Category Archives: Organization and Scheduling

School Room Redux

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I took these pictures on Sunday night when the room was somewhat clean.  I had hoped to get it really, really clean, but you know what?  That’s just not happening these days around the House of Hope.  So, overlook the clutter and errant baby sock, and come on in!

We’ve had a school room since we’ve been official homeschoolers, beginning when Lulu was a newly-minted kindergartener.  We enclosed our garage, which resulted in a large-ish room with high ceilings and a somewhat odd configuration, what with a closet and laundry room creating a hallway of sorts leading down from our kitchen and an external door opposite.  We are somewhat limited in the way we can arrange the furniture due to both the shape, our abundance of furniture, and where the electrical outlets are located.  However, we did rearrange things a bit this summer, changing up the original arrangment.

This is looking down at the room from the kitchen:


This is a closer-up view of the reading corner.   This is where we’ve begun having circle time just this week.  (Before this it was up in the den area of our home, near the DLM’s toys, but also on the floor.)  I don’t like sitting on the floor, so I always send the girls to our bedroom to get all the decorative pillows that should be on our bed (but are usually piled either in the floor or on the trunk at the foot of the bed).  The pillows are squished pretty flat now, but at least they’re useful.  :-)   I’d like to have a few beanbags or some big floor pillows to leave down in the school room, but that’s pretty low on my list of things to do right now. [That's all our RightStart math stuff in those crates.  Steady Eddie started organizing it and ran out of time.]

Here’s a picture of our two sets of cubbies/shelves.  These hold all sorts of miscelleanea, mostly of the educational variety.  There are puzzles and games, books, and I don’t really know what-all.  The girls also have a cubby each, to hold their notebook bins.  Above this set of shelves is our new whiteboard and a line for pinning up artwork to dry.

On top of the cubbies are the cornerstones of our homeschool:  lots and lots of books and the necessary paper.  :-)

Circle Time books and materials in the red basket:

Library basket:

Baskets and bins of picture books that aren’t categorized:

Opposite this wall is my command center.  In the old configuration the table was in front of my teacher cabinet (a repurposed changing table!), but I felt rather claustrophobic.  Now the table is backed up to the wall–we’ll see how it goes.  It’s inconvenient, really, but if it helps me feel less like I’m being overrun, I’ll take it!  Also in this picture:  old canvases and a bulletin board, just waiting for a new home; a nature shelf that is sorely in need of attention (and maybe even putting away for safekeeping until the DLM no longer eats what he finds); and the DLM’s play yard, which hasn’t seen much use lately.

I sort of left all of my regular readers hanging when I posted these pictures back in June, but here you can see the final result:  a couple of jam-packed, hand-me-down bookcases, all organized according to categories, and all the books entered into my Google account. 

Now if I “happen upon” a used book sale ;-) , I can call up my home library holdings and find out if we “need” a copy of a treasure I’ve found.  Of course, this is purely dependent on Steady Eddie being with me (and is therefore somewhat unlikely) because he is the only one in our household with a smart phone. 

Do you want a closer look?

Atop the bookcases are my bins.  I just hope I don’t hurt myself taking down the history bin.  It’s heavy–I can’t just leave this year’s history books on the shelf because there would be nothing new to share after a week of Lulu having access to them. 

That’s mostly it.  I could show you our dirty aquarium, but I won’t.  I could show the tall, skinny bookcase beside our computer armoire, stuffed full of teacher books, a CD player/radio that isn’t currently plugged into a power source but for which I have high hopes, and my what’s mostly left of my scrapbooking stash after I decided to get rid of my scrap clutter and try to go digital.  But I won’t.  Oh, and there’s the closet, which is somewhat organized, thanks to Steady Eddie.  (Have I ever mentioned that I am severely lacking in organizational skills?)

Instead I’ll end this lengthy post with the sign on our door that leads out to the driveway.  Lulu loves to write and draw, and she frequently puts up signage.  To be honest, I have no idea how long this one has been there, but I think it’s pretty funny. 

It says, “No boys allowed.  No girls allowed.  Only us.” 

That says it all, doesn’t it?:-)

I’m linking up at Heart of the Matter Online {Not} Back-to-School Blog Hop.  It’s school room week, in case you haven’t heard.  :-)

Weekly Wrap-Up:August 1-5, 2011

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I feel like this week has been something of a failure in the formal academics department.  The main reason for this is that the girls had a swimming lesson daily at 10:30.  This means that after we all got up, had breakfast, did a few chores and maybe, if everything went extremely well (which happened fewer times than it didn’t), did a little bit of reading aloud before getting suited up and appropriately lathered with sunscreen.  Then we headed over to the neighboring city (no more than 5 miles away) for the girls to have one-on-one time with swimming instructors.  The swimming lessons went well, with one girl finishing the week swimming like a little fish and the other girl making admirable progress in conquering her fear of getting her face wet.  :-)   However, this was pretty much death for making much progress in our continent study because after returning home from the pool, we had to hurry-up-quick get a bite of lunch or get the DLM to sleep (the order of these two events being heavily dependent on the fussiness factor).  It was at least 1:00 by the time all of these things were done, and my number one goal this week was for Lulu to finish RightStart level B.  Anything else was above and beyond my expectation for the week, really, although those expectations of mine die really hard.

The ubiquitous back-of-the-head shot of the DLM

So basically, this week went something like this:

Bible:

I think we read Bible stories two or three times this week.  We’re trying to get into the habit of reading the actual Bible together as a family after supper each day; I think we did it once this week.  :-)

Math:  Lulu finished the last regular lesson in RightStart B, which is a lesson on graphing.  Of course, we had already studied graphing using some living math books back a few months ago, so this wasn’t completely new to her.  She loved collecting the data by calling up her grandparents, daddy at work, and her aunt and cousins to ask them all how many pockets they had on their clothing.  :-)   However, thinking about the data in two different ways (i.e. how many pockets is each person wearing vs. how many people have one, two, three, etc. pockets) was tricky. 

