"If Candlemas Day be fair and bright,
Winter will have another fight,
But if Candlemas Day be clouds and rain,
Winter is gone, and will not come again".
Now if you live where we do, the Candlemas saying about the weather is kind of important, and today was foul. So according to old weather lore, winter is all but done, and spring should be upon us any minute. We'll see!
Anyway, I'm inspired to at least take a fresh look at where we're going homeschool wise, and spent some of this evening making a start. I want to loosen up our approach and do more practical stuff, and more unit study type learning - with dashes of Charlotte Mason/Waldorf material. I've been saying this for years, mind you.
So far, we're working on a demonstration garden - food in a very small space, what could you grow in a tiny town garden?
I've now decided to do shelters - starting with the tents of the children of Israel - if I can fit it in with a weather project which involves those old pieces of weather lore - and keeping records to test them for the year - Henry VIII which we're already into, along with the beginnings of the Reformation - Cheesemaking (which we do on a small scale, but I want to do proper hard cheese) ... how am I going to tie all this together? Hmmmm .... I may have to go for some adjustments here.... and Norse myths with H.
Beowulf anyone?
Given that it's an important time in the garden, too ... nevertheless, these muddled thoughts, I hope, will form into some kind of cohesive plan. I really do want to get into a more active, fluid format this year. They have been filling in workbooks for too long.
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So I don't post over here very often! That has become clear!
I'm looking for some help and advice though, and this is the place to come for it, I reckon.
I am struggling to get school and farm life both done, and farm life is losing. I notice we are not tending the garden, not incubating eggs, not breeding poultry .... then we are doing science from a school book! that can't be right. But with a 10yo plodding through 4th Grade and an 8yo whizzing through 3rd, I am not happy for them to just keep on learning what happens when you plant a bean. Or that you can double a recipe.
So. What I am looking for is ideas, resources, unit studies maybe? Ways to access material which will enable me to build on what we do, to make it a science lesson, or whatever. I need some ideas for work around soil fertility and so on, as well as eggs, incubation etc .... that will fulfill the need for an ongoing programme of work at about the right grade level.
Does anyone else use this approach? Any tips or ideas?
We use CLE Curriculum, so farm life is very much the theme, but there is a lot of seat work, and I need to move away from this in some areas.
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... but busy all the same.
Our busy day today (full details on my homestead blog) ended sadly with Boo falling off her pony and hurting her arm. She has sat with ice on it all evening, taken Calpol, and Arnica tablets, and we have rubbed in the gel, but she is a sad little girl!
I shall be glad to get the horses over here. It's been a long slog, we are close now to getting them here, and then maybe we can get them sorted out.
Considering doing Parelli Level One as a school subject with H this year - has anyone done that? Treated something like the Parelli Homestudy Course as a school course? Any advice?
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Started school this morning (it being our last but one day for the year) and suddenly decided a field trip would be more fun, so we set out to the American Museum. We have a membership here, it is about a half an hour (plus traffic delays, grrr.) from home, and it is just the best - the girls love it, especially the quilt room - there is always something to see and do .
Today we looked at the new American Heritage exhibition (actually, that was the link above) which was interesting, and dressed up as Pilgrims and as Pioneers (well I contented myself with a bonnet or two!) and guess what, I forgot the camera. Again.
I took a thoughtful look at the herb garden, which I would like to recreate something similar at home - oops, wandered into homestead territory there! - and we had a second look at the Dollar Princesses exhibition, but I'm afraid that is rather over the girls' heads - they love the Conestoga Wagon, and the earlier rooms in the house, and best of all, they just adore the quilts.
H has been studying the founding of Pennsylvania in Social Studies, so she found lots of things to interest her, including the Shaker room, the simple lines and natural materials of which appeal to H no end.
So all in all it was a restful, semi educational afternoon for us all, and home for tea!
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And although we haven't finished this homeschool year yet, next year's is taking shape.
For financial reasons, we've shortened our cle order considerably, and are hoping to rely on some elements of the Old Fashioned Education curriculum - latin for H for example, and CIMT Math for both of them. This seemed a good idea at the time, but I'm now starting to worry about it.
