Posted in General
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The past few weeks have been a struggle in our home. If you had asked me a few weeks ago what was causing the problems, I'd have told you that my son is going through puberty and displaying a bad attitude about the things he is required to do - like math and unloading the dishwasher. I'd have said that he was making us all miserable and driving me nutty. I realized something today - and it's not nice. I realized that my son has been displaying a bad attitude because....I have been setting that example for him! I'm sure everyone has heard the saying, "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." Well, if Mama doesn't have a good attitude then nobody has a good attitude. So, I have set the goal for myself to train myself to have a good attitude - a "meek and quiet spirit", a Christ-like attitude in dealing with my children, my husband, and others. We know habit formation is very important for our children - teaching them to pay attention, etc. - it is just as important for mothers! |
Rather than maintaining a "meek and quiet spirit" when I'm dealing with him I've been allowing him to make me angry. I've snapped at him rather than speaking respectfully. I've raised my voice rather than speaking quietly and calmly to him. No, I haven't yelled and stomped my feet and slammed doors but the feelings behind my angry voice are the same. If I expect my son to learn to control his feelings and his temper, to remain calm, to display a Christ-like attitude then I have to control my feelings and temper, remain calm and show him that same attitude. |
A few years ago we bought the book Managers of Their Homes by Steve and Teri Maxwell. We set up a different schedule for each season of our lives. For example, the schedule that starts the school year gets reworked around the holidays when our lives are busy, busy, busy. We have a completely different schedule in the summer than we do the rest of the year. We are entering a new season and I'm trying to rework our schedule.
I'm never really good at sticking strictly to the time frames and such on the schedule we end up with but having some kind of schedule, even if it isn't followed exactly, helps our home and school to run much more smoothly. The schedule gives directions to the children so I don't have to keep redirecting them all day. They know what comes next so there isn't a lot of time wasted while they decide what they want to do. (We've tried that and it didn't work for us at all!)
I've also decided that my children need to do a lot more writing than they have been. They both have horrible handwriting and I realized the other day that they really aren't expected to write very much. We don't have to do portfolios and I hate having to deal with tons of paper so we do a lot of our work orally. If they are writing a report or an essay then they type those. So, I'm planning to add in a time for Writing in our schedule in which they will be required to hand write something - journals, narrations, essays, etc.
To help me in setting up our schedules and deciding what needs done and how much time we have to do it, my wonderful husband set up a spreadsheet for me so I can type in the time amount for each thing on the schedule and it will add up the minutes, display a total, then show me how many hours that is. This is so fabulous! I now know at a glance if I've scheduled 28 hours of work in a 24 hour day.
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Wow! I didn't realize it had been such a long time since I've written. Life has just been really hectic.
4-H The county fair is now over - it was last week. We had a really good time, saw lots of animals, learned a few things, and ate a lot. lol
The children both placed third in their projects which was fabulous for their first year. We learned some things that will help them out for next year.
They both have a lot of projects they want to do for next year. Daughter wants to do two food and nutrition projects, a sewing project, rabbits and chickens. Son wants to do rabbits, rockets, rope, and cats. He bought two Holland Lop rabbits the other day and will be building their hutches this afternoon with Dad. He bought a male and female that he can breed. The boy was named Zeus so he stuck with that name for him and he named the female Aphrodite. (He enjoys reading mythology - one of his favorite books from AO is Age of Fable.) We went yesterday and bought all the lumber and things that we need to build the hutches. Daughter doesn't have her rabbit yet - she's hoping for a female baby to breed later. The breeder had two Holland Lop babies but they weren't big enough to determine the gender yet so we have her holding those two and another older Lop that we will take if those two turn out to be males.
Back-to-School Today is our first official day of homeschooling this year. We now, officially, have a high-schooler and a junior-high-schooler. There's been a little confusion for the Jr. high student about the new card system and a little whining about written narration but so far, so good. The Sr. high student has been having a blast! We'll see how the rest of the day goes.