Yesterday she took the final test at the end of the math curriculum, which is always a funny thing for me to administer.  (Actually, I haven’t had a lot of experience with this in our homeshcool since the methods we’ve used aren’t heavily dependent on tests, but it’s amazing how many of my expectations and hopes are wrapped up in these admittedly limited units of evaluation.)  Lulu acquitted herself well, but I was surprised that she struggled with solving one of the word problems, in particular.  I’ll admit it–I panicked a bit.  :-)   Looking back, I realize that giving her this test after a tiring morning (swimming, plus she slept poorly the night before due to some violent thunderstorms that swept the area in the early morning hours) wasn’t the best timing.  Additionally, she hadn’t seen or thought about this type of problem in quite some time; most of our summer math work has been on miscellaneous topics (measuring, graphing, time), rather than the basics of problem solving.  We went back and discussed the problem, and then we reviewed by going over a few more like it.  We ended our math time with a couple of games, but really, by then I had taxed Lulu’s ability to concentrate.  This math experience brought to light a couple of things I really need to work on as a homeschool teacher that I think will help our days to be more productive:

  • adhere to the full attention/short lessons of CM.  I’m not sure how this will play out in math; the RS always take longer than fifteen minutes to complete.  Maybe I’ll break our math time up into separate time periods.  Any ideas?
  • have “high goals but low expectations.”  (This isn’t original to me.  I’ve forgotten where I read it, though.  It might be from Teri Maxwell’s Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit.)  Why is this so hard for me?

Reading:

What?!?!  We were supposed to finish OPGTTR?  Oh, yeah.  I was so zeroed in on finishing Lulu’s math curriculum that I totally forgot to work on this with Lulu.  :-(   I guess we’ll be carrying this over into the new school year which begins next week (unless I find some time this weekend to finish it).

Geography:

The only things we did this week that were a part of our geography studies was finally put a coat of paint on the papier-mache calabashes (bowls) the girls made back a few weeks ago when we studied Africa and read some good books, which I hope to blog about later. 

Handwriting:
None, except for what the girls might’ve done without my knowledge. 

What we’re reading and listening to:

Lulu has read Farmer Boy (maybe parts of it, maybe all of it–I’m not sure) and Tumtum and Nutmeg:  Rose Cottage Tales, which is a book I purchased to read aloud to the girls after reading the first Tumtum and Nutmeg title and never got around to doing it.  Both girls have been on a Laura Ingalls Wilder kick (again!) for their rest-time audiobook listening. 

I’ve been listening to a series of lectures given by the Ambleside Online advisory board, (thanks, Janet!) and I’ve found much to encourage me and consider for our homeschool.  Having taken my share of educational philosophy classwork in college, I am surprised to note that I’m actually enjoying delving into the Charlotte Mason method!

We started Hans Brinker as our read-aloud, to coincide with our now-defunct study of Europe.  I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to say about this dense-but-delightful story in a future Read Aloud Thursday post!

Other than swimming, a little math, and reading, the girls have filled up their days with lots of self-directed play.  Boxes are always excellent raw materials and fuel the imagination.  The girls have also been making dolls out of toilet paper tubes.  I believe the one above (who has her own baby, made out of a piece of rolled up cardstock) is Charlotte (she shares a name with Laura Ingalls’ doll), and she belongs to Louise.  Lulu, who spends much less time in this sort of play than Louise, made Rapunzel, complete with long hair made out of felt.  This is one of my favorite parts of being a parent–watching my children play and create.  This makes me happy.

What I’m pondering:

I’m thinking about getting back into a real school year routine next week.  I’m both looking forward to it and dreading it.  I crave routine, but I’m a little bit apprehensive on how it will all go with a very active DLM to fold into our day.  (By the way, thanks to everyone who offered help and encouragement on this post.  It helps a lot to know that other have trod the path before me!)  I’m also making plans for nature study, artist and composer study, and field trips.  I’m particularly thinking about how I can transform some of our space here at home to be more nature study and art and composer study friendly.  I hope to get our school room and other learning spaces in shape this weekend, and when I do, I’ll share some photos. 

A male cardinal that joined us by the pool yesterday. I could easily become a birdwatcher! :-)

I’ve enjoyed a leisurely morning today.  The girls spent the night at my parents’ house last night, and the DLM woke early, nursed, and went back to sleep.  It’s time for me to get up from here, though, and make progress towards picking up the girls for their last swimming lesson.  I think we’ll make another trip to the pool this afternoon, too, to practice their new skills.

Have a lovely weekend!

2011-2012 School Year

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I sort of feel like a curriculum post for this next school year is either a.) old-hat by this point, since I’ve mentioned Charlotte Mason so many times in recent blog posts or b.)pointless, because I’m still not exactly sure what I’m doing on quite a few fronts.  However, since we’ll be starting our new school year officially next week and since this week is the “Not” Back-to-School Blog Hop at Heart of the Matter Online, I’m going to try to put it all  here in this post. 

This year at the House of Hope we have a second grader and a kindergartener.  The second grader surprises me–how did she get so old?–and the kindergartener might actually be a second grader herself, cleverly disguised as an almost-six year old on some days, then again and most decidedly a five year old on others.  Oh, and we have a one year old who loves to walk, get into things, and shriek, not necessarily in that order.  :-)

I fully intended to write up a year-in-review post regarding last year’s curricula, and I still might if I have the time (ha ha!), but I’ll probably just allow my reflections here about what we’re doing differently this year suffice. 

Bible/Memory Work/Latin/Circle Time :

We’re continuing with The Children’s Bible in 365 Stories (my review here) by Mary Batchelor, a book we’ve been reading together since some time last year.  I think we picked it up when I decided fairly early on that Leading Little Ones to God was not a good fit for us.  We’re in the middle of the New Testament now, so I anticipate finishing this pretty soon and just moving on to plain old Bible reading then, unless I run across some other devotional literature that looks good.  (Steady Eddie plans to be intentional this year about our reading the Bible together as a family after supper, too, so this helps me feel a little less pressure about it during circle time.) 

I want to continue with Hymns for a Kid’s Heart, using volume two this year.  Volume one was a huge hit with the girls last year, and we’ve quite a few hymns tucked into our individual memories and collective family memory. 

I hope to pare down our memory work this year to focus on Bible quiz questions and verses (which will hopefully coincide with the book of the Bible we’re reading), a hymn, and a poem. 


We’re also picking up Latin this year.  This was an early purchase for me back in March before I had converted to giving the CM method a wholehearted effort this year.  However, Lulu knows about it and asks me weekly when we’re starting Latin, so I think we’ll just add it in very casually and for fun. 

