Last Friday we had a chance to explore the historic Beall-Dawson house in Rockville. Many thanks to Tamara for arranging the trip!
There was no photography allowed inside the house, but I snapped what I could. :-)
This is just me posting about my general excitement with homeschooling. (Yes, I am still excited about it.)
It seems like we have really hit a stride where the kids just know what to expect from the day and I don’t deal with very much resistance anymore. I love that we have finally sunk into a good routine for the year. I have realized that I CAN homeschool three kids, still manage to bathe them, wash some laundry, and put a meal on the table (that I cooked myself) nearly every night. Yes, sometimes we eat out, or I let people fend for themselves. No shame in that!
Adding Zoey into the mix as an “official” preschooler took some juggling. Also having Sydni working in Ambleside Year 1 and Cole in Year 3, meant a lot more work and reading (for me) overall. At this point, I have stopped trying to work with them at the same time. I was reading/working with one child while another did independent work, but no more! It worked for the past two years, but this year I was finding that I was being constantly interrupted by the “independently” working child and that everyone was losing focus and getting frustrated, too distracted, or just slipping through the cracks.
Now, I am starting the day with all three kids and doing the things we do together: Bible, hymn, artist study, composer study, Spanish (not everything, every day!). After we complete the “circle time” session (as I call it), I choose a child to work with one at a time. Zoey takes about 15-20 minutes a day, so I usually begin with her since she has a much shorter attention span anyway. Then Cole and Sydni take turns on a daily basis over who works with me first, and who takes a play break first. I get through all of their work quickly and efficiently, and then move on to the next kid. We are still finishing up our school work most days by lunchtime or shortly after.
This does mean that for those hours we are doing schoolwork that I get almost nothing else done because I am literally moving from kid to kid to kid. I used to be able to do some dishes or start a load of laundry while they were working on their own – not so much anymore, but that’s ok. Cole is working his way to being independent much of the time, as his reading fluency continues to increase, along with his ability to digest more complicated readings.
I am also SUPER excited about some good things happening with the kids and their development and learning. Sydni has already finished her first Pathway Reader for this school year, and at the rate she is going, will be moving on to the 2nd grade readers by the Spring. I am also happy about a VERY long and detailed narration that Cole gave on the “Pecos Bill” tall tale. I think I will type it up and share it this weekend. The chapter was quite long and I stopped five times during the story and had him narrate. He did a great job and remembered some really interesting details.
It’s also nice to see additions to our “Staircase of Time.”
(This was taken right after I finished drawing it, I should take a new one!)
Having a huge visual tool for tracking historical events is really helping things stick in the kids’ minds. Sydni even drew little crowns over the names of Phillip the II of Macedon and Alexander the Great to help her remember they were kings. CUTE! Tell me how many 1st graders you know who even have an idea of who those people are? :-D
Yeah, I really love homeschooling. WOOT!
On the 9th we had a chance to go down to DC and see the houses participating in the solar decathlon. We got there a little late and didn’t get to see as many houses as we wanted to, but we still had a good time and learned some interesting things.
We also dipped into the American History museum and were able to participate in a great science class. The teacher was great and the kids learned a lot about carbon dioxide, acids and bases.
Hooray for hands on learning!
From Wikipedia:
Hooah (pronounced /ˈhuːˌɑː/) is a U.S. Army battle cry. It is used[1] by US Army soldiers “Referring to or meaning anything and everything except no.”[2]
Today, “hooah” means that we had a totally rocking first day of school that exceeded my expectations and gave me hope for the coming year!
We all enjoyed our “circle time” of Bible, hymn, & prayer. Cole proclaimed hymns as his favorite part of the day (I was VERY surprised to hear that!). When I said no TV or computer could be turned on until after 1:00, no one complained once. Everyone was ready and eager for the day to begin came back from breaks immediately.
Sydni read easily from the first story in her 1st grade Primer, which made me very happy, as she has taken to telling me she “can’t read” over the summer. I knew it was phooey (and so did she, of course), but it was nice that she could so easily prove her reading ability to both of us.