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But, we are very thankful for the opportunity to fellowship with other believers again!
There are 100 songs on the CD's we are using and so far I have over half of them finished and printed out but it has taken hours to get to this point and I'm not even close to being finished yet.
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Our oldest will begin her high school career in the fall so I have been busily working out a plan for her high school years. I've put a lot of hours and thought into this plan so I thought I'd share what I've done in the hopes that it will save someone else a few hours and few headaches.
Graduation Requirements One of the first things that I did was to find out the requirements for graduation from 3 of the local high schools. I found these very easily on the internet and plugged them into a chart so that I could compare them easily. Most of the requirements were the same for each school. All required 4 years of English, 3 Social Studies, 3 Math, etc. The big difference was in the number of Electives required to graduate and therefore the total number of credits. The range that we found in our area was between 21 and 24. So, we set our requirement at 25 credits to graduate since we are requiring 4 years of Bible that none of the public schools require.
Naming our Courses We also found when looking at different college entrance requirements that they often want a certain course to be completed such as U.S. History, World History, Government, Economics, etc.
So we sat down and came up with names for the course our daughter will be taking. We decided to simply have English each year, US History, World History, Government and Economics, Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, Biology, Marine Biology (she has been begging for this class since it came out!), Chemistry, Health, Art and Music, P.E., Computer Tech., Bible, Home Ec, Sign Language, etc.
Plugging in the Books Once we had decided on what the courses would be we sat down with the AO book lists and started plugging in the books where they fit. Churchill's Birth of Britain went into World History, Of Plymouth Plantation went into US History, etc.
In setting up our English courses we tried to keep most of the literature selections together based on region. So, the American Literature books are together in one year, British Literature in one year, etc. There is some overlap so we will work on doing the American lit at the beginning of the year to finish it up then move into the British lit books which will continue into the next year.
In each year of English we also included poetry, short stories, and grammar or composition instruction.
Need More? If anyone is interested in more details, feel free to email me!
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We are having an absolutely gorgeous day here in Southeastern Ohio! So, this afternoon after all of our reading and table work were completed we packed up sketchbooks, field guides, drawing kits, kites and a read-aloud and headed off for a local dam located in a state park close to our home.
We took a walk down the backpack trail until we each found something that interested us and that we wanted to sketch in our books. My daughter sketched Rue Anemone - a little flower that was growing along the path. And my son and I sketched a little Ohio Buckeye tree. That was the first time I have ever seen a Buckeye tree and knew what it was. I did a leaf rubbing as well because I thought the leaves were so pretty.
After we finished our sketches we walked back the trail to a picnic table where we sat down and read a section from our read-aloud. We're reading the Silmarillion this year and I have to read in short sections because the names are difficult for me to read out loud.
As we headed back to the top of the dam, where our car was parked, the wind blow up some nasty looking storm clouds so we decided not to fly the kites today. There was a chance of thunderstorms and mom didn't think it was a good idea to fly kites by a lake when there was a chance of a thunderstorm. :-)
Nature study is something I have a hard time getting into and doing on a regular basis but today was fabulous! Thank you, Charlotte Mason, for encouraging us to get out and experience nature. I'm planning to go back and find that little Buckeye tree again to see how it's growing. |
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We have been on vacation for the past week. It wasn't a travelling vacation - we spent most of the time at home. But, it was so nice to have a break and just relax and spend time together! We spent one day visiting out-of-town family members and another at the zoo.
Book Orders I finally, out of frustration, cancelled most of my book order from a big online store. They kept postponing the shipment dates. The last time they postponed shipment until June on books I ordered in mid-February. I have never had a problem with them before but have never order this much at once either.
I did find most of the books from other sources but am still searching for 4 of the books. If anyone has any good sources for purchasing books online, please share them!
Grain Mill I received the Family Grain Mill that I ordered the other day and I'm really excited about using it. We ground flour when it first arrived and baked some carob-chip cookies - they were fabulous! I highly recommend getting a mill if you can.