Language Arts:

  • Reading:  Louise will continue with The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading.  It seems like we’ve been doing this forever, but I really think Louise is on the cusp of taking off as a reader.  What a joy it will be to see her, nose stuck in a book and oblivious to the world around her.  :-)    As of this week, Lulu will have finished OPGTTR, so she will just keep on practicing by reading aloud daily. 
  • Grammar:  Last year Lulu completed Fist Language Lessons, but she didn’t like it very much.  I’m coming to realize that it’s important for Lulu to be able to read things herself; too many oral lessons, and she gets frustrated.  I considered trying something more workbookish, like Rod and Staff.  Earlier in the year, too, I was all set to purchase the Michael Clay Thompson grammar series.  However, after many, many conversations with Steady Eddie, my dear mother-in-law (who is a teacher and whose opinion I value highly), and myself, I have decided to not do any grammar this year.  This is where doing things the CM way is sort of hard for me–I’ve always been in the early camp, not the delayed camp when it comes to introducing academics.  I believe enough in the power of reading good literature daily and in taking the long view of education, so we’re giving it a try. 
  • Spelling:  We have All About Spelling, the fabulous curriculum that almost everybody who tries it loves, just waiting on us on a shelf in the school room closet.  I’ve even started doing it a couple of times with Lulu, and neither time did she like it.  She has consistently balked at doing spelling, but I was committed to doing AAS with her this year.  Then I started delving into CM more and more, and I have decided that we’re in for a penny, in for a pound–we’re going to slowly work towards transcription this year, using the “mind’s eye” to “see” the words and spell them correctly.  We’ll see how it goes!  (Reading this post at Wildflowers and Marbles convinced me of the sheer lunacy of trying to do it both ways, a feat that I surely would’ve attempted if wiser voices hadn’t prevailed.  ;-) )
  • Writing:  Lulu wil be doing oral narrations this year.
      I’ll be using both The Complete Writer and Hearing and Reading, Telling and Writing to make sure that my expectations are on-target. 

Handwriting:  Both girls are making the switch from Handwriting without Tears to Getty-Dubay Italics this year.  Lulu is itching to learn to write cursive, so I thought the Italics style would be a nice way to ease into it. 

Math:  Lulu will pick up RightStart level C when we start school next week, and she will continue working through Math Mammoth, practicing topics as they come up in RightStart, more or less.  We’ve also thought about adding the word problem book from Singapore Math, but we haven’t bought that yet. 

Louise is about half a year ahead of where Lulu was when she started kindergarten because Louise started RightStart A after Christmas last school year.  Since we have some extra time built in, then, I plan to take it nice and easy with Louise, adding in lots of RightStart games, maybe some Math Mammoth, and some good math picture books.

History:

Picking up where we left off last year, we’ll be studying the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Reformation this year.  We’ll use Famous Men of the Middle Ages as our spine, which is a change from Story of the World last year.  I’m looking forward to using this resource, which is essentially a collection of biographical sketches.  However, we also have Story of the World volume two, so I’ll use that to fill out the picture a little more completely.  Of course, there will be lots and lots of picture books, nonfiction titles, and novels, to go along with this fascinating historical time period.  I’m sure many of these will be featured in future blog posts! 

Art and Composer Study:  We’re using Artistic Pursuits in conjunction with Harmony Fine Art’s Medieval and Renaissance Art curriculum.  I’m really looking forward to this!

What’s conspicuously absent here is science, and that’s because I’m not sure what curriculum we’ll use for science, other than we’ll be on the lookout for good books to explore our topics.  Steady Eddie and I have agreed that we’ll work on history for the first half of the school year, and then we’ll switch to science as our “other” subject after Christmas, so I have some time to figure this out.  I haven’t hammered out how this will affect our schedule exactly (in terms of how to accomplish doing it all double-time, in effect, if we want to get to the end of a curriculum that would normally take about 36 weeks), but I’m hoping that this will give us more freedom to explore topics in-depth as they pique our interest.  Of course, we’ll be doing nature study throughout the year.  (I’m really excited about getting back to doing more of Barb’s challenges!)  I also plan to have Lulu read science books of her choosing each week before Christmas; after Christmas, she’ll switch over to history books for some of her required reading.  By doing this, she’ll really be “doing” history and science all year.  :-)

Of course, we’ll continue reading good books aloud–that’s just what we do.  I might pull out some of our favorite Five in a Row titles for Louise’s benefit, as time permits. 

Our Fridays will be free this year to do our art and composer studies, take field trips, or simply catch up on things when the dust bunnies threaten to run us out of the house.   :-)

Both girls will continue with piano lessons.  Lulu will be starting private, one-on-one lessons, and Louise will continue as a part of a small piano class.  We’re looking into both girls taking ballet beginning the fall, and we’ll try to be more active as a family as the weather outside grows more tolerable.

Teacher's Bookshelf

If you’ve read this far in this meandering post, thank you.  I’m looking forward to this year.  It’s a leap for me to let go of the few things that we’re letting go of (formal spelling and grammar, for now) and trust the method.  However, in my short career as a homeschooling mother, I have come to recognize the important of staying the course.  I’m taking the long view, and barring any real problems (i.e. unforeseen learning difficulties, etc.), I’m going to try my best to work the method and have faith that we’ll reap a good harvest.   

Knee-Deep in Books and Planning

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Steady Eddie and I (along with the DLM, who discovered there just how much he likes to walk) spent a portion of the weekend at the CSTHEA Education Expo and Curriculum Fair.  Our express purpose for driving the six hours round-trip to Chattanooga from our little corner of Alabama was to attend Sonya Shafer’s workshops on Charlotte Mason and her methods of education.  (Sonya Shafer is one of the founders of Simply Charlotte Mason, a wonderful resource for those employing CM methods in their homeschools.) I have come home with a better grasp of how I want to execute this year’s learning and a little more confidence in what I’m doing. 

Steady Eddie is on vacation this week, and today one of our big goals is to make some headway in the actual paper-and-pencil planning that must take place for me to be at peace in my carrying-out of this year’s schooling. 

