The School of the Sacred Cows

Daily Schedule

2009-09-03T23:33:00.008-06:00

I have re-vamped our schedule.

First of all, I am no longer following the programme set out in the Latin Centered Curriculum. Even though veterans warned me, we became that sort of homeschool which did only its "morning" subjects. We were just not getting to science, art, music, literature, writing, and history. It's really too bad: but I've had to return to a more conventional approach: we all just flat out need the discipline.

So, this is our daily schedule.

Tuesday thru Friday:
Bible Study
Copywork and Recitation
Canadian History (Read Aloud sometimes followed by written work or map work.)
Latin
Lunch and World History (Tuesdays and Thursdays)
Lunch and Science (Wednesdays and Fridays)
Classical Writing
Grammar/Math (Do one child first, then the other).

Saturday:
Bible Study (Review)
Dictation
History (Chapter Review Test)
Science (Experiment or activity)
Composer Study
Art

Here it is all purty:

(as ever, click to enlarge)

I used the Charlotte Mason principle of alternating content with skill subjects...and it works very well. We did two consecutive weeks of school at the beginning of August and starting by 9am, we were finished by about 1:30, 2:00 pm every day.

I really enjoyed that.

Back in the Building

2009-09-03T23:18:00.003-06:00

My last post was May 5th. That was three months ago. My aplogies. I hadn't realised I'd left it so long.

Since I have left it so long, I don't suppose there's anyone who is out there to even read this. So, I'm not sure what, if anything, I ought to say, just now.

I know that as we begin our fifth year I am more unsure about this than ever. I just don't feel I have made the adjustments necessary to create a successful homeschooling environment: and if it hasn't happened by now, I don't think it will.

I am really feeling quite stuck.

I have out year planned to Christmas break, I have all the materials we need: I just do not want to wake up in the morning and begin.

Weekly Report: Term 2, Week 5

2009-05-02T11:32:00.018-06:00

An example of Baroque (in terms I understand!)

I think we've had a breakthrough. On Friday, at the kids insistence, we started with history. The day just zipped by.

Somehow, I got it into my head that our Latin and Math must be done first thing in the morning. The kids have often protested, declaring their brains just weren't awake yet. I just re-read Campbell. What he actually says is this:

Classical languages (Latin and Greek) and math should be given the bulk of the student's time and his best hours, whenever those may be. LLC, 1st ed., p. 61

Well, duh.

So, I'll try reading to them first thing in the mornings, then. Let their brains kick into gear with something not quite as demanding as Latin and math. It just means my eyelids will have to be fully open--and that'll be a challenge!

Morning Subjects:

Bible Study.
Explorer's Bible Study: Discovery. Words of Wisdom: Job, Psalms and Proverbs.
We did Lesson 3. It's bothering me only slightly that I don't have an answer key and that the kids are using their NIV's while the text of the lesson is presented in NKJV. I would rather they both had NKJV's. Of course, my son wants to use his NIrV exclusively. We compromised and agreed to consult it when things weren't entirely clear. For once, though, I am finding I don't like the NIV. Not for this book.

Latin.
Lively Latin, Big Book 1.

With this review map, we're finished! Done! Kaput. We did vocabulary review and and our drill sheets. Here's a blog entry about how we used the program and things I wished we'd done differently. We will continue to review this week.

Spelling.
Spell to Write and Read.
Skipped it.

Grammar:
The Older: Rod and Staff 4, Lesson 83 and Lesson 86.
With great nervousness, I skipped all the writing lessons.

The Younger: Rod and Staff 3, Lessons 58 to 61.
Everyday (since we do grammar everyday) I'm thankful for the grounding FLL1 has given my daughter.

Math:
The Older, Singapore Math 4B. Weeks 6 & 7.

The Younger, Singapore Math 3A. Weeks 14 (and a smidgen of 15).

Composition.
The Older: Homer A. Week 3. The Wind and the Sun.
We took it slowly and worked on finalizing his draft.

The Younger: Aesop A, week 17.
We used an early model: Androcles and the Lion rather than the more difficult biblical model offered by the workbook. My daughter loved it.

Afternoon Subjects

Science.
Singapore i-Science. Chapter 3C: The Human Respiratory System.
We did this in the evening and only got done about 1/2 what I wanted. The husband decided to blow up a balloon and then insert it into a bottle. That distracted the kids totally from their own stuff.

History.
Meghan's Reading Plan with adaptations.
We're taking a break from SoTW Vol.3: Early Modern Times until we catch up to the events in Chapter 15, when King Louis sent the Carignan-Salieres Regiment (and the Filles-de-Roi!) to help the colonists and fur traders in New France.

Key:

CHD: Canadian History for Dummies, by Will Ferguson

SC: The Story of Canada, by Moore and Lunn

Map bk: Canada Map Book 6: Exploring Canada's History by George Quinn (Apple Press)

Day 16: CHD: p. 48-50 Quest for a North-West Passage (Fool’s Gold and Martin Frobisher),
Spirit of Canada, p. 20 Hunting for Unicorns
Trace where Frobisher went on a map, Timeline. Worksheet: Cabot, Cartier and Champlain.

Day 17: SC: p. 38-41, Northern Seas,
CHD: p. 50-52, Quest for a NorthWest Passage (The Lonely Fate of Henry Hudson), timeline.

Day 18: CHD: p. 52-53, Rule Britannia, An Empire Founded by Fog?
SC: p. 27 The Pirate Admiral
Fisheries notebooking page, Map bk.6: p. 16 & 17

Day 19: CHD: p. 53-55, The Two G’s., SC: p. 41-43, Rats, Weeds and Viruses.

Day 20: CHD: p. 55-58 The Beothuk, Spirit of Canada: p. 105-106, The Ballad of Mary March

Dictation. (1x)
The same passage for both.

Fine Arts:
Music: Beautiful Feet Guide to Classical Composers.
Art: Artistic Pursuits, Book 1.

Finally! On Saturday we got to it.
We listened to the CD on Corelli and defined words like Baroque and fastidious. (Which means something other than what I thought it meant. I thought more nit-picky and tidy than exacting and difficult to please.) They also drew their first "official" composition.

Lively Latin.

2009-05-02T11:30:00.002-06:00

I'm guessing it took us a year and a half to do Lively Latin.

We did take a bit of a break last summer--and that was a big mistake. We lost our momentum and, in retrospect, I can see that we forgot an awful lot as a consequence. We probably could have made it up with extensive review, but I didn't know to do that. The program also doesn't have extra excercises and I found that a problem from time to time.

My students were a 10-11 year old boy and a 7-8 year old girl. We started with one lesson and excercise per day. We did the history whenever it came up. (Some days it was the only way my son would do Latin. He loved the history, the actual Latin, not so much.) We sat down at the computer and recited the vobaculary sheets every single day (well, 4-5x/week). (I encouraged the kids to say the English after saying the Latin).

I also made up vocabulary bingo cards--here's the site I used. I'd write the Latin on the bingo card and then call out the English. (You could also make some up in reverse). We'd use M&M's or chocolate chips for markers. They love it.

The flashcards with the program are useful--IF you keep up with them and start sorting them into nouns and verbs (and later, adjectives). Once you have the nouns--colour coding them by declension would have been a fantastic thing for us to have done. (In fact, I think I will do just that next week. I want to do some solid review before we carry on.) Once you have verb endings and declensions to memorize, set up a drill sheet. I "borrowed" mine from someone at the WTM boards. I think it may have been Cajun Classical. I used the one called "sum" 2x--once for the three tenses of sum, and one for the three tenses of all the other verb endings. The second sheet is for the noun endings.

Here was our daily procedure.

A. 1) Send one child to the computer to do current vocabulary sheet.2) Have second child fill out the drill sheets. Switch.

B. 1) Read Lesson out-loud, together.
2) Do excercises together. Use vocabulary sheets as necessary. If it's history, I just had the kids take turns reading out-loud. We did whatever there was to do as follow up. We did not do the History booklet. However, if I were to do this again, I would have purchased the Greenleaf guide to The Famous Men of Rome. The course uses this book and The Story of Rome to provide the history sequences. If we had, we could have simply used this as our history for the year and I would have been well satisfied and less stressed.

We really should have taken a day and dispensed with the vocabulary at the computer and done our Vocabulary Bingo more regularily. The course also provides games and my daughter was the only one who played them. (I couldn't get them to work for a while either. I just kept downloading Java until, one day, mysteriously, they worked.) Her grasp of vocabulary is much better than my son's.

The course does not hold your hand and as a novice, I missed that. However, it was interesting, varied, and solid. The kids don't hate Latin. For all that, I gladly gave up the hand-holding.

Weekly Report, Term 2, Week 4

2009-04-27T11:53:00.010-06:00

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.

2009-04-19T19:19:00.000-06:00

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*

2009-04-05T22:17:00.007-06:00

"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

2009-04-02T13:29:00.010-06:00

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.

Weekly Report. Week 11*

2009-03-27T21:52:00.007-06:00

This was a very funny week. As I mentioned before we'd done 9 weeks of school, then took a week off. Then the week we were supposed to start back, everyone got sick. So, we took another week off.

But it has been a valuable time for reflection.

On a hectic or busy, crowded day we did whatever subjects were convenient--or what the children wanted to do. So, we got History done, because my son loves it. We did our Canadian map book because it was easy. But we were not getting to Grammar or writing.

This week, following the LCC plan, I decided that our priorities would be:
Math,
Language Arts (which consists of Spelling (together), Grammar (separate) and writing. We're using Classical Writing's Aesop A for the girl and Homer A for the boy.)
and Latin.
All other subjects: History, Science, Literature and Fine Arts, Logic, Geography, etc., would take a literal backseat and not be done until the afternoon.

So, that's what happened. I had a real test of my resolve Friday. We started our SoTW3 chapter 11--The Moguls, but we didn't finish it. SoTW is something of a bench mark for me. In our first year of homeschooling, we took so many breaks it took us a year and a half to finish the first book. The second volume also languished for an entire season while I decorated my house. When at last I decided to "get serious" about homeschooling last January, it was there and waiting for us to use--and we finished it right at the beginning of our Christmas break this last year. I am still very proud of that! So, as you can see, where we are in SoTW tells me where we are in out homeschool. Just now, I realised we're in Week 11--'cause we're on chapter 11. I do not want to fall behind: and I see no way to get a chapter done in one day. None. We didn't today, and I doubt we ever will.

The week was extremely short: Wednesday to Friday, only.

Latin:
Lively Latin I: Lesson 15: from Scipio goes to Africa to Diagramming Predicate Adjectives, Ex. 15.8
I've decided to incorporate more drill into our time with Latin. So, I downloaded a drill sheet from Angelina's Blog. For now, I'm just having the kids copy out their endings from a crib sheet. Friday, we made a crib sheet for sum and we'll start writing that out next week along with our declensions.

Spelling:
Um, none, really. I had dictated 1/2 of list M7 the first week we were supposed to be "back" (the week we all got sick) so I'll just pick that back up next week.

Grammar:
The Older: Rod and Staff 4: Lesson 66 to Lesson 70
The Younger: Rod and Staff 3: Lesson 44 to Lesson 48
(yay!)

Writing:
The Older: Started Homer this week. We'd done the planning week while we were under the weather, as it turned out. We didn't quite finish Day 3 or 4. I'm trying to tell myself it really doesn't matter. We will get to it. It will be done. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Math:
The Older: finished Singapore 4A. He did it double the pace and I'm so thrilled. I'm hoping we can keep that up for 4B as he really ought to be finished the entire series by Fall 2010.

The Younger: Singapore 3A: Review A, Ex. 28 and Ex. 29. Unfortunately, these are small gains for the battles we fought.

History:
SoTW3: Chapter 10. We must have done it the week we were sick. This week we only got 1/2 of Chapter 11 done. And by done, I mean we listened to it and answered the review questions orally. No narrations. I'm not completely happy about that but I am finding SoTW3 a slog. I don't know why.

Canadian History Read-Aloud: Meghan's Reading Plan Unit 2: First Contact. Day 7 to 11. Now, we got a lot done with this! And it was just because we were sick. The kids would snuggle up under blankets on the couch and just listen to me read hoarsely. Unfortunately, it is just far too time intensive to continue the way it is set up. I'll be doing some thinking about this (again!).

Geography:
Canada Map Book 2: None

Art & Music:
None

Bible Study:
None

Science:
None

*though if you count the 16 weeks we did before our Christmas break, it's really week 27!

Well, strangely, that was refreshing. I feel ready and energised to start next weeks work.

LCC, Day 1

2009-03-25T17:22:00.004-06:00

I have no idea if there will be a Day 2, honestly, but today we got back to work for the first time in two weeks.

The first week was a scheduled break. The second was a "sick week." We're still not 100%, but I cannot "wait" any longer. We're all getting into terribly self-indulgent habits and neglecting whatever it is we should be doing.

So, today, after having read The Latin Centered Curriculum,(LCC) second edition, for the past couple of days, I decided we would do Math, Latin and Composition. Under the program these are our daily subjects (Greek is to be added in later years). They are to be done when the student is fresh and alert and take priority over all other subjects. The author of LCC, Andrew Campbell recommends that all other subjects: Geography (replaced with Logic in the later years), Science, History, Literature and Religious studies be incorporated for extended periods of time once a week, each. It is an enourmously attractive program.

I have yet to work out the nitty gritty details, but I thought I'd give the the program a go until we leave for our Provincial Homeschooling conference on April 16-18. For example, Campbell suggests that grammar need not be studied separately--learning Latin (esp. a course based on translation, rather than immersion) should be sufficient. I am not so sure--even though today taking a separate stand alone grammar course certainly seemed somewhat redundant. In Latin, we covered adjectives and diagrammed Latin sentences. In her writing model, my daughter underlined all the verbs (and thus had to review the definition of a verb, chant the linking verbs and review the helping verbs). Both children covered pronouns in their separate Rod and Staff English texts.

Today was the sort of day when you understand why it's called "grammar" school.

On Breaks.

2009-03-16T15:23:00.003-06:00

When we started school, waaaay back in August--it was after a summer hiatus since May. An eight or even twelve week break isn't uncomon: but it was after having schooled only from January to the beginning of May. The fall prior to that (2007) had been entirely lost.

It added up to a fair amount of inconsistency and as a result we got "behind." I didn't worry too much in the early years, but last fall I realised that was it. I was running out of time. We have to adhere to a fairly rigid schedule from now on, or this homescholing experiment will fail.

And so, after our Christmas break, I decided we needed to go for nine weeks straight--without a break. I don't like breaks. I am so scattered by nature that if I start something during a break (and I usually do, like cleaning out the basement, or planning a garden or some project or other) I continue doing it when it is time to return to school. So, I figured the longer we went without a break, the better our chances to "stick" with school.

But nine weeks was too long.

It nearly kiled me. It would have been fine, I think, if we had not had the added responsibility of caring for my nephew six days a week (and twice on Mondays, usually). I fell behind with the day-to-day tasks or keeping our home running smoothly. I fell behind with the thrice daily ritual of washing the dishes, and I fell behind with laundry. We're on a money saving plan where we can only eat out two times a month at most. I did manage to keep up with that.

So, we start back again tomorrow: this time with a big change, We're going to start getting up at 6:30am with Dad. We did this last fall and though it was a constant challenge and we never did settle into it, I think we need to try it again so that I feel like we will have accomplished something by the time my nephew gets here. On some days, when he comes for the afternoon, we may even be finished! I think the early morning expeiment has a better chance of working now, too. The clocks have been set ahead: and though it will take another month before sunrise is anywhere near 6:30am again, it will be getting up earlier and earlier, not later and later as it was last fall.

So, let's hope this new plan will keep us on track. Let's hope it will give me the time I need to get my chores done--and the kids' schoolwork completed before supper.

St. Patrick's Day: Not too late.

2009-03-13T16:46:00.009-06:00

As I was putting together this post, I became aware that St. Patrick's Day has been moved this year. That's right. It isn't on March 17th, but March 14th--so that it may be celebrated outside of Holy Week. (Whatever that is. (see below))

I'm not sure whether we will do a mini-unit study on all things Irish, but the idea has some appeal. My father's ancestors left "The Auld Countrie" right as the potato famine ended. However, we can't really claim to be Irish because 1) we're Protestants and 2) apparently we were in Scotland a mere two hundred years prior to that. Given those two facts, the less said about claims to Irish ancestry, the better.

However, just in case I yearn for a pint of Guinness and a few bites of gorgonzolla, I've collected a few resources better suited to share with the wee ones.

The history of St. Patrick, from the History Channel itself.

Dover publications has a maze and some candidates for colouring pages at this sample page.

DLTK has some themed worksheets.

Here's a nice little collection of Irish Fairy Tales. There's also Louey Chisholm's and Joseph Jacob's at The Baldwin Project.

I have no idea of "authentic" Irish fare, really, but these recipes look close. Unfortunately, other than the potato, there doesn't seem to be a lot in common in our cuisine. (Seafood and lamb are exorbitant luxuries here).

Perhaps a few scones and a cup of tea while we read a Celtic tale or two will be a sufficiently pleasant salute.

The First Wednesday in March

2009-03-04T15:20:00.004-07:00

Literature and Study Guides.

2009-01-16T20:45:00.004-07:00

SoTW3 covers history from the 1600's to about 1849--or you could say, from the time of the birth of the novel to its maturation of what could be considered its finest period. From Cervantes to Twain--it's overwhelming to capture for children.

However, we must do what we must and the SoTW Activity guide is amazing in its recommendation of chapter books and abridged classics for elementary students.

So, I went through and selected those books

1) I will make the oldest read and write a book summary.
2) we will listen to or read together for enjoyment.
3) we will peruse together with a study guide.

1) I will make the oldest read on his own.
(3) Pocohontas and the Strangers by Robert Clyde Bulla
(23) Ben and me : a new and astonishing life of Benjamin Franklin as written by his good mouse Amos by Robert Lawson

2) Books we will listen to or read together for enjoyment.
(2) Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates (on audio available from our local library. Narrated by the incomparable John McDonough ).
(21) The Last of the Mohicans by James Fennimore Cooper, an abridged version read by William Hope (Naxos)
(22) Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
(24) Stowaway by Karen Hesse
(25) The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy. [The 1982 movie directed by Clive Donner and starring Anthony Andrews and Ian McKellan now on dvd]
(41) The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera. The library has the book, the book on audio and the movie by Niki Caro. So we'll see when we get here.

3) Books we will peruse together with a study guide.
(15) The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
*Grammar stage study guide and vocabulary list.
*Glencoe Study Guide available here.
* Progeny Press also has a study guide available for Grades 5-7.

(19) The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
* ebook Study guide for Grades 5-12 by Saddleback Classics.

(36) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.
* This, I would like to listen to and follow along in our own copies. There is a plethora of study guides for almost every grade range listed at this site.
*I like the look of this one: Portals to Literature: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Teacher's Guide (by Mark Twain) Gr.6-12 Perfection Learning Corp. There are sample pages to view.

Hmm. The pacing could be better in terms ofwhen to read them (the numbers in brackets correlate with SoTW chapter numbers) and something is telling me this is too ambitious. But it can stand as a preliminary plan.

Music Appreciation and Composers

2008-12-28T12:42:00.006-07:00

I love the Charlotte Mason method of studying composers. You study one per term, three per year. It allows one to fully explore the composer in question: to get used to his style, his music. My children, however, are quick to judge and easily bored. Listening to the same composer for 14 weeks would be torture to them, I expect.

So, instead, we will study one every three weeks over the next year. (That's also the same schedule for our artists' study).

According to the Well-Trained Mind, we should have already worked through The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra by Benjamin Britten one double page spread per week with music selection. Check out this site for a taste: Classics for Kids. Our library doesn't have a copy of the book plus CD. Which may explain why we haven't done this yet.

Then, the children should read through The Story of the Incredible Orchestra: An Introduction to Musical Instruments and he Symphony Orchestra. Put dates on time-line.

Finally, the children ought to read through Understanding Music. After completing each section, they should write a brief one or two sentence summary of the information and, again, put dates on a time line.

THEN the student is prepared to "study" composers.

...whenever the student encounters a great composer in her history reading, she should jot down the name. During music appreciation, she should record the birth and death dates on the time line, read a brief biography [and create a "biographical page" for the history notebook], and spend the rest of her music appreciation period listening to the composer's works. p. 34, WTM, 2004

So, here they are, arranged chronologically, to correlate ever so roughly with Story of the World, Vol. 3, Early Modern Times.

These selections are from the wonderful CM site, Ambelside Online. (In fact, the whole thing is from AO, I just copied and pasted it in chronological order).

Henry Purcell (1659 - 1695, Baroque)
Listening selections for this term:
Selections based on the CD "Essential Purcell" from the Hyperion label. Available from amazon.com Barnes and Noble

Johann Sebastain Bach (1730) (Baroque)
Listening selections for this term:
Magnificat in D (4 weeks)
Chaconne (2 weeks) look for this played by Jascha Heifetz on YouTube
any Church cantata (2 weeks)
Brandenburg Concerto no. 6 (2 weeks)
Art of the Fugue (2 weeks) look for Contrapunctus 9 played by Nageeb Gardizi, and then on organ, on YouTube

Antonio Vivaldi (1730) (Baroque)
Listening selections for this term:
Gloria (choral work);
The Four Seasons;
Trio Sonata in C major, RV.82;
plus 3 concerti - Maybe one for violin, one for guitar and
one for a woodwind instrument such as oboe or bassoon.

George Frideric Handel (1750) (Baroque)
Listening selections for this term:
Messiah (an oratorio) (4 weeks)
Water music
Any of the organ concerti (such as Organ Concerto in B-flat Major, op. 7,no. 6)
Rinaldo (opera)
Harmonious Blacksmith (from suite in E major)

Franz Josef Haydn (1780) (Classical)
Listening selections for this term:
String Quartet Op 76 no 3 "Emperor" OR String Quartet Op 76 no 4 "Sunrise" (2 weeks)
London Symphony no 104 (4 weeks)
The Creation (4 weeks)
a horn concerto (2 weeks)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1785) (Classical/Roccoco) (This term may change in the future - next rotation, 2012)
Listening selections for this term:
Piano Concerto 20 (2 weeks)
Symphony 40 (4 weeks)
Quintet in A maj for clarinet (2 weeks)
Piano Sonata in A maj K.331 (2 weeks)
Concerto for bassoon and orchestra in B-flat major, K. 191 (the only bassoon concerto he wrote)

2011-2012 TERM 1 (This term's artist is Jean Honore Fragonard, Rococo style) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (early classical)
Listening selections for this term:
Eine Kleine Nacht Musik
Requiem [A Vocal work]
Symphony no. 41 in C major (Jupiter)
Sinfonia Concertante
Piano Concerto no. 21 in C major (K.467)

Ludwig von Beethoven (1810) (Classical/Romantic) this term subject to change
Listening selections for this term:
1. Symphony 5 OR 6
2. Piano Sonata 14 (Moonlight, Opus 27) OR 8 (Pathetique, Opus 13)
3. Razumovsky String Quartets Opus 59, no 1-3 OR Septet in E-flat Opus 20
4. Piano Concerto 5 (Emperor, Opus 73)
5. Symphony 7 OR 9 (Opus 125)
6. Fidelio
Options are offered for those who did Beethoven with us in 1999 and would like some new music this term.)

Franz Schubert (1823) (Late Classical/Early Romantic)
Listening selections for this term:
Trout quintet
Symphony no. 8 ("Unfinished")
Symphony no. 9 ("The Great") (2 weeks)
Impromptus op. 90 (D. 899)
Die schone Mullerin (a song cycle)

Frederic Chopin (1840) (Romantic)
Listening selections for this term:
Op 09 no 2 Nocturne in E flat maj
Op 10 no 3 Etude in E-maj
Op 10 no 12 Revolutionary Etude in C minor
Op 21 Piano Concerto number 2 in f minor
Op 28 Preludes no's 15, 20 and either 16 or 17
Op 53 Polonaise in A flat, Heroic

Felix Mendelssohn (1840) (Romantic)
Listening selections for this term:
Songs without words
Violin Concerto in E minor
Symphony no. 4 in A major (Italian) (4 weeks)
Octet in E-flat major
Fingal's Cave ("Hebrides") Overture

Robert Schumann (1848) (Early Romantic)
Listening selections for this term:
Carnaval (for piano)
Scenes from Childhood for piano
Symphony no 1 in B flat Op 38 "Spring"
Symphony no 2 in C Op 61
an arabeske or humoreske
Liederkreis or other song cycle
Lorraine N. collected some resources - biographies, free and pay downloads of the term's music and posted it to the AO email list.

Camille Saint-Saens and Hector Berlioz (1850) (Early Romantic)
Listening selections for this term:
Saint-Saens - Symphony no 3 in C min
Saint-Saens - Danse Macabre
Saint-Saens - Carnaval of Animals (Le Carnaval des Animaux in French)
Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique
Berlioz - Dance of the Sylphs
Berlioz - Rakoczy March from the Damnation of Faust

Franz Liszt (1855) (Early Romantic)
Listening selections for this term:
Piano Concerto no 1
Hungarian Rhapsodies (esp no 2)
Les Preludes
Liebestraum for piano
Piano Sonata in B min
Mephisto Waltz

Antonin Dvorak (1888) (AN-toe-NEEN d-VOR-zhak) 1841-1904, Late Romantic
Listening selections for this term:
Symphony 9 From the New World
Slavonic Dances
Carnaval Overture (may also be spelled Karneval)
Humoresques for piano
Quartet in F maj ("American")
Trio in E min ("Dumky")
Recordings of these pieces may be available at public libraries. If your local branch doesn't have them, ask for them through interlibrary loan. You should also be able to find many used copies available at local used bookstores or Internet sites such as www.half.com or www.ebay.com.

Weekly Report

2008-12-19T14:37:00.004-07:00

Weeks 9 through 16

Wow. Sorry to have disappeared like that!

I quit smoking on our "break week." October 22nd to be exact. As a result, I scaled school back drastically. We did only the bare minimum.

Spelling:
SWR. Finished up L6 which is technically the end of Grade One. (See p. 64 of Spell to Write and Read).

For Grade Two, Sanseri recommends you go back and dictate Lists J-L at the rate of two lists a week and then resume the pace of one list a week for the new material in lists M to O. So, we did all of J and K over again and L1. We'll continue with this plan in the New Year.

Latin:
Lively Latin: Lesson 10 to almost finishing Lesson 12. If that seems slow, that's because I took a week after our break and did vocabulary and declension review. I am inclined to do the same again when we start back up.

Writing:
None. We're still somewhere in Aesop A. This is not good.

History:
SoTW2. Ch 33 to 42. Hooray! We did it. We finished on schedule! I tried to have the kids do a written narration for each section (as we were not doing any other writing). We did all the map work, colouring pages and chapter tests.

Art:
None.

Science:
None.

Dictation and Copywork:
None.

Poetry:
None.

Bible:
None.

Geography:
Canada Map Book 1: finished it.
Canada Map Book 2: pp. 3-7

Canadian History Read-Aloud:
Section 1: Native People's Before Contact
Days 12-14

Math:
The Older: Finished Singapore 3B.
Singapore 4A, completed Weeks 1-4.
I am concerned about my son's being "behind," so I upped the pace, for now. We'll see if I continue this in the New Year when we're back up and running the full roster.

The Younger: Finished Singapore 2B.
Singapore 3A, completed weeks 1-3.

Grammar:
The Older
R&S4: Lessons 25-39

The Younger:
Finished FLL 1 (Hooray!! Excellent program, hated every minute of it!)
R&S3: to Lesson 20.

Assigned Reading:
I do not want to talk about it. I reduced it from 6 to 5 days a week for both of them and chopped 15 minutes off the older's time per day (from an hour to 45 minutes.). As a result, they did nearly NOTHING. Not that they didn't read: but it wasn't what I wanted hem to read.

Logic:
None.

I have my plans made up, more or less, for the new year. Just basically carrying on.

We are, however, going to take a break until Jan 5th. Honestly, though, I wouldn't really mind starting up again December 29th but my kids are too attuned to the public school schedule. I'd probably have a huge fight on my hands. Still, they are going to drive me nuts.

Weekly Report

2008-10-11T22:45:00.006-06:00

Week 8.

We took it easy this week. With no heat and low temperatures, I didn't make the kids get up early. We also worked Monday and took Tuesday off--the first Tuesday of the month is always a big grocery day. It threw my rhythm entirely "off." Well, that and shaking from cold.

Highlight: The Albrecht Durer print exhibition at the Provincial Art gallery and making our own prints from carving lino blocks. My son developed an appreciation for Durer's exquisite detail. "How did he do that?" he asked more than once, after he'd done his own.

Print by the Older:

Print by the Younger:

Spelling:
SWR--Dictated L5, did an Antonym and Analogy worksheet, wrote our words to cards--and FORGOT to do the Spelling test! That's supposed to happen Friday and with all the excitement and activity of having out new furnace installed, I simply forgot.

Latin:
Lively Latin: Ex. 9.6 to Ex. 10.2 (The Imperfect tense.)

Writing:
Aesop. Didn't do any writing this week.

History:
SoTW2, Ch. 32: The Kingdoms of the Americas. We did only one narration, our map work and the chapter test.

Art:
Durer exhibit and print works at the Art Gallery.

Science:
Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day. Finally finished Ch. 11, Social Insects.

Dictation and Copywork:
1x. (Told you it was a light week!) Here's the Older's:

Poetry:
I introduced Jabberwocky. They groaned and protested. What's wrong with these children?

Bible:
Proverbs. Chapter 7. My son went on and on about what a bad thing it was for a woman to sleep with another man not her husband. It was curious: where had he picked up all these opinions? As far as I knew, this was the first time we'd discussed such a topic.

Geography:
Canada Map Book, p. 24 and 25.

Canadian History Read Aloud:
(see sidebar for program). Days 10, and 11. (We're supposed to be finished the 21 day program for "Native Peoples Before Contact.") Oh well, the kids are well into our main novel, The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich.

Math:
The Older.
Singapore 3B, Workbook Ex. 35, Reviews 5 & 6, Practice 6B and Review D. drill 3x

The Younger:
Singapore 2B: Textbook Reviews B, C, Workbook Ex. 45, 46, 47 and 48. drill 4x.

Grammar:
The Older
R&S4: Lessons 23 and 24.

The Younger:
FLL: Lesson 185 & 186.

Assigned Reading:
The Older:
(1 hour a day 6 days/week plus 1 book report or summary/week)
--behind by 1 week, 3 days and 2 book reports.

The Younger:
(1/2 hour/day, 6 days/week plus 1 book report/week)
--behind by 1 week, 4 days and 5 book reports.

Logic:
The Older has finished the Visual Mind Benders book from Critical Thinking Press. I'm not sure what to move into next. He started the new Mind Benders book, A1 and did the first three.

This coming week is Canadian Thanksgiving and then we're taking a week of "School-Lite." I need to plan some activities for us and keep it structured--but fun. But you can bet they'll be doing a lot of Assigned Reading!

Weekly Report

2008-10-04T14:48:00.003-06:00

Week 7.

One word: harried.
I'm not good with strangers in my home and this week there were three: two furnace salesmen (our furnace is quite obsolete and quite dead) and a fellow from the Federally sponsored Eco-Energy program (which may net us a $600.00 rebate on the furnace).

Highlight:
No breaks. I was frustrated with how long our day dragged when I let the kids go out and blow off steam. More than a couple of times they'd be late returning from the break because they hadn't done as I'd asked (clean the Guinea pig cage, get dressed). So, as a discipline measure they were not given a break either Thursday or Friday--the minute one was done one thing, I handed him another. To my surprise, it worked very, very well. One day we were even done by 1pm (except for grammar which got pushed aside as a result of all these appointments).

Spelling:
SWR, List L4. Dictated L4. The kids wrote sentences. I made up a worksheet on antonyms, homophones, homographs and homonyms for them. We quizzed L3 and counted it as the "test." The older had one error, the younger, two. (And this was after a fight about studying her words before the test.)

Latin:
Lively Latin: Lesson 9.2, Ex. 9.2, Lesson 9.3, Ex 9.4, Coriolanus, Ex. 9.5 and The Roman Legionary. For the most part, it went quite well this week. This is a page from the Younger:

Classical Writing:
Aesop A: Diogenes. We did a lot of thesaurus work with nouns and removed as many "said"s as possible.

illustration by The Older.

History:
Story of the World 2, ch. 31, Columbus and others. I took a slightly different approach this week. I had the kids do their reading on Tuesday and Wednesday before we did our work with SoTW. Retention was much better. Colouring pages, map work, review questions, one narration, and the chapter test.

Dictation and Copywork:
3x.

Poetry:
Didn't get a minute to introduce it. Not a problem. Jabberwocky will be here next week.

Bible:
1x (oops). Proverbs 6: 9-19. Though, I must admit, it's fun to say, "Wake up, you sluggard!"

Geography:
2x. Canada Map book, pp 20-23.

Canadian History Read Aloud:
Day 9. And I did it only because the kids were still awake and bouncing around at 10:00 last night. So, I got off the computer, made hot chocolate and had them lie on the couch. It was a wonderful discussion. I enjoyed how relaxed and "unschoolish" we were.

Math:
The Older: Singapore Math, 3B, Week 11: Fractions. Ex. 31-35. drill 4x. Here's what his drill sheets typically look like:

Obviously, they aren't timed!

The Younger: Singapore Math, 2B, Week 12: Fractions. Ex. 40-45. Drill 3x.

Grammar:
The Older: Rod and Staff 4, Lessons 22 & 23.

The Younger: FLL: Lessons 180, 182, 183. I'll be skipping great chunks of this, so we'll be done sooner than I expected!

Science:
We really didn't have a lot of time today, unfortunately. We read about honeybees from Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day and did up a quick comparison between them and the honey bees. (I never even knew bumblebees weren't honey bees!)

The kids have been reading all about honeybees, though, and the older did a "report" on bees as part of his required weekly "book report."

Art:
Next Saturday. The Provincial Art Gallery has an exhibition of prints from wood cuts by Albrecht Durer. How cool is that? On Saturday afternoons, they have an activity lead by a local artists to

Learn the techniques of traditional woodblock printing and create your own relief print.

We have to rearrange my son's music class to make it work, but I hope we can go next week.

Assigned Reading:
Older: 6h/week plus one book report or summary.
Younger: 3h/week plus one book report.

This is not going terribly well. I had incentives set up to be rewarded every three weeks. Last week the kids were supposed to qualify for their Week 6 reward. The Older did work fairly diligently at it and got his this week. But, he's still behind in "real" time. My daughter isn't motivated by a reward at all it seems.

Younger: 4 hours 15 minutes and 2 book reports behind.
Older: 5 1/2 hours and 1 book report behind.

CW Aesop A: Diogenes

2008-10-04T14:42:00.004-06:00

Diogenes
By The Older

Diogenes was a strange man but extremely wise. He thought people didn’t need luxuries and to show that he lived in a barrel.

One day, Diogenes walked through the streets carrying a lamp. The people asked, “What are you doing,” The sage replied, “I am looking for an honest man.”

One day, Alexander the Great came to the city to see Diogenes.
One man said “Hail the mighty Alexander the Great!” But Diogenes didn’t come to see him. So, Alexander searched for the wise man.

Alexander found him and said, “I will give you anything you want in the world, Diogenes.”
The strange man replied, “Would you please move? You are blocking the sun.”
“He is a fool not to take such an offer,” the people murmured.

Alexander thought that if he were not Alexander, he would want to be Diogenes.

**********************************

Diogenes
by The Younger

Once there was a man named Diogenes. He lived in a tub. He was very wise. He always said no man should have more than he needed. Every day he sat in the sun and preached worthy advice to people around him.

“Diogenes is so wise, Alexander is coming to see him.” said the people excitedly.

Alexander sailed to Corinth. Diogenes wasn’t there to meet him. So, Alexander searched for him. When he found him, the wise man was lying in the sun. When he saw Alexander coming, Diogenes sat up.

“I’ll give you anything you want.” Alexander offered, “What will it be?”
“Could you please stand a little to the side? You are blocking the sun.” Diogenes answered.

Alexander left. Later he told his adviser, “I would like to be Diogenes if I were not Alexander.”

The End

Wordless Wednesday

2008-10-01T08:45:00.002-06:00

Our New Poem.

2008-09-27T22:25:00.002-06:00

It's recommended in the book, What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know, ed. by E.D. Hirsch. It's in The Harp and Laurel Wreath, ed. by Laura M. Berquist twice--once in the selections for the Grammar stage child and once for Rhetoric.

We need something silly. Something funny. Something different.

Jabberwocky it is!

I have bad memories associated with this poem, however. I first saw it on an English test in Grade eight or nine. We were given a stanza and asked to pick out the parts of speech! The what? And what on Earth were all these strange words? What was this thing, anyway?

I remember the teacher was shocked. Had we never done parts of speech before? "Surely, you've been taught grammar?" she may have cried. It seems to me she may have missed the point. Most of us had never heard of Lewis Carroll!

JABBERWOCKY
By Lewis Carroll

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

PS: In the Rhetoric section, Berquist suggests parsing or diagramming the first verse.

Weekly Report

2008-09-26T13:40:00.007-06:00

Week 6.

It's the watershed week. We have made it this far before--and then stopped. School came to a screeching halt, partly because I had planned, in the past, to do a six week on/one week off schedule. The problem with that, however, is that the one week would flow into many.

Last winter, however, after a long break in the fall, I got serious. We did about 12 weeks before we took our vacation in May. I learned we don't really need a break after six weeks, as much as I'd like one. I learned we do better with our routine in place for a longer period of time. I learned we need to keep going, that we simply must persevere. Does it sound like I'm trying to convince myself?

I am.

Highlight: none. And I wish I had something to show you, but none of their work this week was "good enough" to be featured. (I use it as an incentive for each of them to be neat and accurate. Nothing "passed."

Spelling:
SWR, taught the 1-1-1 rule. (When do you know to double the final consonant when adding suffixes to words? When the word is 1 syllable, ends in 1 vowel and 1 consonant, and when the suffix begins with a vowel. Isn't that cool?) Dictated L3, wrote sentences, had the kids add random suffixes to the words on the list, and did the test.

Latin:
Lively Latin: Vocabulary E, Word Power Ex. E1, E2, Lesson 9.1 and Exercises 9.1, 9.2 and a history bit on Coriolanus. We also played Latin bingo and the kids really struggled. I'm unhappy about that!

Classical Writing Aesop.
Originally I had planned to turn last week's outline into a story but it was more difficult that I'd anticipated. So we gave that up and turned to Alexander and Bucephalus.

History:
SoTW(2) Chapter 30: The Moghuls in India. Narrations, mapwork, colouring page, chapter test. Once again, neither are retaining the information very well. I taught the younger how to go through the chapter to look for the information she needed to complete the chapter test, but I'd rather she'd been paying attention in the first place.

Science:
Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day, Ch 11: Bees. I read, they wrote out a few notes on the bees jobs. We need to switch curriculums, soon. We really need to blow things up.

Canadian History Read Aloud: (see side bar.) Day 8. This is going much too slowly.

Dictation and Copywork.
Older 2x
Younger 3x

Poetry: The Splendour Falls, By Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It's not memorized, but it is time to move on.

Bible
Skipped Proverbs 5, and did Proverbs 6, 1-8.

Geography: Canada Map Book 1.
pp. 16-19. Map Keys and Map Symbols.

Math
The Older:
SM: We started fractions. Did you know I never, ever knew that you can tell how large a fraction is compared to another by simply looking at the denominator when the numerators are the same? It seems so obvious to me now, but all my life I have always, always had to convet to the same denominator in order to figure it out--yes, even 1/3 and 1/4. Embarrassing, but true.
Review 4, graph worksheets from the Intensive Practice book, and Ex. 26, 27, 28, 29, 30. Practice 6A. Drill 4x.

The Younger
SM: TB Practice 3C, WB Review 3, WB Review 4,
drill, 4x.

Grammar
The Older:
R&S4: Lessons 19, 20, 21.

The Younger:
Lesson 176, 177, 178, 179. (Only 20 more lessons to go. Only 20 more lessons to go. Only 20 more lessons to go.)

Logic
The Older: Visual Mind Benders, 9-14. Mind Benders Beginning Book 2, 30-35.

The Younger:
Undisclosed number of Mind Benders, Beginning Book 2.

Art:
We did the Botticelli Lesson. I photocopied The Birth of Venus onto watercolour paper and printed it out (Hooray for the new printer). However, the older found it difficult to control his watercolours and therefore "boring" the Younger fought with me about what music to listen to. The whole excercise was, in the end, most dissappointing.

Alexander and Bucephalus

2008-09-26T11:11:00.003-06:00

The objectives this week were three:
1) Include lots of dialogue (or direct speech).
2) Vary the position of the utterance words.
3) Vary the kinds of utterance words. In other words, find and use alternatives to "said." For stylistic reasons, I'm not actually sympathetic with this objective of Aesop, but as a learning excercise I suppose it's all right.
___________________

Alexander and Bucephalus
By The Older

One day, King Philip bought a big black horse. No one could tame it. Philip was going to take it back to the place where he bought the horse.

Then Philip’s son Alexander came” Father I wish to tame the horse, and if I can not I will pay you back what you paid for it. ” he exclaimed.
The people who watched were very surprised at this and whispered “He’s dead meat.”

Alexander noticed that the horse was afraid of its own shadow. So, he led the horse in circles and jumped on it and rode until the horse tired out. When he rode back, “Well done, my son.” his father approved. ”You have tamed the horse.”

Later Alexander and Bucephalus were inseparable friends and Bucephalus wouldn’t let anyone but Alexander ride him. Alexander rode him in many a battle and Bucephalus saved his life many a time.

___________________

Alexander and Bucephalus
By The Younger

King Philip once bought a horse for a very high price. He thought it was worth it. But when no one could mount the horse, he told his men to take Bucephalus away. King Philip’s son, Alexander, didn’t want that to happen.

Alexander declared, “Father, maybe I can train the horse. May I try?”

“I suppose,” answered King Philip. “If you succeed, you may have the horse. If you don’t, you must pay me back the price of the horse.”

“Yes Father, I will do it.” Alexander said proudly.

Alexander looked at Bucephalus and noticed that he was scared of his own shadow. Alexander jumped on his back. Bucephalus was startled and started running but Alexander stayed on and he earned his new horse.

Alexander and Bucephalus were the best of friends. They had many adventures together. Bucephalus saved his life more than once.

The End

From the Archives.

2008-09-25T22:47:00.003-06:00

When I first began this absurd adventure, I joined our local homeschooling association. One day, talking to someone in my usual ranting and rambling fashion about the million and one things I was now learning, someone asked me if I would "write something" for the newsletter about my experience.

Today, I found a copy of the old (edited) article, deep within the hard drive. Truly, it was in text format! As it turns out, it seems I've written something vaguely like an article at the beginning of each year since we began. We're now starting our fourth year.

Re-reading that first article, it was interesting to see that fresh frightened face through the lines on the screen: and so I thought I'd share. It's rather long, of course, especially for a blog entry. So grab a cuppa and some chocolate and begin to remember those early days with me. It was given its nifty title by the newsletter's editor:

New Paths, New Ways

This is an account of the adventure of our first twelve weeks of homeschooling. It’s not about curriculum, it’s not about what we do, and it’s not even about my son and daughter. No, it’s about me. In particular, it’s about what I’ve been learning about myself, my interactions with B-- and E---, our relationships, God, and our family.

In September, I packed my daughter off to kindergarten while my son and I sat down at the kitchen table. She wanted to go, and I wanted time alone with B--, to ease into this new experience. Being new and a bit unsure, I chose a classical curriculum based on The Well-Trained Mind by Jesse Wise and Susan Wise Baur. We did math, then phonics, grammar, spelling. He read to me, and then I read to him and asked for a narration page and a picture in return. We tried to do science twice a week. History, three times. But, the honeymoon wore off quickly. B-- had had three years in school: two years of kindergarten and one full year of grade one. He hadn’t enjoyed any of it except recess. I had read enough to know he needed some time to “unschool” - but that was what the summer was for, wasn’t it? Three weeks into our homeschooling adventure I found myself nagging him not to dawdle. B-- was resisting, passively, but resisting - and now, of course, he wasn’t just resisting school, but me!

Last spring, when I first began to investigate the idea of homeschooling, a friend (a homeschooler with grown kids) had warned me we weren’t ready to homeschool. I had had no idea what she meant. Now, I think I’m beginning to know.

I grew up the only child of a young, single, struggling, insecure parent. I had little respect for authority and challenged it at every turn. I only mention that because it means I don’t really have a lot of respect for my own authority over my children. I let them argue with me. I let them demand explanations. They can resist me at every turn and it is such a battle, I am often inconsistent.

Second, and far worse, was my attitude towards my kids. I was thirty-three before I married and had my first child...and having a family was a shock to my introspective, usually solitary self. My mother had mentioned homeschooling to me when B-- was still in diapers. “Homeschooling?” I had laughed derisively. “Homeschooling, me? No, I need my time to myself!” I gladly shipped my son off to Kindergarten, even though he didn’t want to go.

The next year, because he wasn’t “ready,” I followed the advice of his teacher and made him repeat it. If you know anything about the social hierarchy among children at school, there wasn’t anything worse I could have done to him. I deeply regret it, now. I should have just let him come home, of course. But I didn’t. As well, as a result of my selfishness, I let my kids become addicted to television. Their very presence overwhelmed me and I made efforts to create distance between us whenever I could. Do you see why my friend was right? During the month of September, I realized my kids were totally out of control and there was very little relationship to build upon.

This is the environment I brought my son home to, a place of never-ending conflict and bickering and inconsistent and unclear expectations. But now, we’re homeschooling. And homeschooling, I’m beginning to understand, has almost nothing to do with the kitchen table, and everything to do with everything else. As there is no longer any separation of “school” and “home” for my son, there is no separation of “mother” and “teacher” for me.

I’m not sure why this has taken until my son is eight years old to hit home so forcefully. Maybe it’s because I’m never “off” anymore. There is no “downtime.” If I’m lazy and procrastinate, that’s what he learns. If I give excuses, then he does too. If I wear myself to a frazzle cooking and baking for Thanksgiving and shoo the kids out of the kitchen at supper time because they are “in the way”--well, just what is that teaching them? My actions and non-actions and attitudes and beliefs and even my reading material will have an impact of some unknown measure on both my kids. This is, of course, a lesson of parenting, not homeschooling. But without having put ourselves in the pressure cooker of homeschooling, I may never have learned it until B-- and E---’s adolescence. And that’s too frightening to even think about!

In the midst of this awakening, God sent me some angels on the Internet. As part of a reply to an anguished plea someone quoted Marilyn Howshall:

".....God's initial goal for Christian homeschooling families is not the raising of godly children. Instead, God's wonderful, but subtly hidden agenda is that the homeschooling experience be so challenging for the parents that they feel the need and hunger for a closer walk with their heavenly Father."

And so it is. As a Christian, I believe that true change can only occur by the working of the Holy Spirit. But, thank God change is possible!

For starters, I began breaking our addiction to TV. I imposed a black out until 4:00 p.m.. As my daughter comes home from kindergarten at noon and there’s no one else to play with - the two of them have spent many, many afternoons outside just playing, riding their bikes around our cul-de-sac and petting every dog that passes by. They’ve mastered climbing the tree outside, set up and successfully hung a rope to swing on. They’ve become closer - real buddies.

Sometimes, I think no two children more different than each other could possibly exist as siblings. It is particularly gratifying to see the two of them build their relationship with each other. No doubt about it, I’ll be bringing E-- home next September. By then, I hope, our environment will be able to withstand the explosive forces of the two of them constantly in the same small house!

Like nothing else I’ve ever known, homeschooling gives us the chance to re-create our relationships with each other: healthier and happier ones. I have to stop yelling: he has to print neatly. I have to stop nagging: he has to dawdle a little less. I have wash the dishes every night so he can dry them and check it off the chore list. As I slowly, slowly, make the transition from being a parent in “coping” mode, from being the drill sergeant who must keep everyone on task and on time (and failing miserably) to being someone who gives direction and guidance, to someone who creates an environment of love and acceptance, I’m learning that context changes everything. I still expect obedience. But the means to this end now has time to change, to grow, to become the fruit of a relationship - not a command. Now that my eyes are opened, and I am taking the time to get to know my son, I am falling in love with him all over again.

It’s just like when he was first born and I was full of hopes and dreams as I smelled and nuzzled his baby sweetness. Now, he sits at the table beside me, swinging his legs, singing and talking to himself as he plays with his math manipulatives. I want to nag; instead, I try to take a deep breath. As I do, I catch a glimpse of what an incredible boy he is. He truly has the most amazing imagination! We’re homeschooling - and that means that once again I have hopes and dreams for him. As we struggle through the math, roll our eyes at the grammar lessons and read to each other, I’m praying, “What do you want me to do with this child for you, Lord?" It’s a completely different way of interacting, a completely different model of relationship. I am not just his mother, not just his teacher, but a servant of God, “training up my child[ren] in the way [they] should go.” (Proverbs 22:6)

So now, when we play a “math game” at the kitchen table after dinner, we’re not doing math: that’s the side benefit. As my husband reads a tale from the Arabian nights or one of Aesop’s fables to our son from one of his “school” books, they are discovering each other in new ways-ways a book about Spiderman or Ninja turtles couldn’t touch. (Though don’t tell them I know they still sneak in a few at bed-time!) No, the real purpose of homeschooling is to bring our family back together, God’s way. Right now, it’s still a huge learning curve. But finally we’ve turned down the right path. We’re learning what it takes to be a family.

Western Artists--A beginning.

2008-09-20T22:48:00.011-06:00

This is still a work in progress. I will be updating it as I find more art works, projects, lesson plans and readings to accompany each artist.

There is one thing, though. These projects will not teach my children the skills they need to actually express themselves artistically. They're just projects to keep things fun. To actually teach children art, I would have to find a bona fide curriculum (incidentally, I have at least three) and teach it, skill building on skill. I've tried. They aren't interested and it's not worth fighting over. The Well Trained Mind suggests 18 weeks for Art Insruction, dividing one's time equally between drawing, painting and sculpture. A nice ideal.

I haven't decided whether we will cover all of these. There are 28 listed. As we only do Art every other week, I will have to pare this down quite a bit.

However, I thought I'd post for two reasons:
1)It may be useful to someone else and
2)If you can help with lesson plans and/or suggestions, I'd be ever so grateful!

Arranged chronologically by birth:
(beginning with correlating to the latter half of SoTW2)

Donatello (sculpture): 1386-1466 Lesson Plan

Van Eyck: 1395-1441 (done)

Botticelli: 1445-1510 Lesson Plan
(includes reading)

Hieronymous Bosch: 1450-1516
Works and biography here.
Project: Make a triptych. (Adapt for elementary!)

Leonardo da Vinci: 1452-1519 Lesson Plan
read: Leonadro Da Vinci. An Introduction to the Artist's Life and Work by Antony Mason (Famous Artists Series) and Knights of Art.
Video suggestion (from Ambelside Online): "Leonardo: A Dream of Flight," one of The Inventors' Specials by Devine Entertainment.

Albrecht Durer 1471-1528 This Lesson (.pdf file) discusses the difference between engravings and wood cuts and has the children create a wood cut with styrofoam. It also discusses Durer as religious.
Optional Art Project: Painting on Foil

Michelangelo 1475-1564 Lesson Plan
read: Michelangelo. An Introduction to the Artist's Lfe and Work by Jen Green (Famous Artists Series) and Knights of Art.

Raphael 1483-1520 Lesson Plan
read: Knights of Art.

Titian: 1485-1576
read: Knights of Art.

Born in the 1500s
Tintoretto: 1518-1594
read: Knights of Art.

Breugal (the Elder): 1525-1569

Caravaggio: 1571-1610

Reubens 1577-1640

Born in the 1600s
Rembrandt 1606-1669

Vermeer 1632-1675

Antoine Watteau: 1684-1721

William Hogarth: 1697-1764

Born in the 1700s

Joshua Reynolds: 1723-1792

George Stubbs: 1724-1806

Fragonard: 1732-1806

Benjamin West: 1732-1820

Jean-Louis David: 1748-1825

William Blake: 1757-1827

J. M. W. Turner: 1775-1851

John Constable: 1776-1837

Ingres: 1780-1867

John James Audubon: 1785-1851

Born in the 1800s (SoTW3 ends in 1849)

Honore Daumier: 1808-1879

Weekly Report: September 15-20, 2008

2008-09-19T08:57:00.002-06:00

Week 5.
This was an extremely difficult week. My daughter was snuffling and suffering from a sore throat on Wednesday. We plowed through, but she didn't get her math done. On Thursday, though, it was a different story. She complained of dizziness and nauseousness. We did what we could.

Not only has her illness thrown off our school schedule, but our sleeping schedules as well. It also makes me anxious. It makes me so uptight and so anxious, I'm afraid I'm going to spiral into a tempered frenzy and lash out in anger at every provocation, however slight. It's important to keep our frustration levels low, as mine is already too high.

I've put myself between a rock and a hard place. (Knowing it is self-inflicted doesn't help that much.) I want to drive those kids forward, wake them up and get them caught up and yet I must back off, as they are tired, grumpy and unable to learn under pressure.

So, today, Saturday, I plan to go to our city's Library Book sale. I don't expect to come home with much--I don't have the shelf space to come home with much!--and all the "good" books will still be in the library.

That means dropping all expectations of getting our planned work done. It means dropping both art and science this week. It means I'm stir-crazy inside.

Enough.

What did we manage to accomplish?

Highlight 1:
I "invented" Latin vocabulary Bingo. They were struggling badly with their Latin last week and someone suggested we slow down a bit and make sure our vocabulary was rock solid. So, I made up and printed off a few Bingo cards (with the Latin) and called out the English. It's more of a review than a proper game--they tell each other the answers all the time!

Highlight 2:
Still slowly introducing the Older to his Grade 5 curriculum. This week it was what I call Baby Logic. He started "Visual Mind Benders" amidst much resistance only to discover he doesn't mind it too much. I also hauled out our Mind Benders Beginners book 2 and started him again on that. He's only required to do one a day, 3 days a week. His comment when he'd finished the last one: "This is easy!" But he wouldn't do another one.

Latin:
Lively Latin, Mucius, the Left Handed, Lesson 8.4, Ex. 8.4, Vocabulary E, Ex 8.5, Ex. 8.6.

Spelling:
SWR: List L2. Dictated and Tested. We did up a small worksheet on analogies I made from The Wise Guide. Here is the Older's (complete with doodles.)

History:

SoTW2, Chapter 28: African Empires. This was utterly fascinating to me--I'd never learned any of this stuff, ever. We only completed one narration, however and most of it didn't stick in the kids' heads at all as was evident from the chapter test on Friday. But my son enjoyed reading West African folk tales, and Mansa Musa by Khephra Burns. My daughter liked her Anansi tales and Travelling Man, the Journey of Ibn Battuta 1325-1354. by James Rumford. The older also outlined a chapter on "Ancient Kingdoms" from a book on Senegal.

Writing:

CW Aesop, week 9. We did all the "analyses" (that we do) but no writing! I did have the kids outline their model: A Laconic Answer by Baldwin, but we didn't turn those outlines back into the story as I had planned. This is an example of how we mark up our models (from the Younger):

Science: sigh.

Dictations & Copywork: Only one dictation. One sheet each of 'm's and 'n's.

Poetry: The Splendor Falls by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. We recited on one day only.

Bible: Proverbs, Chapter 4.

Geography: Canada Map Book. pp. 11-15.

Cdn. History Reading Program.
At least when someone is lying on the couch, they're receptive to being read too! See relaxed reading under Cdn. History in the side bar. We did Unit 1: Days 3-6.

Math:
Older: Singapore Math 3B. Graphs. Ex. 24, Ex. 25, Review 3 and extra practice sheets from the Intensive Practice workbook. Drill 3x.

Younger: Singapore Math 2B: Text Book Practice 3B and drill 1x. Nothing else.

Grammar:
Older: R&S4: Lessons 16, 17, and 18.

Younger: FLL, Lesson 174 and Lesson 175.

Logic:
Older: Visual Mind Benders, Ex. #1-8.
Mind Benders, Beginning, Book 2, Activities #26-29.

Younger: she clamoured to do her Mind Benders Beginnings book, too. Insisted. She's up to Activity #32.

Assigned Reading:
Older: (1 hour/day) behind by 2.5 hours and 1 book report or summary.

Younger: (1/2 hour/day) behind by 1 hour and 45 minutes and two book reports.

Botticelli

2008-09-17T15:22:00.005-06:00

Remember when I said there was nothing written about Botticelli for children (or words to that affect). I was wrong. There's a great book over at the Baldwin project by Amy Steedman called Knights of Art. And yes, there is a chapter on good ol' Sandro.

Here is a fantastic web image of The Birth of Venus, too: http://www.aneb.it/wm/paint/auth/botticelli/venus/venus.jpg

The plan is the have the kids pre-read the above selection. Then, on Saturday, we'll read the myth from D'Aulaire, and colour the line drawing of the above painting courtesy of Dover's Art Masterpieces to Colour: 60 Great Paintings from Botticelli to Picasso. It's on lovely heavyweight paper--I even bought a box of watercolours!

Weekly Report, September 9-13, 2008

2008-09-13T13:58:00.006-06:00

Week 4
Attitudes were horrible this week, mostly mine. We were sleep deprived every single day too. I went for advice and was told: On our days off, get up no later than 1/2 hour after the time we get up for school. (sigh.) But if it means happier days (eventually) it'll be worth it.

Highlight: My son's first book summary. We took a couple of days and read through the first few pages of the Remedia Publications book: Beginning Outlining. Then we tackled a book on Praying Mantises. This is what part of his outline looked like:

As you can see, it wasn't a terribly complicated book. In fact, it was perfect.

Latin:

Lively Latin: Lesson 8.1 to Ex. 8.3 This was a dense and difficult week. My complete and utter ignorance of Latin is beginning to show, too.

Spelling:

SWR: Dictated L1. Reviewed past tense endings and wrote some great sentences. I asked the kids to make them related--all about one thing. My daughter says: "You mean like a paragraph?" Well, yes. Who told her about paragraphs?

History:

SoTW2, Ch 28. Listened to both sections, did our narration pages, my son read all the relevant KHE pages (first time!). We did the Chapter test, but I forgot the timeline.
For some reason Henry the Navigator just didn't stick at all.

Writing:

Aesop A: Goldilocks and the three bears. They dictated their narrations to me at the keyboard. I ran them off for editing. This week they were to change the positions of the explanatory words (he said, she said...so that's what the program means by explanatory words!) and find three other new words for "said."

Science:

Apologia, Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day. Ch. 11 (Ants.) This was on the schedule all week. Finally I was able to cope with it at 8am Saturday morning. We took the advice to get up only 1/2 hour later than usual on days we don't get up with Dad (He's up at 5:30am on Saturdays) and it gave us lots and lots of time--even though I had plans to be somewhere at 10:30. Except for a fight about who got to use the blue playdough, it went wonderfully well.

Dictation and Copywork: 3x

Poetry.

The Splendor Falls by Tennyson. Recited 2x. I was going to give up on it, but I found my daughter singing it under her breath as she set the table last night. However, when I remarked on it, she said, "You weren't supposed to hear that." So, I'll give it one more week.

Bible: oops again.

Geography: Canada Map Book 1. pp. 6-10

Cdn. History Reading program: (see relaxed book list in side bar.)

Did Day 1, 2.
This is tough. At the end of our school day no one wants to sit and listen to me read. They'd rather dash off and do something. (I'd rather they did too.) As a bed-time program it would be perfect, but it won't fit there. Not sure what to do.

Math:
Older: multiplication drill every day and Singapore 3B: Ex. 23, Ex. 4.2 (in the appendix of the HIG), Practise 4C, and Review C.

Younger: addition drill everyday and Singapore 2A Ex. 35, 36, 37, 38 & 39.

Grammar:
Older: R&S4, Lesson 12 (we skipped 13, on purpose), 14 (two days, on purpose!) and 15.

Younger: FLL 168-172.
She still needs to write her letter out on "fancy" paper and for that I need to hook up our new printer.

All in all, a good week, though if you had asked me yesterday, I'd have said it was our worst week yet. Funny how some rest and a good day changes one's perspective.

Jackdaws.

2008-09-07T20:02:00.008-06:00

In The Well-Trained Mind, Jesse Wise and Susan Wise Bauer advise that starting in fifth grade, a student should begin to study history using primary source documents. They helpfully include a list of questions the student should run through whenever evaluating a primary source document and then they recommend a few providers of such documents.

There is one on-line called the Internet Modern History Sourcebook (which I will check out another time) and Jackdaws.

Each portfolio/area of interest is to take one to two weeks. The authors don't recommend a set number of these to do, but for fifth grade they recommend six different ones, and for sixth grade they recommend four. These, however, are based on the available materials from Jackdaw for the time period being covered and so are not "grade specific." Hard to say, then, how many one shoould do in any given school year.

The suggestions in WTM for which Jackdaws to study during the same time period as SoTW3 follow a course of American history. Of course, my interests are not the same, so I've had to come up with my own list. (All prices in US dollars from the Jackdaw site)

SoTW2:
Columbus and Explorers Come to the New World $51.95

SoTW3: Possible Jackdaws for study.

SoTW 3:4 The Northwest Passage $27.95

SoTW 3:12 Cromwell's Protectorate $27.95

SoTW 3:12 The Plague and Fire of London$51.95

SoTW 3:16 Newton and Gravitation $51.95

SoTW 3:21? Wolfe at Quebec (1759) $51.95

SoTW 3:25 The French Revolution $51.95

SoTW 3:33 The War of 1812 However, it seems to be a bit one-sided--and on the wrong side for us! $51.95

Famous Men and SoTW

2008-09-07T19:44:00.006-06:00

Well, I've got Famous Men of Modern Times by John Haaren correlated with the Chapters in SoTW3, at least. (I did SoTW2 a few weeks ago)

Here it is in case it is useful to anyone else:
(SoTW Volume#:Chapter #)

Famous Men of Modern Times
by
John H. Haaren

Lorenzo the Magnificent
Christopher Columbus (2:31)
Ferdinand of Aragon (2:28)
Vasco da Gama (2:31)
Chevalier Bayard
Cardinal Wolsey (2:34)
Charles V of Germany (3:1)
Solyman the Sublime (2:24)
Sir Francis Drake (2:42)
Sir Walter Raleigh (2:40)
Henry of Navarre
Wallenstein (3:9)
Gustavus Adolphus (3:9)
Cardinal Richelieu (3:9)
Galileo (2:37)
Oliver Cromwell (3:12)
Louis XIV (3:13)
Sir Isaac Newton (3:16)
William III, King of England (3:15)
Sobieski (possibly 3:18)
Peter the Great (3:17)
Charles XII of Sweden (3:17)
Frederick the Great (3:14)
William Pitt (3:21)
George Washington (3:22 or 23)
Robespierre (3:25)
Napoleon Bonaparte (3:29)
Horatio Nelson (3:29)
Thaddeus Kosciusko (American Revolution 3:22 or, possibly, attack on Imperial Russia, 3:26)
Abraham Lincoln (4:5)
Garibaldi
William Ewart Gladstone
Count Von Bismarck

Whew.
(updated December 29, 2008)

SoTW 3--Correlating.

2008-09-07T14:19:00.007-06:00

We aren't starting until after Christmas, but there are a number of things I want to go with our study of history, since I've decided to become serious about this chronological thing.

This post will serve as my list of things to correlate and the resources I've found to help me do that.

SoTW3 starts in the latter half of the 16th Century and ends in 1849 with the Gold Rush.

To correlate:
Timeline Figures by Amy Pak. Already done here.
Kingfisher History Encyclopedia
Child's History of the World by Hillyer.
Both of these are done here (along with tons of other things).
John Haaren, Famous Men of the Modern Times
James Baldwin, Famous Stories (if any).
Jackdaw portfolios.
Books to read.
Science Figures
Art History
Music

And, of course, I want to slip in some concurrent Canadian History. That may be a major challenge! (The chapters with US content are listed here).

If you know of any other resources, I'd love to know, too!

Weekly Report September 1-6, 2008

2008-09-06T13:37:00.002-06:00

Week Three.

We schooled Monday, took Tuesday off with Dad and then went back at it from Wednesday to Saturday.

Spelling:
SWR. List K7
Worked on Homonyms and alphabetized the words.

Latin:
Lively Latin: Lesson 7.2 to Exercise 7.5. We skipped the Poem "Horatius at the Bridge." I'm beginning to get very frustrated with this program. We copied out all the declensions on one piece of paper in order to work with them better.

History:
SoTW2, ch. 27. War of the Roses, Narrations, mapwork, timeline and chapter test.

Writing Program:
Aesop: Retold, rewrote and produced final Drafts of the Top and Ball. Both compositions here. I told them they could illustrate their stories when they were done and this is what they did.

Older:

Younger:
Odd. They did their drawing independently of one another. I don't know why both of them did storyboards!

Science:
Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day. Insects.
Metamorphoses diagram. The kids read a bunch of books on Ants, Bees, and watched a DVD on bees.

Read the second half of chapter 10 on defenses and filled out a little review worksheet I made up.

Dictation: 1x.

Recitation:
Poem, The Splendor Falls, 2x.

Bible: (oops)

Geography: Apple Press, Canada Map Book 1, pp. 3-5

Math:
Older: SM 3B, Review A&B, WB 17-22, Practice 4A & 4B, drill: 2x,3x,4x,5x.
Younger: SM 2B, Practice 3A, WB 30-34.

Grammar:
Older: R&S4,7-11
Younger: FLL, 164 to 167

Art:
Lesson plan #15 from this site. This week, we compared and contrasted two different paintings of marriages: Arnolfini Marriage by Van Eyck and The Marriage of the Virgin. We looked at the Arnolfini Marriage in detail (from The Story of Painting by Sister Wendy Beckett, pp. 104-105) and then wrote a list comparing the two paintings. We put small printouts of the paintings on our timeline. For their art project, I used the idea of using a mirror from here and this is what they did:

The Older:

The Younger:

Reading: (6 days/week)
Older: (1 hour/day): 1h and 45 minutes behind.
Younger: (1/2 hour/day): caught up.

Other:
Older: Book Summary of Twenty-One Balloons by W. P. du Bois.

A HUGE success this week: I went to the library and got a ton of books on insects. The kids, the boy in particular, loved reading them. He kept saying, "The male? Right after they, um, mate? He dies." Poor kid.

And now, to prepare next week!

CW Aesop--The Top and Ball Compositions.

2008-09-05T20:32:00.005-06:00

These are the kids' compositions this week, based on the model: The Top and Ball by H.C. Andersen.

The older:

THE TOP AND THE BALL

One day a Top fell in love with a Ball. He wanted to marry her because she was beautiful. The Ball did not wish to marry the Top.

“I am engaged to a swallow” boasted the Ball with her nose in the air.

One day the Boy took the Ball out to play. He bounced the ball too high. He lost the Ball and could not find it. Many years later the Top one day spun into the dustbin. He found the Ball in there and she was thoroughly drenched and filthy.

The Top was found, but he never spoke of his old love
again.

By the Younger. (I took her original narration as she dictated it to me, hence the longer composition!)

The Top and the Ball

There was once a Top who lived in a toy box. A ball lived there too. She wore a morocco dress. The Top said. “We should make a very good pair. Shall we be engaged to each other?”

“I am half engaged to a swallow,” the Ball bragged.

Then the boy came to play with his Ball. It looked pretty when it bounced in the air. On the ninth bounce it did not come back down. The boy looked high and low for the Ball but did not find it. The ball was missing for five years.

The Top was gilded and was something to look at. A couple of years later, the Top fell into the dustbin. He found a ball there.

“Finally someone I can talk to,” the Ball said relieved. “I am made of morocco and I have a Spanish cork in my body.”

The more she talked to him the more it became clear that this was the same Ball he had once loved.

Soon the maid came to empty the dustbin and found the Top. Nobody saw or spoke of the Ball. Soon after, she died.

The End

And so, it is.

Planning Art.

2008-09-04T22:21:00.011-06:00

Putting together a list of painters to study for the period from 1300 to 1600 is easy.

Van Eyck --1385-1441
Botticelli --1445-1510
da Vinci --1452-1519
Durer --1471-1528
Raphael --1483-1520
Titian --1488-1576
Bruegal, the Elder --1524-1569

and there, I think is as good a stopping place as any. (Maybe.)

My plan is to present the kids with at least one painting every two weeks for discussion, analysis and imitation.

That means 7 lesson plans, paintings and relevant art projects to find, research, prepare and print between now and Christmas.

I've always been too ambitious for anyone's good.

(Though I did find an excellent lesson plan for this week comparing Van Eyck's The Arnolfini Marriage with Raphael's Marriage of the Virgin (above) written for fifth graders and a cool art project to go with it. May I continue to be so lucky!)

Today Was Not the Day...

2008-09-03T17:10:00.002-06:00

to do the Wars of the Roses.

(Not with less than five and 1/2 hours of sleep, each.)

Chronological Study

2008-09-02T11:06:00.007-06:00

One of the reasons I was attracted to the approach of The Well-Trained Mind is that it advises and guides parents to study everything in relation to a particular historical period.

I think it is a wonderful approach to making sense of the world: but have I done it?

No.

Part of the problem is the lack of materials available for elementary school-aged children. Ever see a biography of Roger Bacon written for third graders? I thought not. How about a discussion of Botticelli?

We are just a little over 1/2 way through SoTW 2--about 1400. This is the time when the ice and small streams in art and science begin to melt and start a torrent and cascade of activity.

I'm going to find a way to catch up.

First, though, to the most difficult of areas: Music.

I love the Ambelside Online curriculum for resources. This is what they recommend for a study of Medieval music:

Medieval Era Music (see Notes for this Term)
Listening selections for this term:
1. "A Feather on the Breath of God:
Sequences and Hymns by Abbess Hildegard of Bingen" featuring Emma Kirkby and
Gothic Voices; Hyperion label.

2. "Salve Regina - Gregorian Chant" by
Benedictine Monks of Saint-Maurice & Saint Maur of Clervaux; Philips label,
Silver Line Classics series.
3. "A Dance In the Garden of Mirth: Medieval
Instrumental Music" by the Dufay Collective; Chandos label.

Alternate
Option - "Miri It Is" by the Dufay Collective; Chandos label. [If you choose to
purchase only this CD, we do urge you to check your library for Gregorian chant
and Hildegard of Bingen selections to supplement your study.]

I also introduced the kids to a favourite of mine, the British rock/folk band Steeleye Span. My son particularly loved this Latin ditty:

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I'll have to post about Artists/Art Study and Scientists/Science another time.

Writing. CW Aesop A&B

2008-09-01T23:30:00.002-06:00

I have been quietly tearing out my hair over this.

My son and I have done the first four weeks of the first program in the Classical Writing progymnasmata; Aesop. At week five I decided to fold my daughter in with us. This is week six.

The idea of the program is to read the stories and then narrate them. This is familiar territory to us as we have been doing this with our history material for about two years now. (My daughter, actually, has only been at it about a year.)

Then child works on his or her re-telling to meet certain writing objectives. According to the appendix, these objectives are:

By the end of "A:"

1. Change sentence types.
2. Change quotation type. (From indirect to direct).
3. Reposition quote explanatory words
4. Vary utterances
5. Make up new quotes for characters
6. Change noun synonyms and modifiers
7. Come up with verb synonyms.

At the end of "B" the child will be able to do all of the above and

1. Write quotes with different positions for explanatory words and varied utterances.
2. Change the verb modifiers.

We are on Week 6 (of 18) in "A." In my teacher's manual I am told that next week we will begin "adding quotations" to our retelling. Well, we've been doing that from the start! We've also been playing around with sentence types. That was fun for exactly one model!

I was bored with it. I wanted something more interesting and engaging for us. However, until tonight, I hadn't read through the rest of the directions for the re-writes.

Weeks 1-6 focus simply on re-telling. Get the story order right. Get the characters right. (sigh).

However, it seems the fun begins next week.

Weeks 7 to 11 focus exclusively on adding quotations and varying utterances. (This may sound dull, but there are some interesting directions in the Teachers Core manual, such as asking about the tone of voice, how the character may be feeling, his posture, and the look on his face. This could actually be fun!)

Weeks 12-13, the above plus noun synonyms.

Weeks 14-18, all of the above plus verb synonyms.

Now that I have looked through it in detail, it doesn't look too bad. I guess those thesauruses I bought will come in handy!

Weekly Report, August 26-30

2008-08-30T19:32:00.000-06:00

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)

2008-08-30T18:32:00.008-06:00

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

2008-08-26T22:32:00.002-06:00

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

2008-08-25T22:28:00.003-06:00

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.

2008-08-25T12:38:00.009-06:00

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

2008-08-23T12:02:00.004-06:00

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

2008-08-21T07:06:00.004-06:00

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.

2008-08-19T23:07:00.006-06:00

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

2008-08-18T22:42:00.002-06:00

"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

2008-08-16T20:51:00.004-06:00

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

2008-08-16T13:30:00.007-06:00

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

2008-08-15T14:32:00.008-06:00

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

2008-08-14T12:15:00.005-06:00

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.

2008-04-20T14:03:00.003-06:00

We receive funding from the government for Homeschooling where we live. I know it is a controversial issue, but we are at peace with it. Our family is entitled to less than twice what we pay in Education taxes, and that amounts to about a third of what we spend.

We have to tally the receipts and submit them in order to receive our funds. This is an excellent exercise. Otherwise, I'd never do it. I just added up the receipts for the last 13 months and I'm shocked. And dismayed. Truly, it isn't really that much, but I'm not sure if we can continue this way.

I have no idea how to cut back significantly.

On the other hand, except for the materials for Story of the World 3 (and an art programme which I may not purchase now that I've seen what we've spent) we have everything we need for the next 9 months or so.

I guess I'm going to have to pray about it.

The Bayeux Tapestry

2008-04-18T16:00:00.005-06:00

">

Dear Mother,
I am fighting the Normans. I am trying to kill King William because he wants the throne of England. He shouldn't have it. He's a Norman. He thinks he should have it because he is married to the princess. He made Harold swear to let him be the King but it was a trick.

Love Edgar

Dear Mom,
I write in bad troubled times. The King (Sir William) has ordered us to sea. We are going into hell tomorrow. So starts the battle. I pray you are safe as I write. I love you Mom. It is said the King was insulted by the English King!

--Later--

Victory! We won the battle. It was won before it started. We attacked the enemy. The King killed the English King. We were attacked from every side. 100 men were killed that day. I thank you Mom. Your last letter helped me through this. I love you Mother. I hope I will come home soon.

Love Alec.

The Homeschooling Conference

2008-04-13T13:07:00.003-06:00

Our family attended a homeschooling conference for the last two days. The children went off to their own min-vacation Bible Camp and the husband and I attended workshops and browsed the Exhibition Hall.

I hadn't intended to go this year. I have all the curriculum I need for the next six months (or more!). But the husband wanted to go, the kids wanted to "stay in the hotel with the waterslide" so I said, O.K. I didn't expect to get much from the conference itself. I thought it might be a nice min-vacation.

Steve and Teri Maxwell hosted the conference and after hearing the opening address, I attended almost every session of theirs I could.

Teri Maxwell answered a prayer I hadn't quite articulated to myself. I was sick of homeschooling. I was sick of my children. In spite of recent efforts to spiff up the house, I was mightily sick of it, too. My struggles with the children were nearly never-ending; their squabbles with each other were exhausting. "Getting" them to do school involved a lot of yelling and threatening, and even, pounding on the table. It was exhausting. It was wrong. I wanted to chuck them into school and forget all about it for a while, which, by the by, and for many reasons, is not a realistic option for us. They addressed that longing right up front, in the first talk.

The Maxwells do not speak to the nuts and bolts of homeschooling but to the issues of the heart. They are, for those unfamiliar with them, what I suppose you could call conservative protestant Christians. Ultra-conservative, actually, in my world. But each of them is also humble, honest about their struggles, and non-judgemental.

I wanted to talk to Teri several times on Friday, but, in looking at her speaking times, I realised her schedule was very heavy that day. And as I thought about it, I knew what she would say: "Read your Bible everyday and get back into an obedient relationship with the Lord." It's something she stressed in every session and it is, absolutely, the way to begin to effect the changes that need to happen in my life.

But that's not all she would have said, I'm sure. Teri has developed practical materials to help homeschooling moms: Managers of Their Homes, of which I've heard a great deal from excited, enthusiastic and grateful voices, is her work, as is Managers of Their Chores, and A Meek and Quiet Spirit. I bought all three. I considered trying to speak with her on Saturday, but by then, my despair had passed. You could say, she and the rest of her family had already ministered to me.

I loved her. She questions, she studies, and then she wants a practical way to implement what she needs to do, or, as she said, it doesn't get done. That is me! At first, I had dismissed her because she has a strong husband, committed to leading his wife and family in the ways of the Lord, and mine is different.* But I realised that was simply an excuse on my part. I can still hold up my end of my relationship with God: read my Bible, be obedient and pray. That is all I truly need to do, for now. The Lord will lead me to the rest as He sees fit. Whether that means I'll be wearing my hair and dresses long and baking my own bread, I don't know. It doesn't matter right now. Right now, I must get acquainted with the Lord, again.

So, God gave my husband the desire to attend the conference and I went because he wanted me to go. The Lord has a plan for us. And I shall follow.

*Steve Maxwell also planted seeds in my husband's spirit which give me further cause for hope, but I'm not comfortable talking about him.

Our Next Poem, Perhaps?

2008-03-08T23:00:00.006-07:00

I just read through some wonderful material on teaching poetry sent to me by Strider, a kind and knowledgeable woman at the WTM boards. In one of the documents she recommends "acting out" a poem--just for the sheer enjoyment of it.

Since my son seems to want to act out his poem recitation, I thought perhaps this one, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, might give him scope for his acting abilities:

The Splendor Falls
from The Princess

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.

We've been talking about sound waves as we study the ear....

(Oh, I am an idiot. I copied and pasted this poem straight from Ambelside On-line--and the title is as you see it above. I have been reading this and trying to figure out how the "splendour" (or beauty of the Princess) relates to the bugle call. Poetry is often opaque to me, so I wasn't too worried about it. But then, I went to close the A-O page and the next poem on the list is "Tears, Idle Tears from The Princess " set out exactly the same way. Silly me, "The Princess" must either be a book or a much, much longer poem. Ok, got it now. It's a longer poem. I'm glad. I wasn't exactly sure how the bugle's blowing and the splendour falling (really falling) from the Princess fit together. Whew.)

Weekly Report. Week #9

2008-03-07T20:36:00.003-07:00

The Highlight: The kids recited "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost for their Grandmother and Aunt today. My daughter did it prettily, my son did a more animated version with little actions throughout. My mother thought my son's recital "wonderful" which was too bad, really. I suppose he's making it "fun" but he does that just a bit too much. I'd been coaching him to "let the feel of the poem come through your voice." Oh well. I wonder if I can get hold of that CBC episode in Anne of Green Gables where Anne recites her poem? Then they could see how an "expressive" reading hits all the right notes (and none of the wrong ones).

The Low Point: We covered Clovis in SoTW this week--and Cartier in Canadian history. Both of them being Frenchmen confused the poor dears. "What did Clovis do?"

He discovered Canada!

No, no, that was Cartier.

And today, after covering Clovis and Cartier, we read about Sir Humphrey Gilbert and his ill-fated voyage to Newfoundland. After listening to my daughter and me hash out her narration, my son actually wrote: "Sir Humphrey Gilbert was sent by the King of France to claim Newfoundland for France."

Sigh.

I was cheered up though when, after remembering that, oh yeah, it was the Queen of England, he said, "but her name can't be Elizabeth. That's the name of the Queen now." I happily explained how Kings and Queens used the same name over and over. "There were eight Henry's in England and fourteen Louis's of France!" Eyebrows went up, I tell ya.

Good news: my daughter is loving math again. She's in that section in 2A where multiplication is introduced. She whizzed through the week's work and actually whined, "There's no more to do." I'm going to have to look into supplemental stuff for her to flesh it out.

Bad news: my son announced today that he "hates Latin."

That wasn't the whole week, of course, but you really don't want to read about every little detail, do you?

Math and Your Brain

2008-03-06T00:01:00.004-07:00

I found this article from the New Yorker courtesy of M-MV.
Thanks!

And if evolution has equipped us with one way of representing number, embodied in the primitive number sense, culture furnishes two more: numerals and number words. These three modes of thinking about number, Dehaene believes, correspond to distinct areas of the brain. The number sense is lodged in the parietal lobe, the part of the brain that relates to space and location; numerals are dealt with by the visual areas; and number words are processed by the language areas.

Nowhere in all this elaborate brain circuitry, alas, is there the equivalent of the chip found in a five-dollar calculator. This deficiency can make learning that terrible quartet—“Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision,” as Lewis Carroll burlesqued them—a chore. It’s not so bad at first. Our number sense endows us with a crude feel for addition, so that, even before schooling, children can find simple recipes for adding numbers. If asked to compute 2 + 4, for example, a child might start with the first number and then count upward by the second number: “two, three is one, four is two, five is three, six is four, six.” But multiplication is another matter. It is an “unnatural practice,” Dehaene is fond of saying, and the reason is that our brains are wired the wrong way. Neither intuition nor counting is of much use, and multiplication facts must be stored in the brain verbally, as strings of words. The list of arithmetical facts to be memorized may be short, but it is fiendishly tricky: the same numbers occur over and over, in different orders, with partial overlaps and irrelevant rhymes. (Bilinguals, it has been found, revert to the language they used in school when doing multiplication.) The human memory, unlike that of a computer, has evolved to be associative, which makes it ill-suited to arithmetic, where bits of knowledge must be kept from interfering with one another: if you’re trying to retrieve the result of multiplying 7 X 6, the reflex activation of 7 + 6 and 7 X 5 can be disastrous. So multiplication is a double terror: not only is it remote from our intuitive sense of number; it has to be internalized in a form that clashes with the evolved organization of our memory. The result is that when adults multiply single-digit numbers they make mistakes ten to fifteen per cent of the time. For the hardest problems, like 7 X 8, the error rate can exceed twenty-five per cent.

Now I understand why giving my son copywork for his mutiplication tables works to help retain his "math facts." Knowing 3x7 is a linguistic skill more than a numerical skill.

And, for the record: Evolution is a theory, not a fact. Adaptation is a fact, not a theory.

Levinson Leaves Me Dubious.

2008-03-05T18:21:00.006-07:00

After reading Schaeffer Macaulay, I was wholly prepared to love this book, too. Instead, I find every skeptical antennae I have on ALERT.

I'm sure it's not the first time someone has had this reaction. Since I have not read all of Miss Mason's works, I can't tell, in all honesty, whether my reaction is to Miss Mason or her representative. So, if I say Levinson when I should say Mason or vice versa, please grant me the indulgence given to a beginning student.

My first thought is: it can't be as simple as just doing narrations. You cannot provide an education merely by asking children to repeat back to you, whether verbally or in writing, what they have heard or read for themselves. Narrations, rather, are a place to start.

They are an excellent means for organizing and retaining the story and information of what one has been exposed to. And it isn't quite the be all and end all. There's the Book of Centuries, for example, which is a tool used by the child to make connections between events and happenings in history. In Nature study, it's mentioned so casually by Levinson it's easy to miss: but one is to label the drawings one makes. One should know the difference between a sepal and a petal. (Perhaps one should, I don't!) If narrations were the be all and end all, a child would never compare and contrast two presentations of the same idea, at least not in so far as I understand narration (and perhaps I don't understand it!).

Secondly, how does a Charlotte Mason education escape being merely the cultivation and expression of taste? Think about it. The books shall be "good ones." No twaddle. The art shall be "The Masters." Ditto music. Taste can certainly be trained. It's a class notion, though, as well as an educational one. If you act like you are well educated, look like you are well educated and sound like you are well educated--then who's to say you are not? And who defines "well-educated?"

In times in which Miss Mason lived, it was most definitely the upper class--those who attended Oxford or Cambridge. I have the impression (but an impression only) that the subjects which were studied in the private schools of England at the turn of the century represented high standards and had the potential to furnish the mind with a good education. Most likely, the public schools of the day for the common folk were very poor. But the way Levinson portrays Charlotte Mason, it seems to me that one could only achieve the appearence of the accomplishments of the higher education and not, truly, its reality. But, of course, I'm can't be sure of that. (And whether the education of the upper class achieved its aims is a question too.)

Thirdly and lastly, these reflections were caused by thinking mostly about the way Miss Mason recommended teaching a second language. Of course, you have an expert (an actual speaker of the language) come and speak to them. Of course, you "focus more on the grammer of latin" than you would the other languages....
This is where the whole thing breaks down for me. If an expert in French (or German or Latin) is allowed, then why not an expert in Biology, in Math, in Literature?

Learning grammar and spelling of one's own language in the tortorous way Miss Mason advises, frankly, just doesn't appeal. Nor do I honestly think it would work, unless the child is a natural speller to begin with. Covering the concepts in a textbook or program of some kind first and then reenforcing it in one's readings and writing seems a much more sensible approach.

There are two things, though, I think Miss Mason was spot on about. 1) The food for the mind is ideas. As platonic a notion as this is, it is nonetheless correct.
2) A child, a household, must always have the examples of the best presented. This is just a practical manifestation of Paul's exhoration in Philippians 4:8-9.

All that said, I am quite interested in what Miss Mason has to say about habit and training the will. Someone said to me once that although Miss Mason's method of educating was questionable, she was absolutely correct about children. Levinson gives a great guide to Miss Mason's writings on the subject.

My opinions, by the way, are always open to revision and reflection and perhaps I ought not to be quite so hasty to express them! Your thoughts?

Writers, Take Note!

2008-03-04T20:33:00.005-07:00

I am a Canadian.

I learned nothing about Canadian History in school. It may have been taught and I was alseep, all I know is that I didn't become fascinated with Canadian History until I wrestled with the inanity of the decisions of Judicial Committee of the Privy Council back in Journalism school. (Never mind. It would take far too long to explain).

In any event, I want my children to know their history. What I have been able to discover is utterly fascinating. I haven't made it to Confederation, yet, mind you. I may change my mind when I get there.

Today, someone asked on a message board: Could we help her pull together some literature and geography for her to teach her kids about Canada?

I went digging around in my files (really, I think my on-line name ought to be "web-scavenger") and I found a document I'd saved from someone's web-site ages ago called "Read Your Way Through Canadian History."

"Bonanza!" you might say.

Well, not quite.

I started looking through the list to find the books: first my local library, then Amazon, then Google Books. I was just trying to find descriptions of them. I took one tiny section of the list: Early Explorers. Of the 23 books cited, my library has 6 of them. This is instructive as my library doesn't seem to carry oop (out of print) books. And indeed, a random search of the remaining books seems to be that they are indeed oop.

But my library does have lots of books on John Cabot, Hudson, Cartier, Champlain, and Radisson. But they are, for the most part, factual books. They tell you when each of them explored, how many voyages each took, they show maps and who went with them, who backed them, what they found, blah, blah, blah. But, they are not adventure stories. Why not? Why make history boring, dry and factual when it was full of danger and fear and courage and excitement?

So, authors, take note. Canadians need stories. Our kids need the stories of their past. Maps and facts are fine but after the feel of the sea breeze in your hair, after the relief of sighting land after many months of dry biscuit and stale water, after the wonder of looking at so many trees, after the wonder of exchanging all your buttons for luxurious furs, after the feel of boarding a canoe and shooting the rapids.

Is it any wonder Canadians don't know their history?

Ask and Ye shall Receive...

2008-03-03T00:14:00.003-07:00

I have come across a plan for Read-Alouds. Yeah, yeah, I know, I probably seem really uptight to those of you who can wing your way through life with spontaneity and grace. Me, I just fall flat on my face without a plan, a guide, something to hold my hand.

I have found Tanglewood Tales. I'm not sure who is in charge over there, but they have some absolutely wonderful ideas--and tonight I'm interested in the Read-Alouds.

Firstly, the books are divided up into categories. (I love categories. I remember being so impressed when Wise wrote that she required her children to take out at least one book from a broad range of categories each time the visited the library, and I've wanted to do that, but I can't remember what they were!) Anyway, these are Tanglewood's:

Group A- Poetry
Group B- Fairy Tales
Group C- Animals etc.
Group D- Tall Tales
Group E- Regular Fiction
Group F- Science Fiction
Group G- Mysteries
(Group H- Historical Fiction- included in historical studies rather than literature)
(Group I- Biography- included in historical studies rather than literature)

Secondly, these are even linked--to lists! (I am excited. OK, maybe it's the sugar rush from my Eccles Cake. (What's an Eccles Cake? Don't interrupt.) No, truly, I'm a nut for lists, too.)

And this is THE PLAN:

Group A- Poetry: Study the works of (2) authors, have (1) anthology on hand.
Group B- Fairy Tales: Read approximately (1) fairy tale each week.
Groups C-G: Read at least one book from each of these groups

Strive for a minimum of one book for every month. This works out to be nine books each school year.

So, one from each category C-G is five. Add four more and boom dada boom, the planning is done!

No, (and I'm hanging me head in shame), I did NOT read to the kids after their baths tonight. It was a bit chaotic and the kids started playing a Professor Noggins game with each other. (What's Professor Noggins? Sssh. Don't interrupt.) Me? I was reading A Philosophy of Education. On-line. Ouch. It was not fun sitting here at the desk doing that.

So, what shall the books actually be?
I don't know yet.
I'll let you know tomorrow.

A Charlotte Mason Education

2008-03-01T22:05:00.005-07:00

Something in my heart longs for this.

I finished reading Susan Scaeffer MacCaulay's book For the Children's Sake today. I deeply appreciated her message: do what you can.

She writes,

"[Can you give] your home so much vitality, [and] life through your creative effort that it becomes the 'center of gravity' in a child's life?"

I don't know if I can: but what is homeschooling about, at its heart, if it isn't to make the home the child's "centre of gravity?"

Along with improving my children's academic opportunities, what I want, what I have always wanted, is to make our home and our beliefs the place from which the children go out to live their lives in this big, bad, mean ol' world.

Miss Mason's philosophy of education, as MacCaulay reports it, was based upon her view of children as persons and an understanding of education as an instrument of 1) the atmosphere of the environment, 2) the discipline of habit and 3) the presentation of living ideas. These are taken from the 5th principle found here. These concepts are far richer than these mere words can possibly indicate.

Briefly (and inadequately) the child learns from the atmosphere around him or her. Is it harsh? Is it welcoming? Is there someone available to listen to the child? I was so convicted several times of my own failings here, that I cried as I read through this part. In many ways, I am so stressed by our curriculum and the need to get through everything that I am providing a very poor environment, indeed.

Schaeffer MacCaulay also had wonderful things to say on behalf of Miss Mason about habit--mainly, that, if I read through my red-rimmed eyes properly, "habit" is Miss Mason's way of talking about training the will. I need to reflect on this a whole lot more before I know what to think of it.

As for education being a life, that seems to me to be self-evident. The result of this maxim, however, is that all books should be living books; books written by people who inject their very spirit and enthusiasm and love for their subject into their works. There is obviously more to this concept, reams and reams have been written about "Living Books" vs. "twaddle" but I'm not going there at the moment.

Rather, I want to explore Schaeffer-MacCaulay's caveat: do what you can.

What can I do?

The first thing that leaps to mind, is, no, not going outside, but turning off the T.V during the week. I should clarify--we don't have T.V. per se, we have a TV screen which plays DVD's and videos (and the latter can't be rewound without great frustration). Still, the kids, especially my son, watch too much. My husband doesn't quite understand my hatred of it. He agrees that it should be on "less in the summer." For a few evenings now, I've had the impulse to go in and turn it off and just read to them from The Railway Children. I am very frustrated by our little time we have for reading aloud. So, why haven't I done it?

The usual excuses, I'm tired, I don't want to fight with them, I need a break. After supper and before bed is the only time I have in my day which I can fully claim for myself. I can read, plan, hang out here on the computer. (I should do dishes, laundry and cleaning but you can see how an introvert may be relunctant to scarifice down-time?)

It has a lot to do with the disfunctionality of bed-time around here (One must sit with each child until they fall asleep. My boy doesn't sleep until mid-night and the girl isn't far behind). But perhaps, just perhaps, I can take a half hour after bath-time and read to them. Perhaps. I could certainly try that tonight.

As for other aspects of a CM education, I really need to think it over. I'm a Big Picture sort of gal. I have to understand it and think about it before I implement the practices which facilitate it. But I want to leave you with one more excerpt from Miss Mason which grabbed me by the throat. It may just be school at our house. And what a waste if it is. What a pervesion of my goals! The quote is long. I apologise.

I had at the time just begun to teach, and was young and enthusiastic in my work. It was to my mind a great thing to be a teacher; it was impossible but that the teacher should leave his stamp on the children. His own was the fault if anything went wrong, if any child did badly in school or out of it. There was no degree of responsibility to which youthful ardour was not equal. But, all this zeal notwithstanding, the disappointing thing was, that nothing extraordinary happened. The children were good on the whole, because they were the children of parents who had themselves been brought up with some care; but it was plain that they behaved very much as ''twas their nature to.' The faults they had, they kept; the virtues they had were exercised just as fitfully as before. The good, meek little girl still told fibs. The bright, generous child was incurably idle. In lessons it was the same thing; the dawdling child went on dawdling, the dull child became no brighter. It was very disappointing. The children, no doubt, 'got on'––a little; but each one of them had the makings in her of a noble character, of a fine mind, and where was the lever to lift each of these little worlds? Such a lever there must be. This horse-in-a-mill round of geography and French, history and sums, was no more than playing at education; for who remembers the scraps of knowledge he laboured over as a child?

From Home Education, pp. 98-100 (my italics).

Weekly Report #3

2008-03-01T14:20:00.005-07:00

Last week, I decided to switch us from a five day Monday to Friday schedule to a four day, Tuesday to Saturday schedule.

But wait, the more mathematical among you may cry: that's still five days! Well, yeah, but it's really 41/2. The idea is to get all we can done from Tuesday to Friday and do whatever is "left" on Saturday. Why? The Dad has Sunday and Monday off and I was tired of not being able to do anything with him as a family on those Mondays he actually decided not to work over-time and stay home with us. As well, it's a terrific incentive for the kids. "You better come and get this done or we'll have lots of work to do on Saturday" was the cry this week.

But, as the poet Burns has said, "Oft plans gang awry" and indeed they already have. My fault. I just plumb forgot we hadn't done some stuff and so didn't plan on doing it today. And the neighbourhood kids cam over and another friend my daughter hasn't seen in weeks....and so after only an hour of instruction this morning they're outside playing. Charlotte Mason would be proud.

I had thought we'd done well this week, too--until I started making up next week's schedule.

We were supposed to finish Lively Latin Lesson 2 this week--nope.

I was supposed to finish Lesson 4 in Canadian History. Um. gulp, nope. We did start it this morning, however!

Math for the Boy is still stalled on Long Division. Actually, I'm don't really care we're behind schedule because of this. It just needs to be done, that's all.

We did finish all the topics in our Science chapter this week: I took about 10-15 minutes 4x this week (including this morning) to work on each of the five senses. The "ear" diagram I made was too complicated, though, so we didn't finish that. And although my daughter told me she "loved" the experiments we did--none of them worked. Not one got across the point it was supposed to! For example, this morning, the experiment for "touch" was to 1) rub one finger between the thumb and index finger of the other hand. Then, (2) one was to place a pencil or pen underneath the rubbed finger and do it again. You were supposed to "think" the underside of your finger was numb. It didn't quite work. But as I tried to explain how (your brain is missing the signals, but YOU know what you're doing so it "doesn't work.") my son asked something like, "My brain is sending me messages, but...where do the messages go? I am not my brain...how do I think?" or some such thing.

Ooooh, was this philosopher Momma proud. "Well, son," I began, "that's a question that's been asked down through the Ages. Some people have called it mind, and..." Just as I was about to launch into Descartes and the whole pilot in the machine idea, my eight year old daughter interrupted me and said, "Mom, please, let's get on with it." Well, I couldn't blame her, she had a playdate arranged to begin when "school was done."

The biggest outstanding things are all my son's subjects. Chiefly his writing, (editing and re-write), Bible Study and Grammar.

The grind feels absolutely relentless. (And it's only the end of week 8!)

Adjusting Expectations.

2008-02-29T18:29:00.005-07:00

My son is ten. He's not a "young ten" but a boy with a birthday right in the third week of October. I brought him home from public school at the end of Grade One. He was 8. An old 8. He couldn't read. I had no idea what he could do in math, nor what he should be doing, so we started over with the math books--in Grade One.

That was two and 1/2 years ago. I have had to "remediate" him for so long, I have forgotten to set high standards for him. But, I got a nice slap up the side of my head about that today.

Up until now, I have been taking down all his narrations for his writing. Only a few weeks ago did I start the next step (which is supposed to happen at the end of Grade 2): dictating the first sentence back to him to write before I hand him his paper to copy out. Yesterday, he asked me to dictate back the first two sentences. I did...and he proceeded to finish it on his own--without looking at what I'd taken down. "Yes! We've made it to third grade!" I thought.

Today I set him down to do the third re-telling in Aesop A--the Crow and the Pitcher. I let him read it over once (we last looked at it two days ago) and then handed him a piece of paper, a pencil and an eraser and said "tell the story."

He had a few moments where he just HAD to know how to spell the odd word here and there...and I just gave him the dictionary. (Heartless Mom! OK, I admit I looked up "higher" for him and had him copy it from the page.) But much to my surprise, he did the whole thing without me. We'll edit it tomorrow.

Perhaps I have been holding his hand too long! And I think I'll start treating him as a fourth grader from hereon.

The ramifications are huge, people, huge. For one thing, I can stop fretting about his being "behind." For another, he's entering that "independent" stage so I can breathe once in a while. And you can bet that I'm going to let him do his entire narration all on his own next time. Maybe we'll even start (gasp) outlining!

He is becoming mature. S-l-o-w-l-y, to be sure, but I felt the fresh wind of change today and I'm so grateful. I had to share.

From Acceleration to Zygote

2008-02-27T00:23:00.006-07:00

or why your weight changes in an elevator.
Check it out!

Scheduling Success--I hope!

2008-02-23T08:44:00.005-07:00

In order to lighten our summer load and prevent free-fall in December, I decided to focus on what is, for us, essential, and move around the rest. The essential Sacred Cows are: spelling, science, math, Latin and writing (for the 10 year old). I continued with Canadian History just because the timing is right, given our trip to Montreal in May. We will continue to do these throughout June and July.

I took someone's suggestion to alternate Grammar. I may play with that a bit, yet, but my son will be happy to know he gets a mid-textbook break from July 20 to August 30th. I tend to think of Grammar like Math, so it may or may not be a good idea. I may try and find a worksheet or two, something he can do in 10 minutes or so. Then again, we are continuing with the writing--and that's just grammar in practice--so we may be just fine.

As for the rest, it's fairly self-explanatory. The rush to finish SoTW and THE-HURRY-IT-UP-AND-CATCH-UP is gone. Wherever we are when my son hits Grade Nine and begins the Classical Books curriculum will be fine as long as his skills continue to grow. I have to do another spreadsheet, of course, for just that. It should be interesting. But not today.

I still have to decide on a science curriculum for the Fall and figure out our read-alouds. I still have to correlate my daughter's Bible study (Vos and Calvary Chapel) with the subjects covered in Christian Studies 1. And I need to figure out whether to speed up on our Canadian History curriculum and if so, how. Next year (2009) we'll do Provincial Facts and Geography. (Must come up with a better name for that!) The year after that, something on the structure of Governments, municipal, provincial and federal. (Maybe). But I digress.

Here is the revised schedule. Many thanks to all.

page two: Boom da da boom!

Androcles and the Lion

2008-02-22T18:56:00.006-07:00

Illustration by Ann & Janet Grahame Johnstone from Books Illustrated.

The Boy and I are doing the programme from Classical Writing. We started last week in Aesop A.

The program offers a model each week for a child to re-tell. They can change whatever they like, really, as long as the bones of the story is still recognizable. Essentially, it is learning to write by imitation and I think the method is marvelous.

His model this week was "Androcles and the Lion." His "assignment" when re-telling the fable was twofold.

A. To change the sentence types in the model and include all four (his grammar program, Rod and Staff 3, names the types a little more intuitively):

declarative (telling)
imperative (commanding)
interrogatory (asking)
exclamatory (exclaiming)

B. To punctuate with respect to the proper use of

capitals
end punctuation marks for each sentence and
quotation marks.

Here is what he wrote--and typed. It is his final, polished draft.

Androcles and the Lion
By The Boy

I fled from my master to the forest. I was frightened!

What’s that? A monster!? Nay, it was merely a young lion, moaning and groaning. I wondered why. I commanded him, “Put out your paw!”
He did. I saw a huge thorn. I carefully took it out and bandaged it up quickly.

He took me to his den and fed me every day.

One day while we were separated, the soldiers found us and captured us. I was condemned to be eaten by the lions.

The lion came bounding and roaring into the arena.

It was my friend! He saw it was me. He fawned over me and licked me.

The King summoned us to him. “Tell me how this could happen, young man,” said the King. I told him the story and he set us free.

THE END

Scheduling Woes.

2008-02-22T16:34:00.003-07:00

We took a lot of time off this fall. Ok, let's be honest. Except for a few weeks in August--we took the whole thing off. Yep, not one math book was opened, not one page of grammar recited, not, even, (much to my shame) one book read to the kids.

But we're back now. We're almost up to full speed. And the teeth knashing and hand wringing are over with, finally. So I've been working with the spreadsheet trying to figure out our schedule for the year. Here it is in two parts.

(Click on them to make them larger.)

Missing from the schedule is writing for the ten year old--Aesop A, and Latin (for both).

The first block of pink is a non-negotiable trip to Montreal--hooray! The purple is our Church's summer "camp" (or VBS program.) The other pink strips are our "weeks off"--1 every six.

These are my woes:
1) How do we have a lighter load during June and July and yet still do everything? I know, impossible, but that's really what I want.

2) We really, really need to do these science units in the summer. They're from Apologia's "Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day" and they all have to do with insects. We do not have insects here in the winter! It's one of the few benefits of having winter.

3) See all that dead space near the end of the year (near Christmas)? That's my "wiggle" room. I'd love to start new curriculum the minute we finish the last--but I think that if I don't schedule at least a few more breaks, we will all go mad. Maybe. No, definitely.

4) See all that dead space near Christmas? I know this is going to sound crazy to some of you--but I do not want to take any time off in that period. A really light schedule would be OK--but I've learned from experience--if we take a whole bunch of time off, we just don't come back.

Is that enough info?
Can you help me whip this into shape somehow?
I'd be soooooo grateful, I might even send you cookies.

Weekly Report #2

2008-02-22T08:26:00.007-07:00

It was a short week. In fact, it isn't over yet as we still have today to get through.

But I am quite excited about what we have done, this week.

We finished SoTW chapter 9.

We got caught up in Grammer with the boy and he pretty much has his diagramming of subjects and predicates figured out at last.

The girl is up to lesson 127 in FLL and we're now getting into dictation. She's handling it without any trouble, much to my surprise. She was so delighted with the fact she got it right, yesterday, she wrote it again!

I've got over my fear of Memoria Press's Christian Studies 1. The boy continues to astonish me with his grasp of the Bible. It isn't taking a lot to elicit some fairly deep thoughts.

I've switched back to using the Vos Story Bible with sheets from Calvary Chapel for my daughter. She loves this. She hasn't really gone through the Old Testament this way. (We used it for the New last year.) One night this week, she found that I had printed off new sheets--and all of a sudden she had to do them. Never mind it was bed-time! So, I had her Dad read the proper chapter.

Later, I asked her how it went and she pouted, "Daddy wouldn't help me."
"What do you mean?" I asked her.
"He wouldn't spell 'cursed.' He just sounded it out."

Oh dear. Teaching can really change the dynamic between the Princess and her Daddy! (Probably for the better.)

There are just two other things I want to highlight from this week.

My son and I continued on with Aesop A. This week we were to identify sentence types. I was frustrated with the instructions in the teacher's book when it told me to go back through the previous week's model to identify the different sentences as this week's model was written entirely in declarative sentences. What on Earth? I wondered. Why would they do that?

Then it occurred to me--ahh, it's easier to change them! So, I suggested to my son that we re-write Androcles and the Lion using different types of sentences and he was stumped until he took my suggestion to tell the story from Androcles's point of view. We had a great time re-writing it. I'll have to post it tomorrow, though, as he isn't finished typing it up on the computer yet.

Lastly, and most importantly, my son hit a wall with long division. I've spent a lot of time this week over at the WTM boards hashing this out. With the wonderful suggestions from the women there, we are beginning to get through it.

We did some physical exercises that involve crossing the mid-line (mostly a bunch of figure 8's and swaying our arms from left to right and from upper left to lower right.) I wrote his problems on graph paper and pre-drew the subtraction lines. I sat down beside him and worked on each question with him as he went along. It took us 30-45 minutes to do 8 questions, but they were done perfectly, and we "talked through" every single step.

We're going to do that today and every day until he gets impatient with me and just does it himself. I'm not sure the wall is scaled yet, but it is at times like these that I am so grateful to be homeschooling. What public school teacher could possibly have time to do all that? How could he hit that wall and not come away feeling (needlessly) ashamed of himself?

This is exactly where he would give up on school, if he hadn't already. When I brought him home at the end of Grade One he was already calling himself stupid and had zero tolerance for his mistakes. Let's hope he gets over this wall quickly, though. My daughter needs some intense one on one work for three digit subtraction with borrowing!

As for me, I started making up our spreadsheet to plan out the year. I have finally stopped fretting about how behind we are and accepted the fact that the work we have to do is just the work we have to do. I'm still fiddling with it, but I've finally lost the anger and despair I had had about our very long break last fall. So, we're on week 7 of a 40-42 week year. I'm just trying to do my best to make sure the load isn't too heavy during the summer.

On Science, Part Trey.

2008-02-19T19:53:00.003-07:00

On Science, Part Deux.

2008-02-17T22:27:00.004-07:00

We did some science after supper tonight. It happened spontaneously.

Someone said "hair" and I remembered that was our next lesson on the human body. So, I whipped out our very informative, heavily illustrated book on the Human Body, (one of those Kingfisher Encyclopedia things) turned to the chapter on hair and began to read, picture book style.

The kids were immediately grossed out by the picture of a microscopic itch mite. They asked about lice. So, we went to the computer and looked them up in google images. We came across this particularily interesting one. My boy said, it looks like a monster! I answered him, "Yep, God made monsters, but he made them microscopic."
(Which is a very interesting thing to think about, someday.)

They were thouroughly engrossed and grossed out. My son finished reading the spread in the book on skin. We got out our nasty magnifying glass and looked at our arms. We chatted about skinand sweat and moisturizure and goosebumps and capillaries.
And that was it. 20 minutes tops.

I wonder if I should run off the diagram and have them label "epidermis, dermis, etc., as a follow up--or just leave it?

How formal/informal do I want to be with this?
How rigorous?

Like those experts in English who say, "get your children to love reading and all will be well" there are those scientists who say, "get your kids to love finding things out and all will be well." Well, not quite all in either case, but it may be a place to start. And I'd only be a few clicks ahead.

Something else to think about.

On Science.

2008-02-17T12:29:00.008-07:00

I hate science.
I don't understand it.

I attended 14 schools in 12 years in three different education jurisdictions: Ontario, Alberta and the NWT. It left huge gaps in my education and one of the biggest casualties was science. I know next to nothing about Earth Science (in fact until a few weeks ago, I didn't even know what the term meant) nor Astronomy. Don't ask me anything about Physics. And what I do know about plants, animals and the body is shaky.

I mean, I do find certain things fascinating, like tugor preassure and heliocentrism. I think it's cool that trees and plants photosynthesize during the day and then reverse the process at night. (They do, don't they? I can't quite remember.) The fact that all bugs have six legs and three body bits--and yet are so incredibly different from each other is amazing. (Those facts could be wrong, though. Don't quote me.) I think the human body is a miracle.

But, that's no excuse for not doing science with the kids. Part of why we don't do science--though I have three full curriculae on my shelves--is that I don't know what we need to learn. As far as I can figure out, there are at least four different approaches you could take:

A. Nature Study
Go for walks with a sketchbook. Learn to draw. Label the drawings when you get home from good reference books. Observe things happening in the world. Find out why it works that way (eg, cranes at a construction site. Condensation on windows, etc.)

B. Forgo textbooks and formal learning and just get a bunch of books on how to do experiments and muck about.

C. Read our way through science.
Use a spine for topics in a particular area of study and pick topics to be studied. Read about the topic, make a narration page, read picture books, biographies, and I don't know what else. Maybe do an activity or experiment or two and write it up, somehow.

D. Buy a text book, do what it says. But here too, one must make further choices:

a) Cover one subject in depth for a whole year--like the Apologia texts do, or,

b) Cover a few (or more) topics lightly, knowing you will return to study it in more depth later. Pick a few topics (related to your history cycle) each year and pick and choose from what's out there what to do.

Now, factor in that I have two children nearly three years apart in age and that I want to do the same thing with both of them together. I need a curriculum which will demand more from the elder without boring or overtaxing the younger.

YIKES!!

For the Grammar stage, the WTM recommends something very like approach C. (In fact, I looked it up!) Topics are correlated to the history cycle, though they say this isn't strictly necessary.

But for what it's worth:
Ancients: Animals, Plants and the Human Body.
Middle Ages: Earth Sciece and Astronomy
Renaissance and Reformation: Chemistry
Modern Era: Physics.

makes a lot of sense, right?

For the Logic/Dialectic stage the same topics are re-visited, (Grades 5-8) and then again at the High School or Rhetoric level.

But here's what they say about science in the Fifth grade:
You have the same topics you studied in Grade One (Ancients), Animals, Plants and the Human Body but you'll "study basic cell structures, learn about the environments they share and then branch out into the study of classification." In other words, you start to make connections as you delve more deeply into the subject(s).

In its procedure, it comes fairly close to what I understand about Nature Study, only we could call it artificial nature study, since one sets up an experiment first.

1. Set up an experiment, do an "experiment" report.
2. Do a sketch of the specific topic being studied.
3. Write a report on the area under investigation.
4. memory work: identify and define the scientific terms one ought to know.

Egads. It is thorough. It is sound. And it's a lot of work for Mom to pull it together--especially when you consider I'm doing this with a third grader tagging along who will have her own stuff to do. We have most of this school year yet to complete (Middle Ages: earth Science and astronomy. [shudder] and next year to plan and prepare for. It'll be chemistry, which is good. I did well in Chemistry and liked it until I flailed about in the unit on Organic Chem. and barely passed it. Then, I just wasn't interested anymore.

I really have to pull together something NOW! I have a little unit on the human body which is a quick and easy introduction to all the neat, cool systems in the human body. We're just not getting to it.

I hate science.
I really don't understand it.

The Saturday Review of Books

2008-02-17T02:08:00.002-07:00

Go read something and then tell us about it. Please.
Here's the link.

A Review of Readers

2008-02-16T01:24:00.011-07:00

Why use readers at all?

They are rather old-fashioned, but they're immensely well suited to laying the foundation to a classical education. In fact, they were designed to do so.

They are practical: passages increase in complexity from book to book as a child's reading improves. They're wonderful for copywork as paragraphs are usually numbered and the passages are short, making them excellent for children to read aloud and practice their elocution. But other than their usefulness, what makes them valuable?

There is a wonderful brief history of the success of the McGuffey Readers by Henry H. Vail over at Project Gutenberg. In his first paragraph, Vail, who held the copyright to the Readers in 1920, extols its virtues and goals:

the reader should cover the whole field of morals and manners and in language that will impress their teaching indelibly upon the mind of every pupil. While the chief aim of the school readers must be to teach the child to apprehend thought from the printed page and convey this thought to the attentive listener with precision, these efforts should be exerted upon thoughts that have permanent value. No other texts used in the school room bear directly and positively upon the formation of character in the pupils. The school readers are the proper and indispensable texts for teaching true patriotism, integrity, honesty, industry, temperance, courage, politeness, and all other moral and intellectual virtues. In these books every lesson should have a distinct purpose in view, and the final aim should be to establish in the pupils high moral principles which are at the foundation of character.

In 1900, a thoughtful woman decried the Readers then in publication in a letter to the New York Times. She wrote that the "new" readers were failing to provide moral instruction. The Pacific Coast Series created a furor when they removed the moralistic tone and introduced Pacific Coast writers. But modern educators persisted in modernizing the Readers, culminating in the publication of the Elson-Grey Readers in 1930. Now, these old readers are not used as Readers per se, but are analysed in higher level Univeristy classes for their "stereotypical descriptions" and analysis and exegesis of the time-bound values they illustrate and exhort as this brief example shows.

But, there was another objection to the Readers of the time voiced by Charles Eliot, then President of Harvard. They are not, as it were, actual literature, he pointed out. "They are but scraps of literature."

This criticsm influenced the content of the Readers, for the better. One of the best, the Heart of Oak series, developed by another president of Harvard University, Charles E. Norton, was expressly designed to include not only literature, but the best of Nursery Rhymes, fables and folk tales. Look at Book 2, for example.

It's not difficult to see why, in an essay for the New York Times on the gradual degradation of the selections in Readers, Ravitch mentions them in glowing terms. You can see the Heart of Oak Series on-line here. It's hard to believe they were in publication for only five years.

But the shift from phonetic readers with moral tales to "look-say" readers with even scrappier bits of tales about children in their everyday lives, seems in retrospect, inevitable. There were many things afoot, not the least of which was the idea that not all children would grow up to be managers and the like--and neither should they be educated to be. William Elson, the author of The Elson Readers was one of the early proponents of this view.

Elson believed in providing a "general" education to all children until about grade four and then separating them into two tracks: one to prepare for high school, the other for work. He strongly believed that 95% of all children were destined to be "industrial and commercial" workers and should be educated accordingly. (Ravitch, Left Back, p. 91)

And so, most of us never learned

"Who has seen the wind?
Neither I, nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The leaves are passing thro'

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by." *

No, the pundits that be declared we'd be better served by reading,

"Look, Spot, Look."

************************
More reading on readers:

An interesting article which places Readers in the context of the history of spelling--and the story of Ayres and his list.

From spellers to readers. An interesting ovrview of various readershere.

An interesting site on all things McGuffey including an article on the differences between the editions and contains interesting history on Mr. McGuffey, himself.

On The Dick and Jane Readers: here.

*Who Has Seen the Wind, by Christina G. Rosetti, a common selection in the Readers.

Audio Files and Literature.

2008-02-15T21:52:00.008-07:00

The Hare and the Hedgehog.

Last week I discovered two wonderful Audio file sites: Story Nory and Lit 2 Go. Both are free. You can import the latter directly into ITunes through the "store" and then go to "Education," then "University of South Florida," then "College of Education."

This week, I discoverd the Elson Readers with the Table of Contents on-line. These are not the "Dick and Jane series introduced by William Gray in the thirties. They appear to be authored by William Elson. See the post on A Review of Readers.

I'm always looking for ways to enjoy our time in the car: and I have children who won't sleep. So, burning CD's with selections from the readers seemed like a good idea.

So, here's what I found for The Elson Readers, Books 2 and 3, just in case you'd like to burn your own.

Book 2
Audio Files:

My Shadow-Robert Louis Stevenson
Lit2Go 3

Bed in Summer—R. L. Stevenson
Lit2Go 2

Lucky Hans—Old Tale
Hans in Luck by Grimm, Lit2Go 6

The Ant and the Grasshopper--Aesop
Lit2Go 4

The Dog in the Manger
Lit2Go 4

The Cow—R. L. Stevenson
Lit2 Go 3

The Lad Who went to the North Wind--Norse
Lit2Go 3

Who Has seen the wind?—Christina Rossetti
The Wind—Christina Rossetti Lit2Go 1

Jack and the Beanstalk—Old English Tale
Story Nory, parts 1 and 2

Elson Book 3
Audio Files

The Hare and the Hedgehog-Grimm
Lit2Go 2

The Miser--Aesop
Lit2Go 4

The Fox and the crow
Lit2Go 5

The Stone Cutter—Japanese Tale
Crimson Fairy Tale book; Lit2Go 6

The Jumblies—Edward Lear
Lit2Go 3

Farewell to the Farm—R. L. Stevenson
Lit2Go 3

A Good Play—R. L. Stevenson
Lit2Go 1

Nest Eggs—R. L. Stevenson
Lit2Go 3

The Sleeping Beauty
Story Nory and Lit2Go 5

The Ugly Duckling—Hans Christian Anderson
Lit2Go 3

I am so grateful to have these resources I am not going to complain about the fact that I couldn't find more. But if you can suggest sites with human readers of free literature: I would deeply appreciate it.

Enjoy!
edited to add: I did find another source. I put it in link in a sidebar. And there's librivox, of course. How did I forget that?

Left Back by Diane Ravitch

2008-02-14T21:59:00.010-07:00

A Century of Failed School reforms.

And how. This book is dense. It contains generous helpings of the words of ideologues themselves. Reading it, one feels pounded on the acme anvil...but it is no joke.

Yet, it reminds me of the little children's rhyme, "The Ten little Indians." And this is how it goes.

Over and over again the ten little indians fall out of bed, each with a slightly different war cry.

Test, test the children, said the first. Let's find out what each child is capable of doing before we send the child into higher learning. He may not need it. Never mind that the new intelligence tests did not (and do not now, nor ever will they) measure a fixed innate intelligence.

and they all rolled over and one fell out--

Let us therefore be efficient, cried a man named Bobbitt.

Why teach about ancient history and the literature of other ages? "These deal with a world that is dead...."(p. 165)

and they all rolled over and one fell out--

The interests of the children must drive the curriculum, said Dewey. Learning must happen naturally, freely. Teachers must not teach, but facilitate. (p.169)

and so they all rolled over and one fell out--

We need education without schooling, cried a man named Rugg, and he took subject matter with him. (p. 225)

and they all rolled over and one fell out--

A new world order--that'll be the ticket, they cried in the thirties, dazzled by the light of the Soviet project schools beaming down upon the ruins of the depression. History crumbled and was replaced by Social Studies, and fewer and fewer children who could have studied higher mathematics didn't.

and they all rolled over and one fell out--

Activities, by jove, the children ought to learn with activities! Not those dratted old, moldy subjects.

When the teachers were as gifted as those in the Lincoln school, the activity movement engaged children in stimulating projects, which helped them learn reading, science, mathematics, and history. In the hands of less skillful teachers the activity movement kept children busy on aimless projects without
teaching them the knowledge and skills that they needed.
(p. 252)

and they all rolled over and one fell out--

Readers begone! cried the inventor of the Dick and Jane series, William Gray:

"The problem of teaching pupils to read has been clearly differentiated from the traditional effort to cultivate appreciation for classical literature." (p. 256)

and they all rolled over and one fell out--

Let us integrate the student into his own society! Socialization, that's what's important, not knowledge!

It was a short step from the radical idea that the schools should build a new collectivist social order--which the public schools had plainly rejected--to the distinctly non-radical idea that schools should teach students to conform to the group. (p. 261)

and they all rolled over and rest fell out--

Integration, Summerhill, The Open School movement, the sixties, the absence of both parents and in loco parentis, the call for standards; after taking us slowly and painstakingly through the history of Education ideology (and idiodicy) Ravitch turns her focus outward: to the schools and the world in which they exist with all its competing factions.

Competing? Sadly, yes. The ideologues had redefined "education" to such an extent that those whom you would have thought to have one goal in mind, the parents, students, and teachers invested in the educating of children couldn't even begin to read from the same page.

But what did happen? They did effect societal change. Children were educated--but to what?

Changes in curriculum in the pursuit of relevance accentuated narcissistic themes. Social studies courses focussed on immediate personal and social issues; chronological history and civic knowledge, which required students to think about worlds larger than their own aquaintance, were relegated to minor roles in social studies departments. Values clarification courses...proliferated. English became "English Language Arts," with more attention to self-expression and social issues than to classical literature. The study of heroes once popular among students in search of models to emulate, fell into disfavor. In an effort to promote self-esteem and group identity, schools reduced their once customary attention to the values of self-restraint, self-education and humility. p. 407.

If you can't quite manage the whole book; do read the Conclusion.

On Reading

2008-02-13T23:22:00.007-07:00

A book patiently waiting for us to read this week.

OK, I think I finally have this figured out, more or less.

#1. Reading out loud.
The kids will read to me from whatever I pick. I like the McGuffey Readers (1920's edition) for this. 3x a week, minimum.

#2. Quiet Reading.
For the boy, this is divided into two parts:
a) History--selections from to the Story of the World, Activity Guide, corresponding chapters from Child's History of the World by Hillyer, and Famous Men of the Middle Ages by Haaren. I also have other books I pull from. I've made up a chart for him to follow each day.

b) Literature. I got this idea from one of the women at the WTM Board. I have a basket and he can read anything from this basket for 1/2 hour (or longer). He finished Mr. Popper's Penquins today (with the CD). I found Sonlight to have the most workable suggestions.

For the girl, this includes anything she can currently read.

#3. Read Alouds. I have three: one for both children, and one for each of them at bed-time.

I am so relieved to have this figured out, I can't tell you. The deal is--no screen time--at all--until the reading is done.

Peals of Laughter

2008-02-13T00:32:00.005-07:00

from the boy's room this evening.

He's listening to it on CD--and I got the book, too. I suggested to him he might want to read along.
Naaah.
Halfway through the first disc, he wanders into the dining room, asks a lot of questions about Roman numerals, picks up the book and makes off with it.

Yep. He's reading along.
Many thanks to the wonderful women at the WTM forums.
(I gave him the book three weeks ago and he would not pick it up.)

Vocabulary Lesson

2008-02-12T17:32:00.000-07:00

My daughter is reading a scrap of a comic she's picked up from her father's lunchroom.
She turns to her brother and asks, "What's an anvil?"
He says, "It's a really, really heavy thing they use in cartoons."

So, do you think he's moving into the Logic Stage?

2008-02-12T16:58:00.000-07:00

My son and his father are watching cartoons together.
The boy turns to his Dad and says, "Where are these mice getting all these illegal explosive devices?"

On Reading and Taste.

2008-02-09T23:51:00.000-07:00

I'm a snob.

I admit it.

I think I'm even a wee bit proud of it, too.

But, as in so many other areas of my life my ideas and ideals exist over here--and over there? Well, that's reality: and it doesn't quite match up.

My son's tastes in entertainment are monstrous. Well, to me, anyway. I suppose they are normal for any 10 year old guy. The action boy-mutant-hero Ben-10. Transforming, maurading Bionicles. The mutant X-men. Graphic novels. Batman. Marvel comics. Garfield. Calvin and Hobbes. The Adventures of Bone by Jeff Smith. Bad kids' movies.

Fortunately, he also loves playmobil and stories about Ancient Rome. And he does read: even if it is something filled with drawings. (Sometimes known as graphic novels. Pah. Novels. A marketing term, no more.)

We got into this mess because, I, his mother, and teacher, did not take enough care in selecting what he was to be exposed to. Totally my fault. Good gracious that my son should be bored! Because, well, if he was, then he'd ask me to entertain him. I had a terrible attitude towards my children when they were younger and so the harvest is grim.

But all may not be lost. He is, after all, only ten and he still loves and trusts his mother. He doesn't know how much I've failed him. So, tonight, I've been combing the web and Homeschool catalogues to find stuff for him to read which he will enjoy and which will stretch his brain just enough not to discourage him, but to make it grow--in a direction that will make reality closer to my ideals.

It's been a tough slog. But today, I did check out Andrew Lang's The Arabian Nights Entertainments and, at my request, he read anything he wanted out of it. He chose Sinbad's third voyage--featuring--wait for it--a great one-eyed hairy beast:

I don't think it's an alien one eyed hairy beast.

So that's all right.

I Owe This Woman--

2008-02-08T21:48:00.000-07:00

and I've never met her. Jessica at Trivium Academy is one of those "homeschoolers for homeschoolers." She asks tough questions. She has researched and learned an awful lot--and kept track of all of it on her blog. She is on her own homeschooling journey and writes eloquently about it. And I don't think she sleeps!

So, I'm indebted to her in a general way--but also quite specifically for her "Nobility Record." It's so integral to her homeschool that I found myself feeling somewhat guilty about borrowing it and using it for my own children: but it is a remarkably powerful tool for the children--and for me.

Here's the poem.

True Nobility
by Edgar Guest.

Who does his task from day to day
And meets whatever comes his way
Believing God has willed it so,
Has found real greatness here below.

Who guards his post, no matter where,
Believing God must need him there,
Although but lowly toil it be,
Has risen to nobility.

For great and low there’s but one test:
‘Tis that each man shall do his best.
Who works with all the strength he can
Shall never die in debt to man.

This puts something like a "chore chart" into a completely different realm. I used it, though, as Jessica did; not for chores, but as a way to keep the children "on task" for their schoolwork. I made minor changes to mine. Click here if you want to see it.

The kids were a bit confused about what it meant to be "in debt" to man--until I had an example the other night. I'd fallen behind in the laundry. My husband asked for something he needed. So, at midnight, I had to run a load of laundry. Unfortunately, both children witnessed my temper as I stomped around complaining that my husband "should have told me earlier."

That wasn't the issue, of course, as I sheepishly explained to the kids the next morning. I had tasks to perform. I didn't do them. I owed Daddy his underwear.

I don't know if they got much out of that: but the poem is truly a rich resource for building diligence and responsibility. For all of us.
Thanks, Jessica.

Weekly Report #1

2008-02-08T09:58:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, you just don't have a good week. Sometimes, even though you plan and get excited about it all, things just don't work out.

We had a terrific day on Monday. We started late, but kept on track all day. Tuesday was a wash. Completely. I didn't even read out loud to them. (Well, maybe I did, I don't remember!) We took Dad to work at 6:30 am, came home, crated the dog, made up the grocery list and then purchased a month's worth of groceries. And then it was veg-ville until my son't Tae Kwon Do class at 1:30.

I think we'd each had about four hours of sleep.

Well, Wednesday went well. (How's that for alliteration?) We were tired, but I was very proud of them. They worked hard.

It caught up with us Thursday, though. The kids could not settle at all Wednesday night (up until midnight)and last night was the same.
So, we only did about 4 1/2 hours of school on Thursday--and I'm panicking.

I decided to write up the weekly report for 2 reasons, though.
1) I want to focus on what we did accomplish, not what we didn't.
2) I want other homeschoolers to be reassured by our struggle. Of course, we're not out the "other side" of this yet, and you can't really make this bad week encouraging until that's done, but I have faith we will turn this around!

Copywork:
I shifted this to first thing in the morning and found a new cursive font for the oldest. He likes it. He calls it "robot writing."

Recitations:
The boy is still struggling to learn his poem, but it is going well. He likes to stand at attention and do actions while he's reciting and it's perfect. He only glances at the poem for cues--and he's too funny!

My girl amazes me with the speed at which she memorizes. She's got the first two stanzas down.

Latin is proceeding well. And they nearly have all their words memorized. It really tickles me to see kids aged 10 and 7 using words like magisterial!
Here's my son, practicing his latin vocabulary:
I thought it was a highly imaginative way to review his Latin. There were four more pages!

Canadian History: Whew, we finished up our extremely brief introduction to Native people in Canada and moved on to the Vikings today. Vikings really capture the imagination of children, don't they! I told my daughter she'd done a wonderful job on copying her narration and deemed it "blog-worthy" so, here it is:
As for Story of the World, we finished up Chapters six and seven. That was a relief! I feel so behind schedule with this!

Grammar continues.

As for Bible study and writing and science--I'm still struggling to fit them into our day. But this is about what we DID get done, not what we didn't. So, that's it, folks. I am utterly amazed at how smoothly the day has gone today. I wish I knew why.

update: Good Golly, Miss Molly, the girl finished her math in less than 1/2 hour and got 100% I looked for a calculator...but, no, she just DID it! (Yesterday, I was in despair. It took over an hour.)

Today's Dictation

2008-02-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

It recently came to my attention that at his age, I should be dictating the first sentence of my son's narration back to him before he starts to copy it. That meant our procedure would have to change a bit. I usually have my son give me his narration first, so he could model it for my daughter who struggles. The change meant she would have to go first. So, we tried that today. And this is how the dictation proceeded.

Here are the first three sentences he dictated to me:

"Muhammad died. They chose a new leader, Abu Bakr. He was called the Caliph which means ruler of the Islamic Empire."

I told him I would say the first two sentences (since the first one was so short) and he was to repeat them back to me before he started writing. Before I read the second sentence, I told him, "There's a comma in it. Listen for the comma so you know where to put it."

He repeated the sentences after me, including the pause for the comma. He had no trouble writing the first sentence (though I had to spell both "Muhammad" and "died.") But he got as far as "they" for the second sentence and then couldn't remember what he was supposed to write. So I told him, "You already know what happened. What did they do?"

And he wote, "They chose a new Caliph, Abu Bakr." ("Abu Bakr" and "caliph" were up on the board!)

So, before I handed him his narration to copy, we did a little editing. We changed the third sentence to read, "The Caliph is the ruler of the Islamic Empire."

Much better, no?
And does anyone know if "Caliph" is supposed to be capitalised or not?

A Good Day.

2008-02-04T15:52:00.000-07:00

I was up about an hour before the kids. That's always a good way for me to start my day.

When they finally wakened, we started gently. I had their Bible verses written out in Startwrite for them to copy. I made them say the verse first, then count the commas. There were three. I asked: "How many sentences is it?" They both answered three. "What ends a sentence?" I asked. "A period" they told me. "So how many periods are there?"

"One."

The seven year old was astonished. She honestly had not noticed it was one sentence.

So, that was interesting to me. Normally, I just give them their copywork and treat it more as a penmanship excercise than a teaching tool.

Then, I had my daughter say her poem to me three times. She has the first stanza memorized already. It's amazing what a sponge a seven year old brain really is. I can't remember if my boy did his poem or not.

Then, Latin. We did the vocabulary review together, very quickly, and then turned to our lesson. Today was the story of Romulus and Remus and when my son saw that, he was about to close his book and wander off, saying "I know all about that." But, I made him stay and we learned something new: Their father was Mars and their mother Sylva. The lesson included a picture by Reubens with some questions for a picture study. When we were done, my daughter says, "What, that was latin? We're done?"

Lively Latin is a fantastic program!

Then I gave my son his math. We almost had an argument about it, but when I showed him what he needed to do, he was OK with it. My daughter ran around looking for this and that to do her piano. She finally finished her theory work and her practicing. I confess, I didn't keep as close an eye on her as I should have.

I'm not exactly sure how this happened, but my daughter missed her math. When it was time to do it, she elected to clean her room instead. That was OK. She'll do it later, after she comes home from her piano leassons tonight.

Oh yes, now I remember: I reminded my son his book report was due tomorrow. We were working on that and I didn't really have time for her math right then. That was it.

We had lunch and a small break: then it was time to review the spelling words and do the spelling test. (Something we really should have done on Friday, but oh well). Then we had another small 15 minute break. (The puppy ensures we take a lot of breaks! I've started using the timer to make sure we come back from them!)

Story of the World was next. We're continuing our introduction to Islam. Today was all about the fight Muhammad led aginst the people of Mecca. Never knew any of that before. The kids are just writing up their narrations now. (They both dictate them to me and then re-copy it into their own hand writing. I'm supposed to have my son write more of his on his own by now, but I'm not quite sure how that goes.)

Let's see, we have Grammar and typing each, Bible Study and a writing excercise to start with the ten year old that will last us the week.

Not bad, folks, not bad. The school day has only been in action for 4 1/2 hours so far. Not bad at all.

*Image from this site

On Writing

2008-02-04T10:05:00.000-07:00

#1 Who's your audience?

I learned this one on the job. A wonderful woman tethered me to a telephone line for nearly a year to teach me how to write news reports for CBC radio. Her name was Janice Stein. She was in Windsor. I was somewhere else, trying to eke out a living as a freelancer. She was a difficult person to work for, but her dedication and committment to bring me up to snuff was no less than award winning.

She had a surprising answer for me: my audience was my grandmother. I'm going to tell the story to my grandmother. She even suggested I put a picture of my grandmother by the computer to help me remember.

Writing for radio is writing for the ear. So,
#2 one thought: one sentence.

That's it. Complex compund sentences are not necessary and they are too hard for the ear to follow. Keep it conversational. That was very difficult for me. I'd learned to write in University, worse, I'd learned to write philosophy papers. Folks, it's as you've always expected: that isn't writing. I was in despair until I read what I wrote nearly every night in my journal. That was in words of one syllable. That was clear and concise. All I had to do now was to learn how to tell a story instead of moaning and complaining about my life. Gotcha.

The next bit was the hardest.

#3 The thesis statement.

This was to be the first line of my report. There's a formula of course. Here it is: "Someone is doing something because___________."

Notice that it's about people. I'm not saying "something is happening because....." but "people are protesting." And actually, to say "people are protesting isn't quite good enough. The last bit of excellent advice she taught me was

#5 use vivid verbs.

"People are yelling, marching up and down outside the courthouse."

As countless other writers have urged, paint a picture, she said. Show me the secene in front of you. So, my apologies for the ponderous bits below. My grandmother doesn't have a computer so I sometimes forget that I'm writing for her. Always.

This week I'm teaching the ten year old how to find the topic sentence and make a key word outline. Then we're going to re-write the piece using the outline for guidence. I'm using the free samples I printed off from Imitations in Writing, Aesop from the Logos school. I'm quite excited. It's more than time.

PS. When do you suppose blogger is going to fix spell check? This could get embarrassing!

On Curriculum.

2008-02-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

You'll see that in the side bar I've included the materials I use (and hope to use) in our homeschool. But I have chosen those materials not entirely because they are subjects we need to cover: but because covering those subjects imparts skills I think we ought to have. The kids are young, yet. At this age, I'm just trying to get down the fundamentals.

We have a hard time getting to all of our material. And given my goals, I'm sure there are redundancies. I'm writing all this out here not just to tell you what we do and why, but to help clarify my thinking and perhaps simplify our lives as a result.

I have chosen to follow a particular model of home education called, for better or worse, "classical." As a homeschooling method, it began with the discovery of an essay by Dorothy Sayers extolling the virtues of a medieval classical education with an eye and an ear to the different psychological "stages" on the child's ability to learn. It has evolved from there into various forms. I have read what I could and picked out what I've wanted for the goals I want to achieve.

I am also attracted to what is known as a Charlotte Mason education. There are tomes on her method, including those she wrote herself. It's a very attractive method, conjuring up images of well-trained, thoughtful and observant children reflecting the Victorian age in which she lived and taught.

However, this is my go-to site for keeping me on track with what I'm supposed to be doing and how to go about it.

In both educational orientations there's the idea of moving from model to practice. You provide a child with a model of what is to be expected, to be emulated, and, eventually, executed.

The very best example is copywork. Here, a child is given a piece of fine prose or poetry or a Bible verse, written out. The child then copies it out letter for letter, word for word, including punctuation. It provides more than an example of correct penmanship--the idea is to provide the correct model for recognising good language. Copy work gives way to dictation, so a child can learn to write what he hears.

Parallel to this is narration. The child "tells back" the story he heard, the passage he read or describes the picture he sees in front of him. Thus they learn to synthesize, organise and summarize information.

The teacher writes the narration out in the beginning....later, after enough dictation (practice in writing what he hears) the child writes it out himself.
The narration is the foundation for all writing. Changing and manipulating the narrations can be used to teach grammar, vocabulary and spelling.

For now, these are the skills we're focusing on:

Brain Training:
Models: Poetry. Latin. Bible Verses. Eventually, Aristotelian logic. (I may have to write up my own curricula for this for kids to use and understand.)

Method: Memory work, in the form of memorizing poetry and Bible verses (and math facts) establishes the habit of retaining rhythm and wisdom and knowledge. Translating Latin is where the brain stretches itself and we aim to get there quickly. Eventually, we'll do our Aristotelian logic and engage in Socratic dialogue. Fortunately, I have two degrees in Philosophy, so I feel fairly confident we can do this in the teen years. I'm just not sure how to get there from here, yet.

Materials: Um, poems, Bible verses and a good Latin program. Strategy games also fall into this category like Yahtzee, chess, checkers, Clue and Blokus. I also use a series in beginning logic called Mind Benders.

Expression:
There are two kinds: verbal and non-verbal.

Verbal: The fine art of using language.

Models:
The Bible, Poetry, Quotations and Maxims, stories and good books. We need to know what to listen for, we need to know what is a well constructed sentence, as well as what is a good sentence aesthetically. The same goes for stories, and later, arguments.

Methods:
I read books to them. We also use copywork, narrations, and for now, a formal study of grammar, spelling and writing.

Materials:
I have two programs for grammar (one for each child), one for spelling which they do together, and one for writing.

Beyond copywork and narrations we aren't doing any writing. I think this is a disservice to the ten year old but the program I've picked is so teacher-intensive and thorough that my mind balks at the amount of time I think it would take to do it with him. He also needs to be able to type: that's the best way to handle a great volume of words at this age.

I aim to do something with spelling and grammar every day. These are subjects we will drop doing formally at some point so I feel sort of rushed to get through them quickly now.

Science (which I can't ever seem to get to) and History are fodder for narrations and copywork.

Non-verbal: The Cutural Arts.

This is strongly emphasised in the CM method of education, the classical method doesn't place as much emphasis on it--not even half so much as the original Greeks and Romans did. This, I think is a result of following the medieval model of classical education: it's as if the Renaissance never happened.
We don't do as much of this as I would like, either.

Models:
Music, Poetry, Plays (both live and on video and CD), Art.

Method:
Exposure, mostly. I'm working on the implementation, slowly.

Means:
Both study an instrument. I have plans and materials to start teaching us to draw. We go to plays at our local theatre.

Looking at this, I'm realizing that really, we just need to focus on Music and Art. The poetry and plays are really part of our verbal expression program. That seems much more manageable.

Mathematics:

We don't actually do mathematics. Real math is brain-training at its highest form. In a brilliant explanation of mathematics Adrian outlines the proper method of teaching it, starting out with the Big Questions and ending up at an understanding of sets. I do want to get us to this at some point. I'm just not sure how. For now, we do arithmetic. I use a program that explains part of the rationale behind the computations. Not in an intimidating way, but in a kid-friendly "oh now I get it way" that's extremely empowering. I'm not afraid of arithmetic anymore. I was when we started.

Looking at the world from a Christian Perspective. More generally and briefly known as our "worldview."

As Christians, I want my children to have a particular world-view, a biblical world-view like Francis Shaeffer talks about in What Shall We Do Now?

Models: The Bible, reading a non-Catholic version of the lives of Saints.

Methods: memorizing Bible Verses, studying the Bible, catechisms, going to church. I think I may have them memorize one of the shorter creeds, too.

Materials: For now, it's simply a course in conflict resolution and Bible Study. Developing a world view is a lot more than just going through a Bible Study program, of course. Still, the one I've picked (by Memoria Press) does present the material so that one can begin to understand that being a Christian means to occupy a particular set of beliefs about the world, its Creator and our relationships to everything and everyone in it.

Get a general idea of stuff so that when we do it in more depth later on you have some idea what we're talking about:

In this category we have History and Science.

And that, as they say, is that.

This has been helpful. Not the least of which is that it I now have something called my "educational plan" somewhat written up. The "EP" is a legal requiremnt I have to file with my school board in order to continue hs'ing. I only just realised, as I was typing this, that I hadn't done one for this school year!

Routines and Consequences

2008-02-03T12:00:00.000-07:00

Answering Joanne's questions, the biggest thing that seems to stand out for me is our lack of routines and predictability. There's just too much chaos around here.

There were two other ideas that have sparked off some thoughts I want to work through that will help with that:

1) One woman wrote that she takes away a certain amount of screen time from her son if he doesn't get his chores done within an hour of waking up. This may be the approach for us to take.

I have a schedule: but it's shot whenever we don't start "on time" which is every day, right now!

I could certainly try that with respect to myself....and start establishing some peace and order to our lives. I sort of already have that in place: for example, my first visit to the downstairs bath is when I "swish and swipe." One load of laundry needs to be in the washer before bed.
Transfer to dryer and start another right after breakfast.
Fold during our lunch break, and so on.

But the other thing that keeps us in chaos is the lack of consequences. There are also no accountability for the kids to do their chores (nor for me, actually). The consequences I face, of course, are doing laundry late at night when someone says he's out of socks, and letting dishes pile until there's no room to prepare food.

She quoted Boundaries with Kid by Townsend and Cloud. I have the book. I've read the book. Somehow, I did not undertand the part I highlighted below:

Parents run into a big problem when they do not distinguish between psychological and negative relational consequences versus reality consequences. Life works on reality consequences. Psychological and negative relational consequences, such as getting angry, sending guilt messages, nagging, and withdrawing love, usually do not motivate people to change. If they do, the change is short-lived, directed only at getting the person to lighten up on the psychological pressure. True change usually comes only when someone's behavior causes him to encounter reality consequences like pain or losses of time, money, possessions, things he enjoys, and people he values.

I tried this a little bit last night. When my daughter interrupted me on the computer for the third time (she was supposed to be going to bed) I told her "I can't talk to you right now. You are supposed to be upstairs" and then as she continued to speak, I looked anywhere but at her. It was hard on both of us, but she went upstairs.

I have to think about this in greater detail, however.

What are the kids' chores?

When are they supposed to be done?

What will be the consequences for not doing them?

How do I enforce those consequences?

I may have to speed re-read Cloud and Townsend!

A Response to Joanne

2008-02-02T21:39:00.000-07:00

I asked for help on a homeschooling message board. My post was this:

The kids are kicking up their heels at doing any schoolwork. And I'm feeling quite discouraged. It is such a battle, some days, that I just don't feel capable of facing it. (And I'm not handling it well. I'm constantly on edge and stressed.)

Have you any advice for me?
Is there a hot-line for homeschool moms?

What can I do?

Joanne responded with the following questions in brown.

1) Do you have age appropriate, quality giving routines in place?
I think she means: Do we have any chores?
We do, but no routine or set time for getting them done. Vague rewards, vague consequences for not getting them done. (Actually, none).

2) Do you have connecting rituals, playfulness and intentional positives?
I asked for clarification about intentional positives and haven't got it yet. Connecting rituals, playfulness? Well, I'd like to read aloud to them more. Sometimes we play a game after supper. But frankly, at the end of the day, I just want to slink off by myself for a while and have nothing to do with anyone.

3) Look at food in terms of quality, tone of meals.
Well, my son's manners leave a lot to be desired, so when we eat together (about 4-5 nights a week) I spend some time correcting him. His sister less so, but still. We also have an argument nearly every night about what's on their plate and sometimes negotiate how much of it has to be eaten before they get dessert.

4) Is anyone hooked into too much screen time?
The worst culprit is probably me. I have a lot of things on the computer and I need access to them. It's the location of my social life and down time and planning. My son is "hooked"--it's very hard to pull him back from his games. TV we banished--but there are still too many dvd's and videos.

5) Sleep?
See this post. Short answer: we're getting enough, but not at the right times.

6) Are YOU getting YOU time in whatever way feeds you?
No. What I need is time to be alone--without anything that needs to be done. Then, I can relax. I don't think it's possible to get that for at least another few years. To be fair, I do get a lot of time on the computer: but I'm still always, always "available."

7) If you are constantly on edge and stressed, how is your trigger managemenet? Noise, chaos, neediness, unpredictability, mess and tedious repetition are draining, exacerbating triggers. Guess what life with kids is comprised of?
Noise: can't stand it. The computer is in a room with a french door. I keep it closed sometimes while the kids watch dvds.

Chaos: quite.

Neediness: if one child or another interrupts every ten minutes, does that mean he or she is needy?

Unpredictability: We have no routines, except to eat supper when the husband gets home. We never know what time he's coming home. Any other routines we used to have (like baths starting at 8:00pm) have been obliterated by our time-shifted sleep/wake cycles.

mess: oh, yes, it's messy around here.

tedious repetition: well that about covers all the things I am doing in a rather haphazard fashion at the moment: laundry, dishes, cleaning, projects, meals, schooling.

8) Is everyone getting an appropriate amount of play, exercise and movement?
It's been about -30C here the past week. I'd have to say no.

9) Major changes, transitions, stress?
We got a puppy at Christmas. That's been stressful.

10) Could you be depressed, clinically?
Perhaps. But it's seasonal. March is coming soon. We haven't the time, resources or inclination to deal with it professionally.

Now what?

In The Beginning: The Backstory

2008-02-02T18:26:00.000-07:00

The year was 2005.

My daughter was just about to start kindergarten.

My son was just finishing Grade One in a french immersioan public school. I have absolutely no idea how he was doing academically--I don't speak French. Socially, though, the situation was terrible. My son had had two years of kindergarden at that school, (left back because of emotional maturity issues) and K2 as we had called it had been brutal. His "friends" had turned on him and ridicules him for being a kindergartener. I had wantd to give it another year before making any decisions. (He had found one truly great boy for a friend and I didn't want to disrupt him from that relationship.)

I started reading about homeschooling and the more I read, the more I wanted it. Web sites from other Christians promised I'd have greater guidence over the children's spiritual life. Other homeschooling moms on message boards assured me we could take our time and my children could learn at their own pace, in their own way. If he struggled, help would be right at hand and not diverted by the challenge of keeping 30 children on task. I read John Taylor Gatto. His works made a huge impression on me. I read Laura Berquist and from there, the Well-Trained Mind. I read about the theories and philosophy of Charlotte Mason. I went to a homeschooling conference where hundreds of parents were trying the same thing....and I saw hundreds and hundreds of books. Wonderful books. Books I would be able to share with my children if we homeschooled. And I wanted that. I wanted it all.

I lamented the fact we didn't live on a farm. It's the ideal place to learn personal responsibility and the fact that everyone must contribute to the family for its survival. But, though a poor substitute, I did give them their own household chores.

Beguiled by the promises implicit in homeschooling, I thought I would be able to educate my children to pick wholesome, engaging books and entertainments. I thought they would be kind and generous and cheerful. I envisioned evenings reading books or playing games happily together. And, of course, they would learn to read, write and do their figures. They would learn to reason and argue well.

And so, then I began reading about educational philosophies and curriculum guidelines and courses of study and math programmes and so on and so on. I knew I wanted an academic curriculum. I wanted the intellectuall rigour and discipline it promised. No child-centered studies for us. No "unschooling" here, no substitution of the sacred cows of learning for a progressive education*. Besides, the former approach, unlike the latter, is consistent with my parenting philosophy, which is, in the words of one syllable: "I'm the boss."

And so we began.

*According to Diane Ravitch in Left Back, (Simon and Shuster, 2000) Harl R. Douglass, a leading progressive educator disapargingly referred to academic studies as the "Sacred Cow" curriculum in Secondary Education for Life Adjustment of American Youth