Managers of Their Chores I also recently purchased this book from the Maxwells. I read through it once, fairly quickly, and today was our first day of working on our ChorePacks. It went pretty well. We found a couple cards that needed to be placed in a more convenient order but I set them up using ordinary paper so we could work out all the "bugs" before I print them on cardstock.
We had a discussion about work and our chore system this morning which went pretty well. We've been struggling with attitudes lately so I was concerned that there would be a lot of whining and complaining about the new system but since we started with explaining from the Bible the children were pretty receptive. I think if I'd just dumped the chores on them and said "Now, this is your job!" they wouldn't have worked with a cheerful attitude. To help with their attitudes and to show that they aren't the only ones who are working, I have a ChorePack of my own that I'm using at the same times they are required to do their chores. |
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Friday is the day we do art and our artist studies in our home. Since I have art and artists on my mind today I thought I would write about just how we do those things in our homeschool.
I know when I first started using AmblesideOnline that I had a really hard time trying to figure out what it was I was supposed to be doing with these artist's print we were supposed to be "studying. There were suggestions to have the children copying the painting they were studying but I knew that would be frustrating for my little ones so we didn’t even attempt that.
Artist Study in the Folden Home I generally like to be at least a term behind the regular Ambleside list when it comes to things like artist study because the people there are SO very helpful and they share all of the links and information that they find. Being at least a term behind gives me the chance to compile all the information that is shared on the group which means it’s much more likely to be used.
There are 6 prints for each 12 week term which means we’ll study one print every two weeks. The first Friday I get the print out and show it to the children. We talk about it – what’s the story behind the print? What colors are used? What do you notice first? How does it make you feel? Is it realistic or more of an impression? Etc.
I also save the prints to my computer. Each term I make a screensaver out of the 6 prints we are studying that term and every two weeks I set the specific print we are doing as my desktop wallpaper. Our computer is in our classroom/library so the children are exposed to the artist’s works often.
The second Friday we get the print out again and if this is the first print for that particular artist we go over a very brief biography of the artist. I usually try to come up with some fun way of dealing with the print this second time but I’m not always very creative. Sometimes we play Guess the Title, sometimes we look at the print closely for 3 minutes then I put it where only I can see it and ask the children to name everything they can remember about the painting. Sometimes we just discuss WHY we think the artist painted this particular painting or WHY he may have painted it the way he did.
Art in the Folden Home My daughter is a very creative person and loves to do art projects. She decided she wanted to do an art curriculum that would help her to be a better artist. We chose Lamb’s Book of Art which we are doing together as a family. My son, who isn’t as into art, isn’t wild about it but he suffers through it anyway. This book has also helped us to be able to discuss things like color and why an artist would choose to use certain colors in his work.
Expanding our Art Study I have occasionally asked the children to illustrate something from a book they are reading. I don’t do it on a regular basis but they enjoy doing it occasionally, especially when they are permitted to chose the scene they illustrate. Next year I am planning to ask for one illustration a week from my daughter but still will only do it occassionally with my son until he is a little older.
I also plan to do more Art History with my daughter next year.
That’s the plan…we’ll see.
In the Beginning We didn’t start out doing all of these things so please don’t feel like you have to do everything. If all you do is pin up one of the artist’s prints every other week where your children can see it, I believe they will still learn to appreciate beauty which is the point of artist study, in my opinion anyway. |
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Pre-Play Studies Ambleside Online suggests the use of Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare or Nesbit’s Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare to be read to early elementary children before they ever study an actual play. These books tell the stories of what happens in the plays in easier to understand language and in story, rather than play, form. I think these are an excellent introduction to Shakespeare’s works and we still occasionally read one of the stories before doing one of the plays – that way we have a better idea of what is going on.
Beginning the Plays Ambleside Online begins the study of actual Shakespeare plays in Year 4. I have a difficult time reading and following some of his plays as an adult. I couldn’t imagine asking my Year 4 student (at age 11) to read it aloud and understand it. So, I was not very excited about starting to read his plays. I bought the plays we were supposed to read for the year and started reading one of them. Not far into it I realized that we were going to need to find another way to do this. There was no way I could read some of these words aloud so I knew my children couldn’t!