You’ll excuse me, then, if the blogging is light this week?  I want to throw myself whole heartedly into what needs to be done here at home, and I can’t do that with a divided mind and heart.  I will be back on Thursday for Read Aloud Thursday, and I hope to have up a post about another book I read for Carrie‘s Narnia Challenge by Friday, which is the ending date of the challenge.  Otherwise, I’ll be occupied by planning, reading, thinking, organizing, swimming (all work and no play, you know. . . ), and a trip to the zoo, just to mix things up a bit. 

Enjoy your week!

*All of these books, both new and used, are gems we brought home from the conference.  I’m sure a few of them (at least!) will show up in future blog posts!

Sunday Afternoon Rambles

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Steady Eddie and the girls are gone this afternoon to set up for a training for his job, the DLM is asleep, and I have spent some quality time already in reading, journaling, praying, and napping, and now I’m ready to work on the ol’ blog.  First, though, I want to clear my brain of all the stuff whirling around up there, in hopes that it will result in more clarity when I get down to reviewing some books.  Here’s what I’m thinking about today:

  • How to make the most of my time in terms of balancing all the demands I face as a homeschooling mother (not to mention all the other things I try to do at home:  cooking,  minimal cleaning, keeping the laundry going, etc.) and still have a little bit of time to do the other things I enjoy.  This is called “sharpening the saw” in 7 Habits lingo, and it’s really, really important for me, but my saw doesn’t get sharpened some days (weeks, even), and I really feel it.  I can’t go without sleep, so how do I “make” time for the other things that are important?
  • How to have a consistent spiritual life.  I’ll admit this has been a struggle for me since the DLM was born for a really long time.  It’s either boom or bust with me.  It’s not that I don’t read my Bible or pray; it’s just that I don’t feel like I’ve done it “right” unless it’s involved and passionate.  Sometimes, though, it just has to be “done”–not “right,” not “passionate,” just done.  However, it still must be heartfelt, or I don’t feel like I’ve made any progress or done anything worthwhile.  How can I find the balance between going through the motions and something that completely sweeps me away and makes me want to run off to the inner city and start a ministry?  ;-)   I want to walk with God consistently in the small things here at home, and more than that, I want to (as Eric Lidell put it), “feel His pleasure” in my life as I serve Him.  Thoughts, anyone?
  • I’m still reading The Narnian on my Kindle and enjoying it, but it’s a slow go.  It’s not that the book is too dense or arcane; I think it’s more that I feel like I’m reading more than I am because I “turn the page” on the Kindle (because of its small size) more often than I would actually turn the page in a real book, so I’m not making as much progress as I think I am while I’m reading.  Too, I’ve been sidetracked by other things–the internet (boo!  hiss!), and as of last night, another Kindle book–The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers by Dr. Meg Meeker.  I first read about it on Elizabeth Foss’s blog, and last night I just hopped online at Amazon and bought myself a copy, just like that. (Amazing, huh?)  There’s nothing earth shattering in this little volume (at least, so far), but it’s like a good shot in the arm for my mothering, a skill set that I’m finding tried and tested as my girls get older and I’m faced with another toddler.  (Who, by the way, started taking more than one step in succession last night at my parents–watch out, world!)
  • Charlotte Mason dominates my thoughts.  Like Janet mentioned in the comments on last Weekly Wrap-Up post, the CM method “seems a bit gentler and more flexible. . .and somehow more wholehearted than so centered on training the mindmindmind.”  I couldn’t have said it better.  Like I mentioned in that same post, I’m really looking forward to hearing Sonya Shafer next weekend and trying to nail down what this is going to look like in our homeshcool.  I’m also inspired by Jimmie @ Jimmie’s Collage, whose posts are so practical and concise.  This recent one on narration was just something I needed to read.  Of course, Barb @ Harmony Art Mom and Handbook of Nature Study is someone I consider a real mentor, since she has put these methods into practice for so many years now.  I have a vision of what I want my children’s education to look like, and Charlotte Mason’s teachings approximates it very closely.
  • I need to get back into a regular routine of menu planning and grocery shopping.  For too long now we’ve just gone to the grocery store by necessity, more or less.  I want to be more organized!

The DLM is stirring, so the rest of my thoughts will just have to keep a-swirlin’, I guess.  :-)   If you have a suggestion for any of the issues I’m contemplating, please, do share!

Have a blessed Sunday evening, friends!

Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit by Teri Maxwell

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I don’t know about you, but I don’t have this motherhood thing licked.  I’ve been at it for going on seven years now, and while I think I have grown in many areas, my children won’t cooperate and stay the same.  Each time I think I figure out some sort of “problem” or issue, they go and mature a little bit on me and give me something new to figure out.  ;-)   I had heard of Steve and Teri Maxwell and their Managers of Their Home scheduling program for homeschooling families, and I had even read a few of her mom’s newsletters, so I knew her to be a woman of insight and wisdom.  While I might not always agree with her or her husband on every theological issue, I do find their words to be encouraging for the season of life I’m in.  I had heard of her book Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit, but I had never actually seen a copy of it until we attended the homeschooling conference a few weeks ago.  I was feeling rather burned out and overwhelmed at the conference, so when I saw this book, I purchased it in hopes that it would give me the shot in the arm I needed at the time.

Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit is a short book, just 120 pages or so, and I read it in the van on the way home from the conference.  I usually hesitate to read books that are self-published (or even published by lesser-known publishing houses) because I often find them poorly edited or stylistically annoying.  (For example, I don’t enjoy books that are written in an overly conversational tone.  However, I’ve found this tone even in books that are publishing by big-name publishers.) Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit is neither of these, however.  I found Maxwell’s voice straightforward, honest, and wise.  She knows whereof she writes.  She doesn’t try to build herself up at all; her attitude is more like this:  “I’m writing this book because I think it might help you.  Let me break it down as simply as I can.”  The bottom line here is that I was not put off by the tone of the book or any glaring mistakes, etc.  This is important. 

