Beginning to plan again!

I'm starting to plan out the next term for our school. I have a CM planner guide from the SCM conference that I went to and it really gives great tips on how to plan your curriculum. I actually feel like I could come up with my own curriculum on my own now. Before now I've been trying to find a curriculum that's already set and making it fit my needs. I'm not sure it's been working the way I want it too.

I'm debating, now...whether to make a few more changes. See, I've been using a lot of Ambleside Online. I love the books that they suggest, however I'm not happy with the order in which they suggest them. For instance, today we read some about the Vikings, followed by Buffalo Bill. They're both great books but there's no time continuity. We took their year 1 and did it for 1 1/2 years so we're about ready to start Year 2 for AO. I've already got the books so I can't just ditch them, but I may need to come up with my own reading schedule. I'd just like for the kids to be reading chronologically as much as possible. We're also using The Story of the World book 1 so we're getting a great Ancient history lesson. Maybe I need to add in more Ancient history living books rather than the ones AO suggests.

Any suggestions?? What have you found that works in the way of history using living books?? I'd love any help you can give!

Back to School!

After a nice two week break which included a trip to grandparents and Disney World we are back and ready to begin again! Our house is still in disarray but we will attempt some sort of normalcy beginning tomorrow. I promise to conclude my Simply Charlotte Mason conference this week. I need a refresher myself! I hope everyone has had a wonderful couple of weeks and it's good to be back! God bless your upcoming homeschool week!

Jill

Characteristics of a Living Book

At the Simply Charlotte Mason that I attended earlier this month Sonya Shafer helped us to understand the characteristics of a living book. This was eye opening to me as I've always found myself wondering how to determine if a book is worthy of the children or not. Here's what she said:

1. Make the subject come alive. A living book allows the child to live in personalities that he finds in the books. A living book entices the child's emotions. It helps you form an emotion with the event. She said that if you open the book and look over a portion of it, and you want to keep reading then you've probably found a living book. It's not a book full of dates, statistics, etc. Basically, as far away from a text book as you can get.

2. Get in touch with great ideas from great men. A mind feeds on ideas. We need to feed the children's minds with good ideas, what is beautiful, noble, and bright.

3. Well-written. CM says the books must have:
-literary power
-worthy thoughts well put
-inspiring tales well told
-good simple English with a certain charm of style

4. Not childish twaddle. Twaddle is described by Miss Mason as "not diluted". Books should not talk down to the child. Look at the length of sentences. Check out the very first sentence on the first page and that should be an indicator. A lot of the "reading made easy" books are twaddle says Sonya.

5. Give the child the idea that knowledge is supremely attractive and that reading is delightful.

6. The best you can find. CM admitted for some subjects it is hard to find a good living book. Do the best you can.

7. Can they narrate it? This was a major test that CM gave as to whether a book was a living book or not.

8. Meets your personal standards. Just because a book is on a certain book list doesn't mean you have to use it. Does it have a Biblical worldview? What attitudes are endorsed? Magic or not? Note: CM used fairy tales with kids. It helps to spur on the imagination. But again, it's a personal decision.

Basically, choose your books before God- you have to answer only to Him! CM education is not child directed, but the child should enjoy the books.

I hope this helps us all to be able to discern a good living book from twaddle. I personally don't have a problem with my dd7 reading a little twaddle every now and then. I grew up loving to read and mom let me read anything I wanted. If I had to read only more difficult and tiring books I doubt I'd have the love of reading that I have now. For school and bed time we make sure we have good living books. But in spare time I'm not going to stop her from reading a little twaddle if I have approved the book first.

Well, we're leaving tomorrow for a much needed and much anticipated family vacation. The best part?? The kids don't know yet! We're going to my in-laws for Thanksgiving and then we're leaving on Friday for Disney World! I'll post a couple of pics when I return. I hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving!!! Even those of you not in the US...let's all remember to be thankful to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! We have so many blessings!!! God bless!

Jill

Simply Charlotte Mason Conference

A couple of weeks ago I was blessed to be able to attend a SCM conference by Sonya Shafer. What a sweet, precious woman who is such a wonderful resource in learning about the CM style of education. She has many different seminars, however I attended the Books &Things Seminar (which is the one I would have chosen, given the chance)!

She started out with a quote from Miss Mason herself.

"Education is the Science of Relations; that is, that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we must train him upon physical exercises, nature, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books; for we know that our business is, not to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid, as many as may be of 'Those first-born affinities, that fit our new existence to existing things' " (Preface to the Home Education series).

I love the part of the quote that stated "our business is not to teach him all about anything...". Doesn't that relieve a lot of the pressure that we, as homeschooling mothers, put on ourselves? Our role is to show them a little about a lot, in my opinion. We are to teach them how to teach themselves to become lifelong learners. Let's tickle their fancy about a lot of subjects and see what comes of it. I really liked that quote.

Sonya placed the three types of relations that we, as humans, have onto a chart:

Relation to God
Relation to Man
Relation to Universe

Then under each of those three she placed the school subjects that we study:

God: Bible
Man (past and present men): History, Literature, Morals and Economics, Citizenship,
Composition, Languages, Art
Universe (God's creation): Science, Geography, Math, Physical Development/Handicrafts

I love seeing these laid out in this way. Each subject is taught as a relation to one of the three things. I've just never thought of that in this way. This was the conclusion of her introduction (haha!). I'll post Session 1 in another post. Hope you're enjoying it!

Jill

Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival!

Yay! It's CM blog carnival time again and I have two articles in this carnival! (I think I accidently sent two in, oops...my mistake.) But what fun to see your blog entries on someone else's site. I've really started liking this! haha! I hope you'll take a look at Richele's blog "Under the Golden Apple Tree". It's full of wonderful CM articles. And yes, I know I'm so very late in updating everyone on my wonderful CM conference. It's been a very busy time in our household and I hope to get to it soon! Meanwhile, look over the other articles on the CM blog carnival. Happy reading!

Fall Wonders- CM style!

"It would be well if all we persons in authority, parents and all who act for parents, could make up our minds that there is no sort of knowledge to be got in these early years so valuable to children as that which they get for themselves of the world they live in. Let them once get touch with Nature, and a habit is formed which will be a source of delight through life. We were all meant to be naturalists, each in his degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of pant and animal life and to care for none of these things" (Vol. 1, p. 61).

As we were waving goodbye to Daddy this morning Man-Man looked up at me with an excited grin on his face, eyes wide with anticipation. "Mommy, when can we go into the back-back and study our nature study?" The "back-back" as the kids have so named it, is the large free space that exists behind our back gate. Daddy put a gate into the fence so that we could go into the wonderful wooded area behind our house and explore all that God has for us. There is even a little creek back there.

I told Man-Man to go get his shoes on and tell his sisters we're going to do our nature study. The sleepy house was suddenly alive and jumping! In no time we were out of the doors, with Gidgi (my mom) and Lucy (our dog) in tow.

"Wow, Mom! The leaves are all gone! And our favorite hiding tree has no leaves on it either!" Man-Man was the first to notice the drastic change in our trees from two weeks ago. No longer are the beautiful yellow, red, orange, and brown leaves hanging from the trees. Instead they are piled up in a mound under the trees from which they fell. The kids love one tree in particular. It has large limbs which bend under the weight of the leaves to form a canopy of sorts. It's a club house, or secret hiding place for them. But now, it's bare and empty. We found a wonderful treasure on their tree though. Large, green, oval shaped things hung from the branches. Some of these green things were split open to reveal a pecan hanging inside. What a fun discovery! They ran around the tree finding other green capsules to open up and even began gathering the pecans they found on the ground.

I asked if they could tell which leaves used to be on the tree. There were many many different types of leaves on the ground under this tree. The wind had been working it's magic and all of the leaves were mixed up. Tink found one little lone stalk still hanging onto the special tree though. She ran and picked it, proudly proclaiming that THIS must be the leaf since it came from the tree itself. We matched it with some of the leaves on the ground.

"The child has truly a great deal to do before he is in a condition to 'believe his own eyes'; but Nature teaches so gently, so gradually, so persistently, that he is never overdone, but goes on gathering little stores of knowledge about whatever comes before him" (Vol. 1, p. 66).

Man-Man made another discovery. Over in the distance was a tree that still had many green leaves on it. As a matter of fact, though some leaves had fallen, most were still as green as ever. I picked up a leaf from our Pecan tree off of the ground and took it over to the new mystery tree. I picked a "leaf" from this tree and held the two together. We discussed the fact that this new tree was actually a pine tree and noted the differences in the leaves' shape and color. We also found other evergreen trees in our back-back and compared those leaves. Now, the children made these connections on their own. All I did was guide their discovery. How proud I was that they noticed and wanted to know more about these spiky pine needles I held in my hand.

"That the child should be taken daily, if possible, to scenes-moor or meadow, park, common, or shore-where he may find new things to examine, and so add to his store of real knowledge. That the child's observation should be directed to flower or boulder, bird or tree; that, in fact, he should be employed in gathering the common information which is the basis of scientific knowledge" (Vol. 1, p. 177).

After spending over an hour in the beautiful Fall weather we returned to the indoors to put together all that we'd discovered. Tink drew a picture of the new evergreen needles she and Man-man had discovered. She also wrote a wonderful "essay" detailing many of our facts and adventures outside. This has been one of the most surprising benefits of our Nature studies. Tink really loves to write about what she's seen or done. She writes it once and we go through it together correcting spelling and punctuation. She then recopies it onto a clean sheet to put into her nature journal. There we go...science, spelling, grammar, copywork all rolled into one!

"Of the teaching of Natural Philosophy, I will only remind the reader of what was said in an earlier chapter- that there is no part of a child's education more important than that he should lay, by his own observation, a wide basis of facts torwards scientific knowledge in the future. he must live hours in the open air, and as far as possible, in the country; must look and touch and listen; must be quick to note, consciously, ever peculiarity of habit or structure, in beast, bird, or insect; the manner of growth and fructification of every plant" (Vol. 1, p. 264).

"And this is the process the child shoudl continue for the first few years of his life. Now is the storing time which sould be spent in laying up images of things familiar" (Vol. 1, p. 66).

Jill

Simply Charlotte Mason

I had such an amazing time at the Simply Charlotte Mason conference this past weekend. Sonya Shafer was the speaker and it was wonderful to put a face to her name. I've always respected her and her work, now I was able to see and hear her. What a sweet and knowledgable lady! I have so much that I want to share, now I have to get my thoughts organized and figure out what to share first!

I want to thank my wonderful mother for first finding the conference and then driving 5 hours to attend it with me. Also, she bought all of my Christmas presents in the form of SCM books! Yay! Like I said, I have lots of resources and thoughts to share. But for now you'll have to settle for a few pictures. Until tomorrow...

Jill

Knitting knowledge!

For the past week my daughter (dd7) has been counting down the days until today. Anxiously, and impatiently she's been reminding me that we have a date to the library on Thursday at 10.

See, last week while Man-Man was in his Kindertot class I took the girls to the library. It's a favorite activity or ours and we try to do it as much as possible. We saw a few ladies from our church leaving around the same time we were. They'd previously asked me to join their "Bookworm Stitchers" group after I'd made the comment that I'd always wanted to learn. When they saw us, Mrs. Melanie again told me that I needed to come "learn the art" with them. I laughed, mostly at the thought that I could never get away from all three of my angels every Thursday from 10-12! lol! I told her that if anyone could learn to knit it would be Tink. She's very good with her hands. She loves making potholders with the looms, she loves sculpting out of clay, painting, drawing, and making "God's eye's" with the popsicle sticks and yarn. Tink has ALWAYS wanted to learn to knit. The ladies were delighted and told me to bring her next Thrusday (today) and they'd bring along some smaller needles and extra thread for Tink to learn on.

Oh, the excitment in Tink was almost unbearable. You'd have thought we had just told her we were going to DisneyWorld (which is exactly why our kids DO NOT KNOW of our impending trip to Disney the day after Thanksgiving...they'd never leave us alone! lol!). She's been talking about learning to knit all week and today she finally received her first lesson in knitting.

The group of ladies (all grandmothers or great-grandmothers) meet each week and sit around chatting while making beautiful quilts and other projects. I loved watching my daughter sit and learn from these beautiful and learned ladies. What talent, what a legacy they are! What a blessing for Tink to be taught by them. So, this next week we'll meet at the same place, same time.

Remember, as you're looking for handiworks for your children, that sometimes they can be found right in front of you. There are always ladies or men of an older generation who would be thrilled to teach their craft to a new generation. All too often we're just not interested or we don't take the time to learn. I pray Tink and the rest of my children learn all they can (and I'm hoping that Tink can eventually teach me)!

The family that prays together...

I was stunned the other day when Tink (dd7) looked at me from across the lunch table and said, "Mom, we don't pray enough in our school". Wow! I was stunned. Of course, she was right. We focus all of our school day around learning our Bible story, our Bible versus, our books of the Bible, even our science is Christian. Yet here my daughter hit the nail on the head. We don't actually pray enough. Don't your kids just amaze your sometimes?? It's like the Lord speaks directly through them! I am in awe of some of the spiritual statements or actions that my children have said or done! God truly uses them to teach me daily about His love and His mercy!

I set forth immediately to rectify our little "situation". We designed a "prayer jug" (so named by Tink herself) made from an oatmeal container. I cut out the construction paper and Tink and Man-Man decorated it together. We then taped it to the outside of the prayer jug and cut a slit in the lid. We cut little slips of paper so that at any time of the day the kids can go by and write a prayer request down (or ask someone to help them write a prayer request in the case of Man-man) and slip it into the prayer jug. Each day we have a family prayer time and someone volunteers to pray for each request. This has been amazing and a wonderful addition to our school and our family in general. After all, the main reason that I don't send my children to school is because my kids aren't going to go to a school where our Lord is not allowed. I want to make sure He's in our school each day! Thank you, Tink for reminding me to invite Him in!

Memory of Mercury

We just finished our unit on Mercury today and what fun we've had. We are using Exploring Creation with Astronomy from Apologia science. I must say that I'm very anti-textbook. It's just not the way I want my children to learn information. Yet this has some very Charlotte Mason additions in it and it's written from a Christian perspective. That's a big selling point with me, especially when it comes to astronomy. Rarely will we find school books for our children that teach from a young earth perspective or a God created perspective for that matter. We're loving Apologia's astronomy!

How is it CM? Well, the lessons are broken up into different parts. You can read one part a day or a few parts, it's up to you. Occassionally the writer, Jeanie Fulbright, will ask for the child to summarize what they've learned thus far or tell a story using some of the information learned. There are project to complete such as illustrating the different planets and writing all of the facts the child can remember. I was so impressed with Tink's narration/composition today. She wrote so many facts- it was basically her first report! Here's what she said:

Mercury

Mercury does not have an atmosphere. So rocks from the atmosphere fall into Mercury. Unlike our planet, Mercury travels around the sun in an oval. Mercury is very small. In Mercury, 59 days in our planet is 1 day in Mercury. 88 days in our planet is 1 year in Mercury. Mercury's surface is filled with rocks.

Now I must say that all I did was ask her to write down what she remembered from our two week study. She also drew a beautiful picture of Mercury revolving around the sun. She even drew the sun with sun flares (which we learned about from the sun unit). Needless to say, I was quite pleased. And again, we were able to use her report to work on handwriting, spelling, sentence structure, and language arts in general.

The picture above is of a project that was suggested in the end of the unit. We were talking about the fact that Mercury does not have an atmosphere therefore astroids are always falling into it. We went out and chose a few small pebbles. I filled a bowl with flour and we dropped the pebbles into the flour to show how the surface of Mercury looks. Of course, Tink added that Mercury is a gaseous planet and we could not actually stand on it if we were there. See, she's learning a lot! Mom didn't even remember that one! Now, onto Venus!

Jill

Simply Charlotte Mason

I'm so excited about this upcoming weekend. I just had to share it with everyone. My mom and I are going to be attending a Simply Charlotte Mason conference in Montgomery, AL. Mom stumbled upon the conference date a couple of months ago and I honestly thought that there would be no way for me to be able to go. My in-laws are from Montgomery but I didn't see how I could slip away from home for an entire weekend and go 5 hours away to attend. It turns out that we're visiting the grandparents this weekend anyway and mom and I are blessed to be able to attend! Oh, I can't wait. I'll be sure to share some of the "pearls of wisdom" that I gain. Mom's need times like these, times to rejuvinate, re-energize, and just relax while someone else does all of the work for a while. I pray everyone has a very blessed safe rest of the week! God bless!

Jill

Harvest Festival

Thought I'd share a few pics from our Harvest Festival weekend. I find it hard to believe it's only three weeks now until Thanksgiving!

Weekly Wrap-up

It was a crazy weekend so the weekly wrap-up comes as the next week begins. Oh, well!

Last week was full of momentus occasions. Tink (dd7)is really starting to take off in her writing and spelling. She's always loved to write but recently I've noticed her grammar and spelling coming along quite nicely. She also is trying to loose her first tooth (well, she had two pulled by the dentist but this would be her first to loose by herself). Right now we call her, "Buck-tooth" because the permanent tooth has pushed her baby tooth out into an awkward position. Funny and fitting right here at Halloween.

Man-Man (ds5) began putting letters together this week to form words. He started reading! He's always asking me, "Mommy, what does this spell?" and then spelling whatever word he sees to me. So I realized that we don't need to work on letter sounds much more (he's got that down), he's ready to read. I'm surprised because Tink was a lot older before she was ready. That just shows you that each child is different and wonderful in their own way.

Speaking of doing things sooner than I expected, Princess (dd2) started potty training this past week. She just turned 2 on August 30 so this came as a shock to me. My pediatrician warned me at her 2 year check up that due to the fact that her vocabulary skills are so high she'd probably be potty trained by Christmas. This too, was unexpected. Man-Man was three days away from turning 3 before he was trained, and Tink was 2 1/2. Princess has done quite well. She wears "big girl panties" at home during the day and pull ups for bed and when we're away from the house. I must say that I have to train them in actual underwear because they have NO PROBLEM going to potty in a pull up. I guess it's too much like a diaper. So the panties are out and mom's on call all day!

The weekend was so busy! We had a birthday party on Saturday morning for a dear friend and went straight from that to our local college's homecoming parade. My adopted college student was Homecoming Queen so we had to go cheer her on. We came home to get a little nap in before getting dressed in our costumes for Halloween. Tink went as Padme Amidala from Star Wars (Princess Leia's mom), Man-Man was Batman, and Princess was Strawberry Shortcake. I'll post more pics in the next post. We had so much fun! We always do. The kids have been to this every year since they were born. It's a tradition of ours. We came home and trick-or-treated a little in the neighborhood and then we handed out candy. The kids really had a ball and they especially loved handing the candy out. What a fun day!

Well, I need to begin our week now. God bless everyone in their own homeschool journey!

Jill

Public Schools doing away with books?

My mom recently emailed me a copy of this article from the Tupelo, MS Public School District's website. They were praising the fact that by the end of this semester all children and teachers in grades 6-12 will have personal computers. Now instead of giving each child a text book to read during the year (which I have issues with anyway...) they will get a diluted form sent to them via email from their teacher.

The project will be largely paid for by money the district normally spends on textbooks and photocopies, Shaver said. Instead of providing textbooks for each of its students, the district will now just have a set of textbooks for each subject and classroom. Teachers creating handouts for students will now make those handouts into electronic documents, or PDFs, and email them to students.

I take serious issue with this. Why not let the children read for themselves? Why not let them make their own inferences and have their own opinions? I just don't see the benefit of having a personal computer in exchange for a book. Albeit, textbooks are horrible ways to teach anyway...but at least it's better than a teacher handout. Oh, let's add this article to the list of reasons that I choose to school my children in our home. Now, I'm signing off of this computer to go and read an actual book! Goodnight!

Pumpkin Time!

I must admit that Halloween is my least favorite time of year. I love the weather and I love watching the kids dress up and go Trick-Or-Treating but other than that I really would rather skip this day. Tink (dd7) asked the other day if I would celebrate this "holiday" if I didn't have kids. I told her, "No, honey, the kids make it o.k. but other than that it's just a holiday for Satan." Obviously Man-Man (ds5) was listening because when we went to Wal-Mart to get a pumpkin he loudly proclaimed across the store, "Mom, I though we didn't celebrate Halloween because it was for Satan!" I had to laugh. It's true, but nonetheless the kids wanted to carve a pumpkin. So we made it happen.

We host a group of college students from our church every Tuesday night and I seized the opportunity to have the college students assist my children in this task. Everyone had a wonderful time! It started out as a selfish request on my part but turned into a wonderful night full of memories.

We started out the night by eating and celebrating one of our student's birthdays. Then we had all of the "kids" (ours and the college kids) draw a picture of what they would like the Jack-o-lantern to look like. Tink was the judge of the contest and the top two designs were then drawn onto the pumpkins. To help our kids feel more a part we let them color in the face with markers before we carved it. This was a great idea because Princess (dd2) had her own baby pumpkin to color the entire night.

Above are pictures of the finished products. What a wonderful night and a fun way to get the pumpkin carving done.

Jill

Answers in Genesis

How do the Dinosaurs fit into the Bible?
How did Dinosaurs die?
Was the earth really created in 6 days?
How do you explain carbon dating?
Why do scientists insist the earth is millions of years old but the Bible says it's 6000 years old?
Who did Cain marry?
How did all of the animals fit into the ark?

Have you ever asked or been asked any of these questions? Do you know the answers?


Our church just finished up a two day/7 session conference put on by Answers in Genesis. The speaker was CEO and President of AIG, Ken Hamm. This conference was best described by a friend of mine, "lifechanging"! I have always known that homeschooling was best for our family and this just strengthened my resolve all the more. The things that I was taught in school, things which are still being taught in public schools, are simply not true and not consistent with the Word of God. Many churches don't even know where to stand when a topic such as "old earth vs. new earth" comes up. Did God create the world in 6 days? 6- 24 hour days? Evolution? God allowing suffering?

O.K. basically this was the most amazing Apologetics conference ever! We came home with tons of books and resources that will take me years to comb through. But at least I know that if my children ask questions such as these, I can give them a definite answer and not simply say, "I don't know about that...but just trust in Jesus." This is why we're loosing our children. We don't have the answers and don't know where to find them.

This web site, Answers in Genesis, is full of info that you may find helpful in answering some of life's biggest question. What a resource we have right at our fingertips. They even have constructed a new Creation Museum in Cincinatti, KY. Our family is planning to go as soon as we're able.

If you're ever given the opportunity to hear Ken Hamm speak I urge you to make every effort to attend. You're life will be forever changed, as well as the lives of your children. If nothing else, go to this website and devour everything you possibly can so that we can store up the Word of God as a sword of the Spirit! God bless!

Weekly Wrap-up

I love this idea that I just found from Rose Cottage. It's called the Weekly Wrap-up. I think I'd like to try to do this each week as a way to look back and see what we've been up to. We never get entirely through my lesson plans each week (but hey, what teacher does?). I really do that on purpose. We have wonderful, blessed days where one subject may take us through the entire day...or it may just take a few minutes. Isn't that what learning is all about? I take the lead from the kids and we sometimes end up a little behind (on paper) but miles ahead in reality.

So this week was very good week for our nature study and art/handiworks. We had a few days of beautiful Fall weather and we took full advantage of this. Two days at the park and two nature studies in one week! Wow! Like I mentioned in previous posts, the nature studies have really become a way of life in our homeschool and the kids even think of their own topics to discover/explore. Monday's nature study was helping to find the different aspects of nature at the park versus our house. This led to a wonderful language arts session afterwards which incorporated spelling, copywork, grammar, punctuation, and paragraph structure. Wow! I'm no where close to teaching those things in my grammar lesson book. But the questions came up and the opportunity to teach was there. I took it!

Today we did the same thing. Dd7 has Strep throat so we've been keeping a low profile for a couple of days. While Ds5 was in KinderTots today I took the girls to the park nearby and thankfully no one else was there. We decided to walk around looking at the different types and colors of the leaves. We collected a few and brought them home to draw and write about them. The same result happened...we had a wonderful language arts lesson and she didn't even know it. And the artwork is simply beautiful.

We also worked on our handiworks this week. The kids have been making clay structures off and on recently. They have a lot of items dried and today we decided to paint them. Even Dd2 got in on the painting. We gave them to Daddy since today is his birthday. Ds5 helped me cook breakfast this morning (I let the kids help me cook at least a couple of times a week...they love it and I love the extra opportunity to teach!). He even let Dd2 help stir the chocolate chip pancakes (a family favorite that we end up eating at least once a week!).

Dd7 has been working hard on her piano lessons as well. I try to remember to have her practice each day but I must admit that it rarely gets done on the weekends. I just never seem to remember unless we're doing school. But she still gets her 5 practices a week in. She's very good and almost done with her first set of books. She's far surpassed me already and I'm no good when she has questions. But she can usually figure it out on her own.

As I mentioned earlier, this was a sick week for us and I was afraid that that meant no school. Quite the contrary! We took all day Tues and Wed. reading books in bed. I got most of our AO reading for the week done on Tues. and on Wed. I let her pick what she wanted to read. Her first choice? Shakespeare! She's too much like her Mamma! We both love Shakespeare. Except that I never started learning the works until the 8th grade! Obviously, we read the story versions, but still they are very difficult and confusing. She just loves a challenge though. We began Viking Tales this week and it's already a hit for us. I hope that continues.

Ds5 is doing great on his letters and letter sounds. We're farther than I thought we'd be by this time of the year. I figure he'll be putting words together very soon. He's already doing C-A-T and other three letter words. But I don't push him. He asks me and I tell him. I'm a firm believer that they will read when they are ready and pushing them too early is the wrong approach. But I know that each child will be ready at different times. Dd7 is an excellent reader. She reads American Girl and Little House on the Praire books with no problem. Yet she didn't start reading until the first grade. Ds5 is in K-4 technically (although I'm doing K with him this year) and he's close to starting to read. I love seeing how each child is different. That's one of the joys of homeschooling!

Well, it's been a busy, full, fun week where we've learned a lot more than I expected. The sickness didn't keep us down. It just kept us from doing math (my daughter's best...but LEAST favorite subject). But we're way ahead in math anyway so I gave her a break this week. Next week though...is a different story. Until then...God bless!

The Gentle Art of Learning

Yesterday was a classic CM day for us. It started out somewhat different and I was worried we wouldn't get an entire school day in. My dd7 spent the night at a friend's house because the public schools had parent/teacher conferences the next day. I meant to pick her up early but due to a Dr's appt I didn't get her until after 10. Usually this means the day is shot for us. But yesterday was different. I decided that it was simply too beautiful to pass up the park on the way home so I told the kids that if they did their nature study at the park then we could play when it was done. We've had over 4 weeks of rain straight here already this Fall and we're tired of not seeing the sunshine and God's beautiful world! So the kids all jumped at the chance to play outside. We ended up running into two other close friends who'd decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather as well so it turned out perfect.

My instructions for this 1 mile walk that we went on were to find pieces of nature that we don't see in our backyard. That's it. The kids were finding things left and right. They had so much fun and we even carried a few samples home to investigate further. They had a ball! The best part was that my ds5 wanted to go on the nature walk INSTEAD of playing on the huge playground. My SON wanted this! I was amazed. This nature study is truly turning into something special in our home!

We got home and went about the rest of the day as normal with lunch, chores, and naps. When the naps were over we opened up all of the windows in the school room and the kitchen and dd2 and ds5 played outside all afternoon. I told dd7 to start with drawing a picture of her nature walk. She drew a beautiful illustration of the items that we saw and I followed that activity by asking her to write about it. Now, she loves writing. She's written many children's books and poems already. Writing is a gift that she has. Yet usually when I ask her to write things for school she just makes a list. She did that again today. So I sat down with her and explained what a paragraph is and how we need sentences to make a paragraph. We turned her list into about 5 different sentences and she wrote them out on a scratch sheet of paper. We then corrected her spelling and punctuation before she wrote her final draft for her nature journal.

I realized while she was doing this that even though we were still working on science we actually had covered grammar, punctuation, spelling, and copywork all in that one activity! We didn't need to have seperate activities for each thing. I was amazed that after she completed the assignment we needed only to finish math and we were done with school for the day. She so enjoyed sitting in the kitchen with me, windows open and the cool Autum air blowing in, watching her brother and sister play outside while completing a story of her own making. Now THAT has to be what Charlotte Mason describes as the "gentle art of learning". Just because we didn't use a specific curriculum for language arts and spelling doesn't mean that she didn't learn just as much. I know for a fact that she learned much more! Now, off to teach another day! God bless!

A Time for Family and God's Handiworks

Today we had another nature study adventure. These have honestly become our very favorite parts of the week. Even my dd2 talks about our nature studies. The other day we were playing on a playground waiting for Dd7 to get out of her enrichment school and Ds5 was playing on the swingset. He was swinging and looking at the playground surrounded by huge beautiful trees. He said to me, "Mom, this would be a great place to have a nature study!" Yes, it truly would. It warmed my heart that while playing on a playground surrounded by plastic structures on which to play he would be thinking of our beloved nature studies.

So today we went out. We worked on the Nature Study Outdoor Hour's 2nd lesson today. Yes, we've done about four nature studies but we're only on their second lesson (we sometimes do our own observations). Today the assignment was to be still, quiet, and listen. Out we went and I must admit that quiet does not always come easily in my house. But we did the best we could. I never realized that I could hear crickets so loudly in the middle of the day. My Dd7 first noticed them. We then heard at least three different types of birds. We heard the sound the wind makes as it's blowing through the bronze colored leaves still hanging barely onto the limbs in the trees above. We heard the way the leaves sound while rustling under our foot steps.

We decided to touch as well as listen. We noticed the difference in the way smooth living leaves feels as opposed to the dried, crackling feel of the dead ones. We saw a vine growing up a tree and noticed that it felt prickly and hard. We felt the soft figs that were growing in one of the trees (at least I think that's what they are...we're waiting on Daddy to make a definite determination).

We also saw the beauty of our God's world. We saw the robin eating his food from the ground and scurrying to his tree home when we came too close. We saw that a few leaves were still in the trees while most have fallen to the ground. We saw that some trees were in fact, still green.

This was a fascinating lesson for all of us and it only took a few quick minutes. We came back in and listed on three different charts the things we saw, heard, and felt. Then Dd7 copied our lists into her notebook.

I can honestly say that our nature studies have become something I look forward to, rather than dread. It's not "just another thing to do" for us but it's a stress free time to observe our Lord and His wonderful handiworks.

New Memory Work

Fall is officially here. Isn't it wonderful? With Fall I'm realizing that we've been in school nearly 10 weeks already. Time flies when you're having fun! :) Dd7 has been working on memorizing The Road Less Traveled, by Robert Frost this first part of the school year. I must admit that she's had it more than memorized for quite some time but Mommy has been slow in getting her next assignment together. Oh, well, we try hard! So, with a little Robert Frost in her memory bank we are now moving onto Psalm 23. What a wonderful piece of scripture! I'm honestly not sure how we haven't learned this already and I feel that it will only take her a little while since she's heard it so many times. I better start thinking of the next piece right now. Any suggestions?

Psalm 23
A psalm of David.

1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,

3 he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.

4 Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, [a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

6 Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

Jill

It's a Favorite time of the Year!

It's hard to believe that 8 weeks have already passed since we started school. I know some people are just starting but we're almost ready for a Fall break! Oh, Fall! I love Fall! It's my very favorite time of the year. The crisp chill in the air (which has yet to reach us, I might add), the beautiful colors of the leaves falling to the ground, the football games and candy apples! Oh, so many wonderful experiences to enjoy for us all.

I try to point out these changes in weather and nature to my children as much as I can. This is for their benefit as well as my own. I find that so many times I can rush through life and find that I've missed so much of life. I love our school days and I'm trying to make them less stressful for us all. I'm trying to have fun, do wonderful nature projects, and just enjoy the art of learning. Miss Mason has been teaching me this and I'm trying to put in into practical applications. I'll let you know how I do!

But I urge you, as you venture into this new season, look for the things and experiences that make Fall different from any other time. Explore those and come up with some of your favorite fall activities or observations. This will make your children, as well as yourself, take time to explore all that God has created and be appreciative! Happy Fall!

Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival!

I am so excited! I am in my very first CM blog carnival this week! What is a CM blog carnival? It's a place where anyone can visit to find lots of different CM articles and blog entries to read. I often try to find new blogs that are using the CM style of education, yet it's hard just doing a blind search. Now all of the work is done for me and I can just go from one blog entry to the next learning all different kinds of wonderful CM wisdom. This week's CM Blog Carnival is hosted by Rose Cottage. Check it out...I know I will. And thank you to Blessed Mommy who suggested that I enter my post for the carnival. I love making new friends!

Jill

Scripture Memory and Copywork

Scripture memory and copywork have been going together hand in hand recently in our homeschool. I have learned that sometimes it's easier to have dd7 copy something that she's already learning. The way we learn scripture is by printing off a Bible verse and placing it inside a plastic sheet in a 3 ring binder. I have certain days that I go over different verses but we always recited at least 10 verses a day. I've even noticed ds5 memorizing a lot of scripture this way, without our even asking him too. For copywork I have dd7 write parts of the poem we're currently learning (right now it's Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken) or she copies different verses from our scripture notebook. She is really getting great with her handwriting and her memorization always continues to amaze me!

Astronomy Notebook

We've been doing Jeanie Fulbright's Exploring Creation through Astronomy this year and we're really enjoying this wonderful book. I love how CM it is! She tells her lessons from a scientific, yet Biblical, viewpoint and even has places for you to ask for narration and notebook lessons. It's been a perfect addition to our homeschool and I wanted to share a few of our most recent pictures with you.

The first project Jeanie has you do is create a cover for your Astronomy notebook. Dd7 decided to draw a picture of the Earth with a satellite above it. We've been studying satellites and what they are. I had no idea that the Earth is actually a satellite of the sun, as are all of the planets. A satellite is anything that rotates around another object in space. Some satellites are man-made but some are natural satellites! See, I'm learning new things everyday. The other night my ds5 looked up at the moon in the night sky and said, "look Mom! It's a satellite!"

The next picture is a picture dd7 drew of the sun. Our first lesson is all about the sun and it's amazing qualities. We've learned just how big the sun actually is. Thousands of Earths can fit inside our sun. She's reading a book about the solar system right now and she pointed out a picture to me inside the book. She said, "Mom, this picture is not right." At first I didn't understand what she was talking about. She then pointed out that the sun was not drawn to scale. This book only shows the sun as about four times the size of Earth. Smart child! This picture below is a picture of the sun complete with sun spots and a sun flare. I didn't ask her to draw the specific items in her pictures. I simply asked her to draw a picture based on what we've been learning. I then asked her to write a few sentences about the sun as a narration for her picture. That picture is below as well.

Next week we'll be studying Mercury. She's already devouring the library books we checked out yesterday on this subject. I have a feeling she'll know more about Mercury than I will by the time we get to it!

Jill

Catching up!

We had a wonderful homeschooling week this past week. Since Monday was a holiday and Friday my dd7 goes to an enrichment school I really only had three days of school this week. I knew we wouldn't be able to get through with an entire AO week so I took the opportunity to play catch-up. Can I tell you how wonderful it was??!! I decided to do some of the activities that get put to the side when we run out of time. We had wonderful nature studies (lots of them!) and we did lots of "extra" reading about topics that interest us. We did do Math and Bible each day but other than that we just had fun and played. The kids and I both got so much out of this past week. I know that this is how Charlotte Mason really wants a school run. I know that this week I got a glimpse of her vision. It's a beautiful school once all of the elements come together and the kids are learning and growing on their own time!

For nature study (see previous post for more about this) what I had the children do was explore, have fun, point out new and interesting things. We found spider webs with spiders waiting for their prey, acorns, pecans that haven't rippened yet, vines growing up trees, deer tracks, and so much more. Dd7 brought a few things inside for a type of show and tell. I didn't ask her to do this, she suggested it on her own. We then drew pictures of their favorite parts of the walk. Ds5 drew a picture of a neat stick that he found (such a boy!). And dd7 drew many many drawings on her sheet. She even made a cover art for our nature study notebook. They are loving this new part of school and I promise that this will not be pushed aside any longer. To see my children notice and appreciate all of God's creation is such a joy to my heart. They point out things to me that I would just walk right by. I almost stepped on a mushroom on the ground before they yelled and told me to be careful. We then got down low to the ground exploring this mushroom. God made all things in heaven and earth to proclaim His glory and I don't want to take that for granted anymore.

I think we'll do a catch-up week every six weeks or so from now on. It's a wonderful time to have fun, do some of the things you've missed, and take a little break from the monotony. I can't wait for this week to begin. There is so much in store for us all!

Nature Study 2nd week/ Charlotte Mason lessons

I'm having a lot of fun with this nature study we've started doing. My previous post about the "jewels in our backyard" reminded me that we have even more to explore in our backyard (our very own backyard). We have a large "free space" of land behind our fence that has woods and deer in it. We built a gate into our fence some time ago so that we could access this space however, we rarely do. Yesterday we opened up the gate and the children had so much fun exploring and discovering our very own backyard.

Charlotte Mason says in Part II of her Home Education book that "every hour spent in the open is a clear gain, tending to the increase of brain power and bodily rigour, and to the lengthening of life itself. (pg. 42)" She goes on to say that we should "never be within doors when you can rightly be without". (pg. 42) I love this quote! I need to use that one on my children.

Miss Mason has some excellent examples of simple nature studies that she shares with her readers. Her philosophy of nature study stems from this quote of hers: "They must be let alone, left to themselves a great deal, to take in what they can of the beauty of earth and heavens; for of the evils of modern education few are worse than this- that the perpetual cackle of his elders leaves the poor child not a moment of time, nor an inch of space, wherein to wonder- and grow. At the same time, here is the mother's opportunity to train the seeing eye, the hearing ear, and to drop seeds of truth into the open soul of the child, which shall germinate, blossom, and bear fruit, without further help or knowledge of hers." (pg. 44)

This is powerful and we all need to take note! Miss Mason is basically taking most of the responsibility for leading the lesson away from us. We don't have to know everything to guide our children in their studies. We just have to present them with time and opportunity to be children. Their exploring and curious minds will take it from there. So often we are scared that we can't teach a particular subject or we're upset that we don't know all of the answers. Our precious children don't expect us too. But we must allow them to explore and discover, and be willing to learn along with them.

The next page talks about the parents who feel that they have to constantly have something planned for their children to do. She says "no". Don't always have stories to read to them, tell jokes, recite tales, etc. Just simply enjoy and don't always try to entertain them. This is a very important lesson for the OCD moms and the "overplanners". I tend to fall into one of those categories myself. I feel guilty that I don't have planned activities to fill their days with. Miss Mason says that that's just allowing the children time to be children. It's wonderful the ideas and creations our children come up with when their imaginations are allowed to take flight!

I'll end with this final though from Miss Mason for today. "In this time of extraordinary pressure, educational and social, perhaps a mother's first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, the waking part of it spent for the most part out in the fresh air. And this, not for the gain in bodily health alone- body and soul, heart and mind, are nourished with food convenient for them when the children are let alone, let to live without friction and without stimulus amongst happy influences which incline them to be good." (pg 43)

Isn't it amazing that this woman lived over 100 years ago and it seems as if she's telling us exactly what is needed for mothers today. Remember to let your school be pleasurable, calm, and have much room for exploring the world around us. "All the time, too, the children are storing up memories of a happy childhood". (pg 43) Isn't that what it's all about?

Jill