Planning, Boiling and Waiting...

HOMESCHOOL UPDATE:

Homeschool planning is in full swing. And to make matters more immediate, I decided to just jump in, without so much as planning one day. No really. The only reason I did this was because I was insane. Just kidding. But we have a friend whose daughter is beginning the Apologia General Science like we will be using this year and they started it last week. We thought it might be fun to try to keep pace and occasionally do experiments together. So this is why we find ourselves immersed in homeschooling. In July. In the middle of homeschool piles. In the middle of a heat wave. What was I thinking? Heat stroke probably.

Monday we had our first day. No problem on the science. Latin we reviewed since we haven't done any for months and we're in the middle of the Latin for Children book A. Math, we did review times table sheets and a Saxon Placement test to see what level we should be at. For English a friend loaned me a McDougal English program. Basically a public school's textbook. We jumped right in with minimal complaining. I also printed spelling lists from online although we didn't get to any of those.

Tuesday rolls around and I'm sick and we're both tired. Just great, on our 2nd day back to homeschool. So we read. All day. We started The Hobbit last fall but never finished it. I picked up The Lord of the Rings trilogy on tape and in 3 books at a garage sale so we plan to read those soon. Time to finish Hobbit first. And here is what I realized on our 2nd day of homeschooling. I don't want to shove textbooks at my child just to make sure we have 'something' to cover a subject. I don't want to have it all planned out. I want to be free to explore, to try out new things, to spend a whole day reading if I feel like it!  I like our science program, daughter needs experience with textbooks a bit if she is ever going to go to college (you know the backwards way they learn there, right?!) Latin is going okay, but its mostly chanting and fun things. I'm okay with that. I don't want to use a stale ole' English program or generic spelling lists from online. I realized while we were reading Hobbit, there were words we both didn't know. We started a list. Those definitions will have so much more meaning because we can apply them to what we've read. I like that. I have no plan for history yet. I keep looking at Sonlight's Core 100 just for the basic fact that it is all about reading, and is similar to a Charlotte Mason style of learning. We can do dictation and narration from the readings. We'll read up and discuss current events from magazines such as The Economist, Time and Newsweek. We don't have to be entrenched in boring ole' textbooks. Don't ask me what I'm planning on doing for math. Winging it???

Boy, oh boy. I can foresee an interesting year if I'm already feeling this way. Check back with me in a few months to make sure I haven't slipped back into textbook mode after I panic about whether we're learning enough or not. I'm praying that doesn't happen!  

* This homeschool update is linked to Back to (Home) School 2011. *

GARDEN UPDATE:

It's been 2 weeks of scorching hot heat. It's a miracle if I get out to water the garden and don't die from heat and mosquito bites. Basically it's so hot out, I'm surprised plants aren't boiling! But watering hasn't seemed to matter. Our wonderful plot of squash looks like a meteor landed in the middle of it. I guess it can't take the heat. It's still producing but it seems only a matter of time. 

We have, however had a few good points! The okra is FINALLY starting to bud! It is the slowest growing plant I've ever seen! But it's making up for lost time. See the adorable buds. I can't wait to have some!

The tomato plants look like Brer Rabbit's brer patch but they are still producing green tomatoes. This week I found one adorable red tomato! Yay! Finally. I'm counting on many more. I think they like this heat. I glad someone/thing does. All in all, the garden this year has been 'okay'. We've harvested some things but not as much as I had hoped. I have canning supplies all primed and ready but no use for them yet. We plan to do a fall planting soon. Maybe mid August? Need to read up on that. I also plan to Lasagna garden so the beds are ready for next year. All in all its been a good learning experience. I'm thinking we need to look into a watering system as well, maybe underground? We'll see...

*This garden update is linked to Tuesday Garden Party and Homeschool Village Garden Challenge. *

CHICKENS UPDATE:

We're in waiting mode. We're 13 days into the 21 days for our incubating eggs. So far so good. The temperature in our homemade incubator is doing pretty well. We've candled the eggs twice. First time we couldn't see anything, so hard with brown eggs. We candled on Monday as well and saw these. 

Don't know if they mean chicks or boiled eggs. We'll candle again on Monday August 1st, our 18th day and then we go into lockdown with hopeful hatchings on August 4th. Check back for an update!

Also, the other day we drove past a guy putting this at the end of his driveway.