The readability of this book, then, paved the way for the greater truth it holds to take root in my heart.  Maxwell cites three of what she calls “meek and quiet spirit stealers”:  fear/worry, disorganization, and anger.  I can say amen to all three of these, and it was immensely comforting to me to have someone else recognize that these issues can cause huge problems.  Although the fear/worry and anger issues are obvious, I found it so encouraging to have the disorganization issue recognized.  Something about being home with children all day long, as we homeschool mothers are, really brings out my inner taskmaster when it comes to cleaning, straightening, and organization.  I don’t like this about myself, and yet I long for order and (dare I say it?) quiet.  Maxwell offers a few solutions that might seem obvious such as devoting thirty minutes a day to organizing, but to the overwhelmed mother, this might just be a lifeline.  Her solutions are both wise and practical.

Of all the books about homeschooling I’ve read, this one is one of the most practical in terms of helping me deal with my own emotions and issues.  Maxwell consistently points her readers back to the Bible and the Lord for our ultimate answers.  I know I’ll be re-reading this one in the months and years ahead, probably over and over again.

100 Days of School–Retrospective

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Friday marked one hundred days of school for us here, although the day passed without fanfare.  That means that we are way over the half way mark in this school year.  I want to reflect a little bit on our progress here. 

 

I fluctuate between feeling like I should have “I am a countercultural crazy person” tattooed on my forehead and feeling like we have a wonderful thing going here.  I’d say that right now, I feel each way about half the time, so there’s no real danger of me a.) suddenly giving up and putting the girls in “real” scool or b.) having too high an opinion of what we’re doing here at home.  I suppose that’s as it should be.  :-)

I write “girls,” ‘though really, Lulu is the only one of official school age.  She is a first grader this year, good and proper.  Louise, on the other hand, is technically. . . nothing, yet.  She missed the birthday cut-off for public school kindergarten by a couple of months, so I haven’t officially called her a kindergartener, but really, she’s a tag-along first grader.  Veteran homeschooling moms warned me it would be like this, and it is.  Right now, she only officially does reading (OPGTTR daily-ish, reading practice when we think of it, ‘though that’s happening with more and more frequency) and math (RightStart level A, begun after Christmas break, at her insistence).  I’ve held out against calling her a kindergartener this year because I couldn’t think of any real advantages to her being young for her grade, but in some ways it seems silly to not just call this her kindergarten year and be done with it.  She knows as much about the animals we’ve studied for science and the ancient history we’ve read as Lulu.  Of course, she lags behind in writing, mainly due to motor skills issues.  

Lulu is progressing nicely.  Since Christmas, her interest in reading has taken off, and she is tackling chapter books with regularity.  This does this reading mama’s heart good.  Curriculum-wise, we’re in good shape, too.  While she likes some of our subjects better than others, there’s not one particular curriculum that she hates to see me pull out, so we’ve stuck with almost everything we set out to use at the beginning of the year.  Here’s where we stand, with some editorializing:

Bible and Devotion

We’re still reading through The Children’s Bible in 365 Stories (my review here), and this is one Bible story book that we all love.  I love that it’s detailed and thorough–major and minor prophets, kings and queens, they all have their stories told in page-long summaries.  The girls remember this and ask for it if I happen to foget that it’s our starting point every day.  We’re also still working our way through Hymns for a Kid’s Heart, volume 1.  The girls love it when I introduce a new hymn because the first couple of days that we work on it, I read the two pages of devotional material (information about the composer and a devotional thought).  This year we’ve memorized three hymns and are working on a fourth:

  • “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”
  • “Holy, Holy, Holy”
  • “This Is My Father’s World”
  • “O for a Thousand Tongues”

Growing up, I didn’t learn all of these hymns.  The little church I attended tended to sing the same hymns over and over, plus any “convention” songs we liked (songs written for a songbook compiled for the denomination’s yearly [every other year? every fourth year?  I forget] convention).  Learning all the verses of these hymns has been a blessing to me personally.  The best thing I’ve done this year is implement the Simply Charlotte Mason Scripture Memory System for all our memory work.  I can’t praise this system highly enough!  The only element of this portion of our day that we are no longer using is Leading Little Ones to God.  I tried, but I just couldn’t love it.  I might’ve liked it better if I had started using it when the girls were a little younger.  They haven’t missed it, though.

Reading

We’re still plugging along in The Ordinary Parents’ Guide to Teaching Reading.  It’s effective, if bland.  Lulu doesn’t love it–this is the thing she’d most likely ask to drop.  We’re somewhere around lesson 140, so we have 90 or so lessons left.  I’ve contemplated just dropping it altogether in favor of just letting her read, but the box-checker in my head won’t let me do that.  We plod on. 

Language

Both girls love it when it’s time for Lulu’s language lessons, mainly because they adore the snippets of literature that we read for her narrations from Writing with Ease.  I’ve considered dropping this particular book, too, because it’s redundant for us to do the narrations from it and science and history narrations, but I’m one who likes to cover all her bases.  Besides, if we didn’t do it, the girls would protest.  First Language Lessons are simple and relatively painless; Lulu doesn’t mind them, and she has learned a good bit from this gentle approach.  I’m undecided about whether or not we’ll stick with it for next year–I want to see what else is available.  I’m a little antsy for her to do more written work, but it may be that the second volume requires more.

Math

I’m pretty sure that Lulu would consider math her favorite subject, were I to ask her.  We’re still working through RightStart level B, and this is the one curriculum that I a.) complain the most about and b.) feel challenges us–all of us–the most.  It is very teacher intensive, but sometimes I think I can almost see Lulu’s brain smoking as she works through some of the problems.  That’s some good stuff!  We’ve also added Math Mammoth (blue series) for near daily practice and reinforcement.  Lulu loves worksheets (!!!–and she loves being timed on them!!–who knew?), so this is generally something she doesn’t complain too much about.  Math Mammoth also challenges the way she thinks about math, so it’s definitely a keeper.

History

I went through a period of homeschool angst back before the holidays during which I was very dissatisfied with our history studies.  I just couldn’t love ancient history, which is really no reflection on Story of the World.  In the weeks surrounding Christmas and Thanksgiving, we used more of a unit study approach and simply read about and discussed the holidays.  Since Christmas, though, I think we’ve found our groove with SotW again.  The girls have always loved it, but I’m enjoying it again, too.  We’re up to the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, and I’m eager to get to the Greeks and Romans.  Since Christmas, I have been requiring Lulu to do a narration for every section that we read, so by now we have a nice little notebook going.  (Louise does narrations, too.)  I think we’ll probably stick with SotW for next year, especially since we’ll be on to time periods I know a little more about.

Science

Elemental Science has been a winner here.  Actually, there isn’t much to it, but I do love having a framework in place for our learning.  We’ve made good use of our library and have discovered several nonfiction book series that are just perfect for what we need for our lessons.  My only regret here is that I haven’t done as many of the hands-on “experiments” (‘though many of them are more like demonstrations) as I should have.  Many of them don’t really go along with what we’re studying when they’re scheduled, so I tend to just skip over them.  I might try to find a curriculum for next year that offers more in the way of hands-on stuff, but then again, I might just go with the tried and true.  We’ll see.  Both girls have a nice science notebook full of animal narrations, and I’ve told them that we’ll try to bind them into a real book at the end of the year. 

Other stuff

I try to have an art activity each week, but that doesn’t always pan out.  It’s important to me, though.  One of the problems is that both girls sometimes find art frustrating (i.e. if their drawing doesn’t look “right,” etc.).  I try to encourage them by saying that there are no mistakes in art, etc., but that doesn’t usually work.  I need to learn some techniques to help them deal with their frustrations.  Sometimes I will allow art to slip through the cracks just because they do get frustrated with it. 

We were doing well with the Outdoor Hour Challenges before Christmas, but the holidays (and the cold weather!) put a stop to that.  I want to get back to it, though.  I hope I can figure out how to get us all outside more, cold weather notwithstanding.  I have wanted for a while now to hang a few birdfeeders in our backyard and really get to know some of our feathered visitors, so I hope this is something we can do in the near future, too.

The girls are playing Upward basketball right now, so they practice one night a week and play a game each on Saturdays.  Since Christmas, I have begun doing Leslie Sansone’s Walk at Home program (almost) every day, and the girls usually join me for that.  The girls also got an indoor trampoline for Christmas, so I try to get them to move a little every day.

Piano lessons also continue, although we have been on hiatus since a few weeks before Christmas until this week. 

Our lives here at home are very rich and full, if not without their challenges.  Juggling a five year old and a seven month old while teaching first grade can be crazy-making at times, but at the end of each day we’ve done some learning and some loving (and usually a whole lot of reading!).  I am thankful to be on this path with my girls.  Yes, I find it frustrating.  Yes, there are days when I question why we’re doing this–swimming upstream.  I try to let go of all of that, mainly, and just live and learn here at home.  I try to be thankful for the opportunities that we have.  It really is a blessing. 

Weekly Wrap-Up–October 18-22, 2010

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I began this week with laryngitis and ended the week with a diagnosis of sinusitis (and an antibiotic prescription to cure me, hopefully), if that tells you anything about how our week has gone.   I have felt pretty yucky for most of the week, but we have managed to do most of what I had planned, so I guess that’s pretty good.  Actually, as many veteran classroom teachers (and moms in general) can tell you, the quieter you talk, the quieter the children are.  That has proven true in our household this week, and for that I am grateful.  :-)

Let’s see. 

Successes:

  • Lulu took her very first written test this week.  It was a nine weeks test in her math curriculum (RightStart level B), and when I told her that she had a test to take, she smiled like I had just offered her a free ice cream cone, her choice of flavors.  She made 100% on the test, too.  It seems weird to me to give her a test, probably since it’s just not something I’m accustomed to doing.  I suppose as my children get older I’ll have more opportunities to assess them in this way, but it seems almost ridiculous to hang all their learning on a scant ten or twenty problems.  Of course, that’s not what we’re doing, really–the test is more of an afterthought in my book right now.  I need to think about this some more.
  • Reading about marine mammals this week has been interesting.   We had lots of good resources–our library has tons of books on whales and dolphins, especially.  We read a couple of fun fiction picture books, in addition to the nonfiction resources.  Here are the picks of the week:

We read Peggony-Po:  A Whale of a Tale by Andrea Davis Pinkney , which is a tall tale about a wooden boy carved by the captain of a whaling ship.  The boy, Peggony-Po, determines to avenge his captain father of his loss of leg by the monstrous whale, Cetus.  Brian Pinkney (the other half of this fabulous husband-wife duo) have the look of wood cuts.  (I just read that it’s called scratchboard.)  This book captures the spirit and the cadence of the language of black sailors on whaling ships in the 1800s.

The other winner this week was Abigale the Happy Whale.  This is a book with a heavy environmentalist message, but I like it.  ;-)   I think what sells me on this story is the fun play-on-words thing that the author, Peter Farrelly, has going throughout the story.  For example, this paragraph about Clem the Clam, he is described as “acting like a real dip” and as being “steamed.”  I can appreciate this kind of humor.  Actually, the message is pretty good, too–that humans shouldn’t throw their trash into bodies of water.  The illustrations are cute and colorful–what’s not to like? 

  • Louise spent the first part of the week writing newspaper articles.  I LOVE reading her phonetically-spelled but rather complicated stories.  She’s a totally different type of learner than Lulu.  I’m really going to have to put on my thinking cap once she begins school proper.
  • We’re still working on walking twnety-six miles before the beginning of November, and as of last night we’re up to about 17 miles.  We accomplished almost three of those miles last night.  We combined walking-for-our-health with an Outdoor Hour Challenge, so I hope to blog about it next week.  With just a few hours of daylight remaining after Steady Eddie comes home from work, we have to multitask.  It was a lovely walk, despite the hurry.  :-)
  • I gave the girls another cooking lesson this week.  We made chocolate chip bar cookies for my older nephew’s twelfth birthday this week.  The girls did most of the adding of ingredients and even cracked the eggs more or less by themselves. 
  • They have been listening to The Indian in the Cupboard over and over and over and over again this week.  It finally went back to the library today.  :-)   Of course, I brought home the sequel. 

Areas for Improvement:

  • I’m not loving SOTW 1.  There.  I said it.  I don’t know what it is, really.  The girls seem to like it fine.  I’m not terribly familiar with ancient history, so I’m sure that’s part of it.  It seems disjointed to me–like I can’t really get a handle on one person before we’re moving on to another.  I know the purpose of what we’re doing now is simply exposure, and for that, I think it’s working.  However, I still feel a little odd reading such hard (and by this, I don’t mean difficult) topics with them.  I think Louise’s nightmare about snakes on the night after we read about Gilgamesh (including Ludmila Zeman’s lavishly illustrated books) really drove home to me the fact that they are both still so young.  Of course, the nightmare thing could be repeated on any give night about any given subject, so I don’t lay it completely at the door of reading about the cruel and crass ancient world.  I don’t know.  I’m rambling, but I have a lot of thoughts jumbled about in my heard right now about it.  Do any of you, my readers, have any experience or advice about this?
  • Lulu didn’t make much progress in reading Akimbo and the Elephants this week because she lost her book.  When I found it, guess where it was.  Yep.  In the library basket.  :-)
  • I’m thinking I’m going to have to turn up the heat on RS Math.  We’ve been doing three lessons a week, taking off on Tuesdays to work on our bookwork for music class since the girls have their lessons on Tuesday afternoon/evening.  However, level B has more lessons than level A, so I’m not sure we can do this much longer.  This means we’ll have to figure out some way to get music in outside of our normal school day.  Hmmm.
  • We didn’t get around to doing any art this week, other than the girls’ impromptu sketching for Sketch Tuesday. 

I need more hours in the day! 

We once again have a busy weekend ahead of us.  I’m hoping to finally quit coughing this weekend. 

Have a lovely one!

Weekly Wrap-Up–October 4-8, 2010

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I began this week with a little trepidation, to be honest.  After last week, the week-off-that-really-wasn’t,  and a jam-packed weekend (always!), I didn’t feel quite as rested as I wanted to, but I did have a new plan.  I went into this week planning to do science two days and history two days.  Amazingly enough, we covered the same amount of material and topics as we did those weeks those subjects were on the schedule every day, but with less stress.  I should’ve listened to Steady Eddie at the beginning of the year when he suggested that we do it this way!  :-)

Here’s how week ten played out:

Bible and Devotions

We’re still plugging along through the Old Testament via The Children’s Bible in 365 Stories  (linked to my review).  This week saw the unfortunate demise of Queen Jezebel and then all sorts of intrigue in the courts of Israel and Judah.  You would think my memory of 1 and 2 Kings would be better, especially considering the fact that it hasn’t been that long since I’ve read it thanks to the Bible in 90 Days challenge, but alas, I still find myself getting confused about who’s on the throne now.  Sigh.  At least my girls are gaining exposure to the story, even if I myself am often a little fuzzy on the details after we read it.  For our hymn study, we’ve more or less nailed the first verse of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” and thanks to Dawn‘s encouragement (in the comments on this post), we’re going to persevere and learn all of the verses.  It would help if mama weren’t so forgetful!  :-)   Steady Eddie helped me get our Scripture Memory System up and running, and while I still have some kinks to work out, I think it’s going to be an excellent addition to our family learning experience.  Specifically, we started working on 1 Corinthians 13 in the KJV this week, and the girls more or less learned the first verse.  Make no mistake about it–learning it in the KJV is harder from the outset, but I want the girls to have exposure to it.  (As an aside, I remember learning this particular chapter as a part of my 11th grade AP English studies in public school.  I wonder if they still do that?)  We also read a couple of chapters from Leading Little Ones to God.  Steady Eddie has been practicing the girls’ Bible quiz questions with them at night to take one more thing off our to-do list during the day, and for that I am grateful!

Reading

Lulu completed three lessons in OPGTTR this week (lessons 106-108) and Louise completed two (lessons 38 and 39).  Lulu finished another chapter book, most of which she read aloud to us.  This week’s title was The Bears on Hemlock Mountain.  (A review of this Newbery winning book is forthcoming, as is a picture of her narration and associated drawing.) I know she read a few other shorter picture books, too.  Lulu is to the point now where her reading is really taking off–she reads almost everything, including things I don’t always want her to read (like the newspaper some mornings before I can “censor” the content).  Louise is making steady progress, too.

Math


RightStart Math continues to challenge this mama’s way of thinking about math, and that’s a good thing.  :-)   This week we worked on place value (lessons 29-31).  The lessons take a while to do well and without rushing, but we’re both enjoying the process.  Lulu also did a few pages in Math Mammoth on greater than/less than and rounding.  Louise managed to entertain herself with various math-y puzzles and games, like Busy Bugs (below) and Mighty Minds puzzles.  Sometimes we even break out a math workbook, just for fun!  ;-)   I have not begun doing math formally with her since she’s still a year away from being kindergarten age (and I’m still trying to figure this out, honestly–how to meet the needs of two students!), but she plays with the abacus and counts on the 100 chart, too.   Sometimes it requires me to come up with an assignment for her–maybe something as simple as give her directions to build something with Wedgits or make a pattern with the tiles or bugs, but this does keep her out of mischief 50% of the time.  ;-)

Busy Bugs, both alive and dead :-)

 History

We’re up to chapter 6 in SOTW 1, so this week we read about Abraham and Joseph.  The girls are already very familiar with both of these stories from all of our Bible story reading and telling, but it seemed a little different reading it as a part of history, I think.  I had Lulu do her first formal history narration this week, as well.  I got a kick out of the picture she drew to accompany her narration.   She drew Abraham “leaning on a fence” to decide whether or not he should move to Haran, which is the way Susan Wise Bauer captured Abraham’s indecision about what to do.  I thought it was interesting that Lulu picked up that particular detail which was something added for narrative’s sake, I think.  We read The Coat of Many Colors to supplement our history reading, but really, the girls weren’t all that impressed with it.  I think they’ve become so familiar with some of these Bible stories that it would take a lot to make them really interested in them.  I’m not sure that this is a good thing, but it seems to be the way it is right now.  On Thursday afternoon we broke out the fabric paint and men’s t-shirts, size large, to make our own coats of many colors.  Good times here at the House of Hope!

Science

We completed one science experiment (demonstration?) and read about three animals this week:  the armadillo, the skunk, and the rabbit.  The girls completed narrations for each of the animals, as well.  Science book pick of the week was The Little Rabbit, a re-read the girls love. 

Language

We’re still plugging along through FLL 1, and I for one was glad to have the litany of “a noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea” broken by one day of picture study.  :-)   Really, I do read a lot of criticism about the day in and day out emphasis on one topic in this curriculum, but I like this gentle approach since my girls are so young.  We did four days worth of copywork and narration in WWE, and this week the passage excerpt was from one of the girls’ favorite stories–Caddie Woodlawn.  They have listened to the audiobok of this novel more times than I could count.  Sometimes I wonder if their familiarity with so many of the excerpts in WWE makes it a little too easy for Lulu to do the narrations.  I don’t know.  I do know that Louise has a fit if she even thinks she is going to miss hearing the story excerpts.  I’m schooling Lulu for first grade, but I have a four year old who is most definitely along for the ride!  We did AAS a couple of days, and Lulu was glad to move past alphabetizing the tiles.  Now that I’ve figured out how to make sure science and history get equal time each week, now I have to figure out how to make sure we also get to spelling!

Other Learning and Fun

The girls have spent their quiet times this week listening mainly to several of the Geronimo Stilton stories, as well as a reprise of Mary Poppins and selections from Fifty Famous Fairy Tales.  Our iPod Touch has seen a lot of use lately, especially since Steady Eddie has been unable to help with picking up and dropping off and music class due to his work schedule.  Each girl has had to sit through her sister’s lesson, but they have made good use of their time by listening to stories on the iPod.   Sometimes I worry that they listen too much, but then Steady Eddie comes along and tries to help me realize that I can’t worry about everything.  ;-) This afternoon we finished up the chapter book we’ve been reading for a while. Pinky Pye was enjoyed by us all, and I hope to review it for next week’s Read Aloud Thursday. 

Cooler weather arrived in earnest this week, ‘though not for long. (The temps will be back up into the nineties this weekend!)   One day we even had to turn on the heat in our house!  We took advantage of these beautiful fall days by going for a walk one morning before we even started school (and while we waited for the DLM to grow sleepy enough to take a nap so we could do school!).  The girls dressed up in their winter gear since after so many 100 degree days, sixty something seems really cold.  ;-)   I gave them the assignment to look for signs of fall.   We didn’t see too many signs, actually, but we enjoyed the walk, nonetheless.


Mystery solved!

We went to the park on Monday and Friday afternoons this week.  (On Friday it was with the elementary students from our homeschool group after our normal Friday School activities.)  On Thursday, we did almost all of our lessons outside (as you can tell from many of the pictures in this post).   This is one of the girls’ favorite things to do, and I confess–I love it, too. 

Our biggest obstacle this week has been the DLM’s unpredictable nap schedule.  I would LOVE to dive right into our lessons first thing every morning, but I’m learning that if I’m patient and wait just a bit, we can make optimal use of his nap and get more done without working around his crankiness.  It’s definitely a lesson in patience for me, though. 

Those are my disjointed, unorganized ramblings about our week.  I hope yours was good!   For more Weekly Wrap-Ups, visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Weekly Wrap-Up–September 27-October 1, 2010

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 This week was a week with an identity crisis.  :-)   In my lesson plan book, I called it a “light/FIAR week,” and then I fought with myself all week about what it was, exactly, that I wanted to do. In my ideal world, we would officially finish our school year well before the beginning of June in order to take advantage of the beautiful, not-too-hot weather May affords us here in the South.  Also in my ideal world, we would be semi-year round homeschoolers; we would break when the weather is pretty and pleasant and school during the dog days of summer.  However, and this is a HUGE however, I’m not sure that I can pull that off.  At the end of last week, I was in dire need of a break, both physically and mentally.  However, I didn’t really want to take a week off because we have that crazy little thing in our state called an attendance report.  I need my space, people, and I need a mental break from the relentless planning/preparation/work that I’m learning homeschooling entails.  (Let’s call a spade a spade here.   It’s true–it is relentless. Rewarding, but relentless.)  Anyway, this is more or less what we did this week:

  • Read several picture books around the theme of elderly people
  • Visit my great aunt, my grandmother’s only living sibling, who is in her eighties
  • Bake stained-glass window cookies (since we were sort-of rowing Clown of God, which has a church with stained glass windows in it, you know), which turned out to be a flop
  • Do a little multiplication problem with tiles in order to figure out how many cookies we could expect from our recipe (Lulu)
  • Work on patterning with tiles (Louise)
  • Read a good bit in our current read-aloud, Pinky Pye
  • Complete about five pages or so in Math Mammoth (Lulu)
  • Read aloud three chapters in The Bears on Hemlock Mountain by Alice Dalgliesh (Lulu)
  • Continue with our chronological reading of The Children’s Bible in 365 Stories.  This week we read more about Elisha and his exploits. 
  • Make and paint our clay necklaces with the seals we made last week.  (Pictures of this to follow, if I can remember!)
  • Look at a couple of books about the Renaissance (a take-off of our Clown of God reading) and talk a little bit about it.
  • Watch a couple of tall tales videos, specifically Davy Crockett and Casey at the Bat from this series:  Tall Tales & Legends: The Complete Series. 
  • Go on a field trip to observe beaver dams and other evidence of beavish life ;-) . 
  • Do four days’ worth of concentrated piano work (meaning that I had time to help the girls with their practicing, rather than just listening in on it while I cooked or rocked the DLM). 

On the way home from our field trip yesterday, we dropped the girls off at my mom’s to spend the night.  I went to a fellowship meeting/prayer group/book study meeting of the moms in our homeschool group, and I enjoyed myself immensely.  I feel so blessed to be a part of such a loving and supportive group of women!  Today Steady Eddie (who has another day off) and I are going to work school plans for the next few weeks and hopefully get the weeks up to Christmas sketched out and this next week prepped completely! 

I tried to catch my breath this week.  I really am a structured schooler, but I must admit that this week was nice, once I got over the feeling that we weren’t accomplishing anything.  I’m still not sure that it wouldn’t be more productive (for me and for them!) to really take the week off, though.  I could’ve used a real, true break.  I’m not sure how to get over the feeling that we must be doing something all the time. 

With all these thoughts swirling about in my head, I have a question for my readers:  do you take week-long breaks (aside from holiday breaks) in your school year?  Are they real breaks, or do you do “school light”?  How do you schedule them?  How do you “let it go” in terms of not feeling guilty about what you’re not doing?

I try to remember that as much as anything else, this homeschooling gig is about relationships.  I think, if we didn’t accomplish anything else, we strengthened those this week: