?
Baba Yaga
Grandmothers' Stories: Wise Woman Tales from Many Cultures by Burleigh Mutén.

Ever the over-achiever, I've made up a very detailed questionaire (four pages) for them to use when we're discussing the fairy tales. So, I probably will still kill their love for it. Oh well. Wish me luck (or send me a magic potion).


* from Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. Household Tales. Margaret Hunt, translator. London: George Bell, 1884, 1892. 2 volumes. Transcribed to the web at SurLaLune and at The Baldwin Project

**from Jacobs, Joseph. English Fairy Tales. London: David Nutt, 1890. at SurLaLune and at The Baldwin Project

Weekly Report: Week 2, Term 2*

"Music is well-said to be the speech of angels." Thomas Carlyle

From the title page of The Boy's new History of Music notebook.

Odd, odd, this first official "full-on" LCC week. We wound up doing some things after supper in the evenings because, well, because we didn't start our day until noon. So, if the "morning" can be between 12 and 4, then the afternoon can be between 6 and 8. Just so we're clear.

Morning Subjects.
Latin:
Lively Latin I: Lessons 15 & just a smidgen of 16.
We did our double drill every day (the verb sum and our first three declensions). My daughter made the startling discovery that the 2nd Declension Neuter and the 2nd Declension Masculine differ only in the Nominative case. The boy has not yet noticed (or at least he hasn't said). So we went from Ex. 15.9, to Ex. 16.1. Lots of good stuff in there, including a review of the 2nd Punic war and new vocabulary (fun stuff: colour words).

Spelling:
Spell to Write and Read. Finished dictating M7. Tested it.
(I hate spelling).

Grammar:
The Older: Rod and Staff 4: Lesson 71 to Lesson 73
The Younger: Rod and Staff 3: (skipped Lesson 49) Lesson 50, Review 1, Review 2.

Writing:
The Older: Homer Week 2; Belling the Cat. Somehow, we didn't finish. The dictation did not go well and we just sort of stalled out.

The Younger: Aesop A Week 16; Moses on the Mountain.
Poor girl was nearly slain by this "model." Avoid this one at all costs. I wish I had pre-read it and picked something else for her. We did finish everything necessary in the workbook but in spite of four days of work, her re-write still isn't done. I'm going to let her take this week and just work on it. If she doesn't leave home, first (see below).

Math:
The Older: Started Singapore 4A.

Continuing at double pace, so he did Weeks 1 & 2. Lots of intense teaching: but I sat there and nearly read straight from the HIG and worked examples beside him with paper and pencil. The unit was on decimals and relating them to fractions: how come no one ever taught me that? (I only figured it out cause I always wanted to know my per cent on a test). As we are moving on, I feel more and more responsibility not to mess it up.

The Younger: Singapore Math 3A, week 11.
Near Mutiny. In my excitement with LCC, I sort of forgot who I was dealing with and scheduled way too much math for her to do. She did some on Tuesday and Wednesday. But then she flat out refused on Thursday. All day. We took away TV, even listening to the CD player. To no avail. However, on Friday she was OK: and it took her all day to catch up to completing the work I'd scheduled to be done by Thursday. But that was OK. When I checked, I realised that that was an entire week's worth of work according to the HIG (plus she'd done some extra Challenging Word Problems I'd assigned) so all was right with the world again. Not much else got done on Friday, though. Multiplying and dividing are exhausting.

Afternoon Subjects
Science:
i-Science Primary 4: Unit 3A: What is Air? I'd hoped to get through all of Chapter 3: in the end we did only as much as we would have done without being on the LCC plan. In fact, I didn't even do it! I left my husband in charge Tuesday evening after supper while I ran off to read magazines at the grocery store.

Canadian History Read-Aloud: Meghan's Reading Plan Unit 2: First Contact. Days 11 to 13. This is working out much better than I had hoped. It was an extremely pleasant and productive way to spend Wednesday afternoon.

History:
SoTW3: Chapter 12.
There are three long sections to this chapter on English history. And what better way to get through it on a Saturday morning than with a lick of spring cleaning! We put Weiss on the CD player in the Living room and dusted and mopped while we heard about the Long Parliament, the Rump Parliament, Poor Charles' head, Cromwell, and then the Barebones Parliament. That's as far as we got. The plague and fire of London will have to wait until next week, I'm afraid. Maybe we'll do the Dining Room/Office.
Art & Music:
I didn't manage to put together an Art History lesson on Rembrandt in time: but I did find a copy of The History of Classical Music by Beautiful Feet which I had purchased 2nd hand last September and forgotten about. So, I went to the library, found most of the books (and all we needed to get started) bought some Notebooking pages and began, tonight, yes, Sunday evening after supper. Again, I wanted to get done more than we did, but that's OK. We did Lesson 1. We're launched.

Coming Soon.
Literature:
I'm doing my darndest to pull together a small unit on Fairy Tales. My problem is, I keep stopping to read them. Must stop enjoying myself. Must work. We will start next week. We must. I'll have a post on that up soon, too.

Bible:
I have decided we're not going to do any Bible Study until I can get the Explorer's materials at the homeschooling conference in, gasp, a mere two weeks.


*or it's Week 12 since Christmas break.
From now on, I'll be following the LCC divisions of 10 week terms, 4 terms per year, starting in the new year. So, Terms 1 & 2 will be in the Spring and Summer and 3 & 4 in the Fall and Winter. "Grades" however, following public school practice "officially" flip in September.

Read Aloud Thursday

I'm a sucker for pretty buttons!

The following books compose the foundation of our Canadian History Read-Aloud Program--more accurately known as Meghan's Reading plan. Yesterday, I got through three days worth of assigned reading (without the accompanying novel) and I'm thrilled. This has been very difficult to implement, but I think it is wonderful way to learn Canadian History and the kids love it too.

So, here is the first book.
Our History Spine.

(Mine looks a bit different, of course. It has a shaggy head and mane of different coloured post-it notes!)

The author has his own opinions and always lets us know what they are. It's extremely well written and entertaining and incredibly informative. I have learned so much!



This book is highly irreverent and the jokes and puns are bad--but that makes it fun. The kids really enjoy it.



This tome is an interesting gem. It's full of stories and poems about Canada. The author of Meghan's Reading plan has woven these stories through out other readings like beautiful illustrations.

As for other read-alouds, well, I'm working on pulling together a literature unit on Fairy Tales. That should be fun.