Zoey asked for more math, Sydni wanted to read more chapters of Paddle-to-the-Sea, and Cole rememberd the main plot points of a story he listened to on my iPod (not an easy feat for him). We managed to get in some Spanish, poetry, and a bonus story at lunch time (King Midas). They did so well that I gave them all sticker books that I had been saving as a treat.
All told, it took nearly five hours for me to get everything together (I had forgotten more things than I thought – Hello, lyrics to the hymn would be nice) and actually teach, but I think it still went smoothly. That means tomorrow should be even better and less full of last minute print jobs. ;-)
I know, I know! I haven’t been blogging all summer. We’ve been busy and I have been taking something of an internet break. I have cut back on emails, cut back my time on myspace to almost nothing, and have even been trying to cut back on facebook.
We’ve been camping, visiting family out of state, sending kids to “sleep away” camps, swimming, playing, going to movies, and enjoying the summer. There were plenty of things I wanted to post about along the way, but a quick photo upload to facebook did the job much more efficiently, and so I ignored my blog for a couple of months. I want to say I feel badly about it, but I don’t. I also want to say I feel badly about hitting the “mark all as read” button on my google reader, but I can’t quite feel remorse about that either. I have skimmed enough to know that you all have been busy and productive this summer as well.
That being said, the school year is starting back up (we begin on the 24th of this month) and I am excited to chronicle what will be our third year of homeschooling. WOW! Our THIRD year. I really can’t believe that I already have two years and four county reviews under my belt. It has flown by and…I did it! I really did. I somehow managed to teach 2nd grade, 3rd grade, kindergarten & Pre-K. This year I will tackle (gulp) 4th grade, 1st grade and Pre-K (round 2). I am excited about our new adventures. I am organizing book shelves, rearranging art supplies, and making up weekly schedules. Cole will be much more independent this year, reading about 1/3 of his material on his own, and being responsible for assignments that will be due to me outside of our regular school time (kind of like traditional “homework”). Sydni will be starting AO year 1 (which I loved and am looking forward to doing again). Zoey will be starting phonics formally (we have done it all along, but not extensively) and focusing on early literacy, and continuing to build on her math skills.
I am excited about more nature studies, new artists, composers and poets. I can’t wait for co-op to begin again, to explore more of the Smithsonian, and to do “school” outdoors on a blanket during the cooler fall days. I am hopeful for a year of learning, adventuring and growing in every way. I hope you are too!
I am declaring summer 2009 as the official “Summer of Shakespeare” for the Golden Acorn Homeschool. We have already moved to a more year round format with homeschooling (I think it’s beneficial), but at the same time, I also think summer is the perfect time to lighten up a bit. Even with a lighter load of academic work, I still want the kids to have a rich educational experience that doesn’t feel like an educational experience.
Granted, my kids do have some math to finish up from this year, and we will continue reading some great books, but I really want to focus on my main man, William Shakespeare.
I especially want to focus on these plays (which we were meant to do this year, but mostly skipped over for lack of time):
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Romeo & Juliet
All’s Well that Ends Well
Cymbeline
Macbeth
&
The Comedy of Errors
The plan is to read a biography of William Shakespeare by Diane Stanley. Then, as we are reading about him, we will begin reading each play (from Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare), and acting it out in some fashion over the period of a week or two. We like to do the acting ourselves if we can, but we have been known to use Barbie dolls, paper dolls, and Legos before. We go where the creativity takes us.
I also plan to play many games at the Folger Shakespeare Library website, and plan a field trip there in July.
I am on the hunt for a live performance in the DC area, which really tops my list of things to do this summer. But if we can’t find a real performance, I have a list of movies and animated shorts we can enjoy. Shakespeare the Animated Tales is fabulous and I get it from Netflix whenever I need to. I would love my own copy…maybe some day!
I am thinking we might do a few fun crafts and art activities to round out the summer, and a stage of some sort is definitely in order. Even if it’s just fabric and a few curtain rods. We have a perfect doorway that will work, and I am imagining how it will all come together now. Some shower curtain rods and a two cheap shower curtains…
I am SO excited!