Plays were Acted not Read I realized that these plays were meant to be seen not read – especially not read by people tripping over every other word. So, whenever we can find a video recording of the play we are studying I preview it to determine its appropriateness for our children. Then, if its deemed appropriate, we all sit down and watch it together. We pause the video if the children start asking questions about what is going or if we feel something should be explained.
Instead of a Video If we can’t find an appropriate video, we listen to the play on audio book. We first started doing this when our daughter was the only one studying Shakespeare. She and I had a horrible time trying to read the play! I found the audio book of the play we happened to be studying at the library and borrowed it. We then would play the audio book while following along with the book.
A Love of Shakespeare is Born My daughter LOVED it! She started looking for more Shakespeare audios and asking us to preview other videos. She has borrowed a video of Twelfth Night repeatedly and listened to audio books of Shakespeare’s plays in her free time. Who knew Shakespeare could be so awesome? Certainly not her mother whose only exposure to Shakespeare had been a stumbling (and embarrassing) class read-through of Romeo and Juliet in nineth grade.
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At the Folden house we are busily planning our summer garden. We will be purchasing and putting up a privacy fence around part of our yard in a couple weeks. This will enable us to simply open the back door to let the dogs out rather than having to leash them up and take them out - separately since they are both BIG!
Gardening Putting up that fence will enable us to remove the kennel we have in the backyard where we let them run right now and expand our garden space. Yea! We will be able to more than double to amount of space for our garden.
Since we live right in town and have a small yard to begin with, we don't have a very big area that we can use for a garden. The space we are using is 38 ft x about 8 ft. and runs from the shed behind our house out to the run beside the house. We use the Square-Foot Gardening method and right now we have 2 blocks that are each 5 foot by 5 foot. Once the fence is up and the kennel removed we will expand to 5 blocks - which means 125 sq. feet of garden space.
Now we are trying to decide just how we want to use all of that space. Every year we plant various things that we like to eat in salads. There is nothing so good as a salad you just picked from your own garden. Delicious! We also started planting things to can last year. We are also going to try growing a few things we haven't tried before - cucumbers for pickles, corn, squash, swiss chard, and cantaloupe. We'll see how well that works out.
Canning I received a brand new pressure canner, canning tools, and Ball Blue Book from my grandmother last year as a gift - just because she believes that canning your own food is better for you than buying canned food from the store. So, we planted and canned our own green beans, salsa, and tomatoes last year. We made blackberry jam the year before but didn't do any more last year, and made and canned apple butter with a friend this year.
Next year we will be canning all of the same things as last year but we are going to try pole beans rather than bush beans this year. I'm also hoping to do blackberry jam again - or maybe jelly since my son didn't like having the seeds in the jam.
I'd also like to try applesauce and peaches but I don't know if I have all the right equipment for applesauce and I haven't found a good source for the peaches yet. Those may have to wait until next year. |
Posted in Organization
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Next year our children would be (if in public school) in grades 7 and 9. We have decided that for their high school years our children will do Ambleside Online's Years 7-10. AO is an advanced curriculum and they will have a better education just finishing Year 10 than either their father or I had when we graduated from public school. We placed them in the appropriate Years this year based on where they were academically, what they could handle. For this year our son is doing Year 4 and our daughter Year 6. So, they are already lined up to do the Years in order and graduate after completing Year 10. Which means for next year our 14-year-old daughter will be doing Year 7 and our 12-year-old son will be doing Year 5.
Organization For next year I have organized card files for both children. I am wanting them to learn to work more independently - to learn on their own without having a teacher to stand over them. Our daughter is usually very good at getting her work done on her own but our son has a tendency to dawdle.
My daughter is currently working from a card file - I posted about that earlier - so she knows how to work with it. My son has requested a card file rather than a binder for next year. Since he has a tendency to "forget" some things and to dawdle, one of the cards that I have added to his card file is a "Meeting with Mom" card that will be done daily. When he gets to that card at the end of the day he will be sitting down with me and going over everything he has completed during the day - showing his copywork, math assignment, turning in written narrations, etc. This way I will know exactly what he has done before he goes off to play.
I have created a checksheet for me to use during our meeting. (I'll be doing this with my daughter as well since she will be working on more meaty subjects next year.) I have the sheet set up so that I can use it for the whole week. It's done as a chart with the books listed down the left side, divided by subject, and the days of the week across the top. Then I have shaded the blocks for the days that each book is to be used. Science is done every day so the entire row of blocks is shaded. I require one composition (written narration) from him each week so there is only one block in that row shaded. When we sit down for our meeting I can run down the column for that day and see quickly exactly what he was supposed to do for that day. I have color-coded the checksheets - my daughter's has red blocks and my son's has blue - so that I don't get them mixed up. I'll put these in page protectors and use these sheets all year. I won't be writing individual assignments on them because those are listed on the cards.
I also have a checksheet for the subjects that we do together so I don't leave anything out. We do things like Shakespeare, Plutarch, Nature study, Artist, Composer, Art, and Latin together as a family. I have the shaded blocks on this sheet as well so I know which things I want to cover that day - which helps me to not repeat the same thing or leave anything out during the week.
Reading We always do a read-aloud together as well. I expect to choose one book for each child that I will read with that child. I haven't chosen those since I intend to do the book with which they are having the most difficulty. I'm also planning to choose one book from their additional reading lists to read-aloud to both children during our together time (called General School Meeting in our house).
I am also assigning them to read a certain number of books from the additional list each term this year. I want to encourage my son, especially, to read more difficult books. He tends to choose easy books that he can easily read in 30 minutes. I'm hoping to encourage him to read longer books that he can't read in one day.
Everyone in our home sits down with a book to read for 30 minutes at 9:00PM. This started out as being a time of sitting and cuddling while reading bedtime stories and has evolved into everyone reading for a while right before the children go to bed. We continued it after they were "too big" for bedtime stories as a way to help them wind down before going to bed and it's now something we all look forward to. |
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Our family has been dealing with illness pretty much since the beginning of this year. We have been sick three times since January which is very unusual. Normally if we get sick it's once a year not three times in three months! So, we have dropped most of the extras that we were doing in our schoolwork and have been sticking to just making sure the basics are getting done each day. Even when we're not feeling up to par we can still manage to get a little reading and narrating done.
We've had days where the children will read a history chapter, narrate to me and then take a nap on the couch. Since my throat has been raw I haven't been doing any reading aloud so those book choices are either waiting until I am feeling better or we have opted to use an audio book from the library to read to us for a while. Math seems to be the most difficult subject to tackle while dealing with illness. It's hard to concentrate on wrapping your brain around a new math concept when you're not feeling well. So, we've been working on reviewing what we've already learned and doing flashcards to keep basic math facts fresh in our minds. Since we do school year-round we will simply finish up our math texts during the summer months.
Before you start to think I'm an ogre who forces sick children to do schoolwork when they should be resting, I just wanted to mention that we only do what the children and I are feeling up to doing which means some days no schoolwork at all gets done. But, most days, my children manage to do at least a little something. Even if it's just reading a bit in a "free" reading book. (My daughter has read all of her brother's free reading books for next year while recuperating!) "Free" reading books are ones that they are allowed to read at their own speed during their free time and on which I don't require narrations. Although, they usually enjoy the book well enough that they tell me about it anyway. |
Posted in General
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Getting Back on Track As some of you probably read in an earlier post, I was working part-time for a while due to a strike scare where dh works. I'm now back home full-time and trying to get everything back on track.
I found once I started looking at exactly where we were in our homeschooling that we hadn't gotten too far off track. It took us a little over a week to get back to where we needed to be in the lesson plans. But, we still aren't doing everything I had planned and would like to be doing.
Dealing with Sickness We've also been dealing with a lot of illness in our family this winter which is very unusual for our family. We are all currently down for the third time since January. So, the housework, laundry and schooling is a bit behind. My throat is raw so I'm unable to do any read-alouds at the moment so we're just covering bits and pieces as we feel up to it. I'll sort it out later. :-)
How do you guys deal with illness in your homes and schools?
CAT's One thing we have gotten done is our standardized testing for this school year. I always buy the tests with our tax return so they're done and out of the way. I just need to get them mailed back. We buy the CAT's from Seton Home for $25 a piece which includes scoring. Our children have always done well on them and we are pleased with how easy they are to do.
The very first year we started homeschooling when the children had been taken from public school they were a little anxious about "tests" so I told them that I had workbooks that I wanted them to do that would show me how well I was doing at teaching them - which really is how I view the test results. I know my children are capable of learning and it's my job to figure out how to make that possible for them.
Once we get their results back in the mail I get out the results from the year before and go over them with the children individually and privately (they don't need any encouragement to compete with one another). That way they know how their doing, where they've improved and what they may need to work a little harder on.
The results are broken down by sections and at the bottom there's a composite (or overall) score. That composite score is the only one that I'm required to give to the school district, according to Ohio law, so I simply cover up the other scores and make copies of the results to send in with my notification form each year. Be sure to check your state laws for which tests you can use and exactly what pieces of information you are required to share. |
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CM is a very relaxing way to do school. Our lessons are short so there isn't much dawdling that makes mom crazy. We still have the time to do all the things we want to do. We enjoy cuddling up together on the couch with a good book, listening to good classical music while we play with playdough, or reading a silly poem while we have a cup of hot tea to warm us up.
You can work your way into it rather than having to dive in head-first. I know some people feel more comfortable having a textbook to guide them, and with CM you can use that textbook but add in some really great books about the people or events your learning about in the text. You can start with just a few of Miss Mason's suggestions and add more as you feel ready.
CM takes advantage of the way our minds naturally function. Narration is something that children and adults do naturally. Children love to tell you about the book they read, the show they watched, the game they played, etc.
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I was sent a link to another family's blog that had an interesting post about reading that I wanted to share with y'all. Please visit: Dewey's Treehouse.
Update on Prayer Requests I had asked for prayer for my husband's employment contract and wanted thank anyone who may have been praying. The contract has been settled and he will not be going on strike. Praise the Lord!
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For my son who doesn't work well on his own we have a big three-ring binder. I have included as many of the things he needs in the binder.
Binder set-up The binder has the clear sleeves on the front and back so we can slip his schedule chart in the front. Inside the front cover I have the page I printed out that has our school's verse and CM's student motto - I am, I can, I ought, I will.
The first thing in his binder is the schedule for the term he is currently working on. This is a spreadsheet that has the weeks across the top (12 weeks per term) and the subjects down the side. This is the thing that he uses the most during the day so it's right in the front on his binder. When he gets ready to work on schoolwork he checks the chart on the front of the binder to see what subject he is supposed to be working on, then he opens the binder and finds that subject and book in the schedule and does whatever assignment is listed there.
For example, if it's Wednesday and he just finished copywork (from Literature on Wednesdays) his chart on the front of the binder would let him know he needs to do history next and Wednesday's reading is from George Washington's World. So, he would open his binder and find History in the subject list on the side, find the list for George Washington's World and move across until he finds the week he is currently working in. He would then do whatever is listed in that box.
Bible list The first thing listed on my son's schedule every day is Bible. The schedule chart inside his binder simply lists, "Choose from the reading list" for Bible each week. Behind the schedule there are tabbed dividers for the different subject areas we cover - the first one is Bible. Behind that tab I have placed a list that I printed off of Old and New Testament stories. The stories are listed in the order they appear in the Bible and he is allowed to choose one story each day and then mark it off the list. Since this is his personal devotion time rather than our school Bible class I don't ask for narrations from these stories but I do expect him to read his Bible everyday.
Language Arts Behind the LA tab I have a checklist of LA topics that I want to cover, a breakdown of the Shakespeare plays we are going to cover this year, and pages of copywork selections for him to copy into his copybook. The copywork is divided by book and put in alphabetical order by book title. I mark the first page for each book using a Post-It flag.
Math I keep a copy of each of the facts practice sheets and math tests in sheet protectors behind the Math tab. Whenever he is to do a facts practice sheet he simply writes the answers on the page protector with a wet-erase marker. Once the answers are checked he washes the marker off and the sheet is ready for next time.
History The history sections has schedules and papers that are for my use rather than for him to use. I have a list of the names and dates I want him to add to his Timeline book, a list of places I want him to be able to find on the map, etc.
Science The science tab has copies of the science, natural history, and nature study schedules for this year. It also has a list of the science supplies that are in his science lab kit as well as in the non-consumables kit. I put these kits together using the supplies needed lists in their science books so these help me to know what I have on hand. And, having the supplies in one place makes it easier for them to find what they need for their experiments as well as prevents science supplies from being used for other things.
Art and Music The art section of his binder includes a list of the artists we will be studying this year, a breakdown of which of each artists' works we will be studying and a short biography of each of the artists. I've included a print out of the words for each of the hymns and folk songs we will be doing in this section as well.
Free Reading The last section is comprise of a simple printed list of books that are on the free reading list for that year. He can choose to read any of the books off this list during his reading time before bed each night.
The last thing in the binder is a plastic pocket that holds math sheets, science cutouts and anything else that we need to keep track of.
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Posted in Organization
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We have two children at our house and two ways of organizing their homeschooling. My oldest is a 13 year-old daughter who is an independent learner. Although we do some things together she is capable of doing the majority of her work on her own. My youngest is an 11 year-old son who needs someone to remind him that he should be working on math not playing with the kitten approximately every 5 minutes.
Homeschool Card Box For my daughter I have set up a card box that holds all of her assignments for the year. I used a small recipe box - the 3 x 5 size - 5 tabs, and 3 x 5 cards. I turned the 5 tabs around and wrote the days of the week that we "do school" on them. Then, using the booklist and 36-week schedule from AmblesideOnline's website I made out cards for each subject/book.
The Front of Each Card On the front of each card I have listed the name of the book that we are using in the middle. I have put the name of the subject in the lower left-hand corner - this helps her to know which card replaces a card she has finished. For example, if she finishes her literature card she knows to replace it with the next literature card. In the upper left-hand corner I have listed how often she is to do the card, e.g. math is daily, literature is Mon, Th, Sat, and Nature is weekly (I listed the day of the week I want it completed.) In the upper right-hand corner I have given an estimate of how long it should take to complete that assignment. I am planning to add a Priority Ranking in the bottom right-hand corner for those days when we know we won't be able to do everything.
The Back of Each Card On the back of each card there is a breakdown of all the assignment for the year. For math I have listed each of the lessons, ivestigations and tests in order. On the back of the literature card there is a list of the chapters in the book (I list something like Ch. 1-2 together if she is supposed to read more than one chapter each day.) The history card has a list of page numbers (24-36) on the back. We are using Apologia's Physical Science this year and she knows she is to work on the module for 30 minutes a day so I have just listed the modules on the back of the card rather than how far she should be in the book each day.
Using the System Each morning when my daughter starts her schoolwork she grabs her box off the bookshelf where her books and school supplies are kept. She opens it up and pulls the cards for whatever day of the week it is. She can then flip through and choose which card she wants to work on or set them up in the order she wants to do all th cards that day. If it's a day when we know we will be unable to get everything done she will be able to set the cards up based on the Priority Ranking and get the subjects we have decided are most important done first.
After she chooses a card to work on she flips it over to find out what the assignment for that day is. Once she has completed the assignment she marks it off the list - just puts a line through it with the pen that is kept in the front of her box. Then she can either put the card on the bottom of her stack of cards for the day or file it back in the box. She uses the frequency listed in the upper left-hand corner of the card to determine where to file it in the box. A "daily" card would be filed behind the next day's tab. If it lists days of the week then she files it behind the tab for the next day she is supposed to work on it. (If it's Monday and she has a M, Th, Sa card then she would file it behind the Thursday tab.) If it is a weekly card it goes back in the same place she took it from.
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It has been some time since I have been able to take the time to post anything here.
Employment situations I'd like to ask all of you to be praying for our family. The contract where my husband works expires today (November 5) and they are voting to strike tomorrow. There is no proposed contract to vote on! As I am sure most of you understand since we are a homeschooling family if my husband goes on strike money will be extremely tight! Although, I am working a part-time job right now just to give us some extra money if we need it.
Please pray that negotiations will improve and that we will get a good contract to vote on soon. Please pray that we don't end up on strike and that I can come back home (quit my job) soon.
Homeschooling We are dedicated to continuing to homeschool our children through high school! We have just completed our end-of-term exams. Some things went extremely well while others need some more work. Please pray for guidance and wisdom for me as I plan our next term. As well, as for wisdom in how to get everything done that needs to be done.
Thank you for your prayers, Janel Folden |
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How-to do Language Arts CM-Style I love CM style of teaching language arts. It's easy to do, doesn't take a lot of extra time or resources - most of it comes directly from their school books. And, best of all, my kids are really learning.
Reading First of all you have to teach your child to read. CM used both sight words and phonics so that children could start out reading real, interesting books rather than twaddley boring ones. (Not sure twaddley is a word but y'all know what I mean.)
Writing You also have to teach your child to write. The handwriting book that CM used is online and is called New Handwriting for Teachers. We didn't use this in our family because it wasn't available until recently. I have printed it out to teach myself, though, since I think it would like nice on my scrapbook pages. The instructions there lay it all out and tell you where to start and how to proceed so I'm not going to go into that. In our family, I just sat down with my children and I wrote down a letter and they copied it.
Copywork Once your child can write well, they can start doing what is called copywork. That simply means copying from the book onto paper. We use Composition Books for this and with younger children I pick out exactly what I want them to copy. Now, that they are getting older my daughter, who's 13, picks out her own passages to copy. Only ask them to copy as much as they can copy perfectly in about 10 minutes. I remind my children often that copywork should be done in their "neatest, bestest handwriting."
Narration I've talked about narration before - it means telling back. So, you read a story, chapter, paragraph, whatever, to your child and they tell the story back to you in their own words. This is oral composition. Sometimes I write down what they tell me but not all the time. We also do this with artist study - tell me what the picture is about. As your children get older (around age 10) you can start asking them to write down a narration each week and even slowly build up to doing it everyday. But, oral narration should continue throughout their schooling years and never be fully replaced by written narration.
Grammar Formal grammar in a CM-style education doesn't start until around age 10 (about 4th grade). We tried doing grammar with my son before he was 10 and it was a horrible experience! He just could not wrap his brain around what I was trying to teach him. We were both frustrated and I would highly recommend holding off until your child is ready. My daughter was older (she's the oldest and I was trying to teach them together to save myself some time) and she got it - no problem. We are using Simply Grammar this year and my son (who's now 11) is doing much better. I would have saved us both a lot of stress and frustration if I had just waited because he's getting it now.
Dictation Dictation is having your child write out a passage from their book as you read it out loud clause by clause. But, first the child gets to look it over and make sure they know how to spell the words, what words are capitalized, where the punctuation marks are, etc. This also starts when your child is around 10. I will give my son a paragraph to "prepare" and once he feels ready I will pick a sentence or two, depending on length, to dictate to him. With my daughter, I will ask her to prepare a whole page and then I'll choose a paragraph from that page to dictate. Dictation is very helpful with spelling and since that is an area where my daughter struggles she does dictation every day. My son is a fabulous speller so he only does dictation once or twice a week.
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