We stopped and asked if it was trash, it was, so we excitedly offered to come back with a truck for it. FREE! Doesn't it look like a start to a great coop?! Our backyard is filled with scrap woods and paneling. Can't wait to get started creating a coop-de-ville!

Homeschool Conference with Open Eyes

So I've already signed up for the local homeschool conference. For quite a while I did not go, thinking, 'I know what I'm doing, it's just basically a big SELL fest.' But last year, since I was wrapping up and graduating a teen and would be back to having only one child to teach, I thought it might be prudent to attend again.

I also made the decision to stay up by the conference. Even though it was only 20  minutes away, hubby thought it was a good idea and I could get a couple nights away by myself. So that's what I am doing again this year. I've already booked my nice room. A local friend stays up there every year as well so I invited her to share my room if she wants. It should be a fun time. No kids, nobody to take care of but myself, NO COOKING!

I'm looking forward to classes. This year we tried to embrace the Charlotte Mason way of doing things and we did well for several months. But in the interest of getting more work done (catching up for our less than stellar month of December), we went back to longer times of schooling for each subject. I have still managed to keep in some of the subjects we picked up during our months of CM. We're still enjoying Latin and scripture memory. Writing is doing well. I need more structure in it though so we're learning key grammar things. Basically I just go let her write on her story. 

Last year my favorite speaker was Andrew Pudewa (he has great YouTube Videos here). He was amazing and made me think of homeschool and teaching writing and spelling in a whole new way. I was not able to purchase his writing program but I learned so much from him. I need to pull out last year's notes and relearn what he taught. If you get a chance to hear him, GO! P.S. Just looked up his website and remembered that he reminded me a lot of John Cleese! lol)

I'm hoping this year to see classes on Charlotte Mason and maybe a Grammar/Writing class that isn't all about worksheets and boring assignments. That works for some people, but not us. Plus the little one will be moving into 7th grade schooling. Middle school. I might cry, she is growing up so fast. Not sure what subjects we need to cover or how that will work. So I'm heading to the homeschool conference with open eyes. Looking for new ideas...

I wonder if others attend homeschool conferences still. What do you hope to get out of it?

NOTE: This post is linked up with Golden Grasses' post about Conferences. 

Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival!

 (Image is of a print you can purchase here: Alicia Bock)

Yay! One of my articles made it to the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival (I'm sure all articles make it, but I'm excited just the same! hehe)

The blog post I submitted was the Scripture In Pictures post about how we're memorizing scripture these days. 

To see all posts featured in the Carnival, visit the hosting blog here: CM Blog Carnival.

You can submit articles here too: CM Carnival Blog Submission.

P.S. I ran across another Carnival on Homeschooling today. Although I haven't submitted any articles to it yet, I thought I would share. Lots of great links. Carnival Of Homeschooling. To submit articles for this one, go here: Blog Submission.

Scripture In Pictures

 (Psalm 100: 1-3)

This week we've been experimenting with how we learn scripture. I'm sure we've tried memorizing things before but with this year being our first year using Charlotte Mason methods, we're memorizing scripture. We started our homeschool year memorizing the Lord's Prayer. I thought that was an easy one to start with since the little one had heard it and probably tried saying it  a few times in church. So memorizing that one went pretty well.

Then we moved on to Psalm 23. What a soothing, comforting passage! The little one took right to it and we had no problems memorizing it. I think because its kind of like a story. I used this scripture passage to teach inflection in speech. The little one has a habit of just running through the sentences as fast as she can remember them but I had her learn it like she was giving a speech. So others could understand what she was saying. I've also told her how excited her grandma is going to be when she tells the learned scriptures to her. This added incentive creates more pride in the learning and speaking.

After that we tried memorizing Psalm 100. Something about that scripture was hard! A lot of praising, gladness, joy and faithfulness. Don't get me wrong, wonderful words of wisdom. But words that don't  conjure up immediate pictures in your head. So, after several frustrating days of not getting anywhere, we turned to picture-grams. This took the fun of learning up a notch and made us forget the drudgery of repetition (that my children seem to hate with a passion.)

(Psalm 100: 4-5)

We took liberties with some of the words (one of my favs is dd's interpretation  of 'good' as a thumbs up! lol) We used a face to indicate 'his, him or he' and an up arrow to mean 'Lord'. I think my daughter got more out of the experience than trying to memorize a scripture by rote.

We have some ambitious scriptures passages coming up I'm hoping we are able to get through:

1 Corinthians 13

Romans 12

Deuteronomy 5: 6-21  (Ten Commandments)

Matthew 5: 1-12 (The Beatitudes)

Luke 2: 1-20 (birth of Jesus)

Proverbs 31: 7-31

How do you learn scripture? What passages do you learn?

(Sorry about the picture quality, taken with the cell phone and written on a white board.)

Make Your Own Grammar Bingo

Under the guise of trying to make grammar 'fun', I  created a grammar bingo this past Monday. I'm sure there is something already out there that I could buy but I wanted something now. I thought I'd share what I did in case anyone could use the same.

I first went here to 5x5 Bingo Card Maker to make my own card. You can put in 25 words. I put in the 8 parts of speech over and over until all 25 where full. (Noun, Pronoun, Adjective, Verb, Adverb, Conjunction, Interjection, Preposition). It will randomly make you a card. I changed the 'free space' into another part of speech spot. I then randomly generated several cards, printing in between on cardstock. Yes, it prints all those words at the bottom. Doesn't matter, I just cut out my cards. I personally left an 1" on the left so I could punch holes and keep the cards in my 3-ring binder.

Next I looked for a concise list of words for each part of speech. Difficult to do for some since there can be upwards of 800 words on a part of speech. I randomly chose words and put them together on a paper. You can print it from the PDF document below:

Parts of Speech

I plan to highlight the words I call on the list, making sure to call from each part randomly.  I can always print out a new list for when we've crossed off all the words but I imagine by then, she'll know them perfectly!

We used our set yesterday. It was a bit harder to describe what conjunction and prepositions were so we watched the Schoolhouse Rock Conjunction video and Grammar Rock's Preposition video. Be forewarned though, the catchy little tunes will get stuck in your head.

If this works out to be a fun way to learn, I may be doing a Types of Sentences one next!

Week 2: Car Schoolers, Questions & Manners

 (Books picked up at Half-Price Bks over the weekend.)

Wow! I've always heard about those superhuman people who end up doing 'carschooling' (basically they have so many activities, they're doing all their sit down work in the car!!!) but never thought we'd really experience it for ourselves.

But Monday, we were carschoolers. A favorite aunt died and her funeral was 1 1/2 hours away. I was determined not to make our Monday our Friday free day so off we went with car school to do. It was actually quite fun. We were able to recite our scripture we were learning (Psalm 23), work on math, read the bible, listen to Haydn for music. I was able to download a typing program to my laptop so she had fun practicing with that. We listen to a book on tape for literature (Farmer Boy) and read when we got home for a bit. All in all, we still got in 5 hours of work! See, who said you can't get anything done on the road?

Enthusiasm Level:

This week went by in a a whirlwind. We got most of our schooling done Mon-Thurs, swapping out some of my reading to her, with her listening to some Cds on tape (Farmer Boy, Just So Stories, Arabian Nights, ) Friday was supposed to be our art day but hubby and my planned evening out turned into a mini getaway so Friday was spent straightening the house and packing everyone up for overnights. We'll get to the art this week. I think the week was enjoyable, just hectic. I enjoy slower days.

This Week's Questions:

What happens if you're cremated?

Can I get paid for each load of laundry I do? (NO.)

Why didn't you tell me Nancy Drew was cool?

Did you know beavers build their house with mud and save up air inside like a bubble? 

Did you know there are fish that can fly? They do it when they're scared.

Rhode Island is so small. Do I have to memorize its capital?
Did you know Christopher Columbus was not the first to cross the Atlantic? Why didn't you tell me?
What does gaff-ee (gaffe) mean?
Isn't a bar code cool? I bet there are millions of them.
Do you know that magic trick where the girl is sawed in half? That's fake. She scrunches up in one side and wiggles feet attached to sticks out the other end. No one gets sawed in half really.
What is a Fibonacci?   (Let me tell you, the new Do Not Open book I got her is cause for lots of questions...)

What's Working:

The Charlotte Mason style of smaller concentrated time frames are working still. We love them. I'm also learning to be flexible in when we do things even though I have everything written next to 'certain' hours on my chart. Flexibility is key to keeping things enjoyable. 

Learning is becoming more self lead, more independent when she is working on a subject. I used to have to stand over her or be sitting nearby for her to continue working. I think this had more to do with inattention than disobedience, because of the long times for each subject we used to follow.

What's Not:

Attitude still. We had a nice intense talk yesterday about attitude. I let her know that every time she huffs and 'OH NO!' a subject or selection of book I've made that she doesn't agree with, it doesn't help the situation. Especially when she hasn't even looked at the books yet. And every time she says she hates school, one, it hurts my feelings because I work hard to make it more enjoyable and two, she's lying. We discussed all the things we've been working on and she enjoys quite a bit of them. We also talked about the fact that responsibility has a place in homeschooling. There are some subjects we just have to do so she doesn't grow to be 20 and still be at a 5th grade level. She doesn't want that. We talked about the things that do interest her and incorporating them in more. It was actually a very good talk. She wasn't pouting or crying afterward. I thank the Lord for directing how I explained things to her.

Down time. I really need to make some 'set in stone' electronics rules. I've told her she has to read an hour to get a 1/2 hour of TV time. On Monday I kept finding her watching TV or playing computer with no hours earned yet the rest of the family was doing the same thing. It's hard to have a child stick to rules the rest are not following. I need to rethink how we do things in this house.

For the upcoming week, its a 4 day-er since we took Monday (Labor Day) off to laze around.  The above books are some we will be using in our studies. The little one's assigned reading right now is Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. We're jumping off into a study of fish/sea, mainly because a friend gave the little one some fish a couple weeks ago and amazingly they're still alive! So unusual for our household.

We're talking about getting a frog or turtle or something but it has to be earned and it won't be until October sometime, if at all. I expect to see responsibilities being done, attitude changing, schoolwork being completed, etc... She seemed eager to earn this and we plan to look for a small tank at a garage sale.

Everyday Graces - I picked up a book at the library on manners and graces. I plan to read a bit of it each morning during breakfast, and use some of the quotes and verses inside for our copywork/dictation. Has anyone used this book before? Is it a keeper? It looks wonderful. It has sections aptly named: Helping Out at Home, Taming the Tongue, Telling the Truth, Washing, Dressing, Working Hard, Caring for the Sick, and a whole section on Table Manners as well as other great topics.

Books on my sidetable:
Homeschool Open House
Charlotte Mason Education
Raising Bookworms
Giving Your Child the Excellence Edge
The Rodale Whole Foods Cookbook
Home Cheese Making
My Bread

Week 1: Charlotte Mason & the Newbie

Can you say sleep deprivation?! That's what the first week back to homeschool always means to me. We're night owls and its hard to switch your body from staying up til 2 am or whatever all summer and now getting up at 830 for homeschool. I am still going to bed way too late and wanting to take naps after our day is done! Hopefully I work that out soon.

Charlotte Mason method is a new concept to us. This was our first week trying it out. I was thinking it would be more like unschooling but I did a fair amount of prepping for our first week. Although now, I have us all set up for several weeks in advance. Okay, I say that, but don't have any illusions it won't all fall apart next week.

Enthusiasm Level:

Very high right now. We worked well for 4 days and now she has today (Friday) 'off'.' We did make plans: library visit in the morning and all afternoon board game playing but to her, that's 'off'. ' I know I will still be counting this day according to what subjects the games covered.

Week's Questions:

"How do you draw an ankh?"

"How would a mist come up from the ground? Is that like fog?"

"I was practicing J and F in typing and it says I have trouble. (me) What did you miss? (child) J and F."

"What is a wretch?"

"Can I learn Dari language? What about Greek?"

"Can I look up the Egyptian god of death?"

"What does ren-dez-vooz mean?"

What's Working:

Shorter lessons. Genius! My daughter may not like to do cursive (copywork) practice but she knows its only for a 1/4 hour so she is able to handle it. She's really enjoying the learning of new hymns, the foreign language and latin and the history book we're reading: The Door In The Wall. I also ordered some books on monks, nuns and a disc on gregorian chants we are going to listen to.

What's Not:

I find our hardest obstacle to overcome is the get up and go hour. We set a goal of up by 830, school by 900 and be done with everything by 245. That way the little one would have several hours in the afternoon for more reading, playing, inventing, baking, outdoor playing, library visits, etc... We are so not morning people! But we've stuck to the plan almost every day. Except for one day I woke up with a migraine and the little one did 2 hours of reading in the morning before I finally started her on the other schooling. She also did some of the things we have scheduled to do on her own, such as foreign language, typing, grammar and piano. All are on the computer and the piano. I like that there are subjects she knows exactly what to do and doesn't need me. Not that I don't like helping her and working along side her. But she is learning independence.

I'm thinking math time might need to be extended from one 1/2 hour slot in the morning to two 1/2 hour slots, one at the end of our day. I printed out worksheets covering the topics we learned last year. Kind of a review to get us ready for the next learning but at this rate of one sheet per day, we won't start 6th grade math until December! Gotta speed us up a bit.

Being a definite CM newbie, I'm only cautiously optimistic about how this week turned out. I'm praying that next week will hold even more exciting times and discoveries for us. I'll report again after week 2.

Some helpful Charlotte Mason links I've found:

Simple Charlotte Mason

Simply Charlotte Mason forums

Booklists by Grade

Charlotte Mason Education

Into to Charlotte Mason Methods

Charlotte Mason's Methods (add'l site)

The ABC's of Charlotte Mason

Ambleside Online (free curriculum that closely follows CM methods)

Charlotte Mason & Dictation (also list of links)

Charlotte Mason & Classical Education

Narration Ideas

Charlotte Mason Scheduling

Uncharted waters. We're attempting something new this year. It takes a bit of planning but I think I have us all straightened out on the path to following Charlotte Mason's way of learning. Exciting times! 

MONDAY-THURSDAY

9-915 am - Scripture Memory

915-945 am - Math

945-10 am -(M/W) Dictation, (T/TH) Hymn Study

10-1030 am - (M/W) Science, (T/TH) Copywork

1030-1045 am -RECESS

1045-11 am - Bible

11-1130 am - History

1130-12 pm -  (M) Poetry/Music Study,(T/TH) Latin, (W) Geography

12-1230 pm - (M/W) Typing/Foreign Language, (T/TH) Grammar

1230-1245 pm - Piano

1245-145 pm - Lunch/Literature (reading aloud)

145 pm - ?? Assigned Reading

This evens out to about 22 hours of school work for the week. For the amount of weeks we're taking off, I need about 33 hours a week. Counting Fridays, evening reading/games, weekend activities and church, I'm sure we'll be able to count an other 11 hours. Our state requires 1000 hours so I don't have to worry about how many days we're in school.

FRIDAY

My plan right now is to alternate GAME Days and ART Days. Game days will be spent playing math games, word games, Yahtzee, Life, WordUp, Smath, etc... Whatever is in the game closet.  Art days will be spent learning about a new artist, attempting their type of art, learning about new techniques, supplies, etc... On either of these days we might go on a field trip to a game place (such as miniature golf, arcade, laser tag, marble factory, bowling, swimming, etc...). Art days we might take a class, meet friends for an art day, or go to a museum. Any number of additional field trips could happen for history and or science as well, on this day.

Subject Details:

Scripture Memory. I'm just winging it here. The bible is so big and so good, I'm just picking favorite passages right now such as Lord's Prayer, Ten Commandments, Beatitudes, Love chapter: I Corinthians 13, Psalm 100, Psalm 23, a lot of Proverbs, Romans 12, the Christmas chapter: Luke 2:1-20, and so on. 

Copywork/Dictation. I'll pull from various books, the bible, poems, etc... for this content. There's a good article here about dictation with links at the end.

Bible. I used this link for daily stories, alternating old/new testament.

History. We're starting with The Story of the World, Vol. 2 about the middle ages, and going out from there. I'll share a list of the books we have on order through the library and ones to order, later.

Science. Since we get bored quickly on one subject I'm ordering quality books from the library (some bios on scientists) and will supplement with similar books. Not sure is we'll do a notebook this year on our science studies or now. I'll share my list of books later too.

Literature/Assigned Reading. I'm compiling a list for the year. Literature will be us reading a book together (right now we're working on the Hobbit)  and Assigned reading will be things she can do on her own. With literature we'll be sure to do some narration in written or verbal form.

MATH/LATIN - I'm still deciding on a math book/program or whatever. We still have some catching up to do from last year, namely percents so that will keep us busy for a bit. Latin is a new subject to me. I've been researching but don't know what is the best program out there. I've ordered a few books from the library so we'll see if those help get us started. 

That's enough talking for now. There's more to share about this process; its a different way of thinking. Kind of feel like you're juggling but they say (whoever 'they' are) that it seems so simple once you get going with it that you think you're doing something wrong. I'm hoping for that. I'm tired and done with the years of feeling frustrated and inadequate as a teacher.

** The girls are making up a batch of Ginger Snaps for grandpa for his birthday. We're eating lunch with him tomorrow to celebrate. We also have a windfall of 10 lbs of tomatoes so its time to start canning salsa. I'm off to supervise! **