For H especially, CLE has been a blessing. With her Aspie need to know what's going to happen next, she finds the predictability of the format soothing, and has been getting on so well, it's taken nearly four years to get her this far, and I'm terrified that a change will set her back. Still praying about it and may yet be frantically emailing halfmoon books to get me that math course at the last minute LOL.
Wednesday sees her first day as official 'help' to a young friend of ours from church who has a young baby. She is also the girls' piano teacher. H loves babies, and all things home, so she is really looking forward to being 'the girl' for half a day a week. Since the young mama in question also trained as a child nurse before marriage, I know my daughter will be getting a useful education, as well as helping out a friend.
To ease the pain of envy, I have offered to give Boo an extra riding lesson when H is 'on placement'.
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to keep up to date with this blog at the beginning of the school year?!
Well, here it is, nearly over, and I have made only a handful of entries.
Mitigating circumstances! -
We are moving house (you can see more about this here ) this has been a very emotional time for me, and we have spent some weeks really looking at out situation. There was a spell when school looked a real possibility.
Now that we are back on track, there remains a strong possibility that I will give up my box scheme business, in order to concentrate the better on homeschooling, and running the home - I've been spread too thinly, and no one is benefitting enough from my attempts to do everythinhg, and quickly.
Mentally, and emotionally, we have all been through the mill with this. Until we are moved, and back into school work, I can't be sure how badly it's affected us all. We continue to pray for God's peace in our lives.
So maybe, just maybe, as the school year draws to a close, I will gradually get into the habit of posting here now and again, and by September, when it's time for another set of homeschool new years resolutions, I will hit the ground running.
I hope so!
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I lost it. It was right there, in front of me, just around about the time of my last blog entry.
I looked away for a moment, lost concentration, and woof, it was gone. Middle of January, no kidding.
So if you have it, or have seen it, or know of its whereabouts, could you contact me? LOL
Just wanted to post here to say that school is really going quite smoothly, bearing in mind that the rest of life, as witness my other blog, is A Stormy Sea at the moment.
Keep meaning to get back here, and post the school stuff. I may make it a New Years Resolution, if I can begin my year in February ......
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Just I struggle with this format. I find my homestead blog much easier to access and update. I can't seem to figure how to add friends or anything on this one. Sad, I know.
Plus we just seem to be soooo busy. I can't think what to say about homeschool, other than we are getting it done!
We work from about 8am til about 12 noon, with a runaround break in the middle.
My main problem is I always seem to be multi tasking and busy when they are working. I am dealing with laundry or cooking or business calls or something - I almost never seem to get to just sit with them, work with them, which is my ideal.
I don't seem to have enough hours in the day.
I keep threatening to get really organised, do the whole home management thing - I think I'm just scared I'll find they don't do file dividers in a big enough range for all the things I need to fit in LOL.
OK. Back to multitasking .....
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Why is nothing ever simple?
I decided to start the school year on Wednesday, to give us a lead in to our first full week. It's been an unmitigated disaster! Lots of family and farm crises have left everyone tetchy and lacking in grace. My original plan to try to play catch up with last years leftovers has backfired and left the children dejected and unmotivated. My desire to work in a little more Steiner-Waldorf type stuff has gone awry. And I have overlooked that tomorrow is the village garden club show, so this morning is make and bake day, hence school is cancelled anyway.
Wisdom with hindsight, what a combination!
I know next week will be another new start - I just hope I make a better job of it!
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Welcome to my homeschool blog - my homestead blog, over on homestead blogger, has been quiet of late, and no doubt will stay that way as I begin the school year, and have more to say about school than the farm .... at least for a while!
We're involved in a big houseclean (I often hear Americans talk about 'Fall Cleaning' as a kind of counterpoint to Spring Cleaning, but never hear and Englishwoman speak of 'Autumn Cleaning.) and outdoor tidy up before we launch into our school year, probably tomorrow.
As usual I'm behind with all the prep for the girlguide year, too - next year it will get done in the first week of the summer break (!) - so the next few days may be rather manic.
Also, Boo has her first swimming lesson in a group on Wednesday evening, right in the middle of box deliveries (it was the only space left on the lessons!) and Chapel Youth Club starts Friday ...... oh my, I'd better get off this computer and get going! Hope you enjoy our (probably very occasional) notes on homeschool life in England.
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I chose this template because guess what, I have that typewriter! That exact same model, in my sitting room!
Well, I found that exciting, I must say!