I have been re-reading one of my favorite books – A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola, along with sections of Charlotte Mason’s own writings over the last few days. Sometimes we get into a school rut, and even though things seem to be Charlotte Mason-y on the surface, I know in my heart that the spirit of her method of education can sometimes lose its luster in the day to day. This is especially true if we have been fighting illness or dealing with other issues that suck up my time and energy. Although we are going through the motions, *I* don’t have the same level of joy that I need to have, and consequently, the kids joy in learning is diminished as well. It helps me to pull out my books, or log onto Ambleside Online, and read writings from Charlotte herself and Karen, who inspires me a great deal. I regain my joy of teaching, I refresh myself on CM philosophies, and it renews my purpose in homeschooling the kids.
So this week I have been reading up on narration, and it reminded me of why I chose this method in the first place. Aside from reading amazing books and having the rich education that teaching with the CM method provides, the real beauty in it (for me) is not testing, but narrating! My kids can tell me what they know, and be confident in their knowledge. They are learning to actively listen to a story (or a selection), and to summarize it, and collect the important ideas. They have time to digest these ideas, and then share with me what they have learned. This allows them to make personal and LASTING connections to the material, and consequently, to make connections with other material later. This method of learning, absorbing, and telling is the most natural way there is to learn. It’s really almost organic. What do people (and especially children) do when they learn something new? They SHARE it with someone. All of us are eager to share what we know and what we have learned. Most of this happens spontaneously, and it is tailored to the strengths and weaknesses of each child. Karen Andreola says in her book:
Narration works wonderfully with both the bright, talkative child as well as the slower or more quiet child. In learning to narrate, each child will adjust, progress and accomplish according to his own ability in a most natural, gradual manner. Some children cannot be lured to learn by the proposed plan…There will be times of seeming stagnation, when they will need to be refreshed with some diversion or play. There will be obvious learning explosions (growth spurts) when all of a sudden their interest is piqued and their understanding quick. In a homeschool it is easy to sense fluctuations.
I love that this education can be tailored to each child and move at his or her pace. It can be easy going when it needs to, and formal when they are in a spurt. When it comes to narrations, I don’t always take formal narrations after reading, but I do record many of them with a voice recorder and type them up. This gives us a paper record of what they are learning for the dreaded county reviews, but also, the kids can go back and read their own narrations, or use them as copywork. However, the narrations I treasure the most are the ones that come later, sometimes weeks or months after we have read something. Cole, or Sydni often make a connection to something new we have read, with something we read in the past. These come out of nowhere, but they are like little road markers that tell me I am doing something right.
The most beautiful thing, perhaps, is the fact that this method of learning and teaching leads to self-education in the future. A child who can read a book filled with rich images of far away places, of noble ideas and intriguing concepts (and then tell back the information in some fashion), is on the road to being a life-long learner. Once a child has learned to process the information available in books, and make it work for him, the entire world has opened up. Karen agrees:
The day a child begins using narration is the day he begins to become an independent learner. With narration, the mind poses questions to itself. It is independent of the questionnaire.
Excellent books are what drew me to Charlotte Mason, but narration is what keeps me excited, amazed, and awestruck by what my kids are learning. Sometimes, it’s hard to see, but I feel as if I a making the ground fertile, and the books are planting the seeds. I am confident that they will take root and grow.
I have been busy working this past weekend on our weekly schedule. I use excel and break down the weekly AO readings for each child and add daily Bible, poetry, penmanship (copywork), phonics and math, and then rotate out the other subjects on different days. I do all 36 weeks this way. This year, since I have a 3rd grader doing Year 2 of Ambleside Online, and a kindergartner doing Year 0, I have a lot more to juggle!
I have been moving and rearranging things for a couple of days and now I think I have a schedule I can work with! Thanks goodness, right? September is really creeping up on me!
Here is a screen shot of my excel schedule (click to enlarge).
The lighter colors correspond with Diva (aka Sydni), my 5 year old. The darker colors are for Super-boy (aka Cole), my 8 year old. Purple blocks are AO readings. Blue is math and so on. For Diva, readings with page numbers are from the book “For the Children’s Hour” and the other readings are Beatrix Potter, or selections from the Year 0 book list. Narration is included with the reading selections as we do it immediately after each reading.
Music is hymns, folk songs and recorder practice, alternating as needed. We fit composer study seamlessly into the day, whether it’s in the car, or while we eat, etc. Circle time, as noted, includes Bible together as a family, poetry and we look at our current art print/artists. Sometimes we read a small part of a book about the artist or composer if one is available.
Once I have the basic layout in place, it is very simple to go in and add the AO readings as needed. I don’t label chapters for math since we move at the kids’ pace. I will probably go in and specify nature study topics at a later date, but this is our bare bones schedule and we stick to it pretty well. Each child has time to work with me one-on-one and also have break time while I work with the other.
If you haven’t yet, mosey your way on over to the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival being hosted at Life and Love in Rose Cottage. Lots of great stuff to read!
Also, consider submitting something to the upcoming CM Blog Carnival being hosted at On Our Journey Westward. It’s a “back to school” planning bash on August 19th. YAY for blog carnivals!
For some reason, I get a lot more email about this blog than I get comments, and I have gotten several emails lately about what a “typical” school day looks like at our house. Well, let me just start by saying that no two days here are exactly the same. But, we do have a flow to our days that makes them somewhat predictable. I have a daily schedule of tasks for each child, and I let them choose the order in which they may be done, within reason. Obviously, we do our best to keep within Charlotte’s guidelines of short focused lessons, between 10 and 15 minutes per subject so the child will stay attentive to what needs to be learned.
We usually wake up around 7:30. We tidy up rooms, get dressed and eat breakfast. Most days, if the weather is nice, we take a walk, or play outside for 15-30 minutes. I find that outside time helps us break away from temptations like the TV or computer, and gives us a some fresh air and a clear head. We usually arrive back home and get to business around 9:00 AM.
First up is “circle time.” We read a Bible story and a proverb or a psalm. We also read a poem, and review our artist and print for the current week. I ask the children (after the initial introduction, of course!) who the artist is, the name of the print, and anything they can tell me about it. Typically, we have our composer music playing in the background. If I happen to have a book about our current artist or composer, I read a small amount from that as well. Circle time is roughly 15-20 minutes.
We take a small break after circle time and I get everything situated for each child to move onto the next lesson, which is math (usually). If Super-boy is working on a new math concept, I sit with him and teach it (with manipulatives), and he works on a few of the problems with guidance. After he understands the concept, the following days he does his math independently while I do math work with Diva and Monkey. I try to keep math to 10-15 minutes tops. Sometimes that means he does the even problems on the page, and sometimes he does the odd, or we pick a selection from the page to finish.
We read one of the AO selections after math. Again, 10 minutes or so and a narration. He gives oral narrations, acts out narrations with toys, or draws them.
We work on Phonics next, for 5-10 minutes.
If we have another AO reading, we do that next, with narration. If it is a geography reading, we do mapwork etc.
Copy work follows for another 5 minutes or so. Lately we have been working on cursive handwriting.
That concludes the academics for what is regularly scheduled on a daily basis. We rotate music, art, science, PE, nature study, Spanish, Health etc. We listen to composers for music, as well as play the recorder. This year we will be learning hymns and folk songs as well. For art, we study artists, obviously, but we also draw, paint, sketch and model with clay. I try to schedule fun science experiments a couple times each term. The kids love them! For PE, we play a variety of playground and sports games, participate in sports clinics, go roller skating, hiking and Super-boy plays basketball with the Boys and Girls Club. For nature study we walk around and observe nature. We color bird notebook pages, we draw in nature journals, we read about what we find. Spanish has been the most hit or miss for us. I picked up “Phrase-a-Day Spanish” this year, so hopefully that will get us into at least 5 minutes a day of easy vocabulary. For health I pick two topics a year. I am required to cover it under Maryland law. Last year we did the food pyramid and tooth care, compete with a “field trip” to the dentist! :-)
I find movies about things we are reading. We cover Shakespeare, so we were able to watch a few child-appropriate films for that this past year. We take trips to the zoo, the aquarium, museums and so on. The AO books/living books are so amazing, they don’t need much else.
This is really a bare bones sketch of our day, but it’s a very full curriculum. We are done with school (most days when they don’t dawdle and waste time) by lunch or just after. Three hours has been plenty of time. Now, I will have two full time students this year, but I think with scheduling and a plan of action I can still juggle them both in the same time. Super-boy is doing a lot more of his work independently, including some of his readings. :-) Only time